Latest / The Game Business Show / “We’ve been baptized in fire” – the new Rainbow Six boss on losing staff, Tencent, GTA and… Moana

Transcript

“We’ve been baptized in fire” – the new Rainbow Six boss on losing staff, Tencent, GTA and… Moana · The Game Business Show

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Right as soon as we launched, we needed to rest.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: We had to give the team some time to kind of recover from this.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: And then that caused a bit of a content wall that happened in the seasonal cadence.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: And that really hurt.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: We know something's coming along the lines,
0:12
SPEAKER_00: like we've got a big one coming this year,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: which you Obviously,
0:15
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't matter what genre you're in, you're going to get hit.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: You have to think ahead and be like,
0:19
SPEAKER_00: okay, bring your expectations in line of what's going to go on there.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: People are going to go play and they'll come back and stuff like this.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: And heck, all of us are going to play.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: The question was like, why do Siege X and not do Siege 2?
0:28
SPEAKER_00: One of the big things is fundamentally rebuilding our entire system.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: It's a mountain of work to do and to nail it and to get it right and to be able
0:36
SPEAKER_00: to scale in the way we're doing.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: If we were to want to do something like this,
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Siege would have to essentially go on ice in order to do.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
0:50
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1:41
SPEAKER_01: And now, let's get back to that show.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: This week's edition is once again about a major shooter series.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: In particular, it's about Rainbow Six Siege.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Now, it launched nearly 11 years ago.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: And last year,
1:54
SPEAKER_01: it celebrated its 10th anniversary with the major update X,
1:59
SPEAKER_01: which introduced a new game mode,
2:00
SPEAKER_01: modernized maps,
2:01
SPEAKER_01: various gameplay upgrades, audio and UI overhaul, and loads of other things as well.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: It also introduced the ability for players to access the base game for free,
2:10
SPEAKER_01: But it proved a challenging project.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: It led to a tired development team and a large number of people left the project.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: That included creative director Alexander Kapasis who handed the reins over
2:21
SPEAKER_01: to Joshua Mills who was previously the game director.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Now I had a chance to chat with Mills about Rainbow Six Siege,
2:27
SPEAKER_01: how it's doing today,
2:28
SPEAKER_01: how his team plans to react to the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6,
2:32
SPEAKER_01: the impact of Siege's major 2025 security breach and whether there will ever be
2:37
SPEAKER_01: a need for a Rainbow Six Siege 2.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Check it out.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Hello, Josh.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Hey, man.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: It's an honor to be here.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: It's cool to be talking to you, so I appreciate it.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I love doing these interviews where I discover, I mean, I do know about Rainbow Six Siege.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: I was there 11 years ago when it launched.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: I think Warframe recently and old school And I just thought,
2:57
SPEAKER_01: so fascinating because they're like different industries in their own little right.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I find it really exciting doing these sort of interviews.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: It's funny because the team sent me,
3:05
SPEAKER_00: whenever they sent this over to me, they sent me the Warframe one you had done.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's awesome because like I'm originally I'm actually from Ontario.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So like Digital Extremes was like the thing back then.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: So it was really, really cool to see.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And like, I mean,
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I still follow them to this day because like, it's incredible what they've done.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, just plug in at it and keep going.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the way.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, you've taken the creative director role on Rainbow Six Siege.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Was it April you joined?
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, not joined, but when you took that role?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Publicly,
3:32
SPEAKER_00: we announced it at SI,
3:33
SPEAKER_00: or a little before SI,
3:35
SPEAKER_00: just this year,
3:36
SPEAKER_00: but the reality was I actually took the role in the shadows,
3:39
SPEAKER_00: or at least Ubisoft structure, around September of last year.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: All right, you've been doing it for a year.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's, oh man, I didn't even realize it's been a year now.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so beyond that,
3:50
SPEAKER_00: we mentioned in like a blog post we did where Carpasses,
3:52
SPEAKER_00: like Alex Carpasses and I got to kind of talk about the handover.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: The reality was I was shadowing Alex for some time,
3:58
SPEAKER_00: and this was something that was kind of on the books for a while.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So when you got like full control, did you ring in the changes?
4:03
SPEAKER_01: Have you ripped up all the rule books?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, I've not just me, there's been a lot of, uh, we have like a generational team.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: So this team on Siege has changed a lot over time,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: uh, which has definitely brought new perspectives and different challenges.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the things was when I joined the team, like,
4:21
SPEAKER_00: what was it,
4:21
SPEAKER_00: five years ago or about that now,
4:23
SPEAKER_00: everything that could have been challenged to say that, well, this is how it's done.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: It was like, well, let's talk about it because it's been 10 years.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, does it make sense at this point with like how the industry shifted,
4:32
SPEAKER_00: how our players have shifted?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to say ripping up the rule book,
4:36
SPEAKER_00: but definitely challenging decisions that may have been kind of stuck for
4:41
SPEAKER_00: a little bit.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: That hasn't changed.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And then post Siege XL's launch,
4:44
SPEAKER_00: there were a bunch of challenges that we were being faced with,
4:46
SPEAKER_00: and we had to adapt at that point.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll go ask about both of those things.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting, when I interviewed RuneScape recently, they've gone through the same thing.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: They've been going to be 20 odd years,
4:56
SPEAKER_01: and they've gone through the whole thing where they've gone, right,
4:57
SPEAKER_01: those decisions that we made in 2009,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: where we decided that that doesn't work,
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Actually, are we in a different world now where that might work?
