I'm thinking that they actually researched this...
I will be using For Honor as an example, with some speculation, since I played that for a while and know what happened with that game.
For Honor is one of those games that was quite innovative, but, I think the AAA price to get it was a barrier for many people.
Ubisoft offered For Honor for free on many platforms multiple times. That's why I own it on Xbox and three times on PC (EGS, Steam and UPlay).
They for sure analyzed how many people got onboard for free, and they likely tracked how many of them spent additional money on the game afterwards. They likely came to the conclusion that if they offered the game for free since launch, they would have caught a larger audience from the beginning, which would have spent more money on the game compared to how they did things now.
I don't think anyone is disputing that Ubisoft has taken a look at this long and hard. But the issue is this predicament is their own doing. They made games year over year all in the same series from Farcry to Assassins. Then tried making looter shooters and failed to support that game properly. Even in the changes in the sequel thats good, the world is just uninteresting, and the way they did DLC content made it really bland.
Ubisoft is better off just making smaller titles like RAyman, MARIO:RABID kingdom. They could bring back franchises like Splintercell, Prince of persia and really focus on gameplay instead of making a game that has all these checkboxes for keeping the player in the game. WHich is the formula for AC, FARCRY, even The division.
They as a publisher seem unorganized and making sequels to franchises that are actually not that great like watchdogs. Watchdogs could be unique but because it follows a formula similar to their other IP's it looses it's identity.
Ubisoft's slate is probably one of the most predictable, even when they have a hit in a series they end up taking the idea of that series and making another IP from it. Like with the ship battles in AC series they made that pirate game that has yet to come out.
For some titles like For honor, Rainbow Six, Ghost recon I could see them going F2P. ANd maybe do single player expansions that are paid expansions if people want that Tom Clancy storyline. But in terms of originality, all that talent left a long time ago. They now just follow whats popular in multiplayer.
Honestly last Ubisoft game I played was Rayman:legends.