The job of a Producer

Blaze · 2013-04-27T20:07:58

Another article I wrote and that might be of some help for aspiring game developers: Just lately this noob has been promoted to an Associate Producer (yay!). After nine months on the job, doing my best to coordinate the production tasks I think I can fairly certainly say... Damn, I still don't really know what being a producer really is all about. Therefore, I am putting "part 1" in the title, but part 2 won't follow straight after it. I will probably write part 2 in a year or two, just to revise and maybe contradict the statements I will make today. So many producers... If you look at all the "kinds" of producers, you can find out such names as Producer, Executive Producer, Junior Producer, Associate Producer, Senior Producer, or even such weird thingies as Art Producer, Design Producer or Technical Producer. What is the difference between them? In many cases, it strongly depends on the company, but generally speaking, the main difference is the level of competencies and responsibilities. The core concept of the job stays the same whether you are a Junior Producer or Executive Producer. The only real difference is the number of decissions you will be expected to make and broadness of topics you will have to cover. A producer in gamedev is kinda like a manager In this case it means that he's as much everyone's boss as he is everyone's bitch. From all the info I've gathered so far, his role varies greatly throughout the life of the project. Producer needs to know what everyone in the project is doing and why. He manages the priorities of the tasks and is responsible for achieving the milestones within planned deadlines and budget. This part is almost like any other project management in any given company. On the other hand, however, producer can often be the guy that does things others don't have time to do. It can be anything from covering for a sick animator at a motion capture session, through attending meetings that just popped out, running the team's Twitter, helping with the game's slogan or logotype, to all the things people in the trenches don't have time to do while crunching: ordering lunch, helping QA check out the latest build or the most basic and tedious jobs, like renaming files, creating backups or watching the progress bar of the compiling build as the programmer gets his 15 minutes of rest. It is also quite safe to say that if there is a task where nobody knows whose responsibility it is, it is most probably producer's. Continue reading on Games Making Noob Blog...

Production and Management Business

Started by Woland April 12, 2013 08:33 AM

10 comments, last by 3Ddreamer 10 years, 11 months ago

Woland

372

Author

April 26, 2013 09:01 AM

2. I guess what I was trying to say is that the Producer is not above the ball, but below it. He is making it, rolling downhill and everything, but if you ever made a ball big enough, you know that sooner or later it will be much too fast for you to catch up with it. A producer cannot lag behind, cannot even be nudging from the sides. He must be always a few steps ahead and in critical moments clone himself to be all around the ball. What you are presenting is an ideal state, where everything goes as planned and market doesn't change throughout the production of the game. This might be true for small projects, but for anything that takes over a year...

I took a liberty of commenting the snowball metaphor a bit more here:

Concept Phase - deciding to make a snowball and roll it (and hit a shed down at the bottom) - 100% agreed
Pre-production - making a snowball and pushing it until it rolls on its own - it may never be able to roll on its own, even if the pre-production was done by the book
Production - running to keep up, nudging the ball to control its direction (but not its speed). - speed is an important factor. The producer needs not only to control the speed, but also be able to deliver additional snow if there isn't enough on the way.
Post-production - impossible to exert control over the snowball at this point (producer's legs are tired - s/he is winded - ball is heavy, fast, practically beyond his/her control) - if the producer's legs are tired, he should have chosen another job. This isn't for sprinters, it's for guys who can run the marathon, then remember they left the oven on and run back.
After-market phase - the snowball has stopped; people come out of the shed (angry) - why angry? Maybe they wanted a snow delivery ^^

3Ddreamer

3,826

April 27, 2013 08:07 PM

Once a person actually gets into a company, the combination of terminology and methods at the tactical level are somewhat unique to that company - a corporate culture in effect. It may take years with such a team to realize the opportunity to become a producer. If a person had the goal to be a producer, I believe that it would be one of the hardest positions to prepare and achieve it. Reputation would critical. Heavy emphasis on character traits demonstrated in things such as organizational and communication skills would be paramount, I would think.

Personal life and your private thoughts always effect your career. Research is the intellectual backbone of game development and the first order. Version Control is crucial for full management of applications and software. The better the workflow pipeline, then the greater the potential output for a quality game. Completing projects is the last but finest order.

by Clinton, 3Ddreamer

The job of a Producer

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The job of a Producer

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