Mitigating Risk in Video Game Development

Game production is focused around 3 main elements, scope, time and resources. These elements must be kept in balance, risk mitigation in game production is done by taking actions to maintain that balance.

Scope is the definition of the game itself, risk in scope is minimized during preproduction when the GDD is being prepared. Elements needed but not defined in this document will be the primary cause of risks during preproduction. My first action to mitigate risk is being thorough during this phase. Secondly, during development It is said that the GDD is a living document, and so, every change introduced to the design should be documented, as well as its impact on time and resources. Keeping the GDD up to date will prevent unnecessary risks. Finally, designing tiers and stating the features each one will contain will help when, inevitably, cuts will have to made. The lowest tiers will contain the feature and add-on that can be left out of the project without any impact on development.

Time is defined by the publish date of the game, if the studio has a publisher, they will define and control the due date, if there is no publisher the studio will have to define this on its own and it will be strictly tied to the funding for the project. Risk happens in this area when the time to complete the game is not enough with the current resources. The first strategy to mitigate risks related to time constraints is applied when negotiating the publish date with a publisher, or just defining it within the team. As a lead it is essential to make sure that scope and resources are in line. Openly discussing scope and resources with a publisher, will ensure a comfortable due date for the project, thus minimizing risk in time constraints. Another way to make sure time is well managed is doing a capacity plan, both monthly and weekly. This will allow to compare the actual number of hours the team is available to work against the estimated total number of hours required to finish the project. This is done during preproduction and usually the first cuts and scope adjustments happen then. The third strategy I recommend is to follow an agile development methodology, SCRUM being the most common. The goal is to build incrementally, from proof of concept to prototype, to minimum viable product (mvp), and so on until the products reaches the desired level of polish. Agile development enables the team to make the necessary adjustment after each sprint to make sure the project is still going to be delivered on time and within scope. Tools like the burn-down chart help me as a producer gauge the speed at which the team consume their capacity, and the sprint velocity tells me if we will complete or the defined tasks or not. With this information I can foresee possible fires and make decision to prevent them from happening.

The third risk element, resources, refers to the people working on the project, this is the most volatile factor of all, the hardest to manage and the reason why producers and project managers exist. If there is no team, forming it during preproduction will ensure finding the right people for the job, people with compatible personalities and communication styles. During production, open communication with everyone in the team will enable spotting issues before they grow out of control. Finally, knowing the team and what motivates each team member is key to get quality work.

In general, for time and resource issues the solution will in most cases be to push the publish date up, or hire new people to keep within the time limits. If neither is possible then the scope needs to be adjusted, the different specialty leads will need to come together and define how to do so. It is recommended that those steps be defined also in preproduction, a single mitigation solution per possible risk is advised to minimize confusion on the direction to take when the time to adjust scope comes.