Amir Satvat, the game jobs champion who has helped thousands of game developers find jobs, is himself changing jobs and joining 1Up Ventures as a general partner.
That means he’s leaving his job as a director of business development at Tencent Games, and he said on LinkedIn that the new role will help him further his life’s mission.
“My first six years working in video games have given me a lot of time to think,” Satvat said. “What that time has told me is that the most important thing for my life and career is to spend every remaining year I have, using the talents and opportunities I can employ and identify, helping others in the video game industry lead fulfilling and happy lives.”
He said he was fortunate that, through ASGC — his all volunteer platform for posting job data and helping people find jobs — he has been able to have such a positive impact on the lives of so many people in games. Satvat has helped 5,000 people get jobs in the game industry, and for that off-hours work he has received awards from GamesBeat, Gamescom Dev and The Game Awards.
“But I must admit, I have been left still wanting something important in my day job,” he said. “Not because I did not have great roles, meaningful work, and wonderful colleagues. But I wanted to feel a more direct connection between the things I could influence and do with a team and putting people back to work.”
At Tencent Games, the investments might be limited to certain kinds of deals or less frequent investments. But 1Up Ventures, founded by former Microsoft Games head Ed Fries, is more immersed in helping get games off the ground and funded.
“I wanted to see more people’s dreams of making games come true because of something I did,” Satvat wrote. “I also hoped I could work in a setting focused on smaller studios, because I love games of that size so much, and in a setting built around community first. My final wish was to work with colleagues who share the same values and integrity I try to hold myself to.”
In accepting the team’s invitation to join 1Up, he said he is seeing all of these wishes realized.
“I am so grateful to Kelly Wallick, Ed Fries, Emily Greer, and Chris Wheaton for welcoming me to the team and giving me this opportunity. 1Up is a very important player in the games ecosystem, and I want to see its unique approach to games investing survive for as long as possible,” Satvat said.
He added, “I am most moved by the fact that, in asking a number of you what you thought about 1Up over the years, not a single person had anything but the most glowing things to say about the team. This is incredibly rare, and it was very telling to me.”
He will also maintain his family’s remote status in Connecticut and that this will have no effect on his volunteer work with ASGC.
“I always tell people not to talk about dream jobs, and I am sticking to that. But I will admit that if I ever did have a dream for my career in adulthood, it was never about a title or a company. It was about spending every waking minute of my day making the lives of those who make video games better, alongside people I truly admire,” he said. “Now, thanks to the 1Up team, that is exactly what I will be doing.”