re:Play with Greg Off

re:Play with Greg Off

Video Podcast

by Gregory Off

Marketing Video Games

Lisa Welch — A Seat at the Table

Lisa Welch, founder of Brand Therapy and former Global VP of Consumer Strategy & Insights at Activision, joins Greg Off to talk about a career spent bringing the player's voice into the room where decisions are made. Her path runs from the automotive business at TBWA\Chiat\Day to the PlayStation account, through her own consultancy, Mind of the Gamer, and into the publisher side at Activision. Along the way she learned to build an audience picture with very little data, to translate a client's thinking for creative teams, and to give a research team a real seat at the table. In this episode: Moving from data-rich car accounts to the PlayStation account, and the imposter syndrome that came with it. Research before the internet: core versus mass, qualitative work, and media databases. Inside Chiat/Day: planners, creatives, and why a brief shouldn't be a "lengthy." The PS2 launch, and the work she's still proud of. Mind of the Gamer, Deutsch's PlayStation pitch, and meeting Eric Hirshberg. Rebuilding Activision's consumer insights team around franchises. The engagement dip that wasn't in the data. Call of Duty, microtransactions, and the meritocracy players expect. Hypotheses, curiosity, and when research still needs creative judgment. Research with girls, and a game concept built around kindness and collecting. Roblox and the social side of play. Bat Around, and LifePack 2.0. Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps coming back to who gets heard. As Lisa puts it: "It was literally like creating a seat at the table for the consumer's voice." Links & References re:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archive Greg Off's Substack Brand Therapy LifePack Lisa Sunshine Welch on LinkedIn Bat Around

Greg Off — Fake It Till You Make It

In this special episode of re:Play, Greg Off swaps chairs with Cord Smith. Cord, founder of Inevitable Studios and a re:Play guest earlier this year, interviews Greg about a career that runs from a San Fernando Valley game shop to Diehard GameFan, PS Extreme, and Off Base. Greg looks back on the people and accidents that shaped each turn: the bookstore clerk who sent him to Diehard, a magazine assembled in the back of the store, a move to the Bay Area just before PlayStation's U.S. launch, and an agency built on relationships that began more than 30 years ago. In this episode: Growing up in the eighties: comics, cartoons, arcades, and a roll of quarters. A forced school change, community college, and getting back on track. Mail-order imports, Kinokuniya, and finding Diehard Gamers Club. How Diehard GameFan came together, and what working there taught him about leadership. Monitaur, the character Greg had been drawing since he was a teenager. Moving north and launching PS Extreme across the street from Sony. Early looks at Crash Bandicoot and Syphon Filter, and honest feedback on Rise to Honor. Starting Off Base with no business plan, and the 20-hour days before the first hire. The PS4-era digital documentation platform that nearly sank the agency. Being an introvert on camera, imposter syndrome, and the podcast as a collection. Greg's re:play pick: OutRun. Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps returning to relationships built over decades. As Greg puts it: "You put good stuff out there, hopefully at some point it comes back." Links & References re:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archive Greg Off's Substack Cord Smith on re:Play Diehard GameFan collection at the Video Game History Foundation Library PS Extreme collection at the Video Game History Foundation Library

Season 1

Chris Davey — Global Games, Local Players

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Chris Davey, who helped build Blizzard's business in Australia and New Zealand before taking on regional publishing at Epic Games. Their conversation explores what it takes to connect global games with local players, from server infrastructure to the language and culture of a regional community. Chris looks back on growing up with cassette games and arcades, building a regional operation at Blizzard, and moving into a very different publishing setup at Epic. At the center is his account of the three-year push for Australian World of Warcraft servers, including the repeated pitches, the colleagues who helped make the business case, and the fan response when the news was finally announced. In this episode: Canadian childhood memories, cassette-game swap meets, and discovering games without screenshots. Arcades, physical game collections, and playing with our kids. Building Blizzard's business and community in Australia and New Zealand. The internal effort behind Australian World of Warcraft servers. Moving from a regional team at Blizzard to a much smaller local operation at Epic. A Fortnite experience built around Australian and New Zealand culture. Why English-speaking audiences still need locally relevant communication. Advice for indie teams on building relationships with players before launch. Vinyl, Impressed Recordings, and giving fans something physical to own. Chris's re:play pick: Daytona, with three friends in the seats beside him. Recorded remotely, with Chris joining from Australia, the conversation keeps returning to the people behind regional audience numbers. As Chris puts it: “You have to treat people with respect.” Links & References re:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archive Greg Off's Substack Blizzard's Australian servers FAQ Mark Nash on re:Play

