I Play, Therefore I Am

Of Building Bridges, Games Ethics and Psychology

How does a gamer’s brain work? There is no better person to answer this question than Celia Hodent. Not only is she the author of multiple books, one with that exact title (The Gamer’s Brain), but she also holds a PhD in psychology, is an accomplished expert and strategist regarding user experience (UX) and has 16 years of valuable experience in working at successful game studios (Ubisoft, LucasArts and Epic Games).

In this episode of our IPTIA podcast, Celia talks about her journey throughout her unique career, the psychological aspects and possibilities of gaming, user experience, and the ethics behind it.

Where to find her:

Bluesky

LinkedIn

Blog

Ethical Games

Ethical Games Conference

Book recommendations:

Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)

Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Perez)

Weapons of Math Destruction (Cathy O’Neil)

Game recommendations:

World of Warcraft

The Legend of Zelda

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Overwatch

Myst

Little Big Planet

Limbo

Inside

Hellblade

Inspiring people: Tim Schafer

Brenda Romero

Kimberly Voll 

Dana Nightingale

Tanya Short

Mike Ambinder

Jason Schklar 

Lanie Dixon

Ben Lewis Evans

Veronica Zammitto

Coraly Rosario

Nicole Lewis

Ian Hamilton

Jennifer Ash

Rachel Kowert

Catt Small

Tara Voelker

Edd Coates

Of Friendship, Connecting the Industry and Mental Health

What do you get when three creative, passionate gamers meet through Berlin nightlife and become close friends? Well, in the case of Games Ground founders Fernanda Pagani (CEO & Head of B2B), Joris Schnabel (Head of Exhibition) and Arjuna “AJ” Sath (Head of Partnerships), you get an unstoppable project force and one of the most exciting networking events for the gaming industry in Berlin. With Games Ground, the trio wants to “get the game to the gamers and the industry to the community.”

In this special episode, they tell Florian and Simon about their stories, the Games Ground project, learnings about mental health and prove that passion and friendship can get you very far in the gaming industry.

Where to find them:

Games Ground - LinkedIn, Instagram

Fernanda - LinkedIn

Joris - LinkedIn

AJ - LinkedIn

Of Saving the World, Finding Your Passion and the Future Version of Yourself

Imagine you know that you will be laid off in one year’s time. Do you panic? Do you despair? Do you scream in frustration? Or do you see it as an opportunity to reinvent and ask yourself: What do I really want to do with my life? Benedikt Oehmen, former Team Manager at Blizzard Entertainment, found himself in this predicament and made a new career out of it. As Coach for the Geeks with his company The Art of Meaningful Change, he teaches his big three: be kind, be present and be open. How he does this, what he learned on the journey and why you shouldn’t fake it until you make it, you will hear in this episode.

Where to find Benedikt: LinkedIn, Website

Benedikt's recommendations: Mark Williams - Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world; Charles Duhigg - The Power of Habit, James Clear - Atomic Habits, Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind, Duolingo, WoW, Baldurs Gate, XCOM

#IPTIApodcast #gamescapitalberlin

Of Doing Well, Doing Good, and Lifting As You Climb

Meet Garvey, the Paladin, and learn his ways. How he turned his life around from being a troll to living in the service of others. How he breaks down game mechanics to apply them to life and consequently, at one time in his life, ending up on the cover of the New York Sunday Times. The Head of Education and Government Affairs at Nodwin Gaming takes you on a ride from the streets of Brooklyn all the way to the Philippines, giving you his two cents about how gaming changed his life over and over again and how he applies his learnings to educate and mentor the younger generation.

Where to find Garvey: X and Instagram

Garvey’s recommendations: The Alchemist – Paolo Coelho, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck – Mark Manson, Simon Sinek - How Great Leaders Inspire, Ultima Online, Albion Online, Dark Age of Camelot, League of Legends, Dota, Mobile Legends, Honkai: Star Rail

#IPTIApodcast #gamescapitalberlin

Of Intuition, Creative Freedom and Finding Your Place

Fernando Ferero's life led him from Columbia to Poland, from Germany to the US and back to Germany. It also took him to renowned gaming companies such as CD Projekt Red, Goodgame Studios and Blizzard Entertainment. As a Senior UI Artist he worked on prestigious projects like The Witcher 3 and Diablo IV.

