Pete Procopio

Tips for non-verbal contact at GDC so you can understand your cues: * Upward nod: I know you, a friendly greeting or “whatever you just did was cool buddy” * Downward nod: Hey, I agree with you, or I respect you. Let’s chat * Big smile: “I know you and/or I like you a lot. Whatever you’re saying makes me happy” * Big hug: We know each other well and we show it publicly * Licking fingers frantically: “I really shouldn’t have ordered wings at this client lunch” * Single raised eyebrow: “I can totally tell that they had wings for lunch” * Patting your own pockets: “oh damn I’d get this round but my wallet is in the hotel” * Hands together, open palms “can I have the bill please because even though this is an English speaking country I can’t help but make the universal symbol” * Writing in the air: See above * Picking nose: Picking nose but hoping not to be seen * Looking down at phone in confusion: “who is that person I just spent 30 seconds with?! I can’t find them on LinkedIn and it’s going to ruin my life if I don’t connect!! Am I already connected? Did I already pester them with an InMail? Oh Lord what am I going to do?!?!?” And don’t forget, if you bump into me at GDC, call the authorities as I have been bodysnatched. I won’t be attending this year, but I can’t wait to see everyone’s progress, hear great stories and see the results of wonderful conversations. Be safe all, look out for each other, and don’t pick your nose!

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For everyone who is not attending GDC: Relax. It’s not a big deal. You’re not missing any "incredible opportunities." Your opportunities come from how great and desirable your products are, not from the conferences you attend. Networking matters, but it’s not just about party invites. Your online presence is just as powerful (if not more). P.S. And yes, I'm not attending GDC either. Instead of spending days on flights and nights in overpriced hotels, I’d rather get some work done.

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Microsoft should spin off Xbox—before it’s too late. If Bloomberg reporting is accurate about the fourth round of layoffs in the last 18 months, its time to face reality, Xbox has lost this generation: Game Pass failed to hit scale. Hardware share is collapsing. Software share is worse. And the strategic value to Microsoft? Almost nonexistent. Let’s break it down: 🎯Game Pass missed the mark. Still under 40M subs—nowhere near the 100M target. Subscriptions don’t fit gaming like they do TV. Most gamers play a few select titles. Heavy users subscribe, then buy fewer games. That’s not sustainable. 🎯Hardware share is cratering. By end of 2025, Xbox is projected to hold <30% of the console market vs. Sony. And by cycle end, Sony will have sold 4x as many consoles. 🎯 Software is the real red flag. Microsoft’s share of console software vs Sony is expected to fall to just 14% in 2025—thanks to subscription cannibalization and declining 3rd-party sales. That’s disastrous, given the margins on software royalties. 🎯Cloud gaming? It’s a feature on the box, not a strategy. Not expanding the market. Not removing friction. 🎯Cross-platform promise broken. Xbox on mobile makes for nice PR—but it’s not what gamers actually care about. 🎯AI won’t save Xbox. Gaming doesn’t move Microsoft’s AI agenda. And the suggestion of using Xbox player data to train models is a privacy minefield—not to mention, there’s no evidence they’re doing it. Satya Nadella has likely already asked the question: Why are we still in gaming? The solution is clear: Spin off Xbox. 🎯 Let it become an independent company built to compete head-on with Sony and Nintendo. 🔄 Sunset Game Pass in favor of a lighter, online-focused sub. 🎮 Recommit to exclusives for majority of franchises. Offer differentiated Xbox experiences—especially for big brands like Call of Duty. 🔧 Kill Series S. Focus on efficient, scalable first party hardware and license to 3rd parties. 📈 Go public. A standalone Xbox would be another major, pure-play gaming company on public markets in the West. 🧠 Bring in real leadership. People like Frank Gibeau or Owen Mahoney who know how to run big public companies and know gaming. Spinning off Xbox frees it from Microsoft’s broader tech and AI agenda—enabling faster, more gaming focused decision-making. It could even pursue bold M&A moves. The alternative—keeping Xbox at Microsoft—avoids the short-term pain of a major reorg and strategic pivot, but it also guarantees a slow, quiet decline and a slow destruction of teams and franchises. It trades disruption for complacency, and that path leads straight to death by a thousand cuts. #Xbox #GamingStrategy #Microsoft #SpinOff #GamingIndustry #MergersAndAcquisitions #Innovation

