"Generally, a game producer is responsible for managing the overall vision, direction, and quality of a game..." This is kind of an old school take on what producing is. Many modern teams reject it. They accept that it involves deadlines, budget, client management and quality assurance. But vision and direction? Nonono. The producer who wants to hold the vision ends up appointing themselves as director, and it's a toxic power relationship that affects the game. Ego takes over. A game producer should serve their team, not command it. Be a facilitator. Be an anticipator. Be a counsellor and fosterer of talent. Be a protector. Be the one who finds the positive when morale is low. Be the gardener of the team, not the prettiest rose.

That original post is an AI prompt designed to get us to disagree. It’s also almost completely wrong. I can’t believe we are all falling for LinkedIn’s engagement shenanigans

A game producer is a force multiplier. They do not create anything concrete (digital or otherwise) that goes directly into the game. Game producers are leaders. They are able to influence others towards the goal. To do this, they need to be able to identify and/or set the goal, and then interact with other people through myriad ways to get people moving towards it. A game producer influences others. They use all kinds of communication and develop relationships to change things for the better. A game producer builds the systems that others operate within day to day. These system will help everyone move towards the goal. A good producer makes everyone else better. That is their core job. If they aren't doing that, they are failing.

Don't be fooled, while a game producer may assist in managing the direction of a game, they are not in charge of it! A game producer is more like the glue that holds a team together. A good game producer main goal is allowing the team to work seamlessly. They provide encouragement and implement systems to make work as smooth as possible. They might be the ones that establish the file sharing structure. Or they will be in charge of managing the team's Slack/Discord chat. Or they organize tasks. Or they act as a middleman between the artists and programmers (often a very helpful compatriot). Game producers rarely work on the game itself, but instead continually maintain the environment for everyone involved.

É um profissional que possui conhecimento de gestão de projetos e liderança de equipes. Eles são responsáveis por facilitar e guiar equipes no desenvolvimento de recursos úteis para os seus respectivos projetos/produtos.

Habilidade vai depender da área de foco do produtor, que pode atuar em diferentes disciplinas (arte, engenharia ou generalistas), mas algumas habilidades importantes são: No campo das Soft skills: Boa comunicação, organização, visão sistêmica, resolução de problemas; já do lado das Hard Skills: Metodologias ágeis, Análise de dados, Ferramentas como JIRA, Trello ou similares, Facilitação de reuniões, Mediação de conflitos, e por aí vai...

You need three core skills: 1) Leadership. You are able to influence others toward the goal. You help everyone see where the promised land is, and then help them take steps to get there. This is ideally done as a service to all involved - including the player. 2) Influence. Producers develop their skill at relationships, negotiation, communication, and understanding systems/data to make sure more people are making better decisions than they were before, and are moving in the same direction. 3) Systems Building. Producers create processes, artifacts, cultural expectations, meetings, and etc. and see the whole of how those systems will help others succeed. They iterate on things and remove what isn't helpful. Do these 3, you'll suucceed.

Here are my top 3 skills: 1 - Understanding of Game Development: A solid understanding of game development processes, including game design, programming, art, and audio, is essential for a game producer. 2 - Project Management Skills: This includes the ability to create and manage schedules, set and prioritize goals, allocate resources, and track progress effectively. Game producers must also be adept at problem-solving, decision-making, and risk management to keep projects on track and within budget. 3-Communication and Collaboration: This involves clear and concise communication with team members, stakeholders, and external partners, as well as the ability to facilitate productive discussions and resolve conflicts effectively.

Your core responsibility is to take a group of people who are working towards a goal, and get them to that goal faster and with less effort. It is an effectiveness focused role. Too often it gets confused for an efficiency focused role. Effectiveness is a team or group's ability to meet or exceed it's own objectives. Producers, as leaders, help that group become more effective. Second, producers keep a big picture view of the team in the context of the game and studio. They build relationships and spot problems that devs on their team might not see. Third, producers make sure we don't make bad stuff that players hate. This is often missed. But producers should be a line of defense against bad decisions sneaking their way into the game.

Building trust. Being humble. Listening well. If you aren't doing these things, you'll likely fall into one of several traps. 1) You might become a sub-optimizer. Sub-optimizing producers make the best JIRA dashboard, roadmap, or meeting agenda but entirely fail to help their teams succeed. 2) You might fall into the unskilled supporter trap. You get good at helping, but you fail to lead, and you end up doing all the work no one wants and may not matter, and the team is without the leadership they require. 3) You can fall into the authoritarian trap, where you believe the key part of leadership is 'being in charge' or 'knowing what to do'. In this, you make a mess as you direct people instead of asking questions. Avoid these.

Producers come from all over the place, but the core thing you need to want to do, is make everyone else better, and be better at serving and focusing on others, the goal, and the audience instead of your own work. Producers may really like JIRA, but the team they are on may not need help with that. So they don't get to do JIRA, they get to work on the teams problems. You lead, influence, and build the systems that the group you are "producing" need to be more effective over time. If that's of interest, you can switch into production from leadership disciplines in other industries, or shift from other disciplines in game dev. But it's about other people. If you aren't up for that, don't become a producer.

How to become a game producer depends on where you’re starting from. If you’re outside games, then get onto some game projects. Game jams, indie projects, anything you can get your hands on. Initially, just help with anything/everything. Learn what all the disciplines do and their pain points, learn from other producers how they help the team, organize the project, and facilitate the best possible game. If you’re already professionally making games, then it’s simple - start doing production work. (Admittedly easier said than done) When I expressed my interest in leaving engineering to join production, I was told to do both roles at the same time to prove I had the skills to do it well, and not set the company back. It’s hard, but doable.

I would like to emphasise 2 soft skills that helped me build trust with the teams I worked with: - empathy know as the ability to understand and share the feelings, thoughts and perspectives or others. Or as other would call it: putting yourself in someone else's shoes - emotional intelligence also known as the ability to recognize, understand and manage one's emotions as well as the emotions in others Sprinkle some common sense on these and what you get is a servant leader that has the eye on the goals and the team in his mind.