Sacred Symbols+, Episode 424 | How THQ Died, and How Ubisoft Might, Too (Patreon)

Please welcome regular LSM contributor Rick Hoeg back to Sacred+. Back in October, Hoeg and I (Colin) met twice here on this very show in order to discuss Ubisoft-related drama, and thanks to newswire Reuters, we now have renewed cause to spark up the chatter. The thing is, Ubisoft's in a lot of trouble: They are bloated, money-poor, and owned by upset shareholders, and once Assassin's Creed: Shadows drops in early '25, there will be nowhere else to hide. Such a situation reminded me of what happened with THQ more than a decade ago, when a once-mighty company rapidly unwound. Unable to hang on long enough to see the release of its promising slate of games, and with its competitors picking from its corpse in the wreckage, THQ soon vanished from the Earth. Will Ubisoft suffer a similar fate? It's unlikely, but the chance is certainly non-zero. So come along with us as we recount what happened to the once-mighty Toy HeadQuarters, which publishers and other entities walked away with its studios and IP, and -- fast-forwarding to Ubisoft's contemporary situation -- how the French publisher's assets might be blowing in the wind as we speak, awaiting a similar fate.