BITKRAFT Summit 2023: Transmedia Magic - IP Opportunities in Gaming

[Music] [Music] [Music] our next panel is going to be diving all into the IP opportunities available in gaming and to kick things off we have our wonderful moderator Jasper brand a partner at bcrafty will be joined by LC Crowley a CEO at trioscope Derek s executive and

consultant previously at riot games and Bungie and last but not least David watanay CEO at 555 Comics Round of Applause [Music] please thank you hey everyone uh great to be here to talk about trans media with some great minds in the space today in a time where the Barbie and the Super Mario movie keep surpassing each other with like one and a half billion in Crossing and uh only de budgets of 100 to 150 million and you're not even looking at what this does to the IP uplift and other sales so uh really excited to have LC who's um a creative Visionary who spent quite some time at adultswim Netflix and a few other places and work with some Global Brands like AT&T and um Derek taii who is a development executive and producer uh across some of the biggest names in the space that we know like Riot and Bungie and Nike and Ben who's a a Content

strategist and game designer story designer who created the largest anime vtuber on Tik Tok and also let some social design for 50 Cent uh before um Ben why don't we start with you why don't you tell us a little bit more about what 555 is doing yeah so we create trans media stories that start on Twitter or Tik Tok they're fictional worlds that are told in real time so when the character wakes up Luna's complaining about going to school at school she's complaining about being brainwashed and in that at night she's headed into the wood into the woods to hunt down a phantom clown really exciting stories like if stranger things characters lived on social rather than on TV so that you can develop a relationship with them awesome uh Derek tell us a little bit about your journey sure uh most recently I was a head of trans media senior execu Bungie and a big part of it was like Bungie is like one of the greatest shooters ever made and it was about taking it to different mediums attracting new audiences a deep and fandom in a different way and kind

of taking advantage of like all the different mediums besides gaming and previous to that I was producing and directing at right games and you know just making short films to uh represent like League of Legends in a slightly different way too because I was there during the expansion and working on the new products they had uh besides League like Legends of Rara and like TFT and valerant and whatnot and it was like league but like a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right to just really expanded and Bren out the IP awesome LC tell us a little bit about how trioscope came together and what you're cooking up there yeah sure so my career background had always been about kind of frankensteining some kind of content idea with uh you know some kind of uh new technology and trioscope kind of came out of that really identifying particularly in the linear content space the need for kind of a new unlock some sort of you know new saw for uh really large scope and scale IP that was kind of locked behind a cost wall and so

trioscope uh has now developed what we call the stylized entertainment engine which is really designed to sort of provide sort of Maximum scope scale spectacle at a fraction of the cost and sort of a you know a very pipeline ified or automated way awesome uh if we're if we're staying there for uh one minute you just had a um project with the Amigos that's about to wrap up um that's a fun one how has it been working with people from music who are starting to work look into the TV and uh linear format yeah it's cool you know I mean they uh so we have we have this IP called takeover and it really is sort of been designed from the very beginning to be a trans media so it's a it's a I think a good topic um it's an underground street racing kind of underground um takeover culture if anybody has seen these happening in in cities across the Us and other places

um we brought in quo from uh from Migo's Fame to Star and also to sort of you know be the sort of lead Avatar of the whole world it's cool I mean he he doesn't quite get it all you know he's like I want to be in an action movie and that's sort we're like okay cool we'll start there and uh but you know somebody who's got 29 million uh you know Instagram followers is a is a good place to start when you're making a movie not bad not bad U when it comes to followers Ben um how does the storytelling end up working for you into engaging audiences on a continued basis across different platforms how's it been starting the first um of the cre creators and then you also have some interesting stuff on fans actually coming into to roleplay and engaging with IP yeah I think it's about giving them access I think to trans media and just about going across different mediums I think the key ingredient these days is giving them access to create

lots of times that can be very scary uh with with an IP I I think of it as like riding a sand worm from Dune like uh they'll they they'll Buck you throw you off in a second but uh you you got to be along for the ride um and so we really make sure that with our with our transmedia stories that the fans can create that the characters respond to them engage and pull them in I think you know it's adding that extra Dimension to a story that's really key getting them to be biased because they feel like you're their friend as well which for our team they really do value that relationship awesome awesome Derek um the League of Legends Universe has lots of um very famous characters with their 100 million plus monthly audience how has it been for you going through that Journey what are some of the key learnings um taking IPS from games and bringing them into other mediums sure I think it's about like breaking down each Champion into like key pillars you know there's always like identif elements

