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The video games most at risk from PlayStation’s physical switch-off · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: This week, what would $1,000 game machines mean for the console sector?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: How should publishers prepare for a no-dis future?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: We speak to Gamescom on the eve of its 2026 show.
• 0:15
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• 1:07
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• 1:08
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• 2:01
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• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in a moment,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to welcome Felix Falk,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: the Managing Director of the German Games Industry Association and Co-Organizer
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: of Gamescom to chat about this year's event.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get to that,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: we have a returning guest with a folder of data that looks at what might happen
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: if video game consoles rise to $1,000 and also some insight into
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: the potential immediate impact of PlayStation stopping disc production in January,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: 2028.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to look at the data,
• 2:26
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• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: than hearing it on a podcast.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, he is the senior director for games at Ampere Analysis.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: His name is Piers Harding-Rolls.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, Piers.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Chris.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Lovely to be here again.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's always good to have you on.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: You've put our report that was pretty depressing reading.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was around the prospect of these $1000 consoles,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: which might Happen as a result of the component crisis
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: and shortage that's impacting hardware prices.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was a kind of scenario, I would say.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, scenario.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of preempt it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Direct us away from that inevitability, I think.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the idea behind it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to be more positive.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: That is going to drive innovation because our warning is if
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: the next gen consoles do launch $1,000 that we'll see a significant drop off
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: in adoption because of that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: We've already seen a $1,000 steam machine though so it's not
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: a completely unimaginable future and the headline stat is according
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: to your scenario forecast is we might end up with a potential 38% drop
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: In next-gen console sales volume over five years at a $1,000 launch price.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: You also did a,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was quite funny,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: look what happens if it was an $800 launch price or it was a $700 launch price.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: And all of it's a drop.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like, oh, it's just that particular price point is the problem.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: It seems to be any...
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the scenarios,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: they work out a bit different because the impact on the actual spending and kind
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: of longevity of the existing consoles that are in the market are different.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you had obviously less people adopting next-gen consoles,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the actual impact on the market,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Probably isn't heavily felt until at least three years into the next generation
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: because eventually you've got people that are lapsed out
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: of using their existing consoles and they're still not convinced to buy the next gen
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: at a higher price point.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when you start to hit probably a negative impact on the market.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there is this window of opportunity, I think.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: You've got from now until, well, the current expected end of 28 launch of the next generation.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, conceivably, they might extend it out beyond that.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then even if they were to launch,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: then you've got another probably two or three years before you start to have
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: an impact on the actual spending and scale of the market.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So even in that sort of worst case scenario of very expensive consoles,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to get a situation where they've got this window of opportunity to try
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: and make an impact and conceivably cost of the components could come down by
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: that point, other strategies might be put in place to try and Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Significantly different.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think the problem about $1000 is I don't think either of
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: the console manufacturers will be wanting to price at that point,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know, at that price point.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a kind of warning that if they do,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: and they just bring out,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: incrementally improved,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: graphically improved devices without much change,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: that we're going to end up with having a smaller adoption and
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: a potentially smaller market after a few years.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's the flaw of any analysis, is we can't factor in innovation, can we?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: We have to assume that PS6 is going to be a PS5 that runs a bit better and looks
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: a bit fancier, when the reality is it could be completely different.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's reports of it being handheld and all sorts of things,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: and that changes the whole picture entirely.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's inevitable that it's going to be more innovation,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: and that has been driven by the challenging economics of the situation.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Without any change,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: keeping the status quo,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to head to a situation which is not great for the market,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: but if we do innovate and drive upgrades
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: because you're bringing something really interesting to the market,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: there's going to be a distinct change from the current generation,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: then I think you've obviously got a good chance to re-establish growth and stuff.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think the challenge of innovation is that in this cross-gen world,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: we talk about the fact that people are going to be holding onto their PS5s for
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: a lot longer this time, this is what we think will happen.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do like a Wii and completely break everything with your next gen
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: because people want the games to run across devices.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: They also want it to run across multiple platforms as well.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: We got Sony with the DualSense,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: which is like,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: it's quite an innovative controller in a way,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: but it was done in such a way that,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know, you can make a PS5 version, but you can still work on Xbox and PC.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's probably the sticking point I am going to hazard, I guess.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do like a next playground and go,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: right, we're going to, the camera will be the controller the next time around.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think it will leave that kind of technological disconnect from
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: the previous generation.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like you say,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: it's very hard to do that because you want to be supporting the existing generation
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: of users with the same content and being able to come across generational publish.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it could be something like a hybrid device,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: which is exactly what Nintendo did with a Switch.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not necessarily about outputting more graphics and stuff.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's more about a similar kind of output,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: but that's achievable at a price point that is significantly below $1,000.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get back on my old normal soapbox of this,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: but actually innovation in anything
