Expedition 33 publisher: “Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all”

Proximity to Oblivion didn't seem to harm us at all in many ways. Like I think it it just drew attention to quality RPGs on that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre. 55% of people who played Expedition 33 on Xbox also played [Music] Oblivion. Hello and welcome to the game business, your weekly guide to what's going on in the video game business. I am not Christopher Ding. I am James Bachelor, the ghost of podcast past, and I will be your host this week. I was originally going to be guest, but I never could get a word in their choice with Chris. So, I'm taking over hosting duties to guarantee that I do have at least some words to say. This is weird. Chris, you now say words. Hello. Hello, James. Hello. How you been? It's it's lovely. So, for people who are new to uh who may not know this, um before uh the game business, James Bacher and I worked at gamesindustry.biz is and um we had a weekly microcast called the games biz microcast. So this is a reunion of

sorts, a return to James, you're digital banditos now. I am I am now a digital bandidos. We are an up and cominging indie publisher. We were formed by Steve Escalante and Lance James who obviously are best known for Versus Evil. And yeah, which it I'm enjoying it so far. As so many people have said, I'm now on the dark side. Yes, I'm communications manager, which is technically PR, but I also get to play the games and discuss what we might and might not sign. And we I'm not going to do that. I used to hate as a journalist. It's really still weird to me. It's only like four or five months on, but I keep on saying as a journalist, like it's something I haven't done for ages, but I hated it as a journalist when you talk to people and they're like, "Oh, I can't really tell you what we're working on." I genuinely can't tell you what I'm working on. Well, obviously you've come back to to join me. So, I'm delighted that you you know, Digital Band has let you go on short leave to uh return to uh hosting, but obviously you are a natural you you hosted the microcast. So, I I feel like I should step uh step back a bit and let you uh do do what's natural. It it did

feel a bit weird coming on where you introduce like the news and stuff and then I have to think of something to say. I'm more comfortable doing it this way around. Well, I'm enjoying doing the game business. about this last my big focus at the moment is we're doing a live event actually listeners as well um and viewers we're doing a live version of the game business show it's called the game business live we're doing it at summer gamefest on June 9th on the Monday we haven't put tickets on sale yet we're still wrangling over those last few speakers but um uh that's been my sort of I've had a really wonderful first month I was quite excited I think that was last week's show we talked about the month and now I'm like right what's next and what's next is this live show so if anyone's in LA on June 9th and um want to come see uh come see us do this live imminently. We'll be uh making an announcement and putting some tickets available and stuff like that. So, uh that's what I've been up to the last uh the last week, but um obviously with this show, the news show that we do on the Thursday is is a bit like the old microcast where we chat about the news.

It is and we've got tons to get through. So, big topic for the week is uh Claire Obscure Expedition 33. We're going to be talking about the success of that game, but we also have another former games industry.biz his editor in the form of Matt Handraan. He's going to be joining us later. I say joining us, I mean joining you, but I'm I now I'm host. I get to take credit for some of it. Um before that, we've got other a few other stories uh from around the industry. First of all, Ze Davis um former stomping ground for the pair of us. Uh owner of IGN, Euro Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, PG27, GameStop Biz, and a ton of other media sites that aren't in the games industry. The company is currently suing Open AI for copyright infringement. So, according to the report on GamesB, the lawsuit claims that OpenAI has knowingly copied the text of Zip Davis's site without authorization and violated its written demands to stop. And if I remember rightly, I've read about a year's worth of ongoing demands and requests and so forth, and they've just ignored all of it. The lawsuit also says that OpenAI stripped out copyright management information from Zift Davy's works, and

then it alleges that OpenAI passes this work off as its own. The lawsuit claims that OpenAI also falsely attributes output to ZF Davis that is not Ze Davis content. I will add there's um there's a nice breakdown of this if you sign up to Tommy Thompson's AI and games newsletter. I was reading that before we um started. This is just one of many many lawsuits against Open AI and the use of generative AI scraping people's content. But um thoughts on the fact that ZF Davis specifically you're kind of a games media powerhouse. Yeah, certainly journalists are quite pleased that they are taking this stance. The other stance they could take is signing a deal with them so that you know they are you know able to access all of their stuff. I mean this is the big concern around we've talked about AI um in the past you and I James and and you know I I I you know over Christmas my um sort of a cousin distant cousin of mine I was at this house and he was there and he showed me a game he'd been making and he's about 12. He's a programmer. He does a bit of programming. was programmed a game, but I couldn't

believe that, oh, it looks like a game. And then he told me, "Oh, yeah, this the and he had a logo for his for his studio, which is just him, and all of it's AI. All of it's generated via AI. The logo, the the assets in the game, everything. He's just, you know, and then when he needs to do something else, he just asks AI." And um I couldn't work out whether or not this was exciting or or awful. I couldn't, you know, it is obviously great that he's able to put out he's not putting out a game, but he's able to build a prototype for a game that looks like a game and plays like a game. and he doesn't need all of the skill set to do it. He doesn't need to have a team of people to do it. He's able to experiment and try things. It's wonderful. But then I did also think, you know, I look at the music industry, which is now become increasingly singular and and and individual, and I and I think that's a bit of a shame. But the big concern, this is what um if Davis is sort of fighting, is where is this stuff coming from? What are they doing to build it? We've got a Games Media special coming up. spoke to a few media people and one of the big concerns is how easy it is to just take someone else's review, stick it into an AI

