Ubisoft is one of the biggest publishers in video games, with developer studios scattered across six continents and a host of big budget franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and Rayman calling Ubisoft their home. In addition, during E3 Ubisoft discussed several new franchises that will be appearing on the next generation of titles, include The Crew, The Division, and Watch Dogs. This new franchises represent Ubisoft's vision of the future, both in the sense of the current crop of games, as well as what gamers can expect from the publisher for years to come.
In a new interview with The A List Daily, Tony Key was asked about Watch Dogs, specifically on the possibility of the game spawning sequels. He revealed that standalone titles are no longer interest the company, and new titles such as Watch Dogs are chosen for development based on their ability to generate multiple successful titles, due to the costs of starting new IP's:
"That's what all our games are about; we won't even start if we don't think we can build a franchise out of it. There's no more fire and forget - it's too expensive."
While this subject has come out before, specifically in the serialization of Assassin's Creed titles, now it appears that gamers can expect sequels from all successful Ubisoft titles, including those not even out yet such as Watch Dogs.
Key also singled out Watch Dogs for praise, pointing out that the real world threat of hackers and privacy questions like those brought up by the NSA scandal give the game a more real-world commentary then fantasy titles or games set in the past:
"We feel like we're in a really good place with Watch Dogs, but until we're the biggest game of the year we're not going to be satisfied. Last year we cleaned up at E3 because we were pretty much the only next-gen game around. Watch Dogs for us is really a franchise because we're tapping into something people really care about, never more than when the NSA PRISM scandal broke."
It sounds like Watch Dogs may be the new yearly franchise for Ubisoft. Ubisoft is ready for the game to break out and become another jewel in the Ubisoft crown. This also means that other games such as The Division could have sequels already being planned despite being months away from being complete themselves. We will have to see if this strategy works for Ubisoft, or if the flood of games turns off gamers in the same way the Guitar Hero series fatigued and eventually was put down.
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