GDC Side Quest - Exploring co-development opportunities with Sam Carlisle

What's changing in the world of co-development (co-dev) and external development (ex-dev) GDC Side Quest returns with another interview recorded on the show floor of the 2026 GDC of Festival of Gaming, this time speaking with Microsoft veteran and XDS Spark co-founder Sam Carlisle. Content marketing manager Beth Elderkin joins Carlisle, who has over fifteen years of experience sourcing high-quality external content for major game development projects, to discuss why this development practice is becoming more and more essential in the changing world of video game production. 

Learn more about GDC Festival of Gaming: https://gdconf.com/

Learn more about XDS Spark: https://www.xds-spark.com/

Game Developer and GDC Festival of Gaming are sibling organizations under Informa Festivals.

- - - The Game Developer podcast is a bi-weekly podcast chronicling game development triumphs, catastrophes, and everything in-between, as devs from all sides of the industry share lessons and strategies fellow game makers can use to hone their craft.

Learn More at https://www.gamedeveloper.com

Follow Game Developer for more game dev Podcasts, News, & Interviews Bluesky: https://www.gamedeveloper.bsky.social LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gamedeveloperofficial

Music by Mike Meehan Edited by Pierre Landriau