Ubisoft has announced that Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond will manage its new Toronto, Canada-based studio when it opens later this year.
Under the governance of Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft’s Montreal and Toronto studios, Raymond will oversee day-to-day operations at the new development house.
Raymond has been with Ubisoft Montreal since 2004. She worked as a producer on Assassin’s Creed and is currently executive producer on the sequel, among other projects, Ubisoft said. She has previously held positions at Electronic Arts, IBM and Sony Online.
“I’m excited to have Jade managing our Toronto studio,” said Mallat. “With more than 12 years of experience in the videogame industry, Jade’s knowledge and leadership as an industry veteran are major assets in building the Toronto studio and expanding Ubisoft’s presence in Canada.”
Raymond added: “I’m looking forward to building a strong and talented team to work on AAA games and new intellectual properties.”
First announced in July, Ubisoft Toronto is due to open by the end of the 2009 and is expected to generate 800 new jobs over the next decade.
Her profile consists of a handful of shit games. She's only moving up to make the game industry look more diverse and, more importantly, any title she's attached to will instantly be popular with the legion of teenage boys who spank it over the thought of a pretty girl who plays games.
Don't belittle my fantasies! D:<
There's definitely something fishy about the whole Raymond thing, she was still being a presenter on some American video games related show when she was supposed to be the head honcho of over 100 people. It's shame, had Ubi just been honest and said, look Jade knows games and has the gift of the gab and we've hired her to be the spokesperson for the game people probs would have been okay with it.
Actually she has a Bachelor's in Computer Science, entered the game industry proper as a programmer (first IBM, then at Sony), and then took a job as EA as a producer. I believe between EA and Ubisoft she has 6-7 years of experience as a Producer alone.
I don't know, that sounds like pretty solid qualifications to me. It's mind boggling how people think they can judge her abilities as a Producer, when all anyone's seen of her was when she served as the "public face" of Assassin's Creed (much like the Creative Director Patric is doing for AC2) on top of her Producer duties. Someone with experience as a Producer, is the perfect candidate to head up a studio, it's a logic step.
Electric Playground is a Canadian show, and the capacity she worked on that show was as a correspondent (I believe it had something to do with the hardware/accessory segment).
I'm willing to bet if this was a guy, and someone who is only known on the industry level (the general public only see's their name in the credits), which is often how these promotions go down, no one would say anything. Edge-online has posted plenty of these sorts of announcements, and I can't remember reading the same belittling.
Some people need to realize it's the 21st century, and that hard work, talent, and intelligence can go a long way in rising to the top.
I know all that but Sims online was a self admitted flop so hardly one you'd want to bring to attention when arguing your case. I mean i agree she could well be the biz we'll soon find out, but i do find it odd that someone in what is effectively a management role would be also on TV, it's a time thing. But time will tell if she does a good job or not.
No one is saying she doesn't know how to program. She may very well have 6-7 years experience. What I'm talking about is fact she hasn't worked on that many games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1817726/
http://www.jade-raymond.com/bio.php
One of those games, MGS4, I assume she was only producer for a localised copy seeing how Hideo Kojima and Konami made MGS4 and not Jade and Ubisoft.
She's really only had two big titles under her belt, AC and The Sims online. I know people who've been in gaming for less than 7 years with more hit titles under their belt.
Programming, while it's not something easy to do and a respectable job, imo (after all I do it), is something loads of people can do. It doesn't make someone a head of a studio.
Assassin's Creed isn't that good and The Sims online...well I wouldn't call that triple-A.
She may very well be capable of doing the job but to deny that her gender and looks haven't been exploited especially pre-AC launch where it came to a head when this comic was made: http://megacomrade.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/jaderaymond.gif
There were a lot of talented people that worked on that game yet we only got to see and hear from the pretty girl. Is that fair to the rest of the team that busted their ass?
Sorry but something definitely seems fishy about the whole situation.
How much of an illiterate are you? She has 6-7 years experience as a Producer. She started in the industry as a programmer, in total she has 10 years experience in the industry. I'll revert back to my initial point you OBVIOUSLY do not know what being a Producer entails.
A Producer can be considered talented and successful regardless of the end product (I'm a huge fan of AC, and all my friends that played it enjoyed it, the comment isn't a slight against it). The most general duties of a game development Producer are meeting deadlines and making sure the project stays within the budget. The position is definitely much more on the business end of things than the creative/technical side, but an understanding of how the creative/technical aspects work is crucial to being good at the job. Now that makes it the perfect training ground for a head of a studio, as a large portion of that job involves making the same decisions on a macro level (and not to mention as an Executive Producer on AC2, she probably had to do a lot of higher level delegation), as well as hiring the members of the development team(s).
