“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” That’s what Pierre Rougeron told Ubisoft leadership before entering the company’s Animus machine to delve into the minds of executives who once understood how video games worked.
“Our internal records indicate that we knew how to make decent games, once upon a time,” said Rougeron, who is now spending most of his days embodying various decision-makers from Ubisoft’s past, trying to understand how they kept the company’s share price above the cost of a single roll of toilet paper.
Rougeron admits he is somewhat perplexed by the talent and decision-making of the pre-COVID ancestral workforce.
“They used a lot of strange terms like ‘creativity’ and ‘player satisfaction,’ and never mentioned things like ‘live service models’ or ‘maximizing shareholder value,’” he said.
One of the main lessons Rougeron is drawing from his experience is that shareholder value may be directly and inversely proportional to the importance it plays in the development process.
“It’s as if putting product quality and customer satisfaction first leads to favorable business outcomes,” Rougeron said. “But how could that be?”
Whatever the case, Ubisoft is now reportedly adjusting its development process to incorporate Rougeron’s findings.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to fully recapture the magic of the old bloodline,” said Virginie Moreaux, VP of Marketing. “But we can absolutely slap some new textures on it and push it back into the market at full price.”
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Resynced is slated for release in July 2026.
