Ubi to make franchise games more often

By Tom Bramwell Published 10 February, 2010

And they will all have multiplayer.

Ubisoft plans to produce games based on its biggest franchises more often and wants everything to have multiplayer in it, according to CEO Yves Guillemot.

"Our clear goal today is to come more regularly with our top brands," Guillemot told investors (thanks IGN), pointing out that previously there had been long layoffs between Splinter Cell, Driver and others.

"We believe we can launch them more often without risk of brand fatigue."

However, this doesn't mean Ubisoft will stop launching new IP, said Guillemot, with two new efforts launching in 2011 and 2012.

They and indeed everything else will be supported by some form of online play, too. "We've made big investments to make sure all of our brands could become multiplayer," Guillemot explained. "We're coming out with Driver, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon, which will all have multiplayer."

Following the release of the single-player Assassin's Creed II last year, the company has already made plans to follow it up with a new instalment that includes multiplayer, while yesterday it announced Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, complete with multiplayer beta.

Other games on the slate for this year, including Splinter Cell: Conviction (16th April) and RUSE, already promise multiplayer support.

Ubisoft isn't the only publisher thinking this way either. Yesterday John Schappert said that EA was planning online modes and DLC for all its titles in future.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 2 years ago

    So ubi want to be EA/Activision. Joy.

  • dfunked #2 2 years ago

    If it means they hurry up and make BG&E2, I'll forgive them for unnecessarily shoehorning multiplayer into AC...

  • Vordred #3 2 years ago

    this is good news i guess, it is getting to the point these days, that games do need a multiplayer. almost all games that dont have MP in them i end up trading back in really quickly, as there is nothing left to do. and alot i just pass over because i know i will finish it and be bored with it in no time.

  • Doctor_What #4 2 years ago

    But I love my singleplayer experiences!

  • sanctusmortis #5 2 years ago

    Great, more useless unplayed MP with attached achievements nobody bothers to earn. Gud jorb, games industry!

  • spekkeh #6 2 years ago

    "We believe we can launch them more often without risk of brand fatigue."

    THINK AGAIN

  • muscleblade #7 2 years ago

    We should all stop buying sequels. See what happens.

  • HermitArcader #8 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Skurmedel #9 2 years ago

    Multiplayer, makes sense, when you are fucking forced to be online to play their bloody games anyway. The leap to a USB-probe in your butt is not far either.
    Edited by 1 at 10/02/10 @ 09:21

  • oceanmotion #10 2 years ago

    So what your saying Ubisoft is don't buy Ghost Recon Future Soldier because it will be gimped and buggy then you'll release a sequel 6 months later with some of problems removed along with a DLC model that fucks us all. Yea, no thanks.

  • Murton #11 2 years ago

    The real issue here is developer time and disc space. If every game is going to have multiplayer it's going to take developer time and attention away from the single player experience, especially if the publisher wants the franchise to release just as, or in this case, more often. Then of course there's disc space, which is already affecting games and has been for some time, start forcing in multiplayer and we'll see the single player get even shorter than it is now.

    Call me old fashioned but I think that if publishers and developers want to battle the second hand market they should be looking at replay value and post release support on their single player franchises rather than bolting on multiplayer for the sake of it.

  • el_pollo_diablo #12 2 years ago

    Interesting Yves Guillemot fact:
    Ubisoft headquarters has many stretches of sheer cliffs where seabirds breed, and the guillemot is one of the most numerous birds in the great 'seabird cities'. It comes to land only to nest, spending the rest of its life at sea, where it is vulnerable to oil spills. Dark brown and white, not as black as the similar razorbill, it has a 'bridled' form with a white ring round the eye and stripe behind it.

  • jellyhead #13 2 years ago

    Do not want. I have no interest in MP especially at the expense of a single player experience. With this and the DRM scam Ubisoft have really got their work cut out to impress me enough for me to give them any money at all this year and EA are heading that way too.

  • dacicus #14 2 years ago

    No, there is no need for more sequels. Something fresh it's more likely to convince me to shell my money towards Ubi. As for the DRM scheme, also it's a big turnoff. I've bought Prince of Persia 2008 and Tom Clancy's HAWX because Ubi DIDN'T ADD DRM to those titles.
    As for MP, get frigging real. Who the hell would play POP, AC or BG&E2 in MP??!!
    We still have Jedi Academy for battling with lightsabers and powers, right?! They should take a look at Bioshock2 MP. Do you see the amount of people that they've believed it will flock towards the "new, exciting MP modes"?! Some games are meant to stay SP. Otherwise start doing MMO's and give up entirely on SP. Leave the market to the russians or to the germans. Those people seem so eager to pick up the places and the niches abandoned by the big corporations. And they actually are managing to make a profit. Those companies also seems quicker to adapt on the new market. And they also have a relatively good understanding of what their possible customers would want.

  • Redeye #15 2 years ago

    Ubisoft in 'wanting even more of your money' non-shocker.

  • Triggerhappytel #16 2 years ago

    The industry needs to learn that most games don't need multiplayer, and most people are too busy playing CoD to give a shit. Publishers see it as an extra source of revenue in map packs and so forth, but how many decent games with multiplayer modes die a quiet death after a few months - take a look at Uncharted 2, for instance (generally a few thousand people online), and how many people are still playing, say, Red Faction 3 or Dark Sector?

  • FooAtari #17 2 years ago

    @EarlBasset
    "The games industry and I don't see eye-to-eye"

    Indeed. Between them Ubisoft and Activsion are doing a pretty good job of turning me off gaming.

  • dacicus #18 2 years ago

    The industry can learn from Cage> I've enjoyed Omikron and Fahrenheit and never felt that I've wanted a bloody sequel. And yet I've played the both games quite a few times...I call that value: tremendous replayability due to various paths in SP.

  • Murton #19 2 years ago

    The industry can learn from Cage> I've enjoyed Omikron and Fahrenheit and never felt that I've wanted a bloody sequel. And yet I've played the both games quite a few times...I call that value: tremendous replayability due to various paths in SP.

    ^^This.

    Though I would love for the rumours of an Omikron sequel to be true.

  • Shikasama #20 2 years ago

    Makes no difference, their recently announced DLC policy means they won't get a sale from me.

  • spiritsnake #21 2 years ago

    Murton you talk of disc space but you forget the blue ray discs have more than enough space available for developers, so your argument point doesnt really afeect the ps3, just the 360.

  • ObiChrisKenobi #22 2 years ago

    Wait... _more_ often? Hmm, that's all the make already!

  • the_mtfr #23 2 years ago

    No brand fatigue?? How many Princes of Persia sequels and reboots did you release and will release, Guillemot? Why don't you tell that to your next shareholders meeting.