Ubisoft - Career Profile | Animation Career Review

What does it take to get a job with Ubisft? What is it like working at Ubisoft? ACR takes a look:

About Ubisoft

Ubisoft is an international developer, publisher, and distributor of interactive entertainment products. Founded in 1986, Ubisoft is headquartered in Montreuil-sous-Bois, France, but the company has 23 studios in 16 countries. Ubisoft’s gaming portal attracts 5 million unique visitors each month and its video games have sold hundreds of millions of units. In addition, Ubisoft has the second largest in-house development staff in the world.

Ubisoft creates hundreds of games, but the company’s bestsellers include Assassins Creed, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Petz, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Rayman, Imagine, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia, Driver, and Just Dance, to name a few. Together, these games (franchises) have sold more than 200 million units.

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Ubisoft is the third largest independent publisher in Europe and in the U.S. More than 6,500 collaborators worldwide produce and distribute Ubisoft games. Around 5,500 of these collaborators are dedicated to production. Ubisoft has offices and studios in too many locations to list here, but just a few are Sydney, Australia; Austria, Vienna; Belgium, Antwerpen, Brazil, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo; Bulgaria Sofia, and Canada, Montreal, Piedmont, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver. The company’s U.S. offices and studios are located in Cary, NC and San Francisco, CA.

Ubisoft Jobs

Ubisoft, like many gaming companies, welcomes fresh talent. As of August 29, 2011, the company had more than 400 open positions around the world. Just a few openings included:

Technical 3D Animator
3D Animator
3D Artist
Lead Game Designer
Character Artist
Animator
Level Designer
Art Director
Sound Designer
Gameplay Programmer
Live Producer
Economic Designer
Game Tester

To apply for open positions, visit the Ubisoft website at ubisoftgroup.com and click “Careers” at the bottom of the page. Each job has specific requirements and application procedures.

Ubisoft Salaries

Salaries for Ubisoft employees vary depending on job responsibilities, skills, and education. The company does not list salaries on its website. However, sites such as Glassdoor.com offer salary information, as reported by Ubisoft employees. Just a few salary ranges and positions are:

Gameplay Programmer: $48,000-$52,000
Lead Artist: $66,000-$79,000
Actionscript Developer: $47,000-$51,000
Texture Artist: $43,000-$54,000
3D Programmer: $65,000-$71,000
Animation Programmer: $84,000-$91,000
Generalist Programmer: $51,000-$82,000
Technical Architect: $86,000-$97,000

Game Developer Magazine conducts an industry-wide salary survey each year. The latest survey lists average salaries for programmers, artists and animators, game designers, production specialists, and sound designers working in the gaming industry. See how Ubisoft compares. The results of the survey are as follows:

Programmers: $85,733
Art & Animation: $71,354
Game Design: $70,223
Production: $88,544
Sound Designer: $68,088
Business and Legal: $106,452

Game Developer Magazine is a San Francisco-based print publication serving more than 30,000 professional game developers.

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