Rise and Play Podcast

In this new episode, I have the pleasure to have Tom Hammond as my guest. Tom has been an active contributor to the Live Ops community with his podcast Mastering Retention and recently the UserWise Academy. Tom is sharing his entrepreneurial journey creating his two companies TheoremReach and UserWise, his company culture and values, and what led him to create the Mastering Retention podcast. To "give back" to the community.I recommend his podcast as there is a lot of valuable and tangible content about Live Ops.Enjoy this new episode!Mastering Retention Podcast: https://userwise.io/podcast/mastering-retention-podcast-presented-by-userwise/UserWise Academy: https://userwise.io/academy/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this new episode, I am talking to Carolin Krenzer, the CEO and co-founder of Trailmix, a London based studio which focuses on combining great storytelling with the best of free-to-play mobile gaming as well as creating a space for people to be the best version of themselves. Their latest title is Love & Pies, taking an innovative twist on the puzzle hybrid genre.Carolin has an impressive background in gaming. Before founding Trailmix, she worked as VP & Head of Studio for King. She joined the company in 2012 to help set up the London studio and bring the studio’s first title Farm Heroes Saga to life. Carolin also worked at EA/ Playfish as a Director of Product Management.We address in this episode, how Carolin started her new company Trailmix with her co-founder and ex-King colleague Tristan. As co-founders, they spent 6 months before the company founding to discuss and set up a clear vision, mission and culture for their company. Their studio is backed by Supercell.Enjoy this new episode!More about Trailmix: https://www.trailmixgames.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this new podcast episode, I am talking to Benjamin Chevalier, one of the co-founders of Mighty Bear Games. With Simon Davis and Fadzuli Said his two other co-founder, they started Mighty Bear Games in Singapore in early 2017 with ex-King colleagues and grew the studio to 50+ team members after two rounds of funding. Mighty Bear Games has been known lately for their successful title 'Butter Royale' on Apple Arcade.We tackle the vision and company culture the co-founders established from the beginning, focusing on honesty and transparency. How they run their company with integrity and 'walk the talk'. We address the challenges and opportunities they faced by building a studio with the Western mindset in a Southeast Asian hub such as Singapore. My discussion with Ben was very inspiring to see how a value-based company can look like. Without compromising on getting things done and achieving financial results.Enjoy this new episode!Mighty Bear Games blog: https://medium.com/mighty-bear-gamesShane Parish podcast: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this new episode, I am talking to Tatiana Kondratyeva, CEO & co-founder at Playpack, a new company formed in early 2021 focused on making games for an underserved audience with meaningful social interactions. Tatiana started her career in games more than 13 years ago. Games were always her biggest passion and she made it all the way up from being in QA to her current role of CEO and co-founder at Playpack. Tatiana has an amazing track record in the industry. She has worked at Wooga and Etermax, and beforehand she’s been working at Glu Mobile at the times where mobile Free-to-pay games were just on a rising trend.We tackle in this episode how Tatiana formed her new company, how she found her co-founders, and how they defined together their company mission and values.Enjoy this new episode!Open positions at Playpack: https://www.playpack.games/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this new episode, I have the pleasure to talk to Taina Myöhänen, the president of We In Games Finland (formerly named Women in Games Finland). We tackle with Taina the sensible topics of diversity, inclusivity, women in games... and what it means concretely for We in Games, and how these important topics are handled in the community. I love the Finnish gaming community for their progressive thinking and thoughtfulness on diversity and equality. Not being afraid to tackle the hard things. I believe many could benefit from the practices from We In Games, whether you are running your own community or are in a position of leadership. Enjoy this new episode!More about We In Games Finland: https://weingames.fi/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Kam Punia started his career in the games industry at Konami working with IP’s such as Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill before leading the Yugioh Brand in Europe. He is now the founder and CEO of Pixion Games (new unannounced game launched soon).In this new episode, Kam shares how he found at 14 years old his passion to create games to connect meaningfully people together. Kam also shares how he established the SUPREME Culture at his studio: Supportive, United, Positive, Respectful, Efficient, Merry and Encouraging. To him, his role as the CEO is not to control the team but to enable and encourage the team to succeed. Enjoy this new episode!More about Pixion games at: https://pixiongames.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this special episode, I share about my personal journey on what led me to a career path as a Leader in games, my life "drivers" and what led me to create Rise and Play early 2021.The story I am sharing is not something I have shared publicly anywhere before. I feel comfortable to share it in this podcast as the result of my own reflection work, to also give more light of what's behind the curtains of leaders who seem to "have it altogether".I hope this episode will inspire you to look inwards, and be brave to share the findings with your safe circles.Enjoy this special episode! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this new episode, I am talking to Annina Salvén, CFO at Next Games. Annina has an impressive and inspiring journey, starting as a Chef to later become the CFO of Next Games which went public in 2017.Annina walks us through her journey as a CFO and how she handled the difficult times of the company during the layoff wave in 2019. Annina shares openly her personal experience as a female leader in a male-dominated environment and the shocking bias she is going through with her high position. Beyond her C-level responsibilities, Annina has been publicly active advocating for Diversity and Inclusion and championing it at Next Games too. Enjoy this new episode! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Ivanna Pogrebniak is the Executive Director at AB Games (who released the successful title: Hidden City). Ivanna has an impressive career of 12 years working in IT, plus 3 years in the gaming industry. After working as a corporate lawyer just for half a year at AB games, Ivanna got offered the position of CEO of the company. She shares her career debut as a female CEO in an industry where she had little experience, the challenges she faced, and how she overcame them. Ivanna shares her mental models and routines to handle her busy life between the family (married, with 3 children), her CEO responsibilities, and her own needs. One thing she will never compromise on is to continue to learn and develop herself.Additionally, Ivanna is an active member of the Ukrainian IT and Gamedev community and a driver of the Ukrainian Gamedev Association with initiatives such as the AB library that she is leading.More about AB games: https://ab-games.com/en/More about AB library: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKj2OS1lj8lwMTmdaf9roPQ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

In this episode, I am talking to Audrey Leprince who has an impressive background in gaming. Audrey started in the industry as a game designer and producer for Ubisoft and Quantic Dream on AAA games. She is now the co-founder of the indie studio The Game Bakers, behind games like Haven or Furi. Audrey is advocating for diversity in the games industry: she co-founded WINGS in 2019, an international mini-fund only focusing on funding games by women and marginalised genders developers and founded Women in Games France. She’s also on the board of the French Video Game Trade Association.Through the episode, we talk about the culture of freedom and flexibility they created at The Game Bakers, a self-funded studio. We also talk openly about how being a mother led Audrey to take a leap into funding WIG France and WINGS. You can apply your game at WINGS: https://wingsfund.me/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com