5:06
SPEAKER_01: Should we put a game on a console?
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Should we challenge all of the decisions that they made before?
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Not because they were wrong in the first place,
5:12
SPEAKER_01: but because when you're talking about a game that's been around for,
5:15
SPEAKER_01: in your case, nearly 11 years, things change.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Players change.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Behaviors change.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly that.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Just challenge it.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Open up the hood of the car, take a look at the engine, see if everything makes sense.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And if it does, cool.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Keep it going forward, but then build it as part of your pillar going forward.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of the way we looked at it.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask about the X launch later on in the interview, but you brought it Oh, sorry.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, no, no, it's great.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: That's how these things float.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: So you talked about some challenges coming out of that.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: What ones are you talking about?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
5:40
SPEAKER_00: there's multiple because if we talk about just the sheer amount of work that we did
5:44
SPEAKER_00: as a team,
5:45
SPEAKER_00: basically we're running a live game at the same time
5:46
SPEAKER_00: as producing what was essentially a huge feature list in the background and
5:51
SPEAKER_00: then dropping it all at the same time.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a ridiculous amount of technical risk doing something like that
5:55
SPEAKER_00: because you're going to go live.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: It can trip up stuff that is live because once you're live,
5:59
SPEAKER_00: that's when the truth starts coming out.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And that kind of stand up was we were essentially building a game
6:05
SPEAKER_00: while still shipping the live game at the same time for a good while there.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of fatigue that was building on the team.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: The goal was to kind of kick off for a big 10 year anniversary of Siege.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, it's a huge accomplishment.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean,
6:19
SPEAKER_00: we're in company with some of the like the greats out there and it's really awesome
6:22
SPEAKER_00: to be able to be here for 10 years.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: So we wanted to do something special.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: This meant some fundamental rebuilds of different modules within our engine,
6:29
SPEAKER_00: pushing our lighting system and our audio system further and stuff like this.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: It was a huge undertaking.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And then when we came out there,
6:36
SPEAKER_00: really what it came down to was the idea that right as soon as we launched,
6:41
SPEAKER_00: we needed to rest.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: We had to give the team some time to kind of recover from this.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And then that caused a bit of a content wall that happened in the seasonal cadence.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And that really hurt where people are like super excited about the stuff coming.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Excited about the future of what Siege was going to be.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And then we went a little bit quiet as we came out.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think fundamentally that was where we kind of misaligned with the expectations
7:01
SPEAKER_00: of our community.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And we had some trust to rebuild after that.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: I guess it was a bit of a bad time to do that because it also happened to be
7:10
SPEAKER_01: a moment where I know there are different types of games,
7:12
SPEAKER_01: but suddenly Battlefield does its thing and Art Raiders does its thing
7:14
SPEAKER_01: and you've got these competitors.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I understand that a lot of the time you're snatching players away from each other
7:18
SPEAKER_01: and then they come back and all that kind of stuff.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: But if you've slowed down your output at a time when these sort of things happening,
7:25
SPEAKER_01: I guess that poses business challenges as well.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: That's definitely the thing.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: We're always like the ebb and flow of players moving between different games
7:32
SPEAKER_00: and different experiences.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I think the one thing that we know,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: we know that DNA of Siege is super unique and super special,
7:39
SPEAKER_00: and we know there's nothing quite like it,
7:41
SPEAKER_00: which is why many of us work on it in the first place.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So really what that meant was, okay,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: listen, let's get a rest for a second, rally, and then start working towards it.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we rebuilt our new content cadence,
7:52
SPEAKER_00: a bunch of different things like this to kind
7:54
SPEAKER_00: of make those measurable steps moving forward.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Have you had to make any changes to the team after all that?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, I mean,
8:02
SPEAKER_00: the reality is we did have,
8:04
SPEAKER_00: so when Alex stepped out and then I took the creative director role,
8:09
SPEAKER_00: the majority of the core team has actually been updated because a lot
8:12
SPEAKER_00: of them had been on the project for seven years or a long time.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: And a lot felt that Siegex was a good opportunity,
8:19
SPEAKER_00: like this is a big moment,
8:20
SPEAKER_00: we'll do this anniversary together and then we'll go on to our next chapter.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: So there was a big shift of a lot of personnel going through.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: So we have a new game director, we have new folks in different positions and stuff like this.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: It's all adjusting.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And obviously there's,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I would say,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: growing pains that come with that where everyone's kind of adjusting
8:36
SPEAKER_00: into their new roles.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: But all in all,
8:40
SPEAKER_00: this is that generational team I'm talking about where there's kind of
8:43
SPEAKER_00: a constant evolution that happens where people bring their best for a bunch of years
8:47
SPEAKER_00: and they'll put what they want and what they can into the game.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And then they'll be like, all right, I think my chapter is done.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to move on to something else.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not caught up with the Rainbow Six Siege in a long time.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm interested, is it all set up?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Are you all in Montreal?
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Is that where most of this takes place?