Susan Cummings — The Person Who Signed BioShock, Borderlands, and XCOM

Susan Cummings co-founded the 2K Games label at Take-Two, where in a two-year window she signed BioShock, Borderlands, XCOM, and The Darkness, and pulled Civilization out of Atari one week after her first call with Firaxis. She is a Rockstar alum, co-founder of Tiny Rebel Games and Fictioneers, and today the co-founder and CEO of 10six Games, building the AI-forward roguelite YOU vs Zombies. In this re:Play, Greg Off traces thirty years of deal-making, platform pivots, and what "finding your rock band" really means. In this episode: Intellivision, Utopia, and Don Daglow as the first game and a lifelong friend A Boston recruiting job, a "book of multimedia companies" in 1995, and a first cold call to Al Lowe at Sierra Ed Fries and a Microsoft lunch before Xbox existed — "Microsoft still has more money than you do" The Sam Houser meeting at her San Francisco apartment in 1997 that led to Rockstar Games Moving to New York a few months after GTA3 shipped — and what the "best and worst" years at Rockstar actually cost The eye of Sauron turning to GTA, and why every competitor's attempt to clone it failed The birth of the 2K Games label — the pressure to be something that wasn't only Rockstar Borderlands verbally pitched at E3 as "Pandora's box" and "Halo meets Diablo" BioShock signed on a GameSpot article and a long friendship with Ken Levine The 50/50 IP co-ownership structure — and why Susan and Ryan Brant were the first to write it into the contract The Civilization acquisition — first Friday call to Jeff Briggs, $20 million check to Atari the following week XCOM as a freebie thrown in at the last second — the story Atari now hates telling The Oblivion distribution deal — a $60 million guarantee they earned back in the first week The "third-game rule" — why the magic tends to arrive on the third title in a series, and why publishers keep trying to skip it Leaving Take-Two — the reset with her husband and creative partner Lee, and starting Tiny Rebel Games 10six Games — a seven-person team in Wales building YOU vs Zombies The design of YOU vs Zombies — human-authored art, story, systems, and level design, with generative AI as the customization layer The honest read on AI in games — roughly 90% of developers using it, most afraid to say so, and Steam's disclosure requirement as an unintended scarlet letter The renaissance argument — why the next few years at the small-team end may look more like a renaissance than a reduction Links & References Susan Cummings on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanicummings/ 10six Games — https://www.10sixgames.com/ YOU vs Zombies on Steam — https://store.steampowered.com/app/4224660/YOU_vs_Zombies/ Tiny Rebel Games — https://www.tinyrebelgames.com/ Rockstar Games — https://www.rockstargames.com/ 2K — https://www.2k.com/

Mike Wilson — Lucky Mike, Fork Parker, and Thirty Years of Getting Out of the Way

