Jan 30

Written by: Brian Wray
1/30/2008 5:58 PM

	Canadian Game Developers Series Spotlight on: UBISOFT Montreal
Back in 1986, five brothers, from a small community in France took a small trip to London England. While touring the Square Mile, they noticed that their favorites games were selling for half the price they normally paid for back home. Coming from an enterprising background, their parents where successful agricultural merchants, the brothers saw an opportunity. With the financial backing from their parents, Claude, Christian, Yves, Michel, and Gerard Guillemot started Ubi Soft Entertainment . Yves Guillemot took the helm of this new company and quickly started publishing games. The companies first real success came with the game Rayman. Once released for the PlayStation console, it sold several million copies.
As Ubi Soft Entertainment grew, so did the need to expand beyond their headquarters in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France. The company started to look at other locations to open up a studio. They scouted cities such as over such cities as Shanghai, Vancouver and Orlando, but opted for Montréal as the ideal spot because of it's rich French heritage and proximity to the English speaking markets. The company was able to secure a small grant from the Quebec government and in 1997, they opened up Ubi Soft Montréal. The newly formed game studio quickly secured a deal to develop a series of games based on the Playmobil line of toys. They produced games such as "Laura's Happy Adventure" and "Hype" Time Quest" for the Windows 95/98 platform. These games where well received, and reviewed. They followed up this initial success with Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers for the Nintendo 64 game console. This game did very well and the potential from this studio was becoming very obvious.
Ubi Soft Montréal continued to develop small titles for various platforms such as the PC, the Nintendo Gamecube and the Playstation 2 console, but where looking at the future. The first mainstream title released from Ubi Soft Entertainment Montréal was the 2001 title, "Batman: Vengeance" developed for the PlayStation 2 console. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with some calling the game "bat-barrels of fun", while others complained that the game was "scripted and very linear" and "boring and predictable". Still the game was a huge hit with Batman fans and gamers alike. Ubi Soft Montréal's early success resulted in the need to expand. The company added 600 new employees to its office in the first three years of operations.
In August of 2000, Ubi Soft Entertainment made the official shift into becoming a mainstream developer by acquiring Red Storm Entertainment. Red Storm Entertainment was founded 1996 by author Tom Clancy. Red Storm's first few titles, "Politika" and "Dominant Species" failed to catch on with gamers, but the company was riding the waves of success with its Rainbow Six franchise. As a result of this move, Ubi Soft Montréal found itself in charge of the development of Tom Clancy's newest high profile title, Splinter Cell. The work on Splinter Cell began in 2000. It was being developed for the new Xbox platform. This was not the first game for the upstart platform by Ubi Soft Entertainment, as they have been a firm Microsoft partner from the first day with Ghost Recon, but Splinter Cell was different from Ghost Recon in many ways. It was only being launched on the Xbox console and therefore was developed with that specific platform in mind. The game was optimized to push the console to its full potential. It was one of the few games that also supported the new Xbox Live service (via downloadable content only). In November of 2002, Splinter Cell was released and the response was incredible. Gamers loved the game, and so did the critics. Reviews of Splinter Cell where not just positive, they were radiant. The game was chosen as for many Game of the Year awards. Splinter Cell was a huge success for all parties involved. Microsoft had a hit game exclusive to their console, Ubi Soft Entertainment has a new hot franchise and Ubi Soft Montréal was propelled in the spotlight. Ubi Soft Montréal following titles demonstrated that this success was not a fluke. The studio developed two more Tom Clancy titles in the following year with Rainbow Six 3 for the Xbox and Raven Shield for the PC.
Both titles enjoyed similar critical acclaim as Splinter Cell. The success of Ubi Soft Montréal propelled Ubi Soft Entertainment into the world spotlight. This was a new era for Ubi Soft, one that was recognized by Yves Guillemot by changing the company name to a friendlier Ubisoft and adopting a new more stylized logo. With a new look in hand, Ubisoft continued to expand its foothold in the gaming community with Ubisoft Montréal leading the way with impressive titles such as "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" and the equally impressive sequel "Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones". They even managed to work their magic in reviving the long near dead Myst franchise with "Myst IV: Revelations". All this success does not go unnoticed, and early 2004, Ubisoft was the target of a hostile takeover by gaming giant, Electronic Arts. EA had just purchased just about 20% of Ubisoft stock. If the takeover move was genuine, EA would have done better to just purchase the amount of stock needed outright as this move provoked the share price of Ubisoft to jump 24% overnight, and also prompted the French government to offer it financial support to Ubisoft to stop EA attempt to gain hold on this French success story. The Quebec government also pledge their support for Ubisoft. The war is not always won on the battlefield, this is something learned by Ubisoft Montréal when newly opened EA Montréal Studio started hiring many of Ubisoft's top level game developers. The Canadian court system awarded Ubisoft with an interim injunction preventing the employees from working for EA for a period of one year after leaving the company
