Podcasts about digital chocolate

This week we talk about Electronic Arts, 3DO, and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.We also discuss Jared Kushner, leveraged buyouts, and loot boxes.Recommended Book: Bandwidth by Dan CarusoTranscriptElectronic Arts, often shorthanded as EA, was founded in 1982 in California by a former Apple employee named Trip Hawkins, who also went on to found the ill-fated 3DO company, which made video game hardware, and the somewhat more prolific, but also ultimately ill-fated casual game developer Digital Chocolate.EA, though, has been an absolutely astounding success. It's business model was predicated on the premise of selling video games directly to retailers, rather than going through intermediaries. This allowed them to gain more market share than their competitors right off the bat, and it helped them glean higher margins than their competitors from each direct sale, too.EA also established an early reputation for treating its developers really well. They were the first gaming company to feature their developers in advertising and to give them platforms, promoting them as video game artists, basically, and it shared the profits netted from those direct sales with these develops—which in turn meant all the best developers really wanted to work for EA, which led to a beneficial cycle where they created better and better, and more and more financially successful games.In the late-80s, they started deviating from this model somewhat, scooping up a collection of successful independent game development studios and deviating, at times, from the creative lead's vision when releasing their games. They also refocused a fair bit of their resources on franchises, like the immensely successful, as it turned out, Madden NFL series, and they branched out into producing games for the console market, including the still-new Nintendo Entertainment System, in 1990.That same year, EA went public on the NASDAQ, the company got new leadership when Hawkins decided to refocus on his far less successful 3DO hardware startup, and in an interesting twist, the arrival of the Sony Playstation in North America caused EA to drop support for 3DO hardware in the mid-90s so it could refocus on Playstation games, which were a lot more lucrative.By the mid-90s, EA had an astonishingly large and successful software library, including franchises like the aforementioned Madden games and the FIFA soccer games, but also celebrity-tied games like Shaq Fu, and military shooters like Jungle and Urban Strike.By the early-2000s, EA was making exclusive licensing deals with the NFL and ESPN, in order to stave off newfound sports game competitors, and it was the only video game company to consistently make a profit, most others experiencing feast and famine cycles, with periodic wins, but a whole lot of losses they had to cover with the profits from those wins. EA, in contrast, had a reliable stable of profit-sources, and it thus had a whole lot of leverage in terms of attracting and retaining talent, but also getting big names and brands on board, for collaborative projects.What I'd like to talk about today is what happened to EA during and following the 2008 economic crisis, and how and why it recently became an acquisition target for Saudi Arabia.—In 2008, when the global economy was collapsing, EA suffered a bad holiday sales season and fired 1,100 employees and closed 12 of their facilities early the following year. Later in 2009, the company announced the firing of another 1,500 employees, which was about 17% of their total workforce at the time, and in 2010 they acquired a gaming company that focused on mobile games, which were becoming increasingly popular, now that many people had touch-capable smartphones, which brought hot new franchises like Angry Birds under their brand umbrella.On the strength of that acquisition and all those downsizings, in early 2011, EA announced that it hit $3.8 billion in revenue in the financial year for the first time, and in early 2012, it announced it surpassed $1 billion in digital revenue during the previous year, which was a huge figure that early in the digital media landscape. It used some of those profits to scoop up another mobile-first gaming company, adding properties like Plants vs Zombies and Peggle to their library.EA completed another mass-firing in 2013, dismissing 10% of their employees under what they called a reorganization, around the same time they announced an exclusive license with Disney that would allow them to develop Star Wars games.Their stock value boomed in the following years, as a result of those cost-savings measures, and those new relationships, and emboldened by record-high stock valuations, in the mid-20-teens, the company started releasing big-name games, like Star Wars Battlefront 2, with random-content loot boxes and other sorts of microtransactions.This did not go over well with players, who decried these in-game purchasing options as ‘pay to win' mechanics, as players could pay more money to get better characters and equipment, and a lot of the content, even after paying for the expensive games, was still locked behind paywalls, requiring more payments to unlock that content. A bunch of gaming journalists cried foul on this shift as the game careened toward its full release, as did a whole lot of early players, and Disney complained, too, so by the time it hit shelves, the game's loot system was substantially changed, but