Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In a world littered with vibe-coded experiences, how will games differentiate themselves? How can stories remain resonant? Melanated Game Kitchen Creative Director and adjunct USC faculty Timothy Staton-Davis is a self-styled cultural technical game designer charting a path forward: a unique blend of game design, engineering, and cultural research and insight that weaves authenticity into each interaction in the games he serves as a contributor or consultant. Games like Spider-Man rely on this kind of deep insight to provide their players with games that live up to the motivators of play like Immersion, Education, and Self-Expression that we identified in the Game Development Strategy Guide, and Tim has extensive experience on world-class AAA games like Marvel's Avengers and God of War: Ragnarok that now inform his foray into independent gaming. In this episode, we explore broadly applicable topics like localization and culturalization that are critical to global success, complex topics like the nuanced ethical application of artificial intelligence in games (if it exists), an exploration of more gaming communities like Black in Gaming, a definition of cultural technical game design and Tim's new USC educational experience, and much more.

#gamedesign #culturalization #localization #selfexpression #videogames #gameeducation #usc #indiegames #blackingaming #technicaldesign #culturaldesign #consulting

Enduring Play is a unique, human crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, and Season 2 explores the communities, systems, and research methods that help us lead curiously and sustainably to thriving games. 

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS2 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 2 discount offer expires July 30, 2026. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

To learn more about Timothy's work or to follow up on the books and reference material cited in this episode, check out the show notes at https://www.gamedevelopmentstrategyguide.com/enduring-play/enduring-play-season-2/enduring-play-a-game-dev-podcast-season-2-episode-8-timothy-staton-davis-show-notes/

From software engineer to technical designer to game design professor - Jo Cronk has turned a successful career bridging the gap between engineers and creatives at companies like Crystal Dynamics and Snowblind Studios into a thriving career as an Assistant Professor of Technical Design at one of the top-rated game development schools in the world, DigiPen Institute of Technology. Jo brings extensive technical prowess and a mastery of game design techniques to both their course material and their approach to teaching. In this episode, we explore what technical design really means, the complexities of ideation and pre-production in the game development process, specific advice for navigating prototyping, the intricacies of video game engines, modern video game development curriculums, and much more. There are also some unexpected insights about human behavior, like how younger students show up in class and how that maps to disruptive behavior we see in games. Whether you're considering a video game education or looking to better understand your younger audiences and engineering colleagues, there's something in this episode for you.

Enduring Play is a unique, human crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, and Season 2 explores the communities, systems, and research methods that help us lead curiously and sustainably to thriving games. 

#gamedev #videogames #technicaldesign #engineering #digipen #education #professor #tombraider #college #prototyping #production #gamedesign #indiedev

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS2 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 2 discount offer expires July 30, 2026. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

To learn more about DigiPen or to follow up on the research and other information cited in this episode, head to the show notes at https://www.gamedevelopmentstrategyguide.com/enduring-play/enduring-play-season-2/enduring-play-a-game-dev-podcast-season-2-episode-7-jo-cronk-show-notes/

In today's episode, we demystify another specialty within the game design discipline: systems design. Joe Magdalena is better known as "joemag" (lowercase j) to many of his followers, or "joemag3d" to the maker communities that follow his 3D printing hobby work. But during the day, joemag serves as a systems designer with experience on world-renowned titles like Hearthstone and Teamfight Tactics, designing unique game mechanics while wielding the powers of math and communication using a deep foundation in competitive analysis to strike a balance between exponential and logarithmic curves in a quest for fun and engagement. Our conversation covers the basics, like exploring the definitions of live operations, campaign design, and the differences between content and systems design, before getting into best practices like player perception of value, new player experiences, and progression design. 

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is 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.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For readers of Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode is a particularly good complement for   the topics covered in Chapter 2 The Living Business of Games, with discussion of business models and how they should - or should not - impact game design - in addition to Chapter 3, Putting the Dev in Game Development; Chapter 4, Game Designer's Toolkit; and Chapter 7: Engaging Players Over Time.

