Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Director Came Up With The Game While Bored At Ubisoft

He better be careful with statements like that. Most likely Ubisoft could use this against them in court as proof of ownership of the IP or some other corporate fuckery.
 
jshackles said:
He better be careful with statements like that. Most likely Ubisoft could use this against them in court as proof of ownership of the IP or some other corporate fuckery.
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Yeah this. If the TV series Silicon Valley taught anything is to keep my mouth shout at work when it comes to the stuff I develop in my free time.

Which is NONE btw, just for the record. :goog_relieved:
 
Another article from Dexerto:

Article:
"To create a game infused with passion, we needed that 'bunch of friends' making a game kind of atmosphere. Having that flexibility and agility is kind of exclusive to indie studios," he continued.


Leonardo Dicaprio Look GIF by Once Upon A Time In Hollywood


This guy gets it.
 
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"We have, I think, an amazing team mostly of junior people but they are so incredibly invested in the project and talented," says Guillaume.
"Somehow it worked, which still makes no sense to me after all these years."
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That guy is smart as hell.
 
As long as they didn't use company resources to conceptualize the idea (IE they did this work at home on personal machines) they are in the clear.
On top of that, this game was not made using Ubisoft's engine tech (the asscreed or rayman tech).

If they actively recruited within Ubisoft during that process (what I mean here is they didn't grab a few more folks and hit up a room with a white board and start doodling) they would be super effed...but again, not what happened.
There was a game that was out not too long ago, like a dungeon exploring extraction game, Dark something, anyway that game was conceptualized at a major studio. Later the folks coming up with concept were let go and decided to release that game themselves and they got into a lot of hot water (paraphrasing the event obv.)

They (sandfall) vetted this statement before releasing it...just pouring a lil' bit o vinegar into that wound at this point.
 
Cheeky quote from the director lol. I think he should be fine, honestly. People go over what they're going to say before they go to the media with it.
 
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If working for Ubisoft can generate this kind of creativity, I think we should be encouraging more people to work there. Get bored and come up with better stuff like 33 to sell.
 
I sweat I'm playing it right now and I'm literally thinking I must be conned. There is no way 35 people made this game. Like some large studio is tricking me.

This game has proven that western development is just terrible. Find passionate people. Give them a chance. Be a kick ass director, clearly.

Basically a small team of dedicated people have made an all time classic.

It's just amazing. I hope this game throws the industry on its head.

People that are actually talented and thought they were stuck in some shit job with hundreds of devs just churning out corporate slop because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, and a director who cant push back against the spineless, no having talent bean counters, who are destroying this industry, fucktards. They need to break off and make 8 smaller studios and come up with some awesome shit. Think big like this director clearly did and utilise those our there with vision and talent. Find them on reddit, discord, sound cloud or wherever and fuck these corporate bootlickers.


Rant over. I'm going back to this incredible game.

I'll buy a copy on steam to support too!
 
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DenchDeckard said:
I sweat I'm playing it right now and I'm literally thinking I must be conned. There is no way 35 people made this game. Like some large studio is tricking me.

This game has proven that western development is just terrible. Find passionate people. Give them a chance. Be a kick ass director, clearly.

Basically a small team of dedicated people have made an all time classic.

It's just amazing. I hope this game throws the industry on its head.

People that are actually talented and thought they were stuck in some shit job with hundreds of devs just churning out corporate slop because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, and a director who cant push back against the spineless, no having talent bean counters, who are destroying this industry, fucktards. They need to break off and make 8 smaller studios and come up with some awesome shit. Think big like this director clearly did and utilise those our there with vision and talent. Find them on reddit, discord, sound cloud or wherever and fuck these corporate bootlickers.


Rant over. I'm going back to this incredible game.

I'll buy a copy on steam to support too!
Click to expand...

But they are Western Developers...............

Maybe you meant Western Publishers?
 
DenchDeckard said:
I sweat I'm playing it right now and I'm literally thinking I must be conned. There is no way 35 people made this game. Like some large studio is tricking me.

This game has proven that western development is just terrible. Find passionate people. Give them a chance. Be a kick ass director, clearly.

Basically a small team of dedicated people have made an all time classic.

