Dynamics and Culture of Grand Games

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So, you're reaching unicorn status. Almost there. In just two and a half years. Walk me through a normal Now, I don't know I don't I don't know if you have normal, but walk me through a Tuesday in Batu Han Çelebi's life.
Yeah, yeah.
Or give me Thursday, too. But not Friday or Monday.
So, I don't think there is a normal day to begin with, but I understand. So, allow me to walk you back to the Tuesday day or Thursdays of any word. So, I think what I try to do is I start with the really high level of like what do I want to do today, which is like how percentage of me acting and how percentage of me is like reacting to the things that is happening. So, I think I found peace in like 20% of acting and 80% reacting to the stuff that is happening. And for me, what this means is I can do 3 hours of interviews. I can do 3 hours of product. I can do 3 hours of level design. And I can focus

on marketing side as well. And any given Tuesday is like for me selecting what is needed and also leaving some room to react to to the things that is happening so that I could that I can be the support.
How structured are your days? Like you talk about 3-hour blocks. How many 3-hour blocks you do a day?
I try to do three so that I have some room to spare for support as well.
Do you block them off in your calendar? Like when I come to work, I'm going to spend 3 hours on focusing on level design, then I'm going to have I'm going to have an hour break of of something random, then 3 hours on hopefully not investor updates, but something more important.
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That's a good question. So, it might be personal, but if I don't block my days in terms of calendars, I find myself 100% reacting to the stuff that is happening. Maybe in some days it is necessary, but most of the time I I don't feel fulfilled and I don't feel the company is thriving to where it goes to be. So, I try to block them and I'm not sure if you have seen our office, but our office

provides a lot of room to get rid of decision anxiety, context adjustments because it has a basketball court, it has a uh let's say pickleball court as well. And it has a lot of room for distraction in terms of if your goal is entertainment, I think you'll you'll be entertained there.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Why? Why why did you put these these aspects?
It's unorthodox and it's not common, but when you're doing something creative, I think you need some time to let the gas off a bit [snorts] understand what is going on and I think if you are doing a lot of context switches, you need something that is completely out of out of your day to make it happen. It can be a power nap, it can be a playing basketball, it can be completely different. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I I will. I I need I need the photos of that. Um and and you have Okay, so I I actually wanted to talk about We talked about capital. I want to talk about the people because in order to make a great company or any company, you need two things. You need capital and you need people. Can you kind of walk me through what type of people do you hire? And not the titles, but but like what do you

search in in in the type of people that join Grand Games?
So, apart from the resume that we look in, apart from the experience and also the ambition, I think the the biggest thing that separates us is is the passion for mobile games because Grand is founded to create new games in a really really good culture and environment. So, if you want to make new games, if you want to be successful, if you want to achieve something while making new games, I think this this is the perfect place for you. And we are really doing a great job in understanding if a person is really acting or if it's really a passion for them. So, we are playing games like at least one or two hours within our our days for every role almost. And in order to survive that, you have to like what you are doing. And these are the things that we are looking for by making any new hire in any role that is open.
What's the signal that somebody is passionate and what's the signal that somebody is playing games?

We have a lot of questions. I can just give you one example.
If you had unlimited amount of money, what would you do?
Oof. If I had unlimited amount of money, what would would I do?
How would the day of Mishka would look like?
It probably wouldn't do be much different than it is right now. I'd probably do more of podcasting talking to people like yourself. Uh and and probably do less of of all kind of admin work and that kind of stuff. So, I really enjoy this part and this wouldn't change even if I had unlimited money.
That's an amazing answer by the way. So, uh this is a passion for you. It's obvious. If if your answer would be like, I'll do completely something apart from this, like completely different, I want to sell cars, this is not a passion for you. It's like a job to you. So, that is the thing that we are looking for in Like the difference between how they live now and how would they live in in their normal life if they had unlimited amount of money.
Interesting. And then, how do you test that somebody really likes the type of games that you are making? Because often

times, when I was hiring people, you always have people who love games who apply your to a company, mostly. But then people like different types of games and they're like, I love games. Do you mean League of Legends or you mean, you know, Block Blast? What are we talking about? Because you can love both or you can hate the other one and love the other one.
Yeah. The most common answer is FIFA, unfortunately in Turkey as well. Yeah. I like games. I What do you play? It's FIFA. It's nothing else.
EAFC, but I understand.
[laughter]
I think the the good thing is like you I like games other than puzzles as well. But I'm really enjoying when I'm playing puzzles. So, it has to be like what what we produce, it has to make sense in order to make that passion a part of our job. So, if you like FIFA, but then you don't like playing any puzzle games, it still might not be the best place for you
to work for. Got it. So, you have to like the type of a games casual puzzle games that you're making. Do you have to like the business of casual puzzle

