Ubisoft: “Bar Too High in AAA Gaming Market to Allow for Glorified Add-ons”

Assassin’s Creed is officially Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, with the third game in the series being their biggest software launch of all time. However, there’s always pressure to perform and as senior vice president of sales and marketing Tony Key states in an interview with TheAListDaily, they’re always looking to “avoid the appearance of a glorified add-on pack”.

“Every publisher is guilty of that at one time or another in this day and age. But now, the bar has just gotten too high for that in AAA gaming. That goes with the marketing too, by the way. The resources to do AAA marketing are bigger than they ever have been. So the top games are selling more and the other games don’t make back their money.”

And doesn’t Ubisoft know it – they’ve been creating specialized ads for gamers across different nationalities. But this too had a deeper purpose.

“There were definite tonal differences between the ads for Assassin’s Creed III in Europe as opposed to America. Ultimately, we’re just trying to tell our story that’s relevant to the audience. To people in Europe, you’ll get a different response than in America. Our idea is to act locally and make a relevant message for the consumer; we’re not trying to mislead and are presenting a message that’s relevant to the audience. I don’t want to shove a Founding Fathers ad in the face of an Italian consumer and that’s the conclusion our Italian counterparts came to.”

Source: GIBiz