Jade Raymond: "We can be like the Borg"

Ubisoft Toronto head honcho Jade Raymond reckons social games and mobile gaming have collided so that we "finally have the ability to be like the Borg".

And why would we want to be like those mindless, murderous assimilating half human half robot mentalists from Star Trek? Because of the cloud.

There's this all-powerful cloud, Raymond said at the DICE 2011 summit, reported by Gamespot, and it's connected to infinite computing power.

We have real-time sensors blanketing the earth, which are attached to individual people as well, and these devices are becoming personal social beacons, she said. It impacts the way we can build relationships, and for game creators, it presents plenty of opportunities.

"Why do people play games?" Raymond asked. "It's the satisfaction of feeling progression, knowing that you're doing well, and mastering something," she said, going on to say that we are wired in a Darwinian way to get satisfaction from progression.

Last November it emerged that Raymond was working on Splinter Cell 6, as well as another unannounced game based on an existing Ubisoft franchise.

But what about Ubisoft's next big new IP? "If World of Warcraft is the new golf and Call of Duty is the new bowling, I'd like our next IP to be the new bar," she said.

It's a great time to start with a blank slate, she added, to think about how Ubisoft Toronto can incorporate the interaction between new and old trends to take advantage of these changes. Thinking about a new IP, she said, continues to be an evolution, rather than a revolution.