PocketGamer.biz Podcast

Recorded live on-site at GDC, host Peggy Anne Salz sits down with Derek Day and Jamie Young, the cousins behind Emerald City Games, to talk about what it really takes to build an independent studio that lasts.

Emerald City started in a basement in 2008, with families upstairs, developers downstairs and a team doing whatever it took to keep the dream alive. Fast forward and the studio has shipped more than a dozen titles across original IP and major franchises, including Star Trek and Tomb Raider.

Derek and Jamie share how Emerald City has stayed independent by balancing creativity with survival, building strong internal tools, protecting its visual identity and staying flexible enough to work across original worlds, licensed IP and live mobile games.

Skillz enters the conversation as the infrastructure layer that helps studios like Emerald City keep that focus. By bringing competition systems, backend support, analytics and live ops tooling closer together, Skillz gives developers more room to build the parts players actually feel: the game, the world, the community and the experience.

In this episode, Peggy, Derek and Jamie get into:
How two cousins built Emerald City Games from a basement into a long-running independent studio
Why staying independent means knowing when to say no, even when opportunities come calling
How the team puts its own creative stamp on major franchises like Star Trek and Tomb Raider
Why retention, live ops and community now shape how mobile games are built from the start
Why integrated SDKs, analytics and platform tools can give indie teams more room to punch above their weight

For indie developers, Emerald City’s story is proof that survival is a strategy. Stay creative, stay adaptable, build the right team and use the right tools so you can keep shipping the games only you can make.

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PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple, deputy editor Paige Cook and features and data editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 92nd episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.
On the show we discuss:
Our interview with Sensor Tower's Tom Cui on why it acquired AppMagic.
Xbox's rebrand, player voice and hire of Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer.
Nintendo's new mobile app Pictonico.
The rise of UGC platform Melon Sandbox.
Fortnite's big return to the App Store worldwide - except for Australia.
Nex Playground's success and global expansion.
00:00 - Introduction and Personal Updates04:09 - Sensor Tower Acquires AppMagic10:04 - Fortnite's Return to the App Store13:34 - Nintendo's Pictonico!17:59 - Xbox's Branding Change21:49 - Leadership Changes at Xbox25:00 - Next Playground: A New Motion-Based Console30:20 - The Rise of Melon Sandbox
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👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-50-mobile-game-makers-of-2025/
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PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple, deputy editor Paige Cook and news editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 91st episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.
On the show we discuss:
Sensor Tower's acquisition of rival AppMagic.
Time and Business Insider's moves to follow the New York Times Games playbook with the launch of new games.
Nintendo Switch 2 sales and the company's share price fall.
Sega's brutal comments on the Rovio acquisition.
Ebay's rejection of GameStop's surprise proposal to buy the company.
The new Wordle TV show, which sounds oddly familiar...
00:00 Introductions07:54 Gamescom LATAM takeaways11:33 Sensor Tower acquires AppMagic16:10 Nintendo's Financials and Switch 2 sales22:32 Ebay rejects GameStop's purchase offer26:25 Time and Business Insider Games29:06 Sega Financials and Rovio's Performance36:16 Wordle gets a TV show
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👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PGbiz
👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz
👉🏻 Pocket Gamer Connects - https://www.pgconnects.com
👉🏻Pocket Gamer Connects Speaker Submission form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdoS5n-vdHu6aU-2d_rR7x1FAgewG51y3nlU1aB8RdetiKaGw/viewform
👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-50-mobile-game-makers-of-2025/
👉🏻 Download the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Games Developer Trends Survey Winter 2024/25 report - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3tbjUxVkG17CuHHljMblfmUC3DZ6gNAzV8qiz8bAALUXSvQ/viewform
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In this PocketGamer.biz episode, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and Craig Chapple sit down with Ambrose Robinson, founder of Parable Studios and creator of Millennium Whisper, to talk about a very different future for AI in games.

