UNIT.City — місце, де люди працюють... КРАЩЕ! Обирай свій простір просто зараз 👉
Марія БровінськаGameDev Eng
20 June 2026, 15:50
2026-06-20
Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash. What this loss means for the industry and for Ukrainian game developers
Claude Guillemot, one of the five brothers who founded Ubisoft in 1986, died in France on June 19. According to the fire and rescue service of the Loire-Atlantique department, the 69-year-old co-founder died along with the owner-pilot of the plane — a twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed near the La Baule airfield in western France. In addition to Guillemot, a flight instructor from Rennes also died. Guillemot was supposed to be in La Baule for an air show with the participation of more than a hundred aircraft.
Claude Guillemot, one of the five brothers who founded Ubisoft in 1986, died in France on June 19. According to the fire and rescue service of the Loire-Atlantique department, the 69-year-old co-founder died along with the owner-pilot of the plane — a twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed near the La Baule airfield in western France. In addition to Guillemot, a flight instructor from Rennes also died. Guillemot was supposed to be in La Baule for an air show with the participation of more than a hundred aircraft.
To a wider audience, Claude’s name was hardly as well-known as that of his younger brother Yves Guillemot, who has been the public face of Ubisoft as CEO for decades. But Claude belonged to a generation of entrepreneurs who essentially built the modern European games industry.
Guillemot’s death comes at a time of great uncertainty for the company. In January, Ubisoft announced a major restructuring, halting development of several games, closing two divisions and forecasting a loss of €1 billion for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. That day, the company lost a third of its market capitalization, and its shares fell to an all-time low. In May, the company said it was delaying its return to profitability and positive cash flow for another year.
From rural Brittany to global publisher
The story of the Guillemot family is more like a classic startup than a future billion-dollar corporation. The brothers started by selling audio CDs, but later noticed a much more promising niche — home computers. Realizing that importing equipment and software from Britain and the USA was too expensive for French buyers, they founded Guillemot Informatique — a mail-order business selling affordable computer equipment.
Five brothers—Claude, Yves, Michel, Christian, and Gérard—founded Ubisoft in 1986. While Yves became the public face of the company as CEO, Claude remained the behind-the-scenes backbone of the family’s tech empire, serving on the board of directors and in charge of operational development and international expansion.
Not just games
At the time of his death, Claude Guillemot was the chairman and CEO of Guillemot Corporation, a company specializing in audio and gaming peripherals under the Thrustmaster and Hercules brands, which the family founded back in 1985 as a distributor of computer equipment. It was from there, in fact, that Ubisoft itself grew.
Ukrainian trace
Ubisoft’s Ukrainian office is one of the most striking examples of how the Guillemot brothers' global empire has expanded far beyond France. The Kyiv studio was founded in April 2008, and since then, Ukrainian teams have participated in the development and porting of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and other major franchises of the company.
Today, Ubisoft Kyiv is one of the largest Ubisoft studios in Eastern Europe, one of the ten largest studios in the Ubisoft Group, with its own second office in Odessa.
«Навіть для виробників трун і пам’ятників я писав тексти». Як стати game-тестувальником під час війни: історія колишнього металурга, страховика, копірайтера
34-річний Андрій Зубков під час війни увійшов в IT, докорінно змінивши свою кар'єру і буденне життя. Тепер він QA Engineer у компанії Pingle Game Studio — тестує ігри. А до цього працював на металургійному комбінаті, в страхуванні та навіть копірайтером. Свою історію про вхід в нове життя Андрій розповів dev.ua.
Хто такий Unity Developer: основні задачі, обов’язки та зона відповідальності. Огляд професії від Team Lead Unity у Pingle Game Studio
Продовжуємо цикл матеріалів про ІТ-спеціальності. Кожну описує «типовий представник» — досвідчений фахівець і просто авторитетний колега, та сама людина, яка знає всі таємні куточки своєї професії. Ми сподіваємося, ці матеріали допоможуть школярам, студентам, перекваліфікантам, студентам і всім тим, хто зацікавлений у виборі ІТ-спеціальності. Цикл не тільки допоможе оцінити перспективи, а й дасть можливість краще зрозуміти індустрію і особливості професії зсередини. Обговорюйте і доповнюйте матеріал в коментарях, щоб зробити його ще корисніше.
Про професію Unity Developer розповідає Володимир Мельничук, Team Lead Unity у Pingle Game Studio.
