What lessons have developers learned from external development?

This article is part of ExDev Week.

GamesIndustry.biz asked a range of external development studios what lessons they have learned over the years, and the responses ranged widely – but one common thread was the vital importance of maintaining good relationships with clients, which trumped most other concerns. A reminder that at the end of the day, external development is a people business.

Thanks to Airship, CodeDev, Code Wizards, Huey Games, Lab42, Pingle Studio, Pipeworks, Redcatpig, Sumo Digital, Tanglewood Games, Third Kind Games, and Virtuos for sharing their insights.

Trust and communication come above all

One thing that came across loud and clear in the responses from exdev companies was the value placed on trust between them and the client. "External development lives or dies on trust, not talent," says Joe Harford, CEO of the art provider Airship. "There's no shortage of studios that can turn out beautiful hero assets. What's rare is a partner you can hand a messy, time sensitive brief to and know they'll ask the right questions, protect your art direction, and deliver on the date they promised."

Stuart Muckley, CEO of the Code Wizards Group, agrees that trust is paramount. "Games evolve during development," he says. "Trust is what allows things to change and lets service providers/exdevs (constructively) offer feedback to the studio they are working with. That trust enables us to be honest where things aren't working and find solutions if there's a problem."

Trust is the essential precursor to good communication. "In game development, there will always be challenges and unexpected bumps in the road, but addressing potential problems early, with clear and honest communication is always the right way to deal with things," says Myke Parrott, CEO of Unreal specialists CodeDev. "Honesty, integrity and reputation are everything!"

"Trust enables us to be honest where things aren't working and find solutions if there's a problem"

Stuart Muckley, Code Wizards

Terry Goodwin, studio co-director at the Sumo Digital-owned Lab42, agrees. "Curating a culture of honesty and transparency with your partners is such a key part of providing external development services that you'll be doomed in the long-term if you get into the habit of hiding things or lying by omission." Not everything will go right all the time, he says, "but how you respond to those problems is within your control."

"Trust is earned through delivery, not promised upfront," counsels Rav Tharanee, chief strategy officer of Third Kind Games, giving the example of how his firm met a hard, six-month deadline for a 60hz performance mode on Forza Horizon 4. "But beyond the delivery, it's the relationships that matter. Being present, being genuinely invested in a client's team and their vision, is how trust compounds."

Align your vision with the client

"For me, the biggest lesson we've learned is the power of vision alignment," says James Oates, Vice President of Sumo Digital. "Whether you're working on an internal or external project, it's vital that teams are aligned around strong pillars and a shared understanding of the experience you're trying to create for players."

External development teams have to work hard to stay aligned, he says. "Being more visible at every stage, validating progress against agreed user stories, maintaining regular feedback loops, and playing the game together all help keep teams moving in unison."

"It's vital that teams are aligned around strong pillars and a shared understanding"

James Oates, Sumo Digital

Established IP or live games, meanwhile, provide an extra challenge. "We not only have to align on what the product is today, but also become trusted custodians of where the IP is heading in the future," Oates says. "That means understanding the creative vision, respecting what players already love, and helping shape the next chapter without losing what makes the game special."

Harford says that the best work happens when "the line between us and the client disappears." But Rob Hewson of porting specialists Huey Games says it's not always easy to stay aligned. "Different clients work in very different ways, and with external development there's always a danger that miscommunication or misalignment of expectations can cause issues," he says.

Lindsay Gupton, CEO of Pipeworks, agrees: "Different studios have different cultures, pipelines, tools, and ways of thinking about the creative process," he says – but adds that this can provide a valuable learning experience. "Being exposed to that variety has made Pipeworks more adaptable, more disciplined, and more thoughtful about how we show up as a partner and developer, with best practices refined over 27 years and counting."

Be malleable

Adaptability is a key aspect of exdev. "The biggest thing external development teaches you is how little 'your way' matters if the client disagrees with it," says Bryan Freitas, tech director at the Azores-based co-dev studio Redcatpig. "You have to stay malleable to their tools, their workflows, their communication style and really integrate their team. That flexibility is the job."

Chris Wood, CEO of Unreal support studio Tanglewood Games, says that the main lesson he has learned from external development is that it's "a service business first, and an engineering business second." He says success is related to how seamlessly the external studio slips into the production process, which necessarily involves adaptation – something that isn't always easy.

"You quickly learn you cannot turn up with one fixed way of doing things and expect it to fit"

Chris Wood, Tanglewood Games

"There is almost no standardisation in this industry, and job titles mean different things from one studio to the next," he says. "As well as this, the way projects are run, who is responsible for what, how production works, contract terms, payment terms, it all varies. You quickly learn you cannot turn up with one fixed way of doing things and expect it to fit. You have to read each client on their own terms.

"So the skill – and it has taken us a while to appreciate it is a skill in its own right – is in managing the engagement itself. That only really comes from doing it across a lot of different clients. Anyone can build what they are told to build, but the harder bit is dropping into an unfamiliar setup, working out how that particular client actually operates, and getting on with the work without creating friction."

