Based in 2004, Virtuos has grown into a giant firm in terms of the manufacturing of video games. As an exterior developer, Virtuos‘ workforce has crossed 4,200 skilled recreation devs who can complement the groups at recreation studios and publishers as they end their video games.
The Singapore-based firm can end smaller video games with a giant shot of staffing on the finish or have interaction in long-term co-development with recreation publishers as they begin the video games. Virtuos has a giant presence in Asia, and it has labored with almost the entire prime 25 leisure firms on this planet, with both work on video or recreation content material.
I’ve caught up with Virtuos CEO Gilles Langourieux a number of occasions in recent times — together with final February 2024 and in October 2024 — to get entry to his fowl’s-eye view on the worldwide image of constructing video games.
I noticed him briefly on the Cube Summit in Las Vegas and caught up with him in a web based dialog this week. As soon as once more, we talked about every part from the state of the sport jobs market to using AI in making video games.
His firm began in China in 2004 with a studio in Shanghai. It expanded to different cities like Chengdu and Xian. Then it acquired Sparx in 2011 and moved out of China to relocate its headquarters to Singapore in 2018. Langourieux’s firm has labored on effectively over 1,000 initiatives for the highest digital leisure firms internationally.
Just lately, the corporate labored on DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, Metallic Gear Stable Delta: Snake Eater, and extra. He’s excited to see video games coming like Marvel 1943, Judas, Gears of Warfare, Mafia, Doom and extra. In our dialog, we touched on how tight budgets might result in extra creativity, the contraction of gaming, the should be world, the shift to the massive recreation engines like Unreal vs proprietary engines, the necessity to rejuvenate older IPs,
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: How was DICE Summit? I noticed you there briefly.
Gilles Langourieux: I loved it, however I spent an excessive amount of time in conferences. It’s unusual. Normally I spend extra time at DICE on the ground and listening. For some motive I had too many conferences this time. Perhaps as a result of there’s a lot reorganization occurring.
GamesBeat: It’s the identical for me. I needed to schedule plenty of again to again conferences. I ran out of time to simply go discover folks and say whats up.
Langourieux: However because of you–for instance, I learn via the transcript of the dialog between Neil Druckmann and his counterpart Cory Barlog at Santa Monica, about creativity. That’s one I’d have favored to attend in individual.
GamesBeat: It was attention-grabbing, the mature method they’d of trying on the conflict between enterprise and creativity. You possibly can create without end and iterate time and again, however lastly, when somebody provides you a schedule, that’s when it’s important to ship.
Langourieux: In case you apply that to what’s occurring on the extra world enterprise stage, the identical might be true. With extra finances constraints, we would find yourself with renewed creativity. Similar to the deadlines are forcing Neil’s workforce to give you the very best that they’ve, tighter budgets may additionally arrive at an identical end result.
We’ve made this large transfer to spend money on three growth studios within the west. We felt this was obligatory on two fronts. First, to exhibit clearly to the trade that we’re recreation builders. We’ve full recreation growth capabilities. Second, to make it simpler for our groups to interact with purchasers throughout pre-production. If you wish to do co-dev proper, that you must begin early. To start out early, that you must construct belief throughout pre-production. It’s simpler to construct belief throughout pre-production when you have groups in the identical tradition and the identical time zone.
What Pipeworks on the west coast, Umanaïa in Montreal, and Abstraction in central Europe convey to us is that proximity in time zones and tradition. They’ve been doing co-development for a few years. They’re good at embedding themselves with purchasers early. We convey the power to scale. They’ve perhaps had extra limitations there.
Greater than ever, we imagine in our mannequin of bringing flexibility to recreation growth studios. We expect studios face, with finances constraints–they should depend on leaner, extra agile inside groups. Our a part of the trade is to convey that flexibility to them by making it straightforward. Previously, in our historical past, we began in China. Our groups had been far-off, offshore groups, completely different cultures, completely different time zones. We’ve been profitable with that mannequin, nevertheless it was time for us to get nearer to our purchasers, so we are able to begin work earlier and deeper. Then we are able to get everybody working collectively when there’s a have to scale up.
GamesBeat: There’s an attention-grabbing distinction taking place. I wouldn’t ask you to touch upon them particularly, however Netease appears to be going the other way. They’ve appeared on the high quality of the triple-A content material like Black Fantasy: Wukong and determined that the groups in China are able to do numerous triple-A video games. They wish to double down on these. The consequence for them is that they only completed investing some huge cash into western studios that they now have a look at as too costly. They could not want these folks anymore. They could retreat from all of that.
