Ubisoft to Brand All of Its Games as 'Ubisoft Originals' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 10 May 2021 / 1,805 Views
Publisher Ubisoft going forward will be branding all of its own games as "Ubisoft Originals," a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer.
"Moving forward 'The Ubisoft Original' mention is attached to all of Ubisoft's games created in-house by our talented developers," said the Ubisoft spokesperson.
The Ubisoft Originals brand was first spotted when Ubisoft announced Tom Clancy's The Division: Heartland.
Ubisoft is a French video game publisher and developer known for the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Rayman, Rabbids, Prince of Persia, Just Dance, and the Tom Clancy's series.
Most recently the publisher released Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. Upcoming games from Ubisoft include Far Cry 6, Tom Clancy's The Division: Heartland, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Shouldn't it be "An Ubisoft original" though?
Yeah, but it's implied already because Ubisoft only makes and publishes Ubisoft games and nothing else. So it's kinda weird because it's a "isn't that obvious?" phrase. So it makes you wonder if they want to start publishing third party games like what EA and Activision do to differentiate their first party games from third party.
No, I meant that, A before a vocal should be added a "n", shouldn't it?
"An original", yes. But "An Ubisoft original" sounds off. Idk.
Whether 'a' or 'an' is used depends on pronunciation instead of spelling. It's been ambiguous how to pronounce Ubisoft, but it appears that 'you-be-soft' has been the prevailing pronunciation which has now claimed the final victory. Thus 'an' is correct.
HA! I KNEW IT! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! lol but for real, I think I started pronouncing it oobeesoft after hearing other people insist that's how it is. Totally fair pronunciation, but I'm more fond of youbeesoft :P
You typically use ‘an’ instead of ‘a’ when the following word begins with a vowel, although words beginning with h are are sometimes an exception (eg an hour).
In any case, I can’t place exactly why, but ‘An Ubisoft’ just sounds wrong, where ‘A Ubisoft’ doesn’t, so the latter is going to stick.
I'm aware of the vowel rule, which is exactly what I'm referring to - but it's based on whether the pronunciation starts with a vowel. Spelling is irrelevant (aside from it often dictating how pronunciation starts). 'Hour' follows this precisely: the h is silent, so its pronunciation starts with a vowel, and thus you use 'an' with it.
Right, and that follows why the distinction of Yubi vs Oobi pronunciation would change this (former being considered a consonant, although it's essentially a harder version of "Iu" or ""Eeoo"). So like Robosoft (above), I feel that the implication is that Ubisoft is "intended" (or retconned?) to have Yubisoft pronunciation...
Although personally I (native speaker) am prone to "Oobi" and had just thought both were equally valid or dependent on personality/dialect, it seems that looking into it the more common pronunication of that is indeed "Yubi" and along with that "A" is more common determiner, although the alternate pronunciation/treatment is also valid (so I'm not crazy). To be fair, it's hard to really say personally because it's just not a commonly spoken word, and one can't directly know the author's intended pronunciation just by the written text.
I just searched a page on usage of a/an with ubiquitious and found interesting background: That "AN ubiquity" (appropriate to "Oobi" pronunciation) had been previous standard, but "A ubiquity" (appropriate to "Yubi" pronunciation) overtook it between 1900-1930... Although actual usage of "AN" (implicitly "Oobi" pronunciation) didn't really decline in active usage (and actualy rose by 2x or 3x) so much as the other newer usage became a much more popular phrase in general. But perhaps it's fair to ask if the new pronunciation helped make it a more popular word to use, as words starting with "Oo" aren't very common in English. But with the "dueling" standards, it's quite possible for a given person to believe the new pronunication "Yoo" could/should be used with "old" determinant "AN" since they may read it used by authors who pronounce it with old spelling yet that isn't clear in text.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/280921/a-or-an-ubiquitous#
Although I'm otherwise familiar with Spanish which would use "Oo" for ubicuidad, I just looked up French pronunciation and Ubiquitaire indeed sounds to use a "Yu" pronunciation so perhaps that is most natural for French company such as Ubisoft. (somebody else could comment if French pronunciation has itself shifted)
This is a test: The sky is blue.
I couldn't resist.
No, it is based on pronunciation. U is pronounced like "yew" here, so it is preceded by "a" since it already has a consonant sound in front, just like the phrase "go to a University". In other cases, like the word "uncle", you say "I have an uncle" because "u" then sounds like a vowel, it can sound like "o" or "a" in upon, etc.
I know people don't teach anything in school anymore. Another example is "an hour" vs "a house" depending on whether or not the consonant sound is pronounced. The "U" in university is actually written with a consonant phonetic (/yoo-ni-vUHR-si-tee/). Just remember in English we don't have a very good phonetic alphabet, it is a bit messed up (unlike the superior Korean alphabet for example). Though to be fair, over centuries pronunciations change, so unless you change spellings they get more and more out of whack, Korean also.
One fun thing to do is rewrite an entire page of English with 1-1 phonetic alphabets. Personally I've been a fan for years, as it makes it THE universal language, but people see no reason to change. It's already good enough, and it is nice to have a connection to history, even if "u" in some words is actually a consonant.
Just wanted to add on, that actually in this case the pronunciation/usage seems to have shifted in the last 80 years or so. So there isn't necessarily some ancient historicity being retained, and native speakers themselves often have hard time making sense of the different interlocking discrepancies etc.
I think the separatist slaver American colonists (ahem, freedom lovers) did once consider a major spelling revision (which was very partially implemented, leading to some differences vs British spelling), so the idea has merit even from perspective of native speakers of English. Really it seems like just some basic diacritics could bring it's written set of vowels up to par with it's spoken (although this is difficult just because it's very dependent on dialectic pronunciation).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8zWWp0akUU
Here's a good joke: (suddenly a lot of foreign accents make sense, poor vowels)
Anyone else lose interest in everything Ubisoft after the 360/PS3 generation? I just realized I haven't played one of their games since Far Cry 3.
Wait... wait a minute. Why would they do this UNLESS they were about to be bought out by another company? Why rebrand after all these years? "Originals" is redundant because we already know Ubisoft games are Ubisoft games. Are they about to be bought out by someone? Perhaps Microsoft?
That was my first thought too! Ubisoft is worth $4.5 billion, so definitely within Microsoft's realm. Although, it would be a weird purchase tbh since Bethesda was supposed to be their big Western purchase, now wanting to focus on the Japanese market.
Only other thing I could think of as to why Ubisoft would make this change is that they're wanting to be a much wider 3rd party publisher besides just their first party games. Like Netflix, they have all these other 3rd party IP's, but then you have the "Netflix Originals" that many people tune into. Maybe Ubisoft wants to be like EA or Activision when they sign deals to publish third party games. That's just my guess because like you pointed out, this is a weird move. Or they could be doing it just because lol
Yup. And if they were being sold, I don't know why they would need new branding. Why would MS care to keep selling their IP under Ubisoft Originals sub-brand? If they want to keep the name at all, Ubisoft would suffice. With the Netflix comparison, it also invites the angle of how this could be used to emphasize their own store (and own product within it, distinguished from 3rd parties).
Ironic the first example of this is with licenced film/novel property ("Tom Clancy").
I mean, I'm pretty sure they own the specific game IP, but still not 100% original IMHO.
But yeah, seems to be branded like Netflix, to distinguish own work from 3rd party publishing.
I forget. Do they have a subscription service? This sounds like a move intended for a subscription service.
Essay Pro