From Segmentation to Personalization: The SciPlay Approach to Success

[Music] Cameron Stewart welcome to the podcast thank you thanks for having me do you have anything secrety on your background because it shows all the numbers and all the Whiteboard so anybody who's on YouTube or Spotify take your screenshots right now exactly no this is just to make me look smart yeah and and just to show that you work from the office that's right that's right all right let me do a let me do a quick introduction so cam you're a group vice president at CCI playay and and talking about Social Casino market so CCI play is one of the leading companies in Social Casino and Social Casino is not a small business I mean most of our listeners I would say I'd say a portion of our listeners understand how Social Casino is I think a monopoly go made it clear to everybody that it's pretty big of a genre uh but even looking at last year we're talking about on mobile this is sensor Tower data so net revenue was about six and a half billion it was up 14%

year-over-year on downloads uh sorry on revenue and then downloads were 1.4 billion up by about 3% so pretty much the same and most importantly average revenue per install is almost $5 in Social Cino so uh not surprisingly a very well monetizing genre and final interesting part that I find about this genre is not only how well you monetize retain and run live operations which what we're going to talk about is the level of concentration which is really low so we've kind of accustomed to like there's you know a couple of games that dominate a genner like you know Candy Crush and Royal match and that's that's pretty much it everybody else is is distance second in Social Casino the level of concentration is extremely low compared to other genres so if you take two biggest titles put them together they make about 10% of the market uh which is a stark difference to any other genre so did I get it right about Social Casino absolutely absolutely it's uh and

I think that's the thing that you know we that we want to get across and uh I think that's the thing that we've been uh you know almost debating in the last know few years like hey when are you guys going to do more games and you know we we absolutely are you know doing more games but uh when you look at a market of you know Sol casino being probably eight n billion uh a year um it's I mean it's a huge market and there's a lot of opport to gain even more market share in this market and I think for the last three years you know C play shown a great job in in doing so but we're we're hungry for more so yeah and talking about hungry for more and talking about being good at what you do I remember joshu Joshua Wilson your CEO came here at least a couple of times has been on the podcast and every time he's come in he's talked about like well you've been really successful and and not like just according to him it was a public company

and now you're part of another public company so these are like actual numbers that we were discussing growing quarter over quarter idfa cool we got this no idea like before after and just kept on growing and so I think this podcast is really interesting and what I wanted to have you here on it's like just a simple question which is how do you retain and monetize that's that's the golden question right like ask everybody just I I wanted to start with something really like really you know really simple um look I think um from from our perspective we look at things very differently I think um five years ago and I think a lot of companies you know still may may think this way but they look to the the next big bold feature right we've all heard that you know term from from different companies and um we've we've never been the type of company that has really grown that way now again five plus years ago you could

grow that way where you're you know launching the the big feature of the quarter and all of a sudden you see you know 5 six s% rev growth um we really uh three four years ago sat down and said that that's not how we're going to grow anymore um especially on a game like Jackpot Party that's you know 10 plus years old uh you need to invest in your systems you need to invest in your talent of your team you need to invest in uh the things that are I guess the the non sexy things uh that a player would see um and we've gone from I think we've kind of dominated this Market in segmentation but really we go down to personalization uh is kind of where we're at now so we've done a big investment in the operation of our games uh versus you know just creating the next best feature interesting so at this point especially segmentation you've you've uh so

let me put it this way I talk a lot to different Studios I talk a lot to different service providers in terms of lifetime value optimization and they pitch their segmentation look at our calendar tool look at how the segments you can build and when I'm looking at it I'm like okay it looks nice when you start off with kind of nothing and then I'm imagining like the type of games that you guys run are 10 years old 10 years old and you know getting older Y and so what does the segment look like when you have a game even that is like let's say 3 years old how many segments you have running at the same time and how do you modify those segments when you have a demographic or user base that is you know somewhat changing of course you're stacking your cohorts one on top of another but nevertheless like you your user base is changing as you're progressing through time and so do you change the segmentation does the first time flow that you had there like like not not even the first time flow but but different segments that would change based on user behavior that you knew or

