Are Publishers Right to Flee Grand Theft Auto 6? - THE GAME BUSINESS SHOW Episode 1

so in the UK 94% of all revenue made on video games the week GTA came out GTA 5 came out was on GTA 5 we also don't know the extent to which Rockstar will find itself competing with itself this is something that Nintendo is actually facing as [Music] well hello and welcome to the game business show with me Christopher dring we are a new publication all about the business of video games and we'll offer to quote the fancy press release that went out yesterday essential insights Trends and strategic opportunities shaping the future of interactive entertainment um you're listening or watching the show right now but alternatively you can receive all the key takeaways quotes and insights by signing up to our newsletter at theame bus.com um I say you're listening to the show and we have two types of show we have our feature show which will usually be an interview with a games leader or some description it might also be a deep dive into an individual topic but what we're listening to today is our first episode and it is on news and anal our news and Analysis show where we will look at a series of different development that's going on in the video

game Space if you happen to have ever listened to the games industry. Biz microcast which I used to co-host then you'll have some idea of what this show might be like uh but there is one key difference I used to host that podcast with James Bachelor who was the former editor-in-chief of games industry. Biz but James has gone and got a job in the industry uh working for a publisher which I'm sure you'll all agree is outrageous uh so uh we set out on a mission to find someone to fill james' shoes James's very large shoes and in the end we couldn't say settle on any one person so we're going to have guest hosts for this part of the show and the cool thing about that is that not only do I get the chance to work with brilliant journalists and analysts but hopefully we'll be able to bring on people from different walks of life different backgrounds different experiences different parts of the industry and if you think that might be one of you or uh if that person might be you or if there's someone you know who be think be great for this drop me a line I'm on christhe game.com I really do want to hear from you but for week one I have a video games media royalty with us hailing from tuu MTV News axus

and now runs game file a video game newslet you really really should subscribe to it's none other than Steven totillo hello Stephen welcome to the show thank you for having me Chris it's exciting to be the first I know you are you are uh yeah it's excit exciting is the word um I'm also absolutely terrified um but um we saw each other last week we were I saw you nextflix event and I uh and uh shortly after the GD GDC Awards is that the right way of saying it um how did how was the show did you enjoy it my show yeah the the show was good it was it was it was nice I've managed to master going to shows and not coming home sick which is it challeng for a long time between getting covid from recent trade shows or just like you know you keep long hours you're kind of working from the moment you wake up you stay out late SM smoing networking whatever you don't sleep a lot well for me I guess a weak Constitution but I'm feeling healthy hail hearty right now things are good I

know that you had a bit of an adventurer getting home yes I ciously we're launching we recording this on Monday we're launching uh this this this show this week so I was very eager to get home from GDC in a reasonable time so I actually actually was going to miss the final day fly back Thursday um and if you if you saw the news uh uh heo airport London he the biggest airp the most busiest airport in Europe closed on uh Friday because of a fire um that fire uh happened while I was in the air 5 hours into the flight um uh we had a I was I was sort of partly asleep when a big always came over the tanoy and I woke up to see loads of people Milling about and moving about had to turn back so I got to see the full I have to say I was very stressed I wanted to see my kids I wanted to get this ready but um my last impromptu day at GDC was spent in a in a pub with like the heads of curve and devolver and raw Fury and um and uh pl Play stack

sort of Indie development publishing leaders and uh there was a lot of gossiping and It sharing which will inevitably come up at some point so I actually had quite a lovely final day I did manage to get a flight home earlier I had to go while via Washington um I did get home in time and I and I don't get jet lag coming home I'm it's only out in the US I get it so I'm I'm feeling also vibrant and fresh so when you're five hours into a flight they don't just land at the nearest airport they send you back to where you started that's outrageous some places they landed but I think the thing is with this is that with every flight goes to different locations and then they need to try and get things back into running order again having a having a plane that needs to be in herro or San Francisco in like Iceland or Paris and having lots of that stuff I think became a bit of a nightmare and I think that's my guess that's my that's my reading between the lines of um of trying to get things up and running again they did get things up and running again it is now um people are people are still being flown home but it's um um it seems to have recovered from the uh from the fight blew up a sub a substation or something

electricity substation but yes I had a good show I actually what I felt about the show is I the mood of the industry really affects me and when I was at GDC last year honestly I felt panicked almost like it it felt um and whereas this year I don't want to say optimistic but there seemed to be an element of clarity about the games Market at the minute um I least my vibe I got was people maybe accepting what the reality is and and um stages of grief stages of grief well well it's not very funny to laugh at but there's because there's an element of Truth to that right and um and um um uh they have a plan said yeah and when people have got a plan I think people feel a bit better even if it's even if it's be really difficult to at least that's the vibe I got from the show I don't know if you got any positives or I think I saw from some people uh you know a sense of disappointment or frustration where they're at um worry from some I was hearing I was speaking to one a PR person who they're talking

