Oxide, the study behind 2016 Ashes of the Singularity and founded by a group of former Firaxis employees in 2013, is preparing to launch its second strategy game, Ara: Untold Story, next month. Ahead of that launch, the studio hired former Paramount vice president of development and production Adrian Wright as its new general manager. Wright, who also served as Nickelodeon's vice president of premium gaming, helping launch titles like 2022's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's RevengeHe is also the first general manager of Oxide.
As the studio’s first general manager, Wright says his role is to run the business side of things while the creative team does what they do best. He describes Oxide as a studio that has “grown rapidly, but it’s still a small, gritty team.” It’s grown enough to the point where it needs someone to “come in and run things on a business level.” Given his history in games, Wright feels well-equipped and excited about the role.
Wright says his first studio, Max Gaming Technologies, LLC, “has become [his] life” as he has worn multiple hats, covering business development, production and creative processes. He credits this with giving him a unique perspective on the business side of things early in his career, and it's one he still maintains today.
From Nickelodeon to Oxide
His position as general manager at Oxide, which he has held since June, is not about shaking up the studio, but rather promoting the team's vision, “not only as we prepare to deliver Arawhere I'm dealing with the last 10 meters, but also the future and the kind of cool things we can integrate into the strategy genre.”
“We are really focused on this at the moment. Ara,” he adds. “I'll probably be wearing the producer hat a little bit, actually overseeing all the different disciplines there, making sure that engineering, production and creative work well together. [I’m] We are also working with our partners at Microsoft to ensure we meet all of our dates” (Xbox Game Studios is publishing Ara, and will be available on PC Game Pass on September 24).
After Max Gaming Technologies, Wright joined Nickelodeon in 2011, where he spent 10 years before moving to a gaming role at parent company Paramount. At both companies, which Wright considers an extended stint, he helped manage their Facebook gaming teams, built in-house teams to launch games like 2011's Monkey Quest MMO, and helped launch franchise-based games like Shredder's Revengeand, Star Trek games and more. Wright credits his time at Nickelodeon and Paramount with getting him “to the point where I feel very comfortable coming into a company like Oxide and helping them move forward.”
Wright describes Oxide, which he estimates has about 50 employees based in the firm’s Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland, office, as a culture of a lot of great, talented people who work together really well. Key to that is the ability to be open with each other and have conversations when needed, regardless of where they are in the firm’s pipeline. “As a general manager, I meet with different parts of the team every day; I like to walk the floor, check in on people, and see how they’re doing, what they need,” he says, adding that he proudly maintains an open-door policy so anyone at Oxide feels free to talk to him about anything. “It works really well.”
Regarding his management style, Wright says he likes to be collaborative and doesn't want to be the only one contributing or making decisions alone. He also believes it's important for every individual in the firm to feel accountable for what they do.
When asked why Oxide chose to hire its first general manager now, Wright attributes the decision to a need for someone to help the studio grow, which he says happened both organically and intentionally as the team prepared for launch. Ara and grow based on post-launch ambitions.
He also believes that Oxide has hired a general manager to help it move forward Ara to launch it as smoothly as possible. “These guys have been working on the game for several years now; they're finally getting to the point where we're about to launch it and everyone is extremely excited. My role has really been to help […] “We get rid of people who are blocking us and help talk through issues when we encounter them, and we really support the staff and make sure they have everything they need to get things done.”
As Oxide’s first general manager in a year that saw more than 14,000 developers laid off across dozens of studios this year alone, Wright explained the importance of transparency when asked how to instill trust and a sense of security in a studio.
“The most important thing for me is to make sure our people understand what our goals are and how they affect those goals. Transparency, as much as possible, is important,” he says, warning that there is a danger in working toward something without knowing enough about the goal or how a studio can achieve it.
Wright sees his job as Oxide's general manager as helping the team continue to chart its own path in the strategy genre, which began with the acclaimed Ashes of the Singularity eight years ago and I hope it will continue with next month Ara.