9:01
SPEAKER_00: We're pretty global, so we do have a lot of codevs.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: So we have codevs in Barcelona,
9:05
SPEAKER_00: we have codevs in other parts of Quebec as well, and over in Shanghai.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So we do have people around the world,
9:11
SPEAKER_00: but the majority of the team or like your core kind of hive mind is in Montreal.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Obviously the big change from a corporate level,
9:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it affects you,
9:20
SPEAKER_01: has been Vantage Studios and Tencent sort of being more involved and
9:25
SPEAKER_01: at least co-owning it.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Has that actually changed anything for you?
9:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you suddenly have access to Tencent's array
9:30
SPEAKER_01: of hit live service game makers you can tap into and get on the phone with?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, things have definitely changed.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the coolest things about it is we have like a much more direct line with HQ.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I may be jumping on a topic that you might bring up later,
9:42
SPEAKER_00: but there was a hack that happened at Christmas a little while back.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And when that occurred,
9:47
SPEAKER_00: like I was in a chat,
9:48
SPEAKER_00: like Charlie was in the chat with us and we were all sitting up like a couple
9:51
SPEAKER_00: of days after Christmas in conversations for what was going on,
9:55
SPEAKER_00: ramping the team back online and kind of calling people in to get things moving.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: The point being,
9:59
SPEAKER_00: we were all in it together,
10:00
SPEAKER_00: and it kind of felt like we were thick as thieves,
10:02
SPEAKER_00: which was really,
10:03
SPEAKER_00: really cool in that regard,
10:04
SPEAKER_00: because there's a real rally point around the game to try to protect it and kind
10:07
SPEAKER_00: of get things moving.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So between that and the fact that we have open communication,
10:12
SPEAKER_00: if there's conversations we need,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: resources we need, or anything like that, we can just talk.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's really great.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot less,
10:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say layers of stuff we have to go through in order to have
10:23
SPEAKER_00: a transparent conversation.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: We can have those relatively easily, which is, I think, a really, really good improvement.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Outside of that,
10:29
SPEAKER_00: when we're talking about Tencent, we're definitely working with our partners there.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: We've announced Siege China is something that's happening, so we're working with them.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: And that's been a great collaboration because,
10:38
SPEAKER_00: yes, there's a lot of insight on the region that we just don't have.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: So being able to work with them has been incredible.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: China's tricky because there's an element of cultural changes and things you have
10:47
SPEAKER_01: to sort of make to adapt to that.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: But obviously it's tricky, but a huge opportunity if you can get it right.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: But there's one company that can help you do that.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: It's Tencent, isn't it?
10:58
SPEAKER_01: It sounds to me like you've had quite a baptism, to be honest.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: You've come in off a really challenging and you said fatigue team with X.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: You've then seen a lot of people leave and you've had to rebuild that way.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: You've had this horrible hack happen in December and you've had to look at everything again.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Are you okay?
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's just say I didn't have the hair before,
11:21
SPEAKER_00: so it's not like I lost it during this... No,
11:24
SPEAKER_00: honestly,
11:25
SPEAKER_00: kind of the thing that I'll say is the new core team,
11:27
SPEAKER_00: and I can say this very honestly,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I think we've all become very good friends,
11:31
SPEAKER_00: and we've kind of been,
11:32
SPEAKER_00: like you said, baptized in the fire of everything going on, but that's been awesome.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say it's awesome is
11:38
SPEAKER_00: because It really felt like we can handle anything together
11:44
SPEAKER_00: and this team can handle anything together.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So as things are coming up,
11:47
SPEAKER_00: we're like,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: all right,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: this is like we take our hit and we find out what we do next and we kind
11:51
SPEAKER_00: of keep moving.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And that could be like maybe a new cheap provider comes out and now they're attacking our game.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, cool.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: That's a new conversation we're going to have and we're going to get on that
11:59
SPEAKER_00: and we're going to ramp up in different ways and then counter it.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
12:02
SPEAKER_00: it's been tough in a lot of different ways,
12:04
SPEAKER_00: but I don't know,
12:06
SPEAKER_00: when you talk about this idea of like, oh, it's quite the way of jumping into it.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: I look at my career and most of my career was always that,
12:14
SPEAKER_00: where it was like, okay, here's the deep end, go and figure it out from there.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: So I think surrounding yourself with good people makes a huge difference
12:22
SPEAKER_00: on being able to weather the storm there.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't asked too much about the hack, but I will ask, how has that impacted things?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the big things is like, well, we did a rollback whenever it happened.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: So basically we shut everything down, rolled back the data and did this.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: So we've just kind of,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Updated a bunch of virtual processes and stuff like that to go faster
12:42
SPEAKER_00: if something like this were to ever happen or occur again.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So you have your best laid plan for the what if,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: then it happens, you're like, okay, well, we could be better.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: So ultimately it was that.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Outside of this,
12:53
SPEAKER_00: we know we tend to get attacks launched at us right around Christmas
12:57
SPEAKER_00: because they know we're off.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: So like this is kind of the thing.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: So we've built up extra layers around that too.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mentioned it earlier,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: the shooter genre,
13:06
SPEAKER_01: it's always been,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: I know your game's very different,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: it's very unique,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: and that's why it's managed to succeed over 11 years,
13:11
SPEAKER_01: but it's obviously still a very competitive scene,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: and last year we had,
13:15
SPEAKER_01: obviously,
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Battlefield and Ark Raiders suddenly enter the fight and track loads of numbers.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in this,
13:21
SPEAKER_01: when big launches like that happen,
13:22
SPEAKER_01: or even when it's like a game that's been around for ages,
13:24
SPEAKER_01: does a big update,
13:25
SPEAKER_01: like you did,
13:26
SPEAKER_01: I guess, with X,
13:28
SPEAKER_01: and it disrupts things,
13:29
SPEAKER_01: even if it's a short-term disruption,
