How to Succeed in Co-Development: Sam Carlisle Interview

[music] Hello, my name is Brian Francis
and I am Beth Elder
and welcome to GDC SideQuest. Uh Beth, you've got this fine fellow Sam Carile here that you uh interviewed at this year's GDC Festival of Gaming. Um tell me a little about him and why you wanted to feature him on GDC Side Quest. Yes. So Sam Carile is the co-founder of XDS Sparks and is a an expert in code development and external development. And as part of our mission to explore the full ecosystem, I really wanted to talk about you know the rise in code development, what it means for studios and and smaller teams and developers and really what role it's going to be playing in the next few years in the game industry. Yeah, I love that you brought up his experience with like XDS Spark and you know um being on the his sort of his role being on the advisory committee for this kind of conference

because it sort of speaks to like when you're trying to source out like uh funny enough he talks about in the conversation you had you know about like trust and reliability like when you're trying to understand you know essentially someone who in one way or another is in a business of like needing to convince you to buy their product which in this case is a team like how do you sort of like sus out you know someone who's just making a really great sales pitch and someone who's speaking authoratively about best practices. Um, and the fact that, you know, you're able to get someone who's not just, you know, a like who's experienced in the field, but thinks about how people in the field communicate with each other in other companies. That's so cool. That's why I like not to pull out the like this is why I love uh GDC and this is why I love gamedeveloper.com card like I do so regularly, but like the people are out there and they have like such cool things to say and this is one of the things that like helps you, you know, pick out the the the good and useful information, you know?
Yeah. And I mean we're seeing more, you know, double A studios and smaller, you know, even bigger indie studios, uh, you know, using these resources a bit more. And as we're seeing more teams embracing

code development, whether they are soliciting for or whether they're offering or providing it, it's a it's a way for bigger games to be made with smaller teams, which has its advantages and does have it disadvantages.
And those are some of the things that we explored in our conversation.
Yeah, absolutely. the I spent like a little bit of the last year on like a very like I think codev has a role to has a very strong role to play in the future development and I both like stand by that and the cool thing about you know sharing ideas with professionals is you know they're going to take your idea and whack it around and show you where all the weak points are but I think like at the fundamental principle of like I think what code development represents and you guys are going to talk about this is you know like it it represents you know like companies that have diversified um diversified clientele like diversified revenue streams. It's companies where uh that are thinking sort of more core like what people do you need to make a game as opposed to uh you know like it it's and it preserves that without putting too much burden on certain organizations. And so I think there's a lot of nuance here to dive

into you know I think there's a lot of what you guys talk about you know is like what makes this process work what makes it doesn't or makes it not work sometimes. Um, it's nuance like everything, right? But I'd rather be, you know, discussing and solving industry problems that have nuance and weight and good examples and bad examples, you know, than certain other things in our industry, you know, that sometimes we're like being told something works and we're like, oh my god, no, it doesn't. We have so much history saying it doesn't. Why are we still on this? But codev and Xdev are absolutely on the like, yeah, let's solve problems, let's build cool things together, etc.
Yeah, as we're seeing the industry change, you know, we've also had layoffs over the past several years. the the AAA studio model has also been adapting. We're seeing new ways of working together and co-development is one of those ways.
Yeah, absolutely. So, that's enough from me. Um, let's get uh your chat with Sam in front of everyone's ears.
I think we have a an issue of perception. So, I want to make it quite clear that when people say, "Hey, what's the choice between working in a development studio or working at an outsourcer or an external development

studio?" The one thing that isn't different is that you are a developer at either you're a developer at a developer and you're a developer at an outsource studio or at a at an external development studio. The role is still exactly the same no matter what other people are classing. The work you're doing is the same and your impact and your contribution to the development of a game is the same as had you been at a studio. Welcome to the GDC Side Quest podcast all about exploring the full game ecosystem. Today I am extremely excited to welcome Sam Carile. He is the co-founder of XDS Spark and as well as the former director of external partners at Xbox. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you for having me. Well, first since we are a Side Quest podcast, I do have to know what is your favorite Side Quest
in terms of games, in terms of of the industry. Um, so in games, my favorite side quest at the moment is I'm a I'm a platformer. So I've got I've got plat

