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A gleaming Belle from Beauty and the Beast glided along the exhibition floor at last years San Diego Comic-Con adorned in a yellow corseted gown with cascading satin folds. She could barely take two steps before a cluster of little girls stopped her for photos. As she waved one hand, her other delicately held a red flower with mechanized fingers. The kids stared. Its not every day you see a fairy-tale princess with a cybernetic hand. Disney meets Skynet. But this being the epicenter of the nerd universe, the mash-up slayed. Oh, cooool, one of them cooed.For Mandy Pursley, the 42-year-old graphic designer cosplaying Belle, it was a chance not only to show off her enviable sewing chops, but also to display the bleeding-edge technology that overhauled her life. Pursley was born with a right arm that ended just below her elbow. She began wearing prosthetics at age 6 but grew disillusioned with them a few years later. I didn’t find it to be very functional or very useful, she says.Over time, her left hand overcompensated. She accomplished tasks like typing 60 words per minute, but more nuanced dexterity eluded her. That is, until three years ago, when Pursley began using the Ability Hand, a state-of-the-art bionic prosthetic from San Diego startup Psyonic. Marketed as the first and fastest touch-sensing myoelectric hand, the device translates arm muscle movements from the residual limb into electronic signals that control the hand, while a haptic motor vibrates to indicate how tightly items are being grasped.The results were game-changing. Before, Pursley often held objects with her feet. Now she tackles mundane tasks like opening a water bottle or threading a needle much more conventionally. I’m able to use jewelry pliers now when I’m doing my costume making, she says. Before I would put the pliers in my armpit. It would hurt, and I didnt have a lot of control over the really fine motions, like opening and closing them.Pursley wasnt the only bionic cosplayer at Comic-Con. She was part of a posse of Psyonic clients alongside Aadeel Akhtar, the firms 38-year-old founder and CEO and Ability Hand inventor, coursing through the convention after their panel, Psyonic: Bionic Arms in the Real World, which returns to this year’s event on July 24.Graphic designer Mandy Pursley as Beauty and the Beasts Belle [Photo: Susan Karlin]Its the world’s premier conference for sci-fi, Akhtar says. This is the current state of bionic technology, and what’s happening in science fiction is becoming a reality. We can demonstrate it at San Diego Comic-Con and show the world the cool stuff our users can do.Their presence is a natural here, given the pervasiveness of high-tech prosthetics in the sci-fi and comic universes. Marvel’s Bucky Barnes and Mad Maxs Furiosa sport bionic arms, while characters in the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist boast a range of mechanized limbs (not to mention the robotic hand Luke Skywalker receives in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back after Darth Vader severs his real one).But it wasnt just sci-fi fans. The technology also caught the attention of science and film luminaries. Retired NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and Captain America: Brave New World production designer Ramsey Avery, at SDCC for panels, stopped to chat with Akhtar and examine the Ability Hand.Avery recalls being awestruck by the machinery: After years of cheating fake versions of functional artificial arms to look real for film or theme parks, there it was, the real thing! Avery is returning to Comic-Con this year to conduct portfolio reviews on July 26. It is so exciting to find myself living in the aspirational versions of the sci-fi I read as a kid, instead of the dystopian ones, he says.From left: Captain America: Brave New World production designer Ramsey Avery, Psyonic creative marketing manager and Grasping Beyond filmmaker Dale DiMassi, and retired NASA astronaut Cady Coleman at San Diego Comic-Con [Photo: Jeff Brannon]Its the same wow factor that last year blew away the hard-won Shark Tank judges, three of whomLori Greiner, Daymond John, and Kevin O’Learyagreed to invest a collective $1 million in exchange for a 6% equity stake, the particulars of which are still being negotiated. The device was also featured in a 2023 60 Minutes segment on University of Chicago prosthetic brain implant research.Having amassed $4.1 million from equity crowdfunding and now valued at $65 million, the 10-year-old company has grown to more than 45 employees and broken even with a projected revenue of $6 million this year. Its now in the process of relocating to a nearby 22,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, almost five tmes the size of its current digs, and considering an eventual IPO to scale up