Deconstructor of Fun

Eric sits down with Rachit Moti at Layer Licensing to discuss how to discover and manage licenses and how his technology works.

Sarah Fuchs 's background and success in game development is formidable to say the least. With a career spanning James Bond, The Godfather, Spore, We Rule, serving as the Head of Production for The Sims Mobile and the GM for Covet Fashion, Sarah's experience leading top-grossing mobile games is hard to match. Now, she has red-pilled on Web3 and teamed up with Amber Bezahler to bring fashion gamers...

Eric Seufert, Kress and Laura cover 2 major headlines this week: an update to Loot Box legislation down under and looking back at the effects of ATT on mobile gaming from Mobile Dev Memo. Smaller updates include the ATVI & MSFT deal, Boom Beach Frontlines’ sunset, a PocketGamer sponsored piece wanting to coin a new genre, Wildlife Studios layoffs and Supercell’s first hire in Austin. Until nex...

Guest host trio Javier Barnes, Philip Black, and Matej Lancaric discuss Marvel Snap's present and future. The crew dives into the launch, marketing strategy, gameplay, and systems of the hit title. They also discuss what we can expect from developer Second Dinner in the future. Shoutout to our sponsors: AppsFlyer, Data.ai, and Xsolla

Eric , Eric and Laura are joined by guest David Nelson , former head of the experimentation group at King, to discuss the last 10 years of Candy Crush Saga and the Blizzard and NetEase divorce. Seufert shares his experience at Slush last week in Helsinki and Kress blames the switch hardware for the lackluster performance of the otherwise interesting new Pokemon game, Scarlet and Violet. And lastly...

In Esports giant 100 Thieves, Nadeshot, John Robinson , Valkyrae and their army of competitors, streamers and content creators have built one of the most impressive lifestyle brands and marketing superpowers in all of gaming. Now, they've brought on industry legend Pete Hawley to run their brand new game studio. Just a few weeks into development and they've already released the initial footage and...

Eric and Laura cover their respective trips and dig into a few positive updates on Landmark’s funding and new game. The two rehash Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA, discuss releasing games in China, and rant on Newzoo’s mobile market update. Kress offers an update on Microsoft and Activision Blizzard acquisition.

It's big #20! In this latest episode of Tokenomics, Ethan sits down with Koh Kim , Head of Ecosystem at Sui maker MystenLabs . The company, formed by ex-Meta veterans, has raised a $300m treasure trove to build a new and better Layer1 blockchain purpose built for Web3 gaming. Koh tells us about her history in gaming, how she red-pilled on Web3 and why she joined up with Mysten, and how the Sui blo...

Ethan and Eric S are in the house to talk about all the dramatic news this week! We're talking about massive layoffs across the tech industry and gaming in particular, new mobile game studios from NetEase and Nintendo, Playtika's latest earnings report, the dramatic and sudden collapse of FTX and the ongoing creator royalty debate going on in the world of NFTs.

Kress’s Corner - I sat down with Jason Chapman at Konvoy to discuss how VC’s really work.. How they invest, why they invest and most importantly how much money they make… We also explore how VCs navigate the booms and busts in the business cycle

Laura, Seufert, and Kress discuss TikTok's standalone gaming channel and evaluate whether the Xbox pass is profitable. The team also discusses Modern Warfare II topping $800M in sales, Rovio's new Barcelona studio, and Netflix's acquisition of SpryFox. TWIG wouldn't be what it is without a public apology. In this episode, Eric Seufert walks back his statements on Marvel Snap after being bombarded...

Kress sits down with Robin Astrom at Wehype to discuss how influencer marketing can be an alternative/supplement to traditional marketing and how it can help products and brands find audiences in a hostile user acquisition market.  And how is it working with these Gen Z influencers…

This week, the team talks about Microsoft Xbox' plan on having their store on mobile, Snapchat's parent company's uphill battle after IDFA depreciation and the upcoming launch of Age of Empires Mobile. Your hosts Eric Kress , Laura Taranto and E ric Seufert also discuss the launch of Marvel Snap by Second Dinner and dive into the implications of Apple's SKAdNetwork 4.0.