I've got Planet of Lana 2 in the hopper for when I get home. I'm looking forward to that very much.
Nice.
Uh me and my me and my boy are working our way through um split fiction at the moment, having had a hell of a good time on It Takes Two. that go put a special place in my heart in that game.
The side quests on Split Fiction are so great because they take you out of the one environment and put you right into the other one. So sci-fi fantasy, you're switching back and forth. That's right. There's some amazing standalone.
There's some weird ones. There's a one with a pig and a hot dog. I seem to remember that get very
Oh yeah, just wait until you get to the dentist one.
Okay. [laughter] Yeah, just lay all my fears out there for me to explore. I'm all up for that.
So I wanted to first start by learning a bit about your journey. What led you? What started you in game development? What brought you to co-found XDS Spark?
Um, so if I go enough further enough back, I was a comic book artist. Uh, I did a comic book inker back when it was pen and brush. Uh, and then I was a colorist. We moved into Photoshop and things like that. Um, and then in the

early 2000s, I took a course in 3D and became a 3D artist and joined Sumo Digital when they were uh, a fairly new company. Um and I was there as an artist for about a year or so and then they set up a India studio an art studio out in India. the was insourcing if you like and about for a few a few months after that had started up it was struggling a little bit and they asked me to go out there and support the artists in India and so I went out and first time I went to India I went for 3 months uh and I sat with a studio in India and help them um get themselves established and that work well with Suma because Suma was an odd was an odd company in terms of it was very senior heavy a lot of bedroom coders a lot of people from Gremlin Graphics and back in the day kind of places. So it was they had a different approach to a a studio in India than I might might have. So getting th those two working together uh turned out to be one of the the biggest challenges I've had in my career and I enjoyed it very much. Um and I came back and then

carried on working as a as an artist, an environment artist. We were working on Sega Allstars Racing, which is still to this day probably my favorite project I've worked on. Um and then later on as the project kind of like got to its final stages um they asked me if I would take on the role of outsource manager and outsource manager then it's about 2007 I think do I think it was a new title it wasn't something that really existed in the industry very much it wasn't really a thing um so I did take that on and one of my main things the one of the main areas looked after was the India studio and I I loved D being out there. I loved working with them. I love the challenge of it. And we also worked a lot with Malaysian studios as well. Um, and we kind of expanded and built an external development pipeline and an approach to working with external partners. But it turns out I really enjoyed because it honestly I was kind of an okay artist. I was in a decent environment. Did not

send the world on fire, right? I was a decent environment. I enjoyed it very much.
So it's more of a a lead instead of a dude. Yeah, it was it turned out that my talent laid in getting people who are a lot more talented than I am to work well with people who are a lot more talented than I am. Okay, in the middle
that's an amazing skill and it's not something that everybody has. Uh talking about co- co-development, outsourcing, these are things that are really being utilized in the industry. What would you say are the biggest differences between them?
So I think there's a the term outsourcing has some problems with it, right? It has some connotations. Um and I think at the moment as we the the difference between co-development and outsourcing is outsourcing is seen as traditional model of you time and materials you get assets back or you get a particular product back from an external partner while co-development is the partner is far more integrated into your pipeline. So they are they have access to your um your perforce or to whatever your version control is. They

have access to the engine. They're much more integrated in there. They have much more ownership over what they're doing. So their contribution is much more in-depth. There's a many different ways you can codev and there's many different descriptions of code development and it can change a lot from whether it's art codev or whether it's engineering codev or whether it's the two together. Um but it's much more integrated and contains much more ownership is the fundamental difference between the two.
So if you're a smaller indie studio and you're looking to upscale uh how do you decide which path is right for you uh if you decide to do code development versus outsourcing? So if you're a small indie studio and this is an interesting area because I think that at the moment the smaller studios maybe underutilize external development they underutilize outsourcing. Um, so part of your struggle can be in defining them, right? So at Xbox, I was a little bit of a luxury in that I could go out there and just search the market, right? I could learn the market. And don't get me wrong, wonderful job, right? Incredible privileges to be given the freedom to go out and meet talented people. Um, and