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: comes down to games, really.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Look, the PS4,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a huge,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: like, it was visually very nice, but it wasn't a huge difference between PS3.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: What came with PS4,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: and I think back to that launch,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: is the games everyone was talking about wasn't Call of Duty,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: and it wasn't the next, you know, Gran Turismo or whatever.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was Destiny and Watch Dogs.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, those are these two big new IPs that weren't as,
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: well, Destiny was quite unique at the moment.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Watch Dogs wasn't quite as innovative as I think people expected it to be.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: But both of those games were different and new, and it was like, oh, this is exciting.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is what the next gen brings, something different and new.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when I look at the Switch that happened with the PS4, PS5,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: the games that launched that console,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: most of them played on the old one, even the big first party titles.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, the ones that didn't were like remakes and Astro Bot.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel that when you're talking about innovation,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: it comes down to what is that game I've got together.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: PS6 because I need to play this game.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you're going to get that in the first three years.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: I imagine you get that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know that third parties obviously they don't really do exclusivity anymore
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: that much basically.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes down to investment in first party content in effect.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've had some news this week about Sony looking to invest in new IP
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: and stuff and build up some more franchises.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: The challenge of that is obviously Risk-laden in the context
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: of investment versus return because they cost so much to develop this content
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: and stuff.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a whole kind of balance of investment risk that's got to be done
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: across both the hardware and the software kind of proposition.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: I've talked to a lot of developers this last,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: the first time I've heard it and I've heard it a few times in the last couple
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: of weeks now, people telling me the cost of games has gone down.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is because they're doing it with smaller teams and they're doing it,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: you know, it's not really AI that's done it, but some people are talking about that.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's smaller teams and it's being more focused and it's faster tools and making games quicker.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: We've been talking about it for years,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: but first I'm actually hearing People tell me, no, the cost of games are going down.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it might be they'll be able to make these things faster.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't necessarily talk about exclusivity.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean more sort of generational exclusivity.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like Watch Dogs and Destiny weren't exclusive to any particular platform,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: but they were cross-generation.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: But because they came at that moment between generation, it created this sort of...
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think the costs involved mean that generational exclusivity for third party is a hard...
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think the example I was just giving, you know, Destiny was on PS3.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was, I think, someone's going to correct me.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I just think when you launch a new machine and, hey,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: we've done this,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: we got it running on the old stuff, but look how good it runs on the new stuff.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if we really had that.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Spider-Man and Miles Morales ran really well on the PS4,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: you know, ran better on the PS5, but it was the difference.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was that incremental, you know, improvement, really.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't...
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, PS5 and the Xbox Series are already really capable devices.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you're going to step that up,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know, what improvements are you going to have in the graphical department?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So higher frame rates, potentially more reflections.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but I just think, I just think, I'm not sure I'm phrasing.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: I just think the innovation has to come from the games.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can sit there and Kybrid's interesting.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: That might do it,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: but if you're going to go, right,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: we're going to launch a new generation and we're going
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: to create some innovative things,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: you need the games to showcase the innovative things.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: That can come from third party,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: it can work cross-generation,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: but it still needs,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: you still need to say,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: you could get GameX on the PS5 and it will run fine, but on the PS6.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you need the new device, yeah, yeah.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: It will allow you to do these extra things as well.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think more of that probably would be GTA 6,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: that would be a fundamental thing,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: which is, you know, would bring a version to even...
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: To the next generation of consoles,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: which will be fundamentally an improvement versus
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: the PlayStation 5 Xbox Series version.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there are ways to build kind of demand and interest and kind of fear
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: of missing out and wanting to upgrade.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: But fundamentally,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: if you've got a device that costs I don't think it's for
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: the early adopters necessarily.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: They probably won't mind about the price so much even if it reaches up to those higher levels.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's more that the extension of the lack of adoptions happens
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: after it gets extended out over those opening years and it's after year one and two
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: that you start to see the divergence.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess we're seeing these platform holders now trying to do things
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: to improve margins elsewhere to potentially avoid these price points.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: So investment in ad funded models from Xbox
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: and we've got obviously PlayStation dropping physical discs.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I know that there's other companies thinking streaming might be the thing.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not convinced by that, but we are starting to see these efforts.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of incremental moves, isn't it?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of chipping off at the block to try and get into a better position before,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: coming to market.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's use that to segue into our chat about discs because in January,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: 2028, PlayStation will be dropping physical discs.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've brought it up a few times on the show.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: We've shared some data.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to go a bit deeper this time and more on the potential impact
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: for publishers and You know,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: why they might need to be thinking about how to mitigate this.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Piers, you've been doing some data analysis.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: I have two, but not to your level, that shows that yes, the market is mostly digital.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: We know that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: But these sort of percentage figures that people are throwing around,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: the business is 90% digital, et cetera.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't really paint the full picture, does it?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a much more nuanced situation, I would say.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because there is going to be some pain felt,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: particularly in certain markets and for certain genres.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, Piers, you've got some figures.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, initially we looked at the PlayStation sales of some of the AAA titles
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: that have come out in the recent 18 months or so.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see that there is a big variance between different types of games.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a discussion about Helldivers 2, for example, a live service title, online title.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: The share of physical for that sort of game is obviously much lower than the share
