Tidbits From Today’s Stabby Ubisoft Earnings Call

@ZombiePie said:

The company will have “more than six titles” for the Wii U around launch, and believes “the machine will bring some fresh air to the industry.”

So Ubisoft's technique of putting all of their eggs in the launch title basket continues. How can you disagree with them when they make a lot of money?

I agree. When you corner the market at launch and make ALL the money you're doing things right. Why would they change this? I actually believe the new Rainbow Six will end up being a launch title for next generation consoles if Ghost Recon delays are anything to go by. I would prefer this too. I don't like seeing consoles languishing behind the PC.

Please Ubisoft,Please get away from the linear and action-oriented missions from AC2,ACB and ACR and get back to the open and stealth-oriented missions from AC1.

So they are doing good then, awesome.

"For the statisticians among us, Ubisoft notes that shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years."

So, wouldn't you want to make a racing game and market the shit out of it and be slightly unique and make more money, rather than dump an indistinguishable shitty FPS product into a sea of indistinguishable shitty FPSs in an oversaturated market?

BUSINESS

You missed a bullet point:

• Ubisoft still doesn't understand DRM and is content with being actively hostile to the PC community.

The news about Rayman: Origins is great, I'm debating purchasing it again for Vita, the trial version of the game looks bloody amazing. I did hear that the dev team was really small though so I suspect the budget was pretty small, still good news though. We need more games animated by Gobelins students.

I'm happy to hear that about Rocksmith. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a sequel. The game may be lacking in presentation when compared to Rockband or Guitar Hero, but it does a hell of a job at teaching guitar in a fun way. I play it daily more than any other game, and it actually contributes to useful skill.

@hermes said:

The problem is that the market is ultimately the same pool. The audience that like CoD might be different than the audience that "might" like Rayman, but I am sure they do intersect at certain point. Even when most of the time they don't, in holiday season the intersection is much stronger. Many of the games sales are from parents trying to get birthday presents for their children, which means a) they will go to the familiar brand that they know their kids will like and b) They are planning on getting one and only one game. If Rayman, Skyrim, Assassins Creed and Call of Duty share a shelf in a best buy side by side, its likely Rayman won't be picked up. Even when they are not part of the same genre, when they are both newly released, they are competing for the shelf space and for the attention of the public.

However, I agree that games can do well if they keep a steady pace and sell well way after their first weeks. The fallacy you mention is inherited from the movie's business where movies are considered successful based only in their opening weeks (even when examples like The King's Speech proved otherwise) and I am happy that Rayman turned out to be profitable. But, to make it that way is pretty hard in its own.

A game has to be really good to be profitable long after release, when the marketing machinery is just not there (another examples include Deadly Premonition, Valkyria Chronicles, Limbo on PS3 and Bastion). Quality and word of mouth are very important there and the industry doesn't control it. In fact, I am sure the #10 position in Gianbomb's game of the year and the overwhelmingly positive review by Yahtzee had as much impact on the sales as the small marketing budget Ubisoft dedicated to it.

It is not, though. Much less in gaming than in other media. The pool you can reach with Modern Warfare and the pool you reach with, I don't know, Heavy Rain, probably overlap less than you'd think. We have mobile gaming, MMOs, shooters, arthouse games, kid-friendly games, sports games... each of those contain a significant portion of gamers that are not interested in the other genres. If you only tap into one of those, you both ignore available money and make it harder to be profitable in the highly contested segment everybody's targeting.

I hate to be so topical, but that's the lesson in Schaffer's kickstarter story: there may not be a market for 20 million dollar adventure games, but there's enough of one to spend a million making a game and turn in twice as much. It's small potatoes for Ubisoft, maybe, but it's profitable. If you're talking Bastion, you can maybe multiply that figure by two. If you're Skyrim, your figures are just as high as Modern Warfare's, and certainly larger than, say, Rainbow Six's.

I agree otherwise. It IS a prejudice inherited from movies, it IS a situation generated by the hype cycle and the marketing push being the main driver of sales. Not so sure that you need to be extraordinary to make money after the first month. Especially not if you're digitally distributed. Steam is great at bringing old games back to the top seller's list by using selective, aggressive pricing, and other digital retailers, including XBLA and PSN, are learning from them.

so why is there no hate for this yearly rehash like there is for cod

Still have no idea why they released Rayman when they did. Jan or Feb would have given much higher profile.

