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 Derek Rathbun, CEO and co-founder of Gamers.bet, who takes on a round of Super Smash Bros. and earns himself the easy question.

Derek's path into games didn't start in games at all. He spent about 20 years in technology, primarily in the automotive space, before an acquisition sent him looking for what was next. Through a mutual friend, he found himself in conversation with a former president of Atari and Sega, who brought in none other than Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari himself, to talk through where gaming might be headed. What came out of those conversations was the idea that real-money gameplay had never been made truly native to games, and Derek realized he had the technology background to build it. That idea became Gamers.bet, and he hasn't looked back since.

What you'll hear:

• How two decades in automotive tech led Derek to an unexpected introduction to Nolan Bushnell
• Why Derek landed on "fortuitous" as the one word that captures his path into gaming
• How a casual conversation about the next evolution of competition turned into a business
• Why Derek believes real-money gameplay can benefit both players and the games themselves as a new monetization layer

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.

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 Xander Agosta, Director of Marketing and Partnerships at Upptic, a growth marketing company working with the world's top games.

Xander takes an easy round of Super Smash Bros. against Ed and earns himself an easy question, but his answer opens up a career path that wasn't easy at all. Raised in San Francisco and surrounded by the tech industry his whole life, Xander spent years feeling like an outsider looking in. A construction job, an unlikely mentor, and a leap of faith later, he found his way into web development, marketing, and eventually the games industry he'd wanted to be part of since childhood.

What you'll hear:

• Why growing up next to Silicon Valley didn't make the tech industry feel any less intimidating
• The mentor who convinced Xander to bet on himself
• How a detour through construction became the unlikely start of a marketing career
• Xander's take on why persistence, not pedigree, is what gets you into the games industry

Let'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.

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 Chris Hewish sits down with Ivan Carrillo, Managing Partner at Joystick Ventures — an investment fund and publisher supporting indie studios around the world.

Ivan's portfolio speaks for itself: a track record of successful releases, with more on the way. But before getting into any of that, he had to face Chris across a game of Super Smash Bros. — and came out on the losing end.

That meant the hard question. And Ivan's answer was more honest than most would offer in front of a camera.

What you'll hear:

• How Joystick Ventures operates as both an investment fund and a publisher for indie studios worldwide
• What happened when a portfolio studio wasn't delivering — and why Ivan chose not to write off the investment
• What it actually means to "take over" development as a publisher, and what that costs in time, money, and trust
• Why the studio Ivan stepped in to help is better off for it — and what that outcome reveals about how Joystick Ventures works

Let'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.

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 Wes Morton, CEO and co-founder of Creative Company — a marketing technology firm serving media, entertainment, and tech brands across three practice areas: brand PR, digital products, and consumer insights.

When we asked Wes who has influenced his decision-making most, he pointed to his own team — specifically the Gen Z employees who are bringing new technologies, new campaign strategies, and an entirely different relationship with work to the table every day. For a founder building a company from the ground up, that kind of bottom-up influence isn't just refreshing. It's structural.

The conversation gets specific fast. Wes shares how one of his youngest employees, with no formal technical background, coded a fully functional front-end interface for EA client work using Vercel's AI tools — then handed it to the CTO, who said they could use all of it. That moment kicked off a company-wide conversation about AI coding tools, enterprise licensing, and what it means when non-technical people can ship technical work.

What you'll hear:

• Why Wes looks to his Gen Z team — not industry veterans — as his primary source of influence
• How Creative Company is using large language models to reinvent consumer research in an industry that hasn't fundamentally changed since the 1940s
• What a single Vercel-powered prototype from a junior employee revealed about the future of technical work
• Why staying culture-forward matters as much in marketing technology as it does in the games themselves

Let'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.

Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla.

Few companies in gaming carry more history than Sega. But in this special episode, the conversation isn't about the past — it's about what comes next.

In this extended cut, Xsolla President Chris Hewish sits down with Takaya Segawa, Sega’s Executive Vice President and Head of JA Studios 2nd Business Unit. The conversation is a rare look inside a company that has shaped the games industry for generations — and is now writing one of its most consequential chapters yet.

Sega's legacy speaks for itself. But what Segawa-san shares here is something less often discussed: the operational philosophy, the cultural conviction, and the business decisions that have allowed Sega to keep players engaged — in some cases, for over two decades — while building toward a more direct, data-driven relationship with a global audience.

From the development of SegaCon, Sega's emerging direct-to-consumer marketing platform, to a portfolio that spans Persona, Phantasy Star Online 2, Puyo Puyo Quest, and Project Sekai, Segawa-san walks through what it means to build for longevity in live services — and why the next frontier for Sega runs through esports, global commerce infrastructure, and a deeper connection with players worldwide.

We dive into:

• How Sega is approaching direct-to-consumer — and what's being built to support it
• What decades of live service titles reveal about Sega's long-term engagement philosophy
• What developers often get wrong about regional and cultural differences
• Why Japanese cultural identity can be a global asset, not a barrier
• How esports fits into Sega's broader growth strategy
• What it actually takes to operate direct-to-consumer at a global scale

This is a conversation that doesn't come along often — an honest, substantive dialogue with a leader who has been at the heart of one of gaming's most enduring companies.

