Oxide Games hires its first general manager ahead of Ara: History Untold's launch

Oxide, the studio behind 2016's Ashes of the Singularity and founded by a group of former Firaxis employees in 2013, is preparing to launch its sophomore strategy game, Ara: History Untold, next month. In the leadup to that launch, the studio has hired former Paramount vice president of development and production Adrian Wright to be its new general manager. Wright, who also worked as Nickelodeon's vice president of premium games, helping to launch titles like 2022's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, is also Oxide's first-ever general manager.

As the studio's first general manager, Wright says his role is about handling the business side of things while the creative team does what it does best. He describes Oxide as a studio that's "grown rapidly, though still a small scrappy team." It's just grown enough to the point that it needs someone to "come in and handle things on a business level." Given his history in games, Wright feels prepared and excited about the role.

Wright says his first studio, Max Gaming Technologies, LLC, "became [his] life" as he wore multiple hats, handling business development, production, and creative processes. He feels this gave him a unique perspective on the business aspect early in his career and it's a perspective he still holds today.

From Nickelodeon to Oxide

His general manager position at Oxide, which he's held since June, is not about rocking the studio's boat but rather about fostering the team's vision, "not only as we get ready to deliver Ara, which I'm coming in here at the last 10 yards, but also going into the future, and what type of great stuff we can build into the strategy genre."

"Right now, we're really focused on Ara," he adds. "I'll probably have my production hat on a bit, really kind of overseeing all the different disciplines there, making sure that engineering, production, and creative are all working well together. [I'm] also working with our partners at Microsoft to make sure that we're delivering on all of our dates" (Xbox Game Studios is publishing Ara, and it will launch on PC Game Pass on Sept. 24).

After Max Gaming Technologies, Wright began working at Nickelodeon in 2011, which lasted for 10 years before he transitioned into a games role at parent company Paramount. At these two companies, which Wright views as one extended stint, he helped run their Facebook games teams, built internal teams to launch games like 2011's Monkey Quest MMO, and had a hand in launching franchise-driven games like Shredder's Revenge, Star Trek games, and more. Wright attributes his time at Nickelodeon and Paramount as getting him "to the point where I feel very comfortable coming into a company like Oxide and helping them into the future."

Wright describes Oxide, which he estimates is roughly 50 employees based in the studio's Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland, office, as having a culture of a lot of great and talented people who work together really well. Key to that is the ability to be open with each other and have conversations as needed, regardless of place in the studio's chain of operations. "As general manager, I meet with various parts of the team every day; I like to walk the floor, check on people and see how they're doing, what they need," he says, adding he proudly keeps an open door policy in place so that anyone at Oxide feels free to talk to him about anything. "It's working really well.”

On his management style, Wright says he likes to be collaborative and doesn't want to be the only one with input or the sole decision maker. He also feels it's important that every individual at the studio feels ownership over what they do.

When asked why Oxide chose now to hire its first general manager, Wright attributes the decision to needing someone to help the studio in its growth, which he says has been happening both organically and purposefully as the team prepares to launch Ara and scale with post-launch ambitions.

He also feels Oxide hired a general manager now to help bring Ara to launch 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 and everybody's extremely excited about that. My role really has been to help [...] get blockers out of the way and help talk through issues as we come across them, and really support the staff and making sure they have what they need to deliver everything."

Coming in as Oxide's first general manager in a year where more than 14,000 developers have been laid off across dozens of studios in just this year alone, Wright explained the importance of transparency when asked how to instill confidence and a sense of safety in a studio.

"The biggest thing for me is to make sure our people understand what our goals are and how they affect those goals. Transparency—as much as you can be—is important," he says, warning that there's a danger in working toward something without knowing enough about the goal or how a studio can reach it.

Wright feels his job as Oxide's general manager is to help the team continue charting its own path in the strategy genre, which began with the well-received Ashes of the Singularity eight years ago and will hopefully continue with next month's Ara.