GameMakers

Joseph Kim
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The GameMakers podcast publishes current, entertaining, and in-depth discussions on F2P game development. Topics that we cover include the business of games, F2P monetization, liveops, game design, game development processes, team structure, and more.

  1. 31. MÄRZ

    The Last 20% Is Worth $100 Million

    AI is making it cheaper to build games. It's doing nothing for the cost of building the right game. That distinction is about to crush more studios than any technology shift in the past decade.                                    Ran Mo is the CEO of Proxima and creator of Suck Up — arguably the first commercially successful game to use AI at runtime. The game generated over 100 million YouTube views with zero marketing spend. Before founding Proxima, Ran led product teams at EA on The Sims franchise and spent time at YouTube and BCG.  In this episode, Ran live demos AI-assisted coding in Unity, breaks down his "trunk and leaves" framework for where AI helps (and where it destroys your codebase), and makes the contrarian case that AI in actual gameplay is overhyped — even though he built the first game to prove it works.                                   We go deep on: why vibe-coded games are architecturally unusable at scale, the power law that's about to eliminate mid-tier studios, why Ran hired a marketer with 1M TikTok followers, and the Taoist philosophy that keeps him sane while Silicon Valley burns out around him                                                                         Whether you're a game dev, studio head, or just trying to understand where AI actually moves the needle in creative industries, this conversation will sharpen your thinking. 🔗 Ran Mo's newsletter: newsletter.ranmo.me                                              🔗 Proxima: proxima.gg                                                                                   Outline: 0:00 Intro 1:15 Ran Mo's background and founding Proxima 4:38 How Suck Up actually uses AI                                                                      8:49 Why Proxima won't use AI for art or design                                      12:32 Live demo: AI coding in Unity                                                                    22:33 Vibe coding gone wrong — the Stardew Valley test 25:14 The trunk and leaves framework 29:24 Real productivity numbers (not Twitter hype) 34:57 The technically capable designer                                                   38:58 Power law distribution is coming for games                                 43:48 Suck Up's $0 marketing playbook 46:04 The Courage to Do Nothing 52:35 The velocity trap                                                                                  58:13 Hot take: AI in gameplay is overhyped 61:01 Ran's personal story                                                                               66:15 Go your own way                                                                                    69:15 Final advice: slow down to speed up

    1 Std. 10 Min.

  2. 10. FEB.

    ThiGaming Trends for 2026 — And the One Nobody Wants to Talk AboutRT

    Last month, I sat on a panel about where the gaming industry is headed. The conversation was good — but there was one thing I didn't say out loud. In this episode, I break down the key trends I think will define gaming in 2026: The noise problem is about to get much, much worse — and it's hitting from both sidesSmall teams aren't an anomaly. They're the new default."Nobody codes anymore" — what AI-or-die actually means for studios right nowWhy the industry is losing its moat and most people don't see it yet Plus: the progression compression paradox that nobody's solving — why the attention economy is forcing games to speed up in ways that might break long-term engagement. Whether you're running a studio, building a game, or trying to figure out where this industry is going — this one's for you. 📩 Subscribe to the Gamemakers newsletter: gamemakers.com

    16 Min.

  3. 30.12.2025

    AppLovin Bull vs. Bear Case: What Operators Know That Investors Don't

    AppLovin just crossed $250 billion in market cap. Stock up 127% YTD. EBITDA margins at 82%. Is this the beginning—or the top? We assembled the most qualified panel possible to break it down: an operator running millions through AppLovin's platform, a gaming-focused financial analyst, and an institutional investor who's seen these cycles before. What emerged isn't your typical bull-bear debate. It's a breakdown of how dominance actually works in ad tech—and what could break it. IN THIS EPISODE → Why AppLovin doesn't need to be better than competitors—just 95% as good → The MAX/Axon lock-in that keeps publishers captive → E-commerce expansion: AppLovin is beating Google on Android → The SEC investigation and deplatforming risk (how worried should you be?) → What one operator's portfolio data reveals about where the cracks are forming → Each panelist's prediction for AppLovin in 2026 SPEAKERS Josh Chandley — President & CEO, WildCard Games Matthew Kanterman, CFA — Director of Research, Blue River Financial Group Brian Peganoff — Former TMT Investor, Founder Timber Advisors Joseph Kim — CEO, Lila Games TIMESTAMPS [00:00] Introduction & Panel Overview [01:22] AppLovin Financial Recap: 127% YTD, 82% Margins [04:52] Valuation Analysis: Is Growth Priced In? [07:15] The Bull Case: Infrastructure Lock-In [10:30] How MAX & Axon Create Publisher Dependency [15:45] E-Commerce Expansion: Beating Google on Android [22:10] Why Meta & Google Can't Compete on iOS [28:40] The Bear Case: Five Risks [35:20] SEC Investigation & Deplatforming Risk [42:15] The Infrastructure Risk Nobody Discusses [48:30] Competitive Landscape: Unity, Moloco, Meta [58:20] Connected TV: Wild Card or Dead End? [1:05:40] Panel Predictions for 2026 [1:15:30] Key Takeaways LINKS Newsletter: https://www.gamemakers.com Full article: https://www.gamemakers.com/p/applovin-bull-bear-case Pixels & Profits is a GameMakers series covering the business and investing side of the gaming industry.

