Red Kite Games shows that work-for-hire can be rewarding — and without crunch

External development studio Red Kite Games has worked on smaller mobile games like GameDigits’ Dream Machine as well as Activision’s Call of Duty: Strike Team and Santa Monica Studio’s God of War. And all the while, the team has largely avoided any crunch time.

Many of Red Kite’s developers come from Rockstar Games. Founder and managing director Simon Iwaniszak joined Rockstar Leeds right after college, and he worked on several Grand Theft Autos, Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire. The studio’s technical director Andy Greensmith and creative director David Roberts are also Rockstar alumni.