WEBVTT - Ubisoft from 2003 to 2011 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.760 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.880 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:22.120 and I love all things tech. And this is a 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:27.560 continuation on the story of Ubisoft or You Be Soft 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.520 So far now. In our last episode, which if you 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.040 haven't heard, I recommend you do listen to that, I 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.960 talked about how a group of brothers, the Guilement Brothers, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.600 founded a video game software company after the family business 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.960 of selling farm equipment started to lou Steen, we walked 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.480 through the early days of the company and how most 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.640 of the titles aren't really well known outside of Europe 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.480 until you get to Rayman, which in turn was more 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.600 popular in Europe than in North America. We learned about 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:05.200 Ubisoft expanding, opening up numerous development studios, first in Europe, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:10.080 then later in China and then Montreal in Canada. And 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.400 we heard about how UBI Soft acquired a company called 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.800 red Storm out of North Carolina that had a license 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:21.840 for Tom Clancy's intellectual properties. We concluded just as the 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.959 company was rebranding, turning UBI soft, which was two words, 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.440 into ubi soft one word, and getting the swirl logo 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.760 that would be associated with the company for more than 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.360 a decade. Okay, that was the super short version of 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.080 episode one, but go back and listen to it if 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.959 you haven't heard it yet, because there's a lot in there. Now, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.920 let's pick up where we left off. Ubisoft's acquisition of 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.720 Red Storm paid off in lots of ways. First, there 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.640 was that access to licensing Tom Clancy properties, which would 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.160 prove to be quite popular. Second, the development team had 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.160 the skill set to create types of games that the 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.120 rest of Ubisoft just hadn't really tackled before they didn't 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.680 have those skills, and a big part of that skill 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:16.800 set was based out of multiplayer gameplay elements. Microsoft's Xbox 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.320 console opened up new options for multiplayer games. While multiplayer 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.760 was already going strong on PCs and had been since 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.919 the old Land party days. Land stands for Local Area 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.120 network and even earlier in the days where you know, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.800 two people would share a single PC to play multiplayer games, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.960 there were only a few consoles that had attempted to 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.040 work in multiplayer modes over the internet, you know, beyond 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.080 the living room experience where you would just play on 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.040 the same couch. In fact, if I recall correctly. The 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:53.359 Sega Dreamcast was really the only real console of note 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.600 that also supported play over a modem, and the Dreamcast 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.880 didn't really sell that well, so there wasn't much action 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:06.679 on those networks. Microsoft launched the Xbox Live service one 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.959 year to the day after the debut of the original 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:15.679 Xbox on November two thousand two. Ubisoft wanted to embrace 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.440 multiplayer formats. They suspected that these would play a much 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.680 larger role in video games in the future, so the 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.720 company leaned very heavily on red Storm to make that 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.680 dream a reality. An early game that demonstrated this capability 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.640 was Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a game that the Red 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.080 Storm team had begun developing shortly after Ubisoft acquired them 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.640 in two thousand and Originally, it was for the Windows 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.120 PC platform, and red Storm under Ubisoft would bring this 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.040 to the Mac, uh, the Xbox, the PS two, and 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.920 the GameCube. As I mentioned in the previous episode, the 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.280 splinter Cell game merged the Tom Clancy license with game 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.520 elements that were built for an abandoned project act called 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.840 The Drift. It originally started in a New York studio 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.080 that had been shut down and then kind of migrated 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.560 to Montreal, UH and they had additional features added in 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.200 to create a stealth based game in which players were 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.159 encouraged to take to the shadows and and move with 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.799 stealth in order to achieve mission goals in each level. 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.320 The game was a commercial and critical success, bringing in 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.040 numerous awards like the Game Developers Choice Award for Excellence 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.560 in Writing. Likewise, the Prince of Persia game that came 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:34.520 out in two thousand three would bring home a ton 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:39.240 of awards, including eight Interactive Achievement Awards. But while teams 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.480 were celebrating big successes and pulling over a couple of 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.000 failures as well, there was a bit of a crisis brewing. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.360 In two thousand four, Eve Guilmant, one of the five 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.479 brothers who founded Ubisoft and the company's CEO, received a 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.560 phone call from an Electronic Arts representative. Now, I've talked 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.599 a lot about Electronic Arts or e A in recent episodes. 