    1 Std. 51 Min.

  4. 17.11.2025

    Your validation passed. Your players hated it. Here’s why. | MAG #10

    Most game studios either skip validation entirely or waste hundreds of thousands on academic testing that doesn't move the needle. Both approaches kill products. In this episode, we discuss why product validation is the difference between success and years of wasted development—and introduces two frameworks to fix your process. You'll discover: The Pyramid Decision Model: When to trust tastemaker vision vs. player dataWhy the "wrong tastemaker problem" is your biggest invisible risk5 critical validation failures (and how to avoid each one)The signal vs. noise problem: When player feedback actually hurts your gameStage-specific validation: Pre-production → Production → Soft Launch → Hard LaunchWhy expensive user motivation studies and persona research rarely work This matters if: Your team debates "vision" vs. "data-driven" design endlesslyYou've hired consultants who delivered fancy reports but no resultsYour validation tests keep pointing in different directionsYou're burning runway without knowing if your core concept worksYou need a framework to match methodology to development stage The uncomfortable truth: It's nearly impossible to evaluate a "right tastemaker" without historical success—and even then, they might fail in a new genre. Meanwhile, over-intellectualized academic approaches sound impressive but rarely translate to product gains. Bottom line: Product velocity = speed × direction. Validation should steer your direction, not justify executive forecasts or create someone to blame. This episode gives you the frameworks to validate what matters, when it matters. Read the full breakdown with detailed frameworks:https://www.gamemakers.com/p/your-validation-passed-your-players Timestamps: (00:00:00) Why This Might Be the Most Important Topic Yet(00:01:07) The Two Extremes: No Testing vs. Testing Theater(00:05:28) The Pyramid Decision Model: Top vs. Bottom(00:09:52) Problem #1: The Wrong Tastemaker Problem(00:12:08) Problem #2: Validation Tests Are Often Flawed(00:14:08) Problem #3: Over-Intellectualization (Why Academic Models Fail)(00:17:14) Problem #4: Misinterpreting Validation Results(00:20:02) Problem #5: The Signal vs. Noise Problem(00:22:17) The What, When, and How Framework by Development Stage(00:25:33) Final Thoughts: Why This Is Really, Really Hard#gamedev #productvalidation #gamedevelopment #productmanagement #gamedevelopmenttips

    28 Min.

  5. 29.10.2025

    Your Analytics Stack Is Killing Your Studio (The New Meta: PostHog FTW)

    Most game studios waste weeks of runway on the wrong analytics decision—here's how to avoid that mistake. Traditional analytics SDK vendors like Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Braze promise plug-and-play simplicity but deliver silent failures, contract negotiations, and escalating costs that can destroy startup velocity. In this episode, we discuss why the old analytics playbook is obsolete in 2025—and reveals the new meta that's eating market share. You'll discover: Why SDK analytics vendors fail silently (and cost you weeks of bad data)The contract negotiation trap that delays launches by 6+ weeks5 analytics infrastructure options compared (real costs, hidden tradeoffs)Why PostHog is the new standard for studios under 500K MAUHow the right stack can improve dev velocity by 30%+ and cut costs 40-50% This matters if: You're choosing analytics infrastructure for a new gameYour current solution is slowing down iteration speedYou're tired of waiting hours for batched event dataYou want warehouse-native architecture without enterprise costs Bottom line: Your analytics decision could mean the difference between product-market fit and running out of runway. For small to mid-sized game studios, PostHog combines enterprise-grade power with pay-as-you-go pricing—no contracts, no traffic forecasting, no silent failures. Read the full breakdown with technical details, pricing tables, and implementation guides: https://www.gamemakers.com/p/the-new-meta-for-game-analytics-save Timestamps (Episode Chapters): (00:00:00) The Studio-Killing Problem You're Ignoring(00:01:26) The "Silent Failure" Trap (How SDKs Hide Bugs)(00:02:41) How 15-Minute Data Delays Destroy QA Velocity(00:06:02) The Obsolete 3-Tier Analytics Model (and Why It's Broken)(00:10:38) The 6-Week Contract Negotiation Trap(00:14:16) The "Nostradamus" Forecasting Problem: Why You Always Overpay(00:16:19) Option 1: Traditional SDKs (Amplitude, Mixpanel)(00:25:32) Option 2: Firebase + BigQuery(00:28:34) Option 3: Unity Analytics(00:30:21) Option 4: The New Meta (PostHog)(00:36:14) Option 5: The Enterprise Trap (Snowflake)(00:39:01) Integrated (Braze) vs. Best-of-Breed (PostHog + CRM)(00:42:56) The Final Verdict: What to Choose By Studio Size

