Before my trip to the Tokyo Game Show, I was able to hear a story about an unusual game company. It was a story about a game company headed by a Frenchman. It may seem like a big deal in the global era, but the following story stimulated my interest in many ways. As a new development company, most of the employees were made up of multinational foreigners, not Japanese.
The name of the game company we visited this time is Infinity Vector. If this is your first mission, you might recognize this game. This is the company that developed ‘Asolute Racing’, which is famous for its high quality among mobile racing games. Why did French CEO Julien Mairat establish a company in Japan? Is it because it is a gaming powerhouse? We went to Shibuya headquarters to hear why and what the future holds for Infiniti Vector.
▲ Infiniti Vector CEO Julien Mairat
Q. First, please briefly introduce yourself.
= My name is Julien Marierat, CEO of Infinity Vector. He has been in Japan for over 10 years and previously had several jobs. Before founding Infiniti Vector, he started a small interior design company, and as you can see, he failed once (laughs). After that, he worked in web design for about 4 years, but he also liked games so much that he joined a game company with the desire to create games.
It was fun working at the game company I ended up working at, but there were some parts that didn’t fit. What should I say? I guess it felt like I wasn’t able to fully utilize my potential. It must have been around that time. I thought it would be better to make my own game. Personally, I really like racing games like the Gran Turismo series, so I really wanted to make a game like this someday, and I wanted to do it before it was too late.
While working at the company, I developed a prototype for about 4 years. On weekdays, I worked at work, and on holidays like Saturdays and Sundays, I made my own games at home. When I think about it now, it was something that changed my life, but I was young at the time, and even that was fun.
▲ ‘Asolute Racing’ was born from the desire to create my own game.
However, there are many limitations to doing it alone. Especially in the case of racing games, graphics and physics engines are very important, so there was a need to further improve these areas. At that time, the same company called it Lunch Pot. I had a colleague at lunch with me named Joshua, and I showed him the prototype and asked him if he wanted to build it together. I am currently working as a co-founder, and with that friend coming, the quality of the game has really improved. From the prototype, the framework of a proper game was established.
Then, I finally completed and released the game, and I remember that at that time, the monthly sales were as much as the company’s salary. Joshua and I were quite surprised when we saw that, and that’s when we decided to found Infinity Vector. There were some things that didn’t fit the Japanese company style in many ways, so I suggested to Joshua that we should come together and start a company, and he said it was good this time too, so that’s how we founded the company.
Q. Did you originally major in game development?
= My major is design, but I also play music as a hobby. As a side note, we also created the BGM for our game ourselves.
Q. You said it was fun, but it must not have been easy to develop while working at the company.
= I remember there was nothing difficult or difficult at the time. However, obtaining a single car license was not easy. This is true for sports games, but also for car games, there is a world of difference between having players and vehicle licenses and not. In the beginning, I couldn’t use it because I didn’t have a license, but it was necessary to improve the quality of the game.
But you have to know how to do it (laughs). I just blindly inquired with car companies, but fortunately Nissan, Mitsubishi, Honda, etc. gave me permission to license it, so I was able to include it in the game. From then on, I think it was easy. As the number of licenses increased, other companies began to allow them, and thanks to this, many well-known automobile companies such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz are now licensed.
Q. I wonder if Korean cars are also included.
= It’s not there yet, but personally, I really want to include it for the sake of Korean fans. Among them, there is one thing in particular that I want to include: Hyundai’s concept car Vision 74. Personally, I think it is a very attractive car with a design that reminds me of Drojan.
Q. Is there a special reason you came to Japan?
= I’m probably similar to other people, but I’ve liked games since I was young, especially Japanese games. I enjoyed games from Capcom, Square Enix, and Konami. Of course, I also liked comics. I especially liked Dragon Ball, so naturally I wanted to go to Japan, the country that created such things. At first, I came here for a trip, but as I wandered around, I realized that there was something interesting about Japan. I think it was from then on. I wanted to live here, so I found a job and settled down.
