Shows / Gamecraft
Gamecraft
Gamecraft is a limited series about the modern history of the video game business. Beginning in the early 1990's, the video game business began a radical transformation from a console and PC packaged goods business into the highly complex, online, multi-platform business it is today. Game industry legend Mitch Lasky and game investor Blake Robbins go on a thematic tour of the last 30 years of gaming, exploring the origins of free-to-play, platform-based publishing, casual & mobile gaming…
Episodes
- Gamecraft
The Bing Gordon Episode (Ep. 37)
Bing Gordon -- legendary co-founder of EA and venture capitalist at Kleiner, Perkins -- stops by to talk to us about the new book he has written with his…
- Gamecraft
QF Update: World Cup Consumer Guide (Ep. 36)
The "Second Tournament" begins with 4 tasty quarter-final matches. Mitch and Blake break down the Round of 32 and Round of 16, rate their recommendations from…
- Gamecraft
R32 Update: World Cup Consumer Guide
Mitch and Blake look back at the group stage and talk about the main themes from the tournament so far. They review their picks for matches to watch from the…
- Gamecraft
World Cup Consumer Guide (Ep. 34)
Football nerds unite! Mitch & Blake are back with a special episode on the 2026 FIFA World Cup. In this episode they provide a very opinionated "Consumer…
- Gamecraft
Holy Grail, or Poison Chalice? (Ep. 33)
Mitch and Blake conclude Season 4 with a review of a new kind of games company that is getting significant attention from investors: casual game portals with…
- Gamecraft
Funding & Founding (Ep. 32)
Blake and Mitch discuss the current environment for funding games and some of the challenges and opportunities for founders in the games space. They begin with…
- Gamecraft
A Theory of Fun
Blake and Mitch discuss the possibility that games -- mainly mobile and live service games -- have concentrated on providing fun through progression and…
- Gamecraft
Navigating the AI Future (Ep. 30)
Mitch and Blake offer their thoughts about how to navigate the introduction and impact of large language model AI in the video game business. They begin by…
- Gamecraft
How Istanbul Won the Mobile Puzzle Wars (Ep. 29)
Mitch and Blake discuss the rise of the Istanbul gaming scene, which has exploded in the last 15 years and come to dominate the incredibly lucractive "match 3"…
- Gamecraft
The Attention Drain (Ep. 28)
Blake and Mitch discuss the thesis that the games business is losing share of attention to non-game interactive applications. They discuss whether there is…
- Gamecraft
Roblox (Ep. 27)
Mitch & Blake discuss one of their favorite companies in games, Roblox. They start by outlining Roblox's core competitive advantages, and how they are unique…
- Gamecraft
2026 Trends & Specific Predictions (Ep. 26)
Blake and Mitch return! They begin with a discussion of the "Great Inflection" in software in the last several months. They then do some follow-up to last…
- Gamecraft
The EA "LBO" (Ep. 25)
In this Special Edition of the GameCraft podcast, Mitch and Blake discuss the $55 billion leveraged buy-out of Electronic Arts by the Private Investment Fund…
- Gamecraft
The Sum of the Parts (Ep. 24)
Mitch and Blake explore the role of consolidation -- primarily through mergers and acquistions -- in building some of the biggest and most durable companies in…
- Gamecraft
AI as a Platform (Ep. 23)
Last season, Mitch and Blake discussed the implications of new Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence in games. In this episode, they return to the…
- Gamecraft
Hasbro and Lego (Ep. 22)
Mitch and Blake look at two of the largest toy companies in the world, Hasbro and Lego, and discuss their divergent but ultimately very successful forays into…
- Gamecraft
The Venture Deadpool (Ep. 21)
Mitch and Blake address the unpleasant topic of how and why venture-backed games companies fail. They look first at the nature of venture financing and the…
- Gamecraft
China (Ep. 20)
Mitch and Blake look at the current state of the vitally important Chinese gaming market, on the precipice of a bitter trade war resulting from the Trump…
- Gamecraft
Valve (Ep. 19)
Mitch and Blake take an in-depth look at one of the most important companies in the global gaming business: Valve. They trace the company's origin as the…
- Gamecraft
The Mobile Gaming Duopoly (Ep. 18)
Mitch and Blake discuss the mobile duopoly in which Apple and Google exert extraordinary power by tying their app stores to hardware and software platforms…
- Gamecraft
Cycles & Survival (Ep. 17)
Mitch and Blake kick off Season 3 of the podcast with a high-level look at the current moment in the video game business, critiquing both the idea that the…
- Gamecraft
Artificial Intelligence (Ep. 16)
In their final episode of Season 2, Mitch and Blake take on the complex and highly speculative topic of the impact of recent improvements in artificial…
- Gamecraft
Intellectual Property (Ep. 15)
Mitch and Blake look at the ins and outs of intellectual property licensing in games. After discussing the checkered history of the practice, they look at the…
- Gamecraft
Distribution (Ep. 14)
In perhaps their most important episode of the series, Mitch and Blake explain what they mean when they use the term "distribution" and why it is so important…
- Gamecraft
Going Global (Ep. 13)
Mitch and Blake discuss the massive expansion of gaming in emerging markets around the world. The begin with a discussion of the big-picture factors driving…
- Gamecraft
Independent Intervention (Ep. 12)
Mitch and Blake explore the idea of independent game development. They attempt to define "indie" in the video game context -- something that proves more…
- Gamecraft
A Changing of the Guard (Ep. 11)
Mitch and Blake expand on last season's discussion of platform-based publishers by introducing a new kind of company: the game-enabling software platform. The…
- Gamecraft
Choose Your (ad)Venture (Ep. 10)
Mitch and Blake discuss the nuances of game financing. They begin by explaining how the publishing model of advances against royalties functions, and what the…
- Gamecraft
The State of Play: 2024 (Ep. 9)
They're back! Season 2 of the GameCraft podcast kicks off with Mitch and Blake introducing the new 8-episode season, followed by an analysis of the current…
- Gamecraft
The New Gold Rush (Ep. 8)
Mitch and Blake take on the complex topic of in-game economies. They discuss how the endemic problems of trust and arbitrage were present in the earliest…
- Gamecraft
The Failures and Futures of Virtual Reality (Ep. 7)
Mitch and Blake discuss the recurring industry obsession with the idea of virtual reality, beginning in the mid-1980s. Mitch recounts a story about his…
- Gamecraft
Console Castles (Ep. 6)
Mitch and Blake debate the continuing relevance of dedicated gaming consoles to the video game business. They begin with a discussion of the economics of the…
- Gamecraft
The Playground and the Stage (Ep. 5)
Mitch and Blake propose a framework for understanding user-generated content in games based on two central metaphors -- the playground and the stage --…
- Gamecraft
The Forever Games (Ep. 4)
Mitch and Blake discuss how the rise of games-as-services has privileged durable, long-duration play-patterns -- leading to the modern idea of the "Forever…
- Gamecraft
The Calculus of Fun (Ep. 3)
Mitch and Blake discuss perhaps the most important developments in the video games business since the 1990s: the explosion of casual and mobile gaming. Mitch…
- Gamecraft
The Fall and Rise of Publishing (Ep. 2)
Mitch and Blake take a deep dive into the game industry's migration from physical goods at retail to electronic distribution over the internet. They explore…
- Gamecraft
Steal This Game (Ep. 1)
Hosts Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins discuss the rise of free-to-play as a dominant business model for video game marketing and distribution. They look at the…
- Gamecraft
Introducing Gamecraft
Gamecraft is a limited series podcast about the modern history of the video game business hosted by industry veteran Mitch Lasky and investor Blake Robbins. In…