Stay ConnectedIn each episode, host Jordan Blackman brings on game industry leaders and then dives deep into their experiences and know-how to uncover useful takeaways. Topics include rapid prototyping, specific game design strategies, tactics for Kickstarter success, venture capital funding, and much more.
Tune in to hear from guests such as Lorne Lanning, Robin Hunicke, and Brian Allgeier.
Marc's first gaming job was at Sphere, which was later renamed to Spectrum Holobyte. He worked as a software engineer on the games Vet and Falcon 1. When Spectrum Holobyte merged with Microprose in 1993, Mencher was asked to staff the entity and hired over 200 people. He later joined The 3DO Company, a game console manufacturer, as Staffing Manager, and helped to build The 3DO Studio (The 3DO Company's Game Development Studio) from scratch, hiring over 300 people.
In 1996, Mencher decided that he enjoyed the work so much, he opened his own recruiting firm, Virtual Search, which was later renamed to GameRecruiter in 2004, with Mencher as CEO, along with co-founder Howard Taule. The firm specializes in career opportunities within the worldwide gaming industry and is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with satellite offices in Austin, Texas, Las Vegas, Nevada, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
While running the recruiting company, Mencher also contributed to the gaming industry as a producer of games such as Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals and was given special thanks in the credits of Force 21 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Mencher has written many articles for game industry periodicals and websites such as Gamasutra, with advice and observations on gaming careers. He has also been interviewed as an industry expert on Blog Talk Radio and in periodicals such as Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, the Florida Sun-Sentinel and The Washington Post. In 2002, he wrote and published his first book, Get in the Game!. The book guides and prepares readers to start a career in the game industry, and shows the reader how to research, network, meet the right industry people, access the unadvertised job market, and present an effective demo. The book also gives advice on writing resumes, handling interviews, and negotiating salary packages. Additional advice is included from several industry experts who discuss different types of careers in the industry.
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Ian has been in the gaming business for twenty years, including time as an environment artist, the art director for the Dead Space games, and the creative director of Battlefields 4 and Hardline. In 2016 he became Game Director for Crystal Dynamics directing the Tomb Raider Series.
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Adrian Crook is an award-winning game design consultant with over 20 years' experience in the social, casual, and core games sectors. He has produced and designed over two dozen products across platforms ranging from early Nintendo and Sega Genesis to PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox 360, Wii, Facebook, iOS, and Online. In 2006, Adrian was named Producer of the Year by the Canadian New Media Awards and his products have won numerous awards, including "Game of the Year."
In January 2008, Adrian founded Adrian Crook & Associates, a game design and strategy consultancy that has contributed to the success of over 90 valued international clients. Adrian's experienced team is focused on social and mobile game design, gamification, business development, and startup growth strategy.
Adrian is an advisor to several game industry firms and is currently a creative mentor at Execution Labs, a game incubator, and accelerator. He has given interviews on G4TV and other TV, print, and online news outlets, and has spoken as a social games expert at conferences such as GDC, SXSW, ICE, Casual Connect, INplay, and GameON: Finance.
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Gordon P. Bellamy is an American video game executive. He has over 19 years of experience and leadership in the interactive entertainment industry. Gordon was the Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association from August 2010 until July 2012.
Gordon has spent the past nineteen years producing and marketing interactive content, and developing strategic business partnerships with video game publishers, social media developers and technology partners.
As an executive consultant for MTV, Bellamy provided creative guidance on the content, direction and strategic marketing partnerships for the annual Spike TV Video Game Awards show and the highly rated weekly program GameTrailers TV with Geoff Keighley, also on Spike TV. Previously, he was Executive Director of the game industry's trade organization, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Bellamy has also played key business and product development roles at Electronic Arts, where he was named the company's Rookie of the Year for his work on the Madden NFL franchise, THQ, and Activision subsidiary, Z-AXIS. Gordon previously served as Chair of the Board of the International Game Developers Association and serves as a judge for the Promax/BDA MI6 Awards, which celebrate the best in marketing, advertising and design within interactive and game entertainment.
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An American video game designer who is best known for his work as the lead designer and creative director on the Ratchet & Clank series developed by Insomniac Games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4.
In 2017, he self-published the book Directing Video Games: 101 Tips for Creative Leaders. Written and illustrated by Brian, the book covers the top principles and tips for both aspiring and experienced creative directors.
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Dave Rohrl has more than 22 years experience designing and producing online games for a mass audience. Over the course of his career, he has led design or production on more than 50 games and overseen or consulted on dozens more and held senior positions at Pogo, PopCap, Zynga, and Playdom.
In this episode, we discuss the design process, especially as it pertains to preproduction on casual games. Listen to learn why he encourages bad code and art early in the process and many of the tactics he brings to bear in order to achieve "fun" fast.
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Alfonzo Burton is one of the top designers in UI/UX. His insight and unsurpassed design techniques have been utilized by many of the top grossing games in the marketplace to date, many achieving the 100-Million-dollar mark. Alfonzo has founded two design companies that have both been a driving force in UI/UX for the past 15 years. He worked as a Director of UI/UX for both Glu, and Pocket Gems and then moved on as CEO/Creative Director to begin Uxmagicians Inc, a San Francisco-based full-service user experience design agency that focuses on gaming experiences and digital products.
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Robin Hunicke is an innovative American video game artist. She's also a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.
Hunicke is recognized in the industry for her support of independent game development, experimentation in game design, research in dynamic difficulty adjustment, and the advocacy of women within the games industry.
In this interview, we discuss her unique take on games as art, and the process she uses to imbue her games with emotion.
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Eric Zimmerman is a game designer the co-author of four books including Rules of Play with Katie Salen, which was published in November 2004. Eric Zimmerman has written at least 24 essays and white-papers since 1996, mostly pertaining to game development from an academic standpoint. He's currently a founding faculty at the NYU Game Center. Eric Zimmerman is deeply embedded in New York Game scene. Having originally cofounded Gamelab, the studio that went out to create Diner Dash.
In this episode, Eric explains how he designed Gamelab to be a place where people who worked there felt ownership and authorship of the intellectual property that they were creating. We also talk about the value of game design "frameworks" and the art of game design as a way of being in the world.
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Ed Kuehnel, a screenwriter (Lumberjack Man) and game writer who has worked on over fifty video games for publishers such as Disney Interactive, Paramount Digital, Vivendi/Universal and Ubisoft.
Ed's work won Best Narrative at the Game Awards 2014 with Valiant Hearts and has written on critically acclaimed games for some of the most beloved studios in the industry, including Twisted Pixel Games, Uber Entertainment and Telltale Games.
In this interview, we discuss some of the key lessons he's learned along his path to success, and Ed shares the powerful frameworks that he finds consistently useful in crafting great in-game tales.
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