that whole controversy spooked investors, and led to an 8.5% stock value drop in just a single month, knocking $3.1 billion from the company's valuation. As a result of that controversy, EA also became the face for a larger legal and legislative debate about in-game purchases and how it's kinda sorta like gambling, from that point forward.Soon after, EA experienced a series of bad quarters, including a huge drop of 13.3% to its valuation when a major entry in one of their larger franchises, Battlefield V, was released late, and received very mixed reviews when it was released, which led to a million fewer sold copies than anticipated. The game was also lagging in terms of gameplay behind smaller, nimbler competitors, including then-burgeoning Fortnite.The company saw an overall boost with the surprise success of Apex Legends, and the COVID-19 pandemic boosted sales dramatically for a while, since everyone was staying home, which allowed EA to gobble up a few more competing companies with successful franchises, and they knocked out a few more successful Star Wars games, as well.In early 2021, Saudi Arabia's public investment funds bought 7.4 million shares of EA for about $1.1 billion, which flew under the radar for most gamers, but that'll be important in a moment.Later that year, the company experienced a massive hack, a lot of its data, including the source code for games, stolen and sold on the dark web. EA bought some more competitors, but word on the street in 2022 was the the higher ups at EA were quietly shopping the company around, themselves looking to be acquired by a larger entity, on the scale of Apple or Disney.In early 2023, the company announced more mass-layoffs and launched another internal reorganization. It gutted several of its most popular gaming sub-brands, including BioWare, it cancelled an upcoming Star Wars game, and it announced that it would be shifting away from licensing agreements and refocusing on EA-owned IP.The pattern of layoffs leading to better financial fortunes didn't pay off this time, though. In early 2025, EA divulged that it expected to underperform in the coming year, several of its big-name titles not doing as well as expected; the company cast blame on the market, but players and journalists pointed at the company's gutting of its big-name studios, and the firing of many of its veteran developers to explain the reduced sales.EA had another mass-firing in April of this year, and followed by another in May, which paralleled an announcement that they would no longer be moving forward with a big, planned Black Panther game.In late September of 2025, EA announced that it had reached a deal, worth $55 billion, to go private, no longer selling shares on the stock market, with the financial assistance of a group of investors, which included Affinity Partners, which is led by Jared Kushner, US President Trump's son-in-law, Silver Lake, which is a US-based private equity firm that helps make these sorts of big sales happen, and the aforementioned Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.This deal isn't done yet, it still needs to get regulatory approval and a successful vote by stockholders, but it seems likely to go through, since the US regulatory environment is pretty lax at the moment, and because Kushner is involved, it's unlikely President Trump will take a personal disliking to it.But the big story here seems to be that Saudi Arabia is buying up not just a video game company, but one of the biggest and most successful video gaming companies in the world, which, although it's lost a lot of fan-credibility over the years, still owns some massively influential intellectual property and has just a stunning number of relationships and connections throughout the media world, alongside its huge valuation.If the sale does go through, and we should know for sure by sometime around June 2026, it would be the largest-ever leveraged buyout, which means the purchase was completed by using borrowed money that was borrowed against the asset being purchased; so those investors have taken out debt against EA itself, which is an increasingly common means of buying a large asset on the cheap, but it also typically burdens that asset with a simply astounding amount of debt which must then be recouped, often by selling off undervalued assets.When this happens to a newspaper, for instance, the buyer will often sell off the paper's real estate and fire all their employees, to make money and pay off that debt, and in this case, there's a chance that debt will be paid by throwing up a bunch of new paywalls and really leaning into those in-game transactions that nobody really liked, including politicians, back in the day, but which in this current regulatory environment would probably be allowed, and they would probably make some serious bank off of it initially, before players started getting wise and moving on to other games released by less predatory companies.The really interesting facet of this story, though, is the question of why Saudi Arabia wants a video game company.And to understand that, it's important to understand that, first, the country's Public Investment Fund is meant to help its economy shift away from purely extractive resources, like oil, and it has thus invested in all sorts of things, including luxury beach resorts, minority stakes in financial service companies like Citigroup, stakes in companies like Disney and Boeing and Meta, and increasingly, investments