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🎮 Gaming is for everyone. Always. 💙♿ Long before “#inclusiveDesign” became an industry buzzword, #Nintendo quietly created something extraordinary: the Hands-Free Controller for the NES. Released in 1989, this device was developed in partnership with Seattle Children's Hospital, designed specifically for gamers with limited or no hand mobility. It strapped around the player’s chest, used a chin-operated joystick for movement, and even featured sip-and-puff controls to press buttons. Nintendo didn’t mass-market it. Instead, they sold it at cost through customer service, because the mission wasn’t profit—it was access. Today, when we celebrate advancements like the #XboxAdaptiveController or ongoing strides in #accessibility across the #gamingindustry, it’s worth remembering: • Accessibility is not new—it has always been part of the gaming journey. • Inclusion comes from listening to real users and building with empathy. • Small steps toward equity can create ripples that last for decades. It reminds us that gaming should be for everyone, always. Accessibility isn’t an add-on. It’s the heart of play. #GamingForEveryone #VideoGames #GamIndustry #RetroGaming #Inclusion #AdaptiveTech #HumanCenteredDesign #TechForGood

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Client:  "How do we get spend depth above $100k for a hybrid-casual game?" Wittle Defender (Habby) is the latest, and arguably most casually-packaged example of the AFK Arena-inspired ‘Idle RPG’ economy. For anyone who hasn't worked on 'Idle RPGs', the most defining features of the genre, from the economy perspective, are: 1) DEEP reliance on gacha duplicate fusion. 2) A reasonably small pool of heroes (20-40, not 200). 3) Automation of nearly all inventory management. 4) Economies that are VERY generous to players who engage consistently, while being VERY extractive for whales who are impatient enough to pay 'retail price' to progress. In these games, gachas are pulled thousands of times.  Most pulls yield duplicates of heroes already owned, and dupes are instantly converted into currencies (often element and rarity-specific). The result is a casual, accessible experience with extraordinary spend depth. In WD’s case, just 8 Mythic Heroes (so far) generate $𝟰𝟮𝗸 of ‘gacha fusion’ spend depth alone, by virtue of needing 37 copies* ea. at a 2.5% drop rate from primary gacha, at $3.60 per pull. How can one achieve similar spend-depth design for games without character collection? WD’s treasures (account-level gear) system uses gacha duplicate fusion similarly to add $𝟴𝟳𝗸 more spend depth.  Each of WD's 36 common treasure types can be fused all the way through the tree to max-rarity, but each requires 𝟭𝟬𝟴𝟬 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗲𝘀 to do so. While WD has about $170k spend depth today, the economy systems convert new content into additional spend depth very rapidly. If WD releases one new Mythic hero (with corresponding 2 treasures) weekly (+$10k), the game will cross $300k spend depth in just 3 months. That said, we expect that Habby will do much more, both on the systems and content front. FWIW, I'm not saying that this game is guaranteed to succeed.  As a player, my initial reaction was that the gameplay was too automated and repetitive for my tastes. But when it comes to basic economy design, WD is yet another Habby exemplar that hybrid-casual developers can study and model.

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Music tech is evolving fast, but where are the biggest opportunities? Plugin Alliance leader Mo Volans shares his experience.

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bpftop 0.7.1 is now available in Fedora 42. After being stuck on 0.5.1 due to packaging challenges, we've implemented a dependency update strategy to keep the Fedora package close to upstream. sudo dnf install bpftop https://lnkd.in/gzzW5dJP

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A tip for younger game professionals going into GDC: If someone experienced offers you an introduction or some of their time, seize the opportunity. These moments are ephemeral and the source is not endlessly renewable. You have a responsibility to yourself to respectfully take what is offered, assuming it is an opportunity you wish to avail yourself of, and follow up on it. This is not to say that you should swarm folks for introductions, or that if you get one, you should be omnipresent on brief acquaintance. It means that if someone in a position to do you a favor thinks highly enough of you to offer that favor, it is both rude and bad business not to follow up. It's rude because you are telling the person who made the offer that you don't value it, and by extension, them. This is not good networking technique. It is also rude because in many cases, they will have already reached out to the person they want to introduce you to and gotten permission to make the connection, and if you don't follow up that reflects poorly on them. This is also poor networking technique. Which leads us to bad business. Turning down something that is offered for free that could help you get better at your job, that could build important connections, and that could lead to further connections or an ongoing professional relationship is not good tactics. It potentially cuts you off from further interactions as well. Furthermore, the well of introductions and free consults does not flow forever. If you don't follow up on things that are offered, sooner are later people are going to stop wasting their time offering them. Your opportunities will dry up, precisely at the time when you most need to establish professional connections. Look, I know it can be hard taking the step and reaching out to someone you don't know. I get not wanting to intrude, not wanting to be perceived as wasting someone's time, not thinking you're worth the connection. All of these thoughts are wrong, just the dreaded vulture working on you from another angle. If a pro thought highly enough of you to offer, there was a reason. Accepting that offer is not wasting anyone's time, it is not an intrusion, and it is absolutely something you have earned. Believe in yourself and claim it as your rightful due. Take the offer for what it is: an appreciation of you and your potential, and a gift of valuable time and social capital. By making the offer, someone is saying they think good things about you, enough to make an investment in your development for its own sake. So when one of these comes your way, take it and take advantage of it, and use it to best potential. And then maybe someday, you'll be in the position to do this for someone else.

