How games changed influencer Ali Farha's life

Ali Farha has become a prominent voice in the industry and a top influencer on business networking platform LinkedIn.

Hailing from the wider tech space, Farha made the decision to move into games seven years ago and has since built up a slew of credits.

These include five years at Star Stable Entertainment, a DevGAMM advisory role, board member positions at The Game Assembly and Futuregames - where he is also head of education - while he is also a founding member of Games Majlis.

Most recently, he joined Nordic VC firm Behold Ventures to help drive future fundraising and support portfolio production and growth.

But he might never have joined the industry at all.

“I didn’t know that you can work in games,” he admits.

“I’ve been a gamer my entire life but never assumed that you can work in games until I saw a job ad at Peak. My life changed when I started pursuing joining the games industry.

“I started from absolutely nothing. Zero in every aspect you could imagine. That’s why I made it my mission to tell people what’s possible and what’s not. And I feel the more I succeed, the more I prove to people it is really possible. They can start at any age, any time in life, from any level, and you can still make it.”

Expanding influence

Farha recalls building his industry network from scratch, while having no education in the space having previously worked in testing at transport solutions provider Scania Group and digital service consultancy Knightec.

He says it took him three years to study - learning platforms like Unity and Unreal - and to build up his connections.

“It wasn’t an easy journey. There were a lot of late nights.”

Eventually he built his first game and worked with a couple of studios as a play tester to see the inner workings of game development first-hand. Some of his jobs before landing his first full-time gig included unpaid work supporting game studios.

After securing a role at Star Stable developer Star Stable Entertainment as a test automation engineer, he says his life changed. Following his first month, he was offered work by a school to lead one of their courses, then he was offered to be a board member at another school, before getting the call to speak at CD Projekt Red for his first talk.

“It just started to go up from there,” he says, with more events, speaking gigs, podcasts, school lectures and travelling the world following on from that.

“I made it my mission, whatever small event, I’m all down for this.”

Social media maestro

Flash-forward a few years later, Farha has run a team of 22 people on Star Stable and ranks as one of the industry’s top LinkedIn influencers. The platform has seen a sharp rise in the past couple of years of users offering insights, opinions and general musings on the sector and providing a hub for debate. 

Opinions differ on how useful some of that discourse is, but it has spawned a new set of influencers for gaming that also includes the likes of Tencent’s Amir Satvat, who has made it his mission to support people in the industry find new jobs amid thousands of layoffs, among other top figures on the platform.

Farha says one of the reasons he started writing on LinkedIn was because, at the time, not many of his peers were creating content. 

“If you write one post a week, you’re in the top percentage of people on LinkedIn users,” he says.

Farha says he “wrote for a full year for no one”. After taking a year’s break, he returned to creating content as he made the move into games.

“I started to get more traction, then I started to expand my network in the industry slowly,” he explains. 

“Then I started writing my insights, how I see things. A lot of people assume that they have nothing to write. I always find it funny when I chat with them for maybe five minutes and they have 15 ideas on the fly. It’s just that people don’t know how to think about what to write.”

He adds: “I believe everyone should write. To be honest, writing changed my life.”

“A big change”

Farha says one of the reasons he broke into the industry and has grown his following - and his advice for others - is saying yes to things you always say no to.

“You will see a big change,” he states. “I was really not comfortable speaking in front of the public. And now people see me on stage and they don’t believe that. I’ve done maybe 100+ talks now, so I’ve practiced a lot, but when I started seven years ago I was really shitting my pants speaking in front of my own team.”

Farha adds that many of the opportunities he’s had wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t been vocal on social media. “There’s no way how anyone would even know that I exist in the industry if I’m not actively showing myself.”

He adds: “In my opinion I feel it’s not an option to share what you know, it’s our duty. We are obligated in a way; sometimes what you share can help people. I feel people are afraid of writing because it looks more like bragging. ‘Oh, you just write about you’. No. You’re showing people what they need and in a lot of cases you’re helping them, so I feel that’s something they should do.” 

Farha has now stepped into the investment world full-time with Behold Ventures. He admits he’s moving into a side of the industry he doesn’t know much of, other than through what he calls his “side hustles”. He goes back to motivation to move outside his comfort zone as one reason to take on the role.

“I’ve been telling people to always be brave and take steps to learn, and it doesn’t make sense if I don’t do it myself so I’m showing them that I’m doing it.”

Meet influential games industry figures at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January 19th and 20th.