Latest / The Game Business Show / “Some of the offers were actually offensive” – How Clutch found its publisher

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“Some of the offers were actually offensive” – How Clutch found its publisher · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of publishers that thought, right, we can take advantage of these guys.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We can absolutely take advantage of these guys.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even sometimes coming up with a rev share that was even less favorable
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: to our first deal,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: which is nuts considering we're in a place where,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: let's say, we didn't need any dev funding.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: When you do the same thing over and over,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: because it worked,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: it's like, yeah,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: it'll work,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: and it might probably work a second time, and it might work a third time.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: But people are going to get bored of that, and they're going to reject it at some point.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: And at the point at which they reject it, it's going to drop off a cliff.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We absolutely believe that within Amazon Games, we probably would be their biggest game.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think we probably believe, yeah, we probably will have a bigger audience than Tomb Raider.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: I would want gamers to consider us one of, if not the best, game development in the world.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: This week's edition is sponsored by HelpShift, a keywords platform.
• 0:54
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• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out more at helpshift.com or check out the video in
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: the newsletter attached with this very show.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of which, let's get back to it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: This week we welcome two of the founders behind Maverick Games,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: studio head and creative director Mike Brown and COO Harinder Sangha.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now Maverick Games is a team made up of mostly leaders from playground games,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: specifically the Forza Horizon team.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Mike was formerly the creative director on Forza Horizon.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the studio formed in 2022 and in 2024 signed a deal with Amazon for its first game.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: That game is called Clutch,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: a title that looks quite a bit like Forza Horizon but is actually
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: a bit more story focused.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Earlier this year Amazon dropped the title and handed it back to Maverick
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: as we revealed exclusively on The Game Business.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Despite the fact the company had basically funded the whole thing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now Maverick then took the game on itself and revealed the title at Summer Game Fest in June.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Incredibly,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: after the reveal,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon has gone back to Maverick to try and sign the game
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: for its lunar streaming platform.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: We broke that story too via an interview we did with Amazon back in July.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Although the game was mostly funded,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Maverick did want some publishing support,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: it did want a bit of extra finance to launch the game properly,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: so it went back out looking for a publisher and it found one in Focus,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: the publisher behind A Plague's Tale and Space Moon 2 and Snow Corona and games like
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: that.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now two weeks ago I finally caught up with Mike and Harinda for
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: a pretty candid interview on the end of its Amazon partnership,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: why it's picked the publisher it has,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: the offensive offers it received from others,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: the unpredictable performance of racing games in the market,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: and its goal to become the best video game studio in the world.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great chat.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: before we begin,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: for those watching this interview, you'll notice that Mike and Harinda are in a car.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: they're in their Fiat Multipler,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: which is in their office,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: and they used it as part of their live stream to reveal clutch.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I virtually joined them in this car for this interview.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm going to say.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Please enjoy it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Mike.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Harinda.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Chris.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having us.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Chris.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is this the car you're driving to Gamescom in?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: That was discussed.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: We did try and drive it in a circle around the car park once and it didn't make it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so the thought of trying to travel it all the way across Europe is a little bit daunting.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I dare say we'll do it at some point.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: At the moment, though, it's indoors.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And due to fire and safety regulations,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: we've had to remove some parts from the car so
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: that it can't just spontaneously ignite.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So at the moment, it is a non-running car with some bits removed.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when we joked about taking it on the road to Gamescom to Chris and Andy,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: who look after this and source the vehicle for us,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: they were just like, no, not a chance.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not even trying to get into a conversation about how we can get this going.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly think at this point it would be cheaper
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: to just buy another Fiat multiplier and then drive that one to Germany.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Although, surprisingly hard to come by, aren't they?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they are very rare.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of part of the charm.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about the news that's just come out, which is you've got a publisher.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Clutch has a new company publishing your game, Focus,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Space Marine 2 and A Plague's Tale and SnowRunner and all those sort of games.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So go on.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Why them?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: What made them the ideal partner?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'd actually spoken to Focus a whole bunch of times.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: They were someone that we spoke to way back before we signed our first publishing deal.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point in time,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: their business didn't really stretch to the level of spend that we were looking
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: to do.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: To be really, really truthful about it, they obviously very much liked the game.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think the game actually does kind of fit with them quite well in terms of
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: the things that we're pushing for in our game.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the game is set in France and they are French.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: That is like a very basic observation.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's not nothing.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: That is actually something that they are,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Focus are a popular company in France that have like good,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, home team support.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: And our game is kind of quite French with its setting and theming.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: But first time around,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: we were punching high and looking for perhaps a little bit More money
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: than Focus would typically spend on, well, any game.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: This time around, that wasn't the case.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: We were not really looking for much or any money at all, to be honest.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't really what we were after.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: What we needed was publishing and distribution services.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: So key thing is marketing,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: which as a little independent game developer,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: We don't really have any people or resources for.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So all of that would just be kind of out of pocket spend with external companies,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: which is a big cost and just a bit of an unknown for us.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Additionally,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: publisher services such as QA,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: localization,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: customer supports,
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: all of this stuff,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: which I think can perhaps sound a little boring but is actually crucially important
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: in getting the game over the line to market.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of what the sort of things we're looking for and at
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: the moment we were I think a pretty pretty appetizing offer because
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: the game was effectively done there's no risk around kind of can
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: the game get finished or is the game good because you can play it and you can come
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: and sit with us and you can spend several days playing it and Focus did that and
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: that was actually Quite reassuring.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: More than everyone else we spoke to,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Focus were insistent on spending a huge amount of time with the game.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: They had people play it for a full week where they played for every single piece
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: of content, every single feature, single player and multiplayer.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: We never actually saw the report,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: but there would have been a detailed internal report giving a full status of
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: the game.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think that just shows A level of kind of commitment to us and
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: that they're taking it very seriously.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of focusing, you listed some of the titles there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're obviously not the biggest publisher in the world,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: but they do consistently deliver quality and they do consistently kind
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: of overperform I think what people would have expected.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's true both critically and commercially.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Plague Tale picked up a ton of awards.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Both of them are very critically acclaimed.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, last year they had huge success with the Space Marine 2 game.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think, again, more than most would have bet on that game.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that then puts them in a position where They've had,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: frankly,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: a big hit with Space Marine 2, and their business needs another big hit, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously, we're also trying to make a big hit.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And with a company like that,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: we know that we will be one of, if not the biggest thing they have going on.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: When you plug into,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to mention a name,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: but you can fill in If you plug into a much larger,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: maybe American publisher,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes there's just no way that you can be the most important thing to them.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe not even in the top three most important things.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're just a bit of their business where they've got an opportunistic chance to,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: oh, we can just pick this up now.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: All we have to do is fund marketing and then we can get a bit on the back end.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't really have the appeal to us because we're just a...