@Ares42 said:

Anyways, if they have actually had their main team making AC3 for the last 3 years while some B team just pushed out the AC2 titles that would explain a lot :P Also would hopefully mean that AC3 actually will bring some desepartely needed changes to the franchise.

Essentially, this. I enjoyed Brotherhood a lot, but I could not bring myself to play more than a few hours of Revelations.

Rayman is profitable. The best news I could've heard about that game!

@knightlyknave said:

Stupid DRMisoft.

Stupid DRMisoft.

glad to hear both Rayman and Rocksmith did well, i really hope they decide to release Rocksmith in Europe because of its success, looks like a very cool piece of software

@Cozmicaztaway said:

Many of the franchises that are currently huge started this gen (Uncharted, Gears of War, Mass Effect). So.. well, I guess make new IP early in a console's lifespan and then churn for ages?

That seems to be the way to make it work. Early in a console's lifespan there tends to be not as many competing options so you have less risk on a new IP (generally speaking of course).

I really should get around to play Revelations.

@Xeiphyer said:

The problem is that games cost many millions of dollars and year(s) of people's time to make, and brand new IPs can flop very easily. We have seen this a lot during this console cycle sadly, someone releases a cool new idea for a game, but it doesn't sell well or isn't all that great. Unfortunately we live in a world where making new game ideas is discouraged, and making the same franchises over and over again still sells millions of units. The problem is that its hard to sell people on a new franchise. People buy Call of Duty because they recognize the name and know what its going to be, and every game builds upon that name. A new IP doesn't have any previous games to build off of, so its going out into the world completely cold. A lot of people don't want to take risks with their money in case the new thing is bad, and especially for the casual mass market, they probably never even hear about the game unless it has a huge marketing budget. Generally the hope with releasing a completely new game is that it will at least turn a small profit, and then the future games can be much more profitable by building off the existing fanbase and adding in even more people. That's how all the games we are sick of playing got so popular. So yeah, it really sucks. But when you need to commit $20 million to a game project, do you make a completely new game which you have no idea how it will do, it might be great or it might be bad. Or, do you go the safe bet and make another Call of Duty, or whatever? Sadly most people pick option B, because, fuck, that's a lot of money to risk on a failed investment. Its a lot worse these days because of the rising game making costs, and if your game really bombs, your company might go bankrupt. A good example is THQ, they have tons of strong franchises that sell well, but they took risks and tried making some new franchises, and its almost ruined the company. We have seen a lot of companies close in these last few years, and taking risks on new games has been a large part of that. It really blows, but companies can still take safer risks with games like Rayman: Origins, whose budget hasn't been disclosed, but is definitely smaller than an average game budget. Though, people already know who Rayman is, so its not quite the same. If this was some unknown franchise of exact same quality, it would have definitely underperformed. =/

While I cannot fault your logic, at the same time, those insane mass-risks of a new IP occasionally pay off. Assassin's Creed was one of those, and look at that thing now! I mean, sure, insane budget and all that, and it probably needed a sequel to work, but now it's huge. Many of the franchises that are currently huge started this gen (Uncharted, Gears of War, Mass Effect). So.. well, I guess make new IP early in a console's lifespan and then churn for ages?

I'm happy Rayman turned out well for them, I hope we get more of those games.

fuck yeah rayman. i always believed in you. ;_;

@WilliamHenry said:

@HatKing said:

"For the statisticians among us, Ubisoft notes that shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years."

Huh? This seems counter-intuitive. They want to make games that will disappear in the crowds behind giants like Call of Duty and Halo? Ubisoft is one of the few big companies that's actually doing a lot of stuff other than multiplayer focused shooters, I'd hate to see that change.

The reason shooters take up 30% is because thats what the public wants. Shooters wouldn't keep getting made as often as they do if there wasn't a demand for them. Ignoring the largest genre just so they don't risk getting lost in the shuffle would be bad business.

No, its what companies think public wants. Based on sales numbers and other data, they see that the shooters cake and they see that the cake is delicious and want a piece of that... But they don't see that the cake is owned, that there can be only one Call of Duty and its not likely to let it go. If they are going to compete for that cake, they better be ready by a hard battle...

