Career Podcast Featuring Christina Seelye a complete ROCK STAR in the GAMING Industry : Women In Business.

In episode #72 of the 2B Bolder Podcast, Christina Seelye joins the show to share her insights from her amazing career in the gaming industry.  Christina is the Founder and CEO of Maximum Games and CEO of Zordix.  Zordix is a global video game development and publishing company.  The group currently consists of five studios and four publishers and leverages each entity’s unique capabilities and brand identity to deliver influential and entertaining content to gamers worldwide.  Zordix is developing games for release at retail as well as digital download channels across Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles and PC.  Seelye is a skilled entrepreneur in the video games and technology industries, as well as global products, digital transformation, and advancing startups. 

Christina is the recipient of numerous awards, including Executive of the Year from the American Business Awards in 2015 and Female Entrepreneur of the Year from the Stevie Awards for Women in Business in 2015 and 2018. In 2020 she was also recognized by the Women Presidents’ Organization as part of its Yearly Women 2 Watch list.

Hear about career options for women in the gaming industry and what resources and communities are there to help you network and navigate your career.  Christina talked about the lessons learned in starting, growing, and selling her business. How she kept driving forward when challenges came up and how she has fostered an inclusive culture for her company. I loved every minute of it and hoped you will too.
 
Connect with Christina Seelye on LinkedIn
Zordix
Women In Games International
The Gamer Hers

The 2B Bolder Podcast provides first-hand access to some amazing women. Guests will include women from leading enterprise companies to startups, women execs, coders, account execs, engineers, doctors, and innovators.

Listen to 2B Bolder for more career insights from women in tech and business.

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Transcript

Episode 72 - Christina Seelye

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, women, industry, game, games, video game industry, video games, gamer, business, career, company, publicly listed company, studios, creating, content, bolder, conversations, launched, good, goals

SPEAKERS

Christina Seelye, Mary Killelea

Mary Killelea  00:01

Hi there, my name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the 2B Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. 2B Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you; Encouraging you guys to show up, but to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. 

Mary Killelea  00:31

Hi there, thanks for tuning into the show. My name is Mary Killelea, and I'm the host today and I am joined by Christina Seelye. Christina is the founder and CEO of Maximum Games and the CEO of Zordix. Maximum Games is a top 20 North American full service video game publisher, and distributor with over 300 titles in its catalog. Zordix is a global video game development and publishing company. Its special talents include design, animation, 3D modeling, programming, web, marketing, sales, and CRM. Zordix is developing games for release at retail as well as the digital download channels across Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox consoles, and PC. Christina is a skilled entrepreneur in the video games and technology industries as well as global products, digital transformation, and advancing startups. Christina is the recipient of numerous awards, including Executive of the Year from the American Business Awards in 2015; and female entrepreneur of the year from the Stevies Award for Women in Business in 2015, and 18. In 2020. She was also recognized by the women's President organization as part of its yearly Women to Watch List. Christina, thank you so much for being here.

Christina Seelye  01:49

No problem. Thank you for having me.

Mary Killelea  01:51

Oh, you're welcome. Okay, I am excited about this conversation. I am sure a lot of listeners are quite intrigued with your expertise in the gaming business. I know I am. We would love to hear about your career journey, how you got started and kind of, you know the path which led you today.

Christina Seelye  02:07

Awesome. Awesome. Well, usually when people ask me about how I got into gaming, I say I'm a nationally ranked Fortnite player. And you can tell how people respond to that, of how knowledgeable they are about the video game industry. Because if you saw me in real life and met me, you would know that there is no possible way that I am a nationally ranked Fortnite player. And so whenever I say that kids always laugh really hard and then other other women that look like me go, they go, "you are? congratulations!" And I'm like no I am not! *laughs* And so, but honestly, how I got into this industry is that I've always really loved consumer technology. And I live in Northern California, so kind of by osmosis I, I live the world of technology here. And so my whole career has really been around consumer technology and bringing consumer technology to market. And selling that through channels. And so the you know, video games when I started this company, it was just really another piece of consumer technology. But now it's, I've really come to love the creativity and the complexity and the artistry that goes into every game that we launch. And so I really love it. So, but I started out as a music major at Sonoma State University. And I really thought I was going to be a rockstar. And clearly that did not work out. And so here I am making video games, which is pretty fun.

Mary Killelea  03:46

That's it. That's an equivalent of a rockstar. In some people's world!

Christina Seelye  03:51

Sure, sure, yeah, usually people say, "Oh, you're, you know, your kids must think you're so cool." And I say my kids don't, but my kids friends do.

Mary Killelea  04:02

Yes, exactly. So what are some of the pros and cons of being a woman in the gaming industry? I mean, you've seen it evolve, obviously.

Christina Seelye  04:12

Yeah, yeah, with GamerGate and a lot of the different things that you hear all about in the video game industry is a tough one. It's a tough one for men and women. It's a lot of the pressure of development, the pressure of a development against a timeline, plus the fact that everybody plays video games now and so the pressure of pleasing gamers and making sure they get good reviews and good meta critics and all of that kind of stuff. There's a lot of pressure within this industry for both men and women. I would say it's especially difficult for women just because of the few numbers of women that are in the industry. And I'm specifically talking about the business side of the industry because from a gamer standpoint, from a player standpoint, it's actually 50/50. There's a lot of women playing games and men playing games. In fact, the average age of a video gamer is 38. 

Mary Killelea  05:11

Wow!

Christina Seelye  05:12

It's way older than you think it is. And everybody plays games. And in fact, it's just that how they identify as a gamer is very different. So like a woman, she would not identify as a gamer unless she played games five days a week. Whereas like a man can play games one day a week and identify as a gamer, describe himself as a gamer. And so one of the difficulties for women in this space is that there's a lot of women, but they don't talk about it. They don't, they all playing games, but they're not identifying as a gamer. And there's very few women actually working in the industry, which creates a problem of normalization of women in the industry. They're not, they're not seeing other people like them in executive level positions within the company. They're not seeing other women like them out in public talking about video games. And so I think that that's one of the things for us and for me, is really important for me to be out there and be visible and, and kind of normalize women being in this industry.

Mary Killelea  06:21

There's so many nuggets there. So let's talk about the opportunities within the gaming world from a career standpoint. You know, I know that you were saying there's a lack of role models, but not even knowing what the opportunities are is sometimes half the battle too.

Christina Seelye  06:36

So the video game industry is gigantic. So no matter what you want to do, there's a place for you within the video game industry. And that's true if you were into marketing, or if you're in sales, or if you're a developer, or if you are an office manager, or a real estate, you know, broker of new places, they're so- the industry is so big, that there is a place for you within this industry, no matter what it is. To give you an idea, you know, if you take all of TV, all of movies, all of music, all of books, you add all of that together, add 50%, that's the size of the video game industry. It's gigantic, and people don't realize it because they think it's just people in their basements playing games, but that's not what's happening. So when you look at what you can do within this industry, you really have all of your kind of standard roles as far as like sales, marketing, administration, and all of that kind of stuff. But then you also have all of the technology roles of developer and, and project manager and all of the kind of things that you would normally see in a software or technology company. But then additionally, what you have is a huge amount of artists. And so there is like on an enterprise software development team, you might have 10 engineers, 10 developers, and you would have two or three artists. In video game world that's separate. That's that's like, flip flopped. So you would have 10 artists that are also developers, because they're, you know, they're very high end technical artists. But then they have and then you would only have like three straight programmers. And so there's a really a huge opportunity for anybody who's really into art, and who wants to create great games. There's, there's a place for everyone.

Mary Killelea  08:26

I love that. Is there, like on the job training to keep up with the tech because I'm sure it's so you know, fast paced, as far as you know, the progression and innovation?

