Age of Empires Mobile / Balatro’s Success / Sony Layoffs / Apple Arcade Woes

[Music] welcome to the novit gaming podcast where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games we bring together the industry's brightest Builders investors and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events dissect emerging Trends and games share Lessons Learned and have a great time this podcast is also part of novic growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to Consulting and advice ADV services for more information visit [Music] www.nic.edu and Esports tournament organizers grids data infrastructure and Distribution Solutions help game rights holders unlock new revenue streams while empowering their communities and professional players no matter what you are building grid can un un lock your

game's data potential through its off-the-shelf grid SDK or fully customizable Solutions Plus if you're a developer or entrepreneur with a live data powered project idea make sure to apply for grid open access to start building with supported official game data today learn more and sign up at grid. or check out the link in the show notes and with that let's jump into the episode hello everyone welcome to another novic round table with my myself the host Devin Becker and uh and two fantastic guests as usual Dave and Felipe how you guys doing today doing well thank you doing well how about you Devon doing good doing good outside of uh introducing myself apparently we uh we wanted to mention briefly as well uh I think some of this will be at GDC um so with that coming up if you guys are planning on being out there you know make sure to email hit us up uh you can hit us up at podcast nov. try and find out about some meetups I'm not sure if we'll have anything publicly

arrangeable anything like that but definitely try and stay in the loop we also have a Discord things like that so make sure to to check that out and hopefully we'll have lots of cool stuff going on because I know a lot of a lot of us a lot of Industry people in general be at GDC especially without E3 I think this is like the big thing to go to now uh for everyone who just wants the game thing to go to so definitely make sure to check it out absolutely we do also have a lot of good game topics today you know leading up to GDC I'm sure we'll have a ton after GDC as well no doubt but uh but some good ones today I think a lot of interesting stuff happening in the space still uh some new games uh both on mobile and on and steam some interesting stuff going around with st with Sony in terms of like shifts and apple arcade as well as just some discussion around live Ops uh that we kind kind of be coming a live Ops discussion itself where we're continuing to service that discussion over time so why don't we just get right into it Felipe there was something you wanted to share around a mobile game that I think a lot of older Gamers might be interested in yeah exactly I think that that many of us are excited to to hear

that Age of Empires is coming to Mobile so it's been announced that the game is expected to be released in August 2024 and you can already pre-register uh on the mobile app stores and there is a set of rewards that you will get by Pro reging now uh the developer is Timmy is part of tent and is the same developer as return of to Empire uh and indeed if you if you see some of the videos that have been presented intro and other like more extended uh videos that have been shared some to some influencers you can see some relevant resemblance between uh return to Empire and the new version of f of Empire so probably having the same developers not just a pure coincidence but they're probably like reusing the expertise and inde did that some some people comment that uh could be maybe a

a port of the game that is working very well in China to to the Western markets that could make sense because it will have many many features proven uh the promise of the game is to have like the classic gameplay that Mo most of us fell in love with uh from the original PC series but simplified and optimized uh with controls uh more more uh in line with with the mobile mobile devices uh the features that it will include this like larg scale world world exploration where you can explore bass map and build Empires the SI battles and then you will have uh both PVE campaigns and PVP uh mode so you play against other players there is not much details that have been sh be like the right now there will be like um few characters and there are some that has been presented in in the in the in the web page so some

historical heroes and you can see very very good and polish animations of each of them and then to to begin with you will have four civilizations French byzantines Romans and Chinese so uh I don't know guys what do you think it looks exciting to me at least like uh it brings a lot of memories back and uh at least like I will try definitely and I hope that I don't put as much hours as I put in the original because otherwise my life is ruined uh I'm definitely looking forward to it uh you know been playing Age of Empire since the since the very first one you know probably same as zo Felipe um yeah I'm looking forward to it I I do think that it's a you know solid choice and and bring Timmy in as their development partner they bring a lot of expertise there and you know crafting the large scale uh games and uh yeah I I just really look forward to playing it yeah I mean definitely Timmy is is like

showed with like Pokemon unite and Call of Duty that they're they're pretty good at handling some of these properties and in Mobile doing like a good job with them so I think it's good the I guess the big question I have is is how much it uh is close to what the original like did well that people want because like and presenting this in the light of um command and conquer the the uh the infamous continued struggle to release something that actually is Command and Conquer and not just a reskin of something else uh like obviously they have that newer one that just looks like a reskin 4X game and I mean this is is there the chance that this is just a reskin Forex game as well or is this something that like actual age of Empire fans are gonna be like oh actually I'd want to play this not just throw up in my mouth when I see it kind of thing yeah I feel like this is quite tricky right because on one hand like uh you want to to to keep the the essence of of the original games but all it's true that it's not the same same platform and the Dynamics of the place

are different and probably like experiencing the same the same game in Mobile will be not as as good as playing it in PC right so of course you need to make some trade-offs and these decision should should like maybe be to to bring some Innovation uh but like uh making it more playable in mob through that right so yeah the the monetization side will think for me be one of the questions in terms of how intrusive will that be like what are the elements that they're looking on monetizing uh from the timers perspective from um you know what uh you know are they units that are only available through monetization um so I I think for me it just the the implementation of of that side of things will be a will be a a question mark for me and something definitely wanna want to get through as well as the the UI question yeah I think this is very interesting question

because um normally Forex games in Mobile try to have like a small usase that most of them pay but here with Age of Empires you have a very uh Big Brand with a lot of fans over the years so like I guess that you would need to be a bit more I would say concessive to the players that just want to casually play and that don't want to pay yeah I mean I think we saw like Civilization for example get changed pretty significantly when they started trying to make mobile games like these these older style games from PC that they do feel like they're maybe a little bit hard to Port as well to mobile even if you weren't to try and like modernize them from the monetization standpoint things like that just UI ux with controls and things like that you're not on mouse and keyboard anymore I do remember seeing like when I was looking through Ubisoft stuff before they had done okay with like Might and Magic re-releases for example like older ones uh on mobile that were like just basically emulating the old ones obviously they phased that out over time that was like kind in early earlier days

