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Canada Gives Ubisoft $4 million
- Thread starter D-Back
- Start date
Mr_Furious
Member
Gee, that was sure nice of them.
Pedigree Chum
Banned
Nice. One of the most talented teams within Ubi.
Malakhov
Banned
You people claiming that Quebec all get the subventions should just shut up about it already, you have no clue of what you are talking about.
Oh wow, they gave 4 millions to UBI Montreal, big fucking deal.
How about the GM assembly plant that was closed in Boisbriand and the 1100 jobs that were lost because the governement refused to subvention them? Then after that they went on and striked a deal with GM Canada :lol :lol :lol
So puhleeze, get a clue.
Oh wow, they gave 4 millions to UBI Montreal, big fucking deal.
How about the GM assembly plant that was closed in Boisbriand and the 1100 jobs that were lost because the governement refused to subvention them? Then after that they went on and striked a deal with GM Canada :lol :lol :lol
So puhleeze, get a clue.
Warm Machine
Member
explodet said:
Just a guy from Toronto? We're talking about Michael Ironside here! V, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Top Gun, and Free Willy!
That's not a coincidence the EA and Ubisoft studios are just near one another.
A couple years back, the Guillemot brothers looked to establish a new studio I think they wanted to be french. They looked up to Canada (which has alot of french speaking people, especially in Quebec and in some eastern parts), and it ended up being Montreal versus some city in New-Brunswick.
I remember seeing newscasts about it, alot of people did not wanted to have Ubisoft to come in Montreal. That is, I dunno what took the mayor and the provincial authorities (which i believe were responsible for the most part of the project, this is different from the federal, canadian government), but they went onto building the city of multimedia. They upped their bids against New-Brunswick, and in the end the Guillemots and Ubi Soft chose Montreal.
Many people in Quebec were shocked because that wasted a whole lot of our very own taxes upon building that suburb, and we are yet to see any benefit and this had "money pit" written all over it. Over time, it was worse then we could even imagine: nearly all the other companies that had an office in the "Cité du Multimédia" left or at least never went out healthy, and the number of vacant offices was really memerizing. Not to mention quebecian software and videogame developers who had zilch at the start. They finally got parity with mega corporation (especially Ubi Soft), but they got rolled in the end, many closed. I think only Strategy First ever got something profitable out of this mess (and they are not in Montreal), and A2m, which develops sub-par platform games based on movie licenses.
So here they were, and for some reason, the people here got the opportunity to work on Splinter Cell. It was really an incredible feat, I remember when I first saw the game on IGN, I never paid attention to it before, I learned it was developed in Montreal. Going into Ubisoft Montreal after that, and realizing that some french-quebecians just started one of the greatest new series of all time, I really liked it. That made me buy a stealth game, which I avoid because I like totally sucked at it, because I got to see it live with the developers.
Since then they have moved up to make another great franchise (re-create Prince of Persia in a much better way that Red Orb did), and people here in Quebec that don't know a thing about videogames hear it in the news. They go and buy an Xbox to play Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. Some unfortunately don't know that Ubisoft and Ubisoft Montreal are two different things. But it's quite incredible, I was really happy when I realized that my expectations of this game being a turnover to be true.
However, the City of Multimedia will always be a money pit for both provincial and federal panels of government here. The few millions they're giving away is nothing to them, it's just I guess more of a publicity stunt to gain some sympathy capital than an investment. People have forgottent that economically, Ubisoft has screwed Montreal, the province of Quebec and Canada totally.
The people who work there I don't think they're payed to a fair percentage of their worth, and especially based on the hit they made. When the EA studio in Montreal was announced, a few Ubisoft employees left (or tried to leave) for EA, but Ubisoft had made them signed contracts. It got in the news, but people forgot about it. Think what you want of that.
It has already begun, the medias have begun making realize to most every quebecian that the largest videogame company in the world (EA) has got hits that were made in Montreal. When they will have success, this kind of media coverage will begin again. The media in Quebec have this sort of weird fetischm like people in Quebec are notorious in the world, are successfull... I am getting tired of reading about Celine Dion mind you. It's a strange mentality, that was helped by the fact that a distinct society of 6 million frenchies was stuck in between 300 millions english-speaking people. While Quebec and french have made big footsteps towards, there's still this inferiority complex that needs to be killed off. I remember when Halo 2 hit stores and sold so well, the media covered the thing, but not has much Halo 2 as the fact that a Canadian had produced the game at Bungie. That's beginning to quite hit on my nerves.
