Eidos were the first to make news this week by oficially opening their new Montréal studio yesterday, after announcing it in February this year. The new studio is headed by Stéphane d’Astous, with a staff of over 200, and will be working on the next version of the hit title Deus Ex.

This was only the beginning though. Today was the Montréal International Game Summit, which is a 2-day conference gathering game developers and companies. Amusement Cyanide, a French company which does niche video games, announced they will be opening a local studio, with a staff of 65. Javaground, an american company which does games for mobile phones, also announced they will be opening a game dev center in Montréal. This is all very good news; I’ve heard the mayor M. Tremblay calling Montréal the “cité des arts numériques” last week. He sometimes exaggerate numbers but I agree with him on this one. 

Ubisoft Montréal has released last friday the next-generation video game Assassin’s Creed. The local game studio has also released recently major titles, like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6, Naruto, the rise of a Ninja, or Far Cry, but I find this new title interesting from a technological and business point of view. Some observations:

• To my knowledge, it’s the first time that a video game producer, Jade Raymond, rose to an internet “superstar” status. I keep stumbling on her subtle and not-so-subtle appearances on the Internet, be it official videos from Ubisoft or from “fans”. Previously, only game coders like John Carmack, Will Wright, or Peter Molynex achieved to get this status. She even made it to the national TV, and appears on every single photo about the game, to the point that I sometimes think that she is more popular than the game itself. 
• Ubisoft Montréal started Assassin’s creed in 2004, when the xbox360 was still in development. It’s their biggest project to date, with a production budget beyond $20 million, a team of 300 developers and designers, and a promotional budget well over $1 million. They also invested heavily to make the game realistic, with professors in medieval history serving as consultants for the game. 
• This is also the first video game from Ubisoft that will be used to make movies, by their new Digital Arts division. 

For me, video games studios are now no different than the cinema industry, with video game producers and designers are the equivalent of movie directors and producers. I remember not so long ago an adventure game,  Another World, which was made by just one guy, Eric Chahi. 

Telefim Canada has just announced that Mindhabits has won the ‘Great Canadian Video Game Competition’. Mindhabits wins a $500 000 prize from Telefilm Canada and an equal amount from private investors, to help them develop and launch their game.

The competition was started to support and highlight independent video games companies from Canada. It was started by Telefilm, along with the support of various governmental agencies and established industry players like Ubisoft or Electronic Arts. Competitors had to display original content, with each of them tested during the competition’s previous 10 months.

MindHabits is based in Montreal and was spun off from original McGill medical and science research. They plan to build a ’serious’ video game to help minds manage social stress, much alike the Brain Age series, which reminds me a lot of the Coué method. Overall, this is a very curious video game, although the prospect of getting social happinness from a video game doesn’t seem ‘right’ to me.

Ubisoft Montreal has relaunched its recruiting campaign tropdimagination. Prospective candidates are invited to test their skills in interactive games and quizzes in memory, creativity and logic. Ubisoft hopes to find 150 designers and developers for its workforce thanks to this initiative.

Although I really disagree with their overuse of flash, I liked the way they diversified their message. There is a facebook group, a myspace page, and videos to expose the company’s culture to the candidates. Here is a sample video about 3D and creativity in Ubisoft, which reminds me a lot of the standoutjobs videos:

Ubisoft Montreal is the heavyweight video games company in Québec, and even country-wide. They have managed to lure and charm all new talents, and are planning to recruit 1000 more in the next 6 years. Thinking about it, if I was right now in high school, I would say my number one goal would be to work for Ubisoft, and I bet it’s the same for many young Québecers. A direct consequence of having so many video games companies hunting top designers and developers is that there would be nothing left for software companies, web design agencies, startups, consulting firms and for the IT industry in general. Of course, it’s quite easy to give a bigger salary package than Ubisoft, but nothing lures the young’uns than the prospect of making their own AAA video game. And if they can’t go to Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Eidos, Artificial Mind and Movement are broadcasting the same message.

CBC reports that the provincial governement and the Entertainement Software Association of Canada have struck a deal, which will force video games companies to release all video games titles sold in Québec to be translated in French.

In a province where up to 37.5% of video games developers’ wages are subsidized by the governement, this seems as a normal measure. It also sounds logical, seeing the number of video games already produced locally, in Montréal and Québec city. Now, I also expect Québecers to get much less video games titles in their hands, in upcoming years, except of course from blockbuster releases. Video game companies are not public organizations anyway, they follow market laws.

Gary Haran, currently a Rails developer for ziplocal, has sold wowdetox, and says he managed to get $3600 out of the website.

The story is interesting, because he went through the World Of Warcraft “addiction”, then created the website in 2 hours, to build a website to help those who spend way too much time in the role-playing video game for their own good. Blizzard has surpassed themselves in this game, with users playing as much as 12 hours per day in the game. Excerpts from the testimonials:

I recently quit playing wow after my wife threatened to leave me. I was playing at all hours of the day and night. I work full-time and would play as soon as I got home, my wife would go to bed alone and I would play until early morning. I would put on the TV to babysit my 4yo daughter so I could play. I havent played WOW for a little over a month, it feels good to have that monkey off my back, but I still feel the pull of the game. My wife and I are in counseling, trying to repair the disconnect and resentment created by my addiction to this game. I hope we can make it, she tells me its ok to keep playing, just limit it… I know I cant do it yet. It is truely an addiction, get your loved one help, just as you would for booze or drugs.

