So, people reading my posts on here for a while might have seen I'd been considering this for a while, waffle incoming :
I've been a professional game developer at AAA studio the past 12 years or so, with another 10 years software engineering and business analysis experience prior to that. I have been Lead AI Programmer for most of that time in games, and started on the Settlers franchise at Blue Byte. Fun fact, of the 5 game projects I have worked on....one was an already live service game, one launched (Avatar : Frontiers Of Pandora), one was cancelled recently (RIP Everwild), one is very likely going to be cancelled imminently (Unannounced), and another is shelved indefinitely. One launch credit in 12 years, FML.
Anyway, people probably know the game jobs market is a bit of a disaster at the moment. There are jobs out there (particularly in AI), but I own a house and my partner likes her job, so I'm very reluctant to relocate in this environment where any game studio could go bust at short notice as investors are pulling investment left right and center.
So, I've had this idea in mind that I'd like to start my own studio some day, god knows I've learnt enough about how not to run game projects, right? For the last 9 months or so I've been working full time for a fintech startup run by a former boss of mine from my days working in investment banking. I'm building agentic AI systems which is pretty interesting and I'm sure I could find work doing that, but I sank a *lot* of time and effort in switching careers to games, and as much as AAA dev has been pretty demoralising at times, I still love making games and want to do it in future.
So, I've decided to take the plunge and get my own studio started. I registered my limited company and got that set up. From the beginning of 2026 I'll continue providing services for this startup, but on a contract basis, with the money mostly staying in the business to build myself a runway for the studio.
I've built a good network over the years and have formed a kinda cooperative group with some other ex-AAA developers, the core members being me (programmer) plus an animator and an environment artist. We've all got our own game ideas, so the idea is to collaborate, and do bits of work for each other's studios, rather than try to pool together as one, which I think is a pretty sound model.
Ultimately, I want to go full time making my own titles, but with this fintech contract work paying reasonably well, I think I need to make hay while the sun shines and build up as big a runway as I can. I'll have to be pragmatic about things as I can't really afford to blow through all my savings when retirement is looming ever closer in the distance. I've had quite a few approaches already for games industry contract work, so may end up doing bits of work for other developers here and there to keep the coffers filled.
I have done some work at one of the main games degree courses earlier in the year, so I've toyed with the idea of trying to get a title launched while I'm still full time on other stuff, doing the programming in my spare time, and hiring some of the talented graduates to do the art side of things.
Why the thread? Well a big part of launching a successful game is building an audience....I want to try being quite open about the process, I already run a hobby Youtube channel that's pretty popular, and I'd plan to do the same with the studio, but also involve the OcUK community in the development efforts for feedback and bouncing ideas off. I'm a bit away from finalising what game I want to start making just yet...but there's plenty to get on with.
Already Done :
I've got my company set up, and business bank account
In Progress:
I'm in the process of building my tech pipelines. This is a pretty big chunk of work that I need to get sorted and critical to get right....particularly if I want to get investment in future. I need to make sure I've not only got a solid efficient pipeline for myself, but one that will also scale up as and when I bring other people onto the project. Some things I'm already settled on :
I'm going to self-host rather than start incurring monthly cloud costs. I do have a lot of exposure to AWS infrastructure in my current job so I'm confident in migrating workloads up to cloud infrastructure if I need to.
Engine - Unreal, I know it well, lots of artists and other devs out there will be familiar. (don't worry I know how to address the hitching
)
Source Control - I'm evaluating a few options at the moment.
CI - I'm using TeamCity. I have a good working setup at the moment....happy with this, free for the scale I will need it for. Used for automated builds and testing.
Documentation - WikiJS. I'm running this in a docker container on my home server at the moment. Can easily be punted up to Amazon ECS if I need to in future.
Secure Remote Access - The ability to give external developers controlled access to parts of my self-host infrastructure....I'm using Tailscale for this....what an absolutely bloody brilliant bit of software. Love it.
So, whichever decision I go with for source control, I'm still going to be operating at £0/month up to 5 users. If I go with Ark then I'm still paying nothing for source control up to $500k revenue. Main cost will be Tailscale at $6 a month per user as I scale.
That's the core of the pipeline for now. I will need to look into Xbox/Playstation devkits and the like in future, but that's a future me problem.
I have a windows server running this infrastructure right now.
Up Next :
Told you it was a lot of waffle
Subscribe for updates! Studio name ideas welcome. Pitch me your game ideas too, why not 
I've been a professional game developer at AAA studio the past 12 years or so, with another 10 years software engineering and business analysis experience prior to that. I have been Lead AI Programmer for most of that time in games, and started on the Settlers franchise at Blue Byte. Fun fact, of the 5 game projects I have worked on....one was an already live service game, one launched (Avatar : Frontiers Of Pandora), one was cancelled recently (RIP Everwild), one is very likely going to be cancelled imminently (Unannounced), and another is shelved indefinitely. One launch credit in 12 years, FML.
