Rank badges: what they mean and how a studio earns one
Game Dev Outsourcing ranks 429 outsourcing studios by the shipped game credits recorded in this directory, across 73 categories. Studios in the top of a category can embed a badge saying so. The ranking reads the credit score and nothing else — no tier, no subscription, no payment.
The four badges
One ladder, four rungs, all of them earned the same way. A studio gets whichever is highest, for whichever category it ranks highest in. The examples on the right are live: they are generated from the current ranking for the studio named, not mock-ups.
| Badge | What it says | How a studio earns it | Live example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listed | Listed on Game Dev Outsourcing | Every claimed studio can embed this one. It carries no rank and no number, so a studio that places nowhere this quarter still has something honest to show. | |
| Bronze | Top 10 in a category | Fourth to tenth place in a category that has at least 10 studios, and inside the top 25% of it. | Amber — Top 10 in Nintendo Switch |
| Silver | Top 3 in a category | Second or third place in a category, under the same two-part rule. | XPEC Entertainment — Top 3 in Anime |
| Gold | #1 in a category, or top ten across the whole directory | First place in any category, or any place in the top 10 of the full directory. Tenth of hundreds is a stronger statement than first of 10, so both count as gold. | Keywords Studios — #1 Overall on Game Dev Outsourcing |
The purple one is bought, not earned
There is a fifth badge and it is not a fifth rung. Featured Partner is a paid placement on a subscription, it says so on its face, and it sits on a separate axis from the ladder above. A studio can hold a Featured Partner badge and a bronze rank badge at once, or Featured and nothing else, because the two are measuring different things: one is what a studio bought, the other is where it places.
Paid placement. It buys position in the browse and category lists on this site, and it buys the badge. It does not buy a rank on the ranking pages, which read the credit score alone, and it does not change any of the four badges above. A studio that pays and places nowhere still shows “Listed”.
Keeping those two things apart is the whole reason the earned badges are worth anything. The moment a subscription could move a position, every rung below the paid one would mean only that its holder had not paid yet.
How the ranking works
Every studio in the directory carries a score built from the shipped game credits recorded for it here. Within any category, studios are sorted by that score, high to low, and ties are broken by name so the order is the same every time it is computed. That is the entire ordering rule. There is no editorial pass, no reviewer, no survey, and no input from the studio beyond the credits on its own profile.
What counts as a category
A category is any slice of the directory with at least 10 studios in it. Below that floor there is no ranking page and no badge, because a list of six studios is not a ranking and “top 3 of 4” is not an achievement. Country and service-in-country categories exclude studios with no country on file rather than guessing one from a web domain, so a studio can be absent from a country ranking it would otherwise place in.
| Kind | For example | Categories |
|---|---|---|
| The whole directory | every ranked studio in one list | 1 |
| Services | 3D art, animation, QA testing, audio | 14 |
| Countries | Poland, Ukraine, India, Canada | 10 |
| Engines | Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot | 5 |
| Platforms | PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, VR | 9 |
| Art styles | stylized, realistic, pixel art | 7 |
| A service in a country | 3D art in Poland | 28 |
Who qualifies
Qualification is two tests, and a studio has to pass both: it must be in the top 10 of the category, and in the top 25% of it. The second test is what stops a category of exactly 10 studios from handing a badge to everybody in it, including whoever came last. Studios with no recorded credits at all are ranked last and never qualify, however small the category.
A studio that places in several categories gets one badge, for its strongest placement. Ties go to the larger category, because being tenth of hundreds is a harder thing to do than being third of 10. Ranks below tenth are never rendered anywhere: there is no badge, no image and no page on this site that will tell a studio it is 312th.
What a badge does not mean
A badge is a position in a list. That is the whole of it, and the list is built from one input.
- It is not an audit. Nobody from this directory has inspected a studio's books, contracts, staffing, security practices or delivery record. Nothing here has been independently examined.
- It is not a certification. There is no standard being certified against and no body issuing one. A badge is generated by a query, not awarded by a panel.
- It is not a quality endorsement. Shipped credits say a studio has done the work before. They say nothing about whether it hit its dates, was good to work with, communicates in your time zone, or suits your project.
- It is not a claim that a studio has been checked or approved. 415 of the 429 listings were researched and added by this directory rather than submitted by the studio itself. Treat the whole thing as a hand-compiled index, not as a screened supplier list.
- It is not complete. Rank comes from the credits recorded here, so credits we never recorded do not count. A studio's rank can understate it, and the badge it holds is a floor on its track record rather than a measurement of it.
- It is not permanent. The image is generated on request. As studios and credits are added, positions move, and the badge shows the current one.