two years ago how does it work right now and now you have to go to change it look like a circuit board anyway like like how do you what is can you just talk about like moving from segmentation to personalization yeah absolutely so first off you know segmentation can be a double-edged sword um as as wieldy as it can be it can also uh sync you pretty fast too uh and so I think the first part is being we're very strategic by every lever that we pull um and so now you got to have a system to be able to pull those levers of course um but you know our systems are made in together with you know product and Engineering it wasn't just you know one person or two people that came up with the idea was using data to really make these segments and to pull these levers and ultimately segmentation is important to to the person or the machine that is running

behind it and so um we you know it's a big shout out to our talent um at sciplay and how we train our talent because ultimately uh the person or the thing pulling the levers is is critical there and so um we've invested heavily uh in that side of the business um and we're very strategic and careful about what levers we pull and in practice like how does personalization look like is it let's say you know users come in and based on their behavior the difficulty of the machines changes let's say I'm playing slot and you can see through my behavior if I'm about to churn or not you might tweak the machine so I'm more likely to get a win or less likely to get a win certain types of machines open up in different order based on like like what is a personalization look like yeah uh here since you touched on you know the the machines and the slots like um you know it's no secret that uh you know

we we are a Content company uh with with light and wonder right um we have some of the best content uh in in the entire industry and that it's a huge you know Advantage uh for us now we are true to that um so we do not touch the machines like you know we we're a number of uh slot players ourselves right so we're very true to not uh creating differences between the the actual machines we're we're very true to that and so um however uh everything else around uh the slot machine those are the things that we're touching and so we're using a number of different trigger points to say hey this user is fairly likely to have this Behavior okay I know exactly what path I need to take them on next and so we're constantly TR trying to get

the user to really retain engage and monetize obviously that's the circle but I think on the S playay side we are we're a little bit different in the fact of like I think you've seen this before a lot of product managers are like how can I go get a dollar um in our way of thinking it's it's more like how can I get the player to have a good time um you know day over day week over week month over month year over year um we will always trade retention and engagement um you on the longer term success rather than monetization and that's I think that's at the core of how we of how we think kickass liveops need kickass tools that's where heroic Labs comes in they just released a massive update to their sator liveops platform and having done my research I can say with confidence that it's second to none in a single product you get everything you need

including event capture player segmentation feature Flags remote configuration AB testing experimentation live events calendar messaging retention grafing analytics and so much more if you're serious about running live services in a game get serious about the tools you use connect with heroic labs and make some serious cheese with your live Ops and and when we're talking about retention uh essentially when we're talking about C AP I like this is what I'm really interested in is kind of like the uh I don't know the way I see it is there's the old school way of looking at kpis which is like my day one my day seven my day 30 yeah you know and then he put in like a percentage number there and then I don't know again I don't know if this is new school or old school but usually like let's say if I'm working with somebody I I try to get away from that quite quickly and start look looking at cohorts like I want to see LTV

accumulation cohort over time over months where I can start looking at the shapes of the curves and and I feel like these sort of uh you know individual numbers almost like somebody's trying to bamboozle me or even worse they don't even know better which is or even actually that's even better because then you can advise them but but how do you guys look at it because you're like you know that your gains retain because they've been out for such a long time and people like slots whether you like it or not they like Bingo like these are proven mechanics it's not like you know surprise what is this absolutely so so how do you look at these kpis like in your job like do you open up a a dashboard and says what's D1 and do I need to connect with a GM because D1 is a little bit low and figure out or like how do you look at it look I think uh there's a couple different ways I'll answer that um number one you know we we have a luxury of having you know six

soci casino games than the top 30 um so we're constantly um using ourselves as our own as our own Proving Ground right um and we're learning from each other and I think that's a super special thing that we have here at s playay um I think the the other thing is that we're constantly trying to evolve right uh it is not our culture to say hey I've tested that thing two years ago this is how it works like we have a lot people going yeah but why did it work why why did you do it that way should we test it again oh I want to come up with a different like we really um I I can tell you I've tested the same thing eight times over the last you know three years because our players and and their habits change dramatically and so nothing is ever set in stone here at s playay and then I think you know third it's it's very important that we're players ourselves um anybody can look at

data and make a you know a hypothesis but if you don't feel the game yourself if you're not reaching out to your players and understanding how they feel if you're not again that player yourself like how are you supposed to feel that you know Quest completion percentage was 7% is that good is that bad how did you feel when you ran out of coins did like the there's so many questions that you have to constantly ask ask yourself as the player um and I think that is still the thing that that we see a lot that we have to almost train people out of is if you can't feel it yourself it's it's really hard to understand what the data is actually trying to tell you that's a that's a fascinating Point uh because when you think about Social Casino companies you would think about that these guys are probably numbers overall it's like I don't care anything at all they probably never even seen a slot machine I bet they don't even go to