Christina Seelye  08:37

Yeah, exactly. It's a highly innovative industry. And you can when you hear everybody batting around these words, right now, today, like virtual reality, augmented reality, AI, all of these innovative tech, technologies that we're talking about today are actively being used in video games. So if you are working in this industry, your on the job training is everything that you're learning to just even get your daily tasks done. It's a difficult industry in that you have to be very change comfortable, right? Because the industry is moving so fast, that even if we provided this phenomenal level of, you know, company training to onboard you into the organization, if you're not on if you're not learning as you go, you're going to fall behind really fast because the technology in the industry moves so fast. If you talk to the people who worked at Maximum Games, you know, we shipped our first game in 2010 If you talk to anybody who's been here for like a long time, you know, more than five or six years, they would tell you that they feel like they've worked for a different company every 18 months, because it just moves so fast. We're learning so much that like on the job training is constantly happening. In fact, one of the core values of our business in particular, of Maximum Games, and Zordix, the company, the parent company, and I'll talk a little bit about that too, is being an avid learner. Because what we found is that the people who are happiest here and the people who are most successful in this industry just had a predisposition to learning things. And we use that in our interviewing, we use it in promotion track and leadership track, because the industry is moving so fast that you really have to be a learner in order to kind of keep up. 

Mary Killelea  10:35

You know, you touched on something great. Because I think women listening need to realize that skills that they have, can be transferable based on that mindset of having that growth mindset or having the comfortableness with ambiguity, that those are real strengths.

Christina Seelye  10:52

Absolutely, they are strengths. And I think that when you look at this, I just had a conversation earlier this week with somebody who wanted to transition into the video game industry. And we went through their, their CV, their resume, and we talked through all of the different experiences that they had had in the industry that they were from, and how those would transfer into the video game industry. Because the, you know, the video game industry is technology that is for consumers, that is entertainment focus, and is sold through channels. There's a lot a lot of people whose jobs today can, you can grab on to one of those components and be able to talk about how it's relevant for the industry. And that's especially true for women. One of the things that I always say is that what we need in the company, I say this all the time, we need event planners. Because even though we're not having an event, those same skill sets that you would use to create and launch an event are exactly the same kind of skill sets for launching a game. Because it's a set of dependencies that all have to come together in a certain order in order to drive to one date. And so especially if you're like I'm like get a wedding planner to do it, because they are totally the people who know how to navigate and corral all the cats. Because you can't change that date because we're getting married on this day. 

Mary Killelea  12:18

Right. Right. 

Christina Seelye  12:20

So it's part of the industry, there's a lot of transferable skills is my point there.

Mary Killelea  12:25

Yeah. And that's great that you also made me think of it because in my role, I work on campaigns. And then there's like, kind of always-on advertising. But what I hear you saying is like their specific launch dates, 

Christina Seelye  12:38

Yeah. 

Mary Killelea  12:39

Okay.

Christina Seelye  12:40

There is. There's, so in many ways, video games is very similar to how a movie is launched, or a TV show is launched. There's a date, we're creating buzz driving to that date that, you know, the next Marvel movie is going to come out or Black Panther is coming out or the next, you know, House of the Dragons, or whatever. We're all, we know what that date is and we're driving towards it. Last week, God of War launched and everybody, like, literally, we had people here that just took two days off because God of War launched and they wanted to go home and play it. And so we're driving to a date in the same way. And all of our campaigns, all of the buzz creation, everything kind of drives to that date. But for you know, the three years before that date that you were developing the game, was also driving to that date. You know, and so that's, that's kind of how it works internally. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who have transferable skills that will work in that.

Mary Killelea  13:41

I love this. So what's one insight that you think professional, young, in their careers need to hear or might be overlooking?

Christina Seelye  13:51

Well, this is not necessarily related to video games. This is just what I'm experiencing with people when they're first entering the workforce, is and I don't know if we've put this pressure on kids, or if they're putting it on themselves as they enter the workforce. I'm not really sure. But I feel like they have to decide what they're good at before they know what they're good at. And we force them into a major or what you know, we ask them questions like 'what do you want to do?' Instead of asking them questions like, 'what do you enjoy?' Or' how are you bringing value to the world?' Or, you know, we're asking them these questions in a way that they have no idea. They don't know what they're good at yet. Like they and so I think that the biggest insight is just try things. Try things. Try different positions in different parts of the organization. Because you might think that you really want to be in sales, but you're actually way better suited for marketing. Or maybe you think you want to be in marketing, but actually you're really a great project manager and you will be better suited and development because you really can, you know, understand how to corral the cats, you know, and organize a great project. I think that the insight I would provide is like, don't decide too early. Go, go try. And then the questions I would ask is actually more around, where am I adding value? Where you know, and asking that of your manager and asking that of your peers. Like, what what do I really help out with? What do you think that I'm good at? Because I think that you're going to be happiest and you're gonna do your best work when you're bringing value? 

