The Business of Games

Xsolla
  • 5.0 (4)
  • BUSINESS

The Business of Games: A podcast for developers, publishers, and executives navigating the ever-changing game industry.From monetization models to player behavior, from platform shifts to emerging markets, The Business of Games is your guide to all the things transforming how games are built, marketed, and scaled.Hosted by Chris Hewish and Lia Ballentine, each episode blends strategic insight, cinematic storytelling, and candid conversations with the people driving the business of play. You’ll hear from top executives inside studios and strategic partners across the ecosystem who are uncovering the ideas, tactics, and trends shaping tomorrow’s opportunities.Whether you’re launching your first game or scaling a global studio, you’ll find practical strategies, future-forward thinking, and real-world examples you can act on right away.The Business of Games is brought to you by Xsolla, your strategic partner behind the scenes. We bring together “All the Things” to help you simplify operations, unlock new revenue, reach more players, and launch fast.Visit xsolla.com to learn more, connect with our team, and access all the things you need to level up your business of play. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast, where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends and colleagues who want to learn more about the business of games.

  1. Earned, not extracted: how direct-to-consumer changes monetization design

    6D AGO

    Earned, not extracted: how direct-to-consumer changes monetization design

    Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. In this episode, hosts Chris Hewish and Lia Ballentine get into the part of the direct-to-consumer conversation that most studios either rush past or get wrong entirely: monetization. The default framing is simple: cut out the platform, keep more margin. But the studios actually building direct-to-consumer monetization well aren't running a web shop as a side channel. They're rethinking how value gets created, how offers get structured, and how a purchase fits into a longer relationship with the player. To explore what that looks like in practice, Chris and Lia are joined by two leaders operating at very different frontiers: Derek Rathbun, Co-Founder and CEO of Gamers.bet, who navigates what it means to give publishers control over real-money player engagement in a space where ignoring direct monetization has visible, immediate consequences; and Arron Goolsbey, Chief Operating Officer of Mythical Games, where direct-to-consumer isn't a feature that was added — it's the foundation the entire business was built on. Together, they make the case that the barrier to going direct is lower than most teams assume, the cost of waiting is higher than it appears, and the best monetization in a direct-to-player model isn't the most aggressive — it's the most earned. You'll hear why ceding the player relationship, even passively, costs more than it shows up on any balance sheet; why direct-to-consumer is really about owning identity, payments, and inventory as a unified system rather than a checkout flow; how data becomes a decision engine rather than a reporting function when those foundations are in place; and why designing monetization around what players earn, rather than what they're willing to pay, is what separates durable businesses from ones that plateau. What you'll learn: Why ignoring direct monetization is a cost, not just a missed opportunity What the foundational tech stack for direct-to-consumer actually requires and what studios shouldn't build themselvesHow to treat data as a decision system, not a dashboardWhy the best monetization design starts at the moment of install, not at the web shopHow emerging models like player-to-player economies are expanding who can participate and howLet's get into it. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    28 min
  2. AAA mindset, indie budget: Adam Krause and TJ Consunji on discoverability and the art of getting found

    APR 24

    AAA mindset, indie budget: Adam Krause and TJ Consunji on discoverability and the art of getting found

