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From Sound to Studio – Building Devhouse with Jim Welch
37 Plays25 days ago
In this episode, Greg sits down with Jim Welch, a composer turned developer turned studio founder whose creative journey spans Dragon Ball Z trailers to launching a party game in the spirit of Jackbox. We explore Jim’s path from audio to entrepreneurship, the founding of The Devhouse Agency, and why his team is now investing in original IP. From creative leadership to WebGL distribution strategy, this episode is packed with insights for anyone building in games, immersive tech, or creative services.
🧠 Key Takeaways:
01:22 – Starting with Sound: Jim shares his journey from composing for anime at Funimation to learning code through game jams.
07:27 – Founding Devhouse: Why starting a co-dev studio wasn’t a single moment, but a gradual realization built from side projects and passion.
09:32 – Hiring to Solve Pain: Early hires were engineers just like Jim, generalists who could help him scale his overloaded client work.
14:18 – Specialist vs. Generalist: How Devhouse learned to brand and position its skills clearly as the business matured.
20:30 – First Clients Came from Network: Jim leveraged relationships with former collaborators and positioned himself affordably as a solo founder.
26:29 – Why Build Original IP Now: Diversification and creative satisfaction. Jim didn’t want Devhouse to only live or die by service contracts.
29:02 – Trash Heist — Devhouse’s New Game: A phone-based party game with competitive chaos and second-screen play. Inspired by Jackbox, built to bring people together.
32:54 – Distribution Strategy: WebGL makes cross-platform play possible. Steam is the starting point, but smart TVs and casting are in the conversation.
35:33 – Balancing Client Work and Passion Projects: Dedicated internal teams and careful scoping allow for parallel development of games and service work.
37:16 – Founder Lessons: Sales and people management were the biggest curveballs. Learning to lead and let go is a continuous process.
40:10 – Where Gaming is Headed: Shrinking AAA budgets, a rise in small studio bets, and the growing importance of authentic community building.
45:19 – Call to Action: Trash Heist is dropping soon — Jim encourages listeners to check it out and support indie innovation.
🔗 Resources & Mentions:
- The Devhouse Agency
- Trash Heist on Steam COMING SOON!
- Jim Welch on LinkedIn
🙌 Thanks for Listening!
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Player Driven on your favorite podcast app and share it with someone building their own path in the game industry. For more conversations with creators, founders, and innovators in gaming, visit playerdriven.io.
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Transcript
Introduction and Jim Welch's Background
00:00:35
Greg
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Player Driven Podcast. Greg here. Today on Player Driven, we are joined by Jim Welch, the founder and creative director of The Dev House Agency, a studio that blends client work with original innovation in gaming and immersive tech.
00:00:50
Greg
Jim's career began with a different kind of controller, music. ah He can composed soundtracks for Dragon Ball Z and Full Metal Alchemist. This creative path led him from audio design to coding and eventually founding one of the most forward-thinking code dev studios in the space.
00:01:03
Greg
ah They're also working on launching their own IP now, which I'm learning excited to learn about the whys and the hows behind that. But before we jump too deep into this conversation, Jim, thank you so much for joining us today. how are you And it's Jim's birthday. Sorry.
00:01:15
Greg
Happy birthday, Jim. How are you doing today?
00:01:17
Jim
Thank you. I'm doing great. Yeah, no, it's ah it's ah a great day to to do a podcast because we can, a great birthday present for me. So yeah,
Transition to Music and Game Composition
00:01:25
Jim
it's good.
00:01:25
Greg
There you go. yeah now You keep giving gifts here. We'll see how many insights we can get out of you here. And maybe that's how we can correlate how old you are.
00:01:30
Jim
Yeah. There you go. Yeah.
00:01:34
Greg
I loved, you know, during the kind of when I'm reviewing who I'm talking to, I do this research and you got your start in audio. And I love that. I don't do enough of these audio style podcasts where I learn about making music, creating music. I think there's such an art to it. That's amazing to be able to see a picture and correlate what what sounds or what music or what should be happening in your head.
00:01:56
Greg
um I'd love to understand kind of how you got your start in sound design, how you got working with Dragon Ball Zia and how that creative background still influences the type of work you do today.
00:02:05
Jim
Yeah, no, absolutely. So yeah, my you know early early years as ah as a creative person, because I really see myself as as that's kind of what I do. i run a business, of course, but it's really from the heart of creativity that it exists.
00:02:19
Jim
um So at an early age, um um music music was really what drew me in. There was a brief period where, you know, as a very young kid, I was like, well, maybe I'll go into theater or music. And there was a point where the classes overlapped and I to pick and I picked music.
00:02:33
Jim
And so, yeah, i went really full into audio and I learned guitar, I was playing in bands. um And just over the years, I thought, you know, I want to, I want this to succeed. And and when you work with other people, like in a band, ah you find that your ambition levels don't always align. And so that kind of pushed me towards more composition um where I could maybe have a little more control of the output, whereas a band, you're you're very reliant on on your your bandmates.
00:03:02
Jim
um And yeah, and that just kind of led me down a path. I went to school for for music composition out
Founding The Dev House and Business Insights
00:03:08
Jim
in Oregon. And then I got a went worked for Funimation Entertainment, which is where I was doing ah yeah music and sound design both for for their their trailers. So yeah, like all the Dragon Ball Z trailers. like i think that's a good call because that's one of the favorite ones for me growing up. I even have my little Krillin here.
00:03:24
Jim
But um but yeah, also all their properties, right? Working on these these pieces.
00:03:29
Greg
You know, music composition from where I sit, right? Like, I understand what that is, but I don't know where, when you go to school, what what is your goal? Do you want to, like, what do you want to do when you grow up when you're going to study music composition? Is it doing what you did? Like, did you grow up loving Dragon Ball Z and you wanted to do that? Was it more, hey, I want to work on soundtracks? Like, what's the goal when you're in school? Maybe you just don't know.
