Why I Started Modes of Play
Last Updated: March 2026
The Gap I Could Not Stop Seeing
After more than a decade leading product in mobile games, across Zynga, Jam City, Scopely, and the startups in between, I kept running into the same problem. The knowledge that actually matters in this industry lives inside people's heads and closed Slack channels and private postmortems that never see the light of day.
There is no shortage of content about product management. There is an enormous shortage of content written specifically for the people running live service mobile games at scale. The PM balancing a live event cadence against a feature roadmap. The product leader trying to build a team culture inside a studio that has never had one. The senior IC wondering whether to move into management or double down on craft. The director navigating the ethics of monetization mechanics they did not design but are now responsible for.
That person has nowhere to go. Most PM content is written for B2B software or early stage startups. Games are different in ways that matter, and pretending otherwise just means people figure it out the hard way, alone, under pressure, making avoidable mistakes.
I started Modes of Play because I was tired of watching that happen.
What This Is
Modes of Play is the resource I wish had existed when I was growing up in this industry. It covers the craft of mobile games product management — frameworks, systems, and tools for running live service games with rigor and clarity. It covers the leadership lessons that sit behind the craft — what it actually feels like to lead a PM team, navigate difficult decisions, build a career with intention, and develop a point of view worth having. And it covers the harder questions the industry does not talk about enough — ethics, sustainability, what it costs to do this work well over a long career.
The goal is not to be comprehensive. It is to be genuinely useful. Every post should help you think more clearly about something real you are navigating right now.
Who This Is For
If you are building a career in mobile games product, this is for you. That includes aspiring PMs trying to understand what this work actually involves, mid-level PMs developing their craft and their leadership presence, and senior leaders looking for a peer-level perspective on the decisions that do not have easy answers.
It is also for anyone adjacent to this world — designers, analysts, engineers, and executives who want to understand how great product leadership in games actually operates.
The Promise
Every post on this site is written to be honest, specific, and useful. Not aspirational. Not generic. Not the sanitized version of how things work. The real version, grounded in real decisions, real mistakes, and real lessons from inside the industry.
If you are serious about mobile games product leadership, you are in the right place.