The worldwide view of gaming from an enormous exterior growth agency | Gilles Langourieux interview

Based in 2004, Virtuos has grown into a giant firm with regards to the manufacturing of video games. As an exterior developer, Virtuos’ crew of three,800 skilled recreation devs can complement the groups at recreation studios and publishers as they end their video games.

The Singapore-based firm has a giant presence in Asia and it has labored with almost all the prime 25 leisure firms on the planet, with both work on video or recreation content material.

I’ve caught up with Virtuos CEO Gilles Langourieux a number of instances lately — together with final February — to get entry to his distinctive perspective on the worldwide image of creating video games.

I lately caught up with him on the Tokyo Sport Present, the place the corporate confirmed off its work on the remake Metallic Gear Strong: Snake Eater. We talked about every part from the state of the sport jobs market to the usage of AI in making video games.

Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Gilles Langourieux: A 20-year-old recreation remade in Unreal 5. It’s a giant deal for us to have the ability to take such a traditional recreation and produce it to fashionable requirements.

GamesBeat: That was a really lengthy recreation.

Langourieux: Very. That is the place we shine. If you wish to do it in an affordable time, you want to have the ability to line up a giant crew, each engineers and artists.

GamesBeat: Does Snake Eater wind up being one in every of your largest initiatives?

Langourieux: Sure. A whole bunch of individuals. Between 200 and 300. It was a three-year undertaking.

GamesBeat: These remakes could also be superb for this a part of the {industry}, the exterior growth studios.

Langourieux: They’re a major a part of the enterprise. Not everybody can do them. If I have a look at what we’re doing within the recreation division, it could be a bit greater than a 3rd of our income. The remaining comes from co-development engagements, the place we work aspect by aspect with the shopper. Quite a lot of studios can do co-development, however not so many can do remakes of enormous titles.

GamesBeat: Is it actually beginning over from the bottom up?

Langourieux: Proper. There’s not quite a bit we will re-use.

GamesBeat: Competing for one thing like that, what’s that course of like? Do you must have already labored with the proprietor, like Konami on this case?

Langourieux: We’re in Japan proper now. It’s worthwhile to set up credibility. We began working with Japan 15 years in the past. We’ve got a small crew right here. A lot of the work was achieved by the China studio, however there’s proximity. It’s simple for us to go to, and vice versa. The whole enterprise with Japan has been constructed from China. We began with Sq. Enix. We did most of the Remaining Fantasy remasters – X, XII, XIII – for contemporary platforms. We shipped Nier Automata on Change. We simply shipped Kingdom Hearts on PC. You construct that status for delivering high quality on time. Then, when somebody like Konami has a giant difficult undertaking, we’re one of many first names they’ll name up. I feel we’re the one identify. There aren’t that many names.

It’s worthwhile to have a crew that speaks Japanese. We’ve got various Japanese producers. A studio in Europe making an attempt to work with Konami can be tougher. They’ve tried. It’s tough.

GamesBeat: When is that this popping out?

Langourieux: That’s not introduced but. My guess is subsequent yr, however don’t quote me on that. Dune Awakening is a extra classical co-development for us, a smaller crew working over a smaller time frame. We’re doing a smaller proportion of the title.

GamesBeat: How do you view the state of the {industry}? Are the economically robust instances beginning to go behind us?

Langourieux: I’m inspired by a few issues. Once I have a look at our shoppers’ well being, the vast majority of them had a great 2023 and a great first half of 2024. There was progress for almost all of them. You’ve various remoted instances which can be problematic. A pair in Europe, a pair in Japan. However the greater gamers, on common, appear to be doing okay. We appeared on the information. The highest 20, their progress charge might be greater than double the expansion charge of the {industry}. That appears to point that focus is continuous. The opposite factor we see is that income is coming increasingly from the larger on-line titles.

Focus of larger titles means smaller and medium-sized video games are squeezed out. That is the place a number of the layoffs are coming from. No one’s counting the addition of head rely on the profitable studios. Sport Science, Pocketpair, I assure you they’re not shedding. They’re hiring individuals. The web won’t be as unhealthy so far as the employment state of affairs. You don’t have solely losers. There are additionally winners. They’ve large, profitable titles they usually’re well-positioned in a distinct segment. They’re using. They’re giving us work too.