    Welcome to Coffee.Press.Play., brought to you by The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla.  Recorded live at GDC 2026 inside the Xsolla Clubhouse, this series puts a twist on the traditional interview format: guests play a round of a classic video game against our Xsolla host and the outcome determines whether they face an easy question or a hard one. In this episode, host Ed Lin sits down with Adam Krause and TJ Consunji, Managing Partners and Co-Founders of Miniboss Solutions — an embedded publishing partner helping indie studios and smaller developers take their games to market with the strategy and discipline of a AAA publisher. Between them, Adam and TJ bring over 40 years of industry experience. Adam has worked across paid media and go-to-market strategy at Ubisoft, Capcom, Striking Distance, and 2K. TJ spent nearly two decades at PlayStation, working on franchises like God of War, Uncharted, Horizon, Gran Turismo, and SOCOM. Now they've taken everything they learned in the big leagues and built a company designed to give smaller studios access to the same caliber of thinking. What you'll hear: Why discoverability is the defining challenge in today's market and how 20,000 games a year on Steam makes it existential for smaller studiosWhy the AAA mindset isn't about budget — it's about the discipline to ask the right questions before you spend a dollarHow smaller developers often don't realize how hard publishing is until they're already halfway through itWhy modern targeting tools level the playing field, but only if you know what to say once you reach your audienceWhy building a brand, not just launching a game, is the shift that separates studios that sustain from ones that spike and fadeCoffee.Press.Play. is an ongoing mini-series, and more conversations with our GDC guests are on the way. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. Missed us at GDC 2026? Stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for announcements on where we'll be next. And catch up on recent episodes at xsolla.com/podcast. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    7 min
  3. From gas stations to game studios: Rob Carroll on community, Roll Craft, and the comeback of text-based RPGs

    APR 24

    From gas stations to game studios: Rob Carroll on community, Roll Craft, and the comeback of text-based RPGs

    Welcome to Coffee.Press.Play., brought to you by The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. Recorded live at GDC 2026 inside the Xsolla Clubhouse, this series puts a twist on the traditional interview format: guests play a round of a classic video game against our Xsolla host and the outcome determines whether they face an easy question or a hard one. In this episode, host Ed Lin sits down with Rob Carroll, CEO and co-founder of Roll Craft — a studio on a mission to bring back the text-based RPG experiences that defined Facebook gaming's golden era. Rob's path into games is one of the more unexpected ones you'll hear. He was a construction manager building gas stations in Boston when a gaming community pulled him west. A guild for the modded shooter Tribes, an angel investor who happened to be playing, and a project management role that needed filling — that's how a career in construction became a career in games. From there, Rob went on to LucasArts, Zynga (where he worked on the Mafia Wars franchise), and Wargaming, where he helped launch World of Tanks Blitz on mobile. Now, he's taken the leap into founding his own studio. Roll Craft is building an HTML5 platform for text-based RPG games, the kind that thrived on Facebook before the platform moved on. Rob believes that genre still has a real home in today's market — and he's betting his next chapter on proving it. What you'll hear: How a Tribes guild mod and an angel investor launched Rob's career in gamesWhy he believes text-based RPGs have a strong place in today's marketWhat it actually felt like to go from the corporate side of the industry to founding a studioHow Roll Craft is using WeFunder to raise community-backed equity fundingThe one piece of advice Rob would give anyone stepping into the founder seatLet's get into it. Coffee.Press.Play. is an ongoing mini-series, and more conversations with our GDC guests are on the way. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. Missed us at GDC 2026? Stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for announcements on where we'll be next. And catch up on recent episodes at xsolla.com/podcast. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    8 min
  4. From Neopets to the Elite Four: Jenny Xu on building games, community, and Talofa Games

    APR 24

    From Neopets to the Elite Four: Jenny Xu on building games, community, and Talofa Games

    Welcome to Coffee.Press.Play., brought to you by The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla.  Recorded live at GDC 2026 inside the Xsolla Clubhouse, this series puts a twist on the traditional interview format: guests play a round of a classic video game against our Xsolla host and the outcome determines whether they face an easy question or a hard one. In this episode, host Ed Lin sits down with Jenny Xu, CEO and founder of Talofa Games — a San Francisco-based studio making mobile games designed to get people mentally and physically healthier. Jenny started making games at 12. Not as a hobby she eventually professionalized, but as a lifeline. A self-described introverted kid who rarely spoke more than a word or two, she found her community online through Neopets, discovered art through that community, and taught herself Flash development on deviantart.com because games were the most interactive thing she could make. By 18, she had built 133 of them. The conversation traces her path from ActionScript 2 to MIT's cross-country team to the founding of Talofa Games — and the honest admission that somewhere between freshman year and graduation, she almost talked herself out of games entirely. What you'll hear: How loneliness and Neopets set Jenny on the path to game developmentWhy running and dark psychological anime were her two biggest creative inputsWhat it actually took to balance MIT athletics, social life, academics, and shipping gamesHow a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People changed her trajectoryWhy she describes her career in games as a Pokémon journey — and what the Elite Four represents nowLet's get into it. Coffee.Press.Play. is an ongoing mini-series, and more conversations with our GDC guests are on the way. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. Missed us at GDC 2026? Stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for announcements on where we'll be next. And catch up on recent episodes at xsolla.com/podcast. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    9 min
  5. Identity, inventory, and income: Arron Goolsbey on what DTC really requires