    46 Min.

  6. 24.10.2025

    Why Game Studio Failures Are Structure Problems, Not Talent Problems | Chris Casanova (Microsoft, Mojang, Relic, Hypixel)

    Most game studios think they have a talent problem. They don't. They have a structure problem. Chris Casanova spent 15+ years as a producer across Microsoft Xbox, Mojang (Minecraft), Relic Entertainment, Offworld Industries, and Hypixel Studios. He's watched talented teams fail repeatedly—not from lack of skill, but from organizational friction. Traditional studios organize around craft silos: design departments, engineering departments, art departments. Every feature requires handoffs. Every handoff loses fidelity. The result? Friction, misalignment, wasted iteration, and missed deadlines. Chris reveals the alternative: cross-functional outcome teams of 5-9 people who own their results from concept to ship. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 - Chris's background: Xbox, Mojang, Relic 02:59 - Why he wrote "Structure Teams to Win" 06:54 - The problem with craft-based teams 08:17 - Outcome teams: The procedural worlds example 18:32 - Why 5-9 people is optimal team size 24:10 - Three organizational layers explained 31:48 - When leaders resist change 42:20 - The political reality of reorganization 47:15 - Case study: 70-person AA co-op shooter 58:07 - Advice for small teams (10 people) 01:01:06 - How to connect with Chris ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KEY INSIGHTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE PROBLEMS: - Design creates specs without context → over-engineered solutions - Art produces assets without validation → endless iteration - QA receives unclear requirements → irrelevant bug reports - Every handoff loses the original intent THE SOLUTION: Cross-functional teams of 5-9 people with: → Mixed disciplines (designers, engineers, artists, QA embedded) → Clear mission and measurable KPIs → Everything needed to own their outcome → Minimal handoffs, maximum collaboration REAL EXAMPLE: Procedural worlds team mission: "Every world seed feels fresh, readable, performant" KPI: Biome novelty per minute Team: Generation engineers, world designers, environment artists, technical artists, QA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 70-PERSON STUDIO STRUCTURE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chris provides detailed org structure for AA co-op shooter: - Combat & Gameplay (15 people, 2 teams) - Progression & Economy (10 people, 2 teams) - Social & Co-Op (12 people, 2 teams) - Content & Live Ops (15 people, 2 teams) - World & Narrative (10 people, 1 team) - Technical Foundation (8 people, 1 team) Each team has 5-9 people with mixed disciplines focused on specific outcomes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE HARD TRUTHS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Some leaders won't make the transition from managing 30 people to being on a team of 8. They'll resist or self-select out. And that's okay—holding onto territorial structures to preserve egos is how studios fail. "If you have a C-suite that's divided, you're not going to be able to make this change. You need unified leadership." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES MENTIONED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - "Team of Teams" by Gen. Stanley McChrystal - "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink - "Structure Teams to Win" (Chris's Medium article) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH CHRIS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chris is seeking his next production leadership role. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-casanova/ Email: ChrisCasanova@outlook.com Article: https://medium.com/@chris.casanova/structure-teams-to-win-15d98e65c5d7 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ READ THE FULL BREAKDOWN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Detailed newsletter post with implementation templates and additional examples: https://www.gamemakers.com/p/why-your-game-studios-organizational ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Gamemakers podcast: Gaming business insights for developers, executives, and investors. Hosted by Joseph Kim. New episodes weekly. #gamedev #productmanagement #teamstructure #leadership

    55 Min.
  7. The Battlefield 6 Redemption, What UCLA Football Teaches About Leadership, & Structuring Teams to Win | MAG #7

    20.10.2025

    The Battlefield 6 Redemption, What UCLA Football Teaches About Leadership, & Structuring Teams to Win | MAG #7