Vegas or maau or anybody they just they just sit in front of a computers and just look at the numbers and what what you're essentially describing is is you know like this was um even back in like a super in like 200 13 oh already was that there's you know three sources of data that you have to follow and the one source is of course the data analytics the numbers and you have the data scientist and they pull very interesting out of the game and bring different types of insights the second part is the the quality of data whether that is community whether those are the interviews like however you can engage with your players and understand how they feel especially the most engaged ones uh that's a very important source of information and then there's the third part that you talked about which is the gut feeling of the developer and that's the expertise of the person working on it and it is quite common especially on mobile side that we

kind of like ah you know your gut feeling let me show you a couple of numbers like screw your gut feeling and uh and it seems like you know at side play you're like yeah this is super important because we are like like in any gaming company like we are you know masters of what we do we like what we do and we have to trust also our gut feeling because numbers or interviews don't tell the full picture and and I think it's important to talk about because uh like we've seen this countless a number of times is like you have to be I think the most important thing is that you have to be willing to change the way that you think in this market we've worked with a lot of people um you know and and I talked to a lot of people in the industry and um if you haven't changed the way that you make games three years ago like you're probably failing in this space right now um and I don't mean that to be harsh at all like it's you just have to change

with the way the industry changes and I think Co drastically changed how how players played our games um and we had to adapt to that and that's that's why we've you know changed you know certain things within our or that's why we've changed certain ways uh on how we operate um and it's really it really comes down to how you operate a game not for necessarily you know again going back to just the next big bold beat feature so H and talking about like well before we talk about like I'm very interesting in talk about your live operations and how you run it but before that just overall like monetization strategies like how do you ensure that you have effective monetization but not too effective that it would cause the turn of the users yeah um look monetization is a interesting term for us because I think when you use when you use the phrase monetization you think oh

payment right um monetization for us is like retention and engagement first and so you know the number of again tools and levers that that we're using they're most of them are around retention and engagement and monetization will eventually flow through um and so you know we have a very robust you know monetization team here we you know we made the switch um probably almost 3 years ago now where um you know we've separated product you know into two departments one being monetization and one being you know more feature development product ownership and so I think that was uh an amazing switch for us because it really put monetization in live Ops uh with a front seat at the table rather than you know just making live Ops a piece of of product development um and so when we made that shift like

it was it's very very important that the director product and director monetization are seriously tied at the hip um you know making the the right decisions for the game interesting so two points here so retention and engagement first like how do you what are the metrics that you're looking at in terms of retention and engagement like what are the sort of North Stars here session counts or session L yeah so so for us depending on each individual game it's it's a little bit different right I think when we look at you know the to design our our product road map or our user Journey we're we're constantly looking at okay where's this game set up from a session over session base where are they set up from a daily base and a three-day base and a 7-Day base and so you know we're ultimately filling in those gaps and using our our different kpis such as you know if you go want to go to the early

user Journey like how does a user progress to D30 but then ultimately taking those corts and understanding okay you had a a a great D30 but how are you progressing from D30 to d180 right and so you know you're starting there but you're also making sure that that your product has the the levers and the features that are showing up in the different you know week over week month over month um I think that's critical to how we design and Implement our our features of monetization strategy yeah I I just happened yesterday talked to a a former CTO of a of a casino Social Casino company and he was uh he was explaining this as well like the uh the key to retention or is is content and the key to content is progression and basically like you have to have these certain nodes in the game whether let's say for an example like you have a player level or you have a like Candy Crush you have your level and then that

allows you to follow the players's progression and then that information is the one that allows you to start optimization of the game because you know the path and now you can personalize the path once you've set the path but if you if that path is like nebulous like let's say even in a competitive shooter game that becomes quite hard right so well Matt like the I always try and you know analyze things of know how how we can bring things to like real life right um I think sometimes we forget that we make games for for people right um you know a lot of games have a very similar Journey for for each person and if you think of just people in general like every single person in this world has a very different journey and so you have to give very different Journey for your players as well because that's going to make them most successful if I I said you know Mishka that you have to do

