Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

No Level Cap: Matt Zimmitti on Gaming, Growth, and Starting Over

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 40

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What do you do when your studio shuts down and your whole life resets?

In this episode, game designer and co-creator of a mobile game that’s earned over $1B in revenue, Matt Zimmitti shares the rise, fall, and reinvention of a career that’s anything but typical. From learning to code at 26 to launching his own studio at 40+, Matt unpacks the failures, friendships, and mindset shifts that shaped him.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why he told his first boss: “I’m going to take your QA job and design my way out of it”
  • How one studio collapse became the greatest blessing of his career
  • What makes a truly great mentor (and how to be one)
  • Why there’s no such thing as a “level cap” in growth
  • How he bootstrapped his own indie game studio after 20 years in the industry

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold, the magic of mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having Matt Zimmitti, designer and co-founder of Go On Entertainment. uh Integral part. of the creation of the Game of Thrones Conquest mobile game, generating over a billion dollars of revenue. Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks a bunch. It's a pleasure to be here. Absolutely, my friend, thank you. Well, as I like to do, let's dive into the origin story. Where did it all begin for Matt Zimmitti? I mean, I've been playing video games since I was a few, know, since I could hold a controller. My dad picked up a ColecoVision way back in the day. And I fell in love with it. And, you know, I always had a computer lying around. ah And, you know, mid-twenties, um I had been through college already and decided to go back to school and learn to make video games instead of wasting my time doing statistical research and stuff like that. uh And, you know, it was it was the most important professional decision of my life to go back to school to learn to make video games. I got to tell you, you know, 20 years ago, that's not what you wanted to tell your mom. Like, I'm going back to school. I'm going to that didn't fly. Most people, myself included at the time, didn't really know what it took and didn't really consider it a real job. But I decided like, this is my jam. So I'm back to school. with my sister who was going back to school to learn audio engineering. And we were roomies and just went to full sale in Florida. And the programs there were still very new. And we just learned. It was a very rigorous technical school. my previous experiences with programming did not go well. I was scared. But I borrowed a bunch of money, went back to school. And that was the... springboard. The one thing I carried with me doing is I knew it was the right decision. uh It stunk the whole way through like very rigorous classes and scared the whole time, but I knew it was the right decision. my friend, having that belief, knowing that it's the right decision, believing in it, not seeing the fruit of your labor yet, but believing it and knowing it to be the right path for you to take, the right steps for you to take on your journey, incredibly powerful. And that likely helped to boo you long. And I think about the comment that enthusiasm is common, but endurance is rare. Yeah. When you're following along with something that you really enjoy and are passionate about, it really helps to get through those hard times. 100%. And for me, and it's a little self-deprecating, but I had tried a lot of things up to that point and been not very good at them. And I was like, well, if this is my thing, I'm going to find out. I believe it is. And I'm going to go through and just like, I'm going to suffer as much as it takes. And so I'm not even sure my brain was wired to learn programming, but it did. I just put in whatever. effort it took. uh I got out of school and I moved back up to New England. was staying at a friend's house, it reasonably close to Boston area. So I could apply for jobs and be able to drive in if someone, oh, and I got a very entry level job um at Tilted Mill Entertainment as a QA associate, which turned out to just be, I still to this day, believe that I landed like in the most optimal situation I could. uh If there's any reward for rigor and believing in something, I got dropped in the perfect situation. I started out in QA, but in my interview, I told uh the president of the company, the head of all design and I guess art on top of everything, was big show, this guy, Beatrice, prolific, super nice guy, still a friend of mine. I told him in the interview, I want to be a designer. I'm come in here and take this QA job, and I'm going to be the best QA person you got to the point where you're like, I think I need to move this guy into design. And at face value, he didn't laugh. He's like, all right, that's what you want to do. He's a very straightforward and hilarious guy, but he's like, that's you want to do. Let's do it. oh Absolutely. fantastic experience there. was in QA for three months. I learned all the tools so that I could test stuff. And when they started needing levels designed, I knew all the tools, I knew the level design tools, I just started making them. I just started submitting them. So they just moved me and my buddy Lenny, who's doing the same thing, who I'd met there, known for all three months. He's moved us into a tiny little office and he and I designed levels for the first game that I ever shipped. So I ended up with a level designer title on. My experience there for about five years was great. And it was uh like a rocket ship ride. I went from entry level QA to lead designer in about four years. My mentor there, Chris Beatrice, just like absolutely fantastic with just giving out time and knowledge. He would answer