Gaming isn’t about blockbuster budgets or flashy graphics - it’s about fun. And somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten that. In this episode of Secret Stash, hosts Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill sit down with former Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney to unpack what’s gone sideways in the gaming industry and how to fix it. Here’s what you’ll hear: ⭐ How game development costs are driving up licensing deals ⭐ Why fun is losing out to graphics fidelity in a battle no one asked for ⭐ The ultimate debate between distribution vs. product ⭐ Owen’s two favorite M&A deals at EA (and the one mistake everyone should avoid) ⭐ How to build forever franchises instead of wannabe blockbusters Owen calls it like he sees it, and the result is a refreshingly honest take on what gaming can and should be. Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-7-owen-mahoney 0:00 - Intro 1:41 - Getting into gaming 3:14 - What EA did right 7:30 - Licensing and development costs 13:08 - Poor man’s Hollywood 20:15 - Distribution vs product 25:05 - Nexon is misunderstood 32:08 - EA’s 2 best M&A deals 37:41 - The biggest M&A mistake 41:31 - Forever franchises

Most games would kill for a community like Plarium’s RAID: Shadow Legends - and the team behind Hellhades has a lot to do with that. What started out as a hobby YouTube channel, is now a massive community with more than 225,000 followers as well as the go-to website for RAID news, guides, and interactive tools. Recently, the Hellhades team decided to turn the world of game development. They founded the studio Fateless and in 10 quick weeks, raised $6M from their community. In this episode of Secret Stash, hosts Archie Stonehill and Justin Kan sit down with the Fateless team - Simon Lockerby, Sham Saleh, and Dan Francis - and discuss: 👉 The origins of HellHades and its growth into a massive community hub 👉 How a YouTube channel turned into a game studio with a $6M raise 👉 Strategies for building a passionate gaming community 👉 How direct-to-consumer is are reshaping communities Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-6-fateless

At age 19, Justin Waldron built an app that would go on to have the biggest IPO since Google. That company was Zynga, and it completely changed the way the world played games.

Listen now for behind-the-scenes stories that shaped an era of social gaming, as well as Justin Waldron’s own secret for scaling up Zynga and setting it apart from the competition.

In this episode of Secret Stash, co-hosts Archie Stonehill and Justin Kan sit down with Justin Waldron to talk through:

👉 origins of Zynga and the edge they found in the market

👉 the innovative business model that helped Zynga win

👉 the company’s love/hate relationship with Facebook

👉 rise and fall of social gaming (and who’s to blame for the fall)

Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-4-matt-ball

0:00 - Intro

1:21 - Justin’s first Facebook app

3:45 - Building Zynga Poker

6:10 - Facebook’s missing puzzle piece

9:00 - Browser power

11:46 - The winning freemium model

20:35 - Scaling horizontally

28:33 - A culture of experimentation

33:57 - Love/hate with Facebook

36:57 - The rise of mobile

38:49 - Apple as a gatekeeper

42:17 - Amazing corp dev

43:47 - Scaling organically

48:09 - The fall of social gaming

59:36 - Telegram’s killing it

1:09:22 - Crypto

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Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.

Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/