How to Choose the Best Game Porting Company

While PC gaming still dominates the field, with 52% of gamers using personal computers as their main gaming device, console gaming grows each year. In 2019, it reached $35.1 billion in value, and by 2022 it is projected to grow even more, up to $47 billion.

This means that if you want your game to succeed and reach a broader user base, you need to launch it on every platform possible. However, porting a game requires a lot of knowledge, skills, and experience to optimize it for each console properly. The best solution to this problem is to ask for help. Here, we’ll tell you how to choose a game porting company that suits your project the best.

7 Top-Rated Video Game Porting Companies

Porting a game to the console could hardly be called simple. It includes not only altering the game to run on consoles but also the optimization of the visuals and of the controls to achieve the same performance as the original version of the game.

Professionals at the top video game porting studios have managed to do that and more. Some of the most notable porting studios include:

Virtuous

This well-known company has much experience working with major developers and publishers, like Square Enix and Ubisoft. One of their most notable projects is a fantastic port of Dark Souls Remastered to Nintendo Switch, with the implementation of the Switch-unique features, like gesture-based controls and HD rumble.

Keywords

Keywords studio specializes in a wide spectrum of services, including updating old games for the newer hardware. Trusted by Ubisoft and EA, this company continues to grow and develop, as they often acquire smaller companies and use their resources for more efficient game development and porting.

Abstraction

The company prides itself in finding elegant solutions to porting problems that inevitably occur. It has earned the title of the top-rated video game porting company for several projects, from cult classics like Hotline Miami to crowd-pleasers like Angry Birds.

Pingle Studio

Pingle has a diverse team of experts ready to help you port your game on any device you need, from the previous generation of consoles, like Xbox One, to the current one, like PS5, and also mobile devices.

Independent Arts

This company has a long history of porting old games to the newer consoles, starting as early as the 1990th. And they continue to be the experts in the field, with Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony sometimes referring to them for help.

Room 8 Studio

Room 8 guarantees the delivery of the entire product in time for the set-up deadline. Their knowledge of cutting-edge technologies and a long list of successful projects (such as Abzu, What Remains of Edith Finch, Ashen) make them arguably the best game porting company and a worthy member of this list.

Puny Human

Last but not least, Puny Human has a proven experience with game development, so they are familiar with most typical issues of game porting. Their developers and tech artists might help you with porting VR games and alluring game worlds, as they’ve already helped with Trover Saves the Universe and Wasteland 3.

How to Choose a Game Porting Studio

Check Their Previous Experience

Before you hire a dedicated expert, you need to check the team’s experience in their porting journey. To choose a game porting studio, check out their portfolio and make sure they are familiar with the engine you’re working on (be that a wide-spreaded Unity or the engine you’ve developed yourself). Also, check if their previous console projects completed TRCs and are available in the store of the platform of your choice.

Another bonus point is if the company has experience in developing their own project for the console. This will ensure that they are familiar with certain pitfalls each console has, and they know how important it is to preserve the user experience as it is on other platforms.

Make Sure They Have a Diverse Team

What is the best video game porting studio? It’s a team that can transfer the essence of your game and make it work in a different form. Unfortunately, in most cases, simply changing a few lines of code is not enough to port the game on any device. You need to have a group effort on a few different fronts if you want the result to be up to par with the original.

For example, besides the developer familiar with the engine and the platform, you might require 3D graphics designers for model optimization, artists that might need to change and put together the art assets, and a QA team that would find the unique issues that could come up during the porting. A diverse team also needs a leader who would take care of the overall strategy – an experienced project manager would be ideal. The more other narrow specialists the team has, the better they are prepared for unexpected issues.

Are They Familiar with the Next-Gen?

Right now, we are still in the transitional period between the console generations. While the new systems have been around for a few months, the developers are still learning their features and specifics, and so do the porting companies.

Your best bet is to make your game available for as many platforms as possible. So, if the porting studio is not ready to support your transition to the next generation, it might be wise to look for the best game porting services elsewhere.

Consider Porting on Every Console at Once

Some porting companies are highly specialized in a single console. Their advantage is that they know their job exceptionally well. The experience they’ve accumulated will help you to avoid any pitfalls associated with that specific platform.

However, if your goal is not to hyper-focus but rather to apply yourself wherever possible, it is better to work on porting on every platform at once. Such a parallel approach will save you time compared to doing it one after the other. It will also allow you to publish the game at every store at once, thus making it easier to plan the event and budget for marketing.

Get Their Estimations

Another way for you to decide if outsourcing to a porting company is a good idea is to get their estimations on the project. This specifies not only the budget and time spent on the project, but also how good the game will look and which area is more likely to cause issues.

In most cases, you would have to make some compromises to make the game run smoothly, so if in their estimation the company will assure you of no losses, you should suspect that something is amiss. It wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion in any case.

Make Sure You Get Frequent Updates

Before you start working with a porting studio, make sure you discuss the update frequency. The better you’re informed about the state of the project at any given time, the better you can plan for issue mediation or the release process.

The update frequency should depend on the project scope and complexity, but try to get a progress report at least once a week. Choose the report format that will be convenient for both sides. If there are multiple teams working on the porting, make sure that each one knows the task well, and they are able to communicate during these updates.

Consider Pingle Studio Your Trusted Partner

Pingle Studio has a lot of experience co-developing and porting games on various platforms. We’ve worked both on AAA, commercially successful titles, and small indie projects, and in every case, we’ve successfully completed the task at hand. Let’s take a closer look at some projects Pingle Studio has worked on.

Life is Strange

Life is Strange is a critically acclaimed and community-beloved unique visual novel. Our job was to transfer the PC/console version of the game from the UE3 version of the engine to the more relevant UE4 and port it on mobile devices. While it was challenging to achieve high performance with limited hardware resources, we’ve managed to succeed while developing the touchscreen controls from scratch. In addition, we were able to add features unique to mobile devices, like iMessage stickers.

Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is an atmospheric horror-survival open-world game. In this project, our goal was to port it on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. To reach the best performance, we’ve heavily optimized all the content, overhauled the memory management and the world simulation model. We’ve managed to achieve great performance with the high-end graphics intact.

Whatever your project entails, we’re here to help you. Contact Pingle Studio right now, and we’ll discuss your game in more detail.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right porting studio can make or break the success of your project. Among the various choices that are on the market right now, you need to pick the company that will accommodate your needs with the right amount of experience and expertise. Consider game porting services from Pingle Studio. Contact us now to discuss your needs!