Ustwo Games Seeks Lower Costs as Maria Sayans Shifts to PC
ustwo games CEO Maria Sayans said the studio needs to lower development costs and recruit more contractors as it shifts toward PC and console releases. The company is moving away from mobile after deciding the platform no longer offers a solid base to build a long-term business around.
Sayans said the studio had been making titles that cost between £7 million and £10 million over production cycles of three to four years. She said, “We need to lower that,” while arguing that those budgets were too high to make the PC and console business safer to break even on.
Maria Sayans on Ustwo
Sayans said the changes are part of a plan to make the company thrive as a PC-first studio. She said Ustwo now wants to focus on “meaningful single player experiences” for PC and consoles, a narrower target than the mobile-first work that defined much of its earlier business.
The studio has already ported Monument Valley, Alba; A Wildlife Adventure and Assemble with Care to Steam and Nintendo Switch. Sayans said those releases “did not do crazy numbers” but still shifted hundreds of thousands of units, giving the company a record it can point to as it rewrites how it makes and ships games.
Ustwo's Staffing Shift
Ustwo employs just under 30 people, Sayans said, down from around 40 workers at the peak of Monument Valley 3's development. She said the company may hire more contractors, and described the previous approach this way: “We've been a little bit too romantic about the idea that we should have employees and give people long-term job security.”
That staffing model changed after a strategic review and shortly before Netflix ditched Monument Valley 3. Sayans said some of the deals that once let the studio launch mobile titles with backing from companies like Netflix and Apple before moving to other platforms were no longer materializing, which pushed Ustwo to rethink how it funds future projects.
PC and Console Plans
For players, the practical change is that Ustwo is now building around a model that needs smaller budgets, more flexibility in staffing and a stronger path to break even on PC and consoles. The studio's recent ports sold enough to show there is a market for its work outside mobile, but the next phase depends on whether lower costs and more contractors can support the same kind of releases without the older financing model.
