Latest / The Game Business Show / Fixing Call of Duty: Inside Activision’s Modern Warfare 4 comeback plan

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Fixing Call of Duty: Inside Activision’s Modern Warfare 4 comeback plan · The Game Business Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This week it's a double bill of pop culture icons.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Activision is here to talk about Call of Duty's recovery and Lucasfilm chats
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: about its latest Star Wars triumphs.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to miss this.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: This week's edition is sponsored by Unreal Engine,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: and Unreal Engine 5 is,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: of course, the engine behind the new hit Star Wars game, Star Wars Galactic Racer.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Developer Fuse Games will be on the show later on,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: and if you've been playing it like me,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: you'll see exactly why it is the highest rated Star Wars game in 20 years.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're wondering what it takes to achieve that result, well,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: it meant building worlds worthy of a galaxy far,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: far away that hold up at breakneck speed.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can now get an inside look into the development process
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: as Fused Games has shared how Unwell Engine 5 helped
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: the team deliver cinematic environments in Star Wars Galactic Racing
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: without sacrificing frame rate or fluid controls.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a link to the article in the newsletter attached to the show.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's also in the description.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're watching this on video, you'll find it on your screen now.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let's get back to the show.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a big show for you today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's very much a two-parter.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: In the second half, I'm going to be joined by Douglas Riley.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: He is the vice president of Lucasfilm Games.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Lucasfilm has just released two of
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: the highest Metapolitic scoring Star Wars games in 20 years in the form
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: of Star Wars Zero Company.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Star Wars Galactic Racer.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Both games built by independent teams who are made up of veteran developers.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to talk about that.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And with him,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: he'll be joined by Matt Webster,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: the head of Fuse Games that just made the brilliant Galactic Racer.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I will come on to that in the second half.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: You definitely want to stay tuned for it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: But in the first part, I'm going to be talking to Tyler Ball.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: He is the chief marketing officer at Activision.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be talking about Call of Duty.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: the series had a tough year last year,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: but they're coming back strong with Modern Warfare 4, which is out next week.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before I welcome Tyler, I did have one house message to deliver for you all.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are one of our UK listeners or if you happen to be in London next week,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: there's an event on at London Excel called MCM Comic Con.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is not an ad, by the way.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a big comic convention that takes place in the capital.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be there.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be doing panels and sessions throughout the show.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: But significantly, we're going to be doing one on Friday, October 23rd with John Romero.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now that will be released as an episode of the show at some point in the future.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to come and watch that being recorded and you happen to be in
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: the video game industry, you can come for free.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you work in games, you can watch John Romero.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can then walk around the halls of Comic-Con,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: meet a celebrity, buy a Funko Pop, whatever you want to do.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of that, there's also an industry drinks.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's also free to attend for industry people.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you get The Game Business newsletter,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: and hopefully you do,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: the links are in the newsletter to where you can sign up for those things for free.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it'll be lovely to see you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be there.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the whole team will be there.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Richard, our producer, George, our commercial director, we'll all be there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Come and say hello.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Shall we get on with the show?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And let's begin with Call of Duty.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So Call of Duty.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Look, it appears to be in a rough spot, at least by its very high standards.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: The launch of Black Ops 7 in Europe last year was 50% below what Black Ops 6 managed
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: in its first few days.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's based on GSD data.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was 63% below the launch of Battlefield 6 in Europe, which was its big competitor last year.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Battlefield 6 was the best-selling shooter of 2026,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: ending Call of Duty's nearly two-decade run at the top.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the US,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Black Ops 7 actually finished in fifth spot for the year,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: the franchise's lowest annual US sales ranking since 2008's Call of Duty World
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: at War.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Call of Duty isn't just about the latest game that comes out,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: but our data partner Ampere,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: they've shared some facts with us that highlights there's been quite the drop
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: in players for the series overall.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this data that is in the newsletter,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm going to talk about it here as well, it isn't entirely correct.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ampere tracks 30 Call of Duty games, including something called Call of Duty HQ.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Call of Duty HQ is a launcher that features multiple Call of Duty titles,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: but in July 2025,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: two of those titles, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and 3, were removed.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: From the Launcher and in July 2026 another one was removed in the form of Black Ops 6.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now Ampere doesn't track those games separately.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they think they're probably missing about one and a half million players
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: from July 2025 and another one to one and a half million players from July 2026.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not entirely correct.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But even so, we're still looking at a sizable job.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in 2024, Call of Duty player count was routinely just below or at 40 million players.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in November 2024 it hit over 46 million players.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Huge number.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now in 2025 the numbers dropped into the low 30 millions and then towards the end of
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: the year and into 2026 we're now into the low to mid 20 million number.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now again the numbers are probably slightly higher because of those missing games
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: but Obviously a big drop overall.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: However, we have had some recent successes.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: In July this year,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Activision released ports of Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and 2,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: the games that were first released in 2010 and 2012 on PlayStation 4
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: and PlayStation 5.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this did really well.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: It caused a massive spike in players to just below 40 million for
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: the whole franchise according to Ampere.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And there's real positive buzz around the launch of next week's Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's really a lot going on with this year's Call of Duty.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not in Game Pass this year.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's been in Game Pass the last few years.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't this year.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox isn't including it in the subscription service for 2026.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: It also isn't coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first Call of Duty this generation not to launch on those machines.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it is coming to Nintendo Switch 2,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: which marks Call of Duty's return to Nintendo for the first time since Call
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: of Duty Ghosts in 2013, which was a Wii U game.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And of course,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Modern Warfare 4 arrives less than a month before the highly anticipated release
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: of Grand Theft Auto 6, which is dominating the conversation right now.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: On top of all that,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: there's a Call of Duty movie in 2028,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: and Activision announced earlier this year
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: that it will no longer be releasing back-to-back games in the same Call
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: of Duty sub-series going forward, so explain that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: In 2022, they released Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2023, they released Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a sort of a quick sequel.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2024, they did the same thing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: They did Black Ops 6 in 2024.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2025, they did Black Ops 7.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going to be doing that anymore.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're not doing that anymore.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot to talk about.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And earlier this week,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had the privilege to chat with Tyler Ball,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: the chief marketing officer at Activision,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: about the goal of getting Call of Duty back on track.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Check out this conversation.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Tyler.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Chris.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Excited to be here.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll get on to Modern Warfare 4 in a moment because I'm hearing very,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: very positive things about it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But as I've been saying,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: sort of last year's game did do lower numbers than,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: certainly lower than we're used to seeing from Call of Duty.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Overall player metrics, Call of Duty HQ's been down a bit as well.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to get your take on it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: How would you evaluate sort of the state of Call of Duty or where you're at the minute?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think we were happy with every aspect of last year's game and we heard
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: the feedback from the community loud and clear.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think with Modern Warfare 4,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: we've tried to adjust, you know, based on that feedback, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's getting back to a grounded,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: military,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: shooter,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: really making it cinematic,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: making it authentic and bringing that edge back that Call of Duty is known for,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: There's always that mission that everyone's talking about.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And we really wanted to make sure that this title really had something like that
