Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Super Evil MegaCorp
Kristian Segerstrale's vision for native cross-platform gaming
I recently heard Kristian Segerstrale speak at the GamesBeat Next conference and one idea has been stuck in my head ever since.
According to Kristian, the next generation of iconic franchises won’t be built for a single platform. They’ll be native cross-platform from day one — and inherently transmedia.
For decades, franchises were platform-anchored. A console hit might later become a mobile port. A film adaptation might follow years later. Transmedia was reactive.
Kristian’s view flips this model.
In a world where players fluidly move between PC, console, mobile, streaming, and social platforms, the most powerful IP won’t be “adapted” across formats — it will be designed for simultaneity.
Kristian Segerstrale: From Game Builder to Global Investor
Few figures capture the arc of the last two decades in the gaming industry like Kristian Segerstrale.
Kristian is currently the CEO of Super Evil Megacorp, a multi award-winning independent gaming studio behind Bloodline and TMNT: Splintered Fate. His journey began at the dawn of mobile gaming; in 2001 he co-founded Macrospace, one of the original mobile game studios — now better known as Glu Mobile, which went public in 2007 and was later acquired by Electronic Arts. From there he went on to co-found Playfish, a pioneer in social gaming.
In 2009, Kristian joined Electronic Arts as Executive Vice President of Digital. While at EA, he helped steer the legacy publisher through the industry’s transition from boxed games to the new world of digital distribution — a shift that defined gaming’s next era.
Kristian has spent two decades navigating platform shifts in the gaming industry — from early mobile to social to digital distribution.
His current conviction reflects that pattern recognition: when a new distribution layer stabilizes, a new franchise archetype emerges.
Cross-Platform Gaming
Kristian fully believes that the next generation of iconic franchises won’t be built for a single platform. They’ll be native cross-platform from day one — and inherently transmedia.
That distinction matters.
For decades, platforms defined franchises. A console hit stayed on console. A mobile success lived in app stores. Expansion into film or TV came later — if at all — once a property had proven itself at scale.
What's emerging now is something fundamentally different.
A franchise might launch simultaneously across PC, console, and mobile with shared progression and identity. Its narrative universe could unfold not just through gameplay, but through short-form video, community storytelling, live events, and creator ecosystems. The world isn’t adapted across mediums — it’s designed to exist across them.
In this model:
Player identity is portable. Your account, status, and social graph travel with you.
Narrative is modular. Story arcs unfold in different formats without losing cohesion.
Community is foundational. Fans participate in world-building rather than passively consuming it.
IP is systemic. The franchise behaves more like a platform than a product.
A New Era
If the 2000s were about mastering a device…
If the 2010s were about scaling live-service economics…
The 2020s may be about building persistent, cross-platform universes that travel seamlessly across media.
Kristian is — as he has been for the past two decades — at the forefront of this new era in the gaming industry. He isn’t just building better games, he’s building a new franchise architecture.
The next great franchises may not look like games that expand outward. They may look like worlds designed from inception to move with the player — across devices, formats, communities, and media. In that model, the franchise is no longer the product. It is the platform.
