Videogames 4 - Ubisoft, media diversity, and economic factors in the Videogame Industry

Ubisoft, media diversity and economic factors in the Videogame Industry

Ubisoft and media diversity

• Ubisoft is a multinational (transnational multimedia corporation) conglomerate videogame developer.
• Ubisoft produces and distributes Assassins' Creed series and other triple-a (AAA) videogames.
• David Hesmonghalgh - cultural industries - media industries seek to minimise risk and maximise profit. Vertical integration - when a conglomerate owns more than one sector of  the industry. Horizontal integration - when a conglomerate owns more than one subsidiary in the same sector. Multimedia integration - using digital technologies to combine previously seperated industries. Ubisoft is both vertically and horizontally integrated, with a number of studios and subsidiaries.
• Ubisoft is the 4th largest publicly trade game company in Europe and the Americas.
• Established in 1986 in France.
• They publish and develop a range of games in different genres, targeting vast and wildly different audiences. They do this because it minimises risks and maximise profit.
• The game, 'Rayman', 1995, is a platform game, the USP was it was a high production quality game for a 2D game. This made Ubisoft more well-known as the game became popular.
• The franchise, 'Just Dance', is another popular game of Ubisoft with the USP of not having to be good at playing videogames, it is fun casual game targeted at families. Large range of music, usually popular, with regional pop music to gain a larger audience.
• Diversification - A media practice where an organisation will seek to produce a diverse or different media products to help them target a range of different audiences.
• Ubisoft has not only diversified in videogame genres but has vertically integrated into Ubisoft Motion Pictures, they have created such as Assassins' Creed film. It can create the audince of their existing players and fans of the franchise watching it but also create and target audiences which they haven't targeted before.
• Curran and Seaton - power and media industries - the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by profit and power. They argue that this creates a problem of media concentration that limits variety, creativity and quality, this is why more socially diverse patterns of ownership is needed to create more varied and adventurous media productions. Ubisoft's output and its diversity is arguably offers a standardised and generic product with a focus on mainstream, big budget development. No risk, and profit. This saturates the market such as releasing so many games in the AC series.
• Stagnation and reorganisation - Ubisoft has stated in Janurary 2020, to reorganise its editorial board to fundamentally create more variation in its games from weak sales and games becoming too repetitive and stale.
• The issues of aggressive conglomerisation, Ubisoft has pushed to gain mass profit by mostly minimising their risks such as releasing 12 games in the AC series in the past 13 years. This limits creativity, with releasing primarily similar games, it limits competiton as Ubisoft is so massive only the few massive conglomerates are the only competiton and also limits diversity, Ubisoft does release a variety of games however it targets mostly mainstream and large audiences.

Ubisoft - game examples

Rayman (1995)

• Platform game.
• Available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, MS-DOS, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, Game Boy Color. Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DSi, IOS, Android.
• Target audience - Kids.
• The critical reception is seen as good, becoming a very popular game.
• The commercial successes include being the best selling Playstation game of all time in the UK and was awarded 'Best Music in a CD-ROM Game' and 'Best Animation' in Electronic Gaming Monthly 1995 Video Game Awards.

Far Cry (2004)

• First-person shooter game.
• Available on Micorsoft Windows. PS3 and Xbox 360.
• Target audience - 16 to early twenties, primarily men.
• Critical reception, metacritic score of 89.
• The commercial successes include selling over 730,000 units within 4 months of release and has released more games compiling a series.

Watch Dogs (2014)

• Action-adventure game.
• Available on Microsoft Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U.
• Target audience - Men 18 to twenties.
• Critical reception, metacritic score of around 80.
• The commercial successes include selling 4 million copies within the first week.

Assassin's Creed: Unity

• The premise is set in Paris during the French Revolution.
• Available on PS3 and Xbox.
• Released in November 2014.
• It took 2 years to develop and costs around £25.
• The studio which developed the game was Ubisoft Montreal.
• The commercial success of the game was selling 1.59 million copies within the first week, probably making almost $50 million in sales in that week.
• There are special editions, a Bastille Edition, a Collector's Edition, Notre Dame Edition.
• RRP - £25.
• Critical reception, metacritic score of 70.
• The merchandise of the game include posters.