when there was like attempts to do a lot more like PC ports or console ports so it would be interesting to see I mean in general like Call of Duty for example was a pretty significantly different game in a lot of ways uh from like the desktop or console version but I think it did kind of keep a lot of the essence of the game pretty intact while still changing a lot of the the other elements so I guess that's the question here's like can they just keep the core enough the same that people like well this is what I wanted but obviously it has to change in some way um otherwise like it becomes you know just burning another brand like I said like like Command and Conquer is a good example them continuing to like not do that brand Justice to the point where you know it's like it's like when uh blizzard announced Diablo for mo mobile that sort of oh God this you know kind of thing whenever they announce it the new Commander conquer game for mobile that kind of thing so I just wonder I mean obviously we had some other games like like Arc like Rumble that were that better much better recepted uh or received as opposed to you know just

trying obviously like they could just call it something else other than Age of Empires not have that risk but then they don't get the uh the ease of marketing that they get I I just wonder also though is there do you think there's a large enough Age of Empire's audience uh that play mobile games because obviously like that it does skew a bit older only in the sense that it's an older game like you know the fan base probably goes back a bit more than you know fortnite or something does so like obviously we all play mobile games here and we're a bit older so you know there it's not like we're against it I just wonder if that the audience is really there for it or not probably yeah probably is there but not playing these type of games on mobile right so not playing Forex and maybe play more casually so yeah could be um and it was this hasn't been the first time that they've uh released stage of Empire titles on mobile as well um they did have uh previous titles at least one that I know of um that was more mobile

Centric um namely uh Age of Empire's Castle Siege um which was uh on both IOS and Android uh but that was launched a number of years ago back in 2017 I think it was was that pitched more as a spin-off kind of thing rather than a Mainline title then uh yeah no it was it was a separate sorry it's 2015 for iOS 2017 for Android so so quite a while ago is this one being pitched Felipe is more of a spin-off or is more of a a Mainline title like sequel kind of thing this one I feel like is is the main title so I feel like that there will be many many elements from from RoR to Empire that they they they put it here but like at least I would say from what you can see there is like the Age of Empires game for mobile okay cool well I mean hopefully it does good obviously it's nice to not burn the old Brands and do the justice and you know build a new audience around it rather

than just like milk a franchise so I do hope that's good like I said i' I've I have some faith in Timmy as a developer they've done a pretty good job um with a lot of these games I think I mean obviously opinions probably differ on their you know their development style but I think they've done a pretty good job at least making high quality experiences on mobile so hopefully that works out obviously uh you know I I do Wonder then you know is this getting like the Chinese release you said maybe this is already a game like that was the Chinese game getting ported or I mean is this something that's likely to to to come out I mean obviously they have to deal with the lights you getting approved and all that sort of thing but you know being Chinese developer you think that would be an important thing for them to accomplish yeah I would say it's not just a port because I mean is is the game the game is named h of Empire return to Empire so it's already using the brand and like otherwise it would be more like just translating the game right and adapting like a little bit to to make more fit to to Western audience I think like it's it's like I would say

probably it's a 2.0 version of this one making it for for the Western audiences okay cool well hopefully that comes out good uh speaking of older games that uh have a long-standing audience with a new Twist on them uh I wanted to kind of share an interesting success story since we've had a lot of those lately most recently hell divers 2 and po World there was another one that I think probably parallels a bit more vampire survivors which is batro if you've heard of it it's definitely been doing quite well it is a Rog likee poker game which means there's you know poker as a core mechanic but at the end of the day it's like a Rog likee deck builder sort of thing sort of you know uh in line with something like slay the Spire but not necessarily I think that's um a comparison that probably draws a lot more analogies than are actually there especially as the developer admits he only played slay the Spire like just to see what their controls were like as specifically tried to avoid uh a lot of influences which I think is interesting in of itself so the the big story here is that because of being a smaller game

by a single developer uh and and a publisher that mostly publishes smaller titles on Steam was profitable within one hour and that's pretty good for I mean you hear that stuff with like kickstarters like oh funded in an hour so like that where that's really just they set the number kind of low uh this is the case where the game itself is profitable within an hour to be fair this developer was mostly developing it kind of as on as off time um you know on his vacations as a hobby things like that so when it says become profitable I'm not sure if that necessarily implies whatever he was paid by the publisher um that you know became profitable as in it made more money than that or any Mar it doesn't sound like there was marketing for the most part other than a demo that made the rounds so I can't imagine there was a lot of cost there but it is pretty interesting to see another small game you know when we're constantly talking about layoffs and cutbacks and games that come out that flop and things like that to see these independent developers make these games just whatever they want to make and just iterate on it and iterate on it

and make it really good and put it out and then be successful without huge amounts of marketing like I think hell diverse 2 was another example that where there wasn't a huge amount of marketing it just kind of dropped all of a sudden so it is really interesting to see this as a trend I mean obviously it's not something you're going to bet on right you're not gonna be like I'm gonna quit my day job and I'm just gonna start making a game and then it's going to be successful to be clear this developer had been developing games for a long time mostly just for fun friends and family kind of games he wasn't employed as a professional game developer he was just working a kind of normal day job and just occasionally you know on his vacation time or whatever working on this game just because he thought it'd be fun and was just like oh I'll take this poker mechanics and and make this into more of a game he was I guess inspired by uh seeing luck be a landlord which was a slot machine deck building game which is one that a genre that has actually had a few different entries in different places that always been kind of a fan of that particular idea which is interesting but never even actually played the game just saw videos of it and was inspired and then went off and just was like ah this would be a fun

idea I'd already been working on a game with cards in it let me just make this um and and you know this is not a game with huge amounts of monetization stuff it's not some live service thing it's not uh some crazy game with tons of DLC and things like that it's just small little indie game pretty cheap and I think vampire survivors was a good analogy similar idea where a dude just made something because he wanted to make it while on vacation and continue data raate on it because people liked it and in this case I think it's one of those things you can't really depend on which is you know streamers just picking it up I think in this case like I you know I tried to look into how the marketing actually happened for this and it was really just as some YouTubers picked it up and then of course I think there's like a bit of a copycat nature you get where you know YouTubers see other YouTubers doing stuff or twitch streamers see other twitch streamers playing something and it has that virality because they're like oh I'm gonna try that too or people are interested in this so I'm gonna play it on my stream as well and obviously you get lucky or not but what are your guys's thoughts in terms of like this kind of development of where you're like hey I'm just going to make what I think

is good I'm a solo developer I'm not going to quit my day job over it but in this case he did end up losing his job and then just kind of worked on this more full-time obviously that sounds risky like what are you guys's thoughts in General on that sort of mentality around development uh well I wouldn't bet the farm on it but uh you know th these types of passion projects um are the ones that often do have that opportunity to kind of break through the noise when it's something interesting something a little bit more more unique to uh to what's out there um and you know you're not as you said you know Devin it it was profitable within a very short period of time but it's cost were also really low right you know it's a single player or single developer trying to build something that he considers fun and with that you need to find a niche you know a niche audience um and that's all you really really need in order to you know be a real success

