Ubisoft Named One of the Best Studios of 2008 (1)
Esteemed game industry web-magazine Gamasutra has named Ubisoft Montreal as one of its top 5 game developers of 2008. They share the recognition with Valve (Left4Dead, Portal), Bethesda (Fallout 3), MediaMolecule (LittleBigPlanet), and “independant game developers”. Reviews and opinions for Ubisoft’s recently released Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2 have been mixed, but, as Gamasutra explains, sometimes innovation is more important than high Metacritic scores:
“Employees of Ubisoft Montreal have become known for espousing the belief that it is important to attempt new types of gameplay and design systems, even if they aren’t executed perfectly the first time out — an unusual ethic for such a major division of a large, mainstream publisher.”
Two of these Ubisoft Montreal employees worth knowing by name are Clint Hocking and Ben Mattes. Clint was the Creative Director on Far Cry 2, and is known for often criticizing the current poor state of game design while defending (and helping to shape!) its future potential and legitimacy as an art form. His blog, Click Nothing (probably the cleverest blog title I’ve ever seen), has been silent for the past few months as Far Cry 2 neared release, but now that he’s back from vacation regular updates have started appearing again. His response to Roger Ebert’s assertion that games cannot be art is required reading for anyone who has ever played a video game.
Ben Mattes was the producer on the new Prince of Persia, and also keeps an interesting blog called Too Much Imagination. The past several posts directly deal with PoP and provide insight into the sometimes unusual and risky design decisions that are the reason Gamasutra and everyone else in the industry counts Ubisoft Montreal as one of the best and most forward-thinking studios in the world.
Anything else that doesnt involve shooting or blowing people up…. pretty average.
And their anti-copying mechanisms as as flawed and annoying as any in the industry.
I have to games for PC that I bought that I was having problems with or was limited in what i could do….solution: torrent it.
Forward thinking? No. Same reactionary BS that runs the industry.
If you make it hard for legally paying people to play their games, dont be surprised if they find an easier way.
Treat your clients like criminals and they will act like ones.
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