So what if we'll succeed

What the talk is about

Andrii Biletskyi explains why success itself creates dangers for a game or a company, and walks through three groups of risk: infrastructure, resource and false-goal risks. Using examples of two online games, he shows how too few or too many servers can ruin a strong launch, and how a live game without a stockpile of updates quickly falls behind player expectations. He then argues that overly fast company growth pushes people into roles beyond their competence. Another key point is that KPIs only indicate the state of a system and should not be the goal; two World of Tanks events illustrate how chasing one number can hurt a game. Takeaways: plan spare capacity early, prepare updates in advance, sometimes it is better not to grow, and study others' failures. Useful for producers, managers and product designers.