Claude Guillemot, the co-founder of Ubisoft who turned a store in Brittany into a video game empire, dies
Claude Guillemot, one of the five brothers who founded Ubisoft in 1986 and until now current executive vice president of operations of the company, died yesterday, June 19, 2026 at the age of 69 when his Cessna 421 plane crashed in a field near the La Baule airfield, in the department of Loire-Atlantique, as reported by France 3. The other fatality is a flight instructor from Rennes whose identity has not yet been confirmed. Ubisoft’s silent architect. Although his brother Yves Guillemot is the most visible face of the company as CEO, Claude’s role in the birth of Ubisoft was essential: according to 3DJuegoswas the one who opened Guillemot Informatique in Carentoir in 1984, the original computer store that served as the base for Ubisoft that would be born just a couple of years later. Until his death he was an active member of the Board of Directors and, according to your company filebrought to the board his international experience in Asia and his in-depth knowledge of video game hardware and distribution technologies. He was also CEO of Guillemot Corporation since 1997, a company specialized in video game peripherals under the Thrustmaster and Hercules brands, present in more than 140 countries. At Ubisoft’s worst moment. Guillemot’s death hits a company that is going through a difficult time: Ubisoft has recorded record losses of 1.3 billion euros in the 2025-26 fiscal year, with a drop in income of 17.4%. The crisis has specific causes: has canceled six gamesincluding the remake of ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time‘, and delayed another seven, assuming as lost the 650 million already spent on development. To achieve liquidity, has transferred 25% of Vantage Studios to Tencent for 1,160 million euros. The company foresees that the next year will also be in the red, with an additional estimated drop in sales of between 8% and 9% and does not expect to return to profitability until the 2027-28 financial year. Yves Guillemot himself advertisement in January 2026 a large-scale “reset”, describing the company’s momentum as an opportunity to return to sustainable growth. The end of an era. In the absence of the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses completing the investigation into the accident, what is already definitive is the loss of one of the five architects of the only major European video game multinational capable of competing with the major North American and Japanese studios for four decades. The Guillemot family controls around 14% of Ubisoft’s capital through Guillemot Brothers SE (according to data from Euronext Paris), and the reorganization of that control structure will be one of the first issues that the market will monitor in the coming weeks. In Xataka | What’s happening with Ubisoft: after canceling six games and adjusting its structure, this is the plan of the great French studio In Xataka | A single programmer, simple mechanics, crappy graphics and Paint interface. And he has earned ten million in a week Cover | Shuichi Aizawa
