'Singles, not albums': A guide to making smaller games | GI Sprint
UK studio Ant Workshop has embarked upon a significant shift in how it makes games, and it's one that managing director Tony Gowland believes could benefit a lot of developers.
The change follows the studio investing two years and approximately £750,000 into Dungeon Golf, a quirky take on mini-golf that Gowland tells us underperformed. Despite a five-figure marketing spend, and positive feedback from players and critics, the game "never managed to quite reach an audience."
In the interest of time
Key takeaways from Gowland's advice on making 'singles, not albums' include:
Unable to invest further in the game or in any project of a similar size, the studio decided to take inspiration from publishers and their portfolio-centric strategies.
"What we needed to do is get more things out there and do it a bit quicker, a bit smaller, and being a bit more agile," Gowland explains. "Not falling into the trap of developing something for 15 months or whatever it was on Dungeon Golf before we even went public with it."
He discussed the idea with industry veteran and original Grand Theft Auto developer Gary Penn, who summed up Ant Workshop's new approach nicely.
"It's really irritating that he came up with this but it is a great line," Gowland laughs. "He said 'Okay, so if Dungeon Golf is an album, what you're making is singles.' And as soon as he said it, it was like, 'Yes, that's just the absolute perfect encapsulation of what this idea is.'
"We can't afford to make another album, and to be honest, it feels too risky to make another album. So let's bang out a few different things in different genres and different styles. We can afford to be a bit riskier with each individual little one, because you're making stuff on just a much smaller budget and a much smaller timescale, and just trying to get it in front of the audience a lot sooner."
Ant Workshop is attempting to develop games that each have a full budget of £50,000 to £100,000 and can be released after four to six months of
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