in companies run by allies of President Trump, like the aforementioned Affinity Partners, which was formed by Jared Kushner.So this is an economic play, but also a political play, almost certainly, by the Saudis, to get in good with the people who are in good with the US government.It's also been alleged that this might be an attempt by the Saudis to engage in what's being called game-washing, which is similar to greenwashing, but instead of trying to make a company seem green and sustainable by doing kinda sorta green things, but only as a veneer to cover up the opposite, in this case it means using sports and video games and the like to increase a nation's reputation with humanistic seeming things, despite, well, the truth being much more complicated.Just as when the Fund participated in buying a Premier League football, a soccer team, back in 2021, then, alongside their concomitant establishment of LIV Gold, a golf league meant to compete with the PGA, this investment in EA, and other investments it's made in video game companies like Capcom and Nexon, might be part of a larger effort to diversify the nation's brand, not just its economics. It's human rights record is abysmal, and it's possible they're trying to cover that up, make people forget about it, by creating more connections between Saudi Arabia and more positive things, like sports and games and the like.There are additional concerns about this purchase of EA, too, by the way, because Saudi Arabia's cultural values are very anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-liberal, democratic values. So there are fears that we might see less representation and fewer what we might call western values portrayed in the games released by these studios, as a result of this ownership.The folks running EA have said their core values will remain unchanged by the buyout, but it's expected, bare-minimum, that this will lead to another several restructurings and mass-layoffs throughout the company in the coming years, to help recoup all that debt, at the end of which even the people making those promises might be long gone.Show Noteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Investment_Fundhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/business/dealbook/electronic-arts-buyout-jared-kushner.htmlhttps://www.wsj.com/business/deals/ea-private-deal-buyout-video-game-maker-808aefechttps://www.ft.com/content/61cef75e-ceba-43ee-80e3-040756c6154f?accessToken=zwAGQAMTiJKIkc9hzvdezrpD7tOA4wQHVsYVTw.MEUCIHND3WOT4rS4frIMIOoeXHQeil_Ma1yGrwOqUD2m306DAiEAtA_QLvpyObai9zoo_9GZSljJuJyTKxJgFHpQDcCcVsE&sharetype=gift&token=03dd6ca5-c34f-4925-8a3d-a89f4058ee80https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/ea-silver-lake-deal-jared-kushner-c145cd55?st=eZghQHhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Ok, we know this episode should be called Something Fun on the Toilet with MK, but we're chose to keep it classy. Our guest this week is Michail Katkoff, a veteran of Zynga, Supercell, and Rovio, partner in Play Ventures, and founder of Deconstructor of Fun. In all of these different roles he's developed a unique understanding of our industry from different perspectives. We discuss product management, insane mobile profits and the ecosystem necessary to support game studios.00:00 – Introduction: Alex and Aaron introduce Mishka, highlighting his diverse roles in the gaming industry.02:00 – First Steps: Mishka talks about his first role in the industry at Digital Chocolate and his encounters with Trip Hawkins.05:45 – Cultural Differences in Gaming: Mishka reflects on the differences between the Finnish and Californian working cultures.08:30 – Early Influences: Growing up in the Soviet Union, Mishka shares how Pong and Sega sparked his passion for gaming.10:50 – From Business to Games: Mishka recounts how he left the corporate world to pursue his dream in the gaming industry.14:00 – Product Management Explained: Mishka breaks down the role of a Product Manager in gaming and how he helped shape game monetization.16:30 – Crazy Discoveries in Player Data: Mishka reveals insights from analyzing player behavior and the surprising findings about in-game sales.22:00 – Ethics in Monetization: A candid conversation about the moral questions surrounding microtransactions and the 'whale' phenomenon.29:00 – Building the Finnish Gaming Scene: Mishka explains how Nokia and the Finnish education system helped create a gaming ecosystem.36:00 – Challenges for Indie Developers: Discussion on the current challenges small studios face in breaking into the mobile gaming market.40:30 – Favorite Games: Mishka shares his love for grand strategy and historical games, and his mobile game preferences.45:00 – Deconstructor of Fun: How Mishka started Deconstructor of Fun and grew it into a leading platform for industry insights.50:00 – Launching a Studio: Mishka talks about starting a game studio and its eventual acquisition by Sony.This episode is perfect for anyone interested in the gaming industry, product management, or how mobile gaming has evolved over the years!Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life!Hosted by Alexander Seropian and Aaron MarroquinFind us at www.thefourthcurtain.comCome join the conversation at https://discord.gg/KWeGE4xHfeVideos available at https://www.youtube.com/@thefourthcurtainFollow us on twitter: @fourthcurtainEdited and mastered at https://noise-floor.comFeaturing the music track Liberation by 505