machine and go rewrite this. And you know, you've already got websites that steal entire articles from people and then then they have to fight to get that taken down and now you've got an ability to people can steal entire articles, rewrite it using AI. And how will you even spot that stuff? It is unsettling because what's going to happen if you lose all of that? If you lose the original material, if the original material can't make money or can't be successful, what does AI base its Yeah, it it's so many different aspects of like looking specifically at this lawsuit. So like I say, I was reading um the AI and games kind of write up of it and the examples they gave were astonishing. So like one example was guides content cuz obviously like you know people searched online for answers to game stuff and you've already it's already bad enough you've got the Google AI overview which instantly gives you the answer before it shows you any actual search results. By way of example in this lawsuit they had Davis had said right okay you know chat GPT tell yeah write me a summary of this guide from Eurogamer a one sentence summary and it

just copy pasted the answer not copypasted but like it rearranged the article but there were little quirks and that kind of Eurogamer humor in the original article and that was in the chat GPT output and then and so that's bad enough like blatant copying but the point in the lawsuit or one of the points in the lawsuit was that AI can completely mislead people. They gave the example of right, okay, chat GPT, do me a summary or rewrite of this article about Red Dead Redemption 2 money cheats and they shared a screenshot like there's a table on Eurogamer of these, the things you need to type in to get money in Red Dead Redemption 2. And the GPT output was there are no money cheats in Red Dead Redemption 2. it is not possible to it's like that's a blatant lie based on the source material you have been specifically directed to you know reference um it's it's ridiculous last example I'll give it won't it's not from the the Z Davis lawsuit but

something I saw during the rounds on social media recently there's um a former Washington Post reporter Jillian Brockl she left in 2023 and when she said oh yeah when she left there were concerns about how AI is going to be used and so forth Washington Post is one of the sites that has actually done a partnership with OpenAI to allow it to scrape its so forth. And you can now ask chat GPT to write an article in the style of Jillian Brockl and it will produce an article but it will even say by Jillian Brockl. Now obviously this is just in GPT. is not published to Washington Post but it does show like you know the chat GBT shouldn't be assigning the name giving it you know a by line of an author that did not write it and in fact their work was like you know scraped in order to produce the it's there's so many aspects to it we could probably spend a whole hour talking about this yeah it's a complicated question as well because you know there's an element of AI as a tool

which a lot of people use talk about and the idea of AI making things easier and they're making things more accessible to people. But the idea of just stealing stuff, I think, is the different thing. And it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out. I guess I guess we'll we I'm always wary of saying it'll be interesting. Like it's like it's I think we're all a little anxious around it. And um Steven Sortilla actually decided to investigate that money cheat thing of GTA. I started asking more and more questions of chat GPT and he found out the chat GPT did or open did actually have an answer that involved that that cheat code but they decided it wasn't a legal cheat code and that's why it said there was no cheat code. My thing is I do often I will go into Google and I will go just I'm doing a piece on numbers and I'll go um how much copies did this game sell and the first thing that will pop up is is an Google AI thing. And by the way, Google AI thing is so often wrong. It annoys me that it dominates half my screen. And it will say to me, "This game has sold 3 million copies in 5 days." Well, the game came out 2 years ago. So, has it done since then? And maybe they've not released any

more information. Maybe that's why um Google AI's system has decided to tell me that number. And I go on Wikipedia or go and look, you know, and I look and I find the links and no, no, no, there is a more upto-date number. But I guess it's scraping the whole internet and it's getting the most commonly used answer. and which might be by the time they've got down to 20 million sales it's not being picked up so much earlier today and this is a segue opportunity by the way I decided to Google when is Borderlands 4 coming out and I got September 23rd was what the Google put up right in front of me and of course 24 hours ago 48 hours ago by the time this podcast goes out that date changed but I imagine when they're scraping the internet for the answer more people had put the original date than they have got the the other date and so it's just not reliable at this point in time anyway but I just I'm you know it's one of the reasons I've gone down this route podcast and video it's not actually one of the reasons but one of the benefits I guess podcast and video and having sort of more personable newsletters and stuff like that is it's not something that can just be copied and told by a machine but yeah if Davis is going after them I

think there'll be a few journalists that see them as the good guys in this story and um we'll see how this this battle plays out because I think there does need to be some form of regulation and control because it does feel mad that they can just take people's work and take people's identity um you know their profession. As I say, there are so many um lawsuits against Open AI. So like the I think it's going to be a long time before we see the results from the Zift Davis one and then all of the others, but together they should hopefully create some sort of precedent that stops this from happening if it's not too late. Um funny you mentioned Borderlands 4 because yes, that is indeed our next story. Um, Borderlands 4, as you mentioned, has been brought forward. The release has been brought forward almost 2 weeks from September 23rd to September 12th. Now, naturally, nothing is simple on the uh internet. Nothing can just be well that happened. Speculation is rife that this is uh giving us a hint as to when Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out because obviously Bordlands is published by 2K, which is

owned by Take 2, which also owns Rockstar, which also makes Grand Theft Auto. So, it's all within the same house. I mean, we've talked in the past on previous podcast about how nuts 2K's lineup is this year, or Take 2's lineup is this year with Civ 7, Borderlands 4, Matthew the Old Country, and Grand Theft Auto 6 on top of the WWE and NBA and all of those sort of usual. Yeah, exactly. And maybe even Judas, maybe even the Ken Levine game. No, no, no, no. They can't. Surely not. Surely that would be just They'd have nothing. They don't I was going to say they'd have nothing to release next year, but they don't need to release anything for the next 5 years because they'll have GTA 6 next 12 years. Yeah, that's Yeah, it's 12 years. You're right. And regardless, so people I think, oh, you know, they've moved Borderlands earlier because now people are speculating that GTA 6 will come out either late September or early October, which does feel roughly when it might arrive. Anyway, Borderlands boss Randy Pitchro has taken to X to deny all of this. He wrote in a tweet/post,

