Justin Gary Makes Games for a Living

Justin Gary is an award-winning game designer, author, and speaker. He started his career in gaming at the age of seventeen when he won the Magic: The Gathering US National Championships. He went on to play Magic professionally for several years, winning a Grand Prix, Pro Tour, and World Championship along the way.

Justin dropped out of NYU Law School to pursue an opportunity as a game designer. He went on to lead-design the DC Comics: Infinite Crisis set and create the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game. Justin left his job as a game designer to start his own company.

In 2010, he created the smash hit deck-building game Ascension. Justin’s latest project, Ascension Tactics just raised nearly half a million dollars of pre-orders on kickstarter, more than triple the original goal. 

In this episode we talk about:

What Justin learned from playing Magic professionally and the biggest distinction between those who succeeded as professional gamers and those who didn't (9:40)

How Justin found the courage to quit in the middle of law school and pursue his passion instead (19:40)

How you can tell if you are on the right path in your own life, or just following someone else’s plan (22:30)

The key to happiness that most people get backwards (40:30)

How to get started as a game designer (44:45) -- like most of what we discussed in this episode, these principles apply to any creative work (art, starting a business, writing, etc). 

Books Mentioned:

Open by Andre Agassi

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger VonOech

Links:

JustinGary.com - Justin’s main website

Think Like A Game Designer - Justin’s book and podcast (look out for the online course coming soon)

@Justin_Gary on Twitter