GGJ Podcast

In episode 10 Susan sits down with Argentine game maker Nico Castez to talk about cranking out 100 games at Avix, chasing strange ideas instead of trends, and turning that wild energy into his new studio, Goraku Club. They dig into hard‑won lessons about money, momentum, and community, plus what Nico wants the next wave of Latin American creators to build.(00:00) - Intro (01:28) - Meet Nico Castez (03:47) - The Road to Avix (13:04) - Making Games with Friends (16:23) - What it was like (20:43) - COVID Times (23:37) - The End of Avix (31:59) - Moving On (35:31) - Goraku Club (37:31) - Buenos Aires vs La Plata (39:34) - The Future & Take Aways (41:46) - Explore, Play & Stay Creative (44:39) - Where to find Nico (46:34) - Outro Guest Bio:  Nico is a visual designer and entrepreneur from Argentina who successfully ran a small indie game studio for over a decade, reaching millions of players worldwide. After closing Avix, he’s been exploring new creative paths—focusing on photography, organizing live music events, and developing personal projects. Currently in a transitional stage, he’s rethinking how to balance creativity, independence, and sustainability while continuing to build things that feel meaningful.Follow Nico's journey!https://allmylinks.com/nicocastezThis episode was brought to you in part by the University of Miami: School of Communications & the Knight Foundation.Join our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstack

In episode 9 Susan talks with Alexis Jolis‑Desautels, a veteran designer and design leader who has spent two decades inside some of the world’s biggest game franchises helping studios actually understand their players. From starting as a QA tester at Ubisoft Montreal to building user research labs, leading design teams on major AAA projects, and mentoring the next generation of designers, Alexis brings a rare mix of craft, honesty, and cultural insight to every conversation(00:00) - Intro (01:20) - Meet Alexis (05:26) - Mentors & Inspiration (07:17) - Ubisoft (11:06) - Crunch (13:58) - Staying Sane (15:49) - RLD (21:30) - Jams (26:13) - Burnout (35:12) - The Ladder is a Lie (38:54) - Community (41:16) - Wrap-up (45:23) - Outro Guest Bio: Alexis is a designer mostly interested in new applications of science and psychology in the field of interactive experiences.  Focused on issues of creativity and design processes, but also, by using a background as an actor and journalist, developed skills as a trainer and a communicator, mostly about Game Design but also about games and digital interaction as a medium and human activity.Join our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstack

In episode 8,  Susan talks with Darion Lowenstein, a veteran game producer, marketer, and executive who has spent nearly three decades shipping hit titles and building publishing teams across console, mobile, and emerging platforms. He and Susan dig into what it actually takes to bring a game to market at scale, why marketing and publishing strategy matter as much as design, and how he approaches mentorship, leadership, and sustainability in an industry that is constantly shifting.(00:00) - Intro (01:20) - Meet Darion Lowenstein (04:49) - Darion's Journey into Games (09:05) - Taking Risk (13:41) - Life at Rockstar Games (23:11) - The Role of a Producer (25:27) - What Success Feels Like (27:17) - Recognizing the Time to Pivot (31:39) - Experimental and Controvertial (38:08) - Advocating for Games (39:20) - Diversity in Games (42:09) - Resilience Through Networking and Finding your Own Path (44:55) - How do you Define Yourself? (47:32) - Don't be a d*ck (50:08) - Where to find Darion Guest Bio: Darion Lowenstein is a veteran gaming executive with 30 years of experience and 90+ shipped titles, contributing to $9B+ in revenue across major franchises like Pac-Man, Red Dead Revolver, Hogwarts Legacy, & NBA Jam at companies like Rockstar Games, EA, Activision, and Scopely. As CEO of Secret Code, he consults for top companies including Dr. Seuss, Warner Bros., PBS, and major studios and serves on the BAFTA Games Committee.tiktok: darionl IG: darionl1www.secretco.netJoin our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstack

In episode 7, Susan talks with Lual Mayen, a South Sudanese game developer, entrepreneur, and humanitarian whose journey from being born on the run from civil war to founding his own studio shows what happens when opportunity finally meets talent and persistence.Growing up in a Ugandan refugee camp with no reliable electricity or formal tech education, he taught himself to code, created the peace-focused game Salaam, and launched Junub Games to use interactive experiences to build empathy and support for refugees and communities affected by conflict.Lual talks about life growing up in a Ugandan refugee camp with scarce food, limited infrastructure, and no reliable electricity. He shares early memories of building a life from cleared land, finding joy in community and play, and developing a fascination with electronics. He recounts how his mother saved money for years so she could give him his own laptop, the responsibility that it represented, and how he became motivated to create games about peace and conflict resolution. Lual talks about discovering video games, teaching himself coding and design without mentors or internet, and about how he shared his early APK via Facebook, leading to global attention.(00:00) - GGJPodLualMayen (00:00) - Intro (01:30) - Meet Lual Mayen (07:29) - The Life of a Refugee (11:02) - Introduction to Technology (13:26) - A Sense of Responsability (16:09) - Turning to Video Games (18:07) - Building Resilience (26:38) - Mentors, Mentees and Networking (29:56) - Impact & Milestones (35:01) - The Future (36:23) - The Foundation (38:22) - The Power of Sharing your Games (41:27) - Lual's Plans for the Future (43:08) - What Little Lual Would the be the Most Proud of (45:17) - Outro Find Lual and follow his story!LinkedIn Janub GamesPlay Salaam on itch.io!Join our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstackThis episode is sponsored by the University of Miami School of Communications and the Knight Foundation

