The Gaming Founders Podcast Episode 8: 2x Founder Chris Scholz of Free Range Games and Upcoming Blockbuster: Return to Moria

Today’s guest is Chris Scholz, CEO of Free Range Games. The company’s mission is to make video games that people find meaningful, memorable, and fun. Established in 2009, and headquartered in Sausalito, California, Free Range Games was founded by veteran game developers and longtime collaborators. Game projects have spanned across PC, console, mobile, web, VR, and AR platforms. Free Range will be releasing their own fully developed game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™ in 2023.

In this episode, you’ll hear Chris’ journey from a spate of temp jobs that he hated and wasn’t very good at, the ‘youthful exuberance’ that led him to start his first company, Shaba Games, and his later successes when Shaba was acquired by Activision, and finally leaving again to start Free Range Games. Chris talks about the early days of Free Range, their culture, their dedication to games that delight people, and the upcoming release of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™.

Discussion points:

• Chris’ journey from ‘bad’ temp employee to focused gaming designer at Toys for Bob
• Youthful exuberance led Chris to leave to start his own company
• Sony, Activision, and Tony Hawk
• Activision and its interesting characters
• Starting Free Range Games in 2009
• Past learnings that were useful at Free Range
• The current state of things at Free Range
• The license for LOTR and its many properties
• Free Range’s organizational balance, culture
• Advice for other founders - Stay small until you’re sure of what you’re doing

The Gaming Founders Podcast is brought to you by Pragma, a venture-backed backend game engine founded by the engineering leaders who built the platforms for some of the largest live service games including League of Legends, Fortnite, Destiny 2, and Plants vs. Zombies 2. Pragma powers services like accounts, matchmaking, and player data for the world’s most ambitious live service games. CEO of Pragma Eden Chen was also the founder of Fishermen Labs and Lightmark Capital and was previously an investment banker at Citigroup and Lehman Brothers. Kevin Zhang leads the healthcare and gaming practices at Upfront Ventures. Upfront has backed standout teams across all technology sectors with a current focus in healthcare, fintech, consumerization of enterprise software, gaming, computer vision, and AgTech/ sustainability.

Resources:

-- Christopher Scholz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-scholz-12470b16/

-- Free Range Games Website: https://www.freerangegames.com/

-- Gaming Founders Podcast: https://pragma.gg/gamingfounders

-- Eden Chen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edechen/

-- Kevin Zhang LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinyzhang/

-- Upfront Ventures: https://upfront.com/

-- Pragma: https://pragma.gg/