Singapore’s Fusionopolis is a spectacularly innovative cluster of futuristic temples dedicated to creativity: a state-of-the-art infocomms and media hub. Many of its tenants subscribe to its vision of a digital future built on the convergence of info-communications and new media.

Ubisoft is one such tenant. The third largest distributor of video games in Europe, the French company chose Singapore as the base for its 18th development studio.

Olivier de Rotalier, its Managing Director, says, “We wanted to have some presence in Southeast Asia and saw that Singapore had a strong commitment to developing the video game industry. Besides that, we needed to hire talent and Singapore is very attractive for people from Asia and the rest of the world. That’s where Singapore stands out.”

Ubisoft’s Singapore studio employs 140 game developers, production and general administration personnel. And there are plans to ramp up the team to 300 by 2013.

The expansion will make the studio the region’s largest dedicated games developer – a major coup for Singapore. “We have been here for only two years, and the experience is well above our expectation. We have big hopes for what will be coming out of the Singapore studio,” de Rotalier adds.

The studio’s focus is on creating and developing high-profile game titles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled was the first game produced independently by the Singapore studio.

“It was number one in the charts for August 2009,” says de Rotalier.

More recently, its core team released the much anticipated Assassin’s Creed 2 and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.

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De Rotalier enthuses, “I’m very impressed with the dedication of the Singapore team. They want to be involved in high-quality production and have the self-discipline to attain this. It’s very promising.”

Ubisoft is not the only company attracted by Singapore’s increasingly vibrant digital media landscape and the quality of its creative talent. Other major game studios, such as Double Negative Visual Effects, one of Europe’s largest providers of visual effects for films, are already among the active players here.

Double Negative Visual Effects was set up in Singapore last year and worked with Industrial Light & Magic, part of Lucasfilm, for the Hollywood blockbuster, Iron Man 2. Double Negative Visual Effects’ founder and Managing Director, Alex Hope says, “Singapore offers a unique combination of rich creative talent, plus an education system focused on enhancing the skills of people coming into the industry.”

Singapore traditionally excels in the hard sciences and process-driven operations. Some of its detractors have dismissed it as a creative economy. De Rotalier begs to differ. “When you look at the infrastructure of the country, how it’s built, you cannot think it’s not creative. The country itself is a big sign of creativity,” he says.

And going by the strong performance of the Ubisoft team in Singapore, de Rotalier is “very optimistic” about the ability of Singapore to stay ahead in the brave new world of digital media.

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