Saigon Dragon Studios is an art outsourcing studio now developing their own IP, run by Matthieu Courdavalt and Victor Vautrin, based in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
I sat down for coffee with Creative Director Matthieu to learn more about this Vietnamese Studio and their new RTS Game: Space Tales.
About Saigon Dragon Studios
The tides are changing for outsourcing studios in Vietnam; the explosive layoffs in the West (Most recently at EA) have sent ripples across the industry. These ripples are now reaching Southeast Asia. For Saigon Dragon Studios, this meant more focus on diversification outside of art outsourcing, pre-emptively seeing where the industry was headed.
So, Saigon Dragon Studios are venturing into the great unknown. They are currently developing their first solo IP—Space Tales—and their Vietnamese RTS Game is an incredibly ambitious move for a first project.
Space Tales is a singleplayer RTS game inspired by the team’s love and passion for games like Warcraft and Starcraft. As an art outsourcing studio developing their first game, in a tight niche, with other notable titles coming out in the same timeframe, Creative Director Matthieu admitted to me— “it’s not going to be easy!”—but that’s not stopping them. And why should it?
History of Saigon Dragon Studios
Founders Victor and Matthieu met in Bordeaux in 2005 in a business school. They later went on to Hull University together in 2009/2010. We asked Matthieu if he ever imagined his degree in marketing would later see him working in the games industry:
“I always loved games, drawing, painting. I taught myself Photoshop and art whilst in university. Whilst I didn’t know I would work in games; I soon went into working roles like Customer Support for ZeniMax and Community Manager at Bethesda. Victor, was working for a French mobile studio in Vietnam, and he asked me to join him in starting our own.”
Launched in 2015, Saigon Dragon Studios began exclusively as an art outsourcing studio in 2D, 3D, and animation for the video games industry. At their peak, they had up to seventy employees working on all kinds of game projects. Projects ranged from mobile to AAA. Victor and Matthieu are also running Remote Resources, a staffing provider in various industries that include, video games, digital development, and toys. Mainly they are utilizing a network of specialists within Southeast Asia and Vietnam to introduce them to global companies.
Focusing on Saigon Dragon Studios, they operate in five different languages, historically the market they mostly served was North America. But now their client base is more spread out: Australia, France, and more recently Korea.
With a prolific history of outsourcing, Saigon Dragon are now developing their own games too!
Space Tales, the Vietnamese RTS Game to get excited about
A Vietnamese RTS Game?! Kind of, Space Tales is developed by a team in HCMC, Vietnam, but the inspiration comes from RTS goliaths like Warcraft and Starcraft.
Space Tales invites players to embark on an exhilarating singleplayer mission to explore and conquer uncharted planets, pushing the limits of the Human Empire. It is an RTS set in a retro-futuristic environment, Saigon Dragon are pouring in their exceptional artistic talent to create a world and style that is both distinct and immersive. Players of Space Tales will Command the I.P.E (Intergalactic Planetary Expansion) initiative.
Being singleplayer, the main selling point of Space Tales will be a gripping storyline that puts you in the shoes of Xander—son of a legendary I.P.E General, where you will follow in your father’s footsteps and strive to become just as legendary of a leader yourself. The game will launch with:
- 16 Main Missions and numerous other side quests.
- Diverse alien races, foes and friends, that allow you to discover the wonders of their planets whilst equally colonising them in combat.
- Army customisation with research points that are earned to enhance and tailor strategies to your own unique playstyle.
- Recruit characters with unique abilities into your squad.
- “Peaceful Giants” or monsters that you can seek out for rewards, or to capture and unleash them to turn the tides of difficult battles.
- And much more…
From Vietnamese Art Studio to Vietnamese RTS Developer.
Four to five years ago, Saigon Dragon was doing exceptionally well on the outsourcing front and decided to put money into hiring developers, at first with the intention of working on hyper-casual mobile games. With Vietnam being one of the fastest-growing mobile game industries in the world, it seemed—on the surface—like a solid bet. However, the truth is that Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and hyper-casual development as a whole is an incredibly hyper-competitive market where companies are constantly reacting and iterating at very fast speeds.
Want to learn more? Read more about the Hyper-Casual market in Southeast Asia here : Innovation in Mobile
So, Saigon Dragon took a bet. They had a real passion as gamers for the RTS genre, and they thought, why not go for it? The genre is looking at a potential revival with largely anticipated titles like Stormgate. When visiting RTS Fest two months prior, it felt like Space Tales was drowned out a little bit by the hype of other titles—Matthieu admitted that they had a few less wish lists than they would like—however, by sticking to singleplayer, they will avoid the pitfall that causes many RTS studios to give up, which is the struggle of balancing multiplayer combat.
Brave Frontiers in the RTS Genre…
As an art outsourcing studio bringing their first game out amidst all the noise of other larger releases, Space Tales might seem like a crazy investment from Saigon Dragon. Yet, with such an incredibly talented art team composed of people who genuinely love the RTS genre—with a compelling narrative being the selling point of this solo adventure, why not see Space Tales releasing alongside all these other titles as a positive?
People need to scratch that itch, and Space Tales will come out as a complete standalone campaign experience for players to enjoy. From there, Saigon Dragon will learn a lot of invaluable lessons from the development of the game. They will also potentially earn a small cult-following from the RTS community: building a snowball effect for future releases. With Victor and Matthieu split on how diverse they should be with future projects; the result of Space Tales’ launch may inform if they stick to the genre.
Closing Thoughts: Wishlist Space Tales!
Matthieu only expected to live in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for a few years after joining Victor to establish their own studio. Ten years later and he’s one of the locals. This was made obvious when he disappeared after our meeting on his motorbike—slipping perfectly through the famously crazy traffic of Saigon.
Vietnam hosts a massive population of talented artists, and in recent years has more and more incentives and education for developers too. And, importantly, the ability to stretch out a budget for longer is an invaluable advantage for any studio here.
Now, instead of following what’s trendy or what will “maximise profit,” like live-service or microtransactions, the team at Saigon Dragon Studios are making an all-included singleplayer game that they themselves would play. Presumably again… and again.
It’s brave and it’s born from passion. If you check out Space Tales on Steam, it’s worth getting excited about this Vietnam made RTS Game.
Interested in more projects coming from Southeast Asia?
See:
- In Hanoi: Thunder Cloud Studio: AAA Game-Art Outsourcing in Hanoi, Vietnam.
- In Chiang Mai: Meet Bit Egg Inc. The Studio Behind Thailand’s Most Wish-Listed Upcoming Steam Game
- In Ho Chi Minh: Celebrating 30 Years of Sparx*, a Virtuos studio!
[…] Vietnamese RTS Game: Space Tales, by Saigon Dragon Studios […]