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But we had a pretty diversified portfolio of businesses around the world and things tended to offset each other. But one or two years ago, we had a lot of things happening at the same time.

The game business arose from computer programs that were written by and for young men in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They worked so well that they formed a very lucrative industry fairly quickly. But what worked for that demographic absolutely did not work for most girls and women.

Before I became a game designer, I was a software engineer.

We didn't have our online service developed. We had never shipped a console game before as a company. So we were developing a lot of new competencies as a company and assembling a new team.

When I came into the business, things changed a lot, and my life was in a real state of flux.

I worked as a writer, lead designer, and creative director in the game industry.

I built the business exactly the way my mother built and ran her family. I wanted a replication of the big, happy family I grew up in. I wanted happy people having fun.

When I was young, we didn't have indie games. We had 'garage developers' or similar terms, who were just small teams making games out of passion.

After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.

The distance between the people who made the games and the people playing them wasn't that big. It was the spirit of independence. The programmers were a lot like you.