Studio is in hiring mode and creating a scholarship for students in the School of Digital Arts, Animation and Design.
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One of Montreal’s newest video game studios officially opened its downtown offices on Thursday and said it was already looking for a new home.
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Haven Interactive Studios, the brainchild of industry veteran Jade Raymond and about two dozen former Google game creators, on Thursday invited media representatives to show off its open-concept offices at Place Ville Marie and discuss its prospects as one of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s 19 development centers. Playstation-console.
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Its more than 100 employees will eventually trade their digs for a bigger place, said Raymond, the CEO who sold the startup to Sony last year, just 12 months after going freelance. Haven currently sublets the space from Montreal creative agency Sid Lee.
“We’re working on another space that will be our longer-term home,” Raymond said in an interview Thursday. “We owe a big thank you to Sid Lee for letting us use their space. When we built our business during the pandemic, we had no idea how we were going to use the place. It would have been very difficult to design our space and know that. Now that we’re working together, we can see what’s working and how people are actually using the desktop.
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Raymond declined to give details on when the move might take place or how much space Haven will need.
“We have nothing to announce at this time,” she said.
Haven’s March 2021 unveiling came roughly six weeks after Google announced Raymond’s departure and closure of its Stadia Games and Entertainment division which was dedicated to creating exclusive games – in direct competition with PlayStation and Xbox from Microsoft. A year later, Sony acquired Haven for an undisclosed sum.
A McGill computer science graduate, Raymond first made a name for herself during a decade at Ubisoft Entertainment, where she helped create the popular Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs franchises. She also founded the French company’s Toronto studio, which developed titles such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist under her direction.
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Haven’s first project for PlayStation will be a multiplayer game that Sony described in March as a live-action experience “built on a systemic, evolving world of freedom, thrill and play.”
Raymond was tight-lipped Thursday about the concept or timing of the game’s release, saying, “It’s the start. What’s great about Sony and PlayStation is their focus on quality. This is one of the reasons we were thrilled to join their family. We will have the time we need to play an excellent game.
When asked if it could take years rather than months, she replied, “Yes.”
Haven’s first game will leverage machine learning to create a better experience for players, Raymond said.
More than 30% of Haven’s team focuses on advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud-based development tools, Raymond said. One of the company’s newest recruits, Nasir Khalid, a master’s student in computer science from Concordia University, is focusing on the application of deep learning to three-dimensional geometry.
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“Obviously, we create 3D games. Until now, machine learning has mainly been used to generate 2D images,” Raymond said. “We have some of the best artists in the industry in our studio. We have a character artist who makes amazing faces. It’s a job that takes him so much time. So what we really want to see is how can we speed up what it does so that we can deliver something more. We believe we can create these tools that amplify the creativity of our team.
Separately, Haven said Thursday that he was creating a scholarship for students in the School of Computational Arts, Animation and Design and launching a programmer internship program that will begin accepting students in January. Five positions will be offered.
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The studio is in rental mode. Including internships, Haven’s website displays 17 currently open positions in areas including animation, information technology management, software development, and machine learning research.
“We didn’t call the Haven studio by accident,” Raymond said. “We really wanted this name because we have this vision of building a studio that is a haven for people, where people can really feel like they can do their best.”
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