Are You SEGA’s Next Big Hit? PG Connects Digital #2

without further ado I think it is time to introduce our next speaker and I imagine you've heard of Savior he certainly should but we're very lucky to have an Sager Europe's head of content and Bobby Verte Heim join us so and Bobby's gonna be talking well I think the title says it all are you saying his next big hit I mean that should be a tantalizing idea for anybody even if you're not even if that's not exactly you a tremendous opportunity to learn about you know how organization like Sega finds its hits and just this process generally in the game industry I can see Bobby has joined us so hello Bobby thanks for joining us I can hear

you as well so that's good so once again we'll assume there's a riotous applause from our audience and yeah over to you Bobby thank you very much we'll so I'll share my screen it's filling Lee right so thank you very much for joining everyone the talk today is called are you saying us next big hit and really to answer that I'd like to explain what it is that's Vegas doing and and then you'll know if if you if this is something for you or not and please do approach me after the after the talk I've still got some slots available and we can look to see if if indeed there is a synergy there so without further ado I'll talk about saying a search like right so what is Sega search like it's Sega's incubation program we are a small team based in Sega Europe we operate

globally if it wasn't for the lockdown I normally travel everywhere looking for really cool talented developers to work with and really what we're doing is supporting nurturing and helping Studios to bring great games to market right and what basically we want to do is create new original IP we were not necessarily on the hunt for working on license at ease or leveraging Sega's back catalogue even though when search like was first started about four years ago there was a there was two missions that we had one was to do exactly what I've just been talking about this now but also the other mission was to leverage Vegas back catalog so bringing Shenmue 1 and T 2 multiplied form and Yuki's a franchise to PC and and all these really great Japanese IP games that we we brought to PC and other platforms was something that our team was doing but

now our absolute focus is on building new original IP and we're not looking for opposition opportunistic pickups right what we're looking to do is to create real meaningful long-term partnerships and and in in in layman's terms what we're looking to do is to to find studios to add to say this roster and and acquire studios but rather than going out and just splashing out and buying loads of studios what we're looking to do is to use a dating analogy as to start dating do project financing create a rapport in a relationship and find success together and once we've got there and and we're still wanting to continue that relationship and even take it to the next level then we talk about acquisition and that's our end game that's our end goal we're trying to do things differently we we don't want to do just traditional third-party publishing we're trying to find the right balance right and we're constantly asking are they what is it that we offer

and how is it that working with us is actually a good idea and and we think it's a great idea we think we've got a really great program but we're still constantly asking ourselves and evolving right but what's key to us is making sure we've got a developer developer focus and a fairness in our courage and and being in it for the long haul I think those things are really what makes us different and I'll talk a bit more about what differentiates us as we go through some of these slides so this slide what you see here is all the logo all the logos of the studios that are wholly owned by Sega that fall under Sega Europe so there's obviously other studios Undertaker but the other Sega Europe videos oddly relic entertainment who are based in Vancouver Canada are here and obviously they're part of Europe now what would what's really interesting in in our approach is for about seven years now Vegas internally we've been calling on we've been saying that we've got a

tiller structure that's the structure we've put in place and what is a pillar right so a pillar is a studio SH that's wholly owned by Sega they're working really independently a higher degree of autonomy and what they're doing is growing their business and diversifying their brand with their own vision and they have their own unique sense of culture like if you asked any member star from any other studios who do you work for they probably won't say Sega they'll probably see in the name of the studio that they're part of right and we're really proud of that that we have this diverse kind of team such diverse teams they're all in different parts of where they are as a business they're in different stages of where they are in terms of building their franchise and their brand some of them have multiple IPS some of them are working on their first IP but what really kind of brings them together and that's that they all have in common is that they are very

different in how they approach things they do manage their own communities and they create their own long-term strategies product roadmaps and it all P&L responsible right so they it's almost like they're independent studios but they just happen to be owned by Sega and searchlight or the team that I'm in our mission is to add to these pillars so a really good example of one to talk about its two-point studios where we did a publishing deal with fully financed a game and we published it globally and within a year they achieved their three or four cost it blew everything away they're really over performing we we absolutely love each other and within ya-yee of releasing the game we acquired the studio and that's the kind of model that we want to replicate right and there's different wave of us looking at investments but that's certainly one way of doing it basements obviously we could go straight I'm a nail see investment or you know this different approaches but that route is

