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Phoenix Interactive

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki

Phoenix Interactive
File:Phoenix Studio logo.png
ISIN🆔
IndustryVideo games
Founded 📆2004
Founders 👔Marc Albinet
Pierre Mousson
Headquarters 🏙️,
Lyon
,
France
Area served 🗺️
Key people
Pierre Mousson (CEO)
Members
Number of employees
70 (2010)
🌐 Website[Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). ] 
📇 Address
📞 telephone

Phoenix Studio is a French indie video game developer. The company was founded in 2004 in Lyon, by two former Doki Denki key members: game designer Marc Albinet.[1], and CEO Pierre Mousson[2].

Phoenix developed licensed games in partnership with Disney Interactive and Ubisoft Entertainment, as well as its own original creations. From 2007 to 2010, the company had over 70 employees[3].

Phoenix established an innovation and research policy beside individuals such as Bruno Bonnell and researcher Nicolas Nova. It was also among the founding members of the Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo[4] and actively participated in the construction of Lyon’s cluster[5].

The company is still active in 2022[6].

History

Foundation and continuation in the ashes of Doki Denki

In March 2004, Lyon’s commercial court ordered the compulsory liquidation of Doki Denki, which was at the time considered “one of the greatest indie game developers in France”[7].

However, the story continued in April for the former Doki Denki key members that would be recruited in Phoenix Studio, the new company founded by Marc Albinet, lead game designer[8], and Pierre Mousson, CEO and key player in the studio’s restructuring[2].

Notably, Phoenix Studio signed its first deal for a game set in the Winnie the Pooh universe. In the game credits, many former key members of the 2001 international success, Tigger’s Honey Hunt[9] team, were present: Bénédicte Peyrusse, Denis Dufour, Emre Yaliniz, Olivier Gaudino, Pascal Stradella[10].

In 2010, lead game designer Marc Albinet[9] published “Concevoir un jeu video”[1] which became a reference for game design training in France[11]. He also went on to teach in several video game training programs for schools such as Emile Cohl, and ENJMIN in Angoulême[12].

Positioning and philosophy

Phoenix’s teams managed to regularly work for clients such as Disney and Ubisoft thanks to the respect the developers provided for the licenses put into their care: Winnie the Pooh, Arthur and the Invisibles, or Alexendra Ledermann. The latter sold over one million copies in 2009[13].

In accordance with Doki Denki’s philosophy, Phoenix Studio developed its expertise on video games for children, with a geographic positioning centered on Europe and the United States, and emphasized its intention to create ethical and responsible games “as much in the quality of the content as in the quality of the experience provided by these games”[1].

In 2008, the developer also released an original creation, Planet Rescue: Endangered Island, a video game for children with the protection of the environment and wildlife at the core of its game mechanics[14].

Importance of game design

The studio puts a strong emphasis on game design, which it considers a complete profession at the heart of its productions. In 1999, the video game industry was at the time “the exploration of a new frontier” and developers would learn their craft empirically and through iterations. “Nowadays, if the notion of game system is taken as a given, it was not always so.” In Phoenix’s approach of game design as a proper profession, the game designer thus becomes the game director[1].

At Doki Denki and then at Phoenix, the teams adapted over a decade to the increase of resources required for a game’s conception[15]: the growing complexity in real time 3D production lines, the search for realism, the evolutions of graphic representations and narration, and the larger team sizes.

“Phoenix managed to bring uncommon practices into this industry at the time”: agile software development, experimental prototyping, behavioral sciences[1].

In other media

In 2005, Phoenix Studio was credited at the official selection of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival for IbaQsha, les irradiés, a documentary directed by Stéphane Stradella, in coproduction with By Us Publishing. It is a docufiction inspired by Gérard Rancinan’s photography documentary, which contained pictures testimonies of the last survivors of the Hiroshima bomb launched in August 1945[16].

In 2009, Phoenix Studio was among the finalists of Orange’s Transmedia Lab call for proposals for an animated series aimed at teenagers: Le Blog de June[17]. That same year, the project was featured at Annecy International Animation Film Festival[18].

Innovation and research policy

Beyond video game production, Phoenix Studio stood out through its innovation and research policy.

This policy was built on two principles: the creation of a technological research and development department, and the creation of a lab dedicated to the study of practices[1]. This lab was supervised by cognitive science researcher and socioanthropologist Nicolas Nova[19][20], and Xavier Décoret, PhD (computer science)[21].

The research on cognitive science conducted by Phoenix Interactive emphasized ergonomics and psychology of learning, so that the games developed by the studio would follow, both in design and game mechanics, the great steps of children’s developmental psychology[1]:

  • Study on the gamepad as an extension of the child’s hand.
  • Speed of the learning curve.
  • Adaptation of pedagogy by giving what the child needs thanks to fine-tuned human-computer interaction[22].

In 2010, Phoenix Studio appears beside Bruno Bonnell’s SOROBOT[23] company among the winners of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet’s “Serious Game” call for proposals for the Edubot project[24].

The company is also credited for the technological project Convergence, which was aimed at creating a new system for digital image processing inspired by the tools and skills in the film industry for interactive applications[25].

Sector and cluster structuring

Phoenix is also part of the founding members of the “Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo”[4], an employer's organization formed in 2008 as a continuation of APOM.

In 2009, the company’s President was chosen to board an experts' commission at the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée in the context of a reference study on intellectual property and creation in video games[26].

Researcher Bruno Lusso, geographer and historian with an expertise on country attractiveness in the motion picture sector, mentioned Phoenix as one of the most impactful players of Lyon’s video game cluster[5], alongside Imaginove, former innovation centre until its dissolution in 2018; the following year, in Grenoble, Minalogic took over these functions[27].

