Doom Eternal art director Tony Garza and id Software veteran Richard O’Neal left the studio before Microsoft cut roughly half of it, and started Turnkey Games in Dallas. Their account of the move is mostly a list of things they chose not to do.

On money:

  • They bootstrapped so no publisher had to absorb production costs, and grew the team gradually so progress could continue without unnecessary risk.
  • Spend went to the game, development equipment, software, contractors for specialised work, legal, and only later marketing.
  • No office, no large team built ahead of the game’s ability to support it — the goal is putting as much of the budget on the screen as possible.
  • Cheap spending buys time, and time is the scarce resource.

On scope:

  • They were blunt about what modest resources could finish: prioritise the features that matter, cut or simplify anything that does not meaningfully improve the game.
  • Every hire had to make the game better, not just bigger.
  • O’Neal’s warning about big-studio instincts: AAA production assumes every system must support every possible gameplay scenario, an approach that would bury a small team.

What they had to unlearn:

  • Universal frameworks. Tools that serve many developers, platforms, and years of production make sense at scale; on a small game that is unnecessary engineering work. The simplest solution that delivers the intended experience wins — reliable, but not necessarily general.
  • Perfectionism. Garza runs indie production on momentum: not everything needs to be perfect, and good enough keeps you moving. Work fast and iterate.
  • Chasing the mass market. Doom endures because it does not try to please everyone; find the niche and lean into it.

What carried over from id is one question Garza still asks of every feature, system, and polish pass: “Is the game better for it? Will the player notice? Will they care?” If the answer is no, it is probably not the best use of time.

The cost side is honest. At a large company there is structure around you when development goes badly; going indie makes the creative, technical, and financial risk personal, and adds contracts, marketing, trailers, platform requirements, budgets, and hiring to the job.

Garza’s advice is to start small, scope realistically while assuming feature growth, and focus on finishing — ship a good game, learn from it, and build from there, rather than burning the budget chasing perfection.