Console devs are going mobile and mobile devs are going triple-A

I think it's a bit yeah it's a bit inform when I standing up so um we've got a cracking panel here to sort of discuss um discuss IP power panel here we we we discussing the idea is to discuss kind of both uh yeah both AAA games and also and also looking at kind of film licenses as well so um I wonder would wonder if you guys just quickly introduce yourself and sort of yeah say why you're here and what your kind of experiences of of of of triaa Ip so far so I know who you are but it's it's always I get the names wrong so it's easier to introduce yourself that's cool I'm and I'm the CEO of Remedy uh we're best known for work in the AAA space with max pay alen W and now Quantum break for for Microsoft we have about 11 or 12 million AAA games shipped um over half a billion in in revenues if you look at the franchises uh and their extensions into different media we also have uh a number one hit with death rally in over 70 countries and we're currently working on um a couple free-to-play games on the the tablet mobile space which we think are exceptional as well as our next big

thing so a few things cooking on on different funds cool okay uh my name is teral I'm the managing director of redlings you just heard a bit more from redlings uh during the previous presentation from Justin and Ki basically we've been around uh for 13 years have developed 100 games have been for a long time both on the mobile space but also on the PC and console space our biggest success so far has been our trial series which has now sold uh way over 5 million units on the PC and console space so that's the background where we came from uh and still are both on the console and mobile space aome David Bloom draw forage games thank you guys man me but uh we're currently building one game card Hunter which is a PC game and we're currently evaluating other triple AIP and other publishing opportunities as well I'm soorry about the I thought you guys were building the blitz that's not you no we've uh what sort of General rub rubb but uh we're

not responsible they have a separate team minks doing that fair enough I'm I'm I've being told now yeah my name is De and I guess I'm the only nonc conso PC game yeah uh guy on the panel uh represent next games so the company's just over one year old and it's a mobile game developer/publisher based here in h than you cool okay um so I'm going to start with some questions now so when when pocket gam started out about sort of eight nine years ago and it's fair to say that mobile was very much kind of the the redheaded stepchild of games it was looked down by the console folk by the console Media Mobile operators weren't that Keen um but now I think that's all it's all changed I me is it fair to say that the rest of the world is uh the console world looking a bit emply at mobile and seeing that this is the future um how do you feel you you have made money in the console Ian certainly for us I mean when we look at the different strengths of the different platforms and competencies the interesting part is is learning what we can learn from mobile games is a service

running analytics much more refined uh better marketing methods better better markets in many ways on the other hand I think the the production values and the high-tech of the consoles is also migrating towards uh towards the tablets and and the handheld so I think there's there's a sweet spot and Junction point that we're heading towards cool I think uh yeah yeah I think that uh I don't think that the console players they are envious for the mobile it's at the moment still the markets are a bit separated I think that they are going definitely closer to each others but I think the whole gaming industry is is is highly excited on the mobile opportunity partly because because yes it does provide kind of like such huge business opportunities going to the future but I think the other thing is also psychological that uh if we consider ourselves 10 years ago kind of like in our meetings like this we were always emphasizing how big the gaming industry is and then when the outsiders looked at the game gaming industry even

the kind of like public listed companies they were the biggest ones they they they were midcap or maximum kind of like uh midcap kind of like small cap companies and and and and the whole outside world was considering that games industry is such a this market and actually it was because we were only able to reach maybe 1 two 3% out of the world's population now it's changing kind of like mobile is is is is is putting a one zero at the end kind of like 10% 20 30% so I think yes it's a business reason why everyone is so excited but partly it's also psychological that finally we are becoming the mass Market that everyone knows yeah cool do you agree that anything to add in this side no okay I'm I'm going to switch back the questions that's cool um one other question I'm going to ask from reny from uh entering this Market I mean do you what what do you think there's any benefits or what benefits do you think you have as as a AAA publisher coming into this space you know is it is it about the brand purely

or the sort you have a s of techniques or different so anything you know there's obviously some disadvantages because you got to learn the industry again but what are the advantages I think um the the interesting part I mean one is there there's a various variety of factors but the really really interesting thing is if you just look at computing power um top end mobile and tablet and two end of 215 it's going to have comparable power to Playstation 3 or an Xbox 360 the issue becomes one of user interface and electricity um but in the end of the day we're able to push that Graphics arms very if you look at any cycle any platform any kind of content once the production values have increased it's very very difficult for the audience to accept a lesser quality or or poor quality experience I'm not saying that my mother's going to play uh a high-end cinematic experience on the tablet but there's a lot of people out there uh who will appreciate visual Fidelity uh depth of story uh immersion even if they're bit-sized increments but I think that will happen I'm not saying Candy Crush