manufacturing. Psyonics hands are used by nearly 250 patients and more than 50 of the worlds top robotics researchers, institutions, and companies, including NASA, Meta, Google, Mercedes-Benz, and MIT. Nonhuman applications range from automated assembly to service robots. Two years ago, the company introduced Abi the Ability Dog, a demonstration robotic dog that uses an Ability Hand to turn doorknobs and wield lightsabers. Meanwhile, NASA is readying an Ability Hand-sporting humanoid robot named Valkyrie for a future space mission. Were making over 1,000 hands a year, at $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, for both a human and humanoid robot marketplace that will explode in the next five years, Akhtar says. But we need to scale this to where we’re making tens to a hundred thousand hands per year. Our biggest issue right now is that we’ve got more demand than we can produce.Psyonic founder and CEO Aadeel Akhtar [Photo: Psyonic]Much of that growth allows putting considerable energy back into innovating. Earlier this year, Psyonic released a lighter, faster, and more durable upgrade with a stronger grip and conductive fingers for cellphone use, with plans to roll out a fully redesigned Ability Hand by 2027. Meanwhile, its concurrently working on a next-generation interface enabling more nuanced individual finger control and a localized sense of touch. This approach involves implanting electrodes in the residual limb nerves and titanium rods in the bones. The electrodes carry signals between the nerves and the hand along wires inside the rods. Akhtar also intends to adapt the technology for partial-hand amputees and to create an Ability Leg. I see a more seamless interaction between humans and machines, where this feels like an extension of your body as opposed to just a tool on the end of it, he says.What makes the tech so special?The Ability Hand is two and a half times faster than its competitors (closing as fast as 0.2 seconds) and the first with touch feedback, Akhtar says. It attaches to a custom-molded arm prosthetic, or socket, thats made separately by prosthetic clinics, and grips the residual limb by extending over the bony protrusions flanking the elbow. The users brain sends signals to the limb muscles as though to move an actual hand, causing them to expand and contract. Two sensors in the socket detect those movements, amplify them, convert them into electrical signals, and transmit them to the Ability Hand, causing the grip to open or close. Users can connect to a smartphone app via Bluetooth to create customized grips and display data such as muscle signals and touch feedback. An internal haptic motor vibrates according to grip strength to let users know how firmly theyre grasping things and give them the sensation of pressure.Batteries last six to eight hours, depending on use, and recharge in an hour by plugging the socket into a wall. There are also a couple of nifty perks: The hand plays a synthesized version of the Doom video game theme song and can also charge phones. (I wish I could do that with my natural arm! Akhtar says with a laugh.) Psyonic offers a selection of colorsblue, white, green, rose gold, and blackand attachments like a wrist rotator that can turn hands 360 degrees.[Photo: Psyonic]Both the Ability Hand and socket are typically made from carbon fiberthe same material used in rocket partsrendering them lightweight but able to take a beating, with silicone and rubber in the fingers enabling flexibility.I can smash this, it totally survives, says Akhtar, waving a model Ability Hand. I’ve dropped it from the roof of my house, 30 feet in the air. I put it in the dryer for 10 minutes. I’ve stepped on it. We’ve done flaming board-breaking with it. I arm-wrestled a U.S. paratriathlon national champion and lost. Its also one of the few that’s water resistant, so you can wash it like you would a natural hand, though you cant submerge it yet.[Image: Psyonic]That toughness makes more activities possible. I’m very hard on my prosthetic devices, says Kate Ketelhohn, 22, who was dressed as Bo Peep from Toy Story. I do theater, and it would break during a show. The director would want me to do certain tasks and I couldn’t do them because my hand couldn’t handle it.A graduate student in bioethics and medical humanities at Case Western Reserve University, Ketelhohn has been using the Psyonic device since her senior year of high school. As an infant, she lost her left forearm, right-hand fingertips, and feet from sepsis and meningitis, and has worn prostheses since she was a toddler. But the muscle-powered hook she used during childhood couldnt quite cut it.The devastation as a kid when you just keep trying to eat chips and keep crumbling them because your hand can’t handle fine delicate movement, she says. Now, being able to eat chips or carry food in one hand and