What it does mean, precisely: at the moment the image was requested, that studio held the stated position in a list ordered by the shipped game credits recorded in this directory. That is a real, checkable fact, and it is a narrow one. It is not a substitute for looking at a portfolio in your own style, commissioning a small paid test, and asking for references before you hand over a milestone.
How to get your badge
Claiming is free and there is no paid step anywhere in this. 14 of the 429 listed studios have claimed their profile so far.
Most studios here were added by us, so yours may already exist. Search the directory first — claiming the existing page keeps whatever links and credits it has already accumulated.
Search the directoryClaiming is self-serve and takes a minute. An email at your studio's own domain — the one on the website recorded on your listing — is what makes a claim self-evident, but it is not required: a free-mail address, or a listing with no website on file, claims the same way.
Claim your listingYour dashboard shows the badge you currently hold and two snippets to paste: an HTML one with readable text in it, and a plain image one. Both link to your own profile page here, not to a ranking page full of your competitors.
Open your dashboardrel value, and no requirement to link back at all to keep a badge. A badge that is conditional on link attributes is a link scheme; this is not one, and we would rather have a badge on ten sites that wanted it than on a hundred that were told to.The rankings the badges come from
Every badge is a line on a public page. Each ranking lists the studios in the category in order, with the same methodology stated on the page itself, so anyone holding a badge can be checked against the list it came from.
- All 429 ranked studios — the whole directory
- 3D Art — services
- United States — countries
- Unity — engines
- PC — platforms
- Stylized — art styles
- 3D Art in Ukraine — a service in a country
Frequently asked questions
How does a studio get a badge?
Claim your listing. Claiming is free and takes a couple of minutes: find your studio in the directory, sign in — an address at your studio's own domain is best, but any works — and the badge embed appears in your dashboard. Every claimed studio gets a badge, whether or not it currently places in a ranking — a studio that places nowhere gets the neutral "Listed" badge, which states no rank.
How is the ranking calculated?
Rank is a function of one number: a score built from the shipped game credits recorded for that studio in this directory. Studios are sorted by that score, high to low, with ties broken alphabetically so the order is stable between builds. A studio qualifies for a badge in a category when it is in the top 10 of that category and in the top 25% of it, and the category has at least 10 studios in it.
Does paying change a studio’s rank?
No. The ranking behind these badges reads the credit score and nothing else — no tier, no subscription, no advertising. Paid placement exists on this site and it is a separate thing: the purple Featured Partner badge is bought, is labelled on its face as a paid placement, and sits outside the ladder rather than at the top of it. If money could move a rank, every badge below the paid rung would be worth nothing, which is why it cannot.
What does a badge certify about a studio?
Nothing. It is not an audit, a certification, or a quality endorsement, and it is not a claim that the studio has been independently checked. It reports a position in a list ordered by shipped game credits recorded here. Check a portfolio in your own style, run a small paid test, and take references before you brief anyone.
Why does my studio show “Listed” instead of a rank?
Because it does not currently place in the top 10 and top 25% of any category with at least 10 studios. Often that is a records problem rather than a studio problem: rank comes from the credits recorded here, and credits we do not know about do not count. Claim the listing and add the shipped titles, engines, platforms and services you actually work in — that is what feeds the score and what puts a studio into more categories.
What happens to my badge if my rank changes?
It changes with you. The image is generated on request rather than saved as a file, so a studio that moves up shows the higher rung the next time the image is fetched, and a studio that stops qualifying falls back to the neutral badge. It never breaks and it never turns into a lower number on someone else's site: a rank that would read as a demotion is never rendered at all.
Do I have to link back in a particular way to keep the badge?
No. There is no required anchor text, no required rel attribute, and no requirement to link at all. A badge conditional on link attributes is a link scheme, and this is not one. The embed links to your own profile page here, not to a ranking page listing your competitors.
Can I claim my listing with a Gmail address?
Yes. A claim is checked against the one fact a studio controls — an email on the same domain as the website recorded on the listing — and matching it makes a claim self-evident. But it is evidence, not a gate. Free-mail addresses, a parent company's mail domain and listings with no website on file do not match, and those claims go through anyway. If a page about your studio is claimed by someone who does not work there, email support@gamedevoutsourcing.com and we will take it back.
How many studios and categories are there?
The directory ranks 429 studios across 73 categories: 14 services, 10 countries, 5 engines, 9 platforms, 7 art styles, 28 a service in a country. A category needs at least 10 studios before it gets a ranking page or produces a badge, because "top 3 of 4" is not an achievement.
Is one of these listings yours?
415 of the 429 studios in this directory have not claimed their page yet. Claiming is free, takes a couple of minutes, and is the only step between a studio and the badge it already qualifies for.