is going to go anywhere like Tetris is not going to go anywhere but I think there's loads of room loads of leg room in that space just look at the budgets on mobile like two 300,000 was a large budget not that long ago now it's more like add a zero and then maybe double it and so forth so I I think it's like 2202 in the PC or console space right now in terms of budgets okay I'm going to throw this across to to to t so I conscious you're coming from a different angle so you know as a as a pure play kind of mobile sort of player are you concerned at all about the the the the AAA big guys coming from console is that do you say as a threat or broading the industry or no I I actually think it's it's just obvious that they're going to you know come where the business opportunities are and it's natural so I I actually think that we as a company need to be more concerned on on what we're doing and and make sure that we make good games and not to worry about like what anyone else is doing okay that's fair enough um I guess I'd add something between the two the production qualities

of Triple H are so high that they're going to raise the bar as you was alluding to yeah budgets you there's no Studio independent Studio can go spend two three million bucks yeah on a new game or get investors to back you at that level on a new game so there's there's got to be something in the middle the tripa guys are going to depend on mobile there's too much different about how you monor your game on mobile but we're going to have to learn and grow up quickly to match their production qualities okay that's fair enough I'm if we look at the success stories now mobile the experience is still relatively kind of casual I mean like G crash is very successful Puzzles and Dragons very pretty casual gameplay even kind of clash and Heyday relatively casual know ilka was kind of challenging that a little bit but do you think um there seems to be a move a definit move the industry towards kind of midcore and hardcore or an appetite for anyway there's a lot of press about it whether that's do you see that's you think that's the way it's going to be do you think there's going to it's the market will be getting much more midcore whatever that means this year much more hardcore do you see Games Starting we

moved midcore purposely at Z2 uh because we saw the monetization better yeah um there's just more loyalty people appreciate a bigger more full richer better storytelling game and they pay more yeah so we sought higher ltbs and that was the reason we moved midcore with Battle Nations and Metal Storm versus our first game trade Nations which is very casual and competes with a lot of other probably better casual game Builders yeah g g i mean from the games you kind of working on the game I mean are you still are you thinking as a more of a midcore or kind hardcore game experience or is it still very kind of casual but with like wrappings of well I think it depends on on on what kind of business model and strategy the company has sure or even you know per product but really like if if you really want to make a good free to-play game obviously Candy Cross is an you know example that you can do a casual game that makes makes a lot lot of money but you also

have to understand how many you know the user base of of candic R is so huge yeah so I think it makes sense to be mid core or even you know core core game somebody TR out next door that's Oscar yeah so I think it depends on the product you know what kind of strategy you want to take but you know I I think meat core and core is really where you know you can make money right now yeah okay cool would you I mean do you agree with that you guys yeah yeah I think I think kind of like uh it's easy to consider just this moment or 6 months further and and and yes we are seeing kind of like lot of casual games and games from certain gen succeeding but I think we have to keep in mind that still kind of like this boom of the mobile market it's a very young Market it started only a few years ago it will keep on growing for the next 5 10 15 20 years and eventually when we are able to reach basically almost the the the the the global population there is room for every single gaming s and kind of like I think

I think within next 12 months time yes we will see breakthroughs in some new gaming genres that we haven't seen kind of like so far in two years time there are again breakthroughs in additional gaming sandress and kind of like the ones that are successful now they are not going anywhere yeah yeah fair enough I I guess I think there's a feel that that that the apple and other platforms are looking for seem to be advocating you know or looking to push more more Indie and and more hardcore type games at the moment maybe that's that's not true I don't know but that's how it feels uh to us so I one final kind question on that like obviously the games that succeed really well on on on console and PC like FPS is well tanked and relatively well it's kind of a shooting game it's it's Control Systems relatively well I think you guys they're just they're struggling struggling on but you know that nothing's really worked on mobile yet like that you know Ben Cousins is talking through there he he the drowning was really good but it didn't really take up nobody's really managed to to to smash that yet I know that Blitz is coming now you think will get beyond that is there a way will have

