Active in the gaming world since 1999
Born in Valence, France

Chose EIDOS-MONTREAL because of its people. Other highlights: creative talent, small teams, a passionate workforce, freedom in the workplace, video games, Deus Ex, superior quality and game development in Europe vs North America.

People

It's the people here that motivated me to join [EIDOS-MONTREAL]. They're experienced, and they make up a really talented and dedicated team. They know how to work in large teams, so on a social level everything runs pretty smoothly. It's like working with your own family: the atmosphere is good, so things move fast. Even with the people you don't know, you feel as if you'd known them for ages. It means you can really focus on your work.

Creative Talent

You find very different personalities here. [EIDOS-MONTREAL] doesn't require us to all fit into the same pattern. We are accepted as we are, so each one of us can bring our own vision to the table. The result is that we're very connected and we all move in the same direction. Until now, things have always worked smoothly that way, and I don't see any reason it should change.

Small teams

It's a lot more intimate, a lot simpler - that's what I find interesting! Working with a team of 200 is difficult. I've been on games where we were 150, 200 people. When you have a team that size and someone comes up and says, "This game has to be finished by such and such a day of such and such a month of such and such a year", you can't afford to take off in all sorts of directions to make it better. When you have a large team to manage, you say, "We have to move on" and you're more radical in your approach. You say, "Either this idea works now, and we keep it, or it doesn't and we move on". Here, we can afford to brainstorm, and ask "Will we get rid of this? Do we have any alternatives? Are there things in here that are worth keeping?" We all have ideas, and since we're not that many, we can listen to each other. When you have 200 people, you can't do that: someone has to make a decision.

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Passionate Workforce

One might wonder why people leave large, well-established  companies. Of course, these companies operate and they generate revenues, but do they still have passion? [At EIDOS-MONTREAL], they say, "We have the opportunity to sell a product - because it's something we have to do, obviously - but at the same time, we can be passionate about creating it".

Freedom

It's a paradox: since all the decisions [EIDOS-MONTREAL] has made to this day were so well considered, you'd think that the management style would be very controlling. But no, quite the contrary: we are relatively free to make our own choices, our own game. That's the difference with the companies I've worked for previously. Here, no one comes in from the outside, saying, "Ok, now you have to do this, and that's it". That type of approach works out eventually, but what about the employees? Some think, "We're way too passionate to be treated like this. We don't want to have all those rules imposed upon us".

Deus Ex

We're working on an existing franchise, but that doesn't mean we're going to come out with a certified copy: gamers would see right through that! We're going to take what's good about it - after all, the first game came out several years ago, and games and gamers have changed a lot since - and develop it so that people find it even more interesting.

Superior quality

We don't need anyone above us saying, "This has to be top quality". I believe we're well aware of that.

Game development: Europe vs North America

In Europe, they don't think in the long term. They look for quick fixes. They say, "What project could we do that wouldn't be too expensive, and would immediately generate two or three times the investment, so that we can put that money on the next project?", and so on, until one day the bubble bursts, and they move on to something else... Here [in North America], it's different. They say, "What kind of project would enhance our profile in the long run, and make the public trust us and say, 'This Company, this brand, has come out with several games we really liked. We can count on them'". I prefer the latter mentality - EIDOS-MONTREAL clearly has a long-term vision.

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In the game industry since 2000
Born in Dundee, Scotland

Moved for love, the project, a dream team, the environment, a game community; also living in Montreal.

Moved for love

My girlfriend was living in Montreal, I was living in Edmonton, and after commuting for 10 months I considered relocating. So, I interviewed the major game companies here. I had already been hired by another company when I found out about Eidos. I must say Eidos was definitely the most exciting one.

