4.1 Rebellion
Rebellion which was founded in 1992 by brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley and is one of the most successful independent video game companies (Rebellion, 2024). It has produced successful games like Sniper Elite Franchise, Strange Brigade, Evil Genius, etc (Steam, 2024). Rebellion’s success can be attributed to its ability to adapt quickly to industry changes and seize strategic opportunities.
One notable example is during the co-development of Sniper Elite, their partners 505 wanted to put in a certain amount of money which was less than the budget needed to be. So, Rebellion negotiated to keep the PC version and the digital, even when the industry was primarily physically dominant. They felt that keeping the digital rights would be disproportionately valuable to them going forward (Develop:Brighton, 2020). This shows their very prompt decision making and adaptability born out of necessity instead of a predefined plan, paid off significantly as the digital market grew and PC gaming became very popular. Rather than being planned from the start, this decision was an adaptive response to shifting industry dynamics. This shows how emergent strategy can help turn adversity into an advantage.
Furthermore, Rebellion has also acquired a number of other studios and these opportunities arise by themselves (Develop:Brighton, 2020). Rebellion is also working on an Epic Exclusive although not so early, they had said they would not work on an Epic exclusive because of the deal that Epic provided (Develop:Brighton, 2020). This shows their nature of acting when good opportunities arise and ability to change decisions as necessities arise which are part of emergent strategy. This ability to practise emergent strategy is also granted by the fact that they are independent as no one is stopping them from making their decisions.
Based on Rebellion (2024), it has a team of over 475 people. According to Develop:Brighton (2020), despite this size, Rebellion practises informality and when people come in there from other companies, they are surprised to see it in practice. This has allowed the company to reduce the cost of a lot of corporate admin stuff and help them move fast without wasting too much time on decision making. Despite being such a large team, they have been able to stay adaptive. This is because of their vision, which is wanting to do cool games and cool entertainment products and continue to keep the money flowing in (Develop:Brighton, 2020). This shows that emergent strategy can still be practised primarily with large teams if there is proper vision.
However, based on Develop:Brighton (2020), the founders accept that as the company grows, there’s a natural increase in necessary formalities like accounting, HR, and legal requirements, which introduces a layer of structure to ensure proper functioning. This states that as the size of the team grows, it is difficult for companies to stay fully bottom up, thus stating that there should be some form of deliberate element that cannot be avoided.
4.2 Supergiant Games
Supergiant has published five successful games till date, all of which have been very successful (Supergiant, 2024). Based on Steam (2024), they have released Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, Hades, and Hades 2. Its fourth game, Hades was awarded Game of the Year at 21st Annual Game Developer Choice Awards (GDC, 2021). According to Kerr (2024), it has sold over a million copies in under 2 years.
Supergiant exemplifies the use of emergent strategy showing knowledge is not present in a single central person and good decisions come from everyone working in the company. The requirements of the game are always coming from the team rather than a centralised person. Each individual at Supergiant has a larger influence on the overall outcome, while holding more responsibility and often doesn’t need to seek approval from others for decisions (Ukie, 2021). The key principle they adhere to is that the person doing the work ultimately has the final say and is also the one integrating feedback and solving problems (Ukie, 2021). According to Perri (2019), people should be given their space to make decisions so that companies can have full benefits of their knowledge and skill. Faster iteration of work and team empowerment is provided given that each individual member can have their own decision. Better quality of work is provided because of team empowerment and faster iteration. If everything was coming from a central strategy, the employees would not have felt as motivated, and the process might have been delayed.
Better team dynamics and better quality of work has also been produced. Through the trust built by bottom-up approach, individuals are put to a high standard. Based on Ukie (2021), mutual trust and support is there, making the process much more rewarding. Every part of the game process co-exists with one another and supports each other (GDC, 2021). Challenges and conflicts are solved collaboratively (Pappas, 2021). The retention of talent has also been very successful. People are more passionate into working for the company and game because of the decision-making process. The people working from the game from the start are still there (Pappas, 2021). Bottom-up approach of emergent strategy creates a better environment for the team which allows for more creative freedom. Unique and differentiating products are built when everyone is working on something they are genuinely passionate about. The team has also been able to incorporate personal elements into games making games even more interesting and creative. These personal elements however have to be brought into coherence and given a sense of direction in the end even if the process of giving decision to individuals can feel disorganised (Ukie, 2021).
