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Overheard @ E3: Imagine laughing it up

by Justin McElroy { Jun 2nd 2009 at 7:00AM }

Classic moment to remember from the Ubisoft press conference: As the company displayed its roster of Imagine games the crowd was so tickled by the surreality of the moment, that the chuckling got pretty bad. It was quieted fairly quickly though when one large gentleman remarked "Laugh it up, my daughter buys all this shit, and I'm the one paying for it."

If there's a better summation of the casual market, we've never heard it.

Ubisoft announces Style Lab casual franchise

by Griffin McElroy { Jun 1st 2009 at 9:50PM }

Ubisoft's press conference just took a turn for the boastful as the publisher praised its highly profitable casual franchises, Petz and Imagine. In order to rake in more solid gold bars of gold, Ubisoft is attempting to achieve a sales nirvana they're calling "Tween Games 2.0." The latest push in this attempt? An all new for-kids (let's be honest, for little girls) franchise known as "Style Lab."

The franchise will feature games that implement the DSi's camera for various girly reasons -- take a picture of yourself, and tart yourself up with make-up, or design your own jewelry which you can submit online and order in real life. Day. One. Purchase.

Ubisoft: full-year sales up 14% in 2008

by JC Fletcher { Apr 29th 2009 at 3:51PM }

Ubisoft announced its financial results (PDF link) for fiscal 2008 (which ended on March 31, 2009), and for the most part news (or Newz, if you prefer) is good. Full-year sales for 2008 grew to €1.058 billion, up 14% over last year's €928 million total.

The company explained the strong results of its last quarter with "a continued very strong showing" for its Wii lineup, including Raving Rabbids TV Party, Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip, and My Fitness Coach. One million units each of Shaun White (not just limited to the Wii version), Tom Clancy's HAWX and the Petz and Imagine games were shipped to retailers in Q4.

Ubisoft's sales target for the 2009 fiscal year is €1.1 billion. It expects the first quarter sales of 2009 to be weaker than 2008's, due to the relative lack of major releases (Q1 2008 included Haze and Assassin's Creed on PC), with growth to occur in the second half of the year.

Source (PDF document)

Ubisoft moves 1 million Imagine unitz

by Ben Gilbert { Feb 12th 2009 at 5:30PM }

Ubisoft is adding on to its enormous acquisition war chest, and the Imagine series is bringing the duckets: The company just hit the 1 million mark on its casual series for 2008 in the UK. Speaking with CasualGaming.biz, Ubisoft group brand manager ~~Sgt.~~ Mark Slaughter said, "The Imagine series and the broader Games For Everyone portfolio now represent a significant part of Ubisoft's business."

That makes a lot of sense, considering the company sold nearly 300k "unitz" of Imagine titles in just the four weeks leading up to Christmas (with Imagine Teacher and Imagine Dream Weddings heading up the sales spike, obviously). Who knows what'll happen when blockbuster Imagine "gamez" like Imagine Fashion Designer New York make it to Europe? Ubisoft uber alles!

UPDATE: We contacted Ubisoft, but the company couldn't confirm Mr. Slaughter's 1 million units number, instead telling us the series has sold over ~~8 million~~ 11 million units worldwide. Michael French, Editor-in-Chief of CasualGaming.biz did, however, confirm Mr. Slaughter's number, saying, "This is a UK only figure."

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This Week on the Nintendo Channel: Imagine Ice Champions

by JC Fletcher { Feb 9th 2009 at 2:00PM }

Last week, Nintendo offered a demo of My DoItAll, and we didn't really mind, because despite being kid-focused and a non-game, it was kind of a novelty, worth trying out for a few minutes. This week, though, we're faced with the dreaded "I" word: Imagine. The one new demo on the Nintendo Channel this week is Ubisoft's Imagine Ice Champions, the sequel to Imagine Figure Skater. Maybe there's some novelty value in getting to try an Imagine game without any commitment -- just to see what it's like -- but we doubt this is going to send anyone running to the Wii.

We've got the full list of returning demos after the break, as well as this week's rather large crop of videos.

