Simon Byron

An award-winning Publishing Director with an unrivalled track record in acquisitions, business development, communications, and sales. Since joining Yogscast as Director of Publishing in 2021, Simon has helped propel the the company into one of the fastest growing indie publishers around. Year-on-year unit sales on Steam grew almost 900 percent in Simon's first full financial year, with new signings and launches helping increase revenue by almost 3,500 percent. With the support of the wider Yogscast network, Yogscast Games is pioneering a unique creator- and community-led publishing model which is shaking up the indie sector. This recent transformation is no surprise - a similar thing happened when Simon joined Curve Digital in May 2015, where his arrival saw annual PC digital sales revenues jump immediately, increasing 668 percent in his first full year. Simon has a remarkable nose for what makes a commercially successful game. Key titles that Simon signed and published during his time at Curve include Human: Fall Flat, The Ascent, For The King, Bomber Crew, Autonauts and The Flame in the Flood, to name a few. Additionally, Simon played a key part in the acquisitions of two of those studios: Runner Duck and IronOak Games. But it’s not just core digital sales that Simon excels at. He has personally negotiated multi-million Dollar agreements with platform holders and partners on titles ahead of release, guaranteeing marketing and retail support whilst also de-risking investment. He has also been working with partners in Asia in order to officially launch Curve’s games in there. During Simon’s time at Curve the company won six awards: Publishing Hero, Develop Awards 2017; MCV Industry Hero and Indie Games Publisher of the Year in 2018; and the unprecedented ‘Triple Crown’ of UK publishing awards in 2019, picking up accolades from MCV, Develop and TIGA. Prior to joining Curve, Simon worked at various PR and marketing agencies, where he spearheaded the launch of multiple global hits such as the Batman Arkham series of games, Pokemon X&Y and the Guitar Hero franchise, where he led European media relations from Guitar Hero to Guitar Hero 5. Co-author of two books on the games industry and co-host of One Life Left, the world’s longest-running videogames radio show, Simon remains as committed and as passionate about gaming as ever.