anything. uh If you wanted to know how something works, He would just show you. And this is a guy who's running the whole company. I think I probably took advantage of it more than some people did. I think my start there, even from the interview, being like, I'm here to learn design. But he was like, oh, you want to learn design? Then let's do it. It was absolutely fantastic. And it is one of the biggest imprints on me to. to be very mindful of people coming up in this business and what I can do for them because my first boss was like... Matt, that is so incredibly powerful. When you think about the fact that you laid out that expectation from the gate and whether he believed it or not, you spoke it and you meant it. It was authentic and true. But because you spoke it, then there was an expectation. But also he was then willing to because you put in the work, because yeah, you said it, but then you did it. And you kept showing up. consistently, you put in the work, you grew, you started at the bottom, you learned about it. And by the way, QA tester, love her. I love it. I did a QA for Disney Interactive many years back. Yeah, so funny. But yeah, we'll talk more about that later. point being, when you put in that time and that effort and you've shown that you're showing up, he was willing to impart his knowledge to you, right? But you let him know you were looking for it and then showed him. as possible. I think I probably used the term apprenticeship in the interview itself. I was like, I'm going to get my, I'm going to be awesome and you're going to leave me in QA for a bit, but then like, I want to learn how you do it. And I think what's really tough for a lot of people is that there's, and this was certainly the case for me for years, is that you can put a maximal effort into a lot of things and not have it bear fruit. And some of it is situational. I have always been the kind of even when I was working restaurants in college, I would always put in as much as I could. uh It wasn't until I went back to school and then got this first gig that I started on a path where I was benefiting from it. Working for Chris was the kind of thing where if If you worked really hard and you took it very seriously, even though we're total jokers, but you take the work seriously, there's so much you get back out of it. The reason I got promoted on a very fast path wasn't necessarily because I was inherently amazing. It's because I could just feed off of mentorship so assertively that I was learning enough to go that fast. It wasn't that... If you think in terms of like Dungeons and Dragons, my stat sheet, my stats aren't that high. I'm almost never the smartest guy. I'm sometimes the tallest, I'm 6'2", but like, I could talk a lot, but I'm not the strongest, um but that doesn't matter. um What I do is I soak up learnings and I redistribute them as best I can. And for me, that situation was perfect. If I wanted to understand what it meant, to go from being an associate to a mid, um I could ask as many questions and work on as many things as I wanted to to do it. To go from mid um to senior and then lead, it was the same. And I guess to circle back around, you do have to be at your best as often as you can because you don't get to choose when opportunity shows Brother, that comment and the way that you close that right now just very much showed your wisdom stat off the chart. We're certainly at 18. I think we went higher. We're pushing 20 on it, that was amazing. That was amazing. It's cool. Wondrous items. You've got them hiding somewhere, I'm sure. That was so powerful. And I think that that is... The key to all of that is showing up and being present when the opportunity strikes because you don't know when. You don't know when those doors are gonna be open, but you have to take every opportunity to put yourself in the right place for that opportunity to strike or to be able to seize that opportunity. It's very easy and I see it a lot for people to very swiftly get bitter when things don't work out. And I think a lot of times people point the finger back at themselves and build up like a guilt complex of like, this thing happened. I didn't get this gig or this thing. I must be terrible at this. And you might be. Like, I'm not the best designer on the planet, but. And I've failed a lot before then, but I never got jaded. I never got bitter about it. I always got up to bat. And I was always like, I'm going to try to for like a, know, swing for a solid double every time. And I don't know that it's, people use the term thick skin. I don't know that I'm thick skin, but. I just I feel like if you're not gonna do something for real, you shouldn't do it. And if that makes the list of things you should do very small, then that might make a lot of decisions in your life a lot easier. And so for me, like I screwed up so many things that I was like, games is probably it. And I windowed my way down to probably the one thing I'm actually reading. and true to your purpose, right? And then bringing joy to others and being great at what you do. you may not be the best at it, but by showing up every day, you sure as hell get better, right? is amazing for your growth. So perfect. I'm a huge person. I'm a huge advocate of quotes. I can even pack a lot of power in a one-liner. And that, by the way, uh is one that I'm banking and I will be writing down. uh So we do, we talk about the gauntlet, the trials, the tribulations, those hard moments we overcome and then we've, and hopefully break through. What are some that you experienced along your journey? I m think the biggest one would be when that first studio I was working at closed up shop. It was about five years in. The studio was between different... It didn't have a publisher for a new game. Enough time passes. The way the business works is you... Some of model is you pick up a publisher, they front you some money to make the game. You make the game, you split some share