Creating top games at Up The Creek

Up the Creek is a major producer of computer games in Australia for use with a range of various machines and companies. Up the Creek has a knack for creating high-quality best-selling games and its games have sold millions of copies. How does Up the Creek do it? Their success is partially due to the high motivation of its designers. Only creative game designers are hired, people who really enjoy their work for its own sake. Managers at Up the Creek take steps to make sure that designers really do have reason to enjoy the work they do. The office areas are spacious yet functional and are designed to encourage the sharing of information and ideas between game designers. In addition, designers are encouraged to take all the time they need to come up with revolutionary new ideas for games. Managers think nothing of designers taking time to visit museums or parks to try to come up with a spark of a new idea. With that idea in mind, designers and other co-workers then put forth high levels of effort throughout the design process to make sure that the idea produces a successful new game.

Designers receive rewards they value for their efforts. Once a game is completed and ready to be marketed and sold, its designers are rewarded with a 2-month holiday. Up the Creek's designers pay is linked to the volume of the sales of the games they create, and they also receive paid overseas trips. Recently Up the Creek expanded globally and established Up the Creek USA with offices in California. The US recruits, and has only, employees who are highly motivated by the kind of work they do and are at the top of their fields. Employees, in turn, benefit from being in a highly charged and motivating work environment, working alongside the best in the field to develop their skills. Up the Creek USA's employees are also granted considerable autonomy and freedom and are rewarded for their efforts. Overall, the company seems to be doing all the right things to ensure that its employees are highly motivated to create best-selling computer games.

3-4 dot point summary of the case