Ubisoft is talking some serious sense when it comes to future DLC plans. VP of live operations, Anne Blodel-Jouin, spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about downloadable content and the lessons learned from the success of Rainbow Six Siege, which is getting a second year of content. Blondel-Jouin stated that there would be “no more [multiplayer] DLC that you have to buy if you want to have the full experience.”
During our discussion [with GamesIndustry.biz], I was speaking about the lessons Ubisoft learned from Rainbow Six Siege and gamers’ ongoing engagement in the game, and how we turn those into best practices we can apply to our other ‘Live’ games, including those focused on online competitive multiplayer. Based on gamers’ feedback and behaviors, for Live games, we will continue to provide them with a deeper core game experience that might come in the form of DLCs and customization options, or other ideas our creative teams come up with. None of them will be compulsory as we want to be fair to all gamers. We won’t split up the community or make gamers pay in order to keep up and stay engaged: the core elements of the online multiplayer, like new maps or characters, will be available for all players.
Using “Live” to describe games that focus on delivering a great online multiplayer experience, Ubisoft “won’t split up the community or make gamers pay in order to keep up and stay engaged.”
Sounds fantastic, right? Paid-for maps and modes can be devastating to online games with dwindling player counts, and so this DLC strategy should help multiplayer titles stay populated for longer.
In other Ubisoft news, there was a slight miscommunication in a recent comment about The Division‘s player count. After making the impressive claim that, following update 1.4, active player numbers have returned to how they were at the game’s launch, Ubisoft’s Anne Blondel-Jouin amended this statement saying that numbers “are trending back in a positive direction, thanks to what [they’ve] seen with patch 1.4 and other updates the team has delivered.”
What do you make of Ubisoft’s DLC plans? And have you tried out The Division with the latest patch installed?
[Source: GamesIndustry.biz, MCVUK, VG247]
