Studio culture

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Culture at scale

Course 1 welcomed the first hires. With 60 people, culture is what happens when the founders aren't in the room: how decisions get made, how mistakes are treated and how hard people work.

Hours are a plan

Valve's handbook: "working overtime for extended periods indicates a fundamental failure in planning or communication." Shard Garden's rule: no planned crunch. If a date needs months of overtime, the plan changes.

Quick check

A team has worked every weekend for a month to hit a date. By Valve's handbook, what does that show?

  1. A failure in planning or communication
  2. Great commitment
  3. Nothing at all
Show the answer

A failure in planning or communication

Long overtime is a sign the plan needs fixing, not a badge.

Values you can see

Values on a wall mean little if rewards say the opposite. Shard Garden checks that promotions, praise and hard decisions match what its values say.

Spot the mismatch

Shard Garden's value is "players first", but bonuses only go to the team that ships the most features. What should Kai fix?

  1. The rewards push against the value
  2. Nothing
  3. The value is too short
Show the answer

The rewards push against the value

People follow what is rewarded. Rewards must match the value.

Mistakes without blame

When something breaks, the review asks what let it happen, not who to blame, as in the Keep it running stage. People who aren't afraid report problems early.

Quick check

Blaming the person who caused an outage makes the next outage less likely.

Show the answer

False

Blame teaches people to hide problems. Fixing the cause prevents the next one.

Ask the team

Priya runs a short anonymous survey twice a year. It asks: Do you know what is expected of you? Can you speak up? Would you recommend working here? Everyone sees the results.

More than a game

Players love Shard Garden's world, not only its games.

Bolt says: Next: the game as a franchise.

Fact-checked 12 October 2026