How to get into the games industry

The Producer

The Producer manages the games development process from a design orientated perspective working closely with the team leads and Project Manager. The Producer also works closely with the publisher to incorporate their design goals and ideas for the game and ensure these ideas are realistic for the team to develop.

At the beginning of a project a Producer will be heavily involved (sometimes in the dual role of lead designer) in idea and concept evaluation for the game design and making tough decisions about what goes into the game and what gets left out. When this process has been completed the Producer will have not only created the game design but also a vision of the game to guide the team. The game design will also evolve over the project lifecycle and the Producer needs to make sure that game evolves in the right direction staying consistent with the vision of the game. The Producer must be able to evaluate the impact all changes will have on the game and carefully consider these.

As well as creating the game design the Producer is also ultimately responsible for evaluating all assets and gameplay and making sure these meet the quality standards required by Eurocom and the Publisher. A good Producer needs to have good people skills and be very hands on with the development team, providing them with guidance and design direction to make sure they have accurately interpreted the game design.

A Producer needs to have a wide range of skills - they need to be able to negotiate game ideas with the publisher, listen to ideas from the team, keep the game vision focused, get the team excited about the game design and be comfortable and enthusiastic about working on all areas of the game.

The Producers position is one of the most challenging in games development and is very rewarding when you finally see the finished game on the shelf.