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 interact 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 practically all the 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 instances lately — together with final February 2024 and in October 2024 — to get entry to his chicken’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 an internet dialog this week. As soon as once more, we talked about every little thing from the state of the sport jobs market to the usage of 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 properly over 1,000 tasks for the highest digital leisure firms internationally.
Not too long ago, the corporate labored on DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, Metallic Gear Strong Delta: Snake Eater, and extra. He’s excited to see video games coming like Marvel 1943, Judas, Gears of Battle, Mafia, Doom and extra. In our dialog, we touched on how tight budgets may result in extra creativity, the contraction of gaming, the should be world, the shift to the large 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 a lot of again to again conferences. I ran out of time to only go discover folks and say hi there.
Langourieux: However because of you–for instance, I learn by way of the transcript of the dialog between Neil Druckmann and his counterpart Cory Barlog at Santa Monica, about creativity. That’s one I’d have appreciated to attend in individual.
GamesBeat: It was fascinating, the mature method they’d of trying on the conflict between enterprise and creativity. You possibly can create ceaselessly and iterate over and over, however lastly, when somebody offers you a schedule, that’s when you must ship.
Langourieux: In case you apply that to what’s occurring on the extra world enterprise stage, the identical might be true. With extra funds constraints, we’d find yourself with renewed creativity. Similar to the deadlines are forcing Neil’s workforce to provide you with the most effective that they’ve, tighter budgets may also arrive at an analogous end result.
We’ve made this large transfer to spend money on three improvement studios within the west. We felt this was crucial on two fronts. First, to reveal clearly to the trade that we’re recreation builders. We’ve got full recreation improvement capabilities. Second, to make it simpler for our groups to have interaction with shoppers throughout pre-production. If you wish to do co-dev proper, you’ll want to begin early. To start out early, you’ll want to construct belief throughout pre-production. It’s simpler to construct belief throughout pre-production you probably 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 carry 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 shoppers early. We carry the flexibility to scale. They’ve possibly had extra limitations there.
Greater than ever, we consider in our mannequin of bringing flexibility to recreation improvement studios. We predict studios face, with funds constraints–they must depend on leaner, extra agile inside groups. Our a part of the trade is to carry that flexibility to them by making it simple. Prior to now, in our historical past, we began in China. Our groups have been distant, 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 shoppers, so we will begin work earlier and deeper. Then we will get everybody working collectively when there’s a must scale up.
GamesBeat: There’s an fascinating distinction occurring. 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 Fable: Wukong and determined that the groups in China are able to do a whole lot of triple-A video games. They need to double down on these. The consequence for them is that they only completed investing some huge cash into western studios that they now take 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 improvement studio specializing in co-development. How we should be arrange is kind of completely different. It’s crucial for us to have world groups working with shoppers in each area. We’ve got enterprise relationships in North America, Europe, and Asia. The simpler it’s for them to work with us, the higher our enterprise. By definition, we’ve to be world. This has nothing to do with the technique of this writer or that writer. We’ve got to be world.
The purpose we will agree on is that sure, there’s nice improvement expertise in each area, together with China. Black Fable: 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 most effective 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 will discover the suitable expertise in the suitable place and make them work collectively to create an answer. We name that the “glocalized” strategy. It’s world and native on the similar time. I don’t suppose many publishers have that very same strategy, or want that very same strategy.
GamesBeat: What number of studios do you continue to must spend money on? Is that clear to you but?
Langourieux: Our technique is just not a roll-up technique. We’re not making an attempt to accumulate many studios. What’s vital 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 vital geographies the place video games are made. We cowl all of the vital expertise swimming pools and we cowl all of the vital platforms. However as soon as we’ve a studio like Pipeworks, we don’t plan so as to add two or three opponents 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 present it’s 200 folks and one of many greatest in Eire. We’ve got a observe of rising the studios we purchase, not stockpiling increasingly more studios that find yourself competing with one another.
GamesBeat: How many individuals do you’ve got 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 need to insist once more, these are all studios engaged on the identical platform, to allow them to all work collectively and kind options collectively to serve the manufacturing wants of our shoppers.
GamesBeat: How does among the outlook break down for you in 2025 and past?
Langourieux: There’s good and unhealthy. On the plus aspect, we’re very blissful to start out the yr with the discharge of DLC 2.2 for Cyberpunk, which illustrates how we might help a shopper broaden their IP whereas persevering with to develop different video games. They will fulfill an current viewers whereas persevering with to develop different video games by counting on a few of our inventive groups. We have been very excited to see Metallic Gear Strong get a launch date. That’s going to be an important showcase of our high-end Unreal 5 co-development capabilities. We’re excited to see the Change 2 get introduced. We had an important run on the primary Change with greater than 10 titles developed for the platform. We predict the subsequent one goes to be very fascinating.
That’s all of the optimistic. On the similar time, the setting continues to be a bumpy one. We see cancellations. We see the overinvestment bubble of 2021 and 2022 persevering with to deflate. We’ve got 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 word, I like to check it to 2008, after we noticed the disappearance of Halfway and THQ virtually in the identical yr. That left some unpaid invoices for fairly a number 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 occurring for positive.
