Crispy Gamer News

Late in the day yesterday, Ubisoft announced that it was picking up one of the casualties of the Activision Blizzard merger, and has acquired the assets and all of the personnel of Sweden- based studio Massive Entertainment, as well as the World In Conflict RTS brand.

“We are delighted to welcome the talented team of creators at Massive into the Ubisoft family,” said Christine Burgess-Quemard, executive director of worldwide production studios at Ubisoft. “Ubisoft is growing at an intense pace and our strategy is to ensure the strength of our global creative teams. Massive has put together a group of some of the most confirmed and recognized creators in the industry and I know that their talent and innovation will allow them to seamlessly integrate into our worldwide network of production studios.”
(more…)

Activision Publishing announced today its plans for much of the Vivendi Games line-up it inherited when it merged with the company earlier this month. First the company confirmed plans to keep some of Vivendi Games’ key franchises including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro.

The company will also retain two original IPs: Prototype and another “to be announced” title. Activision Publishing will also continue to support The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon - probably because it was too late to dump the franchise at the time of the merger.

However, the real provocative question is what happens to the games the company has not talked about in today’s release: games like Double Fine’s Brutal Legend, the new 50 Cent game, Ghostbusters, and the next Riddick title.

While we wait to hear the fate of those games, Activision says that it is rolling some of its operations into other operations. The company plans to “realign” Prototype developers Radical Entertainment and Bourne developer High Moon Studios into its studio system. The company is also looking closely at
Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict developer) and Swordfish Studios (50 Cent game developer), but is talking about a possible plans to divest both. Finally, Activision is looking closely at Vivendi Games Mobile and Sierra Online, two units it calls “non-strategic,” which it may sell at a later date. That’s four units within the company that it may dump at a at some point for some quick cash, which is very bad news for anyone that works there.

Activision did not disclose whether or not there would be any layoffs at any of these studios in North America. Some European operations have seen a reduction in staff already. More when we have it.

Update: According to Variety’s Cut Scene blog, Activision will be unloading Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, The Bourne license, and the 50 Cent sequel. One would imagine that the company will shop these projects around to publishers - possibly at a bargain. We’ll see.

Despite the ongoing strike putting the brakes on Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America is still moving forward with the inclusion of videogame writing as a part of its annual Writers Guild Awards show. The nominees for the Guilds” inaugural Videogame Writing Award, honoring outstanding achievement in videogame writing during 2007 include:

Crash of the Titans (Sierra Entertainment): Written by Christopher Mitchell

Dead Head Fred (D3 Publisher): Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan

The Simpsons Game (Electronic Arts): Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin

The Witcher (Atari): Lead Story Designer Artur Ganszyniec, Dialogue Sebastian Stepien, Additional Dialogue Marcin Blacha, Writers Sande Chen and Anne Too

World in Conflict (Sierra Entertainment): Story Design Christofer Emgard, Story Consultant Larry Bond, Script Consultant Ed Zuckerman

According to the WGA’’s statement, the WGA’’s inaugural Videogame Writing Award was developed by the WGA and spearheaded by the Guild’’s New Media Caucus to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, improve the status of writers, and foster uniform standards within the gaming industry, spotlights quality work by videogame writers, raising their profiles, and validating their contributions to this rapidly maturing medium.

Due to the ongoing strike, the show for the WGA Writers Awards has been canceled, but the winners will still be announced at a press event on Feb. 9.