Tips to Find and Hire The Best Game Development Team
The team means the world in game development. The industry develops so fast that they need to attract additional game development resources grow stronger each year. In this article, we’ll share our 14 years of experience in finding full-cycle game development teams and being one of them. Read on.
Where to Look for a Game Development Team?
Despite being traditionally introverted, game developers are not that hard to find. But to succeed, you should be familiar with options and keep in mind some special aspects of the game development industry.
Let us find you
But this works only if you are heavily online. The passive attraction of partnerships works well for companies, who already have successful releases. Properly launched games usually have some kind of marketing base: website, press releases, and mentions, Steam/EGS/Origin pages, social media. The bare existence of these may provide some offers.
Here, at Pingle Studio, we’re constantly in search of new partners via public sources of info and contacts. We keep an eye on releases and announcements of Unreal Engine and Unity projects and offer our resources for development, art, testing, and porting support for all platforms.
Pros: the stable amount of partnership offers.
Cons: offers may not always fit your project.
Team provided by the publisher
Partnership with the publisher often means porting your game to all the possible platforms, a meaningful increase in the amount of content, strict deadlines, and a clean game support model in the future.
If the initial game development team has not enough resources for project expansion, the publisher may invite one or more external development teams. So stay in good touch with your publisher:)
Pros: publisher only provides experienced teams.
Cons: integration process for the new team needs to be very fast and often requires some hurry.
Events and exhibitions
Pre pandemic, the world was full of annual game-related conferences and events. The main reason to visit this kind of event for professionals is to establish partnerships, exchange experiences, and share contacts with other professionals. Visiting or performing at this kind of event almost guarantees a large number of offers.
The main advantage of big conferences is the huge amount of companies of all directions in attendance from all over the world. Other than global events like E3 there’s plenty of narrow fielded events, dedicated to one strict specialty like PG connects for mobile game development.
Due to pandemic, the majority of 2020-2021 gaming events are online. This brings some change, but still, even online game conferences are great for establishing business contacts.
Pros: personal communication with the management and team leaders of the company.
Cons: huge amount of contacts at once, that needs to be treated properly.
Social media
Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Reddit, and others serve as great places for the first connection. The social media format allows contacting responsible team members directly, sharing info fast, and partially figuring out a team composition.
Pros: messaging speed, simple search, informal communication.
Cons: large companies rarely consider social media as a platform for new professional connections.
How to Find a proper Team for Game Development
The market is crowded with the development teams willing to create games. The questions are how to find a game development team that fits your exact project and how to make sure their qualification is enough to bring your game to life.
5 steps to check over the chosen company?
- Check the portfolio and website
To be honest, any decent outsourcing company needs to have a website with a portfolio and testimonials. The web page is a showreel for the company, where you can check the finished projects.
- Check company’s pages on professional platforms and social media
Social media pages, the company’s website, and b2b platform profiles usually link to each other. Checking those pages takes minutes, and even that may provide some image about the company.
For example, checking the company’s ArtStation account is a must-have if you’re looking for game artists and designers. The best works are usually posted on ArtStation so you can check whether the company can handle the art style and quality level you need.
- Evaluate the first contact.
No matter who writes first — you or your potential contractor — the first contact tells a lot. The writing style, language level, communication skills, and reaction speed of the first letter often helps to discover the level of processes in the company.
- Interview the leading specialists
You may have a great conversation with the CEO or contractor’s communication team, but the technical team is the one who will work to provide the result you need. It may not be the most necessary step, but getting closer to coders and artists also helps to check their professional level.
- Set up a plan.
Planning wins fights. Creating a strict, but realistic development plan with your contractor may not guarantee success, but it makes it easier to track progress and evaluate the performance.
Why Hire the external Game Development Team?
You never walk alone in the modern game development industry. Attracting additional resources is risky and requires a level of professionalism, but it allows you to bring your game to another quality level. To know more about it, check out our material about the advantages of outsourcing in game development.
And if you plan to attract an external development team to your project — feel free to Contact Us and let us help you bring your game to life!