"Prince of Persia" Ups and Downs for 30 Years: Prosperous in Ubisoft, Died in the Times
"Prince of Persia" Ups and Downs for 30 Years: Prosperous in Ubisoft, Died in the Times
After the E3 exhibition in 2001, Yannis Mallat, who had just become the new project leader in Ubisoft's Montreal studio, felt extremely anxious. There is no other reason. This new project is about to face a "creative test". There will be a designer to examine the creative quality, production feasibility, team ability, etc. of the project. The result of the inspection will directly determine the life and death of the project The future of the newly formed team.
The project that Giannis Marat
was brewing was the later famous "Prince of Persia: Sands of
Time". Marat later became the CEO of Ubisoft Canada because of his
role as the project leader of "Prince of Persia".
But that’s all for later. In 2001, Giannis Marat still knew
nothing about his future and the future of "Prince of Persia". The
only thing he could clearly recognize at the time was that his team was likely
to communicate. But the "creative test", because the designers who
came to research weren't the standard talking colleagues in
Ubisoft, but people that had a really unique pursuit of
"Prince of Persia", Arab culture, and game design-the original "
"Prince of Persia" producer Jordan Mechner (Jordan Mechner).
Start With A Documentary Director
Jordan
Mackina, who was about to go to Montreal to inspect the Marat team, was not a
senior or even an employee of Ubisoft at the time. He was an independent game
developer, as well as a film screenwriter and documentary director. But he
does have the power to determine the fate of the Montreal team, because
although Ubisoft had the brand of "Prince of Persia" at the time, the
copyright of "Prince of Persia" still belongs to the original
developer of "Prince of Persia" Jordan Mackina. In other words,
Ubisoft wants to develop a "Prince of Persia" game, the only way is
to get Mackina's consent.
But
Jordan Mackina is not that easy to persuade. First of all, he is a talented
game designer. The first "Prince of Persia" was released in
1989. In that era when most games were still parodying "Space
Invaders", Mackinac was already trying to digitize the movie to the
computer to create smooth character action animations. He asked his
brother to put on white clothes to make various parkour and sports actions in
front of the camera, and then added these actions to the Arab cultural
background game he had been conceiving. So strictly speaking, Jordan
Mackinac’s younger brother is the original "Prince of Persia."
After the release of
"Prince of Persia", it had been a blockbuster. The industry was amazed by its
smooth movements and novel combat methods. Players were obsessed with the
challenge of "Prince to save the princess in a limited time". In
1989, "Prince of Persia" sold a full 2 million copies, and it was only
25-year-old Jordan Mackina, the younger brother of "Prince of Persia"
Mackina, and several creators for the game. Old Mackinac of a piece of music.
Four years later, "Prince of
Persia 2: Shadows and Flames" was released as a sequel. The prince will
save the Persian princess who is about to die in sleep from the hands of the
evil minister Jafar, who is disguised as his own image. Compared with its
predecessor, "Shadow and Flame" has been improved in all aspects
while maintaining its characteristics: the screen has richer colors, the
cutscenes are more detailed, and the battle is more intense. Commercially,
"Shadow and Flame" remains an enormous success. Although
the sales of 750,000 copies are not as good as the previous work, it still
allows developers and publishers to make a lot of money.
However, life will always
experience ups and downs. In the following years, Jordan Mackinac, who became
famous as a young man, experienced the taste of failure. The first is the
detective decryption game "The Last Express" that he and his team
spent four years and 5 million US dollars to build. Although it was widely
acclaimed, it suffered a complete commercial failure. The publishing company
Brøderbund suffered several million dollars. Loss.
Mackinac was so upset about this
failure and planned to no longer engage in game development work for the time
being, but it happened that the publisher said there was a plan to 3D
"Prince of Persia" and asked Mackinac what it thinks. So Mackina
worked as a design consultant in this game called "Prince of Persia
3D" and wrote part of the story. However, due to the acquisition,
layoffs and other reasons of the development company, the project management of
"Prince of Persia 3D" has been seriously out of control, resulting in
the entire game becoming one of the poor imitators of "Tomb Raider"
and also becoming Macky Experiences that I don’t want to mention since I was
admitted.
Since then, Mackinac began to
return to his documentary film director career, gradually drifting away from
the game industry. Friends and fans are looking forward to his return, but
no one knows when it will be. Even after Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot
personally issued an invitation to discuss with him the idea of developing a new "Prince of
Persia" game, Mackinac's attitude is still not very positive. Not so
active or even want to go to France to participate in this seminar.
"My first thought was'It
would be great if I could make another excellent "Prince of Persia"
game', but it was immediately replaced by "Don't make another mediocre
junk game." God knows How deep is the shadow of "Prince of Persia
3D" on Mackinac, but fortunately he flew to Paris to meet with the CEO of
Ubisoft, discussed some matters related to the IP of "Prince of Persia",
and watched Ubisoft’s Planning PPT prepared by "Prince of Persia".
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