I’ve played World of Warcraft for a while now, and let me tell you guys, I regret buying that game. It has destroyed most of my Mental, Social, and Physical being. To those thinking about starting to play this game, let me just say that be prepared for the consequences ahead of you because this game is like a drug, once you start, you can’t stop. I, myself can’t stop playing constantly, its just too addicting. Should this game take ahold of you, you’ll regret it later.

If you ask me, $3600 is nice for 2 hours of work, but I guess the most valuable for him is the help and support the website gave to all players who wanted to get out of the game. I also think this is just the start of future help services for gamers. Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, Sony Entertainement are all pushing the boundaries to get more people playing during more time. It’s easy to dismiss it if you never played a game like Battefield2 or World Of Warcraft, but I am sure future generations will need (and pay) for those services. Compute that with sales of virtual in-game objects, and you will get an entire section of the economy dedicated to video games.

The financial post has a story how video games companies based in Canada are blurring the line between video games and “traditional entertainement”. At the last E3 expo, Ubisoft Montréal led the charge with Assassin’s Creed, and how they will release a series of books based on the Universe. I also wrote previously about short animated movies based upon the game, made by Ubisoft’new Digital Arts division. The video game itself inspires itself heavily on cinematographical cues and uses music to create rhythm in the sequences. From the article:

her (Jade Raymond) game is easily the biggest and most expensive project the publicly-traded Ubisoft has ever undertaken.

As a result, its makers are thinking that if the game does well, movies and other spinoffs won’t be out of the question.

According to Raymond, she and her team aren’t simply trying to create a game anymore. “We’re creating a brand,” she said. “We’re creating a universe.”

Daniel Desilets and Jade Raymond from Ubisoft Montreal present Assassin’s Creed at the last Entertainement Electronic Expo

The video games industry topped the movies industry in 2005. With a market estimated at $37.5 billion in 2007, it will also surpass the music industry this year.

And it’s great to see a company from Montréal leading the pack.

Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, talked in depth with Gamasutra about what they are planning for the newly created Ubisoft Digital Arts. This was announced 3 months ago, as an animation studio, with a staff of 500 people, making movies from the Ubisoft video games franchises.

In the interview, Yannis Mallat says that they will make short animated movies and that the first one will be based on Assassin’s creed, the video game which will be launched in October this year. The biggest suprise for me though is that they want to make their “movies” interactive. Viewers (players?) will be able to change the storyline, and Yannis Mallat seems confident on Ubisoft’s ability to still make the experience compelling.

The first short movie will be based on upcoming adventure/action game assassin’s creed

Adventure games/movies were very popular at the last decade, with video games companies experimenting with FMV videos. I remember the Wing Commander series who had movie stars and were even featured on imdb when the game launched. We moved since then to strategy games and to FPS games, and then to consoles. It seems that Ubisoft wants to go back to that era, and that they will be (re)creating a new line of product. This is a big bet, as consumers will have to be educated, new distribution means will have to be setup, and I can’t even think of the marketing campaings needed to introduce the idea of interactive movies. But if they succeed on bridging the movie/game divide, they would hit the jackpot and get a market video games companies aren’t yet competing in.

If you ask my opinion, I am not sure I would buy a PS3 or a XBox just to see a movie. Then of course they would want me to get a HDTV. I thought they would make videos avalaible on Joost or any other distributions platforms, much alike Steam by Valve. It looks like the world begins and finishes with video games, playstations and xboxes with Yannis Mallat.

Recently, Artifical Mind&Movement, aka A2M, a video games company based in Montreal, was nominated for the Canadian new media awards, and the winners were announced last week in Toronto. I didn’t write about it though because MyThum Interactive, an ontarian company, won the award for the category.

Now, FiQ, an association for IT professionals, nominated this week A2M for their OCTAS 2007 award, and Rémi Racine, the A2M CEO, as the personalité de l’année 2006.

I have no idea why A2M was chosen. FiQ refers to The Suite Life of Zack&Cody, which is a Nintendo DS game. But it’s not even listed on the A2M website. IGN describes the game as totally uncreative and ridiculous.

I am thinking that the A2M CEO is a great networker, and has lots of friends at FiQ. It’s clearly not because of A2M’s achievements (because they would have picked Ubisoft Montréal then) or because they are innovating in new media (the A2M website was last updated 9 months ago).

Samuel Bouchard is a blogger from Quebec City, where he writes about technology, robotics and environment. He wrote a significant post on the province’s future place on the web, from his experience at the Mesh Conference last week.

The post is in french, so I will sum it up here. Cons for Quebec:

• so far, lots of clones from companies like canoe or from monavis or digg nuouz, and not enough breakthrough innovation
• small market in Quebec

I also think that there are not enough “role models” in Quebec, i.e. web entrepreneurs who succeeded so that more young people get inspired too.

Pros:

• french and lots of bilingual people. Instead of targeting the US market, which is a huge challenge, it is actually easier and faster to have french-speaking customers.
• affordable cost of living
• education
• a link between Europe and North America, so it might be easier to gain market shares in Europe
• expertise in video games and in telecom hardware

I also see another advantage from Quebec, which the creativity we see here in Quebec, like in Le cirque du soleil or in video games. This creativity can also be used to imagine hugely innovative products or services.

Like in Montreal, there seems to be a growing community of web entrepreneurs in Quebec city right now. I hope they go to the next BarcampCanada which is scheduled in Montreal this summer.