Ubisoft

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Ubisoft Entertainment S.A.
Type Société Anonyme
Traded as Euronext: UBI
Industry Video games
Interactive entertainment
Founded 1986
Headquarters Montreuil, France[1]
Key people Yves Guillemot
(Chairman and CEO)
Products
Revenue Increase €1.058 billion (2013)
Operating income Increase €260 million (2010)[2]
Net income Decrease €89.8 million (2010)[2]
Employees 6,927 (2012)[3]
Website www.ubi.com
www.ubisoftgroup.com

Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. (/ˈjuːbisɒft/ YOO-bee-soft;[4] Euronext: UBI) is a French global video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company originating from Carentoir (Morbihan, Brittany) has a worldwide presence with 26 studios in 19 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries.[3] The name "Ubi" comes from the acronym Union des Bretons Indépendants (Independent Breton Union).[5]

It is currently the third largest independent game publisher in Europe, and the third largest in the United States.[3] The company's largest development studio is Ubisoft Montreal in Canada, which currently employs roughly 2,100 people.[6] Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, is the chairman and CEO. As for 2008–2009 fiscal year, Ubisoft's revenue was €1.058 billion, reaching the 1 billion euro milestone for the first time in its history. Ubisoft has created its own film division called Ubisoft Motion Pictures which will create shows and films based on its games.[7]

Contents

History[edit]

The head office, in Montreuil near Paris

The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in March 1986 in France (Brittany).[8] Yves Guillemot soon made deals with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and MicroProse to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.[9]

In the early 90s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France, which later became their headquarters. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Annecy, Shanghai and Montreal.

In 2000, Ubisoft acquired Red Storm Entertainment.[10]

In February 2001, they acquired Düsseldorf, Germany based Blue Byte Software.[11]

In March 2001, Gores Technology Group sold The Learning Company's entertainment division (which includes games originally published by Brøderbund, Mattel, Mindscape and Strategic Simulations, Inc.) to them. The sale included the rights to IPs such as the Myst and Prince of Persia series.[12]

In October 2001, they acquired Gamebusters and moved them to the German Offices.[13]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Matrix Online, and the European and Chinese operation of EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. However, in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on The Matrix Online. Nevertheless, a mere week later, the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developer of Shadowbane.

In December 2004, rival gaming corporation Electronic Arts purchased a 19.9% stake in the firm, an action Ubisoft referred to as "hostile" on EA's part.[14]

In March 2005, Ubisoft acquired part of MC2-Microïds (Microïds Canada) and integrated it into Ubisoft Montreal.[15]

In July 2006 Ubisoft also bought the Driver franchise from Atari for a sum of €19 million (US$24 million) in cash for the franchise, technology rights, and most assets. Additionally, though Ubisoft is not acquiring the studio outright, the members of Driver developer Reflections Interactive became employees of Ubisoft. As a result, Reflections Interactive was subsequently renamed Ubisoft Reflections.

On 11 April 2007, Ubisoft announced that it had acquired German game developer Sunflowers,[16] followed by an acquisition of Japanese developer Digital Kids that November.[17]

Ubisoft is also responsible for publishing famous franchises produced by other important studios for some specific platforms, such as Resident Evil 4 for PC, which is a Capcom production, and Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon for PlayStation 2.

On 8 July 2008, Ubisoft made the acquisition of Hybride Technologies, a Montreal-based studio renowned for its expertise in the creation of visual effects for cinema, television and advertising. Created over 15 years ago, Hybride employs 100 team members. The studio's many films include Avatar, 300, Frank Miller's Sin City and the Spy Kids series.

On 10 November 2008, Ubisoft acquired Massive Entertainment from Activision.[18]

In 2009 Ubisoft Inc. acquired the domain Imaginetown.com from S. J. Crowley, writer, illustrator, former Walt Disney Imagineer and creator of The Ghostniks Haunted Adventure Series.

On 22 January 2013, Ubisoft acquired South Park: The Stick of Truth from THQ for $3.265 million, as well as THQ Montreal for $2.5 million.

Studios[edit]

As the fourth largest video game company in the world as of 2009, Ubisoft studios employs the second largest amount of in-house development staff in the world and has several divisions and offices throughout the world.[3] While some were founded by Ubisoft, others have been acquired over time:

Current[edit]

Defunct[edit]

  • Sinister Games, acquired in April 2000, closed in June 2003.[13]
  • Wolfpack Studios in Austin, Texas, U.S, founded in 1999 and acquired on 1 March 2004. Closed in 2006.[31]
  • Ubisoft Vancouver, started on 3 February 2009 after acquiring Action Pants Inc.[32] Closed in January 2012.[33]
  • Ubisoft São Paulo, started on 24 June 2008 and on 20 January 2009 they acquired Southlogic Studios and integrated it into this studio.[34] The studios were closed in late 2010 to focus on games distribution.[35]

Upcoming games[edit]

See also: List of Ubisoft games

2013[edit]

2014[edit]

TBA[edit]

Uplay[edit]

Main article: Uplay

Uplay is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service created by Ubisoft.

