Catalin Alexandru is a systemic game economist and designer with more than 22 years of experience across game design, platform innovation and business models. Through his independent consultancy, he creates game economies from first principles using business strategy, behavioural psychology and systems design. He also writes the Intrinsic Economies newsletter and is the author of the True Ownership Trilemma.Catalin has worked with more than 50 game companies and global brands, including EA, Sega, Gameloft, FunPlus, MIT and Pearson. His credits span properties such as Star Trek, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Medal of Honor, BioShock, Mafia, Thomas & Friends and Octonauts. He has also led game design and economy teams, lectured on game economy design in Milan and Bucharest, and appeared on BBC television and radio. His work has been cited by Bloomberg, VentureBeat and Pocket Gamer.Chapters:00:00 Introduction03:20 Why every game has an economy04:34 Designing economies for different players26:14 Power creep and why games reset progress35:15 Classic WoW, Retail WoW and time versus money42:35 Why gold farming cannot simply be banned45:04 Why the WoW Token was the right call51:33 Why Web3 gaming failed52:53 The True Ownership Trilemma01:01:16 Why games are planned economies01:03:10 Why the Ready Player One future is not coming01:16:19 The $10,000 a month MMO01:19:44 Breaking into game economy designhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/catalinmalexandru/https://intrinsiceconomies.substack.com/https://catalinalexandru.com/2023/03/true-ownership-the-game-economy-trilemma/

Nate Pacyga is an agentic engineer, product builder and the technical founder of Game Monument, where he is building products focused on funding, engagement and community building in the games industry. He has spent more than 20 years combining software engineering with product and technical leadership across games, web applications, developer tools and prototypes. He also documents the products he is building on his YouTube channel.Before Game Monument, Nate was a Technical Director at Scopely, where his work included WWE Champions and an unannounced title, and held Chief Technology Officer roles at Game Taco and Gank. His earlier career includes engineering roles at KIXEYE, Kabam and DeNA, as well as time as an owner, engineer and game designer at Super2Games, whose city building game Turbo Town reached more than one million plays. Nate has also taught programming as an adjunct professor, spoken at conferences and code camps, and mentored engineers throughout his career.Chapters:01:51 Nate's story04:20 The ChatGPT moment06:24 What you still need to learn09:23 Do you need college?11:05 How to get started15:44 Gravity Refinery demo18:35 When AI gets it wrong21:01 How to write better prompts24:53 Which tools to use28:00 Nate's multiplayer tool29:03 Why multiplayer was so hard30:45 Rebuilding a cancelled game in six hours31:39 Bringing old games back35:41 When AI took his job37:21 How we got here40:06 Why starting feels hard42:47 Building a game in a chat44:08 We build a game live48:01 Flash game nostalgia49:39 The Ready Player One dream51:46 The creator economy52:44 Make your own TV episode55:48 The next ten years58:24 Claude of Duty demo1:01:23 What this means for MMOs1:02:35 How dev teams are changing1:04:47 Nate's advice1:07:48 Where to find Natehttps://www.youtube.com/@UC_RElGW8kk1eMCQkWIPcmDw https://www.linkedin.com/in/natepacyga/

Zac Beaudoin is the CEO and Executive Producer of T-Minus Zero Entertainment, an independent game production company. T-Minus Zero relaunched in 2026 after previously operating as a NetEase studio. In July 2026, the team launched DREGS on Steam in Early Access, a multiplayer cooperative horror comedy built around chaotic missions with friends. Zac also writes The Art of Making Great Games, where he explores production, leadership, player experience, and how creative teams work.Across more than 19 years in games, Zac has worked at BioWare, Blizzard, and Crystal Dynamics. He began in quality assurance at BioWare before moving into production and studio leadership, with experience across Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blizzard’s Project Odyssey, and Tomb Raider. Today, he leads T-Minus Zero as it develops and supports individual game projects.Chapters:00:00:00 Zac's 19 years in game development00:04:52 From BioWare QA to production leadership00:12:38 What game producers should actually do00:17:31 Aligning a studio around one vision00:23:37 Reducing meetings without losing alignment00:32:53 How leaders shape game team culture00:40:04 Why younger players want social playgrounds00:54:47 How AI will democratise game development00:57:42 Solving discovery when anyone can make games01:07:44 Why game development is becoming more like film01:18:51 Why focused games beat bloated experiences01:23:11 How AI will reshape game studios and jobs01:30:38 Why game developers need stronger unions01:32:24 Zac's advice: stop waiting and buildhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-beaudoin-11515120/https://www.t-minuszero.com/

David Klindt is an Assistant Professor in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, working at the intersection of brains and machine learning. His research asks how the brain makes sense of a constantly changing world so effortlessly — and how those principles can build AI that's as flexible and robust as human perception.Before starting his lab in 2024, David was a postdoc at Stanford, a Machine Learning Research Scientist at Meta, and a research intern at Google, after earning his PhD in machine learning and computational neuroscience at the University of Tübingen. He brings that rare brain-and-machine perspective to world models, the limits of today's AI, and why games might be one of our most valuable training grounds.https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-klindt-b03833189/

Zach Letter is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wonder Works Studio, one of the leading developers on Roblox. Before founding the studio, Zach built an audience of more than one billion YouTube views as a gaming creator, an experience that shaped his belief that great games are built not just through development, but through community, storytelling, and distribution. Today, Wonder Works specializes in creating large-scale Roblox experiences around major entertainment IP, combining rapid development with relentless live operations.Under Zach’s leadership, Wonder Works has partnered with Paramount to create SpongeBob Tower Defense, the highest-earning branded experience in Roblox history. The game has attracted more than 600 million visits, peaked at over 200,000 concurrent players, and won Best Use of IP at the Roblox Innovation Awards. Zach is a strong advocate for the idea that the future of games lies at the intersection of creators, live service, and community, where developers don’t just ship games, but become the storytellers, entertainers, and influencers who grow them alongside their players.https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-letter-0769b893/www.wonderworks.gg

