Virtuos' Jake DiGennaro discusses the past and future of co-development
The practice of co-development—contracting external studios to provide labor assistance on game production—is hardly a new practice for the video game business. But in the last couple of years, its impact has drastically grown alongside the size and complexity of triple-A games in the industry.
Companies like Sony and Microsoft are now acquiring some of the studios they previously outsourced co-development work to, and co-development companies like Keywords and Virtuos themselves are no longer as hidden from the public eye.
At Virtuos, chief revenue officer Jake DiGennaro has watched the growth of co-development since his early days with the company. He joined the studio as a business development manager, and now serves as its chief revenue officer.
At this pivotal moment for game production and the use of co-development, DiGennaro was able to provide a look back at what's made Virtuos a successful partner in the industry—and give a look forward at what opportunities await the company in the future.
DiGennaro's rise through the ranks of Virtuos neatly parallels the company's journey from a small operation set up by former Ubisoft exec Gilles Langourieux to the multinational juggernaut it is today.
Looking back on the company's growth, DiGennaro noted that Langourieux (who helped set up some overseas support studios for Ubisoft including Ubisoft Shanghai) saw that the scope and scale of triple-A game development was growing beyond the company's capabilities.
"On the eve of the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, he saw this big, very sophisticated production studio[...] which was way ahead of everybody in terms of multisite development, and they were struggling to fill their games with the volume of content needed to meet market
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