Continued →

DS Daily: Imagine

by Alisha Karabinus { Dec 26th 2008 at 9:00AM }

You may have noticed that we occasionally poke fun (and bile) at Ubisoft's Imagine series, and frankly, today isn't going to be any different. We're still holidayed out, and that means we need to have a little fun ... and that means it's time to design your own Imagine title. Imagine Making Piles of Cash might be fitting (if somewhat depressing, really), and no one really wants to play Imagine The Guy Who Washes Your Car, but it might have hilarious boxart. Anyway, imagining new games for Ubisoft is totally in the spirit of the franchise, right? Sure. We're playing Imagine Working for Ubisoft.

Apologies to anyone who works at a car wash (or Ubisoft). You were an easy target.

Nintendo's move 'away from the hardcore' cited in N-Revolution mag's closure

by Randy Nelson { Dec 3rd 2008 at 4:30PM }

MCV reports that Imagine's Nintendo-only UK magazine, N•Revolution, will cease publication. In this day and age, with ad revenue and readership down – not to mention a little thing you're using called the internet – this move doesn't exactly come as a surprise. Its publisher's reasoning for the closure does.

Imagine's managing director, Damian Butt, says that Nintendo's focus is shifting away from the magazine's readership, i.e. core gamers. "It has become increasingly obvious that Nintendo's strategy...has moved increasingly away from the hardcore gaming community that is our specialty," Butt explained.

Still, Butt says that Imagine – which also publishes gamesTM – will continue to work with Nintendo to "drive purchases of Nintendo software." We're sure it will be in an entirely objective, unbiased, above-the-board way ... of working with a company to positively influence software sales through editorial. What could be wrong with that? Oh.

DS Daily: A little too much

by David Hinkle { Sep 2nd 2008 at 9:00AM }

As DS gamers, we get exposed to a lot of games. Are there any you wish would just stop flooding the handheld? Are you sick of seeing training games? What genre/series are you fed up with hearing about? What do you think the DS could use less of?

DS Daily: Imagine some random job

by Alisha Karabinus { Aug 25th 2008 at 9:00AM }

So we've got what now ... rock star, teacher, babyz (sitter), chef, animal doctor (because veterinarian probably has too many syllables for a single word), and now wedding designer. There are probably even a few of Ubisoft's Imagine titles that we missed in that list, but hey -- we can't remember them all. But we can imagine the future of the line. What do you think about Imagine: Trophy Wife, or Imagine: Reality Show Star?

E308: Imagine Rabbidz

by JC Fletcher { Jul 18th 2008 at 7:00PM }

I couldn't think of a worse place to demo Imagine Party Babyz than E3. There are no very small children, no casual gamers, and no ... whoever else could conceivably be expected to be in the audience for the Imagine series -- just jaded, bitter journalists. And me.

As far as I could tell, I was the first person to try it (or among the first, I'm guessing, because the attending Frag Dolls didn't seem to have been forced to play the demo hundreds of times, even though I did lose at multiplayer). And far from the nefarious destroyer of gaming you may imagine, Party Babyz is actually kind of a good game. Because it takes its design cues straight out of Rayman Raving Rabbids. Only with doughy little sprogs instead of rabbids.

The minigame I played, in which you bottle-feed your baby character, is exactly the burping minigame from Raving Rabbids 2. You start by shaking the Wiimote to shake the bottle, then you upturn the Wiimote to simulate holding the bottle up. Points are awarded for every second or so that the baby drinks. When the baby has had enough, you lower the Wiimote and hit A to burp the baby. I don't know if it would still be fun if I weren't thinking about Rabbids while playing, but it was definitely actual fun under those conditions.

Gallery: Babies Party

Imagine Figure Skater could be good, might not be

by Phil Larsen { Jun 23rd 2008 at 2:45PM }

This could really, totally be a good game. Last time we checked, figure skating is a sport accompanied by music. It requires rhythmic motions and impeccable timing. All of these features are perfect for adapting to the touch screen on the DS. Tracing skating lines, tapping at the appropriate times, using smooth stylus skills -- yep, sounds like a winner.

