Rafael Frančišek Irgolič

What most people misunderstood about Guild Gaming’s collapse - and the role David Beckham really played in it. 📉💰 After Guild recently announced its shutdown due to financial struggles, I saw the same question pop up everywhere: "If even a team with David Beckham as an investor goes bankrupt - what does that say about esports?" ⚠️ Here’s the catch: Guild didn’t fail despite Beckham’s involvement - but (partly) because of it. Let me explain: ◾ In June 2020, Beckham invested around $300,000 in Guild for a minority stake. ◾ But just one month earlier, Guild signed a licensing deal with Beckham’s company Footwork Productions - worth at least $20 million over five years. 👉 The outcome? Beckham became both an investor and the face of Guild - but at a massive cost. 💸 In 2022 alone, Guild had to give up 20% of its sponsorship and merchandise revenue to Beckham. That same year, the org reported a loss of $11.4 million. 💥 Guild’s strategy was clear: build around Beckham’s brand power. But the financial burden proved unsustainable. 💡 This wasn’t a failure of esports as a whole. It was the failure of a risky strategy that leaned too heavily on one star name. Guild didn’t collapse despite David Beckham - it collapsed partly because of David Beckham. --- ⚡ Found this interesting? I regularly share insights on #marketing, #strategy and the #business behind #esports and #gaming. Follow along for more and subscribe to my newsletter directly here on LinkedIn. 🤝 If you're planning something exciting in esports or gaming and looking for the right partner – feel free to reach out. Always happy to connect! 📸 Guild Gaming

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Nobody wants to show their unfinished game to the world. That's what we learned when we launched our Game Upload feature at Outscal and just 5 students out of 200 actually used it. We built it. We polished it. We launched it with excitement. And then... silence. Weeks passed with barely any uploads from our active community. At first, I thought our users simply didn't have games to share. So I asked around, checking in with about 30 students. The response surprised me, they had games, many of them with 3-4 projects sitting quietly in their folders. The issue wasn't technical ability. It was confidence. When I spoke with one student, he told me something that hit hard: "I don't think my game is good enough for others to see." He's working on a platformer with unique mechanics, but in his eyes, it wasn't ready for the world. This wasn't just his problem. Across our community, talented developers were hiding their work, comparing their beginning chapters to someone else's finished novel. So we pivoted. Instead of improving the upload feature, we focused on the experience around it. We created weekly community showcases. We added simple badges that celebrated progress, not just perfection. We highlighted early versions of now-successful games to show that everyone starts somewhere. Slowly, the uploads began. First a few each day, then dozens per week. The games didn't change. The developers' confidence did. This taught me something valuable about building for humans. Sometimes, the most important feature isn't the one that helps someone create - it's the one that gives them permission to share what they've already created. In game development and in life, our biggest obstacle isn't usually skill. It's the courage to let others see our work before we think it's perfect. PS: This was our team after the community meet-up during our Bangalore workation in 2022. Back then, we were building trust, not just tech, and that’s exactly what our students needed too. Confidence doesn't come from code alone. It comes from feeling supported enough to hit "upload." — I run Outscal, where we help aspiring game developers bridge the talent gap in the gaming industry: https://lnkd.in/dYFVKPVt

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𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? Jenova Chen, founder of thatgamecompany (Journey, Sky), joins us on episode 6 of The Gaming Founders Podcast to share his unique film school–inspired perspective on making games as "an emotional business." As Jenova puts it: "I went to film school. Film school teaches me to look at entertainment as an emotional business." 🎬 After pitching to 19 publishers before landing a deal with Sony, Jenova’s persistence and emotional insight changed the game industry’s approach to what games can truly deliver. Some standout takeaways from our chat: ✅ Most games focus on male-driven emotions like violence and conquest — but 40% of emotional experiences remain unexplored. ✅ Approaching games through emotion isn't just risky; it’s the biggest opportunity in gaming today. ✅ Entrepreneurship is hard and full of challenges, but it’s the path that ultimately leads to meaningful impact. Huge thanks to Jenova for sharing such an inspiring journey, and to my co-host Kevin Zhang for bringing this conversation to life 🚀 Check out the latest episode in the comments!

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🚀 The "Indie Renaissance": How Small Teams are Conquering the PC Market While high-budget AAA titles often dominate the headlines, the real story of 2025 is happening in the indie space. According to the latest market data by Alinea Analytics, independent developers are no longer just a "niche"—they are a powerhouse driving the industry's growth. The Numbers You Need to Know: — Revenue Milestone: Gross revenue for indie games on Steam reached a record $2.5 billion in the second half of 2025. — Market Dominance: Indie titles now account for over 25% of total revenue on Steam. — Consistent Growth: The indie segment has maintained a +13% CAGR since 2020. Efficiency is the New Competitive Advantage: What’s most impressive isn't just the revenue—it’s the lean execution. We are seeing solo developers and tiny teams (under 10 people) generating returns that rival major publishers: — Valheim: Built by ~5 FTEs, generating $300m in lifetime revenue. — Lethal Company: A solo developer project that has surpassed $155m. — Manor Lords: Another solo-dev hit reaching the $100m mark. In a market where user acquisition costs are skyrocketing and player attention is fragmented, the "Indie Renaissance" proves that innovative mechanics and agile development can outperform massive marketing budgets. For investors and strategists, the message is clear: the most efficient value creation in gaming is currently happening in small, creative hubs. Read more in the first link in the comments. #GamingIndustry #PCGaming #IndieDev #Steam #MarketTrends #GameDevelopment #VentureCapital #Aream #InvestGame

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Scaling art production sounds simple on paper. In reality, growth introduces friction long before it introduces speed: - Standards drift. - Decisions slow down. - What once felt clear becomes fragmented across teams and tools. The studios that scale successfully don’t rely on momentum alone. They invest early in shared understanding. Visual language. Review principles. Clear definitions of quality. This work isn’t exciting. It doesn’t show up in screenshots. But it determines whether growth strengthens or weakens a project. Consistency is what allows speed to exist without chaos. And consistency is built long before production ramps up. When scaling feels calm, you know the foundation is doing its job. At Corbax Games, we have the operational capacity to scale dedicated art teams from 2 to 20 artists within a one-month timeframe, ensuring continuity and quality throughout production.

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I don't understand why Generative AI in games is considered a sin. And why it's singled out as a separate ethical and moral category. Steam relaxed the labeling rules. Now the label is only required if the game itself or the store page contains AI content (art, music, text, voiceover, etc.). If AI was only used in the pipeline but there's no AI content in the release — no label needed. But the line is still blurry. What about localization? GPT is not allowed, but Google Translate is? What about DeepL? AI is just another scaling tool for game development, not some special case. There are dozens of such tools already: DLSS, SpeedTree, procedural generation, asset packs, asset stores, sound libraries, ready-made engines, Havok / PhysX. If this is about the ethics of reusing someone else's art, mechanics, ideas — labeling doesn't solve the problem either. Stealing is bad, no matter how you do it. Getting inspired, developing, reimagining — that's the norm. Photobashing has been used forever. Nintendo tries to patent mechanics from all their games (and not just mechanics) and prohibits others from using them. They get heavily criticized for this — people say it's strangling the industry (Zelda's crafting, character summoning, combat). Bad game — bad reviews, low sales. Good game — lots of fun, lots of sales. Blatantly stolen — you're guilty. Inspired, developed, reimagined — ok, everyone does it. Or am I missing something?

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