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Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets: “I have two or three games left” · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This week, we are at Gamescom in Cologne.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be speaking to Patrice Desolets,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: the Assassin's Creed legend, about his new game, 1666 Amsterdam.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be catching up with Raccoon Logic about their new game,
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: a hockey title, and TD Project, Get Physical.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This week's edition is sponsored by Exola and Keywords Studios.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Keywords is,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: the major service provider for the video game industry,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: which helps studios make their games,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: release their games, and then sort of maintain them afterwards.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: They've got 13,000 You can find out more on the keywords website or in
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: the newsletter attached with this show.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of which, let's get back to it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is our Gamescom special,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: and the big trend of the show,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: and you've probably seen other journalists talk about it already,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: is the sheer number of games and companies from Southeast Asia, specifically China.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just take a look at the games that were announced at Opening Night Live,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: which our friend Jeff Keeley hosted.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you had However showed Noticefall,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: a mature RPG that looks quite different from games like Genshin Impact,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: which they're famous for.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Other Chinese games include Annata, an open-world city-based action game.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: You had Tides of Annihilation set in a ruined London,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: co-op action game Zoopunk,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: World War 2 Shooter the Defiant,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: and a kind of bonkers game called Showa American Story set in
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: a post-apocalyptic world where Japan has bought out the United States.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: There were others,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Monster Hunter Outlanders,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Silver Palace,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Roku Kingdom,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Petite Planet, Sea of Remnants, Once Human, Anemo, and Jenny Gods Niza.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was all just at opening night live, and it wasn't just China either.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: During opening nightlife, Korea was there in a big way.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was Terrare, the Unbound, and Project Zeta from Crafton.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Crafton also showed PUBG Deadnet, although to be fair that is being developed in the US.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: NC had Ion 2, Lycold Dice, Cinder City, Pearl Abyss showed Crimson Desert Enhanced.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of career stuff.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I also noted we saw an ambitious AAA game announced
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: from NBC Game Studios called 1001 Threads of Mizan.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: NBC Game Studios is formed by Saudi Arabian broadcaster NBC.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So Saudi Arabia are here with a big ambitious project as well.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So lots and lots of stuff from...
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Quite different markets.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: But outside of the Chinese and the Korean games,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: the big company making the most noise at Gamescom 2026,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: at least in my view, is CD Projekt Red.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Polish developer showed its upcoming DLC for The Witcher 3 called Songs of the Past.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's out next year when The Witcher 3 will be 12 years old.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's really incredible.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: It still sells millions of copies every year.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's up to 65 million now.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the big surprise out of CD Projekt was the news of a remastered version of The Witcher 3.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's out on all platforms, including Switch 2 and Battle.net for the first time.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: It comes out on September 29th,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: and if you're an existing Witcher 3 owner,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: you can get it at no extra cost, which is nice of them.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I had the privilege of chatting to CD Projekt Joint CEO Mikhail Nowakowski this week.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a full episode of the show which we'll release next week
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: but I thought I'd offer you a sneak peek because one announcement
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: the studio made ahead of Gamescom is that The Witcher 4 will launch in 2028
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: which means it'll launch into a world where physical discs at least
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: on PlayStation will no longer exist.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now we know CD Projekt is typically very supportive of the physical space they love
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: a physical good so I wanted to ask them how they feel about it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know what's gonna be the case.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: We know what PlayStation has announced, yeah?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and we have no influence on the policies of the first parties, to be honest.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: The discs for the first parties,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like for the,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: including PlayStation have to be manufactured, you know, in their own factories.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if they stop manufacturing indeed by 2028, then yes.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: But like what we're focusing on, like we're big fans of people having access to
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Tangible collectible things.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: We're nerds ourselves and we like that.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: We always supported that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever is the case, we're going to be for sure having a box.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to have a box that's going to have some feelies in it,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: something that's going to be something you're going to be wanting to open up
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: and enjoy.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: But we have no influence actually on what is the case here.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can check out our full interview with CD Projekt next week.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it was a very busy games comp,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: but also a relatively subdued show in terms of announcements,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: but there were a few reveals.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ubisoft announced a new Rainbow Six game called Rainbow Six Tactics,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: which is set in the Siege universe.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming out in 2025.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ubisoft also announced something called the Player Council.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a new feedback platform where players can sign up and have input
