Meet the talent behind The Tiny Digital Factory, in a series of interviews.
Yona is a Gameplay Developer at The Tiny Digital Factory. He’s responsible for developing the mechanics that game designers want to make playable. Yona is a sort of toolbox, helping to make production ideas work, while preserving the technical integrity of the project.
Yes, I play a lot of video games! Mainly management and simulation games. These can be city builders like City Skyline, RTS (Real-time strategy) games like Total War, or management games such as Frostpunk and Ixion.
Generally speaking, I like games where I have time to think and work out my strategy.
I love Lyon, I grew up here and I’m very happy to have come back to work here for about 2 years. I’ve moved around a lot, particularly to Saint-Etienne, Paris, Canada… so I’ve been able to see a lot of different things, but I really like it here.
I was working in Paris on Serious Games (games with a purpose other than entertainment), and I started looking for a new job. I saw a vacancy for a Gameplay Developer position at TDF, so I applied, and everything worked out fine after that!
For my final year project, I worked on my first augmented reality project with a PhD student at a rehabilitation clinic for disabled children. We developed a Serious Game that is still in use today, and I regularly get very positive feedback. The children love it and enjoy using it, so I’m really pleased to have had an impact and that it’s helping them, because it’s not easy for them.
It’s a big and a very important part of my life, even if I didn’t realise it at the beginning because I was just a teenager who played Call of Duty and Dofus, and liked it a lot (laughs), but I never said to myself that I was going to work in this industry.
In the end, I’ve always been passionate about computers, and my father got me into video games very early on, because he himself was part of a generation of enthusiasts. Little by little, I got the opportunity to do it, so it became my job, and today I know that’s what I want to continue to do in the future.
I’m not at all in line with what’s happening today with the giants of the video games industry. I’m very disappointed, because I used to consume their products, like Ubisoft and its Assassin’s Creed, at a time when they were pioneers in many areas and came out with innovations that moved the industry forward. But now they, like many other major studios, have become money machines, bringing out the same thing every year.
Generally speaking, this mentality also leads to a lot of excesses, and I’m really angry about the working conditions in this industry. It’s deplorable to see the number of complaints of sexual harassment everywhere, the regular burnout of employees, and the periods of ‘crunch’ that still exist.
That’s why I can only advise people to join independent studios, and to stop supporting the video game giants, because they’re not the ones who are going to shape the future of the industry in my opinion.
By The Tiny Digital Factory Team
Published June 19, 2024
MEET THE TEAM
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Stéphane is the Founder & CEO, and has 30+ years of AAA and Mobile game development expertise. Founder of Eden Games and The Tiny Digital Factory, he is the creative mind behind hugely successful AAA and mobile racing franchises, such as V-Rally, Test Drive Unlimited, F1 Mobile Racing and GT Manager.
