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Ubisoft Montpellier
Summary
Ubisoft Montpellier is a French video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Castelnau-le-Lez. Founded in 1994 as Ubi Pictures, it is best known for developing the Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil series. At 350 employees as of September 2019, Ubisoft Montpellier is led by co-founder Frédéric Houde as technical director.
Ubisoft Montpellier was founded by Michel Ancel and Frédéric Houde, two French video game designers. Houde, after obtaining a Brevet de technicien supérieur at the fr in Montpellier, first met Ancel (at the time still a high school student) in 1987 at Informatique 2000, a local technology store. They co-operated on the development of video games, sometimes spending multiple hours at a time in front of their computers. Houde later went on to serve his military service, while Ancel was hired by French video game company Ubisoft (then named Ubi Soft) to work at its Montreuil-based studio as a developer. After Houde finished his service, he was also hired by Ubi Soft to aid the company in the launch of a Sega Mega Drive game. Thereby, Houde re-encountered Ancel, who by this time was developing car-centric games for Ubi Soft. However, Ancel wanted to leave the Paris area; he presented Houde with Rayman, a game he had conceptualised aged 17 and created a prototype for on his Atari ST. Ancel and Houde thus resigned from Ubi Soft and presented Rayman to the company, agreeing to develop the game as freelancers.
Subsequently, Ancel moved to Carnon in his native Montpellier area; Ubi Soft formally established a new studio out of these operations in 1994 under the name Ubi Pictures. Ancel and Houde hired three further people—Eric Pelatan, Alexandra Steible, and Olivier Soleil—to form a core team of five. All five worked remotely, exchanging data via bulletin board systems, and met with Ancel at least once per month. After Rayman was released in 1995, development on a sequel—Rayman 2: The Great Escape—began, and the team began to grow.
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