Hardware[edit]

Main article: Ubisoft Motion Tracking Camera

Controversies[edit]

Ubisoft had, for a time, used the controversial StarForce copy protection technology that installs drivers on a system and is known to cause some hardware problems and compatibility issues with certain operating systems[citation needed], starting with the game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which was not compatible with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for quite some time, until a patch was released by the makers of StarForce.[citation needed] On 14 April 2006, Ubisoft confirmed that they would stop using StarForce on their games, citing complaints from customers.[36]

In the February 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Editor-in-Chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu asserted that Ubisoft had ceased to provide all Ubisoft titles to the EGM for any coverage purposes as a result of prior critical previews and negative reviews.[37][38]

Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft, was quoted in the company's third-quarter 2008–09 sales report as saying "as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential, they need more sales promotions than anticipated."[39]

In January 2010, Ubisoft has announced the Online Services Platform, which forces customers to not only authenticate on the first game launch, but to remain online continually while playing, with the game even pausing if network connection is lost. This makes it impossible to play the game offline, to resell it, and means that should Ubisoft's servers go down, the game will be unplayable.[40] In February 2010, review versions of Assassin's Creed II and Settlers 7 for PC contained this new DRM scheme, confirming that it is already in use, and that instead of pausing the game, it would discard all progress since the last checkpoint or save game.[41] However, subsequent patches for Assassin's Creed II allow the player to continue playing once their connection has been restored without lost progress.[42] In March 2010 outages to the Ubisoft DRM servers were reported, causing about 5% of legitimate buyers to be unable to play Assassin's Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 games.[43][44] Ubisoft initially said this was the result of the number of users attempting to access their servers to play, however Ubisoft later claimed that the real cause of the outages were denial-of-service attacks.[43][44][45]

The company's use of Aaron Priceman, also known as Mr. Caffeine, as a spokesman at E3 2011 was criticized for its reliance on witty remarks, inability to pronounce Tom Clancy (he pronounced it Tom Culancy), sexual innuendos and imitations of video game sound effects with little to no response from the audience.[46]

In August 2011, Ubisoft released From Dust with DRM protection, contrary to previous statements that the game would not have any DRM related restrictions. Though a promise was made to remove it, after several months the DRM had still not been removed from many if not all copies of the game. Also, the game was widely described as "badly ported" from consoles. Joystiq reports that "paying players will find a capped frame rate, limited resolutions for the windowed mode, no anti-aliasing and plenty of bugs".[47]

Lawsuits[edit]

In 2008, Ubisoft sued Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM), a DVD Duplication company for $25 million plus damages for the leak and distribution of the PC version of Assassin's Creed. The lawsuit claims that OEM did not take proper measures to protect its product as stated in its contract with Ubisoft. The complaint also alleges that OEM admitted to all the problems in the complaint.[48]

In April 2012, Ubisoft was sued by the author of the book "Link", John L. Beiswenger for copyright infringement for using the ideas that were used in the Assassin's Creed franchise like allowing the main character, Desmond, to travel back to the past of his ancestors by using the Animus and he also claimed that Ubisoft plagiarized his ideas on Good vs. Evil concept that were in his book that he claimed that were used in the Assassin's Creed games. He wished for $5.25 million in damages and wanted to stop the release of Assassin's Creed III that which is set to be released in October 2012 along with any future games that contain his ideas.[49] On 30 May 2012, Beiswenger dropped the lawsuit. Beiswenger was later quoted as saying he believes "authors should vigorously defend their rights in their creative works", and suggested that Ubisoft's motion to block future lawsuits from Beiswenger hints at their guilt.[50]

See also[edit]

Portal icon Paris portal
Portal icon Companies portal
Portal icon Video games portal


References[edit]