Imagine Figure Skater is marketed towards young girls, what with the absence of any male characters and the emphasis on hair and accessory customization. Sure, some of us might not have considered playing a figure skating game in any form, but we probably said the same thing about lawyers. In any case, the first screenies are in the gallery to start you down the long, complex road of "Should I buy this game when it comes out in August?" The answer is ...

Gallery: Imagine Figure Skating

[Via press release]

Babies Party their way onto Wii

by JC Fletcher { May 29th 2008 at 1:15PM }

The most notorious game in Ubisoft's Imagine series of girl-focused casual games is headed to the Wii -- as a party game, of course. Babies Party combines the babysitting theme of the DS game with 30 minigames including (according to the press release) "memory games, puzzles, coloring and cutting up activities."

You can choose to play either as a baby or a babysitter. It's unclear exactly how the gameplay will change, but we imagine that there are different minigames involving taking care of babies as opposed to being babies. As with pretty much every Wii game that gets announced, Babies Party will support the Balance Board in some games.

Babies Party enters the exciting genre of baby-based party minigames created by the Korean arcade series Come On Baby, which also made use of innovative controllers.

Gallery: Babies Party

Imagine a ton of screens for Ubisoft's casual/training games

by JC Fletcher { May 29th 2008 at 11:00AM }

Ubisoft released information for four Imagine series games at their Ubiday event: Imagine Teacher, which we're in the uncomfortable position of kind of liking; Imagine Rock Star (Imagine Girl Band in the UK, because apparently there are no rock stars there); My Fashion Studio (Imagine Fashion Model in the UK); and My Secret World by Imagine. We've heard of Imagine Rock Star before, but the other three are new as of yesterday, and we had yet to see screens of Rock Star and its nonsensical drum kit. My Secret World is a diary program, including some scrapbook-type stuff and custom avatars. My Fashion Studio is precisely what it sounds like!

We've got galleries for Imagine Rock Star, Imagine Teacher, My Secret World, and My Fashion Studio, all visible after the break. You'll have to head over to IGN for videos of My Secret World and Imagine Teacher. The style of Teacher tells us right off that it's not for us (as if the Imagine name didn't do the trick), but we still think the implementation is inspired. As for the rest: My Secret World is almost incomprehensible, and My Fashion Studio is a paper doll simulator.

Gallery: Imagine Teacher

Read - My Secret World video
Read - Imagine Teacher video

Continued →

We're learning to like the idea of Imagine Teacher

by JC Fletcher { May 28th 2008 at 9:00PM }

During their Ubidays press event, Ubisoft unveiled a new entry in their infamous Imagine series of games that someone guessed girls might like (based on what girls on TV seem to enjoy or something). Imagine Teacher trains girls to ... well, train children, using, of course, a series of teaching-themed minigames.

The game traces an elementary school teacher's job duties chronologically, starting with lesson planning and seating charts, and progressing to individual lessons. Each subject's lesson is presented as a minigame, followed by another minigame in which you grade your students' work. The day ends with classroom cleanup and parent-teacher conferences.

We're trying our hardest to hate this, but the truth is that Imagine Teacher sounds irresistably clever, and we would really like to play it. Pretty embarrassing, but there, we said it.

Ubisoft announces unimaginative 'Imagine Rock Star'

by Kyle Orland { Mar 21st 2008 at 1:00PM }

Say what you will about Ubisoft's Imagine line of games (targeted at girls aged 6 to 14), they're generally pretty original. There are precious few game makers trying to tap into the figure skating, fashion designing, and animal healing segments of the burgeoning DS game market. Unfortunately, the same can't really be said for Ubisoft's latest Imagine game announcement, Imagine Rock Star.

Not to focus on the negative, but when Imagine Rock Star comes out in June, it will bump up against a veritable cornucopia of competing DS rhythm games, including a couple that have a very similar premise of multiplayer, "join a band" action. We don't want to sell it short before we see it, but we find it hard to "imagine" (ha!) that this game will bring something new to a genre that's already getting a bit overcrowded. Especially when the "ability to customize the look of each band mate in order to become the most stylish rockers" is a major selling point. Then again, we aren't girls aged 6 to 14, so what do we know?