Virtuos is now making–
Many gamers are already familiar with the name Virtuos, as it is the name of an external development studio that has helped produce games ranging from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to Marvel’s Midnight Suns.To say nothing of the help it provides to smaller developers like Ember Lab, the company behind Kena: Bridge of Spirits, it and other external specialists have been crucial to completing the development of triple-A video game releases.
In March, I received unexpected news that the Virtuos team wanted to discuss a new initiative within the company called Virtuos Originals. It’s an internal project headed by Olivier Masclef that enables several of the industry’s many studios to go against the grain and start making their own games.
Such a move seems like it would be disastrous for the company. Rather than focusing on making money off of players, the company has built its success on providing services to clients. Wouldn’t putting itself in the position of selling video games expose it to the very risks it was designed to counteract?
No, of course not. On a recent call, Phillipe Angely, the head of the games division, explained to me that the initiative serves two purposes. First, it gives the designers at its subsidiaries the freedom to try out new video game ideas and stretch their imaginations in between working on more pressing projects.
In addition, the business can only fully manufacture the video games if it can secure a publishing partner to co-produce them.
Angely’s explanation of Virtuos Originals provided some insight into how the internationally renowned company adapts its methods to stay current. The show could also provide a glimpse into how a new force in video game development plans to make its presence known.
Virtuos Originals is constructed on a robust greenlighting procedure
The customers with whom Virtuos’s video game designers work on a regular basis help them hone their skills in the areas of function development and implementation. When high-ranking individuals of various teams started approaching management with questions about developing their own video games, the company opted to encourage their creativity rather than reject them outright.
The 10-person committee at Virtuos Originals expects developers to not only make a compelling gameplay pitch, but also address key problems early on. They’re supposed to think about a client they’d like to collaborate with on the game. The next step requires them to assess the team they’re up against and determine whether or not they have sufficient background playing games like this one.
They are responsible for conducting a little market analysis to ensure they are not pitching a video game in a too-niche area and that the game is capable of displaying the high-quality visuals the company is “understood for” delivering in its third-party work.
Angely: “We’re famous for [creating] gorgeous graphics, and we want to make video games which represent us well.”
To pitch a game, the designer must have worked in the PC gaming industry for at least 10 years, albeit that experience need not have been gained exclusively at Virtuos. With the purpose of creating a demonstration that can be pitched to potential publishing partners, Virtuos funds 6 months of prototyping if the pitch is accepted.
The first game to survive this onslaught (and the recurring challenges of video game development) was the strategy deckbuilder Mahokenshireleased by Iceberg Interactive.
Angely claims that just one in every five proposals presented to the committee advances to the prototype phase. According to him, only a small fraction of the company’s current 40 projects are games that have been given the green light.
Virtuos is fielding video game pitches to assist maintain skill
Former Virtuos employee JakeDiGennaro revealed to Game Developer that the company has always placed a premium on attracting and retaining talented designers, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. Angely agreed, saying that keeping customers around is one of the company’s top priorities for Virtuos Originals.
“We wish to keep skill– we do not desire them to entrust to a pitch under their arm, approaching another huge publisher saying ‘hey, are you interested?'” he said, calling the technique a “compromise” with the company’s primary commercial aims.
What interested me about Angely’s explanation was how generating very profitable video games didn’t seem to be an absolute necessity for the industry. Since Virtuos is still privately held, its leadership may be able to initiate such initiatives without guaranteeing a rewarding return for investors.
Angely explained that the development team deliberately selects safe gaming concepts for the market. He likened it to R&D “training,” saying that affiliate studios are told how much of their annual revenue they can spend on such activities.
Game designers at Virtuos are clearly jumping at the chance to present their ideas for new games. According to Angely, there has been a lot of interest from teams in other regions that have worked on major triple-A titles but haven’t seen any that reflect the art and culture of their own country. The variety of pitches coming from Shanghai and Chengdu studios is exciting, he said. Their focus is primarily on AAA titles from the West. They have ten years of experience with major franchises.
He said that companies are marketing “double-A” games for consoles that feature art directions influenced by East Asian cultures. Given that the region’s top played video games are predominantly mobile free-to-play releases, it’s clear that designers from such studios see an opportunity.
The concept that Angely and Virtuos are selling as “Virtuos Originals” is intriguing. It’s a reflection of the reality that game designers working for both traditional and indie studios want to build their own games as much as anyone else.
Since Virtuos exists to counteract the need for enormous overhead paid for by (sometimes erratic) computer game sales, the company’s decision to not go all-in on initial video games makes logical sense.
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