Fireside Chat: How the Home of Dead by Daylight has Stayed Independent. Charlie Scowen & Danni Pratt

[Music] [Music] [Music] next talk is all about Behavior interactive and the home of dead by daylight um my colleague Charlie is going to lead the chat uh with Danny from um Behavior interactive can you tell the the adrenaline is kicking in for the for the event hi everyone uh I'm Charlie and I'm the the event content

coordinator for pocket gam next uh I deal with all the scheduling and everything like that but I'm not important at all in this session uh are the most important thing um or person rather is Danny in this session so Danny is um the business partner for uh Behavior UK and um she's going to tell us a bit more about um you know what Behavior have been up to uh their strategy going into 2024 and um some more secrets that she would like to share so uh yeah Danny uh you know tell us a bit about yourself and your career in the games industry yeah thanks so um obviously originally it was Bob who would be doing this so I am stepping in as he's unwell so thank you so much he's not he's not too excited he gets to watch the football tonight because he won't be traving back anymore but yeah so I'm Danny uh I've been part of the games industry for four years um part of Behavior now before that I was actually part of sock monkey Studios which was acquired by Behavior Uh last year year about a year to the

day actually um and when I was in that role I kind of wore quite a few hats so I kind of did marketing Communications BISD recruitment um I think I did something else but anyway um my role is now a bit more specialized so I kind of more focus on um talking to universities talking to campuses that kind of thing and just promoting and getting the word out there for Behavior as well is there a little fan fun fact about yourself that you'd like to share um I am the I'm in the top 200 players worldwide for solit so I'm I'm one of the quickest soliter players globally that's that's my fun fact thank you that might be the funnest fact I've heard actually so don't don't test me on it because it's been a while I got that I got that a while ago she will thrash you brilliant cool so like you just said it's been a year now since behavior

acquired sock monkey Studios um you know take us back to that moment like what was it like when Behavior first inquired you know never mind just acquired inquired H what did you guys know about behavior and what have you discovered about them along the way yeah so back then I was doing quite a bit of BISD work so um it was really funny I'd I think two years ago at Pocket Gamer connects I met with the head of Biz Devon Europe from uh behavior and we were just talking about cev work and then we met again at Brighton and our CEO at the time wasn't available didn't manage to get to Brighton so I was sitting there um and we just won the best places to work award um which was a really great achievement in itself and I went to the meeting and I was there before anyone else and I was a little Junior bis and didn't have a clue what to say so I just started waffling about this award that um that we'd won and it was really funny actually because that

turned the conversation from cordev to oh you have a similar culture to us what if we just bought you and um we kind of we left it off we were like oh that's that's just a joke that's just silly and then I remember we called Bob and we were like oh God I think we've just uh slipped and fell and and sold the studio we don't know what we've done so so what you're saying it's pocket Gamer's fault actually not fault actually that's the wrong word for it but you know it was great to often those sort of connections but yeah it was obviously there was a lot of other factors that went into it um but the culture and the fact that we sort of shared that culture was something that really helped um as for what I knew about Behavior it was quite funny because every everyone we all know dead by daylight that's like their big game but as I started looking into Behavior a bit more I realized they kind of have done everything um they've been around for 30 years and I remember looking through that Wikipedia page um

and I was like oh my God I I there's a game that I'm looking for right now on PlayStation 2 that you can't buy anywhere um it's called Teen Titans I don't know if anyone's into that show or whatever but I really wanted the PlayStation 2 game and I was trying to find it trying to find it and then it turned out Behavior helped make it um so at 11:00 at night I remember messaging the VP of creative and I was like the only way you would have had more of a choke hold on my childhood is if you'd also made um The Sims and he was like oh scroll and they had also worked on the Sims so so it's they've kind of done everything and it was it was quite fun figuring out that a lot of the games that I loved growing up were actually um behavior collaborated on them yeah so you know you just mentioned about team Teen Titans and you know Sims and all that so yeah behavior is best known for the home of dead by daylight of course um and yeah we just touched on it there and seen Titans and you know it has a long code development history uh with uh