eat it with the other feels like a complete life hack. People with disabilities, especially with upper-limb differences, have such possibilities to work and function at a pretty normal able-bodied level if we have access to the right tools.A life-changing tripAkhtar has wanted to build bionic limbs since age 7 after traveling with his parents to their native Pakistan and seeing a girl his age missing her right leg and using a tree branch as a crutch. It just stuck with me, he says. We had the same ethnic heritage, but vastly different qualities of life. A lot of it has to do with having access to things like affordable rehabilitative care and advancements, like bionic limbs.He studied biology at Loyola University in Chicago, his hometown, intent on becoming a neurosurgeon, until a computer class captured his imagination. I loved everything about coding and programming and making my own things. I realized that if I became a straight-up MD I wouldn’t get to do any of the cool stuff I was learning in my computer science classes. Akhtar also drew inspiration from breakthrough research at the time that used nerve impulses to control prosthetics. I wanted to figure out a way to merge my interests in prosthetics, clinical medicine, and engineering to help people with limb differences regain function and improve their quality of life.Akhtar went on to earn two masters degrees in computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Loyola and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively. He was on an MD/PhD track at the latter when he got the chance to work with the Range of Motion Project, an Ecuadorian nonprofit that provides prosthetics to those who can’t afford them. Its first patient was Juan Suquillo, an Ecuadorian Army veteran whod lost his left hand during a 1981 border war with Peru. Akhtar watched Suquillo tear up after donning an early versionthree times his hand size, with wires everywhereand pinching his left fingers together.Open house at Psyonic’s San Diego facility [Photo: Psyonic]For the first time in nearly 35 years, he felt as though a part of him had come back, Akhtar recalls. It was in that moment I realized that if I finished this MD/PhD program and worked at an academic hospital, this would just end up as a journal paper. And if we wanted everyone to feel the exact same way that Juan did, we had to commercialize the technology.Thus, Psyonic was born in 2015. Even the name has its roots in comics, inspired by the X-Men characters whose psionic powers control matter with their minds. After earning his doctorate in neuroscience the following year, and buoyed by two prestigious university innovation awards for his invention, Akhtar stepped away from medical school (to his parents’ dismay) and began raising money through equity crowdfunding and National Science Foundation grants.By 2021, he had a Food and Drug Administration-registered marketable product, landing him in a Newsweek special issue, Americas 50 Greatest Disruptors: Visionaries Who Are Changing the World. The following year, Akhtar moved the company west to level up the tech with surgeons at the Naval Medical Hospital San Diego and the UC San Diego medical school, where hes now a faculty member. Then came his Shark Tank appearance in early 2024, which included the first Psyonic patient, U.S. Army Sergeant Garrett Anderson, whod lost his hand in a roadside bombing in Iraq. He told us that when he wears our hand, he can feel his daughter’s hand, Akhtar says.His pitch not only won over the judges, but also made up for his abandoned medical degree. When my mom saw me on Shark Tank, she was pretty proud of that, he says, laughing.The Luke Skywalker HandDale DiMassi, a 46-year-old filmmaker and Psyonics new creative marketing manager, was pretty much over prosthetics. Born without a right hand, hed long adapted to the world as he was. In 2023, he was developing a documentary, Grasping Beyond, that explores how groundbreaking bionic hand technology is transforming the lives of amputees and challenging societal norms about ability, when his brother sent him a video of the Ability Hand.Holy cow! Somebody built the Luke Skywalker hand! DiMassi remembers thinking. Its this picture I’ve had in my mind since I was a kid when I sawthat film and thought, Someday, somebody’s gonna build that, he says. I hadn’t worn a prosthetic in about 30 years but was really interested in seeing the technology and meeting some of the users. But it was such a game changer, I didn’t want to just document it. I had to experience it for myself, too.Abi the Ability Dog [Animation: Psyonic]Initially, DiMassi found a reverse learning curve. Things that people do with two hands, I’ve learned to do with one, and then had to relearn how to do it with two, he says. But making those adjustmentssuch as rebalancing his body to carry items on both