Press Start Leadership Podcast

237 Episodes

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Rituals That Make Studios Better

2026-05-2514:37

Tell us what you thought of the episode and any topics you would like us to cover! Your studio doesn’t have a “meeting problem.” It has a ritual problem. When stand-ups, planning, and retros turn into status theater, the team doesn’t just lose time, it loses trust, clarity, and momentum. We dig into production rituals for video game studios and make the case that these recurring moments are cultural infrastructure that quietly determines how safe it feels to speak up, how fast blockers surfac...

How Game Leaders Balance Teams And Stakeholders

2026-05-1115:41

Tell us what you thought of the episode and any topics you would like us to cover! Leading a game team can feel like standing in the middle of a tug of war while both sides pull harder every quarter. We get honest about that reality and name the part leadership books skip: the emotional strain of being accountable up to publishers and execs while staying responsible to the developers doing the work. We break down why pressure concentrates on leads and managers in a video game studio, how inv...

Strategic Vision In Game Development

2026-04-2014:17

Tell us what you thought of the episode and any topics you would like us to cover! Your game can have a great concept and still end up directionless. The quiet killer is vision drift: the slow slide from a distinct player experience into a backlog of “good ideas” that don’t add up to a coherent whole. We dig into strategic vision as a real leadership responsibility, not a pitch deck artifact, and we explain why vision works best as a decision filter you can use when timelines tighten, budgets...

Game Development Leadership When Nothing Is Certain

2026-04-0614:34

Tell us what you thought of the episode and any topics you would like us to cover! Uncertainty shows up in every game project, no matter how senior you are or how “solid” the plan looks on paper. Tech shifts mid-production, the market moves, scope changes, and assumptions break. Instead of treating that uncertainty like a threat to your credibility, we treat it like what it actually is: the normal operating environment of game development leadership. We pull a practical framework from the pl...

Gratitude Is Leadership

2026-03-2916:15

Tell us what you thought of the episode and any topics you would like us to cover! Deadlines don’t stop just because the calendar flips, but something does shift at the end of the year: we finally get a clear view of the people behind the work. I’m talking about gratitude, not as a polite gesture, but as a leadership responsibility that keeps game development teams healthy, motivated, and proud of their craft. Game industry leadership often trains us to chase outcomes: milestones, revenue, p...

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