Risk Management for Video Game Professionals

Game development is a high-stakes, high-pressure world where failure often feels inevitable, and success relies on navigating uncertainty. This book gives developers, producers and leaders the tools to manage risk proactively – before it becomes crisis.

Grounded in 30 years of cross-industry experience and enriched by real-world case studies, this book offers a comprehensive, practical framework for identifying, analysing and mitigating risk across all stages of development: from indie prototyping to AAA multi-studio pipelines. It covers operational, creative, technical and strategic risks, and maps them to game lifecycle stages with clarity and precision.

The book is built for the realities of production, and each chapter is paired with actionable templates, toolkits and conversational techniques designed to help teams spot early warning signs, make better decisions and build more resilient cultures.

Whether you are leading a team through a live ops crunch, juggling dependencies across time zones or simply trying to avoid the traps that derail so many good games, this book will help you ask better questions, have the right conversations and treat risk as a creative ally. Become a Risk Management Champion!

Liam Wickham is an experienced leader, teacher and game development executive with over 30 years of cross-industry expertise. He has held senior roles at Sony PlayStation, Sumo Digital, Wargaming and beyond. Passionate about mentoring, he founded Game Production Academy and created the top-rated Udemy course Risk Management for Video Game Professionals. He holds multiple accreditations in Agile, Kanban and programme management and continues to champion learning through podcasts, videos and writing.