Ubisoft buys Trackmania dev

Ubisoft has announced that it has bought out the Paris-based developer of the Trackmania games, Nadeo, for an undisclosed sum.

According to Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft has been very impressed with the developer for getting more than 700,000 unique users online every month despite having only ten full-time employees.

700,000 is just where the figures are right now too - it total, Nadeo has accrued more than 10 million players and 15 million user-made tracks for the Trackmania games.

Nadeo previously announced that it was working on Trackmania 2 as a PC-exclusive racing game and while it seems that it will still be the studio's focus, it's unclear how the purchase may affect the upcoming title.

Confusingly, while the upcoming game is titled as the second Trackmania game, it's actually the fifth game in the series, which has been running since 2005. The other Trackmania games include the free-to-play Trackmania Nations Forever and a DS port of the original Trackmania.

If you've not played any of the Trackmnaia games then the best way to understand them is to watch some of the Trackmania Projects, which show what's possible with the game.

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