IO Interactive's Quest for Faster Game Development

When Ulas Karademir rejoined IO Interactive as its chief technology officer, he found a studio that had undergone significant transformations. The company had transitioned to independence, expanded its studios, and was working on multiple projects. Karademir's primary focus is on enhancing the developer's technology to improve team efficiency. His goal is to make production 'cheaper, faster, and better' by iterating quickly, testing, and trying again. To achieve this, IO Interactive is creating tools that speed up and automate parts of the process, allowing the team to focus on building fun and interactive games. The studio's Glacier engine, which Karademir helped develop during his first stint at IO, provides a significant advantage in this regard. By using its own technology, IO Interactive can make quick decisions, change direction, and have a tight feedback cycle between users and developers. This approach enables the studio to narrow its focus on game development and create great tools that have a direct impact on production. While building its own technology takes time and investment, Karademir believes it's essential for studios that want to create innovative and unique gameplay experiences. For other studios, using existing technologies like Unity and Unreal might be a better option, but this approach also has its drawbacks. As the gaming industry shifts towards live service games, IO Interactive is adapting its engineering teams to be more platform-engineering and dev ops-minded, incorporating new tools like AI to automate repetitive work and improve development efficiency.