Ubisoft shut down multiplayer shooter XDefiant and lay off hundreds who worked on it
Ubisoft have discontinued their PvP shooter XDefiant and laid off roughly 277 employees at the studios who worked on the multiplayer game. "[We’ve] not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market," said Ubisoft executive Marie-Sophie de Waubert in a statement to workers that was later posted on Ubisoft's website. Over half the team who worked on the game will lose their jobs at Ubi studios in San Francisco, Osaka, and Sydney. The remaining workers are "transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft."
The multiplayer servers will stay up until June, said de Waubert, and the latest season will still be added to the game. But you won't be able to download the game and register to play, nor buy anything in-game if you currently have the shooter installed. Anything players have bought in the last 30 days will also be refunded.
"[This] decision also leads to the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney," says de Waubert in the post, using the soft verb "departing" to refer to her company's axing of roles, as if these people are simply stepping on a plane of their own volition. I'll add it to the list.
Despite increasingly clear signs that the games-as-a-service business model is risky (and for some of us deeply tiring), the Ubichief claims the company's focus on that won't change. She cites past support for games that struggled before becoming sustainable, such as tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege and 3v3 ahistorical brawler For Honor.
"Developing Games-as-a-Service experiences remains a pillar of our strategy," says de Waubert. "It’s a highly competitive market, and we will apply the lessons learned with XDefiant to our future live titles."
None of that will be much comfort to the people who are out of work, I
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