Andy Kearney - Producer @ Supersecretgamedev

Today was the 7th guest lecture here at Bolton University; we were presented by Andy Kearney, producer currently at Supersecretgamedev. The presentation that Andy had produced was titled ‘Game Production or how I learned to stop worrying & love the plan’ this title was then cut into multiple subtitles that would be explained across the presentation, these were ranging from ‘About me’, the role as a producer, phases of development and also AAA and Indie differences.

Andy then went on to describe his role as a producer in the games industry a little bit further. He described multiple factors which gave me as an artist a little bit more information and insight to the responsibilities of a games producer and also why. One of the multiple factors he described was the producer being the ‘vision holder’, adding to this he described that his job as the vision holder entailed him to be the person that everybody looks to when they need help on certain sections of the development phase. This view from Andy, a well-known and successful producer within the games industry, allowed me to completely understand his job role in a different perspective and allowed me to open my eyes to realise that a games producer is a very stressful job, but very rewarding too.

Andy then went on to describe his role as a producer in the games industry a little bit further. He described multiple factors which gave me as an artist a little bit more information and insight to the responsibilities of a games producer and also why. One of the multiple factors he described was the producer being the ‘vision holder’, adding to this he described that his job as the vision holder entailed him to be the person that everybody looks to when they need help on certain sections of the development phase. This view from Andy, a well-known and successful producer within the games industry, allowed me to completely understand his job role in a different perspective and allowed me to open my eyes to realise that a games producer is a very stressful job, but very rewarding too. Throughout the development of a video game there are a variety of phases that the project will go through; each phase has multiple jobs and importance throughout the course of development. Andy described each phase that is needed throughout the course of creating a video game, these phases are:

• Concept

• Prototype

• Pre-Production

• Production

• Pre-Alpha

• Alpha

• Pre-Beta

• Beta

• Pre-Master

• Master

Each and every one of these phases add a big contribution to the development of any video game, whether it be an AAA game or a small application for mobile devices. Andy described the importance of each and every one of the phases within the development, this was a key part of the presentation to me as I got to experience first-hand a successful producer describe the jobs and time that would be assigned for each section. One of the most important phases in the development pipeline is prototyping your game. There are so many different ways of approaching this phase, some prefer to do it rapidly while others prefer to take their time and allow the game to progress throughout the prototyping phase. During the presentation Andy described how you may get prototyping wrong, but with enough time and effort during this phase, the ideas will eventually evolve over time. Llopis’ (2010) article: ‘Prototyping: You’re (Probably) doing it wrong’ reads that you may be approaching it completely wrong, this article gives off four common mistakes that are found when prototyping your game. These are:

1. Going with the first idea,

2. Not having a good question

3. Taking too long

4. Building a system, not a game

These four seem to be mistakes that allow a reader to understand the common problems that are made when it comes to the prototype stage. A factor that stuck with me when reading the article was how you should never stick to your first idea. This is one of the most common mistakes that game developers face when it comes to producing ideas, throughout this process you should always prototype other ideas to allow one to click. “Creating a prototype for a game you know you’ve already committed to is pointless. It’s nothing more than an exercise to keep management happy. Frankly, I even made that same mistake at Power of Two, when we prototyped the game idea we had in mind and immediately moved on into pre-production (and yes, later we realized we had to change things to make it more interesting).” (Llopis, 2010) The above quote taken from Llopis (2010) ‘Prototyping: You’re (Probably) doing it wrong’ shows how jumping to the first idea without prototyping others are a bad idea. It describes how the team immediately moved into pre-production with the game idea they had in mind, later on they realised that certain aspects of the game had to be changed to make it more interesting, this is due to not spending enough time developing your idea within prototyping.

References: Noel Llopis (2010). Prototyping: You’re (Probably) Doing It Wrong. Gamasutra [Online]. Available from: http://gamesfromwithin.com/prototyping-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong [Accessed: 27 March 2015]. Andy Kearney, (2015) Andy Kearney [ONLINE]. Available at: https://media.licdn.com/media/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAKeAAAAJDYxNjk5NzE0LTRhOWYtNDNlMC1hOGVkLTk3ZTVmZGQwM2ExNw.jpg [Accessed 27 March 15].