Kotaku: patrice

Jade? Jade?! No, No. What Is Patrice Working On?

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:00:37 MDT

While others focused on Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond before Assassin's Creed, we were always wonder what the game's Creative Director Patric Desilets was doing, how his beard was and when he was going to accept our friend requests. In a recent interview with game site Game Daily, Ubisoft honcho Yves Guillemot says this about Patrice:

Jade Raymond and Patrice Desilets and the entire Assassin's Creed development team did an excellent job to create the game.
I view Jade as a very skilled and creative producer, the success of Assassin's Creed leaves no doubt about that and the attention she received from the media is due to the anticipation, buzz and quality of the game. She's currently working on a new project but it's a little too early to share more about it.

BUT WHAT IS PATRICE WORKING? We are saddened that Yves Guillemot knows this, and he will not tell us. Bastard.
Yves Interview [GameDaily via FiringSquad] [Pic]

Next-Gen's "Hot 100" Developers List Is Great

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:30:00 MST

Next-Gen have gone out on a limb and named who they believe are the hottest 100 developers for 2008. That's individual developers, too, not development studios. It's an exhaustive list, and one which does a great job of covering all major territories and platforms, so click through to see the highlights of a list in which The Gooch (23) beats out Miyamoto (26), and Patrice's lovely beard (16) beat out Peter Molyneux (27). So, yes, in other words, this is the best list ever.

While there were 100 developers who made the list, there's no way in hell I'm trawling through it and re-typing all 100 entrants. You'll need to hit the link below if you want to see the hotly-contested battle for 89th place. Instead, I'm just going to skip straight past the chaff and highlight the wheat - ie the top 10.

10: Casey Hudson (BioWare/Mass Effect)
9. Dan Houser (Rockstar/GTA)
8. Yoshiaki Koizumi (Nintendo/Mario Galaxy)
7. Hideo Kojima (Kojima Productions/Metal Gear Solid)
6. Will Wright (Maxis/Spore)
5. Greg LoPiccolo (Harmonix/Rock Band)
4. Rob Pardo (Blizzard/WoW)
3. Jason West (Infinity Ward/Call of Duty 4)
2. Harold Ryan (Bungie/Halo)
1. Ken Levine (2K/BioShock)

NOTE: Next-Gen have based this list on who they believe is "hot" RIGHT NOW. Not in 2006, not in 1996, but NOW.

THE NEXT-GEN HOT 100 DEVELOPERS 2008 [Next-Gen]

On Women in the Industry (Jade and Ubisoft)

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:51 MST

We didn't understand all the hype, really. While everyone was gibble-gabbling about Jade, we were so into the game's Creative Director Patrice. We even learned his last name! (It's Desilets.) Others focused more on Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond. MTV's Multiplayer blog has an insightful interview up with game journo Jane Pinckard about women in the game interesting. We've been big fans of Pinckard's blog Game Girl Advance for donkey's yonks. Anyway, here's what she has to say about the whole Jade Raymond media circus:

I don't know exactly how it happened, but I think Ubisoft noticed the amount of press that she was getting, and they did what most companies would do, which is they exploited that. I like Ubisoft and all, but they don't care about Jade as much as they care about their bottom dollar, and they're going to do what they think works. And if the GameTrailers interviews that have Jade on them get like 20 times the hits as any other product that they put out, what are they going to do? They're going to put her in front of the camera. I think they created a lot of resentment though, both internally and maybe externally. I think a lot of men were resentful of her stature, and maybe some of them thought she didn't deserve it, and they deserved it more or whatever. It's difficult. It's complicated.
I think that's just the nature of who we are as human society. That's why there is this celebrity culture and why we revere attractive people, and then also can't wait to tear them down. [Laughs] I think it's a confluence of factors. It's the fact that Jade is attractive to the gaming press, of course you're going to write about her. And once that happens Ubisoft is going to push her more because they realize she gets press and then she's going to continue to do it because it's her job, and as a producer what do you want? You want to sell copies of your game and make sure the game is successful. You do that by going out and doing interviews, representing your game. You know, you can't fault any of them really for doing their jobs...

While we do appreciate Jane's intelligent discussion and do hope you swing by Multiplayer to read the full interview, we're also really happy that this post is yet another excuse to post a Patrice pic.
Pinckard Interview [Multiplayer]

Jade In Green And White Striped Bikini

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:00:19 MST

The Rumor: martin85 over at GameTrailers.com Forums writes, "so my friend is working as an intern editor at maxim and he says that jade will grace the cover of december's issue which will feature "girls of gaming"! she will also have her own spread showing her in a green an white striped bikini in an exotic local (montreal). it will also feature other hot women in the gaming industry as well as competitive gaming. man i can't fricken wait! i haven't jacked to still images since 1999!"

The Smash: Last night at the Assassin's Creed shindig, producer Jade Raymond personally told Guest Editor Geoff Keighley that those rumors were totally untrue and that she's never do something like that. She actually seemed somewhat offended people thought she would. Ubisoft PR got so many inquiries about it almost had to issue and official statement. So, while this rumor so SMASHED, please don't rule out Creative Director Patrice Desilets' Maxim spread!