sidessolved other physical issues, like posture and back strain. However, it was little gestures, like shaking his dads hand with his right hand, that carried the most meaning. Just doing a proper handshake, which is something in 45 years I hadn’t been able to do.Maddening insurance hurdlesProsthetics have become increasingly sophisticated and varied with the rise of microprocessors, advanced materials, and computerized designs. Yet private medical insurance often drags its feet on more state-of-the-art (and expensive) prosthetics. The retail cost of the Ability Hand plus the custom socket, fittings, and training can run $40,000 to $60,000, compared to body-powered hooks, which cost about $10,000. Despite it being covered by Medicare, the device is classified as experimental by some private insurers.Everything is supposed to be predicated on Medicare, says David Rotter of David Rotter Prosthetics in Joliet, Illinois, whos given Akhtar clinical guidance since his grad school days. But the private sphere looks for ways to belabor and deny claims or give terrible reimbursement rates, hoping people will give up and they won’t have to pay out on these expensive claims. So there’s a devious plotline; the rationale behind it is to make money.Prosthetists (who craft the sockets, attach them to the Ability Hands, and train their users) often do battle for their clients. After Ketelhohns former insurance provider, Aetna, initially denied her claim, her prosthetists at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as Psyonic made a case with the exact conditions for usage.Insurance is often looking for the cheapest way to provide the most function, says Ketelhohn. “If you can accomplish basic living tasks like eating, dressing, and bathing with a low-cost device, why should insurance pay for an expensive new one?” Moreover, approvals rely heavily on precedent when there are none without using the requested device, thus setting up a bureaucratic catch-22. For many activity-specific prostheses, how can you know you would use it if you cant even try the activity?Insurance covered a nonfunctional cosmetic hand for much of Pursleys life, but deemed a bionic hand medically unnecessary because she didnt have a history of problems from overusing one side of her body to compensate. I was actually told being able to feed and dress myself was enough, she says. By then, Pursley was in her early thirties, married to a Marine, and covered by his military insurance, Tricare. When she began having pain and muscle strain a few years later, she tried again. This time, Tricare did cover both the hand and subsequent repairs. But it took her needing physical therapy for her shoulder and documenting her overuse issues.2023 NAAOP Breece Fellow and Case Western Reserve University graduate student Kate Ketelhohn as Toy Storys Bo Peep [Photo: Susan Karlin]A common barrier to insurance coverage is proving that a limb difference is causing additional medical problems because of your limb difference, she says. Just the fact that you have a limb difference may not be considered enough need to be able to have a prosthetic. I had to prove I was breaking down in order to get this approved. Ideally, we want access to this technology before we have problems.DiMassi, too, endured a maddening odyssey getting coverage for his Ability Hand. After paying Anthem Blue Cross of California his preapproved $3,000 portion, the insurance company reassessed and blindsided him with a surprise bill for $9,000, which he had to resolve through the state attorney generals office.Youre completely at the mercy of the insurance companies, he says. The Ability Hand is not a normal ask, so there aren’t a whole lot of things to benchmark it against. It often takes multiple denials and resubmitting the claim to get approval. It feels like a game the insurance companies are playing.The National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics (NAAOP), Amputee Coalition, and So Every Body Can Move advocacy initiatives, along with injured veterans, have pushed for better insurance coverage and legislation giving people with disabilities greater access to mobility and independence. With war, there’s always renewed interest in prosthetics because you have young, healthy veterans coming back with real needs, Rotter says. We are seeing a steady movement for choices available for amputees and whether they’re actually going to be covered. The NAAOP is currently investigating how the newly passed 2025 budget reconciliation bill, aka the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will threaten orthotics and prosthetics coverage once Medicaid cuts and stricter enrollment provisions kick in. The Congressional Budget Office already projects some 17 million Americans will lose healthcare or subsidies over the next decade.This will impact orthotics and prosthetics