Gamecraft

Mitch and Blake discuss how the rise of games-as-services has privileged durable, long-duration play-patterns -- leading to the modern idea of the "Forever Game" which can persist for decades. Mitch outlines his five attributes of long-term engagement and provides examples of each from games like Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, and League of Legends. They look at the two distinct strands of long-duration play that emerged in the 1990's -- the massively-multiplayer online role playing game and the session-based online competitive game -- and how those genres evolved and cross-polinated to produce multi-billion dollar online games that have remained viable for a decade or more. Links & Show Notes: Bill Gurley on LTV Island of Kesmai Bran Ferren I/ITSEC The Assassination of Lord British Lineage AoE2: Red Bull Wololo 2022 World of Warcraft Fortnite

Mitch and Blake discuss perhaps the most important developments in the video games business since the 1990s: the explosion of casual and mobile gaming. Mitch explains how the casual business was catalyzed by the most unlikely of heroes. He talks about his time as the CEO of the first public mobile game company in the US (JAMDAT) leading up to the launch of the iPhone. They look at the rise of so-called "social gaming" on Facebook and how it was enabled by new advances in analytics and data science. They do a deep dive on the iOS App Store and Mitch talks about how Apple's desire to curate its end-user experience inadvertently led to the rise of Facebook as a customer acquisition gatekeeper. They end with a discussion of why SuperCell succeeded in building a multi-billion dollar mobile game business while Rovio did not. Links & Show Notes: Robert Westmoreland  EA's “We See Farther” Ad  Ion Storm  Taneli Armanto / Nokia Snake  JAMDAT Mobile S-1 Steve Jobs Announces the iPhone  Mobile Games Dominate User-Acquisition Spending (2021)  SuperCell 

Mitch and Blake take a deep dive into the game industry’s migration from physical goods at retail to electronic distribution over the internet. They explore the rise of platform-based publishing — a new concept that marries the internet’s remarkable utility in aggregating customers on digital platforms with the traditional publishing roles of editorial, marketing, and sales. This episode covers the origins of the innovative Steam service, Microsoft’s GamePass platform (and why it led to Microsoft's $69B acquisition of Activision-Blizzard), and how the Chinese giant Tencent used platform-based publishing to become the largest game company in the world. Links & Show Notes: Is Publishing Dead? | Mitch Lasky (GDC, 2014) Investing in Content | Mitch Lasky (2012) Valve Corporation Steam Microsoft's Game Pass Aggregation Theory | Ben Thompson (Stratechery) A closer look at Tencent, the world’s biggest game company (Polygon)

Hosts Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins discuss the rise of free-to-play as a dominant business model for video game marketing and distribution. They look at the roots of free-to-play in the shareware business, where companies like id Software and Apogee used it to build independent game businesses. Mitch shares some stories about his time as id's publisher in the late 90's. They then look at free-to-play as a response to rampant PC software piracy, primarily in Asia, and how Korean giant Nexon invented the modern internet free-to-play model with games like Maple Story and particularly Kart Rider. They conclude by tracing free-to-play back to the West, first in the casual games space and later with companies like Riot Games (League of Legends) and Epic (Fortnite). Mitch talks about his early investment in a pre-product Riot, and how they used free-to-play to become one of the most valuable games companies in the world. Links & Show Notes: Masters of Doom by David Kushner Softdisk Scott Miller (Apogee) [Bonus] Nexon Riot Games

Gamecraft is a limited series podcast about the modern history of the video game business hosted by industry veteran Mitch Lasky and investor Blake Robbins.  In this introductory episode, Mitch and Blake discuss the series as a whole, breaking down the eight episodes and why the themes explored in the episodes are so relevant to understanding the modern business. They discuss their backgrounds in the industry and why they chose to record this series of conversations.