“The Ubisoft Graduate Program is a program for new graduates who are interested to kick off their careers in the video game industry,” Helen Jönsson, People Manager at Massive Entertainment, says. “It’s a two-year program, focused on giving graduates a global network, training sessions and mentorship in their area of expertise.”

Project Assistant Fanny Skogqvist saw the Graduate Program as an opportunity to create a solid foundation to build her future career on. “I sought the opportunity to work in an international setting with a complex technical product like Snowdrop, while still being connected to a creative mission,” she says. “And what could be more creative than creating games?”

Graduates coming to Massive usually work with project facilitation, communication between team members and supporting them to create successful projects. On top of those responsibilities, Graduates are also getting support from mentors, having regular workshops and meetings with both other people in the program and professionals within Ubisoft to receive training. All with an emphasis on their personal development.

“We believe the program and the participant brings new perspective and ideas to our studio and that it’s a huge strength to have different level of seniority and experience in our teams,” Helen says.

It’s a huge strength to have different level of seniority and experience in our teams.

Applying for the program included a lot of open discussions and matchmaking sessions. “I got the impression that they wanted to find not just the best candidate for the role, but also to make sure that it was the best position for me,” Fanny tells us. “This made me feel really valued and that it is a long-term commitment from Ubisoft beyond just the two years of the Graduate Program.”

Once she had been accepted into the program, Eunice went to Ubisoft HQ in Paris together with a group of other graduates. “This group was made up of individuals from across different job families within Ubisoft,” she says, “and we spent some time together with teams like the Strategic Innovation Lab, to learn about what they were up to. It was interesting to learn about other job families, as well as the projects that were going on at the other Ubisoft studios.”

“I learnt everything that I know today from the people who were around me – my team, leads, and fellow production team members,” Eunice says, looking back at her time with Ubisoft. “It’s been quite an eye-opening experience working alongside these talented individuals.”

“There have been a lot of things to learn and there is always a new challenge to face,” Fanny says. “Although, the best thing is definitely the people around me. I felt from the start that you could always ask anyone, everyone here at Massive have been super helpful and welcoming. This has been especially valuable for me as a newcomer to both the studio and the city.”

I learnt everything that I know today from the people who were around me.

So how do you prepare for your application to the Ubisoft Graduate Program?

“Like any job application, remember to read up about what you are applying for and understand the type of work you are setting yourself up for,” Eunice tells us when asked about any tips for applicants. “Understand the role and let the team know why you believe you would make a good fit. Also know why you want to be in the program – knowing why you are there will equip you with a better frame of mind during the interview.”

If you are interested in learning more about the program, you can read more about Ubisoft Graduate Program on its official website. The application period for the 2022 program ends on February 28.

We came to the realization many years ago that one day distributed work would be the norm. I thought it would be the steady march of technology that would make it happen, and I wanted us to be prepared for that day. We also saw many advantages to a team that was good at distributed work, and ever since we had this realization we made sure that any new process or workflow would work even if we were not sitting next to each other.

Then 2020 happened, we all went home, and we had a chance to put all these ideas into practice.

We – my team at Massive Cinematics – have learned a lot about distributed teams over the last 18 months. This article isn’t going to explain everything about working remotely (there are some great resources out there that do), but it does share some of the things we’ve picked up; a few things that worked for us.

It’s crucial that you establish processes and habits during quiet times that are robust enough to handle periods of high stress. That’s a theme common to a lot of the things we’ve learned – you need to fine-tune those processes until they’re dependable and people trust them. I invest time making sure that our creatives have the support they need, that tasks are clearly defined and assigned, and that we’re all working according to the guidelines we co-create. I never regret doing this, and I always regret when I don’t.

It’s crucial that you establish processes and habits during quiet times that are robust enough to handle periods of high stress.

We keep and assign all our tasks in Shotgrid, but the specific technology platform isn’t important as long as it’s searchable and reliable. We keep tasks out of email (we really avoid email all together inside the team) and even though we make heavy use of chat apps we make sure to not assign the tasks in chat. If you let managers throw around tasks in chat then it’s only the friendliest and most approachable people on your team that will end up with a disproportionally large part of the burden. Keeping all the tasks in Shotgrid makes sure that the workload is transparent for everyone.

Meetings is the most valuable communication tool that we have, and it’s also the most expensive one to use. Like the careful craftspeople we are, we don’t abuse our most precious tool and therefore we use it for things where only meetings will work, such as problem solving, brain storming, building consensus and diffusing conflict.

Meetings is the most valuable communication tool that we have, and it’s also the most expensive one to use.

