Latest / The Game Business Show / Where now for Mass Effect? Plus, Ken Kutaragi’s console fears and the rise of Poki

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Where now for Mass Effect? Plus, Ken Kutaragi’s console fears and the rise of Poki · The Game Business Show

0:00
SPEAKER_02: This week, a gaming icon is closing.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: We dive into the world of web-based video games,
0:04
SPEAKER_02: we try to make sense of video game pricing,
0:07
SPEAKER_02: and Ken Kutaragi, the father of PlayStation, fears for the future of consoles.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: It's a busy week for us at The Game Business.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: We're actually out at Comic-Con this week in London doing loads of panels
0:22
SPEAKER_02: and interviews,
0:23
SPEAKER_02: including one we're releasing as an episode of The Game Business Show,
0:26
SPEAKER_02: hopefully at least, assuming it's good.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: It's with John Romero, the creator of Doom, We're one of the heads of Romero Games.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: If you're in London on Friday,
0:32
SPEAKER_02: October 23rd,
0:33
SPEAKER_02: you can catch the interview live at Comic-Con,
0:36
SPEAKER_02: although I think tickets are gone,
0:37
SPEAKER_02: so you have to actually have already got tickets if you want to see us there.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: Alternatively, you can just wait for us to release the full thing, assuming it's good enough.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: And we'll be doing loads of stuff over the show.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: We're doing 20 years of a Wii panel.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: We've got Silent Hill devs.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: We've got the Star Wars devs.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: The Tomb Raider devs as well.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: That stuff's not being recorded, but the John Romero one is.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: We're also today announcing new awards.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: It's called The Game Business Marketing Awards.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: We're keeping it nice and simple for year one.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: We're just looking to celebrate the campaigns,
1:03
SPEAKER_02: doing new and innovative things that delivered impressive cut through in
1:07
SPEAKER_02: a competitive year.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: For video games, you can submit campaigns via our online form.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: There's a link in the newsletter attached with this show and on our website.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: And we will be announcing our winners on the same day as the Game Awards,
1:17
SPEAKER_02: which of course are sort of a sister event of ours.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: That's on Thursday, December 10th.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: And these are the games that will release So if you have a campaign
1:25
SPEAKER_02: that started this year, but your game's out next year, that's not eligible.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: That's for next year if we do one next year.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: However,
1:30
SPEAKER_02: if you have a game come out this year and your campaign started in 2025 or 2024,
1:33
SPEAKER_02: whatever, you can include all of that.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: All the details are on the form and on the game.
1:38
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1:41
SPEAKER_02: Good luck for those that want to enter.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: And one more note from us,
1:44
SPEAKER_02: just a reminder,
1:45
SPEAKER_02: The Game Business is a reader supported publication and we do get
1:47
SPEAKER_02: the occasional sponsor, which is fantastic.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: But really we're about being funded by our readers,
1:52
SPEAKER_02: listeners, Now,
1:53
SPEAKER_02: things have slowed down a bit for us in that regard over the last couple of months.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: So I'm using this moment to say, hey,
1:59
SPEAKER_02: if you're a fan of the show,
2:00
SPEAKER_02: if you like the show,
2:01
SPEAKER_02: if you want to keep it going,
2:02
SPEAKER_02: do consider becoming a paid subscriber to The Game Business.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: We do obviously put these podcasts out for free,
2:07
SPEAKER_02: but we do have a bonus podcast And that's the newsletter we do on
2:09
SPEAKER_02: a Monday called here's the drink it's me giving an opinion on the news from
2:12
SPEAKER_02: the last week of course if you're already a paid subscriber thank you
2:16
SPEAKER_02: so much it really makes all the difference but if you'd like to become
2:18
SPEAKER_02: a paid subscriber you can find out how on thegamebusiness.com right in today's
2:23
SPEAKER_02: In this episode, we're going to explore lots of different topics.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: In a moment,
2:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be joined by Romy Halfway,
2:27
SPEAKER_02: who's the Business Development Manager at Poki.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: That's the browser-based games platform.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: It's doing incredibly well.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: It's a remarkable world, this sort of space.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: We've not really talked about it yet,
2:36
SPEAKER_02: and we're going to be talking about it at length And after a little while,
2:38
SPEAKER_02: we're also going to welcome back Cassia Curran.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: Cassia has launched a web app
2:42
SPEAKER_02: that helps people work out what they should be charging for their video games.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: And I thought maybe we should use this opportunity to dive into this complicated
2:47
SPEAKER_02: and confusing world of video game pricing,
2:49
SPEAKER_02: which we'll do in the second half of the show.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about this shocking news that's just come out from Electronic Arts
2:56
SPEAKER_02: over the closure of the iconic game developer BioWare and plans to cut jobs
3:00
SPEAKER_02: across its studio's business.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: It's cutting 3% of staff, which is roughly 400 employees.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: It's cancelling its planned Mass Effect project as part of the closure
3:08
SPEAKER_02: and also pausing a Sims title as well.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: BioWare is,
3:11
SPEAKER_02: of course,
3:12
SPEAKER_02: an iconic RPG developer founded in 1995 by Dr.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Ray Mizuki and Dr.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Greg Zeshuk,
3:18
SPEAKER_02: it's famous for renowned RPGs like Baldur's Gate,
3:20
SPEAKER_02: Neverwinter Nights,
3:21
SPEAKER_02: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: EA bought the studio in 2007,
3:26
SPEAKER_02: but it's really suffered a turndown in form over the last sort of 10 years.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: 2019's Anthem, an attempt to align Live service game sort of became a high profile misfire.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, 2024's Dragon Age The Veil Guard, it had a troubled development.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: And although the game sort of was okay when it came out,
3:41
SPEAKER_02: at least according to the critics, fan reaction was poor and sales were low.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: It was below EA's expectations.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: The next Mass Effect was actually announced back in 2020,
3:49
SPEAKER_02: but little has been heard about it since outside of reassurances that it is still
3:52
SPEAKER_02: in development.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: Wizards of the Coast actually has attempted to take on Mass Effect with
3:56
SPEAKER_02: a game called Exodus, which is due next year, early next year.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the game is made by former Bioware veterans.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: There is no mass effect coming now.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: In August,
4:04
SPEAKER_02: EA went private following the completion of its sale to a consortium
4:07
SPEAKER_02: of investors led by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: It was a $55 billion leveraged buyout,
4:12
SPEAKER_02: which has placed the company in around $18 billion in debt.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: Earlier this year, EA said it would save This is part of that.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: In a post on social media, the company wrote,
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Anthem now.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: After more than three decades of shared adventures,
4:36
SPEAKER_02: BioWare is closing and early development on the Mass Effect project is ending.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: There is nothing easy about writing those words.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: Our focus right now is on our incredibly talented team who put their hearts
4:45
SPEAKER_02: into these games and supporting one another through this transition.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: What generations of Bioware built together is something to celebrate and remember.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: These games became so much more because you played them,
4:56
SPEAKER_02: debated your choices,
4:56
SPEAKER_02: fell in love with the characters and made these worlds your own.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: From all of us at Bioware, thank you for being the most meaningful part of our story.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: On one hand, this is a shocker.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: They're an icon of the business,
5:06
SPEAKER_02: one that has defined the RPG genre and was once one
5:09
SPEAKER_02: the industry's most acclaimed game makers.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: But as I said, over the last decade, it's had a rough run.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: It's had a lot of staff departures, there's been some unpopular creative decisions.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: The question,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: of course,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: and this is a legitimate one, was this is the result of the studio or the publisher?
