Hello and welcome to Business Daily Meets with me, Stefan Powell.

In these special episodes of the program, we meet interesting people in business from around the globe.

And today, we're meeting award-winning game designer Brenda Romero.

There's really no shortcut to getting in the game industry.

The easiest way that you can get in

is to make games, make small games, make good games, make bad games, but make games. And eventually

that will get you in. The game she got her breakthrough on was the franchise wizardry, which

went on to make millions of dollars. And she's made and contributed to more than 50 titles

since then. Now with her own company in Ireland, what does she think makes a great game? And in a

vulnerable time for the industry, what advice does she have and what does she think the future holds?

All of that is coming up.

So I guess my first question, the obvious place to start for me, what was childhood like for you, Brenda? What was growing up like? And where did the inspiration, I suppose,

for your relationship with games come from. Did it happen for when you were

a small child? Or is it something that came later? What was growing up like? Well, I come from

Northern New York, a town called Ogdensburg. It's right on the Canadian border on the St. Lawrence

River. And I come from a lower income family. It was just my mom and me.

I had a brother and sister, but they had already moved out of the house.

They're quite a bit older than I am, and my dad passed away when I was young.

So I guess that doesn't sound like an ideal upbringing, but there were some elements of it growing up specifically lower income that ended up paving the way for what I do today.

So I, we couldn't afford games.

We couldn't really afford much of anything.

And I never, I want to say that's not me.

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