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's not really what we want.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: We want you to show a bit of commitment and show that you're going to kind
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: of put your whole organization behind us.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And even before the sign, right,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: as I just mentioned,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: they had very senior people in their company spending a full week in the game.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think they kept
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they heard them playing,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: didn't they?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And they're taking it really, really seriously.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to name the names of who are playing it,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: but it was like really,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: really senior people within their company were spending a lot of time with it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a level of commitment and belief that they've shown there,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: which gives me reassurance that they're going to put their best people
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: and put their best efforts into it,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: which isn't always true with large other publishers,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: which So no fault of their own really,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: they just have bigger parts of their business that are worth normally that they have
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: to put their kind of best people and best efforts into.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting you say that, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it might sound really obvious that somebody plays the game, but quite often they don't.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to us.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are a developer, our game, and it's our first, it's our own IP.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first title that we're bringing to market.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important that people are invested in it just as much as we are.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And finding the right partner to do that was, that was really important to us.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So having people that play games that are actually making decisions, it's so key.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that you don't,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Rightly or wrongly,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: you don't get that a lot in publishers where they actually really do care about
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: the game versus how much are we going to make out of this?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've been through this a lot with a lot of different people,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: but you're in certain rooms with like,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: maybe there's Seven people from the publisher are all serving different purposes.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: You've brought multiple PCs,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: consoles,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: you've got multiple screen setups,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: you've come there so we can do a really long demo.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And like two of them will come and pick it up and play it and go,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, it feels like, oh yeah, okay, right, cool.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, we've flown like 14 hours to get you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: You've not even played for 14 minutes.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Flown 14 hours, we bought our own TV, we bought a PC, carried it across the continents.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in a lot of them,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: they are just, they are focused on purely on the business and the commercials.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, they're looking at it again.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, game looks good.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: There appears to be a video game here.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're getting straight into the business of it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there is a missing piece there where Do you actually like it?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to work on it?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: You guys in this room are going to be like, well, we'll be working together on this.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Do you like it?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's going to affect how much you're going to put yourself into it,
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: how much you're going to commit to it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think perhaps they realize how that looks to us when you're like,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: They're saying nice things.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're saying, oh yeah, the game looks really good, great, great, everything seems good.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: They actually, you realise, do you play games ever?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you do.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It goes back to people make games, right?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it is still a business of relationships as well.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we were in a very fortunate position going out to look for the right partner to work with.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Except, like Mike says, we had everybody interested in us.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody we spoke to and more we chatted to.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: First time round, we're chatting to again.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's about how they came into that relationship.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's not a surprise.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: The industry's not in a great place.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: We, as an independent developer,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was a lot of publishers that thought,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: right, we can take advantage of these guys.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can absolutely take advantage of these guys.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Even sometimes coming up with a rev share that was even less favorable
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: to our first deal,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: which is nuts considering we're in a place where,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: let me say, we don't need any, we didn't need any dev funding, right?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a very,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: very different scenario and it We were just,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were quite taken back with how some of the people were coming in with us,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: really, weren't we?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: it's probably not that surprising to you,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Chris, but we present it with confidence as I go.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: We present it like,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: this game is great,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: we know it's great,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: this game is finished,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: this is the schedule,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: there are no notable risks,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: you can see everything,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: you can check over everything, we're happy to be completely transparent.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So we come into it completely confident,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: and as H says, not actually asking for any dev funding, just publishing services.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I punched the mic.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that we do that with confidence,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: honestly,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: to tilt a deal in our favor because we don't want you to think
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: that you can push us around and bully us.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: There is an option where we just say no to everybody and just go ahead and take
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: the risk and self-publish and do all those things I just described earlier
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: that we don't really know how to do.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: But we could try and learn on the way.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: That is an option that we could have gone with.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of how I wanted them to feel, that we're able to just, we can't just walk away.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need you.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: We'd very much like these services.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like the de-risk on our part of you taking care of these things for us.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, some of the offers were, well, they're actually offensive.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd just like to take the moment though
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: to say all these publishers will be really happy to speak to you again
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: when we're coming with our next
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: project.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Focus is quite an interesting company.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: They like to do things for specific audiences that are very targeted and
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: then has potential to break out and that's their whole,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: we just had them on the show last year and even their smaller games like
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: the Snow Runners of the World,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: they're They're profitable little titles that do very well in the niche
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: that they do.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And also,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've told this story on the show before,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I met up with the TimeSplitters developers going back very, very far.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they told a story about how they made the decision to go from Eidos to EA