at it um will we see more of it the number of games that appear on Steam each and every day uh does make that difficult there's a lot of noise out there you know not at the same level obviously as you see inside the app store or inside the Android play store um but but there is that still that challenge to trying to break through the noise but um you know I think when when someone offers something that's a little bit more interesting a little bit interesting take on on what is out there right now it certainly does have that opportunity and especially if it's something that's a you know a a work of passion it's funny to call it Niche when you got 30,000 people online right now playing it steam alone yeah from my side I I really love this this kind of stories right like I feel like it it make you reflect on how privileged we we are to to work in games and be that our day job uh when you see people that have other jobs and uh in their free time they they develop uh

games for fun right so we are lucky to be doing a fun job uh for our daily job I'm curious too like on your guys' thoughts on this where I I noticed that one of the aspects that seem to help quite a bit was having a demo in the sense that a demo for a game like this really uh conveys the the core gameplay very quickly right it's because it's a relatively simple game if you're you're playing with poker hands and you able to modify your deck over time but you're basically playing with poker hands and that's what you're taking advantage of is discarding drawing playing hands uh obviously there's little twists here and there to that but like being a simple thing that's easy to understand but also being able to get handson with a demo uh I've noticed demos have been something that that pretty much had died for a while on Steam and things like that and I think part of that was people would play they'd be like oh I get the idea but I don't need to buy the full thing and then I noticed demos had made a comeback over the last maybe a couple years a lot of that tied to their sort of uh pseudo festivals that they're running like

nextfest and things like that where they put out a demo that's like a Time limited demo and I can't tell you the number of demos I have in my steam library that are expired that I can't play from meaning to play them from those festivals um but I'm I'm curious like in this case I think it did have like a positive impact on getting people to convert even looking at the the the the trending chart for the demo alone on Steam charts was actually pretty high for for just the demo do you think this is something that is worth paying attention to for game develop first this idea of actually spending more time and effort on the idea of a demo especially with wish listing being so important to steam these days in terms of marketing well in my case I'm not very close to to developing Gams for for a steam right but I would say that that's basically what we do in Mobile so mobile we make a prototype that we call it a demo or whatever depends on the studio that they even call it the demo themselves right and then then you you put it in front of some players and you get some metrics and you understand if uh this is something that they like or not and also

you get some info on how you could make it better right in what which direction you you need to to focus more so I definitely think that this is important and and useful before you put a lot of for to build the whole game I think the with the demos though on the PC though I think it's a slightly different approach than than what we're used to on the mobile side um maybe a bit more of a marketing um aspect to it rather than uh looking for data in terms of what its retention looks like um I am like I am a fan of having demos out for games the reason being is that you know especially right now people um you know are they've got you know a limited amount of money to spend in their entertainment budget uh as costs go higher and higher in across all of the the entertainment spectrums people are you know are going to be putting their money where they think they're going to get the most entertainment and being able to try something

out um you know before you buy it I think does give you that opportunity to get really excited about something if you know if it's not if it's a pre-release demo uh or if it's a demo that's uh available right away that you know you feel like hey this is something that's really interesting exciting something new I'm G to go and buy it especially when it's something that is a genre that is outside of the norm or a game that's outside of the norm gives you an opportunity to see that it is something that's fun and interesting and and yes you do want to go spend some money on it I do think that when people are putting demos together they do need to go forward with creating a demo that makes people want to take that step to going and buying the full thing not to that as you were saying Devon you know they' played the demo like well I know what the game's like I've experienced everything I think there is so why do I need to go buy it it does need to be put together with a with an intention of how am I going to convince the player to purchase so I think in that aspect fit does share that uh you know that sense of what is

my what's my conversion going to look like uh that you that we need to have inside mobile um but you know from much more of a for that marketing perspective of how am I going to convert demo players into purchases I think it's interesting in light of free-to-play versus the the PC side because the PC side we're talking about games that cost money upfront to play right it's not free to play you can't just download them and I think steam in general has had kind of a tumultous relationship freeto play but in terms of it main audience generally like it has a free-to-play section things like that but those tend to be like MMOs uh and some other like you know games that that make some sense to be freeto playay on Steam but in general free-to-play mobile type mentality hasn't really done well on there but it it is interesting to see like some strategies around like because I mean I think back to shareware being like a big thing in the day and you had shareware discs and then then you remember console games with demo discs where it was like a good way to advertise your game as well right cuz it's a limited thing and

I mean how how many of us just played that that first level of PaRappa the Rapper like a million times andone just like okay I got to buy the full game uh but in this case I think there's an interesting twist to this around steam specifically in the ability to control that I kind of hinted at earlier which is this idea around if you release the demo during a time when the game's not purchasable and it's playable for limited time and then by the time the game comes out the demo shuts off and then it is no longer possible to cannibal the sales because unlike demos that were like shareware ones and stuff back in the day that people could download and play whenever they wanted in this case since it's running through Steam it can be shut off and you just can't play it like maybe you could someway through offline mode kind of thing but in general they can actually turn off the demo that you have downloaded earlier and now it can't actively cannibalize sales so I I I do wonder if there's something there in terms of being able to take some of the advantages of freeo playay which is allowing people to try out your game in a crowded marketplace where the two-hour refund thing isn't enough to get a lot

of people to Pie games combined with the idea of like okay well we can actually prevent this from cannibalizing sales actively and instead the conversion isn't uh demo to sales it's demo to wishlist to sales on release right like it's a it's a marketing tool now instead of a individual conversion tool right yeah yeah no I agree certainly definitely looked at as a marking tool as well as looking at um how can I set it up especially so that people feel like if they've experienced something inside the demo are they actually able to bring that into the main game and feel like they you know the time that they spent inside that demo isn't actually wasted time it it gives them sort of that leg up and and going into the the main game itself I saw Ubisoft promoting that with skull and bones like this idea that there was like you could play it uh sort of a certain amount of time they've essentially done a demo off their own game but not called it a demo it's just like a limited you can play a limited number of hours or whatever and then your progress will convert into the