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: into early concepts, prototypes, and live service updates.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: The system has players level up as they provide feedback, so they've gamified it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: The first games to be included are the 2021 open world sports game,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Riders Republic,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: a game called Atomega,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: which is an old Ubisoft title that they're sort of bringing back.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's also asking players to help with Codename Splitpoint,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: which is a 1v1 tactical turn-based multiplayer game and
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: a single player strategy game.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to dive more into that in a future episode of the show.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now elsewhere at Gamescom, indie smash hit Mugenics is coming to consoles on September 8th.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Paradox revealed an original IP, a post-apocalyptic grand strategy game called Afterworld.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's a Legoverse.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Disney Illusion Island developer Dalala Studios is making an original IP called Murals.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: The game featured legendary UK comedian Bob Mortimer and
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the show also marked the launch of 1666 Amsterdam,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: the brand new game from Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desolet
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: and his studio Panache.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now the game was on stage opening night live and it's been a long time coming.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was initially commissioned by THQ in 2010.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was designed to be a rival to Assassin's Creed.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now after the publisher went bust in 2012, Ubisoft ended up with the IP.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: They picked it up and after a short legal dispute,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Desolet managed to secure the rights of the game back from Ubisoft.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: He initially obtained funding for the project from Microsoft before
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: the platform holder pulled its support.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: But now, finally, the game is here, at least in early access form.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I managed to catch up with Desolate at Gamescom to talk about the launch
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: the game,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: its protracted journey to launch,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: and we also talk about his previous title,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: the unique survival game Ancestors of Humankind Odyssey,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: the game where you play as a monkey that went on to sell two and
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: a half million copies.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can check out our full conversation right now.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Patrice.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've talked about this before, but let's talk about the journey of 1666.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: It started off at THQ.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: It collapsed.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ubisoft picked it up.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: You fought Ubisoft for the rights.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And now finally, 15 years later, here it is.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why persist?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why not let
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: it go?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm stubborn.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted to attack this universe I had in mind.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I love the location of Amsterdam that I discovered back in It was in 2011
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: when I was there with the mother of my two daughters.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she wanted to see the tulips in April.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, let's go.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we spent an amazing week there.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was walking around the city and I was like,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: oh, I could have done an Assassin's Creed game here.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's too bad that I'm not...
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: This anymore, but I was looking for my next game, you know?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then I turn around a corner of a street and there was a building written anno 1666 on it.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, that's the number of the beast.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do a game about the devil set in Amsterdam.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then it lives in you, those ideas.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you start creating a game world and the universe.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just couldn't let go.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I felt I had something.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I got the ride back, for me it was quite obvious that I wanted to do it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that we were still working on ancestors back then.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: In 2016.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as we launched Ancestors in January 2020, I went back at it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then, but this time I said, okay, but at first it was really a game about the devil.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like Lucifer, the TV show went out.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided to say, what would be a real interesting character still related to the devil?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, oh, witches.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then, naively, let's do to the witches what I did with the assassins back in the days.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are now, six years later.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, because I hear 1666, some British.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Great Fire of London.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the next one?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: You never know.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting is that I think you understood that The real IP or the license is 1666.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Amsterdam is at least the first game and then we can go elsewhere.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Even you go elsewhere in this game,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: there's multiple time zones,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: there's all sorts of,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: it's all,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: you don't,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: your games are,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the word,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say like batshit,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean like sort of they're mad and they're crazy and they're inventive.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find it hard to sort of get funding or backing for those sort of visions
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: or do people, because your history, they just know that you deliver?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's never easy.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: The easy part is to have the meeting and then you have to sell it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have to explain it and eventually you sign a deal.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the signing part is not easy.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I met a lot of people and pitched this game to a lot of people
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: and I received Mostly knows before I receive one, yes.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think people have the confidence that, yes,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I directed games that had multiple time periods in it,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: delivered some interesting gameplay mechanics, nice story, and big universe.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I guess also I'm good at making sure that the team is ready to follow me.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not... Me, myself, I cannot do it, eh?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I find it interesting to have multiple time and create almost like a... What's the word?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not...