with the uh publisher. more accurately, they split it with you after the game comes out and hopefully everyone's good to go. And it doesn't always work out and the games industry goes up and down and we hit a stretch where despite everyone's best efforts, the company just wasn't gonna be around for a bit. And that was the place that I had blood, sweat and tears poured into it and poured into myself in the process of working. and I had made so many friends and it was a move for me. Like everyone that I knew personally, not everyone, most of the people that I knew were like coworkers. You by that point I was like, you living in an apartment with two other guys, you one was another designer, one was a producer. It was such a big part of my life that when the money ran out, you know, I was adrift for a bit and I definitely moped, I definitely questioned, you know. business of games and things like that. I don't want to make light of it. definitely got anxiety and all these things crop up right around then. But I still play a lot of video games and I still love them. those emotional loss moments you have to work through. You just have to. You have to take care of yourself. It is the like... going on an airplane, it's like, hey, if you're with a kid, you know, put your mask on first and help other people. And the reason for that is that like, if you get asphyxiated, the kid's not going to have a very good time getting that mask on. And I realized, you know, after a decent amount of moping, then I was like, all right, I'm going to dust myself off. And I've always wanted this to be my career till I'm retired. I guess I better go get a job. So that's what I did. I got a different job at a different studio. you know, it wasn't like... night and day, but I met a whole new crop of amazing people and some people that I've worked with in that last year. But it was tough. you find the opportunity to learn new skills and learn from new people, right? And then your toolbox grows. And from that crisis comes opportunity. absolutely. um And, you know, that second studio that I worked for, that is where I um helped hire and met and worked with, you know, Will Holland, who's my the other half of my studio right now. And he and I have been, you know, at different jobs, you know, closer or further from each other over those 15 years. um There's very few people on the planet that I think I could, you know, run a small studio with, and he's in a very short. um Man, I never would have met the dude. um Plenty of friends that I have still to this day and people I consider like colleagues that I call on to like ask hard design questions. oh All from that second job too. I think... I think it's very important to suffer a bit. I think it's important to have loss. I don't necessarily think that it's like, it's all good, you know, play music. I, well, you do have to get some scars, like you do. I think that it's important for us to have our egos checked. I mean, that first gig that I had, was just moving on up, moving on up, and then the company had to stop. And that was the biggest ego check I've ever had. Like, that's nice, you're doing great, but things happen. Things happen in business, and you don't have control over everything, and you still have to function. grow more in fact. I thought I was at the top and it was like, I'd gotten up some hill. Hmm Matt you think about perspective What you just share about perspective that's so powerful You you think you're on top? Suddenly you realize there's all the mountain range that's with way higher peaks, right? But you can't always see those Until you get to the top of the rise, right? You can't see what's past and when you get there suddenly then you with the new knowledge the skills the experience you take that and then Lady luck, whatever that is, however it goes. We talked earlier about dice and sometimes you cast the die and it comes up snake eyes, right? Unless you're playing axis and allies, that's not usually great. So, uh a situation like that, what do you do except keep playing, right? Except keep growing, get up like your wounds, like dust it off, know, mope a little bit if you have to, but like, but bounce back and come back stronger for it. and then be open to learning. Because like you said, had you not had that experience, which was without question, I'm sure, humbling, then to go and meet someone that literally becomes a business partner for you now to have your own game studio, right? And create, to be able to bring your creations to market, to be able to share those with people. That's incredible, man. It's a very small business and it's as much as like, know, video games are now like part of broader entertainment business. But, you when I was getting started, it was still relatively small and everyone said like, you know, don't burn any bridges because you're to be working with these people again. And you say, yeah, okay. But you do, you know, I, and I have to say, you know, some of the coolest people on the planet make video games. They're all eccentric. um you know, probably 50 % neurodivergent. they're the, like the people that you think get attracted to making games are exactly what you get. There are people like me that are like, oh, like I've been playing games so much that I should do this for a living. You know, I could, I could probably design, you know, websites somewhere and make more money. And I want to make games. I want to make. world. I want to make stuff that when it ships out there, um nerds like me sit in a dark room, getting the moon tan off the screen and playing a video game and enjoying it. You just get this amazing um display of like unique creative people and Sometimes you end up being business partners with them, you know, 15 years later. It's wild. And I don't think it's easy at the time to really understand oh just how profound it is. think part of that is also in just being a good person, right? Like don't burn the bridges. But