main game like they make make that clear because they know it's a huge grind but they're also making it clear that that that will translate and I think that's an interesting point is that is your demo time wasted like are you putting effort into progress and then saying like am I throwing that away to start over in the main game and I think the big point with that that I run into is like do I have to do the tutorial again like that's that's the part you're like okay yeah let me just skip that part because I already know how to play the game from the demo right right so I I know just interested in this as a trend going forward as as games run into difficulties pushing sales any of these new strategies that may help the other thing I wanted to just briefly mention on this game was it does it does seem like uh at least for me personally it's it's sort of scratched this itch of like having like a soliter type game open uh where it's just kind of in the background like you know marvel snap tended to have that that category but that also tends to like be a little more attention syncing and that you playing against another person with time limits whereas this can just be kind of open you can kind of play as you play like soliter or something like that um this

idea of having these sort of idol games obviously that makes it so there's more people online playing it right if they're just leaving it open I do wonder if there's sort of a you know obviously we have Idol on mobile but like if there's this sort of Market Niche for replacing Microsoft solitire on desktop in some ways right these these sort of background games these games you can kind of casually play uh in the Rogue likee category especially they they're they're going to be different every time but you do feel like you you a little bit better so you make progress more on a skill level and not necessarily always on a meta progression level but that also the game doesn't matter as much because it's a Rog leg same with soliter right if you lose a game whatever it doesn't really matter you don't feel bad same with this kind of game oh it runs over that's fine I can start a new one like is this kind of a a category you know like the way we saw cozy games sort of evolve as a category right like do you guys think there's some potential here whether that be on desktop or mobile but especially on desktop where uh I I mean I doubt console has this kind of thing but do you guys think there's something there I think to some

degree I think even like even some of the the um hyper casual games or hyper casual games for me were like that there were just things that you know whenever was just kind of went to play and then came back it wasn't about having a huge investment in time where I felt like I need to sit down and you know consciously block out an hour because I know I'm going to be in front of the TV or in front of the PC for that period of time it's more of something of hey I'm gonna go I can play and spend bit time and I can go away without without feeling a a sense of U you know concern that something's gonna happen while I'm away from it um so I do think yeah it's one of those easy things to um have that just a couple moments of Escape escapism before going back to to real life definitely need that especially if you're doing it like I that's what I feel like alongside the a work PC right where you're if if you're allowed to play games on you work PC it seems like a good one as you said low

anxiety when it comes to okay let me get some work done and I won't feel bad leaving it open kind of thing I don't know I just I think there's there maybe a little bit of a a space there for similar reasons to Cozy games whereas people are looking for a different type of game uh style when it comes to like you said not blocking it out like we do have at least steam deck I think is helping create a space as well for sort of a different style of gameplay that's more portable now we also have like the what if you're on your work PC and now that everyone's working from home suddenly there is the potential for your work PC to allow games because you're not using a a lot of times a actual work PC it's your home PC that you're working on so there some thoughts there but on the opposite side of things unfortunately uh from from One Man solo developer to a whole bunch of people that may become solar developers soon uh we have some continued campaign of of layoffs being a trend here but uh I think with an interesting take on it from Dave yeah unfortunately um Sony continues the our unfortunate trend of the last while of announcing a large

scale layoff um they've announced that they're laying off approximately 900 employees from its PlayStation division uh which is about 8% uh of its Global headcount um now the layoffs will also affect a pretty wide variety of their Studios including Insomniac naughy dog Gorilla Games uh fire Sprite uh as well as some of their technology groups uh and the Bigg one obviously is the closure of their London studio um and this comes you know just a few days after Sony announced that they missed their PlayStation 5 sales Target um and uh they're also looking at some of the challenges around what those margins are inside the the cost of games um Sony president uh toi took the opportunity to kind of talk about where they're looking at refocusing some of their efforts um and looking at uh putting more of its resources towards

its PC and mobile uh stating delivering it sustaining social online experiences allowing PlayStation Gamers to explore our worlds in different ways as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and mobile require different approach and different resources uh while that's all and good you know kind of talking about where the you know where they're looking to bring the focus to the Future that unfortunately does have the impact on a large number of employees for this uh across the studios for me interestingly as you look at you know the largest impact obviously being uh the London studio and fires Sprite were a couple of the studios where they were focusing on VR efforts for PlayStation and if we can think back to the release of the PlayStation VR2 um you know Sony had some pretty lofty sales targets for the PlayStation VR uh and uh ended up not not true according to them but it does seem like you know they had set some lofty goals

and then they had to bring those back and you know with you're looking at the overall sales of PlayStation VR now trying to figure out how are they going to focus their uh their time and effort now that uh it does look like the the uptick is not where they want it to be they're trying to look at what are new ways they can bring uh the PlayStation VR Tech to other platforms so looking at bringing um the uh the VR2 to PC um so for me it's on the VR side of things inside PlayStation it does look like they are moving away from PlayStation or from VR development um but while at the same time trying to offer more opportunities for their their current titles uh as well as any future titles to to reach more people uh not just not just on the PlayStation 5 but uh across on the PC uh platform so uh my question uh to you is do you see this really as a change in uh Sony's efforts towards

VR does this potentially look at um you know how much effort they're going to put towards a VR headset for PlayStation 6 when it comes out um does this you know is this another situation where you know VR really again kind of had that moment of excitement about you know it's a new platform the things we can do VR are f fantastic and then uh unfortunately being let down that the the sales just aren't there to to Really help support uh sort of that that sort of vision kind of reminds me a little bit of son's handheld business with the um you know the PSP and the Vita like you know they tried a couple times the generations then eventually we're kind of like well I don't know maybe this isn't for us after all and like then you get the portal instead um obviously like the portal in a way is actually closer to the psvr and that it's connected to the main platform as its kind of main thing but but it doesn't surprise me considering we also saw another company that's really fixated on you know VR and

other technology other future Technologies kind of bow out which is Ubisoft basically after the Flop recently of that Assassin's Creed game Ubisoft was like you know what we love doing VR stuff but it's just not there right now we're just not we're not g to bother with it much and then on the other hand I I find it kind of interesting when you look at Capcom what they did with like Resident Evil 4 which was like hey let's take something that we you know people like that we think had a unique visual perspective that we can then maybe translate to something interesting in VR like I don't know if that was a huge profit for them I mean I don't know what the numbers ended up being but I I think I remember seeing it being relatively successful for at least remonetized like is there maybe more possibility there when it comes to Sony if they're like oh well then we'll just Port some of our games over uh instead of focusing on pushing our own hardware and incurring these huge costs maybe we can just remonetized games like the way they're like hey let's let's push out

Last of Us remastered uh you know the same sort of mentality and like let's let's at least monetize VR but keep our costs and and dedication to it really low until the Market's there I do wonder even if they are going to go that far just because um you know the the two main Studios or two of the main Studios that had that VR expertise uh have either seen you know a reduction uh in in Personnel or or being closed um I do think that certainly is the opportunity I think probably more the case of let's look at scaled down games um rather than trying to create a very large scale VR experiences um I I do think that there are some games that you know are just absolutely phenomenal in VR and just love playing them and uh I do I was at Capcom when they were first doing some of the the first VR uh versions of of some of the Resident Evil stuff and and

some of the senior exec staff couldn't play the game there was like I'm out you know play for a little while just like I'm done this is just too scary forget this um so I I do think there are some games that that that work very well inside the platform um I still love playing a number of VR titles but I think overall the biggest challenge is is that the the marketplace just isn't quite there um for a large scale uh and um you know potentially the the amount of effort and cost that that Sony was was putting towards them um and I think they're just going to see if they can open up the platform to as many developers that are interested in doing it and and hopefully bring in more players widen their uh you know potential player base that way first and then go back and see do this make sense to to reinvest inside that space for them f that'ss yeah I think like um for me I was thinking that I

don't know if you see it like that but I think like for for VR still like there hasn't been like this uh Mass Market product that really makes you buy the the VR right and that's probably on on one hand uh I would say like probably if they stop betting on finding that product then it doesn't matter what you invest in making the hardware right because you la the product that will Drive the people to to to get that uh for their home but probably would make sense to to in order to find that like not focus so much on the graphics and all that stuff and focus more on making it fun and maybe to focus on that you you need a smaller team and even the bigger team is is more distractive than because you need to keep a lot of people busy doing things that are like uh uh relevant to to to the the product that you are making but maybe what you need there is more

Exploration with a smaller team and that's probably part of the the command that they have now is that okay yeah get back to square Sho try to think uh on innovative ways and using this as a um interface for playing games and find that killer uh product that will make us sell tons of units of these and probably on that sense could make sense it's always unfort to to hear these news Sly I mean I guess that means a lot of experience VR devs on the market if you're looking to start a new VR Studio make that bet I did notice something interesting too uh you know when we're talking about Mass market and trying to find like a killer app is that um you know meta went from really heavily promoting beat saer as kind of their their easy entry like this is exciting this is why you want VR into now they're pushing the workout app constantly I'm seeing the ads for it on streaming services and YouTube and things like that pretty frequently so they're very heavily leaning into well okay if you don't want as a gaming machine this is

now a workout machine where people obviously spent a bunch of money on workout machines when you look at pelaton stuff like that there was obviously this idea that okay maybe there's money in Home Gyms and and that sort of mentality um obviously that's like semi- tangential gaming because it's still kind of gaming right they still kind of gamify it a bit but it's clearly like more of an app and and I I do wonder if the killer app ends up being an app and not a a game in that sense like obviously they're they're betting that to an extent right as well because they're putting a ton money in that and they obviously hope Horizon worlds gets to the point where that actually makes sense too but I mean do you think if we just you know stop treating it at like a game console and treat it like a smartphone uh instead obviously that's what Apple's doing right like with the with theion Pro like do you think that that maybe an angle where that it makes more sense because apps generally don't have huge teams the way games do they don't necessarily have the huge cost you're not going to spend a hundred million developing a simple app and obviously beat saber was an example of a game that was probably a small team as well but do you think like maybe there's some more future in thinking that direction and less about

oh we just need to be a big game studio and make big games uh I mean I think there are Studios out there right now that are still along those lines that have done well um if you look uh you know people that were working on um for the original Quest or the quest two you know those were uh Team sizes especially even further back um go back to HC headsets uh some of the original stuff that uh valve was doing you know those were teams that were small teams and they were focused on trying to find the fun um and I do think that that is probably the only real um the only team size that I would bet on right at this very moment until we start seeing the the market size increase um and I think that's the only way to to really be able to uh have that level of sustainability as a company inside the the VR Marketplace is small

teams dedicated on finding you know that fun experience uh without uh incurring a lot of costs in the development uh and then once you do find that thing that you know people really love playing then just keep building on that um and you know in the background trying to find that that next thing that's that's a lot of fun but um yeah I agree it's small teams right now uh and focus on the fun and I guess it's the strategy that many companies are following now right like removing budget from more risky projects and putting that more on the safer bets so so like yeah during these risky times that you get less compromised yeah I mean I would say the ens could like drisk a little bit by trying to take an existing franchise or brand and kind of build on that but the Assassin's Creed game I think shows that even that isn't really a huge Surefire path to success because that flopped and You' think that would have been a strong SU success because you think this is a good fit in a lot of ways like even the fiction of the game

almost makes sense with the VR headset uh so it's it seemed like a natural fit but then clearly didn't work and it certainly wasn't ubisoft's first attempt at trying to do VR not that some of their attempts weren't kind of half-hearted like the the Star Trek one was not really you know as good as it could have been uh so they have had examples where they haven't put maybe enough effort into it which was that was probably a small team project as well but they but they did show the potential to do something interesting that they just didn't take far enough I think but it is it like the question is you know if we're talking about you know trying to find the market and if it's I mean do we think it's still actually core Gamers that own VR headsets are we talking about people that maybe the problem is we're trying to build for the wrong audience with these games like if if the kind of people that own a VR headset generally aren't the kind of people that own a PS5 then maybe they're just the mismatch that we're building for a lot of the times you know if a fitness app is really the killer app or music based Rhythm games actually turn out to be a lot more successful which I think they generally haveen I think some of the

some of the other music oriented games besides beat saber have also been pretty consistently effective sometimes even for overlaps with the workout sort of genre that maybe it's just hey this is a different Market we need to stop thinking of it as a console and treating it like one and treat it as the way we do with the App Store where it's like oh maybe this is actually a different kind of Market we need to think about this a little bit differently even the Wii had to kind of take that approach right where it thought ohaw hey like there's potential to be actually appealing to a different Market than we normally do and still find ways to occasionally cater to that overlap I think it's it's interesting because um probably it's not just like that it's not the same audience but also is uh I would say the maybe not the the same moment that uh so maybe you want to play a game and you want to chill down in in the sofa and a bit relax and the BR experiences tend to like require some some activity and that's why probably the the the the gym app could work because it's like okay

