Couldn´t find a more appropriate forum, sorry. Who of you have producing experience, and what exactly is included in your job description of producer? From my experience so far every company has its own definition of producer/project manager and what they should or should not do...

At the company I used to work for being producer meant you were the one that had to communicate with the publisher. You had to do most of the play testing, fix any bugs you could and make sure things in the games were balanced. You also had to make sure everyone was getting their work done and give the boss weekly updates on the game status.

Depends on the type/size of company you are working for.

In a small company Monkey8751''s description is pretty accurate. In a larger developer or publisher you would need to:
-work with the team to create a schedule (from the design)
-assign tasks
-monitor progress
-make sure the team has the equipment they need
-keep track of anything produced externally (music, sound, additional art)
-report progress to anyone that needs to know (boss, marketing, publisher etc)
-review approve changes to design
-possibly help with PR/marketing (cos u know the game best of all)
-liase with test department, check bug reports, assign bugs to staff, handle submission to hardware manufacturers

in short spot problems before they happen, work out a solution, get it implemented.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

The producer has a number of roles. I would say the most important are:

* Keeping the team focussed on the goals (or vision) of the project.
* Main point of contact with publishers/stakeholders.
* Keeping the project under budget and on time.

There are heaps more i can think of but these are the main ones.

Cheers

Mick

The producer in game development is akin to a project manager for business world programs.