Simon Lockerby is a game creator and studio co-founder whose path into development didn’t follow a traditional games pipeline, but instead grew out of everyday play and community building. While working as a sales director, he began playing Raid: Shadow Legends on his daily commute, eventually turning that hobby into a YouTube channel that grew rapidly.

Within a year, he had built an audience of more than 100,000 subscribers and, alongside his collaborator Dan Francis, co-founded HellHades Gaming—a central hub for players seekingguides, tools, and community events. As that community expanded, one question kept resurfacing: when would they make a game of their own? In 2023, my guest answered that call by co-founding Fateless Games, a studio built around player agency, immersive storytelling, and fair monetisation—one where players help shape the game’s direction.

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

C. Thi. Nguyen is an American philosopher whose work explores what games reveal about agency, and the ways in which metrics can shape our desires. After graduating from Harvard, he enrolled in a Ph.D. program at U.C.L.A., completing his doctorate while simultaneously working as a food writer for the L.A. Times—an early sign of a career that would resist tidy categories.

Now a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, he has become one of the leading thinkers at the intersection of games, art, and social structures. His first book, ‘Games: Agency as Art’, won the American Philosophical Association’s 2021 Book Prize, arguing that games are a unique art form that shape who we are within their rules. His newbook, ‘The Score’, examines how scoring systems—from basketball to social media likes—train us in what to value, and asks how we might stop playing somebody else’s game. An increasingly influential public thinker, he brings intellectual rigor, and playful irreverence to some of the most urgent questions of our time.

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is a games industry leader whose career has spanned journalism, publishing, public policy, and cultural advocacy. He began in 2002 as an editorial assistant at trade paper MCV, quickly rising through the ranks to become editor of Develop and later editor-in-chief of both titles. In 2013 he became publisher of the two brands before moving into a new phase of his career as Head of Games London, where he launched the London Games Festival in 2016.

Under his leadership, the festival has grown into one of the world’s leading games events, supporting more than a thousand companies, generating tens of millions of pounds in business, and welcoming a hundred thousand attendees in its most recent edition. Alongside this work, he has championed inclusion through initiatives such as Game Changer and helped raise significant funds for charity through GamesAid. In recognition of his services to the industry, he was recently awarded an MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours.

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.