Turkish games hybrid casual?
I'm not so sure. Depending on the role, I think that can change. But, you have to like what you're producing in order to feel the fulfillment. So, you don't have to like the business as a whole, but you have to like the end product.
Last time you were on the podcast, I played 6 months of Magic Sword afterwards. It wasn't nice. I was like, "What am I doing?" Way after the podcast, I was still magic sorting. Uh so, yeah. Uh your games are incredibly addictive, and it would be kind of like I'm just giving that as an example of even if your favorite game is EA FC, if you play Magic Sword and you don't feel playing it that again, there's something wrong with you
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Uh let's hope so. That's that's the case.
Uh the the one thing that in the interviews that I read where which you did, you talked about real ownership of over product and outcome. What does that actually mean at Grand Games?
Let's assume you're a product owner at Grand Games, right? You come, you have a team to lead like

most of the 10 people most of the time. And uh most of the backlog, of course, we agreed upon, and we we agree on planning as well. But, the rest is up to you. It can It can go to a really good point. It can go to a really bad point. We'll be there with you regardless of the outcome. We celebrate the effort. We celebrate the passion. We We don't celebrate the results. Results celebrate itself. So, but for you, the whole day would be like, "What do I need to do to achieve all these goals?" So, you are making every every day decisions by yourself. So, we don't intervene in any art process. We don't intervene in any development process. It is up to you and the team to deliver what you promised. And it as a result, you get full ownership of the success and also full ownership of accountability when failure happens. So,
What are the parameters? Cuz you're talking about at roughly 10 people, that's a studio. So, you have 75 people, that's about like five studios that you have currently, correct? How do you set

those Is it a budget? Is it a timeline? Is like in what constraints am I having this ownership?
After like 10, closer to 20, we felt that it becomes more people management rather than product management. Let's say we produce some feature in Magic Sort. That is probably take like a month for us. Duplicating that feature to any other product takes 3 days for us. Cuz we we structure the code accordingly to that we can use it many times in many games as well. So, speed is not the issue with you. Having the sense of ownership and fulfillment after like 20 to 30 people is really low. When you take a vacation, we are probably not going to feel anything. We are not going to miss you if if if that's the case. With 10 people, you you feel the sense of achievement. You feel the sense of okay, if the product is there, it is because of me. And also, of course, we do this as a team, but you you sense that you are really great pie.
So, you're building these squads, but

but like what are the parameter How do you know that they're moving forward? That that squad is functioning as it is. I understand the the element of being in a squad of 10. Uh that everybody knows everybody by name and they're very close. And yes, there's probably very little admin with just 10 people. You don't need a complicated Jira system to analyze everything. But how Like let's say I'm making a puzzle game at Grand Games and I have my team of 10. How much time do I have to ship? Like how do you How do you measure if I'm successful or not apart from when I reach the numbers?
I think understanding how many wrong paths you take is a good KPI for us. So, what did you try before launching the game? How is the gameplay policy? So, our mostly focuses on gameplay when we are launching the MVP version. So, how is that looking like? How does the team feel about the thing that they shipped rather than the rather than the end product. So, I think these are the things that we look for in terms of defining success cuz at the end

of the day, when the MVP is launched, I think you need a lot of things which is like is the team motivated towards what they have built? Is the MVP really good in terms of gameplay and also level design and also overall polish of the game? Do you sense hope moving towards or fear? Since we are really low in terms of headcount, I think understanding how someone feels is a bit easier for us. And also, we do the we do the meetings before starting the game and after we have launched the MVP. So, I think we got a sense of how everybody is feeling about the product that they have shipped. And we try to make sure that everybody is also happy with what they ship but it it it makes sense business-wise as well.
So, you talk to them or anonymously?
I don't think surveys is like a great way to handle this.
It depends. I understand you're very approachable, but as this company grows and it'll be like 500 people and Batu Han just casually comes in for a conversation, I think people will perceive you as much

bigger than you perceive yourself.
You're right. You're right.
And they will tell you whatever you want to hear.
Probably you're right, yeah. When that time comes, I think surveys would be the better one, yeah.
Yeah, maybe or somebody else.
By the way, we do we do surveys in twice a year, but it's not about the game, it's about the overall performance of the company.
Who have you parted ways with? What Not Not like naming people, uh but what type of a people did not stay at Grand?
I think it all ties to who we hire, right? Our criterias are passion, ambition, and work rate, right? And we align on those when we hire you. Sometimes thing people change. Sometimes they lie in in terms of the interview. Sometimes they are they thought they are going to get something different from us and there is like a misconception of what they get. So, it happens. I don't think anyone is to blame for that. But, turns out that you cannot teach passion. You cannot teach ambition. And if you're optimizing towards the or

ambition and benefit rather than the teams, I think these are red flags that we try to intervene and guide towards a more successful path for us and for them as well.
If they don't show the passion after joining the company, and if they're optimizing for their individual success versus the company success,
versus the team's success.
success. Got it. Okay, so basically creating conflicts inside of the inside of the small company.
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