if you're just genuinely kind to people and you really do the right thing, there is something that you had said, I believe I read it about, You reject secrecy as a policy. Oh man, I say I drop bombs all the time. That is something I would say. So I'll just have to believe you. Will might have said, I might have stolen that from Will. one of the things Will and I do at Go On Entertainment, we've got this little game cruft that's on Steam and early access. And it's puttering along. We're trying to build it up. But we hold our two big design meetings live. We stream them on Twitch. The opportunity to have your own studio means you don't. have to follow any large corporate policy. I don't mind people knowing exactly the trials and tribulations of what we're doing. uh But yeah, rejecting secrecy as policy is amazingly liberating. And I don't fault, I understand large studios need to have an excessive amount of policy uh about their communications with the rest of the world. I think it's extremely important too. Now don't have to do that. know, Will and I, we just have people chiming in on Twitch saying, I think you should do this with your game. And you're like... Okay, that's a terrible idea. I don't think we're going to do that. We don't frame it that way. And then someone else says, well, maybe you should do this. And you're like, that's a really good idea. I'm really glad you told me. You can just be humble enough to like take into things that are solid feedback or even just have people lurking and watching the process of, you know, two grown men in their forties arguing over hit points. That being their job. it, like, I don't get to, I don't get to complain about my job. If anyone ever asks, like, do do for a living? say I make video games. Like, it's hard. Don't get me wrong. But it is one of those jobs that, like, wow. And it is as cool as you think it is. It's just a lot of hard work, and it's a lot of arbitrating things that don't have good answers. it, when you enjoy it though, it makes it a lot easier to work through the pain, right? It's fantastic. this... It's really easy on the other side after 20 years of doing it to say like, this is what I was born to do. But it is at this point. I mean, even historically, it's like, it's hard to argue with. But I love it. Yeah, for a good reason. But I had a pretty good feeling when I got started. It's just nice to like, it's like, you know, trust but verify. I trusted at the beginning. I verified it now. um That was a good call. Even my mother thinks making video games is a good idea. Talking about a 180 right? Yeah the time, she's like, you're going to go borrow money and go back to school for what? I was like, that's what I'm doing. You know, I think that is such a powerful point, Matt. And I want to, I want to cite something you said earlier about you and your sister both going to the same school, unintentionally for two different things, but both in that, and to find out, wait, you're doing that same thing. That's amazing. But going there and having people think that you would be uh not related, but, but married, right. Or making those jokes, et cetera. So, but the idea about that ultimately is perception. People have their own. They have their own perspective. Your mom thought it wasn't a good idea and you're wasting or and you're gonna be wasting this money these people there thought that you and your sister were actually a couple not uh Siblings and the idea is in both cases. They were wrong, right? But But they don't know everything behind it. They don't know what's in your mind and in your heart They don't know what your journey is and what you're going to pursue and what greatness you can but you see it And when you have that vision clearly and the finer that you can make it, it may not end exactly as you see, but you will get much closer to that. uh And the beauty of it is all the things that happened that you never saw coming, that you never could have anticipated and didn't know you needed. You didn't know that these were the things that were gonna make such a difference to you and what you appreciated from the journey itself. Yeah, and I genuinely like I know it doesn't work out this way a lot, but I genuinely envy folks that I knew in high school that were like, this is the thing I want to do. they just and off to the races and never look back. It took me a little while to learn it. But um for me, you know, metaphorically, it's just like you can tell when you're swimming upstream or when you're swimming with current. And it could be really hard to figure out which way the stream's going. But once you do, it's just like You're just cruising. You just float sometimes. I mean, I'm not much of a floater, like, going in the direction that you've charted for yourself, uh you don't trip over your own feet as much. Like, self-actualization is like a real thing. Like, understanding that you should be doing X or Y, it just makes your life a lot easier once you're doing it. in business people say fail fast well i gotta tell you failing fast if you're doing what you don't like and don't want to do that hurts failing fast when you do what you do like is all learning experience um it's everything's everything's colored differently when you're when you're actually doing what you So true. Matt, Dragon's Gold, the success, the accolades, the things that we've achieved and experienced, and oftentimes they tend to be mindset, is there something that you would call out as Dragon's Gold from your journey? I um think enough years working with enough people, like on one side, we want to talk like Dragon's Gold, like I did get to like, know, pitch and develop and take into LiveOps with an amazing group of people, like a game that made a billion dollars in revenue, Game of Thrones Congress. So that like in the very practical, meaty sense, like that's a big deal to me. Because it's a big accomplishment, you know. But beyond that, like in the