jade raymond
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'Fairgame$' looks like Payday and The Division with a Gen-Z twist
Fairgame$ is an online, competitive heist game about classism and rebelling against billionaires, and it's heading to PlayStation 5 and PC.
Sony buys Jade Raymond's Haven Studios
Almost exactly a year to the date Sony said it was working with Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios on a new gaming IP, the company has now acquired the developer.
Former Stadia chief Jade Raymond is making a new game for PlayStation
Raymond has opened an independent studio with backing from Sony.
I wish Google showed more faith in Stadia
Closing its first-party studios reminds us that Google's itchy trigger-finger is often hovering over the products we expect to exist for years.
Google is shutting down its Stadia game studios
Industry veteran Jade Raymond is leaving Google as it focuses on third-party games.
Google opens its first studio dedicated to making Stadia games
Google announced its Stadia Games and Entertainment division back in March, confirming its intention to make good on its promise for original content alongside second and third party games for its streaming platform Stadia. Now, the first studio -- and there will be more -- has opened in Montreal, headed up by Jade Raymond who in a blog post reiterated the company's plans to "produce exclusive, original content across a diverse portfolio of games."
Google hires 'Assassin's Creed' lead Jade Raymond to help its big gaming push
Google is turning to the brains behind Assassin's Creed ahead of its gaming debut later this month. Jade Raymond, who clocked in over a decade at Ubisoft, has been appointed vice president by the tech giant. "I'm excited to finally be able to share that I have joined Google as VP!" she tweeted on Tuesday. It's currently unclear what she will work on at the company.
Joystiq Weekly: Titanfall gets co-op, Civ: Beyond Earth review, amiibo impressions and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. With Titanfall getting a co-operative, wave-based mode, Super Smash Bros. on Wii U ushering in eight fighters at once and Halo: The Master Chief Collection just a few weeks (and a ~20GB patch) away, we're ready to spend a substantial amount of time beside our friends. Cunning AI is great and all, but what beats teaming up with or taking down local, equally-frantic friends and rivals? Other than wish-granting sacks of money, we mean. Single player diehards certainly aren't left out of this week's best content though – Rockstar launched a super-cheap, upgraded version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the Xbox Marketplace today, there are reviews for Civilization: Beyond Earth and The Legend of Korra, and we got our hands on amiibos and Sony's horror romp, Until Dawn. All of that and quite a bit more is waiting for you after the break!
Ubisoft Toronto founder Jade Raymond departs to pursue 'new opportunities'
Longtime Ubisoft producer and collaborator Jade Raymond has left the company, citing a need to "pursue my other ambitions and new opportunities." Raymond joined Ubisoft as a producer of the Assassin's Creed series in 2004, and went on to found subsidiary Ubisoft Toronto. Raymond's recent credits include Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Fellow Ubisoft Toronto founding member Alexandre Parizeau will fill Raymond's vacated position as managing director. "I've spent 10 extraordinary years at Ubisoft, and I am proud to have been part of many of the best teams in the industry making truly remarkable games," Raymond said. "This is one of the hardest decisions of my career, but the Toronto studio is strong and on a solid path. I'm confident that now is a good time for me to transition leadership of the studio to Alex and to pursue my other ambitions and new opportunities. Stay tuned for more on what's next for me, but for now, I'd like to thank Ubisoft for its partnership through the years, and I wish them the very best in all their next endeavors." [Image: Jade Raymond / Wikipedia]
Ubisoft Toronto working with Ubi Montreal on another Assassin's Creed
Ubisoft Toronto is collaborating with Ubisoft Montreal on an Assassin's Creed game coming after AC4: Black Flag. and has plans to be involved with the development of four other unannounced games. Speaking with Polygon, managing director Jade Raymond said the studio, involved with Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Rainbow Six: Patriots, has plans set for five further games in total."We have two big collaborations coming that we're not talking about, on two of the biggest franchises at Ubisoft. We also have two new IP," Raymond told Polygon, noting that the fifth project is a Splinter Cell game.Raymond's comments follow on from the intentions she laid out in 2010 to eventually have five triple-A projects going on at Ubisoft Toronto at the same time, with a staff of some 800 people involved. In other words, Ubi Toronto's plans for world domination are beginning to surface, and we should call the authorities immediately.
