Building Better Games is about helping leaders create better video games through holistic leadership. If you’re a leader in games and game dev, you are who we m...
What does it take to lead effectively in the gaming industry? Many leaders in game development step into their roles without formal training—learning through trial and error. In this episode, we break down what real leadership looks like, how to avoid common pitfalls, and how to drive meaningful change without falling into the trap of just "managing" processes. Key Takeaways: The difference between management vs. leadership in game dev How to set and maintain the right goals for your team Avoiding false urgency and overconfidence in decision-making Why building trust and influence is crucial for game development success Practical steps to gain real followers and inspire your team Why This Matters: Many game development leaders unknowingly fall into the trap of micromanagement, focusing more on processes than people. If you want to build better games, create stronger teams, and lead with purpose, you need to develop real leadership skills. Your Challenge: Are you truly leading, or just managing? How well do you communicate your vision to your team? What’s one leadership skill you can refine today? Join the Building Better Games Community Our Discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ Interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer? Check it out here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production Subscribe to our newsletter for game development insights: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter Follow & Subscribe: Ben’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm 🚀 Support the Show! Help us create more amazing content by joining us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BBGOfficial
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E82: The Art & Science of Game Prototyping with Leif Johansen
What if everything you thought about prototyping was wrong? Many teams rush to validate an idea too soon, but what if the real secret to success is building a studio that learns better? In this episode, Leif Johansen breaks down the myths of prototyping and how studios can create a structured approach to experimenting with game ideas. Key Takeaways: - Stop Searching for the “Perfect Prototype” – The best teams prioritize many small, fast failures over one high-stakes prototype. - Prototyping Is a Science and an Art – The most successful studios create intentional experiments that map out their design space before committing to a vision. - Build a Learning Machine, Not Just a Game – A strong studio isn’t just about good ideas—it’s about a team that knows how to test and refine them. - Innovation Comes from Small Fixes, Not Big Ideas – World of Warcraft and Apex Legends didn’t just win by reinventing the wheel; they won by refining existing formulas with micro-improvements. - Hiring Too Fast Can Kill Your Game – Too many studios hire for downstream roles (art, animation) before locking in core mechanics, creating inefficiencies and wasted resources. 👉 Connect with Leif Johansen - Leif Johansen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leif-johansen-52139141 Our Discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ Interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer? Check it out here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production Subscribe to our newsletter for game development insights: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter Follow & Subscribe: - Ben’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/ - YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames - Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm 🚀 Support the Show! Help us create more amazing content by joining us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BBGOfficial
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E81: Why You Aren’t Ready for Where Game Dev Is Going with Leif Johansen
Is the games industry maturing or collapsing? How have our old models and comparisons hurt how we develop? In this episode, Leif walks us through how game dev has shifted, and how you need to think differently to stay relevant. Enjoy! Key Takeaways: Playtesting and Leadership: How leaders set the tone for playtesting with their behavior, not their words. The Slow Rise of “Forever” Games: How players spending more time in older games is reshaping play patterns. Drinking Our Own Kool-aid: Too many games have an expectation that they’ll wildly succeed and make decisions that cause anything but breakout success to lead to studio failure The Challenge of Scale: Games may be different, but we may need to look outside our space to tackle the problem of large organizations. Specialization in Game Dev: Generalists have value, but large companies are often looking for specific, deep skills rather than breadth of capability 👉 Connect with Leif Johansen • Leif Johansen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leif-johansen-52139141 Our discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place that makes better games: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ If you’re interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer, head here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production Subscribe to our newsletter for more game development tips and resources: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm Help us create more amazing content! Join us on Patreon today: https://www.patreon.com/BBGOfficial
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E80: How UGC Is Transforming The Games Industry with Bungie and Look North World Founder Alex Seropian
Why did Bungie's founder leave the AAA world to start building games in UEFN? What are the advantages and challenges of UGC platforms? Today, we talk with Alex Seropian, veteran game designer and founder of Bungie and Look North World, about the future of our industry. Enjoy! Key Takeaways: UGC Platforms Provide Some Serious Advantages: Tools like Fortnite Creative and Roblox empower creators, enabling rapid prototyping and innovation. Game Dev is Evolving: The shift from small teams to massive AAA productions introduces challenges beyond what we expected and that remain unsolved. Rapid prototyping is essential for aligning ideas with player expectations but not all large studios are set up for it. Balancing Art and Business is not a trivial tightrope to walk. You need creativity, you also need solvency. Playtesting Matters. Rigorous and intentional player feedback is crucial for refining gameplay and UGC can get you this much more easily UGC isn’t all roses and rainbows. There are unique challenges and limitations to navigate being on UEFN, Roblox, or other platforms. Community Engagement: Early interaction with players increases the potential, and similar to playtesting, UGC can give you a bit of a leg up here. 👉 Connect with Alex Seropian Alex Seropian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderseropian/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefourthcurtain Website: https://looknorth.world Our discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place that makes better games: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ If you’re interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer, head here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production Subscribe to our newsletter for more game development tips and resources: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm Help us create more amazing content! Join us on Patreon today: https://www.patreon.com/BBGOfficial
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E79: Why AAA is Failing and How to Recover and Other Questions - Our First Q&A Episode!