"Bordlands 4 shipping early is 100% the result of confidence in the game, a development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find fix rates. Our decision is literally 0% about any other product's actual or theoretical launch date." Now, you can choose whether or not to believe him, and most of the internet has. Um, I don't know. I I struggle to think of an example of a AAA game where particularly in the last couple of years where they've brought the release forward. I'm sure Ry's telling the truth in some way that's true to him. Yes. You certainly wouldn't suggest otherwise, but I'm not not doubting the confidence in the game. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And and the game's ready, right? So that's that's great. Um I guess the thing that I've got with it is this is if you're in marketing, if you're in PR, you've just put out a press release announcing a release date. every internet, every you know, even Google will tell you that what the release date is the 21st of September. All the marketing assets you've put out, all the promotion you've done for the game, all the, you know, go on any of the storefronts and that's the release date for the game. People have put it in their calendars and plans and then you

decide to move the date. Moving the date is no small thing. And so you would expect there to be a reason, oh, we moved it because the game will be ready soon. Why why not leave it where it is? have a have a nice holiday before you release it, you know, just to spend you have a have a nice relaxed week before launch. Who gets one of those? So, I I have to believe it is something to do with uh the slate. Is it because of GTA 6? It could be, but I think it's more likely to do with the fact that actually when Borderlands 4 announced its date, it was the only game in that window. And now Marathon, Bungie's um next game is on is out the same week as Borderlands 4. same day actually. Well, it was going to be the same day I think. Um, about a week later, Ghost of Viota, another PlayStation game, is also due out. Okay, these are different experiences, different games, but there is crossover to those audiences. They're going to be taking up space on the PlayStation store. Borderlands 4 was a big PlayStation game. PlayStation's backed it. So, you suddenly got like this. Late September is usually um uh FIFA. Yeah. Yeah. Sports FC. The way I worked it out

was you have a week where it's Marathon and Borderlands 4, then it was going to be FIA Sports FC, and then immediately the week after it's Ghost of Yoai. And Ghost of Yotai, I know that perhaps people I know it came at the end of Ghost of Sushima launched at the end of um the PS4 generation, so perhaps it didn't get picked up, you know, people didn't know how successful that game was. It did 13 million copies and mostly on one platform. So, you've got you've got that PlaySt, you know, it's a big title for PlayStation. Ballland's a big title for PlayStation. So, I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't have to be because of GTA. It could just be it's got a bit congested. Why not release our game a couple of weeks earlier? It will be ready. Let's do it. And I completely agree with that. The idea that there's zero to do% to do with any other game. I'm like I I think it probably is because it's a clear winner. Bordlands 4 is obviously massive. You're a massive Borderlands fan or James or a big one. Anyway, um it's obviously a huge title. It's a significant title and I think it's good for fans to move your game into a slot where they have a bit more time to play. And you know, we've seen other game developers move their games forward or later or that kind of stuff

to accommodate um titles, not just because they want a better cut through, but because their audience might want to play both things and they want to give the the audience the opportunity to do that. And I think so it could be because of GTA, but it could be because for many other reasons. I don't necessarily follow the idea from Randy that it's literally 0% about any other product, actual theoretical launch date. Maybe not in an individual product, maybe just general busy period. I think I think if you just removed that second sentence from his statement, you'd be fine. It's it's the 0% thing there. Or maybe from his point of view, it's 0%, but from 2K that would rubber stamp the date move, it might have had a lot more to do with it. Um, yeah, you're right. It makes sense to give it a bit more room to breathe. Like the Borderlands games are huge, like in terms both in terms of popularity, but also in terms of, you know, particularly since three. Three was a massive hit for them, but also in terms of content. Like they are not games that you just blitz through in like a week or two. like they do, you know, they they require a lot of time put into them. The yeah, the player base do like pouring a lot of time. There's a

lot of anticipation for this one. We saw this when um everyone was decrying the movie last year and instead demanding when the next Borderlands game is. So, yeah, I mean I'm intrigued to see how well this one does. I mean, I'm still intrigued to see when GTA 6 does land regardless of whether or not it's a direct impact on this one. I think we'll know soon. Take 2's financials is May 15th. Um, I'm not saying they'll they'll announce it then, but they might announce it around then because I think there will be an expectation to it, but here's the thing. Like, this is Rockstar and we know what Take 2 like Take 2 very much put it on their developers and that kind of stuff. And of course, they they'll know a rough window of when it's due out, but Rockstar will tell Take Two when it's ready or take window. We will have it out for that date. It won't be put on them by Take Two. By the time May 15th rolls around, if Rockstar haven't given them a date, then they won't have a date. You know, we've seen it before. I've heard stories before from other publishers who um were in their financials going, "Yep, the game will come out this year." And then two months later or two weeks later, the developer turns around and

goes, "Actually, now it's going to be ready for them." And then they're having to then go back to their their shareholders and their, you know, and say, "Sorry, that's going to miss this window now." It's like, well, why didn't you know it two weeks ago? The developer hadn't told them. And you know, certain certain companies are set up that way. I take too certainly one of them. they very much, you know, empower their their their rockstar to be rockstar and TK to be 2K and all those sort of things. So it might be that you know take two don't know exactly but it certainly you know I love how um if you the internet is so rife with it you know Strauss Zelnik does an interview with like a financial press and he says a different phrase than he normally says when he talks about release and everyone's like I don't mean it's being delayed or it's being pushed earlier or I have no doubt there there are GTA 6 fans like at home with like massive whiteboard bits of string drawn out to like print outs of every Does Future Publishing have a podcast called GTA 6: Oc's running up to 60 episodes Now, there's only one trailer. It will never happen. But imagine if they shadow dropped it. Oh, it will never happen. But just Okay, it wouldn't