Mary Killelea  15:41

Yeah, absolutely. Can you share a lesson learned from a pivotal moment in your own personal career? Where you felt like, Okay, this is a moment I'm having it!

Christina Seelye  15:52

There's been so many, there's been so many, both good and bad. You know, there's a lot of things that you learn from failure. And then there's a lot of like pivotal moments that happen, because you did something really well. You know, and I think that very early in my career, I realized that it was, I remember the moment, I remember the woman I was with who was my mentor and my boss at the time. And I realized that I was really good at what we then called business development. And we sat in a meeting. And we listened to what the executive on the other side of the table was saying their issues were. And it was not part of our presentation. It wasn't what we were going in there to sell. It was, and this was pre-video games, I was selling internet security at that time. And, and I just learned that I could sit there and listen to somebody's issue, and then figure out all the different ways that the internet security software that I was working for at the time, could address these issues within the company. And I was working, and my mentor and boss at the time, she and I with no, no previous experience doing this and we did not organize this before the meeting, we just played off each other in that meaning to come up with a new plan on the fly that was very specific to expand the business. And I realized that that was kind of what I was really good at, I was really good at expanding the business opportunity. And I was very young in that position. That was like very early in my career. But what I did was I took that and said, Okay, how can I take this skill of expand- the, you know, expanding the opportunities of revenue to other areas. And that's kind of where I ended up being more of an entrepreneur. Because that's what I was really good at is growing something and finding all the different ways to create revenue from one idea or one piece of content. And it's still what we're doing today. As a video game company we are looking for how do we expand the world of video games outside of the traditional video game channels? And we're doing things like selling video game soundtracks, on vinyls, we're creating merchandise and doing Collector's Editions around the same piece of content that we created for video games. So that like pivotal moment of understanding how to expand content and to different revenue channels, even though that content was like internet security, and not very exciting, has really informed all of the growth over all of the other entrepreneurial, you know, companies that I started.

Christina Seelye  16:25

A couple of things that you said in there. One, the fact that you acknowledge that you can learn from failures, I think is so important because some people are scared to admit failure, whereas I think they need to be able to embrace failure and fail forward, fast.

Christina Seelye  19:10

You know, who's really good at embracing failure?

Mary Killelea  19:13

Who?

Christina Seelye  19:14

Gamers! You know, why? Because you fail all the time in a game. And I talk about this all the time internally to our team here, is that reminding them, they already have the skill of how to manage failure. Because you know what, when you're playing a game, and you die, you do not stop. You don't get sad and go sit in a corner and not talk to anybody. I mean, sometimes you do if you're really tilted, but most of the time, that failure, you actually not only are excited and motivated to try again, but you are very aware of the mistakes that you made and how are you going to do this differently the next time you try. Because now you know that that guy has a sword around that corner.

Mary Killelea  20:02

Right.

Christina Seelye  20:03

And so I need this weapon or I need to turn this direction in order to clear this level. And so just having those moments of conversation with people, especially within the workplace to say, Hey, listen,  you already know how to fail forward, you feel forward every day when you're playing. And then all of a sudden, they realize the power of failure, the power of learning that you have. Because if you just could run through a game the first time and clear all the levels, that wouldn't be fun. You know, part of the reason is that you fail all the time, and you get to learn from it.

Mary Killelea  20:40

That is an awesome metaphor. I love that. I've never thought of that before. But it just rings so true.

Christina Seelye  20:46

Another thing that is in the same idea of that people have all of these skill sets that they don't realize they have from being a gamer that they can apply at work. And one of the things that happened to me is my oldest son actually worked here. He works here now, but he worked here before in a role. And we were walking around, he walked up to me in the office and said, hey, I levelled up today. And I was like, oh, yeah, what were you playing? He just like, no, no, I leveled up at work. I was like, what? And, and he goes, Yeah, I did, I finished, I completed a localization pass. Which is this process of taking language out of the game, getting it localized into other languages, putting it back into the game and testing it. He had completed that loop,. That game loop of, you know, doing that. And the feeling that it had within him was the same feeling he has when he clears a level. And I thought that that was really fascinating that if we could take the tasks that we have, and the things that we have to learn at work, and look at it with a gamers lens, and say, oh, what I'm doing here is, you know, bringing out all of these skills to this project so that on the other side of it, I feel like I leveled up. And so it's a, it's just another way of talking to people about how you read all of these books about how to succeed at work, and all of that kind of stuff, and different leadership books or different like career advice books, and I and I'm like, you know, be a gamer at work. 

