Philippe Ulrich

Born in 1951, Philippe Ulrich was marked by a five-year trip around the world in the 1970s. On his return to France, with no money, he set up a community of musicians on a farm in the Landes region.

At the end of the decade, he began experimenting with electronic music and computers, and released a second album based on synthesizers, while creating his first games on ZX80. He then founded Emmanuel Viau France's leading video games publisher, ERE Informatiquewhich has produced titles such as Macadam Bumper, Crafton & Xunk or even Teenage Queen. In 1988, he signed with Didier Bouchon the game Captain Blood's Arka commercial success that has won awards around the world.

While ERE Informatique was sold to Infogrameshe created the Exxoswhich refers to the god of programmers, to whom the machine used to develop each game is sacrificed during media ceremonies. Philippe Ulrich also produces Rémi Herbuloton behalf of Virgina video game based on the novel Duneone of the first CD-ROMs in history.

In 1989, following disagreements with Infogrames management, Ulrich, Herbulot and Jean-Martial Lefranc found Cryo Interactive Entertainment and publish daring games such as MegaRace, Atlantis, Lost Eden or even Versailles 1685: Conspiracy at the Court of the Sun King. A true trailblazer, Philippe Ulrich also created the virtual universe The Second World in 1997 and was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres two years later.

With the bursting of the internet bubble, Cryo, like many other companies in France, closed in 2002, and while keeping an eye on video games (in 2014 he co-created the Ping Awards), Philippe Ulrich also devotes a great deal of time to music, notably contributing to Henri Salvador's return to the top in 2000.

Emmanuel Viau

Born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, Emmanuel Viau obtained a scientific baccalaureate in 1978 and then studied medicine for two years before failing the competitive examination. During his military service, he bought himself a ZX80 which he learned to use while on guard duty at the armoury. At the end of his conscription, he did a programming course at Control Data before joining a cash management company.

At the same time, he created a number of small games and utilities and one day offered them to Direco Internationalimporter of Sinclair at the time. The latter seemed interested - on condition that he supplied around a hundred copies of the games. Emmanuel Viau quit his job and in 1983 founded ERE Informatiqueto 'edit' his own creations as well as those of other programmers who suggested them to Direco. This is how he met Philippe Ulrichwhose game Panic impressed him greatly.

Viau had him sign a contract before finding a graphic designer, Michel Rhoto produce the covers. Sales start to take off with the flight simulator Cobalt Interceptor (1984) on ZX81and the publisher was asked to release its games on other PCs. It will publish, among others Macadam Bumper (1985), Sram, Crafton and Xunk (1986), Eden Blues, Le Passager du Temps (1987) and Teenage Queen (1988).

But in 1988, the ailing company was bought by Infogrameswhich allows it to publish its games abroad, such as Captain Blood's Ark (1988) under the label Exxoswhich has become a huge success all over the world.

Philippe Ulrich disagreed with Infogrames' vision and left to found his own company. Cryo Interactive in 1989, while Emmanuel Viau created NovtechIts aim is to reissue classics at low prices in supermarkets. At the same time, it also publishes The Angel and the Demon (1993) on CD-i with his company Smart MoveHe is also interested in distributing games and demos on newsstands, and is setting up the French distributor for the publisher SoftDisk leading to the creation of the magazine Periodisk.

In 1995, he joined Coktel Vision/Sierra as European Development Director, before heading up its subsidiary MDO dedicated to the series Adi/Adibou. In 2000, Emmanuel Viau became Vice-Chairman of his distributor ICE Multimedia in Montreal.

The company went bankrupt in 2002, but he then co-founded with one of his colleagues Enzyme Testing Labsone of the world leaders in video game quality assurance, which it sold at the end of 2016 to Keywords Studios.