I found a free Udemy course by Derek Patterson, a producer currently working at Ubisoft in Berlin. Definitely check it out because it covers a lot of the basics.

https://www.udemy.com/course/an-introduction-to-video-game-production

I‘m going to be regurgitating some content from this course along with additional research for my notes so definitely check his course out to hear it from an expert.

The production cycle is the steps that take a game from a conceived idea to an actual shipped game. This process can differ from company to company but it’s important to keep in mind the general flow.

We can separate production into two main divisions:

Pre-production and Production

Pre-Production

Pre-Production, also called Pre-Pro is the very beginning where the idea of a project is fleshed out. This requires establishing a full design and choosing an art style. Followed by documenting these decisions by creating a Game Design Document, a Technical Design Document and an Art Bible as required.

Game Design Document: AKA Design Bible contains the design for the whole game.
Technical Design Document: Contains the programming, technical rules and design for the project.
Art Bible: A style guide for how the game should look (Moods, colors, shapes, themes)

This process may overlap with prototyping the game, the prototype can also be called a Vertical Slice (Think of a slice of cake that isn’t the whole cake) . The purpose of a prototype is to prove to stakeholders that the game is fun and that it is possible to make it.

Pre-Production ends when the Vertical Slice is approved and you have a complete iteration of your documentation. Vertical Slices are often done quickly and with lots of hacks (these are features created in a quick way for testing but may be dangerous to leave in the game without improvements)

“Pre-Pro = Prove your game quickly and be ready to make the whole thing.” – Derek Patterson

A producer will likely be involved in the planning and establishing of scope by coordinating between the designers and the various team leads. The idea here is to establish how much of this can be done and the timeline in which the game can be produced. They may also have to acquire funding for the game to establish the budget to work with.

Production

This is where the game gets built. Usually the production process is divided into milestones.

1. Pre Alpha/ First Playable:
   • This is where the whole critical path (core player features and main line of gameplay) is playable
   • This stage will involve lots of placeholders but ideas such as level size, number of bosses and characters will be confirmed.
   • This stage is to help gain an understanding of the scale of the game and if the critical path is correct in pacing.
2. Alpha:
   • This is usually the stage where the game is feature complete, meaning all the main features are present. (including side content)
   • All content and planned functionality is present at this point.
   • This stage will often have large sections of low quality art and plenty of bugs. But is a playable game from start to finish.
   • The Alpha stage gives you the whole picture of your game.
3. Beta (Internal milestone, not to be confused with Open Beta):
   • More bug free, polished, higher quality version of alpha.
   • The game is intended to look good and play smoothly.
4. Release Candidate:
   • This is the “final” version of the game that is possible to release.
   • It has all the content present, have high quality, and should be virtually bug free
   • Must conform to TRC/TCR requirements from platform holders. (Think about what happens in game if your ps5 controller disconnects or if you want to invite a friend in a multiplayer game)
   • These RCs are submitted to platform holders for assessment and will possibly go through multiple submissions to pass all the requirements.
5. Gold Master:
   • When your version of the game is accepted by platform holders, you have officially “Gone Gold”
   • This means you have a finished, polished, bug free version of the game that can be mass produced to amaze players.
6. Live Ops:
   • This is the stage after the game is released where the game is patched and supported.
   • Live ops tends to constitute mini productions with their own set of milestones.
   • Service games such as League of Legends require large teams to support community engagement and constantly update the game.

This is the part where the producer takes the reigns and tries to keep the project on track and under budget as they navigate through these many phases.

I hope that this post helps gain some clarity on a basic production cycle. I definitely learnt a lot about the scale and things to take into account that would have definitely blind-sided me if I jumped straight into the industry.

I’ll be updating my “What does a Producer do?” article after this so check it out!