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: with TimeSplitters 3.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is a different era, different EA, of course.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And with TimeSplitters 3, they did these test mock reviews, right?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the reviews for TimeSplitters 3 were great, it's a good game.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: they were publishing a GoldenEye game,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: which is odd because TimeSplitters devs were the original GoldenEye team.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the reviews were coming back poor.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So EA moved the marketing budget of TimeSplitters 3 onto Goldeneye
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: because they needed to sell more copies of that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they just thought TimeSplitters would look after itself because it reviewed well.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Very radical design was just mortified.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the decisions big companies have to make.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was probably a logical decision.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: We need to make sure that this sells well.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably going to sell itself.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you really don't want that when it's your baby, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: You've been doing a lot of PR yourself lately.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Are you handing it all over now?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: They will be certainly helping us with that thing.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: You said we've been doing it ourselves.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: We have had some external help with that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, but you've been leading it yourself.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: I suspect Focus will still very much like me to jump in front of the camera and talk
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: about the game from time to time.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that will be stopping any time soon.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly,
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: we've found this stuff to be quite high value and pretty good ROI
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: on things like this where you kind of take an hour to go and chat about the game.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: We've been getting pretty strong feedback on that and so efforts
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: in versus rewards out are pretty favorable so I'm pretty sure So we'll be carrying
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: on doing that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, Focus will now be helping us out with all of our PR and marketing.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think that means you'll see much less of me, if you're worried about that, Chris.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was more thinking about,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: because you've got that maverick spirit, which is the thing, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's the reason, the name.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's that innovation that comes through.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: The idea is it's from how you built a studio to the games you're making.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But also,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine the way you want to talk about it,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: because even your reveal video was different, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just, I thought, well, that's in keeping with who you are.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess when you hand stuff over,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: there's an element of we want to make sure that you retained that spirit
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: of your identity.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny you say that,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: because even with the reveal video, we did,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm pretty sure that Most AAA publishers,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: if we said we're about to announce our really big budget AAA game out of a back of
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: a two grand multiplier and start it in a 10-day stream in our car park and move it
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: in, they'd be like, no, you're not.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely in the spirit of being Maverick and doing things in a different way.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you, Mike,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: have got a really strong opinion about how that should come across as well, really.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've worked in and with big businesses a lot.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the Maverick spirit,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: if you wanted to call it that,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: it is a pushback on the very common,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: if not business philosophy,
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: then it's definitely a business behavior,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: which is to just kind of repeat the thing that worked.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't sound stupid, right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: It worked.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Repeat it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: You only get away with that so many times and you don't know how many times it is.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when you do the same thing over and over because it worked,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: it's like, yeah, it'll work and it might probably work a second time.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: It might work a third time.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: But people are going to get bored of that and they're going to reject it at some point.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And at the point in which they reject it,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: it's going to drop off a cliff and it will go from being this thing that worked to
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: the thing that is now worth nothing.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you see that in our industry, like, all the time.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, when we have business shifts from loot boxes to battle passes
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: to purchasing premium skins,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: like, you, okay, well, the skins, people are paying 12 quid for skins.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: All right, get skins in every game, skins in every game.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there comes a point where the cliff arrives and it's like no one's ever buying
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: a skin ever again.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's true for so many things where the point that an audience just gets fed up
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: with it at some point and then it doesn't tail off and doesn't,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: like, come in smoothly.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: It just, it goes away.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Rather than going, okay, let's repeat the same things we've done previously, et cetera.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let's try to have a guess of what,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: either what could be the next thing,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: or at least something that hasn't been done before, so at least feels fresh.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I come into these things.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, we know the audience, we know players, we know what our gamers are like.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Let's try and come up these things with things that are fresh and new
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: and interesting and exciting.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like the multiple thing,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: it was gimmicky and it was stupid,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: but it was geared around, right, at that point, we've got no publisher.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: We've got some marketing budget, but it wasn't a lot.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to make the whole world now about us.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: what can you do,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: which is so It's so unusual that it kind of forces people,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: either social media to talk about it,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: influencers to talk about it, game sites to talk about it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted to get headlines in the week of Summer Game Fest on basically every game's website.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we are a relatively unknown studio and a game that's certainly completely unknown.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I want it's front page on every single game's new site.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: how do you get that in a way that is still wholesome,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: still like,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know, like I could have obviously gone on Twitter
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: and just said something absolutely outrageous,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: which would have Would have done the job.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: On a daily basis, very, very likely to happen.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: always a risk.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: My drafts folder is so spicy.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I won't send that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, do you want to save us a draft?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I will.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Very spicy.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: But that was kind of how it comes about.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: We want to get a huge amount of attention for virtually no cost in a way that kind
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: of feels playful,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: fun and wholesome and then gets people understanding what the game is
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: and know it back.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it honestly...
