As studios contend with layoffs, hiring freezes, longer development cycles, and a growing supply of experienced talent outside traditional roles, fractional work is emerging as a potential middle ground between full-time hiring and conventional consulting. Host Devin Becker is joined by Aaron Bush, co-founder and Managing Partner of Naavik, to discuss why the company expanded from research and advisory into fractional talent, what meaningfully separates fractional leadership from contracting or staff augmentation, and how these engagements work in practice.
They examine which roles fit the model, why senior talent dominates the supply pool, how studios retain knowledge after an engagement ends, and whether increased reliance on fractional experts could weaken the industry’s pipeline for developing junior talent. The conversation also considers whether this is a temporary response to the current employment cycle or an early sign of studios becoming smaller permanent teams supported by flexible specialists.
Check out Naavik's Fractional Talent Network: https://naavik.co/fractional-talent/
We’d like to thank Dive for making this episode possible! With its fully managed analytics and LiveOps platform built for game studios, 95% of their clients grow revenue in one year. All of that without having to hire an in-house data team. Learn more here: dive.games/scale
This transcript is machine-generated, and we apologize for any errors.
Devin: Hello, everyone. I'm your host, Devin Becker, and today I'm extra delighted to be joined by one of my favorite people here, Aaron Bush, co-founder and managing partner at Naavik.
And today we're gonna be exploring a topic I don't think it's talked about enough, but it has been mentioned quite a few places, which is fractional talent, and I think it's especially relevant today in the current gaming talent landscape. So just to kind of catch everyone up on where, where Naavik is here, could you just give a quick overview of how a research and advisory firm ended up building a talent business, and how that came about?
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, it was your idea to, to talk about fractional talent today. I, I think it's an interesting topic and probably under-discussed as just a way that work is getting done across the games industry., For us, though, I mean, for those of you that know us, obviously we do a lot of this media work, but, like, the engine of our, our business behind the scenes has been consulting, for, for several years at this point.
But at some point, we realized that for almost every company we work with, the actual job to be done, you know, you know, wasn't consulting as much as it was talent itself. Like, fundamentally, we fill talent and insight gaps for companies. Sometimes that is in the shape of a consulting project where there are specific deliverables or presentations or reports or, or whatever that might be to, to deliver on.
It's more strategy-focused, high level, and that is great. But sometimes the best way to serve a client isn't through a deliverable itself, but through just giving them access to an awesome, talented person that maybe can't, maybe won't give a deliverable but will plug into the team, solve a problem, help them with whatever they need to be helped with, and just fundamentally be more flexible to help them get whatever that job to be done is done.
And so, we, we launched probably about a year ago at this point, our fractional talent network which is just a way to bring together people across the industry that are looking to do this kind of work. Some of them are consultants like you, Devin, that we've worked with on various projects, that, like, have the skills to plug in in different ways, whether it is a consulting project or some other kind of fractional talent contractor type of engagement.
But also there's just all sorts of awesome people across the industry we haven't had a chance to work with that- We have wanted to work with and they've wanted to work with us, and, you know, by making this like really its own vertical and letting companies know that we work in this way, it's been a great way to get more people involved to help companies in more ways.
And a- again, at the end of the day, it really is just a, it is a talent business. It's a problem-solving business, and the more ways that we can do that, the better.
Devin: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been something that I think has kind of evolved, and so that it, it's good to kind of discuss what that evolution's been and why it exists.
What did you... What have you heard from clients that kind of made that category feel like its own thing versus just, like, the gradient of consulting? Like, I know from my side it was, you know, hearing people be like, "Oh, we just need someone who's basically, like, part of the team," and that, that idea of, like, the-the team generally being the word you would hear, at least from my side.
What, what kind of things did you hear that, that brought that about?
Aaron: Yeah. So, I mean, part of it is just lingo here. Like, fractional talent, like, is another form of contracting or staff augmentation, but the, the level of embeddedness, like as you were saying, like working with the team is different from consulting, which oftentimes kind of sits above or separate to, like, the work the team itself is doing.
It's more embedded and engaged with what the team is working on every day., And also, like, it's, it's more individual in nature, which is different from how team outsourcing, like co-development has worked. So, it really is kind of its own thing. It's a different brand of contracting and staff augmentation, but it's still, you know, like, very carved out from, like, consulting or, or co-development.
And, and really we're not trying to, like, rebrand or reinvent any, any way of working. We just saw that companies sometimes have more temporary or project-based needs for great people. And you know, I think if there is anything special about what we're doing, it's that we provide one place where companies can access elite talent for most any video game related function.
There are other companies and platforms that specialize and maybe are great at engineering or maybe are great at art, and that's awesome. Like, it's great that we have these, these easy to go to high talent density organizations. But we realized there's a lot more that companies need help with than engineering and art.
It could be anything from game design, narrative design, economy design, something that, like, you have worked with us with a fractional talent capacity for. It can be data analytics. It could be fractional executive work, like fractional COO or CFO kind of work. It can be so many different things. And, and yeah, I mean fundamentally, like at the end of the day, just having like one place where you can find most any talent that you're looking for that is vetted and proven and awesome is, is the unlock that, you know, we continue to hope will make a difference both for, for companies and for the people they get to, to work with.
