Two Models, and the Difference Is Who Manages
Most studios asking about outsourcing actually want one of two quite different things. Picking the wrong one is where these arrangements usually go wrong.
Team extension – you direct. Our engineers work under your leads, in your repo, on your board, attending your standups. You assign the tickets and set the priorities. They’re additional capacity on your existing team, not a separate unit with its own process.
Co-development – we own a workstream. You hand over a defined area: the backend, the multiplayer layer, the WebGL build, a platform port. We take responsibility for delivering it against agreed milestones, and you review the output rather than manage the work.
| Team extension | Co-development | |
|---|---|---|
| Who assigns work | You | Us, against your milestones |
| Who reviews code | Your leads | Us, then you |
| What you need internally | A technical lead with capacity | A point of contact |
| Best when | You know exactly what to build and lack hands | You lack a discipline entirely |
| Scales | Person by person | Workstream by workstream |
Plenty of projects use both, two engineers embedded in your team while we separately own the backend. You can also switch between them mid-project, and most clients eventually do.
What Studios Borrow Us For
Unity engineers. General gameplay and systems work across mobile, PC, browser and headset. This is the bulk of it.
Multiplayer and netcode. Photon Fusion and Photon Quantum, matchmaking, lobbies, reconnection handling. This is a genuine specialism and one of the hardest things to hire for directly; we’ve shipped deterministic netcode in a browser FPS and real-time multiplayer on mobile.
Backend and anti-cheat. Node.js authoritative servers, PlayFab, server-side outcome logic for anything where the client can’t be trusted. If your game has an economy, competitive ranking, or anything with resale value attached, this is the work.
WebGL and browser builds. Load time, memory ceilings, the deployment problems that only appear in production. Most Unity teams have never shipped a WebGL title and discover the constraints the hard way. See WebGL game development.
VR ports. Taking an existing flat game to Quest, which is substantially more work than remapping input.
Live-ops and SDK integration. Ads, mediation, IAP, analytics, attribution, store compliance; the layer that eats schedules on mobile projects.
Educational and clinical projects. Where a research team or institution has the domain expertise and needs engineers who can work with subject specialists rather than around them. See educational and serious games.
The Person You Meet Is the Person Who Works
The standard complaint about outsourced teams is bait-and-switch: you interview a senior engineer, you get someone else, and three months later that person rotates off.
That happens because large outsourcing firms carry a bench they have to keep occupied, which means the engineer assigned to you is frequently whoever was free rather than whoever fits. It’s not malice, it’s arithmetic.
We have ten people and no bench. There’s nobody whose salary we need to cover by placing them somewhere, so we either have the right person available or we tell you we don’t. If we can’t staff it well, we’d rather say so than fill the seat.
Continuity is the practical consequence. The engineer who learns your codebase in week two is still on it in month six.
How Integration Actually Works
Week one is setup, not output. Repo and tooling access, security and NDA paperwork, environment setup, a walk through the architecture with someone on your side. Anyone who promises meaningful commits on day two is either lying or about to make a mess in your codebase.
Your process, not ours. Your branching model, your code review standards, your definition of done, your ticket workflow. We don’t import a methodology.
Communication in your hours. GMT+3 gives a full working-day overlap with European teams and covers US mornings. Slack or Discord, your channels, plus whatever standup cadence you already run.
Realistic ramp-up. Expect a week or two before someone is at full speed on an unfamiliar codebase, and factor it in. A studio that claims otherwise has either never done this or isn’t counting the cost of the mess afterwards.
Access and security. We sign your NDA before the first call, work under your access policies, and everything produced is yours. If your publisher requires specific security terms, send them and we’ll work to them.
Commercials
Engagements run by the month with a defined notice period, so you can scale down as cleanly as you scaled up. No minimum headcount, no annual commitment, no recruitment fee.
Everything we write is yours, with IP transferring as work is delivered rather than held until some final milestone. Source, documentation and access from day one. You’re never in a position where ending the engagement costs you the work.
Common Questions
Yes, and you should. You’ll speak to the actual people, and if they’re not right we’ll say whether we have someone who is rather than pushing the ones we have.
One person, one month. Most run longer, but there’s no floor designed to lock you in.
Usually within a week for one or two engineers. Two to three weeks for a larger group, depending on the discipline mix.
That’s co-development, and it’s often the better answer when the gap is a discipline rather than capacity. Tell us what’s missing and we’ll say which model fits.
Start a Project
Tell us what’s missing; a discipline, a headcount, a deadline you’re not going to make and roughly how long you think you need it for.
We’ll come back with who we’d put on it, what they’ve shipped, and a monthly cost, within two business days. If we’re not the right fit, you’ll hear that in the first reply.