Gardens: Building a Startup Games Studio for success (makers of Journey, Spider-Man, Skyrim)
8If you were going to start a new games studio, how would you design the organization, the work environment, and work culture and values for the company?
We speak with the co-founders of Gardens, who are building a shared fantasy adventure game from a veteran team that has worked on games such as Journey, Spider-Man, Skyrim, and many others.
Gardens has recently announced an over $30M series A round, and we discuss how they are starting.
- How are they designing their organization? Why did they make specific decisions on how to work and operate?
Also joining us, is veteran game industry veteran Kristian Segerstrale. Co-founder of Glu Mobile, early investor in Supercell, cofounder and CEO of Playfish acquired by EA, senior exec at EA, and currently CEO of Super Evil Megacorp.
OUTLINE:
0:00 Intro
1:38 How to deal with cofounder relationships?
2:35 Meeting Lexi for the first time and starting the company with lots of preparation
6:06 How do you fight and disagree with each other?
8:54 Most important issues to figure out as an early startup - need to resolve disagreements in a good way and personal motivations
12:42 Industry trends over next 5-10 years vs. focusing internally - strategic product decisions (platform) and fundraising strategy
20:08 Validating assumptions and asking for help
20:50 Gardens game: “an online PVPVE fantasy action adventure survival sandbox”
23:53 How to green light/validate game concepts at Garden and convincing investors of funding from Seed to Series A through prototyping
29:00 How did they think about designing their organization and establishing company culture and values?
34:06 Will Garden’s employee-centric focus and support of “work-life-balance” hurt their ability to succeed? Is hard-core necessary?
40:50 How to be successful without working in office and without hardcore work ethic?
47:20 What are key concerns for success? Scaling/hiring
49:37 Hiring from 3 to 20
51:53 Objectives from Series A funding and overall ambition for the game project
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