The project

When I did the interview, David [Anfossi] showed me the [development] schedule. In the upper left-hand corner, it was written "Deus Ex". I always take a job based on the project.  It's not so much about the money and all that, it's, "What game are we going to be working on?". That's what got me excited: the idea of working on a sequel to one of my favorite games. Also, it was in keeping with what I did in my previous job, so it's like the next step: I can take everything I learned and use it to make this game even better.  I'm really excited about the project, I'm excited about where it's going and I'm excited about my part in it. People here listen to you and it's quite easy to get them on board. If they don't like it, you know they'll say so as well. 

A dream team

I'm still getting to know everyone, but I feel the people I'm with are very talented. They're quite a dream team. Based on the games they've worked on previously, I'm confident we're going to produce something really good. It's a team that comes up with a lot of ideas that are actually driving the project, and we all have the possibility to help improve different areas of it. So there's no single person to talk to, it's like a creative team and I'm very fortunate to be part of it.

The environment

There was a risk involved because it was a startup, but it's definitely paid off.  It's not an established studio, but now, after four months, it feels like one.  We were in a temporary studio for a while, which was little weird, but as soon as we came down here, it really started to come together. The physical environment has definitely added to it a lot. Everyone is in one big space, with a meeting room to see the designs and things like that. There used to be a lot of e-mail communications, but now I can see if someone is at their desk and just go over and talk to them. The communication factor in this kind of project - knowing where everybody is at - is pretty important.

A game community

Moving from Europe to North America was great.  That was definitely the best thing I've ever done. The cool thing about it is that since there are all these different companies, like EA, Ubisoft, and A2M, and other smaller companies as well, there's a community of game developers here and they seem to be very proactive. They're not just holding meetings to have a drink and see how their career is going: it's about sharing ideas, and that got me really excited, because that's how it was in the UK. 

Living in Montreal

There's a lot of, you know, pockets [in the world] where lots of game development studios appear, and Montreal's one of them. So I was really keen to come here for that. Coming from Europe, Montreal is very cultural, there's a lot happening.  I can just go up my street and find cafés and restaurants, and there are bands playing just around the corner from my place. I find that the rest of Canada is more American and here it's more European. In [Western Canada], I couldn't open my mouth without people asking, "Where are you from?".  Here, so many people come from outside of Montreal that I don't feel like a stranger.

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Active in the games industry since 2000
Born in Hunedoara, Romania

Came to EIDOS-MONTREAL for "the team, the vibes". His insights about programmer-artist communication;  freedom, trust and creativity; and  Quebec, tolerance and creativity.

The team, the vibes

The main reason I came to EIDOS-MONTREAL was the team - I knew many of these people very well, and I enjoyed working with them. The vibes are really good and things run smoothly.

Programmer-artist communication 

I think there's a correlation between the quality of a game and the quality of the communication in the team that develops it. I find that artists and engineers in our industry often seem to live in two different worlds, which works against their common goal. Things shouldn't be like that: we need what I would call an overlap area, a neutral area where their knowledge can merge. Technology is the brush that artists use to express their vision, and it seems to me that things work more smoothly when the artists fully grasp the properties of the brush, and engineers see the art direction and understand how the artists use the brush. Strangely enough, this overlap area seems to be a side effect of human curiosity, communication and understanding.

Freedom, trust and creativity

Excessive control, micromanagement and a lack of trust cause more problems than they solve. Power can be a trap for both parties, especially if it's used for the wrong reasons. If you have to answer a number of micromanagement questions, you don't feel trusted and you may block your creativity to play it safe and avoid making mistakes. Fortunately, the team behind Deus Ex 3 has enough experience to see through this - I feel there's a lot more trust here. With freedom comes creativity. To develop a commercially viable product, you need to have a balance between being creative and playing it safe.

Quebec, tolerance and creativity

Quebec is the place to live if you are passionate about what you are doing. People are nice, understanding and they have a very constructive attitude. I see Quebec as a place where things happen as a side effect of doing what you love to do. It's a place where people like Domina Jalbert [who invented the Parafoil, an airfoil used in paragliders, kites and modern parachutes] and Jean St-Germain [who built the first recreational vertical wind tunnel in 1980] had the freedom to do what they loved to do, as crazy as it seemed to everyone else.