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: that we could talk about.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so being in that North Korean front is really exciting because there's a lot,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: you know, for us to explore.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you think a lot of it might have been,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: it just didn't connect with the quality of the audience.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Black Ops, it might be because of that grounded nature.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what people really want from the series.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think we were pretty public about,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: the idea of us going back to back with MW2 to MW3 and Black Ops 6
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: to Black Ops 7 was not something that,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know, our community was looking for, right?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: And they wanted something new and fresh.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: And even though There were different time settings and different ways to play
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: the game and lots of new features.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: That tonal shift is something that they were looking for us to shift.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so we've already kind of stated that a future title is going to be
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: a new sub-franchise and we've already kind of laid the groundwork there.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: But we're really excited about what we have to offer with Modern Worker 4 and
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: that kind of addresses some of that feedback that we heard so loud from
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: the community.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I like the idea of it, though, when you were doing the sort of quick sequel.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know it wasn't a quick,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know it worked on beforehand,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: but I like the idea of it,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: even if it hasn't pan out necessarily as successful as you'd hope.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's worth trying, I think.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned a little bit about how Modern Warfare 4 is going to be different.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any other ways it's going to sort of, you think it's going to connect more?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think first the tone, right,
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: with campaign and going to the Korean front,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think is something that we felt like was totally new and different
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: and someplace we'd never been before.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think on multiplayer,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: we have this new mode called Kill Block where The map actually dynamically changes.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: This is something that we wanted to say,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: okay, what can we do in multiplayer that's truly different?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's basically a map that has infinite combinations.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: Every time you go into it, it'll dynamically change.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so really excited by that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, bringing the DMZ back, right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: the extraction shooter space,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: it was just absolutely exploded since we launched DMZ in beta with Modern Worker 2.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the team is really proud of the four years of work that they put into this mode.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so last week we had DMZ week.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Every single day we had a different announcement about DMZ.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's really robust and we have really high hopes for how this mode is going to land,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: so that's why we're bringing it to early access.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'll come on to sort of
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: the coverage of that,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: but you've got new studio leaders at Infinity Ward.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're not used to studio though, they've been around for a very long time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Has that brought around much change or has it been very much continuous because of that legacy?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think Mark and Jack, I mean,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: they were,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: obviously,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: I've worked at the studio before,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: and Mark laughed and came back,
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: but it's brought a whole new,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: fresh, youthful, I would say, vibe to the studio itself, right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I think,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: the way that they're approaching it is,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: okay, how do we be more part of the community than we've ever been before?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think there was a period of time when Call of Duty was a little bit
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: A little bit more hands-off and not talking to the community,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: taking them behind the scenes.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think IW and with the new leadership has done a lot to really engage, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: So we put out a series called From the Ward, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: That goes behind the scenes.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: It shows all the developers and how they're building the game and actually goes
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: into details on how we make a Call of Duty video game.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I think in addition to that,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: we've actually gone out to more events You know,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: like gaming events than we've ever done before, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll be at 20 or more.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: we kicked things off with Fanatics Fest earlier this year,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: which is a totally different space, not a gaming space, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: A sports space and had, you know, first hands on there.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: But we've been everywhere thinking about Gamescom.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: We had four different booths at Gamescom.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: We were in Nintendo's booth.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: We were at Xbox's booth.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: We were at Samsung's booth.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we were also with TikTok and stuff.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: So we're just absolutely everywhere.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was really showing the confidence that we have in this game
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: and getting people hands on with it early.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that was You know, coming out of last year, we really wanted to rebuild trust.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: the best way you can do that is put the game in people's hands and let them see
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: for themselves.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's really fascinating.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't notice you'd gone to all those events.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Fanatics Fest is one of the people running that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: He used to be my boss at ReadPop.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've had this observation,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: and this might be completely wrong,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: that the media,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: the traditional media anyway, doesn't cover Call of Duty like it used to.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems a lot of the coverage comes from the influencer space and
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: the communities, I guess, in many ways.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is that just my blinkers?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think we get the coverage, but we call it the Call of Duty tax.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: When we're thinking about the reviews or we're thinking about the reception
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: and stuff, in a lot of ways, there's obviously a lot of fandom around.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: Indie games and excitement around, you know, new games popping up every day and stuff on scene.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in a lot of ways, College has been here for a very long time.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: And with that,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: people sometimes,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: forget that,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: there's so much work that goes into making these There's 4,500 employees here
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: that are trying to make the best possible experience.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then also how big it is, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's the bigger challenge is that we have 100 million free-to-play players.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: We've sold 500 million units.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the biggest franchises of all time.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And we have a billion downloads on our mobile game,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: which I think people tend to forget about,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: which is much more bigger internationally.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yes, they do.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: So that huge audience,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think sometimes You know, gets overlooked, um, or just becomes status quo.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I think,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: the craft that goes into these games and, um,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: the dedication from the teams was something that we wanted to show this year with
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: the marketing.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so it was less about us,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: you know, having, um,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: more of some of like a bombastic spot that we made before,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: but really kind of getting behind the scenes of back to the roots
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: of how do we make our games and the dedication that teams have to doing that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm as guilty as anyone else.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I did a piece not so long ago on sort of Zelda and GTA in November and I called it
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: the Barbenheimer and it's quite rightly, you know, hang on, what about Call of Duty?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess, I mean, I was maybe talking a little bit more about what's going to drive consoles.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it's fair enough in observation.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's this huge shooter game that's coming out just before that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, is the noise and attention around GTA 6?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is that making it difficult to get the message out there?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a challenge?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no offense to Zelda, but I think, you know, these are the two biggest games of the year.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in a lot of ways,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: more people coming in to the dashboards,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: more people,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: you know, taking the dust off their Xbox or PlayStation and starting to play.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: And loading up that experience is going to be more eyeballs for us overall and stuff.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think at the end of the day,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: what makes Call of Duty so lasts the test of time,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think, is the community and the social experience.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: The idea of, you know, being able to play with your friends, right?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: When we look at our research and we say, okay, what is the most exciting things about our games?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Is it the combat or the gunplay?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually my friends are there, right?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Or I'm able to spend time with my friends.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think that still,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: we stand on our own there where,
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: you know, being able to play with your friends on all different platforms, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: From Switch 2 this year,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: which is a new platform for us,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: all the way to PC and Xbox and PlayStation still,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: you know, I think makes it a unique opportunity.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's an exciting time for gaming.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like if more people are talking about games,
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: if there's more press around it,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: that's going to be good for everybody, not just us, but the entire industry.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the early signs are positive that GTA might significantly bolster sales
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: with PlayStation and Xbox.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of people are thinking about, you know, what's the second game?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's the game they'll get along?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird calling Call of Duty a second game, I have to say.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's of a certain scale.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: But Matt, are you thinking about that?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: you're going,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: how do we make sure Call of Duty is