Meetings should not be used for communicating pure information. No real-time info dumps. If you need to inform the team of something, there’s a channel for that – write a list or make a video. People need time to reflect on detailed material if you want them to give a thoughtful response, so first share the information and arrange a meeting later to discuss it (and if you don’t need to discuss it, don’t book a meeting).

Daily sync meetings (that mostly serve to build team culture and create a sense of connection) are prefaced by a daily scheduled post in the chat app where everyone types up their issues or blockers. By the time we have the daily meeting most blockers are already solved. The remaining issues, usually things that require discussion, are then dealt with during the daily meeting.

Our daily meetings are semi-optional. No-one must attend, unless they’ve been specifically asked for. Some people enjoy meetings and thrive on the social interaction. That’s great. Welcome! Some people prefer to focus on their ongoing tasks, and that’s fine too. Without exception, we make sure that someone takes thorough meeting notes. That way everyone, especially managers, can keep abreast of what’s going on. However, everyone must be available for the meetings. If somebody calls on you because they need your input or opinion, you need to be ready to jump in.

Meetings can be good for building a positive team spirit, but they’re not the only way of creating a healthy culture, even online. As in the real world, team culture emerges mostly through small interactions, so there a few things that we make sure we keep doing (and remind each other of if they don’t happen). Some of them are straightforward like thanking people for their work and publicly praising good communications efforts, though some have more to do with our attitudes. This includes things like assuming a positive intent in all communications and being willing to fix things if you notice that they’re broken.

Like so many things around distributed teams, maintaining a healthy culture is about making time to refine routines and then sticking to them. If you make the effort to strengthen your working practices when you can, they’ll see you through the tougher times.

Reading and listening tips

• Graduating Thesis on Innovation Management from Copenhagen Business School: Virtual Team Culture – Hoe & Marinelli
• Book: Deep Work – Call Newport
• Book: It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work – Jason Fried and David Heinmeier Hansson
• Book: Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matter – Ryan Singer
• Book: The year without pants – Scott Berkun
• Book: ReWork – Jason Fried and David Heinmeier Hansson
• Podcast: Distribute – Matt Mullenweg
• Podcast/Book: Freakonomics – Dubner & Levitt
• Podcast: Akimbo – Seth Godin
• Website: Why great teams embrace remote work (https://info.trello.com/hubfs/How_To_Embrace_Remote_Work_Trello_Ultimate_Guide.pdf)

But there’s a few pitfalls that come along with these new opportunities. It might sound odd coming from someone like me – I’ve worked with AI in games for over 8 years – but there is a risk of game developers trying to do too much with their AI. The purpose of AI is to help us make better games, but it’s incredibly easy to lose sight of that. There’s a temptation to push our AI further just because we can, and that can often be counterproductive.

I’ve identified three myths for AI in action games to look out for. If we keep these in mind, it will help us stay focused on what we’re supposed to be doing – giving players fun, challenging, and engaging gaming experiences.

Myth 1: Intelligence is everything

This is an easy trap to fall into. You might think that if you’ve made the best, smartest AI possible, then you’ve succeeded. But fun gameplay does not logically follow from smart AI. AI only needs to be intelligent enough to support the intended gaming experience. Anything beyond that is unnecessary (even though devising more powerful AI solutions can be a lot of fun.)

Tools for creating AI – machine learning, for example – are complicated and costly. They can take many years to develop for use in a shippable game. If you go beyond what you actually need for the game, the bang for your buck just isn’t there.

In many ways, player perception is more important than reality. You could have the smartest AI in the world but if the player doesn’t realize that, then what’s the point? I’ve seen lots of comments about games I’ve worked on, and sometimes players praise enemies’ intelligent decision-making and attribute them extra properties when the AI is actually fairly basic. This is partly down to animations and barks: if enemies look and sound like they’re doing something intelligent, then most people will believe it. I’m not saying that it’s fine to have low-quality AI, but if an action game is fun and layered with convincing sound, animation, and other feedback, then a reasonable level of intelligence is enough.

Myth 2: A squad manager and group tactics are a must

There’s a theory that action games need a meta-AI to handle group tactics and decide on enemies’ overall strategy. It sounds like a sophisticated and even logical approach, but it won’t necessarily improve the game.

In a first-person or third-person action game, you generally can’t zoom out and see the full picture. You can’t get a tactical overview or predict the enemy’s patterns of attack as a whole. You have a very limited range of perspectives, so there’s really no way of knowing what’s going on behind the line of enemies you’re engaging with.