to be a handhold controller that comes with a I think it's still challenging I think the control mechan so we've looked at this pretty carefully not just with blitz but a number of firstperson Shooters and I find two things one is a a frustrating user experience yeah um you can't recreate it on the screen uh think of just a tank you're driving the tank you're turning the tank you're turning the turrent you're aiming and you're shooting I don't know how many fingers that is but you know dou d-pads it's very difficult and the game should not be about driving the Tran it World of Tanks is a flanking strategy game it's not a arcade game at all control should get in the way I think the fpss are just like that you either have to you know I've seen a couple where they just fix where it's shooting all the time while you're moving or they try and simplify the controls it doesn't recreate on the other hand I see a lot of organic downloads for that challenging user experience so there's a demand out there people want to try and play a firsters shooter yeah uh there's so many people out there but we just haven't met them with user experience okay I I mean not directly but there's

definitely some interesting kind of Premium priced outliers I know you kind very clearly said free to play or or go home yeah fair enough don't don't cut me down mid question so yeah there's Minecraft which is is you know crazy and and and and things like kind of football manager and also GTA have had some success and that there does to be a seem to be a belief again at the moment that that that apple and certainly Keen to see the premium Market kind of given a bit of a shot in the arm um do do we do do you believe there's going to be a new wave of this has been asked a few times but I think it's still Rel do you think there's going to be a wave of Premium guys coming back in I know you don't well I hope there is I I'm just looking at the numbers yeah yeah you know the current numbers yeah the current numbers yeah I I think there's a there's a case to be made really depends on the aspiration of the studio but really if you want a solid business where you have it's kind of like a bond you're never going to have a breakout success yeah but it's going to be a sustainable business if you look at a niche like uh for example I think a Shen DOA Studios do a great turn-based strategy game uh they drive on Moscow before they're

working on desert fox now I bet those guys are going to make without knowing the numbers probably two to three million on a game it's never going to be more but they'll sell it for eight eight Euros or whatever and that's a solid business for a small Studio I mean it's not going to be Minecraft uh and I think if you're betting on the Black Swan event that you know your yours is going to take off that's not good business it's not really a strategy um but I think there's there's a solid sustainable business for somebody who works on their process and works on a different kind of game and just keeps on it ating on that game and does installments but honestly uh I don't think many people in this room or many people on this panel are going to be too excited about maintaining uh basically a dividend machine uh indefinitely fair enough um I want to twt like this is kind of relevant to to console IP and PC there's been a lot sort of said and suggested and predicted about kind of crossplatform experiences where you're going to be doing something on your mobile it's going to tie into the to the the the game on your console um and we seeing you know a few attempts like

things like watch dogs have kind of done that relatively well um do you think that that's still something that can happen it's not really happened on on mass yet I can see I there's not many experiences I'm I'm certainly using that experience is that something that's still for you guys with conso IP and with the mobile presence is that something you guys are looking at trying to work on some crossplatform experience I don't know we call it crossplatform is probably the wrong word but like concurrent experience I certainly see a future where you know it's it's a connected living um I like styles are connected in many ways so I see you know different entry points into one fiction or one franchise that kind of makes sense yeah um but they need to be additive not something that you duct tape on and you know this is the mobile app for whatever and really it's just an after thought I I don't think you should do it that way but I think there will be great uh great opportunities to build more entry points into a franchise into eviction uh and and if if they contribute meaningfully to each other then I can see that being additive I think the division has an interesting uh uh interesting concept where you actually take part of flying the Drone

uh and for me I can see that being cooler on a tablet than on a controller where you know your friends are playing on the console you're hovering above firing Hellfire missiles what have you that's kind of cool um but I think it needs to be something like that I mean we're we're certainly looking at the space and for us I think we'll take our first incremental steps uh into using second screen and stuff like that but really I think it's it's early days right now I I I I personally I strongly believe that crossplatform gaming will come when will it come what will be the form we don't yet know but as say Studio we have always from the start 10 years ago it was very curious kind of like award that a small Studio tried to cover kind of like most of the platforms when typically developers were focusing on one single platform but back already back then we we we we believed in multiplatform and after that to to to crossplatform we actually have trials froner and trials fusion those game worlds are linked yeah but but we know that it's it's it's an experiment a that we need to do we didn't want to do it

too forcefully too aggressively yet those players who eventually cover discover those connections they have been very pleased and I think kind of like that's one interesting Trend going to the Future that are we able to really create exciting and meaningful experience for the players if we really are I think we need to serve them on number platforms yeah I'm going to throw across this again because I think we're talking about obviously game IPS but in the whole in terms of you know AAA is a games term but in terms of big IPS obviously you know film licenses used to be really big as you said it used to be the way you sold your game into the into the operator it wasn't always the best game associated with it um but but that used to be the way in so you know obviously you've got the they have the world Walking Dead license and I mean how what sort of issues I I guess want to ask do you do you have to face and what sort of expectations you have now I remember the day when you know you have the Batman or whatever the license you just slap it on another game and change the characters I'm I'm guessing there's

