ubisoft-shanghai posts

A number of game publishers have been hit with a lawsuit from a company that claims the publishers used their software products illegally. California-based Uniloc filed the lawsuit late in July against a number of companies including Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Aspyr Media.

Uniloc claims in its lawsuit that the above companies and others used software that violated one of Uniloc's software patents. The software in question registers on one PC so it cannot be copied on other PCs. The company claims the publisher's actions "have caused reparable and irreparable damage to Uniloc." The company is seeking an unspecified dollar number in damages.

[Via GamePolitics]

Last time Ubisoft announced the release date plans for I Am Alive, the disaster-themed action game was being delayed to sometime in the publisher's 2010-2011 fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2010. Now IGN is reporting another delay that will keep the game from being released until sometime in the next fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2011.

The game was first announced in July 2008 but has had a troubled development history. In 2009, Ubisoft made a game change and pulled the title away from its original developer Darkworks. Now under development at their internal Shanghai studio, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated during this week's financial conference call, "It will use the Splinter Cell engine. We think it can become a very good quality product."

UbiSoft's release of Tom Clancy's EndWar (fall 2008 for consoles and March 2009 for the PC) got high marks for its voice command tech but low marks for its actual gameplay. However the game was apparently a big enough sales success that a sequel is in the works.

Chatting with VideoGamer.com, Ubisoft creative director Michael De Plater stated that they plan to improve the single player campaign and the depth for the sequel. While the follow-up does not yet have a release date, De Plater said that the original sold a respectible 1.5 million copies. He states, "We still sold more than Red Alert 3, sold more than Company of Heroes, sold more than World in Conflict." In fact only the console exclusive RTS game Halo Wars has sold more copies, according to De Plater. However he added, "For a strategy game that's a huge success. For a console game that's not such a big success."

Ubisoft took over the Might and Magic fantasy game franchise with the death of 3DO some time ago. Since then it has released a number of new games including Heroes of Might and Magic 5 (and two expansion packs) via developer Nival Interactive. Now the rumor mill on the Interwebs is rumbling that a new entry in the Heroes of Might and Magic series might be on the way.

Xbox360Achievements.org points over to a new job listing over at Gamasutra where they stated that Ubisoft's Shanghai offices were looking for a new lead game designer for "Heroes of MM". The story also stated that the designer would be working on a "brand new fantasy RPG title for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and Mac." However the current Gamasutra job listing seems to have deleted any mention of "Heroes of MM" or the "fantasy RPG" aspect of the gig. Therefore this is still in the rumor mill section for now.

Darkworks, the French-based game developer who made the survival horror title Cold Fear for Ubisoft a few years ago, had been working on some time on the still mysterious disaster-action game I Am Alive. Now it appears that things are a-changin. While the game is still being made, Ubisoft has pulled Darkworks off the title.

A post on the Darkworks web site has the complete Ubisoft statement without any other comment: Here is is in full:

In order to respect the new launch date for this ambitious title, and Darkworks having other obligations, we have mutually decided to complete development of I Am Alive at Ubisoft Shanghai, as the two studios have collaborated on aspects of the title over the past year.

The team at Darkworks has respected its contractual obligations on the project and will be a part of the success of the game when it launches.

The sparse Darkworks web site gives no clues as the the "other obligations" mentioned in the Ubisoft statement. Originally planned for a March 2009 release date, I Am Alive is now scheduled for release sometime in Ubisoft's 2010 fiscal year which begins on April 1, 2009.