Shooters are like MMOs, people tend to invest large amounts of time into them. Because of that, many of the people who play Call of Duty only play Call of Duty. Companies trying to make the next Call of Duty are going to have a hard time getting people out of the Call of Duty audience, the same as companies trying to make the next World of Warcraft... Even examples of franchises with some history (like Resistance and Killzone) failed to make it big this year, which seems to indicate that the supply is already crowded as it is.

I'm already dreading the release of Ass Ass 3. I'm still not done with Brotherhood, and starting up Revelations seems like such a chore. I was a really big fan of the franchise for many years, but for me at least they over-saturated my desire to stab and climb.

I thought Rocksmith might have been a complete flop im really pleased it was well received by peeps.

@NoelVeiga said:

The Rayman thing just goes against the common belief that only games that consistently hit the top 10 for weeks and sell five million units ever turn a profit. The truth is that budgets in gaming are all over the place, and it's not particularly surprising to see Rayman break even after selling a million units.

Ubisoft completely misunderstanding the industry and thinking that just because there are more dollars going to shooters than to other genres shooters are automatically a more profitable area of business is a bit sad, though. Not only does it prompt them to make more redundant, boring games... but it may also cost them money. Shooters as a genre may move more cash, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to make money out of them. It is, however, a more competitive market with higher stakes that also happens to include some of the largest, most strongly funded and supported titles in the industry. It seems to me like a recipe to lose money while also losing the foothold in other genres where being profitable is perhaps less hard.

But that's the sad fallacy at the bottom of public companies at times, I guess. It's not even about profit sometimes, it's about growth.

The problem is that the market is ultimately the same pool. The audience that like CoD might be different than the audience that "might" like Rayman, but I am sure they do intersect at certain point. Even when most of the time they don't, in holiday season the intersection is much stronger. Many of the games sales are from parents trying to get birthday presents for their children, which means a) they will go to the familiar brand that they know their kids will like and b) They are planning on getting one and only one game. If Rayman, Skyrim, Assassins Creed and Call of Duty share a shelf in a best buy side by side, its likely Rayman won't be picked up. Even when they are not part of the same genre, when they are both newly released, they are competing for the shelf space and for the attention of the public.

However, I agree that games can do well if they keep a steady pace and sell well way after their first weeks. The fallacy you mention is inherited from the movie's business where movies are considered successful based only in their opening weeks (even when examples like The King's Speech proved otherwise) and I am happy that Rayman turned out to be profitable. But, to make it that way is pretty hard in its own.

A game has to be really good to be profitable long after release, when the marketing machinery is just not there (another examples include Deadly Premonition, Valkyria Chronicles, Limbo on PS3 and Bastion). Quality and word of mouth are very important there and the industry doesn't control it. In fact, I am sure the #10 position in Gianbomb's game of the year and the overwhelmingly positive review by Yahtzee had as much impact on the sales as the small marketing budget Ubisoft dedicated to it.

Can't wait for AC3, now I just got to finish up ACR.

@Xeiphyer said:

The problem is that games cost many millions of dollars and year(s) of people's time to make, and brand new IPs can flop very easily. We have seen this a lot during this console cycle sadly, someone releases a cool new idea for a game, but it doesn't sell well or isn't all that great. Unfortunately we live in a world where making new game ideas is discouraged, and making the same franchises over and over again still sells millions of units. The problem is that its hard to sell people on a new franchise. People buy Call of Duty because they recognize the name and know what its going to be, and every game builds upon that name. A new IP doesn't have any previous games to build off of, so its going out into the world completely cold. A lot of people don't want to take risks with their money in case the new thing is bad, and especially for the casual mass market, they probably never even hear about the game unless it has a huge marketing budget. Generally the hope with releasing a completely new game is that it will at least turn a small profit, and then the future games can be much more profitable by building off the existing fanbase and adding in even more people. That's how all the games we are sick of playing got so popular. So yeah, it really sucks. But when you need to commit $20 million to a game project, do you make a completely new game which you have no idea how it will do, it might be great or it might be bad. Or, do you go the safe bet and make another Call of Duty, or whatever? Sadly most people pick option B, because, fuck, that's a lot of money to risk on a failed investment. Its a lot worse these days because of the rising game making costs, and if your game really bombs, your company might go bankrupt. A good example is THQ, they have tons of strong franchises that sell well, but they took risks and tried making some new franchises, and its almost ruined the company. We have seen a lot of companies close in these last few years, and taking risks on new games has been a large part of that. It really blows, but companies can still take safer risks with games like Rayman: Origins, whose budget hasn't been disclosed, but is definitely smaller than an average game budget. Though, people already know who Rayman is, so its not quite the same. If this was some unknown franchise of exact same quality, it would have definitely underperformed. =/

You miss my point a bit.