00:03:51
Jim
I think at least I knew, i feel like i've I've always had a target. Now that target changes as as you try things out and and as you grow up and as you learn things. um you know Early on, I wanted to play and be a performing musician. I wanted to play in a band and and I did that for a number of years, never to um a very...
00:04:09
Jim
large level, but I, you I'd play shows and stuff and that was fun. when I shift to composition, um when I realized it was hard to kind of, uh, at that age, I was not a great leader. Um, even still, I'm very much learning to be a great leader.
00:04:22
Jim
Um, so shifting to kind of doing my own solo thing, um, it shifted more like film. I think film is where a lot of composers see themselves. Uh, you, you can do film, you can do, you can be a teacher. That's and another common path out of music school.
00:04:36
Jim
Um, or you can, you can go more into, uh, like, I would say like academic performance type pieces. So pieces that like other schools and college students will perform.
00:04:47
Jim
um You know, that's, that's a challenging one, I think, to make a living on but people, people do it. For me, the the anime thing of came by chance. um You know, there was film adjacent, it's like trailers and things. And when I looked for work, there was an opening and and yeah, I just kind of found my way into that specific spot.
00:05:07
Greg
I have to imagine running a company is slightly different than music companies and creating music, but I have to imagine there's many skills that translate well from what you learned there to running a company. And I'm curious, what type of skills did you pick up while you were in school that you're still using today that kind of are more related to the music side of things? Yeah.
00:05:28
Jim
Yeah, I think school is really great for just getting life exposure. I think for me, that was where college really helped. It's just just that time with your peers. and And that's, you know, a lot of, I'm one of the, on the kind of side of the fence that like school doesn't like super well prepare you for the the job field, but I'm not anti-college or anti-school because I think it prepares you for life. And so um school itself didn't do a lot to prepare me for my work, but working at Funimation,
00:05:55
Jim
um and being a composer and sound designer and eventually freelance. There was a period where I switched between my kind of engineering and business part of my career and my working as a composer.
00:05:59
Greg
Thanks.
00:06:06
Jim
i was a freelance musician and that taught me a ton about like how to run a business and how to, you know, get paid for your work and and what to price your work at and how to deal with clients. And so so there's a lot of overlap there.
00:06:18
Jim
um Also a lot of overlap in in writing music with writing code. um That has a ton of overlap.
00:06:24
Greg
I'm just taking notes here. I think that's awesome. um And I love your note on college. I feel the same exact way. I think most jobs are going to teach you what you need to know in that position. College will give you the fundamentals. But I think from a social perspective, learning how to engage with your peers, how to make friends, all this stuff that you think sounds like common sense. But once you're in college, you kind of I remember always telling myself when I went to college, it was kind of my chance to redo who I
Specialization vs. Generalization in Career
00:06:51
Greg
want to be. Right. No one knows you really like you can be the person you want to be. And I think I was very introverted going into school. I was shy. I was quiet. And I still am, even though I host this. But but it got me so much more.
00:07:04
Greg
eager to introduce myself to people and meet people. And I think that's the most important part of college is kind of learning how to socialize with your peers rather than learning the everyday skills that you need. And yes, you'll still learn them, but I think it's a big social, and the expensive social experiment.
00:07:18
Jim
Yeah, right.
00:07:19
Greg
but but i But I think it's important just to kind of learn how to interact with your peers.
00:07:23
Jim
Yeah, yeah. And and I mean, certain certain careers you need school, you know, if you want to be a doctor or teacher, there's requirements and and there's certain colleges that if you go to, they have networks that kind of form out of those schools, you know, especially like you look at like Ivy League and things like that, you build a professional network.
00:07:40
Jim
So there's always exceptions to the rule. yeah I think we're aligned on kind of the general value for sure.
00:07:44
Greg
So when you're ready to start ah your own company here, right? Was there a day you just woke up and you're just like, you know what? I'm ready to do this on my own. Like, what was that motivated to say? I'm ready to go on my own and start something.
00:08:01
Jim
Very gradual. Yeah, it definitely wasn't a one day thing. um i I always wanted, I always enjoyed creating my stuff on the side. So, you know, while i was working at Funimation, was writing music on the side for games, which, you know, that's kind of the transition from being more of a film linear media composer to a game composer.
00:08:21
Jim
That was also gradual. I always wanted to do that since I can remember, but the act of doing it became gradual on the side initially, then full-time freelance and and you know that that kind of happened over time um starting the business similar i you know after my kind of the music part of my career i did a a startup um really because i wanted to do more in games um this was after i started freelancing and i said okay i'm i'm making music for all these other other games um what if i'm in my own game you know it's really that urge to like be more creative
00:08:54
Jim
um And again, that's not like day one, all right, new game, I'm i'm quitting freelancing, everything. you know it's it's It's doing little game jams and like experimenting and things like that. um and And even then, I ended up doing a long stint or somewhat long stint as a ah ah coder engineer for companies. like I was hired as an engineer um after kind of teaching myself to code through game jams and and things like that.
00:09:19
Greg
There's
00:09:19
Jim
um And i did that for a number of years before I said, okay, I think I can run a studio on my own. And even then it was like just me, like when I stopped working for other people, I was, I was dev house um until I hired more people. So it wasn't like, oh, I just got a bunch of money. Let me hire 20 people.
00:09:35
Jim
It all happened over, over multiple years for sure.
00:09:39
Greg
It's interesting. You know, we talked to a lot of developers turned indie studio founders, right? And in that case, they got the development down, but they might need help with other sides. And from your side, right, I'm curious, when you're looking to make that first hire, what's the skill set that you think you you look for first? is it so Is it an engineer? Because maybe your engineering skills aren't on on par, or is it something else? Maybe it's marketing. Like, how do you think about that first hire? Yeah.
00:10:06
Greg
yeah
00:10:06
Jim
I would think about it differently today. i think today it might be on the marketing side and it might be on the community building side because it's just so important to build a successful game.
00:10:13
Greg
Mm-hmm.
00:10:17
Jim
that's if you're making your own game. um you know DevHouse's core business is is making games for others. um But even then, maybe ah a salesperson or someone on on the business side. um What I actually did was just hire try to hire another one of myself. So like I was an engineer and I was like a generalist and um i would be hired to help teams.