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Active in the games industry since 1997 
Born in Rochester, USA

Drawn by a story-centric start-up, which means, among other things, wearing many hats. Other themes include writers and sharing ideas on smaller teams, longer development times, the third Deus Ex and being in Montreal, a diverse and stimulating city.

Story-centric start-up

Of course, Eidos is a very well-known company in the world, and it works on great titles, many of which are very story-centric. Also important was the fact that a new studio was just starting in Montreal, which is a city I love. I've been in the game industry for over ten years and the most exciting companies I've worked with were the ones that were small and just starting to grow, because a lot of really cool challenges come with building a company. 

Many hats

Like the fact of working with limited resources on a big vision: limited resources usually mean you don't have enough people to work it. This allows many of the people to wear many hats and to have more to say on the product they're working on, and to bring more to it. When you have [very  large teams], people tend to get slotted in particular tasks, and even though that may be their forte, they have other, very important skills that may be overlooked. Here, they want to limit the size of the teams.

Of writers and sharing ideas on smaller teams

As a writer, I think I have one of the most misunderstood jobs in the industry, because people think of the writer as, "You just put the words down on the page". In a small team, however, the writer becomes very integral [to the process] and actually helps shape the ideas and directions of things. I think sharing ideas - being more collaborative - works better in small groups, where voices can be heard. [If people aren't open to ideas from other areas], it can definitely be a problem. I think it's always a difficult balance to maintain: you have to be willing to hear the ideas of others, and you also have to be willing to accept when your own ideas are not being heard.  You're more likely to realize that you can have a voice, but you are also able to keep the personal communication going, to understand why your ideas may not work. I think it's easier to understand that in a small group.

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Longer development times

The complexity of the story is based on the type of the game you're dealing with. Many games just need a very simple story line, and many need a very complex and deep one. When you have shorter periods of time, you have to scale down your story and your design ideas. It obviously takes much longer to develop a deep and complex story, and since the game we're working on is going to be a very deep story, having a longer development time ensures not only being able to do it but being able to get it right.

Third Deus Ex

When I played the first game, I realized that so much of it is centered on the story that it automatically calls for a deep and interesting story line, and that was a big reason for me to want to be here and to work on it. Another reason is the fact that [Eidos] games are very well recognized, and have built a loyal fan base. The development team saw opportunities to expand those games beyond their initial focus, and that's always a very interesting challenge: to create another version of something that is much loved, [a version] that will grow beyond it without upsetting the people who love it, and yet will be interesting to people who may not have liked it or may never have heard of it.

Being in Montreal

I grew up on the East Coast, in the U.S., so I enjoy the change of seasons. California is very nice; certain parts are much nicer than others - I worked in L.A. for a while, which I didn't like that much, and I worked in San Diego, which I think is one of the nicest places in California. But at heart I'm someone who grew up on the East Coast, and I prefer the lifestyle and the changes of scenery.

Diverse city

Montreal itself is a very diverse city. It has a lot of different cultures that blend within it and that's something I've always found very appealing. I'm learning French, I can speak "un peu" and I can understand a bit more.  It can be intimidating when you don't understand what people are saying, but at the same time it's really interesting to be immersed in another culture, in another way of seeing things. I really enjoy that aspect of it. Another reason I like being here is that I'm not too far from home. I have a big family and they're mostly centered in upper state New York and Vermont, so I get to see them a lot more.

Stimulating city

In Montreal, the game community is growing and getting bigger. My chosen profession is games, and I love working in games. Especially as a writer, it's a whole new challenge, because no one quite knows yet how to really tell a story in games, we still haven't invented the language yet. Since I'm working in games, I want to live in a city that appeals to me as well, and Montreal a very diverse city and it's drawing in a whole community of gamers and game developers. It's good because you start to learn from each other. You need the outside stimulus to keep everything fresh and new, and you also get stimulated by your colleagues because the sharing of ideas can create stronger, new, original ones. So, both of those forces coming together is really valuable.

