Our Core Values:

Strive for Excellence

Champion quality in everything you do. Ensure a great user experience. Find ways to enhance our games and our company.

Continuously Evolve

Be open-minded. Learn and adapt. Seek to improve yourself, your coworkers, and our community.

Use Sound Judgement

Speak and act deliberately. Look at both the big picture and the details. Consider consequences and make wise decisions.

Be Kind and Considerate

Act with honesty and integrity. Embrace diversity. Keep your promises and follow through on your commitments.

Lead By Example

Demonstrate our values through words, behaviors, and actions. Set a strong example of professionalism and excellence.

Think Globally

Create an inclusive environment in our games and our company. Avoid biases and seek a broad perspective. Strive to make the world better.

About Us

Certain Affinity (CA) was founded in 2006 as a bootstrap startup with the goal of creating innovative, top-quality action games. CA brings together an exceptionally experienced, unusually talented group to form one of the largest independent developers in Austin, Texas. The company's 250+ full-time employees include veterans from dozens of successful game studios, with Max Hoberman, CA's founder and former Multiplayer and Online Lead for the Halo series, serving as CEO.

Life & Culture

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We're an amazingly talented team who work together in an open creative environment.

Certain Affinity’s team touts some of the best talent in the video game industry, sans the ego. Our studio is a truly collaborative space where all the departments connect and intermingle, creating a real sense of camaraderie that makes every day fun and rewarding!

We build the time to celebrate each other and our work!

  • Weekly Friday treats and events
  • Monthly creative competitions
  • Annual summer / winter party
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We've grown into a game development powerhouse, without losing our small studio heart and priorities.

After more than fifteen years of success, we’re branching out into developing original IP (while still helping out other developers ship huge titles) and planning for expansion. We never want to lose sight of the core tenets that have made our company — and our employees — so successful.

Austin

Our company culture reflects the vibrant nature of the city we call home. Certain Affinity's headquarters are close to downtown Austin, commuter-friendly and close to parks, restaurants, and other amenities. Employee-led groups encompass everything from live music outings and Ultimate Frisbee leagues to figure-drawing sessions and board-gaming. We embrace Austin's diverse, creative, and easygoing nature, and we love adding like-minded people to our team.

Toronto

We are thrilled to be going international and to set up our second studio in Toronto, Canada. At first glance, our second home in the Great White North may seem very different from Austin but the two cities have more in common than you might think: a diverse populace, a strong sense of community, a belief in environmental responsibility, a high quality-of-life standard, and some of the world’s finest food. But as the fourth-largest city in North America, Toronto also boasts over 6.4 million people, a burgeoning tech sector, growing art, and creative scene, and a gaggle of prestigious universities — a great place for a growing company like Certain Affinity to set up shop.

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Leadership

Max Hoberman

Founder & CEO

Max Hoberman

Founder & CEO

In 2006 Max Hoberman founded Certain Affinity as a bootstrap startup. The long-tenured independent developer has built a reputation as the go-to co-development partner for AAA action titles, with substantial contributions to Hogwarts Legacy, Call of Duty, Halo, and more. In fact, the highly prolific studio has been lead developer or co-developer on 40 releases across 17 franchises, with combined sales well over 150 million units.

Max's pioneering designs revolutionized the way people play online games on the console and established many modern standards, including friends lists, parties, matchmaking, and more. Max is now leading Certain Affinity in its second decade, maintaining a track record of co-development excellence while also shifting the company towards lead development of an ambitious original FPS.

Paul Sams

President and Chief Operating Officer

Paul Sams

President and Chief Operating Officer

Paul Sams has been an industry leader for 30 years. He served as COO at Blizzard Entertainment for ~21 years, spanning growth from <40 local employees to 4,000+ global employees and annual profits of <$50M to nearly$1B. He also served as the CEO and Lead Strategic Advisor for Ready At Dawn Studios. He subsequently started his own independent advisory and consulting services company focused on helping numerous independent game development, esports, and entertainment related companies. Paul has demonstrated a consistent commitment to product quality and gameplay first. He has served as a company leader that has been meaningfully involved in building some of the world’s biggest and most beloved game franchises - which directly translated into over 10 different game of the year winners and some of the most commercially successful games of all time.

Mojdeh Gharbi

VP of Marketing & Operations

Mojdeh Gharbi

VP of Marketing & Operations

Mojdeh oversees the business and operational success of Certain Affinity, the largest independent AAA game developer in Austin. She ensures CA hits overall business, people and revenue goals as well as long term objectives. An Iranian American who grew up in Austin, she has a diverse background with over 20 years of experience in tech, gaming, advertising and real estate – most of that time focused on sales, marketing and operations at Microsoft. She has a passion for mentoring and empowering others, helping her community and advocating for local businesses and economic initiatives.

Stephanie Letendre

VP of Finance

Stephanie Letendre

VP of Finance

Stephanie Letendre comes to Certain Affinity with more than 20 years of finance and accounting experience working primarily in the technology industry with companies ranging from small start-ups to large enterprises. She provides executive level support from strategic direction and funding alternatives, to operational improvement, and tactical planning. Stephanie spent 2016 working for 9Gauge Partners providing financial advisory consulting services. Prior to 9Gauge she was VP of Finance for Motion Computing, Inc. where she successfully completed the sale of the company to Xplore Technologies Corp. Stephanie has also worked for Merlin International, Inc., an IT consulting firm, PeopleSoft/J.D. Edwards software company, and Sea World of San Diego. Stephanie is married with two teenage children, one boy and one girl, and enjoys running, hiking, and water skiing.

James Thoma

VP & General Counsel

James Thoma

VP & General Counsel

James Thoma is a 1980 graduate of the University of Texas Law School and has been practicing law in California and Texas for the last 40 years. He has been a partner at major international firms including Akin Gump and Greenberg Traurig. He specializes in media and media finance with a broad background representing both important individuals and significant international companies in motion pictures, video games, music and cross-platform entertainment ventures. He is the former general counsel of the International Game Developer Association and helped establish the lending practices still used for one-off video game funding by several banks in Silicon Valley.

Rick Ortiz

VP of People & Culture

Rick Ortiz

VP of People & Culture

Rick Ortiz serves as Vice President of People & Culture for Certain Affinity. He is responsible for leading CA's overall human resources strategy, global talent acquisition, leadership development, DEI, organizational design and cultural development, employee education, total rewards, HR operations and technology, and employee relations. He has over 20 years of experience working predominantly for Fortune 100 companies in the technology industry. Born in Cuba and raised in New Jersey, he has a deep-rooted passion for helping others reach their full potential as well as supporting underrepresented groups. Rick is very active in our community and serves on the advisory boards of several local government agencies and universities.

Avi Mintz

VP, Executive Producer

Avi Mintz

VP, Executive Producer

Avi Mintz is a game development leader with a talent for bringing structure to the chaotic nature of our industry. Leveraging his experience shipping upwards of 15 AA and AAA releases in about as many years, Avi's mission is to drive efficient production cycles at Certain Affinity and safeguard our formula for consistent high-quality results. He firmly believes in sustainable industry practices and values enriching the lives of developers just as much as delivering value to stakeholders and players; maintaining an environment where developers thrive is key to Avi's vision and why he now calls Certain Affinity home.

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