Hi all,

I'm reaching out to sanity check my decision processes and see if there are any gaps. I've got a game developer creating a VR game for me. While I'll continue my relationship with them, I want to start building the capabilities in-house to create and launch VR games. Team that the supplier has: CTO, creative director, 1x game artist, 2x Unity developers and 1x audio engineer. There is obviously the CEO and their overall PM. I usually deal with CTO and creative director.

The question is about the approach I should take to build out a team. I have technology expertise but not game development. Therefore, I think two key hires are creative director and CTO. Both should have launched games and then they build out the team based on the deliverables for the year. Any advice on what the seed team should be? Or perhaps even if I should be asking a different question?

Appreciate any help you can offer.

Hodgman, Tom: Thanks for taking the time to help with my questions. Much appreciated.

a few other things you may need:

1. your coders, artist, and "sound guys" are all just a means to an end - to move a product from design to gone gold. first you need a product design. and someone has to make that design. So somebody has to take on the role of game designer. That's where it all starts. Perhaps that is to be your role. Whoever does it, they have to be good at coming up with cool games. If you don't have a good product design (and preferably a superior one), you're dead in the water before you even start - whether you're making oven mitts, taco sauce, or video games.

2. you will occasionally want the services of an accountant, and a lawyer.

3. you make no mention of marketing or sales fulfillment, i assume you'll be farming all that stuff out - the old "we build them and let somebody else worry about selling them" strategy.

odds are you've already considered these other roles in the company and have found solutions that you simply did not mention in your original post.

Excellent points - thanks! Re 1, it is definitely on the radar and we already have game designers. It does raise an interesting point about how to structure the organisation. Do you know how game studios usually do this? Where do game design resource(s) report into usually? I was thinking under the creative director, or directly to me; either way it is critical to give these guys the resources and clout they need to get things going.

Re 2,3: we are a location-based entertainment company so are in a fortunate position to have these functions already in place and can roll out the experiences at our own physical venues. Key strategic decision is if this should continue to be outsourced or bring it in-house, and I'm leaning towards latter.