13:31
SPEAKER_01: how do you have to react to that, or do
13:33
SPEAKER_00: you just not?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I think one thing is like, I mean, from a business point of view, we prepare accordingly.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Like we know something's coming along the lines.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, we've got a big one coming this year with GTA.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Obviously it doesn't matter what genre you're in, you're going to get hit when that drops.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: So it's like,
13:47
SPEAKER_00: you have to think ahead and be like,
13:49
SPEAKER_00: okay, Bring your expectations in line on what's going to go on there.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: People are going to go play and they'll come back and stuff like this.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And heck, all of us are going to play.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what happens.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Like even like Battlefield, play Battlefield all through it.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it comes out.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Of course we're playing.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So as far as that goes,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: it's being smart about your expectations during that window so
14:08
SPEAKER_00: that you can keep all those expectations and run with HQ,
14:11
SPEAKER_00: with the team as well, because the team is affected by the same thing.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So if they see that we don't like our players are going down or whatnot,
14:19
SPEAKER_00: they can get Almost like an anxiety about it as well,
14:23
SPEAKER_00: but it's all temporary, generally speaking, because we know the core is there.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And the one rule we have is to act as if,
14:32
SPEAKER_00: for those who are staying connected the whole time,
14:35
SPEAKER_00: serve them Make sure that they constantly have what it is that we offer
14:42
SPEAKER_00: and make sure we serve them to the best of our ability.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: We don't go on vacation because there's a competitor that's kind of swelling
14:48
SPEAKER_00: the market for a second.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: No, we do our double down and serve as best as we can during that time
14:52
SPEAKER_00: and give even more during that time just to make sure that anyone who is spending
14:57
SPEAKER_00: that most valuable resourced time is rewarded for spending it with us.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: You're probably not doing a major update during those periods.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: That's the funny thing because we will have our season four drop right around that time.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: But that's okay because this shifts up the game in a bunch of different ways.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: We do have some surprises that we actually haven't talked about.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: So we are holding a few things just
15:22
SPEAKER_01: to make a bit of a splash.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's interesting.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: I like asking this question.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: If you've heard the Warframe,
15:27
SPEAKER_01: I might have asked it to them as well,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: because it's been 11 years since, you know, nearly 11 years since Siege launched.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: 18-year-olds that bought that game in December 2015, they're now knocking on 30.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: And as you know, that becomes a tricky age.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Folks have careers, maybe families, when they start getting to that point.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Have you had to adapt much to an aging audience,
15:44
SPEAKER_01: or do you find that new people
15:46
SPEAKER_00: come in It's such a good question
15:48
SPEAKER_00: because I can tell you this,
15:49
SPEAKER_00: our audience has definitely aged lower now with just more players coming in
15:54
SPEAKER_00: who are younger than what we've seen in the past, which is cool.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome to see people looking for that challenge and jumping into the game,
16:01
SPEAKER_00: but their expectations are different as well because you take that someone
16:03
SPEAKER_00: who played 10 years ago,
16:05
SPEAKER_00: which is myself,
16:06
SPEAKER_00: and what I am now,
16:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be the most mechanically I have to rely on all the strategy and all
16:14
SPEAKER_00: the gadgets and everything like this.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Whereas a lot of the younger players, they'll click heads.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: They are absolutely insane with their sticks or their messing keyboard.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So they'll run and gun it a little bit more.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So they change the pace of the game and the meta of the game because of
16:28
SPEAKER_00: the way they like to play.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: One thing that we've talked about a lot,
16:33
SPEAKER_00: and you can see this,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: even with that market shifting younger,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: you go, well, they want faster, they want this.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, but that's not what Siege is.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Like Siege is a tactical, like methodical game.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: We need to be true to it.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And anytime we've veered away from it or whatnot,
16:48
SPEAKER_00: you get that immediate lash back from the core because the core knows what
16:50
SPEAKER_00: the game is, which is it's a thinking man shooter.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the way we It's chess when it comes down to it.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And we've done different things.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: In the past,
16:59
SPEAKER_00: we've slowed down ADS times and different things like this because, again,
17:03
SPEAKER_00: they were so mechanically good that they were on the verge of just breaking
17:06
SPEAKER_00: the actual netcode of what they could do because of how fast they were moving around
17:10
SPEAKER_00: the game and, like, jiggle peeking and all these things.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: When you do that,
17:14
SPEAKER_00: you break the entire immersion of the game,
17:15
SPEAKER_00: you break this idea that you are this tactical elite unit,
17:18
SPEAKER_00: and you just look like Rambo.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: There was a real consensus to be like, we need to know who we are and we need to focus on that.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: I did a talk inside Ubisoft.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the most ridiculous thing I'm probably going to say this entire conversation.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: We do this thing called UDC, which is like a Ubisoft developer conference kind of thing.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And the clip I used was a clip from Moana because you can tell I have kids.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's the part where she's like, I am Moana.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: She's on the board at the end when all her ancestors come up.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is Siege is a product of its past and the entire franchise that came before.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: So anytime we want to push the game or we are challenging what the game is meant
18:01
SPEAKER_00: to be or what that core identity is,
18:03
SPEAKER_00: we got to not necessarily look in everybody else's backyards,
18:06
SPEAKER_00: but look back to where we came from and readjust to that point.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: So between that and then Rallying the community around that concept and
18:13
SPEAKER_00: that idea has been our main focus,
18:16
SPEAKER_00: just to let people know this is a methodical tactical shooter.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: If you want to run and do all that stuff, Siege isn't going to be the place for you.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: You mean the moment after Maui has left and ran away and she's alone on the boat, right?