The bottom-up approach of the company allows for the alignment of passion and interest of people working in the company. Since it’s not a central vision, people are not being pushed ideas that they are not excited about. Since the decisions are given to employees, they ultimately pursue ideas they are excited about. Instead of imposing strict directives on people’s work the company prefer to explore and experiment until they find a fresh approach that everyone is genuinely enthusiastic (Ukie, 2021).
The team didn’t anticipate the level of success that Bastion achieved as their own expectations of its potential success were far exceeded by what it ultimately became over time. For the team, the driving force was creating a game they were passionate about, with ideas that genuinely excited them. Supergiant noticed that there wasn’t much out there like it at the time, so the project was a mix of creative enthusiasm and recognising an opportunity (Ukie, 2021). Intuition largely played a large role in the process of the game. The company noticed that there weren’t many games like this available on consoles, and even fewer with a strong narrative component. It seemed like a great choice of format and something they were excited to develop, that wasn’t oversaturated in the market, and that they felt confident in executing. Emergent strategy refers to a process where successful strategies unfold in unpredictable ways, shaped by experimentation and adaptation rather than detailed, pre-planned approaches. Instead, their creative drive and responsiveness to opportunity played into its eventual success, reflecting the essence of emergent strategy. Their ability to recognize where they could contribute something unique demonstrates how emergent strategies often arise from opportunities and insights gained organically.
Baston was completely created by people working on it and their individual strength as it did not start by a complete pre-planned design by the founders where they hired a number of employees to execute that plan (Price, 2024). In Baston, the one of the defining characteristics of the game, use of narration was born incidentally as part of narrative experimentation (Price, 2024). This shows that a lot of innovative ideas can emerge themselves when there is process of experimentation.
Each year brings new changes in the industry, which means that staying relevant requires constant observation and adaptation (Ukie, 2021). Based on Pappas (2021) making something similar that’s already out and relying on past experience is not enough for Supergiant to release a game as differentiation matters. Continuously evolving the process of learning, growing and improving is important, as the standard is always changing (Pappas, 2021). They are always figuring things out, not working on a pre-defined plan. Supergiant shows a lot of experimentation, adaptability and learning in the way they run their company. After seeing a lot of players being engaged in Baston, the team is supporting it across various platforms (Ukie, 2021). This is an emergent step taken by the team, rather than it being pre-planned. This broad availability has helped them reach diverse audiences and sustain interest. Initially Supergiant had partnered with Warner Brothers for publishing their first game, later they published other games on their own. Self-publishing for Transister was an interest of the team in trying out themself (Ukie, 2021). It allowed them to gain hands-on experience in areas such as setting up our own events, managing marketing, and handling public relations. Publishing is a huge endeavour, and they successfully executed it. If they had not had an experimentation and learning mindset, they would have continued with Warner Brothers. Also, this allowed them to keep the full revenue to themselves. For Transistor, the team were eager to explore if they could create something entirely new from scratch as they enjoyed the challenge of building a new world and didn’t want to be constrained by the success of their previous game (Ukie, 2021). Similar to making Transistor, Pyre was created from scratch to see if a game with a whole new world and characters can be done by the company for the third time (Ukie, 2021). With the experimental approach, they have been able to successfully create many games. Success can sometimes lead studios to become overly reliant on their hit franchises but keeping their identity flexible and driven by their creative aspirations rather than just sticking to one formula, they created unique projects that could stand on their own and have their own identity.
While businesses cannot control many of the constraints and influences affecting customers, they do have complete control over their own limitations and how they manage them (Perri, 2019). From the early stages of working on Bastion, Supergiant adopted the mindset that constraints are beneficial. This aligns with the adaptive nature of emergent strategy. Constraints served as useful deadlines, helping them clarify their vision and make focused decisions based on what they have in their control. This approach has been integral to their process and continues to shape how they work. Rather than viewing constraints as obstacles, they find them to be relieving, as they provide clear boundaries that guide our work.