Devin: I think it makes sense when you're talking about all that stuff that you just unpacked to have a new word for it or like a, you know, a word that, separates it from like a general word like consulting that's very broad. Like, it is similar to consulting, and it is similar to contracting, and it's similar to a lot of these other things that has overlap.
But that idea, like if I'm looking for a specific type of thing to have a word, I think, I mean, obviously for SEO purposes it helps when, when it comes to finding that thing, right? But-
Aaron: Sure ...
Devin: I think in, in general, like when you're, as with any lingo, when you're discussing a project and you're like, "Oh, we need a fractional talent for it," I think it makes sense to, to know what that means to like have a, a specific meaning behind that as opposed to saying, "Let's go find a consultant."
Because I think consultant tends to be like maybe a little more on the, as you said, the deliverable side or like working just through a point of contact as opposed to working with the team. But when you're actually talking about like the day-to-day, like you mentioned that a little bit, kind of break it down a little bit more.
What does real engagement look like in practice? Like who are they working with? Like who, who like hires the, those type of people? How are they managed? How does that generally work out?
Aaron: Yeah, it's a good question. And because we are not specialized in one domain, and it really is a, a network of all of these different functions, what we see varies quite a bit.
But there are a couple patterns. So oftentimes it's up-and-coming businesses that may not yet have the budget or ability for a full-time role, but they still need help with something, and they need talent with skills they don't have, or frankly need a little more hands on deck to get whatever done they need to get done.
And, you know, as I mentioned, you worked with us on one of these types of projects where you assisted with economy design for a few months, for a team that, like, it, it wouldn't have made sense long term to, to make that a full-time employee hire. So typically, they come to us looking for a specific role, which we fill from our existing network or often find new people for.
And, you know, one of the benefits of Naavik at this stage, because of all the people we've worked with, all the companies we've worked with, and all the, the people we have in our network companies, if they come to us, there's a good chance we have someone that is a fit in the network already, or we can find it for them, probably easier than they can find it for, for themselves.
Because, I don't know, poking around on the internet for something very specific- Right ... and having to figure out all the vetting yourself, but you don't know who you're talking to, there aren't clear referrals is... You know, it, it's challenging, and so we just hope to make that, that easier. And so, these smaller, more startup-leaning businesses that need, need help but can't justify a full-time hire is often what makes sense.
Part of it too is just the nature of game development, right? Projects ebb and flow in their intensity. What you need early on in a project is what you... is different from what you need later on in development. And already companies are somewhat adaptable to this, where working with work-for-hire studios that can come, like, increase their capacity at peak times and, and wind down at non-peak times.
And this is just, like, another way that can kinda help get at that same problem, where certain times in the process you need certain work. That's the nature of gaming. We're trying to lean into that and, and, you know, help make the most of that for, for businesses, which can be difficult otherwise if you're not, like, fully prepared for a cycle.
But also, like, w- while it is often these startups, often it is big companies too. And from a big company side- It's often needing companies that are trying to figure out video games and, like, don't have, haven't built, have the history of building up a team, having both executive presence to understand what to do to set up an organization and prepare it for success, and just, like, the various little things that just make, like, video games different from other forms of entertainment and, and media.
And we can add a lot of value in just making it easier for those kinds of companies to find the right people to get them going, to help them think through what makes sense as they prepare to build up or finalize their strategy or whatever that might be. And so, the day-to-day varies. You know, fundamentally it's a talent network.
We're just here to connect you to talent, and how you choose to work with that talent over time is different. But however we can help, whether the company is big or small, we try to be flexible in, in being able to do so.
Devin: You said a couple interesting things there I wanted to touch on. The, the first one, which you, kind of e- wrapped up with there for a second is this idea that when people are trying to look for other people to, to find to help them.
I mean, I get asked this all the time. I'm sure you get asked this all the time, like, "Do you know a guy who does this or that?" Yeah. It, it's... And I've noticed the games business in general, maybe, like, not, not like every other business, but maybe closer sometimes to Hollywood or some of the other ones.
Obviously, they have all the union stuff that we don't have in the games business. But there's this, this idea that, it's often do you know a guy? Like, the, it's... Or do you know a tool? Or, like, everything's very, very reference, based in, or kind of word-of-mouth based in the games industry, whether that be from tools to people.
It's always like you're looking for sort of peers to vet for you as opposed to trusting marketing, in, in general even, right? Yeah. You're not like, you're not gonna trust LinkedIn. You're not gonna trust general marketing. You're not gonna trust recruiters who are often kind of pitching for their own thing.
Instead, you're kind of looking for, like, is this person, like, someone you would vouch for? And I think it's interesting to sort of be that in a way. Like, Naavik's kind of saying, "Hey, you know, we know these people are talented," and we're kind of not vouching in the sense of, like, we're gonna, like, put our entire business on the line, but we're also like, we think these are good talent people and, you know, we're helping you connect with these people.
And I think that's an interesting thing to have in the games business. Yeah. And then the other thing kind of related to that is around, this, the structure of work. Like, contracting is, is one thing and it's kind of got its own sort of rhythm and setup to it, and then hiring in general is actually a long, tricky process, whether it be in games or anything, right?
