UDC 2023: 6 speakers from Ubisoft Annecy share their impressions with us

The Ubisoft Developers Conference (UDC) is a must-attend event of the year for Ubisoft's production teams. The event, which takes place in Montreal, is broadcast live and the conferences are then available in REPLAY for our employees.

This year, the UDC took place from February 7 to 10 and 6 experts from our studio participated as both speakers and participants. This was an opportunity for them to explain to us in an interview their impressions of this international internal event.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN IN A FEW WORDS THE UDC AND ITS OBJECTIVES ?

C.Farnier: Ubisoft is a very large company working on various subjects with different approaches. The UDC is an opportunity to present to other Ubisoft members the approach we have chosen to answer a problem, to receive feedback and to learn about their work and approach.

F.Maestre confirms: the UDC is a hub for sharing knowledge and experience, but also an opportunity to meet each other. This is a real strength because we are generally all in the "scope" of our projects, the UDC allows us to reduce this and to meet people from all backgrounds and professions.

G. Blanc: Knowing what is being done at Ubi and how other teams are solving their problems is very difficult when you are in your project on a daily basis. The UDC is an incredible opportunity to share what you have discovered, understood or delivered during the year, and to be inspired in return by the work of others.

WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS EDITION AS A SPEAKER?

C.Farnier: As a data scientist I'm probably biased but I'm still surprised by the limited use of data to try to improve the understanding and therefore the quality of video games at Ubisoft. So the UDC was a great opportunity to share this surprise and what we have learned over the past year about our project.

S.Blineau: After working for several months on a fundamental change in network operations, my team and I thought it would be interesting to share our experience with the rest of Ubisoft. The ultimate hope was to simplify the life of other programmers who might encounter the same constraints on their project.

G. Blanc: The R&D work on XDefiant's bots had the objective of exploring and demystifying a technology that is not very accessible to production teams. Sharing our learnings at the Ubi level was an important and logical deliverable of this project. It's all the more easy to say that I'm confident of the message delivered and very proud of how far the team has come ? !

COULD YOU SHARE WITH US YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE EVENT, YOUR CONFERENCE AND YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH YOUR PEERS?

F.Maestre: We did our online presentation for this year without any hassle, and from the experience of several face-to-face UDC participations; everything is very always well prepared and very informative.  As a speaker, I was impressed by the professionalism of the organization team and the friendliness of the audience on site. Delivering a presentation is a stressful exercise (let's not hide it), they knew how to accompany us and put us in confidence.

C.Farnier: For me, who arrived relatively recently, it allowed me to discover new projects and to identify experts on specific subjects. By attending the face-to-face conferences, I was able to ask questions directly to explore certain topics and see if bridges could be built, especially on the project I am working on. Being in Montreal also gave me the opportunity to meet for the first time colleagues from certain teams with whom I had previously only had the opportunity to discuss through Teams.

S.Blineau: It was the first time I had traveled to a Ubisoft-wide event and I enjoyed meeting new people, as well as enjoying the inspiring and thought-provoking keynotes. It was a great time to connect with both my colleagues in Annecy and the people in Montreal. Despite the very positive feeling of this event I regret the few people who were present on site. Having more people would have facilitated the integration and the opening of the dialogue. Opinion shared by V. Vu Van who adds: it was really enriching, especially for a junior to be able to understand and interact with people from the ubi ecosystem (I don't think I would have had other opportunities to make these meetings otherwise!).

S. Lafoutry: This is the second time I've been to the udc (the first was several years ago). I found the talks more honest, with decs (finally) daring to say and show when they were wrong. Learning at least as important as the successes in my opinion, in terms of experience. The SVP is a place of sharing, not competition between teams. I found this change very positive! And like Suliac, the lack of people present at the event is a shame. The discussions after the talks are almost as important in terms of exchange!

AS A PARTICIPANT, WHAT DID YOU APPRECIATE THE MOST?

C.Farnier: Attending the conference in person is a very different atmosphere compared to sitting behind a PC because a conference is not just about presentations. Again, it's a great opportunity to build a network. and discuss F. Maestre adds: these are very rich moments, just like a GDC.

S.Blineau: As a participant I took the time to go and see conferences that were outside my "usual" field of knowledge. Thanks to this, I was able to open up to new solutions/technologies and it was very enriching, much more so than at a distance where we tend to leave our comfort zone less.

V. Vu Van : The thing that impressed me the most was the overall benevolence of all the participants, a lot of positivity and encouragement between all the speakers as well as the members of the organization, and it helped to see quality presentations!

WHAT WILL YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THIS EVENT?

F.Maestre: More and more topics dealing with concrete implementations of machine learning / AI and very interesting feedbacks. The integrations are far from being as direct but it is promising.

C. Farnier: The notions of data-informed and data-driven came up several times during the conference, on various subjects (production process, testing, design, gameplay, etc.). As a data scientist, I'm very happy about this and I'm waiting to see the content of the next edition. This edition also allowed me to gain visibility on all internal projects.

S.Blineau: I agree with Christian, many projects at Ubisoft are facing the same issues and collaboration seems more important than ever!

WHAT'S NEXT?

F.Maestre: We have been contacted and asked to integrate what we have created into other projects, so the knowledge sharing effect has played its role perfectly. Next objective, sharing as a community module :)

C.Farnier: In relation to the point mentioned before, I would like to find out how to promote exchanges between the members of our studio because I am convinced that knowledge sharing would allow us to gain in efficiency. As for the project we presented, we will of course continue our work, which will hopefully allow the production to deliver an even better gaming experience.

S.Blineau: In the short term the idea would be to properly finalize the technology we will create on our project and solidify it. In the longer term, I hope that these newly created or strengthened relationships can lead to collaborative elements to take advantage of the size and expertise of Ubisoft. This is confirmed by S. Lafoutry.

V. Vu Van: I hope our initiative can inspire or motivate people to innovate and try new things.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THESE ANSWERS AND CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!