Ubisoft to focus more on "free to play" games

Trelliz wrote:I reckon games like asscreed will go f2p but have all the gear and xp grinds massively cranked up, and the cost to improve that to the normal game progress speed will be coincidentally the same as buying the "normal" game at full RRP.

That way they control access completely and avoid price degradation over time due to competing retailers or physical second hand copies either being traded in/sold or swapped between people, from which they get nothing.

It's the perfect ecosystem; people either buy the "full" game at a price controlled by ubisoft forever or they grind away in slow mode, acting as in-game or social media NPCs for those who do pay in order to encourage them to stick around and/or pay more.

This was a very depressing (and accurate) paragraph of text.

I just don't see that happening. They are talking about expanding into more F2P experiences alongside their release-centric AAA titles and you'd think Assassin's Creed - their biggest AAA franchise - will be the last to ever shift. Valhalla had the biggest release yet.

Games don't need to go F2P to avoid retailer price drops and second-hand sales either - digital is already taking over from physical.

Given ubisoft harboured and covered for endemic intimidation and sexual harassment among senior leadership for years my expectations for anything they do are pretty low at this point.

Ubisoft - The Rape Apologist Company.

Their prime motivation is money, that's why they don't adequately address sexual harassment for fear of harming their share price and equally why they will keep releasing £60 Assassin's Creed games because they bring in a load of profit.

You shouldn't expect them to do the immoral thing. You should expect them to do the most profitable thing, morality be damned.

Well I've personally gone from "sporadically buying Ubisoft games" to "never buying Ubisoft games" as a result of the sexual harassment issues, if sufficient numbers of other people have done the same then not addressing it will begin to affect their profits.

Sadly I don't think there are many people who will do the same so they'll probably still sell millions

Jenuall wrote:Well I've personally gone from "sporadically buying Ubisoft games" to "never buying Ubisoft games" as a result of the sexual harassment issues, if sufficient numbers of other people have done the same then not addressing it will begin to affect their profits.

Sadly I don't think there are many people who will do the same so they'll probably still sell millions

This. Aaaaaaaaaall of this.

Starlink - if a new one is coming - will no doubt be going free-to-play. After all, toys-to-life is near enough free-to-play, or at least shares some of the same concepts (namely buying more things to get more content). I'd be okay with that, but at the same time... It really depends on what gets locked behind such charges.

I do wonder if this is why Riders Republic was delayed. To change it to become a free-to-play game. If that's the case, I can at least play it without paying a single penny.

I'd be surprised if they made another Starlink

Riders Republic I'm definitely interested in (as a big Steep fan) but yeah seems a more likely target for a F2P model. It'll be loaded with extra purchases regardless, even if it costs £60. (Having said that, Steep wasn't bad on that front. I bought the DLC expansions and they were all pretty meaty. I think you could buy in game currency, but I earned plenty through just playing the game and never looked into it)

This reminded me I still had uplay/ubisoft connect installed on my PC, at this point the only thing I had downloaded was the 2000s modern RTSs World in Conflict and Tom Clancy's Endwar, both were freebies I think. I have uninstalled it all, rebuying World in Conflict in the GoG sale. I know that a couple of pounds may still head their way, but its the principle. No ethical consumption under capitalism etc.

I'm not generally in favour of in game transactions and would rather have a full game from the start, BUT. That thinking is from the past.

For a lot of people, they buy one or two games a year, so if publishers support it with worthwhile content to keep it interesting and them playing and entertained, fair enough.

I buy lots of games on impulse, and often only play them for half an hour or so, before trying something else. Arguably, I'm an idiot. Or, arguably, that's what most people do as well.

My point is, they'll have data mined how many people complete games, and if 90% of a developers efforts aren't seen by most of your customers, why not just make your game a big demo instead, where people can buy extra stuff if you're into it enough to play it for longer?

If that's the way most people behave, because that's how they are paying, it also suggests that it's what most people actually want deep down and they'll therefore get the most for their money that way too.

I can see the logic. I don't know if I like it, but that's probably because I've never gotten over cartridges (instant loading!) being abandoned for CDs.

Ubisoft should concentrate on making more Settlers games

.

Peter Crisp wrote:Ubisoft should concentrate on making more Settlers games .

Imagine what modern ubisoft would do it it - extended times to gather resources with "optional" boosters on hand to buy.

