Kenshi Arasaki's guest appearances

Kenshi Arasaki

Deconstructor of Fun

The 5-Minute Founder

Hello Metaverse

Brian Murphy

Matt Curtis

David Brevik

Randy Cohen

Ian Crosby

Andrew Chen

Matthew Lewis

Tim Sweeney

Vince Zampella

Philip Rosedale

Marcus Carey

Selena Gomez

Randy Pitchford

Timmu Tõke

Jason Smith

OwlTail

The best games are often built by those who have developed a mastery over human psychology and motivation and Kenshi Arasaki one of them. He is the creator of multiple hugely popular mobile, free-to-play games, and he shares his principles and insights on what makes games enticing to players and sustains traction. We deep dive on why a master of psychology and human incentives is the recipe for creating good games. We’ll cover how to create an environment for interesting emergent social behaviors, capturing the full spectrum of human emotion as a means to create true community bonds, and what it means to create a perfectly competitive environment where people are motivated to progress. After all his experiences in gaming, Kenshi is most bullish on the opportunities NFTs are able to unlock for the industry. We explore the economic implications of the evolving vertical of play-to-earn games and how it can make spending time in virtual worlds a worthy and legitimate investment of time. We’ll talk through some of the challenges that NFTs are facing as well as what it means for gaming and virtual experience beyond, to have a real mechanism to enforce digital rights. ABOUT THE GUESTKenshi Arasaki is the CEO and Co-founder of A Thinking Ape Entertainment, a gaming company that has produced some of the top free-to-play mobile games It was recently acquired by the Embracer Group. He is an angel investor and jpeg/nft enthusiast, and is the primary author behind US patent 8918725 for systems and methods to support real-time chat on mobile devices. SHOW NOTES[4:30] How to create initial traction for games and effective mechanisms[11:00] Importance of helping people express their full emotional spectrum in virtual experiences[17:00] Maintaining a balanced virtual economy[21:10] Tapping into fundamental human motivations[27:20] Play-to-earn games[29:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and interoperability [33:20] Creating native containers for NFTs[37:40] What NFT would Kenshi want to build

The best games are often built by those who have developed a mastery over human psychology and motivation and Kenshi Arasaki one of them. He is the creator of multiple hugely popular mobile, free-to-play games, and he shares his principles and insights on what makes games enticing to players and sustains traction. We deep dive on why a master of psychology and human incentives is the recipe for creating good games. We’ll cover how to create an environment for interesting emergent social behaviors, capturing the full spectrum of human emotion as a means to create true community bonds, and what it means to create a perfectly competitive environment where people are motivated to progress. After all his experiences in gaming, Kenshi is most bullish on the opportunities NFTs are able to unlock for the industry. We explore the economic implications of the evolving vertical of play-to-earn games and how it can make spending time in virtual worlds a worthy and legitimate investment of time. We’ll talk through some of the challenges that NFTs are facing as well as what it means for gaming and virtual experience beyond, to have a real mechanism to enforce digital rights.  ABOUT THE GUEST Kenshi Arasaki is the CEO and Co-founder of A Thinking Ape Entertainment, a gaming company that has produced some of the top free-to-play mobile games It was recently acquired by the Embracer Group. He is an angel investor and jpeg/nft enthusiast, and is the primary author behind US patent 8918725 for systems and methods to support real-time chat on mobile devices.  SHOW NOTES [4:30] How to create initial traction for games and effective mechanisms[11:00] Importance of helping people express their full emotional spectrum in virtual experiences[17:00] Maintaining a balanced virtual economy[21:10] Tapping into fundamental human motivations[27:20] Play-to-earn games[29:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and interoperability [33:20] Creating native containers for NFTs[37:40] What NFT would Kenshi want to build

Kenshi Arasaki: Psychology of Games and NFTs

Ken Go

Lars Wingefors

We get a comprehensive and in-depth discussion talking about industry consolidation/consolidators and more specifically about the Embracer Group.  In a unique discussion, we get a very holistic perspective on Embracer speaking to:       - Kenshi Arasaki, CEO, A Thinking Ape, One of the best in the industry at long-tail and forever franchise games with titles from the early days of IOS like Kingdoms at War.          - Ken Go, CEO, DECA Games, Who specialize in live operations having taken over and successfully managed live titles such as former gree titles like Knights &amp; Dragons and Modern War.       - Randy Pitchford, President and Co-founder Gearbox, I think everyone knows Gearbox games most notably Borderlands.       - Lars Wingefors, Co-founder and Group CEO, Embracer Group, Quickly becoming famous for a lot of the recent industry acquisitions they have been making.  Host:    - Joe Kim, CEO LILA Games--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/messageSupport this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/support

