French I Am Alive Report Was "A Joke"

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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French I Am Alive Report Was "A Joke"


French gaming site JeuxVideo says its report that Ubisoft's I Am Alive [http://iamalivegame.us.ubi.com/] would get a digital-only release was "just a joke," but it's the internet's fault for not understanding what was obviously a joke.

A week ago, JeuxVideo revealed that I Am Alive, the disaster survival game digital-only release [http://www.ubi.com] on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade because, according to Ubisoft Toronto Managing Director Jade Raymond, the publisher didn't have enough faith in it to sink the bucks into a proper retail launch. It was the kind of harsh, frank assessment you don't normally hear from a publisher and that, combined with the fact that it was the first thing we'd heard about the game since early 2009, drove the story around the internet very quickly. Just one problem: it was a lie.

Or, as the site put it, "a joke." The whole thing started to look fishy almost immediately after the story came out, when several of our own French-speaking readers noted that the statement about Ubisoft expecting the game to fail did not come from Raymond but were just the opinion of the announcer. Ubisoft itself denied the statement, saying, "We have not recently announced anything for I Am Alive and we have nothing official to announce at this time."

And now JeuxVideo has stuck the final fork in it, saying that the whole thing was just a joke and we all should have known it. "To get it all on the tone of humor, Kevin [the JeuxVideo announcer] improvises a story about a relationship he enjoyed with Jade Raymond and which would have allowed him to get this info. Obviously, anyone who has watched Warpzone immediately understood it was a joke," the site said in a Google-translated explanation [http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jeuxvideo.fr%2Fjeux%2Fi-am-alive%2Finsolite-am-alive-jade-raymond-web-mondial-bateau-actu-394728.html].

NeoGAF got the ball rolling "without worrying about the context of the issue," after which English gaming sites began to report on the story. "That's what happens when you don't understand French" and, due to "laziness or complacency," don't bother to verify facts, the site said, despite the fact that many sites did in fact reach out to Ubisoft for confirmation, which is how we ended up with a denial in the first place. Still, that might have been the end of it as far as JeuxVideo was concerned, except that French gaming sites began to report on it as well, apparently taking NeoGAF at its word without checking the original video, where they would have discovered the obvious humor.

But JeuxVideo is prepared to be big about it. "Although our responsibility in this story is zero, we still want to apologize for the misunderstanding [of] this innocent trait of humor," it said. The most important thing, it added, is that it now has proof that Jade Raymond does occasionally look at the site. I suppose we should expect nothing less from the nation that awarded Jerry Lewis the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to comedy.


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teh_Canape

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May 18, 2010
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Ubisoft's face:



my face:


I may, may[/] get around trying it out, seems interesting
 

RatRace123

Elite Member
Dec 1, 2009
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You say "Joke" I say "Publicity Stunt".

It's a good move, trying to get the word out, get public interest in the game peaking, and then decide "Oh, there is a market for this... well let's make it a full retail game then.".
 

Crowser

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Feb 13, 2009
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Yeah... Not a very funny joke. "Hey guys here's some info about a game, except that info is completely bogus, ISN'T THAT FUNNY!!?"

-.-?

Still, I really want this game =(
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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Like they said, it's not their fault people can't translate correctly. This is the reason that Nintendo guy stopped talking because his Japanese words always get skewed.
 

BoogieManFL

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Apr 14, 2008
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I almost forgot about this game. I was thinking it was pulling a Duke Nukem Forever on us.
 

cynicalsaint1

Salvation a la Mode
Apr 1, 2010
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"Obviously, anyone who has watched Warpzone immediately understood it was a joke"
Because stating that it was obviously a joke, after a large number of people obviously failed to realize a joke obviously makes it true, right?
 

plastic_window

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Jun 29, 2008
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I don't think Jade Raymond realises that most people don't see a company as an entity capable of humour, more a spewer of press releases.

Also, making a joke about how dangerous it is for companies to fund brand new IPs - a trend that has killed thousands of jobs - isn't funny, it's just an observation.

Anyone want to know what Oddworld Inhabitants is up to? The company that decided to pull out of video games because no-one wanted to fund their burgeoning new projects? It seems to me that Lorne Lanning has been beaten into submission, simply remaking the two games that are most likely to sell well - the only FPS they made and the nostalgic mascot title.

Anyhoo, I Am Alive sounded like a cool idea, and Ubisoft occassionaly put resources into big, new games like that - the first Assassin's Creed was incredibly original and satisfying - so I'm definetly looking forward to this game.

But if there's even a trace of humour in the game, I simply will not play it.
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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Wait, so what was the joke?

Does this mean that development for the game is still going? It certainly looks interesting from what I remember of the trailer.
 

mjc0961

YOU'RE a pie chart.
Nov 30, 2009
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Although our responsibility in this story is zero
Bullshit. There is a time and place for jokes, and that wasn't one of them. Your responsibility in this story is 100%.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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So... JeuxVideo basically did a short skit about a fictional relationship with Jade Raymond, and a snippet of that skit was taken out of context and used as actual news?

That's... something.

And I notice a lot of people replying to this piece of news seem to be misinterpreting it. Hence why I typed up my short summary of the news above.
 
Nov 5, 2007
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plastic_window said:
I don't think Jade Raymond realises that most people don't see a company as an entity capable of humour, more a spewer of press releases.
Hey, it's not Jade Raymond or Ubi that made the joke up, it was JV.com. Try reading the article.