There may not be a fool-proof method to making a well-reviewed, profitable game, but don't tell that to 5th Cell. At this year's D.I.C.E. summit, Jeremiah Slaczka and Joseph Tringali, two of the developer's founders, gave a stirring speech explaining how the company operates. They also shared some amazing statistics: Scribblenauts was created by 12 people over 13 months, and the franchise has sold over 2.5MM copies. Drawn to Life was likewise created by a dozen employees over only 11 months, and sold 3.5MM units. Those are amazing numbers by any metric.

How did they do it? By choosing concepts that either hadn't been done in the past or that they thought they could do better than anyone else. The goal is leading the market instead of following trends. The studio keeps two games in development at any given time and staggers their releases so they're always working on a project.

They also ignore the industry standard of hiring people for a game and then laying off a percentage of their staff when the game is completed. When you take a job at 5th Cell, you're hired for life. Finding the right publisher is also key, and the two men noted that it was important to get what you'd like to do in writing, and make sure the publisher understands and nurtures talent.

"And finally, milestones," Slaczka stated. They hate the idea of milestones. "This isn't schedules and your internal milestones, this is the contractual milestones." He stressed that milestones are counter-productive to high-quality development. "They're in every contract... they assume games are made in chunks, and they have an even progression from beginning to end. Unfortunately, they don't." Milestones can also be tied to monetary bonuses, causing developers to rush to meet arbitrary goals at the expense of the entire experience.

The other thing that came up is how the company chooses what types of games to create. They used the term "best of breed," meaning that if you can't be first, you'd better be best—that's very hard to do when you're chasing another game that's found success. So why not be original?

While everyone is talking about Facebook games, that's not an area that 5th Cell is interested in moving into. Zynga dominates Facebook games so completely, and there's no passion from the team, so they're not likely to come up with better games. “Why compete with Zynga, who eats, lives, and breathes these types of things when we don’t?” Slaczka explained.

And that's it: a small team, a rapid development cycle, holistic development goals, a strong idea of what the developer does well, and staying away from concepts that already exist and are being perfected elsewhere. While all this may seem intuitive, having it all laid out in business terms and with cogent explanations for why it works was illuminating. New ideas, good people, and a strong relationship with your publisher are things every developer wishes for, and 5th Cell has it down to a science.