5:23
SPEAKER_02: The EA does like to chase trends.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it sees something that's popular.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: The division is popular.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll put Bioware on something like Anthem.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: And you could argue that that was,
5:32
SPEAKER_02: you know, an EA thing more than a Bioware thing, or at least maybe a bit of both.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: These things are complicated.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: Now, EA,
5:38
SPEAKER_02: like a lot of big publishers,
5:39
SPEAKER_02: are mostly focused on building major AAA franchises and the big brands,
5:42
SPEAKER_02: the ones that are delivering the big numbers for them.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: So that's Apex Legends.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: It is Battlefield.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: It's obviously sports games like Madden and EA Sports FC.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: It is The Sims, which is a big opportunity for it.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: It's got a Sims movie coming out.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: Although it has paused development on one Sims title called Project Loftus.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: It is still making action adventure games,
5:58
SPEAKER_02: they've got an Iron Man game coming out and a Star Wars title to come,
6:02
SPEAKER_02: but it's going to focus on fewer of those going forward to make sure they sort
6:04
SPEAKER_02: of deliver in what is actually a very competitive and quite costly space,
6:08
SPEAKER_02: even though the turns aren't normally that high.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: It's also continuing to support Skate,
6:12
SPEAKER_02: which is a live service sports game that released last year,
6:14
SPEAKER_02: although it's doing that with a smaller team,
6:16
SPEAKER_02: they want to focus in on keeping players,
6:18
SPEAKER_02: because a lot of players are churning out of that game.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Obviously,
6:21
SPEAKER_02: this leaves a lot of famous EA franchises on the cutting room floor,
6:24
SPEAKER_02: a situation that's impacting a number of AAA studios,
6:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:27
SPEAKER_02: Mass Effect isn't being made,
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Dragon Age isn't being made, Command & Conger isn't being made.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: These games, they're just not frankly big enough for a company like EA.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: We've seen a rising number of independent studios pitch big companies on saying,
6:40
SPEAKER_02: hey, what if we made that IP?
6:42
SPEAKER_02: What if we developed a title based on that game?
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Some larger studios are even willing to put money behind these projects, actually co-fund them.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: I'd be interested to see if EA might Consider,
6:52
SPEAKER_02: for example,
6:52
SPEAKER_02: an independently made Mass Effect game that's co-financed by an independent studio,
6:56
SPEAKER_02: maybe an independent studio set up by some of the people that are leaving.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: BioWare.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, look, staff cuts are always tough when things don't work out.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: It's often a number of factors in play.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: It won't be the fault of everybody.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: It will be the fault of a multitude of fix and sometimes the fault of nobody at all.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: The market sometimes just works against you.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: But although this news may have come as an initial shock,
7:17
SPEAKER_02: when you look at what EA is shifting away from and towards,
7:20
SPEAKER_02: it's not really that shocking.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: It actually makes a lot of sense from a business point of view,
7:25
SPEAKER_02: even if it does hurt to fans of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age and stuff like
7:30
SPEAKER_02: that.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: You know,
7:30
SPEAKER_02: when you look at the market conditions in the area in
7:32
SPEAKER_02: which EA are currently enjoying most success, it makes sense what they're doing.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: They do need to cut costs and titles like Mass Effect don't kind of fit with that.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: And we'll obviously keep on the eye on the development there and good luck to
7:42
SPEAKER_02: the folks seeking the opportunities.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly a tough time and obviously you hate to report on it and later on
7:48
SPEAKER_02: when I do the news roundup, there's even more layoffs going on.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: It's just never ending.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: It really is.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: Moving on,
7:53
SPEAKER_02: before we welcome our guest today,
7:55
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to relay a chat I had last week with a video game legend,
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Ken Kutaragi, the father of PlayStation.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: So I went to Game Republic's New Horizons event in Middlesbrough,
8:04
SPEAKER_02: and I had the privilege of talking to Kutaragi live on stage.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: Now, Ken is a Japanese man, and he was speaking in English, and it was a little hard to follow.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: At the moment,
8:14
SPEAKER_02: going through the process of trying to do the subtitles,
8:16
SPEAKER_02: and if you watch it on YouTube or watch it on our videos,
8:19
SPEAKER_02: you can sort of follow along with what he's actually saying.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: How we do that in the podcast is a good question, and we're going to work that out as well.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: We're taking a bit of time on it, so bear with us.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: But I did want to share one of the things he said,
8:30
SPEAKER_02: because I asked Ken what he thought about the future of game consoles,
8:32
SPEAKER_02: particularly given the precarious nature they're in right now.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Numbers are falling, player numbers are falling, prices are rising.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a difficult spot for PlayStation and Xbox in particular.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: And this is what he said to me.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: When we released PlayStation 2, we would get asked, what's next?
8:49
SPEAKER_02: At the time, I'd say, merging into the network.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: That was my answer.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: When I released PS1, I'd get asked, what would be the next PlayStation?
8:56
SPEAKER_02: I replied, the same thing.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Everything merging into the network.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: And right now, AI is merging into the network.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: But currently, the machines are super expensive.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: It's not a healthy situation.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: One of the intentions behind why the PlayStation 4 architecture changed
9:11
SPEAKER_02: from console-based to PC-based was to make it easier to create for the platform.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: It worked!
9:15
SPEAKER_02: But right now, PC is so expensive.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: It's the price of a car.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: It's not healthy.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Why do we continue to seek on this direction?
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Google, Gemini and many AI platforms do not run edge-side but server-side, network-side.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Those could be evolving to allow for much more elegant things.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: The age may be coming where we don't need any console.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: It's a very real danger.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: He predicts there will be a lightweight system in the future that may not be
9:38
SPEAKER_02: a console, may not even be a smartphone in which we play our games.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Now, he also stressed that there's not an official comment from Sony Interactive Entertainment.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't work for Sony anymore.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course,
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Ken has been doing a lot of work in AI lately and he's been working for AI companies
9:53
SPEAKER_02: and its potential impact upon the world has been something he's been talking about
9:56
SPEAKER_02: a lot, particularly in Japan.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: So he's bound to feel this way.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: We will have the full interview with Ken where he reminisces on the creation of PS1,
10:04
SPEAKER_02: PS2 and PS3 in the coming weeks and as well as talking about the future of
10:08
SPEAKER_02: the video game business.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Now, one area of the video game business that I haven't really covered at all is the rise
10:15
SPEAKER_02: of web-based video games.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: This is a truly fascinating area.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: The video game platform Poki,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: which is entirely web-based,
10:21
SPEAKER_02: has grown from 10 million monthly users in 2020 to
10:23
SPEAKER_02: over 100 million monthly users today.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Another web-based platform,
10:27
SPEAKER_02: Crazy Games,
10:27
SPEAKER_02: now based over 50 million monthly active users,
10:30
SPEAKER_02: is a fascinating and rapidly growing area of the business.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: And these web-based games are not the ones you might remember from the Flash era.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: They actually look pretty impressive.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: Probably about games from about 15 years ago, I'd say, console games.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: So where is this growth coming from?
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Is it games tapping into that TikTok generation who want quick,
10:45
SPEAKER_02: easily accessible things to play?
10:48
SPEAKER_02: And if it is that, is it actually a valuable and viable business for people?
10:52
SPEAKER_02: Can companies and developers actually make money building web-based games?
10:56
SPEAKER_02: To answer these questions,
10:57
SPEAKER_02: I managed to chat with Romy Halfweek,
10:58
SPEAKER_02: who is the Business Development Manager at Poki in the Netherlands.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: And I know a lot from this, and I'm sure you will too.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: So here it is.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: Check out my chat with Romy.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Hello, Romy.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: I actually had people message me, going, you need to have Poki on the show.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you could have said no.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: No, but I was like, browser-based games, is that still a thing?
11:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, very much is.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: It's gone from like 10 million monthly players to 100 million monthly players
11:25
SPEAKER_02: in like five years.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: So 2020 was 10 million and 2025 was 100 million.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's still a really big number to wrap my head around sometimes.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, I know this is maybe an obvious question to a lot of people listening, but it isn't to me.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: What, how, what's caused that?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know for sure, right?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: We have our own speculations.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I hope it's because we're doing a good job, of course, also.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Poki has been around since 2014,
11:54
SPEAKER_00: but we've recently seen a lot of growth in player numbers and a lot of traction
11:59
SPEAKER_00: and interest as well.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: So that's also why we are very happy to talk about it since There seems to be a lot
12:03
SPEAKER_00: of people with questions that want to know more and know if it's something for them
12:07
SPEAKER_00: or something that they could explore.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm happy to talk about that.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And the growth I just mentioned that was specifically on Poki.com.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: So that's our website where we release all the games.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a storefront, I guess, but it's all free games because it's all ad based.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: And so there we saw that growth going from 10 million players monthly to
12:25
SPEAKER_00: a hundred million players monthly.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: But obviously that's not just Poki.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: The web ecosystem is not just Poki.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: There's also other players,
12:32
SPEAKER_00: other companies there, other websites, and they also seen quite some growth.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: So it seems like the web industry sector as a whole is growing, which is nice.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: You've got theories, but you don't necessarily know why.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Right, yes.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the main theory,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: or like we do a lot of user interviews, so it's not just theories.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: We also get this confirmation, but we don't do like large scale quantitative interviews.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: We mostly have these qualitative interviews with like a focus group.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, and it seems like there's a lot of mobile game store,
13:00
SPEAKER_00: mobile play store fatigue, um, just really hard to find anything new.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Discoverability is difficult.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of ads that are very in your face.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Of course we are also ad based, uh, games.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't think anybody really loves ads, right?
