E81: Bad Playtests Break Teams—Here’s the Fix

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 differently to stay relevant. Enjoy!

 

Key Takeaways:

• Playtesting and Leadership: How leaders set the tone for playtesting with their behavior, not their words.
• The Slow Rise of "Forever" Games: How players spending more time in older games is reshaping play patterns.
• Drinking Our Own Kool-aid: Too many games have an expectation that they'll wildly succeed and make decisions that cause anything but breakout success to lead to studio failure
• The Challenge of Scale: Games may be different, but we may need to look outside our space to tackle the problem of large organizations.
• Specialization in Game Dev: Generalists have value, but large companies are often looking for specific, deep skills rather than breadth of capability

 

👉 Connect with Leif Johansen

• Leif Johansen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leif-johansen-52139141

 

Our discord community is live! Join here to engage with leaders and producers in game dev looking to make our industry a better place that makes better games: https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ

 

If you're interested in an online course on becoming a better game producer, head here: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production

 

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

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@buildingbettergames

Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6QD5yIbFdJXvccO8Z5aXpm

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