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

🎉 𝗠𝗮𝗱𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟭 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗹𝗱 🎉 One year ago, we officially opened the Madbox Annecy studio. And honestly, it still feels a bit surreal. With Madbox, we had a simple (and slightly crazy) ambition: 👉 Gather some of the best talent in the mobile game industry 👉 Create outstanding casual, inclusive and unique mobile games that can truly change the market 👉 And do it in an environment that helps people think better, live better, and build better With Arthur Michel, we wanted to propose a new adventure to Madbox that matched those ambitions. And what better place than Annecy? 🏔️💙 A city where you can be in the mountains in less than 10 minutes, or go for a swim in the lake before work (not in winter… well, depends on your craziness level 😄). Being so close to nature is a real asset for creativity, mental health, and our ability to step back and come back stronger. This first year has been an incredible adventure: - Founding a local studio from scratch, with a beautiful workspace in Les Papeteries - Image Factory, surrounded by other creative companies - Setting up the space (yes, including placing the furniture ourselves) - Recruiting a dream team - Starting our first games - And learning every day how to work better together None of this would have been possible without the Madboxers who helped us shape the studio, shared their experience, challenged our ideas, and supported us along the way. Thank you 🙏 We were also lucky and proud to find a very promising game on our second try. It gave us momentum and confidence. This year, we’re fully focused on pushing it further and hopefully bringing it to players worldwide. 🎁 On a more personal note, I’m incredibly proud of where we are today, what we’ve achieved in just one year, and the way we run this studio with Arthur. It’s even crazier to think this idea was crafted more than 3 years ago around a beer 🍺 Today, we’re celebrating the first anniversary of a studio that is here to last. A massive thank you to Madbox, and especially Maxime DEMEURE and Jonathan Hattab, for believing in this project and supporting us throughout 2025. And of course, the biggest thank you goes to the Annecy team ❤️ Thank you for trusting us, building amazing things every day, and sharing the same ambition: contributing to making Madbox a major mobile gaming studio with games to be remembered. We’re incredibly lucky to have you 🤗 ✨ We’re just getting started ✨ Our ambition is bigger than ever ✨ And you’ll definitely hear more about Madbox and Madbox Annecy in the months and years to come And finally, we’re growing 🚀 We’re currently looking for a Senior Developer to join and strengthen our core team in Annecy. If you want to build ambitious mobile games in a talented, human-centered studio, feel free to reach out. 👉 Check the full offer here: https://lnkd.in/eZgfSYQh On to year 2. Let’s keep building. 🎮💪 #mobilegames #gamingjobs #hiring