‘Bored gamers need fresh ideas’

The current downturn in the sales of boxed games has been caused by boring content and no innovation.

That’s according to Ubisoft’s Alain Corre, who says the market is desperate for new ideas – and if it doesn’t get it, spending on video games will continue to fall.

Currently, the UK games market is down 33 per cent year-on-year.

That’s over 130m lost as consumers refuse to buy the sequels and identikit games that have made it to market this year.

There have been too many ‘me too’ games in the business in the last few years,” said Alain Corre, EMEA MD.

After a while people will go ‘eh’ and move on. But give them something fresh and they’ll buy a console just for your game.

All the creators have to take risks. So I was pleased to see that after the E3 presentations, there are a lot of new things on show.”

With appearances in all the major press conferences, plus a headline-grabbing debut for its new IP Watch Dogs, Ubisoft was singled out by many as the star of E3.

And its strategy for offering fresh content has been praised from one of the most powerful people in video games – PlayStation president Andrew House.

Ubisoft has a genuine appetite for pursuing the new,” he told MCV.

Our philosophies meld on this point, where we are are trying to deliver innovation at all points in the lifecycle.”

Corre added: You need to be unique, original and to surprise people – take a risk on your products and gamers will take a risk on you. Then the market can start growing again.”