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Active in the game industry since 1995
Born in Montargis, in France

Chose EIDOS-MONTREAL first for the project, then for the size of the teams, and finally for its culture. Also his impressions on the impact of demographics, the gaming trade, the importance of the corporate culture and the Deus Ex project.

The project

Science fiction and cyberpunk are my favourite environments in terms of concepts, and Deus Ex is a game I liked a lot. I appreciate it creatively, as an artist, and I feel comfortable with it. It's an adult product that has a lot of potential (...). It has a shooter angle to it, obviously, but considering its rich political, economic, and social content, it's in a category of its own as far as video games go. The framework has a depth that you don't find in most games today. That's the main reason I joined [EIDOS MONTREAL].

The size of the teams

I also felt the need to return to the sources and work with smaller groups. I had nostalgia for the first studios, from ten years ago: back then, teams were smaller and each person felt a little more empowered and everyone was integrated and took part in the overall design of the game. I've always liked to work in smaller studios. What I'm interested in is the structure we work with, i.e. the relationships. [A smaller team], makes it possible to interact on a more human scale, rather than a factory scale. The more hierarchy and people you have, the more information becomes diluted, the more contacts between people become diluted, and the more that essential factor is lost. In order to really feel involved, each person should perform more than one function; each person should do a little more than they're supposed to; we should feel a little more responsible. In other words, we should really be part of the team, but to me a team isn't 300 people. Here, they'll remain small enough so that everyone knows everyone else at least a little.

Impact of the demograhics

I think that the [size of the teams] actually has an enormous impact. To begin with, we're working with a product we like. It's something you find in sports, for example. [Smaller teams] make everyone feel much more involved, much more motivated to win the Cup. You're not lost in a large group, you feel a little more responsible and your role becomes more important, therefore you avoid missing work or showing a certain lack of motivation, which happens much easier in a "production line" type of environment. The more diluted you are, the less important you feel your role is.

The trade

Actually, there's nothing easy about our work. It's pleasant, but not easy. It's a lot more demanding than the average job. You're much more motivated within a small team, in a small company, than if youre schedule looks like a civil servant's. Artists can't be managed like civil servants: we don't work at fixed hours, we have to be available... The larger the company, the more management tends to treat us as civil servants. In France, because of the 35 hour [week] and the way employees are managed, there are practically no more video games [being produced]. So EIDOS-MONTREAL's vision is in sync with what is required in this industry to produce good results. It means more motivated teams that have an opportunity to develop more interesting games, with more depth and content. We'll always come out with better products if the developers are motivated by the product and if they want to play with it themselves.

The culture

[Another motivation] was the studio's philosophy, because I know the people who set it up. Right now, we're almost all seniors, in other words we're at that point in our career where we know what we want - and especially what we don't want. So we all have a common goal, which is to produce a very good game - actually, it has the potential to be an excellent game - and we're very motivated about it, because we're all a little more mature. 
 
More on Deus Ex

It's an ambitious type of game, and that's what I like about it. Here, we're passionate about creating video games. Before coming to Canada, I worked in England and in France, and I seldom worked on games of this calibre. It's right up my alley, so I feel very lucky! I can pour a lot much more energy into this project because it's a goal I can totally relate to. At the same time, you never forget you're developing a product for a broad spectrum of the population. It's like making a movie or any form of art: you're doing something you like, and you hope that it will appeal to other people as well. [Deus Ex] is an outstanding game because of its quality, its style and its contents. It actually was a hit with a very small audience of highly passionate players. We want to reach those people again, while also giving the game a broader appeal.

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Active in the games industry since 2005
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Liked Eidos games, and enjoys the open door policy; as well as being a kid and being happy going to work.

