“With the additional sensors in wearable devices, what we are looking at is the idea of making your games, making your apps, more awareable,” Corey Rosemond explained during his session at Casual Connect USA 2014. “By making them awareable, imagine being able to have the game be more aware, more contextually sensitive to what you’re doing, how you’re working, what goals you may have, and things you are trying to do.”
Corey Rosemond has a passion for two things: games and business. “I was drawn to business development by a passion to create new business models and apply them to both new and existing markets,” he says. “I was drawn to the gaming industry by a passion to contribute to the production and distribution of a product that I would want to buy and consume myself — something that I could be proud of and share with my friends.”
Passions and Plantronics
As business development director at Plantronics Gaming, Rosemond definitely gets to indulge in his passions. He works with the company’s strategic partners and other teams on multiple efforts to grow Plantronics’ gaming business globally. No two days are ever the same. He notes that the long hours can be a downside at times, but “only because that leaves less time for gaming.”
The upsides outweigh the downsides though. He loves the chance to interact with people from all over the world and also enjoys being directly involved with Plantronics’ innovative technology and getting to play with it well before anyone else gets to see it.
When looking to strike up a business partnership, Rosemond considers a few key things: long-term financial and strategic benefits and how the relationship feels — not just from a business standpoint, but a personal one. “Not only must it make solid business sense but it has to feel right,” he says. “Relationships are key to a successful partnership in the long run and when there isn’t good chemistry between the parties early on, it tends to lead to problems down the road.”
Focus on Personal Growth
Although he’s accomplished a lot, Rosemond isn’t sure what he’d like to accomplish next. However, he is always working on his personal growth. One thing he has learned is to avoid getting distracted and unfocused from the task at hand, whatever it happens to be. “That’s counter-productive and something I look to avoid,” he says.
He also finds it hard to pin down a single accomplishment as the greatest of his career, noting that “just about everything I’ve done has been a collaboration with others in various teams.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to work with some dynamic people on various initiatives like the rebirth of Windows gaming with the launch of the Windows 7 Operating System, the practical invention of the casual games ‘try before you buy’ model with WildTangent and HP Games in the early 2000s, and more recently, working on the team to produce the GameCom Commander PRO eSports headset which is the headset used for the most watched gaming event of all time, the League of Legends World Championship Finals.”
Emerging trends
Rosemond points to improvements in audio quality and headsets as an under-recognized but valuable gaming innovation. “Gamers really don’t realize how far we’ve come in the last few years — they usually take these things for granted — you know, things like hearing directional footsteps approaching you from behind.”
Just over the horizon, he sees wearable technology becoming further integrated into gaming devices and the continued merger of games with other forms of digital entertainment onto common platforms.
He also notes that social media will continue to be “key lifeblood” of the gaming industry. “From communities on Twitch.TV to Reddit — the gaming industry is what it is today because of the role social networking has played in bringing together the gaming community. It will continue to be a part of gaming and evolve to better meet the unique use cases of gamers.”
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