Feature: 'Yannis Mallat On Ubisoft Montreal'

It's of little surprise that French publisher Ubisoft chose Montreal for the location of its first North American studio in 1997. In this exclusive Gamasutra spotlight, we tour the development house, and discuss the unique multicultural environment that encompasses it. In this extract from the piece, Mathew Kumar examines the make-up of the studio, both in terms of size and and evolution: "Across the 250,000 square feet of floor space the studio is staffed by over 1,400 people, and that’s not the limit of Ubisoft’s staff in Quebec, with roughly 100 more staff in a motion capture studio elsewhere in Montreal and a studio of 100 in Quebec City. “It’s about 85% local,” Cedric Orvoine, Director of External Communications and Public Affairs said, before Mallat added “It varies a lot, month after month, but mainly locals. But we also welcome people from all over the world. UK, China, Asia, Europe, U.S., France. Really we’re working with people from everywhere.” “Ubisoft very early on saw Montreal as a future place of growth for videogames,” said Mallat, “there were actually some players in the industry, such as Softimage, that were already here, and also Montreal has good universities. The Quebec government was quick to foresee here was an industry that could grow in Quebec, so they actually facilitate the establishment of studios. In Quebec, though people are North American people, there is a certain amount of European culture, so it’s always about creativity. The people are talented creators, but they also know what a blockbuster is. This happy combination of creativity and innovation into something that’s always relevant to the market makes people here well suited for working at Ubisoft." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, with much more from Gamasutra's visit to Ubisoft Montreal (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).