Building Better Games

🎮 There are tons of “game dev tools” out there promising to fix your problems… but too often, teams end up serving the tool instead of the tools serving them.

In this video, I’ll break down a simple,…

Setting goals is harder than you think.

In this episode, Ben Carcich is joined by Melissa Phillips, founder of Games Leadership, to dive deep into a topic that leaders often approach with little unde…

Are live service games truly dying, or are we just seeing a new era of evolution? 

In this episode, we sit down with game designer and product thinker Ryan Scott to unpack the difficult world of live…

Do you need game publishing to ship your game successfully? What does a leader in a publishing organization truly do?

Join us for a conversation with Elizabeth Howard, an industry veteran with over 2…

How will the game industry adapt? Are we hurtling towards a gig economy?

In this powerful conversation, we sit down with Trent Kusters, co-founder and studio head of League of Geeks, to talk about th…

What does it truly take to deliver a great game consistently in an industry known for its challenges and complexities? Join us for a conversation with Steve Sargent, Head of Production at Blind Squir…

Game production lives and dies on planning—but most teams are still building like it’s 2010.

In this episode, Ben is joined by Jeanne-Marie Owens and Jesse Houston of Critical Path to reveal better w…

Hiring only senior engineers might feel like a smart move, but is it breaking game development?

In this episode, Ben sits down with Carly Taylor (an engineer and data scientist formerly on Call of Du…

Building a game is hard. Leading the team to do it well without losing yourself along the way? That’s even harder.

In this episode, Ben sits down with Melissa Phillips, founder of Games Leadership an…

What if the next great game studio doesn’t come from the West?

In this episode, Ben chats with Rob Wynne and Clark Kosene from Rising Tide Studios—an unannounced AAA-inspired indie team taking a bold…

How would you know if your studio’s culture is toxic—before it’s too late?

In this exclusive conversation, we talk with Charlie Sull, co-founder of CultureX and researcher with MIT, about how to spot…

Building a great game is hard—but getting players to actually discover and play it? That’s often harder.

In this episode of Building Better Games, Ben sits down with user acquisition expert Matej Lan…

In this episode, we welcome back organizational psychologist Graham McAllister for part 3 of our deep dive into one of the most critical challenges in game development—game vision. If you're a game d…

The gaming industry is changing rapidly, and the global landscape is shifting in ways many studios aren’t prepared for. Are Western game studios becoming too complacent? What role will international …

What does it take to lead effectively in the gaming industry? Many leaders in game development step into their roles without formal training—learning through trial and error. In this episode, we brea…

What if everything you thought about prototyping was wrong? Many teams rush to validate an idea too soon, but what if the real secret to success is building a studio that learns better? In this episo…

Is the games industry maturing or collapsing? How have our old models and comparisons hurt how we develop? In this episode, Leif walks us through how game dev has shifted, and how you need to think d…

Why did Bungie's founder leave the AAA world to start building games in UEFN? What are the advantages and challenges of UGC platforms? Today, we talk with Alex Seropian, veteran game designer and fou…

No guests today! Instead, I'll be taking questions from the Building Better Games discord and answering them. I cover10 questions including the challenges with AAA dev, the rise of co-dev, and what p…

There’s a ton of knowledge about how we sustain games, but the art of creating something new remains mysterious, even to veteran developers. In this episode, Omar Kendall returns to talk about unknow…