Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot spoke recently at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, and a brief bit was spent talking about the need to embrace the casual market. Ubisoft has even assembled a new research team internally to determine how they can make the most of the Wii’s and DS’s growing markets.
“We have to create games that will please these new non-gamers… My wife plays games: she’s happy to play [Wii] Tennis. It really changed the way the machine was perceived, even in my family.”
“We do five times more testing in this group, [hiring user interface specialists] so that we can understand faster what the needs are in creating these games, to understand the steps that make them happy to play. We will continue to make complex games, but also easy games. We are considering putting a monitoring program in games, so that if you fail, someone will come and help you. If you are stuck in a game, we will help you find solutions.”
That last bit is kinda creepy, but it’s nice to know that Ubisoft is putting in five times the research into making sure those casual games appeal to whole new audiences.
