Chris James and Dave Bradley On Lucrative Gaming Markets And Branding Power At PGC Helsinki

[Music] hello world welcome back to the pg. bestz podcast with your hosts myself Brian bagloo and the ever effervescent Peggy an Sals good afternoon Peggy how are you today I am well Brian it is great weather at the end of September and hey even better than that you've been working a lot on your show I did some shows missed however the show we're going to be talking about today that's why I'm so happy to have this show I can hear the highlights from our guests who were there yes we are welcoming back our friends Dave Bradley and Chris James from steel media who are freshly returned from Helsinki after the last PGC event gentlemen it's good to have you back thank you for having good to be here so PGC Helsinki was one of the one of The Originals how was it this year it was one of the best actually it was really busy I think that's like I don't

know 12200 1250 people really Buzzy and the feedback has been incredible actually it's been really lovely so it was really lovely to be back there it's always good to be in Helsinki and um yeah we're we're we're very happy all told really really nice Vibe uh lots of things going on we were doing some um some new things there as well it was a good mix of old and new because we were back in one of our as you say in Helsinki we've been there since 2014 so it's it's coming up to celebrating our 10th anniversary of doing these shows next year and we were back in the original venue but were doing some new things as well I mean as well as some of the the um the hot topics like we had an AI track and that kind of thing we also ran um games Factory talents in partnership with games Factory talents which is a um a careers organization in in in Finland we ran a uh a recruitment Fair a Career Zone so we had that going on as well which was a was was a new thing for this year and and and that I think went very well sort of in response to the fact that there had been some you know in the games industry some tough times some layoffs in some areas and and lots of people looking for looking for work not to mention all the the latest generation of of recent graduates

looking for work as well so it was we were pleased to be able to put some space aside for that at the venue which was good we used one of the rooms for that and you know we also tackled some other topics we were able to look at things like um uh alternative re Revenue models that was one of the uh the things that we did we had some talks about blockchain and and web 3 as well so there there was plenty going on both both old and new but it had as Chris said really really nice Vibe really felt good and you really get a sense that when we run Pocket Gamer connects Helsinki it's an opportunity for lots of people to come out and do things around it so we had sort of lots of Fringe activity loads of other companies ran uh parties that week uh creating a real sort of Festival Fringe Vibe I think we we ourselves throw a party on the evening of the first day of the conference but on the way there I stopped off at somebody else's party you know we went over budget in our party we we love the fins they're lovely people really uh really it's not the reputation they have but they're very very warm very very open and kind of sharing I know when you first meet a Finn that's not the impression you get it's like God

this is going to be tough going but but they are once you get you know beyond that kind of initial share they don't waste words necessarily but they really uh really really great ecosystem I think it's one of the best most welcome and most sharing is I guess and supportive ecosystem when we first set up PGC one of The Inspirations was the igda meets where I'd been a number of times done some mixes and events with him and seen like CEO of supercell or roio big wigs sitting there talking to each other about their games it's like can you imagine like you know Activision EA sat in the room going this is our new game what do you think crazy uh and then also just being really open to let students and and and Indie developers come up and talk about their things and that that whole cross-section and openness is is one of the real Inspirations of what we wanted to to do in the first place the Indie scene is alive and well and thriving and I guess that's you know the the Finn games Community has its roots in that Indie scene back right back to the demo scene and the pro programmers

of the of the ' 80s and 90s and the but the Indie scene is still there alive and well and we had uh an expo area with uh I think Chris 20 indeed developers there um showing their their Wares and um there was an audience prize we had everyone who came in got to play games and vote on them and we were able to reward the the most popular game at the end of the uh of the event and and so there's there's definitely that that kind of ongoing sense of of Indie Community we as always Chris mentioned there how one of our Inspirations was the work done by the IG da and we're still very close to the idda they work with us to provide free buses from around Finland because we didn't want people in other cities in Finland some of which are many miles away to miss out so we we laid on with the with the igda help some some free transport so you know students from the north could bust down to be part of the event and so on so there was a there was that continuing Indie Vibe was there very much there who who won in the competition we had um the audience Choice Award and there were two big Indie pitches one for mobile and one