In episode 6, Susan talks with Terry Redfield, a veteran game developer, creative director, and three‑time founder with more than 25 years in console, PC, mobile, and live ops experience. From building worlds at Double Fine on Psychonauts, to leading live ops and skins teams on League of Legends, Terry’s career is a jungle gym of studios, startups, and platforms that she has navigated while parenting, caregiving, and insisting that games make room for grown‑up players with full, complicated lives.Terry discusses developing Rise of Elements over a decade as a competitive match-three hybrid described as “Puzzle Quest meets League of Legends,” her early love of games from LED football to Atari and arcades, and breaking into the industry at 3DO before joining Double Fine to help ship Psychonauts, where internal jams helped the game in development. She recounts bootstrapping startups, fundraising challenges for women founders, raising millions, and pausing a launch to prioritize her family. Terry reflects on leading large Live Ops and skins teams at Riot, the stress and health impacts that led her to resign, learning to set boundaries, prioritize, and use her voice, and focusing her future work on building platforms and opportunities for others, particularly in her home: Hawaii.(00:00) - GGJPodTerryRedfield (00:00) - Intro (01:22) - Meet Terry Redfield (03:44) - Wicked Fox Gamess & Rise of Elements (12:32) - From 3DO to Double Find (14:10) - Jamming in the Office (17:48) - Terry the Founder (21:16) - Build your Network & Find your Tribe (25:38) - Navigating the "Unpolished" Side of the Industry (26:51) - Live Ops (29:44) - Learning to Balance it All (31:58) - Choose your Battles (34:19) - The Journey (41:01) - Wrap-up (41:55) - Outro Guest Bio: Terry Redfield is a passionate and creative leader with a career that has spanned 3 decades. Her focus is on creating fantastic, innovative and engaging collaborations with talented people.Find Terry online!LinkedInDiscord: WickedLilithCheckout Wicked Fox GamesJoin our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstack

In episode 5, Susan talks with Pablo Quarta, an Argentine writer, narrative designer, and game producer whose work sits at the intersection of games, politics, and queerness. From co‑founding "Matajuegos", Argentina’s first video game workers’ co‑op, to producing the award‑winning surreal documentary game "Atuel", Pablo’s journey is about using games to talk honestly about labor, climate justice, identity, and Latin American realities.  Throughout the conversation, Pablo discusses "Matajuegos’" origins as a bilingual blog and dev collective formed to push Argentine indie games toward real-world, Latin American perspectives and more inclusive community conversations, later becoming Argentina’s first video game workers’ co-op in 2021. They describe co-op operations, benefits, challenges, and explains why and how "Matajuegos" came to an amicable end in March 2024. Then, Pablo talks about "Atuel, "a 20–30 minute surreal documentary game where players embody Argentina's Atuel river and its ecosystem. He narrates how the game is contextualized amid climate crisis themes, was created alongside the 12.01 Project’s film, and has been shown widely at festivals and museums around the world. Finally, Pablo outlines hyperlocal storytelling and his enduring interest in queerness and feminist issues, climate justice and neocolonial extractivism.(00:00) - Intro (00:48) - Partners & Sponsors (01:28) - Meet Pablo Quatra (04:40) - Matajuegos (09:01) - The Co-op Model & Video Game Development (20:21) - Making Atuel Documentary Game (26:09) - Hyperlocal Games (28:04) - A Museum Piece (31:31) - The Issues at Hand (36:36) - What the Future Holds (40:38) - The Throughline (41:59) - Where to find Pablo (45:39) - Outro Guest Bio: Pablo F. Quarta is a narrative designer and game producer who specializes in the development of videogames with strong social, political, and cultural perspectives that draw from Latin American culture and identity. They are part of the development team of the award-winning surrealist documentary game Atuel, and were one of the co-founders of Matajuegos, Argentina’s very first indie game workers’ co-op. Where to find Pablo:LinkedInBlueSkyCheck out Atuel and Matajuego's other games on itch.ioJoin our Substack - https://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstackThis Episode was Sponsored by the University of Miami's School of Communications & the Knight Foundation