In Episode 42 of Venture Games, my guest Trip Hawkins discusses founding Electronic Arts, 3DO, and Digital Chocolate; collaborating with legendary sports figures such as Dr. J, Larry Bird, and John Madden; stories and lessons learned throughout his decades-long career in tech and gaming; and advice for entrepreneurs building companies today.

Mark Jacobstein resides in Stanford, California with his wife, two children, and his mother in law. Mark's career has primarily focused on entrepreneurial technology, primarily in health tech, biotech, molecular diagnostics, and digital health arenas. After Cambridge, he worked with Scott Murphy, a close friend and business partner. He moved to California in 2003 to start a technology company and has been there ever since. He lives on the Stanford campus, which allows his children to grow up on a college campus.  Founding a Fantasy Sports Business Mark shares his journey from writing software for Mike Bloomberg in the early 90s to inventing the first online fantasy sports business [Small World] in 1994. He and his partner, Scott, initially struggled with starting a technology company due to their naivety and lack of experience in the tech startup ecosystem. However, they eventually built the first online fantasy sports business, which was one of the biggest consumer sites in the world at the time. In 1995, they spun out a web consultancy to solve various problems for corporate clients, building stateful and database-driven websites. They later built corporate websites for companies like Xerox and consulting for McKinsey on the internet's future. The business was sold to I-Excel in 1998. One common thread Mark has seen over the past 30 years is looking for systemic paradigm shifting changes in technology. Mark's career highlights the importance of adapting to new technologies and finding the most effective way to grow a business. Entrepreneurship in Machine Learning and AI Mark's last two companies and new venture studio focuses on machine learning and AI. He discusses his journey as an entrepreneur and the transition from a hobby to a business. He emphasizes the importance of looking for latent demand in businesses, he also emphasizes the importance of not engaging in gambling and making ethical choices in business decisions. His first experience as an entrepreneur was when he and his roommate Scott started hiring employees. They faced challenges like the.com crash and the need to lay off employees. Startup Business Mistakes  Mark discusses the mistakes made by his company in structure and decision-making processes. He believes that they were naive and didn't put enough thought into the process of disagreements, which caused friction and strained relationships. He also mentions that the biggest mistakes they made were sins of omission. They were too early to realize the monstrous opportunities that nobody was taking advantage of. One example is hiring Matt Funk, a summer intern who later became a hedge fund manager. He suggested they buy domain names, but Mark argued that this was unethical. Another example is building the first Business to Business Exchange (B2B) website, TextTrade.com, in 1996. This was an effort to make the textiles business more efficient. However, Mark argues that they missed out on the commercial implications of the internet and how they could have used their technology to service other industries. Silicon Valley and the Tech Landscape in the 2000s Mark, a former CEO of Apple, shares his experiences in the 2000s, particularly in the mobile business industry. He sold his fantasy sports business, Small World Sports, to Paul Allen, who bought Sporting News, an interactive TV channel. After a burnout at Sporting News. Mark met Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO. Mark was offered a position as co-founder and president of a mobile phone company. He was invited to Silicon Valley to meet with Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins. He was mentored by Trip and his experience in Silicon Valley was a pivotal moment in his life. He shares his experiences in the tech industry, starting with his time at Digital Chocolate and then moving on to venture capital firm Sequoia. He was introduced to Sam Altman, a young wunderkind, and worked with him to build a company called Looped, which was later sold to Qualcomm.  Working in Health Technologies After leaving Digital Chocolate, he decided to make a career shift into health tech. He enjoyed his work in fantasy sports but felt that nothing had changed the world in a profoundly important way. He eventually joined Guardant Health, a molecular diagnostic company that applied machine learning to big omics and developed cancer detection using blood draws. He was drawn to the intellectual challenge of working on circulating tumor DNA for early detection of cancer. Mark worked with Immunai, a company that uses single cell genomics and machine learning to improve immunomodulatory therapeutics. He appreciates the importance of the immune system's complexity and the work in the field. He recently founded Jiminy Health, a company that aims to address care gaps in mental health care through mobile and MLMs.   The Importance of Authentic Leadership  Mark has learned the importance of authenticity in running a company that is non-obvious or counterintuitive. He believes that authenticity is crucial in leadership and having a compelling vision. As a CEO, he focuses on making that vision clear and helping organizations untangle their knots to pull towards a common goal. He has learned from Sam's outrageous ambition and his ability to build companies that start with seemingly outrageous ideas. He applies these lessons to his own work, thinking about what different people would do in different situations as long as it aligns with his values and aligns with his values. He compares running a lab to running a business, which involves raising money, hiring people, meeting deadlines, and missing milestones.  Influential Harvard Professors and Courses  Mark discusses his experiences at Harvard, focusing on courses and professors that resonate with him. He mentions Harry Lewis, who was a computer scientist, and his career in tech. He emphasizes the importance of having a vision and articulating it to attract customers and recruit a team. He also highlights the importance of social reflection classes like Robert Coles, which taught him how telling a story can change the world and create an ethos that cares about the world. Mark's mental health startup, Jiminy Health, aims to make scalable mental health services for millions of people. He believes that being raised in a liberal, progressive family still helps his businesses make the world a better place.   Timestamps: 02:59 Entrepreneurship, technology, and business success 08:46 Entrepreneurship and technology trends  10:36 Entrepreneurship, business decisions, and growth 16:58 Missed opportunities in tech and entrepreneurship 23:34 Entrepreneurship, leadership, and the video game industry 27:03 Career shift from tech to healthcare with valuable insights 32:55 Entrepreneurship, leadership, and management style 38:02 Leadership, authenticity, and lessons learned from mentors 41:29 Relying on a spouse as a counselor in healthcare 45:58 Entrepreneurship, technology, and mental health   Links: https://twitter.com/mjacobstein https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjacobstein/ https://www.jiminihealth.com/ https://www.nearhorizon.com/       