the route that the route that I described was two point Studios is the one that we've got the most experience in so far and what we're doing is creating an environment of success right by applying our unique sort of AI creatively led approach where we're not going out speaking to studio saying hey we've got this great game idea and a sack of money can you make it for us right we're not doing that we're talking to people saying what if your vision what what do you really want to achieve and what's the relationship that you want and what makes most sense of the partnership for us and kind of taken that approach and having a bespoke approach rather than going this one way that Sega works is now the way that you work we treat our partners as we would so search like what I say we search like treats it's part of it studios as if they are an internal studio from day one because our end game is to create pillars and end up having this long-term

relationship we want to start the relationship on relationship off on the right footing and really like to be as clear as possible what we do is with the full funding we don't take the IP we don't take over the creative ownership but we provide lots of information throughout development and beyond to ensure that our partners have the all the right data points right so that they can make informed decisions on what's the best thing to do for their brand or their game and their community and we help our Studios realize their creative vision so what do we offer we offer time to create and deliver on the vision to innovate at the state time you know something on paper might sound great like this great feature right and and it sounds great you implement it you do all the hard work and then you actually doing mmm not quite working maybe you

have to scrap it and start all over again and then quickly things take longer than you expected on a project level and on a franchise level and building a for Aaron it also takes time it's if it's not often right that you get a one hit just a sudden here and Sonny off sometimes you have to start it off be a little community and grow it over time and you know sega celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and we've learned a thing or two about building franchises and it does take time and in terms of infrastructure to build and execute a strategy for the vision you know we've got lots of unglamorous like stuff like IT and security but they're really you know important things as well as a global distribution network marketing throughout the services research recruitment all sorts of tax advice whatever and we've got proprietary tools and take that can be leveraged and the key thing is that all of these parts are

all coordinated it's a Wailord machine it's it's ready to work together and it's better than the sum of those individual parts right and and that infrastructure I think it's really something that we can leverage well and in terms of expertise so there's obviously a lot of expertise within the publishing side and whether it be on a marketing sales community management whatever but also there's a lot of expertise we've got throughout after years and we really believe that horizontal communication is just as important as that kind of vertical typical reporting up with communication and we've got network of studios where they have great studio heads have a lot of experience not only from all the years of experience that they have had but also they've got really relevant experience that are still doing it today right and often we have to figure out how to deal with challenges like Coe bid for example so there's network of studios that you can immediately talk to

and it's not it's never a we're really mindful of never crossing the line and being really clear about the role and responsibility where we don't encroach and start to take over to the creative right but it's really good I think for developers who are innovating they typically want feedback right and so having that available with a group of people that you can trust that you believe in that you respect I think it's really there's a huge body see that and finally obviously financing to fund the vision but not just a project right but actually the longer-term vision so we we've got that in abundance and there's clearly a lot of incentives that come with it we've got a great marketing branding PR team our disposal and you know we can really turn things on to ensure that the game is discovered and this slide is just showing some of the functions that we've

got internally in terms of publishing services on the Left Corporate Services in the middle and development services on the right and there's nothing really new here this is all standard stuff that you'd expect any publishers that have well I think what sets us apart is that we really do treat our partners as an internal studio so it could be HR right it you could put the your vacancies on our HR website getting more eyeballs on it if your studio that you've not no one's really heard of but you know you clear you are talented team that's why working with you but if it's on a sega website maybe you can get more eyeballs on that vacancy and you can secure those senior members of staff and convince them to move with their families right because obviously if their senior maybe they're bit old and they've got family and everything and if there's a name like Sega attached maybe it's you know a sense of stability and credibility there it could be our Web Services team who create bespoke websites for each of our games and keep it maintained and working

on all devices or maybe it's our market research team providing you know playtest focused s or quantitative surveys and and you know crunching all that data and providing it in a way that's really digestible I could talk about this stuff a bit too long but anyway the key thing is that whatever we have is at our partners disposal and disposal and it's not a you must you see services it's a the service is there and it's convenient and it's good quality and if you want to use it feel free and all of our pillars use say essential services in different ways some of them leverage taking more than others and I think that's really cool that we don't look to duplicate unnecessarily but we do make sure that we work in a way that makes sense for the partnership so this is like the slide to show the process like the real big overview and on the far left is where I really focus

personally I go out you know finding really cool talented studios to work with and then let's secure that deal and agree the get an agreement on the contract and then from then on we have we'll probably we generally speaking have a dedicated team of people working on your game to incubate that phase it's probably easiest describe that's pre-production production face up to release and then throughout this up these first three faders we're always talking about not just a project but that longer term vision right and that incubation phase could be anywhere between I don't know a year two year three years and even during that phase we're constantly talking about it and reassuring that we're evolving that vision and that's not Sega you know kind of forcing forcing anything but it's just you know making sure that we're we're working on it that we're not forgetting about why we're doing this project and then once we release again we should have actually not a vision but a plan that we can actually say you can execute on we can have budgets and dates