13:19
SPEAKER_00: We are also not like, well,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: ads are amazing,
13:21
SPEAKER_00: but it is paying for these games and thanks to the ads we have the game.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: We do appreciate them, but we are also very careful with them.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So we don't do pre-roll ads, for example.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So there's no two-minute playable ads before you can actually play the actual game
13:36
SPEAKER_00: that you wanted to play or anything like that.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: They're way less frequent and way, way shorter.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So it's a bit less aggressive in that way.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: So we think that's also why more players are looking at the web as a way
13:50
SPEAKER_00: to play games just for a short while, just to have some fun.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Without having to waste a lot of time watching ads or playing playable ads
13:58
SPEAKER_00: that they weren't that interested in.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And then also the audience on web has been pretty young always.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Like when I was playing web games as a child, I did that a lot.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I played a lot of flash games and we see that that age group is still Very similar.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that age group, but it's a very large part of the audience on web.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: So really the pre-teens age group,
14:23
SPEAKER_00: kind of like the same players that you can expect playing Minecraft
14:26
SPEAKER_00: and playing Roblox.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And they're very used to short form content.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And you can almost kind of say that web games are the short form content
14:35
SPEAKER_00: of video games in a way.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And this is just like a way that they interact with media that's very familiar to them.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's really about Discoverability, just quick jumping in and out.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: You know how you're scrolling on TikTok and you're just,
14:48
SPEAKER_00: you scroll, scroll, scroll, then you pause because it looks kind of interesting.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: You watch it for a bit.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't even finish the reel.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: You scroll to the next one.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: You watch the full reel.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: The players interact kind of the same way with web games
15:00
SPEAKER_00: where they are just like hopping very quickly through 20 games or so.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And maybe out of those 20,
15:07
SPEAKER_00: they play a couple for a few minutes and they play one for 10 minutes.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: So the way they interact with them,
15:13
SPEAKER_00: it's very similar to these other media that they're familiar with.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And we think that's also why we have seen a lot of growth,
15:20
SPEAKER_00: because it's just like we're meeting their expectations.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: It's like the opposite to live service games,
15:26
SPEAKER_02: really, that try to keep people for months and years and engagement and retention.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess your platform does that,
15:33
SPEAKER_02: but your individual games are more the opposite to that.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, then, in that case, how viable is it as a sort of platform for...
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Game developers,
15:42
SPEAKER_02: like from a business point of view, how viable is it if that's the way people play?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it really depends on the developer and what their needs are
15:50
SPEAKER_00: and their expectations are and what they want to make also.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: It's for sure viable for a group of developers.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: We have multiple developers that just make games for Poki full time and
16:03
SPEAKER_00: that makes them a living or much better even than a living in some cases.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: So yes, it's for sure viable, but it's also a specific audience that you want to make.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: You need to want to make a game for that audience, I think.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not as simple as being like, oh, I already have a game that did quite well on Steam.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's just board it and see how it does.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Then it won't work.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: I can almost guarantee it because the same way you don't put a game
16:30
SPEAKER_00: that was mobile first on Steam just like that without any changes,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: that's not what the audience is expecting on that platform.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And the same for Poki players.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: They want to play games that make sense for them and for what they are looking for
16:43
SPEAKER_00: in that moment.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: So if you really want to have success on web,
16:46
SPEAKER_00: you also need to be ready to make a web game that is specifically for players on
16:52
SPEAKER_00: the web and that is aligned with what they're looking for in that moment
16:57
SPEAKER_00: when they want to play a game.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: But then it can be very viable.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And usually what we see is that you build it up over the years.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: I would not go all in on web games as a solo dev or as a small team from the start.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: I would start maybe one day a week.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: You can try it out,
17:15
SPEAKER_00: make some games,
17:15
SPEAKER_00: try out some different things,
17:17
SPEAKER_00: see how it works,
17:17
SPEAKER_00: see how you like it and release one or two or three games and like build
17:21
SPEAKER_00: a steady passive income stream from those and then scale up.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: So I would see it as a slower approach.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: And also at the start,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: it's usually more of a secondary income stream than like your main source of income.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's always the The exceptions, right?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Just as on Steam,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: just as on mobile or any other store,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: there's always the firewall hits that have overnight success.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: That also happens,
17:43
SPEAKER_00: but if you want to build sustainable business,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: you shouldn't bet on becoming an overnight hit ever.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: Usually that's not a business strategy.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not a business strategy.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: It's also not on web, so it's similar in that way.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but the income is smaller.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to add that before we continue.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you,
17:59
SPEAKER_00: you will earn a lot less money from a web game than from a game on Steam or a game
18:03
SPEAKER_00: on mobile that has equal success in terms of like amounts of place or players
18:07
SPEAKER_00: or sales.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: But the scope is also like a lot,
18:11
SPEAKER_00: a lot, a lot smaller than what you would do for any of those platforms.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you, you should be able to make a web game in a month.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm interested to know what it is that people are going, oh, I'm not sure about this.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: Is it that?
18:22
SPEAKER_02: Is it the monetization element that sort of puts people off?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's fair, right?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's people that don't want to do ad games,
18:29
SPEAKER_00: so then don't do it if you're really against that.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: That's also valid, I think.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: There are some platforms that offer in-app purchases as well on web.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: We don't really do it yet because we just don't think it's the right time.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Like we have done some research,
18:44
SPEAKER_00: but it doesn't seem to be that viable,
18:48
SPEAKER_00: but I can see that it might become a bigger thing.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And we are looking into it,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: but right now it's not a model we offer, but there are other platforms that do.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: So if that's a very important part of going to the web for you,
19:00
SPEAKER_00: you can still do it, but then not on Poki.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: You can look into other platforms like Crazy Games, I think, offers it.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think YouTube Playables does, but I don't know, look it up, I guess.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: So there is that.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And then also it's really short games, right?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to make a game that has very in-depth story with lots of narrative
19:21
SPEAKER_00: and lots of character building,
19:23
SPEAKER_00: or that is very puzzly with a lot of explanation and onboarding needed,
19:26
SPEAKER_00: then don't make it for the web because that's not the kind of game that
19:30
SPEAKER_00: the audience wants to play in that moment.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: If they want to play a game like that, they go to another platform.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: That monetization model,
19:36
SPEAKER_02: how resilient is it during times when maybe the ad market might be dipping or does
19:41
SPEAKER_02: that affect things in a substantial way?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Of course we see also the highs and lows and we also have noticed that it has become
19:49
SPEAKER_00: a bit more difficult in the last year or two or so compared to before
19:54
SPEAKER_00: with getting good ad rates.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: But that is like part of what we offer to developers, right?
19:59
SPEAKER_00: That they don't have to worry too much about that.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: We have a big team that is purely Doing ad sales and trying to get the best possible deals in.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And we also have a lot of like these direct ad sales.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not on the ad team,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: so I don't know the specific details,
20:13
SPEAKER_00: but for example,
20:15
SPEAKER_00: let's say Nintendo might come to us and be like,
20:18
SPEAKER_00: ah, we have this new booster pack coming out for Pokemon cards.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Can we do ads for it on poke.com?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And we, we sell those ad spaces directly to, to companies like companies like this.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that gives you better ad rates than if you would just use like,
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, the Google ad stack or the Yahoo ad stack or something like that.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: We use those two.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: It's like a, uh, an X basket, right?
20:41
SPEAKER_01: You don't put multiple baskets.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, we, we,
20:45
SPEAKER_00: we work very hard to try to get the best ad rates possible for, for our developers.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: What's discoverability like in this space?
20:52
SPEAKER_02: Is it as challenging as it is everywhere else?
