The Wargamer

Ubisoft has just announced that it has acquired Massive Entertainment, the developer of the award winning World in Conflict and Ground Control series.  Activision was the previous owner of Massive Entertainment.  While the amount of the sale was not disclosed, it had to have been sizable; Massive Entertainment is ranked in the top 50 of development houses by Games Developer Research this year, and the World in Conflict series is close to seeing the release of an expansion, Soviet Assault.  

"We are delighted to welcome the talented team of creators at Massive into the Ubisoft family," said Christine Burgess-Quemard, executive director of worldwide production studios at Ubisoft. "Ubisoft is growing at an intense pace and our strategy is to ensure the strength of our global creative teams. Massive has put together a group of some of the most confirmed and recognized creators in the industry and I know that their talent and innovation will allow them to seamlessly integrate into our worldwide network of production studios."

“Massive’s development team places great importance on its freedom to innovate and create games of the highest quality,” stated Martin Walfisz, president and founder of Massive Entertainment®. “We are fortunate to have found in Ubisoft a publisher who shares the same values and understands our mindset. I have no doubt that our future together will offer significant mutual benefit and synergy.”

Everyone's great freedom to innovate and good fortune aside, over 120 developers living in Sweden will now have a new boss and will hopefully now get down to the work of finishing Soviet Assault so the rest of us can start gaming.   A post created last Friday on the Massgate forums was speculating as to why there was such an extended delay in the release of Soviet Assault, which is currently listed as shipping in early February on Amazon.com.  With the changed ownership of the development house, the uncertainty of who the boss is has been removed.  Now everyone:  get back to work and finish up that game!