When Ubisoft announced last week that its next "The Division" title, "Heartland," would be free-to-play, we wondered if it was a sign that the publisher would pursue the success Activision enjoyed with its free-to-play battle royale "Call of Duty: Warzone." We wondered if this might be a sign that Activision was looking to follow the success it enjoyed with the free-to-play battle royale Call of Duty: War Zone. But that ambition is not limited to Tom Clancy's shooters.

Ubisoft CFO Frederic Duguet said during today's earnings call that the company's previous commitment to release three to four "triple-A" premium games a year "no longer adequately represents [Ubisoft's] value creation drive. no longer adequately represents [Ubisoft's] value-creation engine," he said. Instead, while continuing to maintain "a high cadence of content distribution, including strong premium and free-to-play new releases," the goal is to grow its audience "by expanding our brand at the top of the funnel," in other words, by making the entry level free to encourage more people to try Ubisoft's games.

This is a financial decision, and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the company's revenues are "increasingly recurring": "However, Duguet said the company is not looking to cash in on low-budget titles.

"We believe we have a great opportunity to meaningfully expand the audience for our largest franchise," Duguet said. 'We've taken the time to learn from what we did last year at Hyperscape, and we're excited about the opportunity to expand that audience.' We're also learning from the launches we do at Roller Champion, and we're learning a lot from Brawlhalla, which is growing rapidly."

Duguet states.

Interesting acknowledgement to Hyperscape. In case you forgot, this free-to-play sci-fi battle royale launched last year (yes, it was released in 2020) and almost immediately fell off the map. But as games like "Call of Duty: Warzone" and "Apex Legends" have demonstrated, free-to-play games can be highly sophisticated and surprisingly lucrative. If Ubisoft continues this strategy with game series such as "Assassin's Creed," "Watch Dogs," "Far Cry," and "All About Tom Clancy," we may see even greater changes in the free-to-play scene.