Financial crisis and challenges

In November 2009, Gamekult inquired about the situation at Phoenix, and even announced that the company had filed for bankruptcy[28]. That information was called into question by the business paper La Tribune: on October 8th, 2013, an investigation put into light how Phoenix had gone through three years of audit and “challenging times” with the Crédit d'Impôts Recherche, a public tax incentive for R&D which has been the topic of “recurring criticisms among entrepreneurs”. Still, according to the same article, ths situation reached “a good conclusion” for the company and its CEO, Pierre Mousson[3].

Little information remains from that time marked by a worldwide economic crisis. The 2008 Subprimes mortgage crisis led to the stagnation, then to the massive devaluation of these companies, leading to the 2008 financial crisis[29].         

In 2013, a report from the Senate titled “Video games: an innovating cultural industry for our territories” highlighted the industrial crisis and a “mass destruction among the studios” with the disappearance of Darkworks, Beyond the Pillars, Load Inc, Mad Monkey Studio, and Mindscape[29].

At the time, Phoenix Studio was considered one of the “10 most important French video games studios”, with over 70 employees recruited between 2007 and 2010[3]. It would seem that, in the 2010s, the company had to face several challenges. Nevertheless, it managed to survive despite the crisis[6].

In 2022, Phoenix Studio is still active[6]

Games developed

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Marc Albinet (2010). Concevoir un jeu vidéo (1st ed.). France: FYP Éditions. p. 256. ISBN 978-2364051232. Search this book on
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Marie-Annick Depagneux (December 13, 1999). "Hélioland : le sous-traitant d'Infogrames s'émancipe". Les Échos.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Marie-Annick Depagneux; Odile Esposito (October 8, 2013). "Le crédit impôt recherche plébiscité, mais quel labyrinthe pour les entreprises !". La Tribune.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Premier Rapport d'Activités du Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo" (PDF). snjv.org. 2009. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lusso, Bruno (2013-11-01). "Pôles transmédia, actions d'intermédiation et construction de liens au sein de l'industrie du multimédia des aires métropolitaines de Lille, Lyon et Marseille". Revue Interventions économiques. Papers in Political Economy (in français). 48 (48): 49. doi:10.4000/interventionseconomiques.2015. ISSN 0715-3570. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Société Phoenix Interactive, informations légales". data.gouv.fr (L’Annuaire des Entreprises). Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Le studio lyonnais Doki Denki disparaît". Les Échos (Archives Wikipedia). April 1, 2004. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  8. ↑ "CV de Marc Albinet". Viadeo. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Crédits Tiggers Honey Hunt". MobyGames. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  10. ↑ "Crédits Rumbly Tumbly Adventure". MobyGames. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  11. ↑ "Les méthodes et les outils des professionnels du jeu vidéo expliqués à tous". FYP Éditions. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  12. ↑ "Biographie de Marc Albinet". Eyrolles. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  13. ↑ Philippe Berry (June 4, 2009). "Les jeux et les filles, un business juteux". 20 Minutes.
  14. ↑ "Fiche de Planète Nature". MobyGames. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  15. ↑ Laurent Cluzel; Douglas Alves; Emmanuel Forsans (4 June 2021). "40 ans d'évolution dans la création de jeux vidéo" (Video conference). afjv.com. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  16. ↑ "Fiche documentaire IbaQsha, les irradiés". Unifrance. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  17. ↑ Nicolas Bry (October 9, 2009). "11 projects in the final transmedia call for projects". Wordpress. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  18. ↑ "Le Blog de June Teaser" (Video). Vimeo. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  19. ↑ "Crédits des jeux Phoenix Studio auxquels a participé Nicolas Nova". MobyGames. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  20. ↑ Nicolas Nova (2009). Les Médias géolocalisés: comprendre les nouveaux paysages numériques. France: FYP Éditions. ISBN 978-2916571201. Search this book on
  21. ↑ "Crédits des jeux Phoenix Studio auxquels a participé Xavier Décoret". MobyGames. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  22. ↑ Nicolas Nova (March 5, 2010). "Compte-rendu du séminaire Lift sur les interfaces gestuelles". nicolasnova.net. Archived from the original on March 26, 2025. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  23. ↑ "Bordereau INPI – Dépôt d'actes de société du 16 février 2006 (n°A2006/000297), Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce de Villefranche – Tarare" (pdf). Pappers. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  24. ↑ "Liste des projets retenus à l'appel à projets Serious Games de Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet". Telecom.gouv (via WayBackMachine). Archived from the original on September 22, 2009. Retrieved March 26, 2025. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  25. ↑ Bruno Lusso (2010). "Les dynamiques du cluster lyonnais de l'image en mouvement" (PDF). Colloque AISRe-ASRDLF: 18.
  26. ↑ Rouet, François (2009). "La création dans l'industrie du jeu vidéo". Culture études (in français). 1 (1): 16. doi:10.3917/cule.091.0001. ISSN 1959-691X. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
  27. ↑ "Le pôle de compétitivité lyonnais Imaginove cesse son activité". Lyon-entreprises. January 27, 2019. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  28. ↑ "Phoenix Interactive ferme ses portes ?". Gamekult. November 25, 2009. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "Jeux vidéo : une industrie culturelle innovante pour nos territoires, Rapport d'informations du sénat n°852 (2012-2013)". Sénat.fr. September 18, 2013.

[[Category:Companies established in 2004]] [[Category:French video game actors]] [[Category:France]] [[Category:Lyon]] [[Category:Video game businesspeople]] [[Category:Economy]] [[Category:Company]]


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