about their clients kind of losing funding and high you know high stress amongst those and then I spoke to somebody at a at a publisher and they said they're doing great because you know they they had a recent hit and they feel flush with cash and things are going well when I was at dice another games industry convention right this uh back in February I was talking to somebody who said that they felt like the industry was at a stage where there's very clear winners and losers and that that might not be what many people in the industry think of uh that a lot of people feel like kind of everybody's got to be up or everybody's got to be down and they feel a little bit what you were describing a collective sense of we're all succeeding or oh no they're struggling so we're all struggling and maybe it sounds more mercenary um I don't think this person meant to sound cruel or heartless but they were just saying look the games industry of 2025 is one where you're going to have winners and you're going to have losers and it's possible to be

succeeding or thriving even when somebody else is struggling that was technically the case you know all along but they felt like that was a realization that maybe more people uh would would need to come around to and it sounds like maybe that's part of the reality of it one more point on that is that I was in the Y Park for those who haven't been to GDC it's in San Francisco it's set in the mosconi convention center which has multiple buildings that all kind of surround this one big Park it's quite beautiful Green Space and a lot of people will gather and maill about in there Chris I don't know if you go to the park very often I've never been there before okay this show though I was there several times um I actually did a bit of filming there did you may have seen that there was a there's this new video game Union in in the United States that just announced it its formation during GDC and they held a rally in there and so their rally chanting about you know we're better together weaker divided or however the chant went was definitely a a

verbalization a vocalization of the frustration of the game worker right and so that is whether you see that as hopeful or sign of you know kind of challenge in the industry that's one thing standing right nearby I was speaking with somebody from a Japanese game Studio that's been successful of late and their sentiment was hey I don't really relate to that directly I understand it but in my area of the business things are doing really well and they weren't you criticizing them but it was another manifestation of this some people may be down while other people are up I did a piece last year that got um criticized by certain corners of the industry I'd spoken to load investors and game bosses and they basically said to me we're looking at two years worth of pain and when I when I did that piece um people there was some people hope for that GDC 2024 would be a moment the industry sparked back into life again and there was a very much uh I was unintentionally pouring cold water on that but it was turned out to be quite true but what even in that

piece I was you know I was saying what other people were saying was that it's not going to go from it's really bad everything's awful to suddenly everything's amazing again there is going to be a journey to that point and I don't ever think it where it's never going back to where we were before but I do think we are seeing that you're seeing a lot of positive stories amongst all the misery and of course the negative stories do go further so yeah I think that's think sort of what you're saying um GDC seemed quieter um I don't have I know the official figures aren't out there the Expo C seemed quieter which isn't surprising to me because people are people have less money and it's an expensive event to go to um I don't know how you felt about that yeah in terms of attendees you know I ran into students who are often able to go there based on their schools able to send them although I imagine I don't know if the school pays for them or how that works but I run into students and others you know media folks like ourselves who don't necessarily have to have to pay I'm on you know I get in there for free as as as press but it's over a th000 bucks I believe to to go um

for a lot of people there's different tiers of passes but even just a show floor um I I was stunned when I went down the the big escalators in Moscone North and then looked over to at what I expected to see a show floor packed with booths as it has been every year that I can ever remember going to GDC for for more than 10 gdc's uh and instead much smaller footprint in terms of booths and you got to think that's one of the money makers for GDC to be able to rent out floor space and you know epic wasn't there Unity wasn't there uh there there were some big players that I'm used to see I didn't see him is with Union costs in the US you don't get this in Europe Union costs in us are huge and it really does it's ultimately one of the things that killed E3 I in the LA I worked B I didn't say worked on I sort of connected to that last E3 that never happened and somebody somebody on that team told me it was cheaper to book space at E3 than it was to book space at the London show that we

run called egx it's actually cheaper to book but then when you throw all the additional costs it becomes much much much more expensive and and the TR be the same for the Moscone you know exola booked out basically a building and it was cheaper to do that than it was to have a move on the show floor but I will say this I think we need to be careful of and I'm not saying Isa I think Isola pay you know sponsor the event as well but um I think we have to be careful as an industry not to leech off these events um all of us if we all do it um the event will go away and then you end up with with nothing and I also you know I know leeching what do you mean how do you mean leech what are we talking about you had it with you have it with you remember when E3 you know and people started putting on things outside of the show ah right right I see what you mean so they weren't going on the show but they're down the road I see what you or they're crossing the hotel orever right right couple of comp that's a victim of a success thing big that always happens at but if everyone starts doing it then the event itself dies and you end up

with not not not the gravity not the um the anchor that actually puts everyone in that space um I'm bit disappointed epic work wasn't there I know they're doing their um uh their address in June I think and yeah and that's the thing is is I don't think everybody was all the absences were explained by people you know counting their dollars and and pinching their pennies I think some of it was shifting priorities and so epic now wants to put more focus on their event in Orlando they on real Fest so why then do the state of unreal at GDC even though they had been doing it there for years and to your point if people all bail in the case of state of unreal that was actually at a peripheral event but then they would also have a a boost location I me know Union cost may have been a factor in making it more expensive for E3 or GDC but most of these big companies that have these giant boosts they're not exactly incapable of stomach yeah and higher cost yeah I guess I guess

