Video Game Industry Veterans Establish Yellow Brick Games, an Independant Studio in Québec City

Québec City, November 23, 2020 – Four major video game developers, including Mike Laidlaw, the former creative director of the Dragon Age series, today announced the creation of Yellow Brick Games, an independent studio dedicated to making original, new games of high quality. The team, which will be based in Québec City, will be assuming its first major project that promises to further cement the region’s leading role in the global entertainment scene.

Laidlaw will be partnering with Thomas Giroux, Jeff Skalski, and Frédéric St-Laurent B., all of whom made their marks in leading studios such as Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and BioWare, where they contributed to internationally recognized franchises like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Watch Dogs, and Assassin’s Creed.

“We have learned a lot from working on world-class, multi-year projects with thousands of colleagues and we want to take a different approach,” said Skalski, the studio’s Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer. “Leveraging a smaller talented team where people come first, we will create amazing worlds and experiences for all others to enjoy. The market is moving fast, and we have no desire to play catchup and chase it when we can influence where it goes. These goals drove us to found Yellow Brick Games.”

Skalski, an American by birth who adopted Québec City as his home in 2014, is surrounded by a great team. Yellow Brick Games’ Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Giroux, has a particularly strong track record. Following a successful decade-long career at Ubisoft Montréal, Giroux founded Sunny Side Up Creative, a video games marketing agency, which was later acquired by global video game service provider Keywords Studios, in 2019.

Skalski and Giroux are thrilled to have Mike Laidlaw join as Chief Creative Officer to lead Yellow Brick Games’s new development team. Laidlaw, who is regarded as one of the pillars behind the award-winning series Dragon Age and much-loved classic Jade Empire, is also based in Québec City.

“The market for independently produced games is growing rapidly and the technology is keeping pace,” said Laidlaw. “Small, diverse teams can now create high-quality experiences. For veterans of big-studio productions like myself and much of our team, this is the perfect time to get back to a small, agile, and highly motivated group. We want our games here at Yellow Brick to take potentially millions of players on wonderous journeys, and we want every member of our team to have a direct impact on the new worlds we’re creating.”

Frédéric St-Laurent B., a well-established figure in Québec City’s video game industry who contributed to the success of many projects at Ubisoft and Sarbakan, will take on the role of Game Director within the new team. “The rise of remote work has rewritten the rules and is opening up opportunities to recruit talent from around the world. We have additional employees based in Montreal and other countries, but we couldn’t be more proud and happier to be doing this from the heart of Québec City,” said St-Laurent.

Yellow Brick Games is already quite busy for a new studio. Its fifteen employees are currently creating a first original game that will leverage the capabilities of the next generation gaming platforms. Given the magnitude of the task, the team will grow during the coming months and years. However, the “craftmanship approach” will remain the new company’s core vision.

“We want to emphasize a “back-to-basics approach”, centered on the pleasure of crafting new game experiences, in a flexible and more personable environment that an independent studio can provide,” said Giroux. “We have all the resources at our disposal to achieve our goals.”

Yellow Brick Games is an independent Québec City-based studio founded by four video game industry veterans, who are dedicated to creating original, high-quality content. Its founders will leverage their vast experience in the production of globally recognized franchises using a more human and agile approach, which brings game production back to its roots. The focus is on the pure and simple pleasure of creating new and exciting experiences for players around the world.

SOURCE: Fernandez Communications