The Valued Cultures Podcast

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Firaxis Games--producer of the legendary game “Civilization”--we welcome Heather Hazen, President and Studio Head.  Heather speaks with our own Daryl Ogden about her gaming journey:  starting with building Flash(!) games for Cartoon Network, she went on to PopCap where she expanded the platform reach for games like “Bejewelled” and “Plants vs. Zombies”, and the...

“In every human being there is this ambition to find your superpower,” Peter Zetterberg tells Daryl Ogden.  And in Xbox Game Camp, where Peter is Senior Director, “[we] can provide the tools and the access to realize those superpowers [and] creative aspirations.”   Peter goes on to provide a brief account of Game Camp’s origins: From Sweden, to Louisiana, to Detroit he and his team sought out “a c...

Maybe it’s no shock that young Jerk Gustafsson–now leader of MachineGames–was a fireplace designer before he was a video game developer:  Afterall, when you grow up in the Land of the Midnight Sun, designing chimneys is a great way to learn about the alchemy of art and engineering.  But it may be more of a surprise to learn that Jerk’s first computer wasn’t the Amiga that his older brother brought...

Today we are joined by Garrett Young of Empty Vessel.  We get pretty deep into his 25-year “journey in gaming”, and explore some of the facets of the various studio cultures he experienced at Microsoft, Activision and Disney.  He describes moving from developing software to building teams to founding a studio–as well as the continuities and discontinuities he experienced along the way. And we spen...

Brian Fargo founded Interplay 45 years ago.  He founded inXile nearly 25 years ago, and sold it to Microsoft in 2018.  Why is he still–happily–making great games? “I'm pretty sure that Ridley Scott has enough money to quit,” he tells our own Daryl Ogden, in the way he often frames games in the context of other media.  “What is he, 88 years old and he's still making films?”    Fargo tells Daryl how...

Starting a new studio is always challenging, but what does it mean for two people who had never even met before?  Oksana Kubushnya and Travis McGeathy of Seeker Entertainment tell Daryl Ogden how they joined forces, built trust, and developed a studio culture in support of their yet to be launched game.  They explain why they emphasize passion for games and the game-making process when hiring new...

Speaking with Jason Della Rocca is a trip:  an actual journey through the years and around the world.  Starting out as an accountant at PWC, Jason went on to developer network jobs at SGI and Matrox before leading the IGDA–both internationally as Executive Director as well as becoming a founder of the local Montréal chapter.  He then launched both the incubator Execution Lab (devoted to a small co...

Today, our Co-Founder Daryl Ogden speaks with Gordon Bellamy, who serves as Professor of the Practice of Cinematic Arts at USC and is a long-tenured veteran of the video game industry.  They discuss Gordon’s “brute force” approach to entering the game industry, what mentorship meant to him then and what it does now, and how “digital civics” might play out in today’s game culture.  Finally, they ex...

Joining us on the pod today is Jen MacLean , Co-Founder and CEO of Dragon Snacks Games .  She speaks with our own Co-Founder Daryl Ogden who has known her since she was heading up partnerships and business development at Xbox.   Jen speaks to her rich, varied career in games–one which began as a play tester– with a focus on why she recently decided to take the plunge and start her own studio, incl...

Today Ed Fries joins us on the pod.  Ed is a long-time veteran of gaming, having founded Microsoft Game Studios, and been there at the birth of Xbox.  He is now a founder of 1Up Ventures which funds and supports independent game developers globally.    Ed tells us about his early days in gaming, which actually started in high school on an Atari 800!  After the game industry crash of 1984, he began...

Today Daryl Ogden and Mike Merrill speak with Lizzie Mintus, founder of the boutique placement firm Here’s Waldo, now celebrating their 4-year anniversary.  Lizzie explains how an off-handed conversation led her to a career in recruiting and to eventually founding her own firm, one based in the deeply customer-centric experience that she learned in her early work at Nordstroms.     Daryl and Mike...

Kicking off a new year of pods, Daryl Ogden speaks with Tanya Short, the co-founder and creative director of Kitfox Games. Tanya and Daryl dig into how her team accomplishes so much with limited resources, notably a very tight team of studio members.  In addition to developing games like “Streets of Fortuna” & “Boyfriend Dungeon”, Kitfox serves as a publisher for other small studios. As you'll...

When you take on the head role of a studio in the wake of the founders departing, how do you not only maintain the “DNA” of the studio, but even build upon it?  That is the challenge that Ninja Theory Studio Head Dom Matthews explores with our own Daryl Ogden.   Dom started out thinking he wanted to be a sports agent, but quickly found himself pursuing a marketing career within the games industry....

How does a gamemaker’s gamemaker transition to being a builder of an organization that cultivates studios?  That is the story of Matt Booty, a veteran gamemaker–starting with pinball machines at Midway in Chicago before he moved on to Xbox in Seattle.  He now serves as President of Game Content & Studios at Xbox where he oversees the dozens of games that constitute the Xbox portfolio. Matt spe...

We’re back for Season 2 of the Valued Cultures Podcast, and we’re welcoming Julian Maroda, co-Founder and CEO of Norsfell , a Montréal studio with a mission to forge new genres that bring people together.  The studio’s best-known game, Tribes of Midgard , is enjoyed by over 4.5 million players.   Julian speaks with our co-Founder, Daryl Ogden, about his youth in Belgium, an impactful trip to Austr...

Today our co-Founder Daryl Ogden speaks with Turtle Rock Studios’ President, Steve Goldstein.  Steve talks about what it was like to transition from serving studios as an attorney to working in-house and ultimately leading one.  He also discusses his experience with leading a studio during an acquisition and the implications of what this means to the studio being acquired.  You’ll hear about Turtl...

On this week’s pod, Rory McGuire , President of Blackbird Interactive (“Hardspace”, “Homeworld”, “Minecraft Legends”) speaks with Valued Cultures Co-Founder, Daryl Ogden .  Rory and Daryl discuss how very concrete initiatives like skunks works and 4-day weeks can be animated by core studio values such as empowerment, autonomy, and respect.  Daryl and Rory also dig into a finding from Valued Cultur...

“Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.” Tattooed on the arm of today’s guest, Mitch Gitelman , most recently of Harebrained Schemes , this personal motto reflects the lessons he learned in his training and apprenticeship in theater and improvisation. Speaking with Valued Cultures Co-Founder Daryl Ogden, Mitch explores the stamp his early work in these disciplines has imprinted on his approach to making game...

How do you create a vibrant workplace culture in a “remote only” studio?  Very intentionally says our guest today, Jen Oneal Co-Founder and Head Chef of Magic Soup Games .    Jen explains to Valued Cultures Co-Founder Daryl Ogden that when Jen and her Co-Founders J. Allen Brack and John Donham set out to found a new studio in 2022, their first step was talking about the types of games they loved,...

Valued Culture’s Senior Advisor Shannon Loftis joins Co-Founder Daryl Ogden to share her first impressions of our forthcoming report, “Winning Game Studio Culture in the Post-Pandemic Era.”  Their focus falls on the “intentionality chasm”:  How the leaders of game studios know that they should bring more attention to studio talent and studio culture, but in the pressure of the moment, find themsel...

In our inaugural podcast, Chris Chancey of Manavoid Entertainment and Indie Asylum joins Valued Cultures Daryl Ogden to discuss vibrant studio cultures.  In briefly sketching the history of Manvoid, Chris and Daryl determine how a focus on ensuring market fit led Manavoid to pursue a strategy of hybridizing game genres.  They go on to discuss how Chris and his partners evaluate candidates for Indi...