    APR 17

    Identity, inventory, and income: Arron Goolsbey on what DTC really requires

    Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. Direct-to-consumer is easy to talk about in terms of web shops, payment rails, and platform fees. It's harder to talk about what's actually underneath it — the identity layer, the data architecture, the economic models, and the distribution infrastructure that either make the player relationship durable or leave it fragile. In this extended cut, host Lia Ballentine sits back down with Arron Goolsbey, Chief Operating Officer at Mythical Games, to go a level deeper. Arron brings a perspective shaped by years of building platforms at scale, and a mindset that resists binary thinking at every turn. For him, DTC isn't a distribution decision — it's a consumer operating system. And building it right means asking the right foundational questions before the spark becomes a fire. The conversation is grounded, practical, and full of frameworks that apply well beyond Web3. We dive into: Why DTC is really about owning identity, payments, and inventory — not just adding a web shopThe four questions every studio should answer before going to marketWhy data is a decision system, not a dashboardHow Mythical's secondary market economics create a fourth monetization model that reaches players traditional approaches can'tWhy the best monetization decisions start with a stewardship mindset, not a pricing formulaLet's get into it. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    44 min
  6. True ownership, transferable assets: Jan Roessner on the future of direct-to-consumer

    APR 15

    True ownership, transferable assets: Jan Roessner on the future of direct-to-consumer

    Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. Direct-to-consumer strategies are usually measured by what they remove — platform fees, intermediaries, friction at checkout. But what happens when the asset itself becomes the channel? In this extended cut, host Lia Ballentine sits down with Jan Roessner, CEO and co-founder of One Earth Rising, to explore a new layer of the developer-player relationship: one built not on storefronts, but on ownership that travels with the player across games and platforms. His company has done something the industry hasn't seen before, and as of this recording, they have the patent to prove it. Jan brings a background that defies easy summary: military officer, digital marketing agency founder, indie game developer, and now builder of cross-platform infrastructure that's already live in the market. The conversation is grounded, optimistic, and full of examples that make an abstract idea feel concrete. We dive into: What ownable game assets actually are and how they work in practiceWhy One Earth Rising deliberately avoids leading with blockchainWhat a Walmart campaign reveals about DTC beyond the storefrontHow social impact is baked into the infrastructure itselfWhy the future of DTC will be defined by the user, not the providerLet's get into it. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    39 min
  7. Direct-to-consumer: building the infrastructure that makes it real

