Our podcast breaks the mold of don't ask don't tell about the video game industry. We give everyone the real inside look at what its like to be a professional game developer, Every week we'll interview pro and indie developers, we'll talk jobs, studios, salaries and of course crunch horror stories. Tune in!
Hosted by Brandon Pham
Starting with Wildlight’s HighGuard, which drew heavy criticism for inconsistent art direction, weak gameplay choices, lack of public playtesting, poor performance, and rapidly shrinking player counts, leading to major layoffs and a much smaller remaining team.
We argue modern live-service shooters face intense competition and need earlier public feedback, noting broader post-COVID overfunding has produced many failed projects and layoffs, alongside debate over what “indie” means amid publisher funding like Tencent. They compare Eastern and Western development strengths, then review Bungie’s Marathon playtest (strong gunfeel, UI/readability issues, clearer art direction improvements) and its competition with Arc Raiders.
We close on Xbox leadership changes, the viability of consoles vs software-first strategies, exclusives, and industry uncertainty.
Connect with us:• 🖥 http://gamedevunchained.com (http://gamedevunchained.com)• 🎞️ https://www.youtube.com/c/GameDevUnch... (https://www.youtube.com/c/GameDevUnch...)• ✉️ info@gamedevunchained.com• 💰 https://anchor.fm/gamedevunchained/su... ( https://anchor.fm/gamedevunchained/su...)•📸 http://instagram.com/gamedevunchained (http://instagram.com/gamedevunchained) (https://magma.com/index) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366060/Weyrdlets/) (https://x.com/Wadarass)
Special Links:
Raymond Graham (@Wadarass) / X (https://x.com/Wadarass)
7 Oct 2025
0369: Roundtable News | EA Goes Private and Playstation State of Play Review
In this episode, we discuss EA going private and potentially some major layoffs before end of Year. Before deep diving in the state of play from the PlayStation conference.
Connect with us:• 🖥 http://gamedevunchained.com (http://gamedevunchained.com)• 🎞️ https://www.youtube.com/c/GameDevUnch... (https://www.youtube.com/c/GameDevUnch...)• ✉️ info@gamedevunchained.com• 💰 https://anchor.fm/gamedevunchained/su... ( https://anchor.fm/gamedevunchained/su...)•📸 http://instagram.com/gamedevunchained (http://instagram.com/gamedevunchained) (https://magma.com/index) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366060/Weyrdlets/) (https://x.com/Wadarass)
Special Links:
Raymond Graham (@Wadarass) / X (https://x.com/Wadarass)
Inside a recent episode
GDC 2026: Day 1 | It's not all up in Flames
Published 10 Mar 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] It's still called GDC. not sure if they're still, uh, using it as game developer conference, but they rebranded to, uh, the gaming festival, right. And it's supposed to be a sprawling every day, super exhausting, uh, takeover of the city basically, uh, for celebrating game developers like yourself, semi, myself, uh, initial thoughts are, uh, pretty, pretty successful. I think usually when I come out here in San Francisco is for three days, but this seems to start from Monday. Some, even when I encountered them, uh, flew in since Sunday and, uh, last until Friday. And it's been pretty active, uh, it being a Monday and I'm kind of used to a Wednesday type of start. […]
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