Fireside Chat: A Life in Mobile: From Games to Music to Apps – 15 Years of Wins, Losses and Learns.

Chris James is back on the stage. age uh hobbled back onto the stage thanks to his calf injury and he's going to be joined by Simon Hay who was formerly of Space is now part of one of the biggest apps in the world Duolingo. to please welcome both to the stage. [music]
Simon, here you go. Sorry.
Should we hear it in the middle?
Sorry, my uh

removed as well.
Uh yeah.
Yeah,
I'm sitting on the microphone,
right? Sorry, that was a a little riff for someone for for people of a an older disposition, I think. Uh, so this is not the end of your career, Simon. Uh, and I haven't got all your friends and family lined up to come and uh share stories, I'm afraid. But I am going to Sorry, you got loads of mics. We got thousands of mics. So, um, I'm going to do a little intro and then I've got a load of questions for you and we haven't got much time, so I'm going to try and whip through them. Um, you have had an an incredible career. Um, this one. You've been in the games industry as well as a wider tech and entertainment fields. You started from you moved from Skype to Playfish initially working with the uh the wonderful Mr. Kristen Seastral of this parish. Um and that was a time when Super Dress distribution was kind of taking off. Then you co-ounded Space Ape which is an award-winning innovative mobile game studio. Titles like Samurai Siege, Transformers, Earth Wars, Rival Kingdoms, Cone Valley Customs, and Beat

Star. you you served about every job there according to your uh LinkedIn thing. You had multiple C seale roles and then ultimately that studio was was invested and acquired by Supercell. Uh and then you kind of took some of those later successes particularly the the Beat Star music uh games to go on and create next beat uh a studio which you then sold to GeoLingo and now which is where you are as head of new subjects. So, we're going to go through this in a bit more detail, but just as a quick while people get in their seats, quick overview, you're also quite a successful angel investor. So, there you go. You've got you have a lot of hats. Um, which part of your career have you enjoyed most and which didn't you enjoy? [laughter]
Uh, so can you hear me? All right,
I can hear you fine. Yeah,
thanks for uh turning up. I appreciate it. Um, I I don't know. launching games like the the thrill of launching a game uh that's working uh especially when everything's on the line. Uh that that that's

definitely the bit that carries carries me through. I had a couple of occasions where was associated with that but that's it really and then picking up all the odd jobs.
CFO was not the favorite job that I
was not the favorite debt financing is not my
Okay, fine. So let's talk first about Space Ape. Um you had some great successes there. some big games like I said, Samurai Se, Transformers, Chrome Valley, Customs, Rival Kingdom, all that stuff. Lots of good stuff. So, uh, some great successes, I'm sure, a few challenges or, you know, I don't allow to call them failures over the years. What are the kind of key lessons you learned from that sort of adventure that was, you know, a good part of your career so far? And, and if you started it today, would you do it differently? Would you even try and launch a studio like Space Ape today? Yeah, I don't think there's anything um particularly uh special about the time today or the environment that means you couldn't we we couldn't do what we did at the start. Like I hear like there's a there there is definitely a take that fundraising and starting a company in 2026 is hard and uh and harder. And I

think that's definitely true from the lens of like a threeyear horizon or a sevenyear horizon or look back um when when when maybe the the due diligence on a new business was a little bit lighter uh should we say or be more common to raise money to like prove a concept to get to the next funding round. Um that those weren't really options back when we started. So, we started with a complete team. Uh, and I think today if you've got a complete team that's made games before, then you have a, you know, a decent shot at fundraising. And, uh, and we we had an ambition to kind of make a game that would then fund the studio. And so, I think those are the two ingredients of pitches that are getting funding today. And, uh, yeah, and then we had the obviously the X factor of how mobile was going to work and how you execute. And now today, it's AI. Um, but yeah, I think I think the ingredients are still there. It's just it's just a little bit harder than it was three years ago or seven years ago.
Okay. So, you wouldn't do it dramatically differently then necessarily.
I don't think so. I think the fundamentals are like find you know get

