E150: Why AAA Experience Is Working Against Game Dev Leaders

Learn to apply Agile to Game Dev: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/agilefundamentals

Are we witnessing a total structural collapse of North American AAA game development, or is the industry simply burning away its own excess to make room for a scrappy, highly efficient new era?

In this episode of Building Better Games, host Ben Carcich sits down with Leif Johansen to unpack the current state of game development. They dive deep into why US AAA studios are disproportionately suffering from massive lay-offs, how years of easy funding and ballooning team sizes created a culture of "poisonous success," and why the future of gaming belongs to generalists, AA studios, and scrappy fundamentals.

What You'll Learn:

• What caused the structural brittleness and "boom-time" atrophy across US AAA studios
• Why the global games industry outside the US is weathering the current economic storm much better
• How hyper-specialization, bloated scopes, and "do you know who I am" executive energy distorted game greenlighting
• What lessons modern game studios need to learn from the resilience of Japanese game dev
• Why AA developers, indies, and multi-skilled generalists are positioned to become the industry's next leaders
• How the end of cheap capital, Game Pass distortions, and speculative fads are forcing studios back to fundamentals

This conversation marks Part 1 of a multi-part series exploring how to make games effectively, so if you're a leader in game dev who is trying to navigate industry restructuring, unlearn bloated AAA habits, and build efficient, resilient teams, subscribe! This episode and this series are for you.

🔗Connect with Leif on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leif-johansen-52139141/

🔗Learn to apply Agile to Game Dev: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/agilefundamentals

Connect with us:

🔗Ben's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-carcich/

🔗BBG's 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/@buildingbettergames

If you want help leading teams and studios to better games players love, you can reach me at: [email protected]

#GameDev #AAA #GameDevelopment #GamingIndustry #IndieDev