The games

I liked some of their [Eidos] games already, that was one of my major reasons for coming here. Also, the company I worked for only did game testing, while here there are game designers, programmers and so on, and so I thought this would be a good way to gain experience. I studied in film and multimedia, and I love film and television, and media in general, and two games from this company were actually turned into movies. Given the status of the QA team here, I figured I would have more mobility. I can talk to some of the people and actually find out how I can become adept at creating games or selling games, marketing, etc. Who knows?  Maybe in a few years from now I'll be writing scripts!

Open door

So far, I see it's pretty much an open door policy everywhere. You can ask anyone almost anything and they will take the time to help you out as best as they can or direct you to the right area. I really like that: I don't have to be afraid, just because I'm in QA, that someone in Designing or Programming or Management won't answer me. It feels like a team, a family, which is really good. It's a really nice atmosphere.

"Being a kid" and being happy going to work

The best part is that for eight hours of the day I can be a kid!  I do my work at the same time, but it's so relaxing. I've worked at a lot of different places, in different types of jobs, but here I've never got up once in the morning saying to myself, "Oh my God, I have to go to work!". I don't have that feeling at all. It just feels really good, I feel relaxed, I'm not stressed about anything. It's not just about money sometimes, you know, you have to be happy in what you're doing and I'm very happy here.

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In the game industry since 2000
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Was drawn by the challenge of a start-up and the worker-friendly environment.

The challenge of a start-up

This is exactly what I expected in a startup company. The challenge of bringing together a team - that's the beautiful part of a start-up: you have an open tarp to paint on. I'm enjoying the fast pace, building the site. There's always little fires, little things that have to be tweaked and fixed, and it has to be done fast. I just hope it's not going to slow down at any time! My deadlines are production deadlines; my goal is to make sure [the production teams] get their game out on time. I can't be holding them back, so my main objective is to make sure they have what they need. They need support, they need excellent network conditions while maintaining a high level of security, they need proper services, state of the art servers - they need everything to function, all the time.

A worker-friendly environment

I like the smaller, more family-oriented environment. I missed it at my previous job. I enjoy the closeness of a smaller company. It's a friendlier work environment: everybody knows your name! You walk down the hall, people say good morning. It's more enjoyable, versus the "everyone's a number" type of thing!

Active in the game industry since 2000
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Selected EIDOS-MONTREAL for three reasons: the project, the team, and the culture (in that order). Also speaks of communication, deadlines and quality.

The project

Deus Ex is a game I played when it came out. As soon as I heard this was happening in Montreal, I had to be part of it! This is the type of game I like to play; it's a really good challenge. What's nice is that we're not starting from scratch. We have a foundation to build on. We already know what worked and what didn't, and that's worth gold. The design stage was really great. In the first months of the project, we decided what we wanted to do, and what direction we wanted to take. Things go really smoothly with Jean-François Dugas [the lead designer]. Often, in a video game, people get lost right from the start because they haven't clearly defined what they want to do, and that can drag on for years: you see projects where people still don't know where they're going after a year and half, two years.

The team

My second motivation to come here was that there were people I had worked with two, three, five years ago. I didn't have to get to know them or learn how to communicate with them: I could jump right in and start working. Right now, everyone on the team loves everyone, which makes a big difference. You can relax and focus on your work because you don't have all these questions going on in your mind. That can really undermine your concentration - even if you try to ignore it, it's always there in the background, keeping part of your brain busy. Here, I see none of these problems. I feel comfortable going up and talking to anyone on the team and saying what I think. I know they won't feel hurt, because it's not negative. I'm not trying to criticize them; it's completely about the project.

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Communication

I've seen teams with up to 150, 200 people. Here we want to keep it around 80, which means we have to be more versatile, even though some of us will probably specialize in one area or another. You can't build a video game alone. Communication is crucial, and if you have problems with another team member, it's likely to break down. If certain key people stop talking to one another, that's an enormous challenge - and it's been known to happen. Teams often take on the profile of their leader, so if the managers don't get along, their teams will also have trouble communicating. That's really not happening here.