This yr will probably be a yr of progress for us, revenue-wise, headcount-wise. I’m not saying it’s simple. We’ve got to mobilize our whole enterprise growth crew globally to search out the precise initiatives. It’s tougher to search out initiatives than earlier than. However I don’t assume anybody ought to say that the {industry} just isn’t doing effectively. There are nonetheless alternatives. It may speed up subsequent yr. New {hardware}, massive put in bases. PC remains to be rising, particularly in rising international locations. A few of the cell firms will be capable to do higher now that they’ve turned a nook on rules. Some very large titles are on the horizon. Now there’s yet one more, with Murderer’s Creed.

GamesBeat: I’ve a little bit of quantitative information now. The LinkedIn man, Amir Satvat, who posts about individuals searching for work, he’s gotten superb at scraping the net for recreation jobs. Now he’s been aggregating associated information. He estimates 275,000 individuals work within the recreation {industry} worldwide. There have been 14,000 open jobs a number of months in the past, and 12,000 open now. Within the final month or so issues have slipped a bit. (And it improved some too since then). They had been enhancing to some extent the place he thought hiring can be greater than firing on a 60-month trailing foundation, beginning in September. That was his estimate of the turning level. Now he’s pushed that to December, due to Microsoft’s layoffs.

Langourieux: I’d problem him a bit on China. Folks information within the west often underestimate China.

GamesBeat: He did a listing of the highest 10 cities with job openings, and none of them had been within the U.S. The faster-growing areas, the place they’re hiring extra individuals, are all world wide.

Langourieux: I feel there’s going to be a displacement. We’ve been very fortunate, as a result of for the final 30 years we’ve primarily had double-digit progress. A lot of the profitable studios haven’t needed to problem the best way they do issues. They’ve not needed to search for efficiencies. Now it’s a bit tougher, as a result of there’s much less progress. They’re all searching for efficiencies. Lots of them are making layoffs. These laid-off individuals find yourself working for firms like us. You’re nonetheless going to have massive productions needing extra individuals. The pliability has to return from someplace. It should come from us.

There will probably be a displacement, with much less inside jobs at studios. Studios will get a bit extra lean. That’s good for creativity, as a result of smaller groups can iterate quicker. Extra firms like us will assist deliver additional capability and extra steady jobs. When one undertaking is over we will transition individuals to a different undertaking extra simply than our shoppers.

GamesBeat: How many individuals do you may have now?

Langourieux: We’re near 4,000. About 3,800. We’re rising a bit. It’s not an surroundings the place we need to develop very aggressively, however a bit bit. We simply added a studio within the U.Okay., Third Variety Video games, in Leamington Spa.

GamesBeat: Do you are likely to agree that issues are beginning to get extra visibly higher?

Langourieux: There’s progress nonetheless. We’ve got two divisions, artwork and recreation. The artwork pipeline could be very full. That division tends to be occupied by the larger video games, producing content material for the following iteration. These large video games that dominate the income are wholesome. The sport division works extra on medium-sized and smaller video games. That’s the place it’s nonetheless a bit extra clunky. It hasn’t totally restarted but.

GamesBeat: The Digital Arts investor name had an attention-grabbing line. For his or her faculty soccer recreation, they needed to create 11,000 likenesses of gamers in three months. They had been ready to do this as a result of they used AI. Does that sound regular but to you?

Langourieux: I’ve seen EA spend money on new applied sciences to permit them to provide their annual iterations quicker and quicker at a top quality stage. It’s very per the hassle we’ve seen from them. Due to the best way likenesses are created–you apply images to a 3D mesh. AI is superb at manipulating 2D. They will do a great job with that. It’s a query of the way you rework video and picture reference into the precise mixture of 3D and textures. We used to do this manually. It’s very time-consuming. You at all times have points with completely different angles. I can see AI doing it very effectively, that mapping.

The extra attention-grabbing a part of their discuss was the place they defined how they see AI bringing new sorts of gameplay. That is the place the massive–once more, we have a tendency to speak an excessive amount of concerning the adverse stuff and never a lot concerning the optimistic. We discuss how AI would possibly reduce jobs and whatnot, or break IP. However the true alternative is elsewhere. It’s in altering recreation content material and recreation experiences. We maintain speaking about NPCs, characters. In some unspecified time in the future we’ll not be coping with NPCs. We’ll be coping with mates and companions and enemies. The relationships will probably be a lot extra real looking. That’s the place I see AI taking us. EA made it clear that that’s the place they need to go.

I’m simplifying, however the web introduced us multiplayer video games. Cellular introduced us video games on the go. AI can deliver us a brand new kind of private gaming expertise. Far more plausible, far more participating. It’s not concerning the manufacturing time we save. It’s extra a couple of new stage of engagement that will probably be doable.

