Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
Less than a week away from the big release of their new game, Dead Cells, french developers Motion Twin are doing the media rounds and the topic of their unique corporate structure has come into focus. During an interview with Kotaku, game designer Sébastien Bénard says that Motion Twin’s compensation and ownership system is, “a direct challenge, not just to the exploitative practices you see at a lot of other companies, but also to tired old world corporate structures in general.” The company pays each employee the same wage, regardless of their title or how long they’ve been with the studio.
Bénard explains how the day to day business and decisions are discussed by the team in-person or over the chat client Slack. When there is a lack of consensus on any given decision, a vote is held among the employees. This often leaves some team members unhappy they did not get their way. This is what Bénard deems “the tricky part.” Sometimes team members must accept that their great idea will be discarded by the team at large.
While things appear to be working very well for the small team behind Dead Cells, expansion in the past put an enormous strain on the company structure. “Years ago, we did grow a lot, but this wasn’t a great experience,” Bénard said. “We lost much of what made Motion Twin a nice company to work in, and during the process, many people lost this important motivation and focus that worked for us. I think it requires quite a clever structure to go beyond 15 people with a similar equitable design, because you’ll need innovative systems to keep everyone involved.”
Time will tell how this arrangement will work for Motion Twin going forward. Dead Cells will be releasing on the current-gen consoles and Nintendo Switch August 7.