Mary Killelea  22:24

I think there's a right you need to write a book in your future. How life relates to gaming!

Christina Seelye  22:30

Exactly, exactly!

Mary Killelea  22:33

What has been one of your career highlights?

Christina Seelye  22:35

Um, I think that really, it's probably been this past year of selling. So I founded Maximum Games, in 2010, is when we shipped our first game, and then I sold it last year at the end of December, to a publicly listed company in Sweden. And on the other side of that transaction, I actually became CEO of the publicly listed company in Sweden, at the end of February of 2022, just earlier this year. And that puts me in an in a unique situation in that there are only two female CEOs of publicly listed companies in the videogame industry. Only two! Me and this woman, Debbie Bestwick, who lives in the UK, who's fantastic. And so I think that was kind of a really important career highlight for me, not just of kind of selling my company and going through that process, but I'm creating a path where women are in a position within this industry, where we're making decisions, we have influence, we get to decide what games are funded, and what games we bring to market. And and we really have the opportunity for, you know, for change.

Christina Seelye  23:10

That's amazing. Congratulations. That is a huge accomplishment. Let's go back because I'm fascinated by how you the- not nerve, but the confidence, the the nerve to start your own business!

Christina Seelye  24:15

Well, most of it is because I'm unemployable. And what I always say is that I am not a good employee. In fact, I quit a job early in my career, because there was like a dress code and I think they wanted us to wear like nylons or pantyhose or something. And I was like, oh no, I'm not doing that. And luckily, I ended up in the video game industry in Northern California where we can just only wear hoodies and tennis shoes. *laughs* But I, you know, I probably I'm not like risk tolerant at the same level as like the free solo guy. You know, his level of risk tolerance is really crazy. But I do have a pretty high tolerance for risk. So I, the combination of a high level of risk tolerance and an unhealthy ability, you know, belief in my own ability to get things done is what is probably true of almost all entrepreneur types. 

Mary Killelea  25:23

How have you personally overcome or practiced overcoming self doubt?

Christina Seelye  25:28

That's a good one. I mean, I think that every I think women talk about self doubt all the time, and impostor syndrome, and all of those kind of things. I think that it's actually true of both men and women. I think that deep down, women, you know, men have those same kind of insecurities, whether or not they are comfortable talking about that in the same way that women are is probably a conversation for a different time. But, I mean, we've all been there, we all are nervous about the decisions that we're making. But I'll tell you, what. I have met people all over the world, that are all running businesses, and I've met a lot of people who I thought were like, you know, in very high positions, making really big decisions. And I, after I talked to them for a couple of minutes, I'm like, Yeah, I got this, you know? And so I think that that's, you know, when people have self doubt, they should just remind themselves of conversations they've had over the course of their life, and then they'll realize that they're gonna be just fine.

Mary Killelea  26:31

Yeah, I always think of the the old saying, like, everyone puts on the pants the same way, you know? Like, no one's better than the other, it might be that they're just putting the gas on a little stronger than the other, but everyone has it within themselves somehow to find it. So back to Maximum Games. When you started that business, how did you set out to differentiate yourself from the competition?

