Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
producer is usually mentored by an associate producer, while the associate producer
is mentored by a producer.
If you like highly specialized, detail-oriented work that will throw you curve balls
when you least expect them, then you might like to work in game production. You
will often be responsible to upper management for meeting milestones, keeping game
projects on schedule and on budget, and keeping a solid relationship established with
your publisher at all times. This is a job that combines detail and communications
work with a solid understanding of the technical tasks involved in building games.
Before there were official game design positions available, many producers doubled
as game designers. Many programmers and artists doubled as designers, too. These
days, some have decided to stay on the game design side, while others have left more
design-oriented tasks behind and are working in a pure production capacity.
There is no way to learn how to be a good game producer, other than by getting a
chance to work with a few good ones along the way. There is no real “bar” or measuring
post for the production role, so some suspicious characters sometimes make
their way into production roles.
Your day to day duties would include team planning, milestone tracking, game
build evaluation, design coordination, art approval, and training support, and then
you’ll also work on all the other details that no one else has time to deal with. This can
include marketing, PR interfacing, special events, food runs, event planning, counseling,
and making breakfast the morning after a milestone is successfully completed.
Production as a Career Choice
Developers tend to grow their own producers up through a company. This is not to
say that companies don’t hire producers from outside their current ranks—they do.
Yet, since producers ultimately get a glimpse of the business game plan for a development
studio or publisher, a trust factor needs to be in place. It can be hard for a development
studio to find someone from the outside they’re comfortable with. On the
flip side, only promoting from within, and never or rarely hiring externally, can lead
to a somewhat stagnant talent pool as developers only know how “they” have always
done it, and cannot necessarily benefit from the learning that comes with seeing
everyone else make mistakes first.
Production positions also suffer from the numbers games. Even in a relatively
large, independent development studio, there are rarely more than just a couple of
producers. There might only be two or three full-time producer positions available
among many more positions available to programmers and artists. This tends to
lower your individual odds of getting a position as a producer.