00:10:36
Jim
And then I just kept saying yes, and I was overloaded. and i was like, all right, I just need
Client Management and Business Growth
00:10:41
Jim
to clone myself. And so I just hired another generalist engineer and did that for the first three hires or so. And then I brought on a project manager. And and so I kind of started slowly building a company based on the biggest pain point. was like, I don't have enough hours in the day to code all this.
00:10:56
Jim
and need another engineer. I don't have enough people to talk to this client or I don't have enough time to talk to the client. Let me hire a project manager. So yeah. you know, right now it's it's just whatever the the biggest pain point of the business is, but gradually getting more sophisticated with those hiring decisions for sure.
00:11:11
Greg
I think that's fascinating. I remember maybe 20 years ago, i was sitting at my job and I was kind of like a master or ah good at everything, but master of none, right? I was very good at this stuff and i never got promoted and I never got anything. And it kind of pissed me off. it And I realized when I look at myself, it's because I was good at everything and a master of nothing that they didn't know which direction I wanted to go. And I didn't even know what direction I wanted to go. in And it made me understand that when you can start focusing on a specific discipline, whether it be marketing or engineering or sound or whatever, right?
00:11:41
Greg
you can become an expert in that field. And then when they need someone there, they hire it, right? Like a generalist, at least at the lower levels, like it isn't, It's good to learn how to do everything, but to advance your career, you need to pick something that you really do love doing and doing it I think it sounds like that was kind of like you just wanted more of you because you can do everything. But if you would have focused on, hey, I need someone specifically for engineering that focuses on engineering tasks, then you can take most of your engineering stuff and swap it over there that it it becomes a little more scalable in that terms. Am i am i accurate there
00:12:12
Jim
Yeah, and and we're we're learning that as a business too. So even as an individual, as you said, like focusing lets you be better at that thing. And and our our team, being a small team, we like generalists because it makes us agile.
00:12:27
Jim
um If you're coming into ah to a small company like mine, being a generalist is is a benefit. Now, if you want to go work for like a larger studio like like a Riot or a Blizzard, you know those companies um are going to want you to be a specialist. They're going to want people at a certain caliber that being a generalist doesn't support.
00:12:45
Jim
So it depends on kind of what your career interests are. If you like want to work on a small Agile team um and and make kind of indie games or work on the type of projects we do, it can be good. But as a business, we're we've...
00:12:57
Jim
been super super generalists and we every year or two we like narrow down what our specialty is and um and so you know there was ah a year or so back we we did a lot of ar vr alongside our kind of more flat screen games and we realized like that was confusing to our clients like well what do you are you guys a vr studio or and or not you know and so we actually started splitting off um kind of brands to cover these specific spaces that we want to keep working in And there'll be periods of time where like, so Spark and Bolt is our our more enterprise AR VR immersive tech company.
00:13:30
Jim
There'll be periods of time where we we don't go close work in that space and we don't focus on that space. And then we'll decide to put more focus on the space. But now we have that language and that brand to communicate that skill set without muddying it with like all these other things we could do.
00:13:46
Jim
um So that's something we're learning as as a business too.
00:13:49
Greg
That's interesting to hear and kind of you can kind of connect dots to a community as well there, right? So what's the community looking at like for AR, VR type of games right now, or we see growing community in this type of game. Maybe we want to put some more time and effort into these projects because we're seeing a growing community here. It's almost like you can take a look at what's happening with the market and kind of make those hypotheses to say, hey, I want to build this type of game because we're starting to see more momentum, more chatter here.
00:14:15
Jim
Right. Yeah. and And I mean, it's it's a lot of ah of of how you're perceived. you know like we We have a really wide skill set, but people don't necessarily want to dig in and figure out like, well, can you do this? you know they They want to be like...
00:14:32
Jim
make it very clear, like, here's what we're looking for. Is this something that you are good at? um The scary thing is, and I found this in music too, I was a generalist in music. I think I always go for the safer, you know, wide net. um But that was a lesson that was communicated in that circle as well. Like you could be like the orchestral composer or like the synth composer or whatever it might be.
00:14:52
Jim
um Or you can just be composer and and you can be hired. And what happens is you you get a lot of the the lower end work because those people are willing to kind of like not need that specialist who often charges more.
00:15:03
Jim
If you're the specialist, you might have a harder time finding the work because there's maybe less need for a specialist in synth music or whatever it might be. But when you get it, you can charge more. And so it's just, it's an interesting business discovery that it's always kind of in the back of your head and you hear it, but we're having to phase it more and more as the space of co-development gets more crowded.
00:15:25
Greg
Yeah. It's funny. You say you're a generalist when it comes to music. And I think if someone just playing wonder wall or something on the guitar, there it's just like very generic there.
00:15:33
Jim
and yeah what's What was cool about the Funimation role is like every you know that company has a ton of brands.
00:15:35
Greg
ah
00:15:39
Jim
like like You'll hear of the big ones like Dragon Ball Z and Full Metal. um but i mean Now they're part of Crunchyroll, but like it's they have hundreds of of of shows that are under their their banner. and so Every week, it would be like, here's a new show and make a new trailer for it.
00:15:53
Jim
and It'd be extremely different genres. you know like oh Copy, ah write something very similar to this Gorillaz track, write something very similar to this John Williams track. you know, here's a Snoop Dogg song we want to do something similar to. So like, it was a really fun role that got to flex my generalist capabilities.
00:16:09
Jim
um But ah so yeah, it was an interesting ah part of my career for sure.
00:16:13
Greg
How does a process like that work? Do you see the video and they're just like, Hey, we want something that sounds like
Interactive Segment and Audience Engagement
00:16:18
Greg
Snoop Dogg in this video, go for it. Or, or order like how much freedom do you have? Or does it depend on the project?