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: As much as it was my,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: I hesitate to even call it a concept because it was
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: a bit,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: it was a bit stupid,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: but actually achieved a level of cut through and awareness that we
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: would never, ever, ever have imagined.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: honestly,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: if I'd known it was going to go as wide as it did,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: I probably would have done a different script.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: The stuff that I was talking about in that video,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: where we're talking about like, Car customization and underglows and stuff.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's like general audience, like your mum and your dad, they don't care about that.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: They don't care about that at all.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't even mention Monaco in that video.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it was upside down.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: If there was any question about whether it was live.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: The app that we were using, I think, didn't write itself on the camera.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, it wasn't upside down.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be honest, it looked like a stylistic choice.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you did it on purpose.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: What was really funny is I was sat on the opposite side and watching it was like,
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: oh, it's upside down.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually hilarious.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it played into the sort of thing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: The chaos of it.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it did.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was pretty chaotic.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: because I'm holding it like this and I can see some of the chaps that happens on
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: the tech side over there.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I could see him a bit like, but I didn't know what it was.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I just had to carry on.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You had to carry on.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Something has gone wrong.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea what it was.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it played out well.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think added to the fun.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I do like about our reveal as well is the way that we did that,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: it felt very playful in the way that Maverick is.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that was absolutely our studio spirit,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: the way that we are and everything that we are as our culture and personality.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think maybe with that whole stream,
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: the way that was done,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think people would have expected
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: to see how Well quite frankly stunning our game is and then the quality and
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: the prestige that game is off the back of that 10-day stream as well so I think
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: that was it kind of fell into the we're playful
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: but we are actually delivering some really cool amazing stuff.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously I've been covering your story since you formed which for 2022 I think.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't want to assume that all of the listeners of The Game Business know,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: so let's go back to the deal you signed with Amazon,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: for the game we now know as Clutch.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean obviously hindsight's a wonderful thing,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: but why did that,
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I guess the partnership has been a good one in an unexpected way,
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: but why at the time what was it you're thinking these
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: are the ones?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean it sounds,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: hopefully it doesn't make me seem stupid now,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: but at the time Really bought into a vision.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: I believed in a lot of what they were saying they were doing and going to do.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: All these conversations are taking place kind of end of 2023, start of 24.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of locked in around GDC in 2024, so March 24.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: And the pitch was,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: They are exceptionally well-funded, which you can believe because it's Amazon.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And their remit is to become the biggest AAA publisher.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they And you're like, okay, cool.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: I like that they're aiming big.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Being the biggest is good.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that does match with how Amazon operate generally.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: They are,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: if we're going to be in the business,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: we're going to try and be the best or the biggest in this business.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they sold us a pitch of what their whole portfolio would look like and the other games.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of those games were announced.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, people know about Tomb Raider.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord of the Rings game was announced before.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, it's now been shut down.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: New World.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Was making money.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: At this point, I think the console version hadn't come out yet.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a few other things that actually,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: as pitched, seemed like a credible portfolio for a AAA publisher.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: They also had the fact that they'd acquired MGM to become Amazon MGM.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, an absolute treasure chest of IP.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they sold us on a dream
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: of where Clutch would fit into that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time, it made complete sense.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And as I mentioned earlier with Focus,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: When you're jumping in with one of these companies,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: you want to be a really important part of the business.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And in truth,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: in the whole Amazon business,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: you could never be important because AWS makes untold billions.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can't really on an Amazon all-up level become important.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: But on an Amazon Games level, we absolutely could.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: We absolutely believe that within Amazon Games, we probably would be their biggest game.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: We probably will have a bigger audience than Tomb Raider based on
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: the historical performance of Tomb Raider.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that doesn't bite me in the ass, by the way.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Tomb Raider is a known thing, right?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: They sell a pretty consistent amount every time.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a TV show coming out with it.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Based on historical performance of Tomb Raider,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: you can kind of get where they're going to reach.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful open-world driving games do have a pretty high ceiling in terms of player reach.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you're looking at this portfolio as pitched and thinking, yeah,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: we could probably be their biggest game,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: at least in time,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: maybe not game one,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: but like,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Game two, game three, we probably ultimately become the biggest thing they've got.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, you start to be the thing that that publisher is building their business around.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And loads of things have to go right in order to reach that end point.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a thing that you can kind of believe in.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's the dream.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's a dream, yeah.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can see a path to that point, yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And certain other businesses, and again, I'm trying to avoid just naming it in case...
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Pick your large American publisher.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: They have games in their business that make billions and billions every year in
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: the way that a game like ours just can't quite do.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: We can do big money but not the same as a big sports game that has loads and loads
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: of micro transactions,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: for example, or another really big game that's coming out this year.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Those kind of games will always be the most important part of those businesses
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: and there's nothing you can do to ever unseat them.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas I think you want to be in one of the publishers where you can be that
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: or you can get that.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Amazon could have been that?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what it felt like.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it feels silly now that I kind of bought into that dream.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think at the time, the industry hadn't quite fallen apart when we start looking at that.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: But there wasn't that many publishers.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: The partners that we were talking to at the time that were offering the kind
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: of budget that we were looking for, they felt like the right people for us.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when they spoke to us,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: every interaction we had with them,
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: it felt like they believed in what we were doing as well.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they could take our IP to that next level that,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: at the time, I don't think any other publisher could.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it felt, it absolutely felt like the right thing to do.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can always say that,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: big companies moving into games, it doesn't often work out, but sometimes it does.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: PlayStation,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sony is probably one of the biggest and strongest examples of that, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you were Psygnosis,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: in 1995 The benefit they have there,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: at least for a period of time,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: even Warner Brothers and TT Games and Rocksteady,
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: getting involved at the early stage of that can certainly pay off.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon did a thing that it does and other companies have done, they changed their plans.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see it coming?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think, I mean, we had a really good relationship.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: The day-to-day relationship with them, it was pretty good.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they had hired some people, really experts in the field as well, to work with us.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, honestly, it was a joy working with them.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: But they went through some big redundancies, right?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously their business started to change.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think we started to see some of the strains coming through of
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: that relatively quickly before.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was almost like when they made some redundancies in October.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the first time we started to feel the effect.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: For us.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we were still, you know, we were still heading for...
