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The former CEO of Team17 reflects on a career dedicated to independent games
December 6, 2024
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]
Bilbao International Games Conference :
Debbie Bestwick, co-founder of Team17, received the honorary prize at the Bilbao International Games Conference 2024 today. In a conversation with Antonio Santo, the festival director, Bestwick looked back on her career and the beginnings of an industry where many raised and fell. A career where she closely witnessed the development of best-selling hits like Worms, which almost led the studio to be overwhelmed by its own success.
“I could write a book on everything you shouldn’t do when you have money,” explained Bestwick, recalling the time when the studio was on the brink of failure due to the overwhelming success of Worms. Before that point, Team17 had already established itself as a pioneering studio, capturing 52% of the video game market in the UK in the early 90s thanks to a catalog full of hits for the Commodore Amiga, with standout games like Full Contact, Alien Breed, and Superfrog.
"Entering the video game industry when it wasn’t even an industry was very difficult. Just as difficult as learning to discern which titles would be more profitable," she explained, reflecting on the early days when the path ahead wasn’t as straightforward as it may seem today. "There was no university education," she recalled.
One of those major successes was Worms, a game that its creator had originally submitted to a contest in Amiga Power magazine, only for the magazine to reject it. Andy Davidson, the game's creator, showed up at the Team17 booth at an ECTS event and shared the game with them, which captivated the team immediately. "The problem came when we lost Andy's contact details and had to call the editor of Amiga Power and ask him to put us in contact," Bestwick explained.
The success of Worms took Team17 by surprise, to the point where Bestwick admitted that it took them "a decade of bad decisions" to recover from it. Fortunately, a 30-year career has allowed her to work with "some of the most talented franchises and creators in the industry" and has given her a piece of advice for anyone wanting to get into the field: "It’s always a roller coaster. Get used to it, enjoy the highs, and take a deep breath when you’re heading down."
Now retired, Bestwick acknowledges that she plays a lot of games with her son, to whom she hopes to pass on her love for gaming. They don’t just play popular titles like Fortnite, but also indie hits like Subnautica and Dredge. "I don’t want him to play just one game," she concluded, a person who has made variety one of the defining features of her productive career.
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ABOUT THE BILBAO INTERNATIONAL GAMES CONFERENCE
The BIG Conference picks up the baton from the Fun&Serious Game Festival, which started in 2011 in Bilbao. With the slogan of "celebrating video game culture and video games as culture," for years, it attracted tens of thousands of people and the most prominent names in the international video game industry with a proposal that mixed professional presentations with activities aimed at the general public: from the fun for the whole family of the Fun Zone to the congress for indies Games Industry Forum, passing through the Titanium Awards or esports competitions. After the pandemic hiatus, with a purely virtual edition and another semi-presential one, the festival became an exclusive event for industry professionals and it changed its skin with a brand that reflected this new strategic direction.
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