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How one Star Wars actor became the CEO of Commodore · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: My philosophy is we need to build Commodore into the same level as Google and Apple.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: C64s alone, we've sold over 27,000 of those machines, which is mind-blowing, right?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: For a 40-year-old computer.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been amazing.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what was really interesting was when we launched the phone,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: that did the same in its first weekend as the C64 did in its first three months.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Our whole philosophy here is we do retro and we do future.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: We do the two hand in hand.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hello there and welcome to The Game Business Show.
• 0:33
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• 0:35
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• 0:51
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• 0:54
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• 0:58
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• 1:00
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• 1:04
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• 1:12
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• 1:15
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• 1:17
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• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's more details there.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Onto today's show and I have one last interview that I've been hanging on to
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: from gamescom it was actually one of the most surprising ones that I did it was
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: with commodore and specifically its ceo christian simpson who is better known
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: as perifractic now what I expected Now,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Commodore has, yes,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: created some classic hardware for people to play on in the form of
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: the Commodore 64 Ultimate, but it's also now published
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Publishing video games,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: they were new games for the Commodore 64 Ultimate,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: but also releasing some games on classic platforms such as its partnership on
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: the Alien Breed game with Team17.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're starting to compete with companies like Atari.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's also partnered,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: surprisingly,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: with CD Projekt for a cyberpunk version of the Commodore,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: which they've called the Commodore 77, and they showcased that at Gamescom.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now on top of that,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: it has released a flip phone,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: the Callback 8020,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: which is a digital minimalist device in that it has plenty of apps and connectivity.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can still use Google Maps to help yourself get around whatever city you're in,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: but it doesn't include things like social media.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a stripped back phone for those that don't want to be connected 24-7.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that in particular has proven to be a hit to the point that Commodore is talking
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: about itself in comparison to companies like Apple.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is a short interview.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: We did it on the booth, Commodore's booth at Gamescom, but I felt it was a surprising one.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when you think around some of the conversations we've been having
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: on this show regarding nostalgia and how that seems
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: to be infiltrating younger audiences that didn't actually grow up with a lot
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: of this stuff.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think Commodore is really leaning into this trend,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: just as Blizzard is right now with World of Warcraft Forever,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: just as RuneScape has seen success with Old School RuneScape.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: What if we go back in time and take things in a slightly different direction?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what a lot of people are thinking at the moment.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I thought there was a really interesting chat.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's not too long.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think you'll find it interesting.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: So here is my conversation with Perry slash Christian.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hello Perry, welcome to the show.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, welcome.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to look up your background.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have quite a unique, well, literal background.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have quite a unique journey into this role at Commodore.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a little bit about what your experience is and what you've done before?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was born at an early age.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, I was an actor, I guess, originally.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, came out of college,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: did drama in college,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: and very lucky my first film part was Baptism of Fire on The Phantom Menace,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Star Wars Episode I. Wow.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Literally running across a hangar being shot at and squibs exploding off the hat and stuff.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that for, I still do that to a degree, for about 20 years.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've been very lucky, the films I got to work on.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I still do voice acting.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But alongside that, I started doing YouTube.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just on a whim, I thought, well, I love retro, like I'm into...
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I had a Commodore 64 and Amstrad PCW, I was building up my old collection.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, I'm just going to do a repair video for a Commodore 64.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And someone said, I always remember, I read in a forum, they said...
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Please keep doing this.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand why or what it might be,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: but, you know, I try and make jokes in videos and stuff.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I kept doing it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And eight years later,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I got to review something called the C64X,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: which is a PC,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: like a Linux PC, that was licensed from the still existing Commodore brand.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the Commodore 64X.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The video got a million views.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That put us on the radar of the license or the brand owners.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we started talking,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know, myself,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sean, Donahue and Leo, Leo Nigro, who kind of created that product and licensed it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: We started saying,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if we could maybe do something with the real Commodore, maybe license it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: We put a proposal together with three options for them.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, you know, we could work together or we could license it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or kind of almost half tongue in cheek at the end,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: like, you know, or we could maybe buy the brand.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I always remember we waited for a couple of weeks and they came back to me
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: and they said, you know, they're Dutch.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: They said, you know, you seem to know Commodore better than we do.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: We might like to sell you the whole company.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, what?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, we went full steam ahead, got investments.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty of it was,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: just to sum that up,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: being in the retro community in Commodore YouTube videos,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I knew what people wanted because I was one of those people.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the customer.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So to put together a Commodore 64 Ultimate,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: which you'll see inside the booth,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: was very easy to put together, thanks to Gideon, who'd already created the parts.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, that's the short version.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And how are you finding the baptism of suddenly being a company CEO?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's another baptism of fire.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a privilege.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I say to people all the time, I am just honored to be able to be in this position.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And to get to be a steward of the brand.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I just feel lucky constantly that it's a company that people already recognize.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I could be working on a startup that we have to sell from the ground floor up.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here it's people immediately understand what it is.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very lucky.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get onto the game stuff,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: but I have to say I was really fascinated by the disconnect sort of trend