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: of physical for something like a Capcom title like Resident Evil Requiem,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: which in total looks quite positive in the context of it's around 30% or slightly
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: above that in terms of total sales being physical.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that fits into the overall sort of analysis when you're looking at
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: a company that's like Capcom that's saying,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: 90% of our business is digital and 10% is physical across the whole portfolio.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a difference for new releases.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they have this kind of new release dynamic,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: which means for certain AAA games, which means that the physical is higher.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then on top of that, you've got differences between different markets.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at where obviously a significant volume takes place in the US,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: the digital share is much higher than say in France,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: for example, where it's quite common for it to be 50%.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you look at the US, it's around 20%.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: The UK is different again, Australia is different again, Japan is different again.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you have these different percentage shares in different markets
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: where retail is obviously more effective or there is a more established games retail
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: and there's more activity around physical sales and that means publishers are going
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: to have to become You know,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: develop strategies for different markets to try and educate the audience and convert
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: that audience over to digital kind of consumption.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's going to take place probably over the next,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: as we run up to the removal of physical media of new games in January,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: 2028 through PlayStation.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to have to start taking place now to kind of mitigate any lost customer
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: that A isn't really up speed with digital purchase
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: or just doesn't use those sales channels.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And B doesn't know how to necessarily go about scoring stuff digitally.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this whole kind of educational and transitional period which needs to take place.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Companies with games which are more heavily physical obviously have to invest more in that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And similarly,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's going to be involvement with retail because that's where a lot of
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: the awareness and of these titles,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: the awareness and kind of understanding that these games are available.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: when you think about gifting and stuff like that,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: if you look at the Astro bot figures,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: the physical share is significantly higher because a lot of that is the more kind
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: of family casual audience which has bought this as a gifting opportunity.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there's retailers that have to be involved.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: slightly that Sony will be involved in conjunction with the publishers to,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: implement a strategy of transitioning people across to the digital opportunity.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've talked about it a little bit on them.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I love the most as I seem to have angered both groups of people,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: people that say that's not such a big deal and those that are very adamant
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: that this is a big deal.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's also a statistic like I think 10% is a lot of people.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: I know we're saying it's not the majority,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: even you said 30%,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: 30% is loads,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: that's a third of Resident Evil players bought the game physically,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: there's a lot of players to suddenly lose.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Or risk losing.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know that won't be the number,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: but you are talking, you know, I think there's a few strategies here.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned retail.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting how willing retail are going to be.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's part of this because it used to be the model
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: and there's always There's been this discomfort between retailers and publishers.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: There used to be the model that retailers would sell hardware for not a lot of money, really.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: They wouldn't get much good margin on it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: The idea is they make the margin back on the software, and that was the whole model of it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the whole model of the platform holders, but it's the model of the retailers as well.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we now live in a market where we're expecting retailers to sell games
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: where they're giving away customers.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's specifically why Sony,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: in their announcement,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: they made this You know,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: points about retailers and the availability of digital prepaid codes or boxed,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know, prepaid codes, which this is what we're getting with GTA 6.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: that is part of the transition kind of management,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: but it means that retailers still have some skin in the game,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: and will be,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: more willing to You know,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: take ownership of part of that with kind of understanding and awareness,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: education and stuff.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I get your point,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: but I think retailers will still want to get involved
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: because they still have this opportunity to sell packaged or box games,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: even if they are digital codes and not the actual physical media.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: It is worth noting that I don't have the exact era stat here,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: but I'm not exaggerating it really.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Something like 98% of physical games are sold from online retailers like Amazon.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're not sold in actual shops.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: So even that element of it, yes, it's physical, but it's online physical.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a UK number, by the way.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I guess GTA is going to be a big education moment, right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because if there's one game that will teach everyone, oh,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: you should download your console games,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: this is a good I say good,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: depending on your point of view,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: but from an educational point of view,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: it's good that that's the game that's going to be doing this
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: because it will teach loads of people that this is what a physical game is.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's a code in the box and you can just download it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that might be a key education.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there'll be other publishers will follow on by the same, won't you?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Once it stays place, I'm sure it's going to happen.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Are we really,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: because of some games,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: it's worth noting that we're talking about,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: we're talking two years away and there's some companies will have,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not just talking the annual iterative sports games,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: but them as well,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: where they've got a year now to try and go,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: right, the next game, there will be a physical version of it, but maybe we can...
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Use that opportunity to pivot more players to digital.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the game I'm thinking about, because we're talking here, Resident Evil Requiem, right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Heavily digital, heavily physical in some markets like France, 40% in the UK, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Big, big number.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: But there is a Resident Evil next year.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, they try and do a Resident Evil every year.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you think, well, next year's Resident Evil.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: They might want to get that number down as much as they can.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's all about, you know, the physical...
