Jonathan Hales joins the Megabit Publishing team after nearly 15 years at Kalypso Media’s publishing imprint Kasedo Games, which he was instrumental in founding.
He served as Managing Director, leading the publishing team behind hits including Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, IXION, Rise of Industry, Project Highrise , and more.
In his new role, he leads a strengthened publishing unit following the merger of Megabit’s established team with the award-winning publishing department of Aonic stablemates and VR specialists nDreams in late 2025. The result is a team of multidisciplinary experts strongly equipped to support, market, and publish high-quality multiplatform games.
Megabit is the publisher for all the PC and console games developed within Aonic’s group – including Lou’s Lagoon and Verdant from Tiny Roar, Thick As Thieves from OtherSide Entertainment, Grit and Valor from Milky Tea, and Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults from BKOM – as well as a third-party publisher partnering with the world’s most exciting developers.
In December, Hello Sunshine from Red Thread Games was unveiled as Megabit’s latest third-party signing with an evocative new trailer at the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted, which was viewed by more than 2.5 million people. Quickly topping 120,000 Steam wishlists, IGN reported that “Hello Sunshine’s future is looking bright.”
Megabit has a significant third-party publishing fund to invest and is actively looking to sign more promising PC and console games in 2026.
“I was immediately excited by the opportunity that exists at Megabit and the challenge to make waves in indie and double-A gaming.
Seeing the anticipation building for our in-development titles, all of which show a boldness in direction and ambition that reflects our own as a publisher, gives me great confidence in what we can achieve.
My goals are to build a strong collective spirit, empower talented people, and ultimately establish Megabit as the publisher of choice for ambitious developers.”
Megabit Publishing CEO Jonathan Hales
Exclusive interview with Mobidictum
What are your short, mid, and long-term goals as CEO of Megabit—and what are the first concrete actions you’re taking to execute on them?
My short-term goal is to ensure I really get to know the team, our development partners, and of course our games, to ensure our collective ambitions align, and to determine where best I can offer support.
Moving forward, it’s to build a unified and strong team spirit, which also enables us to react quickly and efficiently to changing markets and ensure we are always considering how best to position our games.
Our aim – now, mid and long term – is to deliver excellence and be the publisher of choice for ambitious developers.
Over the past years, we’ve seen indie and double-A games capture a lot of attention. From your perspective, what’s driving that, and how do you expect the landscape to evolve in 2026 and beyond?
I don’t see much changing, other than more ambitious indie and double-A developers learning from past successes. Our job is to identify the experiences that players want and work with our developers to ensure they have everything they need to succeed.
As for why this is happening, my personal feeling is that indie and double-A development teams are better positioned to take risks and show innovation, something that players are crying out for.
Established brand franchises can be extremely restricted and polarising, and more often than not, any development is lengthy and costly, which is always a risk.
How has discoverability changed for PC/console over the last couple of years, and what tactics do you believe still work reliably?
That’s a good question, and firstly, let me apologise, as I’m not going to share all our tactics for discoverability for others to see!
But I would certainly agree that habits have changed and will continue to change, as we all fight for a share of players’ time and awareness. The first and most important step, as always, is to create games deserving of that time and awareness.
For developers planning to pitch to Megabit, what are you looking for, and what typically makes a project stand out during the evaluation process?
We love to see a high-level vision, which is supported by a proof of concept. This can be a short vertical slice, tech demo , or prototype. I have talked about ambition, but with a pitch, we like to see realistic expectations from the development team, which match their experience and team size.
To stand out, we’re looking for that “hell yeah” moment; a feature or hook that has all our team thinking “this looks amazing” and ready to buy into the project.
Developers interested in pitching their games to Megabit can do so here.
Do you follow the games industry in Türkiye—and more broadly, when you assess teams in markets you know less well, what signals help you evaluate them early on?
I try to follow all markets, particularly their sales trends. Obviously, I’m aware of the great success Turkish developers have had on mobile, but in our PC/console world, it would be TaleWorlds Entertainment and their phenomenally successful Mount & Blade series that stands out to me.
As for assessing teams, wherever they’re based, the game is always the most important thing to us. Of course, a track record of having shipped successful games is always great, but a passion we can buy into, and a collaborative attitude are more important.
In terms of finding success in specific markets, we’re always monitoring traction from players and local influencers by region and tracking against sales, with localisation obviously a key part of that.
CEO at Megabit Publishing
