Madbox

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁 Madbox? I’m often asked this. Is it a Producer? A Product Owner? A Team Lead? The honest answer is a bit of all of that! At Madbox, a Game Manager is basically the mini CEO of their game track. Whether it’s building a brand new game from scratch or leading a pod on Pocket Champs, the responsibility is the same. Own the direction, the team energy, and the delivery. I usually explain it in three simple parts: 🧠 First, the creative vision. The Game Manager leads the direction of the game. Where we are going. What we prioritize. What we stop. You do not need to know everything, and you will not. You are surrounded by strong experts in design, tech, art, UA, marketing, QA and data. Your role is not to be the smartest person in the room. It is to listen, synthesize and make the call when needed. Sometimes that call is uncomfortable. That is part of the job. 🔥 Second, the team and energy. Making games is intense. There are failed tests, hard metrics and ambitious goals. A Game Manager creates clarity in uncertainty. Keeps the team aligned. Absorbs pressure when needed so it does not turn into panic. It is not about imposing decisions like a diva. It is about facilitating the best outcome collectively and make sure everyone is energized by what they are doing. 📅 Third, producing and delivery. Creative ambition means nothing if you cannot ship. The Game Manager ensures priorities are clear, scope is realistic and we are aligned with business expectations. You constantly balance quality versus speed, innovation versus feasibility, ambition versus performance. Yes, there is pressure. You are accountable for results. But that is also what makes the role incredibly exciting! Leading a game from A to Z with a team, seeing it evolve, pivot and improve, is one of the most stimulating experiences in game development from my pov. At Madbox, Game Managers have real ownership. You are trusted to shape how you run your production and your team. But you are never alone. Marketing, QA, UA, publishing and leadership all support you 🙏 You are a mini CEO inside the company. If this resonates, we are currently looking for a Game Manager in Barcelona to drive a new game team! #Madbox #GameDev #Leadership #MobileGames #Hiring

Making games is a deeply human process. 🎮 It’s subjective by nature. What’s fun for someone won’t be for someone else. And no process, roadmap, or dashboard will ever fully tell you if a game feels right. That’s what makes creativity powerful and tricky. ✨ It can’t be planned step by step or controlled from the top. And from experience, when we try, it usually hurts more than it helps. Over the years at Madbox, I’ve learned that the best way to deal with this isn’t to manage creativity directly, but to rely on collective intelligence and trust. 🤝 When a group of talented people aligns on an idea, chances are it’s a good one. And when things are less clear (which happens a lot), giving ownership to someone in the team able to listen, test, and leverage feedback usually leads to the right solution. That’s why we trust teams to make decisions about their games. At Madbox, the organization and culture are designed to help teams do their best work. Support doesn’t mean “do whatever you want”. 🛠️ For example, support means the whole organization is there to test games, challenge ideas, shape plans, and expect clarity on why decisions are made. That only works if teams trust the organization enough to actually use that support. At Madbox, this trust grows from a culture I deeply believe in: casual people you enjoy working with, mad ambition, transparency, and thoughtful debates. That culture creates a safe ground where trust can actually exist. When teams trust the people around them and the Madbox system, they use it at its full potential. And when the company trusts the teams, decisions feel safe, help comes naturally, and frustration stays low. It’s a subtle balance. It requires constant care. And it’s honestly one of the things I enjoy working on the most. 🌱 (The picture is just here to illustrate what an amazing team can craft together at Madbox — Pocket Champs 3.0 🙂)

Why did we choose Annecy to open a new Madbox studio? This is a question I’m asked quite often. So here’s the honest answer. When we started thinking about opening a new Madbox office, Arthur and I didn’t start with a map. We started with people. We wanted to find a city that would work both for our personal needs and for Madbox’s culture and ambitions. A place where building games could feel intense and demanding, without making everyday life exhausting. 🌲 One of our strongest criteria was proximity to nature. A city where we can step back, recharge, and come back more creative. A city that’s easy to live in day to day, where commuting doesn’t drain all our energy before you even open your laptop. Annecy checked a lot of boxes. It’s a human-sized city, easy to navigate, where mountains and lake are never far away. You can literally be outdoors in a few minutes, which makes a huge difference over time. Annecy is also a very creative city. There’s a strong ecosystem of creative and tech companies, especially around Les Papeteries - Image Factory, where our studio is located. And of course, Annecy hosts the International Animation Film Festival every year. For us, building games that could grow as IPs, being surrounded by animation culture just makes a lot of sense. 🧑🧑🧒🧒 It’s also, in our opinion, a great place to build a family life. Parks everywhere, walks around the lake, tons of activities. If you love outdoor sports or water activities, you’ll feel at home very quickly. In winter, the city takes on a real chalet vibe, with Christmas markets, cold air… and very strong cheese smells 🐶 And if you have a dog, good news: Annecy is extremely dog-friendly. They tend to live their best life here too. 🚲 From an accessibility point of view, it’s surprisingly simple. Geneva airport is about 40 minutes away, trains connect Annecy very well, and honestly… having a bike is almost mandatory here. Bike paths everywhere, amazing views on the lake and mountains, and a great way to move daily. Of course, it’s not perfect. 💰 Annecy is not the cheapest city in France, and living close to the lake has a cost. But by moving slightly outside the city, prices drop quickly while keeping easy access to everything. In the end, we wanted to offer this location to Madboxers who might not be hardcore city dwellers, and who are looking for a more relaxed, balanced environment to live and create in. Annecy isn’t just where we work. It’s a big part of how we work. And for us, that matters a lot. 💚 What matters most to you when choosing a city to work in? #Madbox #Annecy #GameDev #MobileGames #StudioLife