GamesBeat: How are you unfold throughout not simply geographies, however capabilities as properly? Issues like Unreal versus Unity retailers and other forms of specialization throughout the group.
Langourieux: 5 years in the past, greater than 60% of the work that we have been doing was completed in proprietary engines. At present I believe it’s the opposite method round. Greater than 60% of the work we do is finished in middleware engines like Unreal and Unity. We do extra work on larger video games, and larger video games are typically made extra with Unreal. Whenever 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 factor to that. Ability units switch extra simply than earlier than from one venture to a different. For instance, when we’ve a big cancellation occurring, it’s simpler for us to reorganize and have groups work on different tasks. Their Unreal expertise are helpful on different Unreal tasks. Prior to now, after 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 a whole lot of shifts towards Unreal is likely to be that a whole lot of video games begin trying the identical. He stated that may have been true across the Unreal 2 or 3 stage, however now there’s rather more customization attainable throughout the engine.
Langourieux: I fully agree. In reality, we began one thing we name the Virtuos Labs, that are small studios purely targeted on engineering. One of many bigger labs we’ve now’s Abstraction Video games. They’ve 100 folks, an engineering studio. A number of the work they do is precisely 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 commonplace 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. When you have a typical pipeline, it turns into simpler to recruit and quicker 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 measurement doesn’t match all. We’ll proceed to wish proprietary engines and work with them, as a result of in lots of situations they permit the creators to get extra out of the {hardware}, to optimize for sure forms of gameplay and sure forms of rendering. However having one commonplace makes it simpler on the HR stage.
GamesBeat: Are the macroeconomic components trying any completely different right this moment than six months in the past? We nonetheless have inflation in the US. 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 combined bag. You’ve 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 by way of a brand new strategy to recreation improvement 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 another way, with extra reliance on freelancing and exterior improvement than earlier than. Leaner inside studios as properly. However there’s no motive for development to not decide up once more. There’s an urge for food, for instance, that we see throughout the board for rejuvenating IPs. IPs that have been left on the sideline as a result of we have 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 recent 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 fascinating 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 information in your aspect suggesting that the layoff wave is likely to be balancing out with extra hiring?
Langourieux: I don’t have information that’s pretty much as good as his, however what I see on our finish is that we’re capable of proceed rising our headcount. We’re tapping into completely different world markets, that are working at barely completely different rhythms. When one market is going through a cancellation, we glance to a different market to compensate.
GamesBeat: What else do you discover concerning the construction of the exterior improvement trade? I’m interested by what it’s wish to function in a market the place there’s one firm that’s a lot larger than you, a minimum of by way of what number of employees they’ve.
Langourieux: It’s thrilling. We’ve got groups which have the chance to work on implausible manufacturers. Simply take into consideration a number of upcoming titles. Marvel 1943, Judas, Gears of Battle, Mafia, DOOM. There’s a lot occurring. Whenever you’re working in an organization at our scale, you’ll be able to give attention to the positives and ensure you affiliate your groups with the most probably winners of tomorrow.
There are nonetheless a whole lot of winners. You go to DICE and also you meet folks. Not everyone seems to be sad about cancellations and layoffs. You’ve a smaller variety of firms which are delivering profitable titles. They’re blissful and optimistic concerning the future. We attempt to give attention to 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 measurement.
GamesBeat: What’s your course of for locating these companions and tasks like? You get out to a whole lot of occasions.
Langourieux: I do. It’s an fascinating a part of my job. We’ve got, I assume, two parallel methods. Our studios have current relationships with different studios that they keep. A number of the relationships we’ve are as previous as the corporate. A number of the preliminary shoppers we began working with after we shaped the corporate are nonetheless shoppers right this moment. Our studio management maintains these relationships round IPs or manufacturers that we’re acquainted with. One instance is the Ultimate Fantasy model. We’ve been engaged on that nonstop for greater than 15 years.
Then we’ve a world workforce round enterprise improvement. They communicate to studios throughout occasions to reveal the great thing about co-development completed properly. There’s a real magnificence and luxury when you’ve got co-development partnerships established early on in your manufacturing cycles, which are supplying you with extra choices and extra flexibility as you progress by way of the event of a recreation. Our groups are there to reveal how we assist shoppers design, develop, and ship. That third D, delivering, is commonly the vital piece. With the ability to ship one thing at high quality and on time. That’s the Virtuos method.
We’ve got evangelists round what good co-dev seems like. They’re capable of clarify how vital it’s to start out early, how vital it’s to have the flexibility to scale regularly, how vital it’s to place in place the identical techniques on each side that give transparency. Early, scalability, transparency. They present what attractiveness like for co-dev. That’s how we’re regularly including increasingly more shoppers to our enterprise, by way of these evangelists.
I don’t know in the event you’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 part of the group and assist us present our American shoppers how it may be completed even higher right this moment with the addition of Pipeworks.
GamesBeat: Are you operating into working with a number of co-development firms on the similar time?