Christina Seelye  26:55

Yeah, you know, when you talk to most entrepreneurs, they will all tell you that, I mean, most of them, I think were saying that they did not set out to create the company that they ended up running. Most of the time, you're starting a company because there was a demand for a service or a product you could provide. And that's not very sexy, but at the same time, that's actually what how it works, I think. And I think that even if you go through entrepreneurial classes, within, you know, master's programs, or sometimes you know, you can major in that in college now, what they're always telling you is actually, to find the gap. Go find the gap of the product or service that is needed and then fill that and your company, you know, kind of blossoms from there. And that is 100%, the truth of how Maximum Games started and how we can how we differentiated. Basically, how the company started is that there was content, video game content that had launched in Europe that had not launched in the US. And so there was this gap of product that was already done, content that already existed, no additional money needed to be put into that content in order to launch it here. And we but you know, Walmart wasn't carrying it, Target wasn't carrying it. And this was back in the days of like, Nintendo DS and 3DS where you had to buy the card, there was no downloading \that content, you had to go buy them in stores. And people in the US weren't able to get that content. And so we cut some deals in order to bring  that to market here. And then we just continued to grow and expand the company, you know, to doing everything that we do today. So when we started, we only worked with already done content. We didn't have any developers, it actually started in my house and, and my actual refrigerator was our office fridge. And we had like eight people working in the house at one point and my bathrooms were disgusting, because there were so many people there every day. And so, but from that point on, we just moved to become involved in the projects earlier and earlier. Ultimately, where we are today, where we have studios all over the world who are creating content and we're launching that content all over the world.

Mary Killelea  29:28

That's amazing. Walk us through like the acquisition process. How did that go?

Christina Seelye  29:35

Yeah, that was crazy. So um, so this I mean, I sold my previous company Maximum Games is not my first company. It's actually my fourth. I had had multiple companies within consumer technology, and specifically bringing games to retail and bringing consumer technology through digital channels and things like that. I've been doing that for a long time and Maximum Games is just the latest one of that. And so when it came to- we had reached the point in, like come 2020/2021, where we realized that without additional capital, because we had completely self funded the company from start until you know, the time that we sold it. And what we realized is that the kind of games we wanted to work on, and the kind of projects we wanted to do, were actually, you know, we just weren't, we were always profitable, but we didn't have enough free cash to invest in a game. Because games take about two to three years to make. And so we were like, in order for us to move to the next level, in order, in order for us to get a lot bigger, we're either going to have to raise money or, you know, get acquired and merge with someone else to take us to the next level. And so that was just an interesting point to realize that this is the right answer for the next growth phase. And, and so we started looking around for the, you know, who would be the right partner, and we were really good publishers. So we were really good around, you know, selling products all over the world, but we only had a few developers and studios creating content. Zordix, the company, publicly listed company in Sweden had a lot of studios. And they had a lot of content and they were looking for more publishing expertise. So it was a really good merge of skill sets and people. Where they had a lot of studio content and we had a lot of publishing chops to launch games around the world. And so we thought it'd be a good mix to put us together. And so went through that whole process. And then, and then, you know, became CEO of the whole thing on the other side, which is really exciting. And it's really great to work with people all over the world. So we have studios, in Hungary, in Brazil, in Sweden, in you know, the US. And then we have sales and marketing teams in France, and in the UK, and here in the US. And so I really get to work with a lot of amazing cultures and amazing people. And video games are- is one of the most global forms of entertainment. When you look at TV, movies, music, although there are some that become global, most of the time, entertainment is pretty regional, and video games are an exception to that. You know, video games, we make a video game, it's sold everywhere, all over the world. And so it's really fun to work on it with a global mindset and worldview every day.

Mary Killelea  32:51

I absolutely love that someone of your stature, you know, at the company, CEO level takes the time to come on a show like this and share your expertise and just insights! You know, like just real conversations about the industry that most people wouldn't have access to. And I'm curious, when you're creating a new game, is it like someone coming in and pitch you?

Christina Seelye  33:17

Yeah, that's a good question. It works a couple of different ways. So one of the ways it, you know, one, one option is people come and pitch us their games. And so that's very much like the movie industry or TV industry, where you go, and in fact, we call it the same thing. We call it the greenlight process. And it's the same thing. We get something that looks like a script. It might be, it doesn't, it's not all the words, but it's like a shortened version of what the script of the game would look like. We usually have some concept art. In some cases, we have a prototype, to show what the game mechanic is going to be or what the game loop is going to be. We there's usually something called a GDD, which is like the full script, which is a game design document. These are the kinds of things that we get pitched, that content, all of that stuff comes in, and we have a guy that manages that funnel. And so it all comes in and then he plays it all and looks at it all and it gets consolidated and then it gets pitched to what's the greenlight team every week, Thursdays at 8am. And, and then we listen to that and go through it and we compare it against what we already have in our roadmap and things like that. That's one of the ways. Another way is kind of with our own studios. And that's a little different. That one is really more on what is that studio have a really specific skill set at doing, what are they interested in building? What genre of games do we want to play in and where do we want to lead? What area do we feel like we can be really competitive and make money? And so, in for our internal studios, that is a very rigorous process that's looking at, you know, each studio has a game that has a P&L, that we know how we're going to make it. And what we're looking for there is, you know, can we really make a difference in this genre? Can we lead in this genre with something really interesting? And so we have about 11 games in development right now, between all of our different studios. And they really kind of cover a lot of different genres, from fighting games, to sports simulation, you know, to narrative adventure. So we have a lot of different genres that we're developing within our studios.