happen because it's such a possibly big physical retail release. So, it's very hard to to manage. You can't shadow drop a retail game. No, but if it was like a PC game, I completely believe like a Valve could drop Halfife 3. Oh, yeah. Just suddenly and unexpectedly. And you know, that's the sort of thing that if you if it's a digital only platform, you could um I can actually see that. And GTA could get away with it. Halfife 3 is ready. They're just sitting on it waiting for the most disruptive time. Yeah. Launching on the same day as 6. Yes. Release day. Yeah. Exactly. The day it comes out. It's like Halfife 3. No. Okay. We're getting into the realms of fantasy here. So, uh Well, yeah. Yeah, but it's interesting because interest because obviously, you know, I think I didn't realize how busy it's been the last couple. So, I was talking, you know, I know we'll come on to this subject, but Expedition 33 coming out the same week as Oblivion and it's and someone pointed out to me that Indiana Jones came out only on PlayStation 5 only the week before and it done pretty well. I think it's I think was the bestselling game on on PlayStation that week. I think better than it did on Xbox in terms of sales. Obviously, it was a Game Pass title. So, that that was quite

quite a significant thing. And then be fair to drop another game the week later which is also owned by Microsoft and all Xbox games and Doom's out in a couple of weeks. I sit there and go the release date my my head you know what my head's like James. So when my um I did this when Mario Kart You won't be surprised by this when Mario Kart World was announced. Can you work out what may have been going through my head when I saw that announcement? How uh how much this is going to affect the Sonic Racing game. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, about about a few weeks before the Mario Kart World, uh, not even world, it wasn't it was just a teaser for Mario Kart in January, my brain went, "Um, oh, this poor Sonic game." I tell you what, I've been hang I've been hanging out with you too much because that thought did occur to me very briefly when I was watching the Mario Karter as well. But, but I said poor, then I went, "Oh, but actually, it's on different platforms. If you wanted a Mario Kart game, but you don't have the Switch 2, you can't get a Switch 2, maybe Sonic could be the alternative." And look, they're not actually coming out the same time. But of course then my brain went to in 2018 when the last or 2019 when the last Sonic game came out. It came out next to Crash Team Racing and it was like that that wasn't a great

moment for it and then so my brain I don't get excited initially about a game. My immediate thought impact is what does that mean? When Marathon was announced the same time as Borderlands 4 I was like oh that's a tricky what you do and and that is just that's been doing this job for too long and um and I had the same thing with um uh Bethesda's slate where it went from Indiana Jones to oblivion within to doom in about you know four weeks. It's it's you know I felt I could be felt from the PR team. It's it's so diff I really enjoyed like the the conversation you were talking about um on a previous podcast but like my thought when they shadow dropped Oblivion was um Avoued because obviously Avoued has only been out a couple of months and I wonder if that's the reason why it got shadow dropped. I do wonder that in the sense that if you had the PR campaigns running side by side that would have been a problem but Avou at least has had a good two months. Yeah, cuz people people would have held off trying a vowed because they know Oblivion's coming. I Yeah, that's that's entirely possible. But um yeah, should we move on to our main topic? Yes. So,

main topic is, as we mentioned earlier, um RPG Clare obscure expedition 33. Huge breakout hit for Kepler Interactive and the developer Sandfall Interactive. The game has sold more than 1 million units in just 3 days, and that is actual sales, not players, which is a rarity in this day and age. an actual sales statistic. Um, players will obviously be higher because the game is also available on Xbox Game Pass. Um, those numbers are not included. Not sure if those names to be numbers will be released. Um, Chris, I understand you've been looking into kind of the game and the performance. I know what you're like with your data, so I assume you have stats for us. I do have some stats for you, but um, back before actually I looked I'll share some numbers. Um, I actually managed to catch up with Kepler uh uh just earlier today and and I spoke to senior portfolio manager Matt Handraan is a name that might ring a bell to you James. Vague memory vague memory of him the former editor chief of gamesindustry business. Very much a reunion show this one. So um shall we hear from Matt? Let's Hello Matt.

Welcome to the show. It's nice to uh bring you back into the business media for a uh for a brief moment. Yeah. kicking and screaming back into the trade press. But yes, thank you very much for having me, Chris. Good to see you again. Well, congratulations on the success of of Expedition 33. Um, I never know which half of the name do I use for a while. Internally, I think we would only call it Expedition 33, but uh I think it's it's it's a long name in the tradition of Japanese RPGs, I suppose. But yeah, I default to Expedition 33, but of course, full name Clare Obscure Expedition 33. Well, I was a little worried when Oblivion dropped like just before you. Uh, but you seem to have done exceptionally well. Yeah. You must be feeling great. I mean, how has it matched your expectations? Uh, I I think it's fair to say it's exceeded our expectations. Um, I think we all expected it to do well. There are certain markers you can look at that we tracked success by. Things like Steam wish lists, pre-orders, just general sentiment online. I don't think there was a time we showed this game where we didn't get like a nice bump in like

those wish list and pre-order numbers. And also there was no time we we showed it where there wasn't obviously a lot of positive sentiment around it around the kind of game it is around what it seemed to be trying to to do in the industry which I think is quite quite an interesting thing. I think it just resonate with people on many different levels but I mean to to be in a position where we can say with some confidence we might have like at this moment one of the most popular games in the world like is is actually a pretty mind-blowing thing. We see ourselves as double A and that is a very vaguely defined space but it is really heartening to be able to be to launch at the same time as a a product an IP of the size of something like Elder Scrolls Oblivion um and and go toesto toe with it and and then come out in the position that we're in. So yeah, it's uh couldn't have gone better um honestly. But yeah, it's been happy times at Kepler and at Sam the last couple of weeks because you know how my brain works for the business journalist point of view. I I don't always go, "Oh, exciting. A new Oblivion game." I go, "Oh, goodness. Expedition's out this