Animoca Brands owned Sandbox is an undisputed pioneer and leader in the blockchain gaming space. That's why we are beyond excited to have Sandbox COO Sebastien Borget speaking with Ethan on the podcast this episode. Sebastien tells takes us through the history of Sandbox, which started as a mobile, free-to-play game, and explains how the Sandbox team saw the early potential in blockchain gaming li...

This week, the crew goes back to the metaverse to talk about the many stories coming out of Meta's Horizon Worlds. From lower than forecast engagement numbers to stability issues to low team morale to doctored footage of legs, it seems like Horizon just can't catch a break. Your hosts Eric Kress , Laura Taranto and Ethan Levy also discuss Take Two's shutdown of Playdots studio and why you should e...

Today we have a true legend of game production on the podcast! There are few in the game 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...

This week, the crew does their first ever book club on Matthew Ball’s headline making book “ The Metaverse .” What is the Metaverse? Do we believe in it? Can Ball’s vision for the Metaverse ever be achieved and adopted in our lifetime? Or will the laws of nature prevent this Metaverse dream from ever becoming a reality. Your hosts Eric Kress , Eric Seufurt , Laura Taranto and Ethan Levy discuss. W...

Sean Ryan has a deep history in gaming, from his highly innovative involvement in Sega's early online plays to a decade long stint overseeing gaming partnerships at Facebook. But as this is Tokenomics, of course he's here because he's red pilled on Web3 gaming as the CEO of NFT Marketplace AQUA . In this episode, Ethan talks to Sean about his history in gaming, how Ethan is a verified Sega Boi, an...

The Two Erics and Laura discuss the end of cloud gaming with the shutdown of Stadia and an update on CD Projekts’ PR shenanigans. Eric Seufert discusses the new world order of user acquisition in mobile.

As games progress through their lifecycle, many games experience increased costs and stalls in growth over time. An excellent way to unlock growth is to find new pockets of players outside of English-centric countries. But what’s the optimal way to find these markets? How do you decide whether to make that investment decision? How much should you localize versus culturalize? What is the potential...

This week, we get a peak behind the curtains of how videogames are covered in the enthusiast press, thanks to IGN VP & Publisher John Davison . 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. We use John's recent piece explaining how Squanch Games ' High on Life unexpect...

A packed house for this week's TWiG as we delve into some juicy topics. Quick updates on Netflix Games latest hires (of course), Cyberpunk 2077, Apple's platform ruling on NFTs, the GTA VI hacker and more. For our headline topics, we discuss The Battle for Twitch's Soul following their announcement of deprecating the 70/30 revenue split for top streamers. We also go deep on ex-Machine Zone CEO Gab...

Born from the ashes of a studio closure, Mighty Bear Games was founded by an experienced team of F2P veterans whose work crossed browser and mobile games. Having built up their studio and tech stack with Butter Royale and Disney Melee Mayhem, the studio's pivot to Web3 has seen it secure a $10m investment to build games for the blockchain. With Mighty Action Heroes nearing its initial mint, Ethan...

Laura gives off strong American Psycho vibes with her choice of recording venue. Eric makes us all jealous with his recap of the BITKRAFT conference. Ethan makes mood boards. But more seriously, we talk the latest Call of Duty reveal, Sims 4 going F2P, the big Grand Theft Auto 6 leak and how it will have no negative impact on the product’s eventual sales dominance. We go deep on Nintendo direct an...

Tokenomics is back and what an absolute treat of an episode. This week, we're joined by two of the top VCs in the Web3 gaming space, Anton Backman of Play Ventures and Nico Vereecke of BITKRAFT , who are here to give us an inside look of how VCs are approaching investing during the latest Crypto Winter. Good news for all the gaming entrepreneurs out there, we learn that the VCs are still investing...