iconic like elements and I think if you can take those key pillars and translate them to different mediums like as long as you know what those pillars are you can generally like move him over so there's this piece I um I produce with zillian he's like the time Wizard and he had a mechanic in the in our card game That Could Turn Back Time and whatnot obviously so like in the in the film that we made like we made you know the time travel aspect uh basically like a key plot driver so you know there's just I think a big part of it with like translating between me medium is always just like identifying like the core elements and then translating them in a way that's like housed in the new medium well if that makes sense y yeah absolutely absolutely and uh you've worked on actually creating some content from from scratch how did that Journey work to bring linear to life sure I mean a lot of it is like the same thing right I think like IP when you break it down it's like a collection of stories characters and iconography wrapped around like a big idea or a big question with like multiple entry points for the audience and ways for them to identify

so I think I just always start out with what's the big question like the the story is asking like my favorite movie of all time is probably Rocky right and I think Rocky asked a pretty big question that I didn't understand until after I was 35 which was um how do you define Victory if you're not going to win you know it's like a big thorny question and you can build like an entire franchise off that and then something like Game of Thrones is ask a big question too which is like can you be a good person in rule if you have to be basically a moral to rule in this world if you look if you look at the story through that lens like every character embodies a different side of that so I think when starting new IPS I start with a big question and then I try to build around I try to build as many like points for audiences to identify as possible and that's like you know Nobody Does it Better Than like Harry Potter right so it's like the four houses like everybody in my life like all the Millennials can just identify themselves as one of the houses and I think when you start with that then there's different ways for the audiences to like basically like latch onto an enter your IP yeah fascinating um we all definitely pick our houses

that early age I don't think that changes um see how how are you thinking through you know um taking learnings from games into film and TV and potentially back yeah I mean I would just add that you know in in the IP takeover that I mentioned um we're just outright stealing that idea of houses you know so it's it's uh sort of a factional universe with a bunch of uh instead of houses they U Auto street racing gangs but with the express purpose of you know distinct personalities that you know assign these sort of micr communities um yeah I mean what how how did you phrase that well what what are some of the learnings from from film and TV that you think games can take away for IP building and trans media opportunity setting the IP up for Trans media and potentially also the other way around yeah it's a good question I mean I totally agree with Ben as it relates to like the the really secret ingredient that we believe is when you when the you

know when when audiences become more and they really um start to kind of you know engage and and help build out the world that ultimately becomes Canon that's challenging sometimes when you're working with sort of traditional creators like we have a project with George R Martin um and he's not really into that idea of like opening the floodgates of you know I mean um like he's cool with fanfiction but like that sits over there the idea that it would actually be integrated and in and sort of elevate to Canon is just something he can't get his mind around yeah I mean I think you know I don't know I don't know that I have a good answer to that I mean at the end of the day like we're we feel like we're trying very hard to learn as much from the gaming world uh as we can and I'm not sure we have anything to offer in return so far um it would takeover for example

uh we're building out so we're we're making a feature film that sort of kicks off and establishes the world but we're also building a a pretty significant uh Roblox experience uh actually in in collaboration with Maximillian who made front lines right so uh we're just kind of standing back and and we've got a lot of ideas but mostly we we're sort of leaning on those guys to tell us like hey here here are the pieces that we think are interesting I have been really fascinated with the idea of like inor film making because that happens to be actually a part of the actual you know real world of of takeover where everybody has their phones out and they're kind of capturing these these events as they happen um so it's been interesting to kind of bring that like hey what if what if your character is holding a camera and you know thinking through you know what plane uh the ugc happens at has been an interesting learning experience for us

that's awesome um Ben how are you thinking you know on that um thought of experiencing stories through the lens of the Creator you know all of the vtubers you have the episodic content that drops how how are you thinking through impacting storytelling through that what what kind of new avenues does that open for you you know it's making them not have to think in a new way learning to write a book you have to start thinking in a third person angle you know I'm not up here saying Ben thinks this Ben thinks that I'm not one of thankfully uh although it might make that conversation a little bit more fun so the the trans media style that we've developed is it's all from the selfie angle so it's people just tweet the same way that they would normally except they get to play in a world with you know uh with cyberpunk worlds with uh dystopian urban fantasy style worlds and I think you know the real key of trans media is creating many different level of investment for the

