At a high level, I find that game studios typically seek one of two types of external partners:

🆘 Providers to deliver a specific service or help with a known problem
🎨 Partners in the creative process

Partnerships defined by known quantities and deliverables are usually referred to as “outsourcing” - one model of External Development. Examples include:

1) Art outsourcing to build a catalog of enemy character models
2) Porting from PC > Console
3) Development support for end of cycle game polish
4) Localization from English > FIGS.

However, the needs of some studios lend themselves more to a true partnership in development—someone to work alongside them to take ownership, define unknowns, and explore ideas. This partnership model is usually termed “co-development.”

Consider these needs as opposed to the above:

1) Art partner to help define atmosphere and set quality bar.
2) Porting partner who owns a live-ops platform SKU long-term
3) Development partner who owns a specific gameplay system
4) Localization partner who is responsible for foreign language support

Hopefully, you can see the differences in the nature of the collaboration. So, what does that mean for you when considering a partner of each type?

🆘 When you’re looking for help with a specified problem, you’ll want to find a provider with a demonstrable history delivering the solution you're seeking, with well-established processes and procedures.

Having a repeatable method enables you to reliably take advantage of their years of experience across dozens of games and contexts.

🎨 When looking for a true partner in your creative process, relevant past experience is still essential, but culture fit matters a whole lot more.

You’ll want a team that works well with your internal team and is amiable to your studio’s particular brand of production chaos…I mean agile methodology 😝

The partner should flexibly accommodate your needs and conform to your ways of working, which could involve changing aspects of their own internal processes.

Furthermore, you’ll want someone who thinks for themselves, brings new ideas to the table, and isn’t afraid to give you candid feedback.

You can see how these creative qualities might have a hard time surfacing in larger organizations with rigid processes and layers of bureaucracy.

Or how hard it could be to justify changing the way you work for a small client, where the revenue from that partnership doesn’t really move the needle.

On the flip side, you can see how valuable the presence of repeatable processes are for known quantities.

Have you ever been on the wrong side of this spectrum?  What other aspects of culture fit do you consider?