Tag Archives: Martin Walfisz

Massive Entertainment co-founder Martin Walfisz has said now that PS3 has been properly hacked, Sony will be unable combat piracy effectively on the system and it could prove to be a piracy situation worse than the one currently facing handhelds.

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Martin Walfisz, the Massive founder confirmed as leaving the studio yesterday, has said that new owner Ubisoft sees a big future for the Swedish firm.

“I will not manage Ubisoft Massive going forward. Last week I decided not to accept the offer to manage the studio, and my last day with the team was on Friday,” Walfisz told GI.

“Ubisoft has very ambitious plans for Massive, and they are undoubtedly a great publisher, but they are not the right employer for me at this time in my life.

“Nevertheless, Massive is in good hands and I have no doubt that the company will continue to do greatness in the future. I want to thank everyone at the studio, and all the fans, for the good times so far.”

What’s that? Clancy? What?

Massive Entertainment’s Martin Walfiszhas left both the studio he founded and its new owner, Ubisoft.

Formed in 1997, Massive was purchased by Vivendi in 2002 and was acquired by Ubisoft after being put up for sale by Activision Blizzard last year.

“Ubisoft is saddened by the recent departure of Martin Walfiz from Massive Entertainment and we wish him all the best in his future projects,” said the company.

Details regarding the reason for his departure are unknown at this time.

Speaking at the Annual BMO Capitol Markets Interactive Entertainment conference this morning, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot said that newly acquired RTS studio Massive is going to be put to work on getting Ubi into the MMO field.

“We just bought it from them since those guys have Blizzard so they didn’t need that studio as much as we do, and those guys are extremely strong in RTS, so they are going to help us also get closer to the MMO space,” he said.

“Our goal there is to go first with light MMOs…that have been extremely popular in China but are also coming in the U.S. and Europe and are generating lots of good revenue, so our goal is first to start with light MMOs, and then in the future also come with RPG and RTS, also in the MMO space.”

Welcome to Clancy, boys. Thanks, Kotaku.

Speaking exclusively to VG247, Massive Entertainment’s senior execs have revealed that they’re already in talks for a potential sale of the World in Conflict developer, following now-confirmed news that Activision is to sell the outfit as a result of its merger with Blizzard.

“It seems like we have plenty of options,” said company president and founder Martin Walfisz, talking at Develop last week. “We’ve had some good meetings here.”

He added: “Being a part of a merger like this is a strange situation, because obviously the new organisation has to look over all of its assets, everything it owns and its strategy for the future. For the past six month’s we’ve been waiting for the merger to go through and to understand whether they see us as a part of their future or not.

“Apparently they didn’t want an RTS studio in Europe, and to be honest we would have loved to have worked with Activision, but we’re pretty confident in our capabilities and there are not many studios that can match our quality.”

The firm is currently working on the console versions of World in Conflict – Soviet Assault for PS3 and 360 – and has expanded expertise outside the PC space as a result.

“We’re working on the console versions [of World in Conflict] together with Swordfish,” said VP David Polfeldt. “In the past year or so we’ve been increasing our console capabilities, going from PC to having a really good understanding of console as well.”

Activision won’t publish the console titles, however, which are now also on the market.

“Activision won’t publish [Soviet Assault], no,” said Walfisz. “That’s part of the whole situation now. In theory they could sell World in Conflict separately from Massive. I think that any buyer would like to make sure it goes together, but we don’t own it. Activision owns it, so that’s their call.”

While options are opening for the developer, the company is now effectively in limbo. Walfisz was confident, though, that Massive will pull through.

“I think that right now everyone is in ‘wait and see’ mode and just want to know what the future holds,” he said.

“But Massive has been in tough situations before in the past 12 years, and we’ve always come out stronger. Most of the guys in the company at least have faith in our ability to find a really interesting future.”