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.320 For example, in an episode about the three D O 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.480 gaming system, I talked about how e A founder Trip Hawkins, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.359 took a huge risk that ultimately didn't pay off to 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.560 found a new company, and how e A eventually did 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.440 him dirty and kicked him when he was already down, 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.960 or at least while he was sauntering vaguely downwards. To 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.960 steal a quote from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Well, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.120 e A has a long history of making moves that 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.760 rubbed other people the wrong way, and this was another 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.800 example of that. Eve was told by the representative that 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:46.479 Electronic Arts had quietly acquired shares in Ubisoft. Of those 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.720 shares so one fifth of the company, in fact, which 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:54.360 made e A the largest shareholder outside of the brothers themselves, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.799 and with that kind of steak, e A could potentially 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:02.640 throw its weight around to help determine Ubisoft's direction. The 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.320 brothers and the leadership within Ubisoft talked about the move 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.239 and determined that they would reject an outright acquisition offer 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.240 if such a thing were to follow. Behind this announcement, 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.200 the concern was that e A was at the time 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:22.440 to business oriented, and they had a reputation for quote 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.560 not caring too much about creative end quote that was 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.040 according to even an interview he gave with Game Informer magazine. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.839 Now just a side note here, as I think that 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:37.600 comment is really interesting. See when Hawkins first founded e 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.440 A many years earlier. It was all in a reaction 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.160 to how other video game companies, namely Atari, at the time, 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.200 we're churning out product while not crediting the people who 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.200 were making the actual games. The original ethos at e 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.400 A was that games were a type of art, and 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.840 that the developers were artists who deserved recognition and acknowledgement. 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.560 In fact, at one point, e A was hoping to 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.279 create something like a personality driven business model, and that 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:11.560 gamers would gravitate towards specific game titles because they would 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:16.080 associate the particular creators of those games with stuff they liked, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.360 whether it was, you know, a style of gameplay or 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.559 a particular gift of story or whatever. But over time 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.000 the ethos changed at e A, and what had been 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.120 part of the founding principles of the company was largely discarded. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:36.760 Anyway back to Ubisoft. Generally speaking, the mood within Ubisoft 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.560 was largely anti e A around this time, with lots 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.040 of people saying that they would rather leave the company 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:48.000 entirely than become a part of Electronic Arts. The message 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.960 was loud and clear. The management team, already determined to 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.440 prevent a takeover, really buckled down once it was clear 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.320 that the feeling at large within the company was against 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.840 any sort of e A merger, but it meant that 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.560 they needed to be extra careful in how they did 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.840 business to avoid, you know, opening up an opportunity for 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.680 e A to take control of more shares than get 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.480 possession of the company through you know, a proxy battle. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.200 According to the management team who spoke in that game 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.040 and former interview I've mentioned, this meant that Ubisoft had 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.400 to pump the brakes a bit when it came to 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:27.200 expansion plans. Ubisoft itself would put decisions about acquiring other 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.160 companies on hold, or at least slowing them down slightly. 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.760 As we go through this episode, it will become clear 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:39.160 that Ubisoft has always been expansion hungry. EA for its part, 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.440 wasn't making any aggressive moves at the time. In fact, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.720 Eve has said that the people from e A with 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.480 whom he spoke they were all quite nice. And in 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.319 two thousand seven, a former e A executive who had 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.600 left e A and then returned and became the new 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.760 CEO of eight spoke out. His name is John Richie Taylo, 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.400 and he reached out to Ubisoft and he let them 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.880 know that he had no intention of making any sort 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.959 of acquisition moves without the express approval of Ubisoft. There 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.440 would be no hostile takeover. In other words, and in 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.880 t e A would actually sell off its shares and 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.320 thus in the potential for a hostile takeover. But the 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:27.640 possibility hungover Ubisoft for six years. EA never really pushed 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.760 for anything more, but it was still a looming cloud. 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.120 In the end, it did more to shape Ubisoft's corporate 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:38.280 culture and again slow down plans for expansion rather than 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.520 any other kind of outcome. So we know that that 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.840 story turns out okay for Ubisoft. But let's get back 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.880 to what else was going on at the company while 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.920 this specter of a potential hostile takeover loomed over everyone. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.360 And this wouldn't be the last time this would happen 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.040 to Ubisoft, by the way. That's what we call foreshadowing, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.160 and we'll learn more a about that in the episode 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.200 that follows this one, because this is a big story. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.240 One thing that happened with Ubisoft was a collaboration with 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.559 another games studio called cry Tech c R y t 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.600 e K. That company has its headquarters in Germany. The 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.760 company developers had created a game engine called cry Engine. 