Eric Kress on being misrepresented, pissing off sponsors, and why he can't be canceled

all right eric first ever podcast live no actually not not first one i did one back when i was at iron source i think it was like a game fest 2019 2018 whatever and we did like on-sites but good to have you here yes it's been good how was your trip to europe it was actually amazing you know the whole family had a great time i think lots of highlights lots of low lights but you know for the most part everyone got along but we went from uh paris to uh we didn't stay in paris thank god because i think paris is kind of terrible these days but uh we went to lyon and then we went to the the swiss alps and then we made our way down to monaco um monaco was like horrible no i i you you said you were suggesting it was doing affordable it was like car porn like there's like i've never seen so many super cars in my life in like a basically a ten block radius and if anybody's never been to monaco

the gold quarter is basically a 10 block radius of like super insanely expensive apartments that actually one of my friends owns we were right there so we could actually see everything that was going on and in the middle of it is monte carlo and so like within that radius you saw the ferraris lamborghinis porsches bugattis everything the craziest thing is like let's go it's going to we're going to get but the craziest thing is like you can't drive anywhere there like it's just like like having a supercar and how difficult it is to drive those cars and those streets are small they're not there's no highways there's nothing that's not the point okay that's not the point the point is to be seen and and drive these things around and and rev them up there was there was a freaking batmobile there right in front of the hotel right in front of like monte carlo the actual batmobile yeah the guy who owns the batmobile brought it over to moscow major douche the douche factor is high but it's actually quite cool um sorry then we went to uh then we took a train to uh

florence and we went to cinque terre and that was beautiful really crowded but i'm telling you italy and france there is a ring of thieves of toilet seats there are no toilet seats in france and anywhere brands in italy have any public restrooms it's like it's like nothing because because they don't want you to take a dump i don't know it is coconut-related whatever but there's something we need to get the bottom of this because it was or not it was that's a disaster for my wife because my my daughter but for me i wasn't true yeah i didn't think about it yeah and then we went to florence and florence is just absolutely beautiful it was really packed but we uh we got to do like i don't know we made pizza and and i saw the video did you ice cream at the you know uh up in the mountains and it was it was absolutely tremendous um and then you guys called me up to do this so my family went home and and i ended up uh just taking a train up to switzerland yes and then now i'm in

germany that's awesome um so yeah so how this came to be is like we're at the moment we're here at gamescom uh in cologne germany west germany beautiful place and um we are doing this event together with phoenix games and novik and um as we're getting these sign ups and we're kind of crossing the we we had the first space for 200 people and then we crossed that pretty quickly and then it was like a waiting list and then uh phoenix was like let's just bump it up to 400. we're like okay so we bumped it up to 400 and then the signups kept growing and growing and growing and like at some point we have like a waiting list of 400 people and then we're like eric you got to come in so i gotta make the trip yeah so you have to make the trip and i'm super glad that uh that your family let you come here my wife was not happy yeah exactly so shout out shout out to the y yes the kids are starting school this week and so she's on her own and not feeling very good about it yeah but uh but it's really nice it's it's worth it it's gonna be fun so we're like an hour removed from the event start so i wanted to first of all i wanted to test my new

equipment for on-site podcasting that we're trying right now so you know bear bear with us if you have the sound quality is what it is uh but i wanted to i really wanted to do a podcast with you about you i i don't want to talk about the news that i want to talk about because i think you're a little bit misunderstood in the sense that people only know you through that really really small window of twig and let's be honest like we've talked about this but um but i'll you know i'll open up the other inside baseball for the team for the team for the audiences uh there's definitely been uh like like feedback from me like over these years that eric cress is going too hard on the paint he's he's kind of like difficult you don't want to be attached to that and most of the time i've never even let you know about this because i'm like no no no no no we need we this is this is what podcasting is all about and what has happened over this time is all the doubters and all of the sort of

like um how did i put it normal like almost like self-cancellation type of a thing has evaporated people were like you know what it's great that chris is there to just shoot [ __ ] you know and uh and i think i think you make like you are definitely the uh the persona of the of the podcast and make everything matter but people haven't seen the other side of you which is the normal eric which is not ranting which is actually very analytical a person who is working in this industry and has been working this for decades and has a wealth of knowledge wealth of experience and is a really really nice person and much slimmer than in all the photos so i gotta get a new photo so let's start off with that like like how like this is the most boring question but how did you get into the games i mean i guess one of the things i always talk about is like i was always the guy behind the guy when i was at ea i was there for seven years and i did corp dev and i did corporate strategy and brand strategy and i was always working behind really

