Franchise fatigue? Ubisoft’s never heard of that, apparently. With Assassin’s Creed 3 on the way, Gamasutra sat down for an interview with Ubisoft North America executive director Laurent Detoc, in which he insisted that the idea that there can be too many sequels simply isn’t true. So does that mean we’ll see Assassin’s Creed 8, 9 and 10?
“I hope we will,” says Detoc. He goes on:
“I also hope we’ll be able to branch out from within the franchise. It’s very simple to me: There’s no such thing as not being able to annualize a franchise. If it’s good, people will come.”
I get that this guy is talking from a business standpoint. Obviously, a game studio head wants to crank out yearly sequels for a profit – but surely, everyone remembers what happened to some of Activision’s franchises recently, yes? People do get fatigued and move on from franchises. We’ve seen it time and time again.
It seems like some of these studios should worry more about how to offer something new and less about how to crank out the same thing every year. The reason some are excited about Assassin’s Creed 3 isn’t because they’re dying to see what happens to Desmond — it’s because the game finally represents a shot in the arm for the franchise, after several years of re-hashing some of the same ground.
What do you guys think? Is this WTF worthy? Or am I just overreacting? Call me crazy. Do it. Go!
Source – Gamasutra
This is why I haven’t played an AC since AC2. I simply do not care about Desmond, and Ubisoft hasn’t given me a reason to. And when they keep making more and more of these games, it makes Desmond less and less significant. And there’s only so much gameplay innovation they can have within the franchise, so that draw will go away at some point as well.
If the games were actually substantially different each year then he may have a chance to justify it, but they aren’t so he doesn’t. WTF indeed.
Isn’t this Ass Creed 5 already with the Vita game being 6?
I’m in the same boat as Drell, nothing since AC2 has got me to care about the franchise, and a yearly entry would do anything BUT bring be back to it, no matter what new combat / features they added. This is WTF worthy, the business side is ugly :(.
I’m sure there is a good reason why Ubisoft feels the need to kill a perfectly good idea, bring it back to life, and then kill it again.
To be honest, the last Assassin’s Creed I’ll probably get will be the Vita version and that’s only because I want to get a Vita.
In my opinion, this series died with Ezio.
Honestly, while this does provoke a half-hearted WTF from me, the writing on the wall has been clear for long enough that it’s not a shocker. I’m sure Ubisoft would love to have a Call of Duty-type reliable annual cash cow in their portfolio. I’d like to think that, on the economics side, that would actually give them breathing room to take chances on riskier new IPs as well, though I’m not sure I’ve seen actual precedent for that. But the bottom line is that, as long as they keep cranking out historical characters that are fleshed out, sympathetic, and interesting, with decently fluid gameplay, Desmond is, well, benign enough that I’m still in. I think the rub comes straight from Detoc’s own mouth – “if it’s good, people will come.” Odds on the franchise releasing “good” games annually through AC 10 are pretty terrible in my book.