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: the game these new console players get alongside GTA 6?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe once they're done with GTA, you know, is that something that's in your thinking?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it you very much focused on you?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're very focused on us.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: We're going into Campaign Early Access on Friday this week and then
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: the game has its full release the following week.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: Everything is heads down on trying to make this the biggest launch.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Again, really the focus for us is to rebuild that trust coming out of last year.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: For us, it's, you know, how do we build that relationship again?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, this idea of return to form, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: If you're a new player, you know, there's a lot to be excited about this game.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: But also, if you've maybe left the franchise, there's also a lot to come back to.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: And we are definitely leaning into, you know, the nostalgia of playing with your friends.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think the B01,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: B02 ports this summer were huge successes and something
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: that we weren't even necessarily expecting.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: We thought they would do well.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't think they would do that well.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: But you can see that pent up demand of being able to get back to the good old days
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: of, you know, playing with your friends on a Friday night and having fun.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, you know, MW4 does that.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I think,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: you know, once,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: people get through some of these other games,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: they'll come back to this
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: experience because of the social element.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are you braced for a slightly, a slight dip in my players on November 19th, though?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, we'll see how it plays out and stuff.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: We might actually see, you know, a slight uptick.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Ah, it's true.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: It might go the other way of, hey,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: I can take a little of this and I can also play a little of that and stuff,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: so we'll see.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's true.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, as you quite rightly pointed out,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: there are different types of experiences, certainly at this stage.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first Call of Duty this generation that's not coming to PS1,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox One, which is crazy for me.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: has there been any benefits to it being fully focused on the newer platforms,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: any advantages?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's just the graphic fidelity.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: In some ways,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: from a development standpoint,
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: it was always hard for us to balance both worlds of being able to support last gen
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: and also support next gen and stuff.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think in a lot of ways,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is probably one of the best looking Call of Duties
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: in our franchise history.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'll show and,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: what we're seeing,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: what we're showing our trailers,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: but also,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: once people get hands on with the campaign,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: It'll really come to life of how good this Call of
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Duty looks.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously on Switch 2, though, this year.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the new one.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Call of Duty, I mean, I remember previous Call of Duty games being on Nintendo.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not always been particularly associated with that platform.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: But what are your expectations here?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have high hopes?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we're rebuilding this
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: relationship, right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think Nintendo has been all in.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like I mentioned before, we were at their booth at Gamescom.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: We are going to continue to show up in partnership with them.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: We have a co-marketing campaign that we've launched with them I think in a lot
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: of ways,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: they want to age up their customer and look at getting a broader spectrum of having
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: an FPS on there.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think it actually helps them stand out.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I think their console sales have grown to a certain point,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: but then they're kind of stagnated.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this will allow them to continue to extend this offering.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then also I see it as a companion experience.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what I'm excited about because I definitely have a Switch 2 at home and
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: when I'm on the go,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: flying to London this afternoon and I think in a lot of ways I bring my Switch 2
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: with me Am I able to play Modern Warfare 4?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think that that's an awesome companion experience.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: It plays really good, especially when you use the controller as almost like a mouse and stuff.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think in a lot of ways you can get that precision shooting,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: and I think in a lot Comparably, it's
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: actually really good.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I've got a bit of a theory with Nintendo.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not based on any real data,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: but I've also got a theory that it does speak to a mum and dad audience.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was 2007 when I first played Call of Duty 2, Modern Warfare 4.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was 22 and I'm now 41 and I've got two children and I don't get,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: and so the cut switch is handheld from the form and I get the games console for
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: the kids,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: they're playing Mario Kart,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: but I always think that there's a slightly You might be surprised by
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: that there is actually an old Call of Duty audience on that platform that might have
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe temporarily ducked out of games because of life getting in the way
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: who might be coming back.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be interested to see if that's the case.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I see the Star Fox poster and I got the new one and it was introducing it
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: to my seven-year-old son and stuff.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think in a lot of ways that that's really exciting.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: And then at the same time,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: when we're shutting that down,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: he's going to bed,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: I can go on the back porch and actually play Call of Duty,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: which is kind of absolutely amazing, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like to be able to kind of travel with the game,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: which is not something that Our community has been able to do outside of mobile,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: which is a different game altogether.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's something to that.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so we'll see how this lands.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: But I think Nintendo has been an amazing partner in co-marketing this
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: and helping us jump back onto the platform after being off for so many years.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I only see that relationship developing
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: as we have future titles like Spyro coming back and that's going to be
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: a really good opportunity for us to kind of go all in.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: I got Tony Hawk on PlayStation
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: and Nintendo.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: For that reason, I'm assuming, right?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I'd forgotten before this is obviously,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I say I shouldn't have forgotten it,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: but the fact is not in Game Pass day and date this year.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Does that change much for you?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, I mean, you know, for us,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: it was adding a little bit of confusion to the market,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: right, of how you can get Call of Duty.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in a lot of ways, you know, we really wanted to simplify that.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think working with the Xbox team, though, you know, they've been all in.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: We're just really focused on how do we get the message out.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: So we actually had a 10% loyalty discount.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: We offered a blueprint with Xbox just to kind of,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: we understand coming off of Game Pass, the perception there.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think we wanted to make sure that we're still totally invested in Xbox and
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: the community there and making sure that we have an offering that is unique
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: and exciting to that audience.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Modern Warfare is just the start, as it always is.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: I know you can't tell me anything and I wouldn't expect you to,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: but what might we expect after the game comes out?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You've already talked about doing these videos and being close to the community.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is there going to be much of a change in terms of your approach to post-launch?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, we're jumping right into season one, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that that's what's going to be really exciting is that,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: the live,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: season is going to start,
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: you know, I think roughly two weeks after the game, you know, comes out.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think there's even more content So it's crazy
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: when I tell people how we launch a game and then we're immediately putting more maps
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: and new areas and new weapons and new characters into a live services business.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that is always on.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And every two months, roughly, we're launching a season and stuff.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: And to do that is like launching a game itself.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: I think on the marketing side,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: we're marketing those Things with trailers and key art and really kind
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: of pushing really heavily on how to bring that to market.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's the biggest challenge,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: but we have a robust pipeline there and the team's really excited by what they have
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: to offer
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: in this chapter.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because I think I've had some of the headlines and I wrote some
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: of them about Call of Duty being down and maybe not performing quite as well
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: as it's done in the past.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: But when you actually look at those numbers,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: they're still, like, most games would be for a kill for this sport.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think everybody would be happy to have.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like, we're our own worst enemy.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, we set such a high bar for ourselves and expectations.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: And we're our biggest critics so that when we're not hitting those goals and stuff
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: or when the community is disappointed, we take it to heart.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the team is...
