We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mitchell Drake. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mitchell below.

Mitchell, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I have read several books related to business and game design, however, my favorite has to be The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. In that book Jesse talks about how game design is an art form made up of many other art forms. As an artist, he explains, it is hard to ever feel that our work is complete. The artist usually finds fault and continues to make corrections to their art. The important lesson though is that at some point the art is as good as it is going to be and it is time to accept that and move on to the next project. The biggest risk I ever took was declaring my game Celeste complete and beginning to mass produce it. It was nerve racking, but in the end it was the right move. Since then I have felt more comfortable moving on and creating more games.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hello, my name is Mitchell Drake. I am the owner and lead game designer of MADgical Productions. We have created two games, Celeste and Get With It. Both of which have been featured at Phoenix Fan Fusion and Game On Expo. My background comes from studying mechanical engineering in community college and then systems engineering with an emphasis on space exploration at ASU. However, my career took a small detour in that I was a quality engineer, manufacturing engineer, and then a sales engineer. During my career shift into manufacturing engineering I decided to start my own company. I saw things in the work place that I didn’t like but didn’t have the power to change. Meanwhile, my gaming adventrues began back in the early 20210’s where I started playing a card game called Magic the Gathering, or Magic for short. Playing that game, and eventually others, like a guys poker night is where I met my two best friends Daniel and Scott. Through our love of games, and those games bringing us together I began to want to create my own. From past work experiences and current friendships I developed MADgical’s chief mission, to bring family and friends together. That is why the first game was competivie and yet the second is extremely casual. Eventually there will be games for every different type of gamer, family, strategy, work palcement, mystery, funny, etc.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

At first I was only selling at conventions but I quickly realized I need to move to an ecommerce site. I was already setup using Square at my booth so I started with that. However, I found their website builder and other functions rather limited. I soon moved to Shopify. From their I was able to really improve my website and setup an actual ecommerce site. Shopify has been great from customization, integration with third party apps, and sending out automated emails. There is so much Shopify can do and I have only barely scratched the surface. Every year around winter time they add 150+ new features, most don’t apply to me but I am sure some would apply to your readers. Overall, I recommend Shopify for anyone wanting to do ecommerce. It does take some understanding of website coding using HTML and JSON, so if you are looking for something simplier and are hand made I recommend Etsy. Shopify also links with its POS system allowing you to sell in physical locations as well.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Oh there are a lot I would recommend. For game designers I really recommend The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. It is the best game design book that I have read to date. For more generic businss strategies I recommend The E Myth by MIchael E. Gerber. This book dives into the pitfalls of becoming and entrepreneur. Specifically where the businss begins to fail but why the reader should press on. Once through that rough period the prosperity can begin. Sadly most business make the incorrect choice of shrinking those hard times which only leads to the business dying. Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters is another fantastic book that explore the relationship between the Visionary and the Integrator. The visionary is the person that is a non-stop idea machine. The problem is a visionary can often jerk the company around and bounce around from one idea to another often leading to unfinished projects and confusion amond staff. The integrator is perfect for making sure projects get finished on time and that the right ideas get executed. The issue is the integrator rarely comes up with new ideas that propel the company forward. The integrator only focuses on the daily problems while the visionary only focuses on the far future problems. Together though, they create a symbiotic relationship that keeps the company alive today while driving it into the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.madgical.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madgicalproductions?fbclid=IwAR3Hus72c1FaNN9umXlhxjzTW7jGsnWH2P-7f6tU2mqISxq1iZg9wo6Ybgo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madgicalproductionsllc/
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/madgical-productions
• Twitter: https://x.com/MadgicalPro?t=NwPGlb9R1MtBQjzeUBaUuw&s=09
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_KnheGeFbh353QSwWkbug
• Other: Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/5yqcZRPHM6KK3bKU28e2Ba?si=qVcPnmWcSsS41PW3Uub4iQ

Image Credits

Amoroma Productions