PC passes PS4 to become Ubisoft's top revenue generator

Armenius

Armenius

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"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

PC net bookings led the way among Ubisoft's portfolio, according to their first quarter financial report for fiscal year 2019. Sales on the PC platform between the Uplay and Epic Games Stores accounted for 34% of Ubisoft's total share during the quarter, beating the PlayStation 4's share of 31%. This is a 10% increase year-on-year. While CEO Yves Guillemot gave credit to their partnership with Epic, he was clearly more optimistic about performance on their own platform's store. Much of the credit to the surge in PC game sales was attributed to the release of strategy game Anno 1800 and its expansions.

As reported by PC Gamer (archive):

Ubisoft reported higher-than-expected performance in its first-quarter financial report for FY2019-20, "led notably by Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Rainbow Six Siege, and Player Recurring Investment." Also notably leading the way, in terms of platforms, is the PC, which accounted for 34 percent of Ubisoft's net bookings for the quarter.

That figure is up from 24 percent over the same period last year, and puts it ahead of the PlayStation 4 (31 percent), Xbox One (18 percent), Nintendo Switch (5 percent), and mobile games (7 percent). Interestingly, while Ubisoft has had recent success with a number of its major multiplatform games, it attributed the PC surge primarily to the strength of the strategy game Anno 1800.

"The 34 percent was pushed by Anno, which is a PC-specific game, but even with that launch, we had a very good performance on PC overall," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during an investors call.

Anno 1800 is available on the Epic Games Store and not Steam, but CFO Frédérick Duguet cited its performance on Ubisoft's own Uplay Store as particularly noteworthy. "We did well with Anno 1800 on Epic, but the key point here is really that we continue to have very strong momentum on Uplay," he said.
 
CombatChrisNC said:
Perfect quote to start off with.

I want to know how much of that income was from in-game micro-transaction bullshit.
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PC Gamer didn't include a link to the report, so I'll have to find it unless someone else gets it first. I'll update the OP either way.
 
PC gamers cry when console get games first and then ported to PC because console makes companies more money.

PC gamers cry when companies makes more money on loot boxes to continue to develop games for PC instead of porting from console.
 
i remember a few years ago in watchdogs code having a comment saying
// for PC players, but who cares

or something of the sort. and also "97% of PC players are thieving pirates"

Nah fam.
 
DF-1 said:
i remember a few years ago in watchdogs code having a comment saying
// for PC players, but who cares

or something of the sort. and also "97% of PC players are thieving pirates"

Nah fam.
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Comments in a game’s code only represent the opinion of the person that put them there. There is a long history of hidden comments in game code.

The pirates comment was back in 2012, when they weren’t making a ton of money in PC releases. For whatever reason they believed not many people at that time bought PC games and had this insane notion that going F2P was the ideal way to get money from the platform. Seems like they’ve changed their minds since then.
 
legcramp said:
PC gamers cry when console get games first and then ported to PC because console makes companies more money.
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Umm, no.. PC gamers get ticked at lazy developers who do shitty port jobs. Typical result is poor game performance, and lack of options in customizing controls/graphics/etc, bugs.

legcramp said:
PC gamers cry when companies makes more money on loot boxes to continue to develop games for PC instead of porting from console.
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No one cares about that, as long as it isn't pay-to-win (which sucks regardless of the platform).
 
I suppose forcing their recent releases off of Steam probably helped with that. 12% on EGS and whatever the infrastructure costs on Uplay (should be less than EGS) are likely notably less than Steam. I assume EGS pushed many former Steam buyers onto Uplay because they already have their previous games on Uplay even if bought on Steam. Sounds like this strategy may have paid off.

Outside of that, I assume PC gamers in general spend more on gaming. It caters to a higher end demographic and therefore people have more disposable income, which likely translates into more micro transaction sales. And Ubisoft loves monetizing everything under the sun.
 
They are talking about net bookings, which is just total sold i believe. So the revenue split from epic had no effect on this stat that pushed them above ps4? I can only imagine they would have only sold more if they would have been on more clients.
 
legcramp said:
PC gamers cry when console get games first and then ported to PC because console makes companies more money.

PC gamers cry when companies makes more money on loot boxes to continue to develop games for PC instead of porting from console.
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1) [someone] is unhappy when he has to pay full price for [often a cheaper clone of what it could've been, often buggy]
2) [someone] is unhappy when confronted with unethical business practices


Yeah, sorry, if you can't agree with that and thing it's "crying", you were probably fine with Anthem and FO67 at release.
 
