Ubisoft gets bigger by picking up Massive Entertainment

by Alexander Sliwinski { Nov 10th 2008 at 6:30PM }

Massive Entertainment, developers of World in Conflict and the Ground Control series, have a new home at publisher Ubisoft. The Swedish studio was let go by Activision Blizzard following "The Merger." Clearly, despite Massive's quality work, WiC and the studio's RTS proficiency lacked the "potential to be exploited" by Blizzavision.

Neither the teams next project nor the details of the financial transaction were disclosed by the publisher. Last we'd heard, Blizzavision still owned the rights to World in Conflict, but we've contacted Ubi to find out if it took the rights in the transaction. If it didn't, expect a new RTS franchise (unless the studio totally goes in a new direction) the next time Massive announces what game it's working on.

Update: Ubi confirmed with us that it did receive the World in Conflict rights in the acquisition.

Tags: activision-blizzard, massive, massive-entertainment, ubisoft, world-in-conflict

Related From Joystiq

Massive founder leaves four months after Ubisoft purchase [update]
235 days ago
Rippy: Ensemble Studios was a 'victim of its own success'
242 days ago
Ubisoft cans World in Conflict's console release plans
249 days ago

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Uncontrol @ Nov 10th 2008 6:34PM

actiblizzion

Tony Bowman @ Nov 10th 2008 6:46PM

Ground Control(not GC 2) is still the only RTS game that i've ever really enjoyed.

i hope they come back to it some day.

Foetoid @ Nov 10th 2008 9:04PM

Me thinks you need to march out there and buy all the Dawn of War games.

Tony Bowman @ Nov 10th 2008 10:43PM

i tried them, but the problem is no squad tactics and the like. it's resource gathering and management.

i don't want to mind for widgets, ooze, crystals or whatever else some underpaid writer gets his peanuts to come up with between Red Bull tweaking and trips to take a piss.

that's what made the original Ground Control so awesome. you got to pick your dropships' unit loadouts, where to drop them, and that was it! then it was the best man's tactics wins. not who rushes the same 5 control points or who fins the biggest field of resource x.

i'm definitely in the minority when it comes to that though, and i'm not the kind of dick to say that RTS games suck if they don't conform to my playing inclinations.

i really wanted to like the Dawn of War games more than i did, though. i was a huge fan of Warhammer 40K, long those games came out. i had a roommate in college who had something like 3,500+ miniatures for the table-top game that he had hand-painted in extreme detail himself.

we had a lot of good times, setting up battlefields and terrain and whatnot and going to town with a sack of dice, a case of mountain dew and no social lives.

t_m @ Nov 11th 2008 2:42AM

Try homeworld...

I'm the same as you, i hate all the annoying management and production in RTS games.. i want decent tactics and strategy.

The only RTS games i'd consider great were GC1, HW, Kohan and Total War series..

(though i seriously wish GC1 had had a save feature... that campaign got pretty annoying towards the end...)