No guests today! Instead, I'll be taking questions from the Building Better Games discord and answering them. I cover10 questions including the challenges with AAA dev, the rise of co-dev, and what production careers look like. Enjoy! Question #1 : How do you ensure that you (the royal you) are making a game that will be fun for players, not just fun for its designers to make? (Or maybe in this context - what are the ways in which production can support product management and ensure the sprint-to-sprint goals align with what internal player advocates are asking for?) Question #2 : What would you say needs to happen to make the big players more competitive / successful again? Question #3: Do you think there’s an observable trend towards an increased amount of codevelopment as a way to mitigate costs/risk? What issues do you see this posing for coherent design and production if there is an increasing reliance on external development partners? Question #4: There are clear signs when certain aspects of a game are lacking - incoherent design, low quality assets, buggy software. What are the player-facing symptoms of a game that is lacking in production or leadership competencies? Question #5: Production organizations at larger game studios often suffer from issues of structure, such as a substantial number of producers, senior producers, and even lead producers all rolling directly up into an overburdened production director, because there doesn’t seem to be an understood space for a “producer manager” between frontline production and executive/director-level production leadership. What is the rationale for this gap when manager is a well-understood conceit in other gamedev disciplines (e.g. designers will have design managers reporting to a design director, artists will have department managers reporting to a director, engineers have managers between them and directors, etc.)? Is it just that production is typically not a large enough organization to merit managers? That producers are seen as organized and not in need of more traditional personnel management? Question #6: How can you become better at your role as a producer when you aren’t at your job? Or in other words, how can you get better at what you do aside from getting more experience? Question #7: For mid- and senior level producers: What does a career development track look like? Often it seems like the only future for a highly competent producer is executive producer (a stretch for many and not a realistic path for most) or production director, which itself is a rarified commodity at larger developers. What are the progression opportunities an IC producer should be considering? Question #8: As the only Production guy on my team (and 1 of 3 "operations people"), how would you deal with getting questions and answers when you have nobody around to rubber ducky with? Question #9: When talking about the past, how can you learn to abstract experiences and look past the specifics? Are there any resources you recommend for learning how to tell stories so that you’re not bogged down in the details of history? Question #10: How are game developers selecting and setting up test groups to see their players are enjoying the game and it’s a good market fit? Are there aspects of this process that could see refining and improving? Or common pitfalls other developers tend to see in this process? LinkedIn for Steve Bromley (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevebromley/) and Graham McAllister (https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahammcallister/) Steve Bromley's Book: https://gamesuserresearch.com/book/ Graham McAllister URL: https://grahammcallister.com/ Steve Bromley URL: https://gamesuserresearch.com/ Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat by Clinton Keith: https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Game-Development-Addison-Wesley-Signature-dp-0136527817/dp/0136527817/ Lean from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Trenches-Managing-Large-Scale-Projects/dp/1934356859/ Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Expanded-Overcoming-Inspiration/dp/0593594649/ Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet: https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Building-Breaking/dp/0241250943 Our discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place that makes better games: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ If you’re interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer, head here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production Subscribe to our newsletter for more game development tips and resources: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm Help us create more amazing content! Join us on Patreon today: https://www.patreon.com/BBGOfficial
Building Better Games is about helping leaders create better video games through holistic leadership. If you’re a leader in games and game dev, you are who we make this podcast for.
Making games is hard, no two ways about it. Only 5% of video games that enter production turn a profit. We aim to increase that number. Through our own successes and failures we (and our guests) have learned lessons that will help you create better teams and better games. Leadership matters, so let’s get better at it together. Your team and your players will thank you.
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