Making shooters is a high risk venture. Making Rayman Origins, not so much.

It's not safe to compete with Modern Warfare in the same way it's not safe to wrestle a gorilla. It takes ton of preparation, the gorilla always has the upper hand and it is likely you'll be missing important chunks even if you win.

In other words, it takes a lot of money to compete in the shooter market, it takes a ton of effort and the deck is stacked towards the guys that have been doing a great job of it for years. If you're going to go for a piece of that cake, you need to go for a big piece. With a big knife.

But look at Skyrim or, I don't know, Mario Kart. Those guys OWN their genres. They are not as massive genres as shooters, maybe, but they are big enough for those games to be some of the biggest sellers of the year. I'm not saying you can't make a lot of money or be successful making shooters. Absolutely not. What I'm saying is that not every attempt to go for the biggest portion of the market is going to be profitable. In fact, it is as high risk to debut a FPS franchise as it is to debut any other franchise, and it gets even worse if you're a middle-of-the-pack shooter franchise that a lot of people have learned to safely ignore over the years.

Oh, and Rayman may have some name recognition, but putting that game on a disk was ballsy. Stuff like Limbo, Braid, Super Meat Boy and other side scrollers probably did pretty well by being smaller games without having to be part of a decade-long franchise.

I do remember Ancel saying that Rayman Origins is a slow burner, and though the initial numbers were only about 500k units, it has continued to sell steadily as word of mouth catches on, and as of now has officially turned a profit.

But Rayman Didn't sell, so I don't know where they get these numbers. Maybe wii helped it, or overall it was a cheap game to make. I bought it for 19.99...

dude, where's the new rainbow six?

@RYNO9881 said:

WHERE IS THE NEW PRINCE OF PERSIA. THAT GAME WAS SO COOL.

JUST REALIZED I HAD CAPS ON BUT WE'LL JUST ROLL WITH IT.

lol

@NoelVeiga said:

The Rayman thing just goes against the common belief that only games that consistently hit the top 10 for weeks and sell five million units ever turn a profit. The truth is that budgets in gaming are all over the place, and it's not particularly surprising to see Rayman break even after selling a million units.

Ubisoft completely misunderstanding the industry and thinking that just because there are more dollars going to shooters than to other genres shooters are automatically a more profitable area of business is a bit sad, though. Not only does it prompt them to make more redundant, boring games... but it may also cost them money. Shooters as a genre may move more cash, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to make money out of them. It is, however, a more competitive market with higher stakes that also happens to include some of the largest, most strongly funded and supported titles in the industry. It seems to me like a recipe to lose money while also losing the foothold in other genres where being profitable is perhaps less hard.

But that's the sad fallacy at the bottom of public companies at times, I guess. It's not even about profit sometimes, it's about growth.

I agree with you. Rather than dumping all their money into an over-saturated and highly competitive area of the market, why aren't they tapping into brand new audiences? If you keep making the same games you will only see sales from the same section of the population, overall. There could be just as large a demographic that remains invisible because it doesn't want that kind of game, but would happily give their money for something else, if only someone would make it. Gee, what does this remind me of...

@NoelVeiga said:

The Rayman thing just goes against the common belief that only games that consistently hit the top 10 for weeks and sell five million units ever turn a profit. The truth is that budgets in gaming are all over the place, and it's not particularly surprising to see Rayman break even after selling a million units.

Ubisoft completely misunderstanding the industry and thinking that just because there are more dollars going to shooters than to other genres shooters are automatically a more profitable area of business is a bit sad, though. Not only does it prompt them to make more redundant, boring games... but it may also cost them money. Shooters as a genre may move more cash, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to make money out of them. It is, however, a more competitive market with higher stakes that also happens to include some of the largest, most strongly funded and supported titles in the industry. It seems to me like a recipe to lose money while also losing the foothold in other genres where being profitable is perhaps less hard.