It's just amazing. I hope this game throws the industry on its head.

People that are actually talented and thought they were stuck in some shit job with hundreds of devs just churning out corporate slop because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, and a director who cant push back against the spineless, no having talent bean counters, who are destroying this industry, fucktards. They need to break off and make 8 smaller studios and come up with some awesome shit. Think big like this director clearly did and utilise those our there with vision and talent. Find them on reddit, discord, sound cloud or wherever and fuck these corporate bootlickers.


Rant over. I'm going back to this incredible game.

I'll buy a copy on steam to support too!
Click to expand...
It's not that surprising, especially when you learn that teams like this used to be the norm back in the "Good Ol' Days".

For example, the team at Square that made Chrono Trigger for the SNES back in the 90s had about 50 people on it.
 
jshackles said:
He better be careful with statements like that. Most likely Ubisoft could use this against them in court as proof of ownership of the IP or some other corporate fuckery.
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Came here to post this. If he came up with this game idea working at a desk in Ubisoft's office, they could try to claim ownership of that work product.

It sickens me that the world has come to this but that is a very possible legal argument.

Why do I think that? I'm not a lawyer, but I did use google AI. I asked, "what if I thought up my idea at my job"

"If you thought of an idea at work, your employer likely owns the intellectual property rights to that idea, especially if it's related to your job duties or the company's business. However, this doesn't automatically mean they own all future ideas you have, especially if they are entirely unrelated to your current work. " I'm not a lawyer of any kind but I would have recommended he not say this. Probably nothing will happen, knock on wood.
 
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DenchDeckard said:
I sweat I'm playing it right now and I'm literally thinking I must be conned. There is no way 35 people made this game. Like some large studio is tricking me.

This game has proven that western development is just terrible. Find passionate people. Give them a chance. Be a kick ass director, clearly.

Basically a small team of dedicated people have made an all time classic.

It's just amazing. I hope this game throws the industry on its head.

People that are actually talented and thought they were stuck in some shit job with hundreds of devs just churning out corporate slop because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, and a director who cant push back against the spineless, no having talent bean counters, who are destroying this industry, fucktards. They need to break off and make 8 smaller studios and come up with some awesome shit. Think big like this director clearly did and utilise those our there with vision and talent. Find them on reddit, discord, sound cloud or wherever and fuck these corporate bootlickers.


Rant over. I'm going back to this incredible game.

I'll buy a copy on steam to support too!
Click to expand...

You're exactly right. All they did was make a game the way games used to be made: with passion and creativity and with fun in mind. If the industry went back to that, the majority of games would be good again. As it stands, that mentality and model is long dead and has been replaced by corporate greed and streamer views.
 
Honestly, the real kick in the nuts to some AAA industry vets should be that his team was primarily composed of juniors. That has to sting. They were mere juniors, working on their very first game, yet he still managed to recognise their potential talent and synergy. That requires a good eye and people skills.

jshackles said:
It's not that surprising, especially when you learn that teams like this used to be the norm back in the "Good Ol' Days".

For example, the team at Square that made Chrono Trigger for the SNES back in the 90s had about 50 people on it.
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Y'know, if these AAA publishers ever come back to their senses, they ought to strategically break up their 200 men mammoth teams into circa 30~70, at max, smaller teams with identified good camaraderie and synergy, then hold a session for circa 4 new, inventive, bold and ambitious pitches.
 
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Hypereides said:
Honestly, the real kick in the nuts to some AAA industry vets should be that his team was primarily composed of juniors. That has to sting. They were mere juniors, working on their very first game, yet he still managed to recognise their potential talent and synergy. That requires a good eye and people skills.


Y'know, if these AAA publishers ever come back to their senses, they ought to break up their 200 men mammoth teams into circa 30~70, at max, smaller teams with identified good camaraderie and synergy, then hold a session for circa 4 new, inventive, bold and ambitious pitches.
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Because a company like Ubisoft has massive overhead that will overlook a lot of talent and just treat you like a number. These places will only see the talent when it shows up in their view. They're not going to go search internally for the talent. It's a "next man up" mentality there. Which can work in some ways, but not in others.
 
Lol the dude literally went on Reddit and found a more talented writer than like 95% of the people working in the AAA industry...and she didn't even originally join the project to do any writing.