A culture based on trust

A game company should trust its employees. If we're here, it's because we have certain skills. In other companies, I've seen leaders who didn't trust us, so they'd come over and tell us what to do, and what not to do. That kind of micromanaging undermines a team's motivation and causes conflicts. Communications go sour and it gets very hard to meet deadlines, because the design can change at any minute. Right now, I can tell that the studio really trusts us a lot, starting with David [Anfossi], the producer; same for Stephan [D'Astous] and the head office: we really feel supported. I'm not worried that in three months from now or towards the end of the project someone is going to say: "Actually, this isn't what we wanted, so you have to do this part over again". I feel that [EIDOS-MONTREAL managers] have closely reviewed and approved what we've done so far, so we're on solid ground and we can move on to the next step.

Longer development schedules

The more time you have, the more you can push the envelope and take risks; the less time you have, the more you have to play it safe. [More time] allows us to try a lot more things, and we can also learn a lot more. We often hear that we learn from our mistakes, but I believe that we actually learn when we succeed in doing something right. There are millions of errors to make, but far less ways of doing things right. Once you've found one of them, you learn a lot more.

Quality

At the moment, we're not too stressed about time. It's more about quality. We want to make sure we live up to everyone's expectations.

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Active in the game industry since 1998
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

For Emmanuel-Yvan, working at EIDOS-MONTREAL is an opportunity, a chance to learn, to test games from everywhere in the world, to work with teams from abroad, and to have a privileged status in the industry.

An opportunity

I saw EIDOS-MONTREAL as an opportunity, a start-up I could contribute to and leverage my knowledge and experience to help the company develop. I left a slightly better job and risked taking a step back, so to say, to assess things better - and learn, too. In my previous job, we were pretty much self-taught. We had acquired our own techniques, our own view of things, our own ways of communicating…

A chance to keep on learning

Now, I'm in a place where the practices are different. That gives me an opportunity to learn, develop my skills, and share what I know. It means that in five years, instead of remaining in the same place I'll have acquired more expertise by acquiring a broader perspective and learning new techniques. When you work with people who work differently and have different standards, you expand your skills. It feels like being paid to go back to school! Of course, I have to change my ways of doing things, but my studio manager is highly qualified, which helps me a lot. Our goal is to attain a higher level of quality as a group, not as individuals. 

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Games from the world over

I like the fact that we're testing games from everywhere: Australia, Scandinavian countries, England, the US... The QA department is in direct contact with the UK [head office], which assigns us our projects, and that is a little different from what I've known before. [Production teams] have deadlines, and we're there to help. Our job is to find all the problems as quickly as possible, so they can make corrections as fast as possible, so we can come out with a game of the best possible quality.

Working with teams abroad

Through all of this, we strive to establish the best communications so that developers - who are often in studios abroad - can have a common understanding of the corrections to be made. We work the same way with off-site development teams as we do with in-house ones, but we communicate differently; we don't talk with everyone on the project, only to certain people like the producer or the project manager. When you work on in-house projects, you talk to the programmers, sound engineers, etc., and you get a lot of information. The challenges are not the same. I like what I do. I don't get tired of it at all! I like being able to bring this level of quality and communication, and help [production teams] maximize their chances of success.

A privileged status

I've worked on more than 50 games in my career and when you do that, you end up knowing pretty well what works and what doesn't. Therefore I can share my knowledge with production people. Some game companies have a rather poor opinion of the test department. They see it mostly as a way to get past the door, and its role seems quite secondary: it's a place you go to at the very end of the development process... Here, QA is an integral part of production. That's one reason I came to work here: production and QA form a whole, they are enshrined in the basic vision. In other words, there is a will, as the years go by, to constantly include the testing team and its expertise into the whole.

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