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: In a way,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: they did it this year,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: but it didn't really work so well because previous Resident Evils,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: they used to do these really fancy collector's editions where you got like a box and
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: a statue.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't do that for Requiem.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: There was a few bits,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: but a lot of the extra goods you could get,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: the physical goods you could get for Requiem, you had to buy separately.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't part of a collector's edition.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is interesting is the GTA 6 proposition is,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: the kind of pre-order giveaway and stuff like
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: that is actually fairly They're not giving early access because that's one of
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: the key drivers is early access.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's surprising not to see it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty consistent with their previous releases.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I know it's all digital in effect, but,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: actually driving people to
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: that higher price point pre-order proposition is not actually giving away
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: a huge amount because they, you know, they don't really need to.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: $20.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: There definitely is moves from other publishers and same with Xbox to drive people
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: to digital kind of pre-ordering.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's only going to accelerate the shift.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised by the time you get to January 2028.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: There all have been a whole shift and transition of users across digital
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: during this kind of educational period.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's why Tony gave this amount of time of preparation.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're thinking, why do they announce it now?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: what was the,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: the reason was is because they need to give the industry,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: the time to kind of educate the audience and make the transition,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: but, you know, get ready commercially to do that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: There will all need to be investment in terms of how do they,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: get the buyer audience for AAA games,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: which have a high propensity to have good physical sales at launch.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: How do you convert that audience and get them across?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there's time and investment.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be surprised if this causes a drop in day one purchases.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just think,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think about,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: and I think that's a bit of a That's where things get complicated,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: because I do believe there is an audience of people,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: the most avid fans,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: the biggest advocate for the people that want to go there day one.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's fine, they'll go digital.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think there is this group of people,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: of which I'm one of,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: and I don't know if I'm representative of a large group or a small group,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: of people that goes,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I like this, I'm not sure, it seems interesting.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the trailer attracted me, but it's not a game in my favourite franchise or something.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I might give it a go.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll go give it a go.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'll buy that.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'll buy 007 First Light or whatever.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm more inclined,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: and I have a habit of just giving things a go if I can buy the physical copy.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, even though I never do, it's just a gate in my mind.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I could give it away or sell it to someone, you know, if they don't like it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm willing to take a risk because if you're taking a risk on a $70 or $80 game
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: and it's a digital game and you don't like it, that's $80.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: You've just lost, basically, or wasted.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you take a risk on an $80 game and it's a physical game,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: it might be, you know, I can sell that on and I've lost $30.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a different, it's
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: just a different risk.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But this debate, Chris, has been going on for two decades.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Should we try and sort of stop the pre-owned market somehow?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what would the impact be on day one sales?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: people that don't buy the pre-owned,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: are they shifted towards buying the new purchase?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or in your kind of argument,
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: is this going to drop and cannibal in effect,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: it's going to drop day one sales because people are just not going to buy them
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: because they're not physical?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: The pre-owned stuff,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: people bring this up on social media at the time,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a pointless conversation in 2026.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: It absolutely was a major conversation 15 years ago.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I mean, it's been going on.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: But back then, everyone did pre-owned, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're actively saying to you, give the games back to us, we'll give you stuff, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when I was at university,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: I would take four old FIFA games into the game and I would get,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, the latest Ubisoft game.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was like I used to do that all the time.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't always accept FIFA games, but that's what I used to do.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was basically a glorified rental system for me and certain people.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'd sit there and play a game.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I loved it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I kept it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was all right.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: It went on a pile of stuff that eventually I'd take back to game to get another one.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: particularly at that time,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: when you think about the amount of physical games that came out every week,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: people talk about September being busy.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one week in November being twice the size This entire year's AAA schedule, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: That was in 2008.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was something like World of Warcraft,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: which was in a box back then,
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: and Football Manager,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: and WWE,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: and Need for Speed,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: and A Call of Duty Game,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: in the same week,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Guitar Hero title,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: and Banjo-Kazooie, Gears of War, all of that within seven days of each other.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that was normal back then,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: but I always felt that that pre-owned market benefited from that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: And Game used to have a statistic that said that 98% of people who traded
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: in games traded against in-store credit.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they traded it in against things to buy against the next thing.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't trading into cash.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that was obviously an issue in a debate back then.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's pointless that game don't do pre-owned.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Back then, Angus, Asda did pre-owned.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Asda don't do pre-owned.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: CX still does.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you can still have eBay and all that kind of stuff.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's more on eBay and stuff.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not much more than it used to be.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it is,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: from a collector point of view,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: or people that just want to own a tangible piece of media, then...