fans that it can be you have different levels of fans you want spectator sports like with you know Riot innovated the really and the team behind bit craft with Esports and you could be a spectator when you got older and you didn't have time to SN 10 hours on the weekend into the game you could live vicariously through them with ours we have super simple you can just log in for the memes follow those or you can go deeper into the world into fully immersive games in the future so trans media should be that different L appetizers main course is everything else very cool Derek what do you think are some of the biggest missteps people make when trying to set up the I for Trans media I didn't know I was going to get this question uh biggest missteps um well I wouldn't say missteps I would say like maybe Focus let's maybe keep it there um I think it's like the biggest one I see all the time is the focus on World building versus character you know when you're going from games to like quote unquote linear media like they're just two different experiences and I

think like game like World building and lore is super important in games and it's really important in linear media but in linear media it's really about the characters and I know this isn't a game but I use the Black Panther IP as a good example which is like I think vibranium is really cool it's like magical space metal I think that's great but I think what makes it interesting is what it makes like Eric kilmonger and tchala do right it's like the moral choic is like that metal makes those guys make is what makes like that IP fascinating to me you know and even something like my favorite show is probably madmen and if you think about the amount of World building that's revealed through the characters in Madmen right the different Strat of society how like certain people are kept out like men women like even like you know Don is from like a farm you know what I mean so he's kind of kept out and then like women African-Americans and whatnot it's all like pretty dense World building from like 1960s America but it comes through all in character and conversation I think I would probably end it with this is that like you know my favorite game is Zelda right breath of the wild if you look at the screen like 90% of it is the world so I understand why World building is so important in games but you look at any

TV show it's basically like 90% Talking Heads so it's really about the characters and I think it's really like an adjustment and thinking and that like the world and the lore is super important but it's got to come through the characters and that's how you're going to get people to invest you know otherwise like we've all seen the movies where it's like it's AP History time this is the history of the world and I just like totally fall asleep you know what I mean so I think that's like probably the biggest like shift and thinking that has to happen when uh when you do more of these adaptations yeah so if you're a game Studio it's emerging and you've maybe raised a seed or a series a how and when you think um you know you should start planning for that and uh you know setting setting the tracks for sure I think a lot of it is like building your IP with flexibility in mind because like you know making good games are making any game is pretty much impossible making a great one is like so hard and I really like appreciate that so I think when building out the IP is like building with flexibility in mind you optimize for the first thing you're going to come out with which is probably a game but there should be enough flexibility in there to like adjust just as you incorporate more mediums I think yeah that makes sense

that makes sense um Elsie how do you think um when when is the right point in time to think about you know doing starting to do some short form content you obviously make it much cheaper and faster to produce um you know when and how can people think through let's say oh let's expand and let's try to get a deal with a streaming platform like Netflix or Max or something like that yeah it's an excellent question you know because if if an IP let's say originates as a game then the sort of entrenched path you know has traditionally been all right well let's get the movie or let's get a Netflix series you know and there's just a giant chasm between those two and short form has always been sort of relegated to I don't know what I mean gameplay or you know um Talking Heads you know or whatever sort of non non-fiction but what if what if you could do narrative you know is sort of what we're building for as as one of the things we're building for and it it

remains to be seen because it really isn't a um the there to my knowledge there isn't a you know an the things that Ben and and 555 are doing are probably as close as you can get to like true narrative short form at scale uh but you know I I'm really excited about it we we sort of call that lane intermediate right where uh it might be an answer to that question about when should you start thinking about it because if you had a lowcost way that was tens of thousands of dollars to produce narrative based short form versus tens of millions uh then you could you you've got the latitude to make a lot of mistakes and calibrate as you go and find those ways of uh doing exactly what Derek said you know of uh letting the characters build the you know build the world through through action and story um so yeah we're really excited about that we we're doing that with take over uh uh and we you know pretty much everything we're doing has

an intermediate strategy and when our intermediate tools are kind of race ready uh you know we want to unleash them on the World to IP holders game you know game Publishers comic companies you know podcast companies really excited to see what happens but have no idea what will happen yeah I think it's definitely a where to start is like ls's talking about the $10,000 investment versus the million doll investment so it's really back backwards that it's thought of as like the final marketing piece and they they might go to ogal or something at the last step to start this trans media but it's you know from the startup world we know you start with the smallest investment first we we call our model the lean story Model not the Lean Startup model and it's we start with that first the marketing and that validation of the product at the very beginning rather than waiting until the very end for it and you know just making it a loose story as well people get into trans media and they think oh it's got

