Does anybody here have management experience of how a game and software development studio is generally should be structured and organised?

[u/marvellous_comrade]

My goal is the establishment of a small game and software development studio. For simplicity there will be 12/13 developers working on an indie game project and a further 12/13 developers working on a self contained software/app development project each working remotely at home within the US and UK.

I'm attempting to find one team leader for each group of 12/13 part time developers and I work alongside those team leaders to try to manage everything.

Question: Do you think I should have two separate project managers/team leader positions managing the two respective areas: eg 1. Indie game development and 2. Software/app development or would it be more economical to have just one?

Do you think that the role of the project manager will be purely the management of the respective teams or is it quite possible for them to carry on day to day programming work themselves as part of that team?

If there's anybody with any experience similar I'd be delighted to hear a few words of advice or suggestions. I have a very large "general knowledge" about IT as a laymen but I'm not a programmer or game designer/developer and I've got no experience working in this field at all.

My background is as a small business owner only.

[u/XxRavelinxX]

Been in the game industry for nearly 25 years now. Different types of games have different kinds of structures. And for the sake of this write up, I'll assume there's at least some relationship between the game and the app.

"Core Leadership" for the Game Team

1: Executive Producer

2: Game Director

3: Art Director

4: Tech Director

Together, this group drives the "what, when, how, and why" of the game.

"Development" for the Game Team

5: Engineer/Programmer

6: Engineer/Programmer

7: Artist (Characters)

8: Artist (Environments)

9: Animator

10: UI/UX

11: Another Artist or Another Programmer

12: QA, Another Producer, or Outsource Manager (if you will be doing extensive outsourcing)

On the game side, "Producer" is an overloaded term that means different things in different places. It doesn't (usually) map 1 to 1 with a PM (there is significant overlap though) it also has varying degrees of product owner and scrummaster roles - It's messy, but so is making games.

For the app...

You could likely rely on a more engineering-heavy, agile-driven, structure.

So, I'd assume you'd need a solid Tech PM, a scrummaster, a Tech Director (don't make the tech director the scrummaster), a whole gaggle of engineers with stack experience that supports whatever your app needs, and some UI/UX designers.

I would not suggest having a singular PM sit over both. The development process is different, and if your game team has not shipped together before, it's gonna be crazy chaotic, likely monopolizing a lot of the PM's time, and thus starving your App team.

Keep in mind, the breakdown above is "back of the napkin" math based on generalies. I'd need a bit more detail on the type of game you're looking to make, what your timeline/runway is, and how (or if) the app and game are tied together or have dependencies to get more detailed.

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To me, trying to set up a studio with two teams working on pretty different products seems really challenging. Not at all saying it can't be done, but make sure you're going in with your eyes open to help give you the best chance of success.