Most game dev leaders are untrained. Here's the framework that changes that.
A free diagnostic masterclass for producers, discipline leads, engineering managers, art directors, and studio founders. Watch in about 15 minutes. Walk away with a clearer picture of what's actually going on β and what layer the real problems live in.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
β Free diagnostic masterclass β 15 minutes
Ben Carcich β’ Nearly a decade at Riot Games β’ Military leadership background
What we'll cover:
- β’Β Hook β what's actually happening when the game isn't improving
- β’Β Section 1 β The Framework: culture, vision, and process
- β’Β Section 2 β The External Objection: when you're too busy to fix being too busy
- β’Β Section 3 β The Internal Objection: leadership is a skill set, not a personality type
- β’Β Close β what changes, and what's next
If any of this sounds familiar β you're in the right place.
The game isn't improving β and you can't figure out why.
- Your team is genuinely busy. The plan is getting updated. Milestones are being hit. And when you step back and look at what's actually in front of you β the game isn't in a good spot. There's a gap between all the activity and the actual progress, and it's growing. You've tried tightening the process. It hasn't closed the gap.
You can feel something is wrong β but you can't name it.
- Not with the plan. Not with the milestone. Something deeper. You can feel it in playtests. You hear it in how conversations about direction have gotten vague and strangely optimistic. The metrics look fine. The board is full of progress. And yet when you think about what a player is actually going to experience β something is broken that nobody is naming. This is one of the loneliest places in game dev leadership.
Your team can't tell you what game they're building.
- Not the feature list. The game. What it feels like to play. Who it's for. Why someone would choose it over everything else competing for their attention. Ask ten people on your team right now. Count how many different answers you get. If that number isn't one β that's not a communication gap. That's a leadership gap. And it's usually not the leader's fault.
βI feel crazy. Like I know something is off β and yet I don't see anyone dealing with it, nor does it seem like I'm supposed to. Instead, we slowly grind forward without making things better.β
This isn't a talent gap. It's a training gap.
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The leaders I've worked with who were stuck in this spot were not bad leaders. They were leaders working on the wrong layer β because that's what they'd been trained to do. Process. Planning. Keeping everything organized and moving. All of it real, all of it necessary β and none of it the thing that was actually broken.
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The diagnostic masterclass above is about that gap. What it looks like, what's underneath it, and what changes when you start working on the right layer.
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If you watched it and want to go deeper, apply below. We'll reach out personally to talk about what's actually happening in your organization and whether GDLA is the right fit.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
This is for you if:
- β’You're a producer, discipline lead, engineering manager, art director, or QA lead working on shipped or in-development games β or a founder leading a small team
- β’You were promoted into leadership without formal training for it β or you were hired in and have been figuring it out on your own
- β’You know something isn't working but can't fully name what it is
- β’You want to get better at the actual job of leadership β not just the administrative layer of it
- β’You're willing to do the work, not just consume content about it
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This isn't for you if:
- β’You're an individual contributor not currently in a leadership role
- β’You're looking for a system you can hand to your team (this is about your own development as a leader, not something you deploy to others)
- β’Your goal is to get better at Jira or sprint planning β that's not this
- β’You don't actually care about the people you're leading β this won't land
- β’You want a quick fix, not a real shift in how you lead
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
The Advice That Keeps Game Dev Leaders Stuck
βJust trust your instincts β you'll figure it out.β
Your instincts were built around your craft β design, engineering, production, art. Those are different instincts than what leadership requires. Figuring it out alone works slowly, costs your team in the meantime, and usually leads you to work harder on the wrong layer anyway. Most leaders who βfigure it outβ just get better at managing process. That's not the same thing as getting better at leading.
βYou need better process. More structure. Cleaner workflows.β
Process is the symptom layer. Fixing it feels productive and doesn't change the underlying problem. If your team doesn't have a shared picture of what they're actually building β if the culture hasn't developed real candor β cleaner sprints just mean everyone is moving faster in slightly different directions.
βYou need more experience. Give it time.β
Experience reinforces whatever you're already doing. If you're working on the wrong layer, more experience makes you better at working on the wrong layer. What changes things is deliberate focus on the right problems. Time alone doesn't provide that.
βYou need to be a more natural leader. Some people just have it.β
Leadership is a skill set, not a personality type. Introverts, people who never wanted to be in charge, people who'd honestly rather be doing the craft work than navigating org dynamics β all of these people can learn to lead well. It requires the right models and the right feedback. Not the right personality.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
What's Actually Going On
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Every game studio has three layers that determine how well it functions.
Process
How the work gets organized and executed. This is where almost all leader training lives: sprints, 1:1s, roadmaps, reviews, capacity planning. It's important. It's also not where most of the real problems live.
Product vision
The clarity your team has about what game they're actually making. Not the feature list. The game. What it feels like to play, who it's for, why it matters. When this is missing, people don't make bad decisions. They make reasonable decisions from the wrong picture.
