Ubisoft wants to be number two

Yannis Mallet, head honcho at Ubisoft Montreal, recently revealed to GamesIndustry.biz that the company is aiming to be the second largest third-party videogame publisher after Electronic Arts by 2012.

Here’s what Mallet said to the GI reps during a press tour of the Ubisoft studios:  

“We are going to keep our winning strategy, which is to put our creativity and innovation at the heart of our creations – making good quality games which surprise the market and consumers. We have a reputation for quality and this Ubisoft seal of innovation and quality is the key, definitely, to accessing consumers.

“Our strategy objective is to be the number two publisher within five years,” he added.

Thank heavens, it’s starting to look like that whole EA/Ubisoft buyout was just a lot of wishful thinking on EA’s part. The last thing we need is the company that’s working on Assassin’s Creed being bought by the company that relies on a steady supply of sports and racing licenses as their primary source of income.

Regarding Ubisoft’s relationship with EA, here’s what Yannis had to say:

“I wouldn’t say we had problems, actually; we had differences.

“EA is a competitor and business is business, so sometimes we have competitors’ relationships. I know Alain [Tascan, head of EA Montreal], he’s someone I know and I respect, and we are now competitors as with A2M and as with Activision, and our relationships are as fine as they could be.”

Yep. Nothing more than a little friendly competition.