In their annual financial report, Ubisoft made a statement that no doubt already has many gamers riled up. On page 10, while discussing the Group's Business Model and Strategy, they go out on a limb to say that microtransactions make premium games more fun.
The adoption of monetization and engagement policies that respect the player experience and are sustainable in the long term. At Ubisoft, the golden rule when developing premium games is to allow players to enjoy the game in full without having to spend more. Our monetization offer within premium games makes the player experience more fun by allowing them to personalize their avatars or progress more quickly, however this is always optional.
Most hardcore gamers are, however, fiercely opposed to this monetization practice. While microtransactions are understandable to an extent in the context of a free-to-play game that has to generate some revenue to keep the game running, the same cannot be said of a premium game, which by definition already has an intrinsic access cost for the consumer.
This is not at all a newly implemented practice by Ubisoft. The publisher first introduced microtransactions in their premium games with 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins. As they say in the quote above, they're entirely optional purchases that offer mostly cosmetics, like unique-looking mounts, armor, and weapons, as well as some powerful weapons with strong stats (but others just as powerful can be acquired simply by playing the games). They've been in practically every Ubisoft premium game released ever since, including Assassin's Creed: Shadows. Still, this statement, although clearly aimed at investors, will do nothing to improve the publisher's reputation among hardcore gamers.
In other Ubisoft news, we just learned that the recently established subsidiary (partially funded by Tencent) would be co-led by Yves Guillemot's son, Charlie Guillemot, and Christophe Derennes, the former head of the publisher's North American studios.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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