Risk Management for Video Game Professionals

410 pages | Published by CRC Press | 22 January 2026
Author: Liam Wickham

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This book is for you if you want to:

• Understand why game projects derail (and why the same patterns repeat)

• Build a practical risk system that fits real production, not theory

• Improve planning, communication, and decision-making across the full lifecycle

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Primary audiences: producers, production leaders, project managers, discipline leads, product managers, QA leads - plus educators and students working on team projects.

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Description​

Game development is a high-stakes discipline where design, technology, production, teams, and markets collide under uncertainty. This book uses risk management as a practical lens to explain how games are actually built, where delivery fails, and how teams can make better decisions from concept to post-launch support.

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Rather than treating risk as a standalone process, it shows how risk reveals the true structure of development: cross-discipline dependencies, pipeline realities, studio constraints, escalation behaviour, and decision-making under pressure. You will see how risks emerge, propagate, and compound across stages - and what to do about them before they become delivery failures.

 

Every chapter is paired with practical tools you can apply immediately: templates, checklists, facilitation techniques, and decision-support formats designed for real studios and real student team projects. These materials help teams identify early warning signs, prioritise action, and build resilient habits that reduce rework and improve predictability.

 

If you are leading a complex production, supporting a live game, or trying to build healthier delivery practices at scale, this book provides a grounded foundation in how successful teams manage uncertainty - and how you can, too.

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Free sample available here of Chapter 3

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What you will get from the book

• A systems-level view of risk across design, engineering, art, production, staffing, finance, marketing, legal, and security

• A practical step-by-step implementation approach (identify, assess, mitigate, track, monitor, communicate)

• Real-world case patterns that show how common failures take shape and how they can be prevented

• Downloadable templates and workshop formats you can use for planning, reviews, milestone readiness, and decision-making

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For Academics

This book is designed to support degree-level teaching in game production and related disciplines, especially where student projects struggle with planning, risk, teamwork, and delivery discipline.

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Teaching support includes structured materials such as lecture slide packs, instructor guides, worksheets/templates, a 12-week syllabus and assessment examples.

We have a dedicated For Academics section for inspection materials and licensing options.

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Table of Contents

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