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Ubi Soft moves video game character to TV for higher company profile

TORONTO - His feet, like his hands, may float disconnected from the rest of his body, but Ubi Soft believes Rayman, its popular video game character, has the legs to take him from CD-ROMs to the small screen.

By the end of next year Ubi Soft will have launched Rayman: the TV Series, capping a series of cross-marketing opportunities for the 12-year-old French producer and distributor. These include, first and foremost, the release of Rayman 2: The Great Escape for PC, PlayStation and Nintendo 64. It also includes Rayman.net, the online superstore that offers games, T-shirts, toys and collectibles all relating to the pint-sized hero, who resembles something between a smart-aleck kid and a happy-go-lucky dog.

Much of the production work behind the Rayman TV series and several other upcoming titles will come from the company's Montreal-based multimedia studios, which serves as Ubi Soft's Canadian headquarters. Joelle Charpentier, product manager for PC products at Ubi Soft, says the TV series and Web site will offer more promotional opportunities than the usual advertising campaigns.

"People know Rayman though Ubi Soft, and they know Ubi Soft through Rayman," she says. "With the TV series, Rayman will become accessible to everyone. Many more people now have a PC, but almost everybody has a TV set."

The first Rayman title was released four years ago, and since then Ubi Soft has sold more than four million copies. In Rayman 2: The Great Escape, a gang of intergalactic pirates have conquered Rayman's planet and imprisoned him. Travelling through 14 different worlds, Rayman performs a series of magical stunts like moving between walls or turning his ears into a propeller to fly. The Rayman series are action-adventure games, but unlike many other titles in the genre, Ubi Soft avoids gore. Characters who fall from a laser beam don't explode or dissolve into a puddle of blood. More likely, they'll be lying on their backs with stars circling their heads. The family-values approach comes in part because the company was founded by five brothers in the Guillemot family, who remain the principal shareholders and board members. Ubi Soft communications manager Martin Carrier says the company realized early on that there were plenty of publishers already on the market offering shoot-'em-up action. "We decided we didn't have to go down that road to be successful," he says. "We wanted to bring quality to the genre."

The age range for Ubi Soft's games vary according to title, with some very specific demographics like age three to seven or four to eight. Charpentier says one of the reasons for a Montreal office was to ensure the ratings were appropriate to the given market rather than an international rating. Ubi Soft in Montreal conducts its own focus groups and uses the Web to encourage feedback through Rayman-related chat rooms.

Recently Ubi Soft took a step beyond its own characters through a couple of high-profile licensing agreements with Warner Bros., for whom it will develop a game based on the animated Batman and Robin TV Series, and Disney Interactive, for whom it will create titles using Donald Duck and Jungle Book characters.

In the meantime, Ubi Soft is continuing to woo younger players with a series of games based on the Playmobil line of toys. One of these, the recently-launched Laura's Happy Adventures, is among the first Ubi Soft titles optimized for Intel's Pentium III processor. Working with established characters, Charpentier adds, gives the company an advantage similar to what it has with Rayman. "Many of the parents buying their children a PC have played with the Playmobil toys as kids," she says. "This is a very recognizable brand."

While much of the voice and sound work for Ubi Soft's Canadian titles is recorded in Toronto, Carrier says the Montreal studio has become the nucleus for the company's operations in this country. He adds that attracting hot young developers - the average age within the company is 25 - has been easier at Ubi Soft than it has been for many IT companies strapped by skill shortages. "It'd be difficult to say we've had a difficult time hiring," he says. "Good programmers are always hard to find. But we're able to offer them something that's not out there a lot in Quebec, which is to work in the video game industry."

Ubi Soft's Rayman TV series will run in 26 13-minutes episodes, but the company has yet to name a distributor for the program.