Bulkhead, the studio behind recent breakout hit Wardogs, makes sure its prospective developers are FPS fans before hiring them. As executive director Joe Brammer says, “You wouldn’t let me go and make Final Fantasy” because he apparently wouldn’t know where to start on a genre he’s unfamiliar with.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the studio’s sudden success, Brammer explains the “anti-cheat stuff” that Bulkhead is implementing is “expensive and there’s risk we’re taking on there.” As such, to him, “the studio should be rewarded for it.”
“I like to think that if you’re an FPS fan, we’re trying to do right by that audience, and we’re one of the good guys to support,” he continues. “[We] won’t always get it right, but we like people to know where their money is going and what type of studio it’s going into, and [into] someone that they feel they can share values with. So, I think, that’s kind of where the core of Bulkhead is. We are FPS players. You know, [when] you apply to Bulkhead, you have to put the Steam hours.”
Wardogs senior producer Kane Allard explains the studio checks every applicants’ Steam record to ensure “you’re passionate about FPS games,” before they jump on and begin making a big FPS game, of course.
But the checks aren’t necessarily a value judgement on the developer, either. Brammer says it’s totally fine for people to play other games, even non-shooter ones. “It doesn’t make you a worse developer,” he adds, “but we want to know that you really care about the details of what we’re doing.”
And the same would work in reverse for Brammer: “You wouldn’t let me go and make Final Fantasy. Like, I wouldn’t be able to do that. I wouldn’t know what we’re talking about. So to pretend that they’re in the same industry sometimes is a bit silly. So we just prioritize hiring FPS developers.”