Evony: The King’s Return recently ranked #5 On Data.ai’s List of Top Ten US-Headquartered Mid-Core Games. Now, Vice Development Director of Evony & Top Games Inc. Vice President Benjamin Gifford explains how his team created such a successful MMO title.
Evony has grown from a modest flash browser game into one of the top 4X Strategy games on the web.
Evony: The King’s Return
Typically, development teams focus on the idea of achieving perfection, and they won’t let something out in the marketplace if it isn’t 100% perfect. But Top Games Inc. realized that while understandable, pursuing perfection can often leave a game development team far behind the competition. That’s why Top Games has made excellence, not perfection, the ideal and primary focus throughout the development process.
“Looking at the leading companies in your field, they might never own a perfect product or service. But what they do own is excellence,” says Benjamin Gifford.
To achieve excellence, the Top Games Team consistently, methodically, relentlessly, and persistently strives for constant innovation. This is how Top Games creates products and services better and delivers a continually improved gaming experience.
“The team shouldn’t limit themselves in job protection mode. Instead, they should stretch their capabilities and constantly grow without satisfaction with current success,” says Benjamin.
Top Games Inc. teams operate in a lean, open, and flat structure. For the engineering department, every engineer has no more than three management levels to the CEO, while managers and team leaders have more than seven direct reports. Under CEO David Guo, Top Games Inc.’s leadership works hard to ensure all information is shared throughout Top Games freely wherever possible.
If you are interested in learning more about David Guo, Co-founder & CEO of Top Games, read: Evony Developer David Guo’s Introduction.
Top Games Inc. creates a place where each member always has a sense of ownership and acts in the best interest and culture of Top Games. Everyone is responsible for doing the right thing and ensuring the team’s goals and values are maintained.
And by giving the team as much information as freely available, supporting their decisions, and empowering them, Top Games expects the team to discover and fix problems proactively.
“The Top Games team is our greatest resource, and thus we heavily invest at first, which helps us create record-setting profits,” says Benjamin.
