Parisian developer Nadeo, creators of the incredible arcade racing series Trackmania, have finally been picked up by a publisher! Ubisoft announced earlier this week that they had fully acquired the company, and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot described the move as “an important step in our expansion within the online gaming sector.” Guillemot failed to comment on how the acquisition will affect their position within the TOTALLY FUCKING RAD sector.
Do not ask me why I made this image. I do not have an answer.
This announcement coming so soon after the debut of Trackmania 2 at Festival du Jeu Vidéo 2009 is probably not the world’s biggest coincidence. Less clear, though, is what changes fans should expect. Personally, I’m hoping for the PSN/XBLA version of Trackmania that should probably have happened years ago. In the past, Ubi has been pretty respectful of the downloadable sector (there’s that word again), and it’s hard for me to imagine something more exciting than an $10 Trackmania experience with leaderboards and level sharing that can be played from the comfort of your couch.
What does this acquisition mean to you? Wait, have you ever played Trackmania before? If not, what is wrong with you? Less us know in the comments!
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Well good for Nadeo, but I’ll bet the free version goes away. I never took the time to try it out.
Trackamania Nations is still free and downloadable from their site.
@Shuger: Yeah, you can still get Nations through Steam. I think Joe’s suspicion is that there will be no future free installments of Trackmania, which is a pretty legitimate fear.
@Joe Larson: I’m not so sure. Large publishers have been scooping up free-to-play microtransaction-based games (especially MMOs) left and right, and Trackmania’s current formula kind of fits that: giving away the Stadium cars/environments for free (TM Nations), but making the Rally, Coast, Island, Snow, Desert, and Bay environments only available in a for-pay bundle (TM United).
Not only that, it’s effective. The games are doing fine. Hopefully Ubisoft knows better than to mess up a good thing.