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've said this to them,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: to their face,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: in an episode of the show we did recently,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: where I was a bit like, but Clutch seemed to still fit with the vision.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I understood, like, we're moving away from MMOs.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the space we want to go in.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: We want to go in something a bit more mainstream and a bit more mass market.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting there going, but that's what you're...
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I felt you were making.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt it fit.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So even though I understood, you know, I got it, they were scaling everything back.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I did think it sort of fit in the same way that Tomb Raider,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: because Tomb Raider is a bit,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's a cinematic element, has a mainstream appeal.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: It could be, they've got a TV show.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I got why they kept hold of that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was personally surprised they didn't keep hold of the game.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But, but, but, but it's ended in a pretty good situation, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: from what I understand,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: the game's pretty much very close to being done when they sort of pulled out.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: You've now retained the IP.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So in my head,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: you've effectively got an almost fully funded AAA game handed to you,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: which I mean, you made.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say handed to us, Chris.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: We did have to make it.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: We kept it in our hands, you mean, kept
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: it.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I beat you to the caveat there.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you obviously had to make it, but you know, in terms of from a financial point of view.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Was there any cause for concern when that happened or were you just thinking,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe how lucky we've got?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some people would have been concerned.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: We might have had very different reactions because when Mike was like, huh, okay.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Me, when
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you told me, because you had got the news, told me, and I was like, oh, God.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right, because you can't,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: the first,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: your first instance,
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: as you will see, right,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: is there is a lot of stuff that we're, that we're going to have to change now.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to have to pivot and start thinking about the long term.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the instant reaction.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, H is so conventional.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: She'd have already been thinking about it.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: She's going to make it redundant.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, stop it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't say that.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: um, I, um,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in the conversation with,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: as I'm finding out,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know the terms of our deal really well,
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: so I'm already like,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: honestly,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: the timing of it was just in terms of,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can't get into the specifics of how the deal was exactly structured,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: but the timing of it in terms of specific dates were really favorable in terms
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: of what would happen next, I guess, in terms of commercials.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: As I'm being told, I'm just like, okay, cool.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because I knew that we got all the rights back.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that the terms meant that they just lose everything in terms of rights
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: to sequels and even the right to be told about sequels and things like
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: that would all fall back to us.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of just the commercial dominoes that would then fall were good.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: They were favorable.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so in the conversation where I'm getting told basically being dumped,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a bit like, is this going to be good?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm already like, this is all right.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like it feels bad because they're breaking up with you,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: but it's like, get to keep all the stuff.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: they're breaking up with you,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: but they're just going and you get to keep the house and the car.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the dog.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: But when I'm telling you,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps I don't know,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: you might not have as quickly done the maths and realised...
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I knew...
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was favourable.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: you start thinking about what the effect of is
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: within your entire business straight away.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Within, obviously,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: your 30 seconds to process was very different to my 30 seconds to process, right?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and obviously as a business, at that point, that was the only income the business had.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: The only money coming in was from them.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so that tap stops, and that is bad.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next time we can effectively get income is releasing the game.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so as a business, that is bad.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're supposed to have cash flow.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: But the numbers did add up to reach the bit where the next bit of cash flow would happen.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And now I know you can't talk about it,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: but now Amazon says to us on the show that they want to re-sign it for Luna,
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they could have added it if they'd wanted it.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't have to dump us.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, as I mentioned, Chris, we're not...
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's some live conversations there,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: so I think we just can't really jump into that one, unfortunately.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's really nice to tie that in a bow.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah,
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: well for me it sounds,
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: you do not have to comment on this,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: but for me it sounds like somebody bought a house,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: gave the house back to the original owners,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: and then asked if they could rent the room.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: sort of take on it, which is obviously good for you.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Plutch then.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a cinematic racing game.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who would you say is it for?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is it Forza players?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what I'll say is that I obviously know that Forza audience very well.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know what they like,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know what they've enjoyed over the years,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: and I know what they've not been able to get out of that game.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think first and foremost,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: we're not going to be here and be so silly as to claim that we're going
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: to kill Forza Horizon, we're going to take that whole spot.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't think that's wise.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think any game maker that is going to have their pitch be that they're going
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: to usurp the dominant market leader.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's really high risk.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think if we swap genres and we said,
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going out pitching a game and I'm saying, we're
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: going to kill Call of Duty.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to take the Call of Duty spot.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: No one's gonna back that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: No one's gonna give you money to do that because it's stupid.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can't kill Call of Duty.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: There's like five separate development studios with some of the best game makers in
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: the world on it with a budget of untold millions and a huge audience that adore
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: that game.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're never gonna kill Call of Duty.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So instead you have to go, Those players that bought Call of Duty, they can buy a second game.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: And instead you need to see what fantasies are not being fulfilled by
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: the game they're currently playing that we can offer that means that they'll jump
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: over and are playing.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Play a second game.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And Clutch was always intended to be kind of complementary to Forza.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's obviously gameplay in our game that is similar to theirs.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: You still drive beautiful cars around great roads in gorgeous environments.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: But...
