Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat recently spoke to GIBiz about recent trends that have emerged in the gaming market over the last few years. Namely, the large number of AAA games and rise of mobile gaming.
“On one end of the spectrum you will have all the big, AAA blockbuster games that [offer] more and more production values, more value for the players, but there will be fewer of them taking a bigger chunk of the market.” The other end are mobile and tablet games, along with social gaming via Facebook which will continue to bring new customers.
However, as for the mid-tier, he states that, “The in-between, the belly of the market, is the one that just collapsed in a way and disappeared. Meaning there is no room for B-games, if I should say so, which proves the point of quality. I think that companies that put quality and consumer value as a primary focus, as we’ve been doing at Ubisoft, will enjoy great success.”
With Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Watch_Dogs on the cards this year, we’ll see how far that rings true.