a team together that's done stuff before and uh uh and and try not to go on an endless fundraising journey. That's the key.
Yeah, that seems to be a challenge for a lot of people is you you constantly the sort of sea level are constantly raising funds rather than making games and and think about business. So how did the supercell move come about and and how did that kind of work you know overview from a from a company culture perspective? Obviously supercell very strong way of doing things. Did you kind of adopt supercellian values or did you was it you just operate as a sort of independent thing initially? How did that work?
Uh so it was independent uh it was a talent acquisition similar to to Dualingo. It was a they they uh in in the Supercell case, it was about bringing in some diversity in in terms of slate uh but fundamentally uh wanting the people. So we had a pretty sizable business at the time making money uh but that really wasn't the rationale and I think same on the Dualingo the the the seeds of those transactions are planted years beforehand. So with with Space Ape we kind of shared the same board even an

investor makeup. Uh obviously when we started aping Clash of Clans uh communications weren't weren't uh as fluid uh but like the we had we were very known quantities and similar with with Duo we were chatting uh for them for 5 years almost beforehand on the swapping notes and so yeah in both cases there were talent acquisitions and you know
building those relationships early in terms of like adopting their practices. We did uh we certainly did adopt the supercell approach of decentralized teams, a lot of autonomy, uh taking a lot more risk in the in the things we we uh we worked on. Um but yeah, that was
yeah,
that was that was the crux of it.
And and you did a lot of different kind of games there. Do do you think um you tried different genres, right? That's which which feels less common nowadays. People kind of really drill down. Do you do you think you did do you stretch too broadly or or were you kind of looking for the next the next big thing or you got easily bored or what what what was

the thinking about skipping around you know genres a little bit?
Yeah. The the our product strategy was try to find these territories that weren't dominated in mobile yet and and and so we were explicitly going very broad. Uh I think in hindsight I don't know whether it would have worked for us necessarily but the the winning formula from that period was definitely studio specialty. Yeah. In in in and we had some specialties that we didn't double down on um so much. Um but yeah that that's uh that's sort of what charact the main difference between us and and I think companies that sort of started and succeeded in that period was you know typically they do one thing uh as opposed to 11 things. And so yeah
you seem like a man that does a lot of things in that you've done all these different jobs. That's good.
And and do you think that's a right now like is that a is there is there is that a problem you think for other studios not for you but like where people are are trying to innovate when you know innovation's hard whereas people sort of evolving and and honing seems like right

now maybe a a better strategy. I mean, again, not for you, not for Supercell, but do you think that's
would you advise people to kind of find a niche and and and and focus in it or or
I I think Yeah, I think definitely starting out it's a good idea to stick with what you know.
Yeah.
Um so if if if the team has experience in a thing, uh doing more of that thing and and evolving incrementally is definitely a a good way to go. I do find like the innovation incrementality kind of distinction a little bit arbitrary because some of like the the um there's a degree of innovation in every game that got successful in the past 10 years. It's just in some cases it's userf facing in some cases behind the scenes. So
model or what?
Yeah. I don't like a regular person wouldn't look at royal match and call that innovative. Yeah. But a a puzzle designer would look and see all a lot of innovation in there. So, so I think I think it's less about figuring out how much risk in terms of innovation you take and more about if you got high conviction on the thing you're making, not worry too much about, you know, is it too novel or is it too incremental,

it might change your go to market strategy. If it's, you know, not a lot of product differentiation from a user point of view, but um but yeah, I think sticking with what you know because your your gut is probably going to be uh more accurate if you got experience with
No, that's that's good. I mean, you know, we're seeing it, I say, in Turkey at the moment. Obviously, there's a lot of puzzle game and and and casual, but even there, there's new new mechanics coming out all the time. Um, so let's talk about music games. So, you've had kind of crazy success with Beat Star. It just felt it was winning awards. It was kind of smashing it before and it opened up this whole new world as well as maybe scratching your itch yourself. I know you're a music fan. Um, and you just because you described on LinkedIn passion as my spe in the LinkedIn profile as my special passion. So, how how did that start getting into those music games and and and and how big did it get? What was the you know, it felt like it got massive from the outside.
Yeah. I mean, it won the prestigious pocket gamer.
I mean, that there's not much that's higher than that, is there?
It doesn't get much bigger than that, but um the Yeah, I I it wasn't my special passion when it started. I kind

