A new AAA studio called Gravity Well has been founded by former Respawn developer and founder Drew McCoy, and partner Jon Shiring who has worked with Drew on games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Titanfall, and Apex Legends. The aim of the studio is to create titles that they say will be games that their own developers will continue playing even when they go home from work. Of course, as the studio is brand new there is no news about games yet but it is hiring. Both Drew and Jon have released statements about Gravity Well, and this is what they said.
Drew McCoy:
Hi! I’m Drew, and I’m stoked to start a new studio here in LA with Slothy. We’ve been making games together for a long time and have learned a ton about ways to lead teams and ship games. We believe the time is right to shake things up in AAA game dev.
We are starting a studio because of how we want to make games. We want time to iterate on everything and get ideas and feedback from the whole team. We’re building this studio to last for decades, and that doesn’t happen without putting the team first.
We take team health as an absolute top priority. That means we are anti-crunch. That means good compensation. That means everyone at Gravity Well has creative freedom, because when someone else makes all of the decisions, work isn’t fun and the end product isn’t as good.
We prefer to cut and focus down so we only ship what we love.
If this sounds like an adventure that you want to join we’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Jon Shiring:
Okay, Slothy here. I just pried the keyboard away from Drew.
Ask around, and you’ll get the same answer from devs – once your team size crosses 100 people, everything changes. It’s nobody’s fault – big organizations just move slowly. You need meetings just to make decisions. Choices get siloed and brilliant creatives become less creative. So let’s just not do that. We’re going to build a team that is 80-85 people at peak.
We aren’t satisfied with the low level of creative risk that gets project funding these days. We want to explore bold new ideas exclusively for next-gen hardware and PCs.
Given the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re starting the studio for remote work from the very start. Since one of the core values of Gravity Well is increased diversity, we’re excited about not being hamstrung by relocation or work visa issues. We want to hire the best talent in the industry, regardless of where you live.
We’re excited to build this new team and we hope that you’re interested, too. If now isn’t the right time, reach out anyway and we can just have a nice conversation. If you work in games, we’d love to hear from you.
There are some key points raised in those statements. First, in an industry known for crunch it seems Gravity Well will not operate with that mind and will prioritise employee health. The studio is also going to be set up as a remote working studio, which means anyone from anywhere can apply to work for Gravity Well and not need to worry about moving cities or countries to go to work. We’re probably a couple of years away from seeing anything concrete from Gravity Well, but I’m sure the studio will be one to keep an eye on.
Source: Gravity Well