In episode 4, Susan talks with Thorsten S. Wiedemann, founder and artistic director of AMAZE, the international art house games and playful media festival that helped redefine how the world sees independent games. From Berlin bar nights and DIY talk shows to a global network of experimental, subversive, and deeply personal games, Thorsten’s journey is about building spaces where artists, punks, and misfits can treat games as culture, not just products.  As A MAZE approaches 15 years, Thorsten traces his path from Berlin nightlife and DIY talk shows to festival-making, endeavor that began after attending GDC in 2007 and discovering indie games. He then discusses launching A MAZE with a focus on game art and cultural critique, key milestones including early bar-based events, the first full festival in 2010, A MAZE Indie Connect in 2012, and adopting an arthouse games focus around 2016–17. He reflects on struggles with funding, a 2024 code-of-conduct breach, personal growth,  and how the community came together in 2019 to save A MAZE with a Kickstarter campaign. Thorsten also shares about his international work including A MAZE Johannesburg (2012–2017) and supporting Playtopia a in Cape Town, South Africa, plus goals like broader Global South representation and an arthouse game archive.(00:00) - Intro (01:18) - Introducing Thorsten S. Wiedemann (03:30) - What is A MAZE? (04:28) - The Accidental Path to Games (07:17) - The First A MAZE Events & Discovering a Passion for Games (11:25) - Building Something from Nothing (14:28) - The Arthouse Games (16:06) - The 2018 Global Game Jam Keynote (20:16) - Crisis and Personal Growth (26:50) - A MAZE South Africa (32:32) - The Future of A MAZE (35:01) - What A MAZE Wants to See Next (38:21) - Where to find Thorsten (40:49) - Outro Guest Bio: Thorsten S. Wiedemann is the founder and artistic director of the games culture brand A MAZE., an international platform and festival curating the intersection of independent and arthouse games, playful media, and experimental game culture.Thorsten's SocialsLinkedInBlueSkyX (Twitter)InstagramFacebookYouTube Checkout A MAZELinkedInBlueSkyX (Twitter)InstagramFacebookYoutubewww.a-maze.net www.amaze-berlin.de www.amaze-magazine.de www.amaze-space.com

In episode 3 Susan talks with Limpho Moeti, South African producer, business developer, Playtopia co-founder, and the first IGDA chair from the global south, about how she’s spent her career making things happen for other developers. Limpho describes her path from theater, film, and comics into games via Free Lives and Nyamakop, where she supported community meetups, game jams, and biz dev. She advocates for developers outside North America and Europe, highlighting barriers in South Africa and across Africa: limited access to tools, internet, and career pathways; high hardware costs; small, historically white industry; funding and data gaps; monetization challenges; and limited government support. Moeti emphasizes community, kindness, mentorship, and “finding your people” as elements to finding success.(00:00) - Intro (00:48) - Sponsors and Partners (01:36) - Meet Limpho Moeti (03:22) - The Connector Mindset (06:16) - The “Hunger” for Non-Western Stories; Advocating for African Games (08:12) - Breaking into Games (10:17) - Barriers in the African Video Games Industry (15:57) - Mission, Ubuntu & Leadership (23:10) - Kindness and Community (25:11) - Mentors (27:27) - Belonging and Confidence (29:40) - Why Lead and Advocate; Building a Safer Industry (36:56) - The Future (40:47) - Key Take Aways (43:19) - Where to find Limpho (44:41) - Thank you! Guest Bio: Limpho Moeti is a South African game producer, business developer, community organizer, and the Chair of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and is the first person from the global south to hold that role. She has worked with studios including Free Lives and Nyamakop, helped create and run the Playtopia indie games and playful media festival in Cape Town, and is a consistent champion for developers across Africa and beyond.Check out Limpho's LinkedinIGDAPlaytopiaJoin our Substack!This episode is sponsored by The University of Miami, School of Communications and the Knight Foundation 