you know credits like Assassin's Creed Mortal Kombat Gears of War Tony Hawk you know massive games um can you tell us like more about this unique business model and Behavior's recipe for Success yeah so I think definitely the way we combine um service work with the on IP stuff is um sort of the secret to the success because everyone wants to work on their own game that's like the dream and uh we've been we're really proud that we've got dead by daylight there but um although dead by daylight makes loads of money I think there's like 50 million players worldwide or something like that um the service work can never be understated because the service work is what gives you the opportunity to reinvest into those original IPS so I would always say that um oh and also you get to meet great people right so we have done service work with like Microsoft EA Disney Disney and those

relationships carry on so we've been able to do some work with great uh Studios and those Studios have then in turn begun to trust us and it means it's that sort of Continuum partnership where they think who do we want to work with on this project will come to behavior because they know we do great work so I would definitely say that although you you really want to make your own game a lot of the time and that's like the dream um never underestimate the power of service work um one thing I will say is behavior Even in our services division will never take on a project unless we can find one person who is completely obsessed with with the IP so it can be the best IP in the world but what we'll do is we'll shout out to see hey does anyone love this IP and if we don't get someone who comes back and is like yes I love this I can I can offer help on this then we probably won't do it because we really don't want to make um a game that isn't like true to to the

fans kind of thing yeah I know I've lost many hours to dead by daylight I'm not ashamed to admit it um so Behavior turned 30 in 2022 and has managed to maintain its independence this entire time you know it hasn't been acquired by the likes of Microsoft Sony you know and all these acquisition Wars and everything like that um what does that independence mean to you and your team like how does Independence translate in Practical terms like leadership ship workflow internal processes etc etc so Behavior it's really interesting because although I think we're um a little over 1300 people now um spread across six different Studios we still have a very agile way of looking at things so for example the hierarchy is still quite simplistic it's I know some bigger Studios you can end up with really weird hierarchies where to find out the answer to a question you have to go Here There and Everywhere um Behavior doesn't have that which has always been great um due

to the independence as well there's a lot more sort of um scope to invest in in people so we have something called be free which means that you can work on your own game and we are happy for you to invest your time in that uh if we love the game there's always the chance that we'll also ask hey do you want to sell it to us and I think that's something that maybe isn't possible in studios that have more ownership going going on so I think the the independent side of things is really great because we we kind of now we have like the scope of a bigger Studio but we still work very much like an independent Studio we've said that um and what I've noticed personally is that although we are a bigger Studio we've kind of we're kind of like Lord of Indie Studios within that studio so you'll become very close the people on your project and it'll feel a lot more like you are part of like that Indie Studio

cool brilliant so you know culture is a big you know it has to be like a massively important thing for in the games industry and it's it's a massive deal at our behavior and rightfully so uh especially in it's focus on a healthy work life work life balance like and it's no crunch commitment what role does the Studio's Independence play in maintaining that culture so uh Remy who's our CEO really spearheads this and he's obviously been the CEO the whole time at the studio and he I know that um I can't remember how long ago it was but he kind of came in one day and abolished crunch culture and was like this is never going to be a thing and he made sure to surround himself with people who agree that with that sort of mentality it's very work life balanced and even to the point where when we were discussing whether the acquisition would go through we got asked do you survey your staff and that was like that was back in Brighton that was the first conversation

and I was like that's that's really refreshing to hear because most like a lot of smaller Studios will have had this where there's a lot of Studios come at you thinking we might purchase you and normally the questions aren't at all to do with how much you care about your stuff so I think that was a really big thing for us because they were like well do you survey your stuff what do you do when your stuff are unhappy what is this what is this and that was huge and actually it's it's funny I probably I I did kind of uh Grill Remy a bit um I remember us sitting around having a chat and I was just like the most important thing I think for us all is that we don't lose that culture because sock Mony had built this amazing culture like we we'd only lost like three people in 10 years we were such a a strong community and we were like if we go and the owners obviously not me like if we go through with this we need to maintain that culture we can't we can't just sell out and right off into the sunset and I

