Ubisoft CEO claims 93-95% piracy rate on their PC products
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has stated the percentage of paying players for its PC retail products and its free-to-play content is approximately the same. Speaking to GamesIndustry at Gamescom, Guillemot noted that only about five to seven percent of freemium players buy into content, which he said is the same as its retail PC product because they have a "93-95 percent piracy rate."
Guillemot also said that free-to-play games are normally cheaper to produce and distribute, since they use existing assets and avoid boxed distribution costs, but the product still needs to fit the audience.
"We also take content which we've developed in the past, graphics etc, and we can make cheaper games and improve them over time," he said. "What's very important is that we change the content and make it a better fit to the customer as time goes on."
Ubisoft has become notorious for staggered releases between its console and PC launches, along with blatantly lying about the topic of PC delays – and let's not even discuss the draconian DRM headaches.