Ben Kvalo on Building Midwest Games and a More Sustainable Publishing ModelIn this episode, Susan talks with Ben Kvalo, founder and CEO of Midwest Games and former Netflix Games production lead, about changing where games come from, how developers see themselves (creatives vs entrepreneurs), and how they are supported. Ben shares growing up in Portage, Wisconsin, his early goals, and how a university M&A capstone project led him to the business side of games. He describes mentors and cultures at 2K and Netflix, lessons from industry politics and early career setbacks, and how he became a “fixer” and builder across operations, tech, marketing, and esports. Ben explains Midwest Games’ publishing approach—white-label services with no IP grab, flexible cancellation, and alternative fee/recoup options—plus his focus on building a Midwest ecosystem through events, education, investment, and storytelling.(00:00) - Intro (00:48) - Partners & Sponsors (01:19) - Introducing Ben Kvalo (06:03) - The Journey into Games (07:23) - The Business vs the Hobby of Making Games (09:28) - Mentors & Influence (12:41) - Leadership, and the Importance of being "seen" (16:35) - Jumping at the Opportunity to Build (22:17) - Homecoming (26:09) - Community (33:54) - Midwest Games; a Different Approach to Publishing (39:38) - What's next for Ben Kvalo? (42:00) - A Word of Advise (44:31) - Where to find Ben & his work (46:08) - Thank you! (47:34) - Outro 🎮 Guest Bio: Ben Kvalo is the founder and CEO of Midwest Games, North America's first full-service work-for-hire publisher for all while also providing traditional publishing for select projects. He is focused building alternative approaches to create new opportunity within the games industry in both how we do work and where we do i.Ben's LinkedIn Join our Substack!Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.

In this episode, Susan sits down with Jenny Xu—long-distance runner, fitness instructor, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and founder / CEO of Talofa Games, a studio creating games to make movement more fun through titles like "Run Legends" and "Monster Walk." Jenny recounts what it was like to grow up as a shy kid in Cupertino, finding belonging in online communities thanks to Pokemon fan art, Neopets and her anonymous alter ego, "chibixi", as well as how she taught herself game development to become a prolific solo creator at just 12 years old. She describes being publicly “outed” by her Forbes recognition at 19, the painful reality of having to learn how to network, and how she rebounded from a failed post-college startup by entering—and winning—the Niantic Beyond Reality Developer Contest, earning $300,000 that helped launch her studio and hire a team. Jenny defines success as the impact her games have in player's lives, she emphasizes mentors and support systems, and shares lessons on ambition, burnout, and prioritizing mental and physical health.(00:00) - Intro (00:48) - Partners & Sponsors (01:35) - Introducing Jenny Xu (02:29) - Who is Jenny Xu? (04:01) - The Mission (05:16) - Beginnings (07:57) - The Self-Taught Journey (09:21) - Who is Chibixi? (10:53) - Prolific Game Making (13:06) - Game Dev vs Software Engineer vs Athlete (14:50) - Identity Outed. (16:57) - Finding the Courage to be Yourself. (19:30) - Niantic Beyond Reality Contest (23:58) - The Creation of Talofa Games (26:23) - Creating at the Intersection of your Passions (28:41) - Mission Driven Team (30:03) - Measuring Success (31:26) - Mentors (33:36) - Mentees (35:32) - Ambition (38:17) - How Being an Athlete was Helpful (40:01) - Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? (42:18) - Actionables (44:28) - What Chapter are you on? (46:28) - A Thought for the Listeners (47:48) - Where to find Jenny and her work (48:33) - Thank you! (48:53) - Get Involded (49:18) - Outro / Credits 🎮 Guest Bio: Jenny Xu is a long-distance runner, fitness instructor, and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, CEO of Talofa Games. She began running and making games at age 12, studied Computer Science at MIT, and has shipped 10 mobile titles with over 10 million downloads. A Niantic Beyond Reality Contest grand prize winner, she raised $6.3M in venture capital, making Talofa one of 2025’s Top 25 innovative gaming companies. She taught 1,000 consecutive virtual fitness abs classes, holds a professional group exercise certification, and sets marathon PRs (2:56). Jenny also successfully completed Apple’s Entrepreneur Camp, Google’s Growth Labs, and a16z’s SPEEDRUN program.Learn more about Jenny HEREJenny's TwitterJenny's LinkedIn Join our Substack! This episode was sponsored in part by The University of Miami, School of Communication & the Knight FoundationClick here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.

In our very first episode, producer Shirley McPhaul turns the mic on host Susan Gold - educator, organizer, and co-founder of the Global Game Jam - to explore how a fine arts professor who “lost boyfriends to video games” ended up creating one of the largest collaborative events in the world. Together they trace the origins of GGJ, Susan’s lifelong impulse to build community, and the quiet labor of making things happen so other people can thrive.  Susan Gold is an educator, facilitator, and organizer best known as a co‑founder of the Global Game Jam, the world’s largest game creation event. Across her career, she has worked to bridge academia and industry, designing experiences that let students, educators, and developers learn by making together while building a global network of trust, collaboration, and creative support. After retiring from the non-profit in 2020, she continues to champion innovation in game development and education. As host of The Global Game Jam Podcast, Susan spotlights voices at the intersection of creativity, technology, and education. Her mission is to empower diverse creators and inspire the future of games through accessible, inclusive storytellinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/susangold/http://globalgamejam.orghttps://tinyurl.com/GGJPodcastSubstackClick here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.