Staffelfinale mit Leah. Herzlich Willkommen offiziell im Podcast-Ensemble. Weihnachtlich wird es nicht, dafür hat Leah aber eine lange Liste dabei, was sich alles ändern muss. Da muss sich Micha warm anziehen, aber hört selber ... Fühlt euch wie immer gut unterhalten. Abonniert uns bei Spotify und bewertet uns gerne auf Apple Podcasts. Folgt uns auf TikTok und Instagram. Shownotes: WeekendSoulFood Playlist (2022): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Eht1UMLdtUskRDy8LS663 Watchlist: https://www.propsteijugend-bad-harzburg.de/index.php?id=437 ReSe Playlist 2021 : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3C6a6qafWzcyqKxthruTeG Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5VBJvrCroXN7Af5rRmkEID Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/relevanz-sehnsucht/id1504215019 Kontakt & Content von Leah: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Leahmcfly Kontakt & Content von Simone: Webseite: https://www.propsteijugendvorsfelde.de Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evjuvf/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PropsteijugendVorsfelde/ Kontakt & Content von Micha: Website: https://www.propsteijugendbadharzburg.de/staff/bad-harzburg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evjugendbadharzburg TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSTb1xgF/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrpMfNeFdMwf843Ngwy3U7Q Kontakt & Content von Martin: Website: https://www.propsteijugendbadharzburg.de/staff/landesjugendpfarrer/ Musik: @philipp_ri

Cyril Barrow is the co-founder and COO of Village Studio, a new kind of games company that is building cross-game avatars that act as portable avatars dressed in NFT wearables with unique attributes that can be utilized across multiple games. Cyril has been in the games industry for a long time. He has had leadership roles at companies like Digital Chocolate, Rovio, and EA, most recently leading the EA Helsinki studio. In this episode, we talk about Cyril's lessons learned from working in leadership, building studios, and what he sees as the true potential of interoperability of assets between games.

Do you want to learn more about scaling customer acquisition for an online product? The lessons here will apply whether you are shipping a game, a metaverse experience or any type of mobile application. Eric Seufert worked at legendary game publishers like Rovio, Wooga, and Digital Chocolate--where he literally wrote the book on Freemium Economics for games. Eric's concern for several years has been scaling games by optimizing unit economics and accessing scalable user acquisition channels. In this conversation, Jon and Eric talk about how the market for mobile user acquisition has changed; how the market for advertising networks has evolved; and even how the strategy for game marketing has shifted from the "Harry Crane" measurement paradigm to the "Don Draper" paradigm which is all about audience resonance. We cover the differences (or lack thereof) in performance vs. brand marketing; how new privacy rules such as ATT (App Tracking Transparency) have impacted the user acquisition markets; and how to staff a user acquisition team at your publisher. If you're looking for an overview of how to gain access to the mass market of consumers on mobile--both the history, present and possible future--this is the conversation you'll want to hear!

After a career in product management at places like Zynga Natural Motion and Digital Chocolate, Akash Senapaty founded e-learning startup Vah Vah with 3 others from Zynga India. What are the lessons learned? What was he able to translate from being a games PM at Zynga to entrepreneurship? What are his thoughts on the gaming companies and the opportunities in India? SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ - Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio

Arte para jogos casuais, carreira como artista de jogos e trabalho no exterior. Esses são alguns tópicos que vamos abordar nesse episódio do Behind The Game com o Ziro Neto, que atualmente é Senior Game Artist na Tripledot Studios em Londres e já passou por estúdios como a Wooga, Digital Chocolate e Softgames e Product Madness. Nessa conversa, o Ziro compartilhou como foi da faculdade de arquitetura para trabalhar com jogos, suas primeiras experiências como artista de pixel art, a migração para jogos de alta resolução e como ele se mantém atualizado e evoluindo nessa carreira de 15 anos trabalhando com arte para games.

