Co-development has become one of the biggest buzzwords in game development, and for good reason. Everyone's talking about it, from indie studios to AAA publishers. But when people say "co-development," they're actually talking about completely different approaches, and most teams are only scratching the surface of what's possible.

After countless conversations at conferences with various leaders from publishing, development and services, I've noticed that co-development generally falls into four distinct categories. Understanding these differences isn't just academic. It's the key to unlocking the real potential of external partnerships.

The Four Ways Teams Use Co-Development

1. As a Euphemism for Staff Augmentation

This is probably the most common use case. A team needs more hands on deck, so they bring in contractors from a co-development partner. It's basically "we need more people, can you give us people?" The appeal is obvious: it's easier to hire (the provider has already vetted the talent), easier to scale down when needed, and comes with far less management overhead since the provider handles things like mentorship, retention, and team dynamics.

2. As a Rescue Team When Projects Are in Trouble

This usually happens mid-project when a publisher has already invested a substantial amount and is losing confidence in the internal team's ability to execute. They'll bring in a trusted co-development partner they've worked with before to help "right the ship." It's not really a choice at that point. It's a last resort to salvage the investment.

3. To Delegate Easy-to-Distribute Areas of Responsibility

This covers things like live ops or platform SKU maintenance. The core team wants to move on to the next project, so they hand off the ongoing responsibilities to a co-development partner. It makes sense because these are well-defined areas with known playbooks that can be easily measured and replicated by other teams.

4. To Bring in External Expertise

This is where things get interesting, and where most teams are missing out.

The Revolution Hiding in Plain Sight

The first three approaches are essentially evolutionary steps. They're about doing what you're already doing, just with external help. But the fourth approach? That's revolutionary.

Instead of treating co-development as glorified staffing, imagine using it to access expertise you don't have internally. Rather than waiting for your team to struggle with unfamiliar territory, you proactively bring in specialists who have solved exactly the problems you're facing.

Here’s a real example: a studio was preparing a high-stakes GDC pitch and needed a complex environmental sequence with destructible elements to showcase a core gameplay mechanic in their vertical slice. An internal generalist spent weeks iterating, but the result never quite landed. We brought in a specialist team on a short timeline with a deep portfolio of similar work. In just a few weeks, they delivered a polished, high-impact sequence that not only looked and felt great, but also simplified the underlying systems and improved performance…and did it faster than the internal team had spent struggling.

This isn't about cost-cutting or emergency fixes. It's about recognizing that modern game development is incredibly complex, and no single team can be world-class at everything.

Why This Approach Is Massively Underutilized

The honest truth? It's harder than the other three approaches.

With staff augmentation, rescue teams, or delegating well-defined work, you're essentially doing skill-for-skill replacement. But bringing in genuine expertise requires evaluating "soft skills" alongside technical capabilities. You need to find partners who can think creatively, give honest feedback, and truly collaborate instead of just executing orders.

It also requires a level of humility. You need to identify your unknowns and be willing to admit your team’s own shortcomings. That’s not always easy, especially when you’ve built a strong internal culture.

There's also a trust factor. How do you interview for expertise in an area you don't know well? How do you evaluate whether someone can solve problems you can't even fully articulate yet, and hold them accountable for delivery?

Most teams only discover this approach through failure. They try something internally, can't get it working, and finally reach out for help, usually at the last minute.

The Enlightened Approach

But what if you planned for this from the start?

Instead of waiting for problems to surface, proactive teams can identify areas where they lack deep expertise and build co-development partnerships around those gaps. Maybe you're generalists who are great at game design but struggle with technical art pipelines. Maybe you excel at core gameplay but need help with backend architecture.

The key question isn't "are we capable of building this entire game ourselves?" It's "where can we bring in specialized expertise to elevate our game beyond what we could achieve alone?"

This approach works especially well for mid-sized studios. AAA teams typically have the resources to hire internal specialists for every key discipline. Small indie teams might not have the budget for external expertise. But mid-sized studios sit in the sweet spot—with enough resources to be strategic, choosing when to build in-house and when to bring in outside specialists to elevate the work.

The Business Case for Expertise-Driven Co-Development

Here’s what surprised me most: expertise usually costs about the same as generalist work. Sure, niche specialists or recognized experts might command a modest premium, but that premium often starts from a lower baseline to begin with.

And more importantly, when you bring in experts for short, high-impact engagements, the return on that investment can be enormous. A specialized team can often solve a problem in a fraction of the time it would take a generalist, freeing your internal team to focus on their strengths and avoid weeks—or months—of wheel-spinning.

When you find a studio that specializes in exactly what you need, you're not just buying time. You're getting years of accumulated knowledge, refined processes, and solutions to problems you haven't even encountered yet. They can spot potential issues early, suggest optimizations you wouldn't think of, and deliver results that would take your team months to achieve through trial and error. That’s where the real value comes from.

The traditional approach treats external development as a necessary fallback: something you do when you run out of internal capacity. The enlightened approach treats it as a competitive advantage, a way to access best-in-class expertise across multiple disciplines without the overhead of hiring full-time specialists.

Making the Leap

If you're convinced that expertise-driven co-development might be right for your studio, start by asking yourself:

• What skills are we missing that would meaningfully improve our game?
• What creative work defines our studio's unique value and should stay in-house?
• What areas consistently cause us to struggle or go in circles?

The right partnership can be transformative. Instead of your team spinning wheels on unfamiliar problems, you can focus energy on what you do best while bringing in proven expertise exactly where you need it most.

This is the future of game development, not because external teams are cheaper or because you need more hands, but because the complexity of modern games demands specialized knowledge that no single team can master across every discipline.

Want to explore how expertise-driven co-development could work for your studio? Let's talk about identifying the right partnerships for your next project.

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