Game Studios Recruitment Support: How to Choose the Best Option

When it comes to game studios recruitment support, one size never fits all. Every studio has its own structure, hiring pace, and budget. That’s exactly why at 8Bit, one of the very few recruitment agencies specializing fully in the games industry and boasting experience from collaborations with more than 110 game studios worldwide, we’ve developed flexible business models that fit a variety of recruitment needs.

Whether you’re scaling up your team, preparing for long-term growth or looking for a single key hire, our goal is to make the process transparent, efficient, and tailored to your studio.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the recruitment models we offer at 8Bit and help you understand how to choose the right game studios recruitment support option for your situation.

But first, let’s rewind a bit. Before we dive into how our models work, let’s clarify what kind of support studios can actually expect from a partner like 8Bit.

Most Common Gamedev Recruitment Questions

Question	Explanation
What is game studios recruitment support?	It’s a specialized partnership that helps game development companies hire talents across creative, technical, and leadership roles.
How does a recruitment agency help game studios hire faster? The talent pool is just the same.	Recruitment agencies combine industry diligence, pre-screened networks and outreach expertise. Focused on recruitment only, we can cut through the noise and present studios only with top-quality candidates.
When should a studio consider working with a recruitment agency?	Anytime gamedev hiring becomes time-consuming, competitive or strategically important. From scaling the team rapidly to key leadership (or confidential) searches, a good partner saves time and ensures quality.
What makes 8Bit different from general recruitment agencies?	8Bit agency focuses exclusively on the games industry, bringing insider knowledge of roles, engines, tools, and studio workflows. We’ve successfully partnered with over 110 studios worldwide.

Now that we’re clear on what game studios recruitment support truly means, let’s look at how we at 8Bit make it happen!

Why Different Recruitment Models Matter in Gamedev Hiring

Not all gamedev studios are built alike. We can distinguish anything between indie teams often running on passion and tight budgets, mid-sized AA studios working under publisher contracts, global AAA companies – and anything in between. Beyond these, there are countless companies that collaborate with studios, all contributing to the games industry, but not necessarily being studios themselves. Funding models vary too, from fully bootstrapped projects to those supported by investors or public grants.

Because of that diversity, hiring needs can differ dramatically. Sometimes a studio is looking to fill one confidential executive role and it’s clear there won’t be any more hiring needs in the forseable future. Other times, they need to onboard several QA testers in a single month.

Knowing this landscape makes it clear that there must be more solutions than just the classic commission-based model known as the success fee (where the agency’s fee equals a percentage of the hired candidate’s annual salary). That’s why recruitment agencies operating in games industry have adapted their models. It’s a myth that we always work on success fees – we’ve built more flexible ways to provide game studios recruitment support that match each studio’s scale, urgency, and goals.

Below we list the most common hiring needs situations.

One-Time, High-Profile Hire

When your studio needs to bring in a senior or highly specialized professional, perhaps a new Executive Producer, CTO, Studio Headm the stakes are high. These searches require confidentiality, deep market research and a hands-on approach.

For this scenario, Retained Search model is the best fit. It blends a well-known success-fee structure with milestone-based payments spread across the hiring process. This approach frees you from a large one-time cost and ensures partial budget predictability. It’s particularly effective for high-level, confidential, or strategically important roles where alignment with your culture is key.

Many Open Roles in a Short Period of Time

If your studio is expanding rapidly, like for example after securing funding or kicking off a new project, hiring at scale can be overwhelming. When you’re looking to onboard multiple developers, artists, testers or designers in just a few weeks, structured recruitment support is essential.

8Bit’s Subscription Flex model is designed exactly for that: a one-month collaboration covering up a certain number of working hours. It allows our recruiters to focus intensely on your urgent hiring needs without long-term commitments. You’ll get a constant stream of qualified candidates, predictable costs, and the ability to keep all candidate pipelines once the collaboration ends.

If your growth plan is more long-term and continuous, the Subscription model is your best ally. It’s tailored for studios with multiple simultaneous roles or ongoing hiring needs. You pay a flat monthly fee for a dedicated recruiter support, ensuring constant candidate flow and stable costs, no matter how many positions you open. It’s like a streaming platform subscription, but for hiring.

Filling a Single Role or Testing the Partnership

Sometimes you don’t need an ongoing recruitment partner, just help with one specific position. Or maybe it’s your first time working with an external agency, and you’d like to test how the collaboration feels.

That’s when the Success Fee model works well. You pay a small retainer at the start, and the remaining fee only once the hire is made, typically as a percentage of the employee’s annual salary. It’s simplem results-driven, and risk-free. This gives you full confidence while minimizing risk.

Building a Long-Term Recruitment Function

Some studios decide to outsource their recruitment function entirely, especially when internal resources are limited or when they want to optimize their hiring process strategically.

That’s where our RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) model comes in. In this setup, our recruiters (usually one person, but can be team) integrates directly with your studio’s internal operations. We handle sourcing, screening, and candidate management while helping refine your HR processes. Think of it as having an embedded recruitment partner who scales with your business.

How to Choose the Right Game Studios Recruitment Support Model

Each studio’s needs are different, and so should be the model. Here’s a quick overview:

Your Situation	Recommended Model
You’re hiring one senior or specialized role.	Retained Search (budget-friendly) or Success Fee (minimal risk).
You’re expanding fast and need short-term intensive support.	Subscription Flex (1 month commitment, fixed fee)
You’re hiring regularly and need ongoing coverage	Subscription (monthly fixed fee)
You want to test the collaboration or fill one role	Success Fee (minimal risk) or Retained Search (budget-friendly)
You want an embedded, long-term recruitment partner	RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing)

Why Studios Trust 8Bit for Recruitment Support

We have spent more than a decade supporting game studios around the world with specialized recruitment. Our team members have backgrounds in agency work, internal HR departments, and studio operations, giving us a 360-degree understanding of hiring in the games industry.

When you partner with us, you get:

• Transparent communication and tailored collaboration models, as described in this article.
• A process designed specifically for games industry, not a copy of what works in general tech or marketing.
• Recruiters who continuously monitor hiring trends and salary benchmarks across the global gamedev market. We make it a point to share these insights with our clients, helping them make data-driven decisions and stay competitive when building their teams.

That’s what makes 8Bit the trusted name in game studios recruitment support worldwide.

Ready to Talk About Your Next Hire?

You can find more details about our recruitment models in the Offer section or reach out directly via contact@8bitplay.com to discuss what will work best for your studio. Whether you’re scaling up, looking for the key talent, or planning your next project, our game studios recruitment support team will help you make every hire count.