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Reforza's never really going to touch on story.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: That isn't a thing that they're going to go big on.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: In any case,
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: it's actually something that probably,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: I hope they don't upset me saying this,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: it's something that that franchise has historically been fairly weak on.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a thing that gamers and people love.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: We love characters.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: We love stories.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: We love that across all of our media.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Genre specific, like Tekken has great characters and great stories.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's anything to do with even video games.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: That is just a human thing that when we meet characters that are interesting,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: that are flawed, that you can kind of root for as people, we like them.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think adding that into this genre in a way
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: that strangely hadn't really been done,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: certainly not recently and certainly not well,
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think does actually have really broad appeal.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think for all those players that are getting a kick out of Forza Horizon 6,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: of which I understand there are a great many of them,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think this offers something that is complementary to that experience,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: where if you've been playing Forza Horizon 6 and having a great time,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: you'll probably install Clutch and realize that it's offering you
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: A familiar experience in some areas,
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: but then a ton of different stuff that that other game isn't offering,
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: and it has an almost innate human appeal.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Equally,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: it's really good fun,
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: and it's got really beautiful cars,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: and you can drive them around South France, which, who doesn't want to do that?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: So there's an innate appeal to it, I think, on just that level as well.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I find it interesting,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: the other game,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: a racing game at Summer Game Fest at the same area was Star Wars Galactic Race,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: a very different game that also has a story component to it with characters
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: and maybe it's the thing.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the thing.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: For 20 years,
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've been looking at video game charts and market data analysis and I love
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: to predict how well a game's going to do.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the games I find almost impossible to predict are racing games.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: A dirt will come out or a need for speed and it will do really, really well.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, great.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then like two years,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: three years, whatever, however many years later, a sequel will come out.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it does nothing.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I sit there and go, huh?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it might be it wasn't quite good enough,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't scratch the right it,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: but my weird assumption for a while was that people don't need
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: that many racing games.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a console player,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: you get one,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: maybe you want an off-road one,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it's a couple,
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: but you don't need to have another one like three or four years later.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then Forza Horizon comes along and throws that theory out the water,
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: because every single time there's a new Forza Horizon,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: it does some incredible numbers.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: You live it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain it to me?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I can try.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that...
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think Force Horizon has a...
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: It offers a very base fantasy.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: The one-line descriptor of a Forza Horizon game is it's a festival of music and cars in country.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: That country obviously changes per game,
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: but the base fantasy,
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to go and drive around like this fun music festival that has a lot
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: of cars in it in Japan, Mexico, UK,
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: wherever,
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: The one liner of that is like really,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: really crisp and I think has a very, very broad appeal.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now then,
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: the game backs that up with,
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: it's got incredible graphics,
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: loads of cars, great gameplay, great social features, blah, blah, blah.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: But the one liner pitch of it is good enough to get your interest and go,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: yeah, that sounds like something I would enjoy.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's also true for The Crew.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: Where The Crew is, we've built basically all of America and you can drive across it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Mass pitch.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think straight away, you're like, okay, that sounds interesting.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then they back up with all the other stuff.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think The Crew is,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: to your point,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: an example of a game that you might have struggled to predict the numbers on,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: but then performed exceptionally well.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Need for Speed do tend to always do well because I think there,
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: obviously it's a huge IP and it's a beloved IP,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: but again,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: that kind That edgy feel,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: it's got underground street races versus cops,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: again, the one-liner of that is already cool.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think you then get into some other games where the one-liners are
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: a bit more complicated, and I think things like what is the one-liner for grid?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit harder to grasp that,
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: and therefore you can make a really good grid game that will do quite well,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: but that required the game to be really good, like your time split example earlier.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: If a game comes out and it is dead good and it gets really good reviews,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: then you can, I guess, the future perfect do really well.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, this isn't about time splitters.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Different world back then.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Simpler world.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Need for Speed did do well every single year back then.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: They tended to always do well.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is the core promise of Need for Speed.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: It does have broad appeal.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: For Clutch, for everything we do, it's a cinematic driving game.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: The one-liner is still a great looking game,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: has a load of beautiful cars, and you can drive around the South France and Monaco.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that one-liner is the way that you would describe it to your mates is enough
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: to make them go, oh, that sounds good to have a look at that.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then once you've got that first little bit of interest,
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: that's when you go and bring in everything else.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's got these really cool characters,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: nice stuff,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: nice gameplay,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: and there's all these kind of unique game modes
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: where you do all these high-speed car chases.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: All that stuff is secondary,
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: but the first thing we say to you is that it's beautiful,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: beautiful open world, beautiful cars, south of France.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that has very, very broad appeal.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's one that I think basically all men will be like,
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: beautiful cars in the south of France, great.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Very, very broad kind of first appeal.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you're trying to predict your other racing games,
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think if you came at it with that lens,
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: what is the one sentence,
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: the one line,
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: the first thing they say to you,
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: if that's a bit weird or it's a bit confusing,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: like, I think, let's be mean.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Test drive unlimited solar crown.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's the, what's the, because it's drive around Hong Kong.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: it doesn't have the same, like,
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Hong Kong's cool,
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: but I don't think it has the same holiday vibe that you just want to...
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: I bloody love to go drive around Hong Kong.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: No one said that.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's not got the same vibe as Forza Horizon 6,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: where it's like, do you want to drive around Japan?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Bloody yes, I do.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: You don't innately have the want to go and drive around Hong Kong in the same way
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: that you would Japan,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: and therefore that makes that game Job is a little bit harder to go and find
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: an audience.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Screamer is another example where it's a really interesting, fun game.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: I actually quite like Screamer, but the one line is confusing.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard to understand what the
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: first grab of you is.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I even had the problem with F1 games.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know part of it was linked to the season, how exciting the actual F1 season was.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: But one year it would be the biggest game,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: and the next year it's a shadow of what it did here before.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have some opinions on that as well.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: That surprises you, doesn't it, Chris?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's got an opinion.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: So F1, I'll give you two opinions on this,
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: which are nothing to do with any games I work on,
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: so this is just my opinions as an external observer.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes attaching a big IP like that, you think you're doing it to expand audience, but...