if I'm if I'm um Reon why I'm slightly if epic have moved purely to boost other event up I do feel that's not very thoughtful of the audience and this is the thinging I always get with with stuff like this if um if people are having to you know if people have less money this year and they might be choosing do I go to the unreal event or the GDC event they probably ought to feel like they ought to go to both and that that's additional cost and I had it with E3 and it's a very specific thing to moan about but when Xbox did that when Xbox took over the theater and you had to the amount of times I was going out of E3 walk across the road go through security to meet someone on Xbox and go back out of that building and go back for security to E3 I'm like just put the booth on in the show for goodness sake it's h it's not you know it's not good for not good for the attendance exper attending experience anyway right but GDC was you know I think it's important to say GDC is a place where tens of thousands of game developers gather and from my experience talking to a lot of them many of them may have been frustrated and have I spoke to developers who were laid off developers who are student who are

worried about their job prospects or not finding job prospects as they've graduated nevertheless a lot of them are really enthusiastic about making games and I was at Indie showcases where people were showing really creative stuff you just you gather a lot of people who who have a passion for making games and you gather them one one place and you you get a lot of inspiring um just kind of talk and and and and you know there's just a lot of incredible things that people are talking about people are showing in that sense even a GDC during cloudier times is one that I think shines through to be a little corny I guess yeah well let's move on from GDC because actually I I was reading a great game file analysis of the brand new Assassin's Creed Shadows which launched uh uh uh last week I haven't played the game but you you loved it didn't you Stephen uh yes yes I you know I love is a strong word uh beyond my my my my family I don't much I truly want to use it but uh I did say it

was um astounding in the in the headlin so thank you for the the Cs I've played 51 hours at this point that means four hours since I wrote in my review that i' played 47 it's impressive I'm a sucker for Assassin's Creed's though I like the whole phenomenon of them transporting you to some other time and place in history and I like how they Stitch it all together with this weird sci-fi idea that year in these machines you know taking you back into these into these places but yeah quite fun well it was a really it's a really crucial launch for Ubisoft let's there's not under sell it um it's been a really they're already dealing with RIS uh difficult cost of making games for them is getting so much higher because they have so many staff um but last year they really came off a really rough year um they launched multiple titles but I'm just thinking top of my head um skull and bones um I don't think people were expecting that to be a big hit and it wasn't um ex Defiance started strongly but I think a load of those people that rushed in day one with Call of Duty players and ended

up going back to Call of Duty so that ultimately fell away to and the biggest one for me was Star Wars Outlaws which uh when it was first revealed uh uh summer game Fest 2023 or at least when it was shown there the um the buzz around it was extremely high um and uh it was coming out with you know the biggest traffic drivers the big biggest social media discussion was around that game over the course of the following year that excitement seemed to fade away another the game I don't think the game was bad I I haven't played it I just looked at the reviews um it missed quite dramatically that prompted Ubisoft to delay Assassin's Creed Shadows um and they moved it to they made it February initially and then to March Assassin's Creed is their big killer IP so its success is crucial at this point if the uoft uh there's lots of discussions around what they're going to do they're already closing Studios they're cutting things there's there's talks of 10-cent money floating around for them um but a lot is hinging on Assassin's Creed Shadows um and the early data because we on Monday the only game came out last week is actually quite promising so Ubisoft have shared 2

million players um andare analysis has just sent me an update of their estimate is 2.7 million players so that's that's pretty strong I mean I've got the UK data for physical that the reason why people have a go at me a lot by Stephen for saying why are you obsessed with UK physical game sales it's not that it's just that data comes in first it's a small island well we are oddly as a small but is quite reflective um um because of the popularity of consoles in this space and it's you know but um it's because UK physical data comes in first it's the first thing over the line so it's the first thing it gets reported on so when I do report on like European Digital Data later on people have bored now they've moved on I've given them the UK you have it for Shadows we do have it for shadows and it's physical data this is really really not indication an indicator of um of anything but actually it's it's it's pretty good so it's not Valhalla numbers actually about it's about two3 down on Valhalla um but Valhalla launched a covid period it was a huge physical

launch that game as well came out in November it's two it's two-thirds of Valhalla or it's two-thirds down meaning it's oneir of Val it's it's oneir oh okay but there physical Sal physical sales yeah physical who buys physical anymore anyway but but if you compare it to last year Star Wars Outlaws Star Wars Outlaws um Shadows are sold more in three days because it's the first three days of sales no than um Star Wars Outlaws sold in three months UK physical SS um so so that compared to more recent data it's similar to mirage's numbers um which I know Mirage wasn't as a more of a spin-off game but in terms of Revenue it's much much High you need to remember the costs a lot is is is significantly strong in the states right Mirage is 50 I believe and uh Shadows is 70 notice the the metric players right they're not talking about copies sold because everybody these days has some other way they offer games other than paying for them directly so part of the story for Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed Shadows is Ubisoft plus they have some people may

not even realize this their own subscription service and if you spend $18 us a month you get access to their full premium releases so they're probably using the phrasing of players reached rather than copies sold because they're including that it's a good deal if they are prolific enough to make I I think it's a good deal if you're going to buy more than two uh Ubisoft games a year Ubisoft challenge currently as you alluded to earlier is whether they can make more than two games worth getting a year and so that's got to be bundled into it and who knows what what percentage that is yeah I I wouldn't imagine it's too high but then maybe I'm wrong it's interesting with Ubisoft um that that Pro that process because you can you can subscribe for a month so you can rent the game effectively if that's what you want to do and you to kind of okay with it there was a stat they revealed last year when I spoke to them that one in 10 of the people that do that are people that have never played a game in the franchise before so they it does unlock new