Based on Steam (2024), the company has released Hades II in early access and improving in the same way Hades was, and it has a very positive reaction in its current form. They believe that player feedback can benefit the game in every way and will be continuously monitoring feedback from the player community (Epic Games, 2024). This aligns with the experimental learning aspect of emergent strategy where putting something into market even though it’s not fully complete, continuously improving upon it has proved to be beneficial for them. Learning is highlighted quite a lot in Supergiant Games where they are constantly learning. By the learning nature and including customers in part of decision making, Supergiant has been able to differentiate themselves through customer satisfaction in the industry with significant competitive pressure (Koch & Artmayr, 2020). The early access allowed them to get something out in a small span of time instead of waiting multiple years. The external feedback helped Supergiant with ideas, creativity, knowledge and solutions (Koch & Artmayr, 2020). Without the community and their feedback, the game would have been impossible.
It is important for any team to have direct relationship with the audience. The emergent nature of the company has also allowed for direct interaction with customer through its bottom-up approach. This allows for immediate feedback and adjustments, thus helping with adaptability. If there would have been hierarchies present, the feedback from games would not have been as effective because of the communication barrier. By employee being close to customer and taking feedback various opportunities which would not have been able to be grabbed was possible. This allowed for more innovation. Product and services can better match the shift in customer’s preferences when decision making is granted to everyone (Gadiesh & Gilbert, 2001). Such is the case with Supergiant where they have been able to perfectly align its game with customer preference which has been verified with their games’ success. Without its bottom-up approach and interaction with customer they have been able to build product that the customer need. According to Fryyer (2024), not adapting to customer preference fails products like in the case of Concord, even with more than 250 million budget and six years in the making, it failed miserably. When working hierarchically, if the person on the top of the hierarchy is hostile to feedback and is biassed towards his/her decisions, it can ruin the game as well (Fryyer, 2024). Every problem in the game is known by someone on the team or customer and they have to be acted upon (Fryyer, 2024). Also, Peri (2019) emphasises that rather than linking value to the outcomes companies aim to achieve for their businesses and customers, they gauge value by the quantity of things they produce and can end up in the build trap.
Using emergent strategy, Supergiant has been able to put out successful games one another as per their vision.
4.3 Valve
Valve was founded by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington after finding tangible proof of PC gaming’s superiority (Dreunen, 2020). Dreunen (2020) adds that in order to avoid dealing with opinions and input from investors and shareholders, and having the financial resources required, they maintained full control of the company. Based on Sutherland (2014), it is completely self-funded and owns all its intellectual property. Valve has successfully published various titles like Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 which has each on its own generated the company billions in revenue (Dreunen, 2020). Their video games are highly regarded by gamers, giving the company strong credibility with its audience (Marketline, 2015).
Valve’s organisational structure and operational practices exemplify the use of emergent strategy and its bottom-up attribute. In contrast to the hierarchical structure found in many businesses; it makes use of a flat structure. It believes that hierarchical structures eventually begin to serve their own interest and take advantage of the power structure rather than serving the needs of customers (Valve Corporation, 2012). According to Kiwi Talkz (2022), Gabe Newell would accept that employees disagree with him, if employees have defended their position with reasons. Employees have the freedom to select their own projects and form teams around a particular initiative while also being able to set their own schedules and priorities (Dreunen, 2020). When working on a product or large feature, a multidisciplinary temporary project team is formed organically when people decide to join the team considering it valuable (Marketline, 2015). Someone will emerge as the lead for the project,who acts as a central resource, maintaining a comprehensive view of the project to support the team by providing information and guidance, without holding a traditional managerial role (Valve Corporation, 2012).
This flat structure also helps in emergence of strategy over time through decisions taken by employees. Everyone becomes part of the strategy making rather than being pre-defined by a top manager as they can start new products and ship them without any restriction when better opportunities are identified. They can also identify risks better, thus steering the company away from it. By delegating the strategy-making among employees, Valve has been able to make better decisions which would not have been possible if there were few people planning the strategy. Decision making at the company has been of higher quality because of implementation of flat hierarchy shown by its result which otherwise would have been different (Child, 2015).
