Discussing Developments in the Gaming Industry with Josiah Kiehl from Sprocket

Season 2, Episode 40,   Mar 09, 2023, 08:02 AM

This week, we welcome Josiah Kiehl, CEO and co-founder of Sprocket Games, a game development studio launching a cross-platform, social adventure game.

Our conversation starts with Kiehl’s background at Riot company and Google before leading into how he decided to launch his own company. 

Josiash discusses the importance of achieving and standing out amongst the various companies in the gaming industry, underlining the idea that anyone can now create their own unique product. 

“I think this is a trend we’ve seen recently,” he observes. “As tools get better and better, it lowers the barrier to entry of creating anything.” 

Kiehl further adds that timeliness is more significant than being polished, because anyone can create their own game with the accessible tools that are available. 

“There are more people who would become game developers, which means we would get more perspectives in the industry. It’s not just people who have a programming background; just about anybody can load up some of these tools, the more accessible tools, and build a game.” This is far from a worrying development for Josiah; in fact, he feels hopeful about the industry.

We move on to a conversation on AI in gaming (of course we bring AI into this). Josiash expands on the ethical concerns that come into play with AI and gaming, but highlights the efforts that his team is taking to overcome these obstacles. 

We head home with a conversation on the ethics of gaming, including the endless debate on the positives and negatives of online game behavior.. We also chat about his dream Tech product and his vision for the future of gaming and Tech.