Ubisoft Montréal has released last friday the next-generation video game Assassin’s Creed. The local game studio has also released recently major titles, like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6, Naruto, the rise of a Ninja, or Far Cry, but I find this new title interesting from a technological and business point of view. Some observations:
To my knowledge, it’s the first time that a video game producer, Jade Raymond, rose to an internet “superstar” status. I keep stumbling on her subtle and not-so-subtle appearances on the Internet, be it official videos from Ubisoft or from “fans”. Previously, only game coders like John Carmack, Will Wright, or Peter Molynex achieved to get this status. She even made it to the national TV, and appears on every single photo about the game, to the point that I sometimes think that she is more popular than the game itself. - Ubisoft Montréal started Assassin’s creed in 2004, when the xbox360 was still in development. It’s their biggest project to date, with a production budget beyond $20 million, a team of 300 developers and designers, and a promotional budget well over $1 million. They also invested heavily to make the game realistic, with professors in medieval history serving as consultants for the game.
- This is also the first video game from Ubisoft that will be used to make movies, by their new Digital Arts division.
For me, video games studios are now no different than the cinema industry, with video game producers and designers are the equivalent of movie directors and producers. I remember not so long ago an adventure game, Another World, which was made by just one guy, Eric Chahi.
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Comments
Fred Brunel November 19, 2007
What you say about the games being more and more like movies is the biggest problem of the gaming industry.
Even if visual impressive, these blockbuster productions are more movies than games. On a pure gaming experience, Assassin has been poorly rated (IGN 6.5) as being repetitive and not that interesting to play.
That reminds me the Wing Commander saga in the 90s that end up being a movie by the way.
Martin Dufort November 19, 2007
Also Jade Raymond appeared on “Tout le monde en Parle” sunday night. A talk show about people that make the news usually attended by artists and politicians. So she is really mainstream here…
Happy location reporting – Martin
Heri November 19, 2007
fred: i saw the trailers and some game footage, and i already thought it was repetitive. sneak, do a special move, assassinate, fight, run away, hide. then repeat again.
i liked the wing commander series by the way. i thought it was a good adventure game, it was funny though how they managed clipping (with planes going through the spaceship and not crashing)
Nerd Love November 21, 2007
Vote for Montréal’s 2007 “sexiest geek” | Montreal Tech Watch December 28, 2007
[...] reasons (or not…), which is there should be more women in technology, and because she did a great job with Assassin’s Creed, though Casey McKinnon is a great nominee too because of her support for the Copyright Act. For [...]