How Canada’s Biggest Independent Studio Went Global - Luc Duchaine, Behaviour Interactive.

[Music] [Music] thank you [Music] we're now going to hear from a triple I Studio as we talk to her from Canada's biggest Indie Studio buckle up we're in for 20 minutes of fun so hello everyone so I'm here to talk about Behavior interactive I think it's a good follow-up to the panel we just add because once upon a time Behavior wise and Indie Studio as well and I like what some of the panelists said about marketing because I am a marketing guy so as a VP of marketing of behavior I will always advocate for marketing to be involved as early on so you may or

may not have seen this last week we just opened a new studio in the south of the UK so it's we are on a roll right now in the past 14 15 months opening Studios and buying Studios and that's what I'm going to talk about today about how we got where we are today but first heimlich duchein VP of marketing I've been in gaming for over 20 years now one of my first job was to be a mascot a Super Mario mascot Atlanta in Montreal yes I was doing that with the big head walking around and taking picture with people and I was actually smiling underneath this big head I was that dumb I've been I spent 20 years at Ubisoft worked on very big games like the first Assassin's Creed for Honor Rainbow Six Vegas and I've been at behavior for two and a half years now so a very long journey in gaming and going from a big AAA to a very big Indie Studio we kept that slide it's not me actually but that's what I did I thought I cut that slide but we kept it so a quick video about behavior before I

keep going it should start or not this year Behavior interactive is turning 30. a lot has happened in 30 years so let's take a trip back to the highlights in 1992 Behavior interactive opened its doors in Quebec City at the time there were just six of us in October 2000 Rami moved the studio to Montreal back then ninety percent of our employees were in Quebec City around the same time the biggest names in entertainment began hiring us to develop games for some of the world's best loved franchises and then came 2016 the year that changed everything with the release of our best-selling original title dead by daylight since its launch the horror action game has been played by more than 50 million people across all platforms Behavior's team has more than tripled in size and our Revenue has skyrocketed exceeding 225 million in 2021s today

we're proud to say that in addition to developing our own games we continue to help the industry succeed by lending our expertise and creativity to some of the biggest names out there at 30 behavior is the biggest independent video game developer and publisher in Canada we're at the top of our game with a fast-growing team that now numbers more than 1200 talented people an office in Toronto and studios in Seattle and the UK long-lasting Partnerships with the industry's top players and a slew of thrilling projects in the pipeline [Music] the future of behavior couldn't be brighter and we're game how happy 30th Behavior here's the 30 more [Applause] thank you this year Behavior interactive is turning good like I don't Prime for once not twice please so as you've seen Behavior grew a lot in the past couple of years when I joined in 2021 I did a talk at

Mexican Montreal anywhere about 800 people we're now over 1200 people so a quite big growth in the past couple of years if we go back in time a little bit like we built this company doing a lot of work for ire doing games for other people and you see in 2004 we had scalar which was an original Ip but we did not publish at IP and during that year we went from 100 to 400 employees so at that point we started to grow a lot but in 2008 there was a financial crash if you remember so at that time having a lot of clients in the United States we paid a heavy price for that so we had to regroup and we went through some transforming years at Behavior first we had to scale down a company we had some tough choices to make at that time and some people had to leave the company for us to survive still in the surviving mode we accepted less exciting projects because when survival mode you do everything you can to keep the lights on and at the same time we work very long hours so those

years were difficult but were very very important in the history of behavior and because that is where we actually forged a culture of a company that we know now and one of the key elements from the culture of the company is the respect of the work-life balance this is something at the very core of the company there's a very very minimum of overtime you can imagine we work hours we work very hard when we are in the office then you go back home or if you're already at home because we work from home as well you go back and you do your stuff your personal stuff we want you to have this balance between work and life so this is where it all started then to be agile and efficient because working with smaller projects you need to find good ways to produce games you need to be efficient so if you go from one project to another you have to use the same tools Ino Studios where they don't always use the same engine to develop games so if you go from one game to another unfortunately you need to relearn certain things while at Behavior we try to use a sync tools all across

the board this way if you move from one project to another you're efficient from day one and also is to work with very nice people during those years yes we had to let some people go but there were some very big studios in Montreal working on major major games but some people decided to stay within behavior and said we're going to stay and build this together so that's why we decided at that point let's work with nice people people we have fun working with so if we keep going around the same years we launched Naughty Bear Naughty Bear was not a big commercial success but we learned one very important thing at that time after years and years of being the hero in the game saving the princess being the bad guy was actually cool because Naughty Bear went on a murderous three after not being invited to a picnic I love the premise of that game so much so but we learned that people actually love that being the bad guy in a game so we have to keep that in mind for what's