While talking about this incredible life path, we also go into the distinction of hope vs. reality in the games industry, how to generate trust and freedom for yourself, and enjoying what you have.

Where to find Fernando: https://fernandoforeroart.com/

Fernando’s recommendations: David Eagleman - The Brain, Sam Harris – Making Sense, Zygmunt Baumann – Liquid Modernity, Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus, Journey, Diablo II, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid V, Bloodborne

#IPTIApodcast #gamescapitalberlin

Of Leaving the Shire, Overthinking and Another Kind of Leadership - with Jasmin Ostreicher, CEO of Instinct3

What better way to decide things than ask oneself: What would Commander Shepard do? Like the main character in Mass Effect, Jasmin Oestreicher chose different paths along the way of her career, leading her from the Shire to Mordor and back, meeting different kinds of leaders and learning from them what counts: empathy, listening, and putting your team first. How she implements these traits in her role as CEO of the successful influencer marketing agency Instinct3 while overcoming her introvert and overthinking tendencies, she tells Simon and Florian in this episode.

Where to find Jasmin: LinkedIn, Instinct3

Jasmin's recommendations: The Expanse, Lord of the Rings, Fruits Basket, Mass Effect, Metal Gear, Baldur’s Gate 3

Mentioned people from the games industry: Hendrik Ruhe, Maximilian Knabe (HandOfBlood), Maxim, Johannes Gorzel, Christian Baltes

Our website: ⁠https://medianet-games.international/

#IPTIApodcast #gamescapitalberlin

Of Lightsabers, RPGs and Looking Through the Right Lens

Patrick "PJ" Esteves' long journey to Berlin took him from almost being a rockstar, over wanting to be a Jedi to asking himself how the hell he ended up in Villingen-Schwenningen. The CEO and Co-Founder of Fire and Forge Studios paints a vivid picture of his life in the games industry which is captivating and, most importantly, has a lot to do with the Roman Empire.

Where to find PJ: LinkedIn

Mentioned People: Raph Koster, Will Wright, Silver Saaremäel, Kaija Rudkiewicz

PJ's Recommendations: Raph Koster - A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Blake Snyder - Save the Cat, Rick Warren – Purpose Driven Life, 18 Wheels of Steel: Across America, X-COM, Minecraft Our website: https://medianet-games.international/

#IPTIApodcast #gamescapitalberlin

Boris Johnson hasn’t played Suzerain, otherwise he would have been a better prime minister. This is only one thing you will learn from this podcast with Ata Sergey Nowak, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Torpor Games. Other things include: how the formation of Torpor Games depended on a lottery ticket, why Ata advises you not to take advice, and what advantages it has to be born “in the middle”. 

Where to find Ata and Suzerain: Twitter, LinkedIn, Torpor Games, Discord, Reddit 

Mentioned people from the games industry: Chris Wright, George Ziets 

Mentioned Media: Suzerain, Metropolis, Hidden Agenda, The Conformist, Sun Tzu - The Art of War, Total War, Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince, Bernard Cornwll - The Last Kingdom, Life is beautiful, Good Bye Lenin!, Il Conformista, Daodejing – Laozi, Project Reality (Squad mod), Crusader Kings III, Squad, The Witcher 3, Fallout, Disco Elysium

Mentioned Companies: Torpor Games, Factory Berlin, Games for Change, Cologne Game Lab, Fellow Traveller, Obsidian Entertainment

Find out more about Berlin's games industry at gamescapital.berlin. 

If you’re not hyped, something’s not right – Founder and Creative Director of Fableware Narrative Design, Arthur Protasio, knows that you need to be in the right vibe to get things done. But how do we establish a good vibe? And how do you go from studying Law to being the narrative designer and multiplatform director of Emmy-nominated content? And what does that have to do with cheese? Listen to this #IPTIApodcast episode and follow the cheese crumbs into the world of storytelling and – you guessed it – a real good vibe.

