Tackling the Overlooked: Mastering Essential Sidequests in Game and Software Development

The journey of creating a digital product – whether a captivating game or a robust software application – extends well beyond the primary stages of ideation, development, testing, and launch.

This final part focuses on the critical yet often underappreciated sidequests that can determine a project’s long-term viability. These elements, ranging from legal compliance to cultural adaptation, demand careful attention and strategic planning. Drawing from introductory materials on game development and enriched with external insights, this concluding article in our series sheds light on the numerous hidden challenges that developers must address to deliver a polished, globally successful product.

Understanding Sidequests: The Unsung Heroes of Success

In this article sidequests refer to the supplementary activities that bolster the main development pipeline. While they may not always take center stage, their importance cannot be overstated. They encompass legal considerations, internationalization, outsourcing, financial management, personnel dynamics, as well as ongoing operations.

These, as well as further less prominent, components are crucial for ensuring compliance, scalability, and team cohesion, yet they often receive less focus compared to core milestones. The difficulty lies in their diversity and intricacy. These tasks frequently run concurrently with primary efforts, requiring coordination across varied expertise areas and timelines.

Ignoring them can lead to significant setbacks—such as legal disputes, cultural missteps, or budget overruns—that can undermine even the most technically sound projects. As a Product Owner, I emphasize integrating these responsibilities into the project roadmap from the start, with clear ownership and prioritization, to prevent last-minute crises.

Legal Aspects and Compliance: Addressing Regulatory Complexities

One of the most vital sidequests is ensuring legal compliance, a multifaceted issue that can catch teams unprepared if not prioritized early. This involves securing intellectual property (IP) rights to safeguard original content – whether game characters, storylines, or software algorithms – from unauthorized use. Copyright checks are necessary to avoid infringing on existing works, while licensing agreements for third-party assets or technologies must be thoroughly vetted.

Regulations designed to protect young people – such as age ratings and content filters – vary between regions, and meeting these local requirements is essential for gaining access to each market.

Data privacy laws, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US, add further complexity, particularly for products with online features or user data collection. Non-compliance can result in substantial fines or restricted market entry.

A common misstep is underestimating the time and cost of legal consultations, leading to rushed decisions or missed requirements. Engaging legal experts proactively and embedding compliance checks into the development process can mitigate these risks, ensuring the product is market-ready without costly rework.

Internationalization and Localization: Adapting to Global Audiences

Reaching a worldwide audience necessitates adapting the product to diverse linguistic and cultural contexts through internationalization and localization.

• Internationalization (i18n) involves designing the product with flexibility for multiple languages and regional settings from the outset—such as supporting Unicode for text or modular UI layouts.

• Localization (l10n) takes this further by translating content, adjusting cultural references, and ensuring adherence to local norms, whether it’s refining game dialogue to avoid cultural insensitivity or tailoring software features to meet regional data laws.

This process is often underestimated. Poor localization can alienate users, as seen in instances where literal translations miss idiomatic nuances or visual elements clash with cultural expectations. Managing multiple language versions can also strain resources and timelines if not planned early. Another frequent oversight is neglecting accessibility features – like subtitles or colorblind modes in games, or screen reader compatibility in software – which are increasingly mandated in many markets. Using localization platforms and involving native speakers during testing can help avoid these pitfalls, ensuring the product resonates on a global scale.

Outsourcing: Striking a Balance Between Efficiency and Oversight

Outsourcing tasks such as art production, audio design, or specific development components is a common approach to manage workload and access specialized skills. However, it introduces challenges in coordination, quality control, and communication. Deciding between in-house, nearshoring, or offshoring options involves weighing cost against proximity and cultural alignment. A typical error is unclear contracts or scope definitions, resulting in deliverables that fall short of expectations or delays due to time zone differences.

Another often-ignored issue is the risk of dependency on external partners, especially if critical components are outsourced without backup plans. As a Product Owner, I recommend establishing strong communication channels – such as regular check-ins and shared project management tools like Jira, Linear, Asana or Basecamp – and setting clear milestones to maintain oversight. Building trust with outsourcing partners while retaining core competencies in-house can achieve efficiency without compromising the project’s vision.

Financial Management: Securing Resources and Revenue Streams

Financial planning is about more than just covering costs — it’s about ensuring the project’s stability from start to finish. Funding can come from investors, publishers, or crowdfunding, but securing it typically begins with a strong, persuasive pitch deck. The challenge doesn’t end there: keeping investors on board demands clear communication, regular progress updates, and delivering on agreed milestones.