    APR 10

    Direct-to-consumer: building the infrastructure that makes it real

    Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. In this episode, hosts Chris Hewish and Lia Ballentine go a layer deeper into direct-to-consumer — past the strategy, past the economics, and into the infrastructure that determines whether a studio's direct-to-player ambitions actually hold up at scale. Most direct-to-consumer conversations start with intent and end with outcomes. But between the two sits a layer most studios underestimate: the technology stack. Identity systems, payments infrastructure, data pipelines, commerce backends, and emerging Web3 tooling aren't supporting characters in the direct-to-player story. They're the plot. And the studios getting it right aren't necessarily the biggest or most technically sophisticated. They're the ones who made the right architectural decisions early. To explore what those decisions look like in practice, Chris and Lia draw on conversations with two leaders building at the frontier of games technology and infrastructure: Arron Goolsbey, Chief Operating Officer at Mythical Games, who has spent years building direct-to-consumer ecosystems at scale, and Jan Roessner, co-founder and CEO of One Earth Rising, whose work connecting ownable game assets across platforms offers a fresh lens on what player ownership can actually mean. Together, they unpack how identity, data, and commerce infrastructure either enable the player relationship or quietly undermine it. You'll hear why the stack isn't one decision but a sequence of interconnected ones, and why the order matters enormously. Why Web3, stripped of the hype, is best understood as an infrastructure capability rather than a platform unto itself. Why data-informed decision systems are fundamentally different from data-driven dashboards. And why trust infrastructure — payments reliability, fraud prevention, support — isn't a back-office cost center but a direct investment in the player relationship. The through-line is clear: the player relationship you're promising is only as real as the systems you've built to support it. What you'll learn: Why direct-to-consumer is an architectural commitment, not just a business model decisionHow to think about the stack as a sequence and why the order of decisions mattersWhat Web3 tooling actually adds to a direct-to-player infrastructure and where it doesn'tWhy first-party data architecture must be built before you need itHow trust infrastructure becomes a player relationship investmentLet's get into it. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    37 min
  8. From comics to controllers: Bronson Lingamfelter on digital ownership and the future of game discovery

    APR 3

    From comics to controllers: Bronson Lingamfelter on digital ownership and the future of game discovery

    Welcome to Coffee.Press.Play., brought to you by The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. Recorded live at GDC 2026 inside the Xsolla Clubhouse, this series puts a twist on the traditional interview format: guests play a round of a classic video game against host Chris Hewish and the outcome determines whether they face an easy question or a hard one. In this first episode, Bronson Lingamfelter, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of One Earth Rising, takes on Chris in a quick battle and earns the easy question — though what follows is anything but a simple conversation. Bronson's path into gaming runs through one of digital media's most transformative moments. Nearly 20 years ago, he helped digitize the comic book industry, co-founding Comixology and building the Buy Once Read Anywhere platform that powered digital comics for Marvel, DC, Image, and more. Now, Bronson is applying those same instincts to games: using emerging technology to rethink how players discover, own, and engage with the titles they love. At One Earth Rising, that means driving new game ownership out of retail environments, bridging loyal CPG audiences into gaming experiences on PlayStation and Steam, and opening up discovery in ways the industry hasn't fully explored yet. One word captures how he got there: ownership. What you'll hear: How digitizing comics shaped Bronson's approach to game ownershipWhat Comixology built and why it mattered before the Walking Dead show changed everythingHow One Earth Rising is using retail activations and CPG partnerships to bring new players into gamesWhy Bronson sees emerging technology as the key to unlocking the next chapter of game discoveryLet’s get into it. Coffee.Press.Play. is an ongoing mini-series, and more conversations with our GDC guests are on the way. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. Missed us at GDC 2026? Stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for announcements on where we'll be next. And catch up on recent episodes at xsolla.com/podcast. For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.

    5 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

The Business of Games: A podcast for developers, publishers, and executives navigating the ever-changing game industry.From monetization models to player behavior, from platform shifts to emerging markets, The Business of Games is your guide to all the things transforming how games are built, marketed, and scaled.Hosted by Chris Hewish and Lia Ballentine, each episode blends strategic insight, cinematic storytelling, and candid conversations with the people driving the business of play. You’ll hear from top executives inside studios and strategic partners across the ecosystem who are uncovering the ideas, tactics, and trends shaping tomorrow’s opportunities.Whether you’re launching your first game or scaling a global studio, you’ll find practical strategies, future-forward thinking, and real-world examples you can act on right away.The Business of Games is brought to you by Xsolla, your strategic partner behind the scenes. We bring together “All the Things” to help you simplify operations, unlock new revenue, reach more players, and launch fast.Visit xsolla.com to learn more, connect with our team, and access all the things you need to level up your business of play. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast, where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends and colleagues who want to learn more about the business of games.

Information

  • Creator
    Xsolla
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Xsolla
  • Show Website
    The Business of Games

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