This article is part of ExDev Week.
As is often the case with studios specialising in outsourcing and co-development, NeoBards Entertainment is not a household name – despite having worked on some of the most recognisable franchises in the industry. But the studio’s collaboration with Konami on last year’s Silent Hill F finally brought the Taipei-based team into the limelight. Although the game’s concept came from Konami, NeoBards handled the majority of programming, production, and design.
The horror title was the fastest-selling entry in the venerable series – reaching more than 2 million units sold and hitting 6 million players – as well as being something of a critical darling. Which put NeoBards in what executive chairman Jean-Marc Morel calls “a good position”.
“You’re as good as your last project,” he says. “But that also puts some pressure on you, because whatever you do has to be as good as what you did before, otherwise people think you were just lucky.”
Looking at the studio’s output, no one would accuse them of relying on pure luck. A frequent collaborator with Japanese heavyweights, NeoBards has worked on a number of ports and remasters for Capcom’s top franchises, including Devil May Cry and Onimusha, and was chosen by the publisher to develop Resident Evil: Resistance and Resident Evil Re:Verse. It has also partnered with Square Enix on Marvel’s Avengers and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The studio’s strong ties to Japan have proved to be an unexpected boon given the downward trend elsewhere.
“I would say that the Japanese market right now is a little more stable than what’s going in the US and Europe,” Morel says. “Sometimes they’re too conservative, but in this particular case I think they were right.”
As the AAA industry meltdown continues unabated, the outsourcing and co-development model NeoBards specialises in is becoming standard practice to deal with increasingly complex games. But is this contract system a more sustainable way to work than keeping everything in-house? To Morel, the question doesn’t make much sense given that the system has long been synonymous with AAA gamedev.
“Outsourcing and co-dev isn’t something new, it’s been going on for a long time. Look at the credits on a GTA game. I don’t think all the people there are inside [Rockstar],” he says, adding that this way of working might have actually exacerbated the current situation. “Maybe one of the reasons you have people losing their jobs in the West is because knowledge and know-how are becoming global. Twenty years ago, finding a console developer outside the West was complicated, and now it’s not. That’s globalisation. And in software development you can work from anywhere, which lends itself to that type of work relationship.
“But for it to be successful, people internally in the studios have to, excuse my French, have their shit together. They have to know how to run that type of project, otherwise they’re gonna hit the wall.”
Trust and communication
NeoBards knows a thing or two about how to do outsourcing and co-dev, with two decades of specialisation that have allowed the studio to perfect its approach. For COO Wonder Lin, it’s all about building lasting relationships from small beginnings.
“When someone comes to us and says they want to work together in a big game, if it’s the first time, I suggest we start with something small scale,” she says. “We need to communicate with creatives, not just businesspeople. Creators have their own mindset about the game, and sharing that vision with our team is not easy.”
“It’s very difficult for an internal dev team to trust people from outside,” agrees Morel. “It takes a while to get used to the idea, and to sell the idea internally that you’re going to work with external people.”
Having mutual confidence in each other’s abilities is essential for a good working relationship. “In our relationship with Konami or Capcom, they trust us,” says Morel. “It’s not like the Eye of Sauron is looking at everything we’re doing. They know when they give us a project that it will be on time, there will be no surprises and no trouble, and the quality will be there.”
NeoBards’ solution for gaining trust is simple, and surprisingly old school: Face-to-face time.
“We want to visit them in person in their studio to get to know them, to check their ideas and what they really think behind the vision they sent us. It’s a chance to mingle and get to know each other. Trust must be earned, and that takes time,” Lin says, pointing out that any tension or friction can be smoothed out by spending time together. “We usually fly over there and talk, or we invite them to come over so they can meet the team. Once you know their faces and you sit down to mingle for a while after work, a lot of issues can be solved.”
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“When we did our co-dev project on Marvel’s Avengers with Crystal Dynamics, we flew there,” Morel adds. “We sent our people over there to spend time with the team. Once you put a face on the name, meetings go much faster.”
This personal touch is a vital tool to succeed in what NeoBards thinks is the most important step in a co-dev or outsourcing relationship: Choosing the right partner. Inevitably, being selective is a necessary part of the equation.
