From Finance Hell to Gaming Heaven: John Wright on GOAT

hello hello another episode from gamigin on air today and today we have mate luncher H sorry like you introduced yourself in the two and half gam yeah yeah s sorry John right apologies people coming here is already kind of celebrity so like I let's you do the intro who are you John I'm John R I'm not very important you don't need to know me I'm officially unemployed that's what you honestly serious now I'm John Ry I am a gaming industry consultant advisor and investor previously I was the vice president of mobile games at qual where I was managing about 200 people globally including multiple Studios and before that I was part of the founding team of Luna Labs which was a creative technology specializing in playable development which was acquired by Iron Source then went public and then was acquired by uni so I've been in gaming for 12ish years now and then before that I was an accountant and don't do Finance

it sucks okay I think if we had to pick like literally one industry opposite direction of uh gaming that would be Finance right that would be Finance dude basically don't always listen to your parents when they say you know playing games means that you won't make money I make much more money playing games than I ever did in finance that's that's actually so well said like parents say that you waste your time by playing games and you go to finance for money and you'll see that you wasted your years in final and you come to G me six [ __ ] years of my life bro studying accounts you know I can't get that years back it was it hell I hated it never do it you know for you the young guys out there who are watching this podcast now go with your guts and go what makes do what makes you happy don't follow your parents because they want you to be a doctor a lawyer or an accountant because if you do it for someone else's reasons you won't be happy life logic

John has been saving so many cool shoes as you see in his background that was the only way as he claims yeah look the shoes is a there's a story to the shoes after we solved Luna Labs it was during covid and uh basically instead of doing the things that everyone else does normally when they they sell a business and get exit money which is go on holiday and because it was covid me and my wife couldn't do that so instead of that I bought a load of Jordans because growing up my family could never afford them so I uh decided when I first made Ser you know that that lifechanging event and made that money I was going to live up to my childhood hopes and I bought an insane amount of Jordans because why not you know it made me happy yes I I love it like in my childhood I also had like a toy car uh selection from like different ones like from Volkswagen Etc and

they are still there at my home like yellow how is it called like I think yeah yeah exactly yeah love it you're in Germany anyway right so like it's the home of like home of German automobiles right yeah BMW Mercedes ET yeah look dude things I mean again it was it was great catching up with you at mobadi dictum you know always fun to hang out if you don't know he does fantastic impersonations and languages so if you ever want to what did I think you the only one you you did to me you did an English accent and it was like it wasn't on point but the other couple you did were really interesting because if I remember right you you originally wanted to be an actor right and you did some acting and yeah voice acting was part of that so yeah yeah I remember the story dude that's that's lovely man you know I had some some personal changes in my life you know my wife and I we adopted two little boys two brothers in July last year and you know things at quali were fantastic IC but

there was same as a lot of companies right now they have quite a strong office policy right and you you know there's a requirement to go to the office X number of days a week and where the office was a very long way it was 200 miles away from where I live in East London and basically it just wasn't feasible dude I had to make the decision as a man as a father as a husband like where do my morals sit and what do I want to be known for and you know being away from my children for half a week every week just just didn't sit well with me like internally right like in my soul so I had to make the really tough decision to to leave Kali even though I absolutely loved it I had the best job ever you know it was I was managing 200 people globally there was multiple different Studios that I was in charge of I was doing internal game development you know third party publishing and also everything to do with marketing user acquisition monetization creating pmm

all of that stuff rolled up to me so I was effectively like the GM of the mobile business and it was an insane role right like every day I was working with cool people on cool projects producing new games you know coming up with new ideas and strategies to improve the company improve the process the operations testing new technology it was an awesome job but I had to I had to give that up for what I know is the higher priority in my life which is my family right and I think a lot of people understand that I think some people think that probably they they it was the wrong move but since since I made that decision I sleep a lot easier I sleep in my own bed every night which is great I spend I I take my kids to school every day and I pick them up every day and look I'm really enjoying the new freedom to do what I want and and like I said as as being an industry consultant and

