Leading French Companies

The following are a few of the leading French publishers in the videogame market.

Infogrames

Leading the French challenge has been Infogrames, a company whose origins in the early 1980s were, in retrospect, atypical of the European industry more generally. The founders of most early European firms were programming prodigies who were devoted to gaming, and who produced their first games in their bedrooms or family garages. In contrast, Bruno Bonnell and Christian Sapet created Infogrames as a business in 1983 with the idea of developing and commercializing games for the mass market, not for hardcore gamers [Doward99]. In 1993, Infogrames, still struggling to survive with its 100 employees, received financial backing from Path Interactive (a joint venture of Philips and Chargeurs) and a French venture capital company. Supported by its new partners, Infogrames floated an IPO in December 1993 that broke existing Second March records; offering just 10% of the company's shares, the Infogrames IPO was oversubscribed 530 times [DeGasquet93b].

Cryo Interactive

Philippe Ulrich was a self-made programmer who was part of a development team hired by Virgin to work on a game based on the Dune license. After many delays, in late 1991 the game became a major success. Using the proceeds from the Dune sales, Ulrich, in partnership with a former Virgin executive, Jean-Martial Lefranc, created Cryo in early 1992. Over the next three years, Cryo grew rapidly as a developer, and in 1995 the company decided to make the costly and risky transition to publishing, with Financi re Lagache (part of LVMH) taking a 20% stake. Cryo published its first games in 1996, and in 1998 listed on the Nouveau March , with its offering being oversubscribed 46 times. In 2000, the online gaming subsidiary that Cryo had created in 1997 also went public on the Nouveau March .

Ubi Soft

Founded by the five Guillemot brothers, Ubi Soft entered the videogame industry in 1986 as a French third-party distributor for games developed abroad. Through its control of distribution networks, Ubi Soft began publishing games developed by external studios, and in 1994 founded its own development studios. Thus, while the growth trajectory of most of its competitors was from development to publishing, Ubi Soft expanded in the opposite direction. Its 1994 blockbuster, Rayman, provided resources for Ubi Soft's further expansion, which included high levels of investment in R&D for development tools. In 1996, Ubi Soft was listed on the Second March , with its shares being oversubscribed 282 times, second only in demand for shares to the Infogrames IPO of 1993.

Titus Interactive

Titus Interactive was founded in 1985 by brothers Eric and Herv Caen. The following year, Titus developed its first PC game, and in 1989 became one of the first European companies to embark on console game development, becoming a licensee for Sega (1989), Nintendo (1990), and Sony (1994). In 1996, Titus listed on the March Libre (the over-the-counter market), but in 1997 transferred its listing to the Nouveau March . The acquisition of Interplay and Virgin Interactive in 1999 transformed Titus into a full-scale publisher, with its release schedule of 50 games per year placing it third among the French videogame companies. The Caen brothers remain Titus's dominant shareholders and retain top management positions. Such is also the case at Infogrames (Bonnell and Sapet), Ubi Soft (the Guillemot brothers), and Cryo—at least until its bankruptcy in July 2002.