Let'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.

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 Garry Edwards, Head of Business Development at Mindera — a global software services company helping game studios build back-end infrastructure, pipelines, and live ops without overloading their internal teams.

Garry has been in the industry for more than 20 years, with stops at Electronic Arts, TT Games, and Warner Bros., where he spent nearly a decade running business development. He's seen the industry transform from floppy disks to streaming and cloud — and he makes the case that what's happening right now, the convergence of AI, consolidation, and a fractured mid-tier, is the biggest transitional shift the business has ever seen.

What you'll hear:

• Why the current moment — AI, industry consolidation, and the shrinking mid-tier — is unlike anything Gary has seen in 20+ years
• How Mindera helps studios of all sizes build infrastructure without expanding headcount
• Why the democratization of game development shifted the challenge from creation to discoverability
• What Garry learned from his boss at EA about negotiating deals and leading without ego
• What it looks like to build an entirely new gaming vertical from the ground up

Let'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.

Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla.

Over the past few months, hosts Chris Hewish and Lia Ballentine have been testing a single idea against the real world: that direct-to-consumer isn't a channel or a tactic — it's a commitment to building a business around the player relationship.

In this season finale, Chris and Lia come back to where it all started — five pillars, five guests, three episodes — and ask the question: did the framework hold up?

You'll hear how the marketing episode reframed what it means to own a player relationship, why channels don't equal connection, and how going direct changes the weight of every message a studio sends. How the infrastructure episode revealed that the stack underneath the strategy is more complex than most teams realize, and why the order of decisions matters enormously. And how the monetization episode made the case that the best direct-to-consumer model isn't the most aggressive one. It's the most earned.

If you've been following along all season, this one's for you. And if you're just tuning in, consider this your invitation to go back to the beginning.

Let'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.

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 Jan Roessner, CEO and co-founder of One Earth Rising — a company building cross-platform infrastructure to make game assets interoperable and bring real-world brand and IP engagement into the digital world of games.

Jan's path into the industry runs through 13 years as an Air Force officer, and the leadership philosophy he built there still drives how he builds teams and sets goals today. Now he's applying that same clarity of purpose to one of the more ambitious ideas in the games business: a future where achievements travel between titles, where watching a TV show can unlock in-game content, and where the boundaries between game worlds start to disappear.

What you'll hear:

• How military service shaped Jan's approach to leadership and decision-making
• Why the technology foundation for true asset interoperability is finally here
• What a future built on cross-platform, cross-media game engagement could look like

Let'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.

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 Alex Reed, Director of Production at House of How for a candid, personal reflection on a career that defies the standard trajectory. Alex’s mother was a Disney animator. He grew up wanting to be like Bruce Lee and spent his childhood going on solo adventures — the kind that made him feel like he'd been born to play Zelda. He started in television and film before arriving at Electronic Arts in 2000. Since then, he's spent 25 years in games, and 36 years total in the entertainment industry.

The throughline? Never following the linear path. Just asking what's around the next corner.

What you'll hear:

• Why Alex describes his entire career through the lens of The Legend of Zelda
• How growing up as a loner shaped his relationship with games and storytelling
• What makes video games different from TV and film — and why that difference matters to him
• How 36 years in entertainment led him to where he is today at House of How

Let'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.

Welcome to The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla.

Direct-to-consumer monetization is usually a conversation about where players spend: web shops, platform margins, owned storefronts. But what if the more interesting question is what they spend on — and what changes when real money is actually on the line?

In this extended cut, host Lia Ballentine sits down with Derek Rathbun, Co-Founder and CEO of Gamers.bet, to explore a monetization layer most studios haven't seriously reckoned with yet: native real money wagering built directly into the game itself.

Derek's path here runs through automotive technology, a front-row seat to the legalization of sports betting in 2018, and a series of conversations with retired industry veterans who confirmed the category was wide open. When Disney reversed course and launched ESPN Bet in late 2023, the cultural shift became hard to ignore — and the question of who would move first in games became a lot more urgent.

We dive into:

• Why real money gameplay is already happening at scale, and what it costs publishers who don't control the experience
• How native wagering opens up a new design surface, not just a new revenue line
• Why this monetization layer is most powerful when it's considered at the conceptualization stage
• How peer-to-peer wagering reaches players that traditional DTC models — cosmetics, battle passes — simply don't convert
• Why cross-border settlement required a new approach to payments infrastructure entirely
• How responsible gaming and age compliance can be enforced without disrupting the core experience

If the broader context of direct-to-consumer monetization is something you want to go deeper on, check out our episode, “Direct-to-consumer: making money without the middleman,” where Lia and Chris Hewish explore this territory alongside Derek and Arron Goolsbey of Mythical Games.

Whether you're a studio founder thinking about your next investment pitch, a product lead exploring new revenue models, or just someone watching the business of games evolve in real time, this conversation offers a clear-eyed look at where monetization is headed next.

Let'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.