Ubisoft planning to expand Toronto studio to 800 employees within 10 years
Ubisoft Montreal, as we've reported before, is a huge video game outfit with a large team of developers coordinating multiple projects at a time, across up to six different studios. Ubisoft wants to repeat that structure in its new Toronto studio, according to the Financial Post. The French company is adding over 600 employees to the current staff of 210 over the next 10 years, which means an investment of over $500 million in that time.That has big ramifications, not only for Ubisoft's future as a publisher and developer, but for Toronto's Wallace Avenue neighborhood as well (where these employees will live, work, and spend all of this money). As for the studio itself, it's currently at work on five upcoming Ubisoft titles, including the next Splinter Cell. As more and more is invested in the operation there, that list will probably grow.
Jade Raymond optimistic of new studios, IP development
Ubisoft Toronto Managing Director Jade Raymond's presentation at DICE expressed her belief that despite the current upheaval in the industry, she believes now is a great time to start a studio. Referencing EA Sports boss Peter Moore's speech about the industry being on a "burning oil platform" -- the idea being that it only changes when it has to -- Raymond believes it's more like a burning oil tanker that can course correct. One would hope she'd be optimistic about current core development being viable, considering she manages, what will become in time, one of the biggest studios in the industry. In terms of IP development, she explained that the Ubisoft team spent a year of pre-production building the foundations of the Assassin's Creed franchise. "We spent quite a bit of time during conception thinking about the franchise metastory and story arc. And, most importantly, thinking of how to make sandboxes that future game teams and future teams in other media would be able to experiment and come up with their own stuff in this franchise." Regarding the ability to do Assassin's Creed comics, TV or a movie down the road, "You'll never get the best out of people if you just hand them this stone tablet." Clearly showing her roots working on The Sims Online, it's quite obvious Raymond is a disciple of Will Wright's ideas about fan involvement in franchises. "I think you need to rely on fans," believing that the fan community will identify the best ideas to work from. She Iterated a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson for the video game industry: Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small franchises. Raymond made clear that Assassin's Creed was designed as a franchise that could be handed over to professionals to expand the world, she said that the next IP Ubisoft is creating in Toronto will hopefully be "handed over to fans."
Rumor: I Am Alive on PSN and XBLA
*Cough, cough.* I Am Alive. No, really, I haven't been declared dead yet! I know it's been touch-and-go, but I appear to be on the mend. It's just -- well, I may have lost a bit of myself along the way. I was once supposed to be a full-fledged retail game -- in a nice box and everything -- but according to the host of JeuxFrance's "Warpzone" show (who claims to have been informed directly from the creator herself, Jade Raymond), I'm now going to be alive digitally, inside of Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. While I don't like the idea of losing any vital parts or, uh, shrinking, I do hope the news is true! Those are nice, open places to live -- and probably better than a cramped box. Check out the Warpzone episode here -- fast-forward to the eight-minute mark for the stuff about me! You do know French, I trust? [Update: Ubisoft hasn't gotten back to us, but it did tell Eurogamer, "we have not recently announced anything for I Am Alive and we have nothing official to announce at this time." Well, okay then.]
Jade Raymond gives a video tour of Ubisoft Toronto
We enjoy our sworn duty of bringing you news of video game industry happenings, but if Ubisoft Toronto offered us a position, we're not sure we could say no. Jade Raymond recently led Eurogamer on a video tour of the new office, which looks like a fun-filled employer -- impromptu Nerf Wars and all.
Ubisoft cautious over new IP, remains focused on established franchises
Ubisoft Europe managing director Alain Corre isn't one to parse words -- for instance, he told GamesIndustry.biz in a recent interview, "The games that are not triple-A are not profitable anymore. And that's changed in the last 18 months." He admitted that "we are still releasing some new franchises," citing Ruse as a calculated aberration. "It's a niche so we know the size of the market for real-time strategy games ... with niche games it's possible to have a hit more than in the triple-A space, especially in the fourth and fifth year of the console cycle." To Corre, it's a question of investment risk. "To a certain extent it becomes less risky to invest more in a single game or franchise than spreading your investment between three or four games," he explained. "If those three or four games are not at the right quality level, you are sure to lose money. So the business model has changed and we're changing our way of making hardcore games." He said we might not see a new IP push from Ubisoft until the next generation of consoles, which he foresees to be "less than five years" from now. Oddly, he doesn't bring up Ubisoft Toronto -- a studio headed by Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond -- that's said to be working on both "AAA-game" and new IP. Nor did he address the fate of the scantly brought up I Am Alive, supposedly coming out next spring. Based on Corre's statements, we've at least managed to come to the conclusion that Beyond Good & Evil 2 (not a new IP) should be getting a release date during this console cycle. That's ... something?