to come after that then moving forward we set some new goals for the company the first one was to have a strong culture and keep it and that is in on everybody's shoulder to do that yes management but every employees every time we recruit people we try to keep that in mind what's our culture does that person fit in our company's culture or not two and that is one Remy our CEO did set a key objective for the company to become the Canada Canada's largest independent Studio when he made that objective clear to the company I wasn't there at the time but from what I was told people just stood up and got a standing ovation in a big company meeting because it got a big objective that people could rally Beyond okay this is who we're going to become the biggest studio and then it was to publish our own IP we have done our own ipv4 but always published by others so then says let's do it ourselves this is when dead by daylight came out as mentioned in the video dead by Delight over 50 million players it's

been going on for over seven years now next week yeah next week we have Nicholas Cage coming in the game which was super exciting we had him at summer game Fest so dead by daylight really brought something big to the company brought a like a bigger form of Independence because being so successful allowed us to really build the company and now dbd became so big that we are expanding that brand we have a mobile game we have a comic book that just came out a board game lasts you had a visual novel with okto new we recently announced a game with super massive games a studio in in the Guilford in the UK we have one with midwinter a studio that we bought last year and we also have a movie project so dead by daylight went from being this small game developed by a small team there were not hundreds of people developing that game to a game now being played by over 50 million people and having this Big Brand around it so it's a true success that we

can be very very proud of because it's a game made here in Canada by a Canadian studio with an international success so that is key for us good but add Behavior as I mentioned we did a lot of work for ire in our early years and we're still doing it and that is why ad Behavior we have this balance this balance between work for hire and our own publishing and own development of our titles and it is very very important for us and I don't know if you work for an indie Studio or big Studio or not maybe you have your own shop and say I want to create my game of my dream but I want to talk to you a little bit about work for ire and why it's important and why you should keep an eye on that first the benefit of doing that is predictable revenues when you work on a game like that you have a contract with another developer they will come to you and say I'm going to give you X dollars to create that content by the way there's a typo there are I don't ask me why it's there I have no

clue I found out that yesterday and I couldn't change it so it's there if you haven't seen it now I'll just point it out for you sorry so but having predictable revenues will be good because this way you know what's coming ahead of you and it's always a struggle for an indie Studio to know what the revenue will look like in the future so don't overlook the work for hire because you know what's to come secondly you will learn from other developers whether you experience or not maybe you spend 15 years within the same Studio but working with many different developers will give you the ability to learn from big studios or mid-side Studios to learn their practices how do they do things is it good is it bad their processes and this is how you can build your knowledge and become a better developer with time third networking it's funny because in the panel right before they did talk about networking and how important it is to build a network in gaming networking is fundamental like I'm in my very very late 40s

and I've done that for a very long time I built a network during all those years and right now if I go in Montreal and pretty much my in every big studio is for sure I know the general managers and a lot of Indie Studios because I've worked with those people I build my network over time but when you do work for ire you will build your network as well because you might deal with one producer at Studio A maybe in three years that producer if he or she had a good experience with you might be at Studio B and might remember you and say you know what I work with a small developer and they're really good so I'm going to give them a contract and this opens up new doors for you so networking is very very very important when you work in work for ire three you become good with Brands because if you see the image yes you have Halo you have Master Chief you have Assassin's Creed those games are not developed by us but we worked on so on some of those games and

when you work on those big Brands you need to learn and you will learn quickly how those Studios will treat their big brands then when it comes back to your own brand you can use that knowledge to be better at what you do and finally deliver on time and on budget if you get a contract from a big studio and they ask you for X for August 1st well it's for August 1st because they have to ship it for Christmas so you need to learn to do those things because a game can be going on for a very long time if you don't put yourself limit of time and budget then this is well for work for hire on the digital side this is the division I'm in where we do our own game it's what we call Unique moments together forever this is our motto this is our editorial vision for us it's Unique gameplay we don't want to go in a CF red we want to produce content that will be unique something different a spin on an existing gameplay probably but when you have a game from Behavior we want to offer something different that you haven't seen before two is a game as a

service most of the time like games with live Services that's why we have a meteor maker that's what we have with dead by daylight games are there to go for a long time Dennis player and player player versus player or Co-op because that's together that's how we do it we want you to be with other people to be with your friends to experiment that to be able to stream and ugc content for example on meteor maker when you can build your own uh your own map when people will try and invade it if I keep going with the story 2022 Behavior goes International and for me this is very important because I've seen so many big Studios from around the world establish themselves in Canada and it's great I work with one of them for 20 years but now we have a Canadian Studio who's going International based on funded in Quebec City based now in Montreal with now the studio here in Toronto a studio in Seattle and two studios in the UK and we are not done so this is in the past 15 months only so

behavior is going International and it's very very important for us to be able to expand internationally to have access to a bigger talent pool and more opportunities for the company this new reality changed a lot of things for us first from one central office we had before kovid to now hundreds of offices but five business operation places in the world what does it mean it means we have one competing culture I talked about it how do you export that to other Studios well it's when you're in the process of acquiring your studio or opening your Studios the people you talk to you need to make sure that those people fit the culture that you built also by respecting the local realities especially if you acquire a studio for example we kept midwinter's name in Seattle because it's important for them and it's good it's part of their culture but still the way we work together fits the global Behavior structure multi-site management I was in a Toronto studio yesterday I had lunch with 10