Recorded June 30, 2026, one week before Microsoft confirmed major layoffs across Xbox, including around 3,200 roles and several studio closures. We discuss these cuts as rumors in this episode because that is what they were at the time. They are confirmed now, and our thoughts are with everyone affected.----Tadhg Kelly is a game design and product management consultant with more than 26 years of experience across the games industry. As CEO of TK Game Design, he works with studios around the world to solve challenges in game design, product strategy, systems and economy design, production, publishing strategy, analytics, and roadmap planning. He has advised more than 100 teams across hundreds of projects spanning mobile, PC, Web3, XR, gamified wellness, and other emerging interactive spaces, helping developers refine core loops, evaluate products, and build stronger design foundations.Alongside his consulting practice, Tadhg is the co-founder of Whenere Inc., where he leads product strategy and supports operations and partnerships. His career includes leadership and advisory roles at Mobile Game Doctor, Magic Leap, VREAL, OUYA, Jawfish Games, Simple Lifeforms, Sky, Climax, Lionhead, Asylum Entertainment, and Havok. He is also the creator of the influential game design blog What Games Are, a Google mentor, and an executive coach, bringing a rare combination of creative direction, product thinking, developer relations, and hands-on production experience to teams building the future of games.https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadhgk/simplelifeforms.comwhatgamesare.com

Omar Abdelwahed is an engineering leader, game developer, and technology executive with more than 25 years of experience building games, AI systems, and cloud platforms. Throughout his career, he has led engineering teams at Ubisoft, 2K, Playable Worlds, East Side Games, SoftBank Robotics, PLAYSTUDIOS, and most recently as CTO at Iconic Arts. Alongside his leadership roles, Omar remains a hands-on engineer, building AI-powered development tools and exploring how agentic coding is transforming game creation.His work spans founding Ubisoft’s first San Francisco game development studio, leading online engineering for NBA 2K, helping East Side Games double in size through its public offering, and serving as VP of Engineering at Playable Worlds. He also led the launch of Pepper, the first humanoid social robot in the U.S., at SoftBank Robotics America and shipped his own indie game, The Null Society. Today, Omar is a leading voice on AI-assisted game development, engineering productivity, and the future of software development.https://www.linkedin.com/in/omargames/

Emer Tanciatco is a senior game art leader and consultant with nearly two decades of experience guiding art production across some of PlayStation’s most recognised titles. Over more than 16 years at Sony Interactive Entertainment, he worked as a Lead Artist and later Art Supervisor, helping teams establish pipelines, visual standards, documentation, and co-development workflows across internal studios and external partners. His credits include major releases such as Death Stranding, Death Stranding 2, Helldivers 2, The Last of Us, Gran Turismo 7, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Days Gone, Killzone 3, Resistance 3, and many others.With a strong technical background in 3D art, asset production, art direction, and workflow management, Emer brings a practical understanding of how large-scale game art is actually built. His experience spans environment art, texture work, outsourcing, team leadership, mentoring, quality control, and the creation of style and technical guidelines that keep complex productions consistent. He now works as a game development art consultant, supporting teams and vendors with art pipelines, creative direction, visual design, and production structure.https://www.linkedin.com/in/emerdesign/

Shobek is a Classic World of Warcraft streamer best known for his immersive, anime-influenced roleplay and his deep love of WoW. He grew up gaming from the Sega Dreamcast era into Vanilla WoW, and after years of dreaming about it, he went all in on streaming in 2016, committing his entire twenties to the craft. The breakthrough took time, roughly seven years of living lean and refining his voice, but his distinctive blend of in character storytelling, humour, and genuine warmth eventually found its audience. Today he is one of the most original roleplay voices in the Classic community, the kind of creator who can turn a quiet road between two zones into a piece of theatre.What sets Shobek apart is how seriously he takes MMOs as living worlds rather than games to be optimised. He champions roleplay as something anyone can do, as simple as stopping to say hello to another player, and he is a passionate advocate for Hardcore and self found play, where every achievement carries real weight. He thinks hard about the friction that makes online worlds feel meaningful, the creep of efficiency and add ons that can hollow them out, and where the genre goes next through user generated content and player made worlds. Equal parts performer and student of the medium, he brings both heart and a strong point of view to the conversation about the future of WoW and MMOs.https://www.youtube.com/shobekhttps://www.twitch.tv/shobek

Dead Space creator Glenn Schofield on building unforgettable horror, surviving AAA development, and why he's betting on AI.Glenn Schofield is one of the most influential creative leaders in modern video games, with a career spanning art, production, studio leadership, and game direction. He's best known as the creator and executive producer of Dead Space, one of the most celebrated horror games of its generation, and for shaping major franchises through his work at EA, Visceral Games, Sledgehammer Games, and Striking Distance Studios.Across his career, Glenn has worked on some of the biggest titles in gaming, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Call of Duty: WWII, and The Callisto Protocol. His work blends a lifelong passion for art with a deep understanding of production, technology, and creative leadership.In this episode, Glenn reflects on the craft of building games, the pressure of AAA development, the making of unforgettable horror, and where creativity fits in an industry being reshaped by new tools, bigger budgets, and changing expectations.