How do you navigate the incredibly high stakes of video game development (even AAA video game development) without losing the fun, and your humanity along the way? Senior Producer Yesenia Cisneros helps us close out Season 1 with her signature blend of world-class production, problem solving, and people focus. All listeners will walk away inspired by techniques for more human-centered video game production along with some of our top tips for building more successful thriving games from the ground up. We touch on topics like globalization, telemetry, esports, crunch culture, planning, user experience research, the power of community, and much more. Yesenia's iconic video gaming journey took her from video game quality assurance to her current role as Senior Producer at Riot Games with stops at studios like Brass Lion Entertainment, Signal Studios, Mojang Studios, and The Pokémon Company International along the way before landing at her current role at Riot Games. (This podcast is not affiliated nor sponsored by my current employer, TPCi nor my past and Yesenia's present employer Riot.)

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For readers of host Cheryl Platz's new critically acclaimed book The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode is a perfect closer to the season as we explore several of the topics from Chapter 14: Let the Right Ideas Win and Chapter 15: Failure to Thrive in addition to its relevance to chapters discussing production and business models like Chapter 2 and Chapter 13. All listeners will take something away from this podcast, but the book is a great way to expand your understanding.

Tamara Knoss has played many roles in the video game industry: character animator, lead artist, UI artist, and now Senior Technical UI Designer - or, as she describes it, "UI/UX unicorn" thanks to the rarity of her combined skillsets navigating the "why" of user experiences and the "how" of executing high fidelity user interface art in game engines like Unity. She's seen the rise and fall of multiple console generations, and created game art for some of the world's most famous IP, including The Sims, Disney, and Harry Potter. We had the opportunity to work together directly on multiple titles, and this wide-ranging episode serves as a great look at the history of some early handheld development and a challenge to current developers to think smaller when developing for mobile games. Why aren't we learning from the past when trying to build games that get the most out of as many devices as possible? This episode doesn't just ask that question, but it pulls back the veil on some of the techniques and mindsets used to solve for extreme constraint when games were shipping on cartridges no larger than 16 megabytes. That's right. Megabytes. But there's also plenty of modern insight about how specialization in an engine like Unity unlocks creativity in new ways, firsthand insight about shipping console launch titles, and industry-agnostic insight about the nature of UX/UI roles and their ability to serve not just software, but the organization around them.

For readers of The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode is a particularly great complement of themes from Chapter 3: Putting the Dev in Game Development, Chapter 8: Creating Immersive Worlds, and Chapter 12: Gaming Technology Platforms.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available worldwide as of September 16, 2025 and received a "Get It" recommendation from Kirkus Reviews. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

In today's episode, we demystify another specialty within the game design discipline: systems design. Joe Magdalena is better known as "joemag" (lowercase j) to many of his followers, or "joemag3d" to the maker communities that follow his 3D printing hobby work. But during the day, joemag serves as a systems designer with experience on world-renowned titles like Hearthstone and Teamfight Tactics, designing unique game mechanics while wielding the powers of math and communication using a deep foundation in competitive analysis to strike a balance between exponential and logarithmic curves in a quest for fun and engagement. Our conversation covers the basics, like exploring the definitions of live operations, campaign design, and the differences between content and systems design, before getting into best practices like player perception of value, new player experiences, and progression design.

Enduring Play is a uniquely crafted, high production value podcast about the modern craft of video game development. The format is inspired by gaming itself, with a level structure and tutorials and asides that help listeners of all experience follow along. Season 1 of the Enduring Play podcast is drawn from interviews that informed Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is now available from digital booksellers around the world or from publisher Rosenfeld Media. Show notes, including a full bio, episode outline, and links are available on the Enduring Play website.

Use code ENDURINGPLAYS1 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order - and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 1 discount offer expires November 30, 2025. Love the podcast or the book? Please spread the word with shares and reviews so we can change the industry together!

For readers of Cheryl Platz's new book The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode is a particularly good complement for the topics covered in Chapter 2 The Living Business of Games, with discussion of business models and how they should - or should not - impact game design - in addition to Chapter 3, Putting the Dev in Game Development; Chapter 4, Game Designer's Toolkit; and Chapter 7: Engaging Players Over Time.