Publisher Ubisoft has said how they see content delivery as far more important than the actual device of delivery itself, i.e. the platforms. Their first live action mini-movie debuts.
Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, a 14-minute flick, ”showcases” how they can deliver content ”in interesting ways” to fans. Ubi not ”moving directly” into film; an example of ”convergence”.
”I think the first point to raise is that we’re probably not moving directly into making films for the sake of becoming a film publisher,” Ubi’s Murray Pannel tells GamesIndustry.biz.
”There’s definitely technological convergence - Hybride Studios was responsible for very visual, stand-out films like 300 and Sin City, so they were using a lot of visual and special effects in their movie-making which used technology we could leverage as a traditional games publisher.”
The newly released Assassin’s Creed: Lineage movie was posted on YouTube to be watched freely by fans of the game franchise, as it bridges events between the first and second game.
”For games development, equally, because we use a lot of digital assets they can utilise a lot of those assets in film development - so there’s a technological convergence which is most easily understood,” continued Pannel.
”But where Ubisoft is a bit more ambitious than other publishers is on convergence of the intellectual property, and story-telling in its broadest sense. So what I think Assassin’s Creed Lineage showcases is how we can take content - and we’re a content provider fundamentally - and deliver that in interesting ways to consumers and fans alike.”
Assassin’s Creed II is being released on Xbox 360 and PS3 November 20th, with the PC version due out in 2010. More Lineage episodes are due soon; see part one below - it’s pretty spectacular.