smart people like frank dubo i was working with frank and for as an example we would do an e3d brief which was like almost 100 pages of shite that we had to go through from like every corners of the organization whether it's publishing studio etc and then we narrow it down to like a 20-page deck that they he would then come back to redwood city and present to the entire publishing organization right about what happened at e3 how they were positioned and stuff and so i was working on those type of projects with frank and and again the guy behind the guy not presenting but actually doing all the analysis so um so that's the kind of work i was doing my entire time at ea um and then the same thing with kabam you know people like kent and and kevin chu and those guys are the ones that are the voices and and the mouths but i was behind the scenes doing all the like kind of the analysis and so and that's the way i've always been whether i do the hedge fund stuff or not and when i and so finally you know deconstructor fund basically created a platform for me to like just express kind of not the man

behind the man but the man the man so to speak and um and so i guess what i would say to those that are kind of like push put off by kind of my my take on things or or my uh you know strong opinions is that these are the opinions that are in the boardrooms right these are the people we were discussing this type of stuff behind the scenes all the time about these things that are doing going on in the industry you don't hear about it as much um because they want to keep those things quiet and keep that that pr that that spin you know out there so that that uh they can continue to do what they do um so i'm glad i just can provide a voice of like you know kind of what is going on behind the scenes you know whether it's these deals that are happening um whether it's what apple's doing what you know those type of things uh so yeah i mean that's that's kind of in a nutshell most people are most people um like most most even myself like we're afraid to sometimes voice our opinion in public but you're not

why well in some ways not that i'm above the fray but what i do my profession um i'm independent so i you know like you're right i probably will never be able to get a job at apple right or or i think neither do i yeah but also not by my own doing but through association so apple this is recorded with apple i have apple computer i have apple arcade i actually use a lot of apple products i'm associated and now i never can work it out like that but nor would i ever want to work at apple right i mean my days of working at big companies are far far over at this point but um i uh and and frankly the the hedge fund guys and the investors they want an honest opinion and they all they get is spin so the reason that i'm successful is because i give them something that they can actually use to to get an edge in the market and so um through them you know i have some cover right because they're they they

still they're never going to cancel me in the way something like apple or ea would um so yeah i don't care and plus you know i'm older right so i'm not like i i you know i've done reasonably well right so you know i've you know maybe five or six more years in my career so i don't want to worry about like you're going out with a bang both guns blazing but uh i mean that's basically it in a nutshell yeah yeah and i know that people like the thing is like our audience is incredibly senior incredibly senior like we get of public enlisted companies listening to your your opinions every week and being angry at you or being of the same mind at you but feeling something and and it makes them think so it's definitely resonating and i'm really happy that i haven't listened to the naysayers who have then turned uh and uh and but what do you do now like what gives you the independence what are you doing like when did you leave come on kabam was your last

corporate kabam was like eight years ago right yeah so i've been doing gossamer for eight years and i think well the way i always describe it is i have the hedge fund business which is like 16 people that i talk to on the hedge fund long only side that i advise for um kind of a retainer model right and you know basically trading all these names that we're talking about whether they're short app love and iron source unity or you know uh a lot of people were short cd projekt or short roblox was like one of the big trades but cd projekt was really and you went hard on the pain like as they were going through this you were like these guys yeah that was i mean in all honesty i think that was one of my best fundamental short calls because the people's expectations for that game got so out of whack without what it was even possible right now again as i've said many times i did not predict that it would get pulled from the playstation store that like is insane right but like the fact is i knew that they were a terrible console developer and that they were trying to push the envelope with the tech and that anyway so that was a really good call the roblox was a

good or bad call depending on how you look at it because i basically said the entire year last year on the podcast that roblox has no way of growing in 2022 because of what their strategy was and i outlined it very specifically right even though the stock went up tremendously during 2021 maybe i was a little bit early but but my hedge fund guys take that and they they know when it's too early when it's not and then when they start to see the chinks in the armor then they short it right and yeah they make money on that so um so that's that's the big part of my business i consult for warner brothers uh doing like corporate strategy for both mobile console and they're fine without just being on hench because you're you're independent yeah and they're more of an independent as well yeah you don't get you don't get like uh from your corporate party like you've worked for google if i'm correct i did google on blogs plus yeah sega amazon exactly big big public ones and for them like you being outspoken you're still because you're not working for them with them i

