Ubisoft surprised everyone out of left field at E3 a couple of months ago when it re-announced Beyond Good & Evil 2, a long-awaited sequel to its cult classic. But for those thinking that the publisher is concerned about the success of the game, that’s not entirely the case.
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Yves Guillemot, CEO for Ubisoft, recently spoke to GamesIndustry International about the forthcoming sequel, as well as the expectation behind it.
“I don’t think there’s a risk there. Well, there’s always a risk when we create games, but I don’t think there’s as much risk because [Director Michel Ancel] has been through so many projects. The first Beyond Good & Evil was very good, Michel did what he wanted and what we thought would be the best for the players. But there’s one thing we didn’t look at: exactly how many players were interested at the time by female characters, science fiction world, and so on,” he explained.
“It seems bizarre to say, but at the time we had lots of men playing games and they wanted specific types of games. All the women that saw Beyond Good & Evil loved it, and it was a huge surprise. And lots of people wanted something different, and they loved it. It was a big surprise because normally market analysis would have told you not to do it. It didn’t sell as many [copies] because it didn’t respond to the majority, but the minority loved it so much it created something different.
“Now, because we’ve been doing more games, Michel will continue to take risk – as you could see – but he has more information and is automatically responding a lot more to the majority of the players. And the market has evolved. It’s a lot more open than it was at the time.”
Guillemot also noted that Beyond Good & Evil served another purpose, as “it helped the company bring Peter Jackson on board for King Kong, it helped to change the company image and to recruit lots of talent…so it’s not about the short-term profitability, you also have to look at what in general a creation will bring to the company.”
So, see, it’s not always about a game being profitable, but beneficial.
A release date hasn’t been announced for Beyond Good & Evil 2, but we should have more details soon.