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know where you follow multiple timeline and stories and it's all linked together
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: and you feel that there's more than what you see on screen.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that interesting in TV series and in books, in movies.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm just trying to replicate what I like into the games that I make.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's self-publishing, aren't you?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Did you want to publish it?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, always you like to have that control.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's our first time that we actually self-publish a game.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's nerve-wracking a little bit.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I think we have enough experience To do it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have help with the selling of the game and marketing of the game.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it was time for Panache to self-publish.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's easier than ever, though,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: to sort of get that help, you know, that process of getting a game to market.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily need a one-stop publisher anymore.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know, maybe.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it helps.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But for us, to be honest, it happened.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was not really the goal, but it happened, and now we're really pleased with the result.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're going Early Access?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: The thing with Early Access,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke to Peter Molyneux earlier in the year,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: and he talked about what made him nervous about Early Access is that gamers sort
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: of expect a finished, ready game, effectively.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want anything that's too buggy, but that's the whole point of it.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's still quite a risky route to go down.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the safe option.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we have a question to that other than, you know, how are you feeling about it?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you're live now.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be glancing over your shoulder looking at those numbers and data and feedback coming in.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: How prepared are you for it?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think we... Well, we're totally prepared.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was a bit the vision for Panache since the get-go.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Since, like, I wanted...
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: To be designing and making the game with the people.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just an ancestor.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't do it, but it's really in our process.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We already have an iterative process.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just now we're including in that process the people who actually are playing it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the goal is like, tell us what you like, what you dislike.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We'll make it better.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the proposition
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: so what they can actually buy today is is is pretty good yeah it's pretty solid and
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: and right now for around ah there's like in euros and yeah dollars
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: or around 30 bucks I'm not quite sure the precise price and yeah you'll have
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The entire of the game.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the proposition is pretty unique, and it's quite fun to play at the end of the day.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a good runway on it,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: or is there pressure to get this to a certain level of success quickly, or...?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, no,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: but that's my...
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, I won't tell you the internal numbers we have in mind, but we're good.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're good.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're good.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what I was asking.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: You sent six years on this game and six years is a, you know, it's a long time.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: The industry, you know, the zeitgeist can change a lot in six years.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are you feeling the pressure to start making games faster?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of companies seem to be doing that, Lan.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, not really.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not the pressure.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't feel the pressure.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's always like the economical pressure,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: if you will,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: but not again,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: our process is like I've been playing that game for the last six years
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: in early access by,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know, on the team and it's always getting better and better and better.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And but I wanted to be out there for my team also because it can get
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit Not crazy,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: that's not the right word,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: but they're a bit schizophrenic for them, like always being like, is it good?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know, and changing just for the sake of changing stuff sometimes.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted it to be out there and because we're making it for people at the end of the day.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I talked to a lot of creators today and there's the economic pressure, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you make a game faster, you're making it cheaper.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also the creative,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know, people, we get,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of game designers I speak to in their 50s that go,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably got two or three games left.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, what?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: That blows my mind.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: When you think about how long these games take to make,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's not as crazy as it sounds.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder from a creative point of view, I want to get games.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: you're seeing,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you've been doing some stuff with AI tech and people doing things
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: with smaller teams and outsourcing and all that kind of stuff to try
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: and speed those things up.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not something that you're worrying about.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I do have two or three more games because I am 52.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: But no, no, no, no, no.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the beauty of what we're doing right now.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: The game is out there.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's continue for a full year and let's...
