DeNA, Samsung and Disney keynote Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2015

excellent well there you go I hope your girl is worth waiting for uh no thank you thank you so much for being patient um I've got a couple of notes before I start I might be alternating between sunglasses and this look I lost my glasses uh a couple weeks ago and I can't see without them but these are prescription ones so I'm not attempting to be cool if I I do this I'm just tempting to see things um anyway um good morning and welcome to poam connect San Francisco how are we all feeling this morning good that's kind of all right all right but what I I had I had something prepared to uh to perus up a little bit so how are you all feeling this [Music] [Applause] morning there we go never let it be said we won't resort to cheap tricks um so basically um for those that don't know me my name is Chris James I'm the managing director of Steel media and we published a series of leading consumer

magazines in the mobile space uh like one for for apps Pocket Gamer app spy the business Port Biz and we do a lot of events and business services like this um I am I'm kind of generally thrilled to be here um in in in something that kind of M it marks a culmination of of a few separate Journeys um for those that that do know me uh you'll know I've not been around very much for the last five or six months I've been on kind of semi sabatical touring North America um so I've been to Orlando Vegas La Vancouver toino and San Francisco in the last sort of four weeks my my carbon Footprints relatively High um I must I've got a much more kind of rounded view of of of North America having done that and I have a much more rounded waistline having done that as well um I I need to get back to European portions before I I all my clothes is going but anyway um it's also more importantly it's an important step for us for Pocket Gamer um and Pocket Gamer connects we first launched our conference in London about

18 months ago it seems like a long long time ago but it was only 18 months ago uh and and we kind of we weren't sure what was going to happen we thought he might get one or 200 of our industry friends come along and help us out and and and support it but what happened kind of just blew us away we had like six to 700 people that first conference we did the same thing Helsinki this year in January we had uh closer to 12200 people come to London and and then we've already returned from two conferences of four so this is this is the third of four this year we did an event in Bangalore which is very successful and we're going to helsink shortly after that um when we decided to come to to the US people suggested a lot of different places cities we could go to but there really wasn't any choice for me um because you know like Helsinki which is where do one of our European shows San Francisco is is one of the most significant cities for the mobile Industries for a lot of Industries as well but um obviously the birthplace of the iPhone and and loads of amazing development uh Talent um but it's also kind of one of our our favorite places to to visit so we threw our first party

in San Francisco for the Pocket Gamer uh party at GDC has anybody been to Pocket Gamer party that's good so that was yeah that was that was about six years ago and that's become a bit of a monster um but when we launched that event and when we we launched pocket gam and connectent our kind of intent was pretty much is pretty much always the same um we want to bring together great people that's you um and and we we want to kind of celebrate all the great stuff we're doing connect you and and share knowledge so that we can make this industry even better and over the next couple of days we'll hopefully be living up to that we've got five tracks we're covering uh surviving and creating as an indie developer we're covering exploring the latest user acquisition and monetization strategies we're looking at 're working with Brands there's a lot of that going to be tomorrow and East Meets West track we've got looking at expanding overseas into China and other markets and also the latest technology like uh wearables and and VR and you can find details of all that in in this uh

in this this guide and in the show guides um and we will be back on schedule so don't worry about that um we're also running a series of side events you should know about like upstairs uh this afternoon I think at 2 o'cl we've got our big Indie pitch uh kicks off on the top floor um and up there there's also an indie developer showcase on the top floor uh and Samsung have have their booth there and there's going to be developer workshops over there later um there's obviously networking going on all the time we've got a pitch and match system if you haven't used that already do sign up because loads of people in easy ways to make meetings got uh there there's meeting tables upstairs and on the top floor you running out places to meet and we've got uh evening events so we've got our speakers this evening and then the big party tomorrow night um I have a couple of very quick housekeeping things so if you like tweeting and we hope you do um Twitter are here so you can you can them uh if you can uh if you can tweet our hashtag which is PGC sound Fran um aside from just your insights and thoughts we've got we're running a competition if you hunt down and do a

selfie with with one of our team uh there's some sort of prize up for grab so um doesn't have to be me but obviously I don't mind um uh yes saying so um the uh Wi-Fi pass we haven't really got it it's on PGC Wi-Fi and the password is blue Stacks or uppercase being s on Words and yes please turn off your your phone during the talks uh Al turn to silent at least there's also a cash play tournament with dets upstairs that's running throughout the two days okay that's it I think I think that's it for the things i' got to do so to kick things off uh uh and to help set the tone for the next couple of days um I'll get a chance to oh one thing lunch something lunch don't so lunch lunch is on the middle floor and we have we have the amazing grilled cheese guy I don't if you've ever had the grilled cheese guy just fantastic if you've got a hangover it is the best thing in the world anyone else for The Hangover just just just me isn't it why is it the first I don't I've got to do

change my preparation um so anyway so so he'll be grill cheese from about uh 1:00 onwards but I'll be doing a little grilling of my own oh God so fair enough so I'm be doing some fir side chats this morning um with some of the truly inspirational figures in the industry um who'll be talking about who'll be pretty much at the Forefront of a lot of the trends and to kick that off uh we can to look forward to kind of future and the expanding technological Universe of our industry we looking at kind of VR and new platforms and uh smart watches and and to to discover more about their General strategy I'd like to walk uh welcome to the board the board welcome to the stage uh represent of a very very Innovative mobile company so please welcome Samsung's VP of emerging platforms Mii hu excellent pronunciation thank you um thank you very much and Chris please never apologize for being cool with or without a sunglass

is uh good morning everyone uh thank you for being here I think we're going to have a fantastic couple of days at uh Pocket Gamer connect uh and thank you very much steel media and Chris and Pocket Gamer uh for inviting us uh here we're honored to participate um a few words about myself um so I run a a structure an organization at Samsung called emerging platforms um and I would like to start by explaining what we do uh I think it's important for us to um show you all the different ways that we work with the development community and especially the mobile development Community um and also we want I wanted to share with you some thoughts on Samsung strategy and how we see the industry landscape and hopefully that will spark additional topics for conversation and collaboration between us um okay let's see ah here we go

perfect so um I'm not sure if you can see this graphic very well um but it illustrates at the high level how our organization is structured uh we did a little bit of pixel art Bonanza here um there are four different teams within emerging platforms um yes absolutely the first team uh is called developer connection uh and Suzanne Wen which is she's right here is responsible for that uh Suzanne um leads our Outreach efforts so she will organize events she will sponsor events she will organize trainings and hackathons and uh really she is at at the Forefront of our Central mission to uh enable and support the developer ecosystem around Samsung products right so if you ever in doubt about how to work effectively with Samsung I would say suzan is the first line of communication and she can route uh you to the to the right parties within the broader Samsung group um Andreas Hoffman

whom you will hear from later today and tomorrow um is running our publishing group unfortunately he's not here I cannot introduce you to him this morning but um there are two components of what Andreas does within emerging platforms first he um uh runs our app store Galaxy apps in North America um so the team that he's in charge of is merchandise in this app store he makes all the featuring decisions he will help developers get unboarded um into uh into the store you know he will help them get certified and uh and upon launch we will devise marketing strategies to promote uh the app uh that you are publishing into our store so that's one one aspect of andreas' job the other one is uh Business Development so he will uh effectively Source partners for various initiatives uh within Samsung for

example when we launch a new device we love to have content that showcases the capabilities of that device and here we're not just talking about mobile devices we're actually talking about full crossplatform coverage uh mobile Tablet TV internet of things wearables and VR right and so that's a microc universe of of different devices of very uh uh of various Hardware that uh that we can help you publish to and um uh the third component of our team is uh called Samsung software Solutions we call that S3 and this is a production and development organization that specializes at creating Samsung specific products working with the external development Community right we call this co-development um we will um jointly conceptualize the apps that we will try to launch in the Samsung ecosystem and

then we work with these external developers to bring them to Market um so we're doing quite quite a few of these things currently it's a relatively small team we haven't yet launched anything but a lot of good stuff is in the pipeline and we hope to be able to unveil that very soon um and last but not least uh Andrew Bernard who uh is running our operations team is in charge of um you know quality assurance customer support deployment network operations um effectively the ta that we are utilizing in order to get uh content out the door and he will work with external developers to to provide uh all of these services to extend all of these services to them so this is our team in a in a nutshell uh we are again enabling the developer ecosystem at Samsung um so and my name is Mii uh feel free to talk to me about any of these aspects uh and by the way if you have any questions uh about anything that you see here I'll try to save a few minutes at the end of my talk so we can you know exchange

ideas all right let me try this again yay situation brief so a few words on mobile um and kind of how we're looking at uh at this Market um here's um kind of controversial statement that expresses an uncontroversial truth um you know we have um amazing distribution mechanisms uh in the mobile space we have like established app stores that are very popular they generate large amounts of Revenue and traffic and while that is fantastic and we celebrate it uh the fact Still Remains that the majority of developers are are actually not making money and a lot of good content is not uh discovered right so Discovery is an issue and uh um you know we love the Democratic character of the established stores uh but we think there is a place in in the marketplace for a more Boutique uh specializ the experience and this is Galaxy apps um