now I want to do some activity oh I put this and I do the activity and I feel more immersed and I blah blah blah and it's it's more a connection with with the mentality of the player at that moment right and probably other other games that are requiring the player to some action while they are maybe not even having a a prepare environment for that uh that's probably the the main reason for not not jumping into it and also I don't know it's like this experiences in the beginning like maybe need to be more social and in that in that sense maybe you prefer going to to a a VR place together with your friends that is very much more equipped and you will have much more fun and like you can go several times before you uh like spend the same amount of buying the hardware for your home so yeah and I think that social aspect really is is one of the challenges like just being able to share an experience the understanding of how

uh how much more powerful being inside a VR experience can be and with you know experiencing it that way versus experiencing that same thing on on a flat screen it doesn't really sell you know the the feeling that you're there like having a you know watching a video of someone uh walking along a you know a piece of wood that's an inch high and you know and looking at for the outside you're like well how is that engrossing how is that you know scary or how does that listening sort of feeling you put a VR headset on and then have that person walk across that one inch beam but have it look like you're on a you know an eye beam that is hundreds and hundreds of feet inside the air and you are scared crapless even though you know that that thing is only like an inch high and you can't kill yourself if you fall off um it's that sort of thing that's really hard to sell without actually experiencing it and I think that's one of the bigger challenges of VR um definitely you know in terms of

the um you know expanding the the marketplace going from games into fitness um I think we're what we're seeing right now is it yes we're expanding the the the different uh marketplaces potential marketplaces it's just the penetration depth isn't there you know like the number of players that are the core game players that are interest playing VR um you know it's just small group that really feel the compelling need to go out and buy the hardware and play the games and so I think as we go out into the the fitness side of things yeah we're going to find the same thing that it's we're broadening the broadening the audience potential audience but the depth of actual um people that uh that convert into actually playing and that is uh will still be fairly shallow had a good point though is like as as a core gamer myself still like I found over time even when I was playing games they become they became like a workout excuse instead um in the sense that I think

like what you said Felipe that made a lot of sense to me was this idea that the the intention of what you want to do with VR kind of has to be physical or it's like a mismatch to what you're doing like I'm not gonna play batro when I want to be playing you know beat saber and vice versa right and so I started to ended up looking at my quest uh to as like a workout machine I'm like okay I'll play you know uh this game or to play like to just get a workout to like do it for it's whether it's music game or whatever the music games tended to be the ones that worked the best because it was like it felt like I was playing a game even though I was really working out pistol whip was the name I was trying to think of pistol whip actually became my workout game even though it's a g game and a music game for that right you just tweak it to be more settings that make sense for working on I was like that was my workout routine was like piss to whip and like a drum Simulator game like it was a really good drum game because that was a great upper workout you know and it's just kind kind of funny how it still shifted towards that mentality of like do I want to be physical right now otherwise I'm

probably not the other thing I noticed is outside of workout and music the thing that keeps getting mentioned and I think is is interestingly one of the best kind of seems to be scaring yourself in horror whether you're talking about the plank experience or Resident Evil or just these horror experiences even when I've done like uh VR Amusement stuff in other countries and things like that it tends to be horror and so it's kind of funny that that is kind of a niche and we do see actually a lot of horror games even on like uh PC and console become kind of a niche lately especially these kind of Indie ones partially led by stuff like Five Nights at Freddy's leading into these other ones like even lethal company it's still kind of a a horror experience um and these survival based games that are also overlapping with horror tend to be like a trending thing so it is kind of interesting and you talk about social experiences maybe it's more fun to watch people get scared sometimes than it is and that that at least for you know streaming experiences and stuff like that watching people freak out and scream uh and and I'm kind of curious when you mention the social stuff stuff than how well Among Us and Roblox have done because those are two

geared more towards social experiences that like I'd be curious to see the numbers like you know farther out now that the release was a while ago especially for among us because that's kind of a a port that didn't necessarily need to happen but I would be interested to see if that actually made a difference in Roblox on the other hand it's more just like let's be on every platform so I don't know if you're really going to get like a a huge shift for that one but it would be interesting because there's not really like a great ugc platform a lot of times for uh VR outside of you know some more Niche sort of things so but anyways uh moving on to to to other platforms that are also struggling to find a huge Marketplace uh just in the interest of time Apple arcade going through some interesting uh I guess Growing Pains at this point yeah so yeah on Apple arcade well there's been recently an article by mobile gamer. piece uh that was um sharing some some conversations with different uh developers and Publishers that are working with uh with app Cade lately and

that has been like saying like a change uh in the performance uh or the the the the revenue they get they are getting from from working on app arcade so there are some concerns that were shared in this article that there is a decline in payout uh both uh in a fit that normally you got when you when you close the deal with them but also in the per play bonus pool payments um there's been also some cancel projects and some strategy shift that is is not clear and all of these like mentioned overall like is very difficult working with apple h on especially on Apple arcade because of lack of transparency and like communication um there's seem to be a shift in apple that probably is not cascading fast enough or

like it's not probably even like marketed uh so probably some developers are struggling because of that they don't know exactly that they are changing the focus and then they try to keep to fit in the previous strategy that no longer uh they they are willing to invest so it current Focus uh is more on familyfriendly games uh with big IP uh games for kids I probably can see that upper arcade is very relevant to parents that want to have a experience for kids that are free of ads and like control you you know that there is quality so probably that's what they are seeing H and that's why they are focusing uh there also they're trying to get some uh repurpose freet to-play games with the ads and inaps removed uh as they call them the App Store greets um and in general there is very limited marketing support for developers

like even just like getting promotion in in the App Store things like that so probably that's so making them struggle and seeing like the the money that they are getting from this is is been lower and lower and that there's no support from them um and I think like probably all this has get worse with the eruption of of Netflix uh with their games uh subscription here so um Netflix is pushing hard for for making their their space here and probably are offering much better deals and that's like creating like probably an inflation there like they're giv giving more than what uh the platform generates in know to make Market size and probably that's what creating also the the situation and there were some comments of like Apple arcade developers like kind of getting the feeling of

being punished because also having sign with with Netflix on some deals so uh probably now is is the underlying fight between the the two platforms trying to to keep the well the leadership on on this type of subscription and alls were commenting about some other Ling issues of lack of passion of an investment from the leadership compared to other vendors like music and TV and that also the the payment extractor and how you get paid is not clear it's a black box so you don't know also either how to improve your game that is life or how to create your next game in order to to make it more uh more uh engaging or I mean more more uh profitable in in this in this platform um so yeah I don't know what what you feel about this uh I have some