It's not to satisfy the people of Quebec, this is penny change for the federal canadian government, it's like I suppose, KFC giving away money for some organization. They're doing this for all canadians in fact, not to please people of Quebec, but most to please people of Canada that a team of developers in their country make some of the world's biggest videogame hits, and to gather sympathy capital internationnaly, on a very minor scale. It's quite intricated, but it has got nothing to do with the eternal french versus english debate of Canada. As good as Silicon Knight's and Bioware's games are, they never became multi-million selling franchises unfortunately.
BTW, it's not as much a "francophony" ministry, as some sub-ministry that is used in not so politically correct means by the Liberals to enforce canadian unity to Quebecers who are mostly sick of the whole things, that, and having their taxes' money wasted to produce millions of Canada flags.
I hope that'll get them Ubisoft employees some quite nice HDTV sets.
A couple years back, the Guillemot brothers looked to establish a new studio I think they wanted to be french. They looked up to Canada (which has alot of french speaking people, especially in Quebec and in some eastern parts), and it ended up being Montreal versus some city in New-Brunswick.
I remember seeing newscasts about it, alot of people did not wanted to have Ubisoft to come in Montreal. That is, I dunno what took the mayor and the provincial authorities (which i believe were responsible for the most part of the project, this is different from the federal, canadian government), but they went onto building the city of multimedia. They upped their bids against New-Brunswick, and in the end the Guillemots and Ubi Soft chose Montreal.
Many people in Quebec were shocked because that wasted a whole lot of our very own taxes upon building that suburb, and we are yet to see any benefit and this had "money pit" written all over it. Over time, it was worse then we could even imagine: nearly all the other companies that had an office in the "Cité du Multimédia" left or at least never went out healthy, and the number of vacant offices was really memerizing. Not to mention quebecian software and videogame developers who had zilch at the start. They finally got parity with mega corporation (especially Ubi Soft), but they got rolled in the end, many closed. I think only Strategy First ever got something profitable out of this mess (and they are not in Montreal), and A2m, which develops sub-par platform games based on movie licenses.
So here they were, and for some reason, the people here got the opportunity to work on Splinter Cell. It was really an incredible feat, I remember when I first saw the game on IGN, I never paid attention to it before, I learned it was developed in Montreal. Going into Ubisoft Montreal after that, and realizing that some french-quebecians just started one of the greatest new series of all time, I really liked it. That made me buy a stealth game, which I avoid because I like totally sucked at it, because I got to see it live with the developers.
Since then they have moved up to make another great franchise (re-create Prince of Persia in a much better way that Red Orb did), and people here in Quebec that don't know a thing about videogames hear it in the news. They go and buy an Xbox to play Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. Some unfortunately don't know that Ubisoft and Ubisoft Montreal are two different things. But it's quite incredible, I was really happy when I realized that my expectations of this game being a turnover to be true.
However, the City of Multimedia will always be a money pit for both provincial and federal panels of government here. The few millions they're giving away is nothing to them, it's just I guess more of a publicity stunt to gain some sympathy capital than an investment. People have forgottent that economically, Ubisoft has screwed Montreal, the province of Quebec and Canada totally.
The people who work there I don't think they're payed to a fair percentage of their worth, and especially based on the hit they made. When the EA studio in Montreal was announced, a few Ubisoft employees left (or tried to leave) for EA, but Ubisoft had made them signed contracts. It got in the news, but people forgot about it. Think what you want of that.
It has already begun, the medias have begun making realize to most every quebecian that the largest videogame company in the world (EA) has got hits that were made in Montreal. When they will have success, this kind of media coverage will begin again. The media in Quebec have this sort of weird fetischm like people in Quebec are notorious in the world, are successfull... I am getting tired of reading about Celine Dion mind you. It's a strange mentality, that was helped by the fact that a distinct society of 6 million frenchies was stuck in between 300 millions english-speaking people. While Quebec and french have made big footsteps towards, there's still this inferiority complex that needs to be killed off. I remember when Halo 2 hit stores and sold so well, the media covered the thing, but not has much Halo 2 as the fact that a Canadian had produced the game at Bungie. That's beginning to quite hit on my nerves.
It's not to satisfy the people of Quebec, this is penny change for the federal canadian government, it's like I suppose, KFC giving away money for some organization. They're doing this for all canadians in fact, not to please people of Quebec, but most to please people of Canada that a team of developers in their country make some of the world's biggest videogame hits, and to gather sympathy capital internationnaly, on a very minor scale. It's quite intricated, but it has got nothing to do with the eternal french versus english debate of Canada. As good as Silicon Knight's and Bioware's games are, they never became multi-million selling franchises unfortunately.
