A few weeks ago Gaming Corps communicated that you would be joining the company and now you have been appointed as CEO. Could you please introduce yourself?
Where to begin? I’m a Canadian, living in Los Angeles, California with my wife Stacy who is a doctor specializing in cardiac rehabilitation. I did my undergraduate degree at The University of Victoria in Victoria (UVic), British Columbia and my law degree at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, British Columbia. In my spare time I love anything physical – particularly hiking, rugby and I’m a lifetime martial artist. I’ currently studying kickboxing at Dynamix MMA herein Los Angeles. I started my career in the videogame industry in early 2006, since then, have been enormously privileged to work at some of the best studios and publishers in the world including Relic Entertainment, EA Blackbox, THQ and Atari. I have worked on many different platforms during that time but have always been particularly interested in PC online games that have a free to play revenue model. I am known for being honest to a fault, for disliking political behavior and having a strong work ethic. I’m very much looking forward to bringing these qualities at bear on Gaming Corps.
Gaming Corps has during its existence raised a substantial amount of money, bought several companies but in terms of creating value it looks very poor – why will it be different with you as CEO?
I think my combination of professional experiences in law, videogames and large media gives me an ability to look at problems from a bunch of different perspectives and, as a result, be able to both set strategy and mitigate risk in a very effective way. A videogame company must make product and I have extensive experience as an actual game producer / executive producer so I also bring that skill to the table. Beyond those qualities I think one of my greatest strengths is my network. I know a lot of people in the game industry and I would like to think that through my work ethic and integrity – have earned their respect. That network will be invaluable to the next evolution of Gaming Corps.
Could you please describe, in your opinion, what Gaming Corps is today? What is the company’s business and what assets of value do the company have?
At the moment Gaming Corps is a company that either outright owns or partially owns a number of work for hire development studios with aspirations to become a full blown videogame publisher that can offer services that include PR, Marketing and distribution. Via some of these studios Gaming Corps owns both IP and technology that are inherently valuable and, in future, our aim is to develop these wholly owned assets in a much more focused and aggressive way while balancing our portfolio of work with some licensed projects and some unique innovative initiatives on new platforms. Naturally those studios also have assets in the form of hardware and wholly owned software.
What are you planning to do with the proceeds from the newly addressed rights issue and what do you aim for the company to achieve during 2018?
My aim is to stabilize the company financially and then make some very careful, focused bets with the cash we are about to raise so that we can become both self-sustaining and more aggressive in terms of availing ourselves of both outright funding and co-funding opportunities in the market. We are already working on a strategy to make this a reality. I see great opportunities in remakes of previously successful titles – and have a strong lead in that alley. But what’s really gets me excited is an innovative interactive narrative project on new and existing platforms which is getting close to reach the first phase. This project is also a strong reason why I signed up to become the CEO of Gaming Corps.
Looking further, what do you want Gaming Corps to become?
Ultimately, as I said above, I want Gaming Corps to become an actual videogame publisher that is both large enough to opportunistically fund attractive market / project opportunities while remaining agile enough to be able to move quickly and be innovative. The video game industry is in a perpetual state of evolution and is rapidly consolidating on the more conventional platforms. A smart, well capitalized company, based in both Europe and the United States has an exceptional opportunity to be competitive in more innovative and emerging segments of the market.