Digital Watch

I think it's just a different way of buying. On XBLA it's more impulse buying, because it's 10 or 15 Euros, and now in November you have so many big titles that if you take the first semester or the summer there are not so many great titles. So it's a way to propose some experiences to even the core gamers, and the one big advantage is that they can test the demo, which is not the case in retail. So they can try it and then convert, so that's why the demo is really key on these products, because it's an entry point, and if the demo is crap you don't get conversions at all.

And also I think there's potential. Babel Rising, which is Kinect compatible, because right now there aren't so many products out there that are compatible on Kinect, and not at 10 or 15 Euro price points. And if you see the success of Fruit Ninja, there's room for maybe more casual titles, and not a 20 hours game, but something a family can play without having to know all the buttons. Just have fun for five or 10 minutes. It's a different approach but I think there's a real market. And core gamers, they see both.

XBLA is always mentioned in every communication from Microsoft, which is maybe not the case with Sony

They select retail, there are like 10 big guns, but then they are ready to take a risk on this platform because its only 10 or 15 Euros. It's really different but more people are used to buying XBLA and PSN, even if the Sony outage didn't help us on that [Laughs].

Microsoft has more concrete strategy and programme, like Summer Of Arcade. It has a different approach on that. So Microsoft is more active right now, on this market. But we work with both of them, and of course, XBLA is always mentioned in every communication from Microsoft, which is maybe not the case with Sony.

People are used to the XBLA, not only to play, but video on demand, music, so it enables us to have cross promotion. And the life cycle of a digital game is not the same, because you can do promotions and things like that, and you don't have any stock risk. And that's something else to take into account, there's not this day one obligation, a game can grow, it can be surprisingly successful, even if there's not a TV campaign for two million Euros to back it up. So there's still room. Take Minecraft - that just came out of nowhere, no marketing campaign, just a good idea.

Yes. I mean right now the goal is to offer a new experience with I Am Alive, and again it could have been a lot of investment to really grow it to the AAA level, because again, if you're not at the 80 or 90 score you're dead. You can try to deliver just an average game, because it won't work.

So digital enabled us to make a clear choice. It's really survival, it's really core and maybe old fashioned, but it can really fit for a certain number of gamers. And at 15 Euros the quality is worth it. If it had been sold at 60 Euro it would have required ten times the length. So it's a choice, but again, we can have radical choices of digital, to have more niche product, but on retail its too difficult have this sort of product. It's a different approach.

If you take iOS for example, we launched Monster Burner last week, by Ubisoft Montreal - they don't always work on Assassin's Creed. Even from that, we can say now that's a license that we built digitally, which was the first time in Ubisoft's history. So you can imagine From Dust on iOS, maybe From Dust 2, so it's enabled us to take risks and test some concepts also.

Monster Burner, the first message to the team was do a game that will really fit the iPad, and that's what they did. So this is a testing laboratory in real time, where you can work, test some things, with less risk.

I think this is the sense of the history. We are talking about cloud gaming, about connections, so yes, I think it will be the heart of the next consoles. It's also now that people are now so used to being connected, all the time. Sometimes I think there's a business to stop the addiction of connection, but people want to access everything all the time. I also think the gaming spirit will be in our everyday life. I think if you look at augmented reality, I think it will be something like that.

There's a constraint in the power and the size of the network, because of course you cannot do everything you want to do on digital, but we know that [socialising] is so important. And it brings new players, even on Facebook, that have never touched a game before. And the multiplication of devices is just bringing new players from different generations, so I think it will be interconnected.

We cannot go from one to the other quickly. I don't have any time frame, but I think the box will stay for the big games, I don't think that will completely reversed in one or two years.

No [Laughs]. We prefer to release a game in the first semester or summer, because people like the short session and don't want to invest a lot. But at the end of the year it's very difficult, on the XBLA and PSN for example.

On iOS you don't have these kind of things, because it's good to communicate in December and January because you have all the gifts, and the tablets, and iPad is number one on the gift list. And when you receive an iPad the first thing you do is to buy everything the first month. So January is quite good for the iOS platform, but XBLA and PSN, we prefer to be in the quiet period. Because players cannot play 20 games at a time, and if you buy Assassin's Creed or Call Of Duty they don't have time to invest in other experiences.

We don't see this peak in Christmas period, and also this is when there's no programme, it's not by chance that Microsoft is organising House Party in March and the Arcade in July, because there is a demand and the publishers don't release a lot of titles during this period, so there's a space. And even for media, it would be too expensive to communicate on the digital titles compared to the big guns.

We released TrackMania 2 Canyon at the beginning of September, so now it's doing quite well, and Mania Planet is really an environment, but until ShootMania is released people will not understand what Mania Planet is. Because right now Mania Planet is just Trackmania 2 Canyon, we can't see the different bridges between both titles. Now it is a concept, but when ShootMania releases next year it will be more understandable to players, how they can benefit from one to the other, and really the idea behind it is the collection, collecting different titles.

And that's why it's not free-to-play, you pay and then you benefit from all the content created by the community. It will take time, more time than other games that we have, but then we will have a complete offer, and we think then we will be able to monetise people, and to keep people in this environment and to really progress them, and having them going from one game to another.

Because this is the key to online: Zynga is so powerful because they succeed in Farmville, and then to get all those people to play Empires & Allies, and then Cityville, so this is really key.

When you have community, and right now Track Mania has more than 10 million players in the world, so we have a community. So now our goal is first TrackMania 2 Canyon, and then to say "Okay, but don't play only on racing games, go to the shooter game," and everything you do in each game will have an impact on the others. So if you create a track on TrackMania and people buy it you'll get money to buy new blocks in ShootMania. So it has to be seen as an environment. Yes, it takes more time than other titles, Like Ghost Recon Online or Settlers, but its really a mid-term or long-term vision.

We prefer to release a game in the first semester or summer, because people like the short session and don't want to invest a lot. But at the end of the year it's very difficult on XBLA and PSN.

And again it's really based on the community, because it's not only people that buy the game, it's those people that create the content. Because Nadeo is only 25 people, mostly engineers, and their goal is not to create maps or funny cars, just to create tools to give the community. The community do everything else. And in ShootMania it will also be the case, because it will give the freedom to the FPS community to build their own games, to build their own modes. We know that Counter Strike came from a mod, and DOTA came from a mod, so we know that the community are inventive, maybe more inventive than publishers.

They can maybe invent the next FPS titles based on the Shoot Mania tools, so it's more of a mid-term strategy. So we're asking FPS player and pro-gamers and saying "what will you need? What would be the dream FPS you could play?" It's more to say which tool will you need, rather than which map or mode, it's not us that will create the future of ShootMania. It has to be easy, and it has to be playable, and ultimately it has to be balanced, meaning that a gamer can play with a noob, and be able to compete.

And because its not free-to-play there will not be any "I buy this weapon so I'm more powerful." It's a concept, it's a gamble, because its new, but this is the strength of Ubisoft - we have a different mindset. We have Ghost Recon Online at the other end, which is more realistic, team-play, strategy, free-to-play. It's our strength to be able to test the different business models.