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.679 You'll you'll get a lot of crying in this episode 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.559 for multiple reasons. And a quick word about game engines. 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:35.600 These are software development environments that contain the various tools 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.080 and operations that allow developers to build games inside the 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.280 game engine without having to do all the lower level 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.440 programming themselves. You can do stuff like define the draw 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.880 distance and tweak physics and so on, and the game 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.000 engine essentially relays those changes to computer hardware in such 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.280 a way that you get the end result you want. Now, 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.760 that's a super high level overview of what a game 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.920 engine does. It moves the starting point for game development 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.360 further along than zero, though there's always a ton of 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.160 stuff left to do. I don't mean to say like 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.840 the game engine magically does all the work for you. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.199 It's it's just a helpful environment within which you can 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.720 build games. So anyway, cry Tech builds out this game 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.960 engine and also creates a demo to show off what 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.199 this engine could potentially do, which included some fairly impressive 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.720 stuff like rendering large outdoor spaces. This can sometimes be 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.319 a tricky task and one that requires a decent amount 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.520 of processing power on the game's machine, which led earlier 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.840 game developers to rely on, you know, a little cheats, 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.080 kind of like using fog to limit the draw distance 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.280 of an outdoor area. You know, you'd think, oh, I 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.040 should be able to see much further, but because it's foggy, 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.120 I can't. Well, that helps you get around this technical issue. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.800 Cry Tex demo, which was called x Isle Dinosaur Island, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.880 impressed people at Ubisoft when they got a look at 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.560 it at an E three conference a few years earlier. 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.040 The two companies work together with Critech building out a 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.160 full game using this game engine, and it was called 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:20.000 Far Cry, which Ubisoft would publish. Far Crime is a 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.040 first person shooter game in which the player controls the 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.720 character named Jack Carver in the first game, and he's 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.479 attempting to locate a person he believes as a journalist 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.280 who is on an island after the two of them 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.520 have become separated at the very beginning of the game. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.160 And it's kind of a one against many style of 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.400 game in which the player can make use of the 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.160 environment and try to you know, hide and use stealth 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.840 to help even the odds against all these enemies that 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.680 are on screen at once. And the game had several 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.080 features that critics really liked, including the capabilities of the 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.160 game engine with those large draw distances, and the enemy AI, 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.840 which seemed realistic. In the batties would sometimes call for reinforcements, 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.120 or they would run to get behind cover, or they 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.400 would attempt to split their forces so that some of 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.319 them could flank you, and so on. The story is 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.480 kind of a mixture of a Rambo movie and the 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.160 Island of Dr Moreau with some sci fi elements. That 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.600 Play and Ubisoft would publish the Critech developed game in 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:26.319 two thousand four, and subsequently Ubisoft purchased the intellectual property 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.160 that and that build of the cry engine as well. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.439 So at this point, the cry Engine splits into two pathways. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.040 The cry Tech path continues to be the original cry engine, 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.440 and then they upgrade that over time. The UBI Soft 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:46.120 path would eventually be renamed the Dounia Engine, based off 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.440 the original cry Engine, but then tweaked by UBI Soft 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.800 and Ubisoft Montreal would become the primary studio in charge 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:56.480 of developing future far Cry titles, and I'm sure we'll 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.320 chat about a couple of those further along in these episodes. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.000 The franchise has been a pretty strong performer in the 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:08.200 market overall, although some entries have received um more love 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.880 than others. As for cry Tech, that studio is still 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.280 updating the cry engine. It's still developing games, most notably 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.920 the Crisis series c R Y S I S. I 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.760 guess you're picking up on the naming convention by now 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.400 with cr Tech, cry Engine, Far Cry and Crisis. The 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.560 company has opened and frequently closed studios in various cities 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.240 around the world, and maybe someday I will do a 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:37.560 full episode about them. But let's get back to Ubisoft. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.200 In two thousand five, the company opened up the first 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:46.120 UBI Soft campus, and this one is again in Montreal. Now, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.760 this was actually part of an overall expansion of the 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.840 Montreal studio, and it was helped considerably by some rather 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.520 generous support from the Canadian and Quebec governments. Ubisoft received 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.800 millions of dollars in grants and tag incentives, and in return, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.240 the company was creating more jobs in the Montreal area 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.160 and was building out a learning center to teach coding 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.480 and game development. And we would see this happen again 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.120 and again with UBI Software. The company would expand, but 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.680 it was doing so very strategically, expanding in places where 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.960 they could get these sweet kind of incentives to put 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.440 a studio there because those studios were employment centers. So 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.520 there was this mutual beneficial relationship, and Ubisoft was very 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.600 good at picking places where the company was benefiting not 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.840 just through expansion but getting this help through incentives, etcetera. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.560 So the company also established a developer studio in Quebec City, Quebec, 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.680 which is about two KOs or about a hundred fifty 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.800 miles away from Montreal. The early work of that studio 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.240 was largely in support of projects from other Ubisoft studios, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.160 you know, like porting games that have been develop for 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:05.160 one platform for other platforms, or developing DLC that's downloadable 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.200 content material for established franchises, and they would later produce 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.479 full titles in one of the company's most popular franchises. 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.960 More on that to come. Around this same time, Ubisoft 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.800 Montreal was working on a new game engine of their own, 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.400 and it was originally called Scimitar, though it would later 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.960 change names and become Anvil, followed by Anvil Next, and 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.200 the intent was to create a foundation for a Prince 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.640 of Persia sequel. This was around the time when the 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.880 next generation of video game consoles was on the Horizon, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.760 the next generation in this case being the Xbox three 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.840 sixty which came out in two thousand five, and the 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.760 PlayStation three and Nintendo we both of which would come 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.920 out in two thousand six. Ubisoft was hard at work 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.160 building the tools they would need to develop, you know, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.920 games for those platforms. The team gradually came to the 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.840 conclusion that the engine they were building would allow them 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.840 to create an all new i P that is, intellectual 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:08.000 property if they could get buy in from leadership. Sara Jaskaway, 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.199 the head of creative, would come on board fairly early on, 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.040 and Haskaway had been reading the novel Alamute, a novel 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.199 set in the Middle East in the eleventh century and 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:24.760 featuring the historical assassins not just assassins, but assassins with 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.520 a big a. The team built out a concept video 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.440 for a game they had in mind in which the 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.399 player would control an assassin in an ancient setting. The 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.200 video was pre rendered, but it showed off a concept 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.280 of what the gameplay would look like, including how stealth 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.840 could be used in a game, along with acrobatic stunts, 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:45.960 kind of similar to what they had already done with 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.360 Prince of Persia, and the video ended with the protagonist 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.600 riding out of a city on horseback. The team pitched 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.720 the idea to Eve Guilmant, who was impressed, and he 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.399 agreed that they could build out a new I P 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.120 and that was the beginning of the very first Assassin's 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.120 Creed game. I'll talk about more after we take this 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:17.720 quick break. Okay, first things first, While I am not 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:23.520 covering every single entry of every single game ever produced 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.280 or distributed by Ubisoft, because that would take forever, there 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.600 are literally hundreds of them. I do want to take 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.720 a moment to acknowledge a two thousand six title that 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.320 came out for a Nintendo we before we go back 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:41.560 to Assassin's Creed, and that is Rayman Raving Rabbits, which 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.000 introduced us to these weird little rabbit critters that acted 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.959 like manic antagonists and they're kind of like a rabbit 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.680 version of the minions from the Despicable Me franchise. While 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.600 they began as a spinoff of Rayman, they in turn 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.680 would fuel numerous games, include ing a crossover game called 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.920 Mario plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle, in which rabbids and characters 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.280 from the Super Mario series would appear together and that 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.720 game is a tactical role playing game, as you probably 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.200 would guess from the mixture now. I mentioned it here 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.360 because while Kingdom Battle would come out much much later 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:26.439 in it was just remarkable to me that Ubisoft created 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:31.040 some characters that would ultimately crossover when Nintendo's beloved and 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.520 heavily protected i P. That's something Nintendo does not typically do. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.840 It is very rare for Nintendo to allow their first 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:46.360 party characters to appear with characters from other companies like that, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.840 outside of like a Smash Brothers game. Before I jump 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.760 into more Assassin's Creed, let me also talk about intellectual 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.840 property and why the decision to make a new i 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.760 P was actually a really big deal and a lot 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.159 of the is intuitive, but I think it's good to 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.440 just cover it now. When it comes to i P, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.600 you've got to weigh risk versus reward. When you're building 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.480 out a brand new i P, you have no idea 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.480 if it's going to catch on with the general public, or, 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.840 in the case of video games, with the game playing public. 