29 Years Shipping Games.
Now I Assess Teams Before You Fund Them.
From Emmy-nominated Vader Immortal to Game of the Year winners at Insomniac, I've led teams that ship. Now I help VCs and publishers identify which teams will execute before they invest millions finding out.
Years Shipping Games
Revenue Contributed
Titles Shipped
Concurrent Projects Led
Why 29 Years of Execution Matters
I didn't start as a consultant. I started shipping games and learning exactly where teams break.
Award-Winning Execution at Scale
Insomniac Games (2002–2008): Lead Designer and Associate Creative Director on Ratchet & Clank (3 titles, including GOTY) and Resistance (PS3 Game of the Year, FPS of the Year). Learned how to ship consistently under pressure with teams of 50–150 people.
Key Learning
Great teams have clear priorities, decision rights, and the discipline to cut features.
AAA Production Under Tight Constraints
Activision / Sledgehammer Games (2009–2017): Lead Designer on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, WWII, and Advanced Warfare. Shipped content experienced by millions, featured at E3, and recognized as some of the franchise's most engaging experiences.
Key Learning
Coordinating across design, art, engineering, and production reveals structural communication breakdowns early.
Pioneering VR Narrative
ILMxLAB / Lucasfilm (2017–2019): Creative Director on Vader Immortal (Emmy-nominated, VR Game of the Year, Developer's Choice Award). Partnered with stakeholders to expand Star Wars canon while delivering on time and on budget.
Key Learning
Creative rigidity kills projects. The best teams adapt to technical and market realities without losing vision.
Portfolio Leadership Across 10+ Studios
External Development Executive (2019–Present): Led global portfolios of 10+ concurrent projects across AAA, VR, mobile, and AI/LLM-powered games. Guided partner studios to reduce development cost by up to 30% while accelerating time-to-market.
Key Learning
You see patterns across studios. The same failure modes appear everywhere—and they're visible in week one.
This isn't theory. It's 29 years of watching teams succeed and fail, and learning to spot the difference in weeks, not years.
Why Teams Tell Me What They Won't Tell You
When you evaluate a studio, you get the polished pitch. Confident timelines. Resolved conflicts. Everything “on track.”
When I embed with a team, I'm not the investor. I'm a fellow developer who's survived the same problems they're facing. I sit in their standups. I review their pipelines. I conduct confidential one-on-ones.
Teams don't perform for me. They confide in me.
I hear the real velocity gaps. The leadership conflicts no one mentions in board meetings. The team members quietly looking for exits. The creative director who can't make cuts. The technical lead building impressive demos that won't scale.
I've Identified 5 Patterns That Predict Failure
After 29 years and 40+ shipped titles, I've seen these structural issues kill studios repeatedly. They're invisible in pitch meetings but obvious when you're embedded.
Creative Leadership Failure
Costs $3-8M before you discover leadership prevents shipping
Technical Dysfunction
12+ months of rewrites when demos can't scale
Communication Breakdown
Death by a thousand misalignments
Hiring for Loyalty Over Capability
Team structure prevents honest feedback
Creative Rigidity
Building the game they want, not the game the market will buy
I identify these patterns in weeks 2-3 of my assessment. Early enough for you to make an informed decision.
What I Believe
Calm execution is a competitive advantage. The best teams aren't the loudest or the most ambitious, they're the ones with clarity, alignment, and momentum.
I value:
- Clear priorities over crowded roadmaps
- Decision rights and accountability over status theater
- Operating cadence that surfaces risk early over optimistic projections
- Ground truth over rehearsed presentations
When I assess a team, I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking for the structural foundations that let good people do good work consistently.
The Simple Truth
“I can't make a bad team good. But I can tell you if a team is capable of shipping before you deploy millions finding out the hard way.”
That's what I do. That's what I've always done—just now, I do it for you instead of from inside the team.
One Prevented Bad Investment Pays for 20+ Assessments
If you're considering funding a game studio or a milestone is approaching that feels “too optimistic,” get ground truth in 3-5 weeks.
Weeks
Investment
Potential Savings
Confidential consultations with no obligation. All engagement details treated as confidential. NDA available upon request.