Galaxy apps has existed for a long time but we recently have taken measures to revitalize this store so we are investing in it we are uh effectively trying to create a new experience for Samsung customers that is very specific to them and you know the Android Marketplace is very vast but uh Samsung is a very important part of it so about 65% of the revenues generated in Android come from Samsung devices so if you have a focused effort on covering the Samsung devices which are are not that many in number um simplifies the you know the porting effort to some extent um you are going to to generate the gamut of revenues uh in Android um so Galaxy apps is meant to be a curated premium and unique storefront and let me explain what this means first of all curation uh currently curation in the traditional app store is done by um uh I would say the employees of the respective company

and that's totally fine but and there are amazing people there uh but we would like curation to come from establish reviewers from reputable media sources from people that you can trust so this is our unique approach we would like to you know work work with Pocket Gamer for example to establish a partnership where they will recommend top quality content and that's where premium comes in um that will come into our app store um and instead of having hundreds of thousands of we want to have a curated experience with maybe hundreds or thousands at most um so that would be uh our strategy and unique because frankly at the at the current time nobody has interpreted curation to me just that you know utilizing reviewers people with brand name power to actually suggest these experiences and and bring this top content to us um and uh having a a very how I should say a modest stream of apps coming into the store at any given time

modest but top quality in all respects so that's Galaxy apps and uh Andreas whom I mentioned previously will talk to you a bit more um about Galaxy apps and our strategy and how to partner with us in this respect uh in in the next couple of days okay changing slides is a real challenge okay so wearables a few a few thoughts on this um and um obviously um we've had an immense amount of hype about variables now we're having the uh the natural down cycle of this hype which is that uh you know um a lot of developers maybe are not as Keen as as developing to variables but I would say that that is probably not the right approach I think there's a lot of opportunity in variables I think us at Samsung as a company we continue to invest in it we think there is a natural evolution to the wearable Market um and I do have

here an ISO of a chart um if I can get to it okay um um I will I will show you some arket data on how analysts are predicting the wearables market to continue to develop even now you know when the hype has died um um and uh uh but before we get to that uh I wanted to to share with you this graph um not sure if you can see the the small print but I can tell you that 50 6% of the people surveyed in this particular survey which was quite extensive uh believe that average life expectancy will grow by 10 years because because of wearable enabled monitoring this is an absolutely staggering fact right it's a widespread assumption the wearables will engender uh correct Behavior will uh you know entice people to to do Sports to exercise more and the net effect that people expect that wearables will have on on their life uh

is a uh 10 years of um life expectancy growth incredible I was really stagger I was really surprised by this figure and I wanted to share with you because I think it's quite interesting um if if this holds it means that wearables invariably will be a big deal and us as mobile game developers should pay attention to the space um here's some other interesting Market data on wearables um these are what analyst um sobi intelligence very reputable source is estimating in terms of units shipped annually um 35% growth year on year um and by 2018 we're expecting more than 120 million devices to exist in the market again staggering number we have to we have to pay attention to this and Samsung is we will be launching a a great wearable device towards the end of this year um and uh if you're

interested in developing things with us for variables we should talk to us internet of things um this is kind of the you know uh another massive opportunity but I don't think we have really approached it carefully uh in the games development space uh to to my knowledge I don't know of any internet of game that leverages the internet of things I can in my mind's eye can see the sort of Resident Evil where you know if you have a mechanism to open the doors and to the lights in your house then you can create like a really scary experience using uh an Internet of Things game experience but I'm getting off the bitten path there for a bit um I can tell you that from from this study it turns out that most customers expect to have a truckload of Internet of Things iot devices in their house um so you we won't see this probably but we're talking about the smart thermostat uh 70% expect to have that in their house house many already do um uh connected

security system smart refrigerator uh wearable Fitness device Smartwatch uh self-driving vacuum cleaner wow that's awesome uh wearable heads up display uh and smart clothing all right so all of these smart clothing would be like the expectation on Smart clothing is the the the least of all but it's right around 40% so still an amazing amount of of smart devices will penetrate the market in The Next Period of time and the open question can games play a role here uh experience suggested that usually we are at the Forefront of innovation and we're like on the bleeding age of the technology so probably this is an opportunity for us as well hey look a real quote about um about Samsung [Music] um Samsung is leading on this front no no surprise there uh um all right so

virtual reality um as you all know we have done a lot of work in uh in VR at Samsung working very closely with our partners at Oculus um that's why we have a gear VR Workshop um right at this uh at this conference and uh and suzan will be there to kind of walk you through a bit um developing for gear VR is called so it uh it should be really interesting to you um uh so a couple of quotes here that I think um um are Illustrated so first of all a lot of the VR effort currently is driven by Enthusiast um and uh there's been a lot of investment in this space and a lot of excitement this is on the upward trend of the hype right on the were bols with the downward Trend but with the upward trend for VR it's a really exciting space and the second quote I thought was um illustrative unfortunately it's from Fox News you'll forgive me about that but uh they said something really cool that I can really embrace race um when

when showing um uh teams Samsung Gear VR they behave as if they just discovered electricity or an alternate universe um it's it's almost poetic but it's actually true like people have a very visceral and profound reaction to VR and I think it's here to stay and uh another good news we're here not just to help train you on how to make VR games and applications but also to show you the path to the market okay so we we look forward to that conversation um and I have a couple of more slides uh this slide is actually the most important I briefly mentioned our codevelopment effort uh initially um Samsung has a series of U more topical uh priorities in terms of strategy uh we're trying to highlight sometimes various aspects of our devices again crossplatform um mobile Tablet TV VR internet of

things and wearables uh for each of these uh we are looking at external developers to partner with them to create these unique experiences so we're looking for differentiation these will be experiences that are exclusively made for Samsung devices at least initially maybe you can take that experience to other platforms we we're okay with that as long as you know you launch with Samsung first um so differentiation is important and crossplatform coverage is important when we Define this experience as a thread we would like to populate it across the entire Samsung product line um so that's an interesting uh kind of ideation challenge for us to to take on um so we will co-develop these experiences we will there will be actual engineers and producers on our side working with you um uh we will uh Market this together so Samsung will um will support um all of these products with uh with its marketing uh Machinery which is

immense is vast um and we're talking here about promotion in our app store we're talking about uh potential preloads uh we're talking about marketing through the digital channels um various ways to to get the word out about that particular app that we've built together and then of course to operate the app once it's live um so we'll be with you through the entire life cycle and support in uh that initiative fully so we look forward to to partnering with you and to talking to you about uh how we can do this together and um last but not least ah um the various means you can contact us um please jot it down and again my name is Mii it was pleasure being here with you today we have like three minutes left in um in in this uh session so I would love to take some questions questions um and of course you can find me after the after the talk at

any time suzan is here to help as well um any questions from any of you yes sir yes something you're invite of the world or just in Asia absolutely actually the the circle team will be here uh at this conference today so not sure is in the room right now but uh if they're not I will be happy to introduce them to you um afterwards quick word on Circle um in a company like Samsung there's always a tremendous amount of innovation so and the way we're structured the regions have quite a bit of autonomy and like pursuing some of these new initiatives we love Ciro we think it's very interesting we're supporting Ciro uh here in the US it's currently um in kind of beta stage uh in Philippines uh developed out of Singapore uh um and potentially coming