don't know for them but you're working how would i play is it independent isn't it yeah yeah it's like it doesn't affect that that's and that's awesome and actually part of the reason they want me involved is to basically provide them honestly feedback and opinions about what's going on out there so it tends to work pretty well that's good um yeah that's awesome and you've done well yeah i mean i know some numbers you don't well i've done okay yeah you've done really well yeah so don't worry about it about chris he's not you know in his cellar playing games in his pajamas he's done very well for himself yeah like if both of your doubters would know how well you've done they'd be like oh [ __ ] like i need to join a podcast and give some opinions no no but i really enjoy it i think you know chris petrovick was the one that kind of like set me down i was like maybe two or three years into the consulting thing with gossamer and things weren't going as well as i had hoped and and i was like starting to look around and see if there's anything else in industry and chris petrovick looked at me and said dude what are you

talking about you're a lone wolf dude don't go work for someone else like do your own thing like figure it out you know like yeah it makes sense right kind of like got me straight and i and the other piece of advice i got at the time that was really good is that you can't do one thing you have to do many things because if you do just do one thing you'll drive yourself insane right and so that's when i started like looking out looking at warner looking at other consulting agreements doing podcasts all these things just kind of helped kind of formulate so if you are going out there on your own like i really do recommend finding the core thing for you to get started with but also expanding beyond and doing different things because that'll keep you really engaged what what um why do you like doing the podcast you know there's a certain level of outrage i have at the spin that goes out there that that is hard to voice and what the feedback that i get that is most powerful to me is when people say oh my god i was thinking the same thing but i

thought i was crazy right like when you hear these pr [ __ ] things about what what what how vr is doing or the new zoo stuff about you know the vr forecast or you know everyone knows that that that uh cloud gaming is dead doa right yet you still see press releases about like oh my god this is amazing what this is the future of technology the 5g is my basically that is like the worst it's like yeah yeah this is the killer out of apology but what with when when 5g comes what then it's like wow and we'll all fly 5g is crap you know like anyway and so like having a way of voicing that and just expressing that to people that kind of are in the same situation as me analyzing what's going on the market that that's the most that's the most fun for me actually um getting that kind of feedback uh yeah do you enjoy getting recognized because like uh i'm actually more of a private person i'm actually more of an introvert

surprisingly to most people so sometimes it's a little bit awkward i was like walking around in one of the bars and hotels and uh and so and i get introduced to something and they're looking at me really strange you know like and i'm like what they're like oh we know you're from the podcast i'm like okay yesterday no just today i'm just just saying it you know it's no big deal right um it's weird it's weird because like our industry is so small our podcast is small like yeah it has good numbers comparably to other podcasts in them but it's not like joe rogan it's not impulsive it's not it's normal audience would not recognize so when we come to a city like cologne during the time where all the all the boilers of the ocean are here and we go to a room and like people are like that's a request yeah and they were like and they're like is harry kress here i'm like yeah he's standing over there like wow i need to go and say hi to him and it's such a trip for people because it's the same thing for me because i listen to other i don't listen to gaming podcasts but for others it would be weird to talk to somebody who i've

listened to thousands of minutes today or something or even probably thousands of hours with some of them so they kind of feel like they know you so i'm just kind of curious like how do you feel about that well the fact that i talk about jacob and the basketball thing is really funny so people always talk to me about that so the one thing i want i do want to talk about it about that in particular just i got the mic is that uh so jacob went to get his physical from school and the doctor says to him you're only going to be 6-2 what a small person did his face i mean his whole demeanor just went like like football club barcelona yeah he's basically gonna peak in sixth and seventh grade right that's all for him so he was really really disappointed now having said that what she said was well based on the charts you're going to be only five eleven but he's already five eleven and a half yeah so she doesn't know what she's talking about but we'll see we'll see we'll see um our sport anyway yeah so the personal stuff is pretty funny

sometimes but uh but it's funny when people like start talking to me about that as opposed to talk about gaming well you share a lot and that's what makes the podcast like like relatable and i mean i don't listen to gaming podcasts but i listen to twig i have to say like i'm a fan of the podcast i'm doing it much much much less now and i'm just like listening all the time it's great the debate and uh and you know when you get triggered and all that stuff but but i was definitely curious about just getting uh recognized it's it has happened for me for quite a long time so i don't really care anymore like i honestly don't like i think it's it's cool but i just don't like even recognize being recognized but um but i'm always wondering with with others like like is it uh is it weird because i remember when that happened for the first time and it was extremely weird like coming to an event and people were like you're deconstructing fun i'm like what no i work for this like and it's just it's it's really weird yeah well we'll