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: You never know with 1666,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: because of the layer of the game world, I think we can make more game faster.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to touch upon Ancestors.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: The last time we spoke,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: it was before the game had come out, and it seems to have done reasonably well.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: It had a bit of a mixed reaction, critically, but some people really loved it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel about it?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I loved Ancestors, and I loved the community around Ancestors.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there'll be some surprises coming.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: You got it first.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you were saying to me last time,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: it was like,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I'd like to take it to this level and I had to move it on to the next era.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is still the goal.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not finished with Ancestors, that's for sure.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we finished Ancestors, I think it was two million years.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's still two million years to develop.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got two millions of years of ancestors to do.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: You've got multiple different cities to save.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got two to three games left.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But for sure, maybe I'll do a little game eventually that is done in six months.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: You never know.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I know Fictions has the sequel rights to it, I think.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's true.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Would you like it back?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean...
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought about it,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: but we're in contact with fiction and we're having a good relationship with them.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: How has the studio changed since that game?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Since Ancestors?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: We finished Ancestors.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We were roughly 35.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some people left because it's part of the industry after you finish a project.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in Montreal, it's so easy to go to a different studio.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Particularly during that COVID period.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the great resignation.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: All of this.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But now we're 70 plus.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we doubled the size.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working hard to make sure that we keep the same vibe, the same process as much as possible.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like suddenly we have 25 of those 70 are there to manage the other ones.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all people who are actually crafting the game.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Real people doing it,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: because you mentioned AI,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to make sure that we used it,
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: it's gone from the game, and we are not using it again, and that's it.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it's true.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's 70 people who are making the game,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know, artisans of
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: the industry, newcomers and longtime
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: workers.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I get the generative AI kickback you got,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: but actually,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of the AI tools To speed up coding agents,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: that kind of stuff, or in my world, transcribing interviews and things.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think people have that much of an issue about that kind of thing, generally.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But, okay, I won't ask.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: 70 people, do you do a lot of outsourcing?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we did a little bit for cinematic and for some game models,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know, but most of the work is done internally.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: We do some localization and testing, but Most of it is done internally.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: If not all of it, I mean.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: When I was, I think, eight years old, I wrote a short story about 1666.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally called 1666.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was set in London,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: the Great Fire London, because it's called 1665 was the Great Plague of London.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not true, but as a myth, the fire wiped out the plague.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite true.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I did a whole sort of, like, storyline of somebody in that... Oh,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: no way.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: When I was eight, I remember nothing about it.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: But whenever I see the name of the game, I'm taken back to, uh, like... You wanna
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: write for us?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'll write you the next game.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether I've asked this question because I'm getting you want
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: to do more 1666.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're developing this in early access.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: You want to develop the game and hopefully do take it to more locations.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also talking about more ancestors.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you like to see Panache in...
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ten years.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Good question.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ten years.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, when I'll be 62?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: My God.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not say that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's true though.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we would have like this,
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: let's say the same amount of people because after this,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I will not know the people around.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe more than one game at the same time.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the toolset that we've built.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see and have a really strong community of people who are following us.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the case with ancestors.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I would like Panache to be recognized as a studio and have people
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: who are following us, pushing us.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is roughly where I see it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then that means that it's...
