Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Has Died in a Plane Crash - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 21 June 2026 / 7,797 Views
One of the co-founders of Ubisoft, Claude Guillemot, has died at the age of 69 in a plane crash.
Ubisoft has confirmed to Ouest-France that Claude was one of two people killed in a small aircraft crash in a field near La Baule airport on June 19.
Ubisoft in a statement said "it was with deep sadness that we learned of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the Group and President of Guillemot Corporation, in an accident. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time."
Claude founded Ubisoft with his four brothers - Christian, Gérard, Michel, and Yves - in March 1986 with the original name of "Ubi Soft" as it represented "ubiquitous" software. Yves is the current CEO and chairman of Ubisoft.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Anothet great gaming legend gone..rip
Seems like these small personal planes aren't the smartest choice. I feel like multiple times a year we hear about some rich person dying in a "small plane".
Have seen the news on X few days ago. Lots of evil type of commentaries about it. Sad and despisable.
I have nothing against the wealthy, but they sure do have dangerous hobbies.
I think I am done flying. A lot of plane crashes lately.
there's hundred thousands of planes in the air every single day. You should worry more about your way from the supermarket to your home.
You only get rich by cutting wages and jobs for those who need it more. I don't want his money. I don't work for Ubisoft. Why do you think layoffs are so common? More money for the rich execs. You mourn for a guy who would shit over your corpse if he could profit off of it. Rich want you dead.
I am no billionaire apologist but I'm not a fan of rich = evil automatically necessarily.
The man and his brothers built a company forty years ago that grew massively, it's only logical that they are wealthy. When does five brothers with a dream in 1986 end and five evil corpse-shitting money-obsessed demons begin? Where does one draw the line between "their company lets almost 20k people earn a living" and "hurr durr they fired some people with some bs excuse they are le evil"?
The guy is dead and no amount of money fixes that. End of.
I'm sorry, but I find this "all rich are bad" attitude to have been painted with an awfully broad brush. The Guillemot brothers may have become one percenters, they didn't start out that way. They started out in a middle class family that ran a small, regional farming supplies company. The 5 brothers all went to college, and then ended up managing their parent's farm company after graduation.
They had a passion for computer hardware and early video games, and developed an idea for running a computer hardware company when they realized other French computer suppliers were ripping people off with 50% markup over the price that the brothers could charge buying from the UK and shipping to France. They asked their mother, not even a bank, for a loan, and their mother agreed they could start their side business as long as they split the profits equally between all 5 of them.
Their hardware business started by undercutting other suppliers who were bilking French customers, and it quickly grew (by the end of their 2nd year, they had made $5m worth of Francs that year), branched out into software, and became Ubisoft when they decided to start developing software of their own. At it's height in 2022, Ubisoft employed over 20,000 people, and Yves Guillemot resisted layoffs as long as possible even when Ubisoft was losing money rapidly. Once their financials really started sucking, they were forced to do mass layoffs, but they resisted that longer than most publishers did. Even now, they still have 16,500 people in their employ, a company with a stock value of 5 euros a share, that was once worth over 90 euros a share, still manages to employ that many people while only releasing like 5 to 10 games a year. They also pay fairly well overall, their average pay is currently $93,000 a year in the US, and $82,000 worldwide across all of their studios in different countries, both well over the average for the games industry overall.
