Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot
The CEO discusses multimedia expansion, 3D technology and targeting the sports market
Last week, Ubisoft held its annual Ubidays event in Paris, showcasing its products for the rest of the year. With a portfolio that took in blockbuster franchises in the Tom Clancy series, a burgeoning casual range and a handful of new game announcements, the French publisher was clearly in rude health.
GamesIndustry.biz sat down with chief executive officer Yves Guillemot during the event, to discuss the publisher's new titles, its focus on 3D videogaming and its multimedia expansions through its CGI studio and the Tom Clancy brand.
I would say it has pushed the limits and it uses all the capacities the new machines are bringing to make sure we can create innovative content and attract more consumers to play videogames. For a long time we have been making sure people could have fun but very often we limited ourselves to gamers because of complexity. Now, with new machines and accessories, and things like voice control and other ways to play, it's going to bring the fun of videogames to a broader audience. Those are the two things we are really working on – improving accessibility and going that extra step and using the full capacities of the new machines.
Yes, there are synergies between the two. What we are doing with Cameron is sharing what he's doing in his movies to actually create games that will use as many elements as possible. We are sharing all the assets and we're sharing what 3D will actually brings to the market. We are really going in the same direction.
The deal is to build a 3D experience on top of the normal experience. Avatar will have both.
It's with glasses on a specific TV. I've seen it, it's amazing.
No. It doesn't work on normal TVs. It means we will see an evolution on the TV. They are already in Best Buy in the US. You can already buy these TVs.
Well, it's not that expensive. But it's new, it's a new approach. It's not any more expensive than all the things we have to go through when we change over to new console machines or when we adopt new ways to animate our characters. It's another good technology that will be good to master but it's not going to be extremely expensive. We have to make the games in such a way that they have to be 2D and 3D so the experience will be good either way.
Anything that is good for the industry is of interest for us. What we see is that because 3D is really bringing in a level of immersion that is very interesting, we think it is very important to test it and see how we can give an even better experience to our consumers. We don't know if other companies will follow us, what we know is that because Avatar [the movie] will be in 3D, being able to give consumers the same experience in the game will be very interesting for those coming out of the movie and experiencing the game on a 3D TV.
There is a connection, automatically, because that's the way the movie industry is going.
Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio. We have been working to train people, to recruit highly talented people and we are in test mode at the moment. We are going to make sure that we get to the level of Weta. We have a long way to go but in getting to that level will help us to actually be one of the studios where everybody has to go.
We don't need to be always making the movie but what we have to do is make sure that what's necessary for our games is done close to us so we can reuse assets. Or we can have a specific relationship with a director who is going to do 3D imaging in such a way that we can also use them in our games. That is how we will improve the quality of our games, by giving our consumers a lot more than what we can give them today. Because if you have a USD 150 million budget instead of USD 20 million, USD 50 million of that can be used in creating better backgrounds, better animation, more defined characters and storylines. All those elements will improve dramatically the experience that consumers will have. This will be especially necessary with the next generation of consoles. It is important for this generation, but for the next generation when we will have machines that are a lot more powerful it will be a necessity.
The goal is to produce the images, the animations, to work on defining scenarios, because that's what we need in our games. For the rest, we will start by working with external companies that are interested and know this business, but we will make sure that movies are coming out at the same time as our games, as our books and other ancillary products. We are not going into the movie industry because we want to become a distributor, we are going into the movie industry because we think the game can benefit a lot from that.
The goal is to really make sure we give more to our customers. When our customers spend GBP 20 or GBP 30 on a videogame they want to know the characters better. A book is a great place for that, but also a movie too. The player's emotion's are different in a book, compared to a movie or a videogame. A movie can set up a story for the player in a game. It's the combination of all these experiences that will give us the opportunity to give the player more emotions and leave the player feeling that they have experienced so much more.
We have books in production. We are working on a small TV series.