A ticketing system is so much simpler and cheaper, and the player likely won’t notice the difference. Imagine the player is facing a group of enemies. One enemy claims the ‘moving ticket’ – that means that they’ll start moving or pushing towards the player. If you’ve set up the system so there’s only one of these tickets, the other enemies observe this and stay in place to provide cover fire. Done well, it’s a really effective system.

It’s all about perception, and animation and voiceovers can do a lot of the work here. When players hear enemies shouting and gesturing at each other, that’s as likely to give the impression of a coordinated attack as an actual group AI manager.

Myth 3: AI needs to respond immediately to player tactics

In action games, you generally want the player to be proactive rather than reactive. If an AI is on top of the player’s every move, continually pinning them back, it increases the level of stress and eventually decreases the level of fun. Sure, there are situations when it’s cool to switch things around and put that kind of pressure on the player but, in general, proactivity is fun, and we want to keep the player in this state as much possible.

Lightning-fast AI generates movement and noise, which can just be too chaotic, exhausting, and frustrating. You want players to feel in control, and instant AI reactions can undermine that.

A delayed AI response is very often a good thing. It gives players windows of opportunity for them to exploit that brief moment of time to strike at the enemy – and feel really smart when they’re doing it. It also reduces the cognitive load of the player considerably since they’re not having to constantly reanalyze their situation.

Again, animation and voiceovers help sell this. They make enemy reactions realistic but also exploitable. If enemies look and sound surprised when they’re, for example, hit from behind, that pause gives players a chance to make their move.

Ultimately, creating the smartest, fastest, most comprehensive AI is not a recipe for a good action game. You need to make sure that your AI matches your goals, and your main goal is to create a playable, enjoyable game. There’s always a temptation to go big, to keep adding more features and strengthening your AI, but oftentimes this isn’t a good use of resources; beyond a certain point, it’s not going to improve the gaming experience, and you’re better off focusing on improving the impact of your AI. Just remember – and hopefully I don’t sound too much like a second-rate life-coach – don’t lose track of your goals!

Drew Rechner is Associate Game Director at Massive Entertainment – A Ubisoft Studio. He wants to thank Philip Dunstan, who he’s worked alongside in AI and action games for several years. If you want to go a bit deeper into how Massive uses AI, here’s a video of Philip talking about its role in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

How do you project manage all the different development teams in an efficient way? How do you plan the sprints – and what even are sprints? What is SCRUM and agile development? How do you manage creative people and enable them to do their magic? How do make sure deadlines are kept? And what does being a leader actually mean?

Also, make sure you pay attention to the pastry Lisa brought – it might be one of the most beautiful ones ever featured on the Fika Sessions.

Prefer podcast?

Tools & Links:

• Clinton Keith – Agile Game Development with SCRUM
• Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves – Emotional Intelligence 2.0
• Susan Jeffers – Feel the Fear …and Do It Anyway
• Kim Scott – Radical Candor
• Joanna Root, Dean Hume – The People Manager
• Patrick Lencioni – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

THE FIKA SESSIONS EPISODES

• Episode 1 – Narrative in Video Games
• Episode 2 – Level Design in Video Games
• Episode 3 – An Introduction to Programming
• Episode 4 – An Introduction to 3D Character Art
• Episode 5 – Audio in Video Games
• Episode 6 – What is Game Design in Video Games?
• Episode 7 – Shining a Light on Light in Video Games
• Episode 8 – Communications at a Game Studio
• Episode 9 – Gameplay Programming in Video Games
• Episode 10 – Build & Infrastructure Engineering
• Episode 11 – User Experience Design in the Video Game Industry

How do you make sure that the users get the best experience possible? How is the design work done? What does the process look like, and how do you make sure – and test – that the user flows make sense? How do work with accessibility? Izzy answers all these questions and more as we dive into her job in detail. We’ll also find out how you can go from being a “digital librarian” in the US to working at Massive Entertainment in Sweden.

And make sure not to miss out on the fika Izzy brought. There’s a story there, and also a lot of sugar.

Tools & Links:

Game UX Summit 19 YouTube Playlist

THE FIKA SESSIONS EPISODES

• • Episode 1 – Narrative in Video Games
  • Episode 2 – Level Design in Video Games
  • Episode 3 – An Introduction to Programming
  • Episode 4 – An Introduction to 3D Character Art
  • Episode 5 – Audio in Video Games
  • Episode 6 – What is Game Design in Video Games?
  • Episode 7 – Shining a Light on Light in Video Games
  • Episode 8 – Communications at a Game Studio
  • Episode 9 – Gameplay Programming in Video Games
  • Episode 10 – Build & Infrastructure Engineering

So you have all the graphics, audio, animations and gameplay programming. How do you get all of that into one package you can play on your console or PC? Enter the Build Engineers. Daniel and his team take all of that, put it on their machines and start creating their game builds.