people on my team it's great I see them once a year but multicide management is not easy if everybody is located in the same city you can call an in-office meeting and you can have lunch together it's easy when you're all around the world or even all around Canada it's a bit more difficult it is a real challenge you need to take into account same thing for team building multiple time zones this one might be funny but when I spent all those years at Ubisoft I was waking up in the morning to tens of emails from friends when I was going to bed at night I had email from San Francisco now when I go to bed at sip go to bed at six whoa no I don't go to bed at six not six pm not 6 a.m that's my younger me well when I go when I end my work day I don't have that many emails when I come back but now with more Studios we'll start dealing with this reality of multiple time zones and security more offices when you work on IP it's important to keep an eye on

security so now what is behavior we are the biggest Canadian independent Studio we have offer we are I've been going on for over 30 years we have offices in Toronto studios in Seattle and two in the UK and we are over 1200 employees and for me I am really proud of what we've accomplished because again it's a Canadian Studio who went was going International and is expanding around the world instead of having other big studios coming in to Canada so thank you very much we have about four minutes for a question I rushed that one that's incredible I feel like I can live through some of your company growth there that was first pretty Relentless but I was trying to make notes about it it was all great so we have uh Canada's leading independent Studio here do we have any questions we want to ask about that we answered a lot already in there they're a bit intimidated by success don't be shy don't be shy come on we've got a question right it's back to me then so dead by daylight huge IP

you've got 1200 staff you've got uh offices all over the place in the UK it was in Cornwall right so one answer the Middlesbrough and the other one I can't remember the name of this it was standing in Southwest I went to school so where next where can you already like the biggest Studio where what is the aspiration where do you want to go from here you've you've achieved that that 2016 Target do you have a new one do you have a new stuff waits to keep growing it's to keep looking for opportunities it's to keep working on games we had media maker who came out we announced islands of insight just a month and a half ago and the summer game Fest play days which is a game that we're doing with the with lunarc Studios actually based here in Toronto uh so yeah it's to do more and more and more and find good opportunities around the world okay so it doesn't have to be in Canada but you as you have more aspirations in Canada we can have more studios here or you have you have you filled you've taken all of Toronto now you've now I won't go into details but we're looking at every

angle okay okay fair enough so you know it's a student looking to be acquired we have a couple of questions here that'll tell you can we uh she's um there we go there's a lady here in the green and I'll come to you so after that fantastic um what would you say the distribution of you still do work for higher rate we do so what does the distribution look like and do you split that up based on location and Studios or are you cross Studio working on the same projects like what does that look like operationally I don't have all the details Sometimes some studios will work more on work for ire in Montreal we're divided in two we have but not necessarily with a clean line at 50 50. I don't know the exact number of teams on each side but for midwinter for example they're working whoa they're working on a game in our in the dead by daylight world so this studio is working on that in the UK they will do more more work for ire but this is it will depend on opportunities

and projects sometimes it can be an acquisition with a studio who has an ipn development and this one can fall more under the digital umbrella and sometimes the studio has more experience and work for hire so it really depends on opportunities cool go one more question we're running yes oh you've got a question okay so my question is about uh blockchain integration with traditional gaming so where do you see after maybe five ten years is there any chance to integrate with blockchain stuff like tokenization proof of ownership uh owning assets nfts and all that stuff you're going beyond my knowledge so I will as nft it's not something we're looking at this I can tell you for sure but beyond that it is a little bit too much like it's another uh you can say uh passive Revenue stream from another platform so like existing gaming is also integrating blockchain in order to generate another Revenue stream so this is just about that yeah but yeah again

for blockchain it's something I don't master so I prefer not to to go into right now our goal is to do games based on the vision I presented so that's where we're going for now Mary blockchain revealed today so we've got time for one very quick question from the chat the Play-Doh so look I saw that you're expanding uh behavior all over the world right and you guys open a huge door bring in Nicholas Cage to that that daylight are you guys have any plans of expanding also the folklore from uh monsters from all over the world and bringing also like different uh personalities or even streamers like ninja or any other huge player in the market to gain more attraction from the media right now what we're looking at and it's funny because when we got Nick Cage my wife asked me why my answer was why not why not it's because he is so cool and super nice by

the way I had a chance to meet him but it's for us if there's if it fits the world if it fits the logic of our world we're open to it cool right now the goal is to find for any partnership for any licensed deal we're looking at it always goes there like is that a good partner for us does that fit our world and sometimes some people might think it's a stretch some people might think oh it's so cool it depends but there are multiple people looking at that internally to make sure that when we do something like that we're not going off track and we don't jump the shark cool okay so now no one where'd you go after Nicholas Cage that's that's a difficult challenge he was very intense gentleman uh thank you very much um thank a big round of apples please to for Luke who's on a great presentation [Applause] [Music]

thank you foreign