for uh for for for PC the audience Choice Award which was sponsored by britbe Was Won by sulfur a game by Perfect random and Indie Studio they also uh picked up the prize for the um the very big Indie pitch PC version and then there was uh the mobile version of the very big Indie pitch which is run by boogies which was a dancing uh dancing app which uh which entertained everyone on the when they came to get their award on stage record so so gentlemen um what for you is the defining part of H this year what was this kind of the best part for you the biggest takeaway what filled your hearts with joy well I spent quite a lot of time uh on stage one of my duties at the uh conferences that Pocket Gamer runs is stage host so I was moderating a lot so I uh I spent most of my time seeing some of the great talks and panels and moderating those and being part of that and we had I mean worldclass speakers taking part great topics great talks I really want to draw attention to to a few there when we have our we had our regular uh industry

visions and values track which is we get to talk about company culture and about building a better games industry something which I think they take very seriously in in in Finland but we had an incredible uh an incredible talk um based around uh how to build sustainable culture in a creative environment that had some some really incredible Representatives on it from from companies I mean we had uh for instance it was that panel was hosted by uh Matias Viking from turborilla but it had um speakers on it including uh uh um ansu from Mainframe Industries and uh uh Isabelle from from Dice EA games so that was I mean that was a that was that was a really quality 40-minute conversation some fantastic speakers uh throughout I mean I'm I'm by admission here I'm leaving out you know scores of scores of people but there's there was a really interesting conversation about um about the uh the role of uh of um indigenous gra game creators uh in the Finish scene which included uh Mariana from uh red stage entertainment talking about the uh the Sami people uh and and their their

game creation which is you know just interesting stuff and the kind of thing that you can only only get in the region there and you know very very important topics the thing overall that brought me joy was that sense of the the games industry family when I know we're doing a conference right is when it feels like that when everybody's got a bit of a smile in the face that was definitely there so that made me personally happy in terms of the content um the bit I really enjoyed and was I was hosting again at the start I was there was the um was just hearing the Finnish uh story so we had metacore games hugely successful at the moment we had Nitro games listed business we had fingersoft talking about their story we had CR critical Force um V Pekka talking about his his rise and fall it was a very and because it's finish it's very candid people share data people share the time though they almost went bankrupt and they fired their CEO because they didn't really got on with him and and it's really honest and that was really good definitely worth watching because they're very candid about things so that

for me in a way that I understand where people aren't often because especially in American culture very much more about success celebrating our success and we're impenetrable and we never lose and and and really the reality about games industry any business but mainly games is tough right people you're going to drop fail and go the wrong way more times than you go the right way and it was really interesting seeing meore talk about some of the mistakes they made and how they how they identified Their audience and fingersoft talk about the whole history of their studio and how they grown from and the one of the things he said was the best thing ever he said the best way to make a successful game studio is to make a failed game Studio first so he basically said like that was the second business and they'd both been in a thing it's lost money went nowhere but they' loan So and I've seen that time and time again um in terms of successful companies and entrepreneurs who've kind of got all into something got it completely wrong and then lick their wounds come back and and and learned from it one last thing I have to say because I was also ch ing the investment

track um which was pretty down again very candid little bit downbeat all the VC's going it's very hard to make money in Mobile and like I'm going okay and I you know what I'm like I'm like a bouncy bunny so I'm coming up there i' I've got the third Tru talk on the track and I do this thing where I overview all the trends and what how it's going and what an incredible 25 year history we've got and look at all this money spent and all this money in the sidelines and big potential and right in front of me I had two guys going it's over for mobile there's no money in there anymore and and and literally giving the most D thing and I had to and there were good people like yimon was a guy from sissu there were proper VCS that have been successful and been part of it and I had to come on as like doing my intro bit third and to try and go okay folks you've heard from the experts now here's the the Court Jester to tell you why it's not all that bad so that that kind of stuck with me I I don't actually agree with them I I I I know VCS tend to tends to be wow it's

the next big thing or it's all over and that's why you know they pour money into web three and now ai and then something else and I don't actually agree with their core thesis but I can see that the old model that they used to invest in doesn't it's not like it doesn't work but they don't have the same upside like before you could invest you know even seed a couple hundred thousand in a mobile game studio with the hope of that growing without that much more investment to being like 10 hundred million dollar maybe make a billion dollars like Supercell uh kind of studio and now that's very hard to do um that doesn't mean you can't be successful in mobile games it just means for VCS it's a bit of a less interesting space right now you know Helsinki is the spiritual home of mobile gaming and there has been a bit of a sense that with rising cost of user acquisition and the the you know the step away from idfa which makes data harder that there's been a little bit of a sense that mobile is under siege do you think we came away from Helsinki thinking that I think that's the the tone the VC's came I think that's the tone that the VC's offered that some of the hardcore investors not necessarily

