Theory, Experience, and Instinct: How AAA Game Studio UX Leaders Navigate Pre-Production

Abstract

Academic frameworks have limited practical application in game pre-production because they do not map well to industry contexts and constraints. Through semi-structured interviews with 15 senior UX leaders from AAA game studios, we examined how practitioners make design decisions during early development. Our findings show a tripartite approach: (1) academically-grounded translation, where practitioners selectively adapt formal theories; (2) experience-based codification, where teams systematize tacit knowledge into reusable artifacts; and (3) intuitive gut feeling, where expertise guides decisions without formal frameworks. We introduce organizational structures (i.e., strike teams and competency teams) that shape how academic knowledge is translated in practice. Our work challenges the traditional view that practitioners should directly apply academic theory. Academia’s unique opportunity here is to provide the conceptual building blocks that enable solutions practitioners need. A change that begins with knowing how practitioners already translate academic knowledge into actionable practice.