During its recent earnings call, Ubisoft has announced changes to its business strategy; notable moving from premium to free-to-play games.
Moving forward, Ubisoft will not only publish three to four premium titles annually but also focus on creating free-to-play games to reach a larger audience with its existing successful franchises.
Ubisoft chief financial officer Frederick Duguet commented: "In line with the evolution of our high-quality line-up that is increasingly diverse, we are moving on from our prior comment regarding releasing three to four premium triple-A [games] per year.
"Additionally, we are building high-end free-to-play games to be trending towards triple-A ambitions over the long-term."
Changing tastes
Duguet confirmed that this strategic change was driven by market conditions.
"This is purely a financial communication evolution and doesn’t change the fact that we continue to expect a high cadence of content delivery including powerful premium and free-to-play new releases," he added.
This change was evident after the recent expansion announcement for Tom Clancy's The Division franchise.
The Division Heart Land PC/console game was announced along with a mobile game based on The Division franchise - both of which are free-to-play
While The Division Heartland is expected to release in the current financial year, the release timeline for the mobile game is still unknown.