Langourieux: They’re a writer. We’re a growth studio specializing in co-development. How we should be arrange is sort of completely different. It’s essential for us to have world groups working with purchasers in each area. We’ve enterprise relationships in North America, Europe, and Asia. The better it’s for them to work with us, the higher our enterprise. By definition, we now have to be world. This has nothing to do with the technique of this writer or that writer. We’ve to be world.
The purpose we are able to agree on is that sure, there may be nice growth expertise in each area, together with China. Black Fantasy: Wukong has demonstrated that in a stellar method. We’re making an attempt to have studios in each expertise pool that issues and take the very best of that expertise pool and make them work collectively. What’s distinctive concerning the Virtuos setup is that every one our studios are good at working collectively. Relying on the wants of this recreation or that shopper, we are able to discover the appropriate expertise in the appropriate place and make them work collectively to create an answer. We name that the “glocalized” strategy. It’s world and native on the identical time. I don’t assume many publishers have that very same strategy, or want that very same strategy.
GamesBeat: What number of studios do you continue to have to spend money on? Is that clear to you but?
Langourieux: Our technique just isn’t a roll-up technique. We’re not making an attempt to accumulate many studios. What’s necessary for us is to have one studio in each geography the place nice video games are made. We’re nonetheless lacking a few geographies. We’re making an attempt to finish the puzzle in order that we cowl all of the necessary geographies the place video games are made. We cowl all of the necessary expertise swimming pools and we cowl all of the necessary platforms. However as soon as we now have a studio like Pipeworks, we don’t plan so as to add two or three rivals to Pipeworks in the identical space. We simply plan to assist them develop as a lot as they’re in a position and prepared to develop.
Black Shamrock was a studio we acquired in Eire in 2017. There have been 15 folks on the time. At the moment it’s 200 folks and one of many greatest in Eire. We’ve a observe of rising the studios we purchase, not stockpiling increasingly studios that find yourself competing with one another.
GamesBeat: How many individuals do you’ve gotten altogether now? Nonetheless within the 4,000 vary or so?
Langourieux: We broke 4,000 with these three acquisitions. We’re now at 4,200 throughout 25 completely different places of work. I wish to insist once more, these are all studios engaged on the identical platform, to allow them to all work collectively and type options collectively to serve the manufacturing wants of our purchasers.
GamesBeat: How does a few of the outlook break down for you in 2025 and past?
Langourieux: There’s good and dangerous. On the plus facet, we’re very blissful to start out the yr with the discharge of DLC 2.2 for Cyberpunk, which illustrates how we will help a shopper increase their IP whereas persevering with to develop different video games. They will fulfill an present viewers whereas persevering with to develop different video games by counting on a few of our inventive groups. We had been very excited to see Metallic Gear Stable get a launch date. That’s going to be an excellent showcase of our high-end Unreal 5 co-development capabilities. We’re excited to see the Change 2 get introduced. We had an excellent run on the primary Change with greater than 10 titles developed for the platform. We expect the subsequent one goes to be very attention-grabbing.
That’s all of the optimistic. On the identical time, the surroundings remains to be a bumpy one. We see cancellations. We see the overinvestment bubble of 2021 and 2022 persevering with to deflate. We’ve to maintain all our groups on their toes and use our world group to mitigate these sorts of points. We proceed to see cancellations.
GamesBeat: There are nonetheless some unhealthy firms among the many large ones, or firms that aren’t fairly completed with their unraveling course of.
Langourieux: On that be aware, I like to check it to 2008, once we noticed the disappearance of Halfway and THQ virtually in the identical yr. That left some unpaid invoices for fairly a couple of builders. I’m not seeing that proper now. I’m not saying that gained’t occur, nevertheless it doesn’t appear to be any of the main publishers, a minimum of, are going out of enterprise. There’s some reorganization taking place for certain.
GamesBeat: How are you unfold throughout not simply geographies, however capabilities as effectively? Issues like Unreal versus Unity retailers and different kinds of specialization throughout the group.
Langourieux: 5 years in the past, greater than 60% of the work that we had been doing was executed in proprietary engines. At the moment I believe it’s the opposite method round. Greater than 60% of the work we do is completed in middleware engines like Unreal and Unity. We do extra work on greater video games, and greater video games are usually made extra with Unreal. While you hear Epic declare greater than 50% market share, it’s in step with what we’re seeing on our finish.