of got pulled into it when when it got kicked off. Um, it it it it sort of the origin story was really like the the game developers fantasy of like a game jam idea that turned into a into a product. And and luckily we kind of uh spent a year or two trying to figure out what the product should be because uh at the time there were no right arcade lean-in games that made any serious money. Uh and so there's a lot of exploration on metas and that luckily gave uh me a couple of years to figure out the music licensing. So, I spent a year just trying to get get a label locked in and then another year getting a publisher locked in and and by then the game had figured out what it wanted to be and the team was was locked in on the
You span out like multiple versions there was like country music and all sorts.
Yeah, we only did one spin out in the end. Um
although planned maybe you talked about
Yeah. Yeah, that was the plan with Next Beat because the the thinking was the audience is so fragmented with music it's hard to reach uh kind of like we've got a whole panel on super apps later. It's a similar sort of problem. If you

like one genre of music, it it doesn't at all indicate that you're going to like another genre or another. So, um, but but yeah, it
I I I was a lawyer originally and always sort of got excited about the sort of creative kind of deal making kind of product legal arbitrage and that's really what the music genre is all about. Just finding a a way to work with many many different stakeholders,
all the rights and stuff. So, let's move a bit more up to date then. So that sped into span into Nex and then 11 months later you're part of Dualingo. So how did that happen? What what what what led to because that's quite a leap. You're starting a music games focused uh games publisher or a developer and then now you're part of a a super app part of Dualinga. How did that happen? Uh yeah so the vision at the end so we we'd been part of Supercell for seven or eight years and what we realized towards the end of that period was actually we could have a lot more impact kind of helping them scale. Uh Supercell had gone

through also a journey of uh of getting to the point where they could scale their teams and and and and that kind of thing. So, so we started off with a little trial of picking their sort of smallest game and putting our, you know, putting a team against and just trying that and then we pitched another one and and and
small games are still pretty big.
Small games still bigger than anything we'd ever done. And so the uh eventually we we figured out that that that was a path that we all wanted to take. But since we were basically putting talent onto their IPs or in some cases a new game that would be would be uh run by them, the uh that left the big question of what do you do with these games because we were making 60 or 80 million a year. So there was a was a sizable business um that just didn't have any value to them necessarily because that's a bad weekend on Clash Royale. Yeah. So, so that was the genesis of like, well, can we find homes for these these games and these teams that maybe weren't weren't uh excited about moving to Supercell, but really locked in on Transformers or Creme Valley. And so,

that was really the the idea, a big talent acquisition into Supercell, and we spin out these other games. So, Next Beat was one of those
and uh we were raising a VC round uh and we had these big plans
and uh obviously been chatting with with the owl for a long time. Yeah.
Uh cuz they're very good at um
he's a chatter, isn't he? He's year round.
He's a chatter. Yeah. Hopefully not, but uh we'll see. Um but the the Julen is arguably the most successful game in the world, right? And and they start off with this sort of edutainment kind of um positioning and eventually uh really developed sort of deep learning kind of um things in there. But but there's no one literally on the team that's ever made a game. There's plenty of people that worked in kind of meta systems and badge slapping and and and uh gamification. Um but the core game development was was fresh to us. And so they were circling around us
um because they had this vision of us

coming in and taking over the music product and bringing this sort of games DNA uh into that. Um and so yeah, so we were we were like talking to them about maybe getting investment uh maybe just keeping in touch and maybe working with them at some capacity in the future. Uh but yeah, it just got to the point as we were spinning out and it got harder and harder and there were more blockers. Yeah.
Um and uh and they just got more serious and more serious and eventually
Yeah. eventually we we flipped to take it seriously and and then when we got under the the hood of it and the reason a bunch of us are here today is
from the outside it didn't look like anything that a game developer could get excited about. you know, if you're a PM, there's plenty of stuff to get excited about, but if you're in the business of the crafting the soul of a game,
it's hard to imagine where you fit. And when we got in the, you know, behind the wall, uh there was just so many opportunities there. And that that was what flipped it for for us. It's like, oh, actually, we can do all these things we wanted to do just in a slightly