This week we speak with accomplished engineering leader Caerie Houchins, who played a critical role in the initial global launch of VALORANT, the global smash tactical shooter from Riot Games. Caerie has now expanded her career from triple-A gaming to become a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of an independent game studio, Wicked Fox Games, which just successfully funded their first Kickstarter. Caerie walks listeners through insights that are not just useful for game engineers, but for anyone who dream of building video games at global scale and complexity. Hear about wide-ranging topics from game engine technology, crunch culture, and cross-cultural collaboration through the use of artificial intelligence in video game development.

This episode also takes a frank look at one of the things that brought Caerie and host Cheryl Platz together - their layoff. Why are there so many layoffs in the video game industry? Why is it so hard for indie studios like Caerie's to get traction? To understand these things, we must look at the root of today's game industry instability, and that goes back to the gaming gold rush during the pandemic. Learn more about host Cheryl's take on what has brought the industry to this particular moment in time.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.  Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For readers of Cheryl Platz's book The Game Development Strategy Guide, Season 1 Episode 7 is a particularly great complement to Chapter 6, The Why of Multiplayer; Chapter 9, From Emergence to Prosocial Gaming; Chapter 12, Gaming Technology Platforms; and Chapter 13: The Good and Bad of Game Dev Processes.

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Some leaders speak with their actions, and video game design executive Eric Kabisch is one of those leaders. A seasoned gaming design executive with experience at companies like Scopely, Roblox, Google, and VRChat, Eric has spent most of his career with a laser focus on the teams and products he supports and his record speaks for itself. This rare, frank, and transparent conversation with a people-focused design executive like Eric brings actionable insight for any leader of creatives in the video game industry: from applied business insights to from advice for helping team members navigate the shift from ideation to operations, the concept of low-ego, high-collaboration, high-alignment environments; from audio design for games to the critical role of a curious mindset; insight into some of the elements that made Scopely's initial rise successful, and of course a reflection on the state of the industry economy and artificial intelligence.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.  Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For listeners looking to learn more or readers of The Game Development Strategy Guide, Eric's episode is an excellent complement to Chapter 5: Game Experience Design in Practice; Chapter 9: From Emergence to Prosocial Gaming; Chapter 13: The Good and Bad of Game Dev Process; and Chapter 14: Let the Right Ideas Win.

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.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is 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.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For listeners looking for more information or those already reading The Game Development Strategy Guide, Episode 5 is an expansive conversation that serves as an excellent complement to Chapter 3: Putting the Dev in Game Development; Chapter 4: Game Designer's Toolkit; Chapter 7: Engaging Players Over Time; Chapter 8: Creating Immersive Worlds; and Chapter 12: Game Technology Platforms.

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.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.  Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For those looking to learn more or who are already reading The Game Development Strategy Guide, David's episode is an excellent complement to Chapter 4: The Game Designer's Toolkit; Chapter 8: Creating Immersive Worlds; Chapter 9: From Emergence to Prosocial Gaming; and Chapter 14: Let The Right Ideas Win. 

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. 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. 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.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.   Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For those looking to learn more or who are already reading The Game Development Strategy Guide, Amy's episode covers a broad range of topics and is a complement for Chapter 1: What Makes Us Play; Chapter 3, Putting the Dev in Game Development; Chapter 4, Game Designer's Toolkit; Chapter 13, The Good and Bad of Game Processes; and Chapter 14, Let the Right Ideas Win. 

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.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.  Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For those looking for more detail or who are already reading The Game Development Strategy Guide, Carlos's episode is perfectly complemented by Chapter 9: From Emergence to Prosocial Gaming as well as Chapter 6: The Why of Multiplayer.

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. 

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of game development with a format inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book  The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews.   Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For readers of Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide, Celia's episode is a perfect complement for Chapter 1: What Makes Us Play, which covers basic cognitive psychology and motivational principles that apply to all forms of play;  Chapter 4, which is dedicated to user experience design in video games; Chapter 6: The Why of Multiplayer, which covers the difference between companionship and competition in more detail; and Chapters 10 and 11 which cover video game monetization and ethics. 

#videogame #videogames #podcast #gamedesign #gamedev #gamedevelopment #userexperience #uxdesign #uxresearch #cognitivepsychology