You've got a lot of paperwork around it, a lot of HR stuff, a lot of just kind of messiness and, and, and health insurance, all these, all these other things that come with that that even are still problematic on the contracting side, whereas, like, maybe fractional talent kind of hits this, this other sort of in-between spot where you're, like, kind of like you're hiring someone, , as a team member but also sort of kind of like you're hiring them as a contractor, but without that same, like, sort of A lot of contractor jobs like trying to, trying to stay with the company as long as possible.
Whereas this is like, we're gonna come in, we're gonna do the job, and we're gonna get out. Like a special forces- Right ... for game development, right?
Aaron: There's a…
Devin: Scope.
Aaron: Going into it, yeah.
Devin: And, and so I wanted to ask a question about that. Like, why kind of this sort of three-month trial, six-month minimum? Like, why the structure you're doing, and i- is there other alternatives that you think make sense around this concept?
Aaron: Yeah, I mean, we try to be flexible to what companies need. So even, you know, just what we, we lay out, like, we're open to having conversations about doing something different if it makes sense for, for the company and for the talent that they would work with. But I mean, the reason why we set some of these time minimums is because fundamentally it's not gig work.
You know, it's not, you know... The, the people we're working with You know, it's not about just filling in their work for a day or it being one simple deliverable and then moving on. It's about embedding a function for long enough for it to actually be helpful and, and solve a problem, and help a team m- make material progress on whatever it is they're, they're trying to get done.
So there definitely is an element here about just making it be set up to succeed for the client, but there also is an element about it being fair and worthwhile to our talent, and also to our business. So that's why we set minimums to make sure that people feel confident in the work that they're doing, that they can actually deliver, have time to deliver great outcomes.
And, and obviously too, like, if it were the kind of thing where it's just like, all right, we're staffing people for a day, like, that's a very difficult business to, to make work. Yeah. So, so there has to be something to, to give there, and this is, this is our, our way to, to, to go about making that work.
But truly at the end of the day, it's just a talent based business. We try to be flexible, so whatever companies come to us for, we try to figure out how to, to make it work.
Devin: And it's funny to think about it, like on the, the, like zooming out a little bit, six months is actually a very small portion when you're talking five to six years to develop most games, depending on the, the scale of them.
Whereas like even when you're talking about in the, like the movie business for example, you know, it can be crazy, but it's often like two years at most for a lot of movies. Some movies have like a year turnaround from the end of pre-production to like editing and, and post. And, obviously that involves like a lot more spread out work, but you see that a lot in game development as well, where they're spread across tons of different studios, so it's not really all that different.
But like I think a six month minimum, for example, is like, well, that's pretty reasonable out of like a five year thing to be like, you're probably gonna need at least that much time to get anything done if you're looking at five, six year long time spans. I think that makes some sense as well. And like, and, and so the, also the talent isn't looking at, uh, what else to work on the next week.
It's- Yeah ... let- let's, let's plan a little long term. Let me get... Because there's also that catch up period of time, and I think that's important to acknowledge that, like there's always a little bit of ramp up time. Maybe not as much as like you would go through for a full new hire you were planning to keep for, you know, 10 plus years, but it, but for someone that needs to be able to g- hit the ground running, it's gonna take a, a second to get there, I think, or at least pretty reasonable to expect that.
Aaron: Yeah.
Devin: Um, you said you were, you guys have been doing this for about a year. I mean, I don't, I don't remember the exact start time, so feel free to mention if you have a, a, a, a date in mind kind of. But, in general, like when I say like, why now here, like why, why are we doing this now? Obviously, I mean, kind of over that, that broader scope.
But at the same time, like there's some obvious, I think, answers to that question. But in general, like I think it's worth laying out why is this a thing now? Why does it matter? Not just in the past year, but going forward as well.
Aaron: Yeah. And I think you're referring like to some of the obvious points, like you're referring to just like how there's been a lot of layoffs and hiring freezes and things like that.
But that actually like doesn't really have much to do with, with how we're thinking about it. Because in reality, this kind of work isn't It's, it's not about i- fitting a certain point of the economic cycle. Like, fractional work is pretty fundamental to the way that creative projects work in terms of the ebbs and flows of what is needed at different times to get done.
And we just realized, and it just happened to be a year ago, that, sometimes companies just want to, want to work with talent in non-consulting kinds of ways as well. And so, wherever they are in the cycle, wherever we are in the economic cycle, I think there is always going to be demand for flexible talent.
Obviously, because we have seen more of these, these layoffs and such, you know, we see more talent trying to work with us, and I wish we had more work to give everybody. But... And so, you know, we, you definitely see the, the tensions of, you know, just more people looking at more contractor, consulting, fractional paths because full-time work has gotten harder.
And, and hopefully more of these people can find, find new work, whether it is in that capacity or full-time again or whatever it might be. But for us it's not really about a cycle. And, you know, if the, if layoffs continue, I still think fractional work is going to be relevant because just in the nature of, like, games still have to be made.
Maybe it didn't make sense for some people to be full-time, but in more of, like, a fractional capacity it just, it makes more sense and is more economic for game studios and publishers to, to justify. But also, like, if we ever do see hiring pick up again, like, ultimately that signals growth in the industry, and that would probably lead to more hiring being done for full-time jobs.