set towards certain things that we're doing to ensure that we can grow the community and and the brand and and help diversify and at some point we want to talk about acquisition right and look to acquire the studio and integrate them over time the acquisition could happen during the initial development of the game it could happen after the release of that game or maybe further in the future we don't have a set this is when we do it but we do it one it makes sense for that relationship and in terms of integration as well we don't look to rush the integration what we definitely don't want to do is to mess up what made that relationship great so you know we we definitely want to retain the talent in the team the culture in the team and ensure that we have all the timeit's that's needed so into great the team into Sega and once a team is ready then we can't look to you know put them into that pillar status and

that's when we've done a good job other team so for us releasing of the game is really it's you know it's kind of in the middle of the process that's not the end game for us and why fine we say go searchlights so it's a tailored approach that we have we scale to what the needs of the studio that we're working with is we to leverage what Sega has globally so search like even though it's a small team actually we're talking about a much bigger structure that we're gonna leverage we use that scale to to maximize see the opportunity and make you know a really fantastic game that's loved by many and there's a lot of heritage you know the credibility there's a lot of opportunities that we can do in terms of cross IP collaboration as well which is really cool if that's appropriate and that's what uh you know it's a partner would like to do and you keep control of your vision and your IP and it's all right here it's genuine I cannot stress it enough it so genuinely a truly a partnership approach so you know I think that's why you would sign with Sega

socially and one more slide on before I go sir what was currently looking for cuz these things do change but yeah what we're currently looking for is a talented team with a really great vision not only a game but actually a great vision and the credibility to be able to deliver on it right that's really important and a team that buys into our philosophy and the approach that I've just described and yeah definitely a fantastic game that's targeting PC and console platforms we're not really doing mobile at the moment or vo or AR although we always keep one eye on it at the moment our focus is on PC console and premium with some kind of postural support and maybe some people describe it as living games it doesn't have to always take all these boxes right but these are some of the things I use as my guiding principle when I'm going out talking to people and a game that leverages Sega's threats we want to make

sure that we're not just a bank but we are actually a really credible partner there are our partner that's working with us will feel like you know what say that's awesome right because if it's a really good match it should be that way so you know we want to work with projects that leverages what we're good at already so that's my talk for today thank you for listening there from an email if you do want to get in touch I've still got some slots available to have meetings if if you guys if that's hardly the interesting to you guys and I'm open to questions if there are any right I think that's me my time to step in now then dear audience you have currently not asked any questions in the Q&A app you should see the Q&A link below the screen below the slides so please do put some in there

and fortunately I've got ones already a to have appeared here they come and just when we let a few of those filter in Bobby um just wanted to ask about you know it's fascinating that idea of treating an external team like an internal team once you have this kind of relationship secured and you know it's fascinating you touched on the many gains that brings how do you balance that or how would you reassure a developer I guess who's thinking about you know reasonable creative freedom of course it's a partnership right but yeah just be really interesting that what you'd say to the developer who say no if I become an external team do I hold on to what I what I am as a studio so yeah be fascinated here on that one yeah so we're quite transparent with operate and we do our partners are really welcome to speak to any or failures internal studios and the leadership teams there and and hear about their relationship

with Sega right and this means in it for quite a few years now and they've all got their own relationship that they've got and I'm I think saying it's not ever going to be perfect like no individual is perfect right but we're also always striving to be better and always willing to learn and from those discussions I think people feel like oh actually I'm not just hearing it from Bobby but I'm hearing it from this guy and this person and this person so actually this sounds like this sounds like it is what Bobby said is it's that Macy's is really important right yeah that you know I'm sure that'll be very encouraging to the audience we've gotta move over to some of the questions now because they are coming in we have ten minutes max guys or nine minutes so yeah a good a good number of questions but I'm the still space more I hope I'm a very direct one for you here Bobby which

is what are the next steps to apply yeah yeah yeah definitely so yes email address so you can reach out to me with or I do look at my LinkedIn as well and I do attend a lot of these events and at the moment all of them are online so authorities if I go to an event and to search Vega it'll probably be my name that will pop up or any of these kind of b2b events so yeah I'll be more than happy to start kick off the competition that way as well right yeah fantastic yeah and I hope that one Bobby next question yeah let's let's brave it because this is a good and important question you know not like like you said yourself Bobby you know like none of us are perfect no no large organization is perfect well of to hand over to the wording the question now I'm sure you've had less than desirable experiences partners and what's the biggest culprit for tension

