Through Master of the Game, we sit down with Gameloft experts to explore the craft, decisions, and lessons behind building games enjoyed by millions of players around the world.
We spoke with Viktoria Prodanova, Lead Game Producer at Gameloft Sofia, about building resilient teams, adapting to change, and why the best production plans are the ones that evolve.
Read on to discover her “Producer's field notes” including the lessons she's learned throughout her career and the principles that guide her approach to game production.
Q1 — What's something players would be surprised to learn about your job?
Two intertwined topics come immediately to mind:
1.Players often assume we don't listen to them. We do, constantly! It just does not always have an instant result, because the production timeline exists – content does not magically appear, people stay behind it – people who work very hard. What we hear from our players shapes decisions long before anyone sees it in the game, however, lining up those two factors in a way that's obvious is not often possible.
2.People tend to underestimate how much time and effort go into things that might look small in-app. The systems behind a live service game are complex – tweaking, extending, rebalancing and building upon are actions that require attention, often weeks of coordination, testing, and trade-offs.
Q2 — What's a decision that seems small but can have a huge impact on the player experience?
Event scheduling is my best “guess”. On paper, moving one or two events by a few days looks like a minor calendar edit. For players, however, it can mean their entire routine breaks. In a live game, people build habits and strategies around the rhythm of events— when to save resources, when to push for the leaderboard, when to rest. Shifting that rhythm means asking players to re-learn how to stay competitive and keep their momentum. A "small" scheduling change is really a decision about players’ time and must be respected as such.
Q3 — What's a challenge in your field that players rarely notice?
As I mentioned, everything takes time and effort to build—and that means we're always balancing at least three vectors that don't necessarily align at first glance: what we want to do, what we can do, and what players want us to do. Those three don’t usually take the same portion of the cake but must complement each other within a perfect formula to ensure the best possible experience. The catch is that perfection doesn't exist. So, the "perfect formula" isn't a fixed answer we solve once—it's a living organism that keeps adapting as requirements shift and experience grows. The real, invisible challenge is being at peace with the fact that the cycle never ends.
Q4 — What's one lesson that completely changed the way you work?
The Golden Rule that reads as: “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.”
You cannot ask for requirements you don't fulfil yourself. As a team lead, you have to be an example - you can't just enforce rules and expect them to stick. People build trust by seeing how you actually work, not by being told to. And mutual trust is a process: it takes time, it can't be rushed, and it's also the most valuable condition in teamwork. I wouldn’t say it completely changed the way I work, since this was a moral lesson learnt a while ago and is also applicable in all areas of life, however, it is a principle I am very keen to and strive to always apply it in my daily work life.
Q5. Finally, what are your 5 steps to keep game production under control?
1. Plan to be wrong — then leave room for it. I reserve ~20% of every week for the unplanned. Fill 100% of the calendar, and you haven't planned—you've just scheduled overtime.
2. Trust the people doing the work to estimate the work. Your team knows their craft better than any spreadsheet. I ask for estimates early and treat them as expertise, not opening bids.
3. Check in regularly — and actually change something when needed. Re-planning isn't the plan failing; it's the plan working. A producer who never adjusts is just watching the iceberg approach with excellent posture.
4. When scope and time collide, scope can be compromised — not your people. The answer is never "work more." Crunch is borrowing energy at a terrible interest rate. The timeline flexes; the humans don't.
5. Keep the mindset flexible, not the standards. Adaptive doesn't mean saying yes to everything. Rigid plans shatter; flexible ones bend and keep shipping
