The working producer's handbook
Practical frameworks, best practices, and industry intel to help game producers ship on time and on budget.
trending
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How Double Fine and Compulsion Landed Their IP in the Xbox Exodus
On July 6, 2026, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced what she called “the most significant restructure in Xbox history,” cutting 1,600 roles immediately with roughly 3,200 …
From First-Party to Indie: The Xbox Divestment Survival Guide
How Double Fine and Compulsion Kept Their IP After Leaving Xbox
What Double Fine and Compulsion Keeping Their IP Really Means
Compare Unity, Unreal, and Godot for your next game project.
Role Identity
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Best Project Management Tools For Game Development Teams
You’re three weeks into production, your team is split across two time zones, and someone just pinged you asking which version of the level design doc is “the real …
The Core Skills Every Game Producer Needs
The Real Job: What Game Producers Actually Do
Portfolio Projects That Get Game Producer Jobs
Industry Intel
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Platform Certification: The Producer's Essential Checklist
You’ve locked content. The game runs. QA has signed off. Then someone on your team quietly mentions the cert submission deadline is in three days, and you realize …
What Game Producers Need To Know From GDC
Managing Unreal Engine Production: Producers' Essential Guide
OKRs in Game Studios: Where They Work and Where They Fail
Estimate the real budget and timeline to ship your indie game.
Team Psychology
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Why Game Developers Burn Out After Year Five
You’re three months into your fifth year at the same studio. Your skills are sharper than ever, your title finally reflects your contributions, and from the outside …
Stop Burnout Before Your Dev Team Quits
Why Your Playtesters Won't Give Honest Feedback
When Passion Becomes a Studio's Biggest Liability
PM Frameworks
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Why Scrum Fails in Game Pre-Production
Your team just wrapped a killer prototype. The creative director is buzzing, stakeholders are nodding, and someone tapes a sprint board to the wall. Two weeks later, half the …
Agile Methods That Actually Work for Game Teams
Stop Losing Developers to Burnout: Plan Team Capacity Right
Stop Ignoring Art Debt in Game Development
Project your launch sales from your Steam wishlist numbers.
Project Management
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Game Feature Prioritization: A Practical Framework
Eighty percent of your features will never ship. You’re probably building the wrong twenty percent right now. That’s not cynicism. That’s what fourteen years of …
Kanban Boards: The Project System Indie Studios Actually Need
Why Your Game Codebase Gets Slower Over Time
Stop Wasting Time In Game Dev Standups
Team Management
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Keeping Your Game Team Motivated: Strategies That Actually Work
Forty-seven days into crunch on our second game, I watched our lead artist delete three hours of work and not say a word about it. She just closed her laptop and went to make tea. …
Run Better Game Dev Retrospectives: The Complete Guide
Build Your Studio Team Without The Chaos
Onboard Game Developers Without The Chaos
publishing
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How Game Publishers Support Developers Beyond Funding
Most developers I’ve talked to over the years come to me with the same question, usually after a promising early conversation with a publisher has left them more confused …
Secure Better Terms: The Game Publisher Negotiation Guide
The Press Kit Checklist Every Indie Dev Needs
Build Hype Before Launch: The Indie Game Wishlist Strategy
careers
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Associate Producer Game Industry: 41% Skip This Key Responsibility
Roughly 34% of associate producers in games leave the role within 18 months. Not because they couldn’t handle the work, but because nobody told them what the work actually …
Game Dev Salaries 2026: What Each Role Really Pays
Land Your Game Producer Role: 15 Key Interview Questions
Move From QA Testing Into Game Production Roles
milestones
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First Playable Milestone Checklist for Game Producers
Forty-three percent of the projects I’ve seen blow their first playable milestone didn’t fail because the team lacked talent. They failed because nobody agreed on what …
Content Complete Milestones: Your Game Dev Roadmap
When To Launch Alpha vs Beta: A Dev's Roadmap
Publisher Deal Milestones: A Game Dev Roadmap
production
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Game Localization Management: Key Strategies for Global Release
Localization will eat your schedule alive if you let it. I’ve watched it happen on three different projects, including one where we thought we had it handled, and then …
1,847 Bugs Later: How Game Teams Triage Faster
How Indie Game Devs Should Test Before Launch
Keep Your Game Team In Sync: Version Control Guide
budgeting
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Keep Your Game Studio Solvent: Cash Flow Essentials
Thirty percent of indie studios that fail cite cash flow problems as the primary cause. Not bad games. Not marketing failures. Cash flow. The money was there on paper, and then it …
Stop Game Projects From Bleeding Money
Stop Guessing Your Game Dev Budget: A Real Plan
Funding Your Indie Game: 7 Real Money Options
Getting Started
How Long Does It Take to Make an Indie Game? 22 Months Average
73% of solo indie developers take longer than two years to ship their first game. That’s not a rumor. That’s from the Game Developers Conference State of the Game …
Make a Video Game With $200 and Zero Experience
Indie Game Development Costs: What You'll Actually Spend
Best Game Engine: Unity vs Unreal vs Godot (Full Comparison)
planning
Why 5.3 Hours of Buffer Time Matters in Game Schedules
Seventy percent of game projects miss their original ship date. Not by a little. According to a 2022 survey by the Game Developers Conference, the average delay across mid-size …
Keep Your Game Fresh: Post-Launch Content Planning
Release Your Game On Time: The Planning Framework That Works
Master Your Game Dev Timeline in 5 Steps
strategy
70% of Gamers Accept Delays: How Studios Handle Launch Postponement
Roughly 70% of video game projects ship late. That’s not a rumor or an industry whisper, a 2023 Game Developer Conference survey of over 2,800 developers found that just 29% …
Game Contracts Every Developer Needs To Know
Build Your Game Studio's Revenue Model From Day One
Launch Your Indie Game Studio: The Complete Roadmap
Game Business
Steam Revenue Calculator: Estimate Your Game's Earnings on Steam
Launching a game on Steam without a revenue projection is like shipping without a milestone plan. You might land somewhere interesting, or you might run out of runway before you …
Indie Game Budget Estimator: Calculate Your True Development Costs
Game Revenue Share Calculator: Split Revenue the Right Way
metrics
The Metrics That Define Successful Game Production
Most producers track the wrong things. They spend Monday morning staring at a burndown chart that tells them work got done, but nothing about whether it was the right work or …
Track Player Behavior: The Indie Dev's Analytics Guide
The Playtester's Guide: Feedback That Actually Improves Games
Engines and Tools
Unity vs Unreal for Beginners: Which Engine to Pick
Most people who ask me this question have already spent two weeks reading forum threads and come away more confused than when they started. You might be wondering if you picked the …
Make a Game Without Coding: What Actually Works
Game Engines
Game Engine Comparison: 12 Engines Compared Side by Side (2026)
Picking a game engine is the first real commitment you make as a developer, and changing it later is expensive. The right choice depends less on which engine is “best” …
Which Game Engine Is Right for You? Take the Quiz
tools
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