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Depends where you go.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: I would say it's a little less challenging.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Specifically on Poki, because we are a curated platform, so we release one game a day at most.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: So at most 365 a year, a little less because we don't work every day.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And that means that every game at least has a few days of visibility on the homepage
21:19
SPEAKER_00: to be picked up by the algorithm.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: But after that, it's really up to the players how much they like it, what they do.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: If the players really like it and they keep playing it,
21:29
SPEAKER_00: then we have our own algorithm that picks it up and keeps pushing it
21:34
SPEAKER_00: to other players.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes a game can really find a niche within the Poki ecosystem
21:40
SPEAKER_00: and it's just marketed towards those players.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And that can still be very successful as well.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: But there is at least Like it's pretty easy to get a million players like out of
21:52
SPEAKER_00: the, the 2000 or so games we have on the platform.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a little less, I think it's between 1500 and 1900 at any given time.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Cause they,
22:00
SPEAKER_00: we also take games away after like agreements are done or games want
22:04
SPEAKER_00: to go elsewhere, or, you know, um, we curate it.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: So, um, out of those, I think over a thousand got over a million gameplays last year.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Meta's just announced it's AI, you know, you can put in a thing and make a game.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Google's about to do the same thing.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Is those AI made games?
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Is that something?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: It's challenging, right?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I think it's challenging for everybody in the industry right now.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: How to deal with it,
22:28
SPEAKER_00: what to do with it,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: how to deal with the insane amount of pitches coming in every day now.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not been easy.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to lie.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, no.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And we are actively like thinking about What we want to do with it,
22:43
SPEAKER_00: how we want to, how we want to approach this.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, but it's definitely a new kind of era.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference, right?
22:51
SPEAKER_00: There's like,
22:53
SPEAKER_00: like your kids that are making games with AI that you can also,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: you can also argue almost that that is user generated content.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's always going to be a place for UGC.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: UGC is fun.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: It makes game, you can play a game longer.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: You can make more levels.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: You can share with your friends.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: It's nice.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: You very rarely see UGC that becomes its own full game or experience.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe I think this,
23:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
23:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm sort of testing it,
23:21
SPEAKER_02: is that with these AI platforms that are emerging that allow people to make games,
23:25
SPEAKER_02: for me it's like,
23:27
SPEAKER_02: The YouTube-fication of,
23:29
SPEAKER_02: you know, it's a way for people to express themselves and stuff.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: But it's like no one's watching a PewDiePie Let's Play cinema,
23:37
SPEAKER_02: but it's definitely an industry and it's definitely having an impact on attention
23:40
SPEAKER_02: and it's significant, but it's It is different.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm aware that a lot of these platforms are just going to be swamped
23:46
SPEAKER_02: with people's projects,
23:48
SPEAKER_02: people's personal projects, people, things people are doing for fun.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to use the word slop or rubbish, but it's not necessarily that.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: It's just what people are doing.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: It's just a way of expressing themselves, right?
23:58
SPEAKER_02: But I guess because you've got this curated approach, you can avoid that maybe?
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: There is a middle ground, I guess.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not black and white.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not all AI games are bad and all non AI games are good.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of non AI human made games that are utterly rubbish, unfortunately.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: And there's also some AI games that are actually kind of fun.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: There is something there.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we are curated.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: So that means that for every game we sign, we don't sign another game kind of, right?
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Because there's way more games that we get sent in than that we can actually release.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: If we do decide to sign a game that we expect is largely made with AI,
24:39
SPEAKER_00: I can never say for sure, but I can kind of say.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: It sounds to me it comes down to whether the game's any good or not.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: If we look at like, is the game any good?
24:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like they're an original core idea and is AI used to explore that and
24:54
SPEAKER_00: to basically make just a very quick kind of polished prototype to explore that idea?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And is there potential for this to become like an actual Um,
25:05
SPEAKER_00: more like,
25:06
SPEAKER_00: can it grow into something more human made something more of an IP,
25:09
SPEAKER_00: or is it just a copy of a copy?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Because then we are not so interested,
25:13
SPEAKER_00: even if it has really good stats,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: like, yes, obviously your rocket leak AI clone is going to have really good stats.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: If you test play,
25:20
SPEAKER_00: test it early because it's rocket leak and it's a proven game concept
25:25
SPEAKER_00: and people know it.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's going to have good stats, but like, then it's not interesting for us.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Because that's, that's not, not an original and not an original idea idea or an original.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: One, we don't want to release games like that,
25:39
SPEAKER_00: but even if we would want it,
25:41
SPEAKER_00: then why would we share revenue over it and not just prompt it ourselves
25:46
SPEAKER_00: if it's just something that has no original thoughts behind it.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how we see it now,
25:51
SPEAKER_00: but this is an evolving topic that we are continuously talking about
25:55
SPEAKER_00: because things change so, so fast.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: But basically, yes,
25:59
SPEAKER_00: we do sometimes sign games that are heavily AI assisted,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: but then we always put requirements in the contract to change it so that there is
26:07
SPEAKER_00: an original visual style and that you have unique looking UI elements.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: We also want to see more of a roadmap from the developer on what they plan to add
26:18
SPEAKER_00: or what they plan to change or how are they going to move it forward?
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Because yes,
26:24
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
26:25
SPEAKER_00: it's more of a It's not so retention focused as mobile games where it's really
26:29
SPEAKER_00: about keeping the player in for as long as possible in terms of like day after day
26:33
SPEAKER_00: after day.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: We more so look at keeping players in for as long as possible in session zero,
26:38
SPEAKER_00: but we do like players to come back.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So retention is somewhat important.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: It's just not as important of a metric, but ideally they come back every now and then.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Like we just need some games on Poki that are a reason for players to come back to
26:50
SPEAKER_00: then discover new games.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Because they're like, oh, I want to play this game again.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Poki.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Then they play that game and then they play two or three newer games.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: So it is important to us to also have those games that keep players,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:02
SPEAKER_00: like remind them of,
27:03
SPEAKER_00: right, I can also play games on Poki and I want to continue this game.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: You said to me at the start, you have lots of people have lots of questions about Poki.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or web in general, I think.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: What are those questions?
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I think the most frequent question obviously is how much money can you make on Poki?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And I understand that you asked that question.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: It's just really...
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: You can make a million euros a year or you can make 10 euros a year.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Like it is very, it's very difficult to answer that.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: It's like, how many money can you make on steam?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a good game?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: You can make money for sure.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I do, I can answer that.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: I can say, well,
27:39
SPEAKER_00: like for the top, top,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: top performance of Poki,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: like the very best games they can earn up to a million a year.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: So then I know that's kind of like the upper range if they are interested in that,
27:48
SPEAKER_00: which is more so interesting for really big IP companies.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: But I would say for those,
27:52
SPEAKER_00: there is even a higher limit,
27:54
SPEAKER_00: honestly,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: because just the organic traffic that they can generate has also a lot of value
28:00
SPEAKER_00: to us.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: So for those,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I would say with existing really big IP games,
28:05
SPEAKER_00: just contact me and then we can look into it.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And then for a lot of devs that just have a successful game,
28:13
SPEAKER_00: but you say it's not a viral hit,
28:14
SPEAKER_00: it's not a breakout hit, but it's a pretty successful game.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: It's anywhere, honestly, from like a thousand to 15,000 a month.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: But that can be pretty good,
28:24
SPEAKER_00: especially if you consider the scope because sometimes people kind of lose sight of
28:28
SPEAKER_00: that.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about really small games.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: They should not take you that long to develop.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: They should not have a huge investment upfront.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to pitch us your 500k or a million dollar investment needed for
28:42
SPEAKER_00: the prototype game.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: That's not web games.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about games that should cost you like 10k or so to develop.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So if you then earn a couple of thousands a month,
28:52
SPEAKER_00: For multiple years, it's an easy win, honestly.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: And then of course there's a whole slew of like longterm games,
28:58
SPEAKER_00: longtail games that are maybe not that successful, but do well enough.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Like my own games, for example, I had three games on Poki before I worked for Poki.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, like they make a couple of hundred euros a month,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: which is not a lot,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: but also I only worked for two months on them and they still pay me
29:12
SPEAKER_00: for my vacations years later.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not, I'm not complaining,
29:16
SPEAKER_00: but it's not my full-time job.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: It's my side hustle.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So then it's nice.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: My boss used to say when we,
29:22
SPEAKER_02: back in the old days, I had magazines and they launched iPad magazines.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: I said to him once, do you make any money from those iPad magazines?