It's based on the different games were are doing. We are really at the beginning. We can't say much now but the more we go into these thing the more we see the potential.
What's also extremely interesting is that to create the games we need the talent, and this talent is in the movie industry. These kind of skills are in the movie industry because when they do animation – things like 3D modelling, clothing animation – they can really show what they can do in movies because they have no limit to the number of animations. Having that talent close to our games business will allow us to improve the quality of our games. But that talent is not available for the games industry normally. If we can create animation that will be used in the movie industry we will be able to use it in such a way that it will be used in a game as well.
There were no new IP announcements because we have enough already. We have EndWar which is really coming along extremely well, we have HAWX too. We have a few IPs that we think if they are well launched on the market they too can achieve enormous sales quantities. As we are in a more blockbuster market we need to make sure that what we do, we do well. So we won't try to do too much at any one time.
Each product has its pros and cons. Yes, it didn't sell as well as we expected but all the people who bought Beyond Good & Evil – and it was more girls than usually buy our products – were so happy with the experience that they pushed us to create a second game. We also think the market has changed a little and there are more customers coming to games because they have been made more accessible. So we feel that what were were able to bring to the market with Beyond Good & Evil last time will please more people this time. So the audience for this kind of game has also increased.
No, it will be more accessible than the first one. We hope that new customers will have the chance to get this new experience.
It's a big part of the business so really the goal there is if we want to expand we have to get into sports as well. We've picked up a guy who is really well known, and we think because of his age is capable of becoming a star in Europe. He's already a big name in the US.
The goal is to cover more fields. We bought Driver to be able to go into the racing business and we're starting with Shaun White in sports. For sure, we're trying to get more into the sports business. As we know there are already good competitors there so we have to come with something that is new.
Well, we can't answer that now. We look at the market and we know we have to be in many things, so who knows, maybe one day.
We are a little bit in the same situation as last time with the PS2 and the original Xbox. So for us the goal is to really do development for both at the same time. We consider the two machines as one. We deal with both manufacturers but really the goal is to make sure our games are taking advantage of each machine.
No, what we see is there is still very good sales and they grow. And on top of that you have the PS3 which is growing. So for us it was necessary to have enough units sold between the two machines because the cost of creating those products is increasing. We need both machines to be successful.
I'm not too sure of their tactics. I think Electronic Arts needs to grow and for sure they are looking at the same things we are looking at – to get good brands and good expertise. It's difficult for me to comment on the actions of another company.
I don't know. It will depend on what they do next and how the people at Take-Two react. With this, its better to wait and see.
We don't make our decisions based on what the other companies are doing. We take a decision by looking at the market and its potential.
We have a strategy to grow our internal studios and also buy. The first is increasing the size of the actual studios and creating new studios. For the creation of new studios either we start them from scratch or we buy other studios that are already creating games and we enhance their capacity. It will be a mixture of those two methods and of the 900 people we will recruit, 50 per cent will be for new studios and 50 per cent in our own studios.
The Japanese and Asian market is five per cent. Then we have 50 per cent in Europe and 45 per cent in the US.
Well, we're number three. It's also important to come back to the turnover you are creating because the turnover is the number of customers you can actually reach. And our customers are the guys deciding if we perform or not.
Yes, we can if we create good quality games. Really, the key is in creating games that will convince more people to buy them. A game can sell 10 or 15 million units when it's exceptional, and 10 or 15 million units is actually more than the profits of companies that are worth one or two billion dollars. Just one game can generate as much as one company.
That's why we have to concentrate on making sure that we continue to produce good quality titles. That's why we're talking about convergence and all those extra elements because to have quality you need multiple things. You need to be able to spend more time on the product than your competitors, you need to have the talent and you need to be able to invest to improve your product. So we are looking at what we can do to make sure we give our talented staff the energy and chance to win. Because when they win they go back and reinvest themselves in the games they create.
Yves Guillemot is chief executive officer of Ubisoft. Interview by Matt Martin.