Tag Archive: Jade Raymond


Jade Raymond joins EA, heads up new Motive Studios

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
August 4, 2015

Former Assassin’s Creed producer and Ubisoft Toronto managing director Jade Raymond is opening a new studio with EA, the two jointly announced yesterday.

The new studio, named Motive, will be located in Montreal. EA has a strong presence already there with EA Montreal and Bioware Montreal, the latter of which will now share a space with Motive.

Motive will be purposed with creating its own original IP, while also assisting on other projects. Besides launching Motive Studios, Raymond is also taking over leadership of Visceral Games, located in California, while Scott Probst will still act as general manager.  The first project for Raymond and Motive will be to help Amy Hennig at Visceral with her new, still unrevealed Star Wars game.

While it should be interesting to see how Raymond balances her time between Montreal and California, this is a huge coup for EA and we can’t wait to see just what Motive brings to the table for Star Wars and whatever original projects it may cook up.

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Ubisoft Toronto working on five unannounced projects

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
March 26, 2014

Ubisoft Toronto is working on five unannounced projects, two of which are being co-developed with other studios, managing director Jade Raymond revealed to Toronto’s The Star at SXSW yesterday.

While her talk was devoid of details for these projects, Raymond did provide a peek at Ubisoft’s mindset, talking about more blockbuster, AAA-franchises with comic book and movie tie-ins coming down the line. Even though the idea of potential “transmedia” IP is at the forefront of many minds at Ubisoft, Raymond reiterated that the company’s focus remains on games first.

“Our business is making games, so we have to make sure we’re making good games, first and foremost,” Raymond said. “I don’t think we can think out the gate, ‘How is this going to be a good movie?’ I don’t know anything about movies. I’ve never made a movie in my life.”

Raymond also mentioned that diversifying Ubisoft’s library beyond console/PC titles and having exclusive mobile franchises is a priority for her as well. According to her, games with a strong social element will only continue to grow in popularity over the coming years.

Jade Raymond is probably best known in game development for her role as producer on the original Assassin’s Creed before helping found Ubisoft Toronto in 2009. So far, the studio has only worked with their older sister Ubisoft Montreal on last year’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist. They are currently, supposedly, helping out with the constantly-in-limbo Rainbow Six: Patriots.

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