But that's the sad fallacy at the bottom of public companies at times, I guess. It's not even about profit sometimes, it's about growth.

I agree with you. Rather than dumping all their money into an over-saturated and highly competitive area of the market, why aren't they tapping into brand new audiences? If you keep making the same games you will only see sales from the same section of the population, overall. There could be just as large a demographic that remains invisible because it doesn't want that kind of game, but would happily give their money for something else, if only someone would make it. Gee, what does this remind me of...

Fucking shooters! NO UBI NO!

Glad to hear Rayman did well. I intend on picking it up sometime in the future where I am done playing Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. So probably not till later this summer.

The Rayman thing just goes against the common belief that only games that consistently hit the top 10 for weeks and sell five million units ever turn a profit. The truth is that budgets in gaming are all over the place, and it's not particularly surprising to see Rayman break even after selling a million units.

Ubisoft completely misunderstanding the industry and thinking that just because there are more dollars going to shooters than to other genres shooters are automatically a more profitable area of business is a bit sad, though. Not only does it prompt them to make more redundant, boring games... but it may also cost them money. Shooters as a genre may move more cash, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to make money out of them. It is, however, a more competitive market with higher stakes that also happens to include some of the largest, most strongly funded and supported titles in the industry. It seems to me like a recipe to lose money while also losing the foothold in other genres where being profitable is perhaps less hard.

But that's the sad fallacy at the bottom of public companies at times, I guess. It's not even about profit sometimes, it's about growth.

WHERE IS THE NEW PRINCE OF PERSIA. THAT GAME WAS SO COOL.

JUST REALIZED I HAD CAPS ON BUT WE'LL JUST ROLL WITH IT.

For the statisticians among us, Ubisoft notes that shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years.

Sounds awesome, means that Rayman went over budget and is making that sweet sweet green. Now if only they could make their PC port programmers not fuck up and I'd be happy.

Ubisoft says Rayman: Origins “is already profitable, and has the capacity to be a longtime seller.”

This makes me super happy that they aren't dismissing it as a flop already.

" shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years."

Shootmania on the fast-track confirmed!

@HatKing said:

"For the statisticians among us, Ubisoft notes that shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years."

Huh? This seems counter-intuitive. They want to make games that will disappear in the crowds behind giants like Call of Duty and Halo? Ubisoft is one of the few big companies that's actually doing a lot of stuff other than multiplayer focused shooters, I'd hate to see that change.

The reason shooters take up 30% is because thats what the public wants. Shooters wouldn't keep getting made as often as they do if there wasn't a demand for them. Ignoring the largest genre just so they don't risk getting lost in the shuffle would be bad business.

@The_Nubster said:

@wumbo3000 said:

My giddiness for Assassin's Creed III is indescribable.

I can describe it. Wumbo.

Touche.

"For the statisticians among us, Ubisoft notes that shooters make up 30% of the industry, while driving games make up 8%. This explains, the company noted, why Ubisoft will be more shooter focused in coming years."

Huh? This seems counter-intuitive. They want to make games that will disappear in the crowds behind giants like Call of Duty and Halo? Ubisoft is one of the few big companies that's actually doing a lot of stuff other than multiplayer focused shooters, I'd hate to see that change.

Anyone else hoping that AC 2.75 failed so they would check themselves before they wrecked themselves?

..... That's not English, but yeah.

Most of this is good or at least not bad news. I think pouring too much dough into the Wii U might end poorly from what I've seen of that thing, but who can say at this point really.

@Sooty said:

@jillsandwich said:

Those French-Canadians know how to make some damn games.

and how to totally fuck them up for PC

Fair enough, but I'm a console plebeian. Bad PC ports suck, but ultimately, they don't really matter to me.

@wumbo3000: Hear, hear!

Great news that Rayman turned a profit. We need more games like that.

This just in: 30% of Assassin's Creed 3 will consist of shooting dudes, 8% of it will consist of you driving a car.

I kind of saw Assassin's Creed 3 coming. i mean after they said Revelations was the last of the Ezio stories and the story being heavily focused on 2012 it seemed like 2012 would've been the year for AC3.

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

@rimmonhouse

Prediction: Assassin's Creed 3 will be a first person shooter!

If this was an Activision game, it'd turn out that Desmond's next ancestor is Captain Price.

That's actually fucking badass.