In August 2024, we announced our acquisition of Ghostpunch Games, welcoming the team into our family and bringing Ghostpunch’s motto of “Spirited Development” into the fold! 

Ghostpunch Games is a storied game development and co-development studio founded in 2015 and known for its contributions to many of gaming's biggest franchises, including Mortal Kombat, Fortnite, Silent Hill, Borderlands, and Civilization. Originally based in South Florida, the team has grown to over 65 employees working remotely across the U.S. and continues to expand to other locales across the globe. The Ghostpunch team has worked with some of the most successful companies in the industry including 2K, Warner Brothers, Zenimax Online Studios, Bethesda, Gearbox, and People Can Fly. 

We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome them into our global team, bringing their vast experience in co-dev and porting services to many AAA titles on PC, console, XR, and mobile. Hear from the industry veterans who founded Ghostpunch Games about their backgrounds and their “spirited” vision for taking our co-development services to the next level below.  

What inspired the founding of Ghostpunch Games, and how did your experiences in the gaming industry influence the vision for a co-development studio? 

In the early 2000s we were all working together at Darkside Games, our first co-dev focused studio, along with our sister studio, Shadows in Darkness—one of the premier boutique art outsourcing studios in the U.S.  

Devon Browne and Rick Daniels made up 2 of the original 3 founders of Shadows in Darkness back in 2002, with Hugh Falk joining in 2006 as part of a strategic expansion from Art to a full Co-Dev studio. Alejandro Garcia-Tunon, who had honed his skills in AAA console and handheld game development at Activision, joined Darkside Games in 2009 as Director of Technology.  

After several years, and a variety of changes, we ended up shutting down Darkside Games in 2015, to be re-born as Ghostpunch Games—a continuation of what we had built at our previous companies. We took what we learned from those 13 years, built from the good, and learned from the difficult, to assemble a new and more successful studio in much less time.  

Rick notes that forming an art outsourcing studio made a lot of sense at the time. A few years in, the team came to the realization that unless you become a Full Dev or Co-Dev Studio, or you hire a team of external artists, competing at a larger scale as an art outsource company was almost impossible to do exclusively in the U.S. We made the decision to expand our services, starting by partnering with Hugh Falk, and as a result of his experience on the AAA publishing/development side—having been Development Director at Electronic Arts and Studio Head at Midway Games in San Diego—the strategy worked. We were able to transition to working on some of the most successful franchises in gaming including Bioshock, Borderlands, and Civilization. 

Hugh also shares that his experience working for both publishers and developers, along with managing producers, programmers, artists, designers, and audio teams, prepared him for understanding what clients want and what staff needs to be successful. The team were able to apply their decades of game development experience along with no small amount of dedication and skill to build Ghostpunch to a point where a global giant like PTW took notice. 

What are the guiding principles that define the mission of the Co-Dev team, especially in the context of collaborating with other developers and publishers?  

Our mission is to be a successful game development / co-development studio that supports award-winning games, from indie to AAA. We want to help support developers and publishers in the creation of their games—the kind we would want to play—and nurture a safe environment for honest evaluation and improvement. The values that guide us are: 

Choose fun 

Maintain sustainability

Get it done 

Respect others 

Laughter is good  

Be thankful for constructive criticism  

Continually work to improve 

Can you talk about one of your most memorable projects or defining moments throughout the years? 

During the rise of the 2020 COVID pandemic, many of our teams were concerned with how everything was going to go in the transition to working remotely. Ghostpunch made the decision in the interest of health and safety to have everyone work from home. Many team members were amazed at how well we were able to adjust to the new way of doing things. 

That, coupled with the general fear and anxiety we were all normally feeling at that time—it was an impressive feat to pull off. We were looking for glimpses of light during a dark time, and this was certainly one of them. Devon notes his feeling of pride at how dedicated, professional, patient, and resilient the team was. It was at that moment he knew the studio was going to be okay, through thick and thin, regardless of any future challenges that could come their way. 

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in the world of co-development, and how have those experiences shaped your approach to future collaborations? 

One general challenge in co-development is the potential for individual team members not feeling ownership over the work that they’re doing, since it is at the service of our partners.  We mitigate this through creating a working environment of openness, honesty, and cultivating a giving attitude. It is our philosophy that you do not have to be a Lead to be a leader, and the quality of work is each individual person’s responsibility, regardless of who generated it. 

How would you measure success overall in a co-development partnership?  

Our partners’ success and satisfaction are always our first goals. These things are not always spelled out in a Statement of Work, so there is always special attention given to a client’s needs, regardless of what’s on paper. 

Can you cite any recent technological advancements in game development and co-development that have significantly altered the way you and your teams work? 

As mentioned before, the switch to a hybrid-remote work environment was the biggest change for us. Ghostpunch has a physical studio in South Florida, but most of our work is now done remotely, even for those of us who work in South Florida. When COVID hit the U.S. in 2020, much of the working world was either shut down or significantly slowed. 

Ghostpunch carried on with almost no interruption. We were already working the way we continue to work today. Many of our smaller projects, and our largest project at the time, were already working in a hybrid-remote model—so we did already have some processes in place to work in this environment. The improvements brought on by global remote work at the time such as video conferencing, remote desktop applications, and remote collaboration apps not only allowed us to work uninterrupted, but to thrive.   

As Hugh notes, the team found ways to work better than they ever had during this time. In fact, even if they were all together in one location, they would still keep many of the same processes because they just worked better. For example, it’s hard to imagine having a large dev team meeting sitting around a conference table as was common in decades prior. The team would all still be on individual laptops, looking at a screen so they could screen share, mark up, record, and collaborate to keep the same level of productivity. 

In terms of technical advances, we have to mention the rise of generative AI, which is set to absolutely change the landscape in game development. We’re excited to leverage those technologies to optimize our workflows and power up each individual developer on the team. 

As the game industry evolves, how is the team positioning itself to continue delivering value to our partners in the future? The PTW ethos is “Bringing Your Story to the World” and the Ghostpunch motto is “Spirited Development”—how do you see these two combining? 

To put it simply: we love what we do. That’s why our development has always been “Spirited.”  We now have a global reach for both clients and staff that we’ve never had before. At PTW, we can help bring more and even bigger stories to the world—which means we get to do more of what we love. 

To learn more about our game development services and how we can support your next title, contact us today.