This document summarizes a workshop on game development locations and collaboration spaces. It includes a quiz about where different game studios are located globally. It then discusses factors like critical mass, spontaneity, and comfort that make coworking spaces successful for indie game developers. The document profiles Arch Creatives, a nonprofit coworking hub for indie game developers in Leamington Spa, UK, describing how they organized and fund their space to support the local game development community. Finally, workshop participants break into groups to propose their own ideas for an indie game coworking hub.

1. Mario is from Kyoto and Fez is from
Montreal: Colocation and collaboration
Dr Dan Ashton, Bath Spa University
Alex Darby, Arch Creatives

2. Today’s workshop
• ‘Locating game development’ quiz
• ‘Inside development spaces/places’ discussion
• ‘Arch Creatives’ – co-working case study
• Proposals for indie game development hub

3. Locating Game Development
• Global, national and regional scales.

4. Locating Game Development
• A range of set ups and types of place.

5. Quiz
• How much do we know about where/why
game development is located?
• What are the quirks of national/cultural
identities in game development?

6. 1. How many locations does EA have?
a) 8
b) 17
c) 25
d) 34

7. A: 25

8. 2. Where is the Independent Games
Festival hosted?
a) San Francisco
b) Montreal
c) Berlin
d) Brighton

9. A: San Francisco

10. 3. Where does Indie developer Spry Fox (Triple
Town, Road Not Taken)make its games?
a) USA
b) UK
c) Netherlands
d) Australia

11. A: All of the above
• Entirely distributed development with
essentially 0% physical co-location.

12. 4. Where was Anomaly:Warzone Earth
developed by 11bit Studios?
a) In a 1930s flat in Warsaw where ENIGMA
code breaker Marian Rejewski once lived
b) In an old mobile home on a chicken farm in
British Columbia, Canada
c) On the 35th floor of a high-rise in Philadelphia
that includes a law library
d) In an office space in Plymouth, Michigan that
has bee hives in the garden

13. A: Warsaw

14. 5. Which of these are the offices of indie game developers?
a) b) b)
c) d)

15. A: All of them!
• Treadmills, kids, mahogany desks, and
recycling dumps!

16. Where/why locate?
• http://www.gamedevmap.com/ gives an
indication of where some game developers
locate. But why?
– Guildford (UK)
– Montreal (Canada)
– Dundee (UK)

17. Get Organized At Work!
van der Graff (2012) article
• Aims to enhance ‘understanding of how
developer firms practice their design
process’.
• Case study of Valve and Linden
• Used today to help us consider ways of
working with others in game development
contexts.

18. Activity One: Organizational Forms
• Two groups:
- One group to summarize ‘The Cabal as
Organization Form’ (483-4)
- One group to summarize ‘The Studio as
Organization Form’ (484-5)
What are the distinctive aspects about this way
of working/organizing game development?

19. Activity Two: ‘Not just for anybody’
• In the ‘Inside Job’ section, van der Graff considers: the
application process, mentoring, and performance
management. These aspects are part of the negotiation
between the firms and the individual.
• Based around this section and your own
understanding/experience:
1. What would you consider important features of the
interview process? Consider the cultural/social aspects as well
as the technical.
2. Consider the different mentoring approaches, and as a group
agree on an effective approach for supporting
colleagues/collaborators.?

20. Get Organized … into hubs
Some findings from workshop 1 at the Bristol
Games Hub.
• Sharing expertise
• Spontaneous encounters
• Critical mass
• Network technologies
• Interruptability
• Who is in the space
• Feeling comfortable
• Retaining talent

22. Alex Darby @darbotron
darbotron@darbotron.com
Director www.archcreatives.com
Managing Director www.darbotron.com
Technical Director & Senior Lecturer www.gamercamp.co.uk

23. What is Arch Creatives?
• Hub for local game development community
• Low cost co-working space with no contracts
• Committed to making indie game development a
sustainable business model
• Mentoring, networking, training, business & legal
support
• Regular social events
• Conduit for wider industry interaction
• Not for profit organisation

24. Who runs Arch Creatives?
• 5 Game Industry veterans
Ollie Clarke Alex Darby Helana Santos Steve Stopps Tom Weston
• Broad range of skills & experience
• Combined experience of over 70 years
• Shared vision

25. Why start Arch Creatives?
• Game Industry is strong but ever changing
• All business models are fragile
• Adaptation is key to sustainability
– Large companies are bad at this
– Small companies can be good at it
– Tiny companies have to excel at it

26. Why start Arch Creatives?
• Community of small & tiny companies
• Aim is to create an environment to support
sustainable small scale game development
• We believe that community is key in this
• “Hippy Hollywood Model”
• Collaborative, open, sharing, supportive
…and we needed somewhere to work!

27. Games made at Arch Creatives
• We have 3 resident teams + contractors
Team Kumo, Modern Dream, & MicroMacro

28. Funding game development
• Lots of investment in UK currently
• Government scheme for SME investment
• Very attractive to investors
• Up to 80% of their money back through tax credits
• Arch Creatives has helped people access funding
• Accounts for 80% of games at Arch Creatives
• Other games funded by a mixture of:
• Personal savings
• Work for hire / contracting

29. Why Leamington Spa?
• Heritage of local Game Industry back to 1980s
• Codemasters was the seed
• Around 15 companies split off over the years
• Medium sized companies moved into the area
• Now lots of small indies too
• Approx. 2000 people actively employed
…and we all live there

30. How we did it
• Got organised!
• Ran events to build a tangible community
• Lots of networking & PR
• Funding from local council
– Supporting local economy & heritage
• Funding from pillars of local industry
– Larger companies invest in talent pool
• Location
– cheap rent “creative area”

31. How we keep it open
• Bums on seats
• Charge for use of the space
• £10 per-day fee
• 20% off if you pay up front
• 4 days a week == 5 days a week for free
• Approx. £120 a month per person
• Space for 24 people in the Arch
• break even based on 18 pre-paid full time spaces
• Includes wi-fi, kitchen, & contribution to bills

32. How we engage community
• Free monthly evening event for community
• “Gathering in the Middle” – predates Arch Creatives
• We provide snacks & drinks
• People can demo their games for free
• Informal catch up & networking event
• Usually have guests (Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Unity etc.)
• Currently 165 members in our facebook group
• Typical attendance around 60-70
• Ad-hoc events (e.g. #PlayStationOpenDay etc.)

33. Any questions?

34. Proposing game design places/spaces
• We have considered different scales of game
development from national contexts to
specific organisational contexts.
• Now, working in small groups (3), you will
develop a proposal for a co-working indie
game hub.
• This will involve identifying and prioritizing
some of the things that we have covered and
adding your own suggestions.

35. To start …
• What are the relevant factors which your
proposal should consider?

36. Proposing game design places/spaces
• Rest of this session until lunch: working on
proposal
• 13-13.45: Small groups to finalize their
proposal for sharing, and then as one group
we will negotiate one proposal for presenting
at the plenary
• 13.45-15.00: Presentation of ‘coworking hub’
proposal to plenary