We get a comprehensive and in-depth discussion talking about industry consolidation/consolidators and more specifically about the Embracer Group.  In a unique discussion, we get a very holistic perspective on Embracer speaking to:       - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenshiarasaki/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kenshi Arasak</a>i, CEO, A Thinking Ape, One of the best in the industry at long-tail and forever franchise games with titles from the early days of IOS like Kingdoms at War.          - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethgo/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ken Go</a>, CEO, DECA Games, Who specialize in live operations having taken over and successfully managed live titles such as former gree titles like Knights &amp; Dragons and Modern War.       - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/randy-pitchford-1a56a6/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Randy Pitchford</a>, President and Co-founder Gearbox, I think everyone knows Gearbox games most notably Borderlands.       - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-wingefors-a366314/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lars Wingefors</a>, Co-founder and Group CEO, Embracer Group, Quickly becoming famous for a lot of the recent industry acquisitions they have been making.  Host:    - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Joe Kim</a>, CEO <a href="https://www.lilagames.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LILA Games</a>--- Send in a voice message: <a href="https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/message" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/message</a> Support this podcast: <a href="https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/support" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/support</a>

Embracer Group: Strategy, Outlook, and Focus on the Long-term | Kenshi Arasaki (ATA), Ken Go (DECA), and Randy Pitchford (Gearbox), Lars Wingefors (Embracer), 

Kenshi Arasaki is the Founder &amp; CEO of A Thinking Ape, a mobile games company based in Vancouver. In the interview, Kenshi tells their story about entering Y-Combinator, and also talks about why culture is so important to a startup's success. ----- Partners SEMRush – SEMRush is a suite of marketing tools that offers solutions for SEO, pay-per-click, content, social media, and competitive research and is trusted by over 3 million marketers worldwide. With their On Page SEO Checker, you can analyze Google ranking factors affecting your website’s performance and get actionable recommendations based on collected data. Get a free 7-day no-risk trial of SEMRush at TheFiveMinuteFounder.com/Rush. Wishpond – Wishpond offers a suite of tools to help businesses generate new leads. With Wishpond you can create beautiful landing pages, coupons, and social media contests, all of which can be customized using tailored forms to capture your leads’ name, email, phone number, and more. Wishpond also offers email and text message marketing tools so you can send out segmented communications to your customers. Get a free 14-day no-risk trial of Wishpond at TheFiveMinuteFounder.com/Wish.

Kenshi Arasaki is the Founder &amp; CEO of A Thinking Ape, a mobile games company based in Vancouver. In the interview, Kenshi tells their story about entering Y-Combinator, and also talks about why culture is so important to a startup's success. ----- Partners <a href="https://www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=8392931866" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SEMRush</a> – SEMRush is a suite of marketing tools that offers solutions for SEO, pay-per-click, content, social media, and competitive research and is trusted by over 3 million marketers worldwide. With their On Page SEO Checker, you can analyze Google ranking factors affecting your website’s performance and get actionable recommendations based on collected data. Get a free <a href="https://www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=8392931866" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">7-day no-risk trial</a> of SEMRush at <a href="https://www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=8392931866" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TheFiveMinuteFounder.com/Rush</a>. <a href="https://mbsy.co/q23Lm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wishpond</a> – Wishpond offers a suite of tools to help businesses generate new leads. With Wishpond you can create beautiful landing pages, coupons, and social media contests, all of which can be customized using tailored forms to capture your leads’ name, email, phone number, and more. Wishpond also offers email and text message marketing tools so you can send out segmented communications to your customers. Get a free <a href="https://mbsy.co/q23Lm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">14-day no-risk trial</a> of Wishpond at <a href="https://mbsy.co/q23Lm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TheFiveMinuteFounder.com/Wish</a>.

S3 E28:  Growing a Mobile Games Company [Kenshi Arasaki, A Thinking Ape]