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't necessarily do that because in order to be a person that's going
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: to go buy a Formula 1 game,
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: you have to be really somebody that watches Formula 1 broadcast on TV.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's no casual passer-by gamer who doesn't really bother
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: with Formula 1 that's going to go, I will get the Formula 1 game though.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think somewhere that we saw this was when
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: When Dirt became WRC,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: where Dirt,
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: long-standing IP,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: had peaks and troughs, but, you know, decent game that's had some big hits in there.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And actually,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: as an IP,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: can reach a casual audience,
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: because if,
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: like me,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: when you were a kid,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: you played a lot of Sega Rally,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: or if it was V-Rally,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: or if it was Colin McRae,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: whatever, like,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: game it was that you'd kind of seen of that genre at some point in your life,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: that is a thing that could go,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: do you know what, I don't mind a rally game now and then.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go and pick up a rally game.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: But as soon as you attach the WRC license,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: it's now a bit serious.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, I don't really watch WRC on TV.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really know who the drivers are or what the teams are anymore.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: It all seems a bit serious in its presentation.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so suddenly the audience for that actually shrinks to just the people
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: who watch WRC on TV versus the people that played one of the Colin McRae games on
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: the PS2 when they were a kid.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: And a tactic can actually tighten the audience rather than expand it,
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: even though You'd think the opposite is true.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I think for F1, it's a bigger IP than WRC, obviously.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think it's, am I currently watching it on the TV?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that's going to be the thing that is going to happen first before I then go
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: and pick up the game.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's an exciting season, you might have more people watching the TV.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, I went to, one of my first ever press trips was to a WRC race, basically.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was there for a couple of days and it was amazing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was Milestone that was publishing,
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: it was releasing the game back then,
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: had the license then, but back then Dirt was the bigger IP.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: That was the big rally game, so maybe you're right.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Basically I was agreeing with you, is what I was doing.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting,
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: it's somewhat counterintuitive that you think attaching a brand to it is getting you
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: a bigger audience, but in some cases it can have an opposite effect.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm conscious of the time.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big long answer here.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: How big is it Maverick now?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's the latest with the studio?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're around 140 people.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we are a big old studio.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: October last year, we moved into our new custom-built studio, which we're very proud of.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really nice space.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: People seem to like coming to the studio, so that's a good thing.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: We probably would have spent less on it if we'd known
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: that Amazon would have dumped us two months later.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's 100% true.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: But we didn't, so we've spent the money now.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've spent the money.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's been worth it, yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: And is everyone internally,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: or are you doing the trendy thing and doing a lot of outsourcing and stuff like
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: that?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we have been.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've worked with a number of outsource partners throughout the project,
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: actually, to make sure that we don't...
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're a big team now,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: but we don't want to be a 300-person team,
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: because that comes with its own headache, with having that bigger team.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: We will always work with the right partners.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've had some successes, we've had some not-so-successes with that, but we work with Flix.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've worked with Flix quite a lot.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: They've been quite embedded in our team.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is where it works really well,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: where the outsource is almost part of the embedded team and they're working on
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: a day-to-day basis as much as they possibly can.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: So they're on our teams, they're looking at our DevOps and they're completely...
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people here would not know whether they were permanent members of the team
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: or part of an outsourcer, and that is where it works really well.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously,
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have some experience working at an outsourcer,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: so I've seen where it can work well and where it doesn't.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think the smaller outsourced teams,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: where you can have that ability to take the right people across the board,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that works really well.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: With Flix in particular, there is a benefit to proximity as well.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: We're in Warwick, they're in Birmingham.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: On the global industry scale, that's the same place.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so they are able to just be on site, be in the studio, and they're in the same time zone.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a popular conversation on the show at the moment.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your studio was set up in 2022, so it's a little different.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of studios that are setting up today,
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: they're going, right,
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to have a core team of 30,
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: and we're going to do the whole Hollywood model of bringing people in and
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: then scaling up and scaling down.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't need to, because they're outsourced and things like that.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the fear,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: for the industry is,
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: particularly the Western industry,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: is going to be a lot of outsourcing to a place like India and China,
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: where it's cheaper and that kind of stuff.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: But oddly,
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: you've just said the same thing as when I interviewed Fuse about Star Wars,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: where actually they're one with People that are closer.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: There probably are times where it makes sense to go with,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, cost-saving efforts in the East.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: But games are really, really hard to make.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And to make a good game is really, really difficult.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: And things constantly go wrong.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you constantly have to work through complicated problems.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there is a benefit to doing that with people who have been in the industry
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: a long time and have made a lot of games and have been through a lot
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: of these struggles that you're facing.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that's not to say those people can't be in They can,
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: but there aren't as many of them over there as there are in the UK
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: that have been making games for as long as video games have been getting made.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're working with a lot of the outsource partners here,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: you're speaking to people that have themselves shipped eight to ten games.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that Yeah,
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: you could do it cheaper somewhere else,
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: but there is real value to working with people that have got either recent
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: or historic experiences that can bring to bear.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that definitely is true for Flix that you talked about there.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Those are guys that have just had real,
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: real value,
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: which I don't think you could get that from
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: a newer company offering cheaper services elsewhere.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: Certain markets are good at certain types of games.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the UK is very good at making racing games.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: From the very beginning, this is what British game developers make.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there's an element of,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: well, that's where you would necessarily go to look for that kind of talent.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas maybe if you were making a game in an RPG,
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: you might go, hey, let's see who we could partner with in Eastern Europe.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: The one thing I will say as well,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: when we set out, we were quite ambitious about what we wanted to do.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we did hire, we were I think we were quite a bit fortunate really early on.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: We attracted some really amazing and talented senior people, so we had them.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to be a studio that we're still making the same game.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't shipped our game seven years on, eight years on.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to make sure We got this out because,
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't matter all the good we're doing as a studio,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: you're only as good as your last game.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we do now and we needed to get that out as quick as possible, really.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think had we outsourced larger parts of it,
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure we would have got to where we needed to as quickly as we had as well.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a key factor.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: So with outsource,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: I do think it depends on you as a studio,
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: where you are in your studio life, where you are in the project cycle as well.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've come to...