week." You know, when Mario Kart was announced, my brain went, "There's a Sonic racing game announced a week ago." You know? Yes, indeed. I think we always knew that Expedition 33 had a very specific identity as a game, as a gameplay experience. And personally, as a player, you know, I when I was in the press, I always saw kind of the Western style RPG and the Japanese style RPG as having quite different appeals and different audiences. I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn't necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa. I think also by the time that week rolled around, we had we had momentum of our own and we we felt pretty confident that we could we could stand alone beside it. I think there were other aspects of that like the price point we were at, various other things, inclusion in Game Pass. So, we we knew we would have a lot of interest around the game. We were confident in that and like I say it went it went as well as it possibly could have done in our eyes and actually proximity to Oblivion didn't seem to harm us at all in many ways like I think it it just drew attention to quality

RPGs on that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre and I think you've seen that in the way that the game has continued to hold people's attention since then. So so we're very pleased. It certainly has to have momentum. It seems to be getting bigger and bigger which I guess is normal for a new IP. You got that first group of people and then that spreads amongst communities, media and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I think with Expedition that visually it's such an amazing looking game. Sam's art team are masters who genius level character design. I've always thought that since the very first time I'd seen the game. So, it obviously it shows very well in trailers. It shows very well in showcases. But I think once you get in there, you realize that the the quality of the storytelling is very very high. The battle system is is extremely good. like one of the best in it of its kind in its class, I think. So, once you get in there, I think there's lots more surprises to be had beyond the way the game looks and the atmosphere. The music is obviously great. It's just an extremely well-made game on many different levels and in a style of game that hasn't really existed in this way

in quite a long time now. Like, I think it's it's a kind of game that there were that that there were more of 15 years ago maybe, but the AAA companies kind of moved away from that in many respects. And this game is a modernization of of that that style of JRPG. And I think there were people just waiting to receive one. And uh and that is that is what's got us to where we are. So talk us through Kepler's journey with the game. What was it like when you first saw it? Talk us through that sort of story. Well, I think when when the game first came to our attention, it was in prototype form. It was an early version of the game. Um, it wasn't like we could see the potential of the concept of the idea, but I think the the form it was in at that point in time wasn't quite fleshed out enough. I think with a game like this with this sort of tactical b battle system, you need to see that that side of it is working. You want to know the world is going to hit in the right way. If you look at a series like Final Fantasy, a series like Persona, which is these are IPs that inspired the Samful team that they kind of grew up playing. Um, I

think you want those sides of the game to really come through. We need to have confidence that they could do that. We knew it wasn't very far away. I know that my CEO, Alex Gavarian, had the most contact with them at this time. He saw the potential in it, but thought it could there was still some parts of it that that need a little bit more work. So, uh, Sanford went away. They did that work and they came back. And on the second time of seeing it, our response was extremely extremely quick. Um, I think one one one of our executives received an email from from a person at a different publisher who I won't name saying that by the time they'd even started looking at Expedition 33, Kra had already signed it because as soon as they got the confirmation the team had it, uh, we were straight on top of it. Oh wow. But that's like a big part of it. You know, if if you find a game you like, if you find a game that excites you, um, you really have to act quickly because I think the truly special games, there aren't that many of them out there. There's a lot of games and a lot of good games, but the really remarkable stuff comes along relatively rarely. Uh,

so when you find one, you need to make make sure it it can be yours. So I think that first time we saw it, maybe not quite there, but the second we got that reassurance, yeah, we left on the opportunity. Just kudos to the team then to, you know, get that feedback and whatever that feedback was, you know, assuming that you gave it and then going away and immediately putting that into place. Well, I I think it was it was less our specific feedback. It was more just making sure that the direction we thought they were headed was the direction they were headed and that was just the confirmation. Like I say, the what the game is is so clear and it was so clear even at that early stage. Really, it was just fleshing out a little bit more, nailing down the style of it a little bit more. And as soon as we got those confirmations, we we signed great. I'll end on talking about the fact cuz when I saw the game for the first time, it was the Xbox showcase and it was one of the most packed Xbox showcases I've ever seen. you know, Doom and Gears of War and that kind of stuff. And then this game really shone out like I'm not isn't my style of game, but I

know I went, "Oh, that's different." Yeah. And it clearly resonated and I wasn't the only one that felt that way. And then Xbox featured it was in the developer direct earlier in the year. Developers direct in January. Yeah. Normally reserved for first party games. So it feels like you had a lot of support from the Xbox side that really helped you. And then obviously it's in Game Pass as well. What role did they play helping this game break through? The more obvious way is what you mentioned, right? that that showcase inclusion. I think a lot of indie level publishers and double A publishers, they rely on things like Steam NextFest to a large degree to get to get eyes on their game. I think partnering with the platform gives you a few more venues to kind of showcase what you're doing and to update people on it. So, we got a couple of like really big big places to do that from Xbox as you said, the summer showcase last year and the developer direct this year. The other benefit of that you hinted at before, which is that our game was placed alongside Gears of War and Fable and and products that are very traditionally and known as AAA products, which I think actually changed the view of what our

