How does the new Don’t Nod become a pioneer in the industry?

Don’t Nod has been a booming video game studio since its inception. The studio’s relatively short life didn’t begin until 2008, but its first game, Remember Me, didn’t see the light of day until 2013. Don’t Nod began with Life Is Strange in 2015, leaning towards its narrative niche. carved since then.

But now that’s all changed as Don’t Nod has recently embarked on major rebranding efforts, opened new studios, moved into new offices, and become a publisher rather than just a developer. We had the chance to catch up with Sophie Filip (Head of Marketing for Don’t Nod) and Xavier Spinat (Head of Editing) to find out what’s going on at the studio and where he plans to go from here.

“We started hiring our marketing and communications team in 2019 following our goals of being both a publisher and a development studio,” Filip said when asked how the rebranding had taken place. venue. “I realized very quickly that what conveyed the Don’t Nod brand image made sense to our players, but sometimes the meaning of the name also got lost. Moreover, we had several press and business meetings where people did not know how to pronounce our name when “DONTNOD” was written.

According to Filip, the company thought its previous logo had too much of a sci-fi theme, in keeping with when Remember Me launched nearly a decade ago, but that doesn’t make much sense today. “It became clear that we were defined by our storytelling expertise,” says Filip. “And in the fact that we don’t ‘nod to each other’s rhythm’. We create games that tell a unique and meaningful story with strong art direction and recognizable characters, which are some of the pillars of our editorial vision.

The studio’s rebranding and editorial vision are consistent in that they don’t want to be overlooked; Filip says he wants to give creative freedom to different teams around the world to create innovative and meaningful experiences for players.

Don’t Nod is also one of the first studios to offer its employees flexible remote working, allowing them to come to their office at their convenience – 87% of the workforce voted. “What’s great about our organization is that everyone is free to choose their own way of working,” says Filip. Some of our employees feel that working from home gives them more flexibility to manage their work-life balance and even travel outside of major cities to achieve their personal ideals. He says fellow employees enjoy the socialization and connection that their day-to-day office work provides.

“Any company that wants to provide this flexibility needs to trust its employees and change the way they communicate and share within the team, and regularly solicit employee opinions, feedback and ideas,” continues Filip. “For example, we regularly give company-wide internal showcases of all of our upcoming projects that create lively conversations and exchanges of ideas between people who don’t normally work together, and often create a great sense of membership. Internally, it’s usually a big problem.”

But publisher Xavier Spinat says this way of working also has its downsides. “There are times when distance remains a real barrier and people need to come together in the same space to do their job well,” he says. “It helps improve communication, but it also avoids misunderstandings about things like lighting or color, for some art journals seeing the same screen instead of sharing video streams over the internet.”

Spinat points out that while the trust built among Don’t Nod veterans before the pandemic is helping to smooth out some of the nuances of working from home, it takes new hires longer to catch up with the business. We are trying to gradually create new opportunities for the team to meet even if they are no longer sitting at a table on the production floor every day, but it will take a few iterations to catch up.

Don’t Nod’s new impetus to publish was a natural evolution of his relationship with fans. “When our fans think of our creations, they often contact us as developers rather than publishing teams,” explains Spinat. “It led us to believe that it was a logical step for us to start broadcasting and making that direct connection with our players.”

But just because the studio is now a broadcaster doesn’t mean we’re going to see loads of random titles from them. Instead, Don’t Nod takes a more organized approach to the people they work with. “We don’t want to partner with just one developer,” he says. “It should be appropriate in terms of values ​​and the concept they’ve developed should be a welcome addition to the portfolio of games we’re building.”

Spinat says that because Don’t Nod is a developer first and foremost, it helps them understand the needs of other developers when it comes to publishing their games. “We know the challenges of development very well because they happen every day in our team. For us, signing a project isn’t just about hitting a business goal or hitting a release schedule, it’s more about joining forces to form a creative partnership and deliver a message to the right audience.

With all the changes happening in the studio, how do they see their future once things calm down? “Don’t be a snap, because the entire video game industry is both stable and on the move,” says Spinat. “Since moving into new offices, we’ve been adhering to our new work-from-home guidelines, we have a clear editorial vision, a new brand identity… And we have a strong development portfolio that will keep us busy for at least two years. . . or three years.

“We are on the move because the world is always full of new stories to tell, new seldom-discovered perspectives, new talents to discover, new partnerships to develop. As a publisher, we have opened a new page for our teams and our partners.

“The future of Don’t Nod can only be written by penetrating into these new territories.”