M76 said:
Let me fix that for you:
PC gamers cry over anti consumer things eroding player experience.

Nothing wrong with that. I'd see a problem if we just took everything quietly.
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I’d agree with you but I’m still laughing at the PC community for its response to Rockstar taking their time with the PC port.

PC gamers are just whiners. I didn’t say they didn’t have a reason sometimes.
 
Pc gamers want a masterpiece of a game with no bugs or patches or loot boxes. And want continual support and free updates/expansions. And then will wait for it to be on sale for $10 on steam before paying for it.
 
Darunion said:
Pc gamers want a masterpiece of a game with no bugs or patches or loot boxes. And want continual support and free updates/expansions. And then will wait for it to be on sale for $10 on steam before paying for it.
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As a PC gamer, I'm willing to pay for content. Charge appropriately for content be it for the first release or for expansions, cool. That's it really.
 
Darunion said:
Pc gamers want a masterpiece of a game with no bugs or patches or loot boxes. And want continual support and free updates/expansions. And then will wait for it to be on sale for $10 on steam before paying for it.
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Yeah, I don't know why aren't they happy with buggy unfinished games with shoehorned in battle royale mode and microtransactions, oh I mean "time savers".
 
Darunion said:
Pc gamers want a masterpiece of a game with no bugs or patches or loot boxes. And want continual support and free updates/expansions. And then will wait for it to be on sale for $10 on steam before paying for it.
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PC gamers *also* go out of their way to crowdfund games they want (with varying degrees of success...), often paying way more than they normally would for a game.

But really, what it boils down to is the expectations set by the developer/publisher from the get-go. The problems occur when they want to run their game as a service, charge up front, charge for cosmetics, charge for DLC, and allow pay-to-win elements all at once.

Overwatch is an interesting combination of these things: you pay up front to play, and you can pay extra to get cosmetics from lootboxes, but the game updates are "free" and the game is run as a service. The understanding is that the game will be supported because we paid up front and it's a service, and also because people are still feeding money into the system for cosmetics (even though they could also earn them through play). Continued support brings new players to the game and also keeps veterans playing/spending, which is why people that make statements like "don't complain about FREE updates" have completely missed the point and misread the relationship between player/developer.
 
Krazy925 said:
I’d agree with you but I’m still laughing at the PC community for its response to Rockstar taking their time with the PC port.

PC gamers are just whiners. I didn’t say they didn’t have a reason sometimes.
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You are just as bad as people that point to a couple assholes on social media and use that to condemn all gamers. Do not conflate the actions of a few morons with the millions of people that play PC games.
 
Derangel said:
You are just as bad as people that point to a couple assholes on social media and use that to condemn all gamers. Do not conflate the actions of a few morons with the millions of people that play PC games.
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I’m lazy or I’d tag you in the bitchfest that’s been every game that gets delayed for a PC release but I’m driving to the beach.

It’s a thing. We’re a whiny group. Again, sometimes it’s deserved sometimes it’s not.
 
Krazy925 said:
I’m lazy or I’d tag you in the bitchfest that’s been every game that gets delayed for a PC release but I’m driving to the beach.

It’s a thing. We’re a whiny group. Again, sometimes it’s deserved sometimes it’s not.
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Humans complain about things. It is in our nature. Its disingenious to claim one group is more "whiny" than any other group of people. People passionate about something act passionately about it. Sports, cars, video games, movies, books, whatever. If its a hobby you are passionate about you will have strong opinions and are likely to share them.
 
Derangel said:
Humans complain about things. It is in our nature. Its disingenious to claim one group is more "whiny" than any other group of people. People passionate about something act passionately about it. Sports, cars, video games, movies, books, whatever. If its a hobby you are passionate about you will have strong opinions and are likely to share them.
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Don't forget the most important aspect: people are more eager to share negative opinions on any subject than positive ones, especially when it comes to products and services. The vocal minority do not represent the silent majority.
 
Armenius said:
The vocal minority do not represent the silent majority.
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Well, I'd say many times it does. The silent majority might not care enough to voice their opinion but that doesn't mean they disagree with the complaints about bugs and lootboxes.

Except for the cases where the vocal minority came from outside the intended target audience. Like the people complaining about inclusion and political correctness and white male man bad. These types of complaints are not made by the actual consumers of the product.Whether we talk about movies or videogames.
 
Ubisoft. Isn't this the same group that were saying the pc market was responsible for piracy rates of what 95% or something like that.Seems things have changed.
 
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