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling me that Panache is now 22 years old,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: and it's kind of like, wow, awesome, because we're 12 now.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Time does upset me.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's because of what happened in 2020.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, whoa, okay.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, congratulations on getting the game out.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's been quite a journey, quite a battle.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's very different to the one that you envisioned,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: but it's obviously a great effort to get it to the point.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's different because in that journey,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know what really, and yesterday I was thinking about that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: The most beautiful thing of that journey is all the people that I met through it all.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, that gave me so much and make that game in some shape or form.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the most incredible part of the journey.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had Harvey Smith on our show two weeks ago, and I asked him about Redfall, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And even though the game,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: and it's not related to your game,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: the game didn't do as well as he wanted, it was a failure.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: He talked about the journey of it, and he said sometimes it is just about the journey.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you want the gold ring, but sometimes it's about the journey.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that sometimes.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about the journey.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because Harvey also,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: is a bit like me,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: where your personal life and your artistic life or working life is pretty close
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: from one another.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it is about the process and the journey of making a game with people that is in
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: and out of that journey.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful note
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: to leave it on.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Patrice, congratulations.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, sir.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for your time.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: This edition of The Game Business Show is sponsored by Keyword Studios and Xola.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: At Gamescom this week,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Xola is showing the world its Xola Publishing Suite
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: which gives PC Studios their own storefront,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: launcher, player data ownership and global payments.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a chance for PC developers to have their own direct Right now back to the show.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we've already listed a bunch of games from opening night live,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: but there were actually quite a lot.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wizards of the Coast announced the release date for its Mass Effect-like new IP Exodus.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming on April 7th, 2027.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: It also showed Warlock, its next D&D game, which is due in 2027.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Embracer and Red Octame,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've actually seen this game,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: it's really cool,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: announced their Rock Band-like game stage tour is coming out December 10th.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's for PS5, Xbox Series X and Switch 2 and PC.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all over it, it looks great.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile there were big trailers shown for Game of Thrones War The Westeros,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Blood of the Dawnwalker,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Control Resonant,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Rayman Legends Retold,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: A Plague Tale Legacy, Silent Hill Townfall, Gears of War E-Day, Metro 2039 and more.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just opening night live that happened though.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: There was also the future game show.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: For me the standout reveal there was a new Worms spin-off plus the news that
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: a new mainline Worms game is in the works because you know...
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm old, I love worms.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: But Onimusha was there,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Clutch was there,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Star Trek was there, The Walking Dead, Serious Sam, lots and lots of things.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: But one game that actually surprised me was
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: a hockey game called Breakaway Hockey League,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: which looks like a supercharged, fast-paced 4v4 hockey title.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's exactly what it is.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason it surprised me is it's being developed by Raccoon Logic.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Raccoon Logic is behind the comedy-action-adventure games,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Journey to the Savage Planet and Revenge of the Savage Planet.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: I actually spoke to Schneider and Hutchinson in 2024.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was the last interview I ever did for the games industry.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Biz, ahead of the release of Revenge of the Savage Planet,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: and they talked about embracing the old model of making and releasing video games,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: so you know,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: create a title,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: finish it,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: stick it in a box, get it featured in magazines, and you know, release it.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: They acknowledged in my interview that's not the way games are done today,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: but they just liked the old way of doing things,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: and they wanted to prove it could still work.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Revenge of the Savage Planet
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't surprise me that the firm's next game is a bit more typical of modern titles.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's an online multiplayer game.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's going into early access.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's being developed alongside the community.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I decided I had to talk to Alex and read about this and its change
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: of approach for its new game.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here is our short conversation.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, welcome to the show.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, thanks for having us.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to see you again.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having us.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: My final interview with Games and Shopbiz was you two.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was expecting when I heard that you got a new game here that it would be... A continuation.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: ...A Savage Planet style thing, and it is absolutely not that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me about this pivot.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: The goal for the studio was to sort of adapt to the modern world
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: a little bit instead of spending three or four years working on a game
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: as we have traditionally for probably the last 20 years to try