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: We had a similar situation for Modern Warfare 3 where it wasn't out the door.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Delivering to expectations.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: But by the end of the chapter,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: through those live seasons,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: every chapter or every season,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: The Sledge was building new modes and new offerings and stuff.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And by the end of the year,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think we were really happy with And so I think that that just shows the commitment
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: that,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: the developers and,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: you know, the publishing teams have to kind of win it back when things go wrong.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: last year we reflected,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: we were actually We did what we call a premortem,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: where we look at instead of a postmortem.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because a postmortem is where you look back and you say,
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: where are all the things that went wrong?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: But next year's game is a different game.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's a different offering and it has different challenges to it.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so we did a premortem to say,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: well, what are all the things that could go right or wrong for the next game?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's a different You know, process.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we started the year that way.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: we looked at all the issues that we needed to address and
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: the teams we had working really hard to kind of address them all,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: but also get people excited again, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's really what it's about and getting friends together.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: liking what we're seeing so far and what the community is saying about the game.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask a question about those ports in the summer and the fact
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm really fascinated that they did so well.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: It speaks to some of the other trends we're talking to in this industry about
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: an aging audience and people wanting to go back to different times.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with the deeper games and the more complex games.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: People want them as well,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: but there is a craving for that sort of simpler core experience
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: that perhaps some people remember from 15, 20 years ago.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like also,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: as a dad who is a similar age,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know, as you,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: picking up the controller fresh, right,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: is, you know, and logging in for the first time, it can be overwhelming, right?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and there's so much going on in a lot of these games.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just ours, right?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so how do you create modes,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: casual modes,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: more party modes and things like that that actually allow people to jump in
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: and just have a good time right off the bat and not necessarily Have
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: to overthink it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the B01, B02 ports over the summer was a great example of that.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was a local entry point caught from a cost standpoint.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: It brings back the nostalgia of what it was like to play back then.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we took a lot of learnings from that and are starting to apply them
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: to not only this game, but future games of what they can expect.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm quite interested about what comes next.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know you can't possibly even hint at it, but,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: you're calling,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I saw there's a social post calling Modern Warfare 4 an epic conclusion,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: and then Treyarch was talking about making something nobody's ever experienced
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: before.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: we said earlier,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: you're moving away from the quick sequel approach,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: and obviously there's a movie coming out.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I may be getting ahead of myself,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: but it feels like we might be entering into another period of reinvention for Call
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: of Duty.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it's, yeah, that's not really a question, was it?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to give any spoilers for the game coming out,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: but I think in a lot of ways,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: this is going to be the epic conclusion
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: this recent series of Modern Warfare.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's not that some characters and pieces can't live on beyond this
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: and be reinvented,
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: but I think in a lot of ways,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: We're excited by closing this chapter and launching a new one.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think where we go with potentially future games,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think is really, we have to innovate and we have to
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: What we heard from the audience is they want new or better or different.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: And in a lot of ways, it's a combination of those things.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think we want to make sure that what we bring to the table is exciting.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: And there's so much I think the landscape is changing right under our feet, right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: When you're seeing new games being built overnight and you're seeing all kinds
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: of taste change and how people want to play and stuff.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's the only thing about Call of Duty when you're this big,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: You have so many different components of the audience.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: There's some people that are just like zombies.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: There's just some people that are like Black Ops versus Modern Warfare.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's just some people that just want to play a game like Prop Hunt,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: where they're not actually shooting anybody,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: but they're a refrigerator and they're hiding in the map someplace.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Great ways to experience Call of Duty,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: but at the same time,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: as a marketer and,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: from a positioning and a comp standpoint, it's hard to speak to everyone, right?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: I spent a lot of time thinking about, okay,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: how do we reach different audiences with different Messaging,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: and that's really been the focus.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for Modern Warfare 4.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think it looks really good.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard some of the buzz around it seems really positive.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of GTA is getting all the headlines,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: but I suspect Ecology will be getting plenty when it comes out in a couple of weeks.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I guess my final question is, what would success look like?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: What would make you go, right, we delivered on that one and we nailed it?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, it's really hearing from the community.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really focused on The quality of life elements of it and hearing
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: the community say,
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: this is a Call of Duty that I love and I care about and this is what I remember.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it has all the elements that we talked about of being authentic and grounded
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: and cinematic because I think that's what the studio intended
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: and that's what we're really excited about.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: So we're not really holding ourselves to a specific number.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's more about are we You know,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: living up to those expectations that we set out at the beginning of the year
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: to deliver on.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: And if that works and we can build on that, Chris,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: like we can go from,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: you know, this game to the next game and kind of build on that foundation.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: But it's about getting that right first.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: Before thinking about anything else,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: because even if it delivers on sales but people don't like the game
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: or it doesn't feel like they deliver it on being grounded,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: authentic,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: cinematic, edgy video game, then we miss the mark and we miss the goal altogether.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Tyler, thank you so much.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Good luck with it.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Chris, we're going to get you a code so you can get back in and tell us what you think.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: But we're really excited to be on here and hopefully more conversations
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: as new opportunities develop within Activision.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: Brilliant.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Tyler, there.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate those answers.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to Call of Duty this year, actually.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've been watching some of the videos.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm watching the Infinity War videos, and it does look really good.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it does well.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it certainly sounds like Activision's taking a long-term view with the series, as it should.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right now onto part two of our show.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: This one is about another iconic pop culture IP in the form of Star Wars.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So in about a six week period, there were two Star Wars games released.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: The first was a strategy game called Star Wars Zero Company,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: and the other was a racing game called Star Wars Galactic Racer.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, outside of the Star Wars brand, you might think very little connects these two games.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're very different genres.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you'd be wrong.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Star Wars Zero Company was made by an independent developer called Bit Reactor,
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: which is a studio formed by veterans of the XCOM franchise.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the game is very much Star Wars meets XCOM.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Star Wars Galactic Racer was made by a developer called Fuse Games,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: which is a bunch of veteran developers who worked on racing games such as Burnout.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the game is very much Star Wars meets Burnout.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're both games with sort of double A budgets,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think, and they've both been critical darlings.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Galactic Racer is the highest scoring Star Wars game on Metacritic in 20 years,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: while Zero Company is the joint second highest rated Star Wars game on Metacritic
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: from the last 20 years as well.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's impressive, right?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a happy accident?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or are we seeing what can happen when you pair a mega IP like Star Wars with