to the US if they meet the success metrics that we expect so that's the tagline but there's obviously a lot more to be sell yes sir what is circle ah all right circle is um a new app store experience designed for games um it is it has a a reward mechanism so every time you play a game there are you know set goals that you have to achieve for those goals you you gain points that you can then redeem into practical reward WS such as a lot a Starbucks if you play enough games you can get a lot Starbucks and this is something that you know Samsung is sponsor It's A New Concept I nothing like it currently exists in the marketplace um and we're experimenting with it as I mentioned in Philippines s uh c i r c o Circle like circus cool is any non Circ related question that's fine there me is is one more question for

okay I think so there's going to be a lot more Samson content happening I think you guys are kicking off in the other room with some developer stuff shortly um so um with that I'd like to say huge uh thank you round of applause for for me here thanks Chris thanks everyone and also Co Samsung have a a Hu a big booth on the top floor so there's loads of Samsung guys around so if you've got more questions uh pop along and and see them oh am I duplic so um I'm going get this glass sorry I glass to see so uh something we'll talk about in the next couple days uh is the importance of established brands from various mediums in the mobile market today um so my next guest company I've done a lot of things but one thing I've done that's quite noticeable recently is sign a deal with the biggest brand in the hardcore game space u bringing Nintendo uh to bring Nintendo games to Mobile so please welcome uh for fir side chat uh DNA CEO shint in the West shintaro asako come along and sit down thanks for

thanks for the invitation Chris excellent good morning everyone good morning we all still awake that's good fantastic so um I've obviously got some questions about the intended thing but before and before I launch into that I I know uh DNA very well I know a lot of the work you do but maybe not everybody does so it might not be maybe you would like to give a quick introduction to who you guys are and what you're you're working on at the moment sure um so DNA is is a publicly traded company in Japan um we're about $3 billion market cap and uh we call ourself as mobile internet company but basically our main business is mobile game uh we're trying to launch game in the global market we Define three Market uh the main Market is Japan and also Western Market and China market and we see that those three markets are completely distinct and we wanted to have local uh development team to make sure that

being a leading player in that market each of the market um I'm a CEO of DNA West uh DNA West we primarily targeting us the European market um essentially we're targeting Market outside of anywhere outside of Japan and China so uh that's that's what we're doing okay yeah fair fair enough so let's let's get into the into the into thrust of it so um you know it's big news for us we people been talking about Nintendo why aren't they mobile why aren't they mobile why aren't they mobile for as long as I've been in the industry so do you think this is pretty much the biggest one of the biggest deals in the history of mobile gaming is this a b this is obviously a big deal for you guys yeah anyone anyone from Nintendo here no any Nintendo um so no one else is going to see this you can say whatever you like it's fine um it's a huge huge deal um you know Nintendo has by far the best IP uh best game IP and also IP that

perfectly match to smartphone devices um you know we are convinced that their game is going to be successful and we have been talking to Nintendo for quite some time um it took us good five six years to really finally uh convince them and being part of this you know really exciting uh new chapter of mobile gaming uh Market um I do think that this is game chender um possibly our game might change the way people play mobile game um uh we should closely work with someone like Google and apple to make sure that we create the safe and exciting environment for a lot of people out there and um just like you know originally mobile game came out people focusing on free game and uh you know paid ups and then gradually evolve into premium game I think this is potentially opport for us to completely change the market into the next level um so um we

so excited and so inspired and so motivated to be part of this uh revolutional change in the mobile gaming Market awesome no well we're excited as well we're excited to see what's coming out um can you quickly describe I mean you talks about it's been like a long time they're making this I appreciate that can you talk about how how you guys would be working together like how is the kind of work split up between you are they just providing the IP and you're work or is it how is it different you know I I I think originally when we talked to Nintendo our primally Target was to convince them to launch their game on uh browser based platform that we used to run in Japan it's called muag right um so that was original pitch and and they didn't quite like it and they said hey no we have our own platform we wanted to make sure that our IP is really avail for those devices are perfectly designed for our IP right but

then 5 years uh past industry has changed now DNA is not only focusing on browser based Market but we're focusing on Native up Market which is IOS and Android and also Market has been changed right uh Nintendo wanted to uh attract a lot of people out there and making sure that thep is reaching to many people out there that're not reaching to today for example uh you know China Market or a lot of Emerging Market is not existence uh in the past uh in the console Market but today it's becoming one of the largest market in in the market right so this is great way for them to access to those market and also uh we both realize that we we going to be able to create brand new uh smartphone specific game that not necessarily compete against against existing Gam available on other platform the great example is we

produced the game called Final Fantasy Record Keeper um you all know the Final Fantasy Final Fantasy game that's really uh you know premium RPG game but we created more specific game for Final Fantasy and that game was became a really successful product that actually show our capability of converting premium IP into Mobile specific service oriented games and that basically convinced that someone like Nintendo to actually decid to work together as one team now DNS expertise is definitely backhand right uh we originally started off our company as uh you know e-commerce platformer so we had expertise on infrast infrastructure database running a platform um all that stuff is our expertise and also our expertise is running game event right so we have ex expertise in backend and obviously

Nintendo's expertise is front end right client development uh they create one of the best game in the world but their their you know game is mainly game as a product and not as a game as service so combining those strengths of the two company uh we 100% believe that this going to create awesome game for the entire Market okay um so I guess one kind question here is is obviously there's there's huge advantages to working with Nintendo they've got an army of passionate fans you know any post about a Nintendo product on on the Internet is it's going to get really fanatical kind of support um but that also kind of brings with it challenges I guess um you know how how how do you feel about the challenge of meeting the kind of expectations I mean l very much have got a quality bar with their games you know you see that as a as going to be a challenge to kind of bring that across to mobile to more limited platforms you know it is it is challenged in the

way that expectation is so high is expectation from investors perspective expectation from users perspective expectation from the industry perspective people are expecting a lot and then we're doing our bestest to not to set certain expectation because really what we wanted to do is you know utilizing those premium IP and coming out as really successful mobile first product now um you know I I think the key thing is um you know when you look at the successful product on the mobile space uh first thing is the product has to be discoverable right A lot of people use uh existing Network to push us a base to that particular game I I think King entertainment does pretty well cross-promoting their product to the new product that's one way to do it the other way to do make your product uh visible and distinguish in the market is you I izing premium IP Nintendo DS has

been sold more than 150 million devices in the past these people spent $200 to just to get access to Nintendo IP so I'm 100% convinced that there will be hundreds of millions of people willing to play Nintendo game particularly we're creating a game free to start premium game right now the key for us is definitely making sure that we actually have high retentions on midterm long-term perspective um we wanted to make sure that you know uh exciting make exciting people not only two to three days but make sure that people keep playing 730 days 6 months and 12 months and I understand that some people like RPG I understand some people like casual game that's why we decided to work together to produce five game right uh you know basically hitting on different

type of gen utilizing different type of IP and we wanted to make sure that uh uh out of those five IP that we going to come out we want we wanted to be ended up attracting hundreds of millions of people out there yeah so um I'm sure this going be quite a short answer um so what I guess when when can we expect to you got five games sort of you're working on five IPS you're working when can we expect the first kind of products to hit hit the app stores and and yeah is that can you give us any hints about what we can expect so the first game um we are trying to launch by the end of this calendar year okay so uh later this year we're going to be making announcement about this particular game um and then also we're planning to launch four additional game by the end of March 2017 okay so basically five game in two years the first game is going to come out uh later this year um I know a lot of people EX EXC about this and I'm super excited about this and um you know