see how it goes tonight we have a lot of people coming so yeah yeah 400 yeah 400 that's pretty dope what's next what's next for you like what do you like i understand you have like you said five six maybe if you're having a good time maybe a decade of uh i honestly i've spent a lot of time thinking about like what what to do when when you try to when you unplug it and pull back and you know the podcast is really fun i think i could do this for a long long time uh venture capital is something that i've been considering um you know you know raising a smaller fund and doing direct investments and kind of getting that side of the business which i've never really done actively um but i see a lot of opportunities and have a lot of relationships as you do with the venture capital firms so those are time things i'm kicking around um but i'm pretty busy you know so between the three different things like you know i'm pretty pretty smack so i have to probably have to get rid of something else yeah yeah yeah exactly that little hope it's not the pod well it's a small

amount of time do you prepare a lot for the pod when there's certain subjects that i'm really really keen on i will prepare so like if i'm going to be talking about m a mergers and acquisitions like this this whole thing with the iron source and unity and then unity and app loving and all the time i remember that there was some fallback yeah so actually i would take the opportunity like i i i really do want to apologize to the iron source guys like i i have nothing but respect for those guys and i and clearly they were upset with what i said not that i'm changing my opinion on what i said i think what i said was actually relatively accurate but what i will say is that you know i do respect them and and i and they're in an unfortunate situation right in my opinion um but uh it's sad to see them leave the podcast because they were really big supporter of the podcast from the very beginning and they've been nothing but nice to me so anyway i would like to say yeah it's maybe maybe the uh the the insinuation that people will be let go it was kind of like weird that they would be cause cutting

especially at iron source as well as the uh as the point of two drunks holding each other up i mean those are that that might have been like um maybe but uh i i look i mean at the end of the day that's what people pay me for yeah right when and maybe pulling it back on the podcast in which they're uh um sponsoring maybe it would have been a smarter idea but on the other hand it's the correct thing and i i want to say when when that went through and i actually was i was in the room and i wasn't i was with the edits i think it's the right thing to approach it because this is what it is like if you're a sponsor of the podcast that doesn't give you anything extra because we don't live off the ad drip we respect a lot the sponsors and we're very very grateful for the sponsors uh especially like not especially just all of them so so thanks to apps fire iron source google facebook used to be with us uh whoever is present whoever is a past exola all these guys are really great but nevertheless

we will still hold on to our own opinion about the market whether they are involved or not yeah and in all honesty the money that we get from those sponsorships is quote-unquote mice nuts it's not gonna move the needle for me whether or not i have an opinion so um so so and that's when that was really the point for me is like because i was looking at the edit files i'm like should we cut them like no no self-censoring this is it this is eric's opinion he's going to ride it and he's going to hit the storm and you hit the storm not only with the with the sponsors but he also hit the storm from industry peers or like he's off on this and so forth so but what i like the most about you is that nearly every podcast starts with you apologizing of something that you said last time which means like you have hard opinions but you still pull them back or change your mind if there's different data coming in no and and i and one of the questions that i was talking to laura about um about me in general it's like you know what what

are your strengths like what makes you good at what you do and i think i honestly i think i have three super powers right now i'll just go through them quickly one is that i am a great listener like i get on the podcast and i rant and i do my thing and i may not listen to the people on the podcast as much as i should but when it comes to the one-on-one conversation shut the [ __ ] up ethan yeah [ __ ] well yeah that's well but uh but when i actually talk to people i listen to them right if they have opinion i i absorb that right these opinions are not my own these opinions are opinions from lots of different people that i talk to on a regular basis so i am a really good listener right and and and just in general because i think one thing i do think and it's really important to know is that everyone has value in terms of their opinion right they may not be the most sophisticated the most interesting person but they have like intrinsic value about what their opinion and whether they work on the line as a ua person or they're doing product management like they have experience that are valuable to listen to so i always use that um uh the second thing is i think what i do