There’s a optimistic component to that. Talent units switch extra simply than earlier than from one mission to a different. For instance, when we now have a big cancellation taking place, it’s simpler for us to reorganize and have groups work on different initiatives. Their Unreal abilities are helpful on different Unreal initiatives. Previously, once we had a giant cancellation on a proprietary engine, if the identical shopper on the identical engine didn’t have extra work for us, there was a delay by way of retraining the workforce to do co-development work in a distinct pipeline.
GamesBeat: I requested Tim Sweeney about this as soon as. One consequence of getting numerous shifts towards Unreal may be that numerous video games begin trying the identical. He stated which may have been true across the Unreal 2 or 3 stage, however now there’s rather more customization doable throughout the engine.
Langourieux: I utterly agree. In reality, we began one thing we name the Virtuos Labs, that are small studios purely centered on engineering. One of many bigger labs we now have now’s Abstraction Video games. They’ve 100 folks, an engineering studio. A number of the work they do is strictly that. They customise pipelines based mostly on Unreal to make sure sorts of video games which have their very own particular taste, their very own particular gameplay due to that customization effort. We do see that taking place.
GamesBeat: Do you see a transparent calculation on–if an organization modifications to a extra normal recreation engine as an alternative of a proprietary one, does that save a certain quantity of manufacturing prices?
Langourieux: What I’ve seen and heard probably the most is across the ease of discovering and coaching expertise. You probably have an ordinary pipeline, it turns into simpler to recruit and sooner to onboard expertise in comparison with proprietary engines, which create a barrier to inception of expertise, and in addition, in a method, a barrier to inception of co-development companions. One dimension doesn’t match all. We’ll proceed to wish proprietary engines and work with them, as a result of in lots of cases they permit the creators to get extra out of the {hardware}, to optimize for sure kinds of gameplay and sure kinds of rendering. However having one normal makes it simpler on the HR stage.
GamesBeat: Are the macroeconomic components trying any completely different as we speak than six months in the past? We nonetheless have inflation in the USA. We’re not seeing a giant development wave. We nonetheless appear to have a slow-growing financial system.
Langourieux: If I look continent by continent, China and southeast Asia appear to be probably the most dynamic proper now, adopted by Korea. Japan is a blended bag. You’ve got two sorts of actors there. Some are nonetheless restructuring. Others are very bullish about making merchandise for the worldwide market to compensate for the slower native market. Europe and North America are each nonetheless working via a brand new strategy to recreation growth with safer bets on merchandise made by smaller groups.
I learn the articles worrying about employment within the west. As soon as the mannequin has been rebalanced, there’s no motive for employment to not take off once more. It could be otherwise, with extra reliance on freelancing and exterior growth than earlier than. Leaner inside studios as effectively. However there’s no motive for development to not choose up once more. There’s an urge for food, for instance, that we see throughout the board for rejuvenating IPs. IPs that had been left on the sideline as a result of we had been solely funding big bets on large video games as a service. Now there’s a renewed urge for food for trying again on older IPs that might make for smaller, extra inventive titles.
GamesBeat: I’m beginning to see extra formation of latest publishers. That’s completely different from the development I noticed round lots of them closing within the final couple of years. Our job market counter, Amir Satvat, thinks we had an attention-grabbing crossover month in January, the place there was lastly extra hiring than firing within the month. On a six-week trailing foundation, that is the primary time he thinks that’s occurred in 30 months or so. Do you see any matching knowledge in your facet suggesting that the layoff wave may be balancing out with extra hiring?
Langourieux: I don’t have knowledge that’s nearly as good as his, however what I see on our finish is that we’re in a position to proceed rising our headcount. We’re tapping into completely different world markets, that are working at barely completely different rhythms. When one market is dealing with a cancellation, we glance to a different market to compensate.
GamesBeat: What else do you discover concerning the construction of the exterior growth trade? I’m interested by what it’s wish to function in a market the place there’s one firm that’s a lot greater than you, a minimum of by way of what number of employees they’ve.
Langourieux: It’s thrilling. We’ve groups which have the chance to work on implausible manufacturers. Simply take into consideration a couple of upcoming titles. Marvel 1943, Judas, Gears of Warfare, Mafia, DOOM. There’s a lot occurring. While you’re working in an organization at our scale, you’ll be able to concentrate on the positives and be sure to affiliate your groups with the most definitely winners of tomorrow.
There are nonetheless numerous winners. You go to DICE and also you meet folks. Not everyone seems to be sad about cancellations and layoffs. You’ve got a smaller variety of firms which are delivering profitable titles. They’re blissful and optimistic concerning the future. We attempt to concentrate on serving to these firms. Our folks get to work on these sorts of promising video games. We additionally attempt to dodge the bullets. I believe that’s a good method of describing what it’s wish to function at our dimension.
