During GDC, Marie had the honor of moderating the debate The Future of the Industry at the GamesBeat VentureBeat’s Crossfire Lounge event.

In one corner of the ring stood industry veteran Susan Cummings (Indie studio head, former founder of Take2) and in the other, David Higley (Partner at Pella Weinberg, former MD at investment banks). These two did a magnificent work navigating my challenging questions, the first one being:

Will game investment return from it’s dry state, SHOULD it return and how should investors do it differently this time around to be successful and sustainable?

.. And got a slew of interesting answers INCLUDING sentiments

“Non-endemic VC’s tried to turn into publishers without the experience”
“Studios who started before it dried up eventually had to take the same publishing deal they would had gotten anyway and gave away a huge chunk of their company”
“We needed this course-correct. We’re game developers, and it’s time we took our industry back”

versus

“Would you rather have the shot at capital available than bang your head against publishers?”
“Go directly to consumer from a creator perspective is quite powerful rather than having a gatekeeper”
“The opportunity is there, there are many ways to fund it aside VC and publishers. There’s gotta be other sources of capital”

Want to hear more? Read Dean Takahashi‘s article with takeaways or watch the full video from the debate.