2023-12-07 12:50:07
FOCUS – Two French video games are nominated for this international ceremony which takes place this Thursday in Los Angeles. Over the years, France has established itself as a major player in the sector, particularly on the independent scene.
Two additional nominations which prove France’s great form in terms of video games. Two French works, Chants of Sennaar et Bye, are nominated for the Game Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars in the world of gaming, whose ceremony will be broadcast this Thursday evening from Los Angeles (from 2 a.m. in France). They follow a host of French games named in previous years, such as A Plague Tale: Requiem, Sifu or Deathloop, and to Stray, which won the 2022 Best Independent Game award.
Presented in the category “Games for impact», which rewards titles carrying a message “positive» going beyond the shackles of video games, Chants of Sennaar et Bye will face four other games: A Space for the Unbound, adventure game tackling themes of depression and anxiety; Goodbye Volcano Highwhich recounts the anxieties of adolescents confronted with the end of the world; Terra Nil, a strategy game consisting of transforming a barren land into a thriving ecosystem; And Venbawhich explores themes of family, mourning and cultural heritage, by making us embody an Indian mother who immigrated to Canada.
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Hailed by critics
While it is obviously impossible to predict the results of the Game Awards, the winners of which are chosen by the vote of players and the international press, Bye et Chants of Sennaar are nevertheless among the favorites. The first, which puts us in the shoes of a little girl looking for her father in an archipelago inspired by New Caledonia, was praised for its graphic touch and its highlighting of New Caledonian culture.
The second, who collected a score of 85/100 on Metacritic (site which aggregates test scores from specialist journals around the world, Editor’s note), has been praised for its concept: this puzzle game, which places translation at the heart of its gameplaytransports the player to a Tower of Babel type structure, in which several populations reside in complete opposition.
While a conflict brews, the player will have to decode the languages - made up of ideograms – of each civilization, to climb the edifice and hope to reconcile the peoples.
French creativity
Both titles are considered indie games. In other words, low-budget works developed by (very) small teams. To find a place among the big guys, their creators had to stand out, particularly on the artistic aspect.
“Generally speaking, French games are noted for their creativity. It is no coincidence that there are French people in the artistic branches of all the major development studios. entrust to Figaro Julien Moya, co-founder with Thomas Panuel of Rundisc, the tiny studio of two people who developed Chants of Sennaar. «We have a lot of training, a lot of students who go to art schools. We have quite renowned art schools, which allows us to create very interesting and highly sought-after graphics”had also added to Franceinfo Pierre-Étienne Travers, artistic director of Shiro Games, behind the French strategy game Dune : Spice Wars.
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“To stand out, and because the two of us could not compete with studios employing thousands of people, we therefore opted from the start for a radical artistic direction,” continues Julien Moya. With its flat areas of saturated colors, Chants of Sennaar actually borrows part of its graphic style from the comic strips of the 1970s and 1980s, and in particular from Arzach, work by the French author Moebius. “We were also inspired by the Romanesque architecture of Toulouse and its surroundings. A decor that resembles us», the studio being domiciled in the town of Haute-Garonne, continues Julien Moya.
This desire to pay homage to France in its finest finery can also be found at Awaceb, a small New Caledonian studio behind Bye. The game is largely inspired by the overseas archipelago that a majority of the development team calls home. “We were inspired by Disney, Ghibli, traditional Kanak art… to present a sublimated vision of New Caledonia, how if we told it through the eyes of a child», advances with the Figaro Phil Crifo, co-founder of Awaceb.
And Bye does not reproduce the entire archipelago in detail, it captures its essence, and succeeds in transcribing some of its emblematic places, such as the Poule de Hienghène or the Roche Percée. It also introduces the player to its culture, its traditions, its legends – through traditional clothing to unlock or side quests to accomplish – but also its languages. So, Bye highlights Drehu, a Kanak language spoken by only around ten thousand people in the world, and in which the songs of the title are recorded. “I think the representation of this little-known culture was risky, but our approach aroused curiosity and interest, which greatly contributed to the game’s nomination for the Game Awards, an extremely prestigious ceremony“, says Phil Crifo.
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Universal messages
Beyond the quality of these two productions, such a nomination in the category “Games for Impact» is explained by the universal messages they carry. In addition to promoting overseas culture, Bye tells the story of a child prey to the kidnapping of her father, but also of a native exploring her origins, and confronted with the expansion of businesses and industries that have taken place in the fictional local capital of the game, Aëmoon.
«New Caledonia today is not just wild nature: the presence of man has also shaped the landscapes and it was important for us that this was represented in the game, hence the presence of towns and villages, factories“, says Phil Crifo to the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC). To denounce the horrors of industrialization, the developers added a light veil of pollution misting Aëmoon. And on the beaches surrounding the city, waste and rubbish litter the sand. These details generate a contrast inevitably pushing the player to flee the urban areas of the game, to indulge in climbing or diving activities only available in the large expanses of Bye.
Chants of Sennaar, for its part, wishes to convey a discourse of tolerance. “Without falling into eccentricity or naivety, the message of our game is the following: that wars and conflicts are mainly the result of misunderstandings, whether religious or political.», affirms Figaro Julien Moya. «Throughout the game and meetings with different peoples, we discover that the civilizations of Chants of Sennaar are in reality very similar, and seek to achieve the same objective, but by distinct means.», continues the co-founder of Rundisc.
By giving the main character the role of interpreter, Chants of Sennaar intends to place the player in the shoes of others, so that they adopt their vision of the world, at least temporarily. A message that could hit the mark at the Game Awards, especially given the current global context.
In Chants of Sennaar, the player must decode various languages, made up of ideograms. To do this, he has a notebook in which concepts and objects that he encounters throughout the adventure are drawn. Here, the player must associate the ideogram corresponding to the action of “climb” (on the left) and that meaning “escape” (bottom right). Rundisc
State support
Whether they are sacred or not, these two games are the symbol of a French sector in great shape and above all supported by the State. Beyond the very good statistics for the video game market in France (5.5 billion euros in turnover in 2022), French studios can count on several aid schemes, such as the video game credit. video game tax (CIJV), from which the creators of Chants of Sennaar. This measure, “which aims to preserve and increase the productivity of video game companies” as the government assurescan benefit all developers whose future game exceeds 100,000 euros of development.
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«This is very practical, because it allows us to recover part of the taxes we pay», specifies Julien Moya. The tax credit is thus equal to 30% of total production expenses, which includes developers’ salaries or office rent, in particular. Other possible French aid, from which Rundisc, Awaceb but also Sloclap, developer of the kung-fu game, benefited Sifu which was nominated last year for the Game Awards: the video game aid fund (FAJV), managed by the CNC since 2021. A subsidy which can go up to several thousand euros from the first months of development .
«The good form of French video games can also be explained by the pragmatism of our publishers, like Focus (which ensures the publication and distribution of Chants of Sennaar, Editor’s note)which make more realistic investments”, continues Julien Moya. He also points out the independence of “major players in French video games, who remain French» despite the temptations. The industry trend is indeed towards “consolidation»: foreign giants, such as Tencent, NetEase, Sony and Microsoft, have increased mergers and acquisitions in recent years, buying dozens of studios and licenses. “French publishers like Ubisoft or Focus do everything to remain French and independent, and that’s a good thing, because that’s what allows us to avoid layoffs as much as possible.»
Because behind the buyout announcements, the global video game industry is facing a wave of job cuts. Since the beginning of 2023, the website videogamelayoffs.com has counted no less than 9,000 layoffs around the world, mainly in large companies, such as Unity, Epic or Embracer. An epidemic from which, for the moment, French studios have generally escaped.
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