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Building Better Games - Podcast

Building Better Games

 Benjamin Carcich

Leadership in game dev is hard. I can't make it easy, but I can make it a heck of a lot better.

My name is Benjamin Carcich, and this podcast helps leaders in game dev who feel stuck, ignored, and out of options find their path to success.

I've spent the last several decades studying and leading in environments ranging from the U.S. Army through to game development. I want to share what I've learned.

Better leadership is a huge opportunity in the games industry. Let's make it better together. Better leaders build better games.

Gaming Management Leadership Business Technology Video Games Careers Culture Coaching Leisure
Update frequency
every 13 days
Average duration
55 minutes
Episodes
118
Years Active
2021 - 2025
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E18 How to be a AAA Art Director in Game Dev with Tomáš Jech

E18 How to be a AAA Art Director in Game Dev with Tomáš Jech

The visuals and feel of a video game are a lot more complex than even most artists think. It is imperative that your team is on the same page when it comes to communicating with the player through th…

00:46:46  |   Tue 13 Sep 2022
E17 Should You Create a Video Game Startup? What Founders Need To Know with Joakim Achren

E17 Should You Create a Video Game Startup? What Founders Need To Know with Joakim Achren

Every creator of a new video game or founder of a video game startup loves gaming. No one in this industry is unique in that fact. If you’re trying to get VC funding, loving games will not differenti…

00:38:58  |   Tue 30 Aug 2022
E16 How to Staff Up For A Successful Game

E16 How to Staff Up For A Successful Game

It seems intuitive that adding additional people will increase your speed in making a great game. However, staffing up is more nuanced than that. If you add people to a system where there are underly…

00:47:11  |   Tue 16 Aug 2022
E15 How to Save Your Developers Time: Avoiding Death by JIRA

E15 How to Save Your Developers Time: Avoiding Death by JIRA

“I want to be maximizing value. These tools can create a side game that actually is only vaguely and tangentially related to value, perhaps even in a negative way.”

 

 

Why do people hate JIRA so muc…

00:47:47  |   Tue 02 Aug 2022
E14 How to Make Amazing Content While Avoiding the

E14 How to Make Amazing Content While Avoiding the "Infinite" Quality Bar

Leading any team is a huge responsibility. You have the ability to impact on each individual and the product in significant ways. The job isn’t for everyone, and no matter how great of a leader you a…
00:45:55  |   Tue 19 Jul 2022
E13 How to Reduce Risk & Ship Your Game: Battling Organizational Fallacies

E13 How to Reduce Risk & Ship Your Game: Battling Organizational Fallacies

Aaron and Ben dive into some common problems they see working with game developers from startups to large scale publishers. You'll learn about some patterns to avoid and how to focus on continually d…

00:46:29  |   Wed 06 Jul 2022
E12 Building an Adaptable Engineering Org for Your Game with Jonathan McCaffrey

E12 Building an Adaptable Engineering Org for Your Game with Jonathan McCaffrey

Jonathan McCaffrey (JMac) is a leader and engineer who has worked to help engineering and production understand each other wherever he worked. He covers working with limited resources at a new startu…

01:08:15  |   Tue 21 Jun 2022
E11 Why You Should Embrace HR at Your Game Studio with Dominic Saintfort

E11 Why You Should Embrace HR at Your Game Studio with Dominic Saintfort

Dominic is a master at navigating the complexity of organizations and embodies everything we believe about modern talent development and HR. We dig in on what's changing in this world, perception vs …
01:12:41  |   Tue 07 Jun 2022
E10 BONUS EPISODE: How to Develop Ownership on Your Team with Randy Tau

E10 BONUS EPISODE: How to Develop Ownership on Your Team with Randy Tau

Randy Tau wanted to talk about ownership, and we were happy to oblige. Randy's career runs from startups to the military to being a director at Amazon. We cover ownership from a ton of angles, and al…
00:55:39  |   Mon 30 May 2022
E9 Creating Successful Mods: Flavor Universalis with PDXBigBoss