advisor um I get to work with whoever I like right it's not just doing something for the sake of it I choose the people I interact with and I I want to interact with cool people who are building awesome things that could be either games or Tech and I want to do it for my own reasons rather than you know just doing it for someone else so I'm acting effectively like a founder of my own consultancy right and it's great again like I've had some people contact me and say hey we would love to work with you and and I've G no and it's not to be rude it's just because I didn't believe in what they were doing right and now I can choose so yeah very much enjoying the new the new life I'm there it's uh it's a good time dude like I said I get more time family I I'm doing more impactful work I think you know the major difference is when you're managing like 200 people big percentage of your day is to do with like um onetoone meetings or joining

calls or or just doing like operational stuff documentation approving HR fixs and doing approving purchase orders for UA spends on Facebook and in this current role all I do is really strategic stuff right I deal with pure Founders and so in quy I was probably only spending 10% of my time on strategy because you're dealing with operations now I'm doing 90% strategy and probably 10% operations and it's just it's just a new way of doing really impactful core work dude which I love that's that's actually so well said it's like literally the meat with different fat ratio you know like right now the meat quality is so high it's directly protein for you yeah exactly that's really cool like who is actually John so like my biggest curiosity outside of business let's you

know put aside gaming industry like you know your hobbies what you enjoy we actually see that you are a gim Jim bro yeah I am a gim bro but no my um what you need to know about me is I love walking on sandy beaches and drinking margaritas no that's a joke I do like doing that but that's not my that's not one of my things but no dude um look Sports is a big thing to me I played semi-professional rugby throughout my I really believe that there is a correlation between my experience playing sports and and predominantly being a captain of a team and into my management style and how I've run businesses in the past I I really count like the camaraderie and playing team sports and you know rugby was predominantly the one I did but I also played football at school you I played for the school team and I also played basketball for the school team and you know I've always had um um an

affiliation with sports and I think it teaches you a lot of life skills right like I'm really looking forward to my kids to start going to football practice because I think it will help their development right how you deal with people respect how you deal with confrontation sometimes right like it teaches you a lot of of life skills so yeah Sports is is a big one for me rugby in particular I don't play now because I'm just I'm I'm nearly 40 and my bones will break there so I've moved from playing you know competitive contact Sports to um you know doing High rocks and weightlifting you'll see on link in pictures of me and mate and Felix working out or me and Mishka katov working out or me and some CEO of a studio working out because I have a a practice which is when I'm at um uh conferences and events I try and have like some impartial meetings with people in the gym and I think there's there's something nice about working out together there's a bond that's created and then you can also like get to know

someone a bit more and then that helps develop maybe sometimes a business or professional relationship so I like it there's a bunch of people out there who do like running clubs at PGC but I'm not a runner I'm too big you know like it's just it just doesn't work for me too big to run yeah I'm too big to run I do run I'm going for a run straight after this actually because I have I haven't gone for one this week and I have to go for at least one run a week but it's you know it's tough for me when you're a big guy um and then look the other things I guess to know about me again like I'm a very family Centric person you know I I've been with my wife 15 years married this year nearly 20 years being in a relationship our two boys are extremely important to us I you know I I make sure that my mom and my rest of my family are looked after because I love them and same that everyone says but they're you know they they they're very much in my faults on a on a regular basis like you know like when I'll make decisions and I'll think my mom think of

that you know her her opinion means a hell of a lot to me and I've always been sort of raised by strong women and had strong women in my life and it's it's a very important aspect of who I am is to to make sure that I think they would be proud of me even even if I'm taking a new job right and I'm like is does this yeah what what would the opinion of my friends or family be um apart from that dude I'm just a geek I love playing games I Read Manga anime like I play RPGs um lro is the my currently what I'm playing the most of right now but but you know my you know all I've got like a sleeve of tattoos which is dedicated to Final Fantasy because it's my favorite game series ever right and so yeah look I'm I'm also like an extremely happy guy and the reason I'm happy all the time is because you know as we said earlier I started off my career in finance and I hated it it was terrible and so every day get to work in games and do what I