“We won’t jump into a huge project,” Morel continues. “The same way some publishers and partners are selective towards who they want to work with, we’re also in a position where we have to pay attention to who we’re working with. It goes both ways. Publishers don’t want to work with a company that doesn’t look stable. If they can afford that as a publisher, we also want to make sure we don’t work with partners that aren’t necessarily stable. It’s a good business practice.”
NeoBards is aware that their privileged position allows them to be selective, something they have enjoyed since their beginnings due to their unique situation. “We like to say we’re a young company with an older team that has been together for a long time,” as Morel puts it. The studio was formed by experienced developers that brought their reputation and contacts over from previous employers, some of them publishers that are now clients.
“We respect people’s IP. We’re not going in there to tell them what to do or how to do it”
“If you’re a very, very financially stable company, then you can be selective,” Morel says. “If you’re a young company that needs projects, I think you’re tempted to take whatever you can. When you start and you have 20 people you need to get projects, otherwise you disappear.”
“If you don’t have a proven record, it’s difficult,” Lin agrees. “We’ve been in development for a while, so it’s easier to get contracts. Also, we’re lucky that our partners come back to us. We build relationships. Even with first projects, our goal is to build happy experiences. That means everything. They will come back and that will be beneficial to each other.”
Morel adds that to deliver those good experiences as a contracted studio, it’s vital not to lose sight of the team’s position.
“We respect people’s IP. We’re not going in there to tell them what to do or how to do it. If we have ideas we could propose, we will, but in the end we’re not there to rock the boat in terms of co-dev. You have to understand where you stand. That’s also why choosing your partner is so important,” he says.
Staff contentment
Keeping partners happy is an obvious necessity, but maintaining employee happiness is arguably just as important. But how to do that when staff is working on a game they might not normally have chosen to work on?
For Lin, the key is finding projects they’re passionate about. “At NeoBards we’ve always wanted to tell our own stories,” she says, adding that one way of doing that is putting their own spin on the classics, particularly games that staff members played in their childhoods. Silent Hill F fit the bill nicely due to the series’ cult following, giving employees the chance to be part of the franchise’s long-awaited comeback.
“We also try to have a diversity of genres, not only horror games, but action titles, multiplayer, etc. I think it’s important to have a different landscape of projects for multiple reasons,” Morel adds, citing the valuable experience and skills staff can gain from working on different types of games, and most importantly, the benefit of avoiding being pigeonholed into a genre. “We try to get away from that categorisation. I think it’s important to have that for people.”
While their work on Resident Evil and Silent Hill suggests a horror bent, a closer look reveals a more varied catalogue. The full-dev Resistance and Re:Verge were live-service games, with the co-dev Marvel’s Avengers adding a totally different type of multiplayer. That’s not to say the studio is averse to single-player titles, with their co-dev work on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth proving they can also handle big RPGs.
Beyond Japan
With the vast majority of partners based in Japan, one wonders whether NeoBards will expand into a more global cooperation model. The Taiwan-based studio appears primed for collaborating with Chinese studios due to linguistic and cultural affinities, plus the fact that it has a satellite studio in Suzhou, China. Lin says NeoBards maintains good relationships with studios in the region, and sometimes receives opportunities for collaboration, but no projects have officially materialised yet. She adds that outsourcing is way more prevalent than co-dev in China, though.
Even if the studio wants to take on more projects, there’s the limitation of size and the eternal struggle of quality versus quantity, something that Morel says becomes difficult to manage after a certain size. The studio currently has around 300 employees.
“When doing co-dev, you’re on a train that you’re not driving”
“If our capacity is kind of full but there’s an opportunity we like a lot, we can grow so we can take that opportunity,” Lin adds. “But we don’t want to grow too big.”
And so, the studio will continue to be selective. After experiencing the whole gamut of outsourcing with ports, co-dev and full-dev, NeoBards might have found the system that works best for them, Morel says.
“To me, full-dev is where we want to be. Because in the end, the results are our own doing. When doing co-dev, you’re on a train that you’re not driving. You’re in the passenger seat. And if you have a crazy driver, you have a crazy drive. That’s why choosing the driver is so important.”