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously it's upsetting to understand that Sony is not going to be producing.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm moving on from that conversation.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's not the right call and I understand that PS6 won't have a hard drive
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: and all this kind of stuff.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there is a small cottage industry here that you can just allow to happen.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a case of supporting it.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can just let it happen.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: But we've had that chat.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like a PlayStation 6.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the reason might be because they're thinking of doing something Howard Grid
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: or something like that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think a PlayStation 6 could have an add-on drive like they've done for
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: the PlayStation 5 because people will still have physical PlayStation 5 games
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: that they want to play on there.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily the death of obviously new games from January 28th.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they're going to reverse that decision anyway.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be surprised.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think Xbox is probably shifting.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It wants to shift users progressively.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously it benefits them both, around margin sales and all this kind of stuff.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't be surprised if Xbox followed Switch.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's a big deal.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: I used to do this when I used to report on the GSD data all the time.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: I would go,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'd do a bit of digital analysis and I'd go like Nintendo's,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes Nintendo can be 70,
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: 80% physical in certain markets, even higher than that in certain cases, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is Switch, not Switch 2.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And PlayStation would be 50, depending on the market, like France, it could be 50, 60%.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Physical, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Which is what we saw with Resident Evil Requiem, for instance.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that can be heavily physical.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get to Xbox and it's like 10%, right?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's partly Xbox Series S being a very,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: very popular platform, you know, particularly at the start.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not saying it's half now,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: but it certainly was half for a long time of all sales of Series S,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: so half the owners of a Other than Xbox,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: don't have a hard drive, don't have a disk drive.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've also got things like Game Pass, which I think trains its audience.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: I also think the types of games that sell well on Xbox,
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: like the Helldivers 2 example we gave earlier,
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: are leaning more heavily to the online digital world.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that audience is a lot more digital savvy.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not that far off the PC numbers, really, in terms of digital.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think for Xbox, it's like, if they drop discs, I think the alcohol will be a lot quieter.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you've got a lot of vocals.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Vocal people, I guess.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm aware that we sort of deviated off there a little bit.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think it depends on the publisher.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: You've mentioned a couple of examples there.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: So games like Astro Bot, so kids games, family games, maybe nostalgia games.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Astro is a bit nostalgic.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Single story games.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think the point is, you start off with a kind of portfolio analysis.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: What is our overall percentage of digital?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which is kind of what Capcom announced in its earnings.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: It shares how much digital you can see in the earnings reports and stuff.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then how many AAA games have we got coming?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are there AAA games?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: What are those like here that are going to be higher physical?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: How many of those games have we got as a portfolio?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: How exposed are we to this?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then you start doing the country level stuff.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there is quite a lot of complexity to this in terms of managing your audience.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: internally within publishers,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: they're only starting to discuss strategies to kind of manage this basically.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: But luckily we've got this window of Hopkins used to do that.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And GTA can train them all anyway.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be fine.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Piers, I'm conscious of the time.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, though.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are you going out to Gamescom?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: I will be at Gamescom, yes.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you might like my next guest then.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're about to welcome Felix Falk,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: who is the Managed Director of the German Games Industry Association and
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: the co-organiser of Gamescom.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, Piers, thank you.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: And now over to Felix.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Hello Felix, welcome to the show.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, good to see you again.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, great numbers every year.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Gamescom sold out for exhibitors.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can't fit any more exhibitors in.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: The numbers keep going up.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any challenges?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: It just seems to be always everything's going in the right direction.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's crazy and we're really delighted that it works like this.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we as an association with all our members,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: we know how hard it's been in the past years for the games industry.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So to see on the opposite
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: that Gamescom is going really well Breaking records every year somehow feels,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know, strange.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: it's great to see that Gamescom helps the industry to show what's
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: the next new thing, to talk about investments, to talk about new ideas, new growth.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: New companies, new games.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for the international games industry, Gamescom is very important.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And especially in tough times, it's even more important to think about the future.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we do at Gamescom.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really happy that we are We are able to provide this important stage.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this year, yes, if you ask for challenges, we are sold out for the first time.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: So of course,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: it will be a challenge to rearrange things for next year,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: but we're already in the middle of planning for 27.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the years afterwards.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't have any worries that we will be able to grow.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And especially for me,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: when I saw the numbers for the country pavilions,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: which are growing this year from 40 to 47.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: So almost 20%.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have a new country pavilions from Cyprus, from Morocco, from Nigeria.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great to see that all these countries come to Gamescom to do business.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the beauty of Gamescom.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: All the challenges we have are challenges I can't complain about.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've got good problems.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Can you actually fit more people in?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know you can probably open more halls and get more exhibitors in,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: but can you actually fit more guests in?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a good idea?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't want to fit too many people in because Gamescom is not only about people on site.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have hundreds of thousands.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: So last year we had 357,000 people.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter if it's 10k more or less because the majority The majority
