4. Ubisoft

Year formed: 1986

Headquarters: Montreuil-sous-Bois, France

Studios: Annecy, France; Barcelona; Blue Byte (Dusseldorf, Germany); Bucharest; Casablanca; Chengdu, China; Digital Kids (Nagoya, Osaka, Japan); Hybride Technologies (Montreal); Milan; Montpellier, France; Montreal; Montreuil, France; Pune, India; Quebec City; Red Storm (Morrisville, N.C.); Reflections (Newcastle, U.K.); Sao Paulo, Brazil; Shanghai; Singapore; Kiev, Ukraine

Ubisoft expanded operations all through the past year, opening new studios across the globe and acquiring new talent in Japanese dev Digital Kids and effects house Studio Hybride.

GRAW 2, Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and the fruits of a successful casual-games venture drove sales up all year round.

Ubisoft's revenues were the fourth-highest in our study, just edging out Vivendi Games, and the company's 70 titles released during the year placed it in fourth for that category as well.

The publisher's average review score fell slightly this year, but higher revenues and more releases made up for it.

Our survey brought comments praising the company's quality and innovation, but noted that perhaps Ubisoft should "take the Wii core market more seriously."

Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed