A Development Mindset: Making Room for Growth with Chantal Castonguay

Motive has always been about growth. The studio is relentlessly dedicated to growing as individuals, as teams, as developers— together. It was a natural evolution of that mindset to create a team focused exclusively on guiding and supporting that growth. Enter Director of Development and Culture Chantal Castonguay, M.Ed., who came on board in November of 2021 to build something completely new.

“Growth” can mean very different things in different contexts, of course, a fact Chantal knows well from her previous work experience. See, her career started nowhere near the game industry; instead, she got her start in education, teaching English as a second language in Korea and Japan before coming to Québec to teach children with learning disabilities and behavioral difficulties. This led to a master’s program where she focused on informal learning and communities of practice—essentially, groups who gather to teach and learn from each other. While writing her thesis, she quickly realized that some video games companies were making strides in that area. She was instantly hooked.

“I just fell in love with the industry,” she says. “With people’s passion, their creativity and their innovation. So, when Patrick [Klaus, Motive’s General Manager] and I discussed my mandate, and he shared the opportunity to build a team from scratch that’s focused on talent development and culture, I wanted to take up the challenge.

But again, growth can mean different things. “So, first I had to understand what ‘growth’ meant for Motive,” Chantal says. “What I learned is that it’s many things: having the opportunity to get better at your craft, evolving in the company, improving on soft skills, having engaging tasks, receiving feedback on those tasks daily, and exchanging with each other.”

All of those things have something in common, however: They take time. So, one of the studio’s first initiatives has been what she calls the Twelve Days of Development. “All Motive employees—including myself, everyone—have 12 days during the year to focus on development,” she says. “That can be through training, conferences, or it can be through a project that they think is cool and want to work on.”

But making the time is only part of the equation. Chantal and her team provide concrete opportunities for studio members to grow by creating and facilitating a range of programs. At the studio level, Motive has already been holding an internal event called Motive Sparks, a two-day “game jam” where, Chantal says, “people can play and learn through experimentation.” Unlike other game jams, Sparks lets people experiment and learn about production tools—related to our game or not. This year, Chantal’s team is supplementing that with a more formal educational event called the Motivate Conference, which will feature talks, round tables, and guest speakers.

Each project also has the opportunity to host its own “Growth Day” when, Chantal says, “the producers block out certain days in the production schedule to focus on learning.” Learning opportunities are available for smaller groups, too, in the form of Motive’s own communities of practice: monthly, informal “Learning Loops” which the Development and Culture team helps support—but ensures are led by their own members. And those who prefer to work at their own pace have opportunities for individual growth through offsite conferences and online programs.

So far, we’ve only discussed the “development” part of Chantal’s title, but she’s also the director of “culture”—though she’s careful to note she’s not in charge of Motive’s culture. “I don’t own the culture,” she says. “Everyone at the studio owns the culture. But I guess I’m responsible for making sure we live out our values. That can be through events, but it’s especially through day-to-day experience, at a studio level and within projects. If someone wants to be part of a social club, do more volunteering, or contribute to one of our employee resource groups, my team supports all of that as well.”

You might imagine this is a complex role given that so many of us now work from home. You would be correct. “People work on a hybrid schedule now, so we need to make sure that when they visit the studio, there’s a social aspect to it,” Chantal says. “So the question is, how do we transform the studio space into a social hub? How do we bring back the togetherness that studio members are telling us they want?” This is very much a work in progress as everyone adjusts to the new realities of the workplace. Part of Chantal’s focus is to provide studio functions with clear social elements, from anniversary celebrations to town hall meetings. Of course, it’s also vitally important to support off-site employees equally, so this initiative also involves ensuring remote staff can participate as fully as possible.

It’s unquestionably a balancing act, but like growth, balance has been a key value at Motive since the beginning as well. “Work-life balance is super, super-important at Motive,” says Chantal. “So in all of our programs, we have to make sure we aren’t adding obligations, but rather making sure studio members feel that it’s OK to take time to be social, or to focus on their own development. The gaming industry moves fast, especially when you’re shipping a game. It can be hard to choose between developing yourself and developing the game, because you really want this game to be the most amazing thing, right?  The end goal for us is to help everyone set a healthy balance.”

Initiatives like these are a new frontier for the video game industry, but Chantal is delighted to be forging a new path. “This industry is growing; it’s maturing. And it’s so good to be part of that.”

If you’d like to be a part of it yourself, visit our Careers page to take your first step on your own journey of growth at Motive.