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: an experienced independent team?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's probably the latter.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: But to discuss this and a few other things as well,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to sit down with Douglas Riley,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: the Vice President at Lucasfilm Games,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: alongside Matt Webster, the CEO of Galactic Racer developer Fuse Games.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Check it out.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Douglas.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Matt.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Very well, how are you?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very well.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having us.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look at that smile on Matt's face.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's someone with a good Metacritic score.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: I actually bought my copy of the game.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: This surprised me,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: so I didn't realise it was available on Amazon Prime,
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: but I bought it and I saw the price and I just ordered it and it came and it's
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: the deluxe edition.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember ordering the deluxe edition.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I realised that I had ordered the deluxe edition,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: it's just that the game was cheaper than I was expecting it to be.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I was expecting a triple A $70 price game,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: so the fact that it cost about that was fine by me,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: but the fact that it was less than that.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a question I was planning to ask,
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: but because that happened, what was the thinking behind the price point?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Was that a secret mode thing?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a conversation, as all of this is, is a collaboration.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think we want as many people to try and get into this game as we possibly can,
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: and that felt like a Like the right value proposition for achieving that aim,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: really.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've got an incredible amount of scope and quality in this experience,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: so I think it's terrific value for money.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: We had Lyrical Games come on the show,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: they're releasing a game this month,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: and they also set a sort of,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't call it a budget price,
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: but a sort of lower than AAA level price that you would normally expect,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: and they said it's because of GTA.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, okay.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're all trying to figure out a way to navigate around that in our own special way.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I know it's early.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: The games have just come out.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: The scores are great.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: How are you feeling?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: How is it all going so far?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're thrilled.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was an emotional moment when the review embargo left, I think, on Friday.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was traveling and wanted to get away for a few days just before.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not to get away from it all, but I don't know.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: You go through these things.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Making a game is difficult.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Launching a game is hard as well.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you have this moment where you're so fixated on everything that's wrong.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: At the end,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: when you're finding something that you're constantly looking for things to optimize
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: or to fix or to,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: you have to remind the studio,
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: this is only we know those things, only we see those things.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that launch moment is one where you're sort of transitioning away from that mode
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: and into a, oh my goodness, what are people going to think about it?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt like we had something good,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: but to see it, to see that Reflected back in the critical reception.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now that we've launched in some of the wonderful comments that we're seeing
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: from people that have,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: thankfully,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: like you have, Chris, supported a small independent studio by buying the game.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're really thrilled.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we believed in this from the very beginning.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, Matt,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: you hit it right,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: is you are too close to it in the months leading up to the launch to be
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: a true neutral observer of it.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I've always,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: from the beginning,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: this was a thing that if we just did what we can do together,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: we were going to have something that people really loved.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know that the journey on this was like three days after setting up Fuse, Matt,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: you spoke to Lucas,
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: and then is it three weeks,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: three months, you had a prototype, and then here we are three years.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was, yeah,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: three and a half weeks,
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: three and a half months,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: three and a half years is my small little mantra at the moment.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got nothing at all to do with when I gave up smoking about 15 years ago
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: that someone said to me,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: it's two days, two weeks, two months, two years, apparently.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I must have been reflecting on that strangely when I got to that one.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it was, yeah,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: three and a half weeks,
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: We went and we flew over to see Douglas and the fact that we've had
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: a working relationship for a number of years,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Douglas and the crew there were very kind to accept a meeting from us and
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: to hear what we had to say.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And felt it was a good idea.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we progressed on that.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And three and a half months later, we had,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think, about 20 people on a prototype that we felt was beginning to show Thomas.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then three and a half years later, we'd actually gone gold.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: So to get onto that disc of yours, we have to finish it up front.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important to us,
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: actually, that what's on the disc is as good as we can possibly make it.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And clearly, we have the opportunity to patch things later.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what is on the disc
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really wonderful expression.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that journey,
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: it's a nice wrap up,
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: of the time,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: but also it's a reflection of the incredible support and belief that we had
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: from Douglas and his team there at Lucasfilm Games to support us.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was just five of us and with a big idea,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: and to support us and to offer up,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: even before we had any official relationships with anybody else,
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: That belief and that commitment to get engaged and collaborate from such
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: an early time was really profound for us now when we look to reflect on it.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pivotal moment for us and profoundly important.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the thing that Matt's being very gracious
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: and humble about it,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: and yes,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: it was true,
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: it was him and his four merry band of mates trying to convince us to make
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: a racing game,
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: but I really have to emphasize how important it was that we had worked
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: with them together, that we'd had an experience with that leadership.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: I've been very fortunate to work with some of the best teams being some of
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: the best stuff in the world.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe this is a personal thing,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: but the burnout games are a trigger for many bleary-eyed mornings over the years.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I obviously have a lot of affinity for the things that the Fuse team had done
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: in the past.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it was not a question of, do we do this?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do we find a way to make this work from the very beginning?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems quite fast,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Matt, to go from launching a studio to having a game in three and a half years.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: It feels fast to me.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how have you pulled it off?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we felt like we were going quickly when we talk about it in those terms
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: of having something stood up pretty quickly.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk in weeks and months, that sounds fast.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you start talking in years, it feels like it Well, that's years.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel fast at all.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the things that folks are telling me, I think it is fast to go from zero.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it really was from zero to done in three and a half years and a little bit later
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: to where we are now.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And everything that that's involved.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And also at the time,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: I remember about sort of six months in somebody saying to me,
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: wow, you're brave starting a studio in 2023.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Am I?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Am I?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Am I missing something?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you were.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: I was missing something.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some sort of naivety that I've got in me,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: but we went on a journey and maybe that naivety was what took us through.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not knowing sometimes is of value, but yeah, I think you're right.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: We stood up the studio, we stood up.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that we've learned has led us to here though.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we knew that You could have built a great team to build a great game.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the starting point.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Can I ask about this Luna partnership?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: How did that come about?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: It surprised me.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was an interesting thing to see it launched day in there.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why does it work for a game like this?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about it.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just a really good opportunity to get.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: when I reflect back on I think a game like this deserves to be on as many platforms
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: as we can possibly get it or in as many hands as we can possibly get it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the modern gaming landscape is one that there's lots of opportunity
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: and there's lots of competition.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: So how can we continue to find ways in which to get a game like this?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: In particular,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think a game like this where When you hold it in your hands,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: that's as much a part of getting it as watching a video or seeing somebody else play
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: or reading something about it.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that was one of the reasons why getting out to Gamescom and getting
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: into people's hands there is really powerful because that's when you believe.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we felt that was a great opportunity for us to To do something there,
