CEO & Co-Founder at Greathorn Games
Ian Dundore
Hi, I'm Ian! I spent the first half of my career bringing gamers together in major massively-multiplayer online games like EVE Online and Star Trek Online. I spent the second half building technology and teams at Unity which co-developed, co-shipped, and collaborated with many of Unity's largest and smallest customers to deliver amazing games. Now I'm setting out to change how games are played.
Questions & Answers
What inspired you to start your business?
I've played online multiplayer games since 1993, and spent the first half of my career in the MMO industry -- I truly believe games are an amazing way to connect and build relationships. The strength of the fan communities around so many multiplayer games proves this out. However, over the past two decades, we've retreated from really making socialization an integral part of our games -- in fact, we've gone in the opposite direction, making games less social. The reasons make sense: if you're playing on the open internet, there's griefers, jerks, and folks who just want to ruin your good time. So, we isolated players in always-online singleplayer experiences where everyone else was just a backdrop for you. But, with the retreat of many people from the open internet, we have an opportunity to create games that follow them into their private communities. Greathorn will make those games, and will strengthen those communities.
Why are you excited about your company/product?
Greathorn is an opportunity to really change how games are played, to invent not stylistic, taste-driven distinction but a manner of play that is inherently about you, your friends, and your community. This isn't just altruistic; games centered on community -- like MMOs -- have always had the longest tails and strongest K-factors. By showing gamers a great new way to enjoy games, we're also setting ourselves up for long-term business success.
What's a memorable 'aha' moment you've had while building your startup?
When we were first starting out, we focused primarily on the design of our core product -- our first game. We were trying to understand how to differentiate ourselves in a crowded landscape, and to be more than just another content company. We realized pretty early on that any multiplayer game with a social component needed to be super low-friction when it came to actually playing with friends. When I was a kid, if my friends started a game of Magic The Gathering and I left my deck at home, all I could do was sit and watch. But now we all have devices that we carry with us 100% of the time, and those devices can help us by pushing our data around on our behalf. Putting two and two together, we realized that we could use community platforms like Discord as a medium for making multiplayer totally frictionless -- you'd never be without your stuff, as long as you were logged into the same platform as your friends.
Can you share a distinctive achievement or highlight from your career?
After a few years at Unity, I noticed that many of our customers weren't making full use of the engine's power. So, I pitched and started a consulting team. Fast forward seven years, and that team had grown into a full game-development department with over 700 people and generating $160 million a year in revenue. We weren't just consulting any more; we were a full-service development shop, helping out with art, content, operations, and, of course, technology. While the numbers are cool, the best part was that we had our hands deep in many of the best games ever released using the Unity engine, and we brought that knowledge back to the core in order to make the engine even better for all users.