the angel investors I'm in a couple Angel investment groups and I don't sense people are not still doing the same things they were doing before I think what the tone I got from it was you have to do something different you either have to stand out with a new game play or you've got to think a bit more about how you're going to Market and and and and maybe a bit more realistic about the fact you're not just be able to raise loads of money for for nothing and pour it all into UA and and it'll do okay because like you know borrowing money and getting money to to invest into UA and stuff is is more expensive and as you say Dave idas come along Pro these things are changing all the time it's it's harder to to to Target an audience than it was I wanted to zero in on a point that you raised earlier Dave which was about the focus on Alternatives so it was very much this Vibe it was very much this feeling maybe not among the VCS Chris you know that mobile is here and mobile is real and they're looking for Alternatives because they believe in that kinds of Alternatives were they discussing one of

the Hot Topics that keeps coming up at our Pocket Gamer events is is how else do you uh you raise money from games how else do you monetize games so you know it's around conversations like um subscription models of course Apple arcade is a is a um is a big one but you know uh Netflix has entered the chat and remember they purchased next games in in Finland right just up the street from where our event was hosted actually in the center of uh Helsinki next games is now part of Netflix and and Netflix have a subscription model where you can you pay in monthly so rather the traditional way of of you know paying a premium price to download a game or or getting a game for free the free to play you know Revolution was huge in Mobile for so long the cost of user acquisition to get the scale of players that you need in order to make that work and then sell their ads or or in our purchases is really you know prices a lot of um smaller Studios out of the market so what are the other ways of making money and we had a a session on the um uh on the uh on the morning of of day two there talking about alternative revenue streams you know we had you know you have to consider things like uh about

subscription models about uh about ways to raise money with um you know with with alternative payments also you know alternative um methods of um of of advertising in games as well you know whether or not the older uh the older kind of um uh you know interstitial ads are the way forward or whether a lot of you know we need to be looking at things like audio ads and stuff like that now there was there talk about that so that's kind of really where the where the alternate re Revenue models come in but just since you you kind of prompted there about um uh Alternatives I should say that one of the other things that we've done increasingly at our events including here in in hsy is make sure that there is uh a stage that that gives space to PC gaming um and blockchain games PC games I've always been you know a PC Gamer back from very early on I mean Chris and I met in the 90s working for a PC Magazine so um that's that's my background but mobile has been the dominant um platform in in games for for a while now but I get a bit of a sense

that that a lot of Indies particularly are are moving away from um the uh the mobile free-to-play model and experimenting again with PC games and also crossplatform play absolutely huge number of people that's another takeaway that that comes out of uh the last couple of Pocket Gamer connects that that we've seen people talking about about play the ability to play a game uh across both mobile and PC and console platforms so that's why we have a a PC Indie pitch our show now why there's a big screen game stage um at the event for uh for people to come and talk about uh PC development although mobile remains our our bread and butter these kind of changes in the market have have made it you know important that we welcome uh other strands so Pocket Gamer is now also you know we have half a day dedicated to PC gaming now as well so that's in there too I mean I think it has been for quite a long we we actually ran PC connects and XR connects and blockchain connect we've we' we've been doing it for quite a while connect that's right in San Francisco B is a heart and I guess if you know you call

yourself Pocket Gamer people understand that and but we we run P you know aside from Pocket game B run PC games Insider and Beyond games and blockchain game and so we we care about these things crossplatform is the Hot Topic right now because the ideology there is literally like we're not quite sure how we're going to monetize it but if we build the brand maybe Mobile's the bit that builds the brand and gets players and then we can somehow make more money out of them on PC or console or maybe we build a brand on PC and console on Steam where it's easy to Market and then people come to it in in PC if you look at things like like geni it pack incredibly successful on on uh on mobile absolutely stormed it and and and it was a mobile AAA game really and then was gone on to PC and console and is now very much crossplatform and I ju Just to agree with you Chris Marvel snap which is a huge and we picking up all the awards on on mobile launched on PC Steam while we were in Helsinki completely coincident they didn't launch they launched they all Marvel characters in to launch it was very nice it was a fantastic it was