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm in.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly it.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: In the heart of Te Fiti, you went down to the ocean.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: That moment.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I've also got kids.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Before we deviate off, I was going to ask before the film, the new one, but you were right.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: So I spoke to Arrowhead around Hell Divers 2 launch,
18:47
SPEAKER_01: and they got caught up in this because they launched Hell Divers 2,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: which they viewed as like an escape from Tarkov sort of thing.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And then they had millions of Call of Duty players play it.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Like millions of Call of Duty players jumped in and they're like,
18:58
SPEAKER_01: oh, well, what do we do for these players?
19:01
SPEAKER_01: And then they sort of went away from what the game was supposed to be to try
19:05
SPEAKER_01: and satisfy those Call of Duty players.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: And they soon realized their mistake and they course corrected.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: But that's exactly what you're talking about,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: which is you might want to chase that lovely audience you've suddenly managed
19:15
SPEAKER_01: to bring in.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: But long term, it's probably not the best.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: You lose your call.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's interesting,
19:23
SPEAKER_01: because obviously you've done a bit of free-to-play and all this sort of stuff.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Are you finding you're bringing in lots of new users there?
19:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, based on what you just said, the answer is yes.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: What keeps Rainbow Six going, basically?
19:31
SPEAKER_01: Is it this engaged audience that you have, or is it these new players that come in and cycle in?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Or is it a bit of both?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: It is a bit of both.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think ultimately, once Rainbow gets its hooks in you, you're done.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: There's literally nothing else that feels like it.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what makes it stand out.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: If you've crossed that echelon into getting to the point where something clicks,
19:52
SPEAKER_00: where you could be like, oh, wait,
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I didn't just immediately get shot off the spawn or whatever,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: then you're kind of starting to see the magic of it.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: And then you start doing the what if scenario game where it's like, well, what if I did this?
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if I did this?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if I did this?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that a billion times in the same map that's been out for 10 years.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Sure, it's been remastered or updated and stuff like this,
20:10
SPEAKER_00: but Essentially, it's the same essence.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the magic goes.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And then every update we do, we shake the board a little bit.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, okay, well, now what if, what if, what if?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: We do see a lot more players checking out the game because we have free access
20:24
SPEAKER_00: so they can jump into the game and give it a go.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And we see a lot of players bounce,
20:28
SPEAKER_00: which we knew was going to happen,
20:29
SPEAKER_00: where they come in, they're like, okay, whoa, no, these people are crazy.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And then they leave, which is why we've put such a focus on our onboarding.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the things that we're constantly working on.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: To give full context, it was year seven when we got a tutorial.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: So this is not something that we've been stellar about doing to introduce people into the game.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Something we're building towards,
20:53
SPEAKER_00: we have our new machine learned AI,
20:56
SPEAKER_00: essentially,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: where we use player data to actually drive our AI,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: because Siege is so complicated,
21:01
SPEAKER_00: just straight up programming AI to do what an operator can do in all the scenarios.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So we actually feed it player data to be able to figure out where it goes,
21:10
SPEAKER_00: the best placement of the gadgets and everything like this, all the interactions.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: So those sort of systems are helping a lot for players to get into the game.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And we're making it so that we're kind of building those,
21:21
SPEAKER_00: that staircase on the side of the mountain, which is the mastery of siege.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's helping a lot and people are sticking,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: but again, The second the hook gets in you, you're like, okay, you're done.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: It is such a special thing.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it is definitely a different beast to say, you're not going to be good for a while.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And if you're willing to put in the time,
21:41
SPEAKER_00: you're going to find that special, I don't know, the magic that everybody else sees.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: My one suggestion I've had on the show that I quite liked around AI was the fact
21:50
SPEAKER_01: that because I'm an older player,
21:52
SPEAKER_01: sometimes I disappear from a game for a while and I'll come back and I'll have
21:55
SPEAKER_01: to be reminded where it is.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: I'd love for some tool or whatever to be able to come in and just say,
22:01
SPEAKER_01: all right, okay, just remind you, this is where you're up to.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: This is the new stuff we've introduced.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Just like it knows why I might be a bit lost.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that'd be useful.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: We've had like 100 million players in the game over time.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Like we're well past that now, but yeah.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Do you spend much time,
22:22
SPEAKER_01: obviously you talk about people cycling out,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: but do you spend much time thinking about how to win them back or is
22:27
SPEAKER_01: that not really
22:28
SPEAKER_00: part of it?