Yet, many projects stumble into budget overruns caused by scope creep or unexpected technical issues — problems that are often aggravated by insufficient risk assessment early in development.

Post-launch, smart monetization strategies are essential for ongoing revenue: whether through in-game purchases, subscriptions, or one-time sales – the monetization must align with user expectations to avoid backlash, as seen in controversies over aggressive microtransactions in games over and over again.

For software, balancing free features with premium tiers requires careful market analysis to avoid deterring users. Underestimating the cost of ongoing operations, like server maintenance or customer support, also can strain finances post-launch. A data-driven approach, using analytics to track user acquisition costs versus lifetime value, helps refine financial strategies over time.

Personnel Management and Team Culture: Prioritizing the Human Element

Managing personnel and fostering a positive team culture is an essential task that underpins every development stage. High turnover, burnout, or interpersonal conflicts can disrupt projects, especially in high-pressure environments. Ensuring clear role definitions, fair workload distribution, and opportunities for growth are often sidelined in the rush to meet deadlines. Remote or hybrid teams – common in modern development – face additional hurdles in maintaining cohesion and communication.

A common oversight is neglecting mental health support or feedback mechanisms, leading to disengaged teams. Crunch periods, while sometimes unavoidable, can exacerbate these issues if not handled with empathy. As a Product Owner, I advocate for agile practices like regular retrospectives to address team concerns and celebrate achievements, fostering a collaborative environment. Investing in team-building and transparent leadership ensures sustained productivity and morale, even under tight schedules.

The Producer Role: The Linchpin of Project Success

Central to steering all these sidequests and the broader project is the role of the producer – sometimes titled differently depending on the company, such as project director or product lead. This individual acts as a facilitator, visionary, and resource provider, ensuring that the team has the time, technology, and budget needed to deliver a great product on schedule. Beyond logistics, the producer maintains the project’s vision, balancing creative aspirations with practical constraints, and often serves as an encourager, keeping team morale high and stakeholders engaged. Their ability to oversee diverse elements – from legal compliance to team dynamics – makes them indispensable in preventing these critical tasks from becoming project derailers.

Live Operations (LiveOps): Sustaining Engagement After Launch

Live Operations refers to the ongoing management of a product after release, particularly for games or software with live service models (GAAS or SAAS). This includes deploying updates, events, or new features to keep users engaged, as well as monitoring performance metrics like daily active users or churn rates. While often viewed as a post-launch activity, planning for LiveOps must begin during development to ensure backend systems support continuous deployment and scalability.

Challenges include balancing new content with stability – rushed updates can introduce bugs – and responding to community feedback without losing sight of the original vision. Underestimating server costs or support staff needs for live services can lead to downtime or poor user experiences, as seen in high-profile game launches with server crashes. A strategic roadmap for LiveOps, informed by user data and aligned with business goals, helps maintain relevance and revenue over time.

Hidden Challenges: A Complex Web of Obstacles

All of the above mentioned sidequests are fraught with often-ignored challenges that can quietly undermine success. Legal oversights can halt distribution or incur penalties, as evidenced by GDPR non-compliance fines faced by tech companies. Localization errors can trigger cultural backlash, damaging brand reputation in key markets. Outsourcing missteps can lead to quality dips or missed deadlines, while financial mismanagement can deplete resources mid-development. Personnel issues, if unaddressed, can fracture teams at critical moments, and inadequate LiveOps planning can turn a successful launch into a forgotten product within months.

These obstacles are amplified by their interconnected nature – a legal issue can delay localization, which impacts outsourcing timelines, straining budgets and team morale. Time constraints often push these secondary tasks to the background, with teams focusing on core features only to face crises later.

It can be the Small Steps That Build Big Products

Moreover, the rapid evolution of technology and regulations means that past solutions may not apply to current projects, requiring constant adaptation. My advice, based on 20+ years in digital products: address these hidden hurdles before they escalate.

This final part (5) of my summer series of LinkedIn articles “Unlocking Digital Success: A High-Level View on Game and Software Development” underscores that no detail is too small when building for impact – every task counts. Whether ensuring a game thrives in global markets or a software solution scales with user needs, excelling in these sidequests transforms a good product into a great one – one that endures beyond the launch hype.