The Origins of The Crew and the Future of The Crew Motorfest Game & Series (Interview)

It’s been just over two years since The Crew Motorfest — the third game in the decade-long series — released on last- and current-gen consoles, but Ubisoft Ivory Tower isn’t slowing down on support for the racing title. Recently, Ubisoft invited ComicBook out to Lyon, France, where the studio is located to showcase some of the upcoming updates and talk to the developers behind the series. ComicBook‘s Lawrence Sharma spoke to the game director and one of the studio founders, Stéphane Beley, about where The Crew Motorfest is headed in Year 3, seasons 8-10, and beyond.

The Origin of Ubisoft’s Ivory Tower and Philosophy Behind The Crew

Lawrence Sharma: I’d love to start about the culture here at Ivory Tower and kind of what you’ve cultivated. What’s the common denominator of the artists and all the developers and people that you have in this building of reaching that same goal that you have?

Stéphane Beley: So, I have to go back in history to give you a bit more of the passion around that. It’s the passion around video games. And it’s my passion, everything, from the start, when I was 10 years old, I was always passionate about video games and car and driving games.

And I went through all my career, from school until now, to build my own driving game. That was everything from the beginning. And I was happy enough to get many friends that say, ‘oh, I want to do this with you, and with you, and with you,’ and finally I build up a crew of guys and we were 20, 30, 40. And after the first office (before expanding Ivory Tower) it was 100 people and this year, it’s 200. And now it’s 300, and then we stop. It’s enough.

Even if we’ve got 400 seats, I think we will stop right now and check the investment. But it’s the video game passion and the driving passion that animates us. We want to build our own franchise and be able for Ubisoft to create a driving game. A game which is in the driving genre, which is unique and exclusive, something that you will never play like that. With a big open world for your journey in the US to begin, but we’ll see where we go.

And this big journey is also through the car cultures, and I assume it more and more. When I started the first one it was about narration, but not really related to the car. So the second piece is where you begin to be a pilot. Let’s go through it.  And now it’s just like Netflix of car culture. You choose what you want to play. It’s not for me to choose. 

I propose you to start a journey in the car cultures with this and choose what you want to discover or enjoy. And for a game experience, it’s what I really praise. You can enjoy stuff like that in real life. You can watch but not act and be with. So it’s, for me, super important for the studio and for the team to have this ability to share what we want as a driving game experience.

How The Crew Is Different From Other Racing Games

Lawrence Sharma: Being a longtime car game fan and wanting to create your own franchise, what have you seen that separates The Crew from any other racing game that’s out there right now?

Stéphane Beley: It’s not just about the car. It’s to enjoy your car and play with it, to get all the praise around the car. You can customize it, you can explore and chill with it, compete with it, have some adventure with it. There are plenty of ways to enjoy it. And not only in the festival of car culture, Motorfest is all about enjoying the cars in many places. And it’s what we can see when we are looking at the activity of players — nearly 3 million every month.

So, it’s a huge number between 2 to 3 million every month, and 50 million players across the franchise. They enjoy it their own way. You can be what you want. If you want just to customize your car and be the best guy in the aesthetics, you go to the custom show. You want to compete, go to the summit or the ground race. If you want just to get a snack, some adventure, go to the playlist – and 50% of the players are playing the playlist and enjoying it and replaying it day to day.

Our retention is super nice. We can see over years of players playing, and thanks to the live experience. We refresh this experience every four months with new ones. We push just like Netflix. We push new content for you that you can enjoy in new ways, and we are the only ones to deliver such amount of adventure to play, and enjoy with your friends, for free.

Why Player Feedback Is So Important to The Crew’s Development

Lawrence Sharma: Just this couple of days has been really eye-opening to see how much you include community and real players and use that for your feedback to grow the game. When did that part of the culture start for you, and why is it important to continue that going forward? 

Stéphane Beley: Because I’m a player; we are all players, and I think the best feedback comes from players and not only us as creators — but the players help us to shape the future. We can discuss with players. We have ten players right now in the studio. We are discussing. We do not agree on everything, but we see the future with these guys because they are playing thousands and thousands of hours. So we really need to take care of that and be able to have it change our mindset sometimes. It’s what I like with our players.

The Crew Motorfest Year 3

Lawrence Sharma: Yeah, I was curious just because, at dinner, you were saying that some of the people here had like 2000 hours. And so I imagine the game has changed in ways that you could not have anticipated. So what were some of the big lessons that you learned in the first two years that you’re bringing into year three?

Stéphane Beley: That we are all different, and it’s what I like with car culture. I learned a lot, but every time I improve and propose many ways to enjoy the driving experience. But our players are super into the PvP stuff, or this and that, and you know, “I just want this.” But finally, when you propose stuff that they don’t expect, perhaps they will try and use it.

This is true with players. This are different types of cultures and different ways to enjoy the world. And when you see they use most of the time planning to go from place to place, and not specifically using cars, that they play in different ways. Planes, boats, cars – there’s many ways to enjoy the world and they were not expecting that.

We propose it. They enjoy it. And now they ask us to bring more content around that. That’s so cool to see how players now react and improve the recipe with us around that.

It’s the same for every car culture. They propose many types of different car cultures: Red Bull, or as we proposed, as usual, Ferrari and stuff like that. But with the Electric Odyssey, it was something that we built with the community and everyone was, ‘oh, no, electricity just for ecology.’ But so we, with the players, we’ve built something unique and it’s one of the most played playlists now. So, you have many ways to enjoy car culture.

