I accidentally took an interview (my first one in English) with a veteran in the game industry

I accidentally took an interview (my first one in English) with Tom Dusenberry, a game industry expert who has promoted and sold games such as Monopoly, Star Wars, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Scrabble, and Civilization II. Tom has achieved $3 billion in sales and raised $80 million for various game projects.

In fact, I’m ashamed that I had technical difficulties during the interview (the quality didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted), and I’m not a native English speaker and I didn’t feel very comfortable. During the recording, I even once asked a question for so long and couldn’t pick up the right words that I had to do it all over again (of course, this was cut out later). But after I published the video and the article on LinkedIn, people commented that my guest is a legend!

A few months ago, I decided that I would develop myself as an interviewer on the topic of startups, VC, and investments, and Tom was one of my first guests. To be honest, I didn't expect Tom to agree to give me an interview, but fortunately, he responded and I think it turned out very interesting and informative.

We discussed Tom's career in the gaming industry, fundraising, producing games, failures, the cost of making games, the biggest changes in the gaming industry, and future prospects.

My main insights from this interview are:

Game development is similar to creating a startup – most fail, but a few become huge hits. You need to have an MVP to test before investing much money into developing and promoting new games.
When you're in the industry for a long time, you gain compound interest from your credibility. People know and trust you, so you get opportunities from your network, such as offers, funding, ideas, and partnerships.
It's all about having fun and working with great people. If you're in the gaming industry, don't miss Tom's new book this year.

You can check out the video podcast on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-QUKwIrI8Q

A text version is also available on Medium https://medium.com/@pogmax/tom-dusenberry-30-years-in-the-gaming-industry-80m-raised-and-3b-in-sales-c309fd56e997