Ustwo Games CEO Maria Sayans says the Monument Valley studio won’t keep growing its full-time team and will instead rely more on contractors for future projects.
In a recent interview with Game Developer, Sayans admitted the London-based studio had been “a little bit too romantic about the idea that we should have employees and give people long-term job security.” She framed the shift as a reluctant one, even calling the move toward contractor-heavy staffing “something I hate about the industry.”
Ustwo currently sits at just under 30 staff. During the production peak of Monument Valley 3, that number was closer to 40. Sayans suggested the studio had been too quick to bring people on full-time, and that future scaling would happen through contractors rather than permanent hires.
The plan going forward is a familiar one in games: a small core team, topped up with freelancers, outsourcing partners, and specialists when a project ramps up. It’s the same model used across film, TV, and much of indie development, and it lets studios avoid carrying a full payroll between releases.
Sayans tied the rethink to a much harder market for premium mobile games. When the original Monument Valley launched in 2014, paid mobile titles still had room to breathe. Today the space is dominated by free-to-play, live-service, and ad-supported games, and the economics for an art-led puzzle series look very different.
