Ubi hail "Call of Duty example", title franchise every "12-18 months"

Publisher Ubisoft admire what rival Activision has pulled off with the Call of Duty franchise, and now they plan to do the same with their IP.

As long as you can ”create something innovative” annually, that can surprise and ”please your gamers,” a new title every 12-18 months is fine.

”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,” said Ubisoft’s Alain Corre in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

”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.” Acti have struck it just right with Infinity and Treyarch working to bring their own visions to Call of Duty, and Ubi wants some of that magic.

”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.”

Corre did admit that working with strict deadlines like those of movie releases are to blame for lacklustre receptions, like the James Cameron’s Avatar game.

”It was true that we were also hoping to create a better experience, I’d say, in terms of gaming - but it’s not always easy when you have to follow the rules of a studio,” he said. ”When you have guidelines and so on, it’s more rigid in terms of creation than what you can do with your own property.” It was panned with an average of 60 on metacritic.

Within a year a new Assassin’s Creed game will launch, starring ACII’s Ezio again with multiplayer promised for would-be rooftop stalkers. Can Ubisoft pull off quality annual releases from their big name franchises?

It’s taken too long by their own admission for Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and Prince of Persia to get up and running again.