For anyone tracking where the money in games is going: Benjamin Kratsch of Levelz Gaming Group in Riyadh on Saudi Arabia's games and esports strategy.

Ben has spent four years inside Saudi Arabia's push to build the world's biggest games and esports publisher. He has worked with PIF on the national games and esports strategy, on M&A and pipeline, and on bringing publishers to the table for Gamers8 and the Esports World Cup. He explains what the kingdom wants from its $55bn buyout of EA, why distribution is king, and where the capital goes next.

In this conversation:

- Why Qiddiya is being built as a theme park destination for gaming

- The maths pulling publishers back to single-player: a $200m game returning $750m at launch, against a live service chasing a $3bn case

- 007 First Light's roughly 4 million sales on a $200m budget, why Ben thinks it deserved 10 to 20 million more, and what Amazon's next Bond could do for the franchise

- Phil Spencer's Netflix-of-gaming bet, and how Asha Sharma's data-driven Xbox differs

- The licensing logic behind the EA deal, and why EA F1 has more room to grow than EA Sports FC

- Why PIF won't buy Xbox

- How a Game Pass playtime KPI shaped Doom: The Dark Ages

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

0:52 Four years inside Saudi's national games strategy

2:41 From "why Saudi?" to "how can we partner?"

7:29 Qiddiya and the case for gaming theme parks

10:28 The maths pulling publishers back to single-player

15:06 007 First Light and the distribution gap

18:42 Phil Spencer, Asha Sharma and the Netflix-of-gaming problem

25:52 Battlefield x Top Gun and EA's Hollywood pipeline

31:00 Why PIF wanted EA: football clubs and F1 teams

33:48 Serve the core fans first: Battlefield Labs and Dragon Age

36:26 EA's back catalogue, Titanfall 3 and the next wave of M&A

49:14 Why PIF won't buy Xbox

52:38 When playtime became the KPI

54:24 What Netflix should do with games

1:05:01 Giving developers real upside

ABOUT BENJAMIN

Benjamin Kratsch is Chief Business Development Officer at Levelz Gaming Group, building the games and esports ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on venture capital. He has spent 15 years in media and marketing, building content products for IDG and Red Bull Media House, consulting on games and esports TV for NBC Universal and NBC Sports, and running campaigns for brands including Samsung, Aston Martin and Aramco. In Saudi Arabia he worked with PIF on the national games and esports strategy and served as Creative Director on Gamers8, which drew 3 million visitors over two months.

LINKS

Benjamin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminkratsch/

Levelz Gaming Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/levelz-gg/

Esports World Cup: https://esportsworldcup.com/en

Related episode: Shawn Layden on platforms and publishers (Ep 97): https://youtu.be/afg_CbpKvw8

Pitch a guest: purposemadepodcast.co.uk/guest-pitch

ABOUT PURPOSE MADE

The Purpose Made Podcast is hosted by Peter Bell, founder of Purpose Made, a franchise architecture and IP strategy consultancy. Long-form conversations with the people who build games, films and the IP around them.

FOLLOW

Instagram: @thepeterbell

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peter-george-bell

Websites: https://purposemade.uk | https://purposemadepodcast.co.uk/

Discord: discord.gg/5VdPZnjCsY

Enjoying the show? Follow and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps other people find us.

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Former PlayStation leader Shawn Layden spent 32 years inside Sony, from writing founder Akio Morita's speeches at 29 to running Worldwide Studios. He explains why Xbox must choose between being a platform and being the biggest publisher in the world, and why data-driven greenlighting is producing games nobody remembers when we should be focused on building phenomenal characters, stories, and worlds.

Shawn joined Sony in Tokyo in 1987 and spent 25 years with PlayStation, from the original console through the end of PS4. He served five years on Morita's personal staff, ran the London studio era that produced The Getaway, and was there for the acquisitions that brought Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog and others into Worldwide Studios. Today he advises startups and works with the nonprofit Girls Make Games.

