Ubisoft Reflections To Suffer Job Cuts

Looks like yet another UK development team is about to feel the burn of redundancies courtesy of their loving cooperate masters. This time Ubisoft have decided that a bit of “reorganisation” is required at Newcastle based team Ubisoft Reflections to the tune of 19 or so jobs. It’s not just the entry level workers getting the axe either, reportedly both an art and creative director who have been at the company for well over a decade have both been included in the list of casualties.

Ubisoft cites delays with Reflection’s current project “Driver: San Francisco” as necessitating the cuts in order to be resolved. I’m just trying to think of all the ways in which firring a bunch of key personnel and crushing a development teams moral can possibly solve the delay of a video game, perhaps like Bobby Kotick they work on the theory that a dev team is at its best when scared out of their minds.

Formerly known as Reflections Interactive before being acquired by Ubisoft, the studio can trace its roots all the way back to the BBC Micro days in 1986, making it one of the oldest British development teams still active. Don’t be surprised if that’s all a distant memory before long, it’s not unusual for publishers to strip a studio down to just a name and a set of IP rights that they can barter with should a critical product under perform. Without a doubt the future employment of those still at Reflections rests on the amount of money Driver: San Fransisco can rake in once its eventually released. Of course this all comes as Ubisofts reports that their flagship franchise Assassin’s Creed has now hit 20 million units sold and is in track for another 10 million before the end of 2011.