An Asian video game giant arrives in Montreal

A giant from Southeast Asia has landed in Montreal by opening the Phoenix Labs studio in the hope of recruiting 250 workers in its Quebec team, has learned The newspaper.

“I joked: ‘If you ever want to come east, I’ll raise my hand. It took five minutes. He said: it’s okay. A week later, we made the business plan, ”shared Journal André Roy, General Manager of the Phoenix Labs studio in Montreal, on his friendship with Jesse Houston at the head of the Vancouver studio.

Founded in 2014 in British Columbia, Phoenix Labs is owned by the Singapore-based giant Sea Group, which is worth more than $ 115 billion on the stock market.

In Montreal, the studio wants to develop prototypes of AAA games and aspires to become one of the five largest video game studios in the city.

“We come to Montreal to settle there, and to stay there,” says André Roy confidently, who is already talking about one day having branches elsewhere in Quebec.

The number 1 of the Montreal studio has a long track record. André Roy has been working his way for 25 years in the industry, holding key producer and vice president positions at Cryo Networks, Ubisoft and Frima Studio.

To launch his Montreal studio, the Quebecer surrounded himself with Marie-Andrée Lavoie and Guillaume Roy, the first in Talent and Culture and, the second, in Technology.

When we ask André Roy what he thinks of the crisis that has rocked Ubisoft by rolling management heads over allegations of sexual harassment, he says he is happy to be able to build his team from A to Z with a good foundation. .

“It may not be unique to video games. We have seen resonances in the artistic world and elsewhere, he says. We want to focus on people. We are starting with a blank sheet of paper to create new foundations focused on diversity, inclusion and parity ”.