This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
INTERVIEW: CHRIS EARLY, VP OF DIGITAL GAMES, UBISOFT Ubiquity


Traditional games publishers have wholeheartedly embraced online and digital games in the last year. Ubisoft especially, having brought new Facebook, download, mobile and free-to-play games to market. Now it wants to unite these new areas with console gaming. Michael French quizzed the firm’s digital games boss Chris Early to find out more


EVERY PUBLISHER is busy shaping up their digital offering. And Ubisoft is no different.


In fact, it has been quietly but confidently prepping a beefed up digital offer, last year hiring a dedicated VP for digital games, Chris Early – the former head of Microsoft’s casual games business. His job is to oversee the quarter of the Ubisoft business working on online and digital games – Facebook, mobile, free-to-play, download. And Ubisoft is working on a lot of titles for all these areas, from Xbox Live Arcade games to ambitious cross-platform offers that unite console and social networks. For Ubisoft, the strategy is all about its intellectual property. These new routes to market are ways to grow the already popular franchises like Assassin’s Creedor Ghost Recon.


“Digital for us is essentially anything that’s not destined for plastic and that goes from social games and mobile games through to our core console high definition games that are distributed through digital means. “We look at digital as a very strong way that we can continue to help our players stay engaged with the brands that they love – it’s part of the big strategy change for us. We have moved away from being a company that releases software every couple of years to a company that is focused on delivering experiences to players anytime and wherever they are. This includes companion games on different screens, on different devices and in different ways.” He adds that this is something Ubisoft has embraced with gusto: “The best thing about my job is that at Microsoft I was used to being told ‘You can’t do that.’ It’s not a Microsoft problem – that’s how most big companies work. “But at Ubisoft, I was surprised to be regularly told ‘Yeah, why not,’ by


www.mcvuk.com


Ubisoft has made a diverse array of online games for PC, browser and console. Clockwise from top left: Ghost Recon Online, From Dust, Trackmania Canyon and Might & Magic


Yves and the rest of the team. There’s real freedom here as we explore this model.”


We’ve moved from releasing software every couple of years to delivering


experiences anytime and anywhere.


“ Chris Early, Ubisoft


How fast do you see the industry’s transition towards digital content progressing? Digital distribution follows the availability of high-speed bandwith to the consumer. The faster there is access, the more we’re able to distribute data. What we’re seeing at the market level is that there’s some percentage of all sales that now go through digital platforms. At Ubisoft we don’t believe that digital is killing the retail market. I think they’re both going to co-exist quite well. It’s all convenience for the players. I have a different experience when I go into a retail store than I have when I’m online and so they’ll be times when I buy things online and there will be times when I buy things in a store. That’s certainly the way we’re approaching it from a publisher as well. When you look at some of our key retailers, they’re also looking at how do they bring digital into their storefronts as


well – they can participate in that full spectrum of distribution.


Ubisoft is pushing hard into free- to-play. What’s the attraction in that space? We believe strongly in this area – you can see it in our Facebook games like CSI: Crime Cityand upcoming titles like Ghost Recon Online. The latter is a triple-A as- good-as-console game that’s coming out free-to-play on the PC. In those games, free is like a trial version on an Xbox Live Arcade game or a demo on a disc of a retail product – it’s the ability for someone to experience a game with less risk on the player’s behalf. That low risk trial is what the free is aiming at. No publisher really plans to make a free game where no one pays or compensates them for it in any way. There might be ways that the player never pays if it’s sponsored through advertising or through some over way, but at the end of the day the person who is creating the games does look to get paid in some way. So in many of the free-to-play cases, the question is: ‘Are you


September 30th 2011 27


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72