If you were a regular reader of this blog in 2024, you may have noticed that it appeared almost every week. Then, after a round of glowing praise I heaped on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in February of 2025, I went entirely dark.
Where the heck did I go? The short version of the story is that I got busy. I took on a new role at a start-up, Imposter Entertainment, diving headfirst back into design leadership after spending several years on the production side.
And what a year it’s been.
Back in It
Every venture, even ones that don’t result in immediate massive success, is worth doing – provided you learn something along the way. That’s certainly been the case over the course of the last year. Imposter, with a small, focused group, achieved amazing things, and in the process, everyone on the team got to stretch into new spaces.
I can’t go into the details of what we accomplished (yet), but it was substantial. And the experiences of the last year reinforced a few lessons for me. With the right team, remote work is effective, productive, and powerful. Clarity of vision is critical to success. And it pays not to sweat the small stuff – all the details that can keep a team from moving forward efficiently – until you have clear answers on your big product questions.
It’s tough times out there, and we learned that lesson too. The changes in game development funding over the last year, the incredible pressure of the current market, shifts in publisher priorities, and even the chaotic national political landscape – it’s a minefield for any startup. And as we’ve seen from the endless rounds of industry layoffs, it’s especially bad for folks working in games.
Seriously, 2025 was Rough
I can’t count the number of friends who lost their jobs this year. Boss Fight, a long-standing mobile-focused studio led by several ex-Ensemble veterans, was shuttered by Netflix. Several of the teams I contracted with in 2023 and 2024 are gone. Funding remains hard to come by, even if the currently-popular-with-investors “AI” term is in your pitch.
Yet as always, there are bright spots. Gosh dang it, games are still awesome! Sales overall are up. Players are engaged and excited. The PC market in particular is growing. The Game Awards this year rightly celebrated Expedition 33 and so many other innovative titles. I’ve spent more hours than are healthy in ARC Raiders over the last month; its special blend of polish and extraction shooter gameplay grabbed me as no other title has for years.
On rough days, I’ve pondered getting out of the industry. But in the end, I’m still committed to games for life. Honestly, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Bringing joy to players and thinking about (and playing!) games are what I love to do. I’m looking forward to what 2026 brings.
What’s Next?
A bit of shameless self-promotion, that’s what’s next.
My old friend Rade Stojsavljevic was the guy who recruited me for Imposter. Rade and I first worked together over 25 years ago, on the Blade Runner project at Westwood. He’s someone I deeply respect and trust.
The two of us are trying a new side project – a weekly podcast with an insider perspective on the game industry we call Player, Too! If you enjoyed the Scree Games blog in 2024, you’ll likely enjoy the podcast. Rade and I don’t always agree, and in our first few episodes, we’ve had juicy debates about the role of AI in games, Steam’s business model, and more.
So stop by the podcast and share it with all your friends. As the kids these days say, “mash that like-and-subscribe button.” It’ll help us out.
Second thing: I’m resuming blog posting, though less regularly than in 2024. The podcast is an excellent way to scratch the itch I have to pontificate about the industry, but I’ve got plenty of topics I’d like to dig into in more detail. (Plus, there are only so many weird cooperative board games that Rade will let me ramble about on the podcast.)
2026 is here. Let’s go make some games.
For the time being, the Scree Games blog appears whenever I damn well feel like it. Follow me on Medium if you’d like updates, and check out (and support!) the weekly Player, Too!podcast.