Ubisoft will stop focusing only on AAA games in favor of free-to-play projects

Ubisoft has shared its plans for the next financial year. The company decided to abandon the model in which the main focus is on expensive AAA games. Now the publisher will begin to actively develop freeplay projects and support previously released titles.Ubisoft told about this during a call with investors as part of summing up the results of the third financial quarter (ended December 31).

“In fiscal year 2022, we will continue our evolutionary transition from a release-oriented AAA-games model to a system in which AAA releases are combined with new premium and free-to-play projects on different platforms. These releases will be complementary, they will use each other’s gameplay mechanics and business models,“ said Frederick Duguet, the company’s chief financial officer.

Thus, Ubisoft will develop more free-to-play titles and rely on successful games from its back catalog. This solution will provide the company with financial stability and will allow you to earn more without spending all your energy on expensive and large-scale AAA projects.

Ubisoft’s plans were influenced by the long-running success of games from the back catalog. For example, the user base of Rainbow Six Siege has grown to 70 million players. The six-year-old project attracted 15 million new users in the last 12 months alone and remains one of the main growth drivers for the company.

Ubisoft also plans to release a mobile version of Assassin’s Creed in China with the support of its investor Tencent. The company will continue to develop a promising mobile direction for itself, which now generates 9% of revenue.

Ubisoft is far from the first gaming company to undertake a revision of the previous business model. Last week, Activision Blizzard also announced plans to develop a mobile direction and announced the start of work on a mobile game based on the WarCraft universe.