Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot weighed in on Microsoft’s bid to purchase Activision Blizzard by saying that it would be good for the mobile gaming market. The impact on the mobile gaming market has been one of several details under examination by regulators around the world as the deal works its way to completion. Guillemot expressed positive sentiment for it as Ubisoft has already been proceeding with its own partnerships to expand into the mobile gaming industry.
It was during Ubisoft’s latest earning call that Guillemot was asked if the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard deal might become a catalyst for increased activity in the mobile market by Microsoft and what he thought about that possibility.
Per Ubisoft (via VGC):
“I think it’s good news that the transaction can go through because it’s really showing the power of IPs and where the industry is going. So, there will be lots of opportunities too in the future for all the companies,” he replied.
“And It’s also showing the value of IPs that can now be on console and PC, but also mobile, and become more worldwide brands, and when we say worldwide it’s really everywhere in the world, and that’s a fantastic opportunity.
“And Microsoft is saying that the mobile part of the Activision deal is important,” Guillemot continued, “so all the investment we are making to be stronger on mobile are also in line with that, so all those elements will help the value of the company to grow.”
This statement from the Ubisoft CEO comes as the company also praised its partnership deal with Tencent subsidiary Level Infinite. It is through that deal that Ubisoft will be releasing a new Assassin’s Creed game for mobile devices which will be published by Level Infinite. Ubisoft clearly has a significant interest in further expanding its presence in the mobile gaming industry.
Discussion (9 replies)
Join Discussion →I have to agree entirely.
Microsoft will almost certainly run King into the ground, opening up the market for other players.
Exactly, they will infuse every aspect of Activision/ Blizzard with that hard to define yet easy to recognize corporate beige MS seems to spread everywhere. I don't know what it is, is kind of like when they are eating the strawberries in that weird movie Vivarium. Doesn't mean I totally avoid everything MS, but I agree, in the end they might have the IP, they may or may not keep the key people, or may or may not constrain them to oblivion if the manage to keep them.
Ms might find a path to legitimize mobile gaming with the PC gamer crowd through useful crossover.
No gamer is interested in mobile gaming. That's the playing field of casuals, an entirely separate market. They want to focus on that fine, but don't come crawling back to us if it fails.
there are things they can do via the mobile app that will work for us filthy non casual gamers. Hell FFXIV is doing it already and Blizzard has done similar before.
1. Offer us some sort of in game boon (even stupid and for otherwise single player is fine.) to use the mobile app while away. Let us send out minions to do our bidding in trade or whatever. Basically even in a scifi universe they gould give us tradewars as a phone game integrated into the Game.
If you're old enough to remember the BBS turn based Trade Wars you'll know what I'm talking about.
Hell a LOT of those old BBS games could work well as an online game with a mobile face on it. It was a BBS gamer something Dragon Inn is another. I know there is a board game Red Dragon Inn but I'm not sure if that's it.
Having to engage with a game when I'm not actually playing it sounds like work to me.
And they'd make it mandatory to force you to install their app. After all you can collect much more information over a phone about a person.
They are no longer trying to make games more fun to get you to play them more, they are looking for ploys to drive up engagement even at the detriment to the experience. Like nerfing progress, to make you grind. This is also why we get things like daily login bonuses and such nonsense. As soon as you start a game for any other reason than you wanted to play that game becomes work instead of leisure.
Oh I agree to this 100% My wife plays a bunch of those on her tablet. "I gotta do my xxx actions in these games."
The best thing that could happen to the mobile gaming industry?
? Whoosh!
Many would hate me, but I'd include the Games as a Service (GaaS) industry as well. Remember to flush twice. Whoosh! We can make an exception for the handful of honest games that might exist.
Install our mobile app and "like" us on to redeem your "free" DLC for . No. ?
Keep that filthy mobile crap away from my single-player games, and I won't flush your MMOs down the toilet. ;)
Yeah, it really is a shame that the mobile gaming market is such crap and so sketchy to boot. I use Android tablets for portable media playback and will occasionally try out a game here and there and I'm impressed at how good the graphics can look these days. Sort of PS3-4/DX10-early DX11 era. I know there's more to it than that, just using it as a reference. I've tried a couple of RPGs, racing, and pinball games and was impressed with what they were but I never got too far into them.