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's definitely a part of it because like the reality is if we have players
22:32
SPEAKER_00: that are falling off the game for one reason or another,
22:34
SPEAKER_00: it could be just personal reasons,
22:35
SPEAKER_00: like you said, like that life happens and like you've got more responsibilities.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day,
22:41
SPEAKER_00: We want it to be a place that if this is the kind of game that you want to play,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: that this is the experience for you.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And any of the rough edges that are in the game that are causing you to bounce off
22:51
SPEAKER_00: of it, we're investigating those to see what's the problem here.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Is this necessary for the game to be the game itself?
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Some of those rough edges 100% are like one shot,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: headshot, and Siege is a very integral part to how the game feels.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Other things that are in the game right now,
23:10
SPEAKER_00: for example,
23:10
SPEAKER_00: we are actually in this season, we're introducing the mini map into a quick match.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: So we didn't have a mini map up until this time,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: but map knowledge is fundamentally one of the hardest things for people to learn
23:19
SPEAKER_00: and new maps,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: our players stay away from them because they don't want to risk their elo
23:22
SPEAKER_00: and everything like this.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to find new ways to get people more comfortable and get that level
23:27
SPEAKER_00: of competency quickly.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: And if you walked away from the game,
23:31
SPEAKER_00: let's say in year seven,
23:33
SPEAKER_00: we've released a ridiculous amount of operators since then and guns
23:36
SPEAKER_00: and everything else that can be incredibly overwhelming.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: You're going to need So we are looking at different ways to kind
23:45
SPEAKER_00: of reactivate players in that regard and serve them where they are
23:50
SPEAKER_00: because some folks have a very clear idea of what Rainbow Six is meant to be
23:53
SPEAKER_00: and we're trying to drive towards that.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: That's got to be really, when you get to the age you are, you've got people wanting one thing.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: You've talked about young people coming in, expecting different stuff.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And I often find that's where people fall down.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite games is Sea of Thieves.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: And there's players that just want to shoot.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: They want to shoot everything.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: And there's players that don't.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Why do you have to have it where you shoot people and you can attack people?
24:13
SPEAKER_01: You've got completely different audiences.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: And I have to imagine as a developer,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: you're sort of looking at the two groups of people wanting the opposite thing.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And it's not a question.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: I just sort of sympathize.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: It is.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: It is really tough because like if we look at the Siege or actually just the market
24:27
SPEAKER_00: in general,
24:27
SPEAKER_00: the way people kind of engage with like free access games and stuff like this,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: whether it be through cosmetics, some people like really over the top stuff.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Siege is a tactical shooter based on military operations
24:38
SPEAKER_00: where some folks just want like the most tactical thing and that's it.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Like they don't want anything.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to see any of the collabs and stuff like this.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's a real clash between the player engagement and how people engage
24:48
SPEAKER_00: with their games,
24:49
SPEAKER_00: because that's a totally different way of looking at it and how you play.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: What we try to do is make clear lines where it's like, this is what Siege is.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And if we do an event like Assault on Hereford, this is canon.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: So there will be nothing like this is true to what actual Rainbow Six franchise is.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a PvP match, player expression is king at that point.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: They can do whatever they want and stuff like that.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: But if we're driving the narrative or we're showing an asset, It's going to be canon.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll change the subject a little bit.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: How does the eSports side
25:18
SPEAKER_01: of things influence you?
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Does it have much impact on what you're doing?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty big,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: actually,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: because everything we do,
25:23
SPEAKER_00: like a new operator or whatnot,
25:25
SPEAKER_00: we do all the testing with our pros first,
25:27
SPEAKER_00: because they're going to be the ones who are going to break it,
25:28
SPEAKER_00: like 100%, and they're going to break it very fast.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: If we get it to them and they're like, oh, well,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: If you do this and this,
25:34
SPEAKER_00: then the game is unplayable for these reasons because nobody can open a wall
25:38
SPEAKER_00: or nobody can do this.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: So we work really closely with our bro teams to have really early testing.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: At this point,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: I think they're usually I don't know, two,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: three ops ahead of where we actually are in the release cadence of the calendar.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: This includes balancing changes and different conversations like that.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: We'll go to a major, which is one of our esports events throughout the year.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And what we've started to do is we'll actually do a meeting with the pros early when
26:03
SPEAKER_00: the competitions first starting and then just sit down and show them everything for
26:06
SPEAKER_00: the reveal coming up and then things coming down the line to get their feedback on
26:10
SPEAKER_00: where things are going and if it aligns to what They expect at their level.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, not every change is for esports.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the majority of the stuff we do, we focus on our core community.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: But if something happens on one of our stages,
26:21
SPEAKER_00: like say the SI stage, somebody pulls off a crazy player, crazy interaction.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Six months later, that's in everybody's rent game.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: So like it's it's kind of a signal for us.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: I see.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: I see.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: You've got so many different areas to this and so many different challenges.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, opportunities as well.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not always mean that in a negative sense.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: How big is the Rainbow Six team?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Can you say?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I think worldwide now, we're over 600.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Because we have codevs around the world and stuff like this.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're a pretty big team.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: We were bigger during X.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural thing that we're building a game at the same time as producing the live content.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: So you kind of ramp up like a normal production would do.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
27:00
SPEAKER_00: we're still pretty big,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: but there's a lot going on because there's the entire esports side of things.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Obviously there's the store stuff,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: there's the gameplay and all the different playlists that we run because we have
27:09
SPEAKER_00: a lot of content that's dropping throughout the season as well.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: How's the free to play stuff?