GamesBeat: What’s your course of for locating these companions and initiatives like? You get out to numerous occasions.
Langourieux: I do. It’s an attention-grabbing a part of my job. We’ve, I suppose, two parallel methods. Our studios have present relationships with different studios that they preserve. A number of the relationships we now have are as outdated as the corporate. A number of the preliminary purchasers we began working with once we fashioned the corporate are nonetheless purchasers as we speak. Our studio management maintains these relationships round IPs or manufacturers that we’re aware of. One instance is the Remaining Fantasy model. We’ve been engaged on that nonstop for greater than 15 years.
Then we now have a world workforce round enterprise growth. They communicate to studios throughout occasions to exhibit the fantastic thing about co-development executed effectively. There’s a real magnificence and luxury when you’ve gotten co-development partnerships established early on in your manufacturing cycles, which are supplying you with extra choices and extra flexibility as you progress via the event of a recreation. Our groups are there to exhibit how we assist purchasers design, develop, and ship. That third D, delivering, is commonly the essential piece. With the ability to ship one thing at high quality and on time. That’s the Virtuos method.
We’ve evangelists round what good co-dev appears to be like like. They’re in a position to clarify how necessary it’s to start out early, how necessary it’s to have the power to scale progressively, how necessary it’s to place in place the identical methods on either side that give transparency. Early, scalability, transparency. They present what attractiveness like for co-dev. That’s how we’re progressively including increasingly purchasers to our enterprise, via these evangelists.
I don’t know if you happen to’ve met Lindsay Gupton, the pinnacle of Pipeworks. He’s been doing this for 26 years now. They’re so good at it. I’m fortunate to have such a grasp of co-development be a part of the group and assist us present our American purchasers how it may be executed even higher as we speak with the addition of Pipeworks.
GamesBeat: Are you operating into working with a number of co-development firms on the identical time?
Langourieux: I don’t suggest to our purchasers that they put all their eggs in a single basket. It’s completely doable to have a number of co-development studios facet by facet. I do advocate that they modify from the outdated mannequin of getting dozens of siloed smaller studios. It’s troublesome to coordinate them, to maintain them aligned on the identical imaginative and prescient. Fairly often it’s important to do the mixing and polish your self in that older mannequin. We suggest going towards a simplified mannequin, the place you depend on a smaller variety of greater co-development companions who will deal with the coordination, who will deal with the mixing for you.
The mannequin the place you’re working with many alternative smaller exterior distributors doesn’t scale very effectively. It results in numerous closing points towards the tip of manufacturing.
GamesBeat: Unity had their issues round worth will increase. They introduced in a brand new CEO. It looks like they’re in a extra steady scenario. Issues are a bit extra predictable. They’re not at battle with their clients anymore. I think about that’s a great factor for firms like yours.
Langourieux: All I can say is that despite the fact that there was numerous noise round this, we haven’t seen a whole change in who’s utilizing what engine. It’s troublesome to vary a pipeline. There might have been a few cases the place these modifications had been made, however the state of who’s utilizing what hasn’t utterly modified so far as we are able to see. I believe it’s good for the trade if they’ve a corporation and pricing construction that makes their purchasers happier. It’s good that they managed to right course.
GamesBeat: I used to be going into an interview lately with AWS about cloud recreation growth. What do you concentrate on the state of that proper now?
Langourieux: It’s essential. Preliminary efforts are on the way in which from many alternative events. You talked about Amazon. You possibly can see what Microsoft is doing with their very own cloud answer. The gamers in China are additionally very lively. Alibaba, Tencent, they’ve plenty of cloud initiatives. It was additionally attention-grabbing to listen to how Asia is the fastest-growing marketplace for Xbox, due to gamers experiencing Xbox via the cloud. The gadgets they use in lower-income international locations are much less highly effective, however that’s compensated for by the truth that they entry video games via the cloud. That ought to proceed.
We’re blissful to see these new applied sciences. We’re trying ahead to seeing this new infrastructure combining with AI to result in new kinds of video games. At GDC we plan to showcase, with Inworld, new kinds of video games that may be created because of AI. I count on we’ll be solely one in all many related initiatives. It’s required. We aren’t going to develop the trade by merely rejuvenating outdated IPs or making smaller video games. We additionally have to convey utterly new kinds of gameplay.
