Videogames 4 - Ubisoft & Economic factors + KEY THEORY 14

Ubisoft, Media Diversity and Economic Factors in the Video Game Industry

KEY THEORY 14- 

Cultural industries - David Hesmondhalgh


(film industry, newspapers, videogames, television, online media)

• 'Culture' and 'industry' are two terms that are often at odds with one another
• Producers try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration,
• They also standardise and format their cultural products (e.g. through the use of stars, genres, and serials)
• The largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries.
• The radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit-orientated set of cultural industries.

Ubisoft - A multinational conglomerate video-game developer, company that developed Assassin's Creed.

  • The fourth largest publicly traded game company in North and South America and Europe
  • Established in France in 1986
  • A horizontally and vertically integrated media conglomerate with a number of studios and subsidiaries (a company that works under another company)
  • They focus on the production of 'AAA' games with vast budgets and high production values
  • Publishes and develops a range of games in different genres, targeting vast and wildly different audiences
some examples of games (franchises)they have released:
  • watch dogs
  • assassins creed
  • rayman
  • just dance
  • wheel of fortune
  • jeopardy
  • might and magic
  • hungry shark evolution
they have a wide variety of games with a multitude of different target audiences. for example the assasins creed franchise targets mainly teenage boys. the watch dogs franchsie is aimed at an older predominantly male audience. they also produce games like Just dance which is marketed towards family groups. this relates to our key theory as its minimises risk of it failing to sell enough copies because theres always an audience for a product, will maximising profit as these are AAA games and aim to sell a larger quantity.

By focusing on mainstream, big budget development, Ubisoft offer a standardised and generic product. They've released so many games its saturated with a complete lack of creativity. some problems with aggressive conglomeration are:
  • limits creativity - more creative means more risk and less profit 
  • limits competition - no one can compete unless your also a big conglomerate, miss the releases that get hidden away from the AAA games
  • limits diversity - their games only exist for profit when they're all exactly the same in the mainstream industry
A brief timeline

Ubisoft game from the 90's

Rayman (1995)

  • Genre - platform 
  • Platform - Atari Jaguar, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Game Boy, Nintendo, Dsi, IOS & Android
  • Target Audience - the gaming family as its multi-player 
  • Critical reception - when released it was very popular and received a few awards with majority great reviews. Metacritic; 84/100
  • Commercial Success - sold 900,000 copies in two years and, at the time, the best selling PlayStation game of all time in the UK

Ubisoft game from the 00's

Downtown Run (2003)

  • Genre - racing
  • Platform - PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo GameCube and mobile
  • Target Audience - mostly younger boys as its a single player game based around cars and racetracks 
  • Critical Reception - overall 'mixed' reviews. Metacritic; 79/100 on PC
  • Commercial success - did better on PC but generally popular

Ubisoft game from 10's

Anno 2205 (2015)

  • Genre - city-building and economic simulation game 
  • Platfrom - Microsoft Windows
  • Target Audience - more aimed at younger audiences as you have complete control 
  • Critical Reception - received mixed reviews on launch. Metacritic; 72/100
  • Commercial Success - mostly praised for graphics and animations but disappointments based on over simplicity and lack of multi-player as well as other factors limiting the replay-ability.

Assassin's Creed Fact-file

  • Title - Assassin's Creed: Unity
  • Premise - It is set in Paris during the time of the French Revolution 
  • Platform - Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, X Box One 
  • Release Date - November 14, 2014 (UK)
  • Development Time - It took more than three years to develop 
  • Studio Development - Ubisoft Montreal
  • Commercial Success - 10 Million copies of this and Rogue had been sold by end of 2014
  • Re-release/Special Editions - N/A
  • RRP on Release - £43
  • Critical Reception - 72, "Assassin's Creed: Unity is at once an object of exquisite beauty and exhausting boredom", "HUGE step backwards in progress. poor programming, glitchy as hell. your character sucks unless you are willing to pay."
  • Merchandise - Posters and pictures

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