Effective talk: Making a studio last even without super successful games
Year of Talk: 2023
An easy way of keeping a studio afloat is through commissions and contract work. The priority for the studio/team is making sure that there is enough money to pay everyone salaries and office areas or then people will not be able to stay on. Contracting out parts of the team brings in some revenue while leaving other parts to work on the game.
It also allows the team to have a lower estimate of how much money the game needed to make as the contract was subsidizing the game's production. If, by any chance, the game that the main team is working on doesn't massively succeed, it won't be a massive blow to the company as they didn't bet everything on one game. This means the team has a better chance of staying afloat and continuing to make games and projects together.
Another advantage is that it gives the team some leeway for a few weeks after release. This comes down to the fact that some games take some time for their sales to pick up, or they become popular sometime after release instead of right on release. Having some money coming from contract work means that the team can work on some side work while seeing how the game does in sales and popularity.
It is important to keep the team's morale high as people might feel bad for not having a “successful” game. So try to rotate what tasks different team members do or who works on contract work. By keeping people interested in making games and feeling safe doing so in the studio they might be less likely to move to somewhere else.
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