Mary Killelea  35:45

As a woman, CEO, are you mindful of heroines within the stories?

Christina Seelye  35:50

Yeah, one of the things that was funny a couple years ago, when we we had a roadmap, and we were, I think we're at GDC, which was a big video game conference in San Francisco. And a reporter asked me, she's like, are you purposeful with the all of your games and your roadmap this year have female protagonists? And I was like they do? I didn't even know, I really didn't know. And what was funny about that is that that, to me shows the importance of women being in the room, when you're making those decisions. Because women being in the room, we were making all of the those decisions based on the quality of the game, and what we liked, and we didn't have any bias around it being a woman protagonist, we just were looking at the game. And so it shows you the difference. Little subtle things that bias can do that you would look at that and notice it, and we didn't even notice. You know, we afterwards were like, oh, yeah, it is!

Christina Seelye  36:18

It is so so important to have women in the room, for sure. I read once that you said establishing goals that promote personal growth are critical. How do you go about setting your own goals?

Christina Seelye  37:12

So my own goals or, for both, for the team? I mean, I'm super goal oriented, obviously. You know, I mean, I think that I have, you know, every year I have goals, to make, and and I'm, again not afraid to write them down, even if I don't meet them. I'm totally fine with it, because I just like the process of casting and out loud and things like that. But I think actually what when I think about goals, I think about how important it is to set that up for a team and for the people that I'm working with and create an environment where they are meeting and reaching and exceeding their own goals. Not just the objectives of the business, but also what are they trying to accomplish? And we have had multiple times over the past, you know, 10 years, where we've had to reorganize, because the business had shifted, and it was different. And the skill set we needed was different and we had to have those hard conversations with people. And a lot of the ways you can successfully navigate that and successfully have those conversations, is having a mindset of people meeting, reaching, and exceeding their goals, so that they can do their highest, best work. And if we are not structured in a way that they can do their highest best work, then maybe it's not a good fit for them anymore to work here. So it's actually a great way to have conversations with people to continue on in their career internally, but also sometimes to have the conversations that you're not going to meet your goals here. And you're not going to be able to exceed your own personal expectations here because the business has shifted and the skill set is different that we need. So it's just important to think about goals, personal and career and work goals because it can help you, you know, in good times and in bad times. It can help you decide to stay within a career and a job and it can help you decide to move on.

Mary Killelea  39:10

Yeah, absolutely. If you said something earlier that surprised me. And that was that 50% of gamers are women. 

Christina Seelye  39:17

Mhm

Mary Killelea  39:17

That number really shocked me. Talk to me about Women in Games International.

Christina Seelye  39:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah! So when you talk about first let's talk about like women playing games. What I'm saying is that there's just as many men playing at playing games as women are playing games. Is it 50/50 On Call of Duty? No. Is it 50/50 On Candy Crush? No. So Words with Friends maybe? I don't know. You know what I mean? Like that. There's there's such a gigantic, broad, like different games and game genres that are out there in the world, that there are women and men playing all of those games. Sometimes we have in our mind that that of being a gamer means that you're just sitting there in front of a controller and right going like this. And, you know, so the there's not equal men and women playing games across all genres. It's just like, overall in the industry, playing games is what I'm saying. And then also, for Women in Games International, I'm on the board of that organization. And we work very specifically with women who want to continue in their career, on the business side or on the development side, but in within the industry of video game creation. And so they're just such a great, great organization for people to help women get in to their first entry level job. But then also, we have a full curriculum of how to move up within the organization. And we have mentors, and we have classes, we have events at every trade event and industry event that we have, that you'll see. There's a whole team of people that are there from WIGI, that's what we call it. And helping women not just enter the industry, but continue their career growth in all different types of positions within the industry. And I love, I love this organization. Joanie Kraut is the CEO, and she's just doing a phenomenal job helping women both enter and continue their successful career path and video games.