players for them having that option um but uh yeah you're right it's part of that um of um is I keep on up playay it's not his Ubisoft plus isn't it Ubisoft Pro Ubisoft connect up play there's I think there's other ones that it does get a bit confusing yeah I mean they're also just funny in terms of how they talk about their their performance of their games when Valhalla came out it was like you know in in in math class they have like word problems and everything so I had pulled this up this was a press release from November 12th 2020 ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Valhalla delivers massive day one player engagement so you expect to get some numbers in here and here we go today Ubisoft announced exceptional player activity for Assassin's Creed Valhalla blah blah blah and here we go here's the big stat you ready the number of active players on launch day for Assassin's Creed Valhalla doubled that of Assassin's Creed Odyssey a trend that is expected to continue as sales of the new generation of consoles increase no actual number this is the kind of uh non hype hype where we don't

non-specific hype I guess that game companies have been specializing in for some time so you obis scate the numbers you try to find some relative comparison and who knows you can always find something to compare your new game to your your old game too to make it sound great and obviously it did a billion dollars um eventually which is obviously um it's pretty pretty significant numbers my my looking at it I mean obviously I've only got physical data but amp's analysis ubisoft's own releases I think this is probably okay you know is that enough that's the question so um you know looking it seems to be in line with most Assassin's Creed games it's Assassin Creed is a big hit I think that oddly the metric I'm most impressed by is the Steam Reviews which are positive very positive I think if I read that and um there was there was let's be honest one of the concerns around this game wasn't just the fact that the previous Ubisoft titles last year did so well is there was an awful lot of negativity around the game which I actually never quite understood because every time I saw the game I thought it looked amazing but obviously there was a bit you know by negativity do you mean a hate campaign perhaps yes

yes I do mean I mean a confusing hate campaign against the game and that but the thing is that stuff can really you know um uh create an element of toxicity around the tiway absolutely I think Ubisoft perhaps maybe gave it a bit of attention and they shouldn't have done um but um uh I'm looking at the numbers the numbers okay Monday things can change but I think these are pretty good numbers um in the UK physical sales is actually the biggest launch of the year ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds so it's it's obviously again when we factor in The Wider figures um um uh it certainly hasn't done a Star Wars Outlaw it hasn't been um a big spectacular Miss I selling millions of units in this market is really difficult right no there there's a I think the big question mark around Star Wars Outlaws is that there is a number of things that might have been the reason for its poor sales performance one is that there was a negative campaign social media Vibe and Buzz around it eight campaign if you want to call it you know questions whether the lead character was attractive enough and other ridiculous

things like that but it also was a game that had a very rough first three hours of gameplay required stealth that was instant fail that put off a lot of reviewers so there was a lot of negativity in within the reviews more lopor review scores and then Star Wars itself is a very divisive U franchise whereas I think even when the game was announced you know it would not have been you would not have expected Star Wars to be as as as as um controversial a topic you would have thought okay this is a license to print money Ubisoft open world design expertise plus Star Wars surely that's going to do well so you had this combination and any of those or any mix of those proportion of those could be the reason that Star Wars Outlaws struggled I really enjoyed the game but I also found the beginning quite rough by contrast the beginning of Assassin's Creed Shadows is quite strong and it carries through and while there are some reviewers who point out some issues with maybe the game goes on a bit too long there's some activities in it that aren't is interesting some people question the Dual protagonist design

whether both characters are interesting to play but ultimately it's a stronger more consistent uh better design game with more consistent quality throughout so they didn't have the drag of negative reviews you know possibly pulling them back and so the campaign against how could there be a black samurai oh this is Dei the stuff that Elon Musk was pushing of Dei kills art that stuff was was uh pretty easily exposed as being nonsense as being irrelevant to the actual game because people started playing it and the game immediately explains why there's a black man as a samurai in it uh it makes sense it's actually interesting and then the quality of the game sustains so that you have people who are playing it and writing up Steam Reviews or other user reviews you know I think just recognizing this is a this is a game we enjoy and so you have this this kind of much more positive I think sentiment around it but I mean Chris you said you described it as it's doing

okay and I guess the question right is whether an Assassin's Creed game that took this long to make doing okay is really all long yeah I mean okay I do mean okay by their standards I mean I think it's I think it's brilliant by most game standards today like s is met any units so I just think an Assassin's Creed does carry with it a certain level of commercial expectation and it certainly looks like it's broadly broadly still hitting big big numbers it's just whether or not numbers are they big enough for Ubisoft right and and like their stock price I don't think their I don't think their stock price moved up at all in any significant way it was pretty flat even slightly down last week they probably need to hear a little bit from Ubisoft on on on their take of it obviously um but we'll we'll hopefully hear something soon I mean the other thing about games like this is we live in a market where there's so many games to play and we've got so many things not just games TV shows films to watch we've so much stuff competing over our time you know a decent open world game like Star Wars just isn't it just not even that is good enough um it needs to you need to do something to really

