Maybe it’s no shock that young Jerk Gustafsson–now leader of MachineGames–was a fireplace designer before he was a video game developer: Afterall, when you grow up in the Land of the Midnight Sun, designing chimneys is a great way to learn about the alchemy of art and engineering. But it may be more of a surprise to learn that Jerk’s first computer wasn’t the Amiga that his older brother brought home, but the relatively late purchase of a Pentium with $400 he won sports betting.
Jerk details all this and more in his conversation with Daryl Ogden. He explains how a 7-person team travelled to Dallas to secure the rights to work on the Wolfenstein IP, and how the playbook they developed there over several weeks not only served as the foundation for that game, but lives on in their continuing focus on first-person, immersive experiences. He talks about how under the Zenimax umbrella they have consciously and intentionally grown their team, and why Sweden may be such a prominent maker of video games. And he and Daryl explore the important work they have done together in building MachineGames’ managerial capacity.
To download Valued Cultures’ report, “Winning Game Studio Culture in the Post-pandemic Era”: https://www.valuedcultures.com/game-studio-culture-report/