But I would also expect it to lead to, to growth for, for fractional talent as well, because there's just more things being made and things that need to be done, and ultimately that's great for any kind of talent, no matter how it is, how it is structured. So again, like, we're not really thinking about the cycles here.
I recognize that the, the cycles, whether it's bigger picture economic or about, like, a specific game or the life cycle of a studio that these play into what talent is needed at different times. But ultimately, we just try to be helpful kind of regardless of, of where it is in, in the cycle.
Devin: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
I, I, I found it really interesting, especially that you brought up kind of both, like, there's the obvious supply side that we talk about, like, you know, more talent being available. But I think it's worth mentioning what you said about the demand side as well, that, that there can be some demand ebb and flow to this as well, and so, like, that was part of what sparked it, was like not just that, like, "Oh, hey, there's a ton of people that are needing work now and we wanna connect them," which is usually many people's motivations, this sort of thing.
But the other way around, where it's like, hey, there's people that need this kind of talent, that need this kind of work to, to... Like, they need to find people for that, and there's really actually both sides to that equation. And when you're looking at, like, the, the macroeconomic things, you're generally thinking about one side or the other.
Like you're talking about- Yeah ... the, you know, when you're looking at layoffs, like, oh, it's not just about layoffs. That helps the supply side, but it's also, like, that can even create some of the demand side, because that's gaps that may need to be filled with different types of that role. So, I think that's a, a really interesting way to look at it.
But one thing I do find interesting, still going back to the supply side, is, like, at least on the Naavik side, like, the, the pool tends to skew very senior with a lot of the people having, like, 15, 30 years, and a lot of well-known studios, like big, big AAA publishers, a lot of the bigger mobile side of things as well.
Do you think that's by design, or is that just kind of how it works out, like a symptom of sort of these last three, four years of layoffs?
Aaron: Yeah, it's a mix. There definitely are more senior people looking for their, their next gigs or providing consulting adjacent work that, you know, we can work with now that would not have been available, you know, a few years ago 'cause they were working full time and things changed.
But at the same time, kind of regardless of that, we still are adamant about only working with extremely high quality people. And if a company comes to us looking for talent, we want to be very sure that who we propose to them has a track record and has been successful in that type of work. And so that naturally correlates to people who have been experienced.
, And so, so, you know, it naturally leans towards proven, proven people in their careers that can be plugged in very easily, don't need a lot of ramp-up, can get going, provide immediate value, and just generally know how to work with various, um, businesses. And so, I think that's what maximizes, you know, win-win-wins all around.
Like, it's great for the companies to work with proven experienced people. It's great for these proven experienced people to continue doing what they do at a high level, and obviously leads to a high success rate on our end. Occasionally, you know, we'll still work with some, you know, earlier career stage people, but just through the nature of the work, it's harder to, to market and convert some of these types of people who really should just get more experience in companies before they, they try to take that experience and then apply it in a fractional way.
Devin: So even that could lead to some natural path between some level of experience, some consulting, and then into fractional. So, in the sense that, like, one of the things I do find interesting about consulting is the variety of experience you'll tend to get at a variety of different companies. I mean, depending on how things go, obviously, like, vary person to person, but I think it's-- as opposed to sometimes some people that work at the same company for a super long period of time, I mean, I feel like maybe that's not as common now as it used to be for a variety of reasons.
But it is an interesting sort of thing where you're looking at different sort of points in people's careers, and that this makes sense for the sort of more veteran or senior side of these game developers' different roles.
Aaron: Yeah, and it- On the role side of things. Go ahead ... but it, but it also could be still, like, a temporary thing in their career.
Like, this doesn't necessarily-- For some people, like, a consulting fractional path is, is, you know, like a, is a career fit for a long time, but for others, it could be a stepping stone, while they figure out what they want to do next or wait for the right opportunity, and that's totally okay too. It doesn't, doesn't make a too much of a difference to us.
We just want to support great people with, with, with great work.
Devin: Yeah, it makes sense. You could definitely have people that kind of go in... That's sort of in between where they're like,", this is, this makes sense for me to do right now," and then they get the itch and wanna, like, dive back in and start their own company.
So, we see a lot of those kind of cycles in game development especially. People kind of get the itch to go back and forth sort of between helping others and wanting to build their own thing. Even at the contractor level and stuff, that seems to be very common thing. But I'm kind of curious also, like, we have a variety of different roles on there, and we've seen, like, stuff from, like, CEOs all the way down to, to, you know, the lowest level, entry-level stuff almost.
You know, obviously Skillvar's senior, but, is there roles you think that generally work better fractionally, and, and ones that don't? I mean, obviously any role in theory could, right?
Aaron: Yeah, I mean, we try to be happy to assist with most anything, and it's not necessarily my place to tell companies at large what will or won't or shouldn't work for them.
But that said, like, I can still provide some context here. If I were running businesses, where I would be least interested in fractional talent is with functions that are super core with what matters most to the business
Like, you shouldn't outsource the fundamentals of what makes you innovative. You shouldn't outsource your entire strategy setting. You shouldn't outsource an entire sales function, right? You need people that own and are accountable for these core functions internally for the long run. Where fractional talent is most helpful is with either augmenting these important functions due to time constraints or filling more niche technical jobs that you can provide specific direction to.
