Game Developer Ubisoft Slides amid Muted Reception for 'Star Wars Outlaws'

A view of the Ubisoft Entertainment logo on a panel during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Saint-Mande, near Paris, France, September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A view of the Ubisoft Entertainment logo on a panel during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Saint-Mande, near Paris, France, September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Game Developer Ubisoft Slides amid Muted Reception for 'Star Wars Outlaws'

A view of the Ubisoft Entertainment logo on a panel during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Saint-Mande, near Paris, France, September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A view of the Ubisoft Entertainment logo on a panel during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Saint-Mande, near Paris, France, September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Shares in French video game maker Ubisoft fell on Tuesday for a second consecutive day following a sluggish performance of its two recent releases, including the long-awaited "Star Wars Outlaws".

The shares, which closed 5.1% lower on Monday, were down 2.4% by 1114 GMT, trading at their lowest levels since 2015 and adding to their over 30% drop since the start of the year.

The decline was driven by a muted reception of Star Wars Outlaws, released on Friday, which follows lower than expected interest for the company's free-to-play game Xdefiant, said Midcap Partners analyst Charles-Louis Planade, Reuters reported.

The Outlaws premiere was one of the two big major game releases Ubisoft had slated for this year, with Assasin's Creed Shadows scheduled for release on Nov. 15.

After four years of negative cash flows amid game cancellations and delays, the family-owned company has been betting on these releases to support its financial recovery.

Chief Financial Officer Frederick Duguet said in July that Ubisoft expected the launch of Outlaws to boost net bookings in the July-September quarter.

Despite an overall positive reception by critics, Star Wars Outlaws had a "generally unfavorable" users' score of 4.9 out of 10 on review aggregation website Metacritic as of Tuesday.

"Star Wars Outlaws has struggled to meet our sales expectations despite positive critical reviews," J.P.Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven said in a note.

The game's development budget was at least 30% higher than that of Assasin's Creed Mirage, released last year, while data from video game live-streaming platform Twitch suggested it was underperforming AC Mirage by about 15%, Kerven added.

Kerven also lowered his sales expectations for Outlaws by 2 million units, to 5.5 million units in the year through March 2025.

Planade added that after a strong initial interest for Xdefiant, a first-person shooter game launched in May, there has been a sharp decline in Twitch viewership, and the game would likely have a minimal impact on Ubisoft's results over the next few quarters.



Sam Altman Says Meta Offered $100 Million Bonuses to OpenAI Employees 

The logo of Meta is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters) 
The logo of Meta is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters) 
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Sam Altman Says Meta Offered $100 Million Bonuses to OpenAI Employees 

The logo of Meta is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters) 
The logo of Meta is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters) 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta has offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them, as the tech giant seeks to ramp up its artificial intelligence strategy.

The alleged attempts by Meta to hire OpenAI staffers are the latest signs of a frenzy to hire top engineers to develop AI models, and they come at a time when the Facebook owner is working on building its superintelligence unit to catch up with competitors.

Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies.

"They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year."

"At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, and Reuters could not verify the information.

"I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said.

His comments come just days after Meta invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI, and hired its top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team.

Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI.