Lorne Lanning — Infinite Lives

Mike Mika, studio head at Digital Eclipse and chief creative officer at Atari, joins Greg Off to talk about a career spent inside other people's games, from a Commodore 64 in Detroit to helping run the company that once mailed him arcade flyers.Mike was an associate editor at Next Generation magazine in 1998 while building Game Boy games at night, then went full time at Digital Eclipse. He directed Grand Theft Auto Advance, ran Backbone Entertainment's studio in Emeryville, and in 2015 helped relaunch Digital Eclipse as a studio devoted to game history. It's the team behind The Making of Karateka, Atari 50, and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, which won Fighting Game of the Year at the 2026 DICE Awards. Atari acquired the studio in 2023.In this episode:The Apple IIe at school.Dragon's Lair, Don Bluth, and Greg's six months with him.Moon Patrol at Kmart and a Commodore 64 from his dad.Mailing ideas to Atari and Activision.An Atari Jaguar game in college.Windows 95 tablets and Doom.Yars' Revenge on the Game Boy and Howard Scott Warshaw.The Next Generation ad, Chris Charla, and a night out in Noe Valley.The double-decker McDonald's and NFL Blitz."What's a safety?"Tarzan, Alice in Wonderland, and Little Nicky on the Game Boy Color.Grand Theft Auto Advance: "Don't change a thing."Backbone, Death Jr. and Comic-Con.The first PSP dev kits.Frank Cifaldi and the Gold Master Series.Wade Rosen's whiteboard and Mortal Kombat.Helping steer Atari.Unsung heroes: Bill Budge and Connie Booth.Physical media, albums, and a 16-year-old's record collection.The game Mike still wants to make.Recorded in person at Off Base's studio in Berkeley, a few blocks from Mike's own studio, the conversation keeps coming back to the kid poring over game boxes. As Mike puts it: "I thought games were very finite and then they became infinite."Chapters0:00 Cold open and intro1:45 Growing up making games in Detroit14:51 Fan letters, the Jaguar and Yars' Revenge22:08 Next Generation magazine29:18 NFL Blitz at a double-decker McDonald's33:44 Tarzan, Little Nicky and GTA Advance39:01 Backbone, Death Jr. and the PSP46:08 Relaunching Digital Eclipse50:25 Atari and the white whale57:07 Unsung heroes, physical media and AdventureLinks & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackDigital EclipseAtariMike Mika on Bluesky

James Mielke, former editor-in-chief of EGM and 1UP.com, co-founder of BitSummit and author of "Nobuo Uematsu: On the Record", joins Greg Off to talk about a career that's run from a Manhattan bar to the center of Japan's indie game scene.Before games, James drew for Marvel's Music Comics and tended bar in New York. A fan review got him onto GameSpot, then EGM, GMR and 1UP, and a decade of trips to Japan earned him the trust of the creators he covered. In 2009 he moved to Tokyo to produce games for Tetsuya Mizuguchi, then went to Q-Games in Kyoto and co-founded BitSummit. Now he writes the books that put those creators on the record.In this episode:Surreal comics, a Staedtler pen and the School of Visual Arts.Meeting a Marvel editor across the bar.Mountain Dew, House of Pain, and the comic Marvel's bankruptcy stopped.A Bushido Blade 2 fan review and an $85 Theme Hospital assignment.Thirteen EGM previews overnight.Junkets, and the cost of editorial integrity.Edinburgh, a fried Mars bar and the saddest strip club ever.The GTA III laser prints, and putting Rockstar on the cover.Hats, belt buckles and Rockstar's first three months.Earning trust with Japan's creators.Itagaki, honesty and "nobody will forget you."Itagaki's final interview, and the book James is writing.Pitching Nobuo Uematsu over a beer.Leaving Q Entertainment for Q-Games.Who are the Japanese indies? The birth of BitSummit.From 175 people to nearly 70,000.AREA 35, Tiny Metal and too many jobs.Recorded remotely, with James in New Zealand, the conversation keeps coming back to trust: what it takes to earn it, and what creators give you when you do. As James puts it: "Now we don't have to ask the question, who are the Japanese indies? Because now we know they're at BitSummit every year."Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackNobuo Uematsu: On the Record (VIZ Media)BitSummitJames Mielke on BlueskyJames Mielke on LinkedInTiny Metal

Lorne Lanning, co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants and the creator and voice of Abe, joins Greg Off to talk about the long road from a New York painter's studio to one of gaming's most personal universes.Before Oddworld, Lorne studied photorealism at the School of Visual Arts, ran the studio of the painter Jack Goldstein, made animation for the "Star Wars" missile-defense program at TRW, and worked his way up to visual effects supervisor at Rhythm & Hues. In 1994 he and Sherry McKenna founded Oddworld Inhabitants, and in 1997 they shipped Abe's Oddysee. Since then he's lived through almost every way a game can get made and paid for, and he's kept the same idea at the center: games can reward empathy instead of aggression.In this episode:A Navy kid in the Cold War, expecting the end of the world.Learning to see at the School of Visual Arts.Jack Goldstein: "You just don't have any ideas."Hope as an endangered natural resource.TRW and the "Star Wars" program: the weapon, or the video of it?Rhythm & Hues, and meeting Sherry McKenna.Joseph Campbell and the case for modern myths.Pitching Sherry: five movies or five games.Why Abe went pre-rendered when everyone else went polygonal.The non-gamer test, and bringing film language to games.Infinite lives, and empathy as the driver."Just give him a goddamn gun," and the answer: possession.Unique names for a search-engine world.A sequel in nine months: Abe's Exoddus.Double A, not triple A.Rocket League, Fall Guys, and the case for new kinds of games."A disposable history," and Steam giving Oddworld a second life.Taking the company back.Three generations of players.Never say die.Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps circling back to why Abe never got a gun and what Lorne thinks games owe their players. As he puts it: "I came to believe that the most valuable endangered natural resource was hope."Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackOddworld InhabitantsLorne Lanning's Oddworld bioLorne Lanning on LinkedIn

Dean Takahashi, Editorial Director for GamesBeat and author of two books on the making of the Xbox, joins Greg Off to talk about nearly four decades as the reporter in the room when games became a business.His path runs from a first week covering crime in Dallas to the business desks of the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the San Jose Mercury News. In 2008 he left for a five-person startup called VentureBeat, where he built GamesBeat and its conferences. Along the way he learned to tell an inside story from many points of view, to publish what companies don't want published, and to own it when he gets one wrong.In this episode:The arcade at Harrah's, and Pong next to a Vegas tennis court.Rogue, Wing Commander, and buying a friend's PC after one demo.Berkeley, Northwestern, and the Maynard Institute.Dallas: a triple murder on Christmas Eve, then the business desk.Interviewing Jack Kilby.Early stories on the founders of Blizzard and on Nvidia.The angry phone call: Google, Twitch, and owning the miss.Following Jensen Huang since 1996.Why he passed on covering Apple."Billions" on Xbox, and Seamus Blackley's prototype.The red ring of death investigation.Writing the inside story of a company that didn't want him inside.Tracy Kidder and The Soul of a New Machine.Who deserves more credit for the Xbox.Leaving the Mercury News for a five-person startup.Why a reporter runs conferences."If you don't cover us, no one will."A different kind of foreign correspondent.GamesBeat goes independent.GamesBeat NEXT.Dean's re:play answer: the one long game he wants to finish.Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps coming back to the job itself. As Dean puts it: "We do not choose the news that happens. And so we cover what we need to."Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackGamesBeatGamesBeat NEXT 2026Dean Takahashi on LinkedInDean Takahashi on X

