FROM OUTSOURCING TO CO-DEVELOPMENT
Joe Harford, Founder and CEO at Airship Interactive, explains why why collaboration is now critical in AAA game development
W
ith each new hardware generation, expectations rise. It’s no longer simply about making games that look good — players now
demand seamless performance, expansive open worlds, photorealistic visuals, and cinematic storytelling that competes with film and television. For AAA studios, these expectations create a
development landscape that’s both exciting and increasingly difficult to navigate. Building modern games requires a staggering amount of technical complexity, creative finesse, and coordination. As a result, the way studios work is changing — and changing fast. Where outsourcing once meant sending asset packs to third-
party vendors, we are now seeing a shift toward full co-development partnerships. In this model, external studios don’t just deliver assets: they contribute ideas, integrate into pipelines, and play a consistent, creative role in the production of some of the industry’s biggest games. This shift isn’t just a logistical response to ballooning scope; it’s
a reflection of how complex and specialised game development has become.
THE PRESSURE OF PROGRESS Today’s AAA games demand far more than they did even a few years ago. It’s no longer unusual for major titles to feature hundreds of unique environments, thousands of bespoke assets, intricate animation systems, and expansive live-service infrastructures. A single ‘next-gen’ environment might involve multiple teams collaborating on lighting, terrain sculpting, material blending, optimisation and testing.
22 | MCV/DEVELOP June/July 2025 Technological progress has undoubtedly
empowered developers, but it has also raised the bar for production teams. Fidelity, interactivity, and scale have all increased simultaneously,and in-house teams are often expected to deliver all three on fixed schedules. This rising complexity is prompting studios to
rethink how they allocate time, talent and resources. Increasingly, the solution lies in collaboration.
THE EVOLUTION OF EXTERNAL DEVELOPMENT Outsourcing has long had a role to play in game development, particularly in art-heavy phases where volume and repetition drive demand. These engagements were often transactional: send a brief, receive assets, sign off. But that model is quickly becoming outdated. Today, external development is far more integrated and at its
core, is about trust, communication, and alignment. It’s about embedding external teams into the development lifecycle — sharing tools, systems and responsibilities — and ensuring everyone involved is pulling in the same direction. What distinguishes co-development from traditional
outsourcing is that the external team becomes an extension of the studio’s own capabilities, not a disconnected supplier.
HOW THE INDUSTRY IS CHANGING Plenty of well-known examples illustrate how this shift is playing out in practice.
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