00:16:23
Jim
So yeah, there's the typically the editor. So like the there's me and one other audio person on the staff at that time. And so the and we sat right across, we had our a little like quiet offices for making audio. But right across from us were all the editors. And so because Japanese marketing so different than American marketing, it was it was like, hey, here's the show that we are not going to market to an American audience.
00:16:45
Jim
ah editor make a trailer from scratch. Like we're not going to use any marketing material from Japan. We're going to make something from scratch. So they would they would make an edit. They would do motion graphics. And really the editor often picks a track to edit to.
00:16:57
Jim
So like they pick something they think would be cool.
00:16:58
Greg
right.
00:16:59
Jim
So it's often influenced by taste, right? Whoever that editor is, it's like whatever's in their mental library of of music. um Sometimes there's all there there is a brand manager. and so sometimes the brand manager says, hey, can you use this track?
00:17:10
Jim
um There's almost always a ah placeholder track that came with it. And then it's just like, hey, Jim, make something similar to this. it's It's rarely like, hey, just ignore that track entirely because now they have a mood and they're used to it. So they want something similar to that. So that's kind of the kind of the process there.
00:17:27
Greg
So I'm just coming up, you know, as you're talking, I come up with these fireball round questions where can throw them at you. and So now I got one there. um Let's just go straight to the fireball round here because then I want to talk more about Codev and kind of what you guys are doing.
00:17:37
Jim
do it.
00:17:41
Greg
um So fireball round, I'm just going to some questions at you. Not practiced, easy questions, and i we'll go from there. Good to go?
00:17:48
Jim
Just do it.
00:17:49
Greg
All right, for our listeners, Jim, before we started, said it's his birthday. As we shared with you, he told me he would not be doing 21 shots for his birthday, which is understandable. ah But he said he would like to go for a cocktail. So what would be your cocktail of choice?
00:18:04
Jim
it's kind of boring. Old fashioned is typically if I often I look at the menu of like what their specialties are. But if I don't see one old fashioned my go to.
00:18:12
Greg
that' You can't go wrong with an old-fashioned. It's old-fashioned for a reason.
00:18:16
Jim
Yeah.
00:18:17
Greg
um To the question that you just answered, is there a trailer and the sound sound to it that stands out in your memory is like the best trailer you ever saw?
00:18:26
Jim
Ooh, that's a great question. um i know I can't remember which alien property was for, if it was the first one or aliens. But there was an alien trailer that I remember they had this siren noise that they would keep cutting. A very common trope and in trailers is like to cut to black. But this was one of the earlier trailers that did this like this scary tone and would cut back. Scary tone and then cut back. And there a lot of anxiety that would fill you watching that trailer. and And I remember that was something we pulled from a lot.
00:18:54
Greg
Nice. You have to check that one out. um What is the last show you binge watched?
00:19:02
Jim
I wish I could binge watch The Last of a Season 2, but they release it episode by episode. So before that, um probably, so I still watch anime from time to time. i think My Hero Academia, I never got into it when it came out. And so I i started watching that one and em bitched through that one.
00:19:20
Greg
All right. ah Last question would be, what did you have for breakfast?
00:19:25
Jim
I currently having coffee. That is my breakfast. And and most of the time, yeah, I don't i don't eat breakfast. ah Sometimes a protein bar and a coffee is my go-to.
00:19:32
Greg
had it How do you take your coffee?
00:19:35
Jim
it's it's it's I like cappuccinos, but I'm too lazy to make them at home. So I mix ah like a protein coffee flavor with just black coffee and and it adds a little bit of of cream flavor, but it water down too much.
00:19:45
Greg
I love it. I have a cappuccino or an espresso maker and I'll take ah shots of espresso and I'll mix it with a protein powder and oat milk. And that's like my breakfast because I hate breakfast, but that's the best way to kind of get protein in my body.
00:19:55
Jim
Yeah.
00:19:59
Jim
Yeah, i mean because the coffee flavor is so strong, you can, yeah, like it it masks protein really well. um Yeah, it's great.
Growth Strategies and Networking
00:20:05
Greg
Cool. All right. Off the fire seat. Hot seat, whatever we call I don't know what we call what we're calling
00:20:07
Jim
All right. Those are easy. I was scared. I thought they were going to be tough.
00:20:10
Greg
Yeah, no, I know and you know. I like the trailer one. I was really curious. escal I'm always curious about people out for breakfast, but the trailer one just seems right. Like which trailer hit you the most?
00:20:18
Jim
Yeah, that's that's fair. that wast That was a tricky one because it's been while since I've thought about trailers because that was my career for, i think, six years. was at Funimation. But it's been longer than that since I've been gone. I've lost track now.
00:20:30
Jim
Eight years?
00:20:31
Greg
i I always go to Gears.
00:20:31
Jim
Ten years?
00:20:33
Greg
I think it was Gears 2 with the Donnie Darko song.
00:20:37
Jim
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a good one.
00:20:38
Greg
I remember watching that in college. Maybe that's what college, the best part of college for me was, was just watching, playing Halo and watching that trail. And it's just like, all right, back to our normal schedule program here.
00:20:47
Jim
That's a good one.
00:20:48
Greg
Uh, DevHouse agency. So you're making music, you're, you're ready to move on. you're ready to grow. You're building this stuff. You want to start ah your own company. You start the DevHouse agency almost to nine years, it looks like now. So maybe it's birthday is coming up as well, or at least according to LinkedIn. So, um,
00:21:04
Greg
You're there, you started your company, you have another one of you that you may have hired or similar to that. um How do you find that first client? And did you know you wanted to do codev from the beginning?
00:21:16
Jim
Finding the first client, um I think, and maybe there's other paths, but what worked for me and what I would recommend to anyone else doing it is to to leverage your network. So I came from other studios that did similar work. um i I was at Groove Jones for a while, at Sector 5 for a while, um and and others, ExxonMobil. And like so after...
00:21:36
Jim
starting on my own kind of reaching back out to those, those kind of past partners and and saying, Hey, can I support you? Um, and, and that, you know, because I was an individual, I was very affordable. I wasn't like some big company they had to hire and subcontract. So, um, that was able to kind of get me started.
