QUESTION · TUESDAY FOCUS

What changes are you seeing in the game world now that anyone can spin up a version of Doom in AI? Could we all become game creators? Pong, Mario, Call of Duty?

ASKED BY · Rajan S. · LOS ANGELES · 03 NOV 2026 · ▶ 00:24:28

THE PANEL'S ANSWER
Stephen Heywood

More people will create games like YouTube channels or Etsy shops, leading to oversaturation but also democratization of game creation, with quality content rising above the noise.

Summarised by AI from what the panel said. Watch the moment for the full answer.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From the transcript.

Machine-transcribed, so it may contain errors. Every timestamp opens the episode at that second.

24:13your hard work that you've done all this time. Extremely important message to get out. Things do happen and the more protection you have, the better. Speaking of stuff like this, let's get to Q&A a little bit because I know people, we've already got a bunch of questions backed up here. So Cindy, what's our first question? Here's a good question for us from Rajan S. in Los

24:32Los Angeles. What changes are you seeing in the game world now that anyone can spin up a version of Doom and AI? Could we all become game creators? Pong, Mario, Call of Duty? This is so crazy. I mean, this has been so fast between when AI got to the level that it's at now and all of a sudden we're seeing these things like, yeah, I vibe coded a whole version of the Adobe suite on Tuesday.

24:58Everybody's talking about it on Thursday. It's insane out there. What do you think? I do. I think that more and more, I mean, my son's friends, they're building games for their Oculus Quest that they have, and they're playing them, and they're like, my son's like, hey, I'm beta testing my friend, and they're 13, 14-year-old kids. So yes, I do think that. it's it's going to be an a big change um do you think it's going to get significantly harder to

25:27what's the right way to frame this question to it not make a living but to to have a satisfying gaming experience when i would guess that if your friend says hey you want to come over and play fill in the name of a game here are you going to be playing their version of that game well i i think it's going to be just like what we deal with with content right you're going to have

25:51all these creators out there right building stuff and you're going to sure weed through the good and the bad to find you know things that you want to play within the genre that's what i honestly think i think you're going to have guys building games like you can build a youtube channel or you can build a you know yeah any other uh like an etsy shop right like

26:13Like, anybody can do this. So I think that's what it's going to get oversaturated at some point. Yeah, it may be the same kind of thing. I mean, it's like saying I have a YouTube channel. Well, you and about a billion other people in the world. Exactly. The problem isn't having one. The problem is how do you get eyeballs to it when there's a billion places you can play?

26:32Exactly. So that's what I think. I think that's what's going to happen. Okay. Let's dive into the next question. And this one is for me. steven please talk about your views on where the live streaming landscape is heading next you got all the occasions for us man if i had the answer for that i'd probably be a rich man right now um you know before i was doing youtube and focusing on uh curated content where i'm editing

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ALSO IN THIS EPISODE

14 more questions
from Reinventing a Brand with Stephen Heywood.

The whole episode →
▶ 00:02:30You have a fascinating story of reinvention. You came out of tech broadcasting. How did you decide to make the pivot into the gaming world?▶ 00:26:38Steven, please talk about your views on where the live streaming landscape is heading next.▶ 00:29:23Gaming continues to be bigger than most Hollywood blockbusters. What are those audiences looking for? And how can Office Hours Global work alongside that group? We have a lot of similarities: technical interests in streaming, interactivity, community.▶ 00:31:11What words of encouragement do you have for our community members that want to start or grow a YouTube channel?▶ 00:33:37Did you visit or have friends visit the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pop-up in LA? Thoughts on if it was successful for the game? Could this be done for independent games?▶ 00:35:45What are your thoughts on these IRL "Backpacks"?▶ 00:37:21Stephen, do you consider professional producers are still relevant now that "everyone" can have a YouTube channel and stream? How can you be an outlier in the industry?▶ 00:39:50What feels distinctive about the culture of gaming communities compared with the tech community you came from?▶ 00:43:22Looking at your channel and the old videos versus the new, what initiated the "Reinvention"?▶ 00:49:06Have you seen people turn skills learned through gaming streams into opportunities in live production or other fields?▶ 00:51:01Besides YouTube, do you still follow through your career in a regular 9-5? Or has this YouTube channel and convention production become your business?▶ 00:52:10Which supposed "must-haves" can you drop from a show without much trouble, and which "creature comforts" have you found surprisingly necessary?▶ 00:53:51What would you advise us to transform ourselves and shift on improving our content and channels?▶ 00:57:55What do you do to help people find your channel and make it feel connected and relevant?