Wardogs has been a huge success for Bulkhead, and CEO Joe Brammer has revealed his controversial development philosophy.
Speaking with The Game Business, Brammer revealed the realities of crunch, marketing, and working with publishers like Tencent after selling two million copies of Wardogs in less than a week.
Telling people not to buy Wardogs
Wardogs announced its early access release date in a video titled 10 Reasons NOT to Buy, where the developers listed ten things that separated it from popular FPS games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, and why fans of those games might not enjoy Wardogs.
“We knew that ‘10 Reasons Why’ video, when we wrote it, was a hit,” Brammer explains. “But in many ways, it was obvious to us. It’s obviously not Call of Duty. Don’t buy us if you want to play Call of Duty. So, just saying it and owning it in all aspects of Bulkhead and Wardogs’ marketing has been the way to go. But I wouldn’t necessarily call it honest and transparent.”
Smart marketing
“We’re not transparent, and we’re not honest,” Brammer tells The Game Business’ Christopher Dring. “We’re being clear. Right now, it’s in our interest to be transparent about some things, but we’re not telling everyone everything we’re doing. The brand is becoming that they believe we’re transparent and honest. That’s creating a new problem in that if we choose not to be transparent or honest about something, therefore we’re moving away from the thing that people believe we are.”
He continues, “People know what I believe. They know I don’t believe in work-from-home for making video games. They know I expect people to crunch. I own that. I don’t try and hide it.”
Crunch culture
It hasn’t been easy getting Wardogs to release. Brammer revealed that in December 2025 he told the 100-person team at Bulkhead that they faced redundancy. He advised the team to take new jobs if they were offered, but Wardogs has now successfully saved the studio. Crunch was used as a tactic to get Wardogs over the line.
“For the last three months, Wardogs has been more important than a lot of [our team’s] family lives,” Brammer says. “But now, Bulkhead and I have to acknowledge that it needs to go the other way. Everyone’s pushing us to get console out earlier, and we’ve said, ‘No, that’s not how it’s going to work. We can’t push them more. We’re not doing that. It’s going to release in 2028’.” Brammer revealed that the whole team will have December off work.
“A lot of people who may have an issue with crunch – rightly so, I understand that issue, we always try and avoid it, but we don’t hide that this is going to happen at some point – they often don’t make it in the door,” Brammer explains.
“If you care about the work you’re making and the result of what you make here, you’ll feel really valued. If you don’t, you will feel slave-driven. We check people’s socials, and if you’re constantly tweeting anti-crunch messaging: ‘This should never ever be a thing’, we know that and go, ‘Look, you’re not going to be happy here, so we’re not going to go with you’.”
Brammer says that staff are given “life-changing” compensation for their work.
