Great game design is always a product of great collaboration. From ideation to development to playtesting, the success of any new release relies on the input of multiple stakeholders.
Now that teams are working remotely, tools that help you maintain this constant connection with your team are vital, especially for editors and animators. A good collaborative workflow starts with the right tools and editing environment. It’s time to move beyond ad-hoc solutions and enhance your work practices.
That’s why we’ve compiled our list of the top 10 collaborative game editing tools, including tools that help you manage assets, edit together in real-time, and get approvals and feedback in just a few clicks. See if you should switch from an existing tool by checking out the list below.
Evercast
Evercast is a remote collaboration platform, and one of the most powerful tools that can be used at all the different parts of game development.
A single Evercast room can be your meeting room for brainstorming sessions, your editing suite for co-editing sessions, and your screening room for asset review sessions. It works well with the vast majority of other collaborative editing tools (such as remote desktops), so you can talk face-to-face while you work together in real-time, saving days of work going back and forth.
Key features:
- Ultra-low latency HD video streaming (less than 150ms)
- Record and review function to review key session moments
- On-screen drawing for visual notations
- Time-stamped notes to keep comments organized
- Real-time video conferencing, HD project streaming, and comments/visual note-taking all under one platform to enable rapid iterations
What’s missing:
- No ability to deliver assets directly through the platform
- You’ll need additional software to co-edit in your game development platforms
Pricing:
Starts at $549 per month, with special pricing packages are available for larger studios or teams.
Create together remotely, in real time
Parsec
Parsec is an advanced remote desktop application that is used by some of the biggest developers in gaming, such as Blizzard and EA. In an ideal world, it allows you to control your desktop from anywhere as well as invite collaborators to access your desktop and collaborate with you in real-time.
Key features:
- Secure P2P streaming
- Multi-monitor support
- Precise gamepad control for playtesting
- Team management tools
What’s missing:
- No built-in video or voice chat
Pricing:
Starts at $30 per user,per month for full-feature team accounts.
Frame.io
Frame.io is a cloud-based media collaboration program focused on getting feedback and approvals on creative content, as well as enabling remote collaboration and managing your asset pipelines for even the largest teams.
Game production teams have been moving over to Frame.io to not only speed up the internal asset review process but to make it easier to distribute content to external stakeholders and collaborate on edits with a single click.
Key features:
- Lightning-fast media upload speeds (less than 3 minutes for 5GB of data)
- Custom-branded presentations to present work
- Supports most common game editing software integrations and has an API that allows it to custom-fit the workflow to your needs and ideal process
- Time-stamped notes and on-screen annotations
- Version control system to see history without delay
What’s missing:
- No live editing feature for real-time feedback
- It does not support video calling
Pricing:
Free for up to 2 users, paid packages starting at $15 per user, per month. Custom pricing is available for enterprise customers.
ShotGrid
Shotgun is a creative collaboration platform specifically designed with the needs of VFX and game creation studios in mind. It’s asset management, project schedule, review, and proofing all in one, and it’s game-development specific features make this one a huge win for game dev teams looking to collaborate efficiently and stay in sync, with limited technical problems.
Key features:
- Team scheduling feature to assign who is working on what and when, eliminating various problems
- Visual timeline to track project schedule on a daily basis
- Shot comparison features native to the desktop app
- Mobile platform to review projects and see the right version on the go
- File transfer through the platform
What’s missing:
- No live collaboration features for in-edit feedback or co-editing through a set of changes
Pricing:
Starts at $30 per account per month.
Superpowers
Superpowers is a 2D and 3D game creation platform geared towards indie developers. It heavily prioritizes real-time collaboration and, even better, is completely free and open-source to allow any and all teams access to it with unlimited customization, solving more than one side of the problem with remote game development.
Key features:
- Open-source format
- Cross-platform compatible
- Edit various files solo or through a collaborative effort
- HTML5-based
- Support for 3D models
- Free sprites and other models included
What’s missing:
- No video chat feature in-app to collaborate face-to-face with team members
- No file transfer system
- Geared towards beginners, so may be a bit basic for pro teams
Pricing:
Free
CraftStudio
Like Superpowers, CraftStudio is a great little collaborative game creation platform that focuses on giving indie developers access to 3D game development in a simple, free-to-use platform. This is a great platform for less-technical or less-experienced game designers and includes level editing tools to build more complex games.
Key features:
- Cross-platform compatible
- Visual scripting
- Built-in modeling and painting tools
- Block-based
What’s missing:
- Geared more towards a beginner working on a high-level task
- Very basic communication tools
- No longer being updated
Pricing:
Free
PlayCanvas
Of the web-based collaborative game creation tools we’ve covered so far, PlayCanvas is definitely the most advanced. While Superpowers and CraftStudio focus heavily on beginners, with simple graphics and tools, PlayCanvas allows for high-end graphics and can be used for everything from 2D web games to detailed 3D configurators.
Key features:
- Real-time collaboration using Google Docs-like features
- Zero compile time
- On-device development and testing
- Browser-based editing and debugging
- Open-source
- VR-optimized
- Lots of textures to add dimension and realism
What’s missing:
- Communication features are limited for real-time collaboration, which could present the occasional problem.
- Team management features are only available at the pro-level pricing, making it so nobody can work together unless you pay a premium.
Pricing:
Basic version is free; professional versions start at $15 per seat per month.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a workhorse in asset transfer and management. If you’re looking for the most storage at the best price for all of your paperwork and assets during the game editing process, Dropbox is a fantastic tool to have in your stack. All you need is Internet access.
Key features:
- Great storage sizes for the price; can handle your team’s large file
- Can easily search through assets
- Controlled file access
- Works on any device
- Can function as a file backup system
What’s missing:
- Not specifically designed for game teams
- Most communication still needs to happen through email, but you avoid long periods of time waiting for file transfers.
Pricing:
Starts at $12.50 per user, per month for team plans.
ReviewStudio
An online proofing platform that makes task assignment and content reviews quick and painless. ReviewStudio makes it easy to manage your game development team and get asset and edit feedback all under one platform and make sure they’re working on the latest versions of all their assets without complication.
Key features:
- Threaded comments
- On-screen drawing for visual annotations
- Wide variety of file types supported
- Assign tasks directly to commenters right from the review thread
What’s missing:
- No video chat feature
- Low storage capacities
Pricing:
Starts at $15 per month for a single user, team accounts start at $56 per month for up to 7 users.
InMotionNow
InMotionNow looks to be an end-to-end creative collaboration solution that handles everything from intake paperwork to final edit approvals. If your game editing team is looking for a project management platform that has the capability to handle everything from onboarding to final delivery, this is a fantastic option.
Key features:
- Pre-built request form templates you can customize to fit your workflow
- Visual product scheduling and publishing tools
- Custom proof-routing workflows so you can ensure a consistent workflow no matter the project
- Real-time commenting sessions on projects
- Analytics to monitor how high-level changes to projects are aligning with your objectives
What’s missing:
- No video chatting option for live review sessions
- No transparent pricing on the website
Pricing:
Pricing is only available on a per quote basis.
