Podcasts

Learn how cultural technical designer Timothy Staton-Davis is charting a new path in game development, drawing from his experiences across the industry to drive games where the technical implementation is inextricably linked with narrative and game design goals. In a game industry crowded with 10,000+ releases a year, the ability to craft unique experiences that immerse players in specific emotions, experiences, and educational moments is a differentiator that may mean the difference between surviving and thriving for you, your game, and your studio. Timis now Creative Director at Melanated Game Kitchen, taking his unique skills and putting them to use…

What does a technical designer do, and how does games education shake out in a modern context? How does design-oriented programming like prototyping really look as part of the game production process? Jo Cronk is a software engineer, technical designer, and UX specialist with over two decades of professional experience in the tech industry. From their start at Microsoft working on titles like Age of Empires 2, Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, Urban Assault, Outwars, Pandora’s Box, Close Combat III, Motocross Madness 2, the MSN Gaming Zone, and Asheron’s Call they went on to build a unique career as a technical designer at renowned studios like…

Video games take years to develop, but often game studios make choices as if they're going to be hiring for months at a time. The failure to build in the systems that support the people at a studio - hiring, management support, career frameworks, company values and goals - are failures to thrive that can harm your studio at the moment you need the support the most, when you're about to pivot to broad scale. Amy White has served as Director of People of Fusebox Games as they doubled in size from the crucial 26 to 48 person size, and…

Discover an astonishing variety of community insight in this candid conversation with video game event professional and nonprofit board member Cristina Amaya. Cristina's love of gaming was forged like many of her peers with late nights in World of Warcraft guilds and inspiring trips to the Penny Arcade Expo, and those formative experiences led to a career organizing esports, developer, and player-focused events around the video game industry. This episode is full of new things to discover: explore third space theory, prosocial gaming patterns, the fighting game community and their flagship fighting tournament EVO, dive into some of the history…

You don't need to be a games user researcher to confront the need for playtesting in your video game. All game developers, from solopreneurs to indies to AAAs will have to put their games in front of players at some point, hoping to learn from the experience. Steve Bromley is one of the world's foremost experts on the art of video game playtesting, and for over a decade he's been mentoring future generations of games user researchers through the International Game Developers Association and his own books and classes. In this week's episode, get insight from Steve that you can…

Celebrate GDC week by listening to one of the many talented GDC speakers hitting San Francisco in 2026: Narrative designer, games writer, and games researcher Adanna Nedd brings her extensive knowledge of what's current in gaming to expand our horizons. Explore unexpected questions like: what's "friend slop" and why does it matter? What does self-expression really mean to marginalized groups in games? How is one of the current breakout games innovating in women's health? Why are some vintage consoles still getting playtime? And... what do spiders have to do with AI? While Adanna's research focuses on the experiences of players…

Host, game dev, and author Cheryl Platz launches the second season of this popular video game podcast with Joanie Kraut, CEO of Women in Games International Season 2 will bring curious, candid content that speaks directly to game devs at every stage of their career: studio, indie, full time, laid off, students, and everything in between. SEATTLE, WA, UNITED STATES, March 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- As the video game development industry prepares to head to the annual GDC Festival of Gaming, Cheryl Platz is launching the second season of her successful podcast Enduring Play with an expanded look at what makes modern…