Since
we announced Playground's second studio, the developer has hired roughly 60 people, with plans to reach 200. Two years to hire less than half your intended headcount might seem slow, but Raeburn said this has been both unavoidable and somewhat deliberate.
"When you're hiring at the highest level -- we're hiring top positions and some of the best people around the world -- they don't land at exactly the point you expect them to," he explained. "You have to pull some people in early, some people take a little bit longer. There are a couple of outstanding areas we need to build up, but I'm just astonished at how great and how far along that team is. The key is getting the right people for the job, and we'll take as long as we need... Now that the senior hires are in place, the rest are coming on board at the pace we expected them to."
Fulton added: "When you open a studio, you don't open the floodgates and bring in 200 people to build a team. Ideally, you want to do it top-down -- you want to hire the leadership and then the leads before you hire the people that will fill their teams, and those are the people that are hardest to find. It's slowest going at the start, but it's worth taking your time to find the right people to fill the positions you've got, because that's what will safeguard the team for the future."
Raeburn admits it was particularly difficult in the beginning, when there physically wasn't a studio to interview them in, or when Playground was restricted on what it could tell people about the project, but this wasn't the hindrance he worried it might be. It also suggests Playground's RPG might be at a much earlier stage than some might hope. Given that the studio has managed to attract talent with experience working on Grand Theft Auto V, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, the Batman: Arkham games, Hellblade and Horizon: Zero Dawn -- to name but a few -- you would think Raeburn might have trouble retaining such highly-sought people. But again, this hasn't been an issue.
"[The people we hire] are fully aware of the timescales we're working to," he said. "We're upfront, and they're fine with that. Everyone we're talking to is so excited to join the team, it's not been an issue. At first, people had to join us just on faith, which they did, and it's much easier now that we're in the new premises."
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