Next-gen, free-to-play 'major opportunities' for Ubisoft growth

Wait a second. Innovations and changes in the gaming world are opportunities for growth?

You don't say.....

The market needs diversity in games, new IPs and for them to slightly lower the price by $5.00 to $10.00; the market needs a little jolt that's all.  (o_o) That would get the market going, some expansion packs could work if you want to have expanded play for existing games.  New ideas, new ways of thinking and new character models, wouldn't hurt. 

The more I hear about next gen, the more I fear next gen. Seriously what we have out now for 360 and PS3 is fine. Look at that game the last of us for crying out loud!

This article shows every sign of a disconneced pompous corporation. "Free-to-play" (""major opportunities" for growth (sic)),  "enhanced profitability", and, well, I am surprised they didn't use the sickening terms of "experience" and "ip". When I was growing up, I played games, not "ip's" and I certainly did not play "experiences", it was the game and its gameplay that I enjoyed. I personally think that DF's and YU's are better, anyway (snicker)! Its about gamers and the game, these mega corporations have forgotten this and have their marketing teams telling the CEO's how to think, and that is really sad. FTP is also really bad, because now these corporations can only see how to empty gamers wallets, one axe +7 at a time.

If you are not paying for the product....then you ARE the product.

FTP is the worst scheme for the industry. Sadly this is the future. Well I am not going to be buying anything in the in-game stores. I hope lots of people will do the same but I won't hold my breath.

"Enhanced profitability", huh? That's nice for them, but from our perspective, there's only a few ways that this could work out:

a) Gamers end up paying more money over time for less game

b) Games are increasingly pandered to the 'casual market' to increase overall sales

c) Game design becomes increasingly dominated by repetitive, addicting qualities

d) All of the above

**Spoiler Alert** --> It's d)

It would be a good idea for companies like Ubisoft to invest in free to play, because when they do create a unique new I.P, they don't need to worry about it failing and causing the company's stocks to decline and it would not discourage them from making another new I.P or improving it as much as when they didn't have the money...but of course no one listens to me

I think also with f2p games the piracy will be over......

f2p gaming is a money grab

Its not about consumers and making the best game possible

In business world, well...in TODAY'S world, there's no such thing as "FREE". Even your Freedom of Rights are not free.

It's more like "Free now-Pay later" deal.

Sorry ubi but now your going free to play I won't be purchasing any more of your games including AC3.

i hate this "free-to-play" term because we all damn well know there ant nothing free about it.

this are the same damn companies complaining about how they making loses selling games at $60 a copy and they acting like the looking forward to giving us games for free, FO

This thing spreads like a cancer.Ubisoft doesn't need this.They don't know that if everyone will switch to this model the FTP market will collapse?

first ubi should get their SH*TY client working.... it's been down for 5 days!!!!

The Americans seem happy to pay monthly fees for their fav games.

Thats why dlcs and MMO prosper that much there.

Hopefully the Japanese companies will not follow suit and will continue to offer great SP offline experience, fully included in the retail price!

Let EA, Blizzard and Ubisoft sell that F2P crap where they can...

One major problem with F2P that these idiots aren't considering is that there can only be so many successful, profitable F2P games. That's because, for the F2P business model to work, people need to spend a lot of time on the game. Enough to want to purchase little upgrades of some kind here and there. Time is a limited resource. So is the patience of non-casuals.

Don't worry though. Wherever there's demand, there's someone more than willing to supply. Just because F2P is the "next best thing" doesn't mean that gaming is dead. We want solid games, we'll get them.

Thank you pirates , the future of gaming will now be FTP shovel ware.

If F2P dominates the future of gaming you can count me out. I'll find a different hobby to spend my time and money on.

This does not bode well for the future of gaming. With the rise of Facebook, and its apps, we've seen the worst that the F2P model has to offer. Shallow games, with even shallower gameplay, all with the option to skip playing it just by paying a fee. Gaming has slowly been moving away from art and entertainment to a more corporate model designed to suck as much money from the player as possible, and it's sad.

The discrepancy of F2P is that will gradually deteriorates the gaming experience because it lacks the characteristics of being original (story, characters). I played F2P games and I always noticed after I play is that I mostly had a shallow experience.

Nothing beats the satisfaction of defeating a retail copy of a  hard game in singleplayer WITHOUT paying more to get "better".

This isn't good. 

I like anything with the word FREE in it, but as we know, nothing is really free. Like MW2ismygame said, most of the time F2P games offer bonuses, or better weapons that can be purchased, leaving the ones who don't purchase said items at a disadvantage. I think most people who play F2P games end up buying stuff though, I just don't think it would be fair to have the balance tipped to those who have the bigger wallet. I guess it's the American way. Look at the Yankees.

free to play

oh god why......

the only problem i have with the F2P model is that they most often times have a pay to win model with it because if you dont do microtransactions and someone else did you almost always lose because the PAID items are way better. F2P should take valves example with TF2, you can pay to have reskinned guns and hats to show off but they never alter stats or gameplay just purely aesthetic.

I don't fundamentally have an issue with F2P as a business model.  It does pose an interesting counterpoint to all the people who claim they pirate games to "try them out."  If that's the case then F2P is for you because now you can try it, and if you like it put some money into it.  If you don't, then walk away.  Kind of novel compared to all the preorder pressure in the packaged game side of things where they want you to pay for a game before _anyone_ has played it.

All that being said, I hate MMOs personally.  I like my single player, offline experiences just fine, thank you.  So most F2P games don't draw me in.  I'm probably not their target audience.