Ghost Recon: Future Soldier PC shelved for free-to-play offering
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier PC is dead; Long live Ghost Recon Online.
Ubisoft will not be releasing a PC port of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, preferring to offer the free-to-play game Ghost Recon Online.
"When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Soldier; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game," Ghost Recon Online producer Sébastien Arnoult told PC Gamer.
"So we said okay, we have to change our mind. We have to adapt, we have to embrace this instead of pushing it away. That’s the main reflection behind Ghost Recon Online and the choice we’ve made to go in this direction.”
Arnoult said Ghost Recon Online is a way of adapting the Ghost Recon: Future Soldier "offer" to the PC market, which he feels varies significantly from that of consoles.
"I don’t like to compare PC and Xbox boxed products because they have a model on that platform that is clearly meant to be €60’s worth of super-Hollywood content," he said.
“We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, ‘Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.’”
Regarding the change of plans, Ubisoft told Eurogamer it had in fact never confirmed a PC version of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which the site has called shenanigans on based on the initial 2010 announcement and a dedicated PC forum for the game.
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is due on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in March 2012, while Ghost Recon Online is in European beta and expected to reach other territories this month.
In recent years Ubisoft has been embroiled in an ongoing, public war against PC piracy, implementing, revoking and reinstating several unpopular DRM systems. Its latest PR nightmare arose from some misconstrued comments from I Am Alive director Stanislas Mettra.
Thanks, That VideoGame Blog.