But yeah, when you have cool ideas like this it must suck working at the videogame equivalent of a sterile assembly line.
 
Hypereides said:
Honestly, the real kick in the nuts to some AAA industry vets should be that his team was primarily composed of juniors. That has to sting. They were mere juniors, working on their very first game, yet he still managed to recognise their potential talent and synergy. That requires a good eye and people skills.


Y'know, if these AAA publishers ever come back to their senses, they ought to strategically break up their 200 men mammoth teams into circa 30~70, at max, smaller teams with identified good camaraderie and synergy, then hold a session for circa 4 new, inventive, bold and ambitious pitches.
Click to expand...

Agree. Turn your 300 person team into three type of teams...

- One 100-150 person team for AAA games
- 2, Mid level 60 people teams (To make games like Astro Bot, Outer Wilds, and Ori)
- 1, 30 people pure Indie team to make indie games or a AA game (Like Clair Expedition 33, Limbo, and Cuphead)
 
jshackles said:
He better be careful with statements like that. Most likely Ubisoft could use this against them in court as proof of ownership of the IP or some other corporate fuckery.
Click to expand...
Nah. You don't own the ideas that exist only in someone's head, regardless of the space they're physically occupying. For all we know it occurred to him on the shitter in his apt.
 
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Dr. Wilkinson said:
For all we know it occurred to him on the shitter in his apt.
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For all we know, that's true. Until he gave an interview to the BBC and told them he got the idea while working at Ubisoft and

Article:
Guillaume eventually left Ubisoft and formed Sandfall Interactive to work on Clair Obscur full-time from its base in Montpellier, France.


If he were in the US, this would 100% give Ubisoft a legal claim to the IP and the game's revenues.
 
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jshackles said:
For all we know, that's true. Until he gave an interview to the BBC and told them he got the idea while working at Ubisoft and

Article:
Guillaume eventually left Ubisoft and formed Sandfall Interactive to work on Clair Obscur full-time from its base in Montpellier, France.


If he were in the US, this would 100% give Ubisoft a legal claim to the IP and the game's revenues.
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The idea for the game can be proven to have occured at a Ubisoft facility? Did he write it all down on his Ubisoft computer? He worked there, doesn't mean he literally got the idea and worked on it at Ubisoft while at work. That would obviously be improper, at the very least.
 
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How do you go from Ghost Recon Breakpoint to Clair Obscur
 
Fbh said:
Lol the dude literally went on Reddit and found a more talented writer than like 95% of the people working in the AAA industry...and she didn't even originally join the project to do any writing.

But yeah, when you have cool ideas like this it must suck working at the videogame equivalent of a sterile assembly line.
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I read that apparently the lead writer was originally cast as voice talent but then she became the writer.

And then goes on to completely show up 90% of established games writers from so-called AAA devs!

Love to see it. This feels much more akin to the glory days of games being made by tight teams with passion and talented people coming together.
 
Dr. Wilkinson said:
The idea for the game can be proven to have occured at a Ubisoft facility? Did he write it all down on his Ubisoft computer?
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In the US, your employer owns any intellectual property you create that happens as a result of your "regular duties". This has been settled in court many times here that "regular duties" extends to creative projects done outside of work hours and not on company time - assuming you were hired to do creative work like he was. If you're hired by Ubisoft to "create video games", then if you create a video game of your own while working there (even at home), Ubisoft owns the rights to it - or at least can usually successfully argue in court that they should.

This sort of thing is typically also covered under employment contracts and company policies that have to be signed and agreed to get jobs at big companies the size of Ubisoft.

All that is to say - since they're in the EU I imagine a lot of the dystopian copyright / trademark / patent laws like these don't exist there, and they're likely fine. But as an American it's weird to me hearing someone admit to starting a project like this while working for a big corporation.
 
Fbh said:
Lol the dude literally went on Reddit and found a more talented writer than like 95% of the people working in the AAA industry...and she didn't even originally join the project to do any writing.

But yeah, when you have cool ideas like this it must suck working at the videogame equivalent of a sterile assembly line.
Click to expand...

the problem is not the writers, its the publishers and the writing that they will fund vs what they will not.