27:14
SPEAKER_01: I know it's not all free to play, but the ability to come in for free.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Has that had much of an impact?
27:17
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it might have done in terms of types of players you had coming in.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: 100% as far as types of players,
27:22
SPEAKER_00: you get a lot of like, well,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't like the term,
27:26
SPEAKER_00: but it's like,
27:27
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it called tourist,
27:28
SPEAKER_00: someone who's just checking it out because they're like,
27:30
SPEAKER_00: oh, it's free, I can just download it and I'll take a look at it.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: So folks will come in and see the game.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: There are a decent amount of people who will just stay in the free access ecosystem
27:38
SPEAKER_00: because basically for us, paid access unlocks ranked.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: We did it for security concerns as well,
27:43
SPEAKER_00: just to keep it that one layer away from just easy testing against like widgets
27:48
SPEAKER_00: and stuff like this.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: you do see people come in,
27:51
SPEAKER_00: check out stuff, see if they like it, and then bounce back out.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Engagement is there.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's raised over time.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: The amount of people that are coming in and kind of finding the spark,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: they're sticking around longer.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's really cool.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: But- There's a large amount of traffic,
28:06
SPEAKER_00: I'll say that,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: of people coming in and checking out the game now,
28:09
SPEAKER_00: compared to when you had to put down your $5 originally.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: It's a fascinating world,
28:14
SPEAKER_01: and it seems to be one that's constantly changing,
28:17
SPEAKER_01: and I've learned a lot from this, but what's your goal?
28:20
SPEAKER_01: I guess when you took charge,
28:21
SPEAKER_01: and I know that you've been working on the game for a while,
28:23
SPEAKER_01: but when you took charge,
28:24
SPEAKER_01: I guess you might have had a vision for where you'd like to take the game.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: I know the players end up leading that in a lot of other ways,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: but where would you like to see Siege in, I don't know, five years?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
28:33
SPEAKER_00: the players do lead a lot of it because that's
28:35
SPEAKER_00: the one key thing is we listen really closely to what the players are experiencing
28:39
SPEAKER_00: and living in the moment to moment matches because that's what really matters.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: But I think when we talk about where we want to take Siege and like we're driving
28:46
SPEAKER_00: towards, I look back to a few years ago, we had a real tone shift in the game.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: So it was the last SI we did in Montreal where essentially Harry,
28:56
SPEAKER_00: which was the six at the time, he was killed by Deimos.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Like this is all lore stuff in a PVP game.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I know that doesn't necessarily shake everyone,
29:05
SPEAKER_00: but the reality was when it happened,
29:07
SPEAKER_00: it was a real signal to everyone that the stakes are back and Rainbow is back in
29:11
SPEAKER_00: a very big way.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: It's in the sense that We're going to be that counter-terrorist unit.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be this much more gritty and grounded kind of approach to the game
29:20
SPEAKER_00: because it was a little bit combat sports-esque before that.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a turn that it went to.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: We're kind of like doubling down on this and kind of focusing on that back to roots.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: This is why many of the different things that we've introduced into
29:33
SPEAKER_00: the game have been callbacks from the original franchise.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: So Deimos is Gerald Morris coming back from the game.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Scopos is Carys.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a bunch of...
29:43
SPEAKER_00: A bunch of different references coming out of the original franchise.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: We even released Casino, which was from Vegas too, like the Vegas games.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: All for the idea of just, again,
29:55
SPEAKER_00: reminding where we're from so that we stay the course and we focus
29:58
SPEAKER_00: on our core identity and solidify it and then armor it.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by armor it is because All the mechanics in Siege are very unique,
30:05
SPEAKER_00: and they add to this ridiculously cool system of interactions and creativity,
30:11
SPEAKER_00: and we want to reinforce that.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: We want to show that if I'm being as competitive as most Siege players are,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: I want us to be the best at it, where it's like, this is impenetrable.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: You can't even come close to what Siege can pull off as far as the level of 10 years
30:25
SPEAKER_00: of investment into these interactions and into this kind of chess-like FPS.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Continuing to go that way,
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Bring really exciting technological advancements as we're going forward as well.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Because as of right now, we run on PS4 all the way up.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: So that's a pretty widespread of tech to be working on right now.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of opportunity on the horizon.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to be as cryptic as possible because I don't want to leak anything.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is When we look at Siege and people ask like,
30:59
SPEAKER_00: oh, like, is it hard to come up with operators and stuff like that?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, because it's always a question of what if, so what if this happened?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you the example of, we added these things called destructible ingredients.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple thing of a gas pipe.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: You shoot it and it does this.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: So we have team A, team B and team C being the map now.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where things get really exciting is
31:21
SPEAKER_00: when we add these extra levels of interaction and extra levels of what if into
31:26
SPEAKER_00: the game.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: This might sound like a stupid question, but do you ever need to do a Siege 2?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Is that something that... Yeah.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a funny one because it's come up a lot and it came up a lot during X. Oh, really?
