I joined Goodgame Studios in 2010 as a 2D Game Artist, back when the company was still a start-up with fewer than 100 employees and just a handful of artists. Over the following six years, I grew with the company as it became Germany’s leading game development studio, reaching over 1,200 employees and releasing several highly successful, award-winning titles.

As an Art Department Lead, I played a key role in building and shaping the art teams, helping scale the department to 183 artists across multiple disciplines. My work contributed to the enduring success of hit titles such as Goodgame Empire, Goodgame Empire 4 Kingdoms and Goodgame Big Farm, which together amassed over 300 million registered users and generated more than $1 billion in revenue by 2017 in the free-to-play market.

Context of project

After two farmer-themed games were discontinued despite positive player feedback, the company decided to develop yet another farming simulation game—Goodgame BigFarm—this time with a revised game design focused on improved monetization.

The same team, which had launched Goodgame Farm Fever just six months earlier, had to start from scratch. Morale within my art team hit an all-time low.

Design and Leadership Challenges

Team Motivation &
Creative Support:

> After two farmer-themed games were discontinued despite strong player reception, the team restarted development based on a new game design brief focused on monetization.

> To keep the team engaged, I communicated company decisions transparently, addressed concerns both in group and one-on-one talks, and offered support through active listening. 

> Giving the team full creative freedom and backing their design choices with stakeholders proved highly motivating.

Creative Direction &
Visual Consistency:

> I led the design process using clear style guides, focusing on a distinctive illustrative style to stand out from competitors and appeal to our target audience.

> Creative direction balanced storytelling, character design, animation, and UI/UX with business goals for stronger monetization.

> I ensured visual consistency across live-ops and marketing by setting detail levels suited to the artist pool and providing regular feedback.

Balancing Detail &
Production Efficiency:

> Creative direction focused on storytelling, character design, animation, and UI/UX—aligned with monetization goals.

> I defined a balanced level of detail to ensure consistent weekly live-ops updates while staying within the reproduction capacity of the available artist pool.

New Stakeholders &
Cross-Team Alignment

> With the shift toward a monetization-focused game design, new stakeholders— Marketing and Product Managers—joined the decision-making process.

> Built strong communication bridges by aligning with their strategic goals while explaining the art team’s creative process, to meet both business objectives and visual quality for a successful product launch.

Live Ops, Success & Scaling up

> Scaled up the team by recruiting new artists for growing in-game and marketing asset production needs. Focused hiring people with creative talent and with the right soft skills to fit the team.

 > Creating team structures, hierarchies/direct reports (Art Director, Senior Artists), defining everyone's role and feedback pipeline as team grew.

> Designed an on-boarding process for new hires, such as mentorship/buddy programme, design-guideline documents and game's art-Wiki for fast integration to the production process.

About Goodgame BigFarm