metaphorical sense, I think the most important thing, especially because they just didn't hand me that whole billion dollars, is that like working with other people in genuinely fulfilling work and assisting other people in growing and learning from other people, finding a discipline that seems like there is no level cap to it. That is fantastic. ah know, one of my hobbies is painting Warhammer models. I will never be as good as I can be at it ah making video games. I'll never be, it grows. For me, there is no room for boredom because there's no level cap. Like I could just keep going ah and learn new things and feel like it. Like I never stagnate. ah because the industry changes. When I got started, we were still shipping things uh on a CD. Now the idea of you having a CD drive on your computer is like, it was an old Luddite. um Mobile phones weren't smartphones when I got started. Having to relearn things and be creative to be at the forefront of how the industry changes. It's never boring. Even me working on a tiny little indie game with my buddy, was all learning. All learning all the time. ah I think the lack of level cap means that I never have to worry that I'm going to get bored with what I do. I love that. I love it. That's it. That's it. I agree completely. I agree completely. That's there's really no value to that. It's priceless. And I think just about every discipline has a component of that. If you love cuisine and cooking for people and it is like you're calling in what you want to do, then you will see how it has no level cap. A lot of it is perception. A lot of it is finding that thing. And so for me, it's video games. uh But I think one of the biggest call outs is like, if you sort of see the end of the road in whatever you're doing, maybe... oh That's not your jam. Thank you, brother. Yeah, I like to think that the mind once stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape. I've never heard it. I love that quote, but I have never heard what you said right now. And that I, that I idea of, of that road, right? There is no end to that. Road or if you if you know it's there it's finite in that regard then you will stop growing or you will achieve that like what's next and actually that point Matt, this is the Hall of Heroes There's a massive statue of Matt Zimmitti and it has a plaque that can see anything you want. What do you want it to say? Thanks, all. I have had I've met so many people that have been so good to me. I just gratitude. Thanks. It's nice, man. I like it. I. I think when you're out there doing what you love, you share something with the people around you that also love it that is so deep and interesting. No surprise, my wife's a big gamer. We're just in that vein. uh But I'm just so thankful So thank you. Thanks. Thanks all is probably what it would say. So, What's next? What's the next quest for Matt Zimmitti and Go On Entertainment? mean, we're really just getting started. We have this tiny little pixel graphic crafting trash management game called Cruft that's up on Steam and early access. uh Me and Will have other games in the works. uh We've had some chats with publishers about expanding our reach and what we can do. But a lot of it right now is just trying to get this tiny little bootstrapped business off the ground. We are self-funded. You know, it, and it's scary. um It's really interesting when um you're like, who's going to do X, who's going to do Y? Like the answer's always the same. It's just you and your buddy are going to do it. And you just find out really quickly how good of a pixel artist you are. um But it's, um for me, I've always wanted to start my own studio. And after 20 years in the business, like, that's the leap of faith. And so it builds some vigor back into my gray hairs aren't going to magically ungray themselves. But I feel like we're going to start again. It's awesome. That's amazing. And you're gonna rock it, brother. As you have with everything else, you put your work. Yeah, that's it. And that's why you're gonna rock it. That's the magic, that's the reason. It's because you're going to keep trying and keep going. And that's it, that's the secret sauce, brother. Matt, I've got one more question that I have to ask and this is my favorite question to ask. If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be and why? super easy question. I'm not playing to the crowd and I have a tattoo on my back to prove it. I would be a black dragon. They are, you know, massive and powerful, but tempered with like wisdom. It's like if you could do anything and be like this almost horrifyingly like, oh my God, it's the size of a bus or a 747, but at the same time, you know, show great wisdom and tact. um and control that to me is like perfect um and I'm a big fan of Naps and Sword Dragons so that fits in. That is perfect. That's great. I love that. One of the best answers I've had on this show by far, And for clarity's sake and for kindness, of course, there's no wrong answer to that. But the idea about the dragon, I'm biased. I have a tattoo of a dragon on my back as well. so kindred spirits, which I truly feel after this conversation, man, it's been so incredible. to share this time with you and to share some of your wisdom, some of your experience, your lessons with our listeners. So thank you for that time. This was awesome. Thank you very much for having me. It was actually a lot of fun, which is great. I love that. love that. That's definitely something that I aspire to and everything that I do enjoy. You gotta enjoy the journey, man. Like not everything's easy, but if you can laugh about it along the way, like that makes it a lot less painful. So my friends, thank you for joining us once again on our quest to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality. One mindset shifted at a time. We'll see you next time.

People on this episode

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Matt Zimmitti

Guest