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: to see how something like this that we had spent an awful lot of time on
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: from day zero in terms of its feel,
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: but also in terms of its technical objectives of low latency,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: high frame rate,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: high consistent frame rate, how does that work on a streaming platform?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty good.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the dream, Douglas, is to get this on Disney+, right?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: There is a dream.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: There is a dream.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll ask you a specific question,
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: which is when we spoke earlier in this year,
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: you said about how I think it might have been all your codev partners or most of
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: the codev partners you worked with were UK based.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of thought that was interesting.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Since then,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've had loads of conversations with similar developers that outsource
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: to cheaper locations or work with that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm interested, why was it important?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well,
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: it's part of a broader strategy that we had,
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: as long as the big idea of making a racing game inside of the Star Wars galaxy,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: it was,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: how do we as a new young studio punch a ball away,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it would be the metaphor,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: and how do you do that in a modern way,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: where games are expensive, where lots of talent is in a high cost location?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: And our assertion was, Scale capacity and capability don't scale the studio.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we concentrate on the core and building that just incredibly valuable
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: and vital core team,
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: and then supplement that with capabilities and capacities that we will bring in.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it just so happened that the development landscape in the UK really lends itself to that.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we think about distributed development, as we call it, across three vectors, really.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's the further out from a relationship point of view,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Still a relationship but a little bit more transactional and they're generally
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: in lower cost locations for us.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then you come in and we call in external development where maybe there's a piece
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: of work that we can place wholly with somebody.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: They operate and execute against it and then we bring it back in.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's code development,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: which is closer to us,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: and they're in our stand-ups, they're in our dailies, they're in our source base.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when that's true, time zone is of incredible value when you want to iterate quickly.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, the iterative loop is build it fast, review it, change it.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: The more times you go through that loop, the better something gets.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: So optimizing when you have people close in,
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: optimizing on high frequency communication is important.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it just so happens that there are a number of partners that we have around
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: the UK that were pretty much an extension of our team.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: And their location was of value,
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: but also their expertise and the capacity and capability that they brought
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: to us was really valuable.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I've come around to in these conversations I've had
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: on other shows is like, yes,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: you can outsource to cheaper locations,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: but actually we're in a very competitive industry where you've got to be the best.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just do things cheaply.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be good.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously when it comes to racing games, The UK is pretty good at racing games.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So my connection in my brain was like,
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: you've got the expertise here and maybe there's a cheaper option somewhere else,
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: but is it the better option?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: And in this market, you've got to pick a better option if you can, right?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the conversations we've been having.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Douglas, we've had two Star Wars games in less than two months.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Both are quite similar in a way,
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: even if they're not, but in the sense they're both from independent developers.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Both those developers are famous for a certain genre
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: and they've made Star Wars versions of that.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is this part of the strategy now?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Should we expect more Lucasfilm projects to receive sort
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: of high quality AA executions from veteran independents,
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: as somebody called it on LinkedIn?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, it very much is part of the strategy.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously,
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: making the big,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: huge AAA games like Battlefront and other kinds of things,
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: they're always going to be a central part of the strategy.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the great things about Star Wars,
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: it has all kinds of other opportunities to tell stories in different genres.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you can imagine it in the real world,
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: you can find an application inside Star Wars And so the goal has really been find
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: the best partner who makes that experience come alive inside the galaxy far,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: far away.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't have to always be AAA.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it can be AA.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really about the experience that we're delivering and the fantasy we're fulfilling.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes those fantasies aren't AAA fantasies.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're smaller in scale, smaller in scope.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're more narrow in their ambition.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it gives us the ability to take something You know,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: there's a very iconic moment from the movies that people love and then pick it out
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: and pull it and express it in a different way where people can be part of it
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: and learn something new about the galaxy far,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: far away in ways that the rest of the franchise will up to.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we have that ability to do that.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, both these games have been really well received.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: What does success look like when it comes to a project like this?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: To me, success is, is it a great game?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: Everything flows from did you make a great game that feels authentic to
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: the Star Wars universe and it is something that the fans want to play.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really not that hard.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've kind of really boiled the strategy down to something that's find
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: the best partners to make the best games and kind of all
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: the business-y stuff will,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: for the most part,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: sort itself out because we're fortunate enough to play in a You know,
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: in an IP where we have lots of fans ready for us to make things that they want
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: to enjoy.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: So just give them great things that they want, and it gets a lot easier from there.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the scores for both of these games must be
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: the highest-scored Star Wars games for 20 years.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: in my head,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: this is,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know, from Star Wars Galactic Racer, that's why I was surprised by the price.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Looks AAA.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: It plays like one of the best racing games you can get.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Zero, you know, it looks like a really high quality XCOM-like sort of strategy game.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's up there with those sort of top, top games.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, because they're more focused and they're More genre specific.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I still think the quality is sort of AAA.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when we use the terms AA, sometimes it can get confused.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking really budgets.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, that's exactly the way.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: We don't think of it as AA in terms of its execution of a great Star Wars experience.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: To the team's credit, it is very much a AAA experience.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: It is the best expression of Star Wars racing you could probably imagine.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: But its scope is different.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: Its budget is different.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have to try and find,
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: some language to describe these things differently because I do think this world
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: where titles are 59, 69, 79,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: they are lower priced and lower scope to deliver a thing very well and then to stop.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you don't have to have everything in the kitchen sink in one of these experiences.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: They can be just really good, tight, well-scoped, well-delivered games.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe if we get rid of the labels entirely.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you can figure out a way to do that, Chris,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: you will be a
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: hero among many.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's an us thing, isn't it?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's us that's labeling in those particular ways.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think we want to operate at the highest possible level of our craft and
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: to Douglas's point of make the best thing we can possibly make.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, along the way, there's compromises.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you making the right ones?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have that tightness of vision?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have something compelling from a creative perspective?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the thing that's bringing in the surprise people because
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: the obvious thing here would be for us to have made a Star Wars racing game.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: But actually we both wanted to do more than that.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you do that and push the genre forward and take some bold creative choices
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: and sort of bring something new and fresh and contemporary
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: A beloved genre that we felt could do with some shaking up.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where the belief comes in and the support.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's then reflected in what people are telling you about it
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: when you go and execute against a very clear vision.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Douglas,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a sort of nuts and bolts question to follow up on all that,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: which is Some independents are obviously not necessarily set up to work
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: with someone like a Lucasfilm or Disney, right?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't have the right legal teams or that kind of thing.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Fuse is, I imagine, a bit of an exception here.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because you want to work with these sort of people, how do you manage that?
