Capcom Game Studio Vancouver
Studio
Company History
Capcom Game Studio Vancouver started humbly as Blue Castle Games in 2005 with only a dozen employees. But our vision and energy resulted in rapid growth, our own powerful game engine and a remarkable six games produced within our first five years, across six platforms. We joined the Capcom family in 2010, just as we released the eagerly anticipated Dead Rising 2.
Leadership
Rob Barrett
President
Rob’s creative, entrepreneurial energy and passion for both fun and success has driven him to create and maintain several successful businesses over his career, including Blue Castle Games, which later became Capcom Vancouver. Rob believes that all team members should have a strong voice in creating the games they work on – that each person should feel like it’s their game before they consider it the company’s game. Rob believes that one of the studio’s greatest assets is that people truly enjoy working here, and strives to foster collaboration, both professionally and socially. Happy, confident people make better games. Our fearless leader’s increasingly ridiculous homemade costumes each year inspire over 90% of our studio to participate in our justly famous Halloween costume contest and party.
Robyn Wallace
General Manager
Robyn Wallace, General Manager, loves to work with passionate and talented people and that’s why she loves working at Capcom Vancouver. A pioneering businesswoman, Robyn started her own company at 21, because she was too young and naïve to know just how hard that would be. But Robyn thrives on challenge and opportunity and made that company the first of many career success stories. Robyn believes in finding the best possible team members to work at CV, then giving them the freedom to own and champion their own creative work. She believes in a leadership team that tries to leave ego behind, knowing that true collaboration makes for a thriving workplace and the best possible games. Nonetheless, her secret desire to be Audrey Hepburn is apparent the moment you walk in her office. When not intimidating the rest of us by running half-marathons, she has been known to dress her tiny, innocent dog up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, successfully one-upping Rob at Halloween.
James Hall
Director of Technology
Having always been fascinated by the technology behind great games, our Director of Technology James Hall firmly believes in the power of a custom engine and tools to deliver amazing, unique game experiences. Throughout his career he’s worked primarily on rendering, systems and overall architecture on a wide variety of titles, and now coordinates technology development across all of the studio’s titles, including that of our in-house Forge game engine and associated tools. One of James’ primary goals is to ensure CV’s technology perfectly complements the titles in development, and never gets in the way of executing on the creative vision of the team. He is most frequently found discussing how to drive our technology forward to support these ever-expanding creative ideas, though occasionally will be overheard extolling the virtues of driving with the top down in the middle of winter.
Naru Omori
Studio Art Director
Omori-san joins us from Capcom Japan where he worked for many years as an art lead for games such as Devil May Cry 2 and the original Dead Rising. Omori was an instrumental figure during the development of Dead Rising 2 and helped create the iconic characters Frank West and Chuck Greene. In his role as the Studio Art Director, Omori acts as a mentor and advisor to the rest of the art team and helps bridge the pacific to bring Capcom Vancouver and Capcom Japan closer. He cites the Dead Rising 2 development as one of the most interesting times in his career as he was able to see how game development is handled globally. In his spare time Omori is busy learning English and exploring the food and enjoying the open environment around Vancouver following his move from the crowded city of Osaka.
Marc Belanger
HR Director
Hailing from a small town called Montreal where he was educated in the fine art of Finance and Film Making Marc decided to leave his day job as a hard rock musician/beer sales man for the sunny hills of Vancouver. Marc got his humble beginnings at a small games company called Electronics Arts. He was later picked up by Vivendi Games and shipped out to San Diego and Los Angeles to head up the Product Development Group’s HR team where he spent most of his time working on the merger between Activision and Blizzard. After this he joined the team at Twentieth Century Fox to work with the Global HR team. Marc oversees the HR functions of Capcom Games Vancouver where his basic philosophy is “your most important asset walks out the door every night”. A happy and healthy production team makes awesome games. When he’s not working Marc spends time with his two boys at the rink playing hockey.