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: and get something out faster and find something that we could work on,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: you know, in tandem with the audience.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: We got some interesting research.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the market conditions are basically like now's the time to do it.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've always had a bit of a sort of comedy fun vibe about you and your games and your studio.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is that gonna come across in this sort of different genre?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: We hope so, for sure.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think, Alex?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's still going to be a bright, optimistic color palette.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: The art's still going to, you know, pop.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: We're hoping that the systems are robust enough.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: If you think about what the game is,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: it's kind of,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: the gameplay of Rocket League meets the tone of NBA Jam,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: you know, inside a hockey game is what we're trying to achieve.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it still should be bright and optimistic,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: fun in the pad,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: hopefully systemic enough to have,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours of play, but we'll know soon enough.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: When we last spoke,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: as I say,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: it was in LA,
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: it was around, I mean,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: you said,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a quote from you on this,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: is that,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: we're doing the last hurrah of the games industry I grew up with,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: you get an edge cover,
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: you fly Jennison to talk in actual person,
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: it feels like the end, we're doing a physical version, that's the industry I love.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, you're talking about adapting.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So much truth.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking about adapting, but did that approach work or did it not?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think I stand by it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: especially now at Gamescom,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: you look at the kind of games being announced
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: and there's some stuff still happening,
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: outside of North America and most of Europe that looks It looks like
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: the old games industry, but it is changing and we're trying to change with it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think the approach worked in the sense that it resonated with game players.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was distressed the other day to realize that my favorite console of all time,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: the Amiga 500, They think sold between four and five million units.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: So if we look at the numbers for Revenge and Journey to the Savage Planet,
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: in a crazy way, we almost had as many players as people who owned an Amiga.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: And yet it doesn't feel like the same level of success remotely.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I think the industry is changing and you can still have a big audience and we got
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: a big audience, but it monetized in a very strange way.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: People aren't buying physical copies anymore.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: If they get it on streaming services, they're not spending any more money.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: So the new game is trying to adapt to this and still You know, make games that we love.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is your heart broken a bit then?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a little bit.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a little bit.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Chris, how much time do you have?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I mean, I miss, you know, all kinds of things.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: I miss magazines on shelves.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: I miss, you know, going to the game store, you know?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's kind of a sign that you're in your uncomfortable middle age when,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: yeah, you miss those things.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there was a level of personality and ownership that came with waiting
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: for a game, you know what I mean?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: And spending your money up front and then investing your time in it that's lost.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: There's still great things about the modern industry, but I do miss that.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: We try and be pretty clued in on terms of where the industry is going.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look right now, everything, I mean, more and more is just about clips.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: People, like, people aren't, you know, they're reading less, unfortunately.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's just everything is just clips, clips, clips.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the cool things about doing something like hockey,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: and if we do our job properly, and hopefully we will, like, it's a clip factory.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously,
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: people are still going to read,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: stuff from you,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Chris, because it's like the wider audience and it's a business focus.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: But if you think about The younger players, that's what they're responding to now.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that interested us about this is, again,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: if we do our jobs right,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: we can basically create almost like a clip factory and lots of interesting moments
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: where players could be capturing those,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: sharing them,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: and showing off to their friends in the same way that you see in Rocket League.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, another thing worth mentioning is we don't have an official license for the game.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: So breakaway hockey is,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: allowing us to do all the things that people want,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: hopefully in an NHL game that they wouldn't get in an official NHL game.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we can have big hits, we can have crazy shots, we can exaggerate a lot.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we can knock the teeth out of people.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: We can have some blood on the ice if we end up there.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: So hopefully it's a little bit more exciting,
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: a little bit more robust without abandoning what makes hockey great.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you're releasing it sort of quickly.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is this how exactly you've watched it?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Talk me through that.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think the old days of nurturing something for three years before you show it to
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: the audience is a risk.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I think,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: we're looking to go into early access next year and really grow with the audience
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: and get constant feedback.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you go out next year, you might still be able to do a physical version.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: I would love a physical version, but yeah, I don't know.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think, yeah,
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: there's funny stats on the physical stuff in that sports,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: especially as it's more mainstream,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: is actually keeping,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know, physical adoption at a higher rate than a lot of other games.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe it would make sense.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: I hope so.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: You made his day now.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'm just wiping a single tear away.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to early access, you're going to release it, you're going to test it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Are you prepared for that?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have quite an artistic vision,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: you've got people who are going to tell you, no, don't do that.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, no, I'm the creative guy behind this, this is how we do things.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, it's always a collaboration.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: Often I'm answering the question,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: but it's usually an answer that we've worked on as a group or a lot of the time,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: not always.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's more fun to get feedback early on.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: When you've really spent three years on something,
