Building Better Games

Jonathan McCaffrey (JMac) is a leader and engineer who has worked to help engineering and production understand each other wherever he worked. He covers working with limited resources at a new startup, the fallacy of being either fast or clean but not both, and what it's like scaling from small to large companies and back again. If you want a better understanding of engineering in game dev, this i...

Dominic is a master at navigating the complexity of organizations and embodies everything we believe about modern talent development and HR. We dig in on what's changing in this world, perception vs reality when it comes to corporate HR, and the skills and awareness leaders need today to be successful with their talent in the midst of a revolution.

Randy Tau wanted to talk about ownership, and we were happy to oblige. Randy's career runs from startups to the military to being a director at Amazon. We cover ownership from a ton of angles, and also talk about leading at scale and what it means to level yourself up.

"BigBoss" is the creator of the Flavor Universalis mod, one of the most successful Europa Universalis IV mods out there. He is about to live every modder's dream by going and working for Paradox on the game he used to mod for free. In this podcast, he talks a bit about his process, how he relates to his community, and what it has been like to lead a successful modding project.

Grace Liu is an experienced Art Director and Lead Artist working at Netflix with past experience at Riot Games and Blizzard. She shares her journey into leadership, focusing on what the shift from individual contributor to leader looked like, as well as how her less directive style leads to great results for her people. We talk about art, crunch, and more. Check it out!

In this episode, we bring in Erin Hardman to talk about recruiting in games. Erin has been hiring leaders and developers in the games industry for years and provides a look at some myths in the games industry when it comes to hiring, as well as exploring how finding talent for game dev has changed due to COVID and remote work.

Understanding how people join your team and who they should be is a sacred process. Companies live and die on their ability to hire effectively. Join us as we go through the key (and core) principles of how we approach hiring, what companies get wrong, and discuss practical tools that you can use to set your team and yourself up for success (and finding great people).

Arcane released in 2021 and quickly became the highest rated series on Netflix, recently winning 9 Annie awards. We've seen our share of video game flops in film and TV, so we wanted to get a better understanding of why Arcane succeeded. In this episode, we talk to Alex Yee, one of the show's original creators responsible for writing and producing Arcane. We talk about how the show came to be, lea...

Part 2 of Managing Others! This time we're talking about accountability and advocacy. With accountability, we look at how you can set expectations within your org as a leader and someone responsible for growing others. With advocacy, we look at a crucial role a manager plays for their employee and the company. Take a listen, and let us know what you think!

Nearly every adult has had a boss. Many people have been a boss. Yet so few people have thought about what it means to be a good boss beyond the superficial. What makes a good boss? What role do they play in the work lives (and lives!) of the people they manage? Ben and Aaron start off the podcast with a debate about what should make bosses tick, then explore two of their people management pillars...

Content pipelines! There's little info about them outside of the game industry, and even within it we tend to view them as some reductionist and step by step repeatable process, a machine you shove artists and writers and designers into to get 'game art stuff' out the other end. In this podcast we talk to @David Klaus, an Agile Coach and former producer who led one of the most profitable teams in...

It's our first episode of Season 2! We've renamed ourselves Building Better Games, and we're going to start by talking about the importance of maintaining a connection between game devs, the game they're making, and the audience. Get ready to talk about playtests, product thinking, and player empathy. Enjoy!

In episode 19, @Ryan Scott joins Ben and Aaron to talk about Game Design. The conversation ranges from what makes a good game designer, to the relationship between product leadership and design, then over to modern trends and a shared skepticism of NFT-oriented games. Hope you enjoy it!

What is ' Holistic Leadership'? In this episode, Aaron and Ben talk about what it means to be a leader and operating at more than just the process layer. They discuss how leadership and management are different, which do we most often see, and what do we need more of in the modern world? Take a listen if you're trying to improve your leadership capability and feeling stuck. Hope you enjoy!

Over and over we run into orgs that want help with 'the process'. Over and over we do a little bit of exploration and discover that the org's issues reside at a deeper 'level'. In this podcast, we walk through the three layers (Culture, Product, and Process) and talk about how so often leaders are focusing all their efforts on the layer where they can have the least long-term positive impact. Chec...

"Product Management" is everywhere in technology. Wherever you're working there is a need to understand what we're trying to do and where we're trying to go. The role is ubiquitous, it is crucial, and it is also undeniably difficult to do well.  In this episode, Aaron and Ben bring Darko Vukovic to the podcast. Darko's an ex-Riot/Google/Oracle PM who has led teams, products, and other product mana...

We often hear leaders lament a lack of 'accountability' around organizations. It's commonly discussed, usually when something has gone wrong. But what is accountability? Why is it not present when people seem to want it so badly? How do you set it up? In this podcast, Ben and Aaron explore the topic, walking through what accountability is, why we get it wrong, and how to set it up for yourself and...

For this episode we got to sit down with an old friend - Andrew Brownell. He's spent years as a designer and product lead in AAA studios like Riot, Red 5, and Boundless. Included are crucial lessons on getting yourself unstuck, the social nature of design, and incorporating learning into your development approach.  Brilliant guy and we had a blast.

Feedback: People don't even know what we mean when we use the term. We're talking direct, constructive, and growth-oriented - focused on the person and how they behave.  We tend to focus on the work and avoid confrontation, but if you ask anyone you know its likely they have at least one "earth-shattering" story of when someone told them the hard thing and it changed their life. Why do we struggle...

In this podcast we discuss and breakdown the major changes that occur as you grow into higher levels of leadership, and how our industry hasn't trained us to be effective when we get into them. Here we'll provide key focus areas for leaders at various levels and how the journey transforms what tools you'll need to be successful.

In Part 1, we talked about the framework and approach we'd recommend for a leader joining a new team. In Part 2 (this episode), we cover what bad looks like, some of the challenges you can encounter, and some real-life stories of how Ben and Aaron approached joining teams and organizations in the past. Hope you find something useful that you can apply.

As leaders, we are occasionally asked to join new teams. It could be part of a promotion or expansion of responsibility, it could be that they need help and you've 'finally' arrived to provide it. Whatever the reason, you are launched into a new and uncertain world. In this episode of the Valarin Perspective, Aaron and Ben discuss what a healthy orientation and approach looks like, and also cover...

So many organizations are constantly focused on solving problems and firefighting.  In this reactive position we lose a level of deliberateness: Are we actually moving toward our vision?  There will always be another problem to solve, and it feels very rewarding to solve them. What does it look like if we focus on abundance, and pursue opportunities instead?

For this episode we've brought on one of our esteemed mentors lovingly referred to as "Dr Agile" ( his super-duper favorite nickname). Ahmed is a legend in the software development and Agile space, bringing to bear the truth that this was always about sparking a mindset revolution, as opposed to just process and tools.  He's founder of the ICAgile organization, a PhD, and a thought leader across t...

Continuing our talk on Incentives, we dive into some examples and pragmatic ideas that can help you take advantage of the behaviors you encourage and discourage in your team or organization. Ask us questions, give us a piece of your mind, or start a discussion using the hashtag #ValarinPerspective Find us at www.valarinconsulting.com , or at @ValarinInc on Twitter and IG.