Bridging Academia and Industry: EDHEC Students Tackle Player Retention with Ubisoft

At EDHEC Business School, experiential learning lies at the heart of its MSc in Marketing Analytics. Through a longstanding partnership with global gaming leader Ubisoft, students are offered a unique opportunity to confront real-world business challenges while applying cutting-edge academic knowledge. Over the past four years, this collaboration has enabled students to work on complex industry issues, culminating in presentations before a panel of academic and corporate experts.

This year’s challenge focused on a critical issue in the gaming industry: player retention. As gaming habits evolve and competition intensifies, understanding why players remain loyal—or disengage—has become a strategic priority for companies like Ubisoft. The project tested students’ analytical capabilities while strengthening their ability to translate insights into actionable recommendations.

A Real-World Challenge with Strategic Impact

The partnership between EDHEC and Ubisoft is built on a simple yet powerful premise: students work on genuine business problems faced by the company. As Etienne Denis, Director of the MSc in Marketing Analytics, explains: “The idea is that the students work on a research question or problematic that actually is relevant for the company.”

Each year, Ubisoft presents a new challenge at the beginning of the academic term. Students, organised into teams, spend several months analysing the issue, leveraging both theoretical frameworks and data-driven methodologies. The process culminates in a formal presentation delivered to a jury composed of EDHEC faculty and Ubisoft professionals. This immersive approach places students in direct contact with real industry expectations and practices.

Understanding Player Retention in the Gaming Industry

The 2025 challenge centred on player retention, a topic of major importance in the video game sector. With players frequently switching between games or pausing their activity, companies continuously refine their strategies to maintain engagement.

Etienne Denis highlights the stakes: “We know that players switch from one game to another. Sometimes they stop playing. And of course, for companies and for gaming leaders like Ubisoft, this is a huge question that they need to understand better.”

Students explored the drivers of player engagement and developed data-informed strategies to enhance retention. The project combined technical expertise with a nuanced understanding of consumer behaviour in a highly dynamic digital environment.

A Multidisciplinary Learning Experience

The project draws on two core components of the MSc curriculum: advanced consumer psychology and marketing analytics modelling. This dual approach equips students with both qualitative and quantitative tools.

On one hand, consumer psychology enables students to develop a deep understanding of player motivations, preferences, and behavioural patterns. On the other, advanced modelling techniques allow them to analyse complex datasets and generate predictive insights.

As Etienne Denis explains, “They have a deep understanding of the consumer and then a course of models in marketing, when they get to learn about data analysis and modernisation.”

This integration reflects the evolving demands of marketing roles, where data-driven decision-making aligns with a strong understanding of human behaviour.  

Collaboration Across Cultures and Perspectives

A defining feature of the MSc in Marketing Analytics is its international cohort. This diversity enriches the learning experience and strengthens collaboration.

Student Andréa Szpoper reflects on this aspect: “As we are all different nationalities, it is more difficult to understand each other. It was a really great project to work on our communication skills and how to listen to everyone's.”

The Ubisoft challenge encourages students to strengthen communication, develop active listening skills, and build effective teamwork across cultures—competencies that hold strong value in global organisations.

Diverse Approaches to a Shared Problem

Although all teams worked on the same overarching challenge, the diversity of approaches was striking. According to Coline Raynaud, Ubisoft Campus Manager: “Each group has the same problematic and the same topic to work on, but it shows really different ways to work on it, different perspectives.”

This variety highlights the creativity and analytical depth of the students while offering Ubisoft a broad range of insights.

Raynaud adds that the project supports ownership and initiative: “It allows students to choose an angle to take the problematic, and to really make the challenge theirs.”

From Data to Actionable Insights

One of the key challenges for students was navigating complex datasets and identifying meaningful insights. As Emma Léonard, student of the MSc in Marketing Analytics, notes: “The main difficulties were to really understand that type of data and which type of insights we will collect, and how we could really find relevant recommendations.”

Students translated data into strategic recommendations and presented their findings in a clear and compelling manner. This process reflects the expectations of professional roles in marketing analytics.

Direct Engagement with Industry Professionals

Students presented their work directly to Ubisoft professionals, creating valuable opportunities for feedback and dialogue.  

Grégoire Laloux, Global Insights Senior Manager Data Science at Ubisoft, emphasises the value of this exchange: “It is a very good opportunity to apply what they learned during their course and also to bring them a professional external point of view on their work.”

For students, this experience offers insight into the professional environment. Xianyu Ding, a member of the winning team, shares: “It is absolutely beneficial for me and for my career. It's great to meet managers and engineers of Ubisoft because they could give us real feedback about our work.”  

Beyond the academic exercise, the collaboration serves as a bridge to the professional world, helping students refine their career aspirations and better understand industry roles.

Insights into Career Pathways

The partnership also plays a role in career orientation. Jade Duquenne, Analyst at Ubisoft, underscores the value of sharing professional experiences with students: “When I was a student, it was really hard to know, with all the number of jobs available on the market, where to go, what to choose.”

Through direct interaction with industry professionals, students gain clarity on potential career paths and develop a stronger understanding of roles within marketing and data analytics.

A Model for Future-Ready Education

The EDHEC–Ubisoft collaboration illustrates how academic institutions and industry partners can create meaningful, practice-oriented learning experiences. By addressing real business challenges, students develop technical expertise alongside essential interpersonal skills, preparing them for dynamic and competitive professional environments.

As the gaming industry continues to evolve, initiatives such as this position EDHEC students at the forefront of marketing analytics, ready to contribute to the future of the field.