Neverwinter Nights 2 External Producer Interview at Game Tycoon

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Have you ever been in the external producer's work? Game Tycoon has interviewed Dorian Richard from Atari, the external (publisher) producer for Neverwinter Nights 2, which is being developed by Obsidian. They talk about his duties and the difference between those and the work of internal producers who work for developers. He makes a couple of honest statements, such as here:

Does undue pressure from publishers cause some of the scheduling problems you referred to earlier?

Yeah, sure. Publishers want to get it cheap and they want to sign the contract fast, so they are partially to blame for some scheduling issues. I’ve warned my colleagues in the past that they should be adding six months to any schedule suggested by a developer, because it simply isn’t going to happen. Developers always respond to publisher pressure by trying too hard to please.

What kind of mistakes do publishers make during the development process?

The publisher’s producer needs to be good at spotting red flags and should have a good working relationship with the developer so she can help them work through issues in a productive way. Publishers often find out too late that there’s an issue that can no longer be addressed. A good publisher keeps on top of that stuff, as long as the developer is being responsible and open with them. A bad publisher won’t take notice of problems until it’s too late. But again, the publisher really needs to work to establish trust with the developer (and vice versa) or none of this works.

Especially Atari should have something to say about pressuring for an earlier release. Wonder how the big fish in Atari would feel about these outpourings, supposing they cared.

Real the rest at Game Tycoon.