a bit more to it now yeah quite a bit different uh nowadays at least from our perspective so we didn't even approach uh AMC before we knew that we really have a good game concept um for Walking Dead yeah so we we really work on the game even before AMC knew that you know there's a company called next games and and uh trust me there were quite a few other companies that were you know thinking about walking dead as well I'm sure there's a few other people so so it took bit of a time to uh you know work work on the concept and then convince them that you know this potentially could be a great game and then um after that uh or during the process like we came pretty close with AMC and and they started to see the business quite differently as well the you know back in the old days I guarantee it was all about the minimum guarantee for for the studios like whether they would get a million bucks or two million whatever that would that's and now now it's different they're they're looking at

this in the in the long term where AMC is actually one of our investors so they're enjoying you know the uh if the if the game becomes like a huge hit like you know they own of course they we have the business deal but they're also owner owners in in the company so I I think our approach is you know really a lot of lot different than it used to be back in the day fair enough okay I was going Teemo hit on a key difference I learned a long time ago there's two sides to a movie studio one that basically is in charge of getting licensing fees for the movie The Other Side is in charge of making the movie successful and getting more butts in the seats as they say and he's successfully gotten to the other side where they pay you to do the game yeah in a partnership that's the way you want to do it that's a good deal versus you pay them a percent of royalties forever and they yeah yeah yeah actually they don't pay us like next gamees is the publisher of the game so you know we're in the driver seat but you know they did invest in the so I guess in

that sense okay um I'm going to open up for for we've got other questions but I'm going to open is there any questions in in the audience there anybody got a question I can't really see it's very diff very bright in my eyes it's just that okay fair enough I've I've got I've got couple more questions um one one quick question I want to ask is about sort Asian market which is like East Meets West as part of our agenda this afternoon certainly um obviously consoles you know in certain markets consoles don't exist in the same way like China famous hasn't really you know you could get versions of consoles but it's not a big Market there um or or you know PC is big in bigger in career but maybe certain other consoles aren't do you see mobile but Mobile's everywhere do you see mobile as a kind of Avenue into new audiences for as a as a kind of a console Ed publisher I guess it's more one for you it definitely is yeah absolutely and on on the other hand when when and if uh we see freetop playay profiller rate through the consoles more then all of a sudden they become a viable platform in new territories as well and the reason why we don't have a

lot of console sales in certain regions is that we sell one copy then everybody copies that copy yeah uh so but that'll go away with free to play sell lots of copies but not copies yeah exactly okay okay so final question with thre to everybody's just um you know what we've got a prediction for for what's going to happen next 6 12 months around here do we do you think there's going to be an avalanche of of kind of console companies and products kind of entering and will we see a lot of people attempting more straight ports or or is it more likely things like you know Hearthstone spin-off products we going see or something else I think we're past the notion where we you invent a new medium and you shovel everything from the old into the new one I think post people learn that that doesn't work yeah hearstone may have reinforced that so I think you'll see more mobile out kind of approaches by everybody but uh I don't think there's anybody that's not trying to get into the market understand it and when I say the market not just mobile but the you know you mention if China is not one of your primary focus points you're not trying to build a global company right now yeah okay do you have

any predictions for apart from a Smash Hit game from uh from next year I I I think that was a good answer like I'm I'm sure every you know triaa console company is already have been thinking about mobile for for many years and they're already on the platform so Activision was the last right yeah now they're in so Hearthstone great example hopefully it's more like you know even original Ip that they're you know going after on mobile platforms okay cool yeah I think I think uh there are going to be two things one is that we are going to see more of everything the market is so big and you have such an easy access but I think kind of like if we if we look at the really relevant Trends from a game game developers or game Publishers point of view I think definitely production values are growing and and and and most of those successful games yes as it was said kind of like they have been made that they are really relevant for their target audiences they really take into account the the the the kind of like key guid lines for mobile mobile mobile

games and they are made kind of like for that for that use event where where mobile is being used so so I think we are seeing on the top Crossing charts more and more games that are higher quality and really meaningful for the mobile yeah last but by no means least I I think a lot of the smart kids in the room will start doing uh very very uh kind of tight Global niches where they'll drop off a lot of players early on the people who stay are really really committed to it and uh they'll they'll retain those players for a long time so so we'll see tremendous value of those people who stay okay I think that's uh just a lot of people can read Excel I think that's that's a good good strategy for many many players in the space which means we'll have very different kinds of products that are hardcore awesome okay thank you much we got a round of applause for my panelist