Ubisoft will release more free—to-play games for its franchises - but not to the detriment of AAA titles
Ubisoft told about the changes in its development strategy. The publisher intends to release freeplay offshoots of its key franchises. However, we are not talking about reducing the number of AAA titles, but about the approach that Activision has been using in recent years to develop the Call of Duty series.Ubisoft announced this during a conversation with investors after the publication of the annual report.
According to Chief Financial Officer Frederick Duguet, the company has decided to abandon its past statements about the release of “3-4 premium AAA titles per year.”
“For example, our expectations from Just Dance and Riders Republic coincide with the performance of some other AAA titles in the industry. In addition, we will create high-quality free—play games, which in the long term will not be inferior in quality to our AAA projects,” explained Duguet.
In the network, such a statement was perceived negatively, since many thought that Ubisoft would now make more free-play games to the detriment of premium titles. However, the essence of Duguet’s appeal was rather to produce more projects in general and meet modern industry standards. Analyst Daniel Ahmad also drew attention to this. He noted that players will get more different games, not less. Now Ubisoft’s success is determined only by how many AAA games it releases per year, and therefore the company decided to choose a more flexible strategy.“It’s just that free-play games or projects like Just Dance will become more important for the company. In general, this is just a trend that most AAA publishers adhere to today. As I mentioned earlier, the Call of Duty model will spread to the entire industry. To understand Ubisoft’s plan, you just need to look at the recent announcement of [The Division Heartland],“ Ahmad wrote.
It’s worth noting that the proper interpretation of this is not that Ubisoft will deliver less AAA premium games, but that its other non AAA premium content, such as F2P or even Just Dance, will become more important to the business.
It’s not about less, it’s about more. https://t.co/ssUFsr2jLJ
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 11, 2021Later, this was also confirmed by a senior Ubisoft analyst under the nickname Shonboppin.
“I would like to take the discussion away from “frituplay will replace paid AAA” to “frituplay will be an additional way to try some of these IP,“ he said, citing Call of Duty as a good example of such a model.
Recall that now the Call of Duty franchise is developing not only thanks to the annual release of AAA games, but also with the help of the free-play Warzone and mobile Call of Duty: Mobile. The latter has already earned $1 billion since its release and generated over 500 million downloads.