00:03a
00:15Yeah I'm Ann Lewis and I'm here at GDC with Alex per azo, managing director at Ubisoft Toronto. Alex
00:21This is a new title for you. Yeah, it is. I stepped into the role, um, I think it's been
00:25four months now.
00:26And you just celebrated your 10th anniversary with Ubisoft?
00:29Yeah, it's a special year for me. I spent 5 years in Montreal and 5 years in Toronto. Time flies.
00:33Toronto's actually about to celebrate its 5th anniversary.
00:36How has the studio evolved since it started and how do you see it continuing to evolve in the future?
00:42We've grown a lot in the last 5 years. We're 350 employees right now in Toronto.
00:46And we shipped a game that I'm extremely proud of, Blacklist, in August 2013.
00:50We contributed on Far Cry 4, on the Shangri-La missions, on Assassin's Creed Unity.
00:55We shipped half of the co-op missions and we also built half the open world.
00:59And you're actually about to ramp up to seriously grow the studio. What kinds of jobs are you hiring for?
01:05We're hiring almost every type of job.
01:08That's all part of our agreement and partnership that we have with the government of Ontario to get to 800
01:13people by 2020.
01:14And what would you say makes Toronto such an amazing place to work?
01:19I think we've built a culture that's really unique and special in the industry.
01:22I mean we're all big believers in transparent management and open communication.
01:27I think the other thing too is what's really interesting is we have at the studio people from all over
01:31the world that have assembled and have come to Toronto.
01:33You know it creates a really nice mix of diverse backgrounds and opinions and ideas.
01:39So that's something that we're leveraging and I'm really proud of.
01:42What would you say are some of the most important traits in a recruit?
01:46When we're trying to hire people with less experience, we're of course looking for motivation, drive, you know, a right
01:53fit for what they're trying to do with their career.
01:56When we're looking for more senior talent, we're looking for a fit in terms of skills, in terms of culture,
02:00people who are willing, especially in our case, to help us grow.
02:02I mean one of our studio values is grow together. So the studio is growing but we're hoping that that
02:08leads to a lot of opportunities for people to join us as well.
02:11So we're looking for senior people who are there to share or spread their expertise, help coach and mentor more
02:17junior talent.
02:18So what's it like actually working in Toronto?
02:21I think, you know, what we're trying to develop is a culture of innovation, creativity. We're trying to, you know,
02:26support people coming up with cool, fresh ideas.
02:29For example, once a year we have a game jam. We give everyone like a week to just explore ideas
02:34and come up with cool things.
02:35Actually at this year's GDC, we're showcasing Go Poser Go, which is an idea that came out of one of
02:42those game jams that we did.
02:44So those are the things we're trying to foster, like let people express themselves through some of these things like
02:48the game jam,
02:49and use that as a way to, you know, bring new ideas into the games that we're working on.
02:54Thank you for chatting with us, Alex. Any parting words?
02:56We're growing a lot next year, so we're looking for the best people in the industry to join us at
03:01Toronto.
03:02So you can check out opportunities at toronto.ybisoft.com. All the job postings are there.
03:06If you want to be part of the best team, then check it out and let us know.
03:10Awesome. Thank you.
03:19Thank you.
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