00:21:53
Jim
Um, and for me, casting a really wide net and, and, um, Again, being an individual, even though I had like a DBA as a business at that time, um I could basically say yes to a lot of things and kind of shavings make a pile. um So early on, I was definitely not closing big six figure deals or anything like that. It was like little projects and a bunch of them.
00:22:14
Jim
Um, and, uh, and so, yeah, so that's kind of how, how I did that. And as far as like making, you know, first hires and things that, that is really just for me, was just based on need. Um, if you go the fundraising route, I think that's a totally different path where maybe then you, you plan a little more of like who the key players are going to be on your team, what kind of client you want you like. I think you do a lot more planning ahead of time and then you pitch that to your potential investors and and you start differently than bootstrapping, you know, really that, which is what I did.
00:22:41
Greg
When you are looking at these first studios, right, you're looking for, I assume, smaller to midsize studios, right? but What is a good target for a studio that you're looking for? You're looking for specific types of studios, like individual wise, size wise, like what makes a good partner, I guess, at the end of the day?
00:22:59
Jim
that's That's a good question. I think early on, it's it's whoever will hire you because you don't have the experience. So you like you need to be flexible and willing to kind of work with what you can get. um i think as you grow as a company, you find that um smaller clients, so this is like ah less of studios, but especially like individuals like entrepreneurs and business owners.
00:23:20
Jim
um Smaller clients are more challenging um because they don't have the experience of what a project typically goes through. and And so they are often surprised by surprises, which is common in in building software, especially.
00:23:35
Jim
Whereas if you work for a larger company who's worked who's built software or who's worked with vendors, they know how it goes. So I would say, yeah, first, don't be picky. But um over time, try to work towards more organizations that get it like even if it's an agency like a small agency will get it and it will be ah a reasonable partner um try to gradually phase out like i'd say like entrepreneurs and and individuals it's kind of a percentage of their gross like funds right so it's like if someone comes in like i want to spend fifty thousand dollars on an app as as a studio our size that's not very much but if their entire life savings is a hundred thousand dollars
00:24:14
Jim
they're spending half of all they own in the world right on this thing, they're going to be very emotionally attached to it. That that risks problems, right? Like when you're trying to make decisions, business decisions with them, there's a lot of emotion involved, which which makes it challenging.
00:24:31
Greg
I think that's so well said. i think, you know, just because you look at as a glass half empty or glass full doesn't mean it's something different for someone else, right? The concept of 50K, what is 50K to you versus what's 50K to me, right? that it's That could be a world of difference. And I think it's a weird analogy, but it's kind of like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Like,
00:24:51
Greg
Someone's coming to you and maybe it's a small contract for you, but it's their life that they're giving to you in their hands. like it ah yeah like You want to find someone that you trust. And I think when you're a small company, it's nice because you're basically selling yourself. um I don't know if you feel that way, but it's just kind of like, ah all right, if I can make myself trusted to this person and say, hey I got you, right? like The sale becomes easy because you guys or girls, right? It doesn't matter. like You become partners there, right? and And I think building that trust is one of the most important angles to take when you're starting ah a smaller studio or a smaller company, right? Because that's how these deals are made. it's kind of like a trust type of thing.
00:25:28
Jim
It is absolutely. And and I always you know joke to my team or tell my team that like, I'm not a salesperson. I came from audio and then I went to engineering. Like sales was never really a part of my career path formally.
00:25:39
Jim
um But I think the reason why we've been able to sell and close work and and stay in business you know through a pandemic and through whatever we would call what the games industry is going through now. um it's because um i'm I'm a pretty transparent person. And and I think um being personable and and working with people on a human level ah makes a difference. So I'd also say if you're trying to start a studio, um if it's not you, if like you're not a person that can have a a casual conversation with somebody, um if that's challenging for you, then then find someone on your team who can, because that is such an important part. even if like i don't I don't do like salesy, pitchy stuff to people. like I just talk talk with people.
00:26:18
Jim
um So yeah, I think that's super important to be personable.
00:26:21
Greg
Yeah, everyone says they're not a good salesperson, but if you're a good conversation person, you can hold the conversation, you can ask good questions. That is the salesperson. You just don't recognize that as sales. at the end of And the number of people I talk to that tell me they're not good salespeople, but have such engaging conversations about what they're doing.
00:26:37
Greg
I'm like, you are a salesperson. It's just not sales as you look at it. it's
Creating Intellectual Property and 'Trash Heist'
00:26:41
Jim
Right. you You think of like cold calling and and yeah, like all these things, but, but yeah, that's a great point that, that sales look comes in many forms.
00:26:41
Greg
it's
00:26:43
Greg
Exactly.
00:26:47
Greg
Yeah. And like your comment on whatever the games industry is going through now, because it's a wild ride. um And you're also, after how many years, and maybe you have before, it's a good question to ask, looking at building your own IP.
00:27:02
Greg
So why in this time of turbulence in the market, do you think it's the right time to be looking at your own IP? Yeah.
00:27:11
Jim
Yeah, I mean, two reasons. One, we've we've always wanted to. like i've always i always like to make my own things. like um i had one One regret I have about my music career is I never made time to make my own albums.
00:27:22
Jim
um Early, early, early, like when I was a teenager, I made like some rock stuff, but it was you know bad teenager music. And so as an adult...
00:27:29
Greg
burn CDs, you know, he's
00:27:31
Jim
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Burn CDs. Yep. Uh, and then, but yeah, as an adult, after I got good at it, I never made time because there was always a client, there was always work to do. Um, so same with in games, like I, I've always wanted to just make my own stuff because that's, as a creative person, that's something that brings me joy.
00:27:48
Jim
so that's the first reason just cause I, it makes me happy. Um, the, the other reason, um, from a business perspective is diversification. Like it's, it can be a an exhausting hamster wheel being in service the service business because you always have to go find more work.
00:28:03
Jim
And it's always like keeping keeping the funnel full. um It never stops. And so having that diversification that, okay, yeah, we close work, we we we love the side of the business um of of like supporting other studios, but it would be nice not to like live or die on this quarter's you know interests and and like, oh, right now,
00:28:23
Jim
because the game industry is in a weird place, you know, that impacts how the market performs and you have to adapt and and it's it's tough. And so diversifying with our own titles will hopefully give us some other revenue streams.
00:28:36
Greg
Yeah, I think my at least feeling about that is if you own your own IP as well, right, then you can start to do, you can start to really grow in different areas, right? And it may not always be a hit, it may be a a flop. But if you don't build your own IP, kind of your ceiling stays where it is. But once you have your IP, right, you can look for things like transmedia, different types of games. And I think it's A good way to also just test out what you can do, right? As you mentioned, right? You mentioned earlier in the conversation, you wanted to look at marketing and community, right? And this kind of gives you that opportunity of, all right, well, do we want to start with that this time? Or or how do we implement that there? And I think it's a good way to just kind of look at all those skills and see what you can flex and and where you might need some more help.
00:29:17
Jim
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's the thing you say to like early, early hires who who are coming out of school. It's like, well, have you finished? Have you shipped a title? Have you finished a game? Because there's, you discover all these other skill sets you need to get to the finish line. um And you only discover them by getting to that finish line and releasing your own stuff.
00:29:34
Jim
um Yeah.
00:29:35
Greg
So can you tell us a little bit about this IP or game that you're creating? Cause there's some things that you talked about that i think are awesome and bring back the spirit of kind of couch co-op type of gaming, but, but can you kind of let us know what you're building?
00:29:48
Jim
Yeah, yeah. So so right now we're building a ah sort of Jackbox style experience, um sort of name dropping that because it's really the only game out there that does second screen, um except for Sunderfolk, which just came out like today, actually today, it formally releases today. Sunderfolk is like a D&D style ah second screen experience. But um but yeah so so it's a jackbox style game called trash heist uh and in trash heist ah you are performing a heist as little trash animals so like raccoons and rats and possums and crows um and the gameplay is sort of akin to mini golf and so you take turns uh sort of lining up your your animal's trajectory and you can like knock other animals around and and mess up their shots and um and and we're currently like
00:30:34
Jim
we're in We're in kind of ah late prototyping, early pre-production, and we're playing with the idea of like, how much is it co-op? How much is it ah competitive? Leaning a little more into competitive because we have a lot more fun and get more rowdy when we do that. But um that has its own marketing challenges and whatnot. So.
00:30:51
Greg
I love that. I mean, I think of Overcooked, me and my wife having tons of fights about screaming at each other, right? And the more games you can create that, that create this fun, friendly co-op rivalry, right? It kind of keeps you wanting to play that next game and next game. I think it's a smart way to look at it. And I just love the second screen, right? You can have a whole bunch of friends over and just have everyone connect connect their phone and all of a sudden everyone's playing this game. And I think it's genius.
00:31:17
Greg
but When you... How did the game come to be? is it Was it your own thought you've had over the years? do you guys sit down in a boardroom and kind of throw ideas around?
00:31:28
Jim
Yeah, this one was interesting. Like we, we've done some client work in the past that has, has used the kind of QR code technology to like join into games. um And so we like knew the tech stack of like, how, how do you actually pull off the second screen kind of joining through WebGL experiences? And, um and because we knew that we're like, well, let's leverage, like, how do that's something that's a good, like business point is like, how do you,
00:31:52
Jim
leverage what makes you better than another team? Like, how can we stand out? Like everyone wants to make games and everyone wants to make amazing games. Like how do we succeed where others wouldn't? And that's often leveraging like what you might either special information or special skills. So that was like the foundation was like, Hey, we know how to do this through our client work.
00:32:10
Jim
um So what can we make based off that? And then that actually became a pretty open discussion.
00:32:15
Greg
Thank you.
00:32:15
Jim
I remember sitting down with the team and around, you know, whiteboard and be like, hey, like, here's, here's what we want to do. i I don't recall how it became trash heist. I think someone literally just like said it and we're like, that's a funny name. Like, let's call it trash heist.
00:32:30
Jim
and And then just it kind of snowballs like these little ideas, like the only thing that started was like a second screen experience. What can we do? oh we're, we're characters. We're it's a as's a heist. Oh, trash heist. Okay, well, now we're, we're trash animals. and And it just kind of spirals from there.
00:32:46
Greg
You know, you you keep mentioning WebGL. And for listeners that don't necessarily know what that fully means, is I think we're in this little bit of a revival where you can play games completely on the web and they're good looking games. I grew up when I was in high school, I think we used to play like slime volleyball. i don't know if you ever played that game, but like.
00:33:03
Greg
These were in-app games. If you remember addicting games from back in the day, right? You can launch games directly there. um When you're thinking about stuff like that, how do you think about distribution, right? You can go on Steam, but then you're locked into Steam.
00:33:17
Greg
In theory, you could just launch a web browser, right? And you can have people go on their TVs and launch a web browser. I don't know who's going to do that. But how how do you think about distribution of the game when you're kind of talking through this?
00:33:28
Jim
Yeah, so I mean, the the the easy path that you like that you just assume is like, oh, we'll release a game on Steam. You know, it's like because it's it's so, don't want low effort because there still you still have to do some work to get a Steam page up and and deploy, um but relatively low effort. It's similar to like the app stores like Google Play and and iOS app store.
00:33:46
Jim
um they're They're very democratized and easy to get on to. um And so that's where we started. And now this particular game, it leverages both kind of the the WebGL platform for your controller, basically your phone that controls your inputs.
00:34:00
Greg
Thank you.
00:34:00
Jim
um But the
Tech Innovations and Future of Gaming Industry
00:34:01
Jim
actual game you know that you're watching with the 3D world, that all is like ah a proper you know Windows executable file um that would live on Steam. With that said, at GDC this year, Jackbox had a talk and they were talking about how they want to be on smart TVs and how they want you to be able to, you know, as you're scrolling through the apps of your smart TV, see Drawful pop up, for example.
