A Short History of Humble Sage Games

By Dean Watkin

We’re a group of people who love making games, and we set out to do just that.

We found that the business operating model for developing games wasn’t working in Australia. Creativity was not only at the core of what we did but how we did it. What could a group of passionate individuals create together if we joined forces and worked in new ways?

Humble Sage Games has no office, no funding and no employees. We are a passionate and incredibly talented group of people who wanted to make their mark in the world of games. What drove us: was to make a game that we ourselves wanted to play, because we love gaming.

We worked ‘day’ jobs, juggled study and raised children - all around this passion project.

As we grew, we needed a way of organising ourselves. We created 5 self-organising teams: Arts, Narrative, Game Design, Audio and Programming. These teams each have a lead whose role was to ensure information flowed, remove barriers and empower their teams to let their brilliance flow. We started with the assumption that everyone could make decisions about how they did their work, and they did.

Our selection of people, ways of working, meetings, and communication were all underpinned by neuroscience, psychology and the latest thinking in the future of work practices.

What has that achieved? 20 people, 14 months, and a fully immersive, world class virtual reality game.

And damn it was fun!