we're not going to be able to announce that game no no hint to the Mario Mario Donkey Kong I I don't know Zelda I don't know sorry I've got a terrible C but anything yeah okay now I wasn't expecting you to to to to reveal but I'm assuming it's going to be next year I'm assuming talk about the first game I'm assum it's going to be a big a big one of the big IPS first of all um I mean outside of obviously as you said initially like DNA you know aren't all about the Nintendo deal you guys has been kind of very successful so what what what's the kind of main Thrust out outside of that moment what what other exciting what is the main excitement aside from Nintendo or or is everything focused on the Nintendo project really I I I think what I believe is mobile internet Market is Shifting in the way that uh today you know originally people a lot of people struggling on creating good contents um good contents is given now after you creating good content or exciting contents you have to make sure that you can acquire users and making

sure that your product is visible and a lot of people spending weigh more money on user acquisition marketing or uh making sure that their game is visible and acquiring user successful product is all about da multiplied by Appo right if the da is low you're not going to be able to create the successful product yeah I think as the market shift more and more branding company like Coca-Cola McDonald PepsiCo those people spending a lot of marketing money on TV or traditional marketing uh spaces it's get to shifted over to digital marketing today they are only spending 15% of their marketing budget in digital marketing but I'm pretty sure that you know they will soon realize that people watching TV but actually holding smartphone and you know tweeting and stuff like that right so that money will be shifted meaning that CPI is going to go higher it's more difficult to any

game to be visible that's why I think it's absolutely crucial to have strong IP yeah or uh actually acquiring massive user base today yeah before that phase going come in and that's our strategy to capture hundreds of millions of people today versus a couple of years later so you're obviously working with other partners already and other IPS already is so that a strategy is something we're going to talk about later today and we're talking next CH as well but so Nintendo is not the last brand that you guys be working with presumably you're in discussions with other other kind of Brands and IPS to talk to you are are you looking down the celebrity route at all will will there be a a Kim Kardashian style uh style product coming out so not not quite Kim K oh well you can't have Kim she's she she's taken but you know but you know we absolutely IP is one of our core strategy um you know even though we are in the gaming Market we constantly wanted to come up with a strategy that create comp you know clear

competitive advantage over other people structural advantage over other people you can actually create structural advantage over other people by creating successful game engine and produce High LTV if you have successful game engine you can most likely produce second third successful game yeah Tim kashian came out not by accident they had a massive successful game engine yeah it's a fourth version of the game on that right so they had a game engine but the game wasn't discoverable so they actually attached that game game engine to the IP strong IP right so we are focusing on creating strong game engine and produce High LTB for strategy second strategy is acquire and a partner with massive uh Global IP sure we have done deal with Marvel we have done deal with Star Wars we have done deal with Disney uh s a good segue but we're not quite finished you know we are spending a lot

of dollars and a lot of money um to secure those global IP because we do think that those IP is can actually give a structural advantage over other people now and after those two pieces are done automatically we going to have massive audience and a massive audience itself could be structural advantage over other people yeah exactly right so that's that's basically our core strategy sure nintend is absolutely you know the most uh critical partnership we have ever done sure um because IP is not available to any other people at this point but we constantly continue to seek for other opportunity to create okay well my agent is here so if you want to if you you're looking at a position I can no I don't think I've got a Twitter follow I don't think my Brand's gonna gon to move 200 million um so I've got one more question I might see if anybody else has got a question here um another kind of uh issue in our conference and something we've talked brought in through all our

conferences is is east meets west we're talking about you mentioned the Chinese market being a huge Market Japan obviously is where you kind of guys made made sex in the first place um but we we there are opportunities everywhere but it's it's noticeable there been very there's not been that many kind of east to west or west to east kind of successes in in a way certainly coming from from as how do you find it as a a kind of cross East West Company how you know is is how's that that work so so so uh making a single success product uh available on success points three over the core Market which is Japan China us is extremely difficult yeah um sometime people see Clash of Clans candy clash and assume that if a product is successful automatically you can be successful in other Market uh the answer is no I I I think supercell is spending massive amount of marketing dollars and other Market to make that product success successful and they made it

successful but Naturally Speaking if you take a look at the top grossing chart Chinese market Japanese Market Western markets are completely distinct yeah and most of the game successful in Japan is made by Japanese company yeah most of successful gaming W is made by Western company and China is made by Chinese Chinese companies yeah whole different yeah our strategy is we do understand that those are three completely distinct Market yeah and three of the market has more than5 billion potential right so we are getting local uh you know development team yeah and purely targeting for local market be a leading player in each each of local market now but also at the same time um sometime uh some of technique and some of the expertise might be uh workable in other Market sure so occasionally we do uh global gaming Summit we SE DNA we I just

attended last week in Tokyo we talk about any insights from that you could share no okay not today but absolutely I I think the core thing is let's say we made a successful product in Japan final found is Record Keeper um we wanted to make sure that that game could be available in the Western Market we quickly defined calization has to be done other than language localization we do a lot of uh quick quick decision making to make sure that uh let's say $10 million product become $1 15 million doll product in globally so that's what we do a Global Perspective okay we've got we've got a few minutes before we I don't know if anybody else has a has a question uh for shintaro it's quite I thought it would be a few um okay my glorious Glam assistants coming forward chap in the Hat sure hi my name is AJ um the strategy that you have outlined is very similar the movie strategy and sports business strategy um where you

take Global IP and Export it around around the world what ends up happening in those Industries is that that IP value also increases in terms of is your goal essentially get First Advantage in that be able to escalate right so it's an excellent question actually I do believe that Mobile gaming Market is Shifting quite similar to movie industry um movie industry what they do is first they acquire best story right usually New York Times number one bestselling book and then you hire Brad Pit and Angelina Jory and now you kind of secure $50 million box office revenue right and now you're hoping for $200 million sales I think uh Mobile gaming shifting now way first a lot of people and secure or create successful game engine and game

engine have to be perfectly matched to the IP yes IP value is supposed to go up because people are depending on those you know key IP to distinguish their product to other product but also IP value actually lower user acquisition cost right a lot of time people think that well you have to pay more royalty fee so you have smaller Revenue But ultimately what's really important is you have have revenue and user acquisition cost platform charge and all the other cost and then net revenue right if you can enhance the total revenue by IP itself is really appealing people to spend more money and IP itself is attracting a lot of user we can actually reduce the cost impact on the bottom line and overall basically we can create a much much bigger business so we do believe that IP is really significant strategy for us to grow in the next two to three years okay that's a very long so I have one very short question

because I know you had a question there it's got be lot of people are talking about this might be the last cycle of uh consoles we might not see PS5 or Xbox one so do you think that Mobile gaming could be the successor I mean maybe this is the next generation of games I mean we see Sega is really shifting to mobile Nintendo and a lot of other major companies yeah so I the fact is uh every day internet connection is getting better right um today not perfect everywhere in the world right for example China measure CI getting really strong Wi-Fi connections even in the US San Francisco is fine New York is fine La is fine but if you go somewhere in uh between East Coast and West Coast it's not a perfect you know mobile uh environment right so network connection gets better device capability gets better right and the more people get

used to spending money on mobile game um just like 5 10 years ago you still buy CD and download that CD into your PC and then putting into your iPod when today now you buy every single music on iTune I think people's behavior will be totally fine spending money on mobile game and people have much better experience because better internet better device so at least for next three to five years I think the mobile gaming Market will grow uh anything beyond that point is Internet is just that you never know what's going to happen right and we as a mobile internet company we always constantly wanted to look for additional new technology that actually potentially create the new gaming experience or other experience to the people out there so we're spending uh you know sizable amount of money on R&D ins as well awesome brilliant answer I could talk I literally could talk to you all day I've got loads more intended questions but I have to uh with that I'd like to say

massive Round of Applause for shintaro thank you so much thank you um thank you so much and he will I'm sure he's he's around if he wants to grab him and ask questions but um awesome thank you very much thank you okay right we're going to keep uh keep running right along um so to continue the the kind of branding theme I'm I'm going to be delighted to welcome my next guest to the stage uh from representing a company who have some of the the kind of biggest best and most pervasive brands in the world um so do we have uh Disney Interactive Chris Heatherly here he is come to the stage come along Round of Applause please to Chris good to see you good to see you I see you I see you subtly branded I like that brought my Mickey Mouse Club shirt yeah cool so we're running a little bit behind so people we'll fill up in and out I'll let people sit down cool are we you all we all good we're good to go in and out don't want too much noise in the background great I'm I'm kind of I'm excited to have you here my son is is