The conversation opens with the tension pulling Xbox apart: you can make the pie bigger for everyone, or you can take the biggest slice, and the two imperatives point in opposite directions. From there it moves into why triple-digit-million budgets have crushed risk tolerance, why finance's demand for comparables makes a rhythm action game with unicorns unfundable, and what Shawn learned watching Morita launch products no market research would ever have predicted.

He tells the story of getting laughed out of every major Hollywood studio with The Getaway ("What do you want to make? Pong the movie?"), then walking back into the same rooms 16 years later to found PlayStation Productions. He breaks down why Pokémon out-earns Mickey Mouse and Marvel, how the Insomniac acquisition came out of a dinner with Ted Price, and the question his first development mentor asked that ripped producers' hearts out: where's the fun part?

He closes with three predictions: a return to tight narrative games people actually finish, a standardised game format that finally breaks the 250 million console ceiling, and the end of the 6-to-8-year development cycle.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — Introduction

1:39 — Xbox's Choice: Platform or the Biggest Publisher in the World

7:55 — Triple-Digit Budgets and the Death of Risk Tolerance

14:35 — Writing Speeches for Akio Morita at 29

19:35 — Three Concentric Circles: Games, Film and TV, Music

25:02 — GTA 6's Blast Radius and Gaming's Inverse Social Impact

28:28 — "Every 60 Years the Forest Has to Burn Down"

36:12 — Laughed Out of Hollywood with The Getaway

43:28 — Disney's Flywheel and Why Pokémon Out-Earns Mickey Mouse

49:34 — Scarcity, Storefronts, and the Carousel Choke Point

52:37 — The Insomniac Acquisition: "Let's Just Put a Ring on It"

55:25 — Prince of Persia, Kutaragi, and the Birth of PlayStation

1:00:05 — "Where's the Fun Part?"

1:02:26 — Three Predictions for Where Gaming Goes Next

1:06:31 — Wrap-Up

Follow Shawn Layden:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-layden/

Girls Make Games: https://www.girlsmakegames.com/

Purpose Made is hosted by Pete Bell — gaming industry consultant and interviewer of the people who shaped the games, films, and culture you love.

Website: https://purposemade.uk

Follow Pete Bell:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peter-george-bell

Instagram: @thepeterbell

This podcast was produced by Purpose Made.

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For studio leaders and investors: Richard Browne, formerly of Universal Interactive, THQ and Digital Extremes, on why the AAA model has stopped working.

Richard has spent 38 years in the video game business. He ran production at Universal Interactive, ran external development at THQ for the best part of a decade, and set up the publishing operation for Digital Extremes alongside Warframe. Now he advises studios on funding and survival.

In this conversation:

- Why you cannot spend $300 million and five years on a new IP, and the case for a $10 to $20 million beachhead and a ten-year, three-game plan

- Why he calls Game Pass "cancer" for the business

- How his kids play differently, Roblox as the modern playground, and why photorealism stopped growing the market

- The Championship Manager origin story, the 35 games he has shut down, and the Concord post-mortem

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open: "It's in dire straits"

0:30 38 years in: from the BBC Micro to consulting the industry

1:33 Why the market is in dire straits, and the COVID live-service hangover

2:53 "Dad's IP": why kids won't touch Star Wars, Doom or Gears

5:32 The broken maths of AAA, and the $10–20M beachhead

5:58 The ten-year, three-game plan every IP needs

8:23 Why a 15-hour game is enough, and the GameStop trap

9:39 What he plays, and how his kids play completely differently

11:50 Coding at home again: AI, Steam and where Minecraft came from

13:11 Roblox as the modern playground, and the Payday conversion problem

16:11 Why photorealism stopped growing the market

18:24 The Microsoft mess and the Gears exclusivity mistake

26:04 Nintendo and the power of generational IP

27:47 Do we even need a PS6? The end of the visual arms race

29:08 What investors want now, and why it doesn't build games that last

30:50 The Championship Manager origin story

33:16 Low risk, high reward: Crash, Among Us, and community first

37:01 Killing games: Concord, ego, and the 35 he shut down

38:24 Character vs world: The Last of Us and the God of War pivot

43:11 "I think it's cancer": the case against Game Pass

51:54 Netflix games, streaming latency, and what actually works

56:28 Why Xbox can't build a studio system you can't live without

59:30 How US studios survive now: small core, global outsourcing

1:03:38 GTA 6's blast radius, what he's hyped for, and the takeaway

Guest: Richard Browne

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brownerichard/

Purpose Made Podcast, hosted by Pete Bell

https://purposemadepodcast.co.uk/

https://purposemade.uk/

Subscribe for long-form conversations with the people building games, entertainment and IP.

