Your "he only released 'a game about monkeys'" but her projects "failed due to Google or EA issues not related to her" sure expose a totally unbiased and exquisitely neutral opinion.
They are facts, not opinions.
I guess UBI specificly fucking Désilets over and his projects several times even years after they kicked him out isn't worth mentioning either in your recap.
You mention all those UBI games like they are great testaments of talent and quality (the only quality there is from the workers involved, not the managers at all),
The first thing I said is that games are created and made by a team (which includes both managers and workers), not by a single person.
I didn't mention his issues because my post was already too long, isn't related to the topic and because I don't want to trash him even if I can. Everybody who worked with both will tell you both are very talented each one in their area. Regarding her, most people will also tell you she is a great leader and that it's great to work for her. Regarding him, some ended in the court.
Regarding the talent and quality yes, there is and there were a huge amount of super talented people at Ubisoft, and these are two of them. You know these two because they were PR stars back then at Ubisoft, and most of the other PR representatives didn't become that well known (other than obviously Guillemot and Michel Ancel). Ubisoft have dozens of millions of fans who love their games and buy them again and again.
Guess what, not everybody has the same tastes than you and your personal taste (or mine) doesn't define if a game is good or not. Each person has is different tastes and opinions. The players who are the target of each game decide if they like the game or not, and keep buying it if they like it.
exploitative company famous for their toxic work culture.
I did work there for years. Had and still have many friends working at many Ubisoft studios. It was a pleasure to work there, I only heard about these horror stories in the gaming media.
They have like 40 studios, over 20K employees and way more that in these over 35 years of the company worked there. So yes, I assume at least some of these horror stories must be true just by statistics, but is totally unrelated of what I lived there and what I know. There was a good, open culture with some rare cases -way less frequent than in other places where I worked- of some coworker or boss acting sometimes like an asshole but nothing special and not of the level of the claims made.
But well, that's another topic unrelatetd to this thread.
Where can I read Jade Raymond's opinion about all that? because that would be a real good reason to make an article/interview with her.
She publicly complained about idiots like the ones of this thread, from the gamers/journalists side downplaying her work because she is hot. There are articles about it even before the whole woke bullshit started. I don' t remember to see her complaining about coworkers or bosses, but I assume that being hot she must have had to handle at least with some thirsty wankers.
I did work with many women at Ubisoft and only one of them told me a horror story she had, but had it in another company where she worked, before joining Ubisoft. I didn't knew by third persons cases of horror stories.
Some of these women I did work with include many talented ones, like who started to work in the company in the beginning like 35 years ago and was tasked many years later to create and lead the first AAA studio of my country, as they also did with Raymond (but in her case obviously there were AAA studios in Canada). Or one of the top marketing people in Ubisoft, or another one in charge of the Just Dance brand, and many in lower rank positions. And some hot ones too.
In my last department team had a coworker at my same level of jew/Israeli origins and our boss was a woman (seen as hot by many) of muslim/palestinian origins. We never had a politics/religion/sexism/etc related argument/discusion/talk there. We only had the same arguements/discussion/talks there about resources, tasks, available time, creative vision etc. you can find in any other place.
She's been promoted as the face of Ass Creeds and other franchises, labeling her in the media as "CREATOR", yes. I assume not against her will. But of course that "creator" label can be so deceiving as to say that Yves Guillemot is the "creator" of Assasins Creed and everything else.
I mentioned in a previous post of this thread that doesn't make sense to label someone as creator of a AAA game and anybody close to AAA development knows it. I also explained her role in AC, or what is the role of a producer in Ubisoft and basically most AAA companies plus the other key roles involved.
TLDR: These games are created by a huge team and tons of people add inputs and have different roles. The role of the producer is to be in charge of the development team side of the game. The product manager is in charge of the marketing/sales/communications/numbers side of the game. With them they have a creative director in charge of the creative side of the project, which in practice means to manage the game design and art side of the game. Over this key people have the editorial team setting a vision and guidelines for the company, overviewing the project and greenlighting the milestones, helping with advice and offering best practices or suggestions when needed.
Say what you will about Désilets and his "game about monkeys", but he remains the main *creative* talent responsible for the original Assasins Creed, which was the real milestone and breakthrough in original concepts and mechanics from which all the others have been ripping off without any memorable innovation for 15 years.
He was part of a very talented team. His creative talent almost killed the project because it was originally planned as a Prince of Persia sequel and many ideas were too diferent of the original plan, didn't work and ended in the garbage bin or were cut and some of them ended included in the sequel.
Being creative director means to be in charge of concept arts who draw settings, art styles and characters, game designers who define mechanics and features, writers who write stuff etc. He filters and approves this stuff they make for him agreeing it with he product manager (who brings the input of what the market/players are asking for/what worked in other games/etc), the editorial team who sets the editorial vision for the company/brief overview of the types of game they want to make and the producer who is the glue between all this people, has to make sure everyone is in the same page and then has to make sure the team can develop it with the available budget, resources and time (which also means to stop/cut stuff if they are being too ambitions and the coders say it can't be done/won't run properly, or if marketing says it won't work, etc).
The question remains the same. Has any other producer from any company, ever, had as much media cover as Jade Raymond had and keeps having?
There are many creative directors who worked in way more super successful AAA games and new IPs than Desilets. But not many producers who worked in more super successful AAA games and new IPs than Jade. Maybe Miyamoto and a handful more.
But well, most people never know who the producers or creative directors of a game are, since in most cases they aren't PR spokepersons, or they are but press don't mention their names.
In any case, I assume she got more google entries first because having worked in more super hits and having created more news for stuff like getting hired by top companies in top positions etc generates more news. But also being a hot female causes many extra entries from horny wankers and from idiots who refuse to understand that a hot female can do a good job and be very talented, which is her case.