Join us as we find out more about how that process works, but also about concepts such as devops (development operations), automation and alerts when working on major computer engineering projects.

Also, for the fika itself, what ARE those things?!

PREFER PODCAST?

Tools & Links:

Google Site Reliability Engineering Handbook:

THE FIKA SESSIONS EPISODES

• • Episode 1 – Narrative in Video Games
  • Episode 2 – Level Design in Video Games
  • Episode 3 – An Introduction to Programming
  • Episode 4 – An Introduction to 3D Character Art
  • Episode 5 – Audio in Video Games
  • Episode 6 – What is Game Design in Video Games?
  • Episode 7 – Shining a Light on Light in Video Games
  • Episode 8 – Communications at a Game Studio
  • Episode 9 – Gameplay Programming in Video Games

How does the process look to get a feature into a game? How does a programmer work together with the design team? What does it take to make a character pet a dog? Natalia answers all of these questions and more, as we dig deeper into the world of gameplay programming.

PREFER PODCAST?

Tools & Links:

Learn 3D Engines:
Unity Learn
Learn How to Use Unreal Engine

2D Engines:
Cocos 2D

THE FIKA SESSIONS EPISODES

• Episode 1 – Narrative in Video Games
• Episode 2 – Level Design in Video Games
• Episode 3 – An Introduction to Programming
• Episode 4 – An Introduction to 3D Character Art
• Episode 5 – Audio in Video Games
• Episode 6 – What is Game Design in Video Games?
• Episode 7 – Shining a Light on Light in Video Games
• Episode 8 – Communications at a Game Studio

It’s been a year since we moved to our office Eden, and we’ve written about the great initiatives we’ve taken to make our office as sustainable as possible. But the building itself is only one part of the puzzle – every day our teams at Massive are working to reduce our carbon footprint through different solutions and sustainable ideas.

For the Procurement team at Massive, commitment to social and environmental responsibility is the backbone of their daily work. Before new suppliers are signed, they undergo a thorough CSR-analysis to ensure they contribute to social or environmental welfare, but also ensuring that their business is ethical and legitimate in every way.

BEING PART OF THE SOLUTION

“It is important for us to do business with trust and integrity, which means we take an active role in addressing social and environmental issues to be part of the solution to global challenges,” says Josefin Enertz, Procurement Coordinator. “Everyone has their own way of giving back, and we try our best to inspire our partners to take responsibility!”

For example, our electricity supplier is chosen to provide us with 100% renewable energy. Thanks to a program conducted by our coffee supplier, we give back to the coffee growers in Rwanda every time we have a cup of coffee, and our cleaning company are carefully coordinating their schedule to reduce unnecessary transportation, while only using environmentally certified products in their work.

Another vital milestone contributing to reduced emissions, while enabling a more efficient workflow, is the digitalization of paperwork. Since February, the Finance team at Massive is using a robotic solution, which replaces all our physical invoices with PDFs and archives them digitally. This process saves not only time and space, but most importantly between 8.000 to 10.000 paper sheets every year, which in turn contributes to decreased deforestation.

SUSTAINABILITY AT EDEN

Last but not least, our Office team is always looking to implement new sustainable solutions at Eden. Besides a substantial recycling program, comprising all our waste and most of our IT equipment, we work to minimize our daily electricity consumption. For example, the office is illuminated thanks to motion sensor LED lights, and a timer ensures that the ventilation system is only active during our core work hours. Furthermore, most windows in Eden are dressed in UV reflective sun film, which helps keep the office cold during warm summer days, consequently enabling a lessened usage of the AC system.

Our rooftop garden is not only a green oasis, but also helps purifying the air while regulating our indoor temperature and encouraging biodiversity in the city center.

These are some examples of what is done today, and many more projects and initiatives are in the pipeline. Keep an eye open to learn more about what green activities the future holds at Massive!

When Christian Seger joined Massive in 2004, Ground Control 2 had just launched. The tech team – which consisted of one person – had developed the core technology for the engine that powered the creation of Ground Control and was at the time mostly focused on things like graphics and rendering. And when that person decided to try out new opportunities, Christian saw himself take over and the team starting to grow.

“This was really when our journey started, I would say,” explains Christian. “The coming years, we started to expand our tech team with new recruits, which meant that I became a lead for the team.”

And then development on World In Conflict started. During the coming three years, the team kept growing, and after launch in 2007, they started working on a console version of the game.