Mary Killelea  41:40

And that's so important is progression and retention, you know, so I am so excited, I will include that in the show notes to make sure everyone has access to that. Are there any other good resources that you can recommend around, you know, building community for women in gaming?

Christina Seelye  41:56

Yeah! So WIGIis really great on the business side if you want to work in the industry, but there's also an organization called the Game Hers, G-A-M-E, H-E-R-S. Game Hers. And they're really focused on women gamers. And creating community around women who are playing games and, and being comfortable identifying as a gamer and, and there, Rebecca Dixon is the woman who's running that organization. And she's also great. And that's really great, especially if you, you know, have kids and you know, daughters, nieces that are playing games, and you want them to have support and, and a safe space to talk about all of their gaming experiences and other people that game with, the Game Hers is a great community and organization to tap into.

Mary Killelea  42:52

Is there anything that you would do differently if you started off your career again? 

Christina Seelye  42:56

That's a - I don't know that anybody's ever asked me that before? Um, no I don't think so!

Mary Killelea  43:02

That's a good, that's a good feeling, isn't it?

Christina Seelye  43:04

Yeah, I don't think so. There's a lot of things that I think that I can look back on like business wise, that I would say, Oh, that was too risky, or I should have taken that path or I should have turned here. But I don't know, like when you go back and look at it, there is a throughline of smarter people would have stopped a lot sooner than I did. There that there is a little bit of a throughline of that. But um, but I think that all the things that you learn are good along the way. I think that I'm really really glad that I had parents and a family around me and a husband and kids who were really flexible and supportive with my need to start and grow businesses. I think one of the things that I know a lot of other you know, women who have run companies have reminded everyone, is choose carefully, your partner in crime for your your life. Because I think it really makes a difference on you know, how free you feel, to take these risks of starting companies or working hard or being brave and doing hard things and, and I am very blessed that I am in a situation where I have a phenomenal husband and family who are very supportive of of all of my crazy business ideas and goals for myself.

Mary Killelea  44:45

Does your brain ever shut off?

Christina Seelye  44:47

Yes, I really like TV. And so I love at the end of the day to just shut everything off and watch something like that's very- like I love Grey's Anatomy. I love, *laughs*

Mary Killelea  45:02

*laughs*

Christina Seelye  45:06

You know, and I, so I do I, you have to. You kind of have to turn it off a little bit, but I turn it off by- gaming does not let your brain turn off, right? Because gaming is still very active. It's very interactive. I call it passive entertainment, which is you're just sitting there and having the TV, you know, entertain you. And I do do that.

Mary Killelea  45:30

What does 2B Bolder mean to you?

Christina Seelye  45:32

You know, that's a great question. I love, I think that when my comms team came and said 2B Bolder podcast, I was like, Oh my gosh, I love that I love the encouragement to go be bolder. I say to my team all the time, that we are brave, and we do hard things. And I think that if you're not out there being brave and being bold, then, you know, what are you doing? You know? And so I would say, you know, it really is inspiring to see and to encourage others. And what I love about that is that you're saying, like, I got it as an encouragement to me like to be bolder, go be bolder, go do hard things go be brave. And, and it's not to be bold. It's to be bolder. It's to be a little bit more than what you're doing today, which I also love. Because having that kind of growth mindset and learning and being an avid learner and doing more tomorrow. I love that way of living.

Mary Killelea  46:49

Thank you so much for being here. Before we sign off, is there anything that you want to tell the listeners that we didn't cover today? 

Christina Seelye  46:56

No, you're so good. This was great. I really enjoyed it. And if you want to know more about gaming, please check out what we're doing at Zordix and all of our different subsidiaries. And then if you want to get in the industry, Women in Games International is a really great way to start.

Mary Killelea  47:15

Thank you so much for being here.

Christina Seelye  47:16

Thanks!

Mary Killelea  47:16

Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to please go check out our website at 2Bbolder.com That's the number two, little B, bolder.com.