Leaving the nest and creating your video game studio

Paulina Bozek is famous for the creation of the successful SingStar series and being a high-profile signing for Atari (who put her in charge of their London-based online studio). Now she has decided to go at it alone so to speak and formed a new studio (which has yet to have a name).

While those following her career may find this surprising, it’s not something that is uncommon. Recently we’ve had former Infinity Ward leaders Frank West and Vince Zampella form their own company, Respawn Entertainment.

It seems that developers and designers can be like birds; they start out in a nest, thrive for many years but get restless and decide to fly out and form their own nest so to speak (yes that was the best example I could come up with so cut me some slack).

Of course, there are many who are just getting their foot into the door known as the video game industry that haven’t worked for any developing/publishing company that have started their own studios.

Often talked about Adarakion Games and Horizon Studios are two such studios that fall into that category.

Horizon Studios contains Trian2Game members including Jay Adeloye (who heads his own studio Drop Dead Interactive) and BHMediaMarty. The studio has several ongoing projects such as Robobuddy, Light the Skies and Redemption: Grave Betrayal – a collaborative project with other Train2Game students.

Adarakion Games – a three man team headed by Train2Game forum member and student gnipper – are working on “Project Blast!” which is coming along well, by the looks of things and from the sounds of their developer diary.

There are disadvantages when going solo without working in an established studio; less contacts to call on, less resources to use, being under the radar could all be obstacles when trying to get your game out there and become come successful.

On the other hand, there is far less pressure to succeed, you can work at a slower pace set by your constraints and you can work on smaller projects without people telling you that your next game must be “epic.”

For a studio, usually their first game is a “make or break” test for them. However, for a low-profile independent studio, they can afford to slip up. With that said it’s in their best interest to get it right first time since even gaining cult status is a step to making your studio go from small time to big time.

What do you think about this? Send me your comments below.