Ubisoft Toronto aiming to develop five big games at once
Ubisoft Toronto Managing Director Jade Raymond hopes to eventually have five triple-A projects going on at the studio. Speaking with Develop, she reiterated that the site is currently working on two projects, one of them the next Splinter Cell, and that the Toronto studio will eventually have five "major" projects in about ten years, when it beefs its staff roster up to 800. Even with such a massive staff, it sounds unlikely all the development for any one game will take place in Toronto. Raymond expressed that triple-A development currently requires several Ubisoft studios working together, explaining that "once [a] team reaches over 200 people – even if they're in the same studio – you need complex management methods to make sure everything is held together; the feature development, the communication, and everything else." A year since its creation (thanks to hundreds of millions in tax breaks), Ubisoft Toronto is shaping up to be a beast -- whether local newspaper columnists like it or not.
Ubisoft's Toronto studio making next Splinter Cell and another 'triple-A' game
The new Toronto branch of Ubisoft has been operating quietly, going largely unnoticed for almost a year since its initial announcement. It sounds like the perfect group to develop a new Splinter Cell game. Ubisoft announced that the new Toronto studio will produce the next game in the series, and will work on a second, unannounced title with Ubisoft Montreal. Splinter Cell: Conviction producer Alexandre Parizeau has joined the Toronto team for this new Splinter Cell project. Managing director Jade Raymond told Gamasutra that many Montreal staffers -- "all the core team," as she described it -- relocated to the new Toronto studio. She said that, because of significant investments from both Ubisoft and the Ontario government, Ubisoft Toronto can start right away on large-scale games. "It's a really nice position to be in," Raymond said. "Instead of starting a studio and working on small projects, Nintendo DS or portables, we're starting out of the gate with triple-A only." The second game in Toronto's slate involves a small team coordinating with Montreal, led by A2M alum Lesley Phord-Toy. She told Gamasutra that the second team "gives us the chance to focus not only on bringing the right people in at the beginning, but putting them in the right place either to train or for training. When we look to grow this second team into a full team, we'll have the core team."
Jade Raymond to head up Ubisoft Toronto, focusing on AAA games and new IPs
While the whereabouts of Beyond Good & Evil 2's Jade are still – frustratingly – unknown, the whereabouts of Ubisoft's other Jade – that would be Jade Raymond, of Assassin's Creed fame – are quite known. Though she's been somewhat out of the limelight after initially trumpeting up the still-not-out-yet I Am Alive, Ms. Raymond is still alive and has been chosen as the head of the recently announced Ubisoft Toronto. But hey, we know you're worried about Yannis Mallat, CEO of both Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto, who told us last month that he would be "handling both" studios. Well, don't fret – Ubisoft's press release says that while "Raymond will oversee day-to-day operations of the Toronto studio's work on video game project," she will do so "under the governance of Yannis Mallat." Ubisoft Toronto is scheduled to open its doors by the end of the year and begin "work on AAA games and new intellectual properties," according to Raymond.
Hideo Kojima receives lifetime achievement award from MTV
MTV has awarded Hideo Kojima its first-ever lifetime achievement award for games as part of its MTV Game Awards 2008, held Nov. 22 in Germany. The award was presented to Kojima, who appeared in person, by Assassin's Creed producer (and fan of his work) Jade Raymond.Far from the end of his lifetime in games, the legendary designer commented, "I have to say, even though I received this award, let me state that I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live." You can watch a video of Kojima's acceptance speech after the break.[Via PS3 Fanboy]
Ubisoft hopes I Am Alive can be 'another strong franchise'
Well, of course it does. Ubisoft didn't get where it is today by throwing popular franchises like Splinter Cell away after a single use (although our neck-snapping pal Sam seems to have been misplaced recently), and you can be sure that the upcoming disaster survival adventure ... thing, I Am Alive, will be no different. "We hope it can be another strong franchise for our portfolio, alongside Prince Of Persia or Rayman Rabbids," the publisher's executive director, Alain Corre, told MCV. "It's a new baby for us – and we have big hopes."Provided it's raised properly and doesn't turn into a snot-nosed brat who sticks Legos up his nose and puts his Altair action figures in the microwave, this baby could be the best kind of disaster to befall any company. Of course, we should probably wait until we've played the first one before we sign off on "I Am Still Alive," and "Seriously, Stop Trying to Kill Me You Stupid Planet."
