Co-founder of Ubisoft, Claude Guillemot, dies in plane crash!

Image credit: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

by L.W. Barker

Claude Guillemot, one of the five brothers who co-founded French game publisher Ubisoft, has died in a plane crash.

Quest-France, cited by Kotaku, reported that a Cessna 421 light aircraft crashed Friday afternoon in La Baule-Escoublac, a commune in France’s northwestern Loire-Atlantique department.

Loire-Atlantique’s SDIS 44 fire and rescue service said Guillemot was one of two people killed when the aircraft went down near the La Baule aerodrome. The other victim was the plane’s owner and operator.

La Baule mayor Franck Louvrier released a statement after the crash.

“It was a Cessna 421, a twin-engine propeller plane with eight seats,” Louvrier said. “The plane was approaching to land when, according to witnesses, it turned and crashed.”

Guillemot co-founded Ubisoft in 1986 with his brothers Michel, Christian, Gérard, and Yves, who is now the company’s chairman and CEO. What began as a software distribution business became one of the world’s largest video game publishers, known for franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.

Guillemot served on Ubisoft’s board and was executive vice president of operations. Since 1997, he had also been chairman and CEO of Guillemot Corporation, which owns the Hercules digital audio brand and Thrustmaster accessories label and through which the Guillemot brothers hold their stake in Ubisoft.

Ubisoft confirmed his death in a press release, saying it had learned “with deep sadness of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the Group and President of Guillemot Corporation, in an accident.”

Guillemot was 69. The cause of the crash is unknown, and French aviation authorities are expected to open a formal investigation.