    Western AAA development is not dead. Battlefield 6's 7 million unit launch proves it. This episode deconstructs how EA and Vince Zampella reversed the "disaster" of Battlefield 2042 by focusing on leadership, community feedback , and a smarter studio structure. Then, we explore why leadership is the ultimate "alpha". Joseph Kim breaks down the stunning turnaround of the UCLA football team—who went from a 0-4 disaster to a 3-0 winning streak (including beating #7 Penn State ) with the exact same players. The only thing that changed? Leadership and strategy. Learn how to apply these lessons on accountability , clear roles , and scheme-to-personnel fit to your game studio. Finally, we feature an excerpt from an interview with veteran producer Chris Casanova on why your studio is likely structured for failure. He explains the critical shift from "craft-based" (siloed) teams to cross-disciplinary "outcome-based" teams and how to implement it. Timestamps: [00:00:20] Today's Topics: Battlefield 6, UCLA Leadership, & Team Structures [00:01:51] Corrections: Revisiting the EA/PIF Deal & The "Copy, Improve, Innovate" Framework [00:04:33] Top 3 News: Battlefield 6 (7M copies) , Switch 2 Production , Arc Raiders CCU [00:06:42] MACRO: The Battlefield 6 Redemption Story [00:07:41] By the Numbers: BF6 (7M units) vs 2042 (4.2M) [00:09:19] A Quick History of the Battlefield Franchise [00:11:12] What Changed? The "Save the Franchise" Game [00:13:01] Fix #1: A Better Studio Coalition Structure [00:15:05] Fix #2: Going Back to Basics & Listening to the Community [00:16:14] Fix #3: Polish and Giving the Game Time [00:17:53] Fix #4: The Vince Zampella Factor [00:20:40] Deep Dive: Who is Vince Zampella? (Infinity Ward, Respawn) [00:28:22] ALPHA: Leadership is Your Biggest Competitive Advantage [00:31:18] Case Study: The UCLA Football Turnaround [00:32:15] The 0-4 Disaster (The Problem) [00:37:31] The Mid-Season Fix: Firing the Coach [00:39:10] The 3-0 Turnaround (The Result) [00:41:03] The Lessons: 1) Play to Strengths, 2) Accountability, 3) Clear Roles, 4) Belief [00:44:47] Applying the Lessons to Your Game Studio [00:48:55] GAME DEV: Interview with Chris Casanova [00:49:41] The Thesis: Shifting from "Craft-Based" to "Outcome-Based" Teams [00:52:43] A Practical Example: A "Procedural Worlds" Team [00:57:51] Key Takeaway: Why Outcome-Based Teams Win

    59 Min.

  8. 13.10.2025

    Inside the $55B EA-Saudi Deal: Why It's Not a Typical LBO (with Chris Petrovic & Matthew Kanterman)

    Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund just closed the largest gaming acquisition in history—$55 billion for Electronic Arts. But this isn't the typical private equity playbook. In this episode, host Joseph Kim sits down with two M&A experts who break down what's really happening:- Chris Petrovic - Board Chairman & CBO at FunPlus, former President of Publishing at Zynga where he orchestrated their transformative acquisition strategy- Matthew Kanterman, CFA - Gaming industry analyst specializing in M&A and financial analysis We uncover the hidden truths behind the deal:→ Why EA's "operational bloat" narrative is based on an accounting myth→ The real reason EA chose to sell now (hostile takeovers? portfolio pressure?)→ Why Silver Lake's involvement is primarily "for optics"→ What "patient capital" means for EA's studios and the broader gaming industry→ The mobile strategy question: Will EA and Scopely actually integrate?→ Growth opportunities in sports, Asia, and transmedia→ Who really controls gaming's attention economy now This isn't about short-term cost-cutting. It's about sovereign wealth rewriting the rules of gaming M&A—and what that means for developers, studios, and the industry's future. Key Takeaways:- At 17-18x forward EBITDA, EA sold at a discount to Activision's 20x—why?- With Take-Two now the only major independent US publisher, what happens to exit opportunities?- EA's conservative accounting makes them look less efficient than they actually are- This deal is measured in decades, not the typical 5-7 year PE timeline 📬 Subscribe to Gamemakers Newsletter:https://www.gamemakers.com/🔗 Connect with our guests:Matthew Kanterman: linkedin.com/in/matthew-kanterman-cfa-b6345133Chris Petrovic: linkedin.com/in/chrispetrovic 🎧 More episodes: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FdVLkx3msRFsqsEVA1vp0?si=b5192182dc6b4e52 #gaming #mergers #acquisitions #ea #saudiarabia #gamedev #podcast

    1 Std.
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The GameMakers podcast publishes current, entertaining, and in-depth discussions on F2P game development. Topics that we cover include the business of games, F2P monetization, liveops, game design, game development processes, team structure, and more.

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  • Erstellt von
    Joseph Kim
  • Jahre aktiv
    2020 - 2026
  • Folgen
    187
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    © Joseph Kim
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    GameMakers

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