Why was Hogwarts Legacy such a massive success when other Harry Potter games have faltered? It fulfills the core fantasy of the IP…
Phoenix Labs CEO Jesse Houston on Building a Forever Company
If you need a little inspiration in your life, you should look to Phoenix Labs Co-Founder and CEO Jesse Houston. After stints on some of the biggest games in the world at Riot, Bioware and Ubisoft, Jesse set out to build a Forever Company with the Dauntless maker…
Why have game industry SPACs been such a disaster?
I wanted to make it spicy on my return episode of This Week in Games, so I asked the indomitable Eric Kress a simple question: why have gaming SPACs performed so poorly? In 2021 & 2022, I caught SPAC fever, putting small bets into Playstudios, Nexsters, Skillz and IronSource. My performance has ranged from -65% to a complete delisting. Here’s what Eric had to say…
Empathy is the Secret Superpower of Great Game Engineers
Empathy is the secret superpower of great game engineers. This was one of the most insightful takeaways from my interview with veteran Technical Director James Marr about the difference between merely Good and truly Great when it comes to game engineering. In his illustrious career in game development, James has held leadership positions at companies including Zynga, DeNA and N3TWORK Studios. He has been a technical lead on games including Eliminate – the first 3D, […]
Sarah Fuchs and the Founding of Muus Collective
Sarah Fuchs, games industry veteran and former General Manager of Covet Fashion, discusses her pivot to founding Web3 company Muus Collective…
Why is Esports Giant 100 Thieves Building Their Own Game Studio?
Esports superstar 100 Thieves has over 150 million Gamers as fans across all its channels. Now they’ve hired industry superstar Pete Hawley to build their own game studio…
Diablo Boss Rod Fergusson On What Makes a World Class Videogame Producer
There are few leaders in the industry whose CV even comes close to Rod Fergusson, who currently serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Diablo franchise. With credits including Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Shadow Complex, Infinity Blade, Bulletstorm, BioShock Infinite, Microsoft Train Simulator and now Diablo, few producers have had a lead role in as many big name franchises as Rod…
IGN Publisher John Davison On How Games Get Covered in 2022
This one is an absolute treasure trove of information for game developers. IGN is one of the biggest games media organizations in the world, and in this interview, VP & Publisher John Davison gives us a peek behind the curtain at how videogames get covered. A veteran of games media, game development and entrepreneurship, there is no one better positioned than John to explain how games are covered in the current multimedia era…
Was All The Crunch Worth It?
Was all the crunch worth it? This is the question I’ve been asking myself after the recent backlash to the pro-crunch Tweet and resulting walk back from Striking Distance boss Glen Schofield…
The Dangers of Splitting the Splitgate Audience
1047 has captured lightening in a bottle with the viral success of Splitgate. Now they’ve made a challenging decision to end feature development on that go and go all in on a brand new Splitgate. This piece analyzes the choice and how they could have had their cake and ate it too by catering to their live audience.