Langourieux: I don’t suggest to our shoppers that they put all their eggs in a single basket. It’s completely doable to have a number of co-development studios aspect by aspect. I do advocate that they alter from the previous mannequin of getting dozens of siloed smaller studios. It’s tough to coordinate them, to maintain them aligned on the identical imaginative and prescient. Fairly often you must do the combination and polish your self in that older mannequin. We suggest going towards a simplified mannequin, the place you depend on a smaller variety of larger co-development companions who will deal with the coordination, who will deal with the combination for you.
The mannequin the place you’re working with many alternative smaller exterior distributors doesn’t scale very properly. It results in a whole lot of 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 as if they’re in a extra steady scenario. Issues are a bit extra predictable. They’re not at struggle with their prospects anymore. I think about that’s an excellent factor for firms like yours.
Langourieux: All I can say is that although there was a whole lot of noise round this, we haven’t seen an entire change in who’s utilizing what engine. It’s tough to alter a pipeline. There could have been a few situations the place these modifications have been made, however the state of who’s utilizing what hasn’t fully modified so far as we will see. I believe it’s good for the trade if they’ve a corporation and pricing construction that makes their shoppers 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 improvement. What do you concentrate on the state of that proper now?
Langourieux: It’s crucial. Preliminary efforts are on the best way from many alternative events. You talked about Amazon. You possibly can see what Microsoft is doing with their very own cloud resolution. The gamers in China are additionally very lively. Alibaba, Tencent, they’ve numerous cloud initiatives. It was additionally fascinating to listen to how Asia is the fastest-growing marketplace for Xbox, due to gamers experiencing Xbox by way of the cloud. The units they use in lower-income nations are much less highly effective, however that’s compensated for by the truth that they entry video games by way of 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 forms of video games. At GDC we plan to showcase, with Inworld, new forms of video games that may be created because of AI. I count on we’ll be solely considered one of many related initiatives. It’s required. We aren’t going to develop the trade by merely rejuvenating previous IPs or making smaller video games. We additionally must carry fully new forms of gameplay.
GamesBeat: Have you ever seen AI instruments arriving but which are dwelling as much as among the hype?
Langourieux: I wouldn’t level to a single instrument. I believe we should always level at a mix of instruments that when assembled collectively, one after the opposite, permit you to rework a conventional workflow into one thing that strikes twice as quick. The primary wave of AI use appears to be extra structured this fashion, fairly than a killer app. I haven’t seen implausible video games made by way of a single immediate but. Perhaps others have. However I’ve seen complete workflows accelerated. I’ve seen new forms of gameplay turning into attainable due to the infinite prospects that AI now affords.
GamesBeat: We nonetheless possibly have a whole lot of influence 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 specific 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 avid gamers, individuals who can’t purchase an costly platform, however are taking part in by way of both a lower-end cell gadget or lower-end PC. We’re capable of entry them by way of a mix of cloud infrastructure and adapting content material to go well with after they wish to play, what they wish to play, and what they will afford. In case you take a look at the lower-income economies in Asia, in Africa, in South America, there are nonetheless a whole lot of new gamers to go after.
GamesBeat: Do you see developments 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 broaden to go well with new demographics. That’s in all probability the place we see probably the most motion. In addition to the change in mannequin that we already talk about, from larger studios to smaller studios, larger titles to leaner titles at launch.
GamesBeat: I talked to a consulting agency that was targeted on IP technology. That they had an fascinating perspective across the regular habits of recreation studios. They iterated ceaselessly on gameplay, with a recent 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 have been extra of an afterthought. They spend a lot time on gameplay that you just don’t get the sort of robust IP that comes out of one thing like The Final of Us.
Langourieux: I grew up with that sort of strategy, the place you’re on the lookout 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 singular recipe. To paraphrase Neil from his DICE dialog, there isn’t a distinctive technique to arrive at a profitable recreation. Sure groups have this methodology. Different groups choose to construct a universe first and work out the sport design down the street. We see each.
One thing that’s more moderen in PC and console gaming, although, is what you could possibly name shopper publishing, the place you’ve got groups which are targeted on creating and aligning a group with a recreation on the similar time the sport is being constructed. Totally different groups have other ways of doing it, however the widespread theme there’s that you just need to have avid gamers which are robust representatives of the viewers related along with your improvement from early on. Then regularly, as they enable you nail down the content material of your recreation, you snowball them into one thing that’s going to be your group. When the sport is able to exit within the open, they rally the troops, the core avid gamers, across the recreation. This strategy to creating video games in co-creation with a group wasn’t mainstream for PC and console 5 or 10 years in the past. It’s turning into increasingly more 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 a lot of time to play model new video games.
Langourieux: However is right this moment’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 absolutely perceive that argument. Sure, it’s the identical identify, however there’s a whole lot of work going into including, adjusting, increasing the content material. It turns into a brand new expertise month after month. In return, there’s further income coming in from the gamers in several methods. I don’t suppose 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. Reside service video games devour a whole lot of 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 harder consequently.