some experiences uh like not very close with apple arcade and indeed let just hearing my my my my colleagues speaking about how was the relationship with the counterparts I kind of feel that I already reached to similar conclusions here like I don't know feeling that probably there is a shift of the strategy or you you are talking to some some people on Apple but eventually there are some other decision being taken upwards that are not cascaded well downwards and these are the communication points that you have and things like that uh so I don't know what what do you think uh Apple arcade needs to to do in order to keep relevant and keep growing so I've uh developed games for both Apple arcade and Netflix um and all I I definitely will say this the the person I was working directly with at Apple arcade that was a

fantastic experience I loved working uh with a gentleman I won't mention his name um but he was he was the manager for our game for our studio uh and there I felt like we had a really good person that was able to you know listen to us work through any challenges in that now that being said I think what you're talking about in terms of like what the overall Apple strategy is that I agree is something that is certainly challenging in terms of what is it that they're trying to do with it as a platform you know how does it fit inside the overall uh Apple ecosystem um I certainly do think that there are a lot of questions around uh what is it that they're they're really trying to do with it um it certainly is that that concept of you know being able to provide a place a safe place for people to play games free of ads free of IAP um and I do think that the games

that are built uh specifically for the environment for you know uh for Apple arcade uh do a really good job of that like it really does feel like it's you know a game of old where you paid your dollar you know you paid your money and then that was it there were no ads no no sales pitches for why you should do any IP I think where it does fall down many times from the games that I've been playing inside Apple arcade is with some of the App Store greates where um they've taken games that you can tell were built for a free-to-play uh business model and all they've done is just pull out you know like even a lot of the pl the stubs are still there for hey you can buy this for $1.99 only it's now hey you can buy this for free and you there's still like a lot of the the REM are there it's not like they um you know were able to spend a lot of time pulling out all of those

free-to-play components um and fill in the holes that were actually left you know the holes kind of still feel like they're they're there so I do think that that's where uh some of that really is falling down where you know they're trying to bring games that have done really well inside the uh inside the App Store in a freet to-play environment and bring them inside um inside the absur but they still feel broken in a way just because the they were made to be played a certain way with a certain business model in place that's been stripped out but the UI hasn't caught up to that to that new thing yeah it's it's like playing poker without real money yeah yeah is there's no no then it's fine okay that's that's a different case he'll throw in the call back um but I defin do see like there certainly is a difference in strategy between you know uh what

apple is doing and and what Netflix is doing um and there's a difference between how they structure their deals uh bonus pool versus no bonus pool um you know the types of games that they're going for uh you know Apple's certainly more focused on the familyfriendly than uh what you see inside Netflix you know Netflix certainly can't say that they're familyfriendly and then bring in all of Grand Theft Auto into their category uh portfolio and and there really you do see that difference in terms of what it is that they're trying to do what kind of audience they're trying to bring across I think there's a an important contrast as well between the two with Netflix and apple like in terms of both monetization and strategy which is that apple is charging directly for the service right like you are paying you're getting these games whereas Netflix is doing it similar to what Amazon Prime did you know originally which is like well we're just going to add it to what

you're already paying for your subscription service so in a way it's more of just a cost Outlet like it's not something that's making them profit at Netflix for the most part in theory this could be making apple profit like probably isn't just based off of the cost um although I imagine they're they're trying to close that gap which is probably why the payouts are going down um but but Netflix has another you know agenda here which is they can they can push for Trans Media stuff which means they're going to take properties that are successful like stranger things uh narcos things like that that that they can try and translate into other games whether those already exist and they bring them in or are ones that are just hey this is a PO popular IP on our service let's let's try and include this kind of game uh even like I found it interesting that uh Ubisoft did a brand new Rainbow Six related game they released about a week ago uh Rainbow Six small smol which was just totally like this sort of random thing and it's and I'm tring thinking I'm like well there's been no Rainbow Six you know show or anything on Netflix but they did actually have Captain laserhawk recently

where they where Ubisoft did a lot of stuff with them and then you see like League of Legends actually has a fair number of games under here that that Netflix sponsored so they are sort of playing off these trans media game properties and things like that like it wasn't a captain laser Hawk game but it wouldn't shock me to see one right and so I think it is interesting like different agenda you know Apple has Apple TV plus but I don't think we're going to see like a lot of those shows turn into games on Apple arcade it's probably even different divisions within the company that don't really have that overlap in communication you're talking about that hierarchy right whereas Netflix is a little more like we're a media related company and everything's kind of under this media umbrella and it makes more sense so I think there's like a difference in synergies difference of business models in ter terms of how their approaches but at the end of the day like both of them are probably losing the company's money more than making the money and it's more about like market share and acquiring customers and keeping customers and things like that yeah yeah they're not meant I mean I think that is something that Netflix is trying to figure out how can they monetize off of the the

games um and you know what that model ends up being it's a good question if it's uh you know more of an ad supported are they are they going to add in some potentially some IEP opportunities but make them much more um either Early Access or uh you know additional cosmetic types of things um I do expect that Netflix will be diving pretty hard into figuring out how can they get some additional monetization out of their titles whereas I don't think that will end up being the situation Apple um and I definitely do agree Devin that apples uh you know the the their movie division their music division their games division um I think they very much are divisions like they are silos that focus on what they do and they aren't necessarily probably similar to Sony right where like they have some trees of media opportunity but they're pretty different businesses within the umbrella yeah yeah

I I think so and it's you know certainly not the as you said you know Netflix as a company I think is structured differently and they are looking for more opportunities to have those trans media um opportunities throughout for all for all of their properties I guess the question then for you both is like uh you know Netflix aside looking more at Apple arcade and Google Play pass do you think these business models even make sense like obviously it was like a hey let's try and offer a premium curated system for some for some games and apps to allow people to kind of try stuff out without having to spend money and like a different angle on free to play to make it not free to play but where it's just free to completely play and obviously like as you said that's kind of wonky in itself where if you didn't build for that I mean do you think in general that these sort of Premium services for a non really premium price like makes sense because they can't just keep jacking up the price to accommodate for inflation right they're not not going to I mean you see that with the streaming services where they maybe go up by a dollar you know every other month it seems at this point

but they then they start to be like well then we've got to figure out how to put ads or whatever I mean is there even the possibility for the fact that both Google and apple now are in the ads business is there the possibility for ads to be injected but ads to be injected provided by Google and apple into these Services where it's not just random ads they are the ad provider and that way when you're participating in Apple's ad Services you know you're getting put into these games where in theory it's it's maybe a more qualified audience because they're willing to pay for that premium service and therefore like maybe it's actually good to get your eyes in front of there like do you think there's sense there to keep the business alive or things like that I think it depends a lot on like when you when we speak about whether that this makes sense it depends a lot on the situation of the company and how much Synergy they can put in into this and and also which is the their position in the market right whether they they are leader in this or not so I think like in in this case the situation as we said is much more different for for for Apple than for for Netflix right like Netflix