And now we will see with Street Rider in season 8 and this partnership with BMW. You will see it with NASCAR. And we try to bring as many new partners and collaboration to build a game. And now they are proposing us new brands. That’s so nice. And during these last two days, now they say “this and that, and this and that.” OK, that’s too much. For 10 years, if you want, but it’s too much.

The Crew’s Branding Deals, Season 8-10, and Beyond

Lawrence Sharma: You know, I’m curious because you do have incredible partnerships coming up in this next season with BMW and NASCAR, and, and the tease of season 10, right?

Stéphane Beley: So you didn’t see Season 11, huh? This one will be challenging. For American people, I’m pretty sure they’ll say, “I’ve heard of this.”

Sharma: I mean, NASCAR. I saw it come up in the preview today. How does that validate kind of the the work that you guys do when you do get those partners that are not only excited to join the game, but they’re reaching out to join it? 

Beley: Yeah, it depends on every brand. But usually you know which ones we would see each time. So everyone is more and more involved in the creation, and we are building and preparing stuff on paper. And at each step of the production, they want to be involved. It’s not to validate, it’s to build and craft.

That’s a bit different. 

And every brand from Donut Media to NASCAR now, they want to be involved. And this is not just about, ‘I want my NASCAR in the game, please, blah blah blah.’ What will we do? What is the playlist? ‘Oh, OK, I was not thinking about that.’ And we challenge and change and we co-create in a way with the brand — and it’s the same for Street Rider, BMW Legacy, and each time it’s what I like. 

The first one with Lamborghini that we had at launch was something super nice. The co-creation was so nice they say, ‘you should have this, and it’s an exclusive car.’ OK, let’s go for that. We are the same with Ferrari and the F-80. Last season 7, we were the only driving game to get the F-80. It was a gift from Ferrari to really say thank you for the place that you’ve built.

How The Crew Motorfest Came to Have RC Cars

Lawrence Sharma: You know, we’re talking about car culture, but I also want to talk about the new updates for this season. Like the Track Forge — I love the RC stuff. When it came to implementing those — I know there are certain things that are still being worked out until the season releases — but what’s exciting for players this season? I know it’s all about playing differently, but these are very new elements to the game.

Stéphane Beley: It’s what we like with The Crew Motorfest to explore and dive into car culture universe that is really different. RC cars — the first time I proposed it to the team, it was, ‘hm, are you sure it’s a bit should we try?’ And finally, after prototyping, they discovered a new way to handle small cars and so on. ‘Wow, it’s it’s so cool and different,’ and even a supercar guy went, ‘Wow, that’s nice.’

And for me it’s what I like with the live experience. You can test and try stuff with your player base, but of course with the team first, and deliver stuff that you didn’t expect. It’s what I really praise with The Crew. We are able to propose not only cars but different ways to enjoy all that typology of cars.

RC is so fun. If you remind people, perhaps it’s an old game, but Rev-Up or many other old RC cars, now we’ve stopped producing this type of video game in the driving genre. There’s less and less, so it’s a way for me to create an homage to this type of industry and video game that I loved from my childhood. But now I want to play and propose to everyone and continue to enjoy.

How Old Racing Games Have Inspired The Crew and The Crew Motorfest

Lawrence Sharma: What I like is that the gameplay, like you said, can continue to be fresh. There are different ways to play, even with what you’re doing with NASCAR: changing the physics, the materials, and how those things interact. What are some of the inspirations from your history of gaming that you’ve been able to emulate in The Crew, and what are some things that are on your wish list moving forward?

Stéphane Beley: It’s true that I love cars and I try many types of driving games from my childhood. If I say Stunt Car Racing, it was on the Amiga platform, but I’m so old. There’s plenty of games that I try. You know, NFS, and so many others. Racing was a part of my childhood, but also my way to play and I continue to enjoy all of that in real life. I continue. I go on circuit. I’m doing some drift and stuff like that. And it’s what I would like to share with all the players.

I have many ways to enjoy cars and I try to replicate that, not only on screen but also with a pad. Just a real will to create this emotion, this visceral emotion that I like with the car.

The Future of The Crew

Lawrence Sharma: I think one of the cool things that car nerds probably love about this game is the customization, and obviously that’s only getting more robust and you’re always going to have more options. So, speaking to how that’s going to change in the future in the next couple of seasons, what are some things that you’re excited coming down when we decided finally.?

Stéphane Beley: We got the priority from production. They say ‘yes,’ and now we are able to do the stances and modify the rims and the position of the wheel, just like in real life. It was such a good time. It changed the shape of your car without affecting your performance, but creating a way to create your unique cars. It’s so good to look at. 

And in street racing, it’s important, and for us, it was really something that we needed to deliver and we put this in priority with the team. Now we are really looking ahead. Thanks to the live aspect and we have a big player base, we have more than 200 people working on the project right now. In The Crew 2, it was 80 people at the same time. Now the success of The Crew Motorfest has helped create this with more people so we can dive into new customization, new gameplay, new playlist, new PVP, new world, new track with 14 months of development, new platforms, team deck.

That’s luck, but we built and we deserve it thanks to the hard work we did previously, but now it pays off and it help us to really create what we have in mind for more and more. Imagine what 100 more employees can do — there’s the rooftop. It’s really, for me, the limit; 400 should be the limit. To be able to create what we have in mind, it’s what I see now with The Crew: we are delivering a lot of content every season where sometimes it could be just one game.