Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets fired from Ubisoft
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-07-assassins-creed-creator-pat...
"Ubisoft initially told Polygon that "the good faith discussions between Patrice and Ubisoft aimed at aligning Patrice's and the studio's visions have been inconclusive. As a result, Patrice has left the studio. Our priorities remain with the teams already hard at work on projects in development. They are at the root of Ubisoft Montréal's past and future successes."
Désilets, however, told a less pleasant story. "Contrary to any statements made earlier today, this morning I was terminated by Ubisoft," Désilets explained to Polygon. "I was notified of this termination in person, handed a termination notice and was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by two guards without being able to say goodbye to my team or collect my personal belongings.
"This was not my decision," he added. "Ubisoft's actions are baseless and without merit. I intend to fight Ubisoft vigorously for my rights, for my team and for my game.""
Ahhhhhh no Ubisoft what are you doing? :/
Désilets, however, told a less pleasant story. "Contrary to any statements made earlier today, this morning I was terminated by Ubisoft," Désilets explained to Polygon. "I was notified of this termination in person, handed a termination notice and was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by two guards without being able to say goodbye to my team or collect my personal belongings.
Just as was suspected, Ubi is just short of Abstergo. This is what he should have done when that happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mBRWAvYejoc#t=58s
Yeah, I'm pissed at whoever signed off on this. People deserve to get their personal stuff and be treated with respect.
Patrice is one of the most creative and original minds in the gaming industry. Ubisoft made a huge mistake kicking him out like that.
Damn.....
And so it begins...
Wonder what Patrice will do next? Start an indie developing comp., perhaps?
Jean-François Boivin also was apparently fired. He also left Ubisoft with Patrice to go to THQ.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/8/4312614/ubisoft-montreal-jean-francois-b...
I imagine that we're not hearing the full story here. Companies don't just fire development leads for no reason. The fact that Ubi hasn't made any further press releases and that they worded things so vaguely before implied that they were giving Patrice a chance not to bring to light what actually happened.
That must mean that it at least reflects somewhat poorly upon all those involved.
But we don't really know what happened yet. I'm curious.
I might be wrong in what I'll state but here's my opinion on this.
Patrice Désilets and possibly others who had worked with him had a vision on Assassin's Creed. It obviously became successful and Ubisoft sought this out. However money and the future of the corporation become important, business as usual. Patrice didn't want two teams splitting off too make two different games for the series and to be released every year. What was once an idea that came from a great imagination, (he made up the ideas of the animus when he was taking a shower, lol true story). Now is turned into a rushed sequel every year, with a convoluted / non interesting story plot.
I can only hope that Patrice gets respect from his ideas, maybe he'll work with a better company that accepts innovation.
Don't get me wrong Ubisoft has some great Developers who are great in art. (Rayman Origins, From Dust, and other for example) But it seems like their Marketing guys in suits who are at fault.
That's a pretty good guess, Byas.
"I was notified of this termination in person, handed a termination notice and was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by two guards without being able to say goodbye to my team or collect my personal belongings."
History seems to repeat itself. This reminds me of what happened to the three Stooges (copied from wikipedia).
The inevitable occurred soon enough. Columbia was the last studio still producing shorts, and the market for such films had all but dried up. As a result, the studio opted not to renew the Stooges' contract when it expired in late December 1957. The final comedy produced was Flying Saucer Daffy, filmed on December 19–20, 1957.[6] Several days later, the Stooges were unceremoniously fired from Columbia Pictures after 24 years of making low-budget shorts. Joan Howard Maurer, Moe's daughter, wrote the following in 1982:
The boys' careers had suddenly come to an end. They were at Columbia one day and gone the next—no 'Thank yous,' no farewell party for their 24 years of dedication and service and the dollars their comedies had reaped for the studio. Moe recalled that a few weeks after their exit from Columbia, when he drove to the studio to say goodbye to several studio executives, he was stopped by a guard at the gate (obviously not a Stooges fan) and since he didn't have the current year's studio pass was refused entry. It felt like a crushing blow to him, however temporary.
Just thought I should mention that I noticed some Ubisoft employees from the AC team having a trivial and civilized exchange with Patrice on Twitter. Was there an update to this story that I missed?
http://techno.lapresse.ca/jeux-video/actualites/201306/08/01-4659149-le-...
Article is in French, but basically...
Patrice is suing Ubisoft for $400k and wants to get the rights to 1666: Amsterdam. Seems like THQ gave Patrice a huge amount of creative control over the project, and when Ubisoft bought out THQ Montreal and everything Patrice had worked on they felt that Patrice had been given way too much control over 1666: Amsterdam, and thus the disagreements that led to him being fired.
Edit: so basically, what this states is that Ubisoft claims he didn't deliver the prototype of 1666 by the date they wanted (even though he apparently did, and has the documentation to prove that it was worked on post-date).
Part of his contract seemed that he could buy the rights for the game, but it looks like Ubisoft failed on that part of the contract.
So now he's asking for his salary ($250,000), "moral damages" (according to Google translate, so basically he's suing for the mental stress of everything dealing with this) worth $100,000, court costs (that's what I'd assume "reimbursement of expenses" is meant to be) for $35,000, and $25,000 severance pay.
Patrice has my respect for his vision and creation of Assassin's Creed. Ubi, that wasn't nice. 
a game a year is how you lose potency and burn out a franchise. I'm sure I'll still buy each game that comes out, but that's just to tie up the conclusion of judgement day 2012. If they don't keep moving forward with the apocalypse er whatever it'll be real soon (by AC5), I'm gone for good.