29:29
SPEAKER_02: And he went, eh, it pays for the milk.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: I quite like that.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, for a lot of devs and stats, I guess, it pays for the groceries or whatever.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I wish, by the way, groceries in the Netherlands are super expensive.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
29:43
SPEAKER_00: but also for some,
29:44
SPEAKER_00: it easily pays for their living and they can grow their studio on it.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Like we have some studios that like most people in Poki are solo devs or maybe two
29:50
SPEAKER_00: or three people.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: But there is also some like actual studios that have like five to 10,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: even 15 people working on Poki games.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: It also depends on your region, of course.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're in Sweden, that's going to be more difficult than when you are based in Turkey.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: Well,
30:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm conscious of the time and you've taken up plenty of it and I think I've got
30:10
SPEAKER_02: a good overview here,
30:11
SPEAKER_02: but where would you like to see Poki or maybe browser-based game in general in,
30:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, five years?
30:16
SPEAKER_02: Where do you see it heading?
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I personally really hope that we're going to see the player growth continue
30:23
SPEAKER_00: and also reach different, more different audiences.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: They're already kind of there,
30:28
SPEAKER_00: but I feel like there's not really a good home base for them on the web,
30:31
SPEAKER_00: like for, you know, female 30 plus, let's go.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: I think there's so much more opportunities there.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: And there are so many really cool web games that people kind of overlook.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I've started this series on LinkedIn where I post my favorite web games every couple of days.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm on game nine now, I think.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And I got a lot of good reactions from that,
30:53
SPEAKER_00: from people like, oh, I actually didn't realize this is such a good game.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I had so much fun with this.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah,
30:57
SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of these games out there that people are just not playing
30:59
SPEAKER_00: and they don't see.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that more people will come to the web and start playing some
31:04
SPEAKER_00: of these just really nice web games.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And that we can, we can all be, be more online.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Cause I really think that there is something about like,
31:12
SPEAKER_00: we didn't really talk about this, but like the strongest.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Reason why I am a very much a web games advocate is because they are so accessible.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: They are very, very small, which is also technically challenging.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So if you are considering developing for web,
31:25
SPEAKER_00: please do check out the, like the guides we have on a developer.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And there's like dev guides on optimization and engines and stuff,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: which is all very valid, valid information.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to make a web game,
31:35
SPEAKER_00: whether it's for Poki or anywhere else,
31:38
SPEAKER_00: but in any case,
31:38
SPEAKER_00: because they are so small, um,
31:40
SPEAKER_00: they just, you,
31:41
SPEAKER_00: you load them basically instantly,
31:43
SPEAKER_00: like within a few seconds,
31:44
SPEAKER_00: you load the game and you can play the game and try out the game.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's just a really nice way of,
31:48
SPEAKER_00: of discover, discovering games and exploring games and seeing what you like.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of power in that.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: It's much nicer than downloading an app.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: Also, I think these games,
31:58
SPEAKER_02: perhaps people listen to this who maybe aren't familiar with web games,
32:01
SPEAKER_02: is that they're more advanced than I think people,
32:04
SPEAKER_02: I know they're used to talking about them being small and stuff.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: I think that perhaps everyone's got an image of what Flash games used to be and
32:09
SPEAKER_02: that kind of stuff.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, now it's much bigger than
32:10
SPEAKER_02: that.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: There's also a question I get a lot,
32:14
SPEAKER_00: or a conversation that comes up a lot,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: like, oh, will web games ever be as good as console games?
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, obviously.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Console games are also continuously getting better, and PC games as well.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, right now web games are as good as console games as they were 20 years ago, you know?
32:29
SPEAKER_00: But they are as good as console games were back then, I guess.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: But they're never going to catch up, right?
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Because technology is always evolving.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that web games are staying still.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: They are also evolving.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: Romy, thank you so much for your time.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you too.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: And I really enjoyed learning about this.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very welcome.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: Thank you to Romy there.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: Certainly a promising new direction for the video game industry,
32:52
SPEAKER_02: or at least an alternative location for smaller developers to perhaps build
32:55
SPEAKER_02: a business or earn some money on the side.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm not quite sure it's ready for top-end games just yet.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of people are talking about AI and whether that can sort
33:02
SPEAKER_02: of allow big games to work in browsers.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: You've already got Ken Kutaragi,
33:05
SPEAKER_02: maybe he was hinting at that in the quote earlier,
33:07
SPEAKER_02: but I'm not quite sure the business model's there to sort of back that up.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: We'll certainly see what happens.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Now, for our second topic today, we're going to be talking about video game pricing.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: This was stemmed from me being a little bit surprised by the price of Star Wars Galactic Race.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: I was expecting it to be more than it was.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: I was also surprised by the fact that Nintendo went lower on the price of Star Fox.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: That might be my age that thinks that, as we'll come onto in a moment.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Now, we've had pricing come up a few times on the show.
33:31
SPEAKER_02: Now, Cassia Curran, Video Game Analyst,
33:46
SPEAKER_02: An expert and investor came on the show earlier this year to talk about VR.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: And after that coming on the show she actually launched a tool where you can put
33:53
SPEAKER_02: in your game or list your competitors' games
33:56
SPEAKER_02: and it will help you work out what you might want to do with the price
33:59
SPEAKER_02: of your video game.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: So I thought Cassia might be able to shed some light onto this enormously complicated subject.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: So here it is.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: Here's my chat with Cassia.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: Hello Cassia, welcome to the show.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: Hello, hi.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: You've got like a, is it like a tool that people put in details?
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, pretty much.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: To spit out a price?
34:18
SPEAKER_02: I've not actually tried it, I was tempted to.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean basically earlier this year I was really just trying
34:26
SPEAKER_01: to check out what could be done with AI coding tools primarily
34:30
SPEAKER_01: because they've gotten really good roughly 10 months ago.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: And I was a bit like, let's do a project and see how far we can push it.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: And I was a bit like, what has actually been useful?
34:40
SPEAKER_01: And I had the idea of, yeah, essentially a pricing tool.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: What I did is I downloaded 2 million Steam reviews for Like,
34:49
SPEAKER_01: pretty much all the non-slot games, non-shelvelware games out there on Steam.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: And then I applied a model to it,
34:57
SPEAKER_01: which means that I could figure out whether reviews thought a game was underpriced
35:02
SPEAKER_01: or whether it was overpriced.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
35:05
SPEAKER_01: it turns out, like,
35:07
SPEAKER_01: If there's not much talk about your game,
35:10
SPEAKER_01: whether it's over to overpriced or whether it's really good value,
35:13
SPEAKER_01: then it's probably good priced as well priced.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: Lack of comments means you got it right.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lack of comments means that people, no one, it's kind of an expected amount in life.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: If everyone's praising your game for being really,
35:25
SPEAKER_01: you know, good value, you've probably left quite a lot of revenue on the table.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: But then if a lot of people are complaining that it's not worth money,
35:32
SPEAKER_01: then yeah, you probably should have made a bit cheaper.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: I was fascinated by how confusing this has become,
35:38
SPEAKER_02: because obviously I get it's already confusing for independent developers
35:41
SPEAKER_02: that make smaller games, but obviously I'm a bit of a Nintendo fan, right?
35:45
SPEAKER_02: And in 2011 Nintendo released Star Fox 64,
35:48
SPEAKER_02: a remake of that for the 3DS, and it was priced at £40.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: And then that same year, coincidentally, they did Ocarina of Time 3D, which is £40 or $40.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: It's the exact same price between the two.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: This year, they've done the exact same thing for Switch 2.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: They've got remakes of the same two games, but the Star Fox remake is $40.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: The game is £2 or $50 and the Ocarina of Time is £50 or $60.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: So they've changed the prices there.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Nintendo is all over them.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: This is obviously, this is 15 years ago, right?