love and marry my passion to my professional ability it's a good day you know like I can't not be happy even on a bad day in gaming is better than a good day in finance trust me yeah so yeah I mean that's that's I guess that's a a lot about me from a personal perspective that's actually like very well summarized love it Finance to gaming and also like you climb the letters one by one need to point it out that it's like not easy to be VP Mobile gaming publishing in Kali like it took so much effort to come there I actually would like to ask about what did you learn from all these yeah look I think it's a really good question like what are my sort of like most impactful faults and things I've learned so I guess the big one is it's very hard to do anything by yourself um like you can do you can do solos stuff right you can

build a company by yourself but I think one of the most important things I found and again this starts off with my my background in sports and playing team sports like I've always been a big believer in like you could be much more successful together if you're truly in it together right so if you if you're if you surround yourself with similar minded people who have the same drive the same want you know in life the same passions if you if you can find those people that you click really well with then you can establish culture and that's like how you develop culture in startups and stuff like that is by finding people who you know want to achieve the same things to you so I would say yeah big thing for me was understanding that you know it's okay to to get support it's okay to work with other people like it's it's not you versus them you know a lot of people think that it's directly you versus someone is competition but actually together you can lift each other up be much more powerful together as a team

yeah I I would say you know understanding that you can rely on other people and uh you can build teams and culture and stuff like that and that is where most of My Success has come from is is definitely a point which is um always at the front of my mind the other thing I would say is you know again it goes back to passion and doing what you love I feel like the people who are the best at what they do and it could be anything could be you know VP of publishing it could be a doctor I don't know a cleaner what whatever you want to say whatever your chosen position and job in life is if you do that job with General passion and enjoyment I believe that you just do it much better and I also believe happy people work harder happy people get better results because it's a mindset thing when you're in a good mood and you're happy and you believe in yourself you less you're less like L to say like

to to put yourself down and and basically come to a conclusion that you can't do something difference between like coming up with Solutions or highlighting problems what you want is someone who's going to come up with Creative Solutions to a problem not just come to you and say I've got a problem you know fix it right and so like those mindsets I think are you know extremely important and and like I said do what you love if you can and I know a lot of people don't have the option to do that because that's the way that life works but if you can somehow make it happen I guarantee you'll go through life a lot happier and and in general in your personal life you'll be much happier I've always had this strong belief which is there's this happiness index and it's a a triangle right there some and the triangle is you've got your family life you've got your professional life and then you've got like your friends and if what you need to keep the triangle positive and upwards is two of those things to be going well so you know if

you have a good family life and a good friend life but you have bad time at work you can get through work right but if you if you have issues with your friends or your partner your relationship your wife and you also have issues at work that triangle inadvertent that three-point triangle and try and make those things work and if work is normally the most stressful one for a lot of the time family can be but work is the one that comes up being stressful more often so if you can make sure you're you're working in an environment where you're happy and you build that environment you choose who you work for you choose who you work with you know all of that stuff you'll just go through life a lot better but is it still applicable for finance industry look man there's some people out there who probably love a calculator you know there's probably some people out there who do it I just wasn't one of them okay okay I fully you know what my

drivers were I was 14 years of age the teacher said to me okay like you need to start thinking about what you're going to choose to do with your work life and I I I was very good at math I was in like the higher like the top percent of my school in in math and they were oh you're good at math so you you should work with numbers you should work in finance or accountancy and then from 14 to 25 11 years of my life I basically dedicated it to becoming the best in school in in math related subjects then going to a good school a good college and university to study accountancy and get a good you know good you know degree diploma in my case and then choosing to go work in one of the biggest companies in finance in in Europe but it didn't make me happy it was just because I didn't know what I want to do with my life and when I was at school you left at 16 leaving school at 16 you don't know what you want to do what the heck you're a kid you know know like it's now

