OK, maybe it is. Still, I hope I have something to say that makes it worth your time. After all, I've spent over a decade working in games, focusing on product management and what I call "fast-tech" (more on that in a future post). I love making games, and I love playing them. Still, recently I've become more than a little disappointed in how information and lessons learned are shared - or rather, not shared - around the industry.
You see, back in the good ol' days before every original thought or idea was "proprietary knowledge" owned by the company you worked for. Before, you had to get permission from an army of legal and PR reps to do a podcast, write an article, or speak at a conference. Back in those days, people in the industry shared and compared the bits of knowledge they came by with far more openness and frequency to improve and refine the industry and direct it towards something more significant.
Nowadays, most "real" information and learnings are hoarded and guarded. With billions on the line in this dog-eat-dog industry, it makes sense, right? On the one hand, sure, but it seems the scientific approach has been fractured and siloed along the way, making progress feel a bit winner-take-all. But I don't believe in zero-sum or finite game approaches to business.
So, I decided to start this site/blog to formalize my thoughts, ideas, and notes with the accountability of a public forum. I want to share what I've learned as freely as possible. I have insights from years of working in the business, and I want to share them so that we can all learn. Hopefully, this learning process will benefit everyone, including me, as I have always profited from "showing my work," even though I hate to do it. If this helps give a single insight, start a dialog, or spur one idea that betters the industry, it'll be worth it.
So while this might be "just another game blog," please know that I aim to keep the content multi-dimensional, touching on intersections between philosophy + psychology + experience + practical tools. Topics will touch on product management, team-building and creation, the Free to Play (F2P) business model, crypto, and, really, just lots of frank opinions on almost everything.
Why would you spend another minute reading my opinions?
For starters, these opinions are grounded in my diverse experiences as a Product Manager at some of the world's top studios and gaming companies. Throughout the last decade+, I've worked with a business model - F2P - which gives a product away for free and makes more money than if you had sold it upfront for a standard price. All because it's designed around our human psychological biases. Ya, you, me, all of us, unfortunately. This model lured me from finance deep into the gaming industry and has helped me develop eight projects that hit $100m lifetime revenue, with three going on to make over $500m. (Still shooting for that elusive $1b... coming soon 😅)
The saying goes, "it takes a tribe to raise a child," and the same goes for a game, so these successes are hardly mine to claim. But working with these incredible teams allowed me to closely observe the frameworks, strategies, and approaches that contributed to those successes. I am always using what I learned from those experiences, as well as what I learned when things went wrong. Failure is a great teacher, and I will share some of my largest or costliest (-$1m) mistakes, but more on that another time.
These are the experiences I plan to leverage here as I offer ideas and insights that I hope will be useful to an array of industry insiders, tech enthusiasts, and those just wondering how products get built, scale, and operate.
Anyway, if you made it this far, you are why I'm writing, and I look forward to seeing you soon!