Ubisoft buys Tom Clancy name. Plans to do MMO?

[Queasy]

Link

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in a conference call Thursday that his company is now ready to "go for" a Tom Clancy-branded MMO.

Now that Ubisoft is free of royalty charges to Tom Clancy following the acquisition of all IP rights to the author's name, the French game maker will now pursue a Tom Clancy MMO.

During a call regarding the IP acquisition, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, "On MMOs, the investment is really high. So we need to maximize the revenue. With the royalties we had [to pay], it was another barrier to creating a [Tom Clancy MMO], because the original investment was diminished by that.

"Having no fees, it's going to give us a full return, [so] we've really decided now to go for an MMO on the Clancy name, which is big."

Nothing yet is set in stone, and there doesn't appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production, as Ubisoft is still figuring out how to approach the challenging MMO market.

Guillemot did say that there are a lot of options with the Clancy brand. "You have Splinter Cell, Sam Fisher, the Rainbow [Sixes], the GRAWs and all the other new creations we have. So this [IP acquisition] will make that [MMO] product a really big product."

Guillemot said that Ubisoft already "has the technology to create MMOs. He continued, "We have lots of games in the Clancy franchise that are already multiplayer. So to create an MMO, we need to have larger teams to actually spend the time to create it."

He said entering the MMO market with a Clancy title "was all the question of decision, and we have the know-how, so we can go for it."

Guillemot wouldn't comment on how long it would take for a Clancy MMO to hit the market, as he said it would depend on the form the MMO would take.

"We can't be very specific now, because there are many ways to get in the MMO business."

He said that an MMO would cost "between $40 and $50 million ."

I have no idea what direction they would go with an MMO with this. Would it be some along the lines of Red Storm Rising (WWIII) or GRAW or Splinter Cell or Rainbow Six or Op-Center or End War or....

There's so many different directions and gametypes that you could do with a Tom Clancy IP.

 

[mugs]

How can the author of that article say there does not appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production when there IS? EndWar.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: mugs
How can the author of that article say there does not appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production when there IS? EndWar.

End War isn't an MMO, just a RTS.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: mugs
How can the author of that article say there does not appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production when there IS? EndWar.

End War isn't an MMO, just a RTS.

Well, they say it is a "persistent world" RTS. I'm not sure what that means exactly or how MMOish that makes it.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: mugs
How can the author of that article say there does not appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production when there IS? EndWar.

End War isn't an MMO, just a RTS.

Well, they say it is a "persistent world" RTS. I'm not sure what that means exactly or how MMOish that makes it.

I guess you could say it's just a "partial" MMO.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: mugs
How can the author of that article say there does not appear to be a Clancy MMO in full-blown production when there IS? EndWar.

End War isn't an MMO, just a RTS.

Well, they say it is a "persistent world" RTS. I'm not sure what that means exactly or how MMOish that makes it.

I guess you could say it's just a "partial" MMO.

From what I've read, it's only persistant in that one side of the conflict will battle until it wins the entire map, then it resets and cycles from there. It really sounds to have a Planetside-feel to it, except it'll just be small individual battles that determine the map conquest instead of multiple people all in the same place at the same time.