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Yves Guillemot has a big ambition for gaming, and he spoke at Ubisoft’s annual event update to his latest vision and strategy this week.
Guillemot predicted that the games industry would hit $300 billion in revenue by 2030 (compared with closer to $200 billion this year) and 530,000 “talents,” or sports industry professionals. He expects gaming to reach an audience of five billion people by 2028, thanks in no small part to the “increasing democratization of games” on mobile devices and other platforms.
I’m sure Guillemot believes this with all his heart, and I’ll be happy if it turns out to be true. But it’s his pitch to show people that Ubisoft is a good investment. Tencent believes Guillemot too, as it recently acquired Guillemot Brothers Ltd. decided to get closer to the company by buying a 49.9% stake in Ubisoft, the founding brotherhood behind Ubisoft.
Guillemot said that Ubisoft will adopt a variety of business models and platforms such as subscription (Ubisoft+), free-to-play, premium and cloud. Its aim is to make sports accessible to all. He added that Web3 will evolve as a way to reach new people through decentralization, and he expects people to find games through the virtual world as well as through movement between the virtual and physical worlds.
Marc-Alexis is the executive producer of Cte Assassin’s Creed.
“I can see sports soon surpass all other leisure industries in terms of impact and engagement. I can see sports becoming the ultimate form of social, artistic and innovative entertainment. Most importantly,
I can see that sports are enriching people’s lives. And I believe that Ubisoft has enough to do with writing this new chapter and shaping the future of the industry.”
He added that esports will strengthen gaming in communities at the local, regional and national levels. And he added that Ubisoft aims to bring its franchise to new audiences through three upcoming mobile games to be published on Netflix. and through other media, such as the Assassin’s Creed video series being developed for Netflix. Ubisoft refers to it as one of its franchise “products”, as it is an expansion beyond games, though one that is done in relation to gaming assets.
Guillemot said the strategy is to build powerful brands with the company’s 21,000 employees — including 170,000 developers — and then always take those brands to a larger audience. By my calculations, Ubisoft will have about 3.2% of all game developers in the world.
Guillemot said the company’s pillar brands — Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six — generated 300 million euros, or more than $304 million, for the first time in history. And Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reached over $1 billion in revenue. The goal is to drive each of those brands to $2 billion in annual revenue over five years.
Various Assassin’s Creed game works.
Guillemot said the company will adopt a variety of business models and distributions, such as multiplayer, free-to-play, mobile, subscription and more. Ubisoft has always had a reputation for being the first to move on to new platforms, and Guillot said there will be a strong focus on mobile. He cited upcoming new mobile games for The Division and Just Dance.
“We’re always first on disruptive technologies,” Guillemot said.
He pointed to the game’s success with the upcoming pirate ship game Skull and Bones as a new franchise, as well as live operations such as The Crew, Eno and Rocksmith. He notes that Ubisoft still believes it can differentiate its games with its own custom game engine, such as Snowdrop, and believes that the i3D.net performance hosting infrastructure, which includes 40 on six continents The locations have servers, will help Ubisoft and other companies. Use it and provide better multiplayer service to people in more places.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the next game.
Ubisoft Scalar will enable news-type cloud-enabled games (perhaps similar to the enormity of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s cloud-inspired landscape).
“You’ll be blown away by what we build (with Ubisoft Scalar),” Guillot said.
He notes that Ubisoft+ has easy subscription access to over 100 games, and is available on Stadia, Amazon Luna, GeForce Now, and soon Xbox and PlayStation. Ubisoft+ will start picking up third-party and indie games as well. The goal is to reach 300 million active users in three years.
Guillemot admitted to “stumbling” the company when it was exposed that the company had failed to prevent sexual harassment throughout the company. But he added that the company has put in place better security measures and added that the company was able to hire more than 4,000 people in the last fiscal, with 600 people being hired. These people are the key to the company’s DNA in building new brands.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Chief Portfolio Officer Sandrine Caloeiro talks about Ubisoft’s move to move its brands like Assassin’s Creed to media like books and movies. He said Ubisoft has 35 established brands. And she suggested that Ubisoft would enable more user-generated content, enabling players to socialize their love for brands and create meaningful experiences by creating things to express that love.
In more than 15 years, Assassin’s Creed has sold 13 titles and over 200 million copies.
Each trilogy of games depicts a different period in the history of the franchise, with one period focused on single-player stories and another period extending into open-world role-playing games such as Valhalla.
Assassin’s Creed Code Red Game.
With each period, sales have doubled. And with the new period, called Infinity, the company is creating an everlasting hub where players can choose which experience they want, whether it takes them to the franchise’s past or into the future. The Hub Animus is like taking a DNA machine and putting it on your desktop, said Assassin’s Creed executive producer Marc-Alexis Cote.
The next experience joining this hub will be an Assassin’s Creed game dubbed Code Red, set in feudal Japan where you play as a shinobi. Another title is code-named Hex, being developed by Ubisoft Quebec. There is yet another Invictus. Code Named Z will be a mobile game set in China.
While Assassin’s Creed titles usually take three years to develop, the company will now invest the same budget over a longer period of time in hopes of producing higher quality and more sustainable games.
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