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Mike Wilson — the "Lucky Mike" behind id Software's first self-published retail deal, the co-founder of Gathering of Developers, Gamecock, and Devolver Digital, and the co-founder of the nonprofit Medicinal Media. Across a thirty-year career on the operator's side, Mike has been the guy on the other side of the developer's door, negotiating some of the most consequential deals of the modern games industry. From a Louisiana upbringing and a not-quite Bachelor of Arts from LSU, to walking into id Software in the early nineties through his high school best friend, to the Quake shareware run, to the Trent Reznor conversation that anchored the ethical spine of every developer deal he negotiated after, Mike traces the whole arc — the Gathering of Developers label that put six independent studios on the front page of the New York Sunday Times, the ten-page piece by a nineteen-year-old Geoff Keighley that helped make it real, the Rockstar Games origin story as told from the seat that inspired it, the Gamecock chapter that ended with a week to sell before the 2008 crash locked the door, and the Devolver Digital operating model — small teams, fair deals — that shipped Hotline Miami for around thirty-five thousand dollars and, eleven years and eighty-plus releases later, landed Fall Guys in the exact middle of pandemic lockdown. In this episode: Salmonella and a hospital gown at the E3 funeral in Santa Monica Meeting Trent Reznor at id, and the Nine Inch Nails / Interscope deal that hardened Mike's ethics The Quake shareware run through 7-Eleven and Radio Shack — and the id retail renegotiation it made possible Adrian Carmack, MS Paint, and how a five-dollar-an-hour art internship became the door into the games industry Gathering of Developers — the six-studio label, the Halloween 1998 Railroad Tycoon II breakout, and the front page of the New York Sunday Times Geoff Keighley, Phil Steinmeier, and the tiny conversations that made a career possible Rockstar Games as the console-side clone of the Gathering of Developers model The Gamecock chapter — Trey Parker, Matt Stone, a chicken mask, and what a bad money partner looks like Devolver Digital — Fork Parker as the public face, Steam paying on time, and the operating model that stuck Hotline Miami — the two-person Gothenburg team, the roughly thirty-five thousand dollars it took to ship, and the vinyl still in rotation Fall Guys — the email Mike sent two weeks before launch worrying it wouldn't hit, and the reports from lockdown that proved him wrong Medicinal Media — the nonprofit, the twenty-five years of peer-reviewed research, and games as a mental-health tool Links & References Devolver Digital — https://www.devolverdigital.com/ Gathering of Developers (Wikipedia) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gathering_of_Developers Gamecock Media Group (Wikipedia) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamecock_Media_Group id Software — https://www.idsoftware.com/ Medicinal Media — https://medicinalmedia.com/

Season 1

Charlie Rosen — Building the Great Video Game Songbook

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Charlie Rosen — the Broadway orchestrator, three-time Grammy winner, and Tony Award recipient behind what he calls "the great video game songbook." With 13 Broadway credits including the Tony-winning Some Like It Hot, five 8-Bit Big Band albums and a sixth in progress, and Grammy wins for arrangements of Kirby Super Star and Super Mario, Charlie has spent the last decade making the case, one arrangement at a time, that video game music belongs in the canon. From a three-year-old with perfect pitch at the piano in the San Fernando Valley, to a Berklee bass scholarship, to Broadway at 17 as a pit musician on 13 the Musical, to a 2017 Kyoto vacation that ended with a shamisen lesson in Tokyo and the seed of The 8-Bit Big Band, Charlie traces the whole arc — the pit-musician years that taught him what school could not, the interior-designer theory of arranging that travels from Broadway to a 45-piece jazz session, the 2022 Grammy for "Meta Knight's Revenge" co-arranged with Jake "Button Masher" Silverman, the 2025 Grammy for "Super Mario Praise Break" with Brian Carter and Matthew Whitaker, and a working list of composers he considers foundational to the songbook — Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, David Wise, Michiru Yamane, and Koichi Sugiyama. In this episode: Kyoto, a 300-year-old instrument shop, and the shamisen lesson that started a band Kazushi Okimasa's ensemble Famicoto — the gifted album that flipped a switch on the flight home The signature framework: video game music is not a genre, it's a delivery vehicle, like a Broadway musical The interior-designer theory of arranging — keep the character of the house, knock down a wall, refresh the palette The dramaturgical seed — why every arrangement should be describable as a spoken sentence 13 the Musical, 2008 — how a composer's unusual ask put a 17-year-old in his first Broadway pit Same musician on Broadway and on the 8-Bit Big Band — how one skill set covers both careers The 2022 Grammy for "Meta Knight's Revenge" — the third-ever Grammy moment for video game music, after Baba Yetu and the Journey score The 2025 Grammy for "Super Mario Praise Break" — authenticity, not parody, and why the gospel arrangement of Mario earned its place Who Charlie considers foundational to the video game songbook right now Album six preview — Dragon Quest, Hades, Chrono Trigger, and Baka Mitai from the Yakuza series His re:play answer — the one game he wishes he could wipe from his memory and play again for the first time Recorded remotely between Off Base's Berkeley studio and Charlie's studio in New York, this is a conversation about a career built in parallel — two careers, actually — and one line from Charlie that anchors the whole thing: "Video game music itself is treated as a genre, but it's not really a genre. It's a delivery vehicle, as is a Broadway musical." Links & References Charlie Rosen — http://www.charlierosen.com/ The 8-Bit Big Band — https://www.the8bitbigband.com/ Charlie Rosen on Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rosen_(musician) Famicoto (Kazushi Okimasa's ensemble) — https://www.famikoto.net/

