Managing multiple global projects

Wideload Games is a maker of edgy, humorous, and quirky video games like "Hail to the Chimp" and "Stubbs the Zombie." The company uses a highly distributed development model. While headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the independent contractors who form the development team for their video games reside across the globe in South Korea, Canada, South America, China and the US.

Project sizes can range from eight to over 100 participants from various disciplines, including video and audio engineering, software development, artists and graphics designers. Since 2005, Senior Producer Jon Krusell and Wideload have been using PBworks to manage these creative talents.

PBworks eliminates confusion and reduces email volume

PBworks was originally brought in to eliminate the confusion of distributing documents and production work via email. PBworks gives Wideload the ability to have a centralized repository of all the materials being developed for a video game that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. With PBworks, game developers have no need to blast their contributions via email to each of the many participants in each project. Instead, communal contributions can be uploaded to PBworks for all to see and access. Jon says that PBworks’s role-based access system provides the necessary flexibility to allow all users to participate in development and discussions without stepping on each others toes.

PBworks has become the de facto standard inside Wideload for managing video game development. There are presently eight PBworks installations being used on projects ranging in size from eight to about 100 people. PBworks is used to allow the development team to share ideas, documents that embody those ideas and multiple iterations of an idea as it evolves through the conceptualization process.

PBworks aids the creative process

With PBworks the development team has a public archive of the development process. Everyone is on the same page and new people can quickly come up to speed as they enter a project. PBworks also aids the creative process. Jon says that "brainstorming workspaces" can be easily and quickly set up and as the ideas mature through an iterative process, "stuff that needs to stick" has a permanent home together with a history of how it came to be.

A standard process for "wikifying" each new game

When projects for new video games form, the project manager loads the initial workspace with a skeletal framework that supports the project. At Wideload this consists of a table of contents together with six or seven main pages related to the project. In particular, the development of characters is crucial to the video game creation process. Each character gets a "character page" which contains a character concept sheet that is used to store multiple iterations of character concept art. The workspace not only allows each participant to see and understand what the current character concept art is but also to understand how it evolved.

For Wideload, PBworks has come to be its standard project management environment, allowing a globally distributed development team to interact smoothly through shared documents to develop its signature video games.  Wideload may specialize in fun, but thanks to PBworks, they're all about maximizing business productivity.