LGC 2013: Developers should be daring and empower staff, says Bossa

Developers must be daring and empower their employees to be creative, says Bossa Studios’ CMO Roberta Lucca.

Speaking at the London Games Conference 2013, the co-founder of the Surgeon Simulator studio said developers should create a culture of reward and experimentation – and that studios should never settle for less.

Lucca explained that anyone at the studio was able to put forward a game idea or concept, whether that was a new prototype or an interesting title created during a game jam.

Lucca explained that using this ethos, the developer had created around 25 prototypes that staff liked, but never saw the light of day. From these prototypes however, seven games have been released, including Monster Mind and Surgeon Simulator, the latter of whcih was created during a 48 hour game jam.

The buzz of that game was such that the studio dropped a project it had already been working on, and worked fast to release the game just 48 days. Since launch, the title has reached six figure sales and YouTube video views have reached in excess of 100 million.

Lucca said Bossa now aims to create a full brand from the IP, and is currently developing an iPad version of the hit.

Explaining how Surgeon Simnulator became such a popular title, she said: "The way we made the cut is creating games with gamers, not to gamers."