Well UbiSoft hasn't officially said they will be ditching PC across the board, recent comments indicate that UbiSoft is distancing itself from porting titles to PC. Starting with I Am Alive and then Ghost Recon Future Soldier it would appear the days of UbiSoft porting titles to PC might be coming to an end. So why is UbiSoft ditching PC ports?

Ghost Recon producer Sébastien Arnoult "When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game," he claimed. "So we said okay, we have to change our mind." In essence UbiSoft is not ditching PC but they are going to change how they bring products to PC, no longer is it likely they will simply bring ports of their console games.

“We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, ‘Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.’”

He continued to justify UbiSoft's actions saying “We’re adapting the offer to the PC market. I don’t like to compare PC and Xbox boxed products because they have a model on that platform that is clearly meant to be €60’s worth of super-Hollywood content. On PC, we’re adapting our model to the demand.”

Stanislas Mettra, Creative Director on console-exclusive Ubisoft title I Am Alive said “Perhaps it will only take twelve guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it.”

So it would appear starting now UbiSoft is moving away from super-Hollywood content to free to play exclusive content found only on PC, made specifically to target the PC's market. Recently EA and Activision (In China) have also been embracing F2P games on PC, but both companies have continued to port titles. UbiSoft might be taking the lead by dropping ports altogether and instead giving PC gamers the free to play DRM free games that they obviously want.

Some analysts suspect that this latest move by UbiSoft indicates their whole DRM thing and all their controls to try and stop piracy have failed. Rather then continuing to fight the pirates , UbiSoft is actually giving them what they want, free to play games anyone can download and free of DRM.

The question is, is this a bright idea? Could this be marking the end of huge hollywood esq software in exchange for a mountain of F2P games? I mean AOE went that way, BattleField has a F2P it seems everyone is moving in that direction, is it the right direction? Do you think this is just a two time occurrence, is UbiSoft going to continue porting or is this the start of a complete change of how UbiSoft works in the PC industry?

Source (Please note what I said is not my opinion, this topic was not entirely based on the single source provided rather multiple sources, the source I provided contains the main interview referenced but not all of the material I used to create this topic. If you want more info on it, try Googeling and such as I cannot provide every source I used in reporting the UbiSoft opinions in this thread)

Good. The ports were either shite or encumbered with ridiculous DRM.

Before the usual fanboys start circling- Ubisoft have lost over $300 million over the last few years, during which they've consistently shat on the PC platform, to the extent of losing 90% of their sales on it, with no corresponding increase in console sales. I know correlation != causation, but forgive me if this sounds like yet another disastrous business decision from them.

Please edit your thread title.. misleading title or I'll ask for a lock

Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult says that free-to-play games are a response to piracy – and an alternative to the restrictive DRM that’s annoyed PC gamers in so many recent Ubisoft games.

“We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, ‘Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.’”

While Ghost Recon Online is exclusive to PC, Ubisoft’s other Ghost Recon game, Future Soldier, uses a traditional payment model and will only be available on console.

“We’re adapting the offer to the PC market. I don’t like to compare PC and Xbox boxed products because they have a model on that platform that is clearly meant to be €60’s worth of super-Hollywood content. On PC, we’re adapting our model to the demand.”

The perceived value of PC games is heavily affected by piracy, Arnoult says – both for players and publishers.

“When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind.

“We have to adapt, we have to embrace this instead of pushing it away. That’s the main reflection behind Ghost Recon Online and the choice we’ve made to go in this direction.”

It’s a different stance to that of Stanislas Mettra, Creative Director on console-exclusive Ubisoft title I Am Alive. In an interview with IncGamers, he questioned the value of porting games to the PC at all.

“Perhaps it will only take twelve guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it.”

Both agree that it’s a question of commercial viability, but the difference in approach is alarming. While it’s great to see the Ghost Recon team treating the PC as a distinct platform with its own needs, we’d like to see that attitude reflected by Ubisoft as a whole.

Ghost Recon Online closed beta is currently active in France and Germany, and is due in the UK in the next few months.

No NiKKom, he's a famous Juuuurnalist, leave him alone!

I can't really blame them.

Its not misleading at all, UbiSoft products dropping PC ports, these two games are UbiSoft products dropping PC ports and the indication of the thread topic is entirely about UbiSoft beginning to drop all PC ports. It is in no way misleading What I'm supposed to name both titles in the thread, then add on that it probably will continue with future Ubi releases, how large do you expect my title to be?

I'm sorry but it was in no way misleading an accurate title based on the info of the OP.

Again I laugh at Seece quoting the article I sourced, I'm sorry people but reading the source material won't get you the entire article or contents of my OP. I used multiple sources this time from talking with UbiSoft developers personally, email correspondence , Twitter as well as multiple articles including this one with the quotes. I am not about to track down every Tweet, quote every email and source every contact at UbiSoft. If you want to actually know what is being said, you'll just have to read the OP. But I must say it is pretty straight forward and you will get most of it from the interview.

Anyways its condescending for people to actually think I use one single source when creating threads or that the one source I place is going to cover the entirety of my topic.

Edit nevermind!

Wow thats bad lol, I'll have to edit that to say not my opinion. Obviously this whole thread is about the opinions which have been expressed by UbiSoft.