{"id":826,"date":"2022-11-09T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noblesteed.games\/blog\/?p=826"},"modified":"2023-06-26T15:38:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T04:38:02","slug":"establishing-a-game-studios-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noblesteedgames.com\/blog\/establishing-a-game-studios-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Establishing a Game Studio\u2019s Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Establishing your game studio\u2019s culture is more than just creating fancy web pages about your team. Your studio\u2019s culture should always be backed up by tangible processes and policies to keep organisations accountable!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you may have heard, we recently rebranded from No Moss Studios to Noble Steed Games to better distinguish ourselves from No Moss, our parent company. With this, we had to more strictly assess our studio\u2019s cultural objectives, and make sure everyone on the team was aligned with it. We thought it might be useful to share the process we used to collectively establish our studio\u2019s core cultural pillars and how we went about having them in practice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a small team beginning to establish yourselves, we hope this resource will be valuable to you when you begin establishing your game studio\u2019s culture, team norms, values and missions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Make sure everyone understands the importance of establishing the studio\u2019s culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first step for any team is to make sure there is understanding amongst the team that establishing the studio\u2019s culture is a collective effort, and that everyone has something meaningful to contribute. Everyone should care<\/em> about the direction of the studio <\/em>and be able to voice out about it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is especially the case within the gaming industry, where overwork, crunch, and abuse are frequent issues. In the process of assessing your game studio\u2019s culture and values, we think these issues should be taken into account to actively position yourself in context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Diagram<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 2: Discussion to define studio culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It took us several months of discussion with the team to establish, define and refine what our studio\u2019s culture is. Reuben, our studio director, initially proposed what core values we shared, then collected feedback from the team about whether this was true or required refinement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some back and forth, we found that two core concepts, Passion and Compassion, resonated with all of us. These worked for us as a game studio, as members of a creative industry, defining why<\/em> we work and how <\/em>we work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passion meant pursuing projects that excite and challenge us, and making opportunities for all employees to build their purposes into their work. Compassion referred to how we collectively cared about our clients, our employees, and our world. In essence, ensuring that we are able to be human, and leverage our humanity to be better, treat each other better, and leave the world better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Images<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 3: Setting up policies and procedures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We proceeded to flesh out these concepts, with emphasis about how we as a studio would enact this, making sure we \u201cwalked the talk\u201d. Some of these policies were already pre-existing, and those that we found lacking were improved upon or created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Passion, this included things like:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n