obviously as an India, you don't maybe have you don't have that kind of resource, but there are there's our platform, for example, is a way of of sourcing those kind of suppliers and it's free to them. So the uh indies can certainly use it that way, but also look at the credits on games. Find games that you like, right? And have a look at the credits, see who worked on them. Um, also have a look at just what it is that you want to do and what you want to learn. The thing about if you're an ind studio and you want to expand out and I understand with indie studios especially, the the core experience, the the the people who are running the studio, the power is really in is in that studio itself. It's in the people involved in that studio itself. And there's a reluctance to bring in external partners to that because in a way it feels like it's diluting it and it's maybe not part of the journey they want to go on. But actually if you bring in external partners, if you hit success, if you do well, they can expand with you, right? So they can expand the studio without you hiring full-time employees. Then if you hit any shocks, those outsource partners of yours, those external partners of yours, they're

designed to absorb those shocks, right? They're designed to be able to shrink back down again and shrink back out again. So you don't lay people off and you actually keep your core team more intact that way and you protect them more that way by doing it.
But as you know it does protect them but I'm sure there's also some concerns about you know creative freedom creative control. If I'm handing something over to somebody else
is it really going to be my project anymore? And as you know some developers are very you know protective of what they are creating. So how do you navigate that if you are a studio or a team that is looking to bring in outside developers and co-development? Well, I think one, you need to leave a little bit of ego behind, right? Um, they're all developers. All these studios that you hire from around the world, we we're calling outsourcing, but they're developers, they're artists, they're engineers, they're enthusiasts, they're exactly the same. Like they they be they will be just as passionate about your project if and the more you let them in, the more that you show what you're doing, the more that you express how you feel about it and you connect and communicate with them, the more they'll go on that journey with them. But it's

also a question of being sensible about it about allowing them in gradually about allowing that journey to actually grow the onboarding process to be part of it. But also don't look at what you're giving out. Look at what they're bringing in. Right? So when you're working with an external partner, there is nothing stopping you from going out and working with the same external partners who worked on The Last of Us or your favorite titles or any of those and just asking them how did you do it? How did you do this particular asset? how would you like to work together? Because they've worked with creative directors and producers and projects and titles from all around the world multiple different ways in multiple different times. So the learning that they have in how to manage the process and how to get the most out of it is through the roof. So leverage that go to them and ask them what's in in your how should we work together? Um and spend some time. You don't have to you don't have to go with whoever you first start. You you can go in and test. you can go in and work out who it is that you would like to work

with. In a AAA studio, typically, and my role had quite a lot to do with this, you would put four or five developers in front of somebody. So, if a studio said, "Hey, we're looking for an environment partner." I would go out and find four or five studios I think could be a good fit. And then they would look them through and go, "Okay, we like look at these two. They seem to be the right kind of right style, right experience." and then they've talked to both of them and then gradually work out which one they'd like to work with and which one fits their studio.
What are some of the criteria someone should look for when deciding that right partner to work with?
So things will go wrong because it's getting deaf, right? That's going to happen, right? So you want a studio that feels confident about bringing up the problems to you early
and they're okay with that.
So the personal relationship will really matter. You can find quality like there is a lot of great quality out there. So, funnily enough, the quality wise extremely important is maybe secondary to the relationship and how open it is

and how confident they feel with just talking to you generally. Um, so find the one that's the right personal fit for you and how you you like to operate. Understand where your level of comfort is. Are you okay with having somebody that's nowhere near your time zone or do they need to have a decent amount of crossover for you for you to feel comfortable? There are plenty of people who are who will have studios that have hardly any crossover with their time zone, but they're experienced in managing that relationship, that type relationship. Others maybe not. So, decide what the criterias are that will make you feel comfortable and then find the studio that best matches your own studios culture or your own studios fit and they'll they'll grow with you.
Well, on the other end, for a co-development studio that's looking to get those contracts, obviously the honesty is a great tool to use. What are some of the uh other pieces of advice you'd have for a codev studio that's looking to increase the amount of studios that it's working with?
So codev studios are much more codev work is much more intense and it's it's