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: you're pretty certain of your idea and you don't want to change it.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it actually makes it easier to get quick feedback on a quick prototype.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: And also it's hockey at its core.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're not trying to create something from whole cloth.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it's a really good fit for a feedback loop.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think for
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: the team,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: there is an adapt,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: like to your point,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: there's a really big adaptation process where we,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: whether the leads on the team or really the whole team in general,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: we have to get comfortable with putting stuff out there
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: that we might not have put out in the past historically.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a process and we had to bring on some new people as well who have
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: that mindset and we had to adapt ourselves.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's going to be learning.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're not sitting here saying we're going to get everything right.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to learn from it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to learn as we go.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's PC, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's PC to start.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea that it will come to consoles eventually if the console industry is still standing.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'd like to do that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: That would be cool.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know we have Twitter conversations, ex-conversations.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you're quite passionate about the console side of the industry and
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: where it's heading.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thoughts.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really have a question to them other than,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think you seem to be quite like the fact that Sony seems to be pivoting back away
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: from live service and Xbox is pivoting back away from Game Pass a little bit.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: When some things I think that are clear to the wider game development community
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: and often even to the audience are not as clear to the executive class.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: So they have meetings where they decide that the future is all live service
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: and abandon their traditional success.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: So it isn't surprising to me that they're turning around and saying,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: wait, we have a lot of studios that make great single player games.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe we should let them make great single player games.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: And again, seeing as that's the stuff I like, it's no problem.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I went through so many interviews, I was going to throw some lines at you.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: With my friend and colleague,
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: James Batchelor, you said, let people own the games they've bought.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: That was an interview from 2024.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that seems to be resonating a lot in the discourse these days online seems
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: to be
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: agreeing with that one.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Another one was,
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: this was an interesting,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: because this is in the interview that we did,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: and you said,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: a big company always wants you to go on and be a hundred million seller.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that seemed true in 2024.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: In 2026, I get the impression that actually people are okay with a three or four million.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think it's crazy when you look at something like Sony abandoning Destiny,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: which had 70,000 concurrent players a day.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: Which in considering that a failure when that in any reasonable world is
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: a monstrous success and perhaps it's only a failure
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: because they had There's far too many people working on it, you know?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: And if we were making the game we're making for a big studio,
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be terrified because the idea that we'll come out of the gate
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: and have 100,000 concurrent players is probably nuts, right?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: But as an independent studio, we don't need that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_03: And we can probably,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: both survive at a lower number and then spend the time it takes to grow it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I feel much better about them abandoning what seem
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: to me very healthy numbers in favor of
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: chasing crazy numbers.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: As a smaller studio as well,
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: we can really focus on the player experience more than the monetization.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of times when,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: and we work,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of us have worked in large companies,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: it almost, it almost starts out with the monetization and they back into a game.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: But from our perspective,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: it's like, okay, what game can we make that's going to be awesome for players?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: What game can we make that people are going to really be excited about?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if we do that, well, the money's going to come.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: But doing it the other way, it's really, really tough.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: And gamers and players in general, they can smell bullshit.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's incumbent on us to make something the players want.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And a player that feels good, it looks good, and is going to get people excited.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if we do that well, players are going to come.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I might just leave it there because I have to say I wasn't expecting that game.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say I was fully like I was setting up talking about Sticking with
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: the old way of making games and the single player and magazine.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, you know, we're going young.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's the joke that, you know, the old dog hopefully can learn a new trick.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: We might complain about the trick, but we can perform it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: A trick might hurt, but we're going to try and pull it off.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll say this,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: that we obsess with generations,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: but really we talk about,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: we talk about gen alphas and gen Z's and that kind of stuff and millennials.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I often think that's largely a marketing construct.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I was young,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I played video games with my friends,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: and they watched me play, and then it was controllers passing.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now the internet has allowed us to do that online.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there are adults that like consoles, and there are kids that like consoles.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: My seven-year-old's Nintendo obsessive.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this idea that, oh no,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: kids are all on Roblox,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: they all do this, and adults don't like TikTok because they're all about...