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is that where a middle partner like an EA or a secret mode come in?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, I mean,
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: we're obviously a licensing business,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: so we're not the publishers anymore of products.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Our goal is to try and find a publishing partner and a developer or a publisher and a developer.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's a little bit of grab Grab tab A,
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: grab tab B, combine a secret mode with a fuse and let the magic happen, so to speak.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've tried to be more flexible about like who we're willing to take pitches
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: from and who we're willing, like good ideas can come from a lot of different places.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to necessarily be a top five publisher to make a great Star Wars game.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: There are some hurdles in terms of like we have a high quality bar and we want
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: to make sure they're excellent experiences.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that means typically you work with more experienced teams than new teams
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: who have no track record of making great things.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: But we're exploring all kinds of things that large and small with partners
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: that I think are going to continue to surprise folks who are like,
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: oh, they're doing a thing with them.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like that might be interesting to see how that turns out.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because again,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: the goal is to is to try and find a way to express Those Star Wars fantasies with
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: the people that are best capable of doing it.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't necessarily have to be the biggest and most expensive studios in the world.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: My next question is going to be, what makes a good partner for an IP like Star Wars?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: But you kind of answered it there.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Go on, Matt.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I was interrupting you.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was just going to follow up on that.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it will surprise you when
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, well, this collaboration with Lucasfilm started from week four, really.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was before we had any of the structures in place.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what we did have was an understanding of the relationship and how to operate within that.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: So because we have an understanding of what it takes to work with Douglas
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: and his team and in this incredible galaxy,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to build that into your way of working.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like any other constraint, really.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can't fight it.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're working with it.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an honor and a privilege to do so.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they are the experts.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're the experts in Star Wars and there are game makers there
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: and that's incredibly valuable because you're not...
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with other licensed partners in the past and it's an approval transaction model.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is not that by any stress of the imagination.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you go in understanding what that's all about and you don't need Perhaps all
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: of the mechanisms and machinations that you might think,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: you just need to have an understanding of how each other operate and what
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: the expectations are, and then you build that into your operating model.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth noting, Matt, that you helped launch
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: FIFA.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know a little bit about this space.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was very young in my game-making career when that design happened.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't many people involved in that as there are now, that's for sure.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine it's significantly more complex than I can possibly imagine now, that thing.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing remains true.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be making something with somebody else's property,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: in particular,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: like such a beloved thing,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: as we're talking about here, there's a responsibility to that.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to take it and operate accordingly.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what now, right?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are we talking Galactic League esports tournaments?
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are we going Galactic Racer, Toy Range?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're through stage one.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's next?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's launch week.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't even had our first weekend yet.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're not going to get a week to like bask in the glory, man.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, what are you going
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: to do?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: What now?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, come on.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Surely you know everything else.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not being flippant,
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: but it's really important that we are going to learn more in the next 72 hours
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: than we ever will have done.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout the development of this game,
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: we're going to get a few hundred thousand hours worth of play on Saturday,
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you ain't never testing for that.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's going to be things that you discover from a play and a
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Profile that you haven't seen before.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important for us to respond to that.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly, yes, we've got ideas of where this can go and what we want to do.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: We certainly don't want this to be launch it and that's it.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're done.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're off onto something else.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Modern games and modern gamers expect there to be extensions and enhancements to something.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we hoped to be able to do things like that for this game.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the true thing is,
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do that in concert with the community and we don't have all the answers.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to see,
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: we need to reflect,
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: we need to watch,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: we need to hear,
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: we need to listen,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: we need to participate together with players and that will help inform some of
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: the ideas that we've got and it will help Determine where we go next and when.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've certainly got some ideas and we've got plans in place and we're going
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: to be talking about them, I would imagine, in the coming weeks and months.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part,
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: we've got to go and see how people are reacting and responding to what we've made.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think Matt had done something really important,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: which is you think you know the thing that is going to resonate with fans,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: as you're making it,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: and then you get surprised by something that turns out to be,
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: way more fascinating and interesting to the fans than you expected them to be.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the good news is, you know, Star Wars doesn't just disappear
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: three weeks after launch.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: We have a whole ecosystem of potential ways of taking these characters and stories
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: and applying them to a whole bunch of other expressions that we know our fans love
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: to see the gaming The experience and the characters they played with show up
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: in other places doing other things inside the Star Wars galaxy and it rewards
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: that connected fandom in a very unique way that we're fortunate to have.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we're always looking for like, okay,
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: what worked and what excited people,
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: let's lean in and try and give them more of what they want.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to skim speed a Lego set.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, somebody's already
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: done that.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can go online and someone will show you how to make your own with the bits
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: that you might have knocking around.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is it you?
