Room 8 Studio's expertise covers full cycle game development as well as professional game art from concept to ready-for-release products. We wanted to see how they operate, what kind of artists they look for and how they efficiently communicate with clients... So we asked and they answered. More specifically, Maria Klymenko, Head of the Art Division, answered. 

How was Room 8 Studio formed? What was the motivation to pivot from developer to co-development partner? 

Room 8 Studio started as a mobile game developer with a focus on strong visuals and creative execution. Our team excelled at art and code, and design in this region was our industry expertise. Clients who are aware of the complexity and pitfalls of their projects and those who were willing to invest in the gradual and continuous development of a quality product started to contact us. We felt our expertise was some value for them and that eventually led us to redirect our talents to co-development.

Every partner we took on, each on a specific platform with their artistic styles, our team's art and technical art grew. It goes without saying that our Art Direction grew as well. We've harnessed that growth into developing strong leads within a wide range of art styles to meet our partner's needs. That pathway has allowed us to grow into dedicated team product and service provider going through every stage: from concept art to stylized and photoreal characters and environments, to character animation, UI, and FX.

What was your first project? Did business grow from there or was it/is it still a work in progress?

Our first art project was Warthunder for Gaijin Entertainment. The project's scope was more extensive than the team we had, which led to the studio scaling to meet the demand.  

Meanwhile, casual mobile projects began to come in which required us to scale even further. In 2014, we gained international success with Cookie Jam which was nominated as Facebook’s Game of the Year. From there, Room 8 took off. To date, we've collaborated on over 300 projects on all possible platforms like PC, mobile, console, social and VR with 80 partners from 17 countries.

Most everyone relies (somewhat) on reputation, what does that mean for your team? How do you ensure positive word of mouth?

The games community is global and interwoven, and word of mouth spreads. We believe that there is no substitute for quality -- our vision speaks to it, and our clients expect it. Care, excellence, passion, teamwork, reliability and creativity -- these are the six pillars that have carried us this far. There's no escaping reputation, and we believe in managing ours is to deliver on time, with quality, and with care.  

We manage this through project cycle distinct phases, internal retrospectives and client feedback, which shape our process. You are warmly welcomed to check out our latest works and photo shoots from studio life on Instagram or Facebook.

What is the biggest hurdle when coming into a project? Do you prefer a specific stage in the development process?

Capacity is our most substantial challenge. Eastern Europe has strong talent, but there's only so many hard surface modellers, animators, technical artists, etc. When a project comes in, the style and process can be a blessing and a curse. Current generation characters, for example, can take up to six weeks depending on the art techniques, while mobile characters typically take up to two weeks. With only so many photoreal modellers, we're continually juggling our capacity. We encourage our artists growth by providing a range of internal and external training, but this only allows us to keep up with demand.

We are here as a service to an IP, meaning we are here to serve every stage; but, ideally the beginning of a project allows us to support concept to completion.

If you disagree with a studio’s feedback how do you handle it? Do you finish the project even if you feel it’s not going in the right direction?

We are committed to transparent and honest communication as well as providing the highest quality art for our partners. When our leads offer suggestions, they are to guide and mitigate risk not pushback. We take ownership of our roles, processes, pipeline or art with confidence and pursue the opportunity to improve.  

We have accumulated substantial experience during the years of partnership with companies such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Gameloft, NcSoft, Rovio, Nitro Games, Linekong, Outplay, Jam City, Skydance, Paradox. We strive to share best practices and solutions, but the ideologist and author of the project is still the client. So, we follow partner’s vision of the product and expectations of the result in the end. This is primarily why our partners appreciate cooperation with Room 8 Studio :) After finishing work on one project and fulfilling all wishes of its realization, the team warmly welcomes the partner with new requests.

What types of artists do you search for when hiring, are specific artists more sought after than others?    

The skills and experience of the artists we hire range in depth and varies on the needs of the studio. We are passionate about our studio's culture, and those we hire need to be an addition to our family.

Ideally, we look for artists who can both lead and train in their field of expertise: If you're an animator, we look for those who have traditional animation skills because of their frame to frame fundamentals -- this applies to 3D animators as well. If the animator does not have those skills, we look for those who can do performance animation. Photoreal modellers, we look for strong anatomy skills; and, UI/UX we look for artists who understand user flow as well as a strong sense of design.

Like all great companies, we strive to hire the best talents. Potential Room 8 Studio’s artists should share the values, be purposeful and have the motivation to blossom out. It’s applicable for all our specialists notwithstanding of their role.

Have you ever had to turn down a job? Why did you make that decision? Did you regret it?

We always strive to find the balance between line activities and incoming projects to optimize the schedule. It is our mission to support our partners and potential partners, and our process and project managers work hard to strategize onboarding every project.

Still, we do care about Room 8’s image in the game development industry and in cases that mentioned below we are likely to reject working on the potential project:

• the team is merely overbooked, and they lack the capacity to meet the deadline
• the team’s experience in arrow direction is insufficient. We are not afraid to tell the partner that the team does a task for the first time. Usually, this doesn’t frighten our partners, they just have to know that working on such tasks will take longer than usual
• the poor-quality project that we won’t be proud of let’s say in 3 years.

After taking on a project what is your first step?   

Every project goes through assessment, planning, capacity, and risks. It's a standard process which allows us to examine every aspect of a project's needs before starting art. The leads and directors are round up to review the scope of work, the pipeline, process, and quality. From there, we provide a timeline that fits our partner's needs and assembles the team that can execute that art style.  

Can you tell us about some of your favourite projects and why?

It goes without saying we love any project where the team is challenged and can grow, the quality bar is high, and the project is delivered on time. It provides a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie with our partner and reinforces our studio's culture. Art-wise, we love to sink our teeth into any project that show off our teams talents.

Among recent projects, there are a couple that our team is proud of taking part in Medals of War for Nitro Games, which was a co-development project which included every discipline. Archangel for Skydance Interactive was our team's first VR game -- oh, there's Family Guy, Independence Day, Buzz Aldrin: Cycling Pathways to Mars, Kubo... so, so many! Our works best speak for us. I highly recommend getting acquaintance with our portfolio!