Tencent Games

• Building long-term games partnerships and sourcing games investment opportunities in North America

Business Development Director

Amir Satvat's Games Community

At Amir Satvat’s Games Community, we are committed to empowering gamers at every stage of their career with comprehensive support, resources, and a thriving community environment. We uphold the highest standards of kindness and civility, fostering a culture where every member contributes to enhancing our collective potential. We freely provide essential services that are often gated by cost, ensuring that no gamer, regardless of background, is left behind.

Founder and Leader (A Purely Altruistic, Forever Free Public Service for All Gamers)

Vivrato

I support my friend Adam Boyes and Vivrato’s mission to create meaningful change in the games industry.

This unpaid role reflects my belief in Vivrato’s vision to balance business success with community purpose. I provide trusted advice and guidance to help identify opportunities to amplify impact for gamers while respecting the integrity of Amir Satvat's Games Community.

Advisory Network

PlaySide Studios

• Helping PlaySide Studios create both a stronger organization and better games for its customers

Strategic Advisor

Amazon

• Manage team (including indirects) of 20+ responsible for global business operations, automation & productivity, and data strategy and management
• Team also owns worldwide planning, non-revenue goals, and communications for global startup operations

Head Of Global Startup Operations | AWS

• Publishing producer solely responsible for our Montreal Studio’s new IP title
• Built cross-Amazon partnerships increasing game capabilities, such as working across AWS, Alexa, and Twitch
• Creating and implementing mechanisms improving standardization and execution across production

Principal Publishing Producer | Amazon Games

• Responsible for Platform, International, and Mobile content acquisition and team content and coverage strategy
• Managed four business development teammates who closed 60 in-game content and free games deals in their first year
• Co-designed content and customer segmentation strategy for Prime Gaming, including team coverage
• Team signed Amazon’s first-ever games partnerships with Microsoft, Sega, Disney, MiHoYo, and Square Enix

Lead (Business Development, Strategy) | Amazon Games

• Grew from individual contributor to COO, with 8 team members of a 500+ person seller business in <12 months
• Co-led formation of new Cloud Sales Center concept, an integrated sales motion for second seller accounts
• Created scoring for account coverage prioritization, predicting high potential accounts with 90%+ accuracy
• Owned successful hiring/development plan for 400 Inside Sales Managers and Reps in one year

Head Of Cloud Sales Center Strategy, Operations & Enablement | AWS

Veeam Software

• Established new, successful mechanisms in all the areas of annual firm bookings planning, marketing lead scoring analysis, pricing and discounting optimization, staffing productivity analysis, industry/market sizing and trending, and customer segmentation
• Methodologies above led to forecasting large bookings miss nearly two quarters before it happened

Director | Strategy And Operations

The Advisory Board Company

• Evaluated 3 investments guiding company away from poor deals; renegotiated contract that saved millions
• Created a new Medicaid-based innovation project that was successfully presented to multiple hospital systems

Principal | Corporate Strategy and New Product Business Development

Dell EMC

• Rebuilt forecasting interlock process, leading to model allowing revenue shortfall planning months in advance
• Created process for geographic/functional quota allocation, leading to 80% more accurate distribution
• Closed 3 acquisitions across flash storage, sync-and-share, and mainframe modernization
• Co-created $50M zero-cost loan investment program, establishing EMC in six countries and yielding 10x returns

Lead | Americas' Strategy And Business Development

Extera Partners LLC 

• Created go-to-market and commercialization plan for an Australian company’s novel drug delivery mechanism

Senior Manager | Life Sciences Business Development

Mozergy Energy (Part-Time Start-Up)

• Created Biodiesel start-up producing nonfood-based renewable fuel while aiding sustainable development in Africa; handed off business to existent leadership post-business planning stage

Amir Satvat is a Business Development Director at Tencent Games in North America, with nearly two decades of experience at companies including Amazon, Veeam, VMware, Dell EMC, and Goldman Sachs. At Amazon, he led business development and strategy for Prime Gaming and served as Principal Producer for Amazon Games.

He is best known as the founder of Amir Satvat’s Games Community, the largest grassroots career support initiative in the video game industry. Through 13 free job-seeking resources across LinkedIn, Discord, and other platforms, he has helped more than 3,900 people secure jobs. His guiding principle: “We Help Gamers Get Hired. Zero Profit, Infinite Caring.” In 2023, he was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Video Games.

In 2023, Amir was awarded the International Special Industry Achievement Award by the Australian XR Festival, recognizing his contributions to the creative tech industry.

In 2024, he received the inaugural Game Changer Award at The Game Awards, a new accolade introduced to recognize individuals who have had a positive impact on the game industry. In 2025, his community partnered with GDC, receiving $100,000 in Expo Passes to support job seekers, and was recognized by Gamescom Cares for its grassroots impact.

Also in 2025, Amir received the Giving Award from Games for Change for his leadership during layoffs and was honored with the inaugural Industry Impact Award from Game Dev Heroes for helping thousands find work through one of the industry’s toughest periods.

That year, he was a keynote speaker at the External Development Summit (XDS), contributed to the Epic Games Education series, and judged the Interactive category of the Collegiate Games Challenge.