there's a lot more um focus on security and IP protection um and you'll find elsewhere. So you need to to make sure that you're able to cope with that. Secondly, they don't the level of handholding needs to be as small as humanly possible for a lot of these studios. they don't have the overhead to be able to manage. So they want so they understand that there's a ramp up and there's an onboarding but you really need to be able to operate independently. Um and so for that you need to make sure we have the right kind of technical team in place. You're able to proactively approach problems and you can express that to the studios that you're talking to. So when you're going out there looking for code dev work, you need to be able to say well this is how we we deal with problems. this is the experience we have and this is how we're set up to say if the build comes in and it's broken, this is how we can work our way around it. This is how we roll back. These are the technical teams that can help us along the way. Um, so they're looking for that. They're looking for keeping their internal overhead in managing you as low as possible while you keep your while really leveraging

the talent that you have and being able to get that that good stuff back from you. So in terms of reach out understand where your strengths lie like don't try to be everything to everyone if that's not what you want to do right it's just not a
understand what and also understand what kind of studios you want to do what do you what kind of code products project products you want to work on what are your favorite titles where do your strengths lie and project those to them um if you're trying to be everything to everybody uh it's harder for them to get a latch on what what the specialism is right and also the chances are it will start off small and then grow so as they learn your as they learn to trust you, they'll grow into other areas of code development. So understand that it's okay to go in smaller um and then work your way up and around from those points. But it's a tough market at the moment to be coming in. Most studios now will have the words code development after them in some form or another.
Oh,
because they want to have that close relationship and it's the way that it's

the the development studios are going. So you just need to understand what is your form of code development and what it is that you bring that's unique to the table.
What makes you stand out?
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have any personal favorite memories of a studio that you brought a code development studio that you brought in for a project and what they performed and what they delivered?
So I worked heavily on the art side, right? So, we've had a lot of great co-development relation relationships um at Xbox and the rest, but the the ones that stick in my mind are the probably back from Sumo because we were doing code development at Sumo with some of our external partners before co-development was really recognized as a thing. Um so, it was a we did a we did full levels for Sega Allstars Racing. So, it was this was a multiple IP, so it was all the Sega's characters, etc. And we would give just the track ribbon out to the art studios and then they would go from the track ribbon which is a basic uh geometry all the way through to final lit product and that includes

concept art the whole thing. So that's art code development full full level art co-development and that was about 15 years ago 15 or 16 talents ago right um and I loved working with that and going on that journey and learning how to do it um because I was very hands-on very involved and I was in the thick of it and I quite liked being I quite like being in the middle of a fire that's that's quite a happy place for me to be um and they they added so much to those projects and these were new studios these are some of these studios have gone on to become really big large studios, but back then these were some of their first ever projects and they were code dev and so I love them for that. Um, and that's where my favorite memory sit. It's also where my biggest disappointment sits as well.
Oh, how so?
Because I went back five or six years ago. I went back out to Pola, back out to Malaysia. Um, and I checked in on both of the studios that we worked with out there. And one of the studios, uh, we had a we were the first AAA work we ever gave them. They ever had was the work that we gave them. and it became

codeb quite quickly and I was asking them about it cuz this was like you know 12 years later or whatever and I was going right so that's what we were doing back then so what we doing now like how far has it moved forward like what kind of things are you doing now and tell me about the the progress and and where you are and and what has an industry do and the response from both of them was we've never been given that freedom since it we've never been given that level of freedom since and it fel felt like a huge backward step
because spoiled a little bit early in a good way.
Yes, it was it was we had to take risks because of the situation we were in but those risks were proved to work and then for that to have not it it should have looked like the beginnings of something what we did. It should have looked like the basic stuff when I come back over 10 years later and instead it looked like the advanced stuff which was really disappointing cuz I thought the industry as a whole could have moved further and faster and now we are moving much much more into those kind of rations are

