A business development toolkit designed for Quebec’s video game studios. It brings together practical insights and reliable resources to help studios understand the key challenges of building and growing a business, and know where to find additional guidance.
The Game Studio Toolkit
1.10 Operational Security and Business Continuity
Operational Security and Business Continuity
For a video game studio, much of the business exists in digital form: source code, assets, documents, platform accounts, cloud services, domain names, email accounts, and administrative access.
Operational security is about protecting these assets while also ensuring the studio can continue operating if a device is lost, an account is compromised, a service becomes unavailable, or someone leaves the team.
The goal is not to build the security infrastructure of a large corporation. It is to eliminate the most obvious points of failure, protect critical access, and know how to restore essential operations when something goes wrong.
Key Takeaways
- Critical accounts and assets should remain under the company’s control, even when the people using them change.
- Access should be assigned individually, protected by strong authentication, and limited to what each person actually needs.
- Recovery codes, administrative access, and other methods of regaining control of an account should never depend on a single person.
- A backup is only truly useful if the studio can restore its data and resume operations from it.
Why It Matters
In a small studio, a single person can easily become the central point of access for the entire business.
They may have registered the domain, control the distribution platform accounts, manage the source code repository, and keep recovery codes on their personal phone.
As long as everything works, this arrangement may seem efficient.
Problems arise when that person becomes unavailable, leaves the company, loses a device, or can no longer access an account. Human error, an outage, or a security incident can then prevent the entire team from working, releasing an update, or even accessing its own assets.
Operational security is therefore not just about preventing cyberattacks. It also means reducing dependence on a single person, device, or service and preparing how the studio will continue operating when something goes wrong.
Some risks, however, cannot be addressed through technical measures alone. Professional errors, contractual disputes, or cybersecurity incidents can also have significant financial consequences. Depending on its activities, a studio may need appropriate insurance coverage, including professional liability (errors and omissions) or cyber insurance.
Ressources
La Guilde Service Partners Who Can Help
Lareau helps businesses assess their risks and insurance needs. For video game studios, cyber insurance can be part of a broader approach to managing the financial and operational consequences of a cybersecurity incident.
SIXØCINQ supports video game studios with legal, corporate, and contractual matters. The firm can help studios understand insurance requirements in their agreements, assess intellectual property risks, and address legal considerations related to errors and omissions insurance.
Additional Resources
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security | Cybersecurity for Small and Medium Organizations
Published in 2026, this training course is designed for Canadian small and medium-sized businesses. It introduces key security controls to help reduce cybersecurity risks, with case studies and learning modules that guide smaller organizations through implementing appropriate security measures.
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security | Developing Your Business Continuity Plan
A practical guide focused on business continuity. It helps organizations identify critical assets and operations, prepare for recovery following an incident, and plan essential measures such as backup verification, team responsibilities, and recovery procedures.
Desjardins | Here’s What You Need to Know About Professional Liability Insurance
An article explaining how professional liability insurance, also known as errors and omissions insurance, works. It outlines common types of coverage, potential exclusions, and key considerations when choosing insurance suited to a company’s activities.