Creative demand never slows down. As your studio or publishing label grows, how do you prepare to scale your creative output efficiently? There’s no universal formula, but a few key factors can help determine the right setup for your creative team. Whether you rely on in-house designers, freelancers, or external partners, it’s essential to first assess where your creative output stands today—so you can plan where it needs to be tomorrow.

Assessing Your Current Creative Workflow

As you go through the following questions, consider where your studio currently aligns. This reflection will help identify the gap between your existing capacity and your future needs.

When budgeting for creative work, do you…

• Start with a fixed budget and adjust capacity (hours/designers) accordingly?

• Analyze last year’s creative demand to plan how much design bandwidth you’ll need this year?

• Keep your usual design setup and request extra resources when production peaks?

When you request visual assets, you typically expect delivery within…

• 1-2 days

• About a week

• No urgent deadline

The type of creative work you often request is…

• Basic production visuals (resizing assets, simple social media visuals)

• Custom designs, illustrations, or presentation decks

• Complex visuals like animated content or advanced branding work

How many assets do you request at a time?

• 1-2 assets for specific needs

• 10-20 assets for campaigns or launches

• A large volume across multiple projects

How is feedback and task management handled?

• One dedicated person coordinates creative requests and reviews

• A few team members are involved in briefing and approvals

• Multiple stakeholders need visibility and input on creative work

Regarding your creative workflow and tools, you would say…

• It’s mostly manual, without automation

• You use basic integrations and workflow tools to streamline processes

• Your workflow is highly automated, leveraging AI or custom pipelines

Evaluating the Gap Between Capacity and Demand

Once you reflect on these questions, you’ll have a clearer picture of the gap between your current creative capabilities and the demands that come with growing your game or studio.

It’s important to anticipate how your needs will evolve:

• Will upcoming milestones (e.g., Steam page launch, press outreach, demo events) significantly increase the need for visual content?

• Is your current setup flexible enough to handle production peaks without delays?

• Do you have clear processes in place for managing tasks and revisions efficiently?

Building a Scalable Creative Setup

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Some studios prefer growing their in-house design team. Others prefer hybrid models with freelancers or external agencies. Increasingly, subscription-based design services are being used to add flexibility without heavy overheads.

What matters is having a system that allows you to:

• Scale production up and down as needed

• Maintain consistent quality across assets

• Streamline collaboration between your creative team and marketing/production teams

• Keep timelines predictable even when projects overlap

What Your Answers Reveal About Your Studio’s Needs

Now that you’ve reflected on your workflow, here’s how different approaches translate into creative production needs — and how services like Playbase can align with your reality.

Budgeting for Creative Work

• Starting with a budget and adjusting capacity: If you begin with a fixed budget and adjust how many design tasks or hours you can afford, a flexible subscription model can give you predictable costs while allowing for scalable production based on complexity and needs.

• Using past project demand to estimate capacity: If you track how many assets your studio needed last year, you can better anticipate future workload and choose a design capacity that allows for growth without bottlenecks.

• Keeping the same design setup and requesting extra help during peaks: This hybrid approach works well with a subscription that can act as overflow support, ensuring you’re not limited by internal team capacity during busy periods like game reveals or launches.

Delivery Speed Expectations

• Needing assets in 1-2 days: For small assets like social posts or store graphics, a daily task management flow allows for rapid turnaround, even within 24-48 hours.

• Expecting assets within a week: For more complex assets like landing pages or press kits, a weekly cycle ensures regular deliveries while accommodating necessary revisions.

• No urgent deadline: Even if speed isn’t a priority, having structured production ensures your tasks don’t fall behind due to unclear timelines.

Types of Creative Needs

• Basic production visuals: Tasks like resizing, exporting store assets, or creating variations are high-volume and benefit from a streamlined task queue.

• Custom designs, illustrations, presentations: Most indie studios and mid-size teams fall here, needing a steady flow of bespoke visual assets for marketing and community engagement.

• Advanced visuals and animations: For trailers, animated explainers, or more intricate assets, specialized workflows and skills are required. While not always needed daily, having access to this capability is crucial for key milestones.

Volume of Asset Requests

• One or two assets at a time: Perfect for smaller teams where design needs arise sporadically or in small batches.

• 10-20 assets per campaign: Studios preparing for a game launch or seasonal campaign often need this volume, requiring an organized task flow.

• Large volumes across projects: Publishers and larger teams managing multiple titles will need a scalable solution that can handle concurrent streams of creative work without sacrificing quality.

Task Management & Team Collaboration

• One project owner managing tasks: A centralized workflow (e.g., Trello Kanban) suits studios where a single person coordinates creative requests and feedback.

• Multiple team members involved: For studios where marketing, production, and design teams collaborate, having clear roles and permissions on the task board is key.

• Many stakeholders requiring visibility: Publishers or large studios may need a more structured system to avoid bottlenecks when multiple project leads, marketers, and producers need access to project tracking and revisions.

Technology & Automation

• Minimal automation: If your studio handles design tasks manually, adopting simple automation for task management and file delivery can immediately improve efficiency.

• Basic integrations: Studios using basic tools like Slack, Trello, or Zapier can streamline task submission and feedback loops.

• Advanced automation and AI: While less common in smaller studios, larger teams might benefit from automated workflows to manage asset requests, revisions, and tracking production KPIs.

As your game studio or publishing label grows, so does the demand for high-quality visuals—whether it’s for player-facing content, press relations, or community engagement. The key to scaling isn’t just hiring more designers; it’s building a creative workflow that adapts to your needs in real-time.

By assessing how your current processes align with your future ambitions, you can identify where flexibility, speed, or specialized expertise will be crucial. Whether you need to handle occasional peaks or ensure a consistent daily output, a subscription-based design model like Playbase offers the structure and agility to scale your creative production without adding unnecessary overhead.

With clear task management, scalable capacity, and a design team dedicated to the video game industry, you can focus on what matters most—making great games—while we handle the visuals that will sell them.