A small Quebec video game studio that employs barely ten people has just reached one million copies sold for its game Outward, a milestone rarely crossed by the studios here.
“It’s still quite rare to get a million sales, I would say that we are in the top 1% of games launched on the market,” says the CEO of Nine Dots, Guillaume Boucher-Vidal.
And games, he launches a lot, recalls the general director of the Guild of video games of Quebec, Nadine Gelly.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of them released a week around the world,” says the one that represents 245 Quebec studios, from the smallest to the largest.
Launched in March 2019, Outward is an open-world role-playing game in which you play a character and create your own story.
The design of such a game usually requires a large team, which can range from 40 people to over 1000.
At Nine Dots, Mr. Boucher-Vidal arrived there with 10 people.
“We are probably one of the most efficient studios on the planet in terms of production costs,” he says proudly.
The list of Quebec studios that have such success is very short, according to Nadine Gelly. “This is really what we have to focus on in the next few years,” she insists.
Outward, offered in 11 languages, is particularly successful in the United States and Germany.
A lot of yes men
At 34, the CEO of Nine Dots was not just starting out. He was first a tester for a large company, Activision, before launching his studio in 2011.
A regular at long weeks of work, he wanted to establish healthier management methods by founding his business.
“I worked more when I was a tester than since I became CEO, and my responsibilities are much more numerous now. Find the error. “
In order to avoid shoveling overtime, “a scourge in the industry”, he had to impose his vision on funders, who often hold the big end of the stick in the field of video games.
” There is a lot of yes men in development studios, this leads to a waste of time and effort. We are able to produce more specifically because we work fewer hours, but with more focus “, Believes the CEO.
For the design ofOutward, which began in 2015, Nine Dots first secured nearly $ 1 million in funding from the Canada Media Fund, before turning to a private partner, German publisher Koch Media.
“I am convinced that we would not have had so many sales without them, but I must give more credit to the Media Fund, which took the real risk,” explains Guillaume Boucher-Vidal.
A home run
And how do you achieve such success in the hyper-competitive world of video games?
“It doesn’t happen gradually, it’s a home run industry,” believes the CEO of Nine Dots.
Nadine Gelly of the Video Game Guild agrees. “It’s a mixture of talent and luck. You have to be there at the right time, ”she illustrates.
Outward is the third game produced by Nine Dots. The other two quickly fell into oblivion. M. Boucher-Vidal had in a way two grips against him.
“It was my third strike, if not. »He laughs.
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