in some way, wheter it’s direct or downstream from losing access to preventive care, says 2025 NAAOP Breece Fellow Annika Berlin, who works at Psyonic as a user experience specialist. (The 23-year-old was also part of last years Comic-Con crew, as Mad Maxs Furiosa.)Rural regions are expected to be hit the hardest, especially in states that expanded their Medicaid programsfederal and state-funded health insurance for those with low incomes and disabilitiesafter the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. “Thats where Medicaid dependence and amputation rates are typically higher, due to factors like limited access to preventive care, high rates of diabetes and peripheral artery disease, and occupational hazards in industries like farming and manufacturing, she adds, noting a potential snowball effect.2025 NAAOP Breece Fellow and Psyonic user experience specialist Annika Berlin as Mad Maxs Furiosa [Photo: Annika Berlin]Berlin has also spent years tussling with insurance companies, enduring three denied claims from Cigna Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield of New York, and Aetna for other myoelectric brands. Aetna finally reversed course on her Ability Hand in 2020, her senior year of high school, after copious doctors’ notes and pain documentation from overusing her other arm.They’re not usually super keen on paying for the most advanced, expensive, bionic hand up front at first, even though I knew that was really important for my needs, Berlin says. “They tend to define medical necessity as the basic ability to perform tasks required to survivenot the broader activities that allow someone to thrive, participate fully in society, and live a fulfilling, joyful life in a way thats free from discrimination.For its part, last year Psyonic started the Ability Fund, a fundraising partnership with Range of Motion to raise money for prosthetics and clinical services for those who cant afford them. Range of Motions network of clinicians and Psyonic will supply sockets and hands, fittings, and training at significantly reduced costs. Every $25,000 raised will enable an upper-limb prosthetic for a user in America and a leg prosthetic for one in Ecuador, which would normally retail for $100,000 to $150,000 collectively. The Funds first recipient is Ivan Krastev, an 18-year-old born with one hand. Already skilled in robotics and high-speed drone piloting, Krastev is heading to aviation school to become the worlds first bionic pilot.Akhtar also wants to partner with video games that feature prosthetic-wearing avatars to create Psyonic-branded in-game purchases and use those proceeds to help defray costs for those in need.Changing the narrativeAs they head back to Comic-Con next week, its against this backdrop that bionic Belles and Bo Peeps serve a kind of celebratory activism by whimsically showcasing how such technological advances not only enable more fulfilling lives for those with limb differences but also change the narrative on peoples perceptions about disability.This year, Pursley will unveil a matching red bedazzled prosthetic and ruby slippers as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Her arsenal also includes a glass arm for Cinderella, a golden hand for Belle, an arm laced with Fabergé egg-style designs for Anastasias Russian princess, and a metal hand for the Sorceress from the tabletop game Cult of the Deep, whose creators tapped Pursley to help develop a character with a magical prosthetic hand. In addition to Psyonics panel, Pursley will appear on Cos-Ability: Cosplay Without Boundaries on July 26.Meanwhile, Ketelhohn is heading back with two costumes: Astrid from How to Train Your DragonIt was the first movie I saw as a kid that accurately portrayed prosthetics, she saysand the Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes, a Marvel character with a cybernetic arm. My costume looks really accurate with this hand, she adds.Joining them are Psyonic digital media specialist Ryan Goodwin and newcomers Krastev and Jamie Groshong, a 20-year-old San Diego State University junior who was an aspiring baseball player before losing his hand in a fireworks accident two years ago. Thanks to the Ability Hand, hes resumed playing the sport for fun, recently hitting the first bionic home run and throwing an honorary first pitch at a San Francisco Giants game. The whole conversation changes with this hand, says DiMassi. People are beyond the What happened to you? Now its This is so cool. How does it work? Imagine the impact this is going to have on a young kid growing up and how different their experience navigating the world is going to be.Two years ago, Akhtar returned to Ecuador to deliver the latest version of the Ability Hand to Juan Suquillo. It was an incredible moment because everything started with him and that trip, says Akhtar, especially when Suquillo surprised him by turning down a hand color matching his skin tone.He preferred the bionic-looking version, Akhtar says. He said when he walks down the street, he feels like Robocop.