incredibly ecstatic I in the last month I said at the start I've been traveling around America so I've been to the Magic Kingdom in Florida I've been to the Marvel live in Vancouver uh and I saw inside out uh at the uh at the cinema and I think I was in the Disney store the other day and we bought some Star Wars t-shirts so there you go so you've got Disney Marvel Pixar Star Wars like is there a stronger lineup of brands in the world you think I mean it's it's it's a vast I I couldn't think of one um I'm just thankful that Bob Iger uh went and acquired all of the things that made my childhood special so that I could get to work on them what's left we have a little thing called ESPN 2 yeah uh you know little Sports Venture we have as well fair enough okay I I understand you're following the soccer now as well so that's good um so uh obviously massive business uh Disney in lots of different areas so where where does where does mobile games come kind of what role do they play in the kind of strategy where do where do mobile games fit in the Disney Universe yeah um in a

couple ways I mean one of I've been at Disney for um 13 years now um one of the things about Disney that that I think a lot of people recognize from the outside is that you know when we're when we're at our best sort of all the elements of the company work together to make something you know like an inside out go from you know being just a great film to being a great consumer products phenomenon and and a great game and uh you know short form content and all you know that we we can do a better job of taking a brand and uh building it into culture than probably anybody else uh in the world and so uh you know a big part of what we think about is sort of how do we fit into the rest of the company and provide that Strategic Benefit part of that is about building connection with our audience uh around the world because the dirty secret about Disney is that uh we don't really have a lot of direct connection with our guests you know when when you watch Disney Channel on

television or Disney movie on television that's we're working through Comcast or cable distributor or TV channel there uh you know when you go to movie theaters see one of our films you're seeing it AMC you're not seeing it in a Disney movie theater so Mobile gaming because it's you know such a disproportionate amount of the time spent on mobile uh has become a really strategic way for us to create uh direct relationships with with our guests but then also to retain them over time and that's one of the unique things about games is that people stick around and they come back every day um so we think about um games in in sort of the big picture as a as a as a guest engagement uh machine we think them as as a storytelling medium uh you know one of the things that we really want to do is make authentic games that deserve to have the Disney Marvel and Star Wars brands on them uh and we work very hard with the filmmakers to try to make uh experiences and tell stories that that we're all going to be proud of um and then uh you know we want to make

it into a business in its own right um so you know it's sort of all of those things so it's kind of it's It's a cog machine it's a contact point and it's obviously a business and it's obviously business not that you mind making money that's good um I mean sort of further to that um I was I was reading uh recently that there's there's been an interesting you obviously your partnership with with kaban for Champions I was I was reading that that has turned from being a Marvel products to a game and now going back into a into a comic book of its own and then who knows what after that I mean is that is is that how you guys I mean is that an advantage of working with Disney is that how how Disney tends to see things in a more of a 360 degree kind of way yeah I mean uh we love the cabam guys first of all uh and we think they're they're uh very forward thinking folks and I think one of the things that is great about the partnership is that the way that they're looking at their relationship with Disney they they see that we have this ability to to uh you know build that 360 presence around stuff in the case of contest of

Champions you know that game is is the most probably the most played Marvel game in in the world every day it's the top grossing game it's got more da you know the you can look at it as a brand driver now uh in the same way that you might look at comic books or other things that that you know television or other things that they do and so uh when when Kabam approached us and said hey we'd like to see if there are ways for you to create uh uh that 360 effect around contest of Champions the Marvel team took it back to the editors in New York and they said sure this is you know seems like a great story we can tell so you know we don't do it for everything and we don't do it unless we think authentically we can they there that it's additive well one of one of the things that Bob Iger talks a lot about a lot is that uh you know he was very close with Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs uh it's kind of become part of L at Disney Steve Jobs had this thing that you can either make a brand deposit with the things you do or you can make a brand withdrawal and so we only try to do

these things when we're making a brand deposit which means that it's you know making the brand better sure uh and and feels really authentic to people and it's not just a commercial exercise sure no no I I I get I mean you talked you know very favora about Kabam I know you've worked with other kind of Studios as well how do you you know I'm sure a lot of Studios would like to work with you how how did you go about that process of of kind of selecting a studio and working this studio what is that what is it you're kind of looking for from from a partner yeah so we're sort of unique in that we have we really work with everybody and we have uh three different business models we operate under um the first is our vertical business we have four to five uh titles we do a year we have five Studios up and down the West Coast uh where we develop some titles in house that's a very focused effort um Cod development is sort of the second uh model where we're really expanding a lot and that is where we publish the title uh we partner with developers uh generally we look for uh developers who have proven experience in

free-to-play and ideally an engine that has that has been uh tuned and optimized and sort of proven that it has high RP There's an opportunity for us to play Money Ball in the App Store where uh you know if there there are lots of developers who may have strong RP but they don't but they have trouble getting installs and so if that engine it can't be a force fit uh you know it's got to be something that's authentic to R you know makes sense in combination with RP but if we can find a developer who's proven that they're strong at live operations and have an engine that has high RP and then combine it with our IP and we can bring in users then then that's ideally the perfect combination and then there's the the so that's about two3 our published business is about two-thirds of our business and then onethird of our business is our licensing business and generally there when we license we're looking to we're looking to work with uh you know some of the world's biggest developers uh folks that are generally bigger than us as Publishers so if if if a partner is uh

smaller than we are as a publisher we generally guide them to the to the co- development model um because we we we have more reach than they do um but we look for partners who have capabilities we don't you know and in the casa Kabam they have uh you know they they're the biggest midcore player in the west um we have one internal midcore title as we build our presence in mid Court made sense to work with them while we do some things in house um you know DNA is another example were very strong in Asia very one of those rare parties that's strong in Asia and strong in the west made a lot of sense to partner with on a licensing basis that makes I mean I guess it's interesting like so I guess you answer a bit but in terms of how did you kind of decide whether to do it in house wor doing third parties obviously like when we did the the the movie business you know marvel did their movie business I guess I mean they they kind of started working with other Studios and then progressively now Marvel Studios is the is the thing that you know bringing it all into that massive uh universe so is like how do you decide when to work with the is it is it say

because they've got a r reach or because they just got a cool capacity you guys haven't got um we're very focused in the genres that we take on in house so uh we're doing uh we have one Studio doing RPG another one doing uh uh um RTS uh we have two casual game casual puzzle teams and then we have one Builder team so we're really focused on those Investments and kind of expertise and building around those uh genres um when we look externally uh generally we're looking for quality of developer uh live operations experience not just can you make the game but can you can you optimize the game can you push updates can you respond to data all of that stuff um you know do they have IP that's interesting for us to work with in combination um sort of all that kind of stuff yeah okay no that makes sense I guess your quality barer is pretty pry high high yeah yeah so um you kind of mentioned uh DNA and Asia and uh and it kind of Segway earlier you you've kind of got like

um uh products like sort of Disney zumzum which seems have kind excelled and come back again into into the West in a different way yes how how how does the kind of strategy work with with different territories because East Meets West is one of the themes on a thing is it is it a case that I mean Disney is an international business but is it a case that you have a very different strategy and approach and regions or are you trying to get the we have a very different uh we sort of think about the world in terms of the West and the East um uh you know and even within within the East uh Korea Japan and uh and China are very different markets sure um and there's not a ton of crossover between them um there is a lot of crossover between uh Asian developers who are starting to come to the west and there is some uh success in Western developers finding success uh generally through partnership in China um so we have very different strategies for those markets in the in in the Eastern markets uh well in the

western markets uh you know we're the number seven uh top downloaded brand in the App Stores uh and so um you know we are really focused on building our publishing presence and having direct relationships with guests because we're super well established over here in Asia uh it's a market where if you want to be successful you really need to work through partnership uh you know in Japan uh suum Tsum you brought up uh is a really interesting example where um the way that that that game was created we have one creative head for the Walt Disney Company in Japan and uh somebody came to him with the idea of let's do these uh uh these cute little plush uh and he said that's great we should make a game out of that and then they and then they sort of came incubated the game concept and pitched it to line and the reason was we wanted to leverage line social network to build verality but then at the same time we launched the plush in the Disney Stores which have a very which have a yeah huge