Enjoying the show? Follow and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps other people find us.

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After 30 years at the top of entertainment, Marko Djurdjevic reached a point where nothing in client work excited him anymore. So he shifted his focus to building an entire transmedia universe, funding it out of pocket while his wife runs the outsourcing side of SIXMOREVODKA. The Kickstarter launches February 26th alongside a free playable Steam demo.

Marko is one of the most prolific cover artists Marvel has ever had. He produced 82 covers in his first year, was deliberately placed on titles close to cancellation because his art spiked sales, and ran 23 consecutive issues on Daredevil. His concept art fed the early MCU, and his studio held a seven-year exclusive partnership with Riot Games on League of Legends.

The conversation covers why client work stopped exciting him after 30 years, what The Last Unicorn at age six taught him about storytelling, how a viral X-Men redesign brought Marvel's talent scouts to his door at the exact moment he'd met his wife, and why he believes 2008 was the last great year of cinema.

Marko shares the painful lessons from Degenesis, a cult tabletop RPG that collapsed when free PDF downloads hit 3,000 per release while sales dropped to 80. That failure shaped everything about his new franchise, Orken, which spans novels, illustrated editions, graphic novels, and a video game built with Demagog Studio.

In 16 months he's produced 1,400 edited pages, over 350 original illustrations, and six books for print. He survived two heart surgeries during production. His wife thinks he's lost his mind. His son read the first novel and pitched it back as a 10-episode animated series.

This is a conversation about creative ownership, the cost of building something that's fully yours, and why the future of independent storytelling depends on small authentic communities rather than viral moments.

Timestamps:

00:00 Building a multimedia IP from scratch

01:14 Meet Marko Djurdjevic

02:35 No books at home: drawing as survival and 80s influences

04:30 Why The Last Unicorn still hits after 40 years

05:21 What's wrong with modern storytelling?

07:15 The anatomy book that changed everything at age 11

08:41 The viral X-Men redesign that brought Marvel calling

10:15 82 covers, cancelled titles, and the art of keeping deadlines

13:10 Beyond Marvel: the MCU pipeline and building a studio

15:32 Riot and League of Legends: seven years of exclusivity

19:17 2008 was peak cinema and he never went back

20:13 Orken's visual DNA: cultures the games industry ignores

23:01 Why creator-owned work dies in large teams

25:00 Degenesis: 3,000 downloads, 80 sales, and pulling the plug

27:35 How failure shaped Orken's transmedia architecture

29:11 Novels, graphic novels, illustrated editions, and a video game

30:49 The real motivation: autonomy, mastery, and running out of time

32:54 1,400 pages, two heart surgeries, and a Kickstarter

36:39 Working with his wife while betting against her instincts

42:19 The future of indie storytelling

43:55 Closing thoughts

• Orken Kickstarter (live February 26th)
• Wishlist Orken on Steam (free demo February 26th)
• SIXMOREVODKA
• Discord: https://discord.com/invite/sixmorevodka

Host: Pete Bell

Guest: Marko Djurdjevic

This podcast is produced by Purpose Made.

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For anyone who loves story-driven games: BioShock creator Ken Levine on Judas, Narrative LEGO and why he walked away from BioShock to start again.

Ken is creative director of Ghost Story Games and founder of Irrational Games. He created the BioShock series and System Shock 2. After BioShock Infinite he closed a 200-person studio, started over with a small team, and spent the last decade on Judas, a game where characters track hundreds of your choices and change how they feel about you.

