Ubisoft defends £50 price tag for “quadruple-A” live service game ‘Skull & Bones’
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has been forced to defend how much the studio is charging players for its new live service game Skull & Bones.
Live service games are typically released for a lower price than standard AAA games because the narrative isn’t finished with players needing to access future upgrades and expansions, often at an additional cost.
However, Skull & Bones has been priced at the upper end of what games usually cost. In North America, it’s launching for $70 while UK players will be able to purchase the standard edition for £50. The premium edition, featuring 2 extra missions and a premium bonus pack, will set you back £75.
Ubisoft has already confirmed the first year of Skull & Bones will be split into four chapters, each featuring unique rewards, raid battles and limited-time events, while two quality of life updates are already scheduled for the second half of the year. Despite this list of content still to come, Guillemot has defended the price of Skull & Bones.
Speaking during the Q&A section of a Ubisoft earnings call, Guillemot was asked why the company was charging $70 for the game and potentially limiting the size of the playerbase, when a free-to-play approach might build a stronger, more engaged community (via VGC).
“You will see that Skull & Bones is a fully-fledged game,” he said in response. “It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run.”
Skull & Bones was first announced as a spiritual spin-off to the naval battle gameplay found in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and was due for release in 2017 but was reportedly rebooted as a live service game in 2020. It finally releases February 16 for PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S.
In other news, Escape From Tarkov is set to introduce microtransactions with the new 0.14.1.0 update.
The post Ubisoft defends £50 price tag for “quadruple-A” live service game ‘Skull & Bones’ appeared first on NME.
Ali Shutler
NME
