If you're struggling to figure out where AI fits into your game development process, you're not alone. The theme that emerged across a variety of conversations about artificial intelligence in Season 1 of this series is nuanced: there is no right answer. The cat's out of the bag and most game development companies will be looking at some form of AI use, but there is a clear sense that the use of generative AI for player-facing content is problematic. Tune in this season to explore the nuance and come to your own conclusions.

Preview quotes in this episode are pulled from:

• Episode 3: Creative Strategy for Thriving Teams with Amy Kalson
• Episode 4: The Global Heartbeat of Music Games with David Ventura
• Episode 7: Engineering for Scalable, Sustainable Games with Caerie Houchins

AI is just one of the many topics discussed this season on Enduring Play. Get full stories in context from professionals with experience at companies like Mojang, Riot Games, Disney Interactive Studios, iNiS Corp, VRChat, Roblox, Activision/Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Maxis, Griptonite Games, Hidden Path Entertainment, and many other studios. Hear from a wide variety of disciplines: from narrative, systems, and user experience design to engineering and player dynamics, with plenty of other perspectives along the way. 

A new podcast quest has unlocked: join host Cheryl Platz, author of the upcoming book The Game Development Strategy Guide, as she takes you on a 10-episode journey behind the scenes with many of the veteran video game developers who are featured in the pages of her book starting August 19, 2025 and continuing weekly on Tuesdays. 

Pre-order Cheryl's book, The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive from Rosenfeld Media or your favorite bookseller; releases September 16, 2025. Pre-orders at RosenfeldMedia.com save 15% and all print orders direct from the publisher receive a free ebook.

A new podcast quest has unlocked: join host Cheryl Platz, author of the upcoming book The Game Development Strategy Guide, as she takes you on a 10-episode journey behind the scenes with many of the veteran video game developers who are featured in the pages of her book starting August 19, 2025 and continuing weekly on Tuesdays. 

Get full stories in context from professionals with experience at companies like Mojang, Riot Games, Disney Interactive Studios, iNiS Corp, VRChat, Roblox, Activision/Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Maxis, Griptonite Games, Hidden Path Entertainment, and many other studios. Hear from a wide variety of disciplines: from narrative, systems, and user experience design to engineering and player dynamics, with plenty of other perspectives along the way. 

References in this episode:

• Game Changer: The Evolution of Video Games' Payments Infrastructure (Kansas City Fed)
• Xbox Hit with Layoffs and Cancellations as Microsoft Cuts 9000 Jobs (Wired)
• 2022-2025 game industry layoffs (Wikipedia)

Pre-order Cheryl's book, The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive from Rosenfeld Media or your favorite bookseller; releases September 16, 2025. Pre-orders at RosenfeldMedia.com save 15% and all print orders direct from the publisher receive a free ebook.

From her work as UX Director at Epic Games on classics like Fortnite to her widely respected published books on the psychology of video games, UX Strategist and author Celia Hodent, PhD has helped a broad variety of games, gamers, and game developers wrangle the complexity of possibility using classic human-centered design and research psychology techniques. In this first episode of Enduring Play, Celia and Cheryl go far beyond wireframes to redefine your mental model of what the discipline of user experience can truly bring to the table for video game teams. We also explore ethics for modern game economies, inspired by Celia's time as the founder of the Ethical Games initiative. 

There's something in this conversation for everyone because the application of user experience to video game development is critical to crafting video games that thrive: far more than just delivering screens, the craft of user experience can help game development teams foresee potential problems early, make smarter business decisions, and apply the best of cognitive psychology to make games more fun to play. 

Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is an indie podcast drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available for pre-order worldwide in advance of its release on September 16, 2025. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Explore ludonarrative harmony and what it really takes to create nonlinear interactive narrative in modern videogames in this week's episode with Whitney Beltrán, a multiple award-winning Mexican-American Narrative Director with over 12 years of experience in narrative design and professional writing whose experience spans triple-A video games, mobile games, extended reality games, tabletop roleplaying games, and pretty much anything interactive. As a creative leader, she understands that visionary leadership isn't just about having the ideas: it's creating the space and structure in which teams can thrive chasing a shared narrative vision, as she did successfully on her award-winning immersive game Holovista. Whitney is also an accomplished video game academic whose specialty in the intersection of mythology, psychology, and play is best demonstrated by the runaway success of her Kickstarter tabletop RPG Bluebeard's Bride. In this wide-ranging exploration of the craft of narrative design, we pull back the veil on the core concepts behind ludonarrative alignment and the nuanced world of narrative design tools across the industry, and will inspire narrative designers with candid reflections about creative leadership and navigating the world of venture capital.

Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is an indie podcast drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is now available from digital booksellers around the world or from publisher Rosenfeld Media. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

David Guiseppe Ventura is one of those creative minds who knows exactly what part of the industry he's most excited to innovate in after two decades of shipping innovative video games: music games and cross-cultural storytelling. He lives in the liminal space between disciplines as a Creative Director of Ichigoichie Games, listening to the needs of his teams and creating spaces where creativity and unexpected experiences can thrive. In this conversation, we explore David's career from his start at Rockstar Games and iNiS in Japan to his current work connecting European and Japanese gaming companies and their markets while shipping uniquely compelling music games, all without burning out his teams. Learn about the value of interdisciplinary empathy, and hear about why the lack of discoverability in games marketplaces is hurting indie game studios and gamers alike.

Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is an indie podcast drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available for pre-order worldwide in advance of its release on September 16, 2025. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction: hear from two veteran video game producers about the nuances of navigating design for AAA games and the world's biggest IP, even when things get weird. In this episode, we welcome versatile game designer and producer Amy Kalson, who is currently working as an Executive Design Producer at Meta on one of her biggest passions: extended reality. Amy's experience has carried her all the way to the C-suite and she is an alumnus of companies like SYBO Games, Disney Interactive Studios, and Bad Robot Games. Amy worked with me as Lead Designer on Disney Friends DS at Griptonite Games and also contributed to The Sims series at the same time I worked on the series at Electronic Arts. We start with a brief journey into Radio Lab territory to recount one of the world’s weirdest pitch meetings before diving into deeper topics like effective game leadership, the varied role of video game producers, the art of effective creative collaboration video game labor rights, and how our shared experience at Electronic Arts during the EA_Spouse era influenced our perspective on what really matters when leading game development teams.

Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is an indie podcast drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available for pre-order worldwide in advance of its release on September 16, 2025. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Learn about prosocial gaming from a leader in player safety who has been innovating with moderation tools powered by technology and human ingenuity for over 16 years, Carlos Figueiredo. Carlos began his career in the company of hundreds of millions of penguins at Club Penguin, and went on to work on the widely used community moderation tool Community Sift at Two Hat Security before eventually ending up at Mojang Studios as the Director of Player Trust and Safety with the responsibility for ensuring the Minecraft community can thrive at scale. During his career, Carlos’s passion for creating safe spaces for play led him to co-found the organization now known as the Thriving in Games Group. We talk about a concept championed by TiGG – prosocial gaming, or the theory that many negative interactions in games can be prevented with game design decisions that encourage constructive behavior and thus head off disruptive behavior. Hear first-hand about what behaviors Carlos sees in game communities at scale and how he approaches design for varied experiences.

Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is an indie podcast drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available for pre-order worldwide in advance of its release on September 16, 2025. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.