Ubisoft uses a wide variety of channels to constantly gather feedback from players. In addition to helping us stay in tune with fans and address any issues they may be having, this feedback helps us innovate new ways to connect with players. Read on to learn more about a new initiative inspired by our community in this Q&A with director of community, Chris Norris.
What would you say is one of the most common things that you're seeing or hearing in player feedback?
Chris Norris: One of the most common things that we see across our games is the power of players assisting other players. To help with that, we're launching a new online tool, called Gameplan. Gameplan is a dynamic website, unique to each of our game brands, that includes hundreds of community-created videos selected by our internal team to assist in game progression across a wide array of topics, including how best to play a particular map, which playable character best suits your play style, how to progress past a particularly tricky boss, and more.
How did this project come about?
CN: Our communities create an amazing amount of high-quality content, and a lot of it is very useful for our players. However, we know that it's sometimes difficult for players searching for help with our games to find the right content quickly. With that in mind, we want to assist newcomers to our games, and help more experienced players find advanced tips and tricks.
How does the content filtering process work? How will we be able to make sure that people are seeing the right kinds of content?
CN: Our content team manually curates the content based on what we think is the most useful to our communities. The team also has a good sense of which missions are particularly difficult, where players tend to get stuck, and what tips and tricks might prove useful, so we are in a good spot to highlight the most helpful content available. To give an example from Far Cry 5, our internal Playtest team identified the Guns for Hire feature as one that was causing some initial confusion. To assist with onboarding and education, we created a video series to highlight how Guns for Hire can really help players out, including details on the unique strengths of the companion characters, and tips for how to use each one strategically.
Will you work with content creators in the community to make Gameplan-specific content?
CN: Our community advocates and Star Players have created some amazing videos, walkthroughs, wikis, fan art, and plenty of other content. We will continue to partner with those fans and showcase their work. For Assassin's Creed, for example, we're lucky to have some pretty prolific content creators, such as JorRaptor's tips and tricks guides, MrEdxwx‘s walkthroughs, and Fizhy's breakdown videos. Rainbow Six Siege also features some excellent creators, including Macie Jay's Full Game Friday series and Get_Flanked's tips videos. We are always on the lookout for new content creators, and are extremely excited to see what people create.
How many games will Gameplan cover at the start? Is there going to be a testing phase that's open to the public?
CN: We have already launched Gameplan pages for Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon Wildlands. We'll add additional Gameplan pages in the future, and we'll be keeping a close eye on how players use the content to their advantage. We will also solicit feedback from our community to help evolve Gameplan for the ongoing benefit of our players.
Is it compatible with Sam, Ubisoft's personal digital assistant?
CN: Absolutely. A selection of the content that has been curated will also live within Sam, so players can either access it from desktop or mobile.
How do you see Gameplan growing? Are there plans to have it expand into different types of content?
CN: While we are currently launching with videos, we expect Gameplan content to expand into a number of different formats. We also want to ensure that players can access the content in their preferred format, whether video or static, on mobile, desktop, or console. In reality, this is only the beginning!
How will Gameplan help amplify other parts of the Ubisoft community?
CN: Our Community team focuses on building meaningful relationships with our players, across our portfolio of games. A number of our game sites, such as Beyond Good and Evil 2, feature a Community Spotlight section, where we highlight a number of our most dedicated fans. Assassin's Creed includes Community's Finest, in which we feature fan art, cosplay, and fan videos on a monthly basis. In the case of Trials Rising, the development team has partnered with one of our community members and content creators, Brad Hill, to assist in creating training videos in the game itself. Gameplan is a way for us to highlight great content for a variety of Ubisoft games from some of our most ardent and dedicated fans, and curate that content for our players to ultimately improve their gameplay experience.
