Ubisoft won’t start a game unless it has franchise potential
Ubisoft has countless franchises at its disposal – Assassin’s Creed, Rayman, and Splinter Cell are just a few.
Watch_Dogs is one such IP that the publisher hopes can become a franchise of its own. That’s the approach Ubisoft took before giving it the green light.
Speaking with [a]list, Ubisoft’s senior vice president of sales and marketing Tony Key said that the company “won’t even start if we don’t think we can build a franchise out of it.” The comment came in response to [a]list asking if Ubisoft wants Watch_Dogs to be the foundation of a big franchise.
Absolutely. That’s what all our games are about; we won’t even start if we don’t think we can build a franchise out of it. There’s no more fire and forget – it’s too expensive.
We feel like we’re in a really good place with Watch_Dogs, but until we’re the biggest game of the year we’re not going to be satisfied.
Last year we cleaned up at E3 because we were pretty much the only next-gen game around. Watch_Dogs for us is really a franchise because we’re tapping into something people really care about, never more than when the NSA PRISM scandal broke.