really well is synthesize lots and lots of information and and bring it down to like actionable opinions right and that that is the job of being in wall street is trying to take all this information there's so much information on gaming right there but just kind of figuring out what what's the most important bits you know and then the final thing and this is the thing that maybe you shouldn't you know these new people in the industry should know is like i'm an 85 percenter right i've always been an 85 what does that mean my whole career oh like i i am never 100 like i i get 85 of the intel information i don't need the other 15. i'm not busting my ass for the 15. i'm going with the 85 and letting it roll right and that helps me synthesize as i said earlier the information is like you can't have perfect information right so you have to basically make these conclusions based upon imperfect information but a lot of times then i get things wrong right sometimes i don't make i there are certain i'll talk about that in a minute like what where

the biggest mistakes i've made but um but 85 is usually enough to come with to to come to really good conclusions and to do to articulate them well um you know someone like eric seaford is more of like the 95 to 100 type person right my wife is like the 110 right so i drive her insane right so it's eighty-five percent that's clean enough right it's good enough that's never good enough for my life right you know it's 85 done no it's not like a youtube of the analysis you're like not the hbo exactly but that really helps because because you don't get mired in the muck and and the minutia focus on you know someone like candace for instance at the new zoo like she's not at nuzu anymore well well she wasn't video yeah she's in video she's like one of those hundred percent typical she's she's hardcore um so anyway yeah and i think those three things are good and and and the other the other thing related to that is like i never i

my entire career i've never tried to be good at anything i don't like to do yeah right when i was at ea and i was doing fpna there was no [ __ ] way i was going to take and tie p l's to the to the dot one percentage or whatever the [ __ ] they were doing i would all do is do the market data step so never be good at [ __ ] that you don't want to do and do the stuff that you like to do and that that that served me well so that's the same idea as the 85 rule um and that's how it manifests itself so so you mentioned uh the the failures like like what are the sort of like on your career that have been like [ __ ] i think but you still kind of remember not like you want to take them back but they could have been like taught you a lot but i don't have any real regrets on the career my career progression at all except i wish i had worked in new york like when i was in investment banking i wish i had like one or two years in new york to experience what it's like to do that that's one somewhat regret what what are you missing about the new york like hanging

out with strauss yeah just like popping iron with mr shred you know um he's my game industry crush i always bring him up he's like he'll be the other the podcast guest of the lifetime district yeah exactly just to experience what it was like to be in manhattan working at an investment bank i think that would be really cool um just doing coke that's what i think about new york bankers maybe back with lines and lines of lines and just no that that that's one i i other than that i think yeah i don't really i don't really regret anything that i've done i think everything made sense i mean i was going to talk about like some of the mistakes i've made over the years because i'm never always right like the one thing i missed like the switch for instance like i was totally wrong about the switch about the switch yeah i mean that was i i and i and i shifted pretty quickly like it wasn't like i was wrong until like a year ago i was i was basically shifted once the thing came out it just was but ironically everything i was saying about the switch came true in the sense

that it's a shitty device it's really bad hardware the tie ratios are terrible um and there's like no participation from third party but they kept selling and they kept making games and they kept doing well and so that that thing's taken off and now i'm very bullish kind of on the switch that was that was like probably my biggest error it's not big i like working as a team are you more like have you always been like a lone wolf i i miss being part of an organization kabam was actually a really great place to work um where you just shoot the [ __ ] and and and talk a lot of trash and just have fun and like kind of like and because i was at a level like a vp level doing corporate strategy i actually had like some some you know authority there and and to get things done um did you have your own team no i'm still a lone wolf i've still like a contributor i would i would wonder like people would having one-on-one with their crest and be like hey so whatever like i don't give a [ __ ]

just deliver this yeah i don't i've never really managed anybody have you coached anybody yeah yeah oh no i've done tons of coaching yeah um part of my job at warner's to help kind of level up the organization there in terms of thinking about these things giving that industry expertise and advice and kind of yeah directing them on where they should be looking and where to go and what's happened in the past and how we can learn from that so yeah lots and lots of that but in terms of like directly managing people that's not my bag yeah executive track is definitely no you're in an ic track all the way i i've been saying this all along i think look i don't have the right bmi to be exactly the a well you're getting that i'm close i'm getting close but i'm still really close yeah i mean a couple of injections away and and i just i just don't don't have the gift of of of politics right really so was that something that you found challenging in your career the politics oh yeah yeah so that i guess