36:18
SPEAKER_02: So it's completely, it upsets me a great deal.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: So things have changed a lot,
36:22
SPEAKER_02: but then you've got things like Mario Kart World is $80,
36:25
SPEAKER_02: but basically no other game Nintendo have put out since then is $80.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: They've done a few Switch 2 editions that come out of that price,
36:32
SPEAKER_02: not Donkey Kong, not Pokemon Pocopia, none of that stuff.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: So that's just Nintendo.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: That's obviously a big company.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: And even they've gone into this variable pricing strategy.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: There doesn't seem to be a coherent sense.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I understand why Star Fox is cheaply Ocarina of Time.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: It's a short game.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: I can get why it would go down that route.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: It's an excellent game, but you can smash through it in a few hours.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: So I can sort of see where it's come from.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: But that wasn't the case 15 years ago.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: People were like, we'll charge the same.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: So that's complicated.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: I bought, I had Star Wars Galactic Racer on recently and I bought that game.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: I looked at it and it's a Star Wars game, big IP, and I was going to buy it.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: So I went on Amazon and the first thing that popped up was the game for 65 pounds.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: And I thought AAA Star Wars And I bought it.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: And then it came and it was actually the deluxe edition and all the fancy bits.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, did they send me the wrong thing?
37:22
SPEAKER_02: No, I bought the deluxe edition.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: The actual price of the game was £50, £45.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: It was actually a lot less.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm surprised by that because I expected it to be more.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: And then I asked them on the show, I said, you know, why was it priced at that?
37:35
SPEAKER_02: And he said, we want as many people to try and get into the game as we possibly can.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: And that felt like a right value proposition for achieving that aim.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: We've got an incredible amount of scope and quality and the experience
37:45
SPEAKER_02: of terrific value for money.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: But the bit that caught me, I think the word there is it felt like the right value proposition.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: It does seem like we're in the...
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Does it feel like a good price as opposed to,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: is there an algorithm that can help tell you whether it is or
38:00
SPEAKER_01: isn't?
38:02
SPEAKER_01: I spent a lot of time actually trying to figure out whether there was an algorithm
38:06
SPEAKER_01: and there's actually not enough data.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think a major problem recently as well is
38:14
SPEAKER_01: that there's all these different factors pushing both ways.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Like there's some factors that are pushing games maybe to be more expensive
38:21
SPEAKER_01: and some game factors that are pushing games to be Price cheaper.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's a bit like, which do you lean into?
38:28
SPEAKER_01: It depends a lot upon your game.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: So I think definitely for any multiplayer game,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: really depending upon multiplayer,
38:35
SPEAKER_01: you really need to be super thoughtful about price because you need
38:39
SPEAKER_01: that network effect to happen.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: You can be low enough that lots of people come into your game at the same time
38:45
SPEAKER_01: and there's people to play with.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: If you press too high so that only like core gamers or core fans buy it initially,
38:53
SPEAKER_01: then they won't have enough people play and it will die a quick death.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: But then if it's like a single player,
39:00
SPEAKER_01: more like a simulation game or strategy game, you can We afford to price it higher.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: With the Galactic Race,
39:07
SPEAKER_01: it's a case,
39:08
SPEAKER_01: you've got the IP attached,
39:09
SPEAKER_01: which generally, just getting a license for that would be expensive.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: And of course, it pushes up higher in terms of costs.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I thought it was low.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: I think this says more about me.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: But then obviously, if you compare it to like 4 to Horizon 6, I guess it isn't as big a game.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: There's like an expectation for a high price game that is going
39:29
SPEAKER_01: to be like many hours, many, many, many hours of gameplay.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: And that's often with like open world RPGs.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: So if you have something which a bit more rounds based,
39:38
SPEAKER_01: which I think Galactic Racer is,
39:41
SPEAKER_01: I think there was even like some suggestions that should be more like around
39:43
SPEAKER_01: the $40 sort of price because similar games that way are $40.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: I think that just goes to show how it can vary by person.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: I remember the first Podracer game, and that was a full-priced release.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, New Zoo put some stats out.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: Apparently,
39:59
SPEAKER_02: games that cost more than $50 still represent nearly 80% of
40:03
SPEAKER_02: the total premium revenues on console,
40:05
SPEAKER_02: but lower-priced titles are increasingly popular.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: The $30 to $50 price band is the fastest-growing tier across PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: But Toy 26 games priced below $30 generated more than $5 million
40:18
SPEAKER_02: in revenue last year, which is up from $17 in 2024.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: So the middle tier and the lower tier seem to be where a lot of the growth is,
40:28
SPEAKER_02: at least the newsy stats.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: Earlier this year.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: But again, I don't know if this tells you very much.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: We had lyrical games on recently,
40:38
SPEAKER_02: and they actually used this show to announce the price point for Valor Mortis,
40:41
SPEAKER_02: which is an RPG that's just come out.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: They gave huge answers to why they went for $40.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: And actually,
40:47
SPEAKER_02: one of their biggest concerns was they didn't want the perception from fans thinking
40:52
SPEAKER_02: because it's $40, it's somehow it's an action RPG.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: It's somehow it's a lesser And they were really concerned about this.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: And it reminded me of them in 2020 when all the big AAA games on PlayStation,
41:03
SPEAKER_02: Xbox went up to $70.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: And one company that waited a bit longer was Capcom.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: They put out Resident Evil Village.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: I think they put it out at $60.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: And the Capcom marketing guy I was spoken to at the time was really worried about that.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: They didn't want people to think the game was somehow lesser than the other games in its field.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: So it's a minefield.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: So in some cases,
41:26
SPEAKER_01: you're just really trying to anchor the price to the value, the quality of the game.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, sometimes players think lower price means lower quality.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of studios these days and publishers are often pricing their games maybe
41:41
SPEAKER_01: a bit higher, but then doing like quite aggressive discounts.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: So you kind of have the best of both worlds.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: In that case.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Or really common these days is having that,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: you know, multiple tiers of like standard edition or that's edition.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: GTA is just done.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:57
SPEAKER_02: But that's what I was going to ask about that because One of the things
42:00
SPEAKER_02: that Nintendo never do is discount because they like games to keep their value.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: But are we not?
42:04
SPEAKER_02: Is that still a model and people come in and sort of,
42:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:07
SPEAKER_02: obviously it doesn't work for multiplayer games as you've already pointed out
42:09
SPEAKER_02: because you do need people to come in on day one.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: But on other titles,
42:13
SPEAKER_02: is it okay to go on a high price knowing that you can be in a Steam sale in
42:17
SPEAKER_02: a few months and bring that down again?
42:20
SPEAKER_02: Does that risk devaluing the premium price or it makes people wary of that initial price point?
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think what it has done is that now there's a whole cohort of gamers
42:31
SPEAKER_01: that call themselves patient gamers who wait around for the sales
42:36
SPEAKER_01: because they expect that the games will go on sale for quite a significant amount.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: We definitely have noticed that generally players look at like
42:45
SPEAKER_01: the percentage decrease,
42:47
SPEAKER_01: like the percentage discount rather than the absolute value.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: So they care about whether the game is like 50% off rather than
42:53
SPEAKER_01: whether it's like You know, $10 off or something
42:56
SPEAKER_00: like that.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
42:59
SPEAKER_01: it's just generally from a psychological perspective,
43:02
SPEAKER_01: it's a good idea to price it relatively high and then,
43:06
SPEAKER_01: like, yes, put it on sale a lot.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: You can go lower, you can't go higher.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, it just gives you that room to, you know, discount a lot if you need to or you want to.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: You also have to bear in mind similar games, the price of them.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: So, for example,
43:21
SPEAKER_01: I think Hollow Knight Silksong,
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Very famous,
43:24
SPEAKER_01: it's a $20 and it's like a really good title that gives,
43:28
SPEAKER_01: you know, 20,
43:29
SPEAKER_01: 30 hours of gameplay was in development for seven years and all that sort of thing.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: So...
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you've got a similar sort of roguelike,
43:37
SPEAKER_01: then you need to be thinking about,
43:40
SPEAKER_01: like, is it going to price it more than Silksong?
43:42
SPEAKER_01: That's tricky, right?
43:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you've got games like Ark Raiders, Helldivers, which I think were $40.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: So if they're similar games to those, are you going to price it more than?
43:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, you have to be able to, you know, give a good reason for players if you're feeling pricey.