GamesBeat: Have you ever seen AI instruments arriving but which are residing as much as a few of the hype?
Langourieux: I wouldn’t level to a single software. I believe we must always level at a mix of instruments that when assembled collectively, one after the opposite, can help you rework a standard workflow into one thing that strikes twice as quick. The primary wave of AI use appears to be extra structured this manner, reasonably than a killer app. I haven’t seen implausible video games made via a single immediate but. Perhaps others have. However I’ve seen whole workflows accelerated. I’ve seen new kinds of gameplay turning into doable due to the limitless potentialities that AI now gives.
GamesBeat: We nonetheless perhaps have numerous affect forward of us.
Langourieux: I’m satisfied of that, completely.
GamesBeat: Do you count on new consoles on a sure timetable after Nintendo? Are there any explicit indications?
Langourieux: No, I’ve no indications. What I’m most enthusiastic about is to see how we’re going to faucet into the subsequent bucket of potential players, individuals who can’t purchase an costly platform, however are taking part in via both a lower-end cell gadget or lower-end PC. We’re in a position to entry them via a mix of cloud infrastructure and adapting content material to swimsuit once they wish to play, what they wish to play, and what they’ll afford. In case you have a look at the lower-income economies in Asia, in Africa, in South America, there are nonetheless numerous new gamers to go after.
GamesBeat: Do you see traits like metaverse and blockchain coming or going?
Langourieux: Nothing new on that entrance. It’s nonetheless a minority of labor for us, not the bulk. The transfer that’s persevering with is IPs which are robust in a single area making an attempt to develop their participant base in different areas, or making an attempt to increase to swimsuit new demographics. That’s in all probability the place we see probably the most motion. Moreover the change in mannequin that we already talk about, from greater studios to smaller studios, greater titles to leaner titles at launch.
GamesBeat: I talked to a consulting agency that was centered on IP technology. They’d an attention-grabbing perspective across the regular habits of recreation studios. They iterated without end on gameplay, with a contemporary construct on daily basis or each week, and examined that exhaustively. However one of many outcomes of that was that they typically thought concerning the IP behind the sport in maybe the final three months. Issues like world-building and character design had been extra of an afterthought. They spend a lot time on gameplay that you just don’t get the type of robust IP that comes out of one thing like The Final of Us.
Langourieux: I grew up with that type of strategy, the place you’re searching for a recreation design and expertise breakthrough earlier than you assemble the remainder of your recreation round it. I’m not sure that it’s a novel recipe. To paraphrase Neil from his DICE dialog, there is no such thing as a distinctive approach to arrive at a profitable recreation. Sure groups have this methodology. Different groups choose to construct a universe first and determine the sport design down the street. We see each.
One thing that’s newer in PC and console gaming, although, is what you could possibly name shopper publishing, the place you’ve gotten groups which are centered on creating and aligning a neighborhood with a recreation on the identical time the sport is being constructed. Totally different groups have alternative ways of doing it, however the frequent theme there may be that you just wish to have players which are robust representatives of the viewers related together with your growth from early on. Then progressively, as they assist you to nail down the content material of your recreation, you snowball them into one thing that’s going to be your neighborhood. When the sport is able to exit within the open, they rally the troops, the core players, across the recreation. This strategy to creating video games in co-creation with a neighborhood wasn’t mainstream for PC and console 5 or 10 years in the past. It’s turning into increasingly frequent, although.
GamesBeat: Matthew Ball identified that one of many large challenges is that so many individuals play older video games for such a very long time now. Name of Obligation Warzone stops me from having plenty of time to play model new video games.
Langourieux: However is as we speak’s Name of Obligation Warzone the identical because it was a yr or two in the past? The work that goes into it–it retains altering. There’s a lot new content material. I don’t totally perceive that argument. Sure, it’s the identical identify, however there may be numerous work going into including, adjusting, increasing the content material. It turns into a brand new expertise month after month. In return, there may be extra income coming in from the gamers in numerous methods. I don’t assume that’s unhealthy in any respect. I don’t see the way it’s completely different from 20 years in the past, when folks performed a recreation after which purchased the sequel.
GamesBeat: The purpose that Matthew and a few others have made is that the window of time for folks to check out a model new IP that they’ve by no means heard of earlier than is smaller. Dwell service video games devour numerous their time. They’ll check out a brand new recreation, however they gained’t do it each month, maybe.
Langourieux: That’s completely true. You don’t have that time frame the place you’ve completed a boxed product you liked and also you’re ready for the subsequent field to ship. Discovery is tougher consequently.