In this episode we meet Charlotta Tiuri the Art Director of Frozenbyte in Finland. Charlotta specializes in both 3D Character and environment art and has worked on Trine 3 & 4, Nine Parchments & Shadwen. Charlotta has worked over 10 years in the games industry starting her career at Trip Hawkins (EA Founder) company Digital Chocolate. Full video podcast here: https://youtu.be/An4Go7dotoM Charlotta's Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/charlotta Game Art Co. mascot character by Rayner Alencar

This is the hundred and twenty-fourth episode of the GameDev.tv Community Podcast. Jenna Christini Miller is a video game industry designer & director of 17 years. She's led design at top mobile/social game studios including EA, Zynga, Glu Mobile, Playdom / Disney, TinyCo, Digital Chocolate, and more. She specializes in casual, mobile, social, free-to-play game design, creative direction, interaction design, and monetization. She has credits on 38 released games with multiple top-grossing titles including FarmVille 2: Country Escape and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. When not designing, Jenna rides and trains her horse in Oregon. Jenna believes video games are an art that will change the world.Complete Drawing Course: Create Video Game Concept Art:https://www.gamedev.tv/p/complete-drawing?coupon=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Unity Multiplayer Intermediate C# Coding & Networking: https://www.gamedev.tv/p/unity-multiplayer/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Unreal C++ Course:https://www.gamedev.tv/p/unreal-engine-c-developer-4-22-learn-c-and-make-video-games/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Unreal Blueprint Course:https://www.gamedev.tv/p/unreal-blueprint/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Unity 3D Course:https://courses.gamedev.tv/p/complete-unity-developer-3d/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Unity 2D Course:https://courses.gamedev.tv/p/complete-unity-developer-2d/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Blender Course:https://www.gamedev.tv/p/blender/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6Math For Games Course:https://courses.gamedev.tv/p/math-for-games/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=K-B&affcode=45216_dezckag6GameDev.tv Official PodcastEnjoy the Podcast! Support the show (https://www.gamedev.tv/p/complete-unity-developer-3d/?product_id=1319848&coupon_code=The_K_B&affcode=45216_dezckag6)

Many people have been stuck inside for the past several weeks and some are trying out voice games to pass the time or just explore the latest developments in voice-interactive entertainment.    Two games that have gotten a good deal of attention are The Vortex and the 3% Challenge, both from Doppio Games. These offer different examples of how to implement a game strategy on the leading voice platforms and serve as a jumping-off point for the conversation today with Jeferson Valadares, the co-founder and CEO of Doppio Games. We discuss these games in depth, how they differ creatively and from a business model standpoint. We also talk about monetization strategies, how voice revenue models differ from mobile and other gaming platforms and much more.    Jeferson brings a deep background in game development to Doppio. He is a member of the Board of Directors at Rovio Entertainment was formerly VP/GM of the BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment and also spent time at top tier game studios such as EA, BioWare, and Digital Chocolate.  

Our guest today is Michail ‘Mishka' Katkoff, the Head of Studio at Rovio. Mishka has worked on hit games at Zynga, Supercell, Digital Chocolate and FunPlus - and is the founder of the very popular and very insightful Deconstructor of Fun blog that is very much an authority on the gaming space - I definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't done so already.In today's episode, we ask a very important question - how to build a studio that can make genre-defining hit games. Even though game mechanics are powerful forces, what can truly drive massive and sustainable growth are culture, processes and teams that drive high-performing studios - a perspective that I'm excited to dig into today. I'm truly thrilled to get Mishka's insights distilled from hundreds of games from tens of studios in our interview today. Key Highlights:

Today I’m talking with Jeferson Valadares, the Co-Founder and CEO of Doppio Games, a voice games statup from Lisbon, Portugal. I’ve known Jeff for years, since he was working in Helsinki for Digital Chocolate. After the years in Finland, Jeff worked at EA, Bioware, Bandai Namco, and finally it has come the time for him to found a new games studio. Check out more at https://doppio.games/

Jami is a long-time games industry veteran, who’s career spans from working at Digital Chocolate, EA, Rovio and now at his own company. Jami and his team have been exploring better ways of working on games, and today now he will share these learnings with us. Jami has always had the entrepreneurial spirit and has had several opportunities to start a games company, but situation and circumstances didn’t get aligned until 2014 when the guys started working on Futureplay Games. Learning as a CEO: Reading less nowadays, more talking to people and learning from what they have done, i.e. Ilkka Paananen the CEO of Supercell. You can’t understand everything from books, you need to "walk the walk”. You need to have people who can take on several roles, versatile and experienced people can take you far. Jami and his founding team wanted to start this company from scratch, and have no BS from the previous companies they've been in. No processes, no nailed down decisions, unless if it makes sense for them in this new order. Visit: https://elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-5-how-to-build-a-flat-organization-for-a-games-company/

