Guillemot: UPlay Community Features Will Help Ubisoft 'Get Closer To Our Customers'

Ubisoft's UPlay community features, designed to offer players of the publisher's games rewards the way a hotel or airline does, will make its debut alongside Assassin's Creed 2. "We are creating the equivalent of an Xbox Live system, but for Ubisoft games," said CEO Yves Guillemot at the BMO Capital Markets Digital Entertainment conference in New York yesterday. "The more you play, the more free goods you will be able to have." The features that launch alongside Assassin's Creed II are intended as the start of a broad community rewarding system, said Guillemot. "All our games will use this system, and that will allow us to get a lot closer to our customers." Guillemot said he believes Ubisoft can grow its marketshare with the help of such social initiatives, just one element to which the publisher is looking to help further its success. The company, whose close ties with film production are well known, also strongly believes in cross-media entertainment properties as a component in its plans to gain strength.