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because the way we are,
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: we've come to an end of a lot of those outsource relationships that we had,
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: just because we're almost done, really.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we're ambitious as a studio,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: so I think we will continue working with the right outsourcers
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: and not grow hugely more than what we are now.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's always about finding the right people that the team can work with as well.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I did have a few other questions, but I'm well out of time.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you like to see Maverick in,
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say 10 years because game development cycles are a lot longer
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: than five.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can be.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you like to see Maverick in 10 years?
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to be a studio that people admire.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to be a place where people don't just apply for the role on the website
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: and think, oh, right, I'm just going to sit back and wait.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to feel like, God, they've just got such incredibly talented people there.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to do to get a job at Maverick?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're constantly attracting the right people.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to make sure that Clutch is all going.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're probably in Clutch four, five, who knows?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not announce the sequel to the show.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I want Clutch to be up there with one of, you know, a reputable IP.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're working on Project 2 by then.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully we're on Project 2.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Project 2, not Clutch 2.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not Clutch 2, as in a second, yeah, something else.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would aspire for us to,
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of your framing around that is just probably thinking
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: about how game developers see us.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: I would want gamers to consider us one of, if not the best game developer in the world.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's kind of Ten years, I'd want to be in that.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: There is no award or league table that determines that.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: But it is a thing that does get discussed.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: People are saying it now about Insomniac, right?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: That is a thing that I think is big in gamer discourse now.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is Insomniac actually the best studio out there?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: And they might be, actually.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: They might be.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: I want us to be in that level of discourse.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of what I'm shooting for.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether you know this, Chris,
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: but our mission statement in the studio,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: and it has been from the start,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: is we will be the world's number one studio,
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: celebrator of our exceptional team, vibrant culture and iconic games.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that tells you where we'd like to be in ten years' time.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can I say that I interview people across the world and they've all got slightly different.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: I always love how matter of fact and quite blunt, in a way, European game developers are.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love how ambitious American game developers are.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: British game developers are relatively,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: like, they could have a massive hit and they go, yeah, I did all right.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is it.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I talked to you, Mike, and you give the, it's just different than what I'm expecting.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've been here
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine what it's like partnering with him on a day-to-day basis?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to think we complement each other quite well.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking, as you were saying, what your response was.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: We've quite often said is,
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: and you know this, Chris,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: about me,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: is the thing that I've always set out to do,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make the industry a better place.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: What we do matters.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to have an impact in the industry.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to learn good practices here and take that on into other places in the industry.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: And for you, it's always about games first.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think to touch on what you've said there, Chris,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Something that I've found throughout my career really is the first step on achieving
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: that really remarkable,
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes potentially impossible things is just saying you're going to do it,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: saying you're going to do it and meaning it.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not going to go into the details of it because it touched on a bunch
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: of stuff that my friends at Playground were involved in,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: but time and again over there, I would just say, we're going to do this thing.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: And on saying it, it sounds mad.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then two years later when you've done it, It feels great.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think that people generally,
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: we hold ourselves back because you don't want to sound stupid by saying you're going
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: to be the world's number one studio.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's stupid.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: But if you say it with conviction you believe in,
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: then the thought that follows that is, well, how are you going to do that?
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: What would you need to do to actually make that real?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: The ball's rolling.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's happening.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: You may not get there, but the alternate is like going, well, we'll just see how we get on.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully it'll be all right.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully we'll still be going.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: Instead you say, no, we're going to be the best in the world.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then the thing that happens then is you start to think about and talk about,
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: well, how'd you make that happen?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Someone's going to do it.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's going to be the best.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have a go.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is somewhat disconnected to what you just said,
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: but I look at Playground,
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: for instance, and they are the crown jewel in Xbox Game Studios, right?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're the biggest performing, the most consistent game developer.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd argue they're not the most famous one.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the names that get punted around for who wants to keynote this event,
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: nobody's mentioning the leaders of Playground.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: They're out of the Xbox studios.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that are delivered for all consistently.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: I always use that as an example of I don't know,
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it's just a slightly more self-deprecating, less ego way, but
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, knowing those leaders as I do, two out of the three, I just don't really like to impress.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: I imagine you'll see a lot of Ralph in the coming months.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've sort of deviled.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Mike H, thank you so much.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love the story.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way you've ended up.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: You've been given a good start, I guess, in terms of having a game.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's not too much risk in it.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's looking good.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: The feedback I'm hearing is really positive.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's that good, the game.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: You should try it, Chris.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for your time and say good luck.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Chris.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: Good to speak again.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to hear from a new ambitious studio.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: The game does look very good as you'd expect from the Forza Horizon folks.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back with more news,
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: analysis,
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 53:49
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• 53:51
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• 53:52
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• 53:56
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• 53:59
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• 54:00
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• 54:00
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• 54:01
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• 54:03
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• 54:06
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• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that's it for me today.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.