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E-Commerce
Every journey begins with a single step. But in the budding era of interactive gaming, it can start with a single text message. Thats precisely how my playthrough of The Operative, a brand-new experience from gaming startup Operative Games, began. I was told that the game would be unlike anything Ive experienced before, and that was a fair assessment. While I do occasionally fire up my Xbox, or set up a board game like Risk, I wouldnt call myself a gamer by any stretch. But I do have a fairly good sense of what a game is or can be. That was the entire goal of the games creators, too. Operative Games describes itself as an interactive storytelling company, led by some industry heavyweights: CEO Jon Snoddy, who previously served as Disney’s head of research and development, and COO Jon Kraft, who was the founding CEO of Pandora Media. And after literal decades of waiting for the technology to catch up to their concepts for interactive games, generative AI is allowing their visions to come to fruition. Thats how I ended up being pulled into The Operative. [Image: Operative Games] A playthrough of ‘The Operative’ The Operative is a gaming experience unlike any Ive had before. The closest thing I can equate it to is an escape roomwithout spoiling too much, there are clues to track down, questions to ask and answer, and lots of text messages to send and phone calls to field. As such, I set aside an hour to play it, and when I was ready, shot off a text to a number supplied by Operative Games. Then, I was off to the races. I immediately received a phone call from a character named Enyaall of the characters in the game are generated by artificial intelligencewho initiated the story. The game is, in essence, a role-playing game, and one that you, the player, are sucked into. You meet characters, have actual conversations with themvia phone calls, text messages, and even on Zoom callsand they respond accordingly, helping you push the narrative forward. And yes, the characters do get on Zoom calls. I had a couple of back-and-forths with an animated character named Daniel who was Zooming me from the backseat of a virtual Uber. Again, Im familiar with dialogue in games. Ive played a lot of Fallout, Assassins Creed, and othersgames in which you interact with non-playable characters and choose dialogue prompts to carry on conversations. The most interesting aspect about The Operative, and other forthcoming Operative Games releases, is that there are no promptsyou actually converse with characters, and they respond in kind. For example, Daniel was asking me about myself, and I decided to try and throw him for a loop by assuming the role of Fox Mulder (from The X-Files), throwing out references to ufology and other bizarre commentary. But Daniel took it in stride, noting that ufology was an interesting, if sort of wacky, field. I continued to play until time ran out, completing roughly a chapter and a half of the 12-chapter experience. It was fun, interesting, and above all, engaging. In my opinion, Snoddy and Kraft have been able to create a completely new experience, and one that requires no console, TV, computer, or controlleronly a smartphoneto enjoy. Operative Games: A genie in a bottle Snoddy says that as he was working at Disney, he was always thinking about new forms of interactive entertainment and wanted to tell a nonlinear story in which players are active participants. The seed of the idea for Operative Games was planted in the early 1990s, during the production of the Disney animated feature film Aladdin. Snoddy says he was watching an animator working on drawings for the Genie character in that film, making faces and movements in a mirror and then working on the animations. I was watching him and observing the way he would look in the mirror and draw a face, Snoddy says. Hed look at the video of voice actors doing the characterand I had this picture in my head, an epiphany, that what these artists do is encode humanity into this thing, what theyre creating. Writers do it. Filmmakers do it. I had this notion that when Im looking at a screen, Im looking back at the people who created it, he added. So the idea was formulated as a whole world of characters, and a system that lets you interact with them, according to Snoddy, “but this was long before we had the technology to do it. At some point, he started discussing the idea with Kraft, with whom he was a longtime collaborator. They talked about it for years, but to make it work the way the two envisionedwith truly interactive characters, who could respond to anything a player said to themvoice