Ubisoft recently unveiled something quite interesting—the Player Council.
This is a platform for co-creation with potential player communities, aimed at all games published by Ubisoft as well as willing third-party publishers. Creators can place part of their project information on the "Player Council" platform during the embryonic stage of a game—when there are only folders and ideas—and publicly recruit registered players for discussion.
If the community response is positive and the creators are committed to continuing, they can initiate development and then hand over small samples like internal beta demos to the player community for further testing.
The entire process will be constrained by multiple non-disclosure agreements and a player level system to prevent the leakage of early development information.
You might ask what the Player Level System is. Simply put, when players first join the "Player Council," they start as junior council members. Only by continuously participating in various project tests and providing sufficiently constructive suggestions can a player's council level increase. Higher-level players can access earlier and more confidential development information, and may even join developer discussion groups to communicate face-to-face with frontline developers.
In short, the "Player Council" will become the most direct bridge between the player community and developers.
Of course, I believe there is still a lot of information about this system that we need to explore thoroughly. Coincidentally, I attended a presentation by the "Player Council" project team at Gamescom and had the opportunity to have a good conversation with them afterward.
Below is the full interview transcript.
Q: How exactly does the "Player Council" operate?
A:The "Player Council" is a new platform we have created to bring development teams and players closer together. We hope to involve players in the early stages of game development to provide feedback. It is worth noting that this early stage is earlier than the "Early Access" model; some game projects may only have rough concepts and drafts, or may not even be fully formed yet.
It's possible that the production team only has a name, and then the "Player Council" will bring in interested players to deeply participate in the core aspects of the project.
The "Player Council" had its soft launch on August 26, and there are currently four games on the platform. Two of them are officially launched titles, including Atomega and Riders Republic. Additionally, there are two prototype projects on the platform: one is Codename: Rook, a single-player strategy game that requires players to deliberate carefully and adapt flexibly. The other is Codename: Split Point, a fast-paced 1v1 tactical confrontation game where players must choose actions to counter their opponents under time pressure in short matches.
These two games are in a very early prototype stage and cannot yet be considered complete games. However, the development teams firmly believe that player feedback is needed to ensure the core gameplay loop is fun. At the same time, they are collecting player ideas to understand what features and gameplay experiences players want when the game is expanded and improved in the future.
So, both of these games are on the "Player Council."
More accurately, we view this platform as a channel to bring all parties closer together. On one hand, it involves deep participation from the player community; on the other, it serves to supplement our existing game quality testing methods—such as Quality Assurance (QA) and user research.
We have always placed great importance on this work, and now with this new community-involved development platform, we can push these efforts to new heights.
So, essentially, it's not just us making games unilaterally; rather, development teams can create better games with community support from the early stages of a project. We will share risks with the development teams and share many aspects of the game's early prototypes, engines, and other related content with all "Player Councilors."
Ultimately, the "Player Council" aims to ensure that the games we produce are interesting enough.
Q: So, what is the difference between the "early game prototypes" you mentioned and things like playable demos that occasionally appear on Steam?
A:The key point is that the prototypes we refer to here are in an extremely early stage, very early. So, what you might see is just a concept, or perhaps a rudimentary red-box prototype version. We hope that each development team will use this platform according to their own needs and collaborate with the community.
We hope to see the community and the production team discuss physics effects, camera angles, controls, shooting mechanics, or overall gameplay together.
Afterward, we will progress step by step according to the different life cycle stages of the project—this will inevitably bring changes in the needs of both players and the production team, but we will refine and improve as we go.
Steam demo versions are usually released when game development is nearing completion. Many games reach about 70% completion by the time they enter "Early Access," with subsequent development mainly focused on adding content.
Our platform intervenes from the very beginning of a project. When a production team puts a game on this platform, they learn from players which designs are feasible and which are not. Then, combined with the professional experience of the game development team, adjustments are made.
However, in some cases, based on the information collected, the best course of action for a project might be to put it on hold and try a different direction. Therefore, not every game that appears on this platform will necessarily be officially released.
Q: It sounds like the player community's role here is essentially very early-stage Quality Assurance (QA)?
A:Quality Assurance mostly deals with bugs, whereas the starting point of our platform is—we have an idea, do people like this idea?
The true significance of the "Player Council" is for everyone to participate and engage in creative collaboration around the game itself. Together, we help the production team iterate on game concepts, gameplay feel, and similar aspects. Bugs are not the focus of this process. What we really want to know is what content resonates with players and how to satisfy their interests.
After players provide specific feedback, the development team may not follow it exactly but will dig deeper into the underlying reasons to understand what was missing from the gameplay experience. Then, designers must use their professional expertise to identify the core issues. The final solution provided may differ from the requests made by the community.
But the key point is that the team will continue to iterate and submit new versions to the community to gather another round of feedback. Then, the community always has the opportunity to help the team adjust direction during the development process.
It's also worth noting that we will continue to improve this platform. The platform just launched yesterday, and we are still exploring and growing ourselves. If the platform does not meet community expectations, we will work together with everyone to address the issues.
Q: How much weight is given to community feedback?