While much of the AI conversation is about scale, servers and bigger models, Ambrose is pushing in the other direction: smaller, smarter, actor-led and built to run on-device.

As Ambrose puts it: If AI in games is going to create new experiences, it needs more than scraped data and generic outputs. It needs creative intent, ethical data capture and systems designed around the game itself.

That is the thinking behind Millennium Whisper, the first on-device AI game released on Steam, a dating sim set in 1999 where characters generate emotional responses, remember interactions and share information across the game world.

As Ambrose puts it, the problem with much of AI content today is that “there’s no one on the other end.” This episode explores what happens when there is.

Peggy, Craig and Ambrose dig into:
Why AI-generated “slop” is damaging the conversation around genuinely creative AI in games
How Parable Studios uses actor-led data capture instead of scraping generic online content
Why smaller, game-specific models can be more powerful than massive general-purpose systems • What on-device AI changes for cost, scale, latency and creative ownership
How Millennium Whisper proves AI can unlock new kinds of narrative gameplay, not just automate production
Why indies may be the first to show what AI-native games can really become

The big takeaway: AI should not replace creativity. It should open up game ideas that were too hard, too expensive or too strange to build before.

If you care about where AI in games goes next, this is the conversation that cuts through the hype and gets to the heart of what actually matters.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Ambrose Robinson and Parable Studios
01:53 - How AI Can Help Indie Games Stand Out
03:05 - The Importance of Human Creativity in AI
06:18 - From Farm Life to AI Research
11:03 - The Parable Engine and On-Device Models
15:22 - Solving Scalability and Cost for Indies
18:27 - Using Actors for Data and D&D Style Improv
23:04 - Avoiding "AI Slop" through Specificity
28:01 - Case Study: Millennium Whisper
40:20 - Future Plans for Mobile and New Games
Let's Connect 👉🏻 X - https://x.com/pgbiz 👉🏻 LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/pocketgamer-biz/?originalSubdomain=uk 👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PGbiz👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event

Recorded live on-site at GDC, host Peggy Anne Salz sits down with Justin Graysmark, founder of Eplay Studios, to unpack the unlikely path from teaching English in Poland to building a portfolio of 25 competitive games and driving 2 million installs on the Skillz platform.

Justin didn’t come into games through the usual route. He started with a love of competitive trivia, a serious winning streak on the leaderboard and the conviction that real rewards could make skill-based games even more compelling. In 2016, that spark became Eplay Studios.

What followed was not overnight success. It was persistence, testing, missed shots, hard lessons and a lot of getting back up.

As Justin puts it, game development has plenty in common with martial arts: you get your butt kicked, you learn, you try again. That mindset helped him move from early misses to games players actually wanted to play.

In this episode, Peggy and Justin get into:
How Justin turned a competitive trivia habit into a full-time indie studio
Why fairness, balance and trust are make-or-break in real-money competitive games
What 25 games and 2 million installs taught him about working backward from the player
How Skillz helped Eplay focus on gameplay while handling matchmaking, payments and competitive infrastructure
Why the Skillz and Beamable combination gives small studios more tools to build, test and iterate faster
Why Justin started sharing his journey on YouTube to show other developers that success is possible

The big takeaway: competitive games are not won by one great idea. They are built through persistence, player feedback and the willingness to keep testing what flies and what fails.

If you are building your first game, your tenth or your next shot at something bigger, Justin’s story is a reminder not to give up too early. In his words: “When you stick with it long enough, that’s where the magic happens.”

Chapters
00:00 – Martial Arts Discipline
00:38 – An Unconventional Path
02:54 – Starting Eplay Studios
04:17 – Milestone: 2 Million Installs
05:27 – The Importance of Fairness
06:31 – Infrastructure for Small Studios
08:02 – The Skillz/Beamable Bundle
09:21 – Documenting the Journey
11:07 – Future of Competitive VR
12:45 – Advice: Don't Stop Early

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👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz

Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event