However, this is not the reason for establishing a company in Japan. The establishment of a company can be said to have the exact opposite causal relationship. As I mentioned earlier, I launched ‘Asolute Racing’ while working in parallel with my company work, and it was successful, so it was a natural case to establish it.
Q. There are many cases where a game’s title or mission has its own meaning. What does Infinity Vector mean?
= In racing games, realistic graphics and physics engines are fundamentally important. So, as I was thinking about physics engines and physics, something called vector came to mind. However, when I tried to add just the vector, I felt a bit bored, so I added infinity to make it look more familiar, so it became an infinity vector (laughter). I tried thinking about other things, but this one was the best because it tasted good. And there is also a practical reason. It had to be unbranded, but fortunately Infinity Vector doesn’t have a domain or trademark, so I decided to go with this.
Q. How many employees do you currently have? Personally, it feels somewhat foreign, but are there any Japanese people?
= Currently, there are 17 people working here, and their nationalities range from France, the United States, Korea, Morocco, China, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. You could say it’s a multinational company (laughter). Now, you could say that this is a characteristic of our company, but to be honest, recruiting was the hardest part.
Since Joshua and I are both foreigners, it may have been difficult to find Japanese developers. And even if they did find a job, they often ended up not being able to adapt to the company because they spoke in English in the beginning. So, on the contrary, we started hiring mainly foreigners working in Japan, and now it seems that this has become a characteristic of Infinity Vector and its own culture. As a side note, I mainly use Japanese now.
Q. If employees were of different nationalities, it would be difficult to communicate or cause disruption to work. Was there anything like that?
= There was no such thing. In terms of communication, since everyone came to Japan to work, we were able to communicate well in Japanese, and in a sense, everyone was free to change their thoughts, which made development efficient. I guess I should say that there are no stereotypes. I guess you could say my thoughts are flexible.
▲ “I think that the fact that our employees are multinational is, in a way, a culture and characteristic of Infinity Vector.”
Q. You said you like racing games. What games have you been playing most recently?
= Now that I am working as a company representative and developer, I cannot enjoy games as much as I used to. Isn’t it more fun to make games now than to enjoy them? However, if there is a game that I play regularly, I really like StarCraft 2 and I am still playing it to this day.
Q. I remember being surprised by the graphics to the point where I wondered if this was really a game made with Unity, but I’m curious about the secret to the quality.
= This was the part I paid most attention to while developing ‘Asolute Racing’. The basic package provided by Unity had clear limitations. And the basic package was something everyone used, so it couldn’t be said to be a differentiator. So I wondered how I could improve the quality, and in the end I thought the only answer was shaders.
The good news is that I already knew a bit about shaders. I worked in the graphics department at a previous game company, and although I couldn’t say I was the best in the company, I had the pride that I was as good as anyone else when it came to shaders. If you know shaders well, you can customize them as much as you want, so from then on, I studied shaders more, and I think the self-created shader that was created in that way can be said to be the secret to the quality of ‘Asolute Racing’.
▲ The secret to the quality of ‘Asolute Racing’ is its self-developed shader.
Q. When it comes to graphics, there is still a perception that it is unreal. What do you think about this?
= I see it positively, but I have no intention of changing it right away. Because Unity has its own strengths. In particular, the fact that anyone can easily develop it is a big advantage, which is why I chose Unity when creating the prototype. Anyway, I may change to Unreal in my next project, but I think I need to consider the associated costs. Changing a familiar engine is a big problem. So, I think it can be said that so far, I am only looking into it a little more personally.
And although ‘Asolute Racing’ is famous as a racing game with excellent graphics, I do not think that graphics are everything to the game. Rather, it should be said that it is the fun of the game. You think that’s the most important thing, so you’re switching to Unreal simply because of the graphics? I try not to do that.
