Series G - Gaming Podcast

Raphael Van Lierop is the Founder and CEO of Hinterland, the Vancouver-based studio behind the hit survival sandbox title: The Long Dark. Believing that interactivity is at the heart of all future entertainment, Raphael is passionate about creating original IP, bringing experiences to life through ethical and sustainable business practices, and proving it's possible to lead a team humanely while a...

Abubakar Salim is a long-time actor in the Film and TV industry (House of the Dragon, Ridley Scott's Raised by Wolves, Napolean) as well as a voice actor in the video game industry (Assassin's Creed, Diablo, World of Warcraft). He now runs and operates Surgent Studios, which aims to bring authentic stories powered by raw human emotion into players' hands. The studio's first game is...

Anoop Shekar is a long-time game designer, producer, and manager, with over 25 years in the industry. He first started his career as a designer at Volition where he eventually rose the ranks and became a Studio Design Director, and is accredited for having shipped many titles during his time there, most notably the Saints Row Franchise. He is now the Studio Design Director at Santa Monica Studios...

Jeff Gardiner is the Co-Founder and CEO of Something Wicked Games , a new studio of ex-Bethesda, Obsidian, and Bioware veterans that are building a brand new open-world RPG, ⁠WYRDSONG⁠ . Jeff has been in the games industry for 20+ years, the vast majority of which have been spent at Bethesda working on staple RPG titles such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallou...

Summary Chris is a long-time game designer with over 16 years of experience in the industry. He spent the majority of his career working on the World of Warcraft design team at Blizzard . During his tenure, he covered 7 expansions and is credited for being one of the lead designers of the Monk class which was released in the Mists of Pandaria expansion. After leaving Blizzard in 2020, Chris went o...

Summary Zabir Hoque is the co-founder and CEO of Torbie, a new independent game development studio. Zabir has a strong technical background as a senior graphics and rendering engineer, having worked at large organizations such as Amazon (AWS), Epic Games (Fortnite), and Microsoft (Halo). Zabir was also the CTO at System Era Softworks, the Seattle-based developer behind Astroneer - a rich open-worl...

Summary Stephen Lim (Slim) is the Co-Founder and Product Director of Raid Base, a studio working on an ambitious sandbox-style multiplayer game. Slim is a 20+ year games industry veteran and has worked at top global studios including Blizzard, EA, Insomniac, and Riot Games. Slim is best known for being the co-creator of Valorant, Riot's highly celebrated tactical FPS. Episode Highlights: How t...

Jeff Gardiner is the Co-Founder and CEO of Something Wicked Games, a new studio of ex-Bethesda, Obsidian, and Bioware veterans that are building a brand new open-world RPG, WYRDSONG . Jeff has been in the games industry for 20+ years, the vast majority of which have been spent at Bethesda working on staple RPG titles such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4...

Tim Morten is the Co-Founder and CEO of Frost Giant Studios, the developers behind Stormgate - a new-age RTS that brings the best of competitive and social gaming from the last 10 years into a new RTS package. Tim is a games industry veteran of 28+ years, having worked at some of the world's largest studios including Activision, EA, Santa Monica Studio, and Blizzard. In building Frost Giant,...

Ian Proulx is the Co-Founder and CEO of 1047 Games, the creators of Splitgate - an FPS that combines satisfying gunplay with a portal mechanic for endless gameplay possibilities. Ian had the idea of Splitgate for many years before it came to materialization while studying at Standford. To date, the company has raised multiple rounds of venture financing to fuel an ambitious vision toward building...

Matt Schembari is a 15+ year industry veteran who has previously worked at Blizzard (Battle.net) and Epic Games (Fortnite Platform Team). Throughout his tenure, he has developed immense expertise as a platform and UI specialist - and truly honed his skills in the 'art' of creating a game. Now he has launched his new games studio, Lightforge Games. In this episode, Matt shares his insights on how h...

In this episode of Series G, we catch up with Kalle Kaivola, the CEO and Co-Founder of Lightheart Entertainment, a mobile free-to-play studio based out of Finland. Kalle has built a wealth of experience within the Finnish games community as an investor at Sisu Game Ventures, an operator at Rovio, and now an entrepreneur at Lightheart. We discuss the nuances of flat organizations and how modern gam...

In this week's Series G episode we catch up with Shib Hussain, the Founder and CEO of UNRD (pronounced "Unread"). In this episode, we cover how to, as a first-time founder, learn about venture capital, the importance of controlling your fundraising narrative, and how to manage investor expectations after successfully raising money.

In this week's Series G episode, we catch up with Samuel Huber, founder and CEO of Admix - an ad-based monetization platform for games that has raised over $9M in venture funding. Sam shares his insights into the world of games advertising, how brands can effectively engage with gamers, the challenges with current mobile ad structures, and why spatial computing will be the next big wave for advert...

In this week's Series G episode we catch up with Jake Perlman-Garr, the Founder and CEO of Kanga. In this episode, we discuss the ever-evolving challenge of game discoverability, why current esports and streaming engagement is shallow, how we can expect game launches to mature over time, and the core drivers behind the massively diverse audience of gamers we have in the world today.

In this episode, we catch up with Tara Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO of LoveShark. Previously, as a product manager at Blippar (one of the original frontier AR tech companies), Tara developed and shipped tons of AR applications. Now having founded her own AR company, Tara shares her insights into how to build products for Gen-Z, why developers and investors should be bullish on AR, and what obstacles...

In this episode, we catch up with Matt Frenchman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sugar. An ex-investment banker turned venture debt/UA financing specialist, Matt shares his insights into how founders should consider striking a balance within their equity vs. debt capital structure, what steps to take in order to set up your new game for success, and how the venture ecosystem can evolve to better embrace th...

In this week's Series G episode we have Salone Sehgal. An ex-investment banker, entrepreneur, and most recently, a General Partner at Lumikai - an India-based interactive media and entertainment. In the episode, we cover topics such as how the tech space can evolve for increased diversity, how founders can build symbiotic relationships with VCs and cultivate valuable acquirer relationships, and th...

In this week's Series G episode we cover some very interesting M&A and fundraising transactions that occurred in the games industry over the last couple of weeks, and the long-term impact it may have on venture financing for the games industry.

A review of the 2010s top games M&A transactions and the impact it has on future exit opportunities for gaming studios.

Series G episode 5 welcomes our first guest onto the podcast. Joining the show is Jon Bellamy, a good friend, and ex-colleague who is currently the Director of Strategy & Planning at Huuuge Games in Berlin. In this episode, we discuss the journey of the Games-as-a-Service (Gaas) business model and its impact on games M&A. We also cover what it takes for a startup to succeed in today's highly compe...

Welcome back to Series G! - The business-focused gaming podcast. In this episode, we talk about the incredible shift occurring right now within the games ecosystem. As gaming has become more mainstream, the tech giants of the world (Google, Apple, etc.) have taken notice and want a piece of the action. How does this increased attention and capital flow benefit developers (and games venture investo...

In Episode 3 of Series G, the business-focused gaming podcast, we examine a profile of Epic Games - its history, pivots, Fortnite's success, and industry-changing moves.