footprint and so you know that's the kind of thing that only Disney can do we can bring the retail assets the park assets our gaming assets together to you know we can't do it all the time but when we can do it we can kind of make that surround sound effect um you know in China uh we're culturalizing some of our Western titles uh for China uh and working through Partners but we're also doing deals with folks like tensent uh and local Partners to to sort of build our presence there so in in Asia we're much more focused on licensing and partnership in the west we're much more focused on publishing and in some cases we have the ability to help uh help developers who may be strong Publishers in Asia but have no us presence or Western presence where we can be the publisher in the west yeah so you've kind of got a whole SCH SPS of kind of of approaches I'm presuming you have like a dedicated Wing or armor kind of office set up over over in different regions yeah we do we have so we have a a fairly substantial presence in uh in Japan which leads the Asia region region and uh we have a team in Shanghai we

have a team in Korea we have a team in Southeast Asia out of Singapore yeah southeast Asia Market it's very interesting um another kind of one of I mean some of this is going bit another one of the kind of tracks or one of our main tracks kind of this afternoon is going to be about acquiring users and uh on mobile and keep them interested in your title so you've got like a like Frozen freefall like how much of that is is you know where where that fits in your your company do you see that as a way of keeping interest in the Frozen kind of brand or is or is Frozen the thing that's the the the acquisition for the mobile title how does I think the success how your marketing department see it like yeah I think the success of Frozen freef fall was it's it's not like you walk out of the movie theater and say man that was a terrific film I love Let It Go as a song I really want to play a match three game I mean you know that's not the but but the success there was that uh the the audience for that film was going to be at least in the free-to-play space adult women and

what's the top grossing uh play you know genre in the app store for that demographic it was puzzling games and so sort of the right combination of genre and IP um you know what's interesting about Frozen is that it definitely has benefited from the organic success of Frozen in the market um and that is that that has definitely helped us on the markeet side I mean we're just now starting to look at doing a TV commercial for it but we have not really done anything other than tar very targeted UA on Facebook for frozen so it's really an organic success what's interesting though is that it the film it it it did well when the film came out but when the DVD hit homes and the V you know video on demand and all that and people were watching it with their kids again and again and again day after day that's when the game took off and really became a phenomenon for us and so that's the thing that's kind of unique about our business as well you know we just released inside out uh last week and it's become a top grossing uh top 100 in game uh you know it's uh it's uh you know been it's it's it's held in

remarkably strongly in the in the free charts which are very hard to rank on um but you know I think we're just getting started with that app because once inside out gets into homes you know that's when we'll really start to see interest around the property um so you know that we kind of get two B bites of the Apple where most people you know have that first launch weekend and then it falls off and you know yeah I I I can I know how long these they T these things lasts I have seen seen cars about 400 times now um I am a fan myself my son's slightly more enthusiastic but um so I I I've got a few more questions but um I I will ask if anybody does does have a kind of question for for uh for Chris uh in in the audience about how kind of Disney works the studios or kind of does business there's is there a question out there oh there is there's a gentleman over here so I hav't as I explained earlier my eyesight's not great at the moment so hi my name is John L you said that you

got to treat each market separately between East versus West but has there been anything that you discovered in either those regions that sort of were turned out to be very effective in the other talking about that crossover sucess that you seen yeah um a recent one is marble uh future fight uh that we did with Nat marble um it was a little bit of a gamble uh frankly to to to license to n marble in the west because uh there one of the biggest they're one of the top grossing Publishers in the world but but make almost all their money in Korea so they they're they they were not super established in the west um and they saw Marvel as an IP IP as a way to as a way to get in the west the other thing about the game is that it's a Dungeon Crawler game and generally action Twitchy games kind of pre-contest of Champions have not really been big free play monetizer um and that style of game is a much more uh it it it tends to work better in Asia than it does in the West um I think what net marble was able to achieve in in in deep collaboration with

us is mainstreaming uh that type of uh gameplay for the for Western audiences uh and uh they've made a game that is you know doing terrifically in Asia and appealing to that market but has been a top grossing game in the west as well so that's that that's a really good example okay you got any more questions from the audience they very c i I have I have another question so um so I'm a developer um I'm got of good track record I'm doing things how do I I I want to work with Disney obviously why wouldn't I how how do I start that conversation what's what's your kind of advice for for getting in touch what's the contact points how do I how I do it I have to wait for you to come to me or can I can no you could come to us um you can always contact me or uh Scott humph is our is our uh head of our codevelopment effort so you can contact him uh and those guys are meeting with developers at all the conferences all the time um but uh you know we're generally looking for developers who uh you know have great engines uh great

live operations experience and then just really get and love these properties you know one of the things that that we have to do as part of our process is we have to put these games in front of filmmakers and you know these are people that you know if you think about Pixar uh a Pixar film you know you're working on that movie for five years that you know the the director and producer of that movie you know they love that IP and what they want to know first and formost foremost is is this going to be a is this going to be authentic and a good vehicle uh to tell more stories and is it going to be something we're proud of and so you know that's sort of The X Factor I think is you know we're we're probably more willing to take a risk on a super passionate team that gets the execution level and gets and wants to really uh you know be part an extended part of the Disney Family it works less well when you work with developers who just see it as a way to make money yeah yeah you know okay um I you I I kind of know what you're going to say this but can is there is there anything exciting coming up you can kind

of hint at or tell us about no there's lots of exciting stuff coming up um uh you know Inside Out is sort of recent and uh is very exciting um we uh the we're going to Star Wars Commander which we haven't talked about uh is one of our probably our top grossing Star Wars game right now um and uh and uh we're about to do a major update with that in in August it's going to take social to the next level uh and really uh we're going to expand the conflict right now if if anybody plays Star Wars Commander you're sort of stuck on tattooing and we're going to expand the conflict to the entire galaxy and you'll be able to fight over the Galaxy so um that's going to be a really exciting expansion um you know and and it sort of goes in the direction of we want to do more and more to bring social elements into our games um uh and uh and and really because we see these games as a way to kind of aggregate the fan audience uh and give them a place to connect around their

passion uh for our properties every day so that's one big thing um uh but we're working on some great stuff with with uh with with with the Marvel folks we're working on some great stuff with the animation folks so we got you got a lot of big we must have so we've got so many properties I guess the decision is like you know how do you decide what to do you can't do everything constantly so yeah I mean one of the things that sort of the the the that the Miss test I think a lot of times is do we think that this property has the organic interest to last three years it can't just be you know when we make a game that's going to be live operated we're kind of making a commitment it's going to be there three to five years for the for the audience and so you know not every property fits that uh fits fits into that and and you know from a from an appeal standpoint even a great film you know you can go see a great movie and say hey that was fantastic but I'm not sure I want to play game for 3 years about it um you know it so that's one thing but then

just the storytelling potential you know can we do we have three years of story to tell here so you know that that's one of the things we look at is does it fit our medium is it is it you might be all right with Star Wars I think that's good yeah I it's yeah yeah I think we're going to be fine with Star Wars could be could be quite a big yeah your Star Wars uh activity Little Indie movie we the yeah we're looking forward to that any any spoilers no fine okay so um so I think that that's that's kind of all we got time for um it was short and sweet and I would I've got a million things I'd love to ask but i' just like to say thank you so much very War Round of Applause for Chris thank you [Applause] awesome there we go and um yes so we we we're gonna conclude our our Superstar uh uh sessions around our fire here with um uh with the discussion with uh Josh yardo of the uh who's going to come and talk of sg's president he's going to come and