the laws changed here so you have to leave school at 18 and it it's a big difference between 16 and 18 I think you really develop as a a person right and you can then have a better idea of what you want to dedicate your life to but I think the most important thing as well you know one of the other things um regarding this is don't be afraid to Pivot right don't be scared of change man I like I it took me two years to get into games I was trying everything I could and eventually I found Performance Marketing and I found transferable skills from Finance which is very calculation driven and Performance Marketing is all about calculations and numbers and that was my Pivot right so don't just think because you're unhappy in a role in a in a company or in life you can't make changes and better yourself like if you're in UA right but you want to go be a product manager find your path to becoming a product manager go spend time with product managers read stuff online follow people on LinkedIn who talk about this you can do whatever

you want to do with your life as long as you choose to do it so yeah don't take no for an answer right like carry on you know moving forward to find your own personal happiness in your professional life and if that means you want to do a different again a different role and and focus on a different discipline within games or you want to go from games to apps or whatever you can do it you just need to put the work in right and I said for me it took two years and it would have been the reason why I also I like to help people and I'm always very open to speaking to people when they message me and stuff is because again I didn't I didn't know anyone in games if I would have known people in games before I tried to get in games it would have taken me half the time so your network is your net worth very important that that should be the headline of our um blog post summarizing this podcast yeah that's that's very well said actually and um yeah like I I think like there is no

direct University degree like Mobile gaming or so like you can be either software developer Etc but still they are they have to find some tricks to get into gaming so that's that's so true actually and I also wanted to ask about like you know right now you have this uh series of content that you are like writing how would you um you know depict that what would you say yeah dude so I'm currently doing like a video series and Linkedin series talking about just publishing um they're like publishing to a lot of people is still quite like a mysterious thing and it's it's been like publishing has been going on for like hundreds of years right like in terms of like the book world right like you've had Publishers in books for years and you have you have the same thing in every other form of entertainment and I feel like there's just some of the times the publisher is seen as a bit bit of a bad guy right it's like the developer

seeing them as taking all of this money away from them but I think that comes from a lack of education and what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to explain to the developers just the inside workings of a publisher so people have a better understanding of why things are done like this um I think if you know the more information they have the better you know there's there's a a quote from The Art of War which is if you know your enemy as well as you know yourself and you will not be defeated in a hundred battles right and and I know that the publisher isn't the enemy per se but knowing but knowing them and their inner workings and I'm not giving any secrets away here right I'm just talking about theoretical process and the way that things are done but I'm really just hoping man that if I can you know open people's eyes to some of these inner workings and explain to them some of the things that they should be thinking about they should be focused on the questions they should ask that

inadvertedly more developers will get published which is good for gaming because we want more new games into market and it's never been more difficult Publishers are happy because they're making more money and overall I'm just using my new found time to try and better the industry and give back some of the know the success and the good will that I've been shown right like I've had plenty of people that helped me in the beginning so if I can't do the same now then why am I here right so yeah the new the new series it's it's going well dude you know like maybe I'm making the videos a little bit too long but the problem is they're really big really big subjects really big questions and I want to try and give people actionable Insight so they can take this forward right so but yeah maybe at the end of it I'll write like a book you know the absolute need to knows about mobile publish

I I would definitely be one of the buyers definitely for sure thanks I sell one at least and then I'll get my mom to buy one okay we are two now I mean it's more than enough literally what kind of um you know projects works even teams do you currently focus on look for yeah dude look I'm working with a bunch of people right now I I there's two two things that I focus on really one is working with Studios to essentially improve their chances to either get funding or published okay so the idea is that I I work with companies I look at the games I provide product feedback but I also give them feedback on the monetization strategy and what the user acquisition strategy is and and essentially how the publisher or the VC will look at how they present themselves so it's like what does their deck look like what is their unique selling Point like how much are they looking to raise