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Layoffs, studio closures and cautious publishing pipelines have dominated headlines (and conversations at GDC this year). But behind the doomscrolling, the last 12 months have quietly seen billions of dollars flow into gaming from VCs, government programs, crowdfunding campaigns and corporate deals. 🎮 Venture funds are still backing early-stage devs. 🏛️ Governments are doubling down on creative sector grants. 💡 Accelerator programs are popping up globally. 💰 Crowdfunding is booming again (especially for tabletop and indie). 🤝 And the biggest publishers and platforms are still making big bets. That makes me optimistic. I’m not blind to the challenges but convinced that the next wave of breakout studios are already being built. Here’s a snapshot of recent funding and investments that caught my eye… Play Ventures – Fund III – $140M – Announced Nov 2024 Kickstarter – Games crowdfunded – $270M+ in 2024 BITKRAFT Ventures – Fund III target – $275M – Apr 2024 Griffin – Fund III target – $500M – Jun 2024 Transcend. – Fund II – $60M – Nov 2023 A16Z GAMES – Games Fund II – $600M – Apr 2024 a16z speedrun – Accelerator – $1M per startup – 2024–25 cohorts UK Games Fund – Grants up to £150k – £5.5M committed for 2025-26 Canada Media Fund – Game project grants – C$7.8M – Aug 2024 Creative Europe – Game development funding – €5M annual call Screen Australia – Indie game grants – AU$1.6M – Mar 2024 Saudi Arabia / Merak Capital – Exel by Merak – $81M fund – Nov 2024 Tencent Venture Lab – Indie support program – Ongoing Scopely acquires Niantic, Inc. - $3.5B - Mar 2025 Playtika acquires SuperPlay – $2B deal – 2024 EQT Group acquires Keywords Studios – $2.8B – 2024 Miniclip acquires Easybrain – $1.2B – 2024 CVC Capital acquires Jagex – $1.1B – 2024 Modern Times Group MTG AB acquires Plarium – $820M – 2024 Just in those points above that’s $13.5B and I’ve certainly missed a ton. If you're building, job searching or fundraising don’t lose heart! There’s capital out there and plenty of people still backing bold creative bets. 📧 joe@play.vc

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What Makes Feedback Most Helpful for Speakers? The other day, I (like many others) received my GDC speaker feedback. Having now had the chance to speak at several events, I really value how GDC takes the time to collect detailed feedback and I deeply appreciate everyone who fills it out. You can say anything in those forms, and many speakers (myself included) welcome all perspectives. That said, I want to offer a gentle suggestion:. The most meaningful feedback is about the substance of the talk: what was shared, how it was structured, and the value it brought. Sometimes, we get comments about physical quirks or verbal tics, things like filler words (uh, umm), voice tone, or throat clearing. Those may be noticeable, but often they’re things we can’t easily control. I don't have issues with fillers, tone, or other such things and thus try to sympathize with speakers who may struggle with these or just be nervous. In my case, I’ve had severe allergies since childhood. When I present, especially if I’m nervous or not feeling well or feel irritated by things like pollen or dust mites, it can cause, what I know some might find distracting, coughing or throat clearing. It’s not meant to distract anyone and, believe me, I’ve tried everything to prevent it. This is a physical and environmentally-queued condition that I rarely experience but is very uncomfortable when I do. So, if you ever come to one of my talks and notice something like that, I hope you’ll understand where it’s coming from. More broadly, I hope we can all give presenters the benefit of the doubt and focus on substance. That is what I try to do as we never know what might be going on behind the scenes. I always give feedback myself, and I focus on content and clarity. That’s what helps me grow the most, and what I try to offer others. Thanks again to GDC and to everyone who made the effort to share their thoughts. It truly helps us get better.

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🎉 Jellyfish AI Impact now supports Windsurf, a leader in AI-powered coding solutions, offering tools like the Windsurf Editor that blend collaborative, continuous AI assistance with developers' workflows. Together, Windsurf and Jellyfish are changing how AI and humans work together.  Through our robust integration with Windsurf, Jellyfish AI Impact allows joint customers to:  🤖 Measure Windsurf’s impact on overall developer productivity: Analyze how Windsurf solutions like Windsurf Editor impact different engineering workflows and use cases – whether it's building new features, reducing technical debt, or reviewing for code quality and security improvements. 📈 Scale Windsurf adoption across the organization: Identify teams with high engagement to further accelerate development, automate testing, and streamline deployment, then replicate these best practices and implementation strategies company-wide. Learn more about what this integration means for your engineering organization here: https://lnkd.in/ghNguE47

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