BTW, it's not as much a "francophony" ministry, as some sub-ministry that is used in not so politically correct means by the Liberals to enforce canadian unity to Quebecers who are mostly sick of the whole things, that, and having their taxes' money wasted to produce millions of Canada flags.
I hope that'll get them Ubisoft employees some quite nice HDTV sets.
pkasho said:
That's not significant enough anyway. Education in Canada is of provincial authority, here it's the canadian federal government who gave 4 millions away, not Quebec's provincial government.
I guess it sounds better in the media than doing this and having all of the unions, colleges, highschools screaming at you in unison demanding more, you get sympathy for once.
norinrad21
Banned
Who the hell is klein?
Late Stage Marxist
Member
Gotta give big props to the govt on this one. It's good too see them acknowledging UBI's craft and video games in general.
soundwave05
Member
I don't see it as a bad thing.
The government is willing to support high tech industry, like game development, it should only encourage more studios to pop up and be of Ubi Soft quality.
And that means more people coming out of school could possibly get a job at studios like Ubi Soft.
The government is willing to support high tech industry, like game development, it should only encourage more studios to pop up and be of Ubi Soft quality.
And that means more people coming out of school could possibly get a job at studios like Ubi Soft.
AtomicShroom
Member
pkasho said:
Actually, they are. Also announced today, Ubisoft are planning on opening a Ubisoft school right here in Montreal. The talent pool here is awesome and going untrained because there really isn't enough of eduction given in the field of videogames.
They hope to be able to form 80 people per year in various fields of videogaming, such as game design, modeling, level design, programming and such.
WTF if you're serious? First, it's only 4 millions. Second, it'll help to create 1000 jobs in Canada. You know, Quebec is still in Canada, and this will help the economy of the entire country. Third, these 4 millions were already given in a recent budget to the Canada Economic Development program. I'm happy to see that this money will go to a great company rather than in the hands of a flags manufacturer.
Why not give it to Silicon Knights?
Because the QC gouverment is involved too, more than the Canadien government.
Why not give it to Bioware?
^
Ok, so 4 millions divided by 20 millions tax contributers = 0.25$/person. Big deal. One less bubble gum from those machines I guess.
See what AtomicShroom said.
soundwave05
Member
Actually yeah I think its smarter to invest it in areas like this.
Its great to throw money into education, but what's the point if there's no jobs for these educated people?
Giving grants to companies like Ubi Soft opens up job possibilities for people who pay their dues in college/university.
Its great to throw money into education, but what's the point if there's no jobs for these educated people?
Giving grants to companies like Ubi Soft opens up job possibilities for people who pay their dues in college/university.
Draff said:
Yeah it has one of the lowest rates, belive me I know what I'm talking about. When I said pocket money, I meant it's not much when compared to what is required in such critical fields such as healthcare, education and welfare. So as I said, four millions for sympathy, from a political point of view, that does makes sense.
MRIs, for example, are often not even paid off by the governments of the provinces themselves! The hospitals have to set up foundations that accumulate money to pay for such equipments, like the one that is being built in my city right now. Everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie, and they have good reasons, but still the pie is the same amount in the end. You can pay to get a private MRI also.
I did not knew about part of the founding allowed to educate videogame developers, that's really nice. But I have doubts about it's overall pragmatism however. It would be great if it worked.
I think that governments are looking to attract more big companies into the Cité du Multimédia, rather than spawning another developer like Ubisoft Montreal. Where is the support for Strategy First?
Kifimbo said:
Well, all I'm saying is that the rest of Canada has always been bailing out on Quebec to please threats from the separatists. Ontario & Alberta contribute the majority of the budget, yet Quebec get's the lion's share? Look at the digusting millions put into keeping Quebec happy (Sponsorship Scandal)
Anyways, this is heading way OT, it's great to have respected Canadian game developers like SK, Bioware, and they should get a piece of the pie as well.
jenov4 said:
Bailing on Quebec to please separatists' threats? Why do you insists on putting provinces as for the ones developers are into as opposed to canadian developers? Bioware and Silicon Knights, very unfortunately, are independent companies, not a part of a France-based company like Ubisoft Montreal is. And so are Strategy First!
That and talking about the Sponsorship Scandal, don't compare apples and oranges dude.
Where did it first came from all this money put towards Quebec? It came from english politicians, or french yes-men who wanted the butter and it's money at the same time. People of Quebec also never wanted of Scully and stuff in the first place, but our very dear politicians did or so it would appear.jenov4 said:
I totally agree, each of these should. Yes too much off-topic, but this is bound to happen with these kind of news. However I understand you don't want to go back to Wolfe vanquishing Montcalm on Abraham's plains, do you?