E9 Creating Successful Mods: Flavor Universalis with PDXBigBoss

"BigBoss" is the creator of the Flavor Universalis mod, one of the most successful Europa Universalis IV mods out there. He is about to live every modder's dream by going and working for Paradox on t…
01:34:01  |   Mon 23 May 2022
E8 How to Lead as an introvert in Games with Grace Liu

E8 How to Lead as an introvert in Games with Grace Liu

Grace Liu is an experienced Art Director and Lead Artist working at Netflix with past experience at Riot Games and Blizzard. She shares her journey into leadership, focusing on what the shift from in…
01:04:21  |   Tue 10 May 2022
E7 Hiring Part 2: How to Find Talent In Game Dev with Erin Hardman

E7 Hiring Part 2: How to Find Talent In Game Dev with Erin Hardman

In this episode, we bring in Erin Hardman to talk about recruiting in games. Erin has been hiring leaders and developers in the games industry for years and provides a look at some myths in the games…
01:18:39  |   Tue 26 Apr 2022
E6 Hiring Part 1: How to Hire the Right People for YOUR Org

E6 Hiring Part 1: How to Hire the Right People for YOUR Org

Understanding how people join your team and who they should be is a sacred process. Companies live and die on their ability to hire effectively. Join us as we go through the key (and core) principles…
01:13:01  |   Thu 07 Apr 2022
E5 How to Turn a Video Game into a Successful Show: Arcane with Alex Yee

E5 How to Turn a Video Game into a Successful Show: Arcane with Alex Yee

Arcane released in 2021 and quickly became the highest rated series on Netflix, recently winning 9 Annie awards. We've seen our share of video game flops in film and TV, so we wanted to get a better …
01:26:03  |   Tue 29 Mar 2022
E4 Managing Others Pt 2: How to be a Good Boss

E4 Managing Others Pt 2: How to be a Good Boss

Part 2 of Managing Others! This time we're talking about accountability and advocacy. With accountability, we look at how you can set expectations within your org as a leader and someone responsible …

01:21:39  |   Tue 15 Mar 2022
E3 Managing Others Pt 1: How to be a Good Boss

E3 Managing Others Pt 1: How to be a Good Boss

Nearly every adult has had a boss. Many people have been a boss. Yet so few people have thought about what it means to be a good boss beyond the superficial. What makes a good boss? What role do they…
01:10:26  |   Tue 01 Mar 2022
E2 How You Lead Creative Content Teams with David Klaus

E2 How You Lead Creative Content Teams with David Klaus

Content pipelines! There's little info about them outside of the game industry, and even within it we tend to view them as some reductionist and step by step repeatable process, a machine you shove a…
01:16:19  |   Tue 15 Feb 2022
E1 People, Products, And Playtests: Staying Connected To Your Players

E1 People, Products, And Playtests: Staying Connected To Your Players

It's our first episode of Season 2! We've renamed ourselves Building Better Games, and we're going to start by talking about the importance of maintaining a connection between game devs, the game the…
01:07:01  |   Tue 01 Feb 2022
S1 EP19 Real Life: Game Design From The Trenches with Ryan

S1 EP19 Real Life: Game Design From The Trenches with Ryan "Morello" Scott

In episode 19, @Ryan Scott joins Ben and Aaron to talk about Game Design. The conversation ranges from what makes a good game designer, to the relationship between product leadership and design, then…
01:28:17  |   Tue 11 Jan 2022
S1 EP18 How To Be A Holistic Leader Part 2: Working At Every Layer

S1 EP18 How To Be A Holistic Leader Part 2: Working At Every Layer

What is 'Holistic Leadership'? In this episode, Aaron and Ben talk about what it means to be a leader and operating at more than just the process layer. They discuss how leadership and management are…
01:17:11  |   Tue 28 Dec 2021
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