becoming more common. Those full level things are becoming more common and more demanded. Um but I just think we could have got there a lot quicker if we had a bit more trust.
It should have been the rule and not the exception.
Yeah. It should have just it should have opened a few more doors than it did. I think it should have we should have been a bit more trusting. Um, but we weren't. And the reasons for that probably are there's multitude reasons for that and I I can't I can't pretend to understand them all.
But I just thought it was a shame. Well, as I'm sure you know, the job market has been challenging for the game industry, to say the least.
For newer developers who are looking to enter the space,
and they're trying to decide between getting that, you know, studio job that, you know, being part of that AAA company or maybe going into a codev and taking that route. Is there one you would recommend more than the other?
Well, no. [laughter] So because like because you know it's got to it's it's what you've got to whatever suits you right you got to tell you you got to follow whatever dream it

is that you that really speaks to you but what I would say is that don't discount the outsource external development world and there's some good reasons to not discount it is that one at the moment job security is rare almost non-existent we've just seen you can do everything right and be laid off anyway right your product could be fantastic even be laid off anyway So the contract between developers and their employees on many levels, certainly on the on the larger levels, is kind of broken, right? It's not it's not there anymore. They don't they can't claim to have that level of commitment to their employees that they had just a few years ago. So given that, if you're working in an external partner, the difference is that all the eggs aren't in one basket, right? They're working on they're trying to be working on multiple titles and multiple things. they're much more resilient because of that. So when so when a project gets canceled or it goes away, they have many more projects to lean on. Also, they have different styles of projects they're working on. So it means

that if you get project fatigue that you can then move on to a different project, you can move on to a different um role. So there's more security, funnily enough, in the external development world right now than there is in the development world. And but there is still great work to be done. I think we have a an issue of perception. So I want to make it quite clear that when people say hey what's the choice between working in a development studio or working at an outsour external development studio the one thing that isn't different is that you are a developer either you're a developer at a developer and you're a developer at an outsource studio or at a at an external development studio the role is still exactly the same no matter what other people are clusting the work you're doing is the same and your impact and your contribution to development of a game is the same as had you been at a studio Yeah, I think that's a really great point to bring up because we hear some misconceptions about co-development that you're not, you know, you're not getting to actually be part of the project. You're just being brought in and then, you know, pushed to the side. But it's clearly not the case at all.

No, it's it's a point of frustration when I hear terms like content file and things like that. What does that mean? What are you what are you talking about with that? If where is the magical line that is drawn that says I am now no longer a developer, I am just an artist at a content farm or I am whatever. What is that like? Because I'm doing the same work if if I was on site, am I am I now magically a developer or is there a time z what what is it about this? And I think we there's some misconceptions and there's some prejudices that have just grown up and I understand why they have come about and they've come about because we see external development, we see outsourcing as a necessity. So it's a pressure release valve. It's something that we have to do. It's not something we're enthusiastic about. It has a sexiness problem, right? If you are a say we're in the movie industry, right? If you want to make a movie, you go, "Right, we're going to bring in all these people from around the world. These guys are great for cinema

cinematography. These guys are great set builders. They worked on this movie and this movie and this movie. We're all going to come together as brilliant people. We're going to make this fantastic project, right?" And then break up. [snorts] In games, we tend to go, hey, we need to save money,
so we're going to bring in some external people. Uh, we have a resource squeeze in this area or we have a skill deficit here, so we're going to need to bring in some people for this. We don't particularly want to do this part of the game because we're not quite got so we'll do this bit. So, it's seen as a necessity. So, when you sell it, you're saying, well, we're going to have to do it. We're going to And really, I want to see see the enthusiasm. I want to say, right, we're going to work with this art team that worked on these great AAA titles that really fit the kind of work that we've done. we're going to work on these UIUX specialists. We're going to work with these partners and being excited about that and have the intent to be excited about it from the beginning and bring them in that way.
So really embracing the companies and wanting to bring them in as opposed to just seeing it as a last resort.
Yes. And see see it as how you're going to make your game and see that that it's

