If you're a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: https://forms.gle/nqRTUvgFrtdYuCbr6

Are you leading a team that has plenty of people but can't seem to get moving?

You care deeply about your team and your game, but projects crawl and decisions drag in the. It's almost never just a talent problem. Instead, it's three quiet leadership mistakes that choke momentum.

In this episode, you'll learn what those three mistakes are, how they're showing up in your studio, and what you can do instead so you can move faster and see real progress on your game. We break down the mistakes one by one with simple shifts you can start immediately.

What You'll Learn:

• The Velocity Trap: Why any speed you have is "pretend" if your team doesn't share a clear North Star (Vision).
• The Cart in the Mud: The four specific foundational elements you must have in place to earn the right to scale , and what to do when you realize you've scaled too fast.
• The Crunch Lie: Why overwork and extended crunch quickly make you slower than if you never crunched at all, and how to operate at a sustainable pace.
• A Simple Reality Check: How to rate your studio's Vision, Scale, and Workload (1-5) to identify your biggest blocker and immediately focus your leadership energy.

GameDeveloper.com Article: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/addressing-crunch-the-games-industry-s-worst-practice-2

Connect with us:

🔗Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/

🔗BBG's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/building-better-games/

🔗Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingbettergames/#

🔗Website: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg

🔗YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZpMT-dUwQR-R4Mb4uub6Sw

#GameDevLeadership #GameStudioLife #ProjectManagement #GamedevTips #BuildBetterGames

If you're a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: https://forms.gle/nqRTUvgFrtdYuCbr6

You can't just test quality into a game at the end. You have to build it in from the start. Ignoring your Quality Assurance team's full value is a fast way to lose millions.

The state of game development is at a challenging inflection point, characterized by high-risk live service ambitions and a brain drain of senior talent. Host Ben Carcich sits down with Nathan Tiras, former Game Dev veteran (Riot Games, Singularity 6), to dissect this instability and dive deep into the discipline seen as an "entry-level" role: Quality Assurance (QA).

Nathan, who worked his way from a QA Analyst at Riot to the Director of QA and Live Service at Singularity 6 (makers of Palia), argues that QA is not just "testing" but a critical quality function that represents the voice of the player. This deep-dive explores how leaders must move beyond the "QA as tester" stereotype to unlock the massive subjective value and risk-prevention only highly skilled, respected QA professionals can provide.

What You'll Learn in this Episode:

• What "quality" really means in 2025, and why the best QA teams shape player experience
• How bringing QA in at pre-production saves time, money, and your launch day sanity
• Why bug counts don't define QA's worth
• The human edge of judgment, creativity, and tribal knowledge that no tool can replicate
• How great leaders build quality teams that protect business continuity and deliver real returns

Learn more about Nathan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-tiras-he-him-8a45754/

Company: https://www.whatnot.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathantiras/?hl=en

Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/95100/nathan-tiras

Check his other YouTube appearances:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2mmERgh19c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyt3bnBgNqk

Connect with us:

🔗Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/

🔗BBG's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/building-better-games/

🔗Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingbettergames/#

🔗Website: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg

🔗YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZpMT-dUwQR-R4Mb4uub6Sw

#GameDev #GameQA #QualityAssurance #GameLeadership #GameProducer #LiveServiceGames #BuildingBetterGames

If you're a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: https://forms.gle/nqRTUvgFrtdYuCbr6

Are you inadvertently forcing your team to serve a tool, instead of letting your tools serve your team and game?

In a recent conversation with Clinton Keith, Ben asked how Clint would help all of game development. Clint's response? "Delete Jira" - and Ben laughed to keep from crying.

Jira is a powerful tool, but in the hands of uninformed game development leadership, it often becomes a weapon against the very teams it's meant to help. Ben, who has used Jira and other tools as a producer within large studios, dissects the common, catastrophic misuses of Jira.

While you might be better off deleting the tool, the real work is about fixing the broken cultural and organizational patterns that turn a simple work management system into the "boss" of your game studio. Learn the four cascading failure patterns that are draining your team's effectiveness and how to correct them, making collaboration and player outcomes your true north.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

• Why senior leaders keep breaking Jira without realizing it
• How Jira causes centralization and decision bottlenecks
• What Jira DOESN'T tell you, and why that makes it dangerous
• How perverse incentives emerge from overreliance on Jira and other tools like it
• The reason you end up feeling like a slave to the tool
• How to avoid the traps Jira leads you into

Connect with us:

🔗Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/

🔗BBG's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/building-better-games/

🔗Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingbettergames/#

🔗Website: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg

🔗YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZpMT-dUwQR-R4Mb4uub6Sw

#gamedevleadership #jiraantipatterns #gamedevelopment #agilefailure #buildingbettergames