Whereas opening final evening’s Summer time Recreation Fest showcase, host and Recreation Awards founder Geoff Keighley famous how 2025 has been marked by the shock successes of smaller sport tasks. Alongside “indie creations” that “stand facet by facet with heavyweights,” Keighley shouted out Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive, which he referred to as “a monumental achievement” made by “a crew of beneath 30 builders.”
Given Clair Obscur’s crucial reception and its tens of millions of gross sales, it is compelling to suppose that fewer than three dozen individuals may produce so successful. That “beneath 30 builders” determine has circulated in dialog and protection—it is a declare we quoted from the sport’s inventive director in our personal pre-release reporting. It is an inspiring thought.
It is also factually incorrect.
If you happen to hunt down a video of Clair Obscur’s credit (by way of Rock Paper Shotgun), you may discover that—to its credit score—Sandfall’s core growth crew does certainly quantity round 30 individuals, a small studio by business requirements. However the in-house Sandfall employees compose lower than half of the sport’s credit runtime, the remainder of which is dedicated to “manufacturing companions”—the sorts of exterior contractors and contributors that in the present day’s video games business depends upon.
Clair Obscur’s credit embrace dozens of contributors: a crew of Korean gameplay animators, QA employees from Polish agency QLOC, porting assist from Ebb Software program, efficiency and compatibility analysts from Huwiz QA/UX, audio producers and vocal performers from Facet UK and Studio Anatole, localization employees from Riotloc, voice actors, efficiency seize artists and specialists, musicians, choir singers, retail distributors, interns, playtesters, mock reviewers, and extra—all of whom have been accountable, partly, for Clair Obscur’s high quality, character, and international success.
Acknowledging these contributions detracts nothing from Clair Obscur’s achievement. It’s, by an awesome majority of accounts, a good-ass videogame, and Sandfall’s core crew must be celebrated for that. However misrepresenting the dimensions of its manufacturing, deliberately or in any other case, attracts an implicit distinction between what does and does not qualify as “actual” sport growth.
If you happen to’re justifiably irritated when a sport launches as a buggy mess, you must need the contributions of QA testers, who do the complicated work of figuring out these bugs earlier than launch, to be correctly credited and valued. In any other case, that integral labor—in QA, in localization, in compatibility testing—is seen as disposable, a notion that contributes to abusive working situations in abroad contractor studios and drives current unionization efforts within the US.
Recreation builders on Bluesky have reacted with frustration and discomfort to SGF 2025’s preoccupation with mythologically small dev groups. “It is extremely noticeable how usually ‘and a military of outsources outdoors America and Western Europe’ is neglected of those crew sizes,’ stated sport director and Bithell Video games founder Mike Bithell. “That is the half I discover actual uncomfortable.”
Balatro creator Localthunk famous how he, too, is usually credited because the “one man” who made Balatro, which he says contributes to a “David vs. Goliath narrative” that is been oversimplified. TVGS, the developer of Schedule 1, was additionally shouted out as “a solo developer” by Keighley throughout final evening’s SGF. Schedule 1’s in-game credit present that artwork and music have been supplied by two different contributors.
“No it was not ‘one man’,” Localthunk stated. “Take a look at the dang in-game credit.”
“I used to be actually uncomfortable with this as effectively. And never simply because the mathematics doesn’t math. One dev plus 9 associates working with him is 10 individuals… not one,” stated video games licensing producer and marketing consultant Mike Futter, referencing a second at SGF when Keighley described upcoming brawler Acts of Blood as made by “a solo developer in Bandung, Indonesia with the assistance of 9 of his associates.”
“Expedition 33 is a triumph, nevertheless it wasn’t made by 30 individuals. Contractors supplied important labor. This can be a harmful path we’re strolling,” Futter stated.
It is not arduous to think about methods wherein repeating the parable of Clair Obscur’s crew dimension may contribute to worse situations for video games and the individuals growing them. If publishers and traders are satisfied that video games like Expedition 33 have been made with solely 30 builders, they’re going to be much less inclined to assist the required employees and manufacturing budgets that growth tasks require—no matter whether or not it is true.