talk a bit about the West Coast gaming see talk about a bit more kind of local issues so can we please welcome Josh uh to the stage please cool how you doing good to see you it's good to see you sit down we let people give people a chance to to settle um right sorry I was we we're running a little bit late so I was just trying to I was trying to I was squashing the Gap so thank you for being patient and rushing in and out so um thanks so much for coming here we're obviously in San Francisco we're very excited to be here um we love San Francisco we come here quite a lot um and as I said in my intro uh like it's it's been for us it's one of the most important kind of cities and regions in in in the mobile industry a lot of things have happened here a relatively popular platform uh came out of and there's a lot of small platform and there's and and there's obviously a lot of of game development Talent um so why why is uh uh from the game development side why is San Francisco and West Coast such a hub for for for to

games and social games particularly because that was a that was something that really sprung out here right I I mean first of all I I think you're absolutely right the West Coast San Francisco in particular are extremely important but it's a more and more competitive environment right now you see more and more International Players sort of filling the charts so uh it's nothing's easy nothing's a given but I think the long history that has sort of building social networks being at the Forefront of game development uh I think we've got great schools um and then I think we have a long history of creating content that sort of has consumed the world over in another life uh I work at Fox and television and in the international television channels typically like 15 to 20 up to 30% of the content in Europe uh in parts of Asia is US content and specifically content from Los Angeles or San Francisco and so I think we have this history of creating content in some ways we've trained users

to expect content the West Coast so we have a little bit of an advantage in that way but like I said before it's not a given not um one thing I real I didn't do at the start which is very rude for me uh I've been being back so um I I'm very familiar with oh is the mic okay I'm I'm very familiar with with kind of sgm but not everybody was it is with so so would you maybe like to just say a quick bit about what you guys do and what you're kind of working on yeah no sure my pleasure so uh sgn has been around for about five years we founded the company with the express purpose of creating games it could be played on all platforms basically on on iOS on Android on Facebook on the web um and over the five last five years we've grown uh this past weekend we broke for the first time in the top 10 grossing congratulations the US app an charts thank you very much uh but really it's all about just sort of trying to be really really good at our craft trying to focus on some genres that we think we can excel at and expand

very gradually so we're we're at about 170 employees now uh four Studios I actually just made it five um could be six we hang on another 10 minutes who knows exactly we talk to someone here yeah yeah yeah yeah okay awesome yeah so that so that's the company that's what we do yeah know that's I I've seem to think you've been around for longer that's 75 years I've just been around for a long time so as you can as you can see in my my face um so going back to going back to kind of uh the valley obviously aside from the oh sing over Third Time Lucky we good hello hello is this working are we on a little bit he's got a very clear voice we can hear he's got he's got a very if you want a competition I think he has a very clear speaking voice that's good but obviously you've got we're talking about the successful elements here we've obviously got uh you know the the the social networks we've got the the mobile technology companies other technology companies what about

what about the the kind of Silicon Valley and the investment kind of scene how does that is that is that kind of a help or kind of a hindrance because there's so many different so I guess even from a tent perspective there's so many different Industries trying to compete does it does that does it help or does it Hinds it a bit of both well I mean funding always helps and it's funding always helps there a can we put funding that's the arle funding always helps I like that that's good no I mean it's so you're right that I'd say the uh the valley as a whole and there's a little bit of a herd mentality there and they've turned a little bit on on mobile gaming and I think casual gaming gaming in particular over the last few years I think that'll change I think these things are always cyclical but generally um it is very very imp important to get sufficient funding uh in order to make um a g uous our games uh their success is dependent upon momentum and even if you have the highest quality game if you

don't have either well first of all if you don't have the budget to be able to have a team that can work on it fully funded for a year to make it super polished and absolutely the best quality you can't compete because there's going to be someone out there who has that funding and then in terms of user acquisition you have to be able to build out I mean probably a third of our company is analytics and user acquisition and if you can't build that team you're trying to get off the shelf and it's never sufficient so if you can't get that funding you're you're it's it's tough to break out and there are examples of companies that app but if you look at the top grossing charts right now either top 30 or top 20 you you'll notice those games the majority of them I think 95% probably come from very established well-funded companies um you see a few breakout and frankly their their time in the top charts is usually uh pretty fleeting yeah yeah they get acquired by the big we they get acquired or hard to sustain right like you get a game out and if it's a wonderful game and people have fun with it that's one thing but can you

keep the content Cadence going so that every week or every two weeks you have a new chapter or the story continues to evolve and the characters continue evolve that takes real funding and I've talked to a million small developers that came out with amazing games um but you know new content comes out once every two months and and users lose interest so it's a key part of making a game successful and funding funding helps I think funding helps is good I think I I think that's probably going to be the best quote of the entire conference um obviously you know the social game scene which kind of like kind of Facebook and other platforms initially how how's the mobile Kind of Revolution affected that that kind of industry in the local scene um you kind of work on on web games of social still as well as mobile you know has mobile kind of helped social companies or is it kind of been quite disruptive oh no it's it's huge it's it's I you know I I think mobile has basically created a whole new industry and I I I actually set Mobile gaming apart from traditional gaming

yeah I I don't think mobile gaming necessarily is going to be um uh cannibalistic on Console gaming I I think it's sort of a business unto itself and mobile content as a whole is absolutely huge and the social piece of that is is core full disclosure there's three of us that started our company and my two partners were the original founders of Myspace Chris tool have been yeah yeah I met Chris before he's love CH he's great so I mean social was a core part of our business when we established it and uh I think we could actually do an even better job at making social and I I say we sort of all of us as game developers and mobile game developers could do a better job weaving social into sort of the core Loops of games right now it's sort of an additive portion on the side and I think could do a much much better job making it core to to game play no I think you when you can get that right that obviously can is very powerful if you get people engaging and sharing it's it's it's it's very

powerful so um what what impact on on the kind of scene and and uh this coast and G is a success of like foreign developers had so you know King and supercell done pretty well themselves from you know small small Nations we we've uh you know they're all right ilka ilka doesn't return M call quite as much these days but um you know so you know and obviously obviously they've got presences kind of here so are they kind of Welcome part of the community are they Community you know are they are they seen as kind of a threat I don't know how does that absolutely a welcome part of the industry I think for instance we make a lot of puzzle games and if King had never made sort of their puzzle games that were so popular um I think uh it would have been hard for us to be as as successful as we were as quickly as we were I I also think that as a whole most of us sort of uh most of our businesses are based on free to play and I remember as recently as three years ago a lot of even my friends saying you know this whole idea of

buying something in a game that you you know it's a virtual good how crazy is that who would ever do that although they're willing to go to a film and pay you know 10 bucks to buy a ticket and they don't walk out with a souvenir um but uh yeah I think we're as a whole we're all training people to become good consumers and to get sort of involved and interested in what it means to be involved a a mobile game and so I think everything King and supercell have done is absolutely fantastic and uh we we wish them all the best so I mean I I think that's um that's good I mean while we're talking about kind of different markets people coming in what about what about this we talked about a couple times today it's not some we've talked about before but what about the kind of Asian uh Market because obviously very different the Asian market so certainly we talk about today China Korea Japan there aren't isn't such a thing as one Asian market not such thing as one European one US market but how how how does how do you you know you guys kind

of relate and feel back it's obviously here you've kind of got Facebook and Twitter and and and apple on your front doorstep over there it's it's 10 cent and and and and and line is do you think it's kind of a that's a whole different scene or or or or do SJ kind of connect very much with yeah I look I I think it's become a more Global industry and that's only going to get increase over time and I think there are going to be few global leaders um in our space uh over time and and right now you know I'm even Happ to share about you know 15 20% of our revenue is in Asia right now and that should 30 or 40% we should be doing much better in Asia you know we recognize that we uh we could do better we're talking to a lot of folks uh trying to sort of build up our capability in that space or in that it does seem hard it seems hard for both sides I mean like there's a lot of efforts have be made and it's it's very few companies have managed to kind of transition that that well to be honest I yeah it depends how you look at I I

