5.3. The Critical Role of Producers
The interview data reveal that producers have a critical role in managing the publisher-developer relationship and the development process. Producers or brokers are appointed by the publisher to work closely with the developer and to supervise the game development.
Sometimes development studios on bigger projects assign internal producers too in order to oversee the production and connect with the publisher producer in managing the development. Whether it is a publisher producer or a developer producer, their role is considered as vital for the collaborative relationship. They have to constantly “review the game and make sure the quality level and the overall vision is maintained” (John – publisher producer). They also supervise how the developer is spending the money invested by the publisher. They have to “make sure that the developer is spending the money correctly, wisely and effectively” (Jing – publisher producer). Here, Matt, who is another publisher producer, describes how he reviews the game:
I look at a game design and go, where is it strong? Where is it weak? And I’ll run up a report and do talking through it all the way. I do the same thing for the product and then go on-site and actually fix it or fix might be a strong term but I’ll push it to the direction where it needs to be fixed. I am always that bridge between the developer and publisher (Matt – publisher producer).
The participants of the study highlight the main responsibility of producers in bridging the gap between the publisher and developer. They explain that producers act as intermediary bringing different expertise together. An experienced publisher executive asserts: “I think it's a really critical role because they need to be able to serve both sides effectively. They kind of serve two masters and have to maintain the relationship, so they are the buffer between the publisher and the developer” (Allan – publisher executive).
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Producers need to have much broader skill sets and have knowledge of the creative side, as well as the business side of game development. They should understand the marketing process, the localisation process, the QA process, the PR process, the strategic planning, the finance requirements and the development process, and also make sure that all different disciplines have an understanding of each other and are working towards the same goals.
Laurence – a publisher executive – explains:
If you've got like 200 people in the game studio and then you've got another 100 people in the publisher, all working on the game, trying to coordinate the efforts of 300 people is pretty difficult. You have to interface between these different disciplines and make sure they understand the vision and everybody is informed about it. It’s a dual facing role, you make sure the development team are aware of the business demands of the production and the marketing and sales guys are aware of the product vision (Laurence – publisher vice president).
Angelo, who is a creative director working for a renowned development studio, also confirms that:
The producers are like the hinge with which the whole thing works, they have to make sure that people are really solid together and they can go back in their respective directions and work properly in their individual teams (Angelo – developer director).
Producers also claim that they act as catalysts for the communication and knowledge sharing between the publisher and developer. This is done by mobilising and negotiating boundary objects that are used in the development process. A publisher producer delineates: “I have to help out facilitate communication between the publisher and the developer, through negotiating the build, the plans and the milestones all the time, almost every day, making sure that that pipeline is clean and happy” (Rob – publisher producer).
By "clean and happy", he means the producer has to make sure that both parties are well-informed and happy about where the project is and whether there is a unified vision about the game and its directions.
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The participants emphasise the role of producers in facilitating communication and
"sharing information". However, the interview data suggest that producers have to share information selectively with both publishers and developers in order to maintain the relationship. Here Ken, a developer producer, talks about his struggles in sharing information with the publisher. He thinks if they stay transparent about everything, the relationship could fail. He says:
It is all just politics. I have to just make sure, as a producer, that the company is being paid. It’s purely about the economics of making games. You have to create the dual balance between the two, you’ve got always that massive dilemma, between "do we tell people the truth and potentially cause a problem? Or keep quiet about certain things?" If we do so, it might blow up the whole thing entirely. I guess we have to often keep stuff under the radar purely, so that we [as the developer] could still get paid (Ken – developer executive producer).
This is confirmed by Matt who is a producer working for a publisher. He highlights the role of producers in facilitating meetings between the publisher and developer, and also stressing that the producers should always be cautious in sharing the information between both parties:
Sitting in the meetings between the publishers and the developers, I learnt a lot of the skills about knowing what information to surface at what levels. It’s crucial to know what does the team need to know, and what would be beneficial for them to know. With developers you always have to be careful in these meetings about what to say and how and when to choose to disagree with their build or plans (Matt – publisher producer).
A developer producer called Andrew emphasises how critical and sensitive the producer’s role can be in managing transparency and knowledge:
So it’s a very dynamic thing. You have to as often as possible remove all emotions, remove all ownership and just really coldly look at something and go [is it] good or bad? How does that help? How does that not? Then you zoom out and ask how does this manage the
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relationship between all the different parties involved? So there are a lot of different layers to making a decision… when presenting spreadsheets [planning documents] or discussing the build [prototype] you sometimes need to lie and cheat, there’s a lot of politics involved.
You don't want to ring alarm bells at the wrong time (Andrew – developer producer).
The data show that the producer is a vital entity that facilitates the publisher-developer relationship in the complicated setting of videogame development. The producer seems to be able to interface and direct different parties through constantly reviewing and negotiating the boundary objects whether static or dynamic, such as game design, vision, contractual milestones, planning documents, prototype, etc. between them. But most importantly the producer seems to control knowledge that is formed and shared between parties. This role of producers in controlling knowledge will be presented in more detail in chapter seven.
5.4. Conclusion
This chapter described how the publisher and developer bring together their various expert knowledge, manage their cross-boundary work and develop videogames. They do this by implementing a combination of static and dynamic boundary objects, as well as employing skilful producers/brokers to manage the collaboration. The data show that static objects, such as game design documents, planning documents and the contracts, were useful in forming the publisher-developer relationship and at the early stages of development. The participants highlighted that static boundary objects created perceptions of trust and stability, hence their effectiveness. However, due to the iterative and unpredictable nature of development, the static boundary objects were proven to be impractical, also hindering relationships in the later stages of the project. I also discussed that videogame development required dynamic/epistemic objects or processes that allowed some flexibility, creativity and responsiveness for the development. The dynamic objects, such as iterative planning methods, meetings and prototypes were found to be facilitating the communication and knowledge integration, by creating common points of understanding. It was also shown that due to high levels of dependencies and complexities in the publisher-developer cross-boundary work, the producers/brokers were integral in mobilising the static and dynamic boundary objects, hence facilitating knowledge integration and collaboration.
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Chapter Six: The Power Games in the Publisher-Developer Relationship
In this chapter, I initially explore the participants' perspectives on the publisher-developer relationship. Then, I highlight the problems and challenges, focusing on the sources of the tensions between these parties and identifying an "us and them" culture in their relationship. Both parties emphasise that their discrepancies and differences in objectives have turned the relationship into a battle, rather than a collaboration. The participants also highlight that the existence of a power inequality is the reason behind a one-sided and asymmetrical collaboration, where the larger, wealthier party have the most power to shape the decision-making processes, hence the apparent irreconcilability between publishers and developers. However, the second level data find power dynamics rather than power inequalities, where surprisingly the developer has more control over the project in the later stages of the project.