GGJ Podcast

In episode 19 Sponsored in part by Sony PlayStation’s Hero Project and the Knight Foundation, Susan chats with indie game developer and Cage Studios co‑founder Salaar Kohari about what it means to build fast, colorful, anti‑toxic games while challenging capitalism and centering joy. Drawing on a childhood spent across Amsterdam, Chicago, Cairo, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, his experience living...

In episode 18, Sponsored in part by Sony Playstation’s Hero Project, Susan talks with New Zealand studio founder and longtime developer Mario Wynands about what it means to help build a national game industry almost from scratch and turn local projects into globally recognized work. Drawing on his early days as a gamer and programmer in a country that was not yet known for games, his experience st...

In episode 17, sponsored in part by the Sony PlayStation Hero Project, Susan chats with artist and game developer Matthew Moss about what it means to build community across cultures in one of the world’s most storied game hubs. Growing up in Miami in a deeply creative, nonconforming household, Matthew found his way into newspapers, editorial cartooning, and early web games before moving to New Yor...

In episode 16 Susan talks to Global Game Jam executive director Maria Burns Ortiz about what it means to lead a veteran global community with empathy and an eye toward underrepresented creators. Drawing on her background as a journalist for outlets like ESPN, her experience co‑founding Seven Generation Games to build educational games with tribal and marginalized communities, and her first two yea...

In episode 15 Susan chats with Amanda Asofsky, a senior digital product manager at Wizards of the Coast who helps steer Magic the Gathering Arena, about what it means to lead with care in a live game that never sleeps. We explore how her Dungeons and Dragons roots, a gamer family and an early game design class shaped her sense of responsibility to both players and teammates, how she navigated surv...

In episode 14 Susan sits down with Latoya Peterson who lives at the intersection of emerging technology and culture. In this episode, the former co founder and CXO of Glow Up Games, creator of AI in the Trap and current narrative designer at Elsewhere Entertainment talks about her “Phoenix era,” growing up as a Black girl who loved Tekken, and what it means to move from critic and journalist to ga...

In episode 13 Susan sits down with  Designer and storyteller Nick Fortugno has spent more than 20 years pushing games into new spaces on screens, on streets and in the classroom. He talks about co founding studios like Rebel Monkey and Playmatics, helping define early casual and social games, creating playful public experiences through Come Out and Play, and now running the digital game program at...

In episode 12 Susan sits down with Lisette Titre Montgomery, veteran art director and co founder and CEO of Cornerstone Interactive, looks back on a two decade career that spans Freakstyle, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, The Simpsons, South Park and Psychonauts 2, and forward to new ways of making games feel truly handmade again. She talks about leading teams through tricky visual problems, building Gamehe...

In episode 11 of the GGJ Podcast, Alexander Fernandez, co founder and CEO of Streamline Media Group, shares how he turned a four person apartment in the Netherlands into a global studio working on franchises like Final Fantasy, Gears of War, Bioshock Infinite and James Cameron’s Avatar. He explains his “starving up” mentality, surviving the 2008 financial crisis, closing Streamline’s Amsterdam stu...

In episode 10 Susan sits down with Argentine game maker Nico Castez to talk about cranking out 100 games at Avix, chasing strange ideas instead of trends, and turning that wild energy into his new studio, Goraku Club.  They dig into hard‑won lessons about money, momentum, and community, plus what Nico wants the next wave of Latin American creators to build. (00:00) - Intro (01:28) - Meet Nico Cast...

In episode 9 Susan talks with Alexis Jolis‑Desautels, a veteran designer and design leader who has spent two decades inside some of the world’s biggest game franchises helping studios actually understand their players. From starting as a QA tester at Ubisoft Montreal to building user research labs, leading design teams on major AAA projects, and mentoring the next generation of designers, Alexis b...

In episode 8,  Susan talks with Darion Lowenstein, a veteran game producer, marketer, and executive who has spent nearly three decades shipping hit titles and building publishing teams across console, mobile, and emerging platforms. He and Susan dig into what it actually takes to bring a game to market at scale, why marketing and publishing strategy matter as much as design, and how he approaches...

In episode 7, Susan talks with Lual Mayen, a South Sudanese game developer, entrepreneur, and humanitarian whose journey from being born on the run from civil war to founding his own studio shows what happens when opportunity finally meets talent and persistence. Growing up in a Ugandan refugee camp with no reliable electricity or formal tech education, he taught himself to code, created the peace...

In episode 6, Susan talks with Terry Redfield, a veteran game developer, creative director, and three‑time founder with more than 25 years in console, PC, mobile, and live ops experience. From building worlds at Double Fine on Psychonauts, to leading live ops and skins teams on League of Legends, Terry’s career is a jungle gym of studios, startups, and platforms that she has navigated while parent...

In episode 5, Susan talks with Pablo Quarta, an Argentine writer, narrative designer, and game producer whose work sits at the intersection of games, politics, and queerness. From co‑founding "Matajuegos", Argentina’s first video game workers’ co‑op, to producing the award‑winning surreal documentary game "Atuel", Pablo’s journey is about using games to talk honestly about labor, climate justice,...

In episode 4, Susan talks with Thorsten S. Wiedemann, founder and artistic director of AMAZE, the international art house games and playful media festival that helped redefine how the world sees independent games. From Berlin bar nights and DIY talk shows to a global network of experimental, subversive, and deeply personal games, Thorsten’s journey is about building spaces where artists, punks, an...

In episode 3 Susan talks with Limpho Moeti, South African producer, business developer, Playtopia co-founder, and the first IGDA chair from the global south, about how she’s spent her career making things happen for other developers. Limpho describes her path from theater, film, and comics into games via Free Lives and Nyamakop, where she supported community meetups, game jams, and biz dev. She ad...

Ben Kvalo on Building Midwest Games and a More Sustainable Publishing Model In this episode, Susan talks with Ben Kvalo, founder and CEO of Midwest Games and former Netflix Games production lead, about changing where games come from, how developers see themselves (creatives vs entrepreneurs), and how they are supported. Ben shares growing up in Portage, Wisconsin , his early goals, and how a unive...

In this episode, Susan sits down with Jenny Xu—long-distance runner, fitness instructor, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and founder / CEO of Talofa Games , a studio creating games to make movement more fun through titles like "Run Legends" and " Monster Walk. " Jenny recounts what it was like to grow up as a shy kid in Cupertino, finding belonging in online communities thanks to Pokemon fan art, Neop...

In our very first episode, producer Shirley McPhaul turns the mic on host Susan Gold - educator, organizer, and co-founder of the Global Game Jam - to explore how a fine arts professor who “lost boyfriends to video games” ended up creating one of the largest collaborative events in the world. Together they trace the origins of GGJ, Susan’s lifelong impulse to build community, and the quiet labor o...