Enduring Play Game Dev Podcast Ends Season With Behind-the-Scenes Look at Development on Backyard Baseball

Enduring Play Season 2 Episode 11 Cover Art with Lindsay Barnett and James Deighan

Cheryl Platz, the host of Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast

Cheryl Platz, Cannes Entertainment Lions for Gaming Jury Member 2026

Author, game dev, and host Cheryl Platz goes behind the scenes with Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett and Mega Cat Studios James Deighan

BELLEVUE, WA, UNITED STATES, May 12, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The underground hit “Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast” is closing out its successful 2nd season with a powerful bonus 11th episode featuring the leadership team behind the beloved Backyard Sports franchise. Both Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett and Mega Cat Studios CEO James Deighan joined host Cheryl Platz – who herself is a video game developer, professor, and author of The Game Development Strategy Guide – for a passionate discussion that gives a rare glimpse into this moment in time between a demo and a full product release for Backyard Baseball, the dynamics between publishers and developers, and plenty of insight about the unique journey required to resurrect 6 different Backyard Sports retro titles via reverse engineering in a few years’ time. Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett described what makes this project different: “We really believe that we're working on a project that can change the landscape for children's and family entertainment. And that means that we have to do things in a certain way that might not be the traditional way, because we're always going to be thinking about our fans first.”

Enduring Play Season 2 took a step beyond the direct game development focus of Season 1 to focus on scaling our game development ideas beyond the individual. A common thread through most of these conversations is the collective: communities of game developers, game education, games research, and the events and systems that support the releases and people making our games. Enduring Play host Cheryl Platz shared why this episode is a perfect closing inning for the season: “The Backyard Sports story is a perfect finish to Enduring Play Season 2 because it’s literally about scaling from the individual to the collective – from single player to multiplayer; from retro games to modern games; connecting a dormant but passionate community of gamers to each other with restored games. And along the way, there’s plenty of candor about the unexpected challenges and hard work that make game development so unique as an art form.”

Cheryl Platz’s work on Enduring Play and her book The Game Development Strategy Guide has been recognized repeatedly in 2026: she has been named a Hungama Game Changer 2026 in the gaming category (along with two of her Season 2 guests, Joanie Kraut and Amy White), nominated for the game*hers Icon award, and she has accepted the honor of joining this year’s 2026 Cannes Entertainment Lions for Gaming jury. These accolades largely reinforce the importance of the message, in Cheryl's eyes: “The most exciting thing about the recent awards is that they indicate people are finding value in the work, and that’s the whole point. I’m doing this podcast to help other game developers understand that there’s a better way to rebuild the industry. Join us on the journey.” Cheryl is owner and creative director of the design education company behind the podcast, Ideaplatz, LLC, as well as a full-time game developer at a globally beloved brand, a Twitch creator with a decade's worth of experience, and adjunct faculty of video gaming at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College.

Enduring Play Season 2 launched on March 3, 2026 and has seen its audience nearly double since last season despite no paid marketing for the pod. The podcast is on track to cross 3,000 lifetime IAB downloads once this season’s listening numbers are complete. Regular audiences hail from the US, UK, Canada, Spain, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Japan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, China, and France with many more countries represented by casual listeners.

The most-downloaded episode of Enduring Play Season 2 thus far is Episode 3 -“Putting Playtesting into your Process” with Steve Bromley, author of How to Be a Games User Researcher, with 119 IAB downloads. Other trending episodes include Episode 5 – “Helping Local Game Devs reach Global Impact” with Tim Cullings, Executive Director of Seattle Indies; Episode 6 – “Proactive People Programs for Thriving Game Studios” with Amy White, Director of People for Fusebox Games; and Episode 8 – “Authentic Games through Cultural Technical Design” with Timothy Staton-Davis, Creative Director of the Melanated Game Kitchen.

Host and author Cheryl Platz is currently touring internationally in support of the book and podcast while balancing her full time game development job – her next scheduled stops are her Cannes Festival of Creativity jury duty in France June 21-24, 2026 (with a panel appearance on June 24); GCX 2026 in Orlando, Florida July 24-25; the Shawnee Game Conference in Ohio November 6-7 2026; and the Global Innovation Forum in London November 18-20 2026.

Enduring Play was inspired by the book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, which is available at Rosenfeld Media or at your favorite online bookseller. Season 3 of Enduring Play will enter pre-production in late summer with a target release of late fall 2026. follow Enduring Play on your favorite podcast platform for first access to releases and bonus content.

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Enduring Play Season 2 Episode 11: From Reviving to Thriving with Backyard Sports featuring Lindsay Barnett and James Deighan

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