is that feasible is the project too big for them because they they don't have you know the team to be able to execute and there's all these red flags that VCS and Publishers you know basically see and I'm trying to you know work with Studios to just make them more successful from a professional standpoint right to make sure that they are investable that they could be published and again my goal is simple get more games in the market because a High Tide Rises All Ships what's good for the ecosystem is good for me and good for you and good for everyone else brother okay and then the other thing I work with the other part of it is I work with technology companies who specialize in um supporting games or the gaming industry so this could be you know technology Partners like I'm you know currently advising for something like ST which is you know a or what I think is the best in Market Web Store solution out there right web stores is a massive thing this year so you I'm working with those guys I'm working with metag gigs

which is an amazing company in the player-to-player economy side so this is focusing on new innovation around monetization and how gaming Studios can make more money from their users by creating a new way of doing that and again this player-to-player economy is is amazing it's like you know you could you know pay someone like it's like the Fiverr for gaming you know it's like you I could need you to help me do a raid in World of Warcraft and so I could I could pay you to help me rather than waiting around for 10 hours to try and find the right people to do it right and there's just like so much like interesting stuff from a product perspective that I'm working on right now I can't talk about all of it but yeah some of the companies are really cool and I'm just trying to help them directionally on how do they find product Market fit how do they find like the right people to work with how do they grow as a business what is the the market reception and does it fall in line with what I think the where the market is going and the predictions that I've had so yeah look so I either work

with Studios or I work with tech companies which is basically what I've done in gaming for the last 12 years so I spend tons of time with Founders I spend time doing lots and lots of strategy and then at the end of it hopefully these businesses become more successful and I've had a small part to play in that success that's so cool actually like you're are literally using your expertise to go on the more strategic aspect I think like you are already jumping into like big potential projects or teams and that's the yeah biggest priority for you right now and I'm not doing loads though right like I'm trying to rebalance my life and my family is coming first so you know I'm I'm still having plenty of hours a day to to focus on me to do stuff I want to do to spend time with my kids but right now the Consulting advisory stuff is looking good I can't complain I like the work and maybe in you know I'll I'll try and get some more business and work with some more people in the near future but right now I'm I'm kind of content and

happy what would you want to say to Industry people man I think I would just say like you know again do do do what's best for you and don't be held back by by other things like in my example you know I made a a big decision to go focus on my family as my first priority and there's probably other people out there who are making other sacrifices you know with friends and family and maybe doing what they love or what want to do because of other commitments other things and I think sometimes you need to be a little bit selfish you know and and do what's best for you like focus on yourself and um and yeah try you know try and do what or try and find what you love find your passion find what makes you happy and then try to go into that general direction and area because look man you know you're you're I think you're 30ish right and I'm nearly 40ish I'm 38 this year like like I've been working this year 20 years right my 20th year in

a professional capacity and like life people say life is short but life is long yeah life is long dude and so do what you want to do with your life don't be pigeonholed or stuck doing something that doesn't make you happy like I've still got another 15 20 years of work you best believe I'm not going to spend it like I did the first six years of my exactly yeah I'm going to do what I'm doing for the last couple of years I'm going to do for the rest of my life right unless I go find some Goodwill cottles and plant trees in the Amazon or something right like I also want to do something like that once in my life so yeah do do what you find your passion and you know find a way to to make it work and it won't it will be tough and it won't you know easily come but if you work hard and you really try and you utilize your network and people around you and all of the other stuff you eventually will just be much better off much more happy and go through life in the in a much better place so yeah I'm

I'm as you can tell I'm much happier than six months ago because I don't have that added stress that I had of of commuting and being away from family so yeah I'm all about the Positive Vibes at the moment that's that's lovely man so I think very very well said like uh we should all find what we truly love not just business but also we are talking about family so you should also find your true love that that means a lot as well thank you John like it's it's it's been um big pleasure and uh like looking forward to catching up in person very soon in the events yeah for sure dude you know always happy to see you you know you're also a great guy you got good energy you know Positive Vibes like you're a good person to know and get to know and yeah for everyone listening I hope you spend time with ome at these places because yeah just get him through his impersonations and his and show his acting career it's great thank you man thank you thanks what's up bye everyone