Ubisoft to pay £47m for Clancy rights

French games publisher Ubisoft has signed a deal that will see it acquire the rights to a host of products featuring the Tom Clancy name, including games, books, movies and merchandise.

According to analyst Michael Pachter, the agreement will see the firm will pay around £47 million over three years. But, as part of the deal, Ubisoft will no longer have to pay Clancy royalties, saving an estimated £4 million a year.

"After ten years of a highly successful collaboration which has seen the creation of blockbusters that set standards in the video game industry, such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, today, acquiring the perpetual property rights of the Tom Clancy name for video games and related projects is a major event,” said chief executive officer at Ubisoft Yves Guillemot.

"The Tom Clancy brand is recognised around the world for offering exciting video games, films and books," added Guillemot.

"The most recent example of such value creation through brand management is the EndWar book, based on the video game story, which has been in the New York Times top ten paperback mass market fiction bestseller list for the last four weeks. Capitalising on the strong franchises that we’ve built over the past ten years, we will take the Tom Clancy game brand to the next level of the global entertainment industry."