43:59
SPEAKER_02: In that Valor Mortis thing, one of the reasons they went $40, by the way, is because of GTA 6.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: They're a new IP coming out in the shadow of GTA 6 alongside other big branded licensed games.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: And they felt,
44:12
SPEAKER_02: not licensed games,
44:12
SPEAKER_02: big branded sequels and stuff like that, like Control and Silent Hill.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: And they felt they had to go $40.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: To compete in that sort of space.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: And then they pointed this out.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: I was going to point it out to them.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Blood of the Dawnwalker, which is another RPG, came out earlier in the window, came out at 70.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: And it was,
44:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying they're the same games,
44:36
SPEAKER_02: but they're in sort of similar-ish genres and they're both,
44:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:39
SPEAKER_02: there's new IP coming out in this sort of competitive window and obviously it worked
44:43
SPEAKER_02: for Blood of the Dawnwalker.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: But it's about that feeling because you go to Blood of the Dawnwalker and it's made
44:47
SPEAKER_02: by former developers of The Witch.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: So it has a certain cachet to it already.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, this is from The Witcher devs.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: It's not.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: It's a smaller game.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's not a smaller game, but it doesn't have the scale of a CD project.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: But that's what they're looking at, and that's what they want people to think about their game.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: And so when you go at that price point,
45:04
SPEAKER_02: that's the conversation you end up being part of, which I guess is what they wanted.
45:07
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I mean when you sort of It feels like the right price.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, my feeling is there's no exact science,
45:14
SPEAKER_02: but I guess that's not very helpful if you're an independent developer
45:17
SPEAKER_02: and you're going, right, what should I set my game price at?
45:20
SPEAKER_02: If anyone asks you that, if people do ask you that, what do you suggest?
45:28
SPEAKER_01: It really is, yeah, it depends on the game.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: If it's a game which is really like unique or unusual in a certain way, it's so hard.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: It's so hard to give the right price and it's just really like, guess.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: But then if it's more in an established genre,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: like action or advice,
45:48
SPEAKER_01: and you're like, oh, well,
45:49
SPEAKER_01: you know, Silkswold was this price, so, you know, that's your anchor kind of thing.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: And the pricing tool just You know,
45:56
SPEAKER_01: it does your research for you and it shows you like,
45:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
46:00
SPEAKER_01: what your other similar titles are priced at and all the medium wars and then like,
46:05
SPEAKER_01: how do they sort of cluster?
46:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Does Silk Song,
46:08
SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask if there's like a hard ceiling on indie game pricing
46:11
SPEAKER_02: or can smaller titles push into that,
46:14
SPEAKER_02: that sort of $30 to $50 threshold that Newzoo was talking about or even $20
46:17
SPEAKER_02: to $30 threshold.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: But I guess games like Hollow Knight,
46:20
SPEAKER_02: does that make that really difficult?
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Really, the Hollow Knight one kind of annoyed me.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: I was a bit like, oh, God, it's like, please price it higher.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
46:28
SPEAKER_01: just that a $24.99 made like a big difference to a lot of studios,
46:33
SPEAKER_01: you know, that have similar games and then...
46:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a bit, that was a bit annoying.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say there's actually quite a lot of downward pricing pressure.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: Especially with Friend Slop these days,
46:47
SPEAKER_01: like the peak developers have some very amazing things to say about their price,
46:52
SPEAKER_01: which is $8, which is basically $5 is what they said.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: When he said it, I was like, you said it on Steven's show.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, Steven's newsletter.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: I was like, yep, that's exactly true.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: If it's $9, it's basically $10, but if it's $8, yeah, it's $5.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't hear.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: So yeah,
47:13
SPEAKER_01: those kind of big,
47:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:14
SPEAKER_01: those really popular games that pop off,
47:16
SPEAKER_01: you have to look into that and then you're kind of like sort of stuck at
47:19
SPEAKER_01: the same price point at best.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: And also I'm just seeing with like AI coding tools,
47:25
SPEAKER_01: like I think costs are lowering for the developers that want to use those
47:30
SPEAKER_01: and they're coming faster into the market when there's the,
47:33
SPEAKER_01: we already had a bit of,
47:35
SPEAKER_01: had an oversupply of games and now it's kind of hypercharged.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: So like, how do you compete?
47:41
SPEAKER_01: How do you stand out?
47:43
SPEAKER_01: How do you make any money?
47:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: Very challenging.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: I guess we are looking into a future where there's even more competition
47:50
SPEAKER_02: and standing out and being noticed.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: And price,
47:52
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: is one of the few things people actually have control over when it comes
47:55
SPEAKER_02: to publishing.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: Like you can choose your release window,
47:58
SPEAKER_02: but ultimately,
47:59
SPEAKER_02: you know, you could release your game I think I won't release it alongside GTL.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: I'll release it another time.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: And then something like War Dogs happens or something comes out of the blue
48:09
SPEAKER_02: and does extremely well.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: You can almost never predict it.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: There's always something to compete with you.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: And whereas at least with price, you know where you're sitting, you're sitting at.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm always thinking about time because I mentioned Star Fox at the beginning.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: And of course that's a game that is short.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of replayability on it and it's got multiplayer bits in it.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: But I think Nintendo probably went less on that price because it's not a very big game.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: My feeling on this,
48:30
SPEAKER_02: and it's something Simon Karl has actually said to me,
48:31
SPEAKER_02: is he says,
48:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:33
SPEAKER_02: for players it's the idea that they could play it for a long time,
48:37
SPEAKER_02: is what they want to know, rather than whether or not they would or not.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: They don't need to know the story costs 100 hours,
48:42
SPEAKER_02: they just want to know that they could if they wanted to play it for that amount
48:44
SPEAKER_02: of time.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, players definitely expect to spend about one to three dollars per hour of gameplay.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And this makes it really interesting as to what kind of games are there for,
49:01
SPEAKER_01: like, really economical to make.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, like, Vogue Likes.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: And because there's lots of replayability,
49:08
SPEAKER_01: but they don't take so long to build,
49:10
SPEAKER_01: they're great because they can,
49:12
SPEAKER_01: you know, people can see hundreds of hours into them theoretically.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: Mm.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: And you could have a reasonable team.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: This is why you've seen a bit of drop-off of, say,
49:21
SPEAKER_01: like really polished platformers or puzzle games because they cost a lot to make and
49:28
SPEAKER_01: then you don't end up with that many hours of gameplay.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, the players consume the content and it's finished.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, then you end up with like really quite high,
49:37
SPEAKER_01: like dollar per hour ratio and yeah, it's just not attractive to a lot of players.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: Even if it's more fun.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: That's a shame.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really is a shame.
49:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm of an age, if you tell me the game is short, I'm more likely to buy it.
49:56
SPEAKER_02: Do investors and publishers,
49:58
SPEAKER_02: when they're in sort of the early stages of funding a project,
50:01
SPEAKER_02: does pricing come into the conversation then?
50:03
SPEAKER_02: I get the impression it doesn't, but it does.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: Often studios will have their own idea about how much a game will cost
50:12
SPEAKER_01: and they'll put it in the pitch deck and it kind of can tell you a lot as
50:15
SPEAKER_01: to what they think of their production quality.
50:18
SPEAKER_02: I see.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately it is the publisher who decides in
50:24
SPEAKER_02: the vast majority of cases
50:25
SPEAKER_02: or is like in negotiation or all kinds of things.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, it certainly seems like a very complicated situation,
50:31
SPEAKER_02: but you seem to be insisting if you look at games,
50:34
SPEAKER_02: comparable games, because people will compare it.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: And the other piece of advice seemed to be that if your game isn't
50:41
SPEAKER_02: a multiplayer game,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: you can go higher because you can always come down if it proves too high.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: And there are these moments in the yellow.
50:48
SPEAKER_02: But even like the Steam sales, the amount of games
50:51
SPEAKER_02: that are being shown in these things is just.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: It's just madness.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: So that's also like maybe it's like that tactic is no longer that useful.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: I think it's if you are going towards more artistically meaningful games,
51:05
SPEAKER_01: you will be able to command a higher price, is my sense.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: Also maybe the type of audiences,
51:11
SPEAKER_01: because I think to the fact that,
51:12
SPEAKER_02: you know, I think if you're targeting maybe a nostalgic audience, an older Yes.
