It’s been a rough start to the year for the video game industry. One by one, editors note their declining incomes and envisage job cuts, be it at American Microsoft or China’s Tencent. Same tone at Ubisoft, the French announced on January 12th to expect a drop in sales “more than 10%” Highlights for FY 2022-2023, compared to the previous year “Deteriorating Macroeconomic Conditions”, Another negative element: the new postponement of the game “skull and Bones”Originally scheduled for November 2022, Ubisoft also said it has paused development on three projects. “Undeclared”In addition to the four decisions already communicated in July 2022.
Added to this situation is the deterioration of relations within the company. On Friday, 27 January, Ubisoft employees were called for a strike by their unions to denounce the management’s managerial practices.
” some Publishers expected growth in the market”, exhibits Charles-Louis Planade, financial analyst at Midcap Partners. Indeed, after two years of euphoric home entertainment boom during confinement linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, video games experienced a period of cooling in 2022, with a 4.3% decline to $184 billion (169.5 billion euros) ), according to the specialized firm Newzoo. The trend is even more marked for the mobile gaming sector (-6.4%), which alone accounts for half of the industry’s revenue.
The resumption of inflation, the shortage of semiconductors that weighed on the production of consoles, and the growing distrust of tech stocks especially justify this position. If Newzoo is counting on the sector’s average annual growth of 3.4% through 2025 (compared to 7% in 2021), the year 2023 should see the sector start again on new grounds.
In 2022, the number of mergers and acquisitions transactions soared to a record 1,300 transactions, totaling $127 billion, or three times more than in 2021, according to the Drake Starr firm. However, the main one, Microsoft’s announced acquisition in January of Activision Blizzard for a sum of $68.7 billion, looks increasingly fragile.
American, European and British competition authorities have taken up the matter and look set to derail it. This was to allow the Xbox parent company to get its hands on the coveted licenses Duty, world of Warcraft Where? candy Crush. As a gesture of goodwill, the firm of Redmond (Washington State) assured Duty Will be available for ten years on the platforms of Sony (PlayStation), Nintendo (Switch) and Steam. On the Old Continent, arbitration is expected in the first half of 2023.
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