different way and
within this massive massive organization. So, so and your focus now, one of the focuses is is bringing this those game development skills and other game developers uh into to Duolingo. So, have you got any examples that you can talk about of how you're doing that? How your knowhow or
Yeah. So, so, uh, obviously like the the gamification side of apps is a is a is it's a bit of a dirty word in game making because it's like it's not it's not inspirational for your day run-of-the-mill sort of artist, game developer. Um, it's exciting if you're working in meta systems and and PMing, but uh uh what what the the proposition for us to come in was to take the music course. So, Julingoa has languages and they got math, chess, and music. and we would take that and and make it more fun because we've got some games games DNA. What we found though when we got in there though is is their tech structure is quite limiting. It's a native app. Apparently there's these people called iOS developers and Android

developers. I'd never met one before. There's armies of them and and we got in there and we started sort of scratching our head trying to figure out how we can work in this environment. And we just started working in Unity.
Yeah. uh because we could prototype and the thinking was we'll just figure out what the product is in Unity and then we'll we'll worry about how to get it into their tech later and along that journey we figured out that actually you can uh there's a lesser known feature of Unity where you can embed it within native apps. Uh, and so that was a big unlock. And as soon as we figured that out, all of a sudden, you know, the they opened this fridge of features and ideas and things that they had been tried and showed promise, but they just couldn't execute on because it needed 3D or it needed sort of rapid iteration or game mechanics. And all of a sudden, there was just like this abundance of projects that got unlocked because of the the the new tech direction. And so that was really we came in to sort of look after music, but now what we're doing is is

working down this list of like fun things that could be added to Dualingo that are really important but just weren't possible or feasible or were just too hard.
So the big fridge is open and you're having a snacking. So, so one of the reasons to hear and and we've got one of the people that's already been tracked is is is Nick Nicole Hunt, you know, very renowned uh indie developers talking about sorry, he's been talking about his journey tomorrow. Um, but what is the what is the main pitch you've got for for for developers, you know, why why should they you've said obviously it's a massive app. It's an opportunity to work in a very different environment and have a huge audience. But what what is the the key selling point if I'm a if I'm I'm a developer or an indie or what sort of ops are you looking for?
Well, it's it's really I think about alignment. So, right now the games industry is very mature, big budgets, big businesses, big legacy IPs, and there's maybe fewer opportunities for smaller teams, indie developers to kind

of get the traction like they're still there. It's certainly possible. Uh I'm, you know, constantly amazed by these these uh uh these small teams that do stuff, but on average, it's getting harder for that segment of game developers to sort of like find fulfilling jobs. And um at the same time that's exactly this kind of skill set that Duo wants because uh the kind of app ecosystem is being characterized by uh a lot of like smart PMing funneling people through to a pay wall and then once someone's paid leaning on that sunk kind of investment to carry you through the experience. And what Dualingo is doing and what uh I see more and more app developers doing is think about how can we make the core experience as fun as a game because we're competing against gaming and doom scrolling and that sort of thing. And so it's less about gamification or PMing of the payw wall and more about how can we make a core fun experience. So one example that we discovered in the fridge is a thing

called adventures. I love the fridge.
Yeah. And so Dualingo has this owl. kind of barks words at you and you kind of get them right or wrong in the lesson. Um, but what the adventures kind of lesson format is is it's an isometric RPG. You're looking at a character.
Told me this. I've never Yeah.
It's buried because it's one of those things that well showed promise, but they just couldn't really push it. And uh, yeah, a character comes up and says, "Hey, let's go to Paris." And then you you know, you can go to the coffee shop or you can go to the ticket seller. And and so it's more applying this learning uh applying the language learning into a basically an RPG. And and when you show this feature to game developers, they're like, well, where's the inventory system? Where's the persistence? Could it be like this whole big experience? And and the answer to all of that is yes. It's just go for it.
Yeah. They just haven't had the kind of games DNA to really carry it forward. And so that's an example of the it's it's literally a game, but it's in the service of learning, but it's serving it's like hitting all the boxes that you would if you were making And if people