Michael Rubinelli — Business Models Are Extinction Events

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Michael Rubinelli — a 30-year veteran of the publisher and platform side of the games business. Across EA, THQ, Midway, Capcom U.S.A., Playdom, Disney, Kixeye, WAX, and now Tyranno Studios, Michael has been the person deciding which games get made, on which platforms, under which business models. From a video-game rental side hustle at 24, to a mock company letterhead that got him into CES, to an EA job offer in December '91 on Tony La Russa Baseball, Michael traces the whole arc — Madden's early franchise years, a Midway VP seat alongside arcade veterans Mark Turmell, Ed Boon, John Tobias, and Eugene Jarvis, running Capcom U.S.A. through a business-model inflection, joining Playdom in early 2010, overseeing Marvel Avengers Alliance, the Disney acquisition, a Facebook-to-mobile transition at Kixeye, an Australian public-company CEO seat, WAX, and finally Tyranno Studios as CGO — where he is working with Richard Garfield on Dirty Dealing, a heads-up card battler set in 1974 Chicago. In this episode: Wading into the deep end — the David Bowie quote that shaped a 30-year career philosophy Finding his place on Madden — the pass-interference exploit and the field-goal bug he caught before ship The arcade masters who taught him to earn the next coin in sixty seconds Marvel Avengers Alliance — and why a JRPG-shaped Marvel game worked on Facebook The signature framework: why platform and business-model transitions are extinction events Capcom, Konami, Sunsoft, Hudson Soft — who made the jump and who didn't Scratch: The Ultimate DJ — the game he calls his favorite that never shipped Playdom, the free-to-play mental unlock, and being a "cultural czar" through Disney Kixeye as a cautionary tale about missing a transition Player ownership, the "off ramp," and where Web3 gaming fell short Tyranno Studios, Dirty Dealing, and a lean studio around Richard Garfield's design Recorded in-studio at Off Base's Berkeley studio on July 22, 2026, this is a candid conversation about a career built on deliberate discomfort — and one line from Michael that anchors the whole thing: "Making games I look at as a calling, not really a job." Links & References Michael Rubinelli on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rubinelli-gaming/ Tyranno Studios — https://www.tyranno.io/ Electronic Arts — https://www.ea.com Midway Games — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Games Capcom U.S.A. — https://www.capcomusa.com/ Playdom — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playdom Marvel Avengers Alliance — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel:_Avengers_Alliance Scratch: The Ultimate DJ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch:_The_Ultimate_DJ