GamesBeat: How do you prepare for that?

Langourieux: You check every part that’s on the market. You experiment. You search alternatives to collaborate with shoppers on pilots. It’s not going to occur in a single day.

GamesBeat: I nonetheless see new AI firms coming to me about merchandise or funding each week. Not fairly every single day, however there’s nonetheless a variety of them bobbing up.

Langourieux: We’ve got a backlog of about 100 completely different options to check. We’ve got various options initiatives the place we’re answerable for the content material. We use these initiatives to check concepts, see what works and what doesn’t. The {industry} wants a brand new know-how wave if we need to speed up progress once more. We have to deliver one thing new. Not simply greater high-definition graphics. The place is the novelty going to return from? I feel it’s AI. Possibly haptics.

GamesBeat: It looks like, earlier than we get new consoles, we must always get to someplace the place these consoles could make use of AI. In the event that they’re going to load the consoles up with 10 instances extra AI processing energy, there must be one thing for that to do.

Langourieux: The consoles will develop into much less related, as a result of experiences are going to be streamed.

GamesBeat: For those who’re Microsoft with Flight Simulator, that’s already the reply.

Langourieux: A few of the issues we’re speaking about are already taking place on a small scale. Flight Simulator is creating a way more plausible world due to AI. Sweet Crush is delivering personalized video games primarily based on AI. As we pull the thread longer, it’ll attain all the best way to extra advanced video games.

GamesBeat: I can’t consider what else I’d put in a brand new recreation console. Do you want 8K? What else may we do with the know-how proper now?

Langourieux: I discover it very attention-grabbing that we’re able to making video games for blind individuals and deaf individuals. If we will do that, we would have some modifications to the interface, the best way we work together with video games. VR didn’t fairly succeed as a result of we’re restricted in how we will management video games in a 3D house. Microsoft had Kinect, and that didn’t fairly work both. However when you put collectively the facility of AI, the facility of the cloud, and a few new units, we would arrive at a brand new interface. It’s been too lengthy. We’ve been enjoying with a display screen, a keyboard, and a joystick for too lengthy.

GamesBeat: Console makers are confronted with these selections about what to incorporate and never embody within the subsequent technology. They must lock it in a number of years earlier than they go to manufacturing. I’m positive Nintendo is already locked in on what they’re going to do. Possibly Sony and Microsoft nonetheless have a while to resolve. The attention-grabbing factor the Flight Simulator guys stated is that in 2020, they made their guess that the following recreation can be all cloud. I feel they put lower than 50 gigs in your machine now. There’s some native processing, nevertheless it’s principally streamed from the cloud. The cloud developed so quick that it’s doable now. They didn’t have to fret about that shift. They nonetheless had 800 individuals engaged on it, nevertheless it was unfold out a variety of issues.

Langourieux: We’re not a centerpiece. A studio like Asobo in France is extra of a centerpiece. However we’re offering some components to them. It’s a large undertaking for us. We’re nonetheless engaged on it as we communicate.

GamesBeat: I don’t know the way a lot you see different video games utilizing know-how like that.

Langourieux: We’re ready to see extra fantasy video games, extra stylized video games undertake comparable know-how. It’s not restricted by a small variety of characters displayed on the display screen, a small variety of dialogue traces, a restricted variety of behaviors NPCs can enact. However I feel we’re nonetheless a few years out.

GamesBeat: Do you must construct a specialty or rent otherwise to cope with that?

Langourieux: We’re going to must work otherwise. I don’t know if the prevailing engines can do that. Maybe there could be one other technology of engines, coupled with individuals who have discovered to create content material otherwise. That’s why I say it’s in all probability a few years out.

If we’re speaking about the way to create characters who’re plausible actors–they discuss brokers within the AI world. In our video games I don’t assume we’ll have brokers, however let’s say actors. You could possibly have an organization like Epic embedding, within the subsequent technology of their engine, the power to combine and program extraordinarily plausible actors with infinite skills to work together with you. We’ll want character designers who know the way to direct these actors. Route will probably be completely different from merely modeling the characters and writing a script for them.

GamesBeat: It seems like a brand new technology of recreation engines, however is {that a} heavy elevate for them? Or is it a lighter elevate, as a result of they’re simply bringing in instruments which can be created elsewhere?

Langourieux: I don’t assume it’s trivial. We’re used to manipulating objects. AI could make these objects extra clever. How can we direct that intelligence?

