Ubisoft recently announced that they have acquired the rights to the popular real time strategy series World in Conflict and at the same time its Swedish developer, Massive Entertainment, which will further bulk up the company. This acquisition comes after Activision recently bought Budcat Creations, who they had worked with to develop Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, as well as Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Specializing in the RTS genre, Massive Entertainment has over 120 developers, and for Ubisoft, currently developing Tom Clancy"s EndWar, an expansion of their RTS game range would be very appealing. Whilst they have not yet announced further plans regarding the future of the World in Conflict series, it is likely they would continue it, along with their own entry into the RTS genre.
"We are delighted to welcome the talented team of creators at Massive into the Ubisoft family", said Christine Burgess-Quemard, a director at Ubisoft. "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." said Martin Walfisz, president and founder of Massive Entertainment.
Whilst this is a relatively small addition to the French publisher and developer, it will still play an important part in an increasingly competitive market, with EA and Activision (owned by Vivendi) being the other two main, but not only, competitors.