00:34:22
Jim
um And so that definitely got us talking of like, well, okay, they're changing how they deploy or or adapting. you know, do we want to deploy directly to smart TVs and, and for us as a small team, it doesn't make sense to like go deep down a rabbit hole of like, left field deployments, things that are aret unproven.
00:34:40
Jim
So we're still looking at the traditional paths, Steam and console. um And then of course, whoever buys it, the other people can just scan their codes. It's a one person buy kind of thing.
00:34:50
Greg
I love that. It's funny. You know, it I love that what you said about Jackbox, I think makes a ton of sense for, for multiple games, right? Like being on the smart TV directly, but then you got to deal with Samsung and LG and everyone else. Right. And how do you standardize that? And casting is an option, but i don't know how you would be able to run something casting unless it's running on your, I don't know.
00:35:12
Greg
I feel like there's a missing piece here that can come and help a lot of these web GL games. Um, expand to the second screen, right? But I'm not sure how that would work. I'm just throwing kind of weird questions out there.
00:35:25
Jim
I mean, think thankfully, Unity has has recently, like so our studio does both Unreal and Unity development. This particular game is built in Unity. um And Unity 6 has brought back WebGL. So likes they you know it's always been there, but it's been under-supported. And it says like, hey, WebGL will work, but not on mobile.
00:35:42
Jim
Maybe it will, but we won't support it formally. And you get a message that pops up. and and So now Unity formally supporting WebGL again has been a big benefit to companies wanting to build on the web.
00:35:52
Greg
Yeah. And I hope it's a comeback of it. I think, you know, the more options we have ah for gaming outside of Steam and I have no no issues with Steam. I know there's some weird quirks that it has, but, but I think the competition would be, would be good.
00:36:06
Jim
For sure.
00:36:07
Greg
How as a code dev studio, do you balance kind of the work between your client work as well as the work that you want to do for your passion projects?
00:36:16
Jim
Yeah, the the client work always needs to come first because it's what pays the bills and keeps the lights on. And so like we need to, um we need to survive long enough as a studio to make a hit, right to make a hit game. And that's not going to be our first and and we've we've made some games before we recently released ah a VR game called math quest and like,
00:36:34
Jim
you know the it's not going to be our first or last game. And so we need to do client work to stay to stick around. um But also like you you have a responsibility, right? Someone's giving you money to build something. You need that to be like top of mind and and most important to you.
00:36:51
Jim
um The way we logistically balance that though, because then we would basically never work on our own project, um is basically having dedicated staff members who work on on our internal project. And so that way it's pretty easy to say like, okay, who's available for this project? And you kind of just pretend those people aren't on your team and they're just not a resource you can use.
00:37:11
Jim
um And only in like a crunch type experience where were like, oh there's ah a red alert, this thing broke, the client has a presentation. we got to pull everyone on those are the only cases where we really have to pull those people um the other balancing yellow element is my time like i spend a lot of extra hours and extra evenings writing code and working on the game uh and and sometimes too much sometimes i spend a lot of my days doing it and and that's where like the sales start to suffer and and i need to like pull myself away from the fun stuff and go back to business and yeah
00:37:41
Greg
Has there been, i guess, what is ah part of the job that you did not foresee coming that you don't love
00:37:50
Jim
I don't know if I if i ever really like sat down. i mean, one of my, I think, strengths as an entrepreneur is I just kind of dive in. Like, ah strengths are weak, because I think it's a strength. I think you could argue the double-sidedness of that. but um So I think when I started, i wasn't like...
00:38:06
Jim
preparing for the challenges or what could come up. So I never like had that, like, here's what's going to happen. And then something else happened. Um, I would definitely say like the sales part is something that doesn't, hasn't been able to go away from, from my, my plate.
00:38:19
Jim
Um, and that's something that I wish I could just do full creative stuff. Um, ah So i'd I'd say that's like the biggest thing.
00:38:25
Greg
Okay.
00:38:26
Jim
I think the other big thing is just learning to be a manager. I think that's actually probably the right answer there because I assumed, you know, I played in bands, I like led bands, I led groups and ensembles as a composer.
00:38:38
Jim
um and And even early in the business, I was running, you know, a team of a few people. But to be like a good manager is actually like really nuanced and really hard. um and And it's not just like, oh, be nice. And it's not just, oh, get stuff done. It's like this balancing act of how to get stuff done while being nice. And it's, yeah, it's a whole skill set that I did not prepare for. And I've ah gradually been improving over the years, but it's an ongoing, never finished thing.
00:39:05
Greg
The number of people I know that tell me they want to become managers or directors and they do something that's kind of not working with people right now boggles my mind because it is a completely different skill set than people think. And people are applying for these high level manager positions that never managed people before. I'm like, you sure you want to do this? Like when you're spending a whole week writing reviews for people and you're not getting work done, right? Like, are you going to still be happy? ah And I've known now a few studio CEOs that have actually stepped down from the CEO role to go back more into a creative side and hire someone in that position. And
00:39:41
Greg
A lot of people want to be managers, and I think that's great, but I don't think people really understand the skill set that goes into managing well and to help people grow. It's a full-time job, right? You can't be you can just you can take up your whole day. You can be creative and and manage, but management is kind of ah ah special track that you really need to understand what you're getting into.
00:40:02
Jim
Yeah, because it's it's not, as you said, well, that it's like, it takes up so much time that, you know, you end up being out of the craft. And that's a that's kind of a ah negative thing for many people. And but then the the other side is like, you just assume it's pretty straightforward, you know, and I think a lot of people who are are in in the trenches working, they look at their bosses, it's like, ah this joker, they don't know what they're doing. But it's it's harder than it looks like it's you know like I came from being a craft person and employee and you know being a lead and all these different things in companies.
00:40:27
Greg
Thank you.
00:40:32
Jim
um and And then like when it's all on your shoulders, things are different. You know the you see the the decisions I've made, but you don't necessarily see the choices I have. you know So it's it's challenging.