GamesBeat: Would you may have any prediction on the character of the {industry}’s comeback? Did we reduce too many individuals and depart a gap within the roadmaps of a variety of recreation firms, the place they don’t have sufficient video games coming? Do now we have a expertise struggle that’s going to start out up as soon as we return to extra hiring than firing?

Langourieux: I don’t assume the problem is that we don’t have sufficient content material. We are able to agree that there’s sufficient content material to please most avid gamers. They’ve far more video games on their backlog than they’ll play with the time they’ve. What we could be wanting is new experiences. Expertise is simply making incremental variations, not a serious leap. We’d like a serious leap to occur. I feel it’s a few years, as I say, earlier than the mixture of AI, cloud, haptics, possibly one thing else–earlier than it creates a leap between the kind of video games we provide and the kind of video games which can be obtainable at present. That’s when the following wave will begin.

Within the meantime it will likely be extra about displacement between the video games that proceed to achieve success and get greater and larger, and the smaller ones that may’t discover house anymore.

GamesBeat: Do you assume there’s going to be a break between the world earlier than Grand Theft Auto VI and the world after? Is {that a} pivotal recreation that can have a variety of affect on the remainder of the {industry}?

Langourieux: I don’t assume so. A part of me thinks that everytime you put large expectations on one thing, it tends to disappoint. You don’t have just one kind of gamer. Not everybody performs on console or PC. There’s no purpose to give attention to that individual title’s launch. There will probably be different profitable video games. There are various different platforms the place that title gained’t have an impact.

GamesBeat: The place do you assume the younger recreation builders, the people who find themselves finding out to develop into recreation builders, must put their energies?

Langourieux: They completely need to perceive what’s taking place with AI. It could be an enormous mistake to underestimate the scale of the wave or take into account it soiled. Sure, there are points at present, however these points will probably be overcome. If I’m an artist or a programmer or a designer popping out of faculty, I need to be educated, or practice myself, on what AI can do at present and what AI will be capable to do tomorrow. I need to begin utilizing these instruments. Which will enable me to overhaul older artists, designers, or programmers who haven’t discovered these abilities and gained’t be ready to direct AI actors like we’ll be placing in video games.

Utilizing AI to create new stuff–that youthful technology will be capable to do it. The individuals beginning on the floor ground, we’ll arm these individuals with AI-based creation capabilities. What they’ll create inside issues like Roblox or Fortnite goes to be very spectacular. People are getting older. We’ve got increasingly free time. There’s no nation the place there isn’t a rise within the variety of units that may assist video games. Even the poorest international locations have a rise in PCs and smartphones. Extra free time, extra units. That’s going to translate into extra video games and extra time spent enjoying video games.

The one issue is that we will’t promote the identical stuff yr after yr. We have to maintain searching for innovation, methods to make issues new and completely different.

GamesBeat: What do you consider locations just like the Center East, the place they’re making an attempt to speed up the expansion of their expertise base?

Langourieux: I’m not very conversant in the Center East, however on that query, since we’re in Tokyo proper now, proper subsequent to China, it’s attention-grabbing to see Chinese language builders turning into very profitable in recreation genres that had been created in Japan. The Chinese language builders are placing in additional effort, extra modernity, and reaching international success. You’ve a wave of expertise in China that advantages from a youthful expertise pool than Japan. That’s been very attention-grabbing. That, I feel, goes to speed up with the success of video games like Genshin Affect and Black Fantasy. That’s why we wished to have you ever come to China. You’d be shocked.

GamesBeat: Rising international locations have extra alternatives. That’s an opportunity to leapfrog.

Langourieux: They’re approaching with a youthful thoughts, a recent thoughts. They need content material that’s extra culturally suited to their viewers. Nexon talks a couple of idea I like quite a bit, which is hyper-localization. It’s the power, in an internet recreation, to regulate the content material not only for language, however occasions, challenges, timing that matches what completely different teams of gamers need. There’s a variety of progress to be discovered for present recreation firms by going after these extra various teams of gamers, significantly in rising international locations.

We’ve talked earlier than about how Garena is ready to dominate southeast Asia, as a result of they customise a recreation that’s comparatively commonplace in its base kind, Free Hearth–they actually customise the content material to swimsuit every viewers in Indonesia, within the Philippines, in Vietnam. For those who take the Garena mannequin, you’ll be able to see that very same mannequin taking place within the Center East or in Latin America. There’s no purpose why not. Possibly a number of the American and Japanese publishers will notice the significance there and go in that course, like Nexon is already doing.