that was kind of the big thing when i realized like when i was at ea and i was doing a lot of this work um i was i was butting heads all the time because i would try to be objective and look at the analysis and data but that's not the way things are run in a big organization like you can be as right as you want to be but that's not the way it's run and uh and i was just bending my head and it was butting my head against us constantly and it came to a point where i was so stressed i wouldn't get any sleep you know i'd be trying to solve these puzzles in my head about how to maneuver yeah and to be like a a rubik's cube that was unsolvable like maneuver the organization yeah that how to maneuver how to get what i was seeing executed against or action in the organization it was impossible right it was just not within me to like kind of like figure out that game theory on how to do it um besides going to frank and say hey dude like this is [ __ ] this game is not going to do well why are we spending all this money against it right and then you piss off like a million people in the

organization right because you've just basically gone over the head of like three people in between you um so it was pretty clear from the very get-go that i was not meant for that it's just not my my bag and so that's why i left ea and started doing the independent research stuff because that suited me much better and then kabam was a great way of like getting back into the industry learning free to play learning mobile from really really really really smart people but then also in a small organization which i could make a contribution yeah well come on was pretty large in the end still yeah but not that large but still yeah they were a lot of it was in china but the the the small the group in san francisco was actually reason the exact team was relatively small and it was really easy to like do stuff there it was cool i liked it a lot that was really cool what's what's sort of exciting for you in the in the industry i'm really excited about what's going to happen with the quote-unquote metaverse stuff i think i've talked about this or at least i did it on the navic is like i'm not really excited as much about

blockchain per se but i'm excited about what interactive social experiences are going to be built for different audiences so when you think about the way i think about the industry is that it's it's it's all about adoption right so when we were in you know 98 when i started in gaming it was like 18 to 24 year old males now everything was being optimized against interactive experiences for those type of kids right and now everybody plays games right and so the second i think the second wave what i would consider web 3 is the fact that there is a social interactive experience like world of warcraft like you know things like fortnite etc are being going to be built for a much broader audience and so that bring people into that and so those are the teams that i'm excited to see what they do you know whether it's replicating something like animal crossing to a broader audience or the sims is actually a really great opportunity to do something to get that audience second life stuff yeah and and those are the experiences that i think will bring much more people into like

the social interactive space that's what i'm really excited about i'm excited about console i think console is still the best game in town um i i think mobile is going to be a struggle for the next 24 months easy if not more i think that whole industry is changing yeah as we speak and everyone i talked to in industry this this week is talking about the same thing it's like it's never going to be the same you know it's never going to be the same you're not going to it's always changing nothing is ever the same well we've had a good run for the last eight years since 2009 yeah and it's still a huge industry yeah it's just that if you don't you're not optimizing against whales if spend is impossible to target not really like think about the uh the like i'm mostly impressed of all the latest titles like i've been mostly impressed by the um the stumble guys stumble stumble guys so they hit they had like a hundred m run rate in a you know pretty much a year

by making a game that is essentially a hyper casual version not hyper casual but like borderline hybrid casual version of um fall guys oh oh right on the mobile right yeah that one yeah and the fact that it was done by a team with no previous experience in a in a town in finland that is so far off that it makes like uh it's like twin peaks town and um it's it's just uh it's crazy like exactly i know of the halo mary's yeah but those type of stories are not replicable i understand but there was something really interesting about that because as the industry matures and you get more and more sort of seniors coming in and then and doing games in a certain way everything becomes more expensive slower and everybody's doing exactly the way and these guys come out of nowhere and they do it exactly like mobile was built it's like hey let's just do a game like this but with like limited resource that we have let's copy the progression from brawl stars let's copy the game from

this and let's use whatever assets we have and boom 100 million run rate and you're like yeah that's how it worked that's how we did games back in the days when we do less but the two things i would say is personally not rackable applicable and two it's not sustainable right it's not likely that that game will be out of that run rate in next six months yeah maybe maybe would not organ that organization but under a different organization it could be it's possible it's good but and all i'm saying is just like it gives me hope that that we still can do that we can still you know hit it out the park with with uh with other than like the next apex you know yeah i just think as markets mature though it gets harder and harder to differentiate it based upon like innovation right so the audience gets used to certain types of games and that's what that's what's successful you just improve upon the same formula um but it took it took all the elements of accessibility that mobile gives you all the elements of the multiplayer all the learnings from from

