14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft announced having entered into an agreement to buy Action Pants Inc., a studio based in Vancouver, Canada. This is the first time that Ubisoft has an in house development asset situated on the West Coast of North America.
Action Pants Inc. is quite a big operation at the moment. It was initially founded in 2006 by three industry veterans, Simon Andrews, Nik Palmer and Omar Al-Khafaji. They are now employing 110 videogame developers who are working on a sport game supposed to come out during the next year for the Nintendo Wii.
Both entities expressed their excitement when the deal was concluded. Christine Burgess-Quemard, the executive director of worldwide production at Ubisoft, said that “The creative talent at Action Pants made the decision an easy one, and we are delighted to both establish ourselves in the region as well as welcome a fantastic group of experienced developers who can start exchanging with our other teams worldwide.”
Simon Andrews from Action Pants stated that “Action Pants and Ubisoft share very similar values and we are confident that this synergy will provide all of our staff with new and exciting opportunities, as well as resources that will benefit all of our future products.”
It's not clear what Ubisoft will be developing at the Action Pants studio, but the French publisher might announce something in the upcoming weeks. It seems that a new Shaun White Snowboarding game might be developed at the studio.
It's nice to see that at least one publisher, which has a sizable cash reserve, is using it to buy assets, at a time when a videogame powerhouse like Electronic Arts is laying off employees, while announcing that more “high cost” assets will be closed because of a loss of 641 million dollars in one quarter.