Massive bulks up Ubisoft

Nearly four months after Activision Blizzard said it was divesting itself of Vivendi Games assets, yet another of its former properties has been scooped up. Today, Ubisoft announced it has acquired Massive Entertainment, developers of the critically acclaimed 2007 real-time strategy title World in Conflict. Financial terms of the deal, which was not mentioned as part of Activision Blizzard's earnings last week, were not disclosed.

"Ubisoft is growing at an intense pace and our strategy is to ensure the strength of our global creative teams," said Christine Burgess-Quemard, Ubisoft's executive director of worldwide production studios, in a statement. "Massive has put together a group of some of the most confirmed and recognized creators in the industry and I know that their talent and innovation will allow them to seamlessly integrate into our worldwide network of production studios."

Said integration apparently will be seamless, as the France-based publisher explicitly mentioned "the assets and all of the personnel" of the Swedish shop. Massive, which also developed Ground Control, was named as one of the top 50 best game international studios by Game Developers Research in 2007. Its next project, World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, was to ship for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this quarter, but was delayed after Activision put Massive up for sale in August. No new release date was mentioned in today's announcement.