A month ago, we added a mini-season called OG (Original Gang). It was much requested by the audience. The OG Season broke all records, we had 100 million people come in November.
Today [last Thursday], we launch Lego, tomorrow Rocket Racing, a car game made by the people who made Rocket League, the day after tomorrow, we launch Festival, made by the people who made Guitar Hero, lots of musical games. We are expanding the ecosystem, we are connecting more and more people.
I now take care of all Fortnite games. There are 300 of us in Canada, 150 in Montreal.
Our teams start in Shanghai and end in Los Angeles, there are lots of people from everywhere, we’re quite in hybrid mode. Montreal’s role continued to grow in the ecosystem.
Well, I don’t want to be falsely modest, but I am responsible for the game, and therefore for the management. All the game’s AI, the management, is done here, but the teams are all over the place. For the artistic direction of Lego, it is also based here, we make characters.
There is no place now where you can say, “Everything is concentrated here. » There are more than 4,000 of us around the world. For example, on the Fortnite team, the engineering department is in Los Angeles, one of the creative departments is in San Francisco, part of the design is in Raleigh, North Carolina. What we do is that we meet regularly, including in Montreal, and that’s where together we decide on planning for the coming year.
We haven’t reached maturity, that’s what’s interesting. Six years later, we find ourselves having the best scores, the largest audience we have ever had. How did we manage to do that? By continuing to innovate, by forming partnerships across the entertainment, sports and fashion industries. It allows us to always stay relevant.
The difference between a game like Fortnite and a classic game is that not only do we do a season every three months, but every day, we monitor the game, we modify it; every two weeks, we do an update. Our capacity for learning and responsiveness is incomparable.
That’s millions of people in Canada! If they don’t know, they must hide under a rock (laughs). I think it’s meeting up with friends, whatever the platform, a PlayStation, a PC, a Switch, an Xbox, a phone, and doing something that doesn’t last too long, where you can chat. It’s an experience like people do when they go to play golf or tennis, they chat, they get together. It’s not really violent: it’s true that we shoot, but we eliminate people, “floush”, like that. It’s about being together, doing an activity, talking about it, personalizing your characters. I can express myself through play, doing interactive and enjoyable things.