Otherwise, if, if it is more an executive function, it can either be temporary, such as if the company needs to backfill an executive that left while they look to hire, a new full-time role. Or sometimes if it's just early and you need help sorting out a function in a part-time capacity before you really look to ramp it up and fill it fully in, in a full...
in a few months, right? So, so again, like, where it's least helpful, I think is just with these core functions that matter most to your business. We can still help teams with that if they need it. But truly I think where it succeeds most is with teams that already have a core of awesome employees that need help filling gaps.
Whether it's due to time constraints or just specific things that they don't have a history and skill set with, then we can, can fill that. And for that it can be truly flexible. But it should not be the, the core talents of your business.
Devin: Well, I think something that's, that's related to that that's interesting, you talking about, like, having sort of that core baseline, that sort of platform to be able to augment as opposed to, like, trying to fill a huge gap in the, in the, that sort of base level.
One thing I think people get concerned about is this idea of, what happens when that, that person's then gone, right? You have this person come in, and then there's a scope, and then they're, they're going to leave. Yeah, it could get extended. There's definitely ways that people could stick around, maybe even get hired on.
Who knows? But the, the generally the approach is to be in and out. There's this idea that that talent then is then now lost, that you just filled in that gap for… Re- knowledge retention I think is a big part of that, right? We talk in this industry about, like, when layoffs happen you lose sometimes people that knew how to do certain things you don't have anymore.
When someone's coming in to augment, they're probably going to have some level of, like, something they developed 'cause you obviously had a gap.
Aaron: Yeah.
Devin: And then they leave. Do you think that's a big concern? Is there ways you think people can sort of mitigate or address that?
Aaron: Yeah. I think there are a couple things that can help mitigate those concerns.
It, it really boils down to both process and documentation. So ideally, if you're working with fractional talent that has helpful expertise You find a way for them to document their thinking and decision-making so that the team can later refer back to it, understand why those decisions were made the way they were, and hopefully be able to use that go-- as a guiding light or a foundation going forward.
Leaders of these companies should give guidance to the fractional talents on what they want that to look like. I think that is super important and fundamental for setting this up for success. And then similarly for process in general, fractional talent should be embedded into the business and, and team, not something that is out to the side.
And so, leaders also need to be thoughtful about these key transition moments into the team and out of the team, and how that embeddedness works. S- because, uh, you know, setting the fractional talents up to succeed when they first join, like doing things like getting everyone on the team fully aligned and set on how they will work together, that's very important for setting things up for success.
Also being thoughtful about the exit process so that it ends smoothly and happily, and there aren't loose ends or things that weren't documented, or team members that don't have certain context yet. Managing these transition points is probably among, like, the most important aspects to ensuring that both the engagement itself goes well during that time, and that the success of that g- engagement sticks after the talent leaves.
Sometimes, too, like it is okay to bring the talent back. Like, it doesn't always have to be a one-and-done thing. Like, sometimes, there can be a seasonal nature to working with people. Sometimes, again, it could be more of like a project-based way of working with people that could span different games, or it could span different times, you know, timelines in those games, and that's totally okay, too.
You just wanna make sure that, you know, you are set up for success through thinking very clearly about how you want things to be documented, embedded, and transitioned at key moments.
Devin: I think it's important then to put the kind of onus on the, the hiring company to then, like, have a plan for that, whether that be something that Naavik helps kind of educate them on, when they're doing it. Yeah. Either way, they, they need to know, like, what they're getting into and how to handle it properly so that it doesn't become like a Band-Aid and instead is something that just gets them to that next level that they need.
Aaron: Yeah, we try to be helpful with that to, to a certain extent.
You know, obviously, you know, we need to understand, what the company is trying to achieve- ... in order to, to match them with the right talent, and we have to be able to, like, communicate this well to, to talent for them to, like, understand what they are getting into. So, some of that work, you know, like, kind of takes place in this, this onboarding process.
But, you know, even so there, there's more to be done outside of what we as a, as a network and connector can provide.
Devin: Yeah, I think it's, it's almost like w- I mean, you already go through that process a little bit with the consulting side of things, right? Where you're, like, interfacing with the client and trying to figure out what they need, and then trying to match-make them.
But I feel like with the consulting side it's a little more internal, a little less public-facing, right? Where it's like, you know, you don't necessarily know who's working in Naavik all the time. It's, you know, there's some level of transparency, but it's always a little bit like you guys are kind of internally match-making.
Whereas this is a bit more public-facing, where it's more like, here's our pool of people. You could come ask for a specific person, and we try and make that easy for you. Mm-hmm. But we'll also kind of help point you in the right direction- Totally ... you know, of who you're looking for. Especially if there's, you know, there's usually kind of roles mentioned in the fractional talent pool, but those aren't necessarily always all that person can do, right?
It's like they're picking something that they think makes sense to kind of put out there, but- Yeah ... you're still acting as a matchmaker, just maybe on a different level than with the consulting side of things.
Aaron: Definitely. 100%.
Devin: One, one concern I do have that I think is interesting is more about sort of where the future of things are going.
