• Searching for publishers and conducting negotiations.
• Finding investments for projects.
• Granting video, book and other licenses.
• Helping on the game design for projects.
• Ensuring manageable and ‘transparent’ development process.
• Finding and licensing of the necessary 3rd party technologies.
• Supply of technical support tools for production processes
• Communication with publishers at all stages of development.
• Assistance in searching for outsourcers and organization of work with them.
• Active promotion of the developer and his projects.
A producer plays an important role while promoting any intellectual product towards its commercial success.
On the production level inside the company, he ensures a reasonable balance between the creative and conservative powers, that is, in the first place - the balance between game designers and project managers -, thus reserving the right to make final decisions in case of their disagreement.
Outside the company, a producer makes use of all data and contacts and is empowered to act as a kind of third power to solve possible conflicts of interests between a developer and a publisher.
The main producer’s task is a fundamental organization of the quality product development within the given terms and the given budget.
He takes direct part in determining the terms of development as well as draws investments for projects, often acting as one of their initiators.
The main goal of a project is to make up for all the costs incurred and earn profit for investors and executors, thus keeping their ongoing interest in making more and more good products.
Of course, you can manage without external help, provided inside your company there is a good producer.
Even if no one in the team officially takes this position, someone performs this duty anyway.
However, managing from outside makes it easier (or sometimes it’s the only way) to pinpoint some important mistakes and to avoid problems in the future. Being buried in his work on the project, the developer often loses focus and gets stuck in the endless process of debugging and development.
Today, we become witnesses of the industrial evolution. The effectiveness of the labor differentiation is more and more evident. The basic operational tasks are distributed amongst several business entities.
At this stage, producers of many publishers appear to be too preoccupied
with a great number of duties, connected with the product release or pre-exhibition
frenzy.
Because of the lack of the company’s inner resources, the publisher
sometimes fails to provide proper supervision of his own inner projects,
to say nothing of launching new external ones, even if they are deemed
commercially profitable.
In a situation with a beginning developer lacking experience in finalizing projects, the publisher is attacked by the righteous anxiety that a would-be-product might fail to meet the quality requirements or its release will be much overdue and with over-expenditure.
Bearing our practice in mind, we can assert that there are publishers
willing to sponsor development of new external projects, on condition
that liability for their accomplishment is fully borne by a qualified
production company.
In this case, the publisher focuses on marketing and distribution, i.e.
on the projects’ release and promotion. In his turn, the producer
sees to it to provide terms ensuring a timely completion of the project
and its proper quality. It is within producer’s duties, that he
assists in finding necessary technologies, advises the developer on various
issues, supervises the process of development, participates in planning
and sends regular reports to the publisher on the workflow.
As producers, we are quickly accumulating experience, making mistakes
and getting more useful contacts, as we have to deal with a great number
of projects simultaneously. The gained experience is immediately integrated
into our work process and, consequently, can be applied in the joint work
with our partner-teams.
There are no specific requirements. Having experience is not obligatory,
but is much welcomed. At the initial stage, we analyze the offer, make
estimations, enter into discussions and think it all over.
If the project is potentially viable, we present it to publishers and
investors (we may well act as such ourselves). If everything goes well,
we launch a joint pre-production project together with the developer.
We will by no means push forward ourselves at the expense or to the detriment
of the developer. On the contrary, our company’s prime concern is
promotion of the developer and his projects. Our mission is to make the
project successful, help the developer grow and to maintain his willingness
to lead his future projects together with us.
It’s beyond our practice to interfere with other teams’ daily working schedule –
the developer remains in charge of the teams’ inner timetable.
We can only give our recommendations on how to improve organization of work,
if necessary. We are constantly working on the efficiency of our working processes, i.e. formal procedures, involving paperwork such as book-keeping and project documentation, to give our projects a start and keep them under constant supervision.
It is within our duty to ensure daily contact between the developer and our producers and game-designers, as well as to arrange team planning and control
of the stage-by-stage development.
Upon the wish of the developer, we can implement our system of working hours, organization of work and performance control. What matters most to our
successful cooperation is analysis of potential risks and strict control over
the changes in the game design.
Basically, our major task is improvement of the efficiency of work on a commercially viable project and securing the maximum peace of mind for all its participants.
We don’t position ourselves as some dictating ‘what-to-do’ organization.
This cooperation shall be of an intellectual and sensible nature and shall allow for
the specificity of the developer and the project.
