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E95: The Challenge Of Live Service Games And How To Win with Ryan Scott

Building Better Games

Release Date: 08/12/2025

E122: Why Blizzard Killed Project Titan show art E122: Why Blizzard Killed Project Titan

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 team busy working, or are they just walking slowly toward the abyss? It’s a nightmare scenario: you’re surrounded by world-class talent and burning through a budget in the 10s of millions, yet the game feels further away from shipping than ever . In this episode, Ben reacts to Lex Fridman’s interview with Jeff Kaplan (former Overwatch...

info_outline E121: The $200M Gamble That Killed AAA Development show art E121: The $200M Gamble That Killed AAA Development

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: Are we chasing unicorns into a graveyard, or is the "Black Hole" game the only way to survive 2026? The math of game development is no longer adding up. As budgets soar into the hundreds of millions, the traditional "hit-driven" model is reaching a breaking point, forcing studios to choose between low-risk IP or the near-impossible gamble of creating the...

info_outline E120: The Hidden Pattern Behind 3 AAA Studio Collapses show art E120: The Hidden Pattern Behind 3 AAA Studio Collapses

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: What is the hidden pattern behind why world-class AAA studios, with hundreds of millions in budget, suddenly collapse? In the last 12 months, the industry has watched high-profile projects from Mind’s Eye, Ashes of Creation, and High Garden lead to layoffs, shutdowns, and lawsuits. While many blame "the market" or "toxic leadership," the reality is...

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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 day is nothing but back-to-back meetings, you might be busy, but are you really helping your team and game succeed. Senior leaders often grind 10–12 hour days yet still miss the most critical questions, such as: Are we building the right thing? What is the biggest risk we face? In this episode, Ben breaks down why we treat thinking as a luxury...

info_outline E118: The Truth About “Culture Fit” in Game Dev show art 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....

info_outline E117: The Real Reason Estimates Fail In Game Dev show art 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...

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

info_outline E115: The Culture Mistake Killing Game Development Teams - 4 Leadership Lessons show art 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...

info_outline E114: What Employees Actually Hear When You Say “Raising Expectations” show art 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...

info_outline E113: Why More Meetings Won't Fix Your Game Team show art 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...

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Are live service games truly dying, or are we just seeing a new era of evolution? 

In this episode, we sit down with game designer and product thinker Ryan Scott to unpack the difficult world of live service titles. Ryan brings a wealth of knowledge from his time working on major titles, sharing his unique insights on what makes a live service game thrive or fail. We dive deep into the concept of "switching costs," the importance of meeting specific player needs, and the delicate balance between mastery and novelty that defines a game's longevity.

🎮We talk about:

  • Live service games - dying?

  • The importance of serving real player needs

  • Why a “better” game is not enough to win

  • The elements to balance when updating live service games

  • The 3 questions to consider before any update

  • How elegance relates to design and complexity

  • Who you are building your game for - and who you aren’t building it for

  • Why every game is not “Esports-ready” even when the hype says they are

Here's the breakdown of the games and companies we talked about in this episode:

The Games:

  • Apex Legends

  • Battlefield One

  • Battlefield Five

  • Call of Duty (CoD)

  • Concord

  • Counterstrike (CS)

  • Dota 2

  • Fortnite

  • Halo

  • Hearthstone

  • League of Legends

  • Marvel Rivals

  • Overwatch

  • Path of Exile

  • Rainbow Six

  • Smite

  • Specter Divide

  • StarCraft II

  • The Cycle

  • Valorant

  • Warframe

  • World of Tanks

  • World of Warcraft (WoW)

The Companies & Studios:

  • Blizzard

  • Epic

  • Riot Games

  • Sony

  • Valve

  • 343 Industries/Halo Studios

Learn more about Ryan Scott:

In today's complex and costly industry, planning and estimation matter more than ever but are often destructive rather than helpful. Elevate your studio's decision-making and collaboration by learning how to get more out of estimation in less time.
Learn more in our Advanced Estimation Course: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/advanced-estimation-course 

Connect with us: 

Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/building-better-games/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingbettergames/#
Website: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZpMT-dUwQR-R4Mb4uub6Sw

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