Ubisoft released a version of its hit video game Assassin ‘s Creed on Facebook on Thursday as part of a new digital strategy it calls companion gaming.
It looks a more joined-up concept than that of Electronic Arts, which was the first major publisher to bring a big franchise to Facebook with its Fifa Superstars soccer game in June.
Assassin’s Creed: Project Legacy on Facebook is a standalone game like the Fifa one, but it also has features that mean gameplay translates into benefits for players when they move on to its big brother, the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood on other platforms. Similarly, playing Brotherhood will earn rewards for the Facebook game.
Specifically, items collected in Project Legacy will unlock exclusive items in Brotherhood and finding landmarks will unlock rewards in both. In Brotherhood, assignments can be created and then completed in Project Legacy earning rewards in both games. Project Legacy also allows training of your guild members and gives some experience of Brotherhood, whetting players’ appetites for the new game.
“We hope to create a virtuous cycle between the Facebook game and the Brotherhood game, meaning that I don’t have to leave that game experience,” said Chris Early, vice president of digital publishing, at a press launch in San Francisco.
“The theory is that more and more of our brands will matter to you…because you will be creating carry-on value from your play and interaction in one type of game through to the main game or other games that relate to it.”
In another example of companion gaming, Ubisoft said it would launch a Facebook version of the CSI franchise later this year. The publisher has sold more than 5m units of the video game version of the crime-scene investigation TV drama worldwide.
In CSI: Crime City on Facebook, players will solve crimes created by the show’s writers. If they buy CSI: Fatal Conspiracy - the latest version of the core game due this autumn – they can unlock a position of elite investigator and get special lab items to aid their forensic attempts to solve the crime.
Forensic examination of this digital strategy tells me Ubisoft is innocent of trying to make money from virtual goods in Facebook, but guilty of trying to build brand loyalty with incentives and a persistent, interlinked gaming experience. They might just get away with it.