entice people cross well we talked about Assassin's Creed and I hope the game continues to do well obviously um for the sake of Ubisoft but also because I hear it's brilliant and I have a code for it and I'm looking forward to to to giving it a go um I'll go back to GDC actually because while I was at GDC I don't know if you saw this I don't know if you wrote about it but the esa announced um because ubisoft's part of this by the way there's a connection connective tissue the esa announced um the uh let make sure I get the um the name of this um absolute Ely right I keep calling it The accessibility initiative isn't it the accessible games initiative there you go this was um this is basically a series of tags that developers can use on digital storefronts they could possibly use it on boxes as well if that's what they want to do um to inform Gamers of the accessibility features in their games and they cover audio uh audio input devices gameplay and visuals um uh there's specific tags that can range from like this game has narrated narrated menus this game has large subtitles you can control this game with a mouse that kind of that kind of thing um the goal of the whole initiative was

simply to create a common language because um apparently lots of people refer to these things as different things internally and externally to make it clear that hey when we're talking about narrated Nar narrated me this is what we mean so that Gamers understand what it is they're getting so that you don't have um uh Gamers with accessibility needs who have bought a game thinking it satisfies those and it doesn't equally people that are put off from buying a game thinking it doesn't have certain features and it does um it was actually started off as a partnership between Google and Microsoft and then very quickly Ubisoft Nintendo Sony EA and the esa jumped on board that means this project was a collaboration between Sony Nintendo and Microsoft um which uh and it was fun to see Sony weren't on the stage but it's very fun to see Nintendo and Microsoft and those sort of competitors on stage at um um at the event and afterwards I had a uh little chat with um DAV the ubisoft's director of accessibility David tisserand um who I've worked with them before ubisoft's actually quite really good with this stuff um do we have clip we have a clip do you

want to see the clip we had this common goal that we all absolutely all believed in 100% so whatever uh you know differences or different opinions or or different ways to look at the problem different perspective Etc could come up in the conversation we always went back to those initial uh meetings where we created the Visions we created what we want to achieve how we want to achieve it Etc so uh of course it was a five years of of work right so it's not like uh you know it didn't happen overnight so of course through that we had to be flexible to be uh uh understanding to to the others to to take each perspective into account before making a decision hence it took that long right um but also that initiative although it may not look like it at first glance is really focused on um the words we use the criterias we used Etc everything is almost Pixel

Perfect as we would say in games right so of course it needed a lot of discussion to make sure that everyone agreed right but as we said in the in the panel today I think we use those constraints to our advantage you know we knew that we had to succeed and therefore it really made everyone uh uh be flexible be understanding accept that sometimes you know uh uh maybe their opinion wouldn't be the the the the one that we would you know use in the end and we all did that you know everyone was very very uh collaborative during that effort um yes that was so I was asking David there about it was like working with um all of the uh various different um uh parties in it and but it took five years but it was there was there was a a determination there the one thing from that um I don't know if you got any views on this St but the one thing from this that I I took away from it was it's a very it's a US event project it's it's the esa um I'd like to see this Go Global I think that would be

wonderful I get it Global different countries have different rules and regulations but work with the local trade bodies there I hope the hopefully the esa will do that so it's not just not just for us storefronts yeah I'll just say I think it's really great that whether it was a decade ago or at some point it seems like there was a collective understanding that took root within the games industry as well as in just kind of video game culture that it is a ultimate social good and it is a good overall for more people to be able to play video games and for people to not kind of cut that off at oh you can't hear so games aren't for you you can't see games aren't for you you don't have you know the the same ability to manipulate buttons with your hands or your fingers then games just aren't for you and instead there's been a whole lot of effort by the industry by Advocates who really need to be celebrated for pushing this to the four to say no games should be able to be playable um no matter what limitations you might face in life and I think that's a really good thing yeah uh I'm conscious we're running I've not got to the main topic

yet so but we'll I'll quickly run through one last topic because I think we'll be talking about this on various shows going forward and it's the sto it's the situation with the tariffs in the US um it's it's a big Topic at the moment going on um there was I spoke to interesting there wasn't as many people I don't if you had this as even um GDC but there wasn't as many people talking to me about this as I thought there would be um but um I did speak to a couple of people that were a little anxious around it but the anxiety seemed to be around um primarily around what might do to people's ability to spend on luxury items such as video games um I did do a little bit of digging on the impact upon upon actual what's it going to do to the cost of making these games Distributing these games and the response I got this is a quote from somebody um platform holders acted swiftly after the actions of the last Trump Administration um and as a result of that what they talking what that person was talking about there is that um uh is that they basically a lot of games consoles are made in Vietnam um for instance there are obviously some chips and cost work which might be affected by this there raw material

challenges when it comes to games themselves physical games if you look at like Nintendo switch which is the biggest physical games Market Nintendo uh games those games are manufactured in Japan shipped over to whereever whatever country they shipped over to and they're boxed and packaged there in the US they tend to use well it varies from company to company but they tend to use companies like van I always get pronounced as Von Vana used to be technical um so in terms of actually the impact upon it companies had M you know smart smart plat holders had a warning around this might happen before and they did do things to mitigate the impact upon um cost impact upon you know their products that doesn't mean there won't be any and obviously there is that concern around what it's going to do to the economy um but uh uh broadly speaking when it came to that side of things see the industry was is relatively prepared for this um but I we will be talking about it more because prepared as one can be you never know which uh which country My President is going to attack yeah suddenly suddenly Japan is next and Vietnam is next and

