Taking the road less traveled, Annu decided to dedicate her life to making great video games. Right from her education phase, her fascination with picking up a controller and transporting oneself to another dimension has driven her towards making a career in the video game industry. We spoke to Annu and got her personal insights; read on to know more about the life of a Production Director at Ubisoft Pune.
Can you take us on a brief journey through your career in the gaming industry and how you navigated to where you are today?
I have always been fascinated by games and how they were made. Also, I was not very excited to get into a career path that was then considered mainstream. So, graduating from college, when I found out that there is an industry around games, I quickly took the opportunity. The gaming industry back then was extremely new in India – for most folks it was a stopgap until you get a ‘real job’ and very few saw it as a career. I’d say it was my passion for games that made me stick to this industry as I saw that it was something that I truly am passionate about. I started my journey as a QC tester back in 2008 and grew through the ranks to currently head the production for Ubisoft Pune. It’s also fulfilling that I’ve seen both the QC and Production side of game development and gives me a holistic picture when I’m working on games. Overall, it’s been a great journey.
Can you describe what a Production Director typically does and what game production comprises of?
Every day feels new in video game production and always interesting. Having said that, the best way to compartmentalize a day in the life of a Production Director is people management and process management. You know you must make great games; you know you have to be done on time and at good quality. So as a production director, you have to make sure all the definitions of tasks are clear from start to finish. We help producers for different games with a well-laid path. The path has multiple milestones that they have to reach which in turn helps them grow. This in turn helps the team under them grow as well. For the delivery of excellent games, one also has to liaise with other studios and our co-development partners, ensuring that one team, one mindset that we strive for.
We work with multiple time zones, so you must ensure that the path laid also maintains a healthy work-life balance for everyone. Connecting, interacting, and creating is a part and parcel of the everyday journey of a production director. Amidst this fast-paced culture, I love to go home and play games that I didn’t work on! Get the thrill of it and understand new perspectives in game development simultaneously. And when I really have to unwind, I go through a digital detox with phones and devices aside which gives my mind a much-needed refresher to perform the functions of a production director again the next day.
With art, animation, programming, designing, and many more differing functions in game development, how do you bring the balance between remote working and working from the studio in this new age of hybrid work culture?
I think in this new age of hybrid work culture, we’ve all found that mantra. Functions may be different but we’re all working together towards the same game. Our teams are interlinked such that there is no way to work in silos, which we discourage. Teams come together at least twice a week at the studio and lead project tasks together. We also ensure that we adhere to our co-dev model of working, keeping other studios in the loop as well. Far Cry 5 is a great example where we worked with the Canadian teams across time zones ensuring constant communication. There are arrangements and flexibility given to those working late and at a stretch. We have internal tools that facilitate this well and keep track of projects across teams, verticals, projects, and time zones.
Ubisoft Pune celebrated 15 years earlier this year. What would be your fondest memory of working at Ubisoft?
It’s hard to choose any one day for my fondest memory because almost every day I’m creating one. When I joined Ubisoft, I was very young, and I have grown during my time here to the woman I have become. It has been my life’s work so far creating great games, memories, events to remember and so much more! I remember seeing a time when Ubisoft was a team of merely 50 members and today, we’re standing tall at more than 1000. My time during QC while finding different bugs and taking them on was memorable. Today my time in production is equally memorable with new milestones being achieved every day.
A wise gamer once said game development is more complex than rocket science in some instances. How do you ensure a smooth flow of production stages and iron out any turbulence on the flight from prototype to going gold?
One of the things that makes game development tough is that projects within projects are interdependent. When one thing changes, it automatically has a domino effect on other aspects during production. This demands game developers to be very agile in their ways of working to ensure that all the strings are pulled right to steer the production process in the right direction. We must be versatile and dynamic in our approach. Smooth flows are crucial to different stages of production which have been created at Ubisoft. Pre-production, production, and live ops each have their own individual milestones but are affected by the flow of each other. The more agile each of them is, the better the flight towards our goal.
Over the years, we’ve seen an increase in the representation of women working in video games, and the industry continues to make efforts to be more inclusive. What are your thoughts on this industry shift, and can you cite some examples from personal experience?
About 15 years back, it was almost difficult to see women in tech-heavy positions whether it was in gaming or IT. Today, we can see clear diversity in almost every facet of game development – be it creative or tech. Women are at the forefront of programming, art, animation, VFX, and almost every department imaginable. Women are taking the lead on projects, code development, project management, QC, and all departments at Ubisoft. We promote inclusivity, encourage innovation, and have strong mentoring for women in gaming at Ubisoft. With women taking up gaming as a hobby and as a choice of career, we are breaking the notion that gaming is a male-dominated sector. The women-to-men ratio at Ubisoft has increased a lot over the last 15 years at Ubisoft and we’ve promoted women’s participation in gaming through hiring campaigns, industry talks, and campus interactions, especially at IT, and encouraged the next generation of women to discover the gaming industry. The gaming world has become a great place for women who want to break away from traditional career paths to take the road less traveled to create something of their own.