We have noticed, me and my wife, that in each company we’ve worked there are different definitions for these words. Wikipedia has this on file:
Although the term is an industry standard today, it was dismissed as “imitation Hollywood” by many game executives and press members at the time. Over its entire history, the role of the video game producer has been defined in a wide range of ways by different companies and different teams, and there are a variety of positions within the industry referred to as producer.
I guess it is ok, but the problem is that sometimes I have a really hard time understanding my qualification. I have been usually doing project management and my wife the same thing. It seems that most of the time, Producer, Project Manager and Product Manager seem to refer to the same activity, mind the “Hollywood” type of video games companies, where there is a different ladder, and probably more documented in terms of responsibilities.
Usually being a “Producer” for games means that you are an organizer. You are using tools like Microsoft Project or Basecamp or even Excel to brake the work on a project in tasks and then assign each of these tasks to specific teams or people. Then you have to talk with each team leader or even each person and create estimates using other type tools, mostly dependent on the methodology you are using (agile, waterfall etc.). In some cases, you also have a budget, which means that you need to fit the project inside a time frame and inside a budget. This shouldn’t be a problem if we would talk about building a house in a controlled environment. But working with creative people is a totally different story, because you also need to have another thing in mind – The Quality of the product, which is really beastly thing.
Most of the really creative people, in terms of programming or art want the quality to be the most important concern of the company and, of course, for the producer. But that is usually not entirely the case… It is proven that only some incredibly disciplined and rich companies like Valve or Blizzard can deliver on quality, not minding the Time and the Budget too much. Which usually paid up later, of course. But for this, the company and the project manager need to have complete trust in the skills and motivation of the team which is really not a common company profile.
Going back to the “Producer” concept, we thought when we’ve entered in this industry that a Producer will pretty much handle the whole product aspects and will have most of the responsibility for the quality, budget and time frame of the product. That is a lot of responsibility, but also gives the Producer the power to influence a product in a really decisive way. Which is true, if you work with an Activision producer for example. Interesting is that if you read a different Wikipedia definition, it seems that such a Producer is in fact a Product Manager. Which really gets me confused now.
A product manager investigates, selects, and develops products for an organization, performing the activities of product management.
A product manager considers numerous factors such as intended demographic, the products offered by the competition, and how well the product fits with the company’s business model. Generally, a product manager manages one or more tangible products. However, the term may be used to describe a person who manages intangible products, such as music, information, and services.
So, the conclusion could be that a Producer is in fact a Project Manager probably dealing with a “true” budget, but without the responsibility of a Product Manager, which is in fact a… Executive Producer. Or it is just that all these are names for rather blurry activity.
