Endings and beginnings: Welcome speech at the 1st independent GamesBeat Summit 2025

Well, I’m back. It feels like I just finished a 17-year journey, and now there’s a new one starting over again. As an English major, I loved to think about the last lines of the books I’ve read. Like The Great Gatsby’s ending: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I puzzled over this line as a student. But I knew when I read the words that they were part of a great piece of literature.

If you’re here. No, if you’re one of 3.5 billion gamers on the planet. You’re more likely to be pondering the meaning of the last line of your favorite video game. Because as we all know, game culture has risen to the point where it is now simply mass culture. 

I like how in the game The Last of Us, the opening scene and the last scene are like bookends. Some of our most popular stories at GamesBeat have been about the ending of BioShock, and how to get the right ending in Until Dawn.

Our grandchildren are probably going to be quoting lines from games that are made for Fortnite, Minecraft or Roblox. The art form changes, but the human message behind art – that’s eternal.

I’m seriously geeking out here. But this stage is mine. It’s Gina’s. And it’s yours. Please welcome the new GamesBeat, would you kindly? Welcome to GamesBeat Summit 2025. Today, we’re the news.

Since you came to see us here in our community, we see you. You are not invisible. Your presence here reminds me of the opening line of a very good novel, The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison.

I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me. If you lost a job and are looking for a chance to break into the industry, we see you. We have 20 people here courtesy of Amir Satvat’s community of gaming fans and job seekers. 

A beginning is a very delicate time. Standing alone, many of you may feel that right now. Powerless to stop injustice, powerless to ensure fairness. We at GamesBeat are normally powerless to have our voice heard over the dragons of corporate media.

But not today. You’re not standing alone today. We are GamesBeat, and we stand with you.

Today you’re in a house of journalism and community. After 2.5 years of tough times, we are here to celebrate the fact that the game industry is still standing, and we’re still standing to cover it to the best of our ability. Today, we are here to inspire you to go onward.

Late at night, when many of you are playing Civilization and want to go one more turn, I’m up at night, writing one more story. And that is because I know that if we don’t cover a story, if we don’t write about one more game startup, then the odds are good that no one will write that story.

I’ve written more than 26,000 stories across 17 years for VentureBeat. My colleagues Mike and Rachel have written their share. That’s a signal of our commitment to the industry. Now we have spun off from VentureBeat as an independent company. And all of the library of GamesBeat stories will live on under the new GamesBeat.

Gina Joseph, our CEO, is here to strengthen our relationships with our audience and partners, and help us build this new era for GamesBeat, as the media authority for this evolving industry. She has hired Ji Bowlus to help us broaden our reach with strategic partners. David Glass and Cathy Simpson are here to ensure smooth events and great operations. Marta Ordeig is helping with our marketing. On the writing side, we have me, Mike Minotti and Rachel Kaser. It’s a small team, supported by dozens of advisers and community partners – and all of you.

Many of you have offered to help and stand ready to support us. Thank you for that. We can use your help, doing what you have done for 17 years. That means reading our stories, sharing them on social, engaging with our social content, reading our newsletters, signing up for our events, sponsoring them if you are able, and standing by us for the long term. 

Our mission is simple. We want to be a serious publication that produces both great stories and events that capture the greatness of the game industry. Our industry has become so vast and ingrained in culture that you deserve a media that is capable of understanding it and covering it in an authentic and professional way. We are here to try do that for you. 

Here’s what I’ve learned from dozens of years of telling stories. The truth isn’t simple. Facts don’t always support the narrative you want to tell, like that time I reported that Google was buying Twitch. Those veterans who were shown the door – maybe they were victims of ageism. That CEO who was fired for being evil? Maybe they were trying to save jobs. You have to hear stories from different perspectives. You can’t hear what you want to hear, like the Pentagon analysts or New York editors who believed we were winning the Vietnam War, while their correspondents and soldiers in the field knew better. 

At GamesBeat, our mantra used to be follow the money. That led us to things like the metaverse, blockchain and AI. But there’s other mantras that are just as telling: follow the gamers, and follow the people. Once in a while, we write about bad actors in the industry, and we appreciate it when we get support for that.

Our theme today is about getting back to growth. It’s a lot like last year’s theme. Only last year’s efforts didn’t work. So we’re back to discuss it again. It’s not unlike Matthew Ball’s big slide deck heard around the world. He pointed to 10 drivers that helped gaming grow over a decade, eight initiatives that failed to catch on and to keep growth going, 15 challenges that the industry still faces, and 11 possible growth engines that could reignite growth. Let’s just hope that one of our discussions leads to a viable path forward. I know Adam Boyes is planning to hold one such discussion here that will provide solutions to the challenges.

We’ve got 106 speakers here. We know that we have diverse viewpoints in part because 53% of our speakers come from diverse backgrounds and 35% are women. I don’t know if you noticed, but there are more women than men at GamesBeat.

In spite of our current political climate, we’re proud to promote the different perspectives needed to come up with the right answers and points of view. We’ve had another great Women in Gaming session moderated by Rachel Kaser and brought to us by Xsolla. We’ve got our Visionary Awards presented by Andrea Rene coming up at 10:15 am today. We have our first accessibility in gaming panel from the ESA during lunch as well. 

We don’t know where we’ll all wind up. Our course isn’t set, and sometimes it feels like we are like a sailor on the seas of fate subject to powers greater than our own. That’s a Michael Moorcock novel. Yet sometimes, we can poke a giant in the eye, like Epic Games has done in its battle with Apple. As for our direction, we may get crushed by fire-breathing dragons in the media. 

But, as Arya Stark said upon greeting the God of Death, not today. We have something the others don’t have. Today, we’re with friends. We have grown up with friends who were at the tiniest of game startups. You were all small once, and look where you are today. In fact I wrote the very first story on Nvidia in 1996 – a time when it was one of 80 graphics chip companies. And Jensen Huang is still someone I can talk to today, and now his company is worth $3.3 trillion. 

So we’re not worried, as we have 3.5 billion friends. I’m thankful to have your support, and the support of our team which includes Gina, David Glass, Cathy Simpson, Ji Bowlus, Mike Minotti, Marta Ordeig and Rachel Kaser. We hope you enjoy our event and our community. As Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

It feels like now we are fellow travels on the same road as indies in the game business. And roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.