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.840 So you want to create something that's going to capture 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.800 the interest and attention of your audience, whether it's gamers 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.399 or a TV audience. Or movies or whatever. And again, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.159 all this is intuitive, So the i P needs to 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.720 make people want to experience the thing like the game, 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.640 and sometimes this can be tough to judge. For every 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.760 game franchise that becomes a big hit, there are dozens 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.080 of games that, for one reason or another just didn't 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.119 catch on, and some of them are just bad games, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.800 and that in itself is a problem. You have to 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.800 make sure that the actual game is good or even 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.480 the coolest concept is going to fall short cough the 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:02.199 order eight six cough. On the other hand, if you 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.399 manage to establish an i P, then developing a new 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.359 game in that series represents a much lower risk. At 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.760 least initially, you know that there's already a built in 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.359 audience for that game. So if you're deciding where to 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.880 dedicate resources like talent, money, and time, all of which 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.160 you have in limited amounts, you have to weigh all 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.920 of these decisions. Do you take a risk and try 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.600 to make something new without knowing if there's an audience 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.199 for it, or do you go with the slightly safer 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.880 route then try to give people more of what they've 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.560 already loved. Now, the danger of going with option two 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.440 is that you can overstay you're welcome, or you can 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.320 create a development cycle that proves to be unsustainable, things 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.280 that you could argue would apply to the Assassin's Creed 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.399 series at a certain point where a new title was 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.439 coming out essentially every year. So getting the approval to 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.840 build a new I P was actually a really big deal, 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.480 and once the team behind Assassin's Creed got the green light, 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.200 they dove into deep research. They were determined to represent 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:12.040 the historical setting and the assassins accurately, since this was 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.919 a game about the historical Assassin's not simply about an 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.800 assassin with a little a According to the developers, they 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.160 even had representatives who trace their lineage back to those 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.560 historic first assassins centuries ago, and they visited the studio 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.399 to make sure that the representation was accurate. I imagine 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.720 knowing that you have the descendants of the original assassins 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.720 looking over your shoulder is a little intimidating. The team 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.320 admitted that actually building an open world game, one where 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.080 the player has freedom to explore regions of the map 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.160 without having to follow a linear pathway, and they can 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:51.880 go vertically. You can climb up buildings and swing on polls, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:53.880 and all this kind of stuff. All of that presented 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.160 big challenges. They would later say that the research part 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.320 was actually easy compared to making the game mechanics work 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.760 within the setting they had designed. In all, the development 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.119 for the first Assassin's Creed game would take four years, 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.040 so they would finally release in two thousand seven. On 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:12.320 top of that, the team came up with an idea 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.440 that would mean the game wouldn't just be a straightforward 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.439 historical fantasy game. There was a science fiction element to 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:23.280 it too. Now, according to Sair jasco A, a French 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.720 Canadian developer named Patrice de Sel was well the one 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:30.840 to insert the science fiction elements into the Assassin's narrative. 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.000 So let me give you a very quick overview. Within 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.560 the Assassin's Creed universe. There are multiple storylines that are 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.439 all unfolding in different eras. In the present day of 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.040 the game, which is a present that has technology more 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.639 advanced than what you would find in our real world. 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.320 Engineers have created a technology called the animus. Now. This 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.760 allows users to enter into a virtual representation of their 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:01.440 genetic memory. This means that you can relive the memories 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.639 of one of your ancestors. So the parts of the 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.880 game set back in history are in fact virtual representations 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:11.719 of genetic memories, and it would turn out that the 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:15.520 conflict you lived out in those historical eras, which is 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:20.119 a conflict between two ideologically opposed factions, those being the 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:24.200 Templars and the Assassins, that conflict is still going on 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:28.680 in the present day, with the storylines from history interweaving 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:32.440 into those in the present, and it all gets really complicated, 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.480 involves a lot of science fiction technology, it involves in 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:41.240 ancient race of human noids that predate humans, and odd mythology, 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.159 and honestly, I lose the thread after a while. It's 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.960 super complicated. Now, in my personal opinion, the modern day 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:50.439 parts of the game aren't that fun for me, and 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.000 I don't really care for that story. I like them 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:59.400