Best Game Devs don’t work at Blizzard, Riot, King, Playrix, or Supercell.

Unpopular opinion: the best game developers don’t work at Blizzard, Riot, King, Playrix, or Supercell.

Some of the best minds in game dev are building alone or in tiny teams.

And they’re not just making noise.

They’re topping the charts.

Recent proof:

• Lethal Company – Solo dev. Outsold AAA titles. Viral on Twitch and TikTok.
• Balatro – Made by a small team. Hit $1M in sales in 1 day.
• Palworld – Team of 40. Outsold Call of Duty and Pokémon.
• Dave the Diver – Built like an indie. Game Awards nominee. Massive commercial success.

These aren’t lucky breaks. They’re signals.

At big studios:
• You work on one piece of a massive machine
• There’s process, politics, and polish
• Creativity comes with constraints

In small teams:
• You move fast
• You take risks
• You make weird, unforgettable games

There’s no safety net. No backup plan. Just vision and execution.

The best devs?
They’re not just engineers.
They’re designers, artists, producers, community managers, and marketers.

They debug at midnight and launch at dawn.
They ship. And they win.

So if you’re looking for the future of games, don’t just look at resumes with big names.

Look for the real builders.