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: of growth has been in the digital reach.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we have massive reach in people tuning in from everywhere in the world
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: for Gamescom, which is millions of people.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: We had more than a billion people last year.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's more important than the people on site.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But of course,
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: we always try to find a good balance between as many people as possible,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: but not limiting the quality of stay for people.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why 2019 In 2019, we had a situation where we had too many people.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the complaints were going up and people said,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: it's too full and,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's too busy and, you know, it starts to feel squeezed.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we went down from there and we give less tickets to the market than we could do.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Two days are already sold out because it's important for us that this day is perfect
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: for everyone who's there and gets multiplicated into the world via digital.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's talk about digital then,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: because obviously Gamescom is becoming a bigger destination for game reveals.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: And last year, I was really impressed with Lego Batman and Call of Duty and stuff like that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: But it's still very much like the third place people go.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the Game Awards, Summer Game Fest, and then maybe it's Gamescom.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a European thing?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Does that hold us back a little bit?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's, of course, the focus on community.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Gamescom is the heart of gaming for the community.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, of course, for them, At best to have also hands-on.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you see the different marketing beats of games,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: it's quite normal that something you want to present with a hands-on demo
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: at Gamescom.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: We had really nice examples where The companies made it to announce it
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: in opening night live and have it hands on next day at Gamescom.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, you know, that's tough.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this also reduces the number of marketing beats for the companies.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we do see that the amount A lot of marketing beats for a game is extended,
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: so there are more marketing beats.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always a mix and we do see a lot of announcements also this year
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: at Gamescom,
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: but the core is the community experience and the backgrounds Stories and
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: the discussions and the conversation and the dialogue,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know, from cosplay to esports, everything.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a mixture of this.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like one event where it's always only about announcements.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 360-degree festival, which has everything in there.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: What I didn't know you did was this indie showcase, Open Night Live, I thought was the thing.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've got this indie one as well, which we teamed up with IGN this year.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess IGN hopefully give it a bigger reach and make that more of a thing for you.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are extending what we do for indies and with Gapescom Awesome Indie,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: the show which we had the last years.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make it bigger.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: We did more investment to get more reach for this and more,
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: more people tuning in because in the In the end,
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: even for us as organizers,
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes we meet for evaluation in September and people say,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: oh, have you seen this?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, oh, no, I haven't even noticed because it's so huge and so massive.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it is important.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: With all these things happening to find more slots for also indies.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we do this year.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the indie space is growing.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have 16% plus from exhibitors in the indie space.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a core feature of what's happening at Gamescom is indies,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: which is great because the diversity and how much is happening
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: at Gamescom This is one example for this.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you know this, Felix, but I obviously speak to a lot of event companies.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: I used to work at ReadPop as well,
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: so things like Comic-Cons and the PAXs and the stuff,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: and they're all looking at you and they hate you.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's just, they're really struggling, and I guess the scale of Gamescom is part of it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the events that I've been following for years,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: ever since it was GDC Europe,
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: and then it became DevCom, and now you've rebranded it to Gamescom Dev.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: Is it working?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is the rebrand sort of taking you in the right direction you want to do with that?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's working really well.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not only the new name, Gamescom Dev, but it's also the closer integration into Gamescom.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: So for example,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: for business tickets,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: we changed the whole business structure to make people aware of the fact
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: that they can do five days, the whole week of business.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So business is starting on the Monday at Gamescom Dev.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, goes into Gamescom business area until Friday.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this helps a lot for better understanding what you actually can do and
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: where you can do business and meetings.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to other event organizers,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: we are a great partnership as,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: they tell me and we have,
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we invite them and they are at Gamescom and we learn from each other.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we do...
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really hate you.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was only joking.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, but because as it was with E3 in former days and also with GDC,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: it's a partnership because it's not only,
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know, there's not only space for one event.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's also why we created Gamescom Asia and Gamescom Latam in Sao Paulo and
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: in Thailand and Bangkok because they're more Places in the year calendar and also in
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: the world which are important for the games industry.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's a partnership.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's tough for Smaller events and especially for midsize events because digital is
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: so important that you can't,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: as you know,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: many companies don't decide for 10 events, but maybe only for one or two.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: with this size of Gamescom and this importance,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: the global relevance of Gamescom, it's easier for us.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we also work hard for this.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you remember COVID,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: when we did just Digital Gamescom,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: that was no fun for the team and everyone,