The game is in my humble opinion the best written since Disco Elysium, and much like ZA/UM's masterpiece would have terrified most publishers away because it's not your usual tripple A slop, the same case will continue over and over.
 
Nocty said:
the problem is not the writers, its the publishers and the writing that they will fund vs what they will not.

The game is in my humble opinion the best written since Disco Elysium, and much like ZA/UM's masterpiece would have terrified most publishers away because it's not your usual tripple A slop, the same case will continue over and over.
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This is a sad truth.
 
This is a profoundly dumb thing to say publicly.
 
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mckmas8808 said:
Agree. Turn your 300 person team into three type of teams...

- One 100-150 person team for AAA games
- 2, Mid level 60 people teams (To make games like Astro Bot, Outer Wilds, and Ori)
- 1, 30 people pure Indie team to make indie games or a AA game (Like Clair Expedition 33, Limbo, and Cuphead)
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I'd argue that 100 is already way above the limit. People would barely feel much sense of ownership, if any at all, over the core vision that way and would just be another anonymous cog in the machine. Without any clear sense of ownership, the vision and development would fall apart and get lost like we see happening right now in the current AAA model. Not to mention the issue with communicating the same vision to 100 other people would be a daunting task to keep in check. The leaner the team, the better.

I'm already kinda iffy about the ~70 team size figure. Anything nearing that range should be scrutinized. People working in these teams should feel like they can see a cohesive and clear vision while having a tangible feeling that they're delivering something personal at the same time.
 
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Premise of the game was intriguing but i am not sure the rest of the story was super good, but a lot better than ubisoft stories
 
Most modern western developers probably wasted too much time and budget fighting over where to insert their political beliefs, see this case

SlimySnake

Thread 'Ex-Insomniac dev throws his bosses under the bus over Rivet's design being too feminine.'

Ratchet's Game Director and Art Director wanted Rivet to look feminine. This guy and two others did not. Sounds like any other workplace disagreement but the fact that he publicly throws his bosses under the bus just rubs me the wrong way. There is nothing wrong with what they did. They are the directors. It's THEIR game, but this guy is making it sound like they were sexist and blatantly uses the Blizzard Activision sexual harassments lawsuits to make a point that there are other types of sexual discrimination taking place in the industry that we dont know about. As if making a female...
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As for square, they are probably heads deep in nojima nomura never ending changes. That said, ff16 for all its critics, the development was superbly efficient by their recent efforts
 
DenchDeckard said:
I sweat I'm playing it right now and I'm literally thinking I must be conned. There is no way 35 people made this game. Like some large studio is tricking me.

This game has proven that western development is just terrible. Find passionate people. Give them a chance. Be a kick ass director, clearly.

Basically a small team of dedicated people have made an all time classic.

It's just amazing. I hope this game throws the industry on its head.

People that are actually talented and thought they were stuck in some shit job with hundreds of devs just churning out corporate slop because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, and a director who cant push back against the spineless, no having talent bean counters, who are destroying this industry, fucktards. They need to break off and make 8 smaller studios and come up with some awesome shit. Think big like this director clearly did and utilise those our there with vision and talent. Find them on reddit, discord, sound cloud or wherever and fuck these corporate bootlickers.


Rant over. I'm going back to this incredible game.

I'll buy a copy on steam to support too!
Click to expand...
40 people made Silent Hill 2 at its peak of development and it shrank to something like 18 for 3.
 
English translation and Ubi hate make the quote sound like the guy specifically said that he was bored at Ubisoft, which is not the case at all. He was just bored of his project manager rôle on The Division 2 while he was building his prototype for Clair Obscur. The guy was creating the game of his dreams while doing a suit job, of course he was bored.

There is nothing remotely wrong in what he says.

Source : the original french interview,
 
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Can't blame him, I also dropped AC and Watch Dogs out of boredom... If that's how they are for playing, can't imagine how they are for working
 
jshackles said:
He better be careful with statements like that. Most likely Ubisoft could use this against them in court as proof of ownership of the IP or some other corporate fuckery.
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought the same, I'm trying to write a novel, and technically my employment contract states that any intellectual work made during my employment belongs to them, so I don't know how it would work
 
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