How Gamefam's Alli Guglielmino launched branded games and concerts in the metaverse

From Barbie’s Dreamhouse to Saweetie’s Super Bowl stage, Alli Guglielmino is building big things in the metaverse. As senior VP of growth at Gamefam, Guglielmino has launched branded games on Roblox including Sonic Speed Simulator (Sega), Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon (Mattel) and Hot Wheels Open World (Mattel), while organizing virtual concert performances by the Chainsmokers, 24kGoldn and Saweetie. The latter's Intuit-presented show was an official part of the NFL's Super Bowl LVII programming. Though the gaming world has long been male-dominated, that wasn’t the challenge Guglielmino had in mind when she came to Gamefam two years ago from Food52, where she was VP of strategic partnerships. Prior to that, she was on the agency side at Fullscreen, which is now part of Warner Bros Discovery ad sales. “I just wanted to come and do something really exciting, something that people haven’t really had the chance to do yet,” she said. “I wanted to try something out of my comfort zone.” Sonic Speed Simulator—the No. 1 Roblox branded game of all time, according to Gamefam—was a project in which Guglielmino took particular pride: Not only was the game a big hit in the Roblox community, but an integration with Netflix, which released its Sonic Prime series in concert with the game, was also the first of its kind. “I really love being able to bring campaigns to people that make them happy,” Guglielmino said. Guglielmino’s leadership helped to drive a 35% revenue increase for Gamefam in 2023 on top of 275% growth the year before, the company said. Within the company, she leads the “Women of Gamefam” and employee events groups. And at home in Venice, California, she’s on the board of her son’s elementary school and a coach for his Little League team. Read about Ad Age’s 2024 Leading Women here What advice would you give to your younger self? Know your worth and do not compromise. What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? Gamefam was an unknown startup in a metaverse/Roblox world that most people hadn’t heard about, and I knew nothing about. But my biggest risk has also become my biggest reward because the amount of projects that I’ve been able to work on and touch is quite astounding, especially with the kinds of partners that we’re working with across the world. Coming from the agency side, it would have taken years or months to get something like we get done executed. And not only that, we get to touch millions of people around the world. If you weren't doing your current job, what would you be doing and why? Something similar. It would be focused on building something new, on creative reaching a large amount of people and being able to do something unexpected. What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks? In tech media and gaming, we need to find opportunities and open those up for women. Also understand that there are a lot of factors that come into play both personally and professionally for women, and being flexible for those needs. I know a lot of women that ultimately get to a place where they say “Why am I doing this? What is the grind for when I have a family at home?” We need to open up the space to allow people to get through that. For people of color, give them opportunities, find the resources to support them, and champion them. And celebrating the work is super important. Having diverse perspectives in the room will make everything better. How will AI impact your job in the future? We’re still working through what AI means for Gamefam, and how I will leverage it, but it’s something that we want to be mindful of and smart about. Recently, I was working on a video. I felt like it needed a voiceover, and I stumbled across an AI system that allowed me to just type in my script and instantaneously have a voiceover. It didn’t work the way I needed it to, but I think it will soon. But just being able to just create a spoken word for a video without having to go through casting and all of these pieces—even if it was just for pacing and laying out before finding the right artist—helps significantly. I think we should embrace that, and think about how to leverage it, and know that it’s not going to replace, it’s just going to enhance.

How Gamefam's Alli Guglielmino launched branded games and concerts in the metaverse

Featured Stories