So to try and prove you're opinion is the facts and not sexist, you pull out the super sexist and ridiculous comic that basically implies a woman can't get anywhere just by intelligence and actual hard work? You're an absolute idiot. Before the release of Assassins Creed, every time I saw video/pictures of Jade Raymond, she was always wearing respectable and casual clothes (usually pants). Now if they were really try to leverage her sex appeal that doesn't seem like such a great strategy.
Ubisoft (and many other publishers) always try to have one particular person that's working on the game to sort of be the face of the game when it's presented to the press. I've seen Patrice (the "face" of AC2, who is also the creative director on it, as well as being the creative director on AC) a gang of times in game site videos about AC2. And I fully expect when Splinter Cell Conviction's release date gets closer, I'll be seeing a lot of the guy who likes to wear sports coats/blazers (I can't remember his name) who's the "face" of that game. There's no slight against the team, it's just the best way of presenting a game to journalists. The alternative is a douchebag PR Rep that most likely knows nothing about the game besides some scripted talking points. Anyways, anyone who thought Jade Raymond made the game or did anything more than act as a Producer (most well written game sites always mentioned what her role in the game's development was), wasn't paying much attention.
And by the way, her credit in MGS4 was due to the fact that there was a way to unlock an Altair (main character of Assassins' Creed) costume for Solid Snake, I believe it was a pre-order bonus, but I'd have to look it up. Kojima put her down as a Producer more in the Hollywood/Film way the term is used, which is very loosely (most films will have a bunch of Executive Producers and Producers credited, but most didn't work day to day on it, either they provided funding, a favour, or even the credit was negotiated in other deals). I'm fairly certain she's was credited for that as she was the contact at Ubisoft they dealt with to get what they need asset wise.
For the record writing a "Hello World" program does not make you a programmer, from your past ineptitude on technical topics, I highly doubt you're much of a programmer. So don't bring that into it and soil the title of programmer for real programmers with actual talent/intelligence/skill/experience.
You probably don't understand what a Producer does in the context of video game development.
She's the Executive Producer on Assassin's Creed 2, and that particular project has one of the largest teams, if not the largest team, in the history of game development. A Producer has many responsibilities, and the most important one is managing all aspects of the development process and making sure milestones and deadlines are met. The bigger the team, the more daunting that task is.
None of us can say how AC2 turned out until it comes out, but obviously there have been more than a few higher ups at Ubisoft that have been impressed with her abilities.
To say that her appointment to this new position is based on her looks is an ignorant and disrespectful statement. If her only value was "eye candy" as you've implied, she would not have been offered this position, as there would be many other capacities where that could be exploited to the fullest.
But I am happy that intelligent and talented people are busy making games, while ignorant people like you can perpetually hate and try to make yourself feel better by evoking prehistoric stereotypes.
Peter, its those same boys who talk smack on these sites and make it sound like gamspot and ign forums....
I concure!
So is she part Chinese? Looks hapa, and the name Jade seems like the sort to give an interracial kid.
Assassin's Creed was made by a diverse team of people with various races and ethnic backgrounds and beliefs and blahde blahde blah.
she really IS hot, i wouldnt mind working extra-hours with her :P
I think Assassin’s Creed is crap, but I'm glad it was a commercial success for a female producer in the game industry.
Good luck Jade.
So your saying you're glad a woman -who made a game you consider to be bad- is being promoted? How does that help women in gaming?
It helps a lot for women in gaming that the game sold exceptionally well, can't you see it?
First of the game was a AAA product, meaning that it cost a lot to develop, she as producer has all the glory or failure if its not successful and as a woman if the game was a commercial failure people in and outside the industry will look down upon women in management positions and will make it harder for new girl talent to get in the industry.
So many people didn't like the game be it game sites or consumers, but a hell of a lot more did like it enough to buy over 5 million copies of the game so the result is a win situation for women in gaming as Jade takes the limelight on new projects, that she heads now an entire development studio will surely guarantees that more girls have a chance at working in that studio.
How do you know 5 million people bought it then didn't like it, you cannot tell if you like it till you buy it (well unless you pirate it I suppose). I bought it and didn't like therefore borking your point a little. I agree that a project she worked on made money but she only came into the development part way through and wasn't the game designer.
For one, you don't sell million of copies of a game if the early buyers start trashing the game, no matter how good you marketing is it can't hold a candle against bad word of mouth, now I just checked VGChartz and the total sales PS3/360 combined is 7.95 million units. I find it hard to believe that so many people kept buying the game if they didn't hear good things about it.
Now, how can you tell if you like it before you buy it? You can always RENT THE GAME and if you like it enough buy it later so my point therefore stands. Finally she was the producer of the game!! That's as important if not more than the designer since the game completely depends on you to be finished on time.
I can't believe no-one has posted a comment on this yet. Fuck me she is hot. Toronto is a lucky city!