Add value

"I know that 'add value' is a very corporate phrase, but it's important," says Muckley, who emphasises the importance of going beyond the bare minimum required. "We focus on outcomes," he says. "Instead of studios asking us to do something like 'integrate GameLift,' we work with them to understand what CCU and DAU they need, what the game mode looks like, what are the latency requirements they need, and where do they want the game to evolve in future. By doing this, we can use our own internal expertise to propose a plan to work together and we can dovetail this around their development roadmaps. Then we can ensure we're one less thing for them to worry about and we're hitting their requirements."

Hewson also stresses the importance of going above and beyond clients' expectations. "We always tell people that we're more than happy to have a complimentary engineering call," he says, "because we know that if we talk to developers early, we can help them to avoid some of the common pitfalls and ultimately save them money and headaches later down the line. Now, maybe they don't hire us to do the work on that occasion, but hopefully they will appreciate the insights, and maybe they'll recommend us to somebody else or return to us in future for support."

Dmytro Kovtun, CEO of UX specialists Pingle Studio, says that external development only works when the partner owns the outcome, not just the tasks. "If you just 'do the spec' and never ask if it really helps the player, projects suffer," he says.

"If we talk to developers early, we can help them to avoid some of the common pitfalls"

Rob Hewson, Huey Games

He adds that the toughest projects are the "ones that build the strongest trust," and that "not shipping anything we're not proud of" is why studios come back and recommend Pingle. "We're ready to take on risk," he says. "Publishers don't need a vendor that only picks easy jobs. They need a partner who can absorb technical debt, fix the hard problems, and pass certification on the first try.

For me, the clearest sign that external development is working is simple: the client stops calling you 'the outsourcing team' and starts treating you as part of their roadmap."

Specialise

"Focus really matters," says Parrott, emphasising the need for an area of specialism. "If you have a world-class team of senior Unreal professionals, then the knowledge-sharing and upskilling becomes invaluable. Early on, it's tempting to be everything to everyone, but saying no is sometimes the best thing for all involved."

"It's tempting to be everything to everyone, but saying no is sometimes the best thing"

Myke Parrott, CodeDev

Hewson agrees that it's essential to have a "tight set of services" and specialisms. "At Huey Games, we specialise in porting, optimisation, and networked games, and by being focused, we're able to continue to find those marginal gains and continue to bring new efficiencies to the table."

That said, there's room to diversify when it comes to business models. "Most of our projects are still milestone-based, but increasingly we're working with self-publishing indies, for whom a revenue share model for porting might be more attractive," says Hewson. "It provides us with a diversified revenue stream."

Keep up to date

Hewson also emphasises the need to continuously improve your studio's technology systems and processes. "External development is a business where efficiency compounds," he says. "Every marginal gain we find translates directly into better value and a smoother experience for clients."

He adds that exdev studios like Huey Games are afforded a unique overview. "We work across multiple projects concurrently, so we have the advantage of being able to spot common issues across a broader range of projects and deliver these insights as gains for our customers."

"Player expectations around visuals have moved faster than most studios anticipated"

João Toste, Redcatpig

The difficulty is in keeping on top of it all. "This means always conducting post-mortems on projects to identify those key areas for improvement, but also engaging in a pre-mortem so that we can try to anticipate and mitigate potential issues at the outset."

João Toste, art director at Redcatpig, notes that things move quickly in video games. "Player expectations around visuals have moved faster than most studios anticipated," he says. "What passed three years ago doesn't pass today, and that gap is exactly where a seasoned external art team earns its place. You're not just filling a production slot or reinforcing a canvas, the differentiator is in bringing a trained eye that has seen enough projects, enough pipelines, and enough last-minute pivots to know what holds up and what doesn't.

"Adapting to a client's workflow is the starting point, but the real value comes when you can look at a process, or an art direction decision, and see where it's going to cost them later. I've been in situations where the right move was to propose a change rather than just execute headfirst."

Scale carefully

Tharanee says that scaling up a studio has to be done methodically. "Scale forces formalisation," he says. "Going from nine people to 50-plus on Blankos Block Party meant rebuilding across production, hiring, and culture. Running Blankos and Hearthstone in parallel was the moment TKG became a proper multi-project studio. That capability had to be built."

Those lessons on careful scaling also apply to projects. "We learned that scope discipline is everything," says Tharanee. "Building intentionally, without letting process run away from you, is what separates the projects you're proud of from the ones that keep you up at night."

Mike Sherak, managing director of art division at Virtuos, stresses that geography is no impediment to scaling studios. "A key lesson learned is that there are great developers everywhere," he says. "Today, we are now able to be close to our partners while leveraging great developers across the world."

Marco Bettencourt, CEO and Founder of Redcatpig, says that his studio has grown from three founders to over 40 people, "and that growth came directly from proving ourselves on our own game before asking anyone else to trust us with theirs." He thinks the experience of creating the online multiplayer vehicle combat game Keo helped the team learn the instinct to "protect deadlines" and "manage scope," which in turn has benefited external partners. "We have lived through most of their problems."

"Growth in this industry rarely comes from one big swing," he concludes. "It comes from compounding the right experience over enough projects that the team stops guessing and starts knowing."