3 hours online/sessionThis online live course features Matt Southern, who has over 20 years of experience in game development and publishing. You will attend 4 3-hour sessions and complete 2 self-study sessions.
Whether you’re building your first studio or growing an indie team, this online course gives you the tools, insights, and confidence to lead creative projects in the games industry. To lead, not just manage, innovative development in games.
Over four dynamic sessions and targeted self-study, you’ll gain practical knowledge in the soft skills critical to success, like team leadership, cross-disciplinary communication, sales strategy, pitching, and creative decision-making. Drawing on decades of real-world experience, the course distils proven methods, hard-won lessons, and insider insights into an accessible and focused program. This course assumes only a limited amount of prior knowledge and is, therefore, ideal for newer indie developers and startups.
What you’ll get
- 12+ hours of expert instruction delivered in live, interactive online sessions
- A curated set of tools for leading creative teams in game development
- Real-world examples and frameworks you can apply immediately
- Opportunities to practice and reflect through short self-study tasks and optional workshop elements
- Support materials, including shared documents, templates, and video recordings
Course structure
- Live online sessions: 4 sessions × 3 hours each
- Self-study assignments: 2 sessions × 30 minutes
- Total time commitment: ~13 hours
- Language: English
- Format: Video-based delivery with shared documentation and workshops
Session 1: Concepting (May 14)
3 hours of lectures and discussions from 4Pm – 7PM CET
- The contents of a good presentation
- The elevator pitch, ‘X’ statement, game pillars and clarity of vision
- Embracing uncertainty: ‘nobody knows anything
- The importance of creative constraints
Session 2: Pre-Production (May 21)
3 hours of lectures and discussions from 4Pm – 7PM CET
- Agile for Leaders
- A benign dictatorship
- The big gates: prototype, first playable, vertical slice
- Prototyping and ‘game feel’
Session 3: Production (May 26)
3 hours of lectures and discussions from 4Pm – 7PM CET
- What needs to be ready for Production
- Getting to grips with the publisher milestone process
- Some simple guidance for budgeting
- Leadership and understanding how it relates to production
- Maintaining a vision
- ‘How big things get done’ – starting slow, then acting fast
- The definition of ‘Done’
- The ‘graphic equaliser’ effect
- Managing publisher change
Session 4: Post-production (May 28)
3 hours of lectures and discussions from 4Pm – 7PM CET
- Working with Marketing teams
- The ‘Belief’ and the ‘Monster’
- Marketing and PR
About Matt Southern
Matt has over 20 years of experience in game development and publishing, serving as Producer, Game Director, and Creative Director at Evolution Studios, Ripstone, and Lucid Games. He most recently co-led Firesprite, the PlayStation studio, and has since founded a codevelopment company, gametools.io, and has worked as a freelance consultant and advisor.
Matt has also maintained a keen interest in education and teaching. Including co-writing and teaching on one of the world’s first Master’s Degrees in Game Art, Design and Development, speaking at GDC, GDC Europe, Develop, and at Universities across the UK, including John Moores, Falmouth, Sheffield Hallam, Gamercamp (Birmingham City University) and UEL.
Recently, he has been developing what he hopes is a consistent, step-by-step guide to the main phases of game development for new creative leaders. This isn’t a course about how games are made, or how to create effective production pipelines, or how to utilise software. It’s about the other things that are needed, but that perhaps don’t get discussed enough—leadership, drive, passion, vision.
Questions? Please get in touch with us at gamedevstation@thegameassembly.se
