The video game industry’s rock stars have been movers and shakers since its conception. These exceptional performers create the impossible and find the way forward when you are against the wall. Everyone has met or worked with at least one of these standouts, a top-performing individual contributor, that one person who can get anything done under unrealistic time frames and figure out how to implement the impossible feature. They are masters of managing their own tasks and balancing all the subsystems of the products. Yet games are not built by an individual; they are built by a team.
And who runs this team? A team needs a leader. A manager to help bring everyone together. And while the rock stars of the industry are a tempting choice for team leadership, their skills rarely translate. The leaders, the unsung heroes of game development, guide the artists, developers, and QA through the jungle of game development to the Promised Land of a fully shipped title.
As individual contributors look to move up within the company, where does that path typically lead? Management. And since most companies would love to duplicate their rock stars, why not promote them to a management role? There, they can create a whole team of rock stars in their image! But the truth is, it doesn’t work that way. Before we get into why that is, we first need to look at what makes a great manager.
A great manager is someone who champions, protects, and listens to their team. Someone who puts the team before themselves. They take the heat for the team’s missteps and are experts in addressing social conflicts, team-building issues, and keeping everyone moving forward. They have also long ago hung up their paintbrush or keyboard for the betterment of the team. I have been privileged to work under a few great managers. One of the best examples was my first manager, who would champion my ideas even if they didn’t work out in the long run, and who helped me grow as a developer. In addition, he would never stand in the way of one of his employees getting promoted and would fully support those who had outgrown their role on the team. This included me when I got promoted off his team into a higher position.
When you compare what the rock star is good at to the abilities of the manager, there is a clear conflict between the two skill sets. This is the fallacy that too many companies fall into when deciding whom to promote. They fix their gaze on their best developers or artists and forget that the skills they prize in those top performers don’t translate to successfully running a team. Just as not all star athletes make good coaches, because the skill sets are different.
When rock stars are promoted to management, problems arise, particularly when they are developers. They tend to want to hang on to the tasks they’re so adept at and don’t want to embrace the switch to managing the people on their new team. Some companies address this by allowing them to do what is called 50/50. They can spend 50 percent of their time programming and the other 50 percent managing their team. Unfortunately, this just means they are now 50 percent less effective as an individual contributor and, more importantly, equally as ineffective as a manager. I have seen it many times: these 50/50 managers fail to manage their team effectively and are often lured back to the old tasks they were so good at.
Then there’s the rock star who’s so used to doing things their own way that they’re incapable of adjusting to a collaborative relationship. The company puts their top talent in charge of building and growing the team to new heights, but instead, this person becomes too set in their ways and lacks the ability to adapt to the new leadership role that requires flexibility and trust. I have watched this play out in real life. A manager argued with his senior-level team members over a technical design for an upcoming feature. These developers had years of experience, yet their manager was unwilling to trust their expertise. These kinds of managers sow discontent and frustration in the team, and, as we know, people tend to leave a company because of the manager, not the job itself.
So if we don’t hand the reins to the rock stars, where do we find the people who should be promoted to leadership roles? Look no further than the employee others go to when they have problems, the one who lends a supportive ear after a run-in with the boss, who will go talk to that boss on a coworker’s behalf, or the programmer who will put aside their task to help others for the sake of helping the team move forward. Of course, they still need to be competent in their individual skills, but they are the social butterflies of your team rather than the top performers. These leadership skills are not forged in the creative battle of game development, but rather in the break room and at the social events on the periphery.
Now, where is the growth destination for the rock stars who are such valuable assets? It is very important that there are always two tracks that employees can grow into. One is the management track, which we have discussed above. The other is a place where top talent can push the envelope and wait to be called in when the team needs their expertise. Most places call this an individual contributor role, like an architect or a principal, where they can continue to work on their own tasks and growing their skills, but still stand at the ready to tackle the hardest, seemingly impossible ideas dreamed up by leadership. I remember a company where there was a framework architect whose sole job was to be the wise man on the mountain, whom you could go to with almost any technical problem. He wasn’t the team leader; rather, he was the company’s AI/Reddit before those things existed.
In our creative team industry, we have a habit of putting the talented programmers and amazing artists on a pedestal, but the one who can drive social conversation and rally the team behind the ideas that hold the keys to success often flies under the radar. Your new manager needs to have soft skills such as communication, empathy, conflict resolution, motivation, collaboration, and social perceptiveness. Those skills are not taught by the organization or in school, but are life lessons that come from a mindset that there is a wider world beyond themselves.
For the sake of every existing team and any team yet to be created, this is a plea to all in a position to place a rock star game developer in charge of that team: Don’t be tempted. It won’t work like you think it will. Don’t let the rock stars run your team; place them in their own quadrant of the company sky where they can continue to shine.
Alan Uthoff is the Director of Product Development at Smarter Reality in Round Rock, Texas. He has worked in and around the game industry for 19+ years, including at large AAA and indie studios in almost every game role, from QA to lead developer. Alan enjoys creating and working with cross-platform game technology and building game tools to help others. He contributes to the game development community by sharing his knowledge through speaking engagements and published articles. When he’s not working or contributing to the field, he enjoys spending time with his family and sharing his love of fencing as a coach and co-owner of the Round Rock Fencing Club.