The Gaming Playbook

Some game studios discover their biggest mistake 4 years too late. Dru Erridge explains why many indie game studios spend years without real business feedback. A founder can make a major decision in year one and only learn whether it worked after the game ships. And if the game succeeds anyway, those same decisions can suddenly look brilliant in hindsight. In this clip, we talk about: • Why many indie studios don’t function like normal businesses early on • The problem with multi-year feedback loops in game development • How success can hide bad decisions We go much deeper on sustainable studios, co-dev, original IP, and building long-term game businesses in the full episode: https://lnkd.in/ehgYFfN5

Most Western mobile studios have never heard of Bang Bang Survivor. It made $1B in 2024. That's the problem Jakub Remiar came on our podcast to talk about. PhD in psychology. 10+ years in free-to-play. Co-host of two & a half gamers. He ditched Gamescom for ChinaJoy three years ago because that's where he sees what's coming before the West does. → Bang Bang Survivor made $1B in 2024. The West never heard of it. → 8 of the top 10 Merge games are Chinese. Forex fell first. → Whiteout Survival has 200–300 people doing nothing but making ads. → Fake ads are the top of an engineered funnel → Meta system beats core gameplay for long-term spend. Every time. → Monetization is game design. Separating them costs you. → Supercell had the perfect audience for a 4X game → The reason Flappy Bird went viral. Watch the episode if you want Jakub's three rules for building a game studio from scratch!! 🎧 Episode is live: https://lnkd.in/d2B-GbRM ENJOY!! Share this with someone building mobile games.

Owning the game IP is overrated. A lot of developers care more about owning the decisions. Dru Erridge explained why teams can feel deeply invested in a licensed game they will never own. Because what actually drives motivation is having influence over the thing being built. The mechanics. The direction. The creative calls. The feeling that your judgment matters. That disappears fast when teams lose control over the process itself. In this video, Dru breaks down: • Why licensed games can still create highly motivated teams • The specific type of ownership developers actually care about • Why creative agency matters more than IP rights for most teams • The moment motivation starts collapsing inside a studio • What studio leaders often misunderstand about long-term engagement We go much deeper on this in the full episode: https://lnkd.in/ehgYFfN5

Alexandre Amancio has spent 20 years inside those systems. Ubisoft. Assassin's Creed. Far Cry. He saw exactly where it breaks and why it keeps breaking. Now he's leading 30 people at Studio Ellipsis, building one focused game, Nightholme. We got him on the podcast and asked him everything. → Why bigger teams don't make better games → The framework he used to align hundreds of people on Assassin's Creed → Why the underdog team almost always wins → What community-first looks like when you actually mean it → Why showing Nightholme before it's polished is a decision, not a compromise → The 10 rules on the wall at Studio Ellipsis and where they came from The team barely knew each other a year ago. Now they spend weekends together and the community showing up for a pre-alpha build tells you everything. Something about the way Alex builds is working! 🎧 Full episode: https://lnkd.in/dnUWyuAF Tag a game dev who needs to hear this.

Game producer at Rovio, Supercell and beyond. Maria Maunula has been in more broken team meetings than anyone you know, and she knows exactly what to do about it. One of the sharpest guests we've had on the show. One day she's selling porcelain toilets. Next thing you know she's a Producer at Rovio, then Supercell. But one thing never changed… She makes people work better together. In production, that skill has a name. The retrospective. Retros are the one meeting that lives or dies on people’s skills. No wonder she's so good at them! She joined Harry Phokou on The Gaming Playbook to share everything she knows. 🙌 Here's what's in this episode: → Why anonymous retros quietly destroy team trust → The 3-part structure every retro needs (most teams skip part 3) → How to turn a room full of complaints into committed actions → The 1–5 rating system that shows you team health over time → Why the facilitator should talk less than anyone else → What to do when old issues come up → Why 4 people and 40 people should never run retro the same way If you have ever left a team meeting with a list of actions that nobody followed up on, this episode will change how you think about the way you work together. 🎧 Episode is LIVE here: https://lnkd.in/djH9vTAy Follow The Gaming Playbook for more from the people actually building the games industry.