is it misaligned expectations poor communication something else you know and I hope in answering this the developer listening might be watching might be able to kind of you know learn about what to avoid hurry the culprits around yeah what I would do to make sure that you don't make those mistakes is to do your own due diligence on the partner right so as we go through the evaluation process we do a lot of due diligence on the partner that we're talking to you and on the project to make sure that it is what we think it is right and that there is a really good alignment but as we're going through that due diligence I'd really recommend our partners to do their due diligence on whoever they're talking to - right like if he Google Sager search like I'll be worse I'm or just any other studio or publisher investor and the key person that you're speaking that you'll find out stuff about them there might be articles there might be videos they'll you can actually

see their portfolio and how they're supporting their games post-launch or you know you can actually figure out quite a lot from doing a bit of research so I highly recommend doing that to make sure that you know who you're talking to and what they really understand what they're saying and then look at what they're doing to go okay they're saying this thing are they actually doing it right and that way he can ensure that you you are lying because I think misalignment of expectations is a massive problem in terms of people's happiness not just in term of what we're talking about here today but just in general right so as long as we aligns with our expectation I think that's a good start fantastic um the next question that's come through and oh well not the next question but one that seems like a reasonable follow-up there is and it's a really good question what would be the best time in a concepts development to approach Sager what deliverables would you expect in an initial pitch playable demo fully form dev team core clear concept

that right is there an ideal time to reach out to you guys yeah that's a great question so it depends is the answer I'm sorry let's say you're establish studio you've got an existing IP and you're looking to create a sequel or spin-off to it then the sooner the better if you're a team of people that's a brand new studio but you've got a lot of experience in let's say a first-person shooter and you're looking to create a first-person shooter the sooner the better but let's say you used to make first-person shooters and now you're making I don't know a rhythm game let's say then I'd be like well I know you're great at what you were doing before not sure if you're great at making this thing now so in that case and I definitely want to see a prototype or something right like kind of something to add to the credibility I definitely in all cases I would like to understand what makes a project important and why I should care about it why should anyone care about it

what platforms it's targeting the budget it's all of that stuff you know typical kind of kind of spec of the game I'd also want to understand why this team is the right team to make that game right and maybe that's because of your past experience so maybe that's because of the work that you've already done on that project and I'd like to also understand what you want from a partner like what how can say go really add value to this project right and the more that I can understand that it plays to our strengths and its relevance to us the more easier the conversation becomes fantastic I mean yeah just such a practically helpful kind of list of insights there uh-oh I feel I should that question was from thunderbox entertainment it was a great talk by the way so I'll just I'll just get back that one over yeah I it's something I touched in my question but I think it remains an important one to answer is some teams

might be worried about losing controller autonomy on their projects by a small print do you think this is a real concern when signing with large publishers obviously be fascinated here your insights there Bobby definitely know it's a good one so with us rest assured there isn't right that's our approach that's totally something that it would completely go against what our team is if we were to look to take over creative ownership and as we're not taking over the IP in the deal when we do project financing it it's kind of like we're it's your baby right it's it's not say those maybe it's your baby belongs to your company right if you something you created and we're just here to help nurture that and grow that baby but yeah if you're working with investors or publishers I think it is important to clarify how much control they expect to have and may it is

really horrible but maybe it's worst in a racy chart or something I don't know but having some kind of methodology or tool that you can use and it could just be a conversation over coffee right but make sure you you're using the right tools to really understand to get to the bottom of what is this relationship going to look like I think that's going to be really important brilliant yeah another one great one and we are slightly running out of time I will try to squeeze in a few more I'm afraid to the person asking about following Sega movies while I'm sure Bobby is involved in making all of them we might not squeeze that one in he does direct them all himself personal personal projects yeah actually might need a short answer but you mentioned that you had an eye on VR it's a very simple question are you accepting pictures for VR games so I say I keep one eye on VR AR and mobile but that's more on a kind of landscape right at the moment and I'm not actually proactively pursuing pictures in any one

of those things at the moment but I do keep one eye on it right to just go okay when it's the right moment for us to go right this is something that we can really get behind right okay so almost sounds like this the spirit of never say never even if you're not proactively pursuing those a couple more questions that are a good ones as well but I'm afraid we really must wrap up there but yeah just again to say thank you so much Bobbi like the amount of practical transparent fascinating insight there was a yeah just wonderful you know I'm sure there'll be a tremendous used to our audience as you said I think you've got a couple of the meet to match slots left yeah brilliant so people can still still pest you if they can speak to you but yeah yeah without having said all that I shall let you go and get back on me the day and so thank you Bobby and enormous round of applause and around the country and around the world

yeah brilliant stuff Thanks thank you well thank you everyone bye for now