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the question was like, why do Siege X and not do just Siege 2?
31:41
SPEAKER_00: One of the big things is fundamentally rebuilding our entire system.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: It's a mountain of work to do and to nail it and to get it right and to be able
31:48
SPEAKER_00: to scale in the way we're doing.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: If we were to want to do something like this,
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Siege would have to essentially go on ice in order to do,
31:56
SPEAKER_00: because I don't think we could ever do something of that scale like we did
32:00
SPEAKER_00: with Siege X.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: It's not even close to the level of scale we're talking about.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: If we were to go and rebuild the entire game, kind of make a Siege 2.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: I think, end of the day, the way we've architectured our technology, it's very modular.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: So when we did X,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: we rebuilt the audio and the lighting system,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: and both of those are maturing right now.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: The foundations were rebuilt and now we're actually taking them to new levels
32:22
SPEAKER_00: as we push forward.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: This is all kind of behind the scenes stuff,
32:25
SPEAKER_00: but we can do that with all the different parts of our game.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And we've been doing it with different parts of our game for the last 10 years.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: So The need for doing it is not necessarily completely there with the cost
32:36
SPEAKER_00: of what would happen when you have to shut the lights off and then do that.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't possibly run both at the same time with the fact
32:42
SPEAKER_00: that you would need the expertise of the team that's running the game to rebuild
32:45
SPEAKER_00: the game kind of thing.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be really, really difficult to do.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And again, our tech teams are able to run ahead and rebuild the modules anyway.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So it makes it pretty easy for us to take those steps incrementally.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: I think I also not entirely convinced based on these other games.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about your audience, but certainly the other games that people really want.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it needs to look flashy.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: It looks fancy.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, I find it hilarious.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know it's completely different,
33:07
SPEAKER_01: but I find it hilarious that old school RuneScape is bigger than RuneScape.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't think some of the stuff Some of that stuff necessarily matters as much
33:14
SPEAKER_01: as we did once upon a time.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for our core, it really doesn't.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was at the EWC just the other day,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: like in Paris, and we had the demo booth set up with the new scenes.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And every time I walked by,
33:26
SPEAKER_00: all the screens were set by four by three and stretch resolution,
33:30
SPEAKER_00: everything on low looking like completely like flat lighting and stuff like this,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: because everyone's going for all those FPSs and then they're running.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: They just run at the lowest settings anyway, because it's what we're used to.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And that is very much the core audience of Siege runs like this.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: So we have a lot of conversations internally.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: When we were rebuilding the lighting system and modernizing the maps,
33:51
SPEAKER_00: the question was, should we really do this?
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody care?
33:55
SPEAKER_00: And the reality on that is it's more about this idea where people talk about,
34:00
SPEAKER_00: especially Siege,
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Prior to the modernization of the maps,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: folks were saying that the maps were a bit more flat and the lighting
34:06
SPEAKER_00: and stuff like this because they were hyper competitive and that's what we went for
34:09
SPEAKER_00: and it made total sense.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: But the richness is what everybody has in their head as to what Siege is
34:14
SPEAKER_00: and what Rainbow Six is.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: So they think of the original E3 trailer,
34:18
SPEAKER_00: they think of Vegas and all these moments where it's flashlights and gritty and dark
34:24
SPEAKER_00: and like,
34:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:25
SPEAKER_00: it's People rappelling down the building and then breaking in
34:29
SPEAKER_00: and everything busting up and stuff like this.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Whereas in the game,
34:33
SPEAKER_00: because we were so focused on competitive,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: we had cleaned all that out and made everything super, super easy and readable.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: So we had new outline systems and stuff like that to allow us to get
34:42
SPEAKER_00: a little bit more to the rich lighting.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: But it is funny.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: We get this feedback that It doesn't matter, like all the lighting and all these things.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: But then we'll get the exact same feedback from pros.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And this was the funniest thing I had heard during all this was we had the gas pipes.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: We showed them for the first time.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And one of the pro teams said, we can't put those on bank.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Bank is one of our maps.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, why?
35:05
SPEAKER_00: They're like, well, gas pipes wouldn't be in a bank.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Like that doesn't make it.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, maybe in the basement.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: So they cared more about the realization of it being in the basement.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: but you're the same players who will turn off everything and stretch a resolution,
35:18
SPEAKER_00: but they cared that the gas pipe made sense in the world.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not how it looks, it's what it does.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get it.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: I think it makes sense.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fascinating.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Josh, it's lovely chatting to you.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: I love the fact the game's still going.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: I remember it's a launch and to see it go from strength to strength and be one of
35:31
SPEAKER_01: the key tactical shooters in the world and doing this well is a phenomenal one.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: It's great to see it going and good luck with all the challenges
35:38
SPEAKER_01: and opportunities you've got ahead.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Hey, appreciate it.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean,
35:41
SPEAKER_00: I stand on the shoulder of giants that came before,
35:43
SPEAKER_00: like Honest's team,
35:44
SPEAKER_00: and we just carry forward the legacy of the game and it's an honor to be able
35:47
SPEAKER_00: to do it, so.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Gonna watch Moala now, right?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: I'll see you then.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Take care.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: So that's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
35:58
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36:03
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36:04
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36:11
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36:13
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