Where to find Arhur: Website, LinkedIn, Fableware, Instagram

Mentioned People from the games industry: Sebastian Bulas, Jordan Mechner, Lucas Pope, Daniel Mullins

Mentioned companies and institutions: Threaks GmbH, Goethe Institut, TV Globale,Archiact

Mentioned Media: Lazinho com Você, Sword Legacy, Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising, Papers, Please, A Match Made in Limbo, This War of Mine, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, Kingdom Come Deliverance, The Sims, Black Mirror, Succession, Now Generation, Time And Narrative – Paul Ricoeur, Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey, The Storytelling Animal – Jonathan Gottschall, Steal like an Artist – Austin Kleon

Find out more about Berlin's games industry at gamescapital.berlin. 

Of Relentlessness, Slow Disruption and Finding Confluence

From the moon landing to Age of Empires 4 in under two hours: with Kate Edwards everything seems possible. We welcome you to the first episode of our second season of our renamed podcast I Play, Therefore I Am. And what an episode it is!

Listen to Kate, an award-winning 30+ year veteran of the game industry, principal consultant of Geogrify and the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). With her, we talk about the geopolitical strategy at Microsoft, why we don’t have to fix everything now, and what all this has to do with Steve Buscemi and his skateboard.

Where to find Kate:LinkedIn, Twitter, SetJetters Twitter, SetJetters Instagram

Mentioned Companies: IGDA, Geogrify, SetJetters, GameOn, Encarta, Ensemble Studios, ENIAC, GDC, E3, Takethis.org

Mentioned People: Paul Maritz, Roberta Williams, Nolan Bushnell, Alexey Pajitnov, Shannon Loftis, Kiki Wolfkill

Mentioned Media: Age of Empires, Halo, Fable, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Dune – Frank Herbert, Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien, Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa, Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov, Assassin’s Creed, The Elder Scrolls, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo IV

How do you do, fellow kids?

Find out more about Berlin's games industry at gamescapital.berlin.  #IPTIApodcast

Before we launch our second season together with a name change of the podcast, we would like to present the games:net Berlin Supercut in which you can hear a few answers of almost all of our guests we had on the show. Have fun with these 25 minutes of Essential Questions and stay tuned for the second season that is about to start soon!

In our final episode for now, we spoke with Sophie Vo, founder of Rise and Play and CEO of Savage Game Studios, about playfulness, clear communication, and self-awareness. From her own podcast through her view on leadership to her desire to influence those around her as positively as possible, Sophie gives us insight into her work and the way she approaches life.

Where you can find Sophie: MasterClass, LinkedIn, Website Rise and Play, Podcast

Games mentioned: Harvest Moon, Diamond Dash, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy VII, Life is Strange, Zelda Breath of the Wild

Other media mentioned: Erin Meyer - The Culture Map, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselmann - The Daily Stoic, Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp - The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

Companies mentioned: Rise and Play, Savage Game Studios, Voodoo, Rovio, Wooga, Gameloft, Goldman Sachs, Ubisoft, Fein Games, medianet berlinbrandenburg e.V.

Other interesting stuff and people: IGDA, Esther Perel

Give yourself the chance to have chances! Derk de Geus, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Paladin Studios, believes that persistency is the key for success. Take full ownershop of what you can control, but have the trust in your team that they will do the rest. In this episode he talks about his way in and out of burnout and how spirituality drives him to find both himself and the best way to lead his studio.

Where you can find Derk: LinkedIn], Facebook, Spotify, Website, Paladin Studios

Games mentioned: Cut the Rope Remastered, Nailed it! Baking Batch, Good job!, Stormbound, Momonga Pinball Adventures, Civilization, Dune II, Dune Legacy, Assassin's Creed, Fez, Stardew Valley, Mario Kart, Deliver us Mars

Other media mentioned:Meditations - Marcus Aurelius, Siddharta - Hermann Hesse, Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink

Companies mentioned: Paladin Studios, Dutch Game Association, Quest3D Engine, Nintendo, Netflix, Bandai Namco, Midgame Fund, KeokeN Interactive

People from the games industry mentioned: Fedor van Herpen, Adriaan de Jongh, Koen Deetman

Other interesting stuff: Nondualism, Ayahuasca, Founder's Syndrome, Shockwave, Indie Arena Booth, Develop:Brighton, gamescom

Find out more about Berlin's games industry at gamescapital.berlin.