Libsyn Directory

E89: Stop Crippling Your Team: How Leaders Create—and Fix—Bottlenecks

Release Date: 05/20/2025

E118: The Truth About “Culture Fit” in Game Dev

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: Is your "culture fit" interview actually just a trap for hiring clones? We tackle the paradox of culture in game development. While many studios are abandoning "culture fit" to avoid echo chambers and bias, ignoring it entirely can lead to toxic hires that destroy trust and decision-making. Ben breaks down the two distinct types of culture—Taste vs....

E117: The Real Reason Estimates Fail In Game Dev

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: Stop treating your game dev estimates like a prophecy; you aren't a prophet. If your estimates keep failing, it’s not because your team is bad at math; it’s because you’re using estimation as a fortune-telling machine instead of a decision-making tool. In this episode, Ben breaks down why "perfect" plans are a trap in the high-uncertainty world of...

E116: The Real Reason Your Game Isn’t Fun (It’s Not Effort)

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: If your team keeps promising that the game will be "fun later," you aren't suffering from a lack of effort—you're suffering from a lack of prioritization. Shipping a mountain of features means nothing if you haven't validated the experience with real players. In this episode, we break down why hiding behind a massive backlog or a 100-page GDD is a "red...

E115: The Culture Mistake Killing Game Development Teams - 4 Leadership Lessons

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: The game industry is undergoing a massive shift. Between the rise of "black hole games" that consume all player attention and the skyrocketing costs of AAA development, the old playbooks for leadership are breaking. In this episode, Ben is joined by Andrew Brownell, a veteran Game Director at Netflix Games. Andrew brings over 20 years of experience from...

E114: What Employees Actually Hear When You Say “Raising Expectations”

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: When leaders say they’re “raising expectations,” teams often hear one thing: work more. That gap between intent and impact is why so many game dev organizations feel terrible to work at—and why “raise the bar” messages often land as threat, not motivation. In this solo episode, Ben unpacks the tragedy of perspective between senior leaders who...

E113: Why More Meetings Won't Fix Your Game Team

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: Stop adding meetings to fix your game. In this episode, Ben Carcich sits down with Glenn Paul Gray, Production Director at PeopleFun, to dismantle the "more syncs = more alignment" myth. They explore how piling on well-attended meetings often creates overhead rather than clarity and why your work system must adapt to the specific stage of development...

E112: The Game Producer Trap: Busy, Helpful, Useless

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, able to spot problems but struggling to make a real difference, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: If you disappeared for a week, would your team lose their momentum—or just their note-taker? Most game producers are stuck in a "checklist trap"—spending their days managing tickets, booking meetings, and taking notes without ever understanding the actual goal. In this episode, Ben breaks down why production is fundamentally a leadership role...

E111: Why Western Game Dev Is Breaking — What Leaders Do Next

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: 30,000 Layoffs. Solid prototypes can’t get funding. Western Game Dev Is Breaking. In this episode, Rich Vogel explains why Western game development isn’t in a downturn, it’s in a reset. Fresh off fundraising conversations in 2025-2026, Rich breaks down why funding for large-budget games has nearly disappeared, why publishers and VCs are pulling back from North American teams, and how leadership decisions, not...

E110: The Truth About Game Studio Politics (And How to Win Without Becoming a Monster)

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: You're doing the work, fighting for your team, but your ideas stall in meetings and people with less context somehow have more influence than you. It can feel like the only way to win is to become the political operator you hate. In this episode, Ben breaks down the simple, three-part system for influence—the Influence Trifecta—so you can drive change for your team and career without selling your soul....

E109: Is Ethical AI in Game Dev Even Possible?

Building Better Games

If you’re a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: Leadership in game dev is hard, but choosing to ignore the biggest technological shift of our generation is a high-stakes gamble. In this episode, we talk with Benjamin Chevalier, Chief AI Officer at Mighty Bear Games, who has a uniquely informed perspective as an Art Director turned tech leader who has spent two decades building games for Ubisoft, Disney, LucasArts, and King. Ben Chevalier outlines his pragmatic,...

More Episodes

Building a game is hard. Leading the team to do it well without losing yourself along the way? That’s even harder.

In this episode, Ben sits down with Melissa Phillips, founder of Games Leadership and a former Head of Studio, to talk about the messy, emotional, and deeply human side of game leadership. From BAFTA boardrooms to indie trenches, Melissa brings a rare blend of psychological insight and real-world experience to one of the most overlooked conversations in game development: what happens when power, pressure, and people collide.

They dig into what founders get wrong, why doing “everything right” can still lead to failure, and how today’s leaders can navigate burnout, broken systems, and the crushing uncertainty of building something new.

You’ll hear:

Why leadership in games is different and often lonely
The hidden cost of scaling a team too fast
How power changes you (whether you like it or not)
What founders need before they build the next big thing
Why we need to talk about failure and what it teaches us
What it really means to lead with resilience in an industry built on chaos

If you’re a founder, leader, or future studio builder, this one’s for you.

Connect with Melissa & Games Leadership:

🌐 gamesleadership.com
🔗 LinkedIn – Melissa Phillips
🎓 Explore the Games Leadership Blueprint – 12-week leadership program

Join the Building Better Games Community

Looking to grow as a developer, producer, or studio leader? We've got you covered.

✅ Join the BBG Discord
Connect with a community of developers, producers, and industry leaders working to build healthier studios and stronger games.
🔗 https://discord.gg/ySCPS5aMcQ

✅ Level Up Your Production Skills
Explore our flagship online course, Succeeding in Game Production, and become the producer your team needs.
🔗 https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/succeeding-in-game-production

✅ Get Insights in Your Inbox
Subscribe to our newsletter for fresh, actionable leadership and production content delivered straight to you.
🔗 https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/newsletter

Connect with Us:

👉 Subscribe for weekly episodes on building better studios, better games, and better leadership in the game industry.

#GameLeadership #IndieGameDev #StudioCulture #GamesIndustryInsights #LeadershipInGames

Join the Building Better Games Community

TOPICS