uh uh but completely coincidentally Marvel snap launched on PC the on on day one of our event um around that that that same week so um so that was a topic of conversation too but yeah exactly that same crossplay and that's precisely just reaching more people I mean being where the gamers are right I I I think and and and and although Marvel snap is great on the phone the fact that you can play crossplay and you can be playing people who playing it on their desktop um you know on their desktop PC is is you know it makes a lot of sense the other interesting thing for me was a lot of talk about IP and how IP can help you circumnavigate that the need to spend so much on marketing and and Target users because you've already got an audience with that brand now that can go badly wrong and it can go really well and one of the really most interesting really vocal guy actually has chat to after us who's there he spoke about his own stuff but he's also talked asked questions on the panel was a guy from from La Liga right so he was he was La Liga it's a Spanish Premier Division Premier League effectively for people don't know football so why is he at a games conference in

the nordics weird but he's from La Liga Nordic and and they're really seriously looking at um how they can use mobile games both for Revenue but also for kind of brand extension uh that the same with the Premier League are actually doing very similar things so and I'm sure other leagues as well this is this is quite an interesting thing that that more and more Brands and IPS are either partnering with games companies or seeing themselves that they want to be in this space whether it's to make money or just to connect and that talking about different ways of doing things that kind of brand things never it's not brand new thing but it is it's definitely a topic that's coming up again as as marketing gets gets harder we we've we've talked about that on the site a number of times we've got a number of Partners who have spoken at previous pgc's about areas like brand takeovers and you know dropping Transformers into a completely different game and it seems to be one of these areas that I think more and more um IP owners brand owners are are starting to

take seriously because it kind of there's no risk to them outside reputational um and if you've got a game as big as genin impact or you've got a game as as big as you know some of the mobile leaders the billion dollar Club um you can reach an entirely new audience relatively cheaply and it can be any brand like right now one of the biggest games in the mobile is Monopoly go right so Monopoly is hardly a new exciting brand it's it's a well-known brand but that they've turned that into this kind of Coen Mastery game that that that is is huge and that scopely have done that with yatsi before I mean they did Star Trek and and Marvel as well but to to to the utilizing brand smartly um and they sold for 4.9 billion so that worked for them right but but it was um yeah so any right as you say any brands of any kind doesn't have to be just like the super hottest Marvel or DC or whatever I have to say Brian I'm really excited exed because surprise you may have seen we

have ludia Jam City next coming up talking about Jurassic world right Jurassic Park the movie's 30 years old the game's five and how that's evolving so it's we we we've got a great topic here that's just exactly it how do you wield this powerful IP and what ways can you make money with it it's almost as though we plan these things Peggy it's ridiculous so the next stop on on the uh PGC Juggernaut um globally is um coming up very shortly and it's Jordan so tell us a little bit more about what you have what you have planned there because obviously a very different region very different culture the thing about this is the Middle East is the hottest Market not just temperature- wise in terms of outside but it is the hottest Market in the games industry Bar None it's the fastest growing in 2022 it's predicted the fastest growing 2023 obviously there's different parts of that you've got stuff

going on in in North Africa Egypt you got stuff going on in in in Saudi and Dubai and the Emirates but this is the fastest growing and it's not just Revenue Wise It's in terms of population they're expected their gaming population in this market is going to grow over 12% this year and these are new Gamers coming on stream these are new players this and this is going to be the the total predicted this is by newu I don't make this up was 577 million players people are coming into games and these are new audiences coming to games typically Via Mobile not always but typically in a big way uh so really in a time where the the global market has had its first contraction last year and is a little bit tough here and there and people are laying people off a little bit and slowing projects it's insane it's absolutely insane not to at least be looking over what's going in this space the reason you'd come for Jordan uh Jordan's like a gateway to this whole region it's a very easy place to get to lots of flights very e no Visa issues it's it's a friendly state to get in there and meet the local Studios but

also get to meet people from from Saudi and and and and Egypt and and uh and uh and kind of Dubai and across the region and and to see what's going on on the ground and and to learn for yourself this is an opportunity this is open to anybody this is a great opportunity to come over also you get to go to Petra and it's in the Dead Sea so you get to go you get if you've never been the Dead Sea and fancy bit floating in the Dead Sea the whole mud pack thing that's how I stay so young I'm 87 look at this is what I do so that and I'm visiting one of the W of the World Plus under I'm visiting now one of the wondrous uh developments um developing parts of the games industry it's kind of a no-brainer right certainly Jordan is on a lot of people's personal Bucket List Right Petra is an incredible wonder of the world the Dead Sea is you know an astonishing place to to be in our conference is held in a resort alongside the Dead Sea so in terms of like a workation if you can persuade your boss to send you to a conference and tag on a couple of days afterwards you can't beat a trip to Jordan so that that's

