When Mitchell Patterson felt tired and had trouble breathing during the second half of 2020, he assumed he’d caught Covid.
He went to the ER and was informed that the level of his hemoglobin – the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to organs – was dangerously low.
Patterson, founder of Troy video game studio Wolfjaw Studios, was diagnosed with Leukemia and started chemo 48 hours later. He spent 38 days at Albany Med and was then transferred to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for another 31 days. He was released into an apartment across the street, spending a total of seven months in Manhattan.
He went through three rounds of chemo, two rounds of radiation and a stem cell transplant. For video meetings during his time in the hospital, he'd apply a virtual background and wear a hat so prospects didn't realize his hair had fallen out.
With Patterson away for so long, that could have meant the end of his nearly two-year-old studio. But instead, he says his employees stepped up and kept the company moving.
Since shortly before Patterson's diagnosis, Wolfjaw has tripled its number of employees to nearly 45 and increased revenue tenfold, he said. The company has added new big-name clients including Unity, InnerSloth, Bungie and Sumo Digital.
"All my employees – I couldn't be more proud. I was offline, and they were like, 'Don't worry.’ It could have turned out really bad,” Patterson said.
“We're way ahead of schedule. I thought it would take us at least five years to get to this point. It took us two and a half. We've actually blown past all of our original estimations on how big we would get and revenue and everything.”
Now fully in remission, Patterson has spent the last two weeks attending the D.I.C.E video game summit in Las Vegas and meeting with clients in California for the first time in two years.
He’s now taking 14 pills per day – down from 46 when he left the hospital – and stays at Sloan Kettering for two days per week as he’s weaned completely off the medications.
Meanwhile, his company continues to grow along with the industry. He said Wolfjaw could easily surpass 75 employees this year.
"Video games are a bizarre industry that just continues to grow at a crazy clip,” he said. "We'll get to well over 100 people without even trying."
Patterson founded Wolfjaw to focus mostly on backend systems for online and multiplayer video games – an area that turned out to be exactly where the industry is heading.
“Right after I started it, basically every company decided they only wanted to make live service and online multiplayer games. I wish I could claim credit and say that I knew this was coming, but I did not,” Patterson said.
He thinks some of Wolfjaw’s success comes from his strict policy of fulfilling only projects that align with the company’s services and don't put too much strain on employees. And with the video game industry being a relatively small community, word travels fast from one client to another.
The biggest barrier to growth for Wolfjaw and others, however, is workforce availability.
“At D.I.C.E. last week, every person I talked to has told me their goal is to double in the next five years. Every game studio is saying that. We need like 100,000 new game developers. If everyone doubles in size, where do we get workers? So that's the next challenge we all have to face,” Patterson said.
"Games in the Capital Region are just thriving. I'm excited for what the next few years can bring. It's just crazy to see all of us get so much bigger in the past two years."
