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“Security only works when everyone knows why it matters. You can’t bolt it on later or delegate it to one overworked sysadmin. It has to be part of how the studio thinks.” That cultural shift doesn’t require massive spend and it often starts with


simply writing down what already happens: how new hires get access, who approves permissions, what happens when someone leaves. From there, technology can make it airtight. “We’ll look at their environment and usually find five or six overlapping


systems doing the same thing,” he says. “Different cloud accounts, duplicated logins, personal Dropbox folders. Consolidating those under a single sign-on with multi-factor authentication instantly raises the bar.” It’s pragmatic advice. A clean access model protects assets and satisfies


auditors in one stroke. More importantly, it scales as a studio (or team) grows; every new hire slots into the same process.


A WAKE-UP CALL FOR HYBRID TEAMS The Pandemic didn’t invent remote development, but it did make it the default. Today, hybrid pipelines are permanent, and that’s forced studios to rethink what “secure” means. “In the old days, build servers could be locked in a cupboard,” Muckley


laughs. “Now half your team’s working from kitchen tables on different continents. The security perimeter doesn’t exist anymore. You have to protect the people, not the room.” That mindset shift extends to devices. Lost laptops and unsecured


phones are now among the biggest sources of data exposure. Muckley’s team encourages studios to adopt mobile-device management tools like Microsoft Intune. “It’s not glamorous,” he admits, “but if someone leaves their laptop in a taxi, you want to know you can wipe it before the driver finds your build folder and posts all your screenshots on Twitter.” What’s changed is that these enterprise-grade protections are no longer


expensive or complex. Cloud platforms offer them as standard, and Studio Wizards often helps devs configure what they already pay for. “A lot of the time, it’s about turning on the features you didn’t know you had,” he says.


LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE Ask around the industry and you’ll hear certain horror stories often enough for them to become folklore. It was a dark and stormy night, and a compromised Slack token leaked a private repo; an external QA partner left credentials in plain text; a well-meaning artist forwarded assets to a personal email for convenience. None of it malicious or especially incompetent, but all of it is preventable. “One of our clients discovered their git repository had been set to public


by accident,” Muckley recalls. “No one noticed because it was buried in a sub-project. That kind of thing happens all the time. Having regular audit checks can catch this stuff early.” The most effective defences, he argues, are the simple ones: single sign-


on, MFA, and a written record of who can touch what. “You don’t [always] need a SOC 2 certificate to impress a publisher,” he says. “You just need to show that you’re methodical and that you can back up what you claim.” The goal, in other words, is confidence. Studios that know their systems


can answer any compliance question instantly while keeping development ticking along.


TURNING OBLIGATION INTO ADVANTAGE “When a publisher sees that you’ve already got structured onboarding, encrypted storage, and regular audits, you’re instantly more credible,” Muckley says. “It shows maturity. It tells them you’re thinking like a partner, not a vendor.” That perception can pay off well beyond contracts. Robust processes


reduce downtime, make remote work smoother, and protect the studio’s own IP. “Good security ends up making the whole operation cleaner,” he adds. “You’re faster because you trust your tools.” For developers still wary of the overhead, Muckley offers a different


framing. “People think security kills creativity. It doesn’t. It clears the space to be creative without worrying about what might go wrong.”


THE NEXT FRONTIER Looking ahead, Muckley sees security evolving from compliance to continuous assurance. As live service games expand and AI tools enter production pipelines, protecting data will mean constant monitoring, not just locking doors. “Five years ago, we talked about firewalls and backups. Now we’re


talking about observability and real-time threat detection,” he says. “Studios will need the same visibility into their own infrastructure that they expect from their gameplay analytics.” It’s a challenge Code Wizards Group is already helping partners


meet, blending its backend engineering background with live- operations expertise. “We’re in a unique spot,” Muckley notes. “Because we already manage live infrastructure for some major studios, we can take those practices and make them accessible to smaller teams. Security becomes part of the service, not a separate headache.”


THE BIGGER PICTURE None of this means every studio must turn into a mini-IT department. What it does mean is recognising that security is now part of the craft of making games. Muckley puts it simply: “If you’re proud of your code, protect it.


If you’re proud of your team, protect them. The same discipline that makes you good developers will make you secure developers.” Every studio starts small. Not every studio stays that way. The


industry has matured to the point where creativity and compliance no longer sit at odds. The new studios that understand that quickest will be the ones signing the next generation of publishing deals. And more established studios don’t want to make headlines for all the wrong reasons, so keeping on top of the boring side of development continues to be a crucial fundamental. With the right partner, it doesn’t need to be complicated or


expensive. It just needs to be done. If your studio wants to strengthen its security before your next


publisher review and ensure you’re not the source of any leaks, hacks and attacks, speak to Studio Wizards, part of Code Wizards Group. Their specialists help development teams of every size secure their assets, simplify compliance, and relieve the pressure of cyber-attacks.


Visit codewizards.io/ studio-wizards to get started.


October/November 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 53


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