Building the Right Team & Culture
In the second installment of our expert blog series on Gamasutra, Producer Mads Prahm speaks of the challenges of building a new development team. What does it take to be a part of Square Enix Montréal? Read on and find out!
"Late last year I was presented with the opportunity to relocate from Copenhagen to Montréal, to help set up a new game studio and build a new game development team from scratch. For me, the chance to be part of creating the studio culture from the start was a very exciting opportunity, so once I had convinced my family to join me on this adventure, we made the move.
This spring, we made our first crucial handful of hires and started the conception of a new Hitman game. The goals for the project are to create innovative, new game features, exciting worlds for players to immerse themselves in, and to set the bar for what future games will look like. We want to develop features that have never been seen before in games and improve on known features that will work better than anything gamers have tried before.
So, how do you build a plan that will reliably create innovation? The recipe is actually pretty simple: you start with a group of bright, passionate people, and you set some very important and challenging goals for them. Then, you empower them to make their own decisions for weeks at a time, where you don’t tell them what to do. Instead, you give them the tools to experiment with and the ability to prototype, iterate and evaluate their own ideas. In my past experience, I have seen variations of this method deliver innovative new game features and experiences."
To read the whole article and see pictures of the team, head over to Gamasutra.
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