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: but we still did it because it's so important.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we invest a lot and do a lot to fulfill the needs of the industry and of the community.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sharing the topic a little bit,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: talk to me about this democracy theme, because this is interesting.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is new.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not new.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of the games industry and that topics of society and also political topics
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: which are not directly connected to games are important for us because we are
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: a massive factor For economy, for society, for culture.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's also a responsibility.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: So at Gamescom, we do this with our program, Gamescom Cares.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you remember last year,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: opening Night Live,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: where we We had a Gamescom highlight,
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: a Gamescom Cares highlight with the developer developing games for democracy
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: and presented a couple of them.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that was one of my highlights of the show.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this year we have the chance for the first time The highest representative
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: of Germany, our president, is attending Gamescom.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's on the Gamescom Thursday where we talk about the potentials of games
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: for democracy because in broader society,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And media, general interest media, they're still misunderstanding about games.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean,
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: you might remember how often there are articles about toxic behavior in games and,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know, gamers with a very narrow view on this community.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: which studies actually tell in Germany as well,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: and we want to tell people that it's especially gamers in the gaming industry that
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who have a great potential for things like democracy and in our times right now,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: what you can see with all the problems GDC has,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: it's so important to show where we are standing and why diversity,
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: why democracy, why
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things are so important for the successful games industry and how we
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: and our community can help democracy because what those studies have shown,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: the activism and the engagement of the community is much higher than in the rest of
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: the society.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: So gamers are more willing to Donate,
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: to collect donations,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: to sign positions,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: to demonstrate, to engage for things like democracy and that's a chance.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: I've just been reading this,
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: you might have seen this,
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: but this is from one of our regular guests and the whole book is about how It's
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: on my desk.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, so it's George.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all about how, you know, basically bad actors are using games.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm not saying not all of the bad actors,
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be careful of saying that,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: but certainly certain different,
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: maybe non-democratic societies are using video games in trying to influence things.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I think it's an important education tool.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Josh will be at Gamescom Congress talking about this.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we use the reach and the importance of Gamescom to also shed a light
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: on these important topics because I think we need to be aware of these movements
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: and we need to hold back and fight back because,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: all the international teams working creatively on the development of games,
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: they're dependent on These values, and it's why we need to fight for this.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a bit very serious topic.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is also quite important topic.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: You issued a political statement for more support for European and
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: the German game scene in particular.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: This speaks to something, Felix.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: I went to see a UK developer a couple of weeks ago.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: We did it last week.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was Sumo.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: And they've told me that they've had to reduce,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: like a lot of studios have cut back,
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: and they've cut staff in the UK,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: but they haven't cut any staff from their India office.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: That worries me a little bit because Sumo was a UK independent company.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: I know this is not a European business,
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: but it was a UK independent company, but it's now owned by Tencent.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not unusual.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of our top game companies are owned by Chinese or Japanese
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: or American companies,
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: but it was always sort of okay because at least that led to job creation
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: and investment and stuff like that.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: But now we're seeing those jobs being outsourced to places like India,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: to China, to some places in Europe as well.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: But see, the money is sort of flowing out.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And now the jobs are as well.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's more important than ever that,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: the games industry gets backed and supported because in the US as well and Canada
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: and all the West really, for me,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: and maybe I'm over worrying about it,
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: but there feels like a threat here that if we're not careful,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: we might see these industries in these markets fall away quite fast.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't a question.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: I thought the statement was important.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, interesting optimization.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see this for our industry.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: there have been cuts everywhere in the past year against industry,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: but the difference for industries like a movie or other industry,
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: the production is stronger than in other industries connected to the place
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: where it happens because you can't,
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are some assets you can get from supporting studios in India or wherever,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: but the core creative team needs to be on site and needs to stay there for years
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: and years.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why the effects for Also,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: a government are so positive,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: and that's why so many countries support games' direction.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you get the core creative teams.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the thing everyone talks about.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: You get core creative teams of five,
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: six people,
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: 30 people,
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: however big the team is,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: and then they need to scale up when they need to,
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: scale back by using outsource companies.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: And increasingly,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: we're starting to see those outsource companies go into markets where it's cheaper.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I'm a bit worried.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: In film and TV,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: the examples that you gave,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: in the UK film scene is huge,
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: but that's because of tech support from governments, right?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's helped that.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's made that an easy, you know, there's less of that sort of thing.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why, in a way, I was agreeing in the sense that...
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: I may be over worrying it, but it's just...