00:40:44
Greg
That's very well said. I'm curious from your perspective, right? um Where is gaming heading? And that's a really loud weird question, but you know you talked about, again earlier, the focus on community and and marketing. and I think that's coming to a light these days where people are saying, hey, we got to start doing this early.
00:41:04
Greg
We're seeing people maybe back away from Web3 or not use that terminology as much. AI is a big thing, right? So gaming has a lot of moving pieces right now. um Are there any trends that you're noticing that you think are going to stick around? Are there new things that are getting you personally excited?
00:41:21
Jim
Yeah, I mean, yeah, this year, AI is a thing to to the point where like my LinkedIn feed is is just inundated with AI messages. um and And I personally find it exhausting at this point. At first, it was kind of exciting, but now I'm i'm kind of bored of of hearing about it.
00:41:36
Jim
um ah But I mean, that's where like a lot of the money investment money has been going over the last year. I don't know how much longer that's going to keep up. I think it's similar to Web3 where there is there is some utility and there is some value there, but it's not it's not like a a silver bullet.
00:41:51
Jim
like It's not to be like, oh, we just do this and now everything's great.
00:41:52
Greg
I
00:41:54
Jim
To actually find a practical use for it, um I think is is still a ways out. And even then, it's going to be just for specific things. So I think there's an overexcitement about it. Something like the metaverse, It's like, Metaverse, Web3, like whatever the trend is, um it has some value, but it's it's not going to be um the whole the whole industry is now AI. you know I think it'll be like Photoshop. Yeah, we use Photoshop, but some games don't use Photoshop. you know
00:42:19
Greg
and
00:42:19
Jim
um As far as like what excites me, i think it's I'm excited and nervous for, I think, the shift from big AAA budgets to like how we adapt to those not necessarily performing well enough and being too big of a risk. And now what comes out of that? So that my assumption is we're going to see a lot more smaller games funded, um which is exciting because we're a small team.
00:42:42
Jim
But the scary part is the the competition of like, well, maybe everyone sees that. And now everyone starts forming studios around our size. And now we're less unique. And we have more competition in the space. um But I think for consumers, what you're going to see is is a lot more swings at smaller to medium sized games. And I think that's going to be good.
00:43:00
Jim
I think there's still going to be the big AAA games like the Grand Theft Autos that they know they're going to make their money back.
00:43:05
Greg
Thank you.
00:43:05
Jim
And there's going to be enough of those. And I think it'll be great to see some more variety. um And then lastly, I would like to add that the like, I think community building is going to become so, so even more important than before.
00:43:15
Jim
um Early days, it was like you had to get on the shelf of Walmart, and then you just had to get on the app store. And then now it's like we're buried in stuff and a publisher can help with some marketing. But a lot of it's just community building. It's like who's in your community who knows about your game. So curation and community building going to become more and more important.
00:43:31
Jim
And so we're starting to put efforts on our team into that as well.
00:43:34
Greg
Yeah, it's come to this world of, and even even community, I think there's some influencers out there that people see them playing games down and they're just like, no, this is just a paid influencer, right? Like if you put too much money into paid influencing or or community, I think people start to see through that. Like, no, this isn't real. It's got to be organic in a way. but And I love it. I mean, my whole shtick is community and stuff, but at the end of the day, you need a good game to go along with it, right? A good community is not going to save a crap game in a game.
00:44:03
Greg
I just think it's important, you know, build a great game and build up those organic users, get people playing the game, like get them talking about it. I think that's where this is all about these days. I don't know. There's just so many games out there that aren't games.
00:44:14
Greg
And fact that we can get real gaming back out there, getting people talk about it. I think it's the best way to kind of spread the message to get people to buy it. And to your point, I think we need, and I talked about this in another podcast recently, kind of we need AA games to come back. we need I think they're calling them like triple I, like indie games now. But like we need that space to come back because we have AAA and we have indies that are like fighting for everything right now. We need kind of those middle tier games to really make a strong comeback to help, I think, fix what's going on in gaming. But who knows?
00:44:44
Greg
Who knows?
00:44:44
Jim
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'd be great if more investments, you know, when you start talking to publishers, they're pretty transparent about the budgets they want to work within. Um, and, and there's definitely a big gap, like there's the really massive budgets, you know, 50 million plus, and then there's the like 500,000 below for like the indies.
00:45:00
Jim
And then that in between, you know, the kind of one to 10 million is a space that's to traditionally been fairly hard to fill. Like that's just not a space. A lot of investors seem to operate in on the publishing side.
00:45:11
Greg
Yeah.
00:45:12
Jim
So there's opportunity there.
00:45:13
Greg
Well, I think we'll see a revamp of how publishing works. I just don't know how long it's going to take and and who's going to do it, but, but something's got to change from where we are today.
00:45:21
Jim
Right.
Conclusion and Future Projects
00:45:23
Greg
Jim, I think that's all I have for you today. Is there anything else you want to talk about or or share?
00:45:28
Jim
um Yeah, I mean, just I think finding us, you know, when when this podcast drops, you know, trash heist should be should be live up on Steam. So go hunt that down to to do a little plug for for ourselves there because we definitely want everyone playing trash heist.
00:45:42
Jim
ah But yeah, otherwise, yeah, we we are around and and we'll be making games for ourselves and and others. So excited to keep contributing to this industry that we love playing games from so much.
00:45:53
Greg
Yeah, I want to, again, thank you, Jim, for coming out on your birthday to talk about DevHouse, what you guys are doing. This whole conversation from becoming from starting as music composition to building your own co-dev studio to building your own IP and all that stuff in between. I think it's awesome to hear how you went about doing it.
00:46:12
Greg
I'm super excited about Trash Heist because anything that has me on my phone doing co-op with people around me, I think is an amazing experience. So I'm excited to check that out. ah When this podcast does drop, we will make sure to have links to the the pages where you can check out Trash Heist.
00:46:28
Greg
i We'll also have pages to the Dev House as well, Dev House Agency. ah Jim, again, first off, happy birthday. Thank you so much for coming out. And I hope you have a great rest of your day.
00:46:38
Jim
Thank you. I appreciate it.