My guest today is Eric Seufert. Eric is the Head of Platform at N3twork, the founder of MobileDevMemo.com, author of the book ‘Freemium Economics' - and one of the foremost experts on mobile user acquisition today. Eric started his career as an analyst at Skype, and went on to work with gaming companies like Digital Chocolate, Grey Area and Wooga - before heading up user acquisition for Rovio, in which capacity he headed up much of the launch activity for Angry Birds 2, which launched with over 25 million installs in the first week after its launch. Eric has also consulted with over 30 app development companies on their growth - and developed the growth and user acquisition platform Agamemnon, which was acquired by N3twork in 2017. Eric has worked on an incredibly wide variety of apps - and he's seen it all, from the early days of mobile growth where you could basically buy bot installs to hit the top 10 ranks on iTunes to today's increasingly sophisticated world of automation and programmatic growth. Indeed, his site MobileDevMemo.com is one of the resources I learn so much from and recommend very often to folks. In this fascinating and in-depth conversation, we dive into not only the state of mobile growth over the years and the forces that defined the evolution of mobile growth - but also into Eric's fascinating career and work that has led him to develop an incredibly nuanced perspective on the past, present and future of growth on mobile.KEY HIGHLIGHTSHow Eric got his start in user acquisition & growth from following his curiosity about freemium.How Eric's fears about the possibility that his company would fail impelled him to start his blog – and how his blog got him his next job.The difference between mobile and desktop when it comes to user acquisition.Do you have be a big established company with a huge balance sheet to build a commercial successful app?The anxiety that Rovio had before Angry Birds 2 about living up to the original – and Eric's team's strategy for launch.Why programmatic is so hard to make work.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/a-brief-history-of-mobile-user-acquisition-with-eric-seuferthead-of-platform-at-n3twork-founder-at-mobiledevmemo/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

In this episode we discuss tips and tricks for learning game design and how to make sure your first job application shines out from the crowd. We are joined by game designers Arash John Sammander & Emyl Merzoud. Arash is lead designer at Rockway, game design & art teacher. Arash has also worked at Digital Chocolate as a game designer and is now a design consultant for the industry. Emyl Merzoud is lead game designer at Polko Dot Studios and has previously worked at Digital Chocolate and Rovio as a game designer on Angry Birds. -Illustration by Rayner Alencar

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Trip Hawkins wants to help the nerds take over the world. Hawkins founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry as an early executive at Apple. Hawkins pioneered many successful strategies and practices in the PC and game industries and was the creative force behind EA Sports and such games as John Madden Football. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30340]

Quite a groovy episode! So groovy we're posting it 10 minutes after it aired! Enjoy the awesome vibes while we cool off this boiling studio. 28°C sheesh.

Trip Hawkins is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Electronic Arts, 3DO, Digital Chocolate. He was employee #68 at Apple and speaks with host Mark Sylvester about how he followed his passion for games and technology into an extremely interesting career. If you are interested in geek history, you will want to make time to listen to this episode. I have to help the nerds take over the world Topics included; • The value of a quality education - he studied originally at Harvard • How luck was a contributing factor to his success in life • Listen to 8 stories that show how he connected the dots from one life event to the next • Stories you've not heard about the early days at Apple Computer • How the route to discovery is rarely a straight line • The DNA of an entrepreneur: Ideas, Drive, Passion, and Effort • The story of his first game made in high school to his founding of Electronic Arts • The idea that formed his world view that Engineers are Artists • The secret of the EA business model • His view of the incoming generation of Digital Natives and how he thinks they're a big part of the solution • How we need to think of new business creation as one that serves compassion instead of materialism • His new game called IF - which focuses on Emotional Intelligence • Why he believes that nerds have finally become the cool kids Trip is based in Santa Barbara and is looking forward to being more integrated into the local tech ecosystem. There's a great story on him in Noozhawk earlier this year.