yeah um and I think it'll be impactful when presumably Actually I don't even know if this will be the case but you expect that next week when Nintendo does their switch 2 showcase they'll announce a launch date in a price um because if they are to do that then I think people will begin to process more the impact you know the economic impact of buying a switch to and so to your point whether it's more of the tariffs impacting the economy and people spending patterns or if we'll see Nintendo baking in know sort of a tariff proof price so that it's not going to cut into their bottom line when we see that price for the switch to which I think for many gamers would be their biggest gaming purchase of the year um that could that could alter the conversation or at least heighten this as a sort of an agenda item for a lot of people you're assuming there Stephen that Rockstar is not going to charge $500 for grft sticks which is which is which they probably could do let's let's segue then into our main topic um uh this is this is not particularly timely but there is a g there is a big game coming out this

year you may have heard of it it's called grandf 6 um ea uh last month effectively said without saying that if GTA 6 coming in the year may result in Battlefield being pushed out of 2025 that new Battlefield game coming out 2025 and moving into a different window so I asked around you know assumed is how's everyone else feeling about this and the answer is exactly the same um this is a quote from probably one of the biggest I I couldn't get them to go on the record about it because also some of these games haven't been announced yet they're talking about but this is uh this is one of the biggest games Publishers in the world telling me this Rockstar Games always suck a lot of money and more importantly time out of the market we don't want to be anywhere near that we're working up multiple different plans for our title another senior executive from a from a different company even without GTA it's immens immensely difficult to find free time for new games to shine time is the real scarcity for us not money it's tough out there um then there was um this I spoke to a European head of a triaa publisher um again it's all off the Record we don't want to launch just before or just

after the game if it arrives in late October that means you either have to launch early which a lot of people seem to be doing with the recent glut of Summer release dates or go later putting you up against the Black Friday sales or alternatively just get out of the Year entirely um now this is this is this is this is actually causing a bit of habit because they don't know when Rockstar are going to launch um uh one of them and that one of the contingencies they having to draw up this again same European boss if we move move out to 20 if we move out of 2025 what if Rockstar do twoo will we have to push our game up or will we have to delay further it's proving to be very stressful um now I don't think any of this is this doesn't surprise me um that everyone's looking to move out again but it isn't just it isn't just game launches so if you go to um I ask a bunch of live service game developers and I got quotes from two again off the Record quotes from two um live service game developers of top 10 live service games um GTA 6 is basically a huge meteor and we will stay clear of the

blast zone we will nudge our updates back or forward 3 weeks to avoid it of course the problem is everyone is going to do the same so three to four weeks before after GTA 6 you're going to get a load of live games they're talking about here dropping content in what they believe will be the safe Zone um it's obvious it's going to get a little it's obviously going to get a little bit messy um um so as part of this I decided actually are they right to delay the game is is is this is this really the smartest move and well uh I mean the answer was yes the the last time new Grand Theft Auto was released was back in September 2020 2013 which means if you were 18 when you bought GTA 5 you're now 30 um 50% of all game Revenue made during that month say September 2023 in the US was for GTA 5 that's Sakana data or MPD as they were called at the time that's despite the fact the game only arrived halfway through the month now in the UK I can get the weekly figures so in the UK 94% of all revenue made on video games the week GTA came out GTA 5 came out was on GTA 5 um the following

week FIFA launched it was and so it was the big launched 3-e period anyway FIFA's huge the UK it's normally number one um and uh but over the course of those three weeks at that what they call the blast zone um uh Grand Theft Auto 5 account for two-thirds of all games sold in the UK so um you're looking at a absolutely ginormous law and that was GTA 5 that that we weren't waiting that long for GTA 5 compared to GTA 4 um so there is there is there you can see from Pure numbers um uh that uh there is going to be a big scary um um it's going to cause a big bit of a moment in the market yes and and as you noted that one of the big questions is does rocks are actually Shi GTA6 in late 2025 so um I mentioned that I was at the dice convention in February uh back in in Las Vegas and so while the dice convention was happening Sony aired its state of play show case for a lot of the games that were going to be released first and

third party on PlayStation through the year and there was quite the buzz at dice amongst these industry folks who were there when the event aired because the Borderlands for release date was announced forber 23rd Border Lines 4 published by the same publisher as Grand Theft Auto 6 that's take two interactive and this is the first and only Mega game as far as I know that has been given a release date for the final several months of the year and so people took away from that well take two isn't going to release two their big games on top of each other so if September 23rd is Borderlands 4 then the two or three weeks in front of it or behind it are going to be safe you're not going to have to contend with GTA 6 during those weeks even September 23rd itself clearly not the GTA 6 release because they're not going to put it out the same day um both Borderlands and GTA so there was this feeling of of clarity or enthusiasm that hey at least we know a little bit we've decoded the their proposal a little bit I guess done a little bit of rise the golden idol logical deduction