product was, even though it hadn't been seen very many times. uh it allowed it to be seen in a context that that let people understand what it was in a way that I think we would have struggled to do if we weren't if we weren't allied with Xbox in that way because it puts us in a context that that we couldn't replicate easily ourselves that we couldn't have done through a a Steam demo alone for example. Um, so I think that that really helped us to to kind of claim this double A territory in a much more confident way because like I say, it is it's a vague space that exists somewhere between small games and extremely big games and there's there's a lot of ground that that covers. But I think having the backing of a of a platform like Xbox gives you the ability to to position your game in front of players in a way that you really can't replicate otherwise. And what about the the Game Pass element? Is that I guess that part of that as well? Well, I think I think it's definitely a part of it. I think when you're in Game Pass, you know, you're going to have access to a large group of players on launch day, which is which is a great thing. And I think one of the things that's really helped Expedition 33 is the number of

people who are engaging with it right on launch day and continue to do so now. There's a lot of enthusiasm online about this game. I mean, I remember I had to transition from specifically looking for Expedition 33 on Twitter to see what people were saying about it to now, if I just open Twitter, I'm just going to see Expedition 33 content because there are that many people out there enthusing about it. We've had I know we've had Ken Lavine talking about how much the opening of the game affected him. We've had cong words of congratulations from Obsidian and other studios. And I know this means the world to Samul. And as someone who has been in publishing for a few years, but hasn't seen that many launches of this size, I mean, it's pretty overwhelming to me, too. I think Game Pass helps with just getting that that swell of interest in the game. We've done well on every platform, but but that I think is the other benefit of of Game Pass. I got some press engine numbers. I think in the last couple of weeks something like over 4,000 articles on Expedition 33 with a potential audience of a billion people or

something like that. Yeah, it it is it is they are figures that kind of blow the mind. But I think it's a game that justifies them fully. You can see it from the Metacritic score. You can see it from the user reviews. It is a game that I think has highlighted there is room in the market for like a new IP from from a a reasonable size team, not tiny but but definitely nowhere near a AAA team at all. Working in a way that was much more common once upon a time, but but bringing much more modern techniques, modern presentation to it and just presenting something fresh. You know, this is it's not a 150hour game. It's it's not it's not an $80 game. This is exactly what I think the kind of game that that we want Kepers to be putting out there. and uh he's gone as well as as we could have dared hoped. Brilliant. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much, Chris. Good talking to you. There he is. Hand your hand back in the trade media with me and James. Um yeah, well, he talked about in that video he talked about the fact that it is a game that was a little bit of a hark back to

the sort of games like the Final Fantasy 10 of the world that we that people played a few years ago and you don't get see as much anymore. And it reminded me of what what happened with Space Marine 2, which was a similar successful concept. And in fact, we've talked about this quite a bit on the podcast. These ideas of games that they're not necessarily original. They are they are original in their own way, but they're not. Sometimes it's just going back to an experience people haven't had for a while, and then delivering that and really focused and doing an extremely good job on that combat system, on that art style, really nailing that and getting that right, and then watching that spread out. It's been it's a really phenomenal success. It's been really wonderful. um despite its uh its uh uh launch um uh window. Have you have you a chance to see it, James, or play it? I haven't had a chance to play it yet. No. But like the fact that it's on Game Pass is kind of on my on my list of ones to try. This is this is what I love when you see these kind of big indie success stories like it it kind of it gives you a little bit of FOMO. It does give you encouragement. Like JRPGs are not my thing. I have tried to get into them and I I struggle with them. But when I see a game performing this well, it's like I I

do need to at least give it a go and see what the secret source is. So, I I it's on my list to try out. Um I just it's brilliant. Like I it's really encouraging to see it see it happen. It shows that you know that indie publishers or smaller publishers like can have those big huge hits. They're not common. They're very difficult as he says like you know it's really difficult to find like the special games out there, the ones that are the most likely to kind of reach that that size of audience. But it can happen. Like I think I think the indie space can and I say this I I say this both from my first couple of months in the indie space but also like from being a journalist and like seeing you know and how difficult it is to try and get indie games coverage and so forth. It can seem quite bleak in the indie space and yes seeing a game like Clare Obscure do so well does not instantly mean that all other JRPG you know indie JPGs they're going to do well. No, but if you if you do have like the right kind of idea, the right quality, you find something that you finding something that an audience is not being served, scratching an itch

that is not being scratched as it were, um there's a chance hardly I find the reference this being a indie game or even a double A game. I think misleading I know it's hilar. Yeah, it's cuz it's like it doesn't it doesn't it it's like I think this is I think we are getting to the point where actually those labels really are I mean if they weren't meaningless already really are because you know sure it's a 33 person team it's indie in every sense of the word but it doesn't look indie and it and indie creates a certain perception and just because a game is focused and short does that make it less AAA like you know Spider-Man 2 is 20 hours long we wouldn't call that an indie game or or or AAA game I don't I find this you know Resident Evil 4 is 8 hours long. It would call that a double A game. The quite literal indie game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. You can do that in about 15 hours and that's and that's fine. That's exactly what it needs to be. You drop Indiana Jones. So yeah, is it is but it's and you know I wouldn't call Space Moon 2 an A game. It's

AAAish. I think I don't know if we need to label them. No, this is true. And this is the thing like regardless of your regardless of your budget, your um your team size, etc. Your game needs to be as polished as it possibly can. I'm going to tick a a tick a box in your internal batch bingo here. I'm going to refer to indie publishing in terms of books and novels and fiction and so forth. Like the the resounding advice in that space is always your book needs to look and read as professional as one that's come from the big publishers. So, it needs to have a professional cover, not one you've made in MS Paint or used a generative AI image generator on it. Your your writing needs to be tight and well edited. It needs to be proof read to to, you know, to with an inch of its life because if you produce a quality product and the audience can't tell what's the difference between an indie book and a main publishing book, it doesn't matter.