are interested, who do they what do they do? They just reach out to you.
Uh we're like a like a like a plague across PGC.
Okay. Right. Fair enough. But yeah, on LinkedIn or uh there's there's there's a talk by Osman at 12, which is really good. There he is. Uh and uh about all the opening the uh um uh the Windows on a peak into all of the AB testing methodology and the tooling and the streaks, that sort of And there's a talk tomorrow by a developer about how we sort of hacked the Unity native code kind of problem.
Excellent. So there's plenty of opportunities. I have one last question. Um um does anybody have a question? Because I I always give people Does anybody have a question for Simon? This man is a Oh, there is a man there. Gaming legends. Can we get a mic for the the gentleman here with a pen in his hand? You can actually We've got about a thousand mics here. You can use one of those. That's fine. Use the pen. Yeah. No, this is a great opportunity to ask a a guy that's done it all, been there, done that.
First things first, my Dualingo streak is over 2,000.
Wow, congrats.
Um, yeah, every day I just play the

chess level now. I'm kind of cheating, but anyway, um, I'm wondering, uh, is Duolingo planning to do any cool ondevice AI? perhaps AI at runtime to make the lessons more um challenging I guess you know make generate them on the fly rather than uh create them in advance.
Yeah. So I don't know about necessarily on the fly. There are a bunch of features within the app uh that are quite fluid. So the video calling is obviously like an AI interaction where you're talking to an avatar. Uh there's uh we we really think about um uh like the enduser experience and what serves that and then the production kind of tools are kind of uh uh like a less important thing. The the goal right now is to make the free experience more immersive and engaging. And so more adaptability and more flexibility and and just more fun is definitely the direction. How we do it's a it's a it's a it's a mixture. they they um certainly

content generation has changed. Uh the company as itself is is is uh you know communicated before they're very like uh their AI forward but fundamentally um they're very committed to people and and uh and and handcrafting this content. So, so I would say we're less maybe maybe less AI uh sort of focused than than you might think uh because it's really about the craft of those experiences. But yeah, certainly where it makes sense like video calling is a is a classic feature that just wouldn't exist but for uh AI back end. I have very one more very very small thing and then we've got to go. I've been given the evil eye. You did tell me when we were talking this that there there's some interesting data points about how many people have done a 365 uh day streak. The engagement levels of on Dualingo are off the charts.
Um yeah, thanks for reminding me.
Yeah, I I remembered that was basing one

talking point I remember by the way. Um so so so one of the like the like obviously there's the creative itch that you scratch as a developer making fun experiences. uh you've got the kind of different objective where you're trying to, you know, help people learn and better themselves, that sort of thing. Um but as a platform to reach people, it's it's insane. There's 50 million daily active users, which that's a big game. Yeah.
Um but but one of the leading metrics that a a bunch of developers now look at is like uh how can we get people coming back every day for seven days, for example, if you've got
done 2,000 this guy. So yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. If you can if you can get 5% of your DAU coming back seven days in a row, you're popping champagne. 10% you're basically, you know, on on that chart. And uh yeah, there's a there's a ridiculous stat that I I found out after I joined that there's
of those 50 million, more than 10 million have a 365 day consecutive streak, which like when I when I heard

it, I had like I got them to run the query [laughter] because that can't be right. Um, and it's just this ridiculent. That's pretty impressive.
So, the the goal is less about getting people coming back. It's not about getting people to spend. It's about getting people that are already locked in and want more. Giving them more delightful, engaging experiences. That's the that's the key.
Okay. So, yeah. So, brilliant. Thank you very much for your time. If you want to get engaged, uh, there's lots of opportunities. Big round of applause, please, for for Simon.
Thank you very much.