there um to figure out what GTA 6 launch will happen you assume 2K at least have an idea but I think I think if that does mean it's 3 weeks later if it does put it at the end of October that's a really tough window to launch in because it means basic it wipes out October um and then you are and then the time it comes feels safe to perhaps drop against GTA you're into Black Friday sales so you're in a sort of um that's assuming that it is 3 weeks before we are we are heavily into the speculation territory the other interesting things about I do think if it does delay out 2026 which by the way everyone at 2025 I think everyone is you know that's not what take to us saying is going to happen I think the only company that really benefits from it but possibly Nintendo because um they obviously are going to be going hard uh this Christmas this Q4 this holiday season because of um of their hardware and the idea that um GTA doesn't compete with Nintendo I think is not true I think there will be people you know you need to remember that when I was a kid and I used to go mama on a new games console and she would buy me one that she thought you know she might get get

me a Nintendo but nowadays the parents also want the games console so when you're talking about people who are spending that money um they will you know PlayStation 5 it's going to be a big moment for PlayStation 5 this um and Xbox as well but mainly PlayStation 5 and so um it is a um therefore you'll see Nintendo switch launched in a relatively quiet point for the Playstation Xbox whereas switch to or launch at a particularly noisy point so I think that's um what it's the first holiday will be right how much how much does the perspective switch to game player you know you said yes their their you parents are going to want their GTA 6 as well possibly but if there's any company that makes games that would be relatively uh nonoverlapping with GTA 6 it would be Nintendo and look there's another big game that came out in 2013 that has sold tens of billions of copies and that's Mario Kart 8 which has had an incredible lifespan and unless there Nintendo is doing something really strange they've already teased

the next Mario Kart which I think is 10 not nine because I think that tour on mobile counts as nine I could be wrong I home circuit counts as 10 I think you need to um then we're go to to 11 um so whatever this new one will be likely will be a launch or launch window title and so you know put GTA up against the new Mario Kart I don't know um those are both monsters we almost assuming GTA isn't coming out on switch to um but the uh which is a fun thing but so I actually did look at overlapping data you mentioned overlapping data there and it's actually quite difficult because the people that are playing GTA today are actually online players I think so I can use ampair data here again mentioned amp earlier there great they've got some I can see throughout last year what percentage of players played a game who also played GTA in the same month and but because it's GTA GTA in 2024 they don't go B dat doesn't go back to 2013 annoyingly because it's check GTA players in they're online players

they're kind of different doesn't they not car you in the full GTA audience so you know unsurprisingly the games that cross over most with GTA in 2024 were all live service games Roblox has an average 22% audience crossover depending on the month um EA Sports FC had about a 133% audience crossover in September when that game launched when Call of Duty Black Ops 6 launched Call of Duty players 12.3% of Call of Duty players also play GTA that's the high crossover numbers and um so big action games shooter games not not um sports games mainstream games um lots of crossover the numbers are much much low for single player games just 3.1% of Warhammer 40,000 space Moon 2 players also play GTA online when space Moon 2 launched in September last year Star Wars Outlaws had a slightly higher number 5.3% but generally speaking it's quite low but again we're talking about online players here you know I don't think that's reflective of who might be buying GTA 6 week one so dat is a little inconclusive there did decide to look at the lower end try to find a game that had very

little crossover GTA and the one I found was metaphor ref Fantasia um 1.3% audience crossover that's not just Japanese RPGs Japanese RPGs tend to be a little bit higher 3% 4% like Dragon's Dogma and Final Fantasy but that game was just 1.3% and there was also some 4X games I looked at the release dates were a bit muddy but they also had quite low crossover some of the interestingly some of the games that had high I expected have low crossover like the bluey video game um didn't because it was in I think it was in Game Pass which was also grand thought it was also in which meant there was actually quite a high crossover there um so it was a bit it's a bit inconclusive but but the problem with even if you're game is a kids game a proper kids game name a kid or proper St you know nerdy or Niche title sure you're talking about getting coverage so I asked the sort of press engine that sort of sends out press releases and codes on behalf of games publish to give me some data about um I wanted to find out what do big games mean for media

coverage so the firm gave gave us a ranking of the top 10 most covered games during the launch weeks of Elder ring Starfield and Pokemon scarlet and violet I picked those three initially okay and those games all accounted for over 40% of all the published articles just from those top 10 games it didn't track every game in the case of Zelda here's the king and that number was above 50% um now obviously a lot of that's guides content but that is what we if you ever speak to the media today I know we're in the media but you talk to Big Publishers today they refer to it as money balling it or uh you know basically using the data that's what all the players are Googling that's what they're all searching um we're going and that is what we need to be focusing all of our energies and monies and freelance spend on um the reason why I even looked this up was uh I'm a fan of if there's some pictures on the wall there which is from conquer's Bad Fur it's one of my favorite games and the creator of conquer bad thir eight conquer bad thir eight guy called Chris seil called me up when he' released a game in 2018 18 called The Tale of Rusty pup um now

