Most game teams never stop to define what they actually are. Studio or startup? This one question quietly changes everything — how you build, raise, hire, and define success. In this post, we break down what it really means to take the startup path as a game founder and why Lorien is built for those who choose it.
Game founders are often asked the wrong questions:
“When is your game launching?”
“What engine are you using?”
“How many wishlists do you have?”
But rarely: Are you a studio — or are you a startup?
It seems like a small distinction, but it’s not. It changes everything, including how you build.
It changes what you prioritize, who you hire, how you raise capital, and how you define success.
Most game teams never explicitly answer this question. Many are trying to be both — to raise venture funding with a studio mindset or operate like a service while still treating development like a one-shot product.
At Lorien, this question sits at the center of what we do. Because we believe it’s not just about the game you’re building. It’s about the structure behind it — and whether that structure is designed to scale.
Studios build games. Startups build systems.
Let’s start with the obvious: there’s nothing wrong with being a studio.
Studios are creative teams. They build thoughtful, expressive, focused experiences. They often operate project to project, investing years into a single world or narrative arc. The cash might come from players, publishers, grants, or platforms. Some studios scale sustainably, others stay intentionally small.
In contrast, a startup is not just a team building a game — it’s a company designed to grow.
A startup is structured around a market insight: a belief about what’s changing in player behavior, technology, or distribution. The product exists to validate and scale that insight. Startups raise venture capital not to finish a project but to accelerate a thesis.
Example: Supergiant Games is a studio. Every game they release — Hades, Bastion, Transistor — is its own complete product, a masterclass in craft.
Discord started out with a game too — Fates Forever — but pivoted into a startup once they realized the real opportunity was in voice comms for multiplayer communities. That’s a thesis becoming a system.
A studio gets better with each game. A startup gets better because of its players and growth math.
Games as Products vs. Games as Services
This is where the line starts to blur — and why so many founders misdiagnose what they’re building.
A game-as-a-product is being made to be complete. You build it, you ship it, maybe patch it — and then, you move on. Or, if you have the resources and conviction, you keep adding DLCs, expand the IP, build a sequel, and keep the lights on. In some cases, that’s how you grow your studio — one strong title at a time. But even then, you’re still operating project-to-project. The core loop is: make game, sell game, repeat.
A game-as-a-service can never really be called finished. It’s built for interaction, feedback, and change. Players are part of its lifecycle — not just its audience. They’re not only consuming the experience; they’re shaping it.
Every session generates data. Every update is a new experiment. You’re not just launching once — you’re launching every week, every season, every live event.
Your roadmap isn’t defined by a script, it’s defined by player behavior. You measure success not by units sold, but by retention, engagement, monetization per user, churn. And your development team isn’t shipping a finished product — they’re running a living system.
It’s closer to operating a product company than a creative studio. You need pipelines, analytics, support infrastructure, live ops, community loops, update velocity. You need to build with your players — or you fall behind.
Example: Fortnite didn’t just launch and sell. Epic turned it into a global, persistent platform — blending battle passes, live concerts, UGC tools, seasonal mechanics, branded IP drops, and real-time events. The game isn’t the business — the system is.
This is why many GaaS teams eventually start to look and act like startups — even if they didn’t intend to.
Services are inherently more system-driven.
You’re not just designing an experience — you’re designing incentives, economies, events, seasons, social dynamics. You’re operating live. You’re monetizing over time.
If you stop, the product decays. If you scale well, the product gets stronger with every good move and new player.
Example: League of Legends launched as a game but became a company. Riot built publishing infrastructure, regional ops, global events, player behavior systems, and eventually a cross-media empire. The brand and the service behind it became the core business.
Building a game-as-a-service doesn’t automatically make you a startup — but it pushes you closer. Because now you’re dealing with retention, lifetime value, growth loops, and product-market fit in real-time. That’s startup territory.
VCs Don’t Fund Projects
This is the part that trips up many first-time founders: VC funds are not designed to fund great games. It’s designed to fund scalable, high-upside businesses.
That doesn’t mean your game can’t get funded. It means the reason it gets funded matters.
VCs don’t look at polish first. They look at:
What systems are you building?
What behaviors are you unlocking?
What gets stronger as you grow?
How does the second 10,000 players make the product better than the first?
Example: PlayCo raised $100M+ not because of one hit game, but because of their thesis: lightweight, social-first games that spread through messaging platforms, not app stores. Their goal was to reinvent distribution — the games are vessels for that insight.
Example: Rec Room is a game. But investors saw more than that — they saw user-generated content, social spaces, retention mechanics, and a team thinking like a platform. That’s why it attracted significant venture backing from Sand Hill Road firms like Sequoia Capital.
If you’re pitching a single title with a fixed scope and no plan for what comes after — you’re pitching a project. That’s a studio approach. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s usually not venture-backable.
So, What Does a Game Startup Look Like?
Not every startup needs to be a platform. But startups almost always think in systems.
A few patterns we look for:
You’re building something that learns from your players.
You care about retention more than aesthetics.
You test early, fail fast, and adapt based on real feedback.
Your team is structured around speed, not scale.
You have a long-term vision beyond a single release.
Example: Stumble Guys by Kitka Games wasn’t just a Fall Guys clone — it was a super-lean, mobile-native, live-ops engine. It hit product-market fit before it hit polish. That’s startup energy.
Example: Midnight Society is building a game, yes — but also a dev process, a toolset, a community-powered model for shipping. Whether or not the game hits, they’re building reusable systems.
At Lorien, these are the teams we want to work with — or the ones where we see the potential to grow into this mindset. Not just because they can raise money but because they can keep building. Not just games but high-potential companies.
Why It Matters
Knowing whether you’re a studio or a startup doesn’t just help with investors; it helps with many critical decisions you make.
If you’re a studio:
Your team should be focused on execution.
Your success comes from making a great product/game and then making another.
You don’t need to scale like a tech company — you need to deliver creative value.
If you’re a startup:
Your success comes from building fast, testing often, and scaling systems.
You need to think in experiments.
You need to design your company as intentionally as your game.
You don’t have to pick one path forever from day 1. Some studios grow into startups. Some startups become platforms and eventually support studios.
But early on, clarity matters. Especially when you’re raising money, building culture, or choosing partners, this isn’t just semantics — it’s architecture.
For Founders: 8 Questions to Ask Yourself
Before you define your pitch — define your path.
Am I building a creative game studio or a scalable gaming startup?
Is my game a one-time product or a long-term system?
What player behavior or market shift is my game based on?
Do I have a plan beyond this title?
What grows stronger as more players join?
What systems am I building underneath the game?
Is my team structured for polish — or for speed and iteration?
Would I fund this company if I weren’t making games and didn’t like playing them?
There are no right answers — but there are misaligned ones.
Start with the right questions. Build accordingly.
What Game Are You Really Playing?
Building a game is hard. Building a company is harder. You don’t have to do both. But if you’re trying to do both — you need to be honest about it.
What kind of game are you building? What kind of company are you building? What kind of founder do you wanna be?
At Lorien, we exist to help the ones who want to build something that keeps building. Something that survives the first launch. Something that grows with every player.
Something that looks like a game on the surface but is actually a system underneath.
If that’s you, let’s talk.
 | A guest post by
|