The main benefit to Valve can be seen in the success of its products; it has been influential not only in game design but also in significantly enhancing user convenience. Its distribution platform, Steam, was born because of emerging needs rather than being pre-planned. Revenue generated by game sales on Steam, was around 8.5 billion in the year 2023 (Statista, 2024). Based on Dreunen (2020), Steam was created in 2003 out of need to digitally distribute titles automatically over the internet for its growing titles. Additionally in 2005, Valve opened the platform to other developers in exchange for a 30 percent cut (Juul, 2019). The emergent nature of constantly identifying customer needs and adapting to the complex nature of the gaming industry through constant adaptation and learning has allowed Valve to constantly put superior and successful products in the market. In contrast, more traditional companies with rigid structures may struggle to achieve similar levels of responsiveness, highlighting the strategic advantage of the company’s approach.
This also means employees are better connected with customers as there is no barrier of communication. The company can identify customer preference better. And since employees are the ones making strategy, the strategy is providing value according to customer needs. This has allowed Valve to add value to the employee’s work which would have been very difficult if there were hierarchy present and customers’ needs would not be identified as easily. Same as in the case with Supergiant, this allows Valve to meet customer need and build product accordingly.
Valve stresses the importance of constantly testing their decision and not relying on assumption and unproven theories because when they are moving into unknown expertise, almost every time their predictions are proven wrong by what they find (Valve Corporation, 2012). It never fires people for making a mistake and believes in providing freedom to fail as an important trait for the company which is used as opportunities to learn. If the same mistake is repeated over and over, not listening to peers and customers are considered bad failures (Valve Corporation, 2012) . Even though anyone has no authority over another, employee take feedback from one another as new insights, valuable experience and information can be shared (Valve Corporation, 2012).
This aligns with the trial-and-error nature of emergent strategy where people do not rely on a long term pre-defined plan which could be wrongly crafted. Constantly testing assumptions allows avoiding big mistakes in business faster. The freedom to fail has also allowed employees to take risks with confidence resulting in better innovation. By failing, Valve can find out if their assumption or model of the world were wrong, but it stresses the importance of moving forward with a better picture and better model of the world. This has helped in fostering an environment of innovation and agility and maintained a culture of continuous improvement and creativity, crucial in the fast-paced gaming industry.
In addition to being talented and collaborative, employees must be capable of running the company. This can have higher employee engagement because of the responsibility provided and decision-making factor. Talent retention can also be high because of higher engagement in their work. According to (Dreunen, 2020) the company has been successful acquiring and retaining the best talent.
However, the flat structure practice in Valve also has weaknesses (Child, 2015). This nature of work can feel like additional responsibility for employees. Sometimes, it is hard for new people to find their way there. Deciding what to work on can be difficult at Valve as well as people are not hired to fill a specific job description. People trying to build a specialised career can have challenges with this.
Valve also misses out on hiring great talent who love to work in traditional structure. Also, poor recruitment decisions can take a longer time to become clear and have detrimental effects until it is discovered (Marketline, 2015). Also, based on Marketline (2015). it is not sure, the valve way of working can be implemented in larger organisations, and it can hamper the company, if it wanted to expand. The hesitation to assert authority, can significantly delay the recognition of underperformance and may have a far more harmful effect on the company’s internal economy (Marketline, 2015). Additionally, the absence of training programs and opportunities for self-guided development makes it accessible only to experienced individuals, restricting the chances to train those who are newly graduated (Marketline, 2015).
In 2013, Valve hired a large group of people all at once due to the lack of skill set in the team (Sutherland, 2014). Hiring so many people at once who were unfamiliar with Valve’s approach led to issues as some employees weren’t following the usual Valve way, instead directing others on what to do (Sutherland, 2014). As noted by Sutherland (2014), a group of core Valve employees eventually stepped in to safeguard the company’s ethos, even though doing so required them to act outside the usual principles they were trying to protect where they fired a few dozen people at once and sees this as failure. This shows that the attribute of power missing in emergent strategy can be problematic and sometimes companies have to go out of principles of emergent strategy to solve some problems. Power had to be utilised to make the right decision. Though bad decisions might get implemented too quickly because of a grasp of power, good decisions might also not get implemented at all without a grasp of power Freedman (2013).
According to Kiwi Talkz (2022), Gabe Newell would want to be part of the team and give his ideas, but employees would give greater affirmation to his idea and not treat him equally. Thus, he had to step down. Because he was the founder of the company, he was given higher priority because of natural human behaviour. This shows that there are some hierarchical elements which cannot be avoided in any company.