And a lot of this is gonna be partially due to AI, at least especially on the coding side of things, is sort of this compression down to the middle for a talent in game studios. So, you have... If you're, if you're filling a gap in a lot of senior roles through, through fractional talent or whatever it is, there's only, and there's only so much senior talent to go around as well, right?
Some people actually completely do leave the industry when they're, when, like, they get laid off or whatever, and, like, there is some drain in senior talent. But the, on the other side of things, there's a concern about how you get to that senior level of talent, where there's this hiring freeze, potential reductions on juniors.
And just in general, juniors are, like, easier targets to replace with, especially, like I said, on the coding side- Sure ..., AI or transitioning that way. Where do we sort of get that next wave of these senior people if we're just plugging holes with the senior people that we have now that are available, and then not training new juniors into seniors?
Aaron: Yeah. So, I sort of disagree with the premise of, of this question. You know, you know, what we do with fractional talent and consulting just in general at us, but I would even just argue consulting and fractional talent at large, like it does not replace senior leadership, and it also does not cut junior hiring.
These, these fractional roles exist because companies occasionally need some help, but not enough to justify a full long-term hire. These fractional roles don't own anything. They're not accountable to the success of an entire business, right? Or an entire division, right? Like, they're here to help. They're here to provide expertise.
And sometimes they're there to offer guidance and provide some strategic support, and that's fine too, but they are not here to replace senior leadership. And also, you know, for related to junior hiring, I mean, I don't think this is affecting that either. There, there are other forces at play that, you know, are impacting levels of hiring in general that probably hurt entry level more than, than others right now.
But at the same time, I also wouldn't underestimate, you know, like rising generations of talent. They are gonna have so many like awesome, smart, capable people that if they, you know, don't get jobs, like they'll compete with you, right? Like these, these are the talents that are gonna be so much natively better at, at AI for, for example, right?
And just be so much more efficient at development, using it in like new novel ways, and will be able to compete and potentially be more effective than, than other, you know, older generations that are more... Especially in gaming that is often anti-AI in certain corners, are more lethargic and are standing on principle instead of being competitive and like the work to be done.
And so, I'm actually pretty bullish on young talent. You know, maybe again, it, it will be harder for everyone to get the same kind of entry-level roles that they would've been able to get in the past, and that is unfortunate. But for talented people, there always is a way to step in and create and compete and, you know, what we do is, is separate from that.
But I'm optimistic about those kinds of people and what we see even in other industries, even with development. Like the more that AI enables coding to be created more cheaply, faster, easier, we're actually seeing... Like it's not leading to job loss, it's leading to more development work, being done and more hiring for developers taking place, including junior talent.
And so, you know, the more that that affects developments and other things, I actually think it's just gonna make creation easier for more people and we'll see more things be created and that will lead to, to, you know, more jobs, maybe not in the traditional sense, but in other ways.
Devin: Yeah, I'm also on the side of the fence that thinks it's generally going to lead to more jobs, but that it'll also still have an impact on the shift of what jobs are available.
You know, that jobs may grow, but some, some will probably be lost in that way. But I do think it's interesting, like, obviously like that question was meant to be a little provocative, but I think taking your side of the question as well, I think there's an interesting aspect to consider where-- And I find this often if I, you know, I'm often working with people that, maybe are, this is their first game or they haven't worked on a lot or don't have experience in this particular genre, is that idea that you're kind of teaching and training them.
And so, it's like the opposite of that knowledge retention question, where you're like, you're actually leaving them on purpose with a lot more knowledge than they had because you're coming in as senior and actually helping s- people that are maybe a little greener absorb a lot of that. And obviously, like, they're not gonna absorb everything, but they, like, are going to be putting into practice what you say and seeing what works and what doesn't.
So, I think it's an interesting way to look at it in terms of, like, treating outsiders as actually training coming in, assuming there's a level of communication that facilitates that, right? But the-- I-- that's a lot of at least what I've seen from Naavik's side of consulting is that a lot of that happens, even just through natural discussions with clients.
But on that topic, though, where do you see-- You, you mentioned some of these shuffles around in, in the org chart. Where do you see the org chart in general kind of ending up? I mean, just not just related to fractional talent, but just in general, for game development and, and games studios, whether that be big publisher multi-titles or individual small ones.
Where do you kinda see the org chart looking over all the landscape for that next, say, three to five years?
Aaron: Yeah. So, the first thing I would say is to echo what I had previously mentioned, which is that to some extent, games teams, and truly entertainment content teams in general, have always dealt with seasonal part-time work.
So, whether, you know, it's a game or a movie, different parts of the creation cycle demand different levels of work and types of skills. And so, we've all, for a long time, have had work for hire studios, right? For a long time, we have had consulting and contractors. Like, this isn't actually that new. And where things may ebb and flow depending on, you know, the nature of the economy and how many people are playing games and all of that, you know, that does play a role.
But, fundamentally, the n- like, beyond that, the nature of org charts in the future, I would guess on average is going to be leaner, more capable teams that can use technology in new and interesting ways. And so, it's sort of a... Like, these teams are gonna become cyborgs of, of sorts, right? Where it'll be harder for the, like, the biggest existing established teams to maybe transition into that.