actors would need to record tens, if not thousands of pre-scripted lines. And the system would need to be able to call those lines up as needed, on the fly. It simply wouldnt work. In the mid-2000s, Kraft, who was working with a company that he cofounded called Big Stage Entertainment, started to see a glimmer of the technology they needed. From there, Snoddy and Kraft would bounce ideas off one another, and keep a close eye on the technology and toolswhich were evolving, but werent quite where they needed to be to create a fully interactive game. But in the past few years, with the advent of accessible and widespread generative AI, it finally happened. Large language models, or LLMs, allowed for language and dialogue generation in real time, so that characters could respond to players directly. Animations, too. Add in smartphones, texting, and video calls? All of the ingredients were finally there, and in 2023, Snoddy and Kraft dropped what they were doing and focused on building Operative Games full-time. Putting Operative Games into operation The pair have surrounded themselves with some top-shelf talent from Hollywood and other industries. They have writers who have helped develop TV shows such as Jack Ryan. And they have decades of experience, along with some capital, to help them figure out whats next. Last year, Operative Games raised $4.45 million in a seed round led by 1AM Gaming, according to the company. PitchBook estimated a post-money valuation of $22 million. The company’s key active investors also include Samsung Next Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, and Principal Venture Partners. As a business model, Kraft saysthe company is trying to keep it simplewe think of our games as somewhere between a video game and a television series. What are the models that work in those worlds? The easiest answer appears to be a subscription model, or something similarthough thats yet to be decided. A subscription model could work as such: Players subscribe to a game (or collection of games), and pay for a season, like they would a TV show. When new seasons, episodes, or chapters are released, theyre able to play them immediately. And access for prospective players is another advantage that Operatives offering has over other types of games. “Players dont need anything, Kraft notes. Theres nothing to download. No console. You start by calling a phone number. As mentioned, all you need is a smartphone. Thats it, Kraft says. You reach out to a character, you have a real conversation, they draw you into their problem or situation, explain why they need help, and all of a sudden, youre connected and drawn in. For gamers who are increasingly concerned about the price of games growing to around $80, and tariffs potentially affecting the price of consoles, that can be welcome news. The next level? The Operative is the companys first game, too, and was created in-house. But other intellectual properties and franchises could be used to create new games in the futureand those conversations have already started. Its definitely in our future, Snoddy says. Operative Games plans a broader rollout of The Operative later this year, with much more to come soon after that. We have so many stories to tell, says Snoddy. Weve been talking about narrative and interactivity coming together, and have had a lot of great games in the past that have been linear-cutscene-linear-gameplay.” He adds, “Were not going to replace those games, but were going to open a whole new window into what games are and can be.
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E-Commerce
The sound of crickets isnt always a sign of a peaceful night; sometimes, its the deafening silence of unasked questions in a virtual meeting, or an email left unread in an overflowing inbox. Especially as hybrid and remote work become the norm, communication silos are quietly eroding company culture, stalling execution, and capping growth. A 2024 report reveals that miscommunication costs companies with 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year. This is the why arent we working moment. Ive spent years observing how companies thrive or falter, and its clear that communication isnt a soft skill, but a strategic system. The next generation of high-performing executives will stand out by communicating clearly, consistently, and across every level of the organization. Here are five strategies to transform your communication and scale your company culture: 1. TREAT COMMUNICATION AS A TWO-WAY SYSTEM Many leaders view communication as a one-way street: I have the idea, we have the plan, now we just have to cascade it down. However, this top-down approach misses a crucial opportunity, especially in larger organizations where people can easily get bombarded with information. When messages are constantly flowing downward, it becomes