How Voodoo Builds Hits: Four Product Lessons from a 2000-Prototypes-a-Year Machine

Last year, Voodoo told us they were testing around a thousand prototypes annually. This year, that number has doubled. But scale alone isn’t what’s interesting.

What matters is how their product strategy has evolved alongside it, how they decide which games to kill, which to back, and how to turn those few survivors into games that last. This time, Michail Katkoff spoke with Thibault de Vésinne-Larüe , Voodoo’s VP Core & New Games, to look deeper into how their model works today. Below are four product lessons that help explain not just how Voodoo operates, but why their approach continues to produce market-relevant hits while many others stall out.

Lesson 1: Know When to Walk Away Where creative optimism meets product discipline. Most ideas won’t make it past this point — and that’s the point. Voodoo is unapologetically fast when it comes to killing games, and that speed is core to how the entire system works.

  If a prototype doesn’t show early signs of breakout potential — not just good metrics, but a spark, a foundation, a future — it’s cut. Because the real cost isn’t the hours spent building it, it’s the opportunity cost of the next idea that didn’t get made. “An extra iteration is a lost opportunity,” Thibault told us.

” This mindset is easier said than done. Most studios fall into the trap of “almost,” tweaking games that are unlikely to break out, while burning time and creative energy that could have gone to something better. Voodoo’s strength is not just killing what’s broken, but knowing when something isn’t good enough , and having the discipline to stop anyway.

It’s not coldness. It’s focus. Lesson 2: Treat the Publisher as a Partner — Or Don’t Bother One of the most common misconceptions about working with Voodoo — and arguably with publishers in general — is that it’s a client relationship.

Build a prototype, get paid, wait for feedback. For many studios, especially those used to OPEX+ style deals, the publisher is effectively the client. Voodoo doesn’t see it that way.

And they’re clear that if a studio does, it’s not going to work. What they’re looking for are founder-led teams with product ownership , who set their own standards, and don’t wait around for a green light. They’re fast, independent, and focused on upside, not contracts.

And they enter the relationship knowing the publisher isn’t there to direct — they’re there to accelerate. This model requires a level of independence and speed that many studios just don’t have. The most successful teams are the ones who already know how to kill their own bad ideas, set their own bar for quality, and come in with a point of view on the product.