14 DAY TRIAL // Jade Raymond, who is currently the leader of the new Toronto studio of Ubisoft, has said that the gaming industry needs to embrace innovation and the only way to do that is to get more publishers try and change the way the industry works.
Raymond, one of the core developers behind the initial success of Assassin’s Creed, has told Eurogamer that, “I am pushing our creative teams to think about meaning and to say something deeper than at the surface level. One thing I am certain of is that the creative teams who occupy the top spots in our industry should be taking the greatest risks.”
The executive has mentioned Activision as one of the companies that has the resources, both human and material, to innovate more but that prefers to focus on just a small number of franchises that get a new, slightly better release every year.
Raymond added, “More and more people come to me at Ubisoft and say: ‘I love games. I came into this industry with so many ideas. But I can’t continue to make shooters over and over again. I’m not even in line with the messages. I have that meeting a lot these days. Yeah, it’s time to give our teenage medium a kick in the balls.”
The developer also believes that games could draw inspiration from a number of current events, mentioning the Arab Spring, the fight over Internet freedom and the growing conflict between classes as potential starting points for video games.
The Toronto studio that Ubisoft has recently created will be working on a new installment in the Splinter Cell series, although the company has not offered any details about what kind of game it plans to create.
The team will also be creating a new intellectual property that Ubisoft only plans to reveal during 2013.