And, you know, they'll continue to work with a ton of people across a lot of different domains, across tons of different games, their platforms, et cetera. But when newer companies are getting started and scaling up, the way that will be done is probably going to look differently than it has in the past.
Smaller teams are going to be able to achieve more, and that is in some, some sense a trend that has always been true as the upside for how many people games can reach has continued to grow, and as, you know, technology has just made it easier to work internally and build tech and stuff. But AI definitely is an inflection point of that, and we all...
We already see, you know, some, like, breakout star individual developers punch above their weight and achieve big success. And I think we're gonna see a lot more of that. And, you know, smaller teams are gonna become more competitive for larger wallet shares for new game purchases, new time spent playing games outside of, you know, the, the black hole so-called games that, you know, will just continue to be popular.
And, yeah, I don't think there's one right answer for what... how org charts will change. But I do expect smaller teams to at least be leaner than, than in the past. We've seen, and especially with, like, triple A, how those teams have been ramped up, and how teams have been more expensive to ramp up in the West.
Technology is a solution to that. And to some extent, you know, fractional talent does play into that, through, getting guidance when you need it and not, you know, just necessarily always being a full-time hire
Devin: So then would you agree that, like, it, it... There's definitely a transition, at least in some part of the industry to, to a sort of, like, leaner core.
Like you were talking about the core and then augmenting it, that that becomes a little more standardized where in general the studio is like a, a maybe tighter core, and then looks to augment when it makes sense, which may be, you know, three-plus years, or it may be a six-month thing or whatever, because not every...
Like, you know, we, we talk about waterfalls and pipelines and stuff in games, and they're kind of like, there is different phases, right? Like, even, even like the game designer sometimes is a weird phase where it's like it's doing a lot pre-production and early production, and depending on how it makes sense to, may, may have gaps in involvement while there's- Yeah
execution on that. And we see that even from the consulting side, right, where we'll sometimes go away for a while and then come back to consult again later once they've had a chance to execute on the, the stuff- Mm-hmm ... that we helped them build before. And, and you mentioned, like, there's been some that punch above their weight.
Like, obviously Clair Obscur is, is a great example of one that, that seemed to punch above its weight. You know, the, the, the makers of Arc Raiders and The Finals have, have done, Embark have done a lot with that sort of like let's be more efficient and leaner, but, like, know when we need to augment stuff and, and look to the outside.
Do you think that's, like... Or, or would you just agree that that's a trend going forward that people should maybe think about when they even start a studio that we would love to have everyone here full-time for six years on every game, but we're actually gonna have to think about who that makes sense for and where we need to look out?
Aaron: Yeah, for sure. Part of the best way to predict the future is to clearly understand the present. And if you look at the present, you know, we see a lot of these layoffs, which suck. - ... But the trend has been leaner teams. And a lot of that is due to growth in the industry that didn't materialize as quickly as people thought, just the difficult economic nature of AAA games that has needed a reset.
And I don't think that's going to return necessarily to the way it was.
Devin: Well, GTA VI, man. That'll bring it all back, right?
Aaron: I mean, it's great for, for Take Two, right? Yeah. And, you know, if you're on the far end of the spectrum of blockbusters, like you can afford to have large teams and still be massively profitable, and they'll continue to, to do what they're doing.
But not everyone can, can operate like Rockstar., So, so yeah. I mean, I don't think there's a reason to see the trend line necessarily change. Maybe, you know, layoffs ease up at some point. But I don't think it will just revert back to larger teams again. That's not the direction the economics or technology is, is taking places.
And, you know, even though there is some resistance in the West about this, you know, w- a lot of these successful case studies are increasingly gonna come from the East, where teams are more embracing of, of newer technologies and have, you know, lower employee budgets just due to lower cost of living dynamics and, and such.
And in order to compete with more of those kinds of teams, other teams are just gonna have to figure out how to do more, you know, do more with less- Right ... mostly through technology.
Devin: Yeah, I think we, we definitely are dealing, especially in the West, with the, that per employee overhead, whether that comes from the individual employee or the scaling up leading to more management and all these other things, that seems to be, like, a big issue that...
I- that's why I think this is an important topic, not just from the negative layoff side, but from the how do we go forward so we don't have to lay off people because we do things smarter side. Obviously, like, that's just kind of, like, building on what we think will work and, and looking to the East and, and as you said, just taking advantage of, like, playing smarter.
But how else do you think companies will sort of look at the way they work with talent in the future? Like, are we seeing any kind of shift from the traditional mentality around contract and contract studios towards different things? Are we looking at different ways of, like, working with for example, artists and things like that, that, that may be more short-term or, you know...
What in general do you think is, is, might change here?
Aaron: I think the biggest thing that will change is that not all talents will be people. And we are still in the first inning of agentic work, and it's maybe hard for some people to quite grasp what exactly that future of agentic work could look like. But- Really, there will always be a need for smart people.
And smart people will always come at a premium and will always be worth having around. But at the same time, we'll increasingly find that there are many places for agents too. And when teams are thinking about how to fill talent gaps and get things done, I think that agents will increasingly be options that can supplement various lines of human work.