In this conversation:

- Why his Atari 2600 was his best friend growing up

- "We were lost for 5 years": the hard middle of making Judas

- What George Orwell's 1984 taught him about game design

- Why games give people a refuge

- Adapting games to other media

TIMESTAMPED CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Introduction to Ken Levine and His Work

(00:59) Ken Levine's Journey and Inspirations

(03:23) The Concept of Narrative Lego

(08:13) Building Complex Relationships in Games

(09:52) Challenges and Evolution in Game Development

(14:15) Influences and Reflections on the Gaming Industry

(29:51) Philosophical and Literary Influences

(34:38) Exploring Horror as Metaphor

(35:07) Family Dynamics in Storytelling

(35:51) Political Themes and Personal Reflections

(37:29) The Role of Ideology in Games

(42:56) Character Development and Narrative Depth

(44:29) Challenges and Rewards of Game Development

(1:00:07) Adapting Games to Other Media

(1:03:59) Final Thoughts and Reflections

Follow Ken Levine:

Ghost Story Games - https://www.ghoststorygames.com/

Watch the Judas Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5_r-un--bA

Ken's GDC Talk on Narrative LEGO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58FWUkA8y2Q

Play the BioShock Series: https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/sub/127633

Subscribe for more deep dives with legendary game creators

📺 Watch Next: The REAL Reason Hollywood Only Makes Sequels Now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJJ29cn0XZw&t=24s

💬 Drop a comment: What game world gave you a place to escape to when you needed it most?

Ken Levine's approach to game development has always prioritized deep narrative design and player agency. From his early work on System Shock 2 to the critically acclaimed BioShock series, Levine has consistently pushed boundaries in video game storytelling. His new project, Judas, represents a decade of game development focused on creating dynamic character relationships through innovative Narrative LEGO systems. The BioShock creator's journey from Irrational Games to Ghost Story Games showcases how AAA game development can embrace experimental design while maintaining immersive sim traditions. This interview explores game design philosophy, the creative process behind building revolutionary AI-driven character systems, and why emotional storytelling in games matters more than ever.

#KenLevine #BioShock #GameDevelopment #Judas #GhostStoryGames

Enjoying the show? Follow and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps other people find us.

We're also building a Purpose Made community on Discord for people who love games, film, TV and the IP behind them. Come and join us: https://discord.gg/vvtV6ZHKGK

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stefan Lampinen has been gaming's secret weapon for 40 years. He launched Xbox 360 in Russia when everyone said it was impossible. He watched the rise and fall of Nokia. He was in the room when Minecraft turned down buyers flying in with blank checks. Now he's breaking his silence on what's really coming in 2025 and why the industry's about to change forever.

This conversation reveals the shifts happening RIGHT NOW that will determine gaming's next decade.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 – The Gift from Bill Gates.

2:45 – 18 years old. Opens game store, becomes Nordic's gaming gateway.

8:30 – Xbox 360: How they beat PlayStation to digital.

15:20 – "Russia was impossible" - How he conquered it anyway.

22:15 – Nokia beat iPhone by 4 years (and still failed spectacularly. Why)

28:40 – Why Sweden is gaming's best sandbox.

35:10 – Inside Minecraft's war room (shielding them from the world's buyers).

42:30 – "The industry just hit maturity" - What that actually means.

48:15 – GTA 6 will eat EVERYTHING (The industry doesn't understand what's coming).

52:40 – Europe's studios are dying - The exodus nobody's discussing.

58:20 – The Last of Us changed the game (Hollywood finally gets it).

1:04:00 – Saudi Arabia's power play (it's not what you think).

1:08:30 – His #1 career lesson after 40 years.

KEY REVELATIONS

"People were flying in from all over the world wanting to buy Minecraft. My job was to shield them."

"GTA 6 is going to take enormous amounts of players and money from EVERYTHING. The industry doesn't understand what's coming."

"Sweden had 70% gaming penetration because we don't dub. We had to learn English. We had to think global from day one."

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