An Introduction To Video Game Production

Name: An Introduction To Video Game Production
Rating: 4.5 (1006 reviews)

How Games Get Produced - a tour through the main areas a game producer must manage to ensure a successful game launch

Free tutorial

(1,006 ratings)

17,050 students

3hr 42min of on-demand video

Created by Derek Patterson

English

English [Auto]

All the basics of how a video game is produced, from concept to shipping (and beyond)

A full understanding of the video game production cycle

The ability to create a backlog from scratch and then use it to help with the planning and delivery of your game projects

How to use mind maps to help create backlogs, and how to develop crew plans for your game teams so you can plan for key milestones

About how things like marketing, recruitment, localisation, play testing and team management can really affect your production plans, and how to mitigate this and build them into your plans from the very beginning.

How to choose which engine to build your game on, and which platforms you should launch on

What a video game producer does each day and what the key components of the job really are

The ethical considerations of being a game producer and managing game projects and teams

Closing and shipping your game project, how to manage bugs and what to look out for

The key documentation needed in a game project, what it contains and when you need it

The general finances of game development and where your budget really goes

What to consider when making your game accessible to all and how to build this in and who can help

Requirements

A device to be able to view and listen to the lectures
A PDF reader on your device
Office Software of any kind
A notepad and pen
That's it, you're good to go!

Description

A complete introduction to how video games are produced from what a game producer does everyday to how to build and maintain a backlog, how marketing affects your production plans to the ethics of being a producer, and a whole bunch more.

This course is set up for anyone interested in how video games are produced, from fresh producers to game design and production students and indeed anyone who just wants to have a look behind the curtain of video game production.

In the course we go through a set of lectures covering all areas of game production, complete with exercises you can try, and at the end we take what we've learned and run through an example project, which can act as a proxy for your own game.

By the end of the course you should be equipped to plan and produce your own video game in a conscientious way, aware of and now able to avoid all the pitfalls and problems most teams have to experience for themselves.

You get lifetime access to this course for one fee, and the instructor is an experienced games industry producer who's worked on some of the biggest games ever released (like GTA V & Cyberpunk 2077) and wants to share the knowledge they've gained so you can make your own projects in a safer, less risky way.

What this course ISN'T:

We discuss the skills of a video game producer and all the essential knowledge required to PLAN your project effectively, this course is not focused on BUILDING a game (check Udemy for other awesome courses on how to use Unity or Unreal to build a game!)

Who this course is for:

Game development students
New video game producers
Anyone who'd like to get into the industry as a producer
Gamers who want to see behind the curtain a little
Journalists who may want to do some extra research into the role of a game producer

Featured review

Ahmed S.

6 courses

3 reviews

5 years ago

It was a well rounded course, covering everything a producer would need to consider when making a game. I would definitely recommend it to anyone starting out in the industry. As a game designer myself I have experienced a bit of what was covered in the course, and still have learned a lot from it.

Derek Patterson

Veteran Producer in the Games Industry

4.5 Instructor Rating
1,006 Reviews
17,050 Students
1 Course

I am a game producer with extensive experience making all sorts of games from AAA blockbusters to free-to-play mobile titles.

I've worked on games such as GTA V with Rockstar, Cyberpunk 2077 with CD PROJEKT RED, and I spent several years studio building with Techland, developers of Dying Light and the forthcoming Dying Light 2. I’m now Production Director at Ubisoft Berlin, working on some of their biggest franchises. I've even made an Angry Birds game. In that time I've worked alongside some of the biggest publishers on world famous IP, from Activision to Rovio and many more.

I've worked with teams ranging from 5 to 500, split across different cities, countries, time-zones and languages, managing multi-year, multi-million dollar projects.

Before my time in games I worked as an Editor, managing teams to translate and publish major scholarly works and International exhibitions.

The through line of my professional career is managing large, international projects successfully while maintaining a focus on the health and the happiness of the people making them.

I'm hopeful I can share some of that knowledge now!