I guess that they're trying to to bring more engagement to Their audience to keep them more loyal to uh as there are other competitors like having other streaming services like they can have uh uh people renewing more time the subscription and having them spend more time within their uh IPS and engaging in different ways and G some market and Market position right and they could like build synergies as you were mentioning from okay I unlock first this content in the game or I teach you what the new season is going to be or like release a game in order to to keep the the the awarness or the the people excited about nip while I'm making this the next season or or things like that right I think like um in in the other platforms it would be different right but uh I think like for

and even for for like Xbox uh Game Pass right like sometimes that you you need to have a strategy behind the action right like what's what's the strategy is like I want to sell more Xbox so I have more people migrating from PlayStation to Xbox maybe I can like uh accept like having lower profits in order to to gain more market and then eventually have like more chances of of uh interacting with with larger user bace so I think that all these needs to be taken into account and what the long-term plans not just like looking at what's the shortterm result of all of it yeah I I do think that Netflix is in a much easier position in that regard than Apple is um you know adding in ads goes completely against the the brand promise of Apple arcade right so the brand promise of Apple arcade is it's uh we're

not going to hit you with ads we're not going to hit you with IP it is about we're going to bring you some quality games um that uh you know you've you're you're basically paying for it with your subscription and that's where um you know any sort of monetary transaction is going to is going to occur Netflix has said none of that Netflix has said hey with your subscription you can play some games they have no brand promise in there in terms of um there won't be any additional monetization opportunities inside there you know they they've started off with uh with mobile games and you know they and they did all start off with no monetization uh requirements for the players but that wasn't necessarily part of their brand promise well it's like hey it's free you get what you get come on yeah you didn't pay really for this come on no one subscribed to Netflix for the the games exactly exactly um but I do think yeah and then I think as uh

Felipe said there it's about trying to create things that uh engage the consumers for uh in between Seasons you know the stranger things player or fans are gonna uh engage with the games while they're waiting for season five to come out but I I do think that the the brand promise that Apple arcade has made is made is making it difficult for them to be able to figure out what are additional levels of monetization they can make outside of that initial subscription do you think there's any strategy behind the idea of going familyfriendly in the context of apple has struggled with the idea of inapp purchases being kind of a problem dealing with miners uh in the sense that like you know kids want to play all these free-to-play games and then of course they start racking up bills and then Apple has to keep like kind of adjusting how they do it at purchases and they have to deal with all these huge refunds and and all that stuff right so that's like oh been kind of a bit of a problem whereas let's say you're apple and you go hey you know what we'll do we'll make it easy on parents we will allow parents to just

pay a little bit extra money a month and there'll be this wide selection of games and apps that are okay for their kids to be part of like you know it's like YouTube kids or one of these Netflix kids mode right where it's just this idea of like hey it's the sandbox your kids can play in with high quality games because we've spent money to make them high quality that are not going to be something that you know secretly drains your wallet throughout the month and you could feel okay with your kids playing this like do you think there's some strategy behind that mentality like I said similar to you know Netflix kids or YouTube that idea of like uh kid safe sandbox area yeah I mean they they I do think there is to a degree I don't know if it's necessary to the degree of um hey we're gonna you know make sure that parents aren't uh having those unknown charges for games um you know one of the games I worked on was one of the games that caused Apple to change a whole bunch of their policies around credit cards when people

started getting, bills because their kids were buying Smurfberries um but I think it was more about providing uh an environment as you said you know environment that for families uh to be able to play games where they uh felt safe from uh what you know some people say are predatory practices in terms of pushing as an i towards players um I don't necessarily think that they're looking entirely for the monetization side of things you know stripping that out of games because well they make a crapload of money from all of that monetization and uh they uh you I I really don't see them kind of limiting themselves from there they've they've been working really hard to maintain that 30% cut on all the monetization for their games so very true they definitely don't want to weed that out yeah well I mean just throwing out there because as you as you guys are saying you know kind try and keep an eye on what is the strategy here and I think it

sounds like from this news that maybe they're at sort of that point where they are also asking themselves that question and trying to figure out what the future of that is and obviously Google you got to imagine is in the same boat but we're you know it's not as exciting to talk about Google's Play pass I think as it is Apple arcade right even though they're kind of the same thing but anyways we'll we'll definitely see where that goes in the future and um and I don't think it will probably lead to a apple arcade for Vision Pro anytime soon to help solve that VR problem but you never know down the road right well I think I we'll avoid that no the games the games on Apple arcade on the most part are available on Vision Pro there you go so there's there's one potential slight strategy I mean a a very expensive strategy for those jumping into the Vision Pro but definitely something to consider uh when it comes to trying to establish value for their platforms if you can afford a Vision Pro you can afford to pay for the half orcades yeah I think I think you can afford the games too then probably not have to do that yeah definitely uh definitely

interesting uh to see where that ends up going right like I think we'll I'll be watching just in general subscription models over the next couple years and see where they end up because we got Game Pass we got all these other quote unquote passes and arcades and other things that are you know all in a weird spot uh and I think we'll see obviously Microsoft's got a a pretty relatively clear strategy and I think the other one maybe have yet to show it so we'll see as we go forward but I want to thank of course everyone for tuning in and Dave and Philipe as well thank you for just joining in for a conversation that probably could go on much longer than we will force you to sit through but uh hopefully you guys enjoyed it like a lot of uh areas to explore a lot of markets closing and opening up kind of at the same time the the sort of door closes window opens kind of thing and and interesting exciting opportunities for Indie developers I think still potentially there and I think that's that's good news news amongst the less good news but we'll definitely be here with a with a future mix as well uh next

week and uh and you know lots of exciting things to talk about going forward so make sure to tune in but in the meantime have a good weekend and we'll catch you guys next week if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a festar review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast nov. or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website www. nvic.org dovic doco thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode