jimmybaratta.com

Jimmy Baratta

Business Strategy & Commercial Executive Across Sports, Gaming, and Entertainment

I am an executive leader with 15 years of experience driving growth, strategic partnerships, business operations, and commercial initiatives across sports, gaming, media, and entertainment. Throughout my career, I have helped organizations expand into new markets, build high-value partnerships, launch innovative products, and execute complex initiatives involving some of the world's most recognized brands, rights holders, publishers, creators, and technology companies.

Today, I lead various Strategy, Operations & Business Affairs initiatives for FIFA's gaming ecosystem across the Americas, helping shape the organization's long-term digital gaming strategy and portfolio growth. Previously, I held leadership roles at Riot Games and advised a portfolio of entertainment, gaming, creator economy, and technology companies, leading initiatives involving organizations including Epic Games, Roblox, Netflix, Xbox, Samsung, Spotify, TikTok, and FOX Sports. My experience spans strategic planning, business development, partnerships, licensing, governance, and organizational growth across both established global brands and emerging ventures.


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Latest from Press Start

First Press Start drops Tuesday, November 3. Press Start posts on LinkedIn every Tuesday and is archived here.

Gaming News

Gaming News · November 1, 2026

Roblox Q3: 138M Daily Users as AI-Made Games Crack the Top 20

Roblox reported 138 million daily active users and about $1.7 billion in third-quarter bookings, down 12% from a year earlier. Two games made almost entirely with AI reached the platform's top 20 by concurrent players during the quarter.

🎮 Pro Tip

When building a game gets this cheap, attention becomes the scarce asset, so the next fight on Roblox is over discovery and creator payouts, not creation tools. Brands planning Roblox activations should budget as much for distribution as for development.

Source: Roblox Q3 2026 earnings call (The Motley Fool transcript) — figures also reported by Investing.com

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Gaming News · November 1, 2026

Anthropic Steers Claude Code Away From Recreating Existing Games

Anthropic confirmed it added guidance telling Claude Code not to rebuild a specific existing game, citing its usage policy on intellectual property. Original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets remain allowed.

🎮 Pro Tip

The AI tool maker just became the first line of IP defense in games, and that gives publishers leverage to ask every AI vendor for the same guardrail. For studios, provable originality and clean asset records are now business assets.

Source: GamesBeat — Dean Takahashi; change confirmed by Anthropic's Addy Osmani on X, Oct 30, 2026

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Gaming News · November 1, 2026

Phantom Blade Zero Passes 700,000 Concurrent Steam Players in Launch Week

Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero launched October 29 on PS5 and PC and passed 700,000 concurrent players on Steam in its first week.

🎮 Pro Tip

Two years after Black Myth: Wukong, China has a repeatable formula for premium single-player hits, arriving the same month EA closed BioWare. Expect Western platforms and publishers to compete for co-publishing and distribution deals on the next big Chinese release.

Source: SteamDB via Steam News — player counts also reported by KeenGamer and Canaltech

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