Culture
How your team actually behaves. How they communicate. What they prioritize when no one is watching. Whether they can be honest with each other about hard things. A culture that's too positive can be just as broken as one that's toxic β it just takes longer to see.
Most leaders spend almost all of their time on process. It's what they were trained on. It's what feels manageable. And it's the layer least likely to solve the problems that are actually slowing their team down.
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The shift that changes everything is when you stop managing the administrative layer of your role and start actually leading the people and the product. Almost no one in game dev tells you those are different things.
Why I Built This
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I'm not a natural leader.
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I'm introverted. I don't gravitate toward being in charge. I only ever stepped into leadership when I felt like something important was at stake and no one else was doing it well enough. The org dynamics side of the job β getting people aligned, navigating the things nobody says out loud, leading through uncertainty without pretending you have all the answers β none of that comes easy to me. And yet I spent nearly a decade doing exactly that at Riot Games, after years of leadership in the military. And along the way I made every version of the mistake I described above β working on the wrong layer, using process as a substitute for leadership, and wondering why nothing was actually moving. What those years gave me wasn't natural ability. They gave me models. I had to figure out β deliberately β why teams align around some things and not others, what it takes to build real shared vision, what the difference actually is between a culture that makes good games and one that doesn't. That's where this framework came from. And it's why I believe it's learnable. The diagnostic masterclass above is the starting point. The Game Dev Leadership Accelerator is the deeper work β built specifically for game dev, not adapted from generic leadership content.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
What changes
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The work doesn't disappear. Meetings still happen. Reports still go out. The administrative layer of your job is still there.
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What changes is everything underneath it.
This isn'tΒ for you if:
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- βYou're doing all the things β 1:1s, planning sessions, standups, status reports, stakeholder updates β and none of it is moving the needle
- βYou can feel something is wrong but can't name it, and nobody else seems to be talking about it
- βYou're working harder than you should have to for the amount of progress you're making
- βYou're not sure if the problem is you, your team, your org, or something you're just missing
After:
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You can see which layer the real problems are living in β and you know what to actually do about them
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You have frameworks that let you prioritize what matters instead of just what's in front of you
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You have more options β and those options are connected to how people actually collaborate and make things
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You can exist in difficult situations β even ones that won't change overnight β and still move toward positive impact
The shift isn't always visible from the outside right away. But the leaders who go through this work describe it the same way: the ability to see what's actually going on, and to focus on what actually moves the needle, goes up by an order of magnitude.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
What We Want Every Graduate To Be Able To Say
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βI didn't realize what it meant to lead β and now I do, and I've been able to change things for the better.β
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- βThe way to think about things β how to look at and frame them β is way crisper than what I had going in. The external articulation is really helpful. It's a neutral abstraction, not painted with the colors of your organization as it already exists. I can now see how things fit into the models. I don't think that's something I would have gotten just through work and osmosis.βΒ
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β Keaton W.
Producer, Riot Games
- βThe culture section was more insightful than I expected, because that's always a topic a lot of people struggle to explain and talk about β and especially to implement. The 16-week focused structure, combined with the video responses and one-on-one time, is what makes it valuable. Was it worth the investment? Oh yeah, for sure.β
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β Jim H..
Senior Producer
- βThe Q&A sessions were the most valuable part of the course. Right now at work I don't have anyone to spitball with β no one with experience from larger organizations or AAA. The material gave me new angles to think about things I hadn't considered, and the sessions were where I could actually dig into the specifics of my situation. By the end I was jokingly asking if we could just keep doing them outside the course.β
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β Tony S.
Production Lead
What Happens Next
When you apply, you drop your email and we follow up personally. The call is a conversation, not a pitch.
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We'll look at what's happening on your team, where the friction is, and what layer it's actually living in. You'll come away with a clearer picture of what's going on β whether or not we work together.
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If GDLA looks like the right fit, we'll talk about what the program involves and whether the timing makes sense. If it's not the right fit, I'll tell you that.
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The program itself is built around the three-layer framework: getting clear on what's happening in your organization, building the models that let you see it accurately, and developing the specific skills that move the needle at the culture and vision layer. It's not a course you consume. It's work you do β with direct support and feedback throughout.
Drop your email and we'll follow up personally about next steps.
Common Questions
Is this right for me if I'm new to leadership?
What happens on the call?
Is this specific to game development?
How much time does the program take?
I'm not the most senior person in the room. Is this for me?
I lead a small team. Does this apply?
You're not broken. You weren't trained for this.Β That's the whole point.
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Most game dev leaders are carrying more than they should have to β not because the role is impossible, but because nobody actually prepared them for it. The framework, the models, the ability to see what's really going on and work on the right layer β that's learnable.
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If you want to go deeper, apply below. We'll reach out personally β and we'll figure out together what needs to change.
