Assassin's Creed: Black Flag - Case Study



Ownership and Franchise

 

-Ubisoft Entertainment SA is a French video game company headquartered in Montreuil with several development studios across the world. It publishes games for several video game franchises, including Rayman, Raving Rabbids, Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, and the Tom Clancy's series. As of March 2018, Ubisoft is the fifth largest publicly traded game company in the Americas and Europe in terms of revenue and market capitalisation.

 

-The Assassin's Creed series is an award-winning video game series that currently consists of eleven main games, seventeen spin-off games, several short films and various transmedia projects. Each of the main games have spawned novelizations, adapting and adding to the story of their respective game.

- The entire franchise is developed primarily by Canadian studio Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, with the exception of Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles and the mobile version of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which were developed by Gameloft. 

-The series has made appearances on video game platforms such as Android, Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation series, Xbox and more. 

-The gameplay, while varying slightly from game to game, falls in the historic action-adventure genre, with heavy emphasis on stealth, combat and free-

running. 

 

About the game:

-Black Flag takes us back to the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy. After unknowingly killing an assassin traitor, pirate Edward Kenway dons his robes in an effort to take his place in an important meeting and reap the rewards. This leads him into the age-old Assassin vs Templar conflict where he must stop those he once thought allies before they enter an ancient Observatory that has the power to locate anyone on earth through the use of a Crystal Skull and blood vial. Successful in his efforts but unable to prevent the pirates' way of life from falling apart, he retires to London where he is seen living with two children, one of whom would become Connor Kenway's father from Assassin's Creed III.

 

 Maximising income 

-Ubisoft partnered with Sony to bring exclusive content to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions of the game, which will feature the protagonist of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Aveline de Grandpré, in three missions. The Aveline content, which was written by Liberation writer Jill Murray, picks up after the conclusion of her story in Liberation. The content is also available on the PC platform, through the Uplay Gold Edition.

 

-The relationships are mutually beneficial, as Ubisoft gains access to the channels’ massive online followings, while it affirmed extra legitimacy for both channels due to their association with such a prominent brand and top-tier video game franchise. The financial incentives provided by Ubisoft also allowed both channels to bolster their production values considerably, as evidenced by the fact Smosh’s video was shot on an authentic ship.

 

Production/ Distribution

-Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was released worldwide for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 29, 2013, while the Wii U was released on October 29, 2013 in North America, November 21, 2013 in Australia, November 22, 2013 in Europe and November 28, 2013 in Japan. The Wii U version in Europe was delayed from its original November 1, 2013 release date. It was announced on March 1, 2013 that the game will also come to the PlayStation 4, and on May 21 that it will release on the Xbox One. Both versions were launch titles, with the PlayStation 4 version releasing on November 15 and 29, 2013 in North America and Europe, respectively and November 22, 2013 worldwide for Xbox One.

 

Marketing and Advertising 

-They developed partnerships with YouTube channels Epic Rap Battles of History (14.7 million subscribers) and Smosh (25 million subscribers) to accomplish this objective. This You Tube channel uploads bi-monthly videos featuring famous historical and fictional characters engaging in a lyrical duel for rap supremacy. To promote Black Flag, the channel created a musical showdown between dastardly pirate king Blackbeard and infamous mob boss Al Capone. The video is preceded by a brief Black Flag title credit, and the rap battle itself contains numerous lyrical and visual references to the game’s content. Yet another Black Flag image appears in the credits as a clickable link under “Special Thanks.”

 

Maintaining and developing the audience 

-In early February 2013, during its quarterly financial call to investors, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that the next Assassin's Creed game, due for release some time before April 2014, would feature a new hero, time period, and development team. It announced the title of the game as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and featured an unnamed character holding a flintlock and a sword with a black flag in the back ground containing the Assassin's symbol with a skull. 

-Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game features three main cities; Havana, Kingston, and Nassau, which reside under Spanish, British, and pirate influence, respectively. A new aspect in the game is the Jackdaw, the ship that the player captains. The Jackdaw is upgradeable throughout the game, and is easily accessible to the player when needed. These upgrades require material plundered from other ships, a certain amount of reales, and for elite upgrades a blueprint for the upgrade which the player must find. In addition, a new underwater component has been added. Multiplayer also returns, with new settings and game modes, though it is only land-based.

 

 

 

Reception

-Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag received "generally favourable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic, with critics praising the open world gameplay, side-quests, graphics and naval combat. In November 2013, Hardcore Gamer ranked Black Flag as the 70th greatest game of the seventh generation era. During the first week of sales in the United Kingdom, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag became the best-selling game on all available formats, ahead of Battlefield 4. However, the game's opening week sales were 60% down compared to 2012's Assassin's Creed III. Ubisoft blamed the fall in demand on uncertainty caused by the upcoming transition to eighth generation consoles.

 

 

Regulation

-It’s rated 18 from PEGI, and it’s shown in the Ubisoft web page. (PETA), an animal rights organization criticized Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag for the usage of harpoons and "glorification" of whaling. The organization said it was disgraceful that the video game industry didn't condemn the addition. Ubisoft responded to the claims by saying that Assassin's Creed is based on history and is a "work of fiction which depicts real events during the Golden Era of Pirates". Ubisoft claimed they do not condone whaling, along with other mechanics and features in the series. 

-PETA has had a history of criticising video games, some of the notable cases being Mario and Pokémon. 

 

Text 

-Gameplay elements focus more on the ship-based exploration of the seamless open world map, while also retaining the series' third-person land-based exploration, melee combat, and stealth system. Multiplayer also returns, albeit with only land-based modes and settings. The game's setting spans the West Indies with the three main cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston, along with numerous islands, sunken ships, and forts. Players have the option to harpoon large sea animals and hunt land animals. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of an Assassin's Creed game, where Edward Kenway captains the Jackdaw, a brig he captures from a Spanish fleet in an early game mission.

 

-The main character of the game is Edward Kenway, a Welsh privateer-turned-pirate and eventual member of the Assassin Order.

 

-As is the case in previous games in the Assassin's Creed series, the story is divided into two intertwined halves, with one in the present day, one in a historical setting (1715), and the events of each influencing the other.

A notorious pirate and privateer operating during the Golden Age of Piracy, Kenway's story is set in the Caribbean, and mixes open-ended ship-based exploration with combat and land-based adventures in Cuba and Jamaica, and on a number of Caribbean islands, parts of southern Florida and eastern Mexico.

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