Based on Valve Corporation (2012), making predictions longer than a few months out is not possible at Valve. But this is the core of emergent strategy and should not be taken as weakness. Additionally, Marketline (2015) states that the structure is not ideal for streamlined decision making as products are delayed a long time to build consensus and improve quality. Even though this is not a big problem for vault due to its resources, other companies can have detrimental effects.
4.4 Hello Games
Hello Games is an independent studio which aims to join the stability and quality of AAA development while also retaining freedom and creativity (Hello Games, 2024). To date, it has released four games: Joe Danger, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, No Man’s Sky and the Last Campfire (Steam, 2024). According to Playtracker (2024), No Man’s Sky, its most successful game, has estimated sales of around 6.8 million copies. The game was an incredibly bold and groundbreaking release, featuring a procedurally generated universe, something that had never been attempted on such a scale (GDC, 2019).
Sean Murray, a founder, was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, so he started working on a new coding project which resembled the early concept of No Man’s Sky—a basic, rough-looking planet with the ability to travel between procedurally generated worlds. Although he was embarrassed to show it to his colleagues the next day, their reaction was immediate and enthusiastic and they dropped everything to pursue the idea, marking the start of No Man’s Sky, a concept that had gradually taken shape (Develop:Brighton, 2020). The team acknowledged that the game was too ambitious but explained that once they started working, the process felt rewarding (Develop:Brighton, 2020). As mentioned in GDC (2019), the game was primarily developed by a team of six people, with the number increasing to 15 by the time of its launch.
The team’s approach reflects an emergent strategy, where instead of following a rigid plan, they adapted and refined their direction based on what they discovered during the creative process. The enthusiasm for the project became key in guiding their decision throughout the process. If the strategy would have been carefully planned and calculated, the team would have never approached such a huge game and would have settled for a smaller scale game. However, based on their risk-taking approach, they were ultimately able to create such a vast game despite their size.
Sean Murray emphasises on the power of focusing on action rather than saying in a difficult situation (GDC, 2019). No Man’s Sky was subject to significant controversy, including severe threats and harassment directed at the development team (MacDonald, 2019). Based on Develop:Brighton (2020), the team gathered data around the controversy and they figured out that a significant percentage of negativity stemmed from individuals who have not invested in the game and from issues that were beyond their control, such as industry-wide practices like pre-orders. According to GDC (2019), the negative feedback from the players who had actually spent significant time with the game, however, was valuable and were in the developer’s control like the frustration regarding inventory system. In order to build credible communication with the players, the team focused on action by changing the game radically around the useful feedback, rather than public statements through press or blog post (GDC, 2019). They released numerous iterative improvements through patch notes (No Man’s Sky, 2024). Ongoing iteration, adjusting and refining, is a natural part of workflow at Hello Games (Develop:Brighton, 2020). Frushtick (2020) states that the game eventually won back players and is now loved by millions
This shows that in the context of business, any kind of unexpected situation can arise and displays the complex environment of the game industry. During the launch period, it would have been easy for the team to abandon the game because of its negative reception. However, the team was able to distil through the noise and saw that hundreds of thousands of players were playing the game every day resembling that people were enjoying the game and were expecting more. They were able to identify what was actually relevant to making the game better. Through iterative patch notes, they continuously involved the product, and those patch notes also acted as valuable feedback to develop upon the game even further.
This shows the learning and adaptive nature of the company in the face of adversity. This aligns with the view of emergent strategy where learning and experimentation is more important than planning. Also, instead of issuing public statements and putting out a long plan, they actually fixed the game iteratively based on feedback received through players which was the defining factor for the success of the game. Ultimately, No Man’s Sky exemplifies how emergent strategy can be effectively deployed to navigate crises. By embracing continuous learning and improvement, the development team turned an initially tumultuous reception into a long-term success story, validating the potential of emergent strategies in overcoming adversity and creating resilient, player-centric game experiences. Also, the success of No Man’s Sky has allowed the company to have been really well funded and developing ambitious games even further (Develop:Brighton, 2020) which is a goal for many independent game companies.
Next: 5. Conclusion DIL