Ubisoft's most recent earnings call for its investors indicated a paradigm shift for the company. Long known for its big-budget, Triple-A titles like Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, and Far Cry, the company will now focus on free-to-play games moving forward.
UBISOFT TO FOCUS MORE ON FREE-TO-PLAY GAMES
According to Ubisoft, they will be releasing three Triple-A titles within the period of April 2021 to March 2022. However, they want to move away from the Triple-A business model in the future. Instead, they want to focus more on supporting its free-to-play games.
“We said for a number of years that our normal template is to come with either three or four AAA games, so we'll stick to that plan for fiscal 2022,” CFO Frederick Duguet says. “In fiscal 2022, we will continue our evolution from a AAA release-centric model toward a model where AAA stands alongside new premium and free-to-play innovative experiences across platforms.”
Ubisoft's pipeline in the near future still includes a lot of Triple-A games. The list includes Far Cry 6, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and a Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake.
The shift will see less of these games getting released, or at least will be released less frequently. Ubisoft will be allotting its resources for long-term support to their free-to-play games like the recently released Hyper Scape. They will also continue support to their long-running game Rainbow Six Siege. Already six years old, the game still grows in popularity, with 15 million new players in the past year. Games like Rainbow Six Siege still brings in a big chunk of income for the company even many years after its initial release.
The company realized that its old titles, notably Far Cry 5, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Just Dance, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, are still earning them money. Contrast this to recent Triple-A titles that struggled financially upon release. Thus, Ubisoft realized that it may not need to release Triple-A games as frequently as it used to before.
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