to be this intricate web and with every thread can be pulled out and but the truth is the trans media experiences should probably be the shallower experiences and leave lots of gaps that you can see your fans engage with it and they start ideating and thinking and basically writing the story for you even when they aren't doing it literally like ours you'll see the commons and they'll come up with good ideas and then you can seem like the genius that you're connecting those dots later on and they feel really satisfied that they guessed right so it's a good experience for everyone and like jumping off that I think like transmedia experiences should actually like stand alone you know because I think like interconnectivity has gotten like really like you know uh fashionable with like the MCU but I think as you can see now with Marvel like with so many things connecting it can feel like a little bit like homework and I think like I wish the other Ben was here with uh he did the Harry Potter games but it was amazing that they made a billion dollar Harry Potter game without Harry Potter it was just the environment was that connecting branch and you can like it's crazy cuz like I

love the books like I love Harry Potter but for me it's always a book my nephew doesn't care about the books or the movies he just plays the game you know what I mean and they're like really enjoyable independently but together they can form kind of like a gal or like like a or something holistic that like means more but I think like they should be able to stand alone and everything should act as an entry point that can like lead to other things but if you just experience that it it needs to be able to like stand alone I think yeah awesome um Derek how are you thinking through kind of the the lowest hanging fruit um if you're you know you want to promote something um maybe that's uh bringing a character onto social media similar to what Ben is doing or creating a small linear piece um that can work on different platforms to promote some new expansion pack or monetization Avenue for a game or is it a piece of music that you're trying to work with a bigger Creator what what can people do where do they start sure I I think like authentic it is important is more important than scale scale is great like I've been very

fortunate to work at big companies where you can like really blow it out and kind of go nuts but I think above all it's going to be authenticity and it's going to be like that's what your community is really going to um it's it's going to really really like respond to so I would just stay like really true to your IP so I think I tend to start from the inside out so really identify what makes your IP the IP like what are the core pillars what are the key elements and then just Branch out of that you know it doesn't like Elsie says like jumping to a show is like literally the Grand Canyon and I would advise against it unless you can just do it you know so I think trying like you know even before Riot jumped to Arcane there was like all those cinematics right so there were like 90 seconds 2 minutes and you build up you build up even before that it was like the loading screen for the characters like there was a little movement just even that is like different you can just test and validate to see what's going to work or not and you know before I you know got into write I did a bunch of homework on the univers side they had all these short stories and they had all these like you kind of like tiny stories short stories like built out and I'm a big fan of like building over time but I think the key thing is like you need to

identify what your brand is cuz like something that's unset up here is that we live in the age of the attention economy and it's like how do you make someone pay attention when no one pays attention to anything you know like if you after any game conference I dare you go go on IG YouTube and Just scroll through the trailer if I squint most of it like bleeds together if I'm being honest so I think a lot of it is like staying true to your IP finding out what's distinct and then building out from that instead of going for like the highest thing possible yeah I I agree with that I I would also say that um maybe just getting back to First principles to make sure that if it's a linear piece it needs to have a beginning middle and end you know like it needs to sort of stand on its own like you said and and and be a story in and of itself you know if it smells if it sort of looks and walks and talks like marketing I you know I think it uh just gets consumed in a different way than if it's like oh wow there's you know there's an actual story that I can invest in here however simple you know just make sure that it goes

somewhere that makes sense Ben with the shorter form how does beginning middle and end work when you're trying to you know create some IP and character affiliation from the from Grassroots brutally uh the you know YouTube they say it's like 1.7 seconds that you have to get them in we're on Tik Tok so it's about a magnitude lower than that and so yeah I always tell our team we've got to be like bank robbers in that first section we've got to get in we've got to get their attention super fast um you know it's but TV shows dealt with before bingeable TV shows they dealt with this too you couldn't you had to think about every episode standing on its own Netflix and the streamers took a lot of that pressure off that you know they're going to know the whole series but uh yeah on trans media I think you have to think about about it a lot more like the old way of every episode has to stand on its own in our case every tweet and Tik Tok has to be entertaining enough on its own to get them to go back in and go

further makes a lot of sense um we're we're up on time here this has been uh super fascinating to hear all your different angles to this really appreciate your time here and uh there'll all be around here uh in case you want to look to build trans media IP [Music] opportunities joint