absolutely one of the advantages of of our conference but yeah certainly I mean one of the things that attracts people to the minor region uh throughout let's say for instance Saudi Arabia is the incredible amount of um investment that takes place there so Saudi through the Savvy games group we were just talking about their investment in companies like scopely they they've they've got $38 billion do to spend and that's got to be attractive to people working in you know in business development and and in the investment scene however Jordan um is worth visiting not just as a gateway to those other territories where there's a lot of investment taking place but also itself is doing great work building a local ecosystem and has done for many years U we're partnering out there with um the kafd the King Abdullah fund for development the um the Jordan gaming lab and their approach really is to encourage Grassroots level so there's a lot of India developers there's a lot of work being done to uh in education one of our partners in Jordan is um uh htu the AL say univ the Technical University

who who will will bring a lot of students along so um as well as from some of the surrounding regions like Dubai and Saudi Arabia there's a lot of investment going in at the top what you can see in Jordan is at the Grassroots where the next generation of game developers are coming from and and Jordan's got you know a very young population who are very engaged with games uh I mean just to put some numbers on that I think the the average uh the average median age in uh in in Mina generally and this is particularly reflected in Jordan is about 23 compared to an international average of about 28 and if you look at America the the average American is in their 30s so much younger than than um some of the population in the west and they're being very much encouraged to take up things like programming um and so you get a chance to meet that that new generation at PGC Jordan swinging it back here to where we are and where you are Brian because you have been working I've been watching you working very hard seeing a ton of this in Social by the way so um definitely also making waves there tell us about your event Scottish games week

it's coming yes it is it is so the the the very end of October October the 30th to November the 3rd if you can't get flights to Jordan um you're pale and you know pasty blue like me your Scottish the whole notion of 40° just seems like oven temperatures you can always come to Scotland so we have a weekl long series of events taking place we've got a two-day industry conference we're chatting to Ms p and ministers at the Scottish Parliament an education Symposium uh the Scottish games Awards and uh we're closing with something called more than games which looks at the transformative impact of games and areas like film screen animation healthare education all the cool things we got a great response last year the Scottish government have kind of come back and said this is quite interesting we should be doing something hence all of the comparisons to Finland so I'm going to see what they've done that uh so they're thinking about it I I am assured but we have a whole a whole range of things

uh coming up we've got uh conferences we've got exhibitions we've got buses full of consoles that are going to be going around colleges it's it should be a lot of fun and obviously we're covering Edinburgh glasow Dundee and hopefully up into the highlands as well fingers crossed you know if the snow allows um so it should be it should be a really good week but if you want more information you want to have a little look gamesweek dosscot is the URL um but we we obviously can't finish on that so Dave where can people find out more about PGC Jordan ah PGC connect.com is where all of our events go up and there uh and there's uh information there about London as well which is in January but PGC connects.com Jordan will take you to the Jordan page where there's information there just a quick one because I've got London on the calendar booked is there something in between after Jordan in December we will be hosting the leader Summit in Saudi Arabia so we'll be in neom the new Mega City development in the in the desert uh

in neom for our leader Summit Chris mentioned it before it's a much more of a a boutique event aimed for decision makers director level decision makers and it's an environment for uh Roundtable discussion between people at that level um where the talks and panels will be relevant to to them and and uh uh and less of a destination for people who work in let's say business development or more monetization that that kind of thing you've got a little bit of a scoop here on the podcast cuz we haven't actually launched that yet i' I've I've given away the given away the secret of our of our December event before there's actually a website available for it yet so so that's been incredible thank you very much for your time gentlemen it's always great to get a little snapshot in a sense of what steel media has been up to and the PGC events that are truly Global we'll do a wrap for the next one as well you're back here every single time every single thank so much this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing

game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games Market in all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz SLP podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the poppet gamer. Biz podcast and we

look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian Bago I'm Peggy and saltz and that's a wrap until next [Music] week