What happens when your game studio scales from 300 to 5,000 people in record time?
Mike Seavers, SVP of Technology at Scopely and veteran technical leader from Riot Games and Epic Games, joins hosts Eden Chen (CEO, Pragma) and Kevin Zhang (Partner, Upfront Ventures) for an unfiltered discussion on engineering leadership at scale. Seavers pulls no punches describing Epic's explosive growth from 300 to 5,000 employees as "Riot scaling on steroids"—a hypergrowth nightmare where decades-old engineering practices shattered overnight. What happens when your company hockey sticks faster than your culture can adapt? The answer involves suffering, humility, and a complete rethinking of how technical teams operate. This isn't theory—it's battle-tested wisdom from the trenches of gaming's biggest platforms.
The conversation pivots to practical leadership tactics that separate high-impact executives from those who flame out. How do you lead engineers smarter than you? Seavers advocates for technical curiosity, regular mentorship sessions, and relentlessly asking "how can I help you?" He argues that North American game studios need to mature beyond cultural resistance to business pragmatism, especially when compared to mobile-first companies.
On AI, Seavers issues a stark warning: engineers who aren't learning it now will be irrelevant within a decade. He demonstrates by building a WebAssembly Asteroids clone in two hours using nothing but prompts. The future? Dynamically generated gameplay where your experience differs from every other player's—choose-your-own-adventure meets procedural generation at scale.
Mike Seavers is SVP of Technology at Scopely, bringing over 25 years of experience scaling world-class gaming franchises and platforms. Previously, he served as CTO at Riot Games, EVP of Development at Epic Games (leading Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and Epic Games Store teams), and CTO at Yuga Labs. Before entering gaming, Mike spent 15 years in enterprise software development at Fortune 500 companies. A graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management, he's known for driving technical innovation in hypergrowth environments and building high-performance engineering organizations behind industry-defining titles like League of Legends and Fortnite.
Discussion points:
(00:00) Building technical leadership muscle - the evolution from engineer to executive, identifying high-impact leaders vs leadership failures, and how to build trust with teams smarter than you through genuine curiosity, mentorship, and asking "how can I help you?"
(28:47) The maturity gap in North American game development - why the industry needs a pragmatic business approach, the stark differences between mobile-first studios and PC/console developers, and the critical cultural shifts required when companies scale faster than their processes
(53:36) Practical management tactics - combating imposter syndrome at Unreal Engine, why offloading burdens creates wildly successful careers, the outsourcing playbook from enterprise software, and the non-negotiable requirement of visiting your contingent workforce in person
(58:41) AI's inflection point - why engineers who ignore AI will be irrelevant within a decade, vibe coding in practice, building an Asteroids clone in two hours, and the coming revolution of choose-your-own-adventure gameplay where no two players experience the same game
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The Gaming Founders Podcast is brought to you by Eden Chen, CEO of Pragma, and Kevin Zhang, Partner at Upfront Ventures.
Resources:
https://playtest.firstlook.gg/
