The Future of Ubisoft in Vietnam

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Underneath the paper lanterns and the shimmering red-and-gold garlands, the múa lân (Vietnamese lion) is warming up for a parade, and Da Nang team members from Vietnam and nine other nationalities are getting ready to celebrate our first year of collaboration and common achievements since the studio’s opening in April 2020.

Happy New Year! Ubisoft Da Nang studio opened its doors one year ago; what has been the feedback from Vietnamese professionals?

Vietnam is a young and dynamic country, where there is an abundance of creative and technical talents. A lot of studios in creative industries have opened and flourished here in the last few years, and Ubisoft is arriving at the right moment to run a fully operational studio, not only to outsource.

The opening of a Ubisoft studio in Da Nang has been welcomed by many from all over the country! Many have told us that working for Ubisoft was a longtime aspiration, and we have welcomed industry experts as well as promising young talents. We are a very attractive company to graduates and local millennials, who are very excited by the opportunity to work with their favorite Ubisoft brands.

What kind of roles is the studio hiring for now, and how do you find them in Vietnam?

We are working with local universities and job fairs, and the local authorities and media are also very supportive, as they are striving to develop the tech sector locally. There is an immense pool of very skilled engineers and artists, and since the videogame industry is in its early stages, the more challenging part is finding industry specialists in game design or live operations, for example. We are also bringing international experts to help develop the important knowledge and skills needed for creating games.

We already have 10 different nationalities in the studio, and we’re actively recruiting in all areas: game designers, artists, developers, and more. Since its opening, Ubisoft Da Nang has been focused on pioneering a new segment for Ubisoft – HTML5 Social Gaming – with Ubisoft Nano. How is this mission going? The social-gaming segment is booming, and HTML5 allows us to develop games for an incredibly broad crowd. The big idea is accessibility; HTML5 games can be embedded in any native app or website, so it allows our brands to reach massive and previously untapped audiences on PC and mobile, and introduce the huge communities of web gamers on growing web portals such as Poki or Crazygames to Ubisoft worlds and franchises. We’re playing with a technology that allows us to make our games technically able to run everywhere, from the web to social apps to native app stores, even on in-flight entertainment systems!

We have already developed and deployed three games on the web which are being played by over five million players: Rabbids Wild Race, Trackmania Blitz, and Hungry Shark Arena, and we are starting deployment on big social apps, which are showing strong growth in this field.

What is your current focus?

During this first season, we were focused on finding the right people, and building teams that are willing to really make a difference. Now we’re focused on building our pipelines of deployment, cross-game features, and building the tools to support the release of about 10 Ubisoft Nano games a year – all social multiplayer games that monetize via advertising and are based on Ubisoft IPs. Making games that are playable and enjoyable everywhere is Ubisoft Nano ‘s best weapon to respond to the hyperfragmentation of this segment.

We are now focusing on deploying the first season of Ubisoft Nano titles across the globe.

We heard that you might be working on an ambitious console/PC project as well. Care to tell us more?

It’s still a dream, but it’s a great chance to work on such a project in Vietnam. One of Vietnam’s key strengths is art, due to decades of providing outsourced work for many AAA franchises. And it’s also a very attractive destination for talent from all over the world!

What’s the ambition for this new studio?

AD: With our presence in Vietnam, we aim to be an active part of bringing the Vietnamese videogame industry to the next level, and it’s a great step forward for the local industry that Ubisoft is now part of the landscape. Ubisoft is here to build and develop the video game creative force in Vietnam and we foresee great potential in Vietnam and our team for the years to come.

We really hope that carrying such ambitious projects, with Ubisoft’s high standards of quality, is going to help lift up the local industry and put Vietnam on the world map of videogames. We hope to make it a significant year for both the Vietnamese game industry and for Ubisoft.