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: that you've been tapping into with the phone.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know much about it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I had to read a little bit more into it, and I find it really appealing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: How did the two things come together, Commodore and that sort of idea?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It almost looks too obvious to me, but I'm on the inside.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: People want to go back to simpler tech.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're getting sick of smartphones being,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: their data being harvested and sold,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: tracking everywhere,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: tracking cookies, which we don't have on our website for that reason.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: People want to go back to simpler tech.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Commodore is from that time.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we left,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: or I'd say the lights dimmed is how we say it,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: or we blipped out in 1994,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: right before the internet became a thing,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: right before the iPhone started to be a thing in 2003.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it almost makes sense if you reboot Commodore, you start where you left off.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're in 1995 to 2000 era for Commodore.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Which is perfect because that's what people want to go back to.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where the digital minimalism fits in perfectly with Commodore.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can see the appeal myself.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a groundswell of people that are sort of craving this?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the movement is huge towards this, you know, digital minimalism, more intentional tech.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen people buying vinyl records again,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: going back to flip phones organically, and just getting off Facebook.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a huge movement.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we, again, are kind of lucky that it's happening with or without us.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But my philosophy is we need to build Commodore into the same level as Google
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: and Apple so we can do the cool retro things for the retro fans,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: for myself being a retro fan.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: How do we build Commodore to be that big?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Based on nostalgia alone, that's a niche and you can't do it as a hobbyist computing brand.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So my philosophy with the flip phone,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: with other things you're going to be seeing from us is those bring in
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: the bigger audience.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like our tie-in with Cyberpunk.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: It brings in that bigger audience so we can afford to do bigger things for the original fans.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a symbiotic win-win relationship.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask this at the end actually,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: that cyberpunk partnership,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I get it, it's a broader game, big massive mainstream mega-hit.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's the connection between
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: that and Commodore?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: A very interesting one.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, Cyberpunk,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: that timeline of their 2077 version of the future,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: it stems away from our real future in the early 80s, right?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, some people say 82, 84 is when the Cyberpunk timeline diverges.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, we go back to Commodore, Commodore 64.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: In our story, officially, Commodore survived.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Continued on.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2077, it's still a brand that people love.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So in their world, you can still buy a 64, but it's now a 77.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's been upgraded a bit.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But also, retrofuturism is how you describe cyberpunk.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like Blade Runner is retrofuturistic.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our whole philosophy here is we do retro and we do future.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: We do the two hand in hand.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it just fits.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's really fascinating.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's great we've got Microprose there, Atari over there.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like the old days.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is like the old days,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: but at the same time, you're doing stuff that is not just leaning.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was going to ask, like, you know, I bought myself an Analog 64 recently.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love these old products.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're awesome.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask if the nostalgia-driven market for these sort
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: of premium devices is large enough to sustain a business long term?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm guessing the fact they're doing this other thing is maybe not?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's two answers to that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is big in the sense that all those parents,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: even grandparents, are now introducing their kids to it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the nostalgia sort of permeates through two, three generations.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing that now, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you look through the window, there's a kid playing on a C64 right now.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Who's next to him?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: His dad, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that works really well for keeping nostalgia alive.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it is still,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: if you look at it as a segment,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: it's still, you know, small hobbyist, even with that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Also, we're not getting any younger, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you could argue that that eventually will dwindle.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But our goal with this is you attract Gen Z with maybe the Y2K aesthetics.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Those kids, instead of just like saying, oh yeah, dad, that's cool.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, dad.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then going back to their iPhone.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're now going to see this surrounding them and feel like Oh,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I actually, this is a vibe I like.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that way it becomes sustainable, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Those kids grow up and they show their kids and we keep doing this.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the other side of it is,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: it can dwindle away,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: which is why we always have to do modern products alongside it,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: like a flip phone and like other things we'll be bringing out.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: How did the Commodore 64 launch, relaunch go?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it would be big,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: but we've sold, okay,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: in our first week we sold, I mean,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about numbers a bit so I can say this again,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: like our first week or three weeks, we'd generated over two million in revenue.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are orders of magnitude more than that today,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: but C64s alone,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: we've sold over 27,000 of those machines,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: which is mind-blowing, right, for a 40-year-old computer.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been amazing.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what was really interesting was when we launched the phone,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: that did the same in its first weekend as the C64 did in its first three months.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the phone immediately went to the sky.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because when you look at those market segments,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: as I was saying,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: The retro,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: the Commodore community specifically,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: if you look at it as a segment of the phone market,
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: it's 0.00063% of the phone market.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see what we can tap into,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: what the potential is to bring Commodore to that much bigger world.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine lots of people that come in for the Commodore 64 come in quite near
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: the start and it might be that's where you get most of those fans.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: This might be a naive question, but have you been heavily impacted by the component shortages?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: We made a decision early on to buy up a bunch of FPGAs, more than we needed.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there was talk of using them in a separate product, so we had them on standby.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then when the FPGA prices more than doubled,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: we were able to tap into our existing stock of 10,000 FPGAs.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It does continue to impact us.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: We see a lot of complaints about the phone price.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We found a way to drop it by $100.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: But even then,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: understandably,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: $399 for a flip phone,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: although it's not your granny's flip phone, but it can seem expensive.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that is purely because the RAM price went from $11 per unit to $86 per flip phone.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just for the memory.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's before you look at development, software licensing, everything else.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So to release that phone for $400, we have a tiny sliver of a margin on that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's great for the company and for the awareness as well.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there are other financial benefits.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not just a flip phone.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: It does do apps and things.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't completely disconnected.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: No social media.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So social media is blocked because there is a huge growing market that won that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it runs 99% of Android apps.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: It has a 48 megapixel Sony camera and just some really cool stuff.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can remote control the C64U using it from the LED colors.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: As long as it's on the same Wi-Fi network,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: you can configure the RAM, you can save your game configuration.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you can do in the menu of that you can do from the phone.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we're building an iPhone-like ecosystem where the iPhone can control the Mac,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: the callback can control the C64.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now you're expanding into software, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: With Alien Breed, the collection.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's the ambition here?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are you taking on an Atari?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would say we're friends with Atari, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like the rivalry.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Retro scenes are all very friendly with each other.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I think I'm always quite surprised by and pleased by.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: joining them,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: a rising tide floats all boats,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to put it that way,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: so that everyone doing good stuff for the community and the market helps everyone.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But our first publication was Jupiter Lander, which you see running on one of the machines.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jupiter Lander 2, I should say.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jupiter Fracture.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first Commodore game out of the gate for us.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And again, as I say, we go retro, we go future.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So retro was Jupiter Lander 2.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Future was Alien Breeds for PC and console.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll keep following that methodology because it's working.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's working well.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you're playing through quite a bit more in this space then?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have some very interesting launches,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: hopefully at CES in January, from a software and hardware perspective.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But software is definitely part of the roadmap.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we've had a lot of fun doing Alien Breed, yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very good.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Exciting.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've added Major Nelson to the team.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Have you had to expand quite a lot to sort of do that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's been really interesting.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was here yesterday, a lovely guy.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're very lucky to have him.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, expansion is tricky, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do it without getting too big?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Everything still passes across my desk,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: every single decision, because I want it to have one very clear vision.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: like in Hollywood,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: you have one, talking about Hollywood at the start, you have one director on set.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, the movie is one vision.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we've definitely been very cautious about expansion.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have about 30 team members now, 30, which almost feels too big for a startup.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at the scale of what we're doing, I couldn't do it alone.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to have that.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're very slowly bringing on team members and just being cautious with
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: the cash flow and all of that.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the games that you're doing, how is that working?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Are people pitching stuff to you?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Are you going out looking for people to work on specific projects?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alien Breed was something that was pitched to us by Anstream and Team17.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we're very lucky they've done a lot of the legwork already.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: We were able to come in and help with the publishing side and the marketing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you know, it's got our name front and center, which is amazing as well.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we received pitches.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Almost daily, I would say.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we just announced something called Made For You or Made For Ultimate,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: which is to develop games specifically for the C64 Ultimate that take advantage of
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: the extra, you know, 24 channels of sound, the extra RAM and CPU speed.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go to the bottom of our website,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: there is something that says work with us or build with us.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can submit stuff.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have a very purpose-built form.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I look at every single submission myself personally.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not every day because I don't have time,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: but I have a growing list which I need to get back to after Gamescom.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how we will be able to work with people,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: co-brand and help them publicize their games on our website.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Ask one final question,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: I always ask this question at the end of my interviews,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: where would you like to be in five years?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Still here, still doing interviews and just being in the booth.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: As far as Commodore goes,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do see it alongside Atari,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: in a level kind of way,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: like the level they're doing, the turnover they're generating.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're a public company.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we'll become a public company,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: but we get a lot of requests for that from the fan base.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: They want to own a piece of Commodore.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that would be one of a couple of ways we could literally allow you to have
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: a share certificate for Commodore on your wall.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think just still doing what we're doing sustainably.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I originally said I want to do two things really well every year.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've done, I think, six or seven things.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one has been successful.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're very lucky.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Knock on wood.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to still do that, not do too much and just keep growing in that way.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm excited.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's going back.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really interesting approach, particularly with the phone component, too.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's not necessarily games per se.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's got Commodore games on it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I guess a little bit.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, well, congratulations on this lovely booth.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to look around it in a moment.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, congratulations on getting up to that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you to Perry slash Christian for talking to us today.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: I do find this phenomenon quite interesting,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: not just because there's obviously lots of older gamers that remember these days
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: and they want to go back to how they felt when they were younger,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: but because there's actually lots of younger gamers too.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: That sort of missed out on all this and they're wondering,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: hey, what if our games were a little bit simpler?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: What if we can go back to those sort of moments?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: What if we could have a phone that doesn't connect me to the internet every 30 seconds?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it might be an interesting trend or maybe that's just the older man in me.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: But that's it from us today.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: We will be back,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: of course,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: with more news analysis, insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to make sure you don't miss an episode,
• 20:19
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• 20:20
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• 20:22
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• 20:23
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• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: But if you'd like to receive our Monday episode called Here's the Dream,
• 20:28
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• 20:29
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• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: It helps us fund everything that we do.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: But that's it for me today.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.