Claude Guillemot, one of the five brothers who founded Ubisoft on March 28, 1986, and who remained deeply connected to the gaming world through his role as Chairman and CEO of Guillemot Corporation, died Thursday in a plane crash near the La Baule aerodrome in Loire-Atlantique, France. He was 69.
The aircraft, a Cessna 421 twin-engine propeller plane that had departed from Rennes, was on its landing approach when witnesses saw it make a turn and then crash into a nearby field.
Both Guillemot and the pilot, the owner of the aircraft, who has not been publicly identified, were killed. Sixty firefighters and thirty ambulances responded to the scene as the plane burst into flames upon impact, burning through several football fields' worth of vegetation.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. The mayor of La Baule, Franck Louvrier, confirmed the details to French media, and flags were flown at half-mast at the La Baule aerodrome Friday in tribute. Both families have been notified.
The Company He Helped Build
Ubisoft is one of the most significant video game publishers in the world, the company behind Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Watch Dogs and dozens of other franchises that have sold billions of copies across four decades.
Claude Guillemot and his brothers Yves, Michel, Christian and Gérard founded it in Brittany, France when Claude was 29 years old, building it from a computer hardware distribution business into a global entertainment company that employs tens of thousands of people across dozens of studios on every continent.
The Guillemot family has retained shareholder control of Ubisoft through everything the company has experienced, rapid growth in the 2000s and 2010s, a failed hostile takeover attempt by Vivendi, recent struggles with declining sales and a corporate restructuring that was still ongoing at the time of Claude Guillemot's death.
Ubisoft had just announced the closure of two studios and the elimination of up to 380 staff positions on June 10, one week before the crash.
Claude's day-to-day professional role at the time of his death was as Chairman and CEO of Guillemot Corporation, the family holding company that preceded Ubisoft and that continues to produce audio and gaming accessories.
His brother Yves Guillemot is the current CEO of Ubisoft itself. All five brothers built this together. Four of them are still here.