I started working in 1st Party development, spending over four years working for a Sony in house dev team. I have since then left and joined Team Bondi a 3rd Party developer that has undergone a change in Publisher along the way. Different…? Does the Pope shit in the woods?!

Lets establish one fact from the outset. To the general public, game development is precisely that. 1st Party, 3rd Party, what’s the difference? Joe Blogs that buys the game doesn’t know the difference and he certainly doesn’t care. And quite rightly so, the process that dev teams go through to put the game on the shelf shouldn’t impact the punter. I recall being at E3 showing a game when working for Sony and having people come up and ask when the game was being released on Xbox, and seeing the confusion in their faces as I patiently explained that as we were an in house Sony 1st Party Dev Team, we wouldn’t be releasing the game on our competitors platform!

So, what is the actual difference? 1st Party Development is when you are working for the platform holder. By this I’m referring to Sony, owning and creating the PlayStation console, developing games themselves, and likewise, Nintendo and Microsoft doing the same. 3rd Party development is making a game for a platform holder, whilst not being owned by them. Traditionally there is a certain degree of freedom when you are 3rd Party, allowing you to produce cross platform games, although this is dependant upon who is publishing your game and what deals have been struck upon.

Working in 1st Party Development is like Silver Spoon Syndrome, being born into money. You have all the kit, in quantity, you have the big name which helps with recruitment, you usually have the location and by being the platform holder, you have the edge when it comes to backing your product (in theory, although that isn’t always the case… but that is a another story altogether.). Working for Sony was in many ways a luxury. As I have said, there was no shortage of devkits, every member of the team would have one, from coders to artists. There were of course deadlines and schedules but the lines of these appeared almost blurred and you often felt that you had the time to experiment with what you were doing to get the right result.

In direct contrast, 3rd Party development was a shock to the system. Milestones were and are strictly monitored, payment for the company being dependant upon succeeding in what has been agreed upon. To get a devkit from a platform holder, as a company you have to apply, and then wait, jump through some hoops, and then wait, jump though some more hoops, and then wait some more. Eventually you will get some, but obviously not enough! Each Milestone you generally have to demonstrate progress, which is a delicate balancing act between what is best for the project, and what the publisher wishes to see. Time to rewrite systems, or R & D new concepts through the development cycle is scarce and must be squeezed in and around the constant move forwards… otherwise you don’t get paid.

Which is better? I think this depends entirely on which environment you, as a developer, thrive in. 3rd Party development feels more real to me. There is an edge that pushes you which I personally never felt when working for the billion dollar corporation. That’s not to say that the edge makes you create better games. Likewise, the freedom and the financial backing doesn’t always create the best games ever made either. That is entirely up to the team and the project. I think to truly appreciate the industry that exists today, a developer should try to expose* themselves to both environments.

Just for completeness, there also exists the illusive 2nd Party developer. 2nd Party development is when although as a company you are not directly affiliated with a platform holder, i.e. a separate company, you have an exclusivity deal which ties you to a single platform.

*When I say expose I am of course referring to working in those environments, as opposed to standing at the front door and disrobing…