The whole team is at Nordic Game in 30 days 🎉 Here's everything Hivemind World is doing: Something for everyone here! Thanks to a great collaboration with Jared Middle, we have 3 things to offer at Nordic game. IF YOU ARE A PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER 1. 🥂 FREE Hivemind World Games Mixer Powered by Gameopedia and Gridly Already 80+ signed up with one month to go. On track to be fully booked and our BIGGEST mixer. 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘂𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 → https://luma.com/pfach9tg The same link gets you into the roundtable and the speed networking. 2. 🎧 On-site The Gaming Playbook podcast spots! 30-minute episodes throughout the week! Booth fully set up, excited for this one :) 𝗧𝗮𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 → I will reach out to see if it fits! SERVICE PROVIDERS 3. 📈 Hivemind Marketing Grow your games service provider business We do everything B2B Growth. • LinkedIn Founder Content (become #1 in your niche) • LinkedIn GTM + Email (stop relying on referalls) • Hivemind Mixers (meet clients irl) • Training of BD teams. (upskill)    SEE OUR RESULTS → hivemind.marketing Let's connect! Are you going?

There are very few people who have seen the games industry from every angle. Tom Dusenberry is one of them! He founded Hasbro Interactive, scaled it to a $200M publisher in six years, acquired Atari, MicroProse, and Spectrum Holobyte, and negotiated one of the first third-party Unreal Engine deals. We invited him on the podcast to find out what the last 30 years of gaming actually teach you. A few things we didn't expect to hear: → How indie devs can actually approach Disney or Warner Bros for an IP license → Why VC money can be the worst thing that happens to a game studio → What Fortnite actually got right (and whether you can replicate it) → How AI is reshaping the business (he's been using it for 30 years) → The one acquisition mistake he made early that he'd never make again We LOVE the episode, we’re sure you will too! 🎧 Full episode → https://lnkd.in/dRpb68QQ Tag a game dev who needs to hear this.

The games industry has eaten thousands of studios alive, but Gamebreaking Studios is still standing even after 7 years! Dru Erridge, co-founder of Gamebreaking Studios, has been doing it differently for 7 years. Bootstrapped, fully remote, sustainable, and still growing. With no VC and no safety net. Here's what's in this episode: → What 6 years at Riot Games taught him about running a studio → Why they ran the OPPOSITE of the VC playbook → Building a 30-person remote team in a virtual 16-bit RPG office → Why co-dev is behind every major title you've played → What studios get wrong about backend development → Can a co-dev studio ever graduate to their own IP? → Lessons learned from pitching a game in 2023 And there's a story in this episode involving a 17-year-old, a dead Facebook game, and 50,000 downloads in a month. You'll want to hear it for yourself. 👀 Watch the episode here → https://lnkd.in/dQ4MdPi2

Pitching your game but keep hearing “no”? Chances are it’s not (just) the game. In the latest The Gaming Playbook podcast, our Head of Strategic Partnerships Elena (Olena) Lobova breaks down what actually matters when you pitch to publishers in 2026. What you’ll learn: • What makes a pitch stand out and where most teams fall short • How publishing models are shifting and what that unlocks for developers • Why a “no” often has nothing to do with your game quality If you’re pitching (or about to), this one’s worth your time. Link in the comments👇

The studio problem usually starts before the money problem. It starts when leadership sells a future the business hasn’t earned yet. A big vision is part of the job. People need belief. They need direction. They need something worth building toward. But there’s a line. Because if every next game is “the one” and every plan is framed like a guaranteed win, eventually reality catches up. And when it does, the team stops trusting you. In this clip, Hendrik Lesser makes a point I think a lot of leaders need to hear: Not only bad expectation management hurts morale, it also quietly destroys credibility. Vision matters. But vision without realism turns into fantasy. And once your team starts feeling that gap, it gets harder and harder to bring them with you. The best leaders can do both: paint an exciting future and stay brutally honest about what it will take to get there. How do you balance vision and realism as a leader? Follow The Gaming Playbook for more conversations with gaming leaders. Repost for someone building a studio. Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dh-GKDqz