Lisa Welch, founder of Brand Therapy and former Global VP of Consumer Strategy & Insights at Activision, joins Greg Off to talk about a career spent bringing the player's voice into the room where decisions are made.Her path runs from the automotive business at TBWA\Chiat\Day to the PlayStation account, through her own consultancy, Mind of the Gamer, and into the publisher side at Activision. Along the way she learned to build an audience picture with very little data, to translate a client's thinking for creative teams, and to give a research team a real seat at the table.In this episode:Moving from data-rich car accounts to the PlayStation account, and the imposter syndrome that came with it.Research before the internet: core versus mass, qualitative work, and media databases.Inside Chiat/Day: planners, creatives, and why a brief shouldn't be a "lengthy."The PS2 launch, and the work she's still proud of.Mind of the Gamer, Deutsch's PlayStation pitch, and meeting Eric Hirshberg.Rebuilding Activision's consumer insights team around franchises.The engagement dip that wasn't in the data.Call of Duty, microtransactions, and the meritocracy players expect.Hypotheses, curiosity, and when research still needs creative judgment.Research with girls, and a game concept built around kindness and collecting.Roblox and the social side of play.Bat Around, and LifePack 2.0.Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps coming back to who gets heard. As Lisa puts it: "It was literally like creating a seat at the table for the consumer's voice."Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackBrand TherapyLifePackLisa Sunshine Welch on LinkedInBat Around

In this special episode of re:Play, Greg Off swaps chairs with Cord Smith. Cord, founder of Inevitable Studios and a re:Play guest earlier this year, interviews Greg about a career that runs from a San Fernando Valley game shop to Diehard GameFan, PS Extreme, and Off Base.Greg looks back on the people and accidents that shaped each turn: the bookstore clerk who sent him to Diehard, a magazine assembled in the back of the store, a move to the Bay Area just before PlayStation's U.S. launch, and an agency built on relationships that began more than 30 years ago.In this episode:Growing up in the eighties: comics, cartoons, arcades, and a roll of quarters.A forced school change, community college, and getting back on track.Mail-order imports, Kinokuniya, and finding Diehard Gamers Club.How Diehard GameFan came together, and what working there taught him about leadership.Monitaur, the character Greg had been drawing since he was a teenager.Moving north and launching PS Extreme across the street from Sony.Early looks at Crash Bandicoot and Syphon Filter, and honest feedback on Rise to Honor.Starting Off Base with no business plan, and the 20-hour days before the first hire.The PS4-era digital documentation platform that nearly sank the agency.Being an introvert on camera, imposter syndrome, and the podcast as a collection.Greg's re:play pick: OutRun.Recorded remotely, the conversation keeps returning to relationships built over decades. As Greg puts it: "You put good stuff out there, hopefully at some point it comes back." Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackCord Smith on re:PlayDiehard GameFan collection at the Video Game History Foundation LibraryPS Extreme collection at the Video Game History Foundation Library

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Chris Davey, who helped build Blizzard's business in Australia and New Zealand before taking on regional publishing at Epic Games. Their conversation explores what it takes to connect global games with local players, from server infrastructure to the language and culture of a regional community.Chris looks back on growing up with cassette games and arcades, building a regional operation at Blizzard, and moving into a very different publishing setup at Epic. At the center is his account of the three-year push for Australian World of Warcraft servers, including the repeated pitches, the colleagues who helped make the business case, and the fan response when the news was finally announced.In this episode:Canadian childhood memories, cassette-game swap meets, and discovering games without screenshots.Arcades, physical game collections, and playing with our kids.Building Blizzard's business and community in Australia and New Zealand.The internal effort behind Australian World of Warcraft servers.Moving from a regional team at Blizzard to a much smaller local operation at Epic.A Fortnite experience built around Australian and New Zealand culture.Why English-speaking audiences still need locally relevant communication.Advice for indie teams on building relationships with players before launch.Vinyl, Impressed Recordings, and giving fans something physical to own.Chris's re:play pick: Daytona, with three friends in the seats beside him.Recorded remotely, with Chris joining from Australia, the conversation keeps returning to the people behind regional audience numbers. As Chris puts it: “You have to treat people with respect.”Links & Referencesre:Play: watch, listen, and explore the archiveGreg Off's SubstackBlizzard's Australian servers FAQMark Nash on re:Play

Susan Cummings co-founded the 2K Games label at Take-Two, where in a two-year window she signed BioShock, Borderlands, XCOM, and The Darkness, and pulled Civilization out of Atari one week after her first call with Firaxis. She is a Rockstar alum, co-founder of Tiny Rebel Games and Fictioneers, and today the co-founder and CEO of 10six Games, building the AI-forward roguelite YOU vs Zombies. In this re:Play, Greg Off traces thirty years of deal-making, platform pivots, and what "finding your rock band" really means.In this episode:Intellivision, Utopia, and Don Daglow as the first game and a lifelong friendA Boston recruiting job, a "book of multimedia companies" in 1995, and a first cold call to Al Lowe at SierraEd Fries and a Microsoft lunch before Xbox existed — "Microsoft still has more money than you do"The Sam Houser meeting at her San Francisco apartment in 1997 that led to Rockstar GamesMoving to New York a few months after GTA3 shipped — and what the "best and worst" years at Rockstar actually costThe eye of Sauron turning to GTA, and why every competitor's attempt to clone it failedThe birth of the 2K Games label — the pressure to be something that wasn't only RockstarBorderlands verbally pitched at E3 as "Pandora's box" and "Halo meets Diablo"BioShock signed on a GameSpot article and a long friendship with Ken LevineThe 50/50 IP co-ownership structure — and why Susan and Ryan Brant were the first to write it into the contractThe Civilization acquisition — first Friday call to Jeff Briggs, $20 million check to Atari the following weekXCOM as a freebie thrown in at the last second — the story Atari now hates tellingThe Oblivion distribution deal — a $60 million guarantee they earned back in the first weekThe "third-game rule" — why the magic tends to arrive on the third title in a series, and why publishers keep trying to skip itLeaving Take-Two — the reset with her husband and creative partner Lee, and starting Tiny Rebel Games10six Games — a seven-person team in Wales building YOU vs ZombiesThe design of YOU vs Zombies — human-authored art, story, systems, and level design, with generative AI as the customization layerThe honest read on AI in games — roughly 90% of developers using it, most afraid to say so, and Steam's disclosure requirement as an unintended scarlet letterThe renaissance argument — why the next few years at the small-team end may look more like a renaissance than a reductionLinks & ReferencesSusan Cummings on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanicummings/ 10six Games — https://www.10sixgames.com/ YOU vs Zombies on Steam — https://store.steampowered.com/app/4224660/YOU_vs_Zombies/ Tiny Rebel Games — https://www.tinyrebelgames.com/ Rockstar Games — https://www.rockstargames.com/ 2K — https://www.2k.com/

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Mike Wilson — the "Lucky Mike" behind id Software's first self-published retail deal, the co-founder of Gathering of Developers, Gamecock, and Devolver Digital, and the co-founder of the nonprofit Medicinal Media. Across a thirty-year career on the operator's side, Mike has been the guy on the other side of the developer's door, negotiating some of the most consequential deals of the modern games industry.From a Louisiana upbringing and a not-quite Bachelor of Arts from LSU, to walking into id Software in the early nineties through his high school best friend, to the Quake shareware run, to the Trent Reznor conversation that anchored the ethical spine of every developer deal he negotiated after, Mike traces the whole arc — the Gathering of Developers label that put six independent studios on the front page of the New York Sunday Times, the ten-page piece by a nineteen-year-old Geoff Keighley that helped make it real, the Rockstar Games origin story as told from the seat that inspired it, the Gamecock chapter that ended with a week to sell before the 2008 crash locked the door, and the Devolver Digital operating model — small teams, fair deals — that shipped Hotline Miami for around thirty-five thousand dollars and, eleven years and eighty-plus releases later, landed Fall Guys in the exact middle of pandemic lockdown.In this episode:Salmonella and a hospital gown at the E3 funeral in Santa MonicaMeeting Trent Reznor at id, and the Nine Inch Nails / Interscope deal that hardened Mike's ethicsThe Quake shareware run through 7-Eleven and Radio Shack — and the id retail renegotiation it made possibleAdrian Carmack, MS Paint, and how a five-dollar-an-hour art internship became the door into the games industryGathering of Developers — the six-studio label, the Halloween 1998 Railroad Tycoon II breakout, and the front page of the New York Sunday TimesGeoff Keighley, Phil Steinmeier, and the tiny conversations that made a career possibleRockstar Games as the console-side clone of the Gathering of Developers modelThe Gamecock chapter — Trey Parker, Matt Stone, a chicken mask, and what a bad money partner looks likeDevolver Digital — Fork Parker as the public face, Steam paying on time, and the operating model that stuckHotline Miami — the two-person Gothenburg team, the roughly thirty-five thousand dollars it took to ship, and the vinyl still in rotationFall Guys — the email Mike sent two weeks before launch worrying it wouldn't hit, and the reports from lockdown that proved him wrongMedicinal Media — the nonprofit, the twenty-five years of peer-reviewed research, and games as a mental-health toolLinks & ReferencesDevolver Digital — https://www.devolverdigital.com/Gathering of Developers (Wikipedia) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gathering_of_DevelopersGamecock Media Group (Wikipedia) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamecock_Media_Groupid Software — https://www.idsoftware.com/Medicinal Media — https://medicinalmedia.com/

