Integrity, authenticity: Founding a principled new studio

When triple-A developer David Nottingham went to IndieCade, he says, he found "the version of the games industry I'd always been waiting for" -- one that inspired him greatly. Returning to LucasArts, he founded its Lucas Labs initiative, to make small games (such as downloadable title Lucidity) with a small team. "We would take risks, we wouldn't be afraid of failure, we'd make these games that we cared about," he says. "The budget for these were sort of rounding errors, the change that fell down the back of George's couch." He and his team "retrained our muscles from the triple-A mindset to building games quickly, breaking eggs." But the studio changed management, and changed focus. Lucas Labs was shuttered and its team offered positions making triple-A Star Wars titles. Nottingham couldn't leave his dream behind. "We really had no choice at this point -- we had to step out and build something ourselves," he says, and along with technical director John Elliot, he founded Dynamighty, and embarked on the project that became CounterSpy, one of GDC Next's Next 10 selections. "We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of company we want to build," says Nottingham. "We really liked working with a team and the pleasure and the joy," of creating small, intensely creative game experiences. Lucas Labs became "an environment that people love and enjoy coming to every day," says Nottingham, and he wanted the same from his own company. But building a team around that ideal is not easy -- a challenge Nottingham calls "the importance of casting." "I had a lot of fear. I was afraid -- are we going to be able to do it again, or was that a once in a lifetime thing?" Here's the secret to finding the right people, according to Nottingham: "Think of it like you're that planet with your own gravitational pull. The people, the type of team you want to attract, are going to be naturally attracted to the values you project. The most important thing to you as an authentic person is your values, what you stand for. You'll find that people will get attracted to that." Still, he admits, "it was really hard at the beginning. Nobody had heard of us." The studio ended up hiring mostly former coworkers, or newcomers recommended by former coworkers, which worked well on both fronts. The key, he says, is to project "your integrity, your authenticity" into every situation. "I've definitely found in my career all along the way, every opportunity that comes my way is a result of how you've conducted yourself over a lifetime." Recently, singer and songwriter Lou Reed died. Reflecting on his work, Nottingham found this quote of Reed's online: "You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they think it's beautiful." "This quote is really beautiful," says Nottingham, "and it really spoke to me about why we make this game. This is really the best you can do. Focus on that, and try not to worry about all of the other distractions."