strategy as Seelye seems to want to admit to: “M&A would be more of a tactic in order to reach that goal of having a little bit more speed on the street and capabilities in that region.”


SIDETRACKED MCV/DEVELOP last spoke to Zordix just over a year ago, with founder Matti Larsson (then CEO, now director of innovation and new business), Merge Games MD Luke Keighran and Just For Games CEO Philippe Cohen. Much was talked about in terms of growth and the need to find and build on new IP, but also to find “entrepreneurial kindred spirits” who might help Zordix gain access to new markets, game developers and IP holders, who it “can work in partnership with to do more than simply bring those games to market.” We didn’t know it at the time, but Zordix was days away from acquiring Maximum Games, the founder and CEO of which turned out to offer just the entrepreneurial meeting of minds the Zordix leadership team was hoping to engineer. Seelye has a kindred spirit of her own, Team17’s


Debbie Bestwick. “Both of us have very similar stories,” she says. “We both are entrepreneurs. I tell this to women all the time, that being an entrepreneur allows you a lot of freedom to bypass any kind of political work difficulty in a large organisation. You are bypassing all of that because you’re coming in from the side, and the assumption is that you’re coming with an idea, or you’re coming with a problem that you’ve already solved.” The advantage for the entrepreneur, says Seelye, is that you’re not necessarily seen as a careerist, but as a problem solver. “When you’re starting your own business, you’re not encumbered by any of that kind of pressure, so I do think that women overall should be going down an entrepreneurial path and that it would be beneficial to get women that have reached a corporate level someplace else, [before they] then come into this industry.”


ACT OF DECISION Recognising that the games industry isn’t the most welcoming when it comes to professional CEOs coming from outside - whether men or women - Seelye is insistent that there should be a focus within companies on giving women more roles in decision-


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making, especially when it comes to the business and creative side of the industry. “Women need to be part of the rapid prototyping teams, they need to be part of what’s being created, and deciding what games are getting greenlit and coming to market. I think that that’s a really great way for women to change attitudes and have a say in the content that is coming into the industry. “You know, I think it’s really important for me to


spend a lot of time with other women and encourage them to keep going within their companies and in their industry. Technology overall doesn’t have a lot of women CEOs either, and although this is a very creative industry that we’re in, it is still a technology industry. You need to be able to code, or need to talk to coders, and there’s not enough women in that broader category.”


RISKY BUSINESS Back at the head of Zordix, Seelye is happy to take ownership of the Zordix growth plan. “I think it could very well be personal, to be honest with you,” she says, explaining that any potential acquisition is one she has to feel comfortable with: “Buying a bunch of things, and not knowing how they’re going to work together, or what the ultimate value that is going to be created, feels very risky to me. I really like looking at what we are trying to accomplish and what are our gaps are in trying to get where we want to be. Does it make more sense to acquire something in order to reach that goal, or do we partner with somebody, or do we build it by hiring somebody?” Asking the fundamental questions and analysing a


range of possible outcomes, says Seelye, comes from knowing that M&A is just one of the tools available


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