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is a dynamic evolution or a dynamic development,
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: so we always need to see what's happening.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we can see now the cultural benefit of having a strong games industry in Europe,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: In Germany,
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: the cultural benefit is huge because other regions in the world are using games
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: as political soft power.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it is important.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's the technology and the question of where does the technology where
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: the games industry has a big impact in where is this coming from in the future and
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: who knows how to deal with artificial intelligence and whatever,
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: where we are on the forefront as games industry.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the third is Economy, which is important where the most important people sit.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah,
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: that's why I'm also looking forward to Henna Wirkonen,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: who's executive president,
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: vice president of So for the first time at Gamescom,
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: we also have the European perspective and she's in preparation for
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: a European game strategy.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this will be interesting also to talk to her,
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: how can we as European games players, how can we be better in the future?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good part of a positive competition.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm wearing the time, so I'll end on a Gamescom question.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: What are you most looking forward to from the event this year?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, always the hardest question.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very much looking, not only this one, but I'm very much looking forward to Gamescom Quick.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for the first time,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: GDQ is present in Europe at Gamescom,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: and it's not only fun to see all these speedruns,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: but also it's connected to Collecting donations for gaming for democracy,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: so for good cause as well.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there comes together a lot of the unique strength of the games community
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: to be creative, to be fun, but also to do things for a better future.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's one of the many nice examples of Gamescom 2026.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to it.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: We will, of course, be there.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: My whole team's going to be there, including Jeff.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: But thank you, Felix.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck next week.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, and see you in Cologne.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: So all that's left for me to do now is run through
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: the news of the last week
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: and there's quite a few stories.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start with some more recent stories.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Human 4 Flap development leaders Sitari Schefter and Will Dudley have formed
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: a new studio called Pretty Cool Games.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: They're UK based,
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: fully remote and they've received startup money from Chinese developer Hypergryph,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: which is best known for RPG Art Knights Enfield.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Human 4 Flap is obviously a mega hit,
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: it's been an absolute smash hit to us, but it's an exciting new studio.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Speaking of new studios,
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: you've probably heard about this thing as I emailed you about it yesterday.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Arcane studio leaders Harvey Smith, Ben Horne and Riccardo Bear have formed Black Pony Mercive.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is a 23 person team.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: They've received publisher backing, although we're not sure who, they wouldn't tell us that.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: It is working on a single-player immersive sim game.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: The team have worked on major games in the past, including Dishonored Prey, Deus Ex.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: They also worked on Redfall,
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: which didn't go very well, and it's a really fascinating story, that one.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can check out the full,
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: genuinely fantastic interview with Smith and Horne in yesterday's edition of
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: The Game Business Show, a newsletter to give that a read.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: And sticking with immersive sims,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: another immersive sim legend, this one, but not such a happy story.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Deus Ex, FIFA, and Epic Mickey creator Warren Spector has announced his retirement.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: After over 40 years making video games,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: the games legend says it's time to focus on writing books and maybe some consulting.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: He admits his personal enjoyment of making games has fallen away in recent years.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: A completely different story, this one.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: The US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism,
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: they've been getting involved in Roblox.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to be investigating the platform.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: They've accused it of prioritizing revenue and engagement metrics over child safety.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Roblox denies this,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: and it has been pushing a lot on the child safety angle,
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: but it continues to face criticism on that front.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we covered these two stories um
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: in our it's not called micro anymore it's called here's the drink that we do
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: on monday but one
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: of them was netflix's closing night school studio alongside helsinki-based moonloot
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: games moonloot has yet to release a game whereas night school is actually one of
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: the most prolific and exciting studios that netflix had they they made
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: the recent horror hit unhinged and last year's black mirror tie
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: and fronglets you know further back they did oxenfree and oxenfree 2 and they worked
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: on the mr robot mobile game and I've always really liked them so it's
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: a real shame I do hope that That team, you know, can stay together in some way.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: In a more positive news, 2K Games has opened a studio.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: That studio is called Small Axe.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're a new developer in Vancouver, Canada.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: So right on EA Sports' lawn and full of the EA Sports people,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: some of the leaders of The new studio include VP
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: and executive producer Aaron McHardy,
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: he's from EA Sports FC and Madden,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: head of design Gary Patterson,
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: who's from FIFA and NBA Live,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: head of operations Tom Pan,
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: who worked on FIFA,
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: UFC and SSX,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: head of engineering Mike Thompson,
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: who worked on NHL and UFC,
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: and technical art director John Kruse,
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: who worked on FIFA, NBA and Skate, lots of EA people.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: Other key hires include head of HR,
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Trisha McGuan,
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: who was at Gloomobile,
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: another EA related company,
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: and animation director, Brent Breedveld, who's at Relic Entertainment.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and art director, Carl Grick, who was at Blackbird Interactive.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: They are building a new blockbuster sports franchise and want to redefine the future
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: of sports video games.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: It may be a football game.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be a football game.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: We'll find out soon.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: On to financials.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Nexon saw Q2 revenues rise 2% to $761 million,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: driven by continued success for Ark Raiders and MapleStory.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: Ark Raiders has now hit 16.3 million sales after selling a further 800,000 units
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: during that second quarter.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: A large content update for Ark Raiders is coming in October.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: We should get them back on.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to get them back on.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Mattel has announced the formation of Mattel Game Studios,
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: a global development organization that will create games based on the company's IP.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: It follows the acquisition of Mattel 163 in February.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: That was a joint venture with Nexon.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: They made it a single venture.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oversee existing mobile games and upcoming titles coming to Roblox and Fortnite.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: That Pokemon spin-off game, do you remember it?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: Pokemon PokePS Switch 2 exclusive did really well in March.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's an episode of 5 million copies worldwide.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's the latest update from Nintendo.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: And finally, CD Projekt has made some cuts to its Project Serious team.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's the new multiplayer spin-off to The Witcher series.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: Nine employees have been cut.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: For further nine to be offered roles elsewhere.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: The cuts were to reflect the project's needs at this stage of development.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be back next week with...
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, lots and lots and lots of news because we're going to be out at Gamescom.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: So stay tuned for us for that.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to make sure you don't miss any of those shows or any
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: of those newsletters,
• 53:24
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• 53:28
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• 53:29
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• 53:30
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• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: But that's it from us today.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.