Echoes of Empire
Web3 4X grand strategy game. 2 years of production as General Manager.
Context
Echoes of Empire is a 4X grand strategy game (build, expand, exploit, exterminate) developed at Ion Studios for Gala Games’ platform. I spent two years as Studio General Manager on the project through launch and early live ops.
Approach
Grand strategy is a brutal genre to ship. The core loop takes hours to play a single session; the metagame is weeks long. Onboarding a new player without dumping 50 tutorials on them is hard. Balancing PvE exploration against PvP conflict is harder. Making any of it work on Web3 rails without making it feel like a crypto game first and a strategy game second is the hardest.
My work split roughly evenly across:
- Product strategy and scope management: what’s in the MVP, what’s in early access, what waits
- Build/test/ship cadence with the dev team
- Live ops frameworks for seasons, events, and monetization once players were in-game
- Cross-functional coordination with Gala’s platform team on Web3 integration
Outcome
Shipped into Gala’s platform with an active player base working through the early-access seasons. Learned a tremendous amount about running a studio, shipping a genre-defining (and genre-demanding) game, and the practical realities of Web3 gaming. What holds up and what doesn’t.