Ubisoft's Alain Corre - Part Two

No, it doesn't - and very often in our industry, when you test a product, you know that in the last few weeks of polishing you can add so much in terms of gameplay and feeling, sometimes even 6-8 weeks can completely change the perception of the game.

But when you have to release on time with a movie, then you have to stop at some point the creation, and off you go.

Well, actually we're organising ourselves towards that strategy - providing you can create something innovative every year that can surprise the end user and please your gamers. Then you can consider releasing a SKU every 12-18 months - but it needs to be different enough from the previous SKU to make sure you're not tiring the franchise or the consumers.

The Call of Duty example is the best around - they've been able over the past five years to iterate every year with growing success each time. They never compromise on quality, which is exactly what we're trying to do with our brands now.

For next year we have announced a few weeks ago that we've got a new Assassin's Creed game - the next iteration that will surprise everybody - and we believe that will be a big success as well. We need to put enough energy and talent into each new game, so it can become better than the previous one.

It's more and more important to be able to connect directly with your consumers. It's important to know what they like and what they don't like in your games - those conversations can help you to improve future games, but also it's an excellent means for us to deliver to them some extra services, whether that's tips, extra content, rewards, or any kind of element that can extend the pleasure in the games they're playing.

Being able to exchange with them regularly will make them part of the family, part of the creation of the iterations and next games - which I think is essential for us and for them.

I think we're different to something like Facebook, which is more of a hub for communicating to lots of people about everything. What we're trying to do really is something like a VIP club on each of our games, to bring together all of the people who enjoyed a certain experience, and to be able to share with them what they like - and give them more of it.

So it's dedicated to our gamers, and I think at the end of the day we'll be much richer for them. To that extent it's very different from Facebook.