All this success does not go unnoticed, and early 2004, Ubisoft was the target of a hostile takeover by gaming giant, Electronic Arts. EA had just purchased just about 20% of Ubisoft stock. If the takeover move was genuine, EA would have done better to just purchase the amount of stock needed outright as this move provoked the share price of Ubisoft to jump 24% overnight, and also prompted the French government to offer it financial support to Ubisoft to stop EA attempt to gain hold on this French success story. The Quebec government also pledge their support for Ubisoft. The war is not always won on the battlefield, this is something learned by Ubisoft Montréal when newly opened EA Montréal Studio started hiring many of Ubisoft's top level game developers. The Canadian court system awarded Ubisoft with an interim injunction preventing the employees from working for EA for a period of one year after leaving the company. By 2005 Ubisoft Montréal was ready to grow again. The studio had planned on adding an additional 1,400 new employees to their ranks by the year 2013. Once again, the province of Quebec was there to offer assistance. They provided Ubisoft with 19 million dollars, an amount that could grow to as much as $52 million. In the same year, newly acquired Microïds Canada was merged into the Ubisoft Montréal studios. Ubisoft also expanded its bonds with mobile game developer Gameloft, porting many of Ubisoft top titles on cell phones. This decision was not just a financial one, as Gameloft is owned and operated by Yves' brother and Ubisoft co-founder, Michel Guillemot. Even today, Gameloft gets the first right of refusal to all Ubisoft titles.
	When Microsoft made it's next-gen console debut, Ubisoft was on hand with Peter Jackson's King Kong which was developed by Ubisoft Montréal. Again this game was acclaimed by all, with the only negative aspects focusing on the length of the game. But it was not till the release of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas in 2006 that Ubisoft Montréal would once again attain the critical success of it's last-gen counterpart. But as it turns out, Rainbow Six Vegas would be overshadowed by another of Ubisoft Montréal projects cAssassin's Creed was a gamble for Ubisoft. The company had to invest a huge load of money in a brand new game idea, and idea that was surrounded by an aura of controversy from the start. Part of the problem may have been with the flip-flopping of company CEO Yves Guillemot on which console the game would appear. When first announced, the game was said to be coming to the Xbox 360, later it was confirmed that the game was a Playstation 3 exclusive title, even there was plenty of evidence to support the fact than the game was being developed for the Xbox 360. This went on for several months till Ubisoft finally confirmed what everyone already knew, that the game was to appear on both consoles. This game may have bought Ubisoft a lot of free press about the game, but this came at a cost of their reputation as a gamer friendly company. The hype over this game continued to escalate till it was obvious that it would have been impossible to satisfy everyone. Once the game was released, it was well received. While not perfect, the game did elevate itself from other games enough to confirm that Ubisoft Montréal did not lose its magic touch.alled Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft Montréal outlook look promising. Today, the studio now employs over 1400 skilled workers that are currently busy developing games for every platform on the market. Currently they are working on many high profile titles including "Far Cry 2" and "Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" for various platforms. They are also hard at work on the Xbox 360 exclusive title "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction". -Brian William Wray
Ubisoft Montréal's Game library: Tonic Trouble (1999) (PC/N64) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (2002) (Xbox/PC) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (2003) (Xbox) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (2003) (PC) Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu (2003) (GC/PS2/Xbox) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003) (GC/PC/PS2/Xbox Myst IV: Revelation (2004) (PC/Xbox) Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004) (GC/PC/PS2/Xbox) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow (2004) (Xbox) Far Cry: Instincts (2005) (Xbox) Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005) (Xbox 360)		Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (2005) (GC/PC/PS2/Xbox) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005) (GC/PC/PS2/Xbox) Far Cry: Instincts - Evolution (2006) (Xbox 360) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006) (GC/PS2/Xbox/Wii) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas (2006) (PC/PS3/Xbox 360) Assassin's Creed (2007) (PC/PS3/Xbox 360) Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja (2007) (Xbox 360) Far Cry 2 (2008) (PC/PS3/Xbox 360) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2008) (PC/PS3/Xbox 360) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (2008) (PC/Xbox 360)

Copyright ©2008 Brian Wray

Tags: