It's time to delve deeper into the role of one of the core team members in any organized development team; the producer. The producer might seem like the team's boss, but they aren't supposed to just boss the team around while watching from afar. Instead, they're more like a guide that is trying to lead the team towards the desired goal. Simply put, their responsibility is to manage the team and help them achieve results as smoothly as possible, which usually means developing a finished game from scratch. The scope of the game is something that they'll always have to focus on so that the goals of the project remain realistic.
Communication
The producer must always know what goes on within the project team and what responsibilities are assigned to each team member. Their job is to communicate with the team and keep everyone up to date on what is happening. Organizing meetings that keep everyone informed of current matters is one of their tasks.
In addition to helping with the internal communication, the producer is also the person who communicates with publishers, digital marketplace representatives, and other people who are not part of the core development team.
Scheduling
As with all large projects, scheduling is crucial for game producing as well, especially with bigger teams. Organizing work, like feature development, and prioritizing them are a part of a producer's job.
The producer doesn’t decide on the priorities by themselves, however. The whole team should be a part of this process, but the producer should always be aware of the decisions made and the thought processes behind them. The producer often has the best grasp of the larger picture, though, so they do play a key role in the decision process.
Problem Solving
Problem solving is an important skill for any game developer. The scale of the problems that a producer may face varies greatly from the game completely breaking to a team member leaving the team and from the air conditioning not working in the office to fluctuating motivation. Their job is to lessen the worry of the team members by confidently handling any problem they may face.
Conflicts between people may affect the team's motivation greatly, and these kinds of situations should be handled with care. The job of a producer is to face any situation as an unbiased observer; this not only helps solve the problem, but also make fair decisions that help both the team and the project move forward.
Knowledge and Discipline
The producer doesn't have to be a coding wizard or the greatest artist, but they should know the basics of all disciplines of game development. If you don't know the general process behind creating a 3D model, how can you estimate how long it will take? However, you should always remember that experienced people are generally pretty good at scheduling and estimating their own work, and you as a producer should trust their judgment. There are always new things to learn when developing games, so try researching the jobs of your teammates on your downtime.
Ability to Work Under Pressure
Your job is to reassure the team, help it face everyday problems and take the responsibility for all things gone wrong during development.
Knowing that the team relies on you at all times may be stressful, so you have to be able to handle that stress. Learning healthy ways to cope with stress is a major skill in keeping yourself from burning out.
Soft Skills
Abilities like teamwork, communication skills, listening, presenting, and many other interpersonal skills are often referred to as soft skills. These include many non-technical skills that help you work with others. You might be the best at estimating workloads and scheduling but if you don't have soft skills, communicating those plans might be impossible. Learning how to give and receive feedback is essential since you will always be doing some form of quality control
Not everyone is a people-person and that's fine. There are many types of producers, and like all skills, soft skills are something you can learn over time.
Interest in Entrepreneurship
Whether you work in a large AAA studio or a small student team, knowing the very basics of how companies operate is essential. You should roughly know the cost of an employee on your area. This helps put into perspective all the numbers that you see circling around when talking about the business side of game development. How much would a large team of 50 game developers actually cost, and how much your game would have to sell to sustain such a team?
Also being familiar with basic legal jargon might come in handy when negotiating publishing contracts or figuring out how taxing works for digital goods, for example.
Like any other game developer, a producer has their own set of tools they can utilize to help them do their job.
Flip the cards to learn some useful tools for producers.
There's no tool that fits every team and project since every game and every team is different. Try to find tools that help your team and don't be afraid to take risks and try new things!
Tick all the responsibilities of a producer.
That’s the game producer’s role in a nutshell. Quite exciting, isn’t it? But how do you become one? That’s what we’ll look at next.