You will you have a chance of succeeding. I think it's the same in the indie game space. like you the that that qual that emphasis on quality and polish and and that doesn't mean it needs to be like super Unreal Engine 5, you know, all glamour ray tracing puddles and all it just means it needs to be a very good quality game and Matt talked about the fact it was announced alongside Fable and Gears of War and all that kind of stuff probably gave that impression as he said it sort of gave the impression this is perhaps you know quite a quite an ambitious game. Great. Um, I gather you have, you mentioned earlier you have done some research into how well the game has performed. And so I get to ask you something I've not asked you in a good few months. What do the numbers mean? I don't know if game business listeners will understand that reference. We used to have a section where we went through the numbers and it was called what do the numbers mean? Um, so I actually spoke a little bit, you may have seen I referenced something in the interview with Matt where I talked about press. So, Press Engine um the PR services company provided me with a load of data around um uh Expedition 33. And what I

thought I'd do is I'd do Expedition 33 versus Oblivion cuz this there was this thing where Oblivion launched in the same week. It's really weird, but um there would have been a reason for it. I just don't know what that reason is. Um, and so, uh, uh, so during the week, so in the two weeks around the launch of these games, Elder Scrolls Oblivion scored 5,000 articles, just over 50,04 articles over a twoe period. Um, Exhibition 33 scored 4,235, which I think is really impressive when you consider that this one's a new IP and one's an established brand. Obviously, Exhibition 33 would have got reviews and stuff like that. Um, whereas Oblivion not so much. Also, Oblivion, by the way, has been out for longer. I know Expedition 33 have been announced for longer. Um, but here's the thing. In terms of audience, and audience is like the the unique basically unique readers, you know, um, of these um, articles. Elder Scorses Oblivion has scored 952.8 million uh, readers or of those articles. And, um, Expedition 33 has

done a billion. So, more people have read Expedition 33 articles. Um, in fact, and I I asked the press engine, okay, how many exhibition 33 articles have been written since the game was shown during the Xbox showcase? The answer is 9,98, which means that, you know, 40% maybe probably more than 40% of um Xision 33 coverage has come in the last couple of weeks. Again, not surprising the game's just come out, but it's it's uh certainly done very well in the last couple of weeks. It's building in momentum. It's it's growing in its success. Um I asked Ampair, so our data partner AAR um uh uh to give us some insight into the player numbers because that's the thing. We've got this weird number from Oblivion, which is four, it's not weird, but it's 4 million players and you got this 1 million sales from expedition uh 33. So what is the actual um performance of these games in player terms? That's what Ampair track. So I asked Ampair, this data covers the top European markets. So UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, those sort of markets. Australia um because I just

like Australia and and the US and Canada. It doesn't include Japan or China. And actually I think Expedition 33 has done pretty well in China, but um but this day and I'll say it's only up until Sunday. Um uh so Sunday, August 27th, so it's just the first basically the first few days of Expedition 33, the first week of Oblivion. And actually for the numbers say that Expedition 33 has done 1.7 million players, 1.71 million players in that time. Oblivion is just under 6 million players. So, we're looking at a sizable difference here, but there's a few caveats to this. I really want to stress this isn't we're not comparing Oblivion and Expedition 33. Oblivion is established brand, you launch something like that, all the fans are going to come in or a lot of the fans are going to come in. Expedition 33 is a new IP, so that will build over time. You know, that number is more likely to go up and up and up faster than Oblivion's number. Oblivion also launched earlier, so you've got a bit of a longer play time here um as well. So, when we're talking about I'm not comparing the two in terms of scale and size at the moment. Oblivion has more players, but that's not that's not

surprising. But Expedition 33, I was interested in a few details about it. So, 45% of Expedition 33 players are on Xbox. Not surprised, the majority of the games played on Xbox. Again, not surprising it's on Game Pass. Compare that to Oblivion. 47% of Obsidian Oblivion players are on Xbox. Now, Oblivion, as well as being um uh is is an Xbox game. it's, you know, it history is is sort of 360, so it's it's done quite well, but ultimately those numbers are pretty similar. Both of them Game Pass games. Um, Expedition 25% of Expedition 33 players are on Steam. Um, that number is 34% for Oblivion. So, 34% of Oblivion players are on Steam. So, a big difference there. And again, Oblivion is sort of a western RPG in the PC style. So, again, not too surprising really that PC would do really well for Oblivion. And this is again not so surprising. 30% of Expedition 33 players are on PlayStation, whereas that number is just 19% for Oblivion. Um, and again,

33 JRPG and the Final Fantasy style, it's very much a PlayStation audience. So, that stuff's none of these numbers are particularly surprising, but it's really nice to see that. But ultimately, the majority of players are on Xbox and that's because of Game Pass. Um, where I really wanted to delve into this is actually did they hurt each other? Did these I mean, I know that they're different RPGs. Matt points out they're different RPGs. One's a JRPG, one's a western RPG. But when you're talking about a game that's, you know, when you're trying to appeal broadly, it's just it's all fantasy RPGs, right? So, um I Ampeg has crossover data. They share crossover data between um um one game and the next. 55% of people who played Expedition 33 on Xbox also played Oblivion. So over half of the audience on Xbox um played both game uh expeditions audience played both games which is really I think that really speaks to the power of game pass because game pass is we talk about it is in in negative and positive terms sometimes but I think the abil the fact is that

