A year after rebranding as Side Oliver Deslandes, Senior Vice President of Global Strategy & Growth at Side, talks about studio openings, why Side is like an invisible engine, and why the external development company keeps its fingers crossed for nearly a third of all BAFTA Game Awards nominations.
Although Side has contributed to dozens of games, including numerous AAA titles, there are many in the industry who are unfamiliar with Side. How would you explain what Side does to someone who has never heard of you?
Olivier Deslandes: Side is like an invisible engine – critical to operations, but not always seen from the outside looking in. We deliver audio, from casting through to post-production and sound design; art and codev, localization, localization QA and QA; player support, playtesting and datasets. We basically build everything except IP.
Side worked on 12 of the 42 BAFTA nominations this year which are up for a collective 33 awards, but to players we are a secret ingredient that they hardly hear about. Fortunately, as the industry continues to mature, it’s becoming more normalised to publicly credit external developers like Side.