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not me actually.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someone came with that really quickly and I looked at it and I went,
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: wow, that's actually really good.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the wonderful thing that you've got with an engaged set of fans
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: that love the thing that you've made.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled with what I'm already seeing,
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: how people are hooking with the characters that we've all created together.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we came at this, we wanted to tell a sports story in Star Wars.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: We knew that racing as an activity and as a sport has existed in Star Wars for a long time.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't anything that sort of joined those two things together.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: And with the Galactic League, we've kind of got that.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here we've got these races and these rivalries and these characters that are new
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: and interesting and fall into this wonderful galaxy and are already creating people
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: that are going to fall in love with some of these new characters from after.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we made our Slash Liverpool with Hippie, the Scouse mechanic.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got Orion Purr, who's one of my favorite, or Biddy Blaze.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's some characters that people are going to see that they're going to fall in love with.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we love working in Star Wars.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm out of questions.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations on the launch so far.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pleased to know, Matt, I'm a lot better at it
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: now than I was in the summer.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the game loop we've got going on, you know, it's practice and mastery.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations, we succeeded in the roguelite die down.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: So congratulations on it.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's an excellent game and it's wonderful to see.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that you get the audience
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: success that matches the critical success as well.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Chris.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Chris.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you to Matt and Douglas there.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: And indeed, thank you to Tyler early on in this episode.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: All that's left for me to do is to wrap up the news.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And oh my goodness, there's a lot of AI news this week.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Fries the brain.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox has formed Xbox Labs.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's in response to the recent explosion in AI game modding ports
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: and recompilations,
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: including big games remix into the source code of other titles, all using AI.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: In an email to staff,
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox boss Asha Sharma wrote,
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: these experiments challenge long held assumptions about our industry,
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: the tether between software and hardware,
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: the boundary between creation and play and how people discover and experience games.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: While it is hard to predict the future of gaming,
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: it is easy to see the possibilities in making great games easier to access,
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: giving old games new life and allowing more players to become creators
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: and co-creators.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: These are unmistakably good outcomes for players,
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: even when and sometimes because they challenge our existing business models.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: As a result of all this,
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox has formed Xbox Labs,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: according to Asher,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: a small group of game makers,
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: engineers and scientists whose job it is to turn emerging ideas
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: into things our players and developers can experience.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Xbox has launched a sort of experimental group looking at these AI,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: could be compilations to see what they can do.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of new Xbox divisions, Xbox has also revealed its XP business unit.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's a division all about extending the Xbox franchises outside of games.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's film, TV, merchandise, events, all that sort of thing.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically stuff it was already doing,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: it's already doing the Minecraft movie and the Fallout TV show and a Call
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: of Duty movie and a Diablo TV show and partnerships with Ikea for Xbox furniture
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: and events like BlizzCon and,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: they already do this stuff,
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: but this division sort of gives it all a bit Xbox does say it wants to be
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: the number one entertainment company in the world.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very Xbox ambition, I have to say.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: Kayleen Walters has been named the president of XP.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: She was doing a similar thing before,
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: but actually she was also president of Mojang and has been a bit of a moving around
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: of people there.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a massive story really, but it shows how important that division has become to Xbox.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've got some layoff news.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Ubisoft has proposed the closure, finished studio Red Links.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the studio famous for the Trials games, which are great.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also making job cuts at Skull and Bones developer Ubisoft Singapore.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: There are 52 employees affected at Red Links and 70 in Singapore.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: One of the big conversation points this week has come out from Epic.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Epic Games is shifting to an AI-first development model,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: which is impacting its upcoming Disney collaboration according to Bloomberg.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing is that they're really, really trying to push AI.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now Epic boss Tim Sweeney said,
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: we have a huge pivot underway here at Epic,
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people,
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: but to enable everyone here to build more and better stuff and to bring the benefits
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: to all teams using Unreal.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: He responded to a few people on Twitter and one of the things he said was,
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: our more modest aim is to survive the AI revolution and help other developers do
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: the same and come out the other end making better code and content faster.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: I do think making games faster is very important.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think AI can definitely play a role in that.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not entirely convinced that there's going to be space for all of these games.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we already know there isn't.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: A few other stories.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: One of a game developer,
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: used to be former Karma Sutra if you remember,
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: the sort of GDC owned games media publication.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very good.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: Chris Kerr,
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: who was the senior editor there,
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: he's launched a new subscription funded publication called Vertical Slides,
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: which wants to deliver incisive,
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: bold reporting for video game industry professionals.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's sort of leaning very heavily on subscription for its business model.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's big.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of cool people are doing this at the moment,
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm not sure it can scale beyond one or two people.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going fully subscription only, at least that's in my experience.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: But good luck to Chris, very good journalist, very exciting.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Power Out Pictures is adapting a live action film set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: The project will be co-produced between CD Projekt Red
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: and Transformers producer Lorenzo D. Bonventura.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some big names involved there.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: Elsewhere, Sony will transfer 419 global VR patents to Meta.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: The firm is winding down its VR efforts.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: They've been backing away from the technology ever
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: since they launched PlayStation VR 2 basically in 2023.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: Another Ubisoft story, Rainbow Six Mobile is shutting down less than a year after it came out.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: The tactical shooter will be available to play until January 15th, 2027.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: The team will now move on to other projects.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: in sort of depressing US console sales news,
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: console sales fell 15% year on year to 559,000 units in August.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's the lowest August total since 2013.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Xbox hardware unit sales declined 31% year on year.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: PlayStation fell 11% and Nintendo hardware sales decreased 15%.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: What I will say is the UK numbers for September are already in.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that, it's a far more positive picture.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: We saw a big uptick in the UK as a result of the GTA Netflix reveal and
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: the Zelda Ocarina of Time reveal on Nintendo Direct.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Both of that caused a bit of a surge in interest around consoles.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's happened in the US yet.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: September data will come in later in the month.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully it's just a bit of a summer blip.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see,
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: obviously,
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: there's been loads of price rises on the consoles,
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: which is having an adverse effect.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right, that's it for me.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we recorded this episode,
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: by the way,
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: on Wednesday morning,
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: so there may have been a few news stories that slipped through the graph
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: that isn't here.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to make sure that we didn't miss anything, you can check the newsletter.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: The newsletter will be fully up to date.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll all be talking about some of those news stories.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, all that's left for me to say is thank you for joining us.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: We will be back next week with more big interviews,
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: including, hopefully, an interview of Ken Kutaragi, the father of PlayStation.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: by the time you listen to this,
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would have just got off stage having interviewed him in the UK.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it went well.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if it did, you'll be watching it on Tuesday next week.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: But until then, thank you for tuning in.