think it was really important to both Remy and the owners of sock Mony so you know it can't be understated enough that 2023 was a very challenging year for the games industry how did Behavior navigate those challenges like you know what set you apart I think it has been a difficult time for the industry and behavior is not immune to to those challenges the more important thing for us is that we sort of take these things head on and whenever there has been any sort of issues arise we always work to reassign people within the company you know we try and we understand that it's a people first culture there's a work life balance there and thankfully because we have been around for 30 years um we've kind of seen a lot of those issues happen and come out through the other side of it obviously a lot of Studios are are struggling right now and I would

never want to like downplay that at all but thankfully because Behavior has been through a lot in the past 30 years they are good at mitigating the risks a lot more and that has definitely been something that's I've noticed coming into a behavior as a studio whereas perhaps as saki we we weren't always as as knowledgeable about that but I think um the fact obviously we've had Remy 30 years CEO I think um a lot of the high management are also like 20 years plus in the industry so with all of that sort of experience it means that when these things come our way we can sort of take a step back and be like right how do we address This brilliant so but I you know I'm conscious that like you know we have five minutes and I have a couple questions but I just wanted to make sure or wonder if anyone in the audience has any questions if you would put your hand up if not it's totally fine I can carry on and you know hog Danny's time complet completely fine um okay all right I'll

ask this one uh so Behavior has been through something of a growth spurts of course acquiring your team in midboro uh along with studios in uh Seattle love Seattle uh in Ro and Rotterdam and opening uh Behavior UK South in cornall last year um what's going on here like what is behavior up to and like what can you tell us about the future well will there be further expansion you know can or is that stuff that you can can't really talk about so uh what I will say is um what Behavior have always said is they want to take on as many opportunities as they're passionate about and I think um Montreal is amazing but there does come a point where there's a lot of there's some big studios there and they needed to expand to just diversify their talent a bit and the UK had always sort of been appealing to them as well as Europe just because the culture was fairly similar to the Canadian culture um and I know when we

disc when we chatted to them they said that they had been looking at a few Studios but for them it's about knowing when the opportunity is right and a lot of that does just come down to what the culture is like um whether they think we'd fit together maybe um our team has some really great talent that they're really looking for and rather than hire a few people why don't we maybe expand see if this partnership can go further um as for carrying on I will say our growth strategy is positive and I can't say where or what the next steps are going to be come on you have to watch you'll just have to watch watch this space watch this space so are we sure we got like about 3 minutes left does anyone have any questions this is last chance no so oh did I oh no I thought I saw one sorry I saw you go like that as I as like just doing a NCH in face um so Daddy um like we said 2023 because come

and gone what's your sort of predictions for the for the year what are we going to see what interesting games are we going to see you know what's how's the nature of the industry going to change this year will we see more of the same or what do you reckon what's going to happen I wouldn't want to say because I do think that saying anything can just be a bit of a jinx um I will say that I think that there's potential for a lot of um Indie Studios to to start making their way out there this is just my personal opinion not um not backed by anything else I just think that um the layoffs are something that is super unfortunate um I feel for anyone who has um suffered from those but I will say to anyone that has always stay resilient there are some great Studios that have started up from that exact same thing happening to them um and I I I wouldn't want to go any further than that without breaking any end here of course no great advice from Danny there and um yeah thoughts got out to everyone affected by

layoffs and everything so yeah can we get a round of applause for Danny please so I'm sure that um you know you'll be able to catch Danny either outside if you have any questions you be able to find her on LinkedIn or you know through the meet to match platform if you have any more questions or want to hear more about what Behavior we doing please do reach out to her and um yeah enjoy the rest of the conference