not a negative to do that. Right. They are game developers from all around the world with all the same passions, all the same things that you want to do. you know, they all have that same drive. Um, so yeah, embrace that and be excited to work with them and look forward to working with them and prep your company to work with them, right? Cuz there is going to be things you need to do that otherwise you wouldn't need to do like reviewing, understanding how you're going to get the feedback out to those suppliers, how you're going to get how you're going to manage those relationships. Make sure that those are those are in place and thought about before. And that's really what I mean by intent. go in there with the intent to do it well rather than be be seen as a necessity because budget and resource constraints mean you have to.
Well, you have since moved on to co-found XDS Spark. How has that transition been for you?
So, it's been interesting. Can I say
I like that word?
Interesting. Well, you know, that's the curse, isn't it? May you live in interesting times, right? Um I I what I've so I love I love to work I

love working in the external development world and one of the things I wanted to move into to Spark to do and to set that up is I I maintained a database at Xbox like many others do right and I wanted to be able to bring that database out into the world cuz like I said that was a luxury to have somebody like me at a company like it's a bit of a luxury right so we wanted to bring that kind of knowledge out there and give structure to how the community can find work and how the community can talk to each other and and manage their process. And so we're really what XDS does is a conference and what which is XDS is the external development summit in in Vancouver and what um Spark do what the mission is to just try and advance external development, advance the world of outsourcing, advance how we work together, how we build things together. Um and Spark is a platform to help do that and it's a foundational platform to help do that which works in conjunction with uh a summit that also helps to do that. Right? So I think there's a lot of places we can go to from this point

onwards. The games industry needs to become more sustainable. That's a big challenge it has is that reliance to sustainability to give ourselves the room to go create great things. That sustainability that path to sustainability is integrated into external development. It goes hand inhand with external development. That's the way we do it. So this platform is a way for us to begin to do that and to be be a way to democratize it to open it out to everybody which is why honestly for for developers it's free. So even in Indie it's free right? So you can just go in and use it. Um and so we want we want to bring that together and over time we will find new ways to help bring the community to work closer together. So we still do as part of our we do webinars and panels and outreach and we try to be an advocate for the games industry and the I guess one of the main reasons I wanted to do it is we are not a developer and we are not a supply right we sit in the middle and external development has

little representation and because we sit in the middle from a business development standpoint it can be very hard to shine a light on yourself. So if you're an external partner going out there and saying, "Hey, we worked on this game and this title and and shouting about it, you can take too much light away from the developers and the developer can they can feel shy about doing that, right?" And quite often the developer doesn't particularly want to admit just how much help they had and they can be reluctant as well. So they don't want to particularly shine a light on you. We're not a developer or supplier. So we will just shout about it. We will go, "Hey, look at all these brilliant teams that did this and they contributed to that. Aren't they fantastic? on these teams externally or the teams that develop you that help make it happen. Aren't they incredible? These are the lessons we learned. So we can we can be enthusiastic on your behalf.
Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today, Sam. This has been the GDC side quest podcast. And now back to the main quest. [music]

Uh Beth, that was a great chat. I need to ask you though, did you catch his um Board of the Billionaires t-shirt? For readers, for listeners not checking out the video version, which you can find on the GDC Festival of Gaming YouTube channel. Um he's wearing this very like nice green shirt that says board of the billionaires on it. So, what was your reaction when he walked up on stage and was wearing that?
Well, he actually came up to us before we got ready to start taping and the moment I saw that shirt, my first thought was, okay, this is a guy I can trust.
Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. It's I think it's funny because like I mean inherently when you're in CODV and XDEV a lot of your clients are the billionaires but I don't know you're not going to meet them directly. So like uh it was charming. I found it very charming as well and I've been thinking about the trust me I've been thinking about the dynamic of trust in a lot of ways right and like trust is you know like you guys talked about like in so many ways you know we're talking about do doing creative problem solving together are talking about um uh trust is what makes it possible you know for for one specific thing he talked about which is you know if you're if you are running a code development team you know

being confident in your ability to bring up describe pro major problems with your partner is important and then what I thought also thought about like listening to that is you know if you're on the other side of equation. Um, a lot of corporate cultures can be very, uh, a lot of work cultures and teams of all sizes really, I don't just need to throw the corporations under the bus here. Um, not being able to like discuss and solve those kinds of problems is like actually a very real challenge everywhere and it pops up in the most surprising ways. So, I think when he raised that, you know, like that's sort of a moment not just for like, you know, what should you know if you're thinking about getting into codev, it's one of those like what you what should you know when you're thinking about finding codev is like don't just look at their ability, you know, to speak comfort to you. It's it's look at your own ability to act on what they bring up.
Yeah. Trust is really the mode dour when it comes to co-development. When you are, you know, hiring a freelancer to come in and work on a little something something and then they head out for the day, you know, there there is ownership with it. Uh but you're also being contracted to do a specific task. Whereas, if you're hiring co-development team, the ideal way to have that