difficult for employees to discern whats a priority to read, leading to important information getting lost. Instead, you should rethink communication as a two-way system. This means creating space for questions and input from your team regarding the information being shared. For instance, rather than just sending out a weekly division email with mandatory and optional reads, actively solicit feedback or hold quick discussions in weekly team meetings to ensure key information is understood and to create a dialogue around it. This shift from a purely distributive model to an interactive one ensures that your communication is processed, understood, and acted upon. 2. CHALLENGE THE TOP-DOWN MINDSET IN HYBRID ENVIRONMENTS Most companies falter in scaling culture in hybrid or remote environments by relying solely on a top-down approach. The assumption is often that those in management positions have the best ideas for keeping everyone informed. However, in a remote setting, this often translates to an overreliance on written communication like emails and chat channels, leading to less verbal communication and actual interaction. Instead of dictating, actively seek input from your teams on what information they want, the preferred cadence, and how to best share it in a distributed environment. Continuously check in with your team about whats working and what could be better regarding communication strategies. What works today might not be effective next month, so being willing to adapt and evolve your approach is crucial for sustained growth. 3. BUILD CONNECTION TO BREAK DOWN SILOS The most damaging communication silos emerge when people arent connected, a problem exacerbated in remote environments. To dismantle these silos, build connection directly into your team processes. Start by involving and engaging team members in the hiring process of their peers, which is a foundational step toward creating relationships and making communication easier. If a position youre hiring interacts with another department, include someone from that team in the hiring process. Youre building connection and communication from the start. Beyond hiring, work with your team to identify and establish clear expectations for how youll work together, support one another, and communicate. These team agreements should be collaborative guidelines that foster commitment and ownership because the team themselves generated the ideas. For instance, a team agreement could be to go direct when issues arise, preventing festering problems and encouraging proactive, respectful dialogue to gain clarity or get things back on track. 4. EMBRACE TRANSPARENCY, ESPECIALLY DURING TOUGH TIMES Effective communication built on trust and transparency can lead to remarkable outcomes, even in the face of significant challenges. We once worked with a client that had fostered a culture of high performance, characterized by open, two-way communication and a belief in their team members capabilities. When they lost a major customer, facing the need to reduce costs quickly without layoffs, they mobilized cross-functional teams involving employees from all levels, from senior leadership to production line workers. Within 60 days, these teams identified over a million dollars in cost savings. This success significantly boosted morale and financial gains. Employees felt empowered and excited by their collective contribution, asking, Whats our next goal? This example highlights how transparent communicationespecially when delivering tough newsand actively involving employees in finding solutions can galvanize a workforce and lead to both execution gains and enhanced morale. 5. ASK MORE OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS The most impactful communication habit you should adopt is simple: Ask questions. Encourage your direct reports to ask their teams questions like, What are we doing to improve communication within our group? or What ideas do your teams have for ways to improve communication? This approach signals the importance of communication as a strategic element and encourages a different kind of thinking and action within teams. After all, people typically do what they are asked about. Open-ended questions are particularly effective as they prompt deeper thought and allow for a broader exploration of ideas, helping you paint a bigger picture of your vision when clarifying questions arise. This fosters a more engaged, two-way conversation that leads to greater commitment and better solutions from your teams. By approaching communication as a two-way street, challenging top-down norms, and asking strategic questions, you can empower your teams and ensure your culture thrives, no matter how much your organization scales.
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E-Commerce
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