World In Conflict was released in 2007 and the engine used was the root of what later became Snowdrop.

“We had gotten pretty far with it when our then owners Activision decided to let us go and we needed to find new owners – which we did in Ubisoft. I would say that the development of Snowdrop is a direct effect of us becoming part of Ubisoft,” says Christian.

So how did Snowdrop come to be, and what part did Ubisoft’s acquisition of Massive play?

Exploring concepts and opportunities

Christian explains that when Massive became part of the Ubisoft family in 2008, there was a period of time where the studio needed to integrate into the company, and during that time, the tech team could uninterruptedly work on pure R&D.

“This period without any active game projects meant that we could explore new concepts and opportunities, and the game engine was one of them. It also gave us time to make some valuable decisions regarding tools, like script, level, and object editors, to name a few,” says Cristian.

At this point in time, Snowdrop had yet to get its poetic name and was simply called “Tech 2”. It wasn’t until several years later that it was named after the symbolic flower.

When Christian and his team started developing what would later become the Snowdrop engine, all the tools that were used were written in different UI and programming systems.

“I believe we had about four or five UI systems at the same time, and they were all closely connected to PC. As you might guess, it was pretty messy, especially since every UI system had its own contact person and we couldn’t use it for development on any other platform than PC.”

The first decision the Massive tech team took was to create their own UI system.

The idea was that if we write our own UI system, we have full control over it, and we can also make it work for more platforms than PC.

“The idea was that if we write our own UI system, we have full control over it, and we can also make it work for more platforms than PC. For us, it was a highly strategic decision which also allowed more people to use the tool as you could also run it on consoles.”

The UI was called FaceMan, and Massive had two programmers working with it.

“It was pretty complicated,” says Christian. “We also decided to release different themes for the UI so the users could give it different looks. We obviously had a default look, but I know we also had a theme for Amiga, for example.”

Autonomy for the users

Another strategic decision that was made at this time was to gather all tools and game code in the same code solution. This meant that it became easier and faster to go from client to tool.

“And then we have the node system, which marked a significant change from previous systems. For example, in World In Conflict, it was up to C++ programmers to build everything. With the node system, people specialized in different disciplines, such as tech artists, could themselves build a lot of the mechanics in the game. The system is used by all aspects of the game, from animation to sound,” explains Christian.

Christian also tells us that it was important for both the team and Massive as a studio to adhere to a design philosophy focused on modular design. By doing so, different games developed in the engine can reuse tools and editors that previous projects have used. This means that projects can connect what they want and need and use Snowdrop in different ways when it comes to software development.

“It’s a bit like a car: there is a generic platform, with the engine and the wheels, but then you can put different bodies on top to change the design,” says Christian.

Additionally, fast iteration times have been a core principle for Snowdrop since its inception.

“The bigger the project, the bigger the codebase, the slower it is to work with it. For example, when we worked on another game engine, it could take up to 45 minutes to compile that engine. So, for Snowdrop, it was important to prioritize iteration so we could start and test the game quickly.”

It’s a bit like a car: there is a generic platform, with the engine and the wheels, but then you can put different bodies on top to change the design.

Snowdrop has had quite the journey – from a conceptual R&D project aimed to make development faster and easier to a renowned game engine used by projects such as The Division, South Park, The Settlers, and the recently announced Star Wars Project. And for Christian, it’s been both fascinating and interesting to be part of the journey.

“It’s been both interesting and fascinating to work with games not developed in our studio and try to predict that work for Snowdrop. In the beginning, we based most of our work on our experiences with World In Conflict and the challenges we faced there. But as we’ve grown, so has Snowdrop, and no project is like the other. But with Snowdrop’s UI, node graph system, modular design and fast iteration times, Snowdrop is in a really good position. We don’t want to guess, and we don’t have to anymore.”

What does it take to communicate to both employees and the outside world on a studio level? How do you become a communicator? What is the best way to get information out to the studio? Emilia also gives us practical tips on how to start writing.

And if you don’t like cream, how do you eat a traditional Swedish semla?

PREFER PODCAST?

Tools & Links:

Books
Dana Gioia & R.S. Gwynn, “The Art of the Short Story”

Online tools
Grammarly 

THE FIKA SESSIONS EPISODES

• Episode 1 – Narrative in Video Games
• Episode 2 – Level Design in Video Games
• Episode 3 – An Introduction to Programming
• Episode 4 – An Introduction to 3D Character Art
• Episode 5 – Audio in Video Games
• Episode 6 – What is Game Design in Video Games?
• Episode 7 – Shining a Light on Light in Video Games