As of January 2022, I am a Director of Qualitative Research at Interpret, a research company for the video game industry in Los Angeles, California. I moderate focus groups, design and implement online research, write and edit reports for clients, oversee our internal recruiting panel (called the Good Gamer Group), and provide insights on market fit and game quality to nearly all of the biggest publishers in the video game industry.
Back in 2014, as an accomplished but stressed freelance writer, I went looking for a more stable job, and I found it at EEDAR (Electronic Entertainment Design and Research), a small company based in Carlsbad, California. Once I got set up there, I spent about five years working on what we call game evaluation — I got to play and examine games in development, do research on them (either expert-driven, consumer-focused, or quantitative research based on sales data), and then provide insight on game quality and game success. I have gotten very good over the years at examining a game in development (sometime as early as a concept document), and then providing insight on how to improve it, make it more fun and interesting, and make it more successful at release.
I’m proud to say that I have worked on some of the best and biggest games in the industry — if you play games, odds are good that you’ve played something that I have worked on. Most of the work I do is confidential (though you can occasionally see my name in the credits), but I have worked across all platforms (console, PC, mobile, handheld, and even some non-game experiences). I’ve given feedback at nearly every step of the game development process, sometimes even to people that I consider legends in the space, and I’m happy to say that I almost always am able to have a very positive effect on the quality, reception, and sales numbers of the games that I work on. As I say in my social media profiles, “I use data and insights to make games better.”
EEDAR was acquired by NPD in 2016, and the acquisition went impressively well. In late 2019, I had the opportunity to try something new, and I took that opportunity, to work on what they called Market Intelligence for the Entertainment sector, serving as a specialist in Books and Toys. During that time, I didn’t work directly on games, but I did work with the client development teams at NPD to help clients better understand the data that NPD offers them. I would help find efficiencies and opportunities, I would track market share, and trace exactly why a product was successful (and then help clients figure out how to attach that success to their own products).
I did like working with NPD a lot, and I’m proud of the work I did there, but after a few years, I started to miss games again. NPD is also a slower, more corporate environment than the smaller companies I’ve worked with over the years, and while that appeals to some, it didn’t really appeal to me. I also missed the busy city of Los Angeles, and I wanted to be closer to the action in terms of where and how games are made.
And so in January 2020, I joined Interpret. The transition has gone great so far (despite also dealing with a worldwide pandemic). I’m very excited to be back in games, and working with a smaller, leaner company as we work towards providing the best insights possible for the industry as a whole.
I remain very proud of the work I do as an analyst and researcher, and of course if you’re a developer, publisher, or manufacturer that wants to work with me, please reach out! I’m always interested in entertainment products of any kind, and I’d love to hear about what you’re working on and how I can help.