What can indie developers learn from Supercell and Pixar?

At Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017, Ulas Bilgenoglu, CEO of RadMule Labs, gave a talk on what developers can learn from Supercell and Pixar.

He started by looking at team chemistry, saying that these companies tend to work in small teams, and therefore need to be able to work well together, as well as independently.

He then touched on feedback, saying "it should be candid, this is not approval" – you should be offering genuine feedback to help develop the game and the ideas, and not just say nice things or shut them down straight away.

"Peer feedback is best", added Bilgenoglu, pointing to research that suggests developers feel better and improve better when it is their peers who are giving their thoughts, and not necessarily their boss.

This feeds into the company culture in general, which makes sure to enforce this feedback, give everyone a voice, and not discourage failure since there is a lot to learn about why something fails.