relationship is for there to be trust, for them to take ownership of what they are creating. And that includes bringing up concerns if something isn't going the way that it could or should
and it's it is a problem in you know a lot of industries you know but once you can you approach it and once you can solve it constructively I think that it it works out better for everyone.
Yeah. He made another point about like an advantage for code development companies and I and I sort of like I think a small caveat would be like this is sort of true in like specific regions of the world where code development is operating right now and where it's finding a lot of success is you know like um code development provides job security because your parent company has like a diversified stream of revenue. There's obviously more security in just like look like you know we have revenue coming from different places. If the thing you're working on doesn't pan out as well well you know luckily like the whole company gets you know is in a stronger spot. Exactly.
Yeah. Um Beth, you got a cool other project coming out soon. Uh the uh um

the GDC Festival of Gaming State of the Industry Survey. Uh I believe it's launching a little earlier than we normally do it this year, right? So that's coming down the pipe.
It is. We have changed it from a January release to a November release. So it's more of a a time capsule of what that year has been like, which technically means there's going to be two 2026 versions, but it was either that or skip a whole year. the price of the price of effective change as sometimes you got
price of effective change. I get to write two times in one year. Hooray for me.
Uh but we actually included questions about code development for the first time. Uh we wanted to ask you know studios are they hiring code development services? Are they providing code development services? And we also wanted to know from codev studios are you working on your own projects? The reason being is we've had codev studio as an option for what studio type you have for a couple of years now, but we're seeing more and more studios take on codev projects as a way to help keep the business running or you know to diversify their uh their portfolio. And

so uh the the you know the results we got are very interesting and and a little surprising in some ways and I'm excited to share them soon.
Yeah. And just to speak about um some dynamics I heard uh coming out of Gamescom latch on end this year is the cool thing about this you know what again how the sequence this this dynamic can work well is you know companies that then some companies you know find that it's right you know after years of doing codev you know that like they've been you know received like great training from you know some like really experienced people in the business and now they're in a great spot to you know start start dreaming of their own games like pitching their own games like shipping their own games. Um, it's it's sort of one of those uh god like this. Sometimes it's these like like this is not as cool as one of my favorite things to site in game development. What make what makes game development cool is you can make a shotgun more powerful in a game for players just by changing the sound effect. That's one of my favorite things I lean on, right? Is like a why is game development cool? Well, because sometimes this is one of the solutions to your problem. Um, and weirdly like that dynamic and that like that evolution of of work and relationship

and growth is another one of those things that like makes me excited about talking about the the sometimes these things could be thought of as the more boring ends of game develop, but nope. Like cool stuff's happening here, like cool stories, cool people. Um, when when everyone's firing all cylinders and and working well together, these kinds of things can happen.
One of my favorite uh GDC talks is uh it's from about Red Red Dead Redemption 2 and is about the horses. Highly recommend it. It is a great video. It is on our YouTube channel. And one thing I remember hearing about was they didn't actually like make the horses faster when you were galloping. It was just more about like the motion blur. It was more about the environment around you. They don't you don't actually speed up.
So, uh I just I just things like that are so fascinating. I saw one about Alan Wake 2 and how they did the uh how you did like the portals and all the level design that went into making like you instantly going from one place to another.
Yeah,
game development is just fascinating.
It's really cool. Yeah. Um so folks at home, thank you again for listening or

watching to GDC SideQuest, one of the little projects we have here on the Game Developer podcast. Uh today's episode was edited by Beth Elder Ken and a fine fellow named Thomas Ma Mason. Uh, the Game Developer podcast e music is by Mike Mann. Uh, and of course, uh, Game Developer and GDC festival gaming are sibling organizations under informal festivals. Thanks for listening, y'all.