  1. ^ "Adresse du siège social d'Ubisoft sur le site officiel d'Ubisoft Corporate". Ubisoft Group. 
  2. ^ a b "Ubisoft sales boost can't stop overall losses". 
  3. ^ a b c d "At a glance". Ubisoft. 2009-04. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  4. ^ Stephen Totilo (publisher), Alexandre Amancio, Clint Hocking, and Louis-Pierre Pharand (17 September 2007). How To Pronounce… "Ubisoft" (The Official Explanation) (Video). MTV Networks. Event occurs at 0:22. Retrieved 3 July 2009. 
  5. ^ Les Grands Noms du jeux vidéo Numéro 2 : Michel Ancel : Biographie d'un créateur de jeux vidéo français Édition Pix'N Love
  6. ^ "Questions about Ubisoft Montreal – Topic Powered by eve community". 
  7. ^ Griffin, McElroy. "Ubisoft launching film studio focused on game adaptations". Joystiq. 
  8. ^ "Games, Games and More Games". Start (Atarimagazines.com) 3 (8). March 1989. Retrieved 30 January 2013. 
  9. ^ "History". Ubisoft. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  10. ^ "Ubi Soft Acquires Red Storm Entertainment". Blue's News. 29 August 2000. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  11. ^ Ho, Jennifer (9 February 2001). "Ubi Soft acquires Blue Byte Software". Gamespot. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  12. ^ "Ubi Soft Acquires The Learning Company's Entertainment Division". GameZone. 7 March 2001. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i "History for Ubisoft Entertainment SA". MobyGames. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  14. ^ Feldman, Curt (20 December 2004). "Electronic Arts buys stake in Ubisoft in "hostile" act". GameSpot. Retrieved 9 November 2007. 
  15. ^ "Ubisoft Montreal enters into an agreement to acquire Microids Canada's development operations". Ubisoft. 2 March 2005. Retrieved 9 November 2007. 
  16. ^ "Ubisoft Acquires SunFlowers, Anno Franchise". Gamasutra. 11 April 2007. Retrieved 12 April 2007. 
  17. ^ "Ubisoft Buys Japanese Studio". GameTab. 5 November 2007. Retrieved 5 November 2007. 
  18. ^ "Ubisoft acquires the assets of Massive Entertainment" (Press release). Ubisoft. 10 November 2008. Retrieved 24 February 2009. 
  19. ^ a b Sliwinski, Alexander (26 October 2011). "Ubisoft expands to Abu Dhabi". Joystiq. Retrieved 23 September 2012. 
  20. ^ "Related Designs Software GmbH". MobyGames. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  21. ^ "Ubisoft acquires Sunflowers, takes stake in Related Designs". Spong. 12 April 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  22. ^ Boyes, Emma (15 April 2008). "Ubisoft orders Indian takeaway". GameSpot. Retrieved 11 September 2008. 
  23. ^ "Ubisoft Divertissements Inc.". MobyGames. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  24. ^ "Ubisoft brings online middleware dev Quazal into its brotherhood". Joystiq. 4 November 2010. Retrieved 23 December 2010. 
  25. ^ "Ubisoft Nagoya – About Us" (in Japanese). Ubisoft Nagoya. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  26. ^ "UBISOFT OUVRE OFFICIELLEMENT SES PORTES À QUÉBEC" (in French). Ubisoft. 1 June 2005. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  27. ^ Sharma, Money (17 June 2008). "Q & A with Ubisoft Singapore Managing Director Olivier de Rotalier". Animation Xpress. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  28. ^ "UBISOFT EXTENDS GLOBAL REACH OPENING NEW STUDIO IN TORONTO" (Press release). Ubisoft. 6 July 2009. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  29. ^ "UBISOFT APPOINTS JADE RAYMOND AS HEAD OF TORONTO STUDIO" (Press release). Ubisoft. 31 August 2009. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  30. ^ Nutt, Christian (25 May 2010). "Ubisoft Unveils Toronto Studio, Splinter Cell Project". Gamasutra. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  31. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (30 March 2006). "Wolfpack Studios being shut down". GameSpot. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  32. ^ "Academy of Champions Announced For Nintendo Wii". Gaming Union. 20 May 2009. 
  33. ^ "Ubisoft Vancouver Closes". 
  34. ^ "Ubisoft São Paulo". MobyGames. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  35. ^ "Ubisoft fechará estúdios no Brasil até fim do ano e foca em distribuição e varejo" (in Portuguese). UOL Jogos. 30 September 2010. Retrieved 23 December 2010. 
  36. ^ Thorsen, Tor (14 April 2006). "Ubisoft officially dumps Starforce". Gamespot. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  37. ^ Plunkett, Luke (8 January 2008). "3 Companies Bar EGM From Coverage Following Poor Reviews". Kotaku. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  38. ^ Hsu, Dan (9 January 2008). "Banned". 1UP.com. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  39. ^ "Ubisoft 3rd-quarter 2008–09 sales report" (PDF). Ubisoft. 22 January 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  40. ^ "Online Services Platform Q&A". Ubisoft. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  41. ^ Francis, Tom (17 February 2010). "Constant net connection required to play Assassin's Creed 2 on PC". PC Gamer. Retrieved 24 February 2010. 
  42. ^ Yam, Marcus (5 March 2010). "Ubisoft Patch Makes its Internet DRM Less Painful". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  43. ^ a b Chalk, Andy (8 March 2010). "Ubisoft Blames DRM Outage on "Server Attack"". Escapistmagazine.com. Retrieved 11 November 2010. 
  44. ^ a b Bramwell, Tom (8 March 2010). "Ubisoft DRM was "attacked" at weekend". Eurogamer. Retrieved 8 March 2010. 
  45. ^ "Ubisoft's official Twitter post regarding attacks.". 
  46. ^ Sterling, Jim. "Are publishers doing E3 badly on purpose?". Destructoid. 
  47. ^ McElroy, Justin (18 August 2011). "From Dust PC players erupt in anger over port". Joystiq. Retrieved 20 August 2011. 
  48. ^ Sung, Lydia (7 August 2008). "Ubisoft suing over Assassin's Creed leak". Neoseeker. Retrieved 26 September 2010. 
  49. ^ Magder, Jason (25 April 2012). "Ubisoft target of $5-million copyright lawsuit". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 28 April 2012. 
  50. ^ Growcott, Mat (15 June 2012). "John Beiswenger on the Assassin's Creed Lawsuit". zConnection. Retrieved 15 June 2012. 

External links[edit]

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