Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot recently said at the Gamescom event to Game Industry International that the percentages of players who pay for the company's PC retail products are roughly the same as those gamers who play free-to-play content.
Guillemot said that the rate of piracy is about "93-95 percent," and that about only 5-7 percent of freemium players buy additional content for the free games.
"It's a way to get closer to your customers, to make sure you have revenue. On PC it's only around five to seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it's only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated. Guillemot said. "It's around a 93-95 per cent piracy rate, so it ends up at about the same percentage. The revenue we get from the people who play is more long term, so we can continue to bring content."
"We also take content which we've developed in the past, graphics etcetera, and we can make cheaper games and improve them over time," Guillemot said. "What's very important is that we change the content and make it a better fit to the customer as time goes on."
Ubisoft's next big free-to-play title is Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online-a third-person perspective, multiplayer action video game, scheduled for release on Aug. 15, for the personal computer (PC) and Wii U console. In the interview with Gameindustry International, Guillemot says that the company is trying to grow their brand within the personal computer market and that free-to play games is the best strategy for the market.
"We want to develop the PC market quite a lot and F2P is really the way to do it," said Guillemot. "The advantage of F2P is that we can get revenue from countries where we couldn't previously - places where our products were played but not bought. Now with F2P we gain revenue, which helps brands last longer.
Ubisoft recently announced several free-to-play titles at the European event, including Anno Online, The Settlers Online, Silent Hunter Online, and Heroes of Might Heroes Online. The company also changed its Uplay application into a digital distribution service in an attempt to modernize its operations.
Do you enjoy playing free-to-play titles? Do you thing that all titles should switch this business model? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