people tried both as a result of of that. Um if you look at compare that to PlayStation only 16% of PlayStation Expedition 33 players also played Oblivion. So that number is a lot lot smaller. Obviously there were premium titles on PlayStation and not in the subscription service. Numbers a bit higher on Steam. 22% of Steam Activision 33 players also played Oblivion. But there's obviously well below the Game Pass impact. But that's the positive thing about Game Pass. People tried both. Um there was a big crossover there. Overall, by the way, it was a 35% crossover between Expedition 33 players and Oblivion players. Uh 33 33 35% of Expedition 33 players also played Oblivion. So there was a big crossover there. uh are between those two audiences. Um but if you start looking at hours played, now this isn't just for those markets to aim for. This is actually global numbers from Ampair. Um Clare Obscure Expedition 33 um on PlayStation and Steam played around on average people played that game for up until Sunday. Remember this is just until Sunday. 4.4 hours on average

people played Clare Obscure Expedition 33 on PlayStation and Steam. Um slightly less on PlayStation, but it's very close. Xbox 2.2 2 hours. And if you go to Oblivion, um on Steam, Oblivion, um uh has been played on average again up until Sunday, 3.6 hours. On PlayStation, 3.8 hours, but Xbox 2.2 hours. So that's the challenge of Game Pass really represent. And again, none of this is surprising. We know that people on Game Pass will willingly give something a bit of a try and if it's not for them, they'll drop it. Um and that is and that is the challenge of game pass. It's really none of this data is surprising, but it's really nice to see it sort of laid out really represented in in these two games that cames out side by side. People are going to jump from one game to the other if it's in the subscription service. They are going to play it for less um and they're more likely to drop out um a lot quickly, a lot quicker. But um regardless, both games are being a big hit. I was worried that those two launching in the same week was going to cause damage to them both. I think it possibly did, but I think people who were interested in Oblivion rushed in

straight away to play it. And I think people are discovering Expedition 33 over time. There's an Expedition 33 movie. So what the numbers mean, James, is that two games, both of them RPGs, different types of RPGs, came out in the same week and both did extremely well. And that is good. That's that's just really encouraging. Like, you know, you're right. It's always awful to see two games come out on top of each other and is to the complete detriment of of one. Yeah. Because we're of a certain age, I guess, we remember the blur split-second racing game. Yeah. exactly where my head was going. Yeah. Where they both sort of annihilate each other and sometimes one game wins over the other if you remember. Is it Battleborne and um and Overwatch and and was it Battlebor? It was something like that. Battle Battle Cry. Definitely a battle game there. Yeah. Yeah. Um and um they went headto-head with each other and and one of them, you know, just died because of that. And so it's always a risk. Um and um so I'm pleased that it uh uh yeah, he's kn well. I may have said August 27th earlier. It is. I obviously meant April 27th is the Sunday just if

you're watching this in September for some reason. I'm referring to we we did this back in April. Um but yeah, very very success. It's been a busy week for game releases and it's going to get busier. So next month we've got Doom's a big title out next month and then June has a new console launch of some description. Some little handheld, some little, you know, some little gadget. Yeah, something be dropping in there. But it's busy throughout the whole summer and you know, I'm actually quite reassured. Well, I think I'll do a deeper dive into the market data in in a couple of weeks time, but I'm really reassured by the by things. You know, last year we were talking about how AAA games were dying and it was a problem. Star Wars Outlaws didn't do very well. Dragon Age didn't do very well. Final Fantasy didn't do very well. We've tal You've heard me say this on this podcast quite a few times in the last couple of weeks. But this year, Monster Hunter did really well. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 did really well. Assassin's Creed's done really well. Oblivion's done really well. Um um Cla Obscur's done really well. there has not everything's done very well of course you know not everything can succeed but it it there's a lot more positives um at the moment and hopefully

that will continue and um you know switch 2 seems to have sold out and and hopefully that will maintain as well good start like what four months into the year and we've got I think you this what like five or six big hits so yeah that's that's a promising start some of them have been breakout hits like CL obscure but a lot of them have been like you know they're doing the numbers you sort of expect them to do but even that feels like a in Assassin's Creed has done you know what Assassin's Creed good Assassin's Creed games do and I'm like great yes like cuz Star Wars Outlaws didn't and Avengers didn't and you know not Avengers sorry Avatar didn't and I think that's a a win you know see RPGs doing really well shortly after Dragon Age sort of missed as well and Final Fantasy missed last year as well it's been a a certainly busy start to the year but um success has been had new IPs established brands remakes I'm feeling really positive about the market at the moment Obviously there's the tariffs and the impact upon that and there's the wider economic conditions loads of things to be anxious about but in terms of the data that we have for the first few

months of the year not the data so much I think overall the markets you know we didn't we did have power world and hell divers 2 last year but I think um looking at the individual successes I think there's there's there's certainly enough positives in a past life this is usually where I'd just stop you talking and I'd rattle off all the kind of you know you don't you don't have the how do I conclude this podcast Chris I don't know how to do to be hosting like I I don't know I I don't know all the you know the housekeeping stuff do I well I okay then I'll take back over thank you James for uh being our a literal guest host uh this week um and thank you everyone for listening and tuning in the game business with Matt next week we have a feature show which is going to be quite exciting featuring CD project we've also got we have our news analysis show we have some extra data there and maybe even another returning member of the gamesindustryb team will be joining me on that show as well James I hope you'll come back at some point Steve at Digital Bandidas, thank you for lending us your uh lending us your James. Um hopefully we can have you back at some point in the near future as well. And also stay

tuned to the game business.com um for uh uh news on our event. Hopefully in in it'll be soon. Hopefully it'll be soon. Um and if you want to make sure you don't miss the show, if you want to make sure that you catch all of the future episodes and any breaking news stories, um sign up to the gamebus.com. It's free. You just need to go on the website, stick your email in, and you get all the stuff directly to your inbox. It's handy. Thank you all for tuning in.