Q. Six years have passed since the launch of ‘Asolute Racing’. Is it because it is a successful racing game? I think my next project will also be a racing game.
= The new game currently scheduled for global release is also a racing game. However, it is not ‘Asolute Racing 2’. It is a type of racing management game with a genre called drag racing. Customizing cars is simple at its core, but it doesn’t miss out on the fun that’s unique to the racing genre.
Meanwhile, there is a strong desire for various genres and new works within the company. I have a friend who is a Korean employee, and he even says he wants to create a different genre. And this is the same for me too. We are working on several projects internally, and our ultimate goal is to become a beloved gaming company that releases games of various genres like Capcom or Sega.
Q. Speaking of various genres, genres like RPG or action adventure come to mind. As the volume of the game needs to be large, the size of the development team seems to require a long development period. It will not be an easy challenge.
= We aim to reduce the risk in that area. The bigger the company and the longer the development period for the game, the greater the risk. This happened to me at a previous company. A game that had been in development for 2-3 years was released, but sales were not as high as expected, so the service was terminated after 6 months. I remember feeling a little sad watching that. We all worked hard for over 2 years, but they abandoned it after 6 months due to low sales. I felt sorry for the employees who created it. Perhaps because of my memories of that time, I decided not to make our game like that.
Of course, we are still going through the process of finding this answer, but our immediate task is to shorten the development period to about one year and establish a process that can be ok even if it is medium or simple.
Q. In order to reduce the development period to about one year, it seems like we need some groundbreaking ideas.
= That’s not necessarily true. In the case of systems other than games, there are many parts that are commonly used. Making it every time would be cumbersome and time consuming. I think that if we make that part into a kind of tool, the time required for full-scale game development can be greatly reduced.
Q. Speaking of ‘Assolute Racing 2’, do you have any plans to release it on console?
= I’m thinking about it. Personally, I was very upset because there were still many shortcomings compared to AAA racing games, but if I make a sequel, I plan to improve the quality even more. And if that happens, we may consider releasing it on other platforms as well.
Q. ‘Asolute Racing’ seems to be targeting North America and Europe. Are there any plans to develop a new game targeting Asian countries such as Japan or Korea?
= Of course, I want to make it huge. In the past, it was difficult because the scale was small, but now that the company has grown, I think it is possible. I can’t reveal the details here, but there are actually projects under development, so I hope you’ll show a lot of interest.
Q. There are many cases where game companies that used to make PC or console single package games are making mobile games, but there seems to be less opposition. There are places that try it sometimes, but should I call it know-how? I’ve seen many cases where such things are lacking. What do you think about this?
= In the end, I think what matters is what the core of the game is. For example, graphics would be a representative example, but a game with good graphics does not necessarily mean that it is a fun game. In fact, improving graphic quality is not that difficult. Taking ‘Asolute Racing’ as an example, the graphics have been adjusted for mobile use, so you can easily increase the quality by sliding options. It may not be as good as a AAA racing game, but it can be of higher quality. But that doesn’t make the game any more fun. Graphics are important, but they do not in themselves make the game more fun.
Personally, when I look at AAA game companies these days, they seem to focus too much on graphics. In fact, if you look at the user ratings, there are many games that are flashy but not fun. Looking at that, games from the PS2 era were very fun, but these days, I sometimes wonder why that is so. I think it’s because there’s nothing better than graphics to attract attention, but at this point, I think we need to look back at the core, not just the graphics.
On the one hand, it is also our goal. The graphics may be lacking compared to other games, but I am confident that the fun will be on par with major game companies.
▲ “Graphics are an important factor, but ultimately the game must be fun.”
Q. Lastly, please say a word to Korean ‘Assolute Racing’ fans.
= As mentioned earlier, we are preparing to introduce Korean cars. We ask for your continued interest in ‘Assolute Racing’. As a side note, Infiniti Vector is still recruiting staff. If there are any Korean developers working in Japan who would like to work together, I would definitely like them to join us. thank you