Rusty pup um came out nobody covered it didn't get anywhere didn't do anything I don't know about this game and I like conquer's bed for a day I yeah so and it's quite a good game so he called me up and said I'd like to do something on it please if you're up for it and I said I'd love to talk to you Chris it' be great um he I said what went wrong and he said I released it next to Red Dead Redemption 2 now now in his mind not a publisher his idea was let's put the game out there because that way it's it's we could be the alternative game not interested in game instead that was his thinking but then he couldn't get anyone to cover it they were all very busy covering Red Dead Redemption 2 um so anyway my my concluding point I guess is that if you're going to Rel even if you are going to release a game that's completely different you might find getting cut through share of voice whatever term you want to use to describe a marketing and attention um you you get you might struggle um um what if I'm going to be a bit more positive around the impact of GTA um again aair told me something that I thought was interesting andair track the stickiness of video games okay and why

that they mean how often a player returns to a game in a given month so the average GTA 5online player comes back to that game four to five days a month by comparison the average Call of Duty player returns six to seven days a month while fortnite players is 7 to eight days a month if you go to MMOs the numbers much much higher like the amount of people who come back to m is a lot more frequent now that's the average player so actually stickiness Grand Theft is on the lower end end of the spectrum here so in terms of what that means obiously we don't know what they're planning with GTA online this year if they're planning anything with GTA online this year but as a game as a franchise players are willing to put that down more than perhaps they are of other live service titles so for those um all those players that are all those live service companies a bit worried about the impact GTA might have on them they it does seem possible to be able to pull those players back um um in time but um that's the one positive I'll say about the game there is there is from the perspective of other Publishers and developers few thoughts one I need

to issue a correction Mario Kart came out in 2014 not 2013 so apologies uh but likely these two franchises might Clash they clashed pretty close last time they might Clash more directly this time so we'll we'll see what happens with that um the we're assuming a few things one we're assuming that not only will this game be a cultural phenomenon when it comes out which is you know not in doubt but that it will also resonate with players in a great way it's hard to imagine the game being bad or being negatively reviewed Rockstar is also very protective of you know even just the review process and do all they can to make sure that reviewers truly understand the quality of their game so it's hard to imagine a GTA 6 coming out with something less than Stellar review scores but this is also only the second Rockstar game developed you know since GTA 5 uh you know back in 2013 only Red Dead between that unless I'm forgetting

something and uh there's been a lot of you know change over in terms of creative leadership in terms of no no Leslie no Dan that's right so some of the some of the top people the game may just have a different flavor it might necessarily be worse might even be better than the previous ones but it might have a different flavor to it that might resonate differently GTA 5 launched without the online component which came out a month or so afterward in this case GTA 6 we don't know if it'll come out with it online component and the thing that's really given GTA 5 legs has been the online which has become a staple of Twitch streaming we also don't know the extent to which Rockstar will find itself competing with itself this is something that Nintendo is actually facing as well in that GTA5 online is still widely streamed we assume people will move to the next but valves run into these challenges in different times when trying to move people from One version of Counter-Strike to the next and it's not always a smooth transition Nintendo is going to face having a backwards compatible switch too and whether or not

they're going to be competing with themselves as well and so there's a number of X factors in here which don't necessarily suggest that GTA 6 will flop but its launch may feel different than GTA 5S that may create other opportunities for competitors for counterprogramming or what have you remains to be seen I thing and interesting you may brought up Nintendo there um breath of the wild act they had a bit of that problem with tears of the Kingdom um because I think it wasn't long before breath of the World Sales started outstripping tears the kingdom again on a on a sort of quarterly basis and partly because you know yes Nintendo did have a very big success with tears of the Kingdom But ultimately breath of the wild was still um became the sort of the staple sort of online shared game the default exactly I'm very conscious of the time we are supposed to be trying to keep these short I've not called it a microcast this time so I wouldn't get quite so criticized every time we ran over but um I obviously G I think people are probably right to run away from GTA um but uh but you're right there is you might find you might move your game I

remember talking to remedy about Alan weight 2 and about the fact they launched during a busy period for Alan weight to they launch next to Spider-Man and stuff like that and they said to me um if uh if we decided to um push it into February say we'd have just gone up against hell divers instead so there is who knows what's a safe uh there's nowhere to run no safe there's nowhere to run well that is thank you Stephen I really appreciate your time and joining me on the first ever games business game business show um uh I hope I hope you'll rejoin us in the future maybe we can talk about um other things in the uh in the inter but yes thank you for joining us I would love to thank you for having me and congratulations uh you know you have made uh you know your own professional transition and uh I'm very excited for everything that you're going to do at the game business I think you also gave people a great taste of it with the analysis and the reporting that you shared during this show so I'm really excited to see uh your uh your version uh your own personal GTA 6 as your sequ comes out and everyone runs from you oh

god well I don't think they'll do that but anyway thank you thank you for the kind words um uh it's the game for the for everyone listening thank you for listening as well the game business show will be back later today actually and indeed later in the week with our feature shows and one of those feature shows will be a deep dive into the state of video game investment you'll be able to hear about from game investors on Thursday in terms of our next news analysis show that will take place on Thursday next week as we react to the reveal of Nintendo switch 2 uh and so to make sure you don't any of this head to the game.com sign up to our emails um read it there if that's how you like to do things like the old fashioned way until next time thank you for tuning in I've talked to Roblox Studios that are smaller younger teams that are like super happy with like how they're monetizing and how they're able to support themselves um but on like a venture scale you know that's a different question than like are you able to like make something that's a hit and you know have fun and and reinvest back into your studio and make more content and stuff but then it's like are you bble to earn enough to kind of get either out of Roblox or do something

that's really going to be like a big hit the way it would be on like PC or console or something like that that's still kind of a question mark you know there's a lot that's really interesting about it and exciting but maybe not particularly from like a VC investible angle [Music]