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's actually...
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: True, they've got different times at different stages in their lives.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: A 20-year-old is worried about different things than a 40-year-old, but that was true ages ago.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think to the living years, you know, every generation blames one before.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's all that different.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I look at that and go,
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, you're chasing after a younger crowd, you're going after a broader audience.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, we played those games.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think it's the way you interact with it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're right, that's a continuum.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: I do think tastes change.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: like I was joking before,
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: sometimes I feel like we're in a jazz band and everyone wants hair metal.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's not about playing the instruments, it's about the style.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: But I think we've found a really nice sweet spot where we're excited to make it.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a gap in the market and hopefully the audience likes it too.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Good luck with it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to note that Patrice Desolets,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: was the creative director on Assassin's Creed 1 and 2,
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: and Alex Hutchinson there was the creative director on Assassin's Creed 3.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you that that was planned.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was not planned.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: before we wrap up,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: well, there's only one thing left for me to do, which is round up the news.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of news that wasn't related to Gamescom.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox is testing a disc to digital feature.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's letting owners of certain physical games unlock a digital entitlement for that same title.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: So players just insert a disc into Xbox One or Xbox Series X,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: launch the game and they can claim the entitlement.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Most Xbox One and Xbox Series X games will be supported.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: The physical disc will still work afterwards,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: but only one digital license can be generated per game disc.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Elsewhere,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Rockstar has broken its silence on the GTA 6 leaks in a new statement it called
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: the leaks heartbreaking.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: It told fans,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: we want to thank everyone in the community who has reached out with messages
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: to support this past week.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Your words have meant more to the team than you can imagine.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: so much of the game has been leaked online
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: by this leaker that's demanding physical copies of the game.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: GTA 6 has now been fully revealed on Netflix.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen it yet,
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: so that's why it's not in this episode, but we will be talking about that next week.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Journey Developer, That Game Company, has formed That Game Publisher.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: It follows the success of its game,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sky Children of the Light, and it's looking to fund emotionally ambitious titles.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sega is to close Rovio Copenhagen following the cancellation of Sonic Blitz.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: The mobile game was worked on by around 20 people.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't quite know how People have been laid off.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you watched Here's the Dring,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is our paid-for newsletter and podcast that comes out on Monday,
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: you will know this already,
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: but Focus Entertainment will publish Clutch,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: the new AAA racing game from Maverick Games,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: which is the studio formed by a bunch of Forza Horizon veterans.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: The game was funded by Amazon,
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: but the retail giant dropped it earlier this year, despite it being nearly finished.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be more on that in a couple of weeks.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a big interview with them.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: In the US,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: console hardware revenue fell to a low not seen since July 2020 when PS4,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox One and Switch were in short supply due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because of these price rises,
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sakana said that sales rates of PS5 and Xbox Series S
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: and X have been significantly impacted.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, July US sales of games hardware and accessories were down.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was down 10% to $4.5 billion compared to the year before.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Mobile was the biggest reason for the decline, with console and PC content also down as well.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: A few other stories.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: VC firm Makers Fund has closed its fourth funding round and has $250 million
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: to invest in startups that might define the future of video games.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Makers Fund has had numerous successes in the past,
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: including with Royal Match developer Dream Games.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Riot Games will end active development of its free-to-play fighting game 2XKO this December.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Servers will remain online beyond this year and offline play will not be affected.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: 007 First Light has now sold 4 million copies worldwide.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations to the IO Interactive folks there.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it!
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you to all our guests for joining us today.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: We will be back with more news analysis, insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead.
• 39:34
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• 39:36
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• 39:39
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• 39:41
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• 39:45
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• 39:48
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• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out more on thegamebusiness.com.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that's it for me today.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.