existing games and just just did the game without worrying too much about this about that or it did the uh not the 85 it did the 65 and boom that's the 65 was enough i'm sure you know those guys yeah i don't know them uh but um they're so far off that are maybe even one skiing in that area so um but but kudos to them it's it's really impressive um let's do like before i let you go i don't know i'm not gonna actually let you go because we're going to the same event together from this so i'm gonna do a word association with you oh my god okay so let's start easy world of warcraft best game ever i know i know you want me to be quick on this but world of warcraft is almost the perfect game in the sense that has everything games won progression um exploration graphics character development social it is the ultimate new social game mmos are like that so yes world of warcraft is like kind of the pinnacle of what customers like what what that type of customer wants

all right uh let's go a little bit harder one whoo come on i mean oh wow i do think hyper casual is just not gonna be around much longer i think everyone's coming after them but i've talked to other people that say that that's not the case but i i i just don't think that's what publishers want i mean that's not the platform so blockchain and and we're 10 to 15 years out before something's meaningful i agree with that i agree with that no sorry and i want to be clear on this because i there is a nuance here there will be successful blockchain games i think someone will figure it out but it will be so niche that it it will be like like the original like ultima online or something or something like very niche that will monetize really well and they'll make money but in terms of like mass market adoption it's like years away from 10 to 15 years ago awesome i actually 100 percent believe

in that and now believe subscribe to that because i hate the word believe because every time it's blockchain game even yesterday not gonna name your name but one of the senior people who's like who was like taunting me that i do not believe in crypto games i was like it's not a religion i don't have to believe in it i mean and this is the example i use every time and i don't know it's not that profound it's like when you looked at mobile in 2008 yeah and you saw smartphones it was freaking clear that their total adjustable market was seven billion yeah you knew that the adoption was gonna happen whether or not you throw everything you can at like making games you just throw and see what sticks let's build a [ __ ] game in which you do fake money at a social casino and spend you just keep throwing things see what sticks and you took a lot of things from facebook and it made sense right and the

addressable market was huge you just can't say that for blockchain no there's no reason to for it to exist no people like you don't want to own your ass it's like it then it's a different thing but but it's a different thing you have start optimal anyway that's that's for different that's where ethan to defend his honor in saying that this is the next free to play um okay what else i just came up with the award association um unity well so i think we're gonna talk about that tonight but i would say that um unity's in big huge trouble right and so they jr oversold and and now they're living with it and so i just don't think what their future really is i mean unity as a platform is amazing it'll continue it'll be great but as a company they're still way overvalued okay well let's go down hello apple my god apple is dirty you know they're capitalistically dirty yeah they're

brilliant and they're they're doing an exceptional job at optimizing shareholder value but it's to the detriment of everyone else in the ecosystem and so um now that they're you know they're going to run their own ad network and they're going to do their search ads and they're going to like basically optimize against themselves which is what they should be doing yeah so it's going to call the platform yeah and yeah and they're regaining control over the platform and the traffic to the stores and traffic to the installs and if you look at it from that perspective if you look at not and this is what i've been trying to tell people for for years now almost we've been talking about this right is that they are optimizing against their own benefits and they don't care about who they step on apple first apple first always and it's not it's not even what their actions are it's the reasons behind their actions right that that's what you have to think about right where are they trying to go

and then you'll start to see that they're just going to bury everyone along the way and they did this they've done this the entire history of the company um so yeah that was a long answer for apple that's a good one that's a balanced one um i'm gonna do last one deconstructor fun i i it's a great community i have to admit like everyone's you know even with all my negativity and cynicism sometimes gets a little bit ahead away from me um everyone's been very very receptive and and appreciative yeah the fact that there's a voice out there that's like kind of expressing these these other ways of looking at things and so um i really enjoy it and the the community itself all the people that are involved and i don't want to name names because then i'll just try to like you know then i'll showcase one or two people but everybody has been really really great in terms of uh helping me kind of understand what's going on and then understand the industry and and and and been very helpful so i i do the community is great

and very powerful yeah you're a powerful member of the community i do my best on that note let's get to a party everybody thanks for listening and this was our first in-depth interview episode on site i don't know where we're gonna do the next one but uh but maybe maybe sometimes in the future let us know how you like this and um as always subscribe paying whatever no to be honest as always we appreciate you guys we love you guys and we do this for for the um for the industry and for the funnel we don't do this for the money or for the cloud or for anything like that so i think that's the most important message yeah and for me always provide feedback and linkedin is the best way if you got some beef with what i've said or some issue or something that you want to it's some insight that you want to share please do it because that helps my process that's it folks we're heading to a party thanks for listening thanks eric boom

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