Humans are needed to direct agents and ensure the work is good. And agents Wellington can't be used for everything, but this wave of innovation will continue to, I expect, help talented k- teams become even more capable, as I, you know, was saying in the last couple of answers. Again, there will still be a need for talented people.
They will s- companies still need full-time people to own, be accountable for functions. Peop- companies still need people to guide agents and LLMs and, you know, tools. Tools in general, have to be pointed in a direction and be embedded in a certain way, and need to work with, like, the broader whole of a business.
It also, like, these teams will still need fractional talents, you know, - ... and contractors in places because again, like, things ebb and flow. You still need expertise, and if you don't have it, are you really just gonna fully offload it to an AI? Like, no, like you still want human judgment in the loop and know how on how to work with it, and to know what good looks like and what success looks like.
But again, like, this hybrid cyborg-like future is something that I I think will happen, and it's not taking a moralistic stand. Like, I'm sure there are some people listening to this right now that are just fundamentally against it, and I understand that, and that's fine. I'm more coming from the place that it is inevitable.
No matter what people think about it, it already is happening. And so, like, if teams want to compete, they have to increasingly think this way, otherwise the moralistic stance is going to lead to the downfall of, of being able to compete and be able to retain the people that you, you know, are standing up for.
Like, you gotta be able to, to, to innovate. Like, that's just fundamental to keeping competitive advantage over time. And so, this is something in general that Naavik is thinking about too. Like, no matter what the job to be done is, we want to be able to help solve it for companies. And whether that solution is awesome people in a consulting capacity, a fractional capacity, helping them find a full-time hire, or helpful technology, or a partner that has built some cool tool, or what will be a mix of the two, you know, it's a future that we're excited to figure out with everyone else.
And we're actually, you know, starting to build agents that can play and dissect and analyze and understand games, and really just do a lot of grunt work that, people don't want to do. But if you can, like, build these primitives that do this grunt work, it enables people to do higher functioning, higher value tasks.
And so, I think we'll see this all across the industry. It's something that we're increasingly trying to figure out how to do at Naavik, but also then to take some of what we're doing and be able to provide it to more teams. And so, I guess, you know, just in closing, like, if that is something you want to, like, learn about what we're, we're doing there, let us know.
We're happy to kind of show you. But also, like, you know, it's not all about technology. Like, at the end of the day, like, people are driving the world forward, and people are driving technology forward. And so, if you need help finding awesome people for whatever it is, whatever that job to be done is, let us know and hopefully we can, can be of help to you.
Devin: Awesome. Well then just one last thing just to clarify just for those, who may not be as familiar with the details. W- you know, agent, agentic gets thrown around a lot. Just to be clear on what you're specifically meaning by that, you're talking about the ability to give AI a goal rather than just a specific task.
Let it figure out the tasks that need to be done to accomplish that goal, and then... But then the humans being in the loop of, of assigning that goal, of reviewing that, the completion of that goal, of all that sort of directing work that, that needs to be done there. But that's kind of what you mean by agentic, is something that could, that could do a, a sort of multi-step or multitask-
Aaron: Yeah.
Devin: Goal?
Aaron: Yeah. That can complete tasks, and for us, you know, mostly can complete grunt work type of tasks that would take a person many, many hours or days to get done that is not fun to do. And, you know, takes a lot of time, and ultimately, like, what matters is not that work itself, but what you do with, with it.
And so, to the extent that, you know, we can figure out how to use agentic work to do, lower level tasks, the better it sets people up to succeed in higher level tasks. And I'm, you know, bullish on that generally for, like, the world and for, like- ... every company. But yeah, that, that's what we're doing at Naavik, and hopefully what we can help, help other companies increasingly with as well.
Devin: Perfect. I think that sums up Domi- Naavik in general, what can we help other companies with, is, is a g- it's a good way to think
Aaron: about it. Yeah. And, and I'm not meaning this to, like, sound like an ad, but, like, it genuinely is, like, you know, like we can be helpful here. And, like, hopefully some of, like, what we have learned about working with talents and working on projects in different kinds of ways, hopefully it resonates, with some of you that, that are listening.
And, hopefully, you know, it can be helpful as you figure out how to, to move forward in your, your crazy plans to conquer the, the games industry.
Devin: Definitely. That's what we're here for, right? To help enable those crazy plans. Taking over the industry, for sure. Well, thanks for, thanks for coming in and, and really kind of helping explore this topic.
I think it's, like I said, an interesting one and one that I, at least I don't see, i- a lot of times in front of me sort of being discussed. So hopefully this helps clarify that for people. A lot of cool things to think about and both in the present and the future. So, definitely, thanks for that.
And of course, people could find information about our fractional talent services at Naavik on the website.
Aaron: Yeah. Let's leave it in the show notes too.
Devin: Absolutely. Yeah. So, i- it, there's a lot of cool stuff out there. Obviously we're, we're probably not the only ones, but we would definitely have, I think, a pretty dang good pool of people.
You know, a lot of which I know and a lot of people I'm just meeting through that or, or don't know yet, and I think it's great to see. So, I think, a lot of, a lot of re-pollination of the industry through even this, I think is a really cool way to, to look at it. And, hopefully you guys learned something and we'll, we'll catch you guys on the next one.
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Again, that is www.naavik.co. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.
