Tom Clancy Games 'Changed Ubisoft', Says CEO

Apr 08, 2019 9:00 AM PDT After literally dozens of games, we'd hope it did.

by Joseph Knoop

When you think of Ubisoft, a few key franchises probably come to mind: Assassin’s Creed, Rayman, and Far Cry, for instance. For Ubisoft CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot, however, it was the Tom Clancy brand (and subsequently dozens of Clancy games) that impacted Ubisoft the most.

“The first one that changed the lot of the company was Splinter Cell,” Guillemot said. “We went for the Xbox, and it was a complex bet, and a dangerous bet because they didn't have many machines [out there]. Launching on that machine and not PlayStation at the time was a bit risky, but we couldn't go straight on PlayStation. We wanted to use the capacity of the [Xbox]. We did very well on Xbox. We hit probably 50 percent of the install base.”

On this month’s IGN Unfiltered, editor Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Guillemot to talk about the humble origins of Ubisoft, how the company managed to fight off the hostile takeover attempt from Vivendi, the evolution of the Ubisoft’s games and more.

Make sure to check back at IGN tomorrow for the full episode, and also don’t miss out on previous IGN Unfiltered episodes. Each month, Ryan McCaffrey chats with some of the video game industry’s biggest and brightest minds to learn more about their lives and careers, and what made them the names they are today.

You can hear folks like Amy Hennig talk about her work as a games writer, 343 Industries’ Bonnie Ross on shaping the future of Halo, NBA 2K gameplay director Mike Wang on his wild journey from forum poster to 2K lead, and lots more.

Joseph Knoop is a freelance writer for IGN, and enjoys hiding in bushes. Breach and clear with him on Twitter @JosephKnoop.

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