Anyway, people probably know the game jobs market is a bit of a disaster at the moment. There are jobs out there (particularly in AI), but I own a house and my partner likes her job, so I'm very reluctant to relocate in this environment where any game studio could go bust at short notice as investors are pulling investment left right and center.
So, I've had this idea in mind that I'd like to start my own studio some day, god knows I've learnt enough about how not to run game projects, right? For the last 9 months or so I've been working full time for a fintech startup run by a former boss of mine from my days working in investment banking. I'm building agentic AI systems which is pretty interesting and I'm sure I could find work doing that, but I sank a *lot* of time and effort in switching careers to games, and as much as AAA dev has been pretty demoralising at times, I still love making games and want to do it in future.
So, I've decided to take the plunge and get my own studio started. I registered my limited company and got that set up. From the beginning of 2026 I'll continue providing services for this startup, but on a contract basis, with the money mostly staying in the business to build myself a runway for the studio.
I've built a good network over the years and have formed a kinda cooperative group with some other ex-AAA developers, the core members being me (programmer) plus an animator and an environment artist. We've all got our own game ideas, so the idea is to collaborate, and do bits of work for each other's studios, rather than try to pool together as one, which I think is a pretty sound model.
Ultimately, I want to go full time making my own titles, but with this fintech contract work paying reasonably well, I think I need to make hay while the sun shines and build up as big a runway as I can. I'll have to be pragmatic about things as I can't really afford to blow through all my savings when retirement is looming ever closer in the distance. I've had quite a few approaches already for games industry contract work, so may end up doing bits of work for other developers here and there to keep the coffers filled.
I have done some work at one of the main games degree courses earlier in the year, so I've toyed with the idea of trying to get a title launched while I'm still full time on other stuff, doing the programming in my spare time, and hiring some of the talented graduates to do the art side of things.
Why the thread? Well a big part of launching a successful game is building an audience....I want to try being quite open about the process, I already run a hobby Youtube channel that's pretty popular, and I'd plan to do the same with the studio, but also involve the OcUK community in the development efforts for feedback and bouncing ideas off. I'm a bit away from finalising what game I want to start making just yet...but there's plenty to get on with.
Already Done :
I've got my company set up, and business bank account
In Progress:
I'm in the process of building my tech pipelines. This is a pretty big chunk of work that I need to get sorted and critical to get right....particularly if I want to get investment in future. I need to make sure I've not only got a solid efficient pipeline for myself, but one that will also scale up as and when I bring other people onto the project. Some things I'm already settled on :
I'm going to self-host rather than start incurring monthly cloud costs. I do have a lot of exposure to AWS infrastructure in my current job so I'm confident in migrating workloads up to cloud infrastructure if I need to.
Engine - Unreal, I know it well, lots of artists and other devs out there will be familiar. (don't worry I know how to address the hitching
)Source Control - I'm evaluating a few options at the moment.
- Perforce is industry standard, but it gets pretty expensive as you scale. It is a requirement for some Epic tools like UGS/Horde. Free up to 5 users then $35/user/month after
- I'm currently evaluating Ark VCS which is a new system being developed. Very attractive licensing terms, but early days.
- Subversion is actually a pretty solid solution for games, good value licensing options. Also evaluating at the moment.
- Git just isn't viable for game development
CI - I'm using TeamCity. I have a good working setup at the moment....happy with this, free for the scale I will need it for. Used for automated builds and testing.
Documentation - WikiJS. I'm running this in a docker container on my home server at the moment. Can easily be punted up to Amazon ECS if I need to in future.
Secure Remote Access - The ability to give external developers controlled access to parts of my self-host infrastructure....I'm using Tailscale for this....what an absolutely bloody brilliant bit of software. Love it.
So, whichever decision I go with for source control, I'm still going to be operating at £0/month up to 5 users. If I go with Ark then I'm still paying nothing for source control up to $500k revenue. Main cost will be Tailscale at $6 a month per user as I scale.
That's the core of the pipeline for now. I will need to look into Xbox/Playstation devkits and the like in future, but that's a future me problem.
I have a windows server running this infrastructure right now.
Up Next :
- Create a reliable backup routine to ensure all my home server data is backed up to my NAS and I have a disaster recovery process that works.
- Then create a nightly off-site backup, probably Backblaze, from my initial research.
- Setup my accounting software and make sure I'm all ready to start invoicing in January
- The big one......what do I call my studio? I've been batting around ideas for weeks and haven't really settled on anything yet. The limited company is named, but that was never going to be the game studio trading name. Ideas?
- Over the Christmas break start documenting all the prototype ideas I've had floating around and putting some thought into what I want to start with
Told you it was a lot of waffle
Subscribe for updates! Studio name ideas welcome. Pitch me your game ideas too, why not 
