Ubisoft
During the investor conference, Ubisoft discussed the publisher's plans for upcoming games. Accordingly, the company would like to focus more on Free2Play titles in the future. Just last week, Ubisoft presented The Division Heartland, the first of apparently many new projects that will be playable for free and rely on microtransactions. In the future, however, Ubisoft would like to equip all the top brands with their own Free2 Play titles."We believe we have a great opportunity to usefully expand our audience with our largest franchises. We took the time and from learned from the things we did with Hyper Scape. We also learn from the launch we do with Roller Champions [...] and we learned a lot from Brawlhalla which keeps growing. We think now it's that Time to bring the highest quality Free2Play games from all of our franchises to all platforms. " - Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.
After The Heartland Division, Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs or Far Cry should also receive a Free2Play offer at some point. As before, Ubisoft will continue to work on AAA projects. Here the publisher only wants to deviate from the plan to publish up to four of these titles annually. Ubisoft is likely to be based on the model of Activision and Call of Duty, among other things, which also offer a Free2Play game with Warzone, the quality of which is comparable to games in the main series.
Before March 31, 2022, Ubisoft wants the following Publish projects: Far Cry 6, Rainbow Six Quarantine, Riders Republic, The Division Heartland, Roller Champions and minor titles. Skull and Bones is only planned for the next financial year (from April 2022). Beyond Good and Evil 2, Avatar and the Star Wars project of the division makers are also in development.
via PCGamer
Ubisoft Will No Longer Rely On Just 3-4 Premium AAAs per Financial Year, Plans to Add F2P Games to the Mix
Ubisoft has told investors that times are a-changin’ and it will no longer solely rely on releasing 3-4 premium AAA video games each financial year. The company now wants to expand its content by adding high-quality free-to-play games to the mix.
Evidently inspired by the success of titles like Call of Duty: Warzone, Ubisoft’s chief financial officer Frederick Duguet said:
In line with the evolution of our high-quality line-up that is increasingly diverse, we are moving on from our prior comment regarding releasing 3-4 premium AAAs per year. It is indeed no longer a proper indication of our value creation dynamics. For example, our expectation for Just Dance and Riders Republic are consistent with some of the industry’s AAA performers. Additionally, we are building high-end free-to-play games to be trending towards AAA ambitions over the long-term. This is purely a financial communication evolution and doesn’t change the fact that we continue to expect a high cadence of content delivery including powerful premium and free-to-play new releases.
Duguet’s comments were apparently misinterpreted by a number of publications, who reported that Ubisoft is now steering away from 3-4 premium AAAs per year in favor of F2P games. A senior analyst from the company took to Twitter to clarify the aforementioned statements.
“It’s in reference to F2P becoming a larger share of the revenue pie, not an indication that there will be less traditional paid games like Assassin’s Creed,” he wrote. “The content mix is expanding, not changing. A good comp is the evolution of Call of Duty since Warzone.”
[Source: VGC, Twitter]