51:17
SPEAKER_02: They've probably got more disposable income.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: They probably even think twice about the price of things.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Unless, you know,
51:22
SPEAKER_02: the people my age are all buying ridiculously priced versions of the Commodore 64
51:26
SPEAKER_02: because,
51:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
51:26
SPEAKER_02: they've got,
51:27
SPEAKER_02: they're older,
51:27
SPEAKER_02: they've got disposable income and they've, you know, they've
51:30
SPEAKER_01: got... 100%.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: This is definitely a generational divide.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think the Roblox generation are just really nice to free games,
51:36
SPEAKER_01: free multiplayer games.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: That's like what they,
51:39
SPEAKER_01: and they're the ones buying Peak,
51:41
SPEAKER_01: which is cheap
51:42
SPEAKER_00: and will make a comedian
51:43
SPEAKER_01: very cheap.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the older generation is slowly shrinking.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, I would argue that in games it's getting bigger.
51:53
SPEAKER_02: They have less time.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: I think that's the problem.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: So they've got far more, well,
51:58
SPEAKER_02: maybe at one point when we get to the retired gamers, maybe things will change.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: Possibly.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: But, you know,
52:03
SPEAKER_02: people in their 30s and 40s,
52:05
SPEAKER_02: they might have families, they might have busy careers and that kind of stuff.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: They have less time to sit around.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: And play a game and therefore they might still want to do it.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: That's a good point actually.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: So I think like the sort of upper age of like committed hardcore gamers, it's like, what?
52:22
SPEAKER_01: 50s, 60s now.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: And so they're sort of starting to go into retirement.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we haven't really hit the retirement age period of, you know.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: No.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: And what will that do to things?
52:35
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: It's something we had,
52:37
SPEAKER_02: there's a chap who did a talk at a conference,
52:39
SPEAKER_02: an epic conference I went to recently, and that was his big thing.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Like we've got that moment is coming.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: Let's get ready.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: It's all get ready for suddenly loads of people with lots of time and money.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: That's the dream.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: There's no middle ground for them.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: But what will they want to play?
52:55
SPEAKER_02: Do they want to play games they played when they were younger?
52:57
SPEAKER_02: Do they want to play new things?
53:00
SPEAKER_02: That's a future.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: That's a 20, 20, 35, 20, 40 edition of The Game Business Show.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: Cassia, I've taken up too much of your time.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else in
53:10
SPEAKER_02: terms of the pricing that comes up when people come and ask you stuff?
53:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's just a really,
53:15
SPEAKER_01: really big,
53:16
SPEAKER_01: complicated topic because there's so many different areas of the games market
53:21
SPEAKER_01: and it just so much depends on what your game is and other similar games
53:27
SPEAKER_01: and how they're in price.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: So it's a very complicated topic that you've played on for a very long time.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: And still not reach a conclusion.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, good luck to everybody.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: That is probably not as helpful.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: No, not helpful at all.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: Use Cassie's pricing tool to maybe start the conversation and see where it goes from there.
53:46
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Cassie, so much.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, thank you for joining us.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's my pleasure.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: Right, that's it for our conversations today.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: Thank you to Romy and Cassia for joining us.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: All that's left for me to do is run through the news.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: One new story that's happening in Europe is Peggy has started increasing
54:01
SPEAKER_02: the age ratings of games that feature loot boxes.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: So if you heard games of loot boxes, you have to be ranked Peggy 16 in Europe.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: That includes EA Sports FC, includes Pokemon Go.
54:09
SPEAKER_02: The updates to age ratings are happening now and continue until the end of October.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: GDC, tough times over at GDC I think, it's shifted to a four-day format for its 2027 edition.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: It used to be five days.
54:20
SPEAKER_02: It's now taking place Monday through Thursday, March 1st to March 4th.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: The goal is to deliver a higher quality, more focused and valuable experience.
54:26
SPEAKER_02: That's what the organizers said.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: It is still trying to find its feet.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: It did really sort of boot itself this year as the Festival of Gaming.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: I thought it was a pretty good event,
54:33
SPEAKER_02: but it's got a lot of challenges,
54:34
SPEAKER_02: including, of course, the challenges facing the Californian games industry.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: Now, Liquid Swords, they're a game developer that made a game called Samsung.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: CEO Christopher Sundberg came on our show earlier this year to talk about sort of
54:45
SPEAKER_02: the challenging launch it had for that game.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: It was a bit of a buggy experience, but unfortunately, Liquid Swords has filed for bankruptcy.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: Sundberg said on LinkedIn,
54:54
SPEAKER_02: the studio struggled due to bad business decisions and tough market conditions.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: The bad news continues.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: Some of this is bad news, some of it is just news.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: Wizards of the Coast is refusing to grant voluntary recognition to a union drive
55:06
SPEAKER_02: by its Dungeons and Dragons and Studio X team.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: Staff will instead vote on joining in a secret ballot election overseen by
55:12
SPEAKER_02: the National Labour Relations Board.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: Ubisoft has proposed closing Finnish studio Lered Links,
55:18
SPEAKER_02: famous for the trial series, affected 52 employees.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: It's also cutting 70 rolls at Skull and Bones developer Ubisoft Singapore.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: I talked about that last week.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile,
55:25
SPEAKER_02: it's running a voluntary redundancy scheme in Germany aimed at reducing headcount
55:28
SPEAKER_02: by 100 people across its Dusseldorf, Berlin and Main Studios.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Sticking with cuts,
55:33
SPEAKER_02: Developer Funcom is restructuring and cutting staff to focus on live service support
55:38
SPEAKER_02: for Conan Exiles and Dune Awakening.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, CEO Rui Casais will step down at the end of the year.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: Funcom, of course, was acquired by Tencent in 2020.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: And there's also unspecified job cuts also happening at German studio Fish Labs
55:51
SPEAKER_02: and scum developer GamePires.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: Elsewhere,
55:54
SPEAKER_02: Melbourne-based developer House House will not release its co-op title Big Walk
55:57
SPEAKER_02: on Xbox,
55:58
SPEAKER_02: citing alignment with the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign,
56:02
SPEAKER_02: the BDS campaign, which of course has called for a boycott of Microsoft.
56:08
SPEAKER_02: Amazon has rolled out its ability for people to access Lunar Games via Prime Video
56:12
SPEAKER_02: on Fire TV to more locations.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: They did this in the UK and US in July.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: We did a big interview about it.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: It's now coming to Canada, France, Italy and Spain.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: Where's now?
56:21
SPEAKER_02: You can get that now.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: And eight more European countries will follow next month,
56:25
SPEAKER_02: namely Austria,
56:25
SPEAKER_02: Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: US retail giant Best Buy has launched Best Buy Gamers,
56:32
SPEAKER_02: which is a gaming hub that will feature reviews,
56:36
SPEAKER_02: features,
56:36
SPEAKER_02: and videos alongside trailers,
56:38
SPEAKER_02: polls, sweepstakes, pre-orders, all sorts of things, how to find a store event.
56:41
SPEAKER_02: The content is inspired by IGN,
56:42
SPEAKER_02: and the first event will be the midnight launch for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina
56:45
SPEAKER_02: of Time Remake.
56:47
SPEAKER_02: And finally,
56:47
SPEAKER_02: PR Platform Press Engine has announced a new event called The Pre-Show,
56:51
SPEAKER_02: which is a new physical event taking place in London that will debut games due
56:55
SPEAKER_02: for release over the next 12 months.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: The event focuses on hands-on discovery over digital game reveals.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sticking through it for us.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: As I say,
57:05
SPEAKER_02: if you want to make sure you don't miss an episode of our show,
57:07
SPEAKER_02: you can subscribe to us at thegamebusiness.com.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: You can also become a paid subscriber,
57:10
SPEAKER_02: which genuinely means the world to us if you want to become a paid subscriber.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: That'd be amazing.
57:15
SPEAKER_02: Next week,
57:16
SPEAKER_02: we've got an interview with Meta,
57:17
SPEAKER_02: particularly the Horizons team around their new prompt-based gaming stuff
57:22
SPEAKER_02: that they're talking about.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: It's a good chat, that one.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: It's not a long episode, but it'll be out on Tuesday.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
57:27
SPEAKER_02: we've got a lot coming in next week where hopefully,
57:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm still waiting on some information,
57:31
SPEAKER_02: I can dive into what's going on in the world of video game piracy.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: But that's it for me today.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.