During the last few hours, numerous data have been coming to light from the shareholders’ meetings of Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, which revealed information about release windows of various video games or the commercial performance of titles as prominent as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. In addition to all this, during the French company’s meeting, it was revealed that they will change their product development strategy, a more important aspect than many people think.
Ubisoft to change its strategy and focus on launching more high-caliber free-to-play games
During Ubisoft’s meeting, the company’s leaders announced that they would stop focusing on the annual release of three or four AAA games in favor of the release of “more high-quality free-to-play titles”.
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, 2021
However, it should be noted that this move does not imply that the company will publish fewer AAA works each year, but that from now on they will give greater importance to other not-so-premium products such as Just Dance or the aforementioned free-to-play video games, as analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed out.
The first step towards this new direction that Ubisoft intends to take was seen with the announcement of The Division Heartland, a free title that will be available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox X and S Series. This work paves the way for a series of content and products that will diversify The Division franchise, which will receive a mobile game and even an action movie starring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal.
In addition, Ubisoft also revealed that from now on all video games developed by its internal studios will be encompassed within the “Ubisoft Originals” division. It certainly seems that the French company has a great ambition for the future, so we will have to be attentive to the next E3 to discover all the announcements they have prepared.