agree for the most part I think it was Chris that just mentioned that if you look at the charts in different parts of the world they they tend to be dominated by uh companies from that part of the world yeah um once again but that's changing so you know you mentioned supercell and King as well they're not us companies they're Western companies but they're not us companies and that's a first step um I you know I I will be surprised if um there's not much more Global integration of games and players around the world very very quickly and I and I think companies I mean if you look at the game game of war for instance wonderful uh product where you know within the game your dialogue is constantly translated in real time I think that's one step in making games Global I think social features will make games more Global I don't we talk lot different sort of regions ranting different game mechanics I don't think there's much to that I think that'll

change okay that's fair enough um just going back to the West Coast K so there's lots of investment big big players kind of doing well what what's what's your perspective on on on on the kind of Indie uh uh scene here because obviously you know as big money you know funding helps as you say so like but you know Indie developers tend to not have the same buckets of of cash behind you think that that sces kind of quite healthy or or is that is it you see Indie ind's one our track is called Indie survival guy at the moment so we kind of we ve between celebrating and and and feeling they need they kind of the Indie guys need more help because it's so how would you say is the health of the Indie scene around uh San Francisco and the bay are and West Coast no I mean great question I mean look we're in some ways we're still an indie and we we've been able to break into sort of becoming one of the top players I think that's increasingly difficult but if there's any industry where that's possible it's ours I me the you create a game and get it in front of billions of players around the world through amazing distribut Distributors if you spend

quite a lot of money money but well there you know there's a viral piece to it too but absolutely so um I think it is harder and harder yeah um I think a lot of Indie developers and there are a lot of them are still creating very very high quality games I think uh that will continue and that scene will continue to be very vibrant I think their the mass market May evolve where they need to work with larger players in order to really break out so the publisher model will be much more backing one way or another or it might be getting acquired I mean I actually have some you know your fif you just about the publishing Market in general I think it's really really hard to to make it succeed and many more games fail in publishing than succeed and many have pulled out of the market because they see there's just a misalignment and interest you know independent Developers feel like they're getting screwed over and the Publishers never feel like they really fully own the content so they can't put full marketing yeah muscle

behind it and so I I actually think more and more uh smaller Indies will be cted for acquisition yeah so um there will still be an awesome sort of exit opportunity if you will for smaller developers but it's probably not going to be bringing the game to the market and becoming a multibillion franchise that's my personal okay I I guess um what what what advice would you offer I mean you know for for a company looking to come here or looking to start up on on the west coast you've said funding helps I imagine money would be part of it but like is it is it you know is it is it it's still attractive place to I mean obviously it's ento again is it down to a scale thing like you got any kind of advice you'd offer people looking come here West Coast yeah about about coming to set up here you know we developers or Publishers looking to set up here what what would you what would you say don't come do come bring money what I I think and this goes back to I said sort of at the beginning I think the West Coast in general and LA and San Francisco specifically are an absolute

hot bed of creative talent and and our most I'd say this this this is a bit of a generalization but some of our most important um employees are not people who have come from other game developers they're people that have come from Pixar or from Disney or were amazing you know we've been have an amazing children's book uh artist I mean these are people who come from industri the industry of telling stories and doing amazing art and I I think we have um a lot of that on the west coast and that's one of our biggest resources yeah and you know you know I think I live in Los Angeles and and we love to make fun of people in Los Angeles we're constantly talking about the industry and storytelling and films and television and how it's doing but there's also something wonderful about people who love talking about like they're all they care about is you know getting creative product out and the medium is kind of Chang changing TV is now the thing for high quality products differ but in my

opinion it's you know as as games continue to evolve storytelling and art and creating sort of a unique product is become more and more important and it's less about sort of a a rope mechanic and more and more about what game makes your game special and I think the West Coast has more of that than anywhere and I I think for that reason we're really really happy to have four studios in W fair enough okay I've got a couple questions but is anybody out here would like to talk uh I ask a question of Josh yes there's a gentleman there where's my glamorous assistant with the microphone can you you just yeah he he doesn't need a mics so we could talk for hours about that and I'm happy to do that because I I love it but I guess sort of most

generally we cut retention about a million different ways and so I think a lot of people look at like you know day one day seven day 30 and to us that's just scratching the surface and so we'll look at for instance Spenders by day by cohort we'll look at retention by gay by cohort we'll graph it out um fig out sort of our difficulty curves so what's the right sort of uh level of difficulty and content progression that gets people um very interested but also willing to eventually pull out their wallets because they're excited enough about that content I'd say that's if there's a secret sauce I think that's a big part of it because any you know 1% retention every day that's that's better it it builds on itself right and so um having a little bit of a better arou each day you're fighting a new fight but on retention a group of user that builds

on itself and build on and it builds itself 1% can actually mean 50% at the end of the year and and we really are thinking about our users long term I mean we'll we'll look at the long tail literally over years because we think all of our franchises will be multi-year properties probably three or four years each so I I'd say focus on retention and focus on the progression curve through the Conta okay that's good any more questions from from the audience out there I C my eyes my eyesight um I I have I have I another question um I I think you know the one of the things we're looking at here is future Technologies we're looking at wearable as we're looking at VR obviously Facebook has made a relatively sizable acquisition in the VR space and how do you how do you see kind of the role VR will play in Social gaming because you know it's in one hand it's incredibly antisocial you're disconnected from you're not talking to but the other the the potential to connect is is is on a different kind of level to what we have

now oh yeah we we're very very excited about VR I I think it's one of those initiatives where on our timeline and we're already experimenting with with different sort of uh VR games we think it's probably a couple years out probably but we think that it will be transformative yeah so um and it's also one of those things where we don't necessarily see it as um we think it's going to cannibalize the type of games we make now we think it's going to be different types of games and different kinds of experiences if anything it might cannibalize console games a little bit yeah because you know you're not you're not going to do it when you're out and about in line with the grocery store no not yet not yet I I I I I I I you're going to do it I kind of see it as the Next Generation personally as the next generation of Playstation Xbox whatever that is that's the kind of experience initially at least well I mean they they might be the ones that that win eventually well yeah I mean they people have been saying that Xbox One is the last Xbox and PlayStation 4 is the last PlayStation 4 and it's going to have to do something else so so it seems like VR people are very excited

about it E3 so I I mean they seem to think I I you said it's one or two years away I tend to agree with you a little bit but the the E3 we kind of it seems to be the time is is is pretty much I mean I think for anyone who's tried it it's hard not to be it's impressive yeah yeah and and what what about wearables I mean like do you see kind of smart kind of smart watches are something interesting like because it's it's it's obviously not the same depth of interaction but it's it's quite constant you know you get get those things like you know obviously Apple you can send little sort of scribbles and your heartbeat to that's quite an interesting social connection that you know yeah I mean it's a it's a great question and and honestly I'm not 100% sure so one of the great things about um mobile games is you're checking in three four five 10 times a day I mean that lends itself to wearables where you can check in on your whatever your checking in on or play have a little quick game session um that said we're not actually doing anything with with wearables right now and we're not exactly sure what to do and and we've tried sort of prototypes of our

games on on a very small screen you know we didn't find them as fun um but it's it's very early days I mean you know the devices will be there so it's it depends what the devices will be there and and whenever people say it's not going to happen it always does so I mean people said remember mobile phones w i remember the iPhone wasn't going to happen and I've seen that so honestly I don't know um I'd love it to uh to be another platform for us the more platforms the better um but we're not 100% sure awesome okay on that note I'd like to say uh thank you so much been a very very interesting conversation very different to other conversations um can we have a big round of applause for for Josh please you'll be you'll be around and about to see people um so thank you very much that's very great cool um and that kind of that brings uh you'd be very sad to hear uh that brings to conclusion my particular time on the stage so uh any tips will be welcome oh well thank you very much um but I'm going to hand over

to my colleague George now are we going to have a bit of a break George what's your think no all right so my my colleague George is going to come to stage and explain what's going to happen next um just want to remind everybody that couple housekeeping PGC San Fran uh tweet if you got anything to say or if you haven't uh uh p on that and yeah lunch is 1 1:00 10 plus one onwards okay but uh but George is going to come at the stage and take over and bit of a reorganization so thank you for your attention this morning I hope you found it interesting and I'll be around later in the day at 2: p.m. the big in new pitch starts so I'll be up in the IND area there if you guys want to kind of come along to that okay thank you