During Casual Connect USA, Mark Cooke, CEO of Shiny Shoe, led a roundtable discussion about the hard questions facing your studio. The roundtable called Growing a Studio: The Hard “How To” List. The Hard Things No One Wants to Talk About discussed questions like: How do you fire someone that doesn’t fit your culture? How do you deal with downsizing or a failed project? Do I raise money or do a Kickstarter? How do I promote someone and then not promote someone? The roundtable was particular targeted towards Indie developers and studios.
Mark Cooke is CEO and Founder of Shiny Shoe, a game development studio that creates original games and consults for clients such as Double Fine Productions, Telltale and WB Games on PC, Mobile and Console projects. Over the four years of their existence, Shiny Shoe has experienced the inevitable ups and downs, but perseverance is the factor that Mark credits for the fact that they are still in business today. Mark says he takes great pride in having grown the company from its original two people to a team of seven. All the while, Shiny Shoe has created multiple high quality original titles and is very optimistic about their future.
The Background You Need
Prior to founding Shiny Shoe, Mark gained experience in a variety of roles within the games industry, including production management, engineering and game design, both in the United States and Japan. He also often acted as the spokesperson for both the team and company in press interviews and speaking engagements. He emphasizes that the experience he gained in his career in game design and engineering before he founded Shiny Shoe has been a tremendous advantage for building original games and in consulting with clients on their products. In addition, the large network he’s already developed in the industry has been very helpful for business development and in hiring.
Mark became interested in games at a very early age and knew from childhood that he wanted to become a game developer. He says, “Like many children of the 1980s, I grew up playing the NES and was hooked on the innovative games of that time. A childhood friend’s father saw our interest in games and introduced us to programming so we could start making our own.”
The San Francisco Bay area where he grew up included a large game development industry. When Mark was a teenager, he was able to gain internships with local game companies, including a summer internship with LucasArts in 1996. These early experiences solidified an interest in the games industry that continued through his years at university and into his professional career.
What It Takes to Keep the Company Growing
The greatest challenge in his current position as CEO is maintaining a balance across the many different responsibilities of his small studio. These include strategic direction, business development, operational needs, project management, job recruiting, mentoring and contributing on an individual level when necessary. Maintaining this balance is a daily, on-going struggle. That said though, Mark particularly enjoys working with the team to solve difficult problems involved in building great games.
The small team at Shiny Shoe requires people who are highly effective without constant oversight. Mark says he values those “who are hungry to learn and improve their craft in this constantly evolving industry”, but these self-motivated people who will push him and the rest of the team to be better are the most difficult to find. When complications arise within the team he works to resolve them by listening and identifying where the issues come from. Then he makes every effort to respond in a measured, reasonable way. He believes the team considers him fair, hard-working, talented, and, in general, someone worth working for.
Making the Games
Shiny Shoe makes both free-to-play and premium games. Mark admits, “Free-to-play can be challenging for a small team to manage with regards to investing in business intelligence, analytics and user acquisition.” Despite the challenges he faces, Mark finds them interesting and enjoys working to excel in these areas. Throughout his experiences, he has also discovered some designers are better suited to the premium monetization model.
When Shiny Shoe is working on a new IP they test early on to get the feedback needed to determine whether they are heading in the right direction. After the initial tests, Mark says, “Typically we do some light QA before feature-complete alpha milestones and ramp it up after. This has proven effective across multiple projects.” Interestingly enough though, their testing has revealed unexpected differences in responses from male and female audiences. One game resonated much more heavily with women than what they originally expected.
All in all though, Mark is looking forward to the possibilities coming with virtual reality. He believes the background Shiny Shoe has with high end console games and 3D makes them well-positioned to excel in building VR content. They are already proceeding with experiments and exploration in this area.
When he is not working, you will find him playing video games or watching e-sports. He also tries to bring balance to his life with fitness activities, most recently practicing yoga.
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