When it comes to the games industry, a lot of strategies and fancy terms for these plans are thrown around the veritable phase space. One such word that we constantly hear about is the idea of a "10-year plan," wherein a company or development studio promises to support their product over the next decade. While any one game in particular will rarely see support for ten years unless it is a massively-multiplayer title, certain franchises will definitely live on and make use of these plans. Examples of this 10-year plan can be seen in Sony's Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 consoles, as well as Halo creator Bungie's initiative to make their upcoming title Destiny follow suit.
The latest in this lineage comes as Ubisoft's Watch Dogs. The hacking-centric title will release later this year on November 13 for current-generation consoles and will presumably coincide with the release of next-generation consoles. In an interview with The Guardian, Ubisoft had this to stay concerning their very own 10-year plan:
"Honestly that’s what we’re doing too. Here’s the way we think about it: even if we change our minds mid-course or after shipping Watch Dogs and say ‘scratch that, we’ll do something else’, the planning helps to make a strong core. We’ve all seen TV series where after a season there are a lot of mysteries; then at the start of season two you think, they didn’t know what was going to happen – they’re just stringing us along! You feel it! And it’s the same with games. If there’s a clear long-term plan, you’ll have stronger characters, the universe will be more coherent. So when you have the luxury of creating a new brand – which is happening less and less in this industry, you need to do just that. We’ve been doing the same thing Bungie has been doing – we’re trying to see how our characters and world will evolve. That’s always in the back of our heads."
While it's doubtful that Watch Dogs will be the sole beneficiary of this plan, Ubisoft is obviously very confident in their new IP's ability to garner success. The critical reception of the game thus far – though unreleased – has been more than phenomenal, which leads us to believe that they may be right on the very, very real money.
