Earlier today, third party developing giant Ubisoft announced via livestream a new ten year plan to open two new studios in Quebec, Canada. In the process, Ubisoft will be creating over 1,000 new jobs in the region.
The first of these two new studios will open in Saguenay in early 2018 and will establish the appropriately named Ubisoft Saguenay. This new division of Ubisoft will be run by Jimmy Boulianne, who will serve as managing director of the studio. Ubisoft Saguenay will be dedicated to creating advancements in the online space to make Ubisoft games more connected than ever before. Over 125 new jobs will be created at Ubisoft Saguenay over the course of the next 5 years alone.
As for when the next studio in Ubisoft’s plan would open, it’s still unclear. While the goal is to have another studio opened by 2027, no specific locations or details were given otherwise. They did however say that they plan on spending $780 million within the region over the course of these next ten years with both this new studio and the Saguenay office.
In addition to both of these new spaces for Ubisoft, they also revealed plans to add more staff to some existing studios over the course of this same decade. On paper, Ubisoft will look to bring in 200 new jobs in its Quebec City office while also adding some 675 new employees to its Montreal studio.
Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO at Ubisoft, spoke a bit more about these plans for the future as well as touching on why he thinks it was important for the company to double down on the Quebec province. Guillemot said the following:
We are proud to have contributed to the emergence of Quebec as a world-renowned hub for video game development. Over 20 years, Ubisoft has created more than 3,600 jobs, invested more than $3.5 billion and developed some of the greatest brands in the industry here in Quebec. Today, video games are the most dynamic segment of the entertainment industry, and are at the heart of technological revolution. As a result, we have a unique opportunity to build tomorrow’s Quebec, together.
Quebec has essentially become the home of Ubisoft in the North American region, so to establish more studios in the same province just makes logistical sense. While we sometimes have to report on the closure of certain studios in this industry, it’s always nice to instead see the opposite and watch companies like Ubisoft continue to grow.