We had a blast at the inaugural W.A.S.D. earlier this month, which featured game developers and players meeting up for three days of festivities at London’s Tobacco Dock earlier this month. While the event has concluded, the in-depth discussion panels have been preserved – they’re now up on our YouTube channel for everyone to enjoy. Joe Brammer, CEO of Battalion 1944 developer Bulkhead Interactive, delivered a talk Saturday afternoon about how he helped grow his company from a group of university friends into the triple-A development studio it is today.
Bulkhead has expanded a lot over the course of the past two years – in fact, it’s doubled in size from 50 to 100 employees. In his talk, Brammer discussed some of the unforeseen challenges he and his colleagues faced along the way, and about how establishing a strong company culture and identity was a key part of finding the right people to join the team.
Brammer doesn’t mince words about Bulkhead’s journey – he’s as candid in noting the studio’s missteps as he is about highlighting its triumphs and strengths. Growing into a studio capable of taking on triple-A projects has involved a lot of learning on the job, plus plenty of improvisation in the face of unexpected challenges.
Here’s his talk:
Also during W.A.S.D., PCGamesN editor Richard Scott-Jones sat down with Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell to talk about the state of indie games in 2022, and The Loadout’s Aaron Down spoke with Paul Nadin from Future Friends Games about some of the ways he’s found to help get an indie game noticed on Steam.