Abstract
This paper examines how the emerging concept of non-technical debt (NTD), specifically Process, Social, and People Debt, can be utilised to understand and address recurring issues in game development. Drawing from Politowski et al.’s large-scale analysis of 200 game postmortems, we map the top ten industry challenges to NTD as described by Ahmed and Gustavsson. Politowski’s analysis showed that many issues, such as unclear vision, misaligned teams, and stress, stem from human and organisational decisions rather than technical limitations. While technical debt is well known, the growing recognition of NTD remains underexplored in game development. We argue that applying an NTD lens during development, rather than after the fact in a post-mortem, can help teams avoid costly issues, particularly in creative and high-pressure environments such as game production.
Paper Type
Poster
DOI
10.62036/ISD.2025.9
Non-technical debt in games development research
This paper examines how the emerging concept of non-technical debt (NTD), specifically Process, Social, and People Debt, can be utilised to understand and address recurring issues in game development. Drawing from Politowski et al.’s large-scale analysis of 200 game postmortems, we map the top ten industry challenges to NTD as described by Ahmed and Gustavsson. Politowski’s analysis showed that many issues, such as unclear vision, misaligned teams, and stress, stem from human and organisational decisions rather than technical limitations. While technical debt is well known, the growing recognition of NTD remains underexplored in game development. We argue that applying an NTD lens during development, rather than after the fact in a post-mortem, can help teams avoid costly issues, particularly in creative and high-pressure environments such as game production.
Recommended Citation
Johansson, J. & Pettersson, J.S. (2025). Non-technical debt in games development researchIn I. Luković, S. Bjeladinović, B. Delibašić, D. Barać, N. Iivari, E. Insfran, M. Lang, H. Linger, & C. Schneider (Eds.), Empowering the Interdisciplinary Role of ISD in Addressing Contemporary Issues in Digital Transformation: How Data Science and Generative AI Contributes to ISD (ISD2025 Proceedings). Belgrade, Serbia: University of Gdańsk, Department of Business Informatics & University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences. ISBN: 978-83-972632-1-5. https://doi.org/10.62036/ISD.2025.9