Ubisoft Wants to Resolve Some Issues First
Ubisoft has been openly talking about making Rainbow Six Siege a free to play game in the near future. While this might seem counter-intuitive to success, there are plenty of games that have made that transition who are thriving. The most notable among the hardcore FPS genre would have to be Counter-Strike GO. CS made the switch from pay only to free not that long ago, and since the change, their numbers have remained steady and even broken records. Taking notes from the competition, it seems as though Ubisoft would like to move the same direction but they need to deal with Smurfs first.
Game director Leroy Athanassoff said to PC Gamer in an interview, “It’s a company decision. I think on the development team we want that at some point. We want the game to be accessible to everyone.” At first glance, it looks like there is some support to make Rainbow Six Siege free to play, but they said that they need to eradicate smurfing in order to move forward. This would mean creating a much more comprehensive and in-depth ranking system that would stop players from stomping on people, they have not business playing.
The issue of players creating new accounts in order to play against less skilled opponents is a problem in most competitive games. Smurfing is a big problem in Counter-Strike for example. It is not uncommon for you to face off against someone who is lightyears better than you, even though you both have the same rank on paper. “You need certain features ready to be a good and successful free-to-play game,” Athanassoff added.
Hopefully, Ubisoft is able to find a solution to this problem.
Rainbow Six Siege is available for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.