Is bureaucracy in the gaming industry so serious?

One newcomer told me recently: “Why is there so much red tape in the game business?” In his team of 50 or so people, there are four reporting levels. What should be a nimble decision ends up passing through multiple managers, each with their own spin, and by the time it lands, the moment is lost. The final execution is often warped.

Worse: when a manager invites you for dinner, you may be expected to drink with them—whether you want to or not. That’s just part of “team bonding.” He asked his lead, “Isn’t this supposed to be a young, energetic industry?” The leader shook his head: “You haven’t seen enough yet.” Another friend quipped: “There may be many young people here, but the bosses are not always young. Even if they are young in age, you can’t beat human nature.”

Indeed, game companies are workplaces first. Many have grown exponentially over the past two decades, which led to multitudes of middle managers. To survive, people begin learning how to communicate upward, pitch in the right way, curry favor, even dodge blame or sabotage other teams subtly. I once saw two team leads verbally spar in a meeting—right in front of everyone. Over time, “if you do more you might err, if you do less you are safe, if you do nothing, you’ll be fine” becomes the default rule.

Ironically, the very structures meant to bring order—hierarchies, management tiers—often build bloat. When power is too centralized and oversight weak, edicts from above dominate, and dissent is discouraged.

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2. When Leadership Acts Like They Know Best

Many devs I speak with describe a helpless feeling: you can’t always trust your boss’s assumptions—even when they conflict with obvious facts. One told me he actually had to spend pages in his pitch deck explaining what MMORPGs are, what typical business models look like, just because his boss came from outside gaming.

It’s not a China-only problem. Former Blizzard producer Mark Kern has publicly criticized bloated workplaces, the proliferation of middle management, and bureaucratic stagnation in Western game companies. Some blame these for recent failures in big studios.

One studio that tries to steer clear of this trap is Supercell. Their CEO has repeatedly warned about the dangers of over-layering management. Once bureaucracy sets in, creativity dies, development slows, and corruption becomes harder to police.

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3. Attempts at Reform — Tencent’s Case Study

Some companies are pushing back. Tencent, for example, made a bold move in 2022 by hiding employees’ professional rank labels in corporate WeChat, to discourage judging people by title. EEWorld

They’ve also simplified performance evaluations (from a 5-star model to a 3-tier one), delegated promotion authority, and stressed managerial efficiency and compliance in cadre assessments. FENQ

Back in 2019, Tencent restructured its rank system from 18 subcategories into 14 more streamlined levels, aiming to accelerate promotion of younger talent and slim the mid-level ranks. TechNode

These moves signal awareness that rigid titles and excessive levels undermine flexibility and trust.

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4. Why Bureaucracy Persists

• Scale without culture: As studios balloon, they clone structures from traditional corporations without instilling the values that keep creativity alive.

• Power accumulates: Middle and upper management often consolidate control over decisions, squeezing out bottom-up innovation.

• Risk aversion and blame culture: It’s safer to reject bold ideas or hide behind procedure than to take responsibility.

• Lack of checks and balances: Without transparent oversight, “one voice at the top” dominates.

• Misplaced incentives: Promotions tied more to politics and compliance than impact or results.

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5. What Companies & Developers Can Try

• Flatten hierarchies: Reduce levels, increase team autonomy.

• Anonymous or hidden rank systems: As Tencent did, obscure titles so work, not label, drives respect.

• Simplify evaluation: Fewer tiers, more objective metrics, less micromanagement.

• Rotate leadership roles: Let more people lead small projects to spread empathy and prevent gatekeeping.

• Safe failure zones: Create sanctioned spaces where experimentation is encouraged, not punished.

• Transparency and feedback loops: Culture of critique and iteration, rather than decree.

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6. Final Thoughts

Yes, game studios are full of young talent. But unless leadership and systems evolve, bureaucracy will always creep back. The true test is not whether a company is young, but whether it keeps humility, transparency, and accountabilityalive.

The stories you hear—of drinking at dinners, decisions stuck in approval loops, ideas buried by seniority—aren’t just cultural quirks. They’re symptoms. And addressing them may be essential if studios want to preserve agility, innovation, and the spirit that made the industry exciting in the first place.

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