About GameKnight
GameKnight is a mobile games developer based in Los Angeles, CA. Combining years of know-how with instinct and a dash of madness, we craft unique, world-class digital products for our fans that rethink mobile experiences and the future of real-money and real-prize games. We create easy-to-learn digital games that put the fun first. Our titles include Reel Stakes Casino, Reel Stakes Casino: Real Money, and Jackpot Journey Slots,.
What We Do
At GameKnight, we are passionate about our product. And sure, we strive to develop successful games, but that’s not why we build them. First and foremost, we design games we believe in, games we can root for, and games that turn players into fans.
Putting The Fun First
We believe a game’s most important job is to be fun to play. At each step of the development process, with each critical decision, we first ask ourselves if our choices will help make the game more enjoyable. If the answer is no, it’s a no go.
Letting the Players Lead
Simply put. We listen. Crazy right!?!? Rather than trying to convince our players to like our games, we’ve come up with a novel approach: build games that give the players what they want. By paying attention to what players are asking for, we can be confident that the games we’re building are ones they’ll be excited to play.
Keeping it Real
We’re not about smoke and mirrors...mostly because our budget won’t allow for those kinds of special effects. We believe in creating real winning moments for our players. No tricks. Our games deliver what they promise, real prizes, real fun, and real winning!
Designing Games We Love
If we wouldn’t play it, why should we expect anyone else to? At GameKnight, we value the escape, excitement, and entertainment games bring to our lives, and we believe too much in the promise of great games to ask our players to accept anything less.
Meet Our Team
Roy Choi
CEO
Roy Choi is Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Knighted, an investment firm focused on entertainment and gaming. Knighted’s areas of focus include casino gaming, mobile gaming, Esports, and minor league sports.
In his nonprofit work, Roy is Founder and Chairman of Children in Harmony’s Amani Project. In partnership with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, the Amani Project is a nonprofit aimed at building gender equity and empathy in developing communities through music & social/emotional intelligence education. Roy is also Executive Producer and Board Chair of Kollaboration, a nationwide nonprofit showcasing emerging Asian Pacific artists and performers.
Roy holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and an MBA from London Business School. He also holds a BA in Cinema from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Nathan Leland
Head of Product
Nathan is a creative director and executive focused on innovative, user-centered solutions, irreverent themes, and occasionally dark humor. As Head of Product, it is Nate’s duty to ensure GameKnight creates an outstanding suite of fun, entertaining, and unique games as well as handling all the tasks nobody else on the team wants to do.
When he is not building an atmosphere of creativity, passion, and learning he is in a corner concocting another unholy mash-up of fun and crazy. He is adept at strategic thinking, building shared visions for new products, services, and experiences while championing change, and data-driven development. Nathan has worked across a spectrum of companies ranging from Sony, Dell, Intel, T-Mobile, GE, and NetApp, to indie studios and start-ups. Nathan holds a BS in Entertainment Design from Art Center College of Design. He attributes his boundless energy and endurance to the countless bee stings he has collected throughout his lifetime - so many he’s given his children bee phobias via osmosis.
Phil Cohen
Senior Producer
Phil's career started out with 5 years as a software quality assurance analyst and lead, and has been working as a project management professional in the interactive entertainment industry for over 16 years. His project management and direction experience directly contributed to multiple awards, nominations, and accolades for his team's products since 2005. He has worked across multiple hardware platforms, from handheld to console, mobile and Facebook, while managing teams of up to 20 people both internally and externally, using agile practices for production and data driven post-launch live support.
With his vast industry experience and long list of achievements, Phil is well-prepared to help GameKnight achieve success. Phil’s only weakness is his desperate aversion to every kind of pickle, a fact that is often used against him.
Christine Kim
The Fixer
Vigilantly keeping the GameKnight train on its tracks, Christine wears more hats than a bald-headed hydra. Whether it’s invoicing, payroll billing, W9s, or travel, Christine is our one-stop shop of awesome, effortlessly navigating the labyrinthian mixture of business needs without even breaking a sweat.
With more than twenty years’ experience wrangling live-events across the US, Christine blesses our team with her always-on-it work ethic, her grace under fire, and her unwavering positive attitude.
Life as a Knight
We endeavor to take players on journeys, creating engaging, exciting, and unexpected experiences that will brighten their days with the promise of endless possibilities. That’s no small order, and delivering on that promise means being our best by staying true to our team values, respecting and trusting in each other, and bringing everything we have to our work through innovative thinking, dedication, and heart.
Collaboration
We are lean, stealthy and skilled...yep, we’re game ninjas! Maintaining effective partnerships and open lines of communication at all times is critical for the shared success of our crew. As a small but mighty team, constant collaboration ensures we can consistently move toward our goals.
Contribution
Developing engaging and innovative games, choosing strategies for growth, and rapidly identifying solutions require a variety of unique perspectives and pooling ideas. There’s no time to play wallflower. We encourage all our team members to speak up and make themselves heard.
Passion
We believe we should only create games we, ourselves, would want to play. As a team, we talk about the titles we find most engaging and memorable, and we actively look for opportunities to develop games and features that will inspire the same enthusiasm and fervor in the hearts and minds of our players.
Honesty
As much as we love to have fun, we also accept that not everything we touch will turn into gold, and life on a small team won’t always be sunshine and rainbows. We welcome feedback, even, and especially, when it challenges our assumptions, and we urge team members to ask for support when they need it and directly and openly address any communication issues or obstacles preventing their success.
Fun
Play is our business, and we believe fun is a crucial ingredient in the creative process, not to mention...just makes life a whole lot better. From daily meetings and work chats, to weekly team building events, we make humor a valued staple of our work culture, and we strive to infuse a touch of irreverence and joy in everything we do and everything we create.