Various technical difficulties, internet ghosts, and Rob operating at 40% capacity can’t stop the Tri-Force crew from making their appointed podcast rounds. This week, we are joined by a very special guest—John Gholson from movies.com! He joins the rest of the crew for a veritable smorgasbord of sumptuous geekery. We also answer your questions, talk about what we’ve been playing, get into some movie discussion, and throw some comic book love your way. Rob kicks off the main topic of the show as we chat about all things digital. How does digital distribution affect game collectors and archivers? What happens to your digital purchases when their format is no longer supported? We also look at the benefits of going digital, especially when it comes to older games getting new releases and indie developers getting their games seen and played. Rob was running on fumes, but through the magic of technology and "special" medicine we brought him back. He sounds like he’s operating at 67% capacity! And if you didn’t hear a lot of Patrick this week it’s only because he was playing Diablo 3 the whole time. Probably. Oh, and if you want to enjoy more entertaining anecdotes from John, follow him on Twitter @gholson. He left you this special gift, sketched during the podcast:   Featured Music: Daft Punk-The Grid Within Temptation-Shot in the Dark

Various technical difficulties, internet ghosts, and Rob operating at 40% capacity can’t stop the Tri-Force crew from making their appointed podcast rounds. This week, we are joined by a very special guest—John Gholson from movies.com! He joins the rest of the crew for a veritable smorgasbord of sumptuous geekery. We also answer your questions, talk about what we’ve been playing, get into some movie discussion, and throw some comic book love your way. Rob kicks off the main topic of the show as we chat about all things digital. How does digital distribution affect game collectors and archivers? What happens to your digital purchases when their format is no longer supported? We also look at the benefits of going digital, especially when it comes to older games getting new releases and indie developers getting their games seen and played. Rob was running on fumes, but through the magic of technology and "special" medicine we brought him back. He sounds like he’s operating at 67% capacity! And if you didn’t hear a lot of Patrick this week it’s only because he was playing Diablo 3 the whole time. Probably. Oh, and if you want to enjoy more entertaining anecdotes from John, follow him on Twitter @gholson. He left you this special gift, sketched during the podcast:   Featured Music: Daft Punk-The Grid Within Temptation-Shot in the Dark

Wiggly of Trap Door and Kyle VonKubik bring you some of our favorite video gaming related guest from the Monthly Video Game Audio Magazine, We Talk Games. Another of our favorite and most cherished interviews, programmer, creator, innovator, producer, CEO, founder, enthusiast and ridiculously handsome video game personality, Trip Hawkins joins us to Talk Games. Subjects include pre Electronic Arts, early EA, the innovations of the 3DO Company, censorship in gaming, creating a pre-Wii party experience, Digital Chocolate, creating the first console that just did it all and much more. If you like what you hear, drop by We Talk Games Dot Com and join our free and fantastic community, subscribe to our flagship monthly show and weekly Break-Out Bonus Level Minisodes.

Steffi ist zurück aus Florida und berichtet vom Akku-Test in den Kategorien Musik, Gespräche, Surfen, der einen überraschenden Sieger hatte. Wir stellen außerdem neue Handys von BlackBerry und Dell vor und erklären, warum das Motorola Backflip heißt wie es heißt. Außerdem klären wir die Frage, ob Ihr mit dem HTC HD mini besser dran seid als mit dem großen Bruder. Und wir beschäftigen uns nochmals mit dem Mann, der den iPhone-Prototypen im Biergarten vergaß - das Wetter passt ja. Sonnige Tage wünscht (uba). Wenn Ihr hier klickt, landet Ihr direkt bei iTunes und könnt Xonio 214 abonnieren. Hier sind die Shownotes zu Episode 083 von Xonio 214: News: BlackBerry Pearl 3G: RIM stellt Mini-Smartphone vor Samsung I9000 Galaxy S: Neue Fotos und Screens Launch von Android 2.2 am 19. Mai? Dell: Neue Windows-Phone-7- und Android-Handys Test Top-Handys im Akku-Test HTC HD mini Ausgepackt: Motorola Backflip in der Redaktion Software-Tipp der Woche Ovi Store: Fünf Spiele von Digital Chocolate gratis - Dictator Defense - Tower Bloxx: New York - Crazy Penguin Party - Nightclub Fever - Roll Revolution 99 Tracks Neues vom iPhone Lufthansa lädt iPhone-Pechvogel in den Biergarten ein iPhone HD: Gefundener Prototyp ist fast final iPhone: Android und iPhone OS laufen parallel

Programa 26 de la temporada 4. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/elreinonet/message

Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and creator of the Madden games, tells us about his mobile games company Digital Chocolate. He talks about the advent of the 'omni-media gamer' and why the iPhone is a bigger deal than the PC.With: Souldaddy, Someguy12 min. talk / no music / 7.3 MB Email us