The Bridge — 30 Years Between Japanese and Western Games

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Kyoko Yamashita — founder of Cassis Communications, XSEED co-founder, former SVP of Marketing Communications at Enhance, and the credited cultural consultant on Forza Horizon 6. For 30 years, Kyoko has been the person Japanese studios call when they need someone who can hold both sides of a creative conversation at once, usually without ever putting her own name on the box. From a bilingual LA-to-Tokyo-to-LA upbringing to a paralegal job at Honda to a 1997 leap of faith into a tiny Squaresoft US office, Kyoko traces the whole arc. Along the way she led PR through Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and Kingdom Hearts, produced the first US Final Fantasy orchestral concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall, co-founded XSEED, spent a decade helping Tetsuya Mizuguchi grow Enhance from three people to a global publisher, and became the first credited cultural consultant on a AAA Western production set in Japan. In this episode: Growing up bilingual on two continents — and how it became the backbone of a 30-year career The corporate class called "Cyberspace Law" that led to Squaresoft Day one at Squaresoft: two manila folders, HTML for Dummies, and a "hit a million or we shut it down" mandate The real origin of Kingdom Hearts — a shared elevator in a Meguro office building Co-founding XSEED and launching Cassis Communications The "female ninja" nickname from her Team Ninja and Tecmo years A decade at Enhance shipping Rez Infinite, Tetris Effect, and Humanity Becoming the credited cultural consultant on Forza Horizon 6 — and what that job actually is Why "help me help you" is the honest answer to almost every cultural-consulting question Originally recorded remotely on August 6, 2026, this episode is a long, generous conversation about being the person who makes big things possible from behind the scenes. Links & References Kyoko Yamashita on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyokoyamashita/ XSEED / Marvelous USA — https://marvelous-usa.com/ Enhance — https://enhance-experience.com/ Playground Games — https://playground-games.com Kingdom Hearts — https://na.square-enix.com/kingdomhearts Rez Infinite — https://www.rezinfinite.com/ Tetris Effect — https://tetriseffect.game Humanity — https://humanity.game/ Forza Horizon — https://forza.net Ninja Gaiden — https://teamninja-studio.com/ng/de/ Pole Position — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_Position_(video_game)

Season 1

How a Cafeteria Dinner Became Indie's Global Discovery Engine

Justin Woodward has spent 14 years helping independent game developers find the audiences, press, platform partners, and publishing relationships that can change a project’s trajectory. In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with the founder of The MIX, co-founder of Interabang Entertainment, and founder of XPerience Studios to trace the journey from an art-school kid in San Diego making his own comic-book characters and action figures, to a $30-an-hour contractor at THQ’s Incinerator studio, to one of the people who has helped create real visibility for independent games. From Super Comboman and an early video game Kickstarter to the GDC 2012 dinner in IGN’s cafeteria that became The Media Indie Exchange, Justin shares the lessons, mistakes, mentors, and persistence behind a career built around giving great games a chance to be seen. Greg and Justin discuss the origins of The MIX, the line around the building that proved the event had found an audience, the evolution from physical showcases to live broadcasts, and the 2020 pivot that brought the Guerrilla Collective together when the industry needed a new way to reach players. In this episode: How Justin’s art-school beginnings and homemade action figures led him toward games The $30-an-hour contractor lesson at THQ’s Incinerator studio Super Comboman, early Kickstarter, and building Interabang Entertainment The IGN cafeteria dinner that became The MIX Why relationships with press, platforms, publishers, and peers matter The Guerrilla Collective and the shift to online showcases Why community remains essential when hundreds of games launch every day What Justin looks for when curating games for The MIX The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VI as Justin’s re:Play answers Links & References The MIX — https://mediaindieexchange.com Justin Woodward — https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwoodward/ re:Play Podcast — https://replaypodcast.com Greg Off’s Substack — https://gregoff1.substack.com

Brian Fleming — 28 Years, Four Consoles, One Studio

Brian Fleming co-founded Sucker Punch Productions in 1997 with five colleagues from Microsoft and spent the next 28 years helping build one of PlayStation’s most celebrated first-party studios. In this episode of re:Play, Greg and Brian trace the full Sucker Punch story, from self-funding Rocket: Robot on Wheels and nearly losing it all, to Sly Cooper, inFAMOUS, and the studio’s acquisition by Sony. Brian shares how a few paragraphs about the Mongol invasion of Tsushima sparked Ghost of Tsushima, why the studio embraced a new protagonist for Ghost of Yōtei, and what nearly three decades inside the PlayStation ecosystem taught him about creative autonomy, taking creative risks, and leading a studio through multiple console generations. They also discuss Brian’s decision to step down after 28 years, making room for a new generation of leadership, the relationship between Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog and Insomniac, and why his advice to his younger self is simple: just ship games. Plus, Brian reveals the game that changed his idea of what was possible: Metal Gear Solid. Links & References Sucker Punch Productions: suckerpunch.com Sucker Punch on X: @SuckerPunchProd Game File / Steven Totillo: gamefile.news re:Play: replaypodcast.com Greg Off’s Substack: gregoff1.substack.com

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