In addition to his role at Tencent, Amir serves as an advisory network member at Vivrato and a special advisor to the Zero Abuse Project. His community annually supports Gamers for CHOC, benefiting CHOC Children’s.

A frequent speaker and trusted industry voice, Amir has been featured by Business Insider, Bloomberg, NPR, CBC, The Los Angeles Times, IGN, GamesBeat, PC Gamer, Polygon, The Fourth Curtain, and more. He has spoken at GDC, GamesBeat, MIGS, XP Games Summit, and was a keynote speaker at XDS.

He holds an MBA from the Wharton School, an MB in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPA in Policy and Management from NYU, and a BS in Finance from Boston College, where he was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist and named a top 10 graduate.

Amir and his wife work remotely from his hometown of Farmington, Connecticut, where they live with their three boys.

Game Developers Conference 2026 500 Ticket Giveaway

I’m so thrilled to share that we are kicking off, by a factor of more than 6x value, the largest and most generous games event badge offering in Amir Satvat's Games Community's history.

Last year, you may recall that the good people at Informa provided 240 Expo Passes to us for GDC 2025. Over six months, with additional support from generous community donors, we ended up giving away 500 Expo Passes, which meant one out of every 60 people at GDC came from our community.

This year, when I reached out to Ian Doyle, I had an even bigger dream. I said, “Instead of 240, why don’t we just start with 500 free passes from GDC?”

 “Done,” Ian said. He did not hesitate for one second.
The organizers are just really good people.

🎟️ But here's the best part: 

Last year’s giveaway was for Expo Passes, which had some access limitations. This year, I’m pleased to announce that while I cannot disclose specifics yet out of respect for the GDC organizers' own announcements, these 500 passes will grant access at the same equivalent level of all-access passes last year. These are not Expo Passes. You will be able to experience every part of GDC.

🎟️ Who are the passes for?

As always, our focus is on supporting anybody unemployed and actively seeking work in games, as well as students at the undergraduate or graduate level.

🎟️ When and where?

GDC 2026 will take place March 9–13, 2026 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

🎟️ This is just the start

We have multiple additional GDC ideas in motion, including:

• Partnerships that may deliver even more passes, just as last year
• Programming and opportunities designed for those who win our badges
• One more major new GDC initiative with a partner that we will announce later

🎟️ Please note that as always, passes are for event access only. We cannot provide travel or accommodations for reasons of budget and liability. But with nearly 20 events supported annually, we do our best to ensure opportunities are available close to home.

🎟️ This will be the first of seven badge offerings for different video games events I will be announcing over the next week. 

🎟️ You can sign up here for a chance to win one of our 500 GDC passes here:

https://lnkd.in/eYk8UiRk

I appreciate everyone’s help spreading the word so every member of our community who would like a pass has the chance.

_____

I would also like to warmly thank Desirée R., our Head of Art and Design, who worked her butt off on the artwork you see to create something truly extraordinary fitting of Informa's generosity and our love for the games community.

Amir Satvat

We Help Gamers Get Hired. Zero Profit, Infinite Caring.

World of AmirCraft
GDC 2026 500 Ticket Giveaway

Badge Drawing
Unemployed & Students Get Priority

This is just the start

What Happens After You Make That Termination Decision

Just in case you did not know, here is what happens to the people you cut in games after you make that termination decision.

Over two-thirds of them, in our community, report having less than six months of savings. One in four say they have none.

Nearly half experience a "meaningful decline" in mental health within several months, based on our community polls..

About 30 percent are still unemployed a year later, based on our community data.

For professionals over 50, the odds are far worse.
Fewer than five percent of games roles today are held by people above that age. Once cut, many never return, not for lack of talent, but because algorithms and bias render them invisible. It quietly ends their careers in games, or at all, entirely.

Among those who do find new work, more than half take a pay cut.

A third or more have left games entirely, unable to find a path back over these last three years.

Not to mention those terminated multiple times or their partners also terminated.

And for many others, survival replaces purpose as they take whatever work they can find just to stay afloat.

Behind every number is a person who once helped build the worlds others escape into and now struggles to stay in their own.
People who poured nights, weekends, and years of creativity into launches that defined this industry.

We need to be honest about what these decisions really mean.
It is not just right-sizing.
It is missed rent payments.
Families losing healthcare.
People who stop identifying as creators because they no longer feel they have a place to create.
It is individuals who are never quite the same again.

The distance that often exists between those making these decisions and those affected makes it easy to forget the human cost, which is why it must be said plainly.

I privately assess every organization I observe on how they treat staff, using engagement, transparency, and most importantly what employees themselves tell me.

Some leaders have faced impossible situations and responded with empathy and integrity. Their actions deserve genuine respect.

Others have chosen indifference during peaks of profitability, cutting people without access or explanation, leaving them locked out overnight with a form letter. In those moments, what is destroyed is not only a job, but often confidence, identity, and stability for entire families.

I do not live in a fantasy world. I sat through the same business school classes you did, both in undergraduate and graduate, and I have lived it for more than twenty years. Sometimes cuts are unavoidable because an organization literally has no money left or needs to reduce expenses to remain an ongoing concern.

But when they are not, we owe it to people to pause and consider what we are truly doing. To internalize what this really costs.

If profitability is achieved by breaking so many lives, often permanently, we need to ask ourselves who we have become.

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