In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Charlie Rosen — the Broadway orchestrator, three-time Grammy winner, and Tony Award recipient behind what he calls "the great video game songbook." With 13 Broadway credits including the Tony-winning Some Like It Hot, five 8-Bit Big Band albums and a sixth in progress, and Grammy wins for arrangements of Kirby Super Star and Super Mario, Charlie has spent the last decade making the case, one arrangement at a time, that video game music belongs in the canon.From a three-year-old with perfect pitch at the piano in the San Fernando Valley, to a Berklee bass scholarship, to Broadway at 17 as a pit musician on 13 the Musical, to a 2017 Kyoto vacation that ended with a shamisen lesson in Tokyo and the seed of The 8-Bit Big Band, Charlie traces the whole arc — the pit-musician years that taught him what school could not, the interior-designer theory of arranging that travels from Broadway to a 45-piece jazz session, the 2022 Grammy for "Meta Knight's Revenge" co-arranged with Jake "Button Masher" Silverman, the 2025 Grammy for "Super Mario Praise Break" with Brian Carter and Matthew Whitaker, and a working list of composers he considers foundational to the songbook — Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, David Wise, Michiru Yamane, and Koichi Sugiyama.In this episode:Kyoto, a 300-year-old instrument shop, and the shamisen lesson that started a bandKazushi Okimasa's ensemble Famicoto — the gifted album that flipped a switch on the flight homeThe signature framework: video game music is not a genre, it's a delivery vehicle, like a Broadway musicalThe interior-designer theory of arranging — keep the character of the house, knock down a wall, refresh the paletteThe dramaturgical seed — why every arrangement should be describable as a spoken sentence13 the Musical, 2008 — how a composer's unusual ask put a 17-year-old in his first Broadway pitSame musician on Broadway and on the 8-Bit Big Band — how one skill set covers both careersThe 2022 Grammy for "Meta Knight's Revenge" — the third-ever Grammy moment for video game music, after Baba Yetu and the Journey scoreThe 2025 Grammy for "Super Mario Praise Break" — authenticity, not parody, and why the gospel arrangement of Mario earned its placeWho Charlie considers foundational to the video game songbook right nowAlbum six preview — Dragon Quest, Hades, Chrono Trigger, and Baka Mitai from the Yakuza seriesHis re:play answer — the one game he wishes he could wipe from his memory and play again for the first timeRecorded remotely between Off Base's Berkeley studio and Charlie's studio in New York, this is a conversation about a career built in parallel — two careers, actually — and one line from Charlie that anchors the whole thing: "Video game music itself is treated as a genre, but it's not really a genre. It's a delivery vehicle, as is a Broadway musical."Links & ReferencesCharlie Rosen — http://www.charlierosen.com/ The 8-Bit Big Band — https://www.the8bitbigband.com/ Charlie Rosen on Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rosen_(musician) Famicoto (Kazushi Okimasa's ensemble) — https://www.famikoto.net/