A:This is purely a matter of collaboration—it requires coordination between the production team and the players. We do not want to strip the development team of their leadership; they are professionals, but ultimately, it is the players who play the game. Therefore, the weight given to feedback depends on the project itself and its current stage of development. For games in earlier stages of development, player opinions may carry more weight in certain tests.
For games in the later stages of development, there is less room for major changes. Therefore, our idea is to let the community continuously help the development team refine their ideas as development progresses. Ultimately, it all depends on the specific circumstances of each development team.
Q: Will older games that have been operating for years or even decades, such as Rainbow Six Siege, be included in the "Player Council"?
A:The "Player Council" is open to games at any stage of development, including those already released and those undergoing post-launch live operations. In fact, there are already two officially launched and operating games on the "Player Council"—
Atomega has been out for several years, but the team is currently working on version updates, so they are leveraging the community to iterate on relevant designs.
The same applies to Riders Republic, which has been online for many years and is now planning to test new features and seasonal content. Previously, they relied on test servers, but now they have integrated the entire process into this platform, allowing for more standardized, bidirectional, and in-depth communication between the community and the team to help continuously optimize the live game.
Therefore, the platform includes both prototype projects and mature projects—or rather, games at all stages of development can be integrated. Whether to join the platform is entirely up to each development team to decide. If suitable, it will be opened up for player experience.
At the same time, we will reward players who make effective contributions. The "Player Council" itself has a recognition mechanism designed to identify users who truly make high-quality contributions—such as feedback recognized by other players or ideas proposed by players that are adopted and implemented by the development team.
As players continue to make high-quality contributions, their level will steadily increase. The higher the level, the more confidential projects and content in sensitive development stages they can access.
Q: Will the rewards players receive include in-game items for the corresponding game?
A:This decision is left to each individual development team. Some games may prepare extra perks to reward contributing players. But I think the greatest reward of this entire process might ultimately be receiving a high-quality game that you have invested your heart into and truly love.
Q: Which languages does the "Player Council" platform support?
A:The platform is currently in a soft launch phase, so it primarily supports English. This ensures that the majority of development teams can directly read feedback and interact with players. As mentioned earlier, this is a brand-new channel, a new channel specifically for developers.
We have received a lot of relevant feedback in various forms. I am responsible for the community section, and this new channel is built upon the feedback loop that has been running for many years. You could say we just want to provide everyone with a more convenient tool.
However, some games listed on platforms are released in different regions. If it is reasonable for a game to support the local language of a corresponding region, we certainly will not restrict it.
Q: Will the "Player Council" be limited to a single platform?
A:In fact, we do not forcibly limit the distribution platform for games. Of the four games currently on the platform, two are on Steam, and the remaining two are on Ubisoft Connect. As the website develops, it may support more platforms in the future.
Players can browse all available games on the website, and upon finding a game of interest, they can click to register, sign a non-disclosure agreement, and become testers for that game. Once testing begins and applications are approved, players will receive an email informing them of how to participate. They may receive a Steam activation code or gain access directly through Ubisoft Connect.
Then, when testing reaches a certain stage, we will send out surveys to collect gameplay impressions. Throughout the testing process, players can enter community sections to communicate with each other and directly with the present development team. The platform has project-specific forums where players can post freely. The development team will post updates explaining the work being done and the development decisions made.
At that time, there will be dedicated sections to collect player ideas, where other players can like and vote on them. Developers can reply, for example, "We are working on this suggestion." Once completed, they can also inform everyone, "Hey, this content is ready, go check it out." Then, players can start the next round of experiences and continue to provide more feedback.
Overall, it is such a continuously advancing dialogue process.
Q: It sounds like there's a high risk of leaks.
A:Yes, the risk of leaks objectively exists, and we will certainly do our best to mitigate it. We will implement various reminders and other measures on the platform. But the reality is that if we want to obtain this early feedback, we must establish this kind of testing collaboration relationship with players. If we were only doing balance testing for late-stage versions, the positioning of this platform would be completely different.
We hope players still have the chance to question and propose ideas while the project is still adjustable. Therefore, we need very early player input, which is why we chose to open up at such an early stage of the project. We sincerely hope to build a dialogue channel between development teams and players.
Therefore, despite the large number of participants and the inherent difficulty of the task, we will still proceed because it is highly significant.
Q: So, does this mainly rely on mutual trust?
A:We built this platform for players, so we must choose to trust. Moreover, trust is bidirectional. Players trust the community, and the community trusts that the development team is willing to listen to player opinions and create high-quality games worth players' time. This is also why the level system was established. Only players who make effective contributions and demonstrate reliability and trustworthiness can advance to higher levels. Top-secret content is only open for discussion to high-level players.
Players with lower levels can only see announced games, live games, version updates, and similar content. The higher the level, the earlier the prototypes and unannounced games they can view.
This specification is still in its infancy; we don't even have a runnable concept plan yet.
Q: Is this platform only used for Ubisoft's own published projects? Will other publishers or independent developers join in the future?
A:The platform accepts all projects published by Ubisoft, including those developed in cooperation with third parties.