Abacus wrote:if publishers support it with worthwhile content to keep it interesting and them playing and entertained, fair enough.

I would argue that companies like ubisoft don't add worthwhile content, it's often classic structures of neurologically engaging but cognitively bereft artificial scarcity FOMO treadmills like daily/weekly events and bars or meters to fill up in a certain time, much like "battlepasses" etc.

Abacus wrote:they'll have data mined how many people complete games, and if 90% of a developers efforts aren't seen by most of your customers, why not just make your game a big demo instead, where people can buy extra stuff if you're into it enough to play it for longer?

If that's the way most people behave, because that's how they are paying, it also suggests that it's what most people actually want deep down and they'll therefore get the most for their money that way too.

I imagine the suits at the top don't give a gooseberry fool how many people complete games like Assassin's Creed as long as they've bought it and prefereably some XP boosters along the way. That may well be why their big open world games, I remember Starlink and Far Cry 3 in particular, just fizzle out towards the end because it doesn't matter anymore.

People's actions about buying stuff in these kinds of games are deliberately engineered and influenced, based on extensive behavioural research to facilitate spending money as a social norm in rigidly controlled environments - hence the multitude of bewildering special editions, laundering money into ubisoft fake currency to hide how much is being spent, all that kind of thing. Players aren't organically discovering these payment mechanisms and then the publisher reacts to that trend, they are stacking the deck to facilitate that exact behaviour.

There is always a cost with free to play games, having played one on and off for quite a while, and with ubisoft it will be the seconds and minutes of your brief mortal existence that you'll be paying with if you don't want to fork over money to them.

Finally, this phrase from the OP:

A real human at ubisoft wrote:These diverse experiences will feed on each other through complementary gameplay and business models.

Just makes me feel uncomfortable. The metaphor of experiences feeding on each other, consuming each other through business models just sounds gross, and highlights exactly where the priorities are.

Inb4 "Trelliz you're mentally ill", "I bet you're fun at parties" "Lol fuk off chap/bud/chief/boss/m8 :slol:

" etc

Trelliz wrote:...Inb4 "Trelliz you're mentally ill", "I bet you're fun at parties" "Lol fuk off chap/bud/chief/boss/m8 " etc

Not at all, Trelliz! I think it's a good thing to have folk poke at the pretty large and horrible underside of the ("AAA" and mobile) gaming industry now and again. Bit by bit, we as gamers have been conditioned to accept a lot of bad things associated with gaming; and, generally, we roll over and do little about it.

Over the past fifteen years we've gradually gone through...

Paying an online fee to play the games that you have bought
Expansion passes
"Micro" transactions
DLC
Online multiplayer passes
Season passes
Battle passes
Loot boxes
"Surprise Mechanics"
Game subscription fees
Gold Editions
Ultimate Editions
Editions that don't contain the actual game
In-game currency / currencies
In-game currency / currencies deliberately made available in amounts that make them difficult to compare
Physical versions effectively becoming download keys
"Physical" versions that are download codes in a box
"Free" to play games that aren't really free to play
"Not gambling" (gambling)
Games priced at £69.99 for the "entry" version

Pretty much all of this has got through with relatively little opposition. Occasionally there is a wee bit of noise if things about a game are stunningly egregious (i.e. Star Wars Battlefront II) but, in general, we keep on buying the games and paying out as demanded.

I'm not planning to join new gen at the moment - predominantly because of no cash, sure :lol:

- but also because I just don't want to be in a situation where paying out £70 for a game plus an online fee plus more as time goes on is "normal". Maybe I could and would do it at some point in the future for just one game or two, but no more than that.

Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.

That's a sig-worthy quote if ever I saw one, although I am both to be fair.

Trelliz wrote:
jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.

That's a sig-worthy quote if ever I saw one, although I am both to be fair.

Maybe I should have put "(just)" after "isn't"

.

The idea that stuff like Far Cry and Assassins Creed becoming F2P is frankly ridiculous. Something like The Division, though, if they shrank the base game and added narrative ‘episodes’ onto the end for a few years? Seasons, like Destiny? Absolutely possible. The Division 2 kinda does it already - you finish the basic plot, which is ridiculously bare bones to start with, and then you open up more missions that they easily could have charged for.

Ubisoft to focus more on "free to play" games

Who is online

Affiliates