something a certain way in your life you're you're probably going to revolt and and do it a different way right and so well I'm very obedient yeah right yeah yeah um and so like this is the way that that we think like it we laugh about it a lot because we often forget that we that we make games for for real people you know so step into the future of game monetization with exola the premier partner for game developers seeking to expand their reach in Revenue exola provides a robust Suite of tools designed to enhanced user acquisition manded subscriptions and streamlined Payment Solutions worldwide unlock new markets and maximize profitability through their customized secure payment architecture and dedicated support team exola powering game developers to achieve Global success [Music]

and so so the the other part that you mentioned was this notion of uh not notion the decision to separate monetization and feature development on the product side yep how does this so let me understand if I let me say let me say if I understand this correctly you got your feature development which is let's say different machines or they could be um well events kind of go everything goes well let's put it this way machines uh so you create different machines and that is the feature development work and you have a product person for that and then the monetization part which is in live operations so that's what's different this week what's different today what kind of events are we running how are we segmenting different offers different you know like like is is that the way of thinking um I I'll say it a little bit differently is like you know our our product development team is really focused on the gaps and opportunities for the six Monon plus vision of the game right so kind of your typical you

know product team right they're constantly saying hey you know what and we look at it kind of two different ways we're saying hey we've got uh a gap where we don't have a good three-day Loop in the game okay do our kpis show that versus some of our internal products or things that we see in in the rest of the industry and then we're ultimately looking for those gaps and opportunities on a number of different kpis um our monetization team is really the the day in day out U making sure that the calendar is created making sure that you know the the sales and the the the Journey of the user that that they're going to take that day the quest like the things that are in and out of the game quickly um and so but it's very important that these two people are working very closely together because when product is developing um you know the next the next feature we need need to make sure that we have all the levers and the systems

in place to to be able to operate that and I think again five plus years ago it was all about hey we're going to take an MVP you know type feature we're going to AB test it for multiple months uh and then we'll add liveops into it one piece at a time um we really think about it differently and we go how are we going to operate this feature on day one um and we need to make sure that we have the systems and the mechanics in place to to be able to operate that users 5 years ago like have a very different expectation today than they used to and so you have to be I mean look at even new games that launch um you can't just launch with a store uh you know a fouille like remember games used to launch very Bare Bones back in the day now you have to have like everything which is why it's so hard in my opinion to release a new game because it takes

multiple multiple years of development to to have all those things and then you know we could talk about the user acquisition cost that it that it costs to play in this market nowadays but um it's you have to remember to to retrain and rethink your brain for for what we have today which is very different yeah that that's a that's such a good point because like we used to run and build at the same time like you just release the game and then you're just like yeah it's kind of you know core Loop is working so let's just start putting stuff in and now that that that gets you killed immediately like we we we have a term internally like you you got to be right four out of five times um and if you don't think that that thing is ready for day one then honestly we'll put it back on the shelf and and make sure that it is ready for day one because let's let's be honest development is is is not cheap

right and so but we that's how we run our businesses like it's like it's our own money right and so the GMS you know of of our games like they they truly operate like that and and I think that that's what makes us special and if they don't have a good confidence level that they they aren't going to be right four out of five times like uh that's that's just kind of ingrained into our blood so this podcast is brought to to you by apps flyer in today's Digital World understanding your apps Journey from Discovery to download is more than just insightful it's essential enter apps flyer the leader in Mobile attribution and marketing analytics that allows you to measure the full potential of your marketing efforts making every ad dollar work smarter with apps flyer that's your new reality dive deep into Data driven insights that reveal exactly where your users come from and how they'll interact with your app apps lier where your app's

potential meets performance 80% hit rate uh so talk to me about this development is not cheap what is your team sizes like in a in a in a a mature Social Casino game we're talking about hundreds of people yeah so uh s playay wide we're we're about 900 employees um but uh on our typical games you know um Jackpot Party uh being our largest game will you know is is upwards of a hundred uh individuals okay um and so uh and most of our development for that game is is actually uh where the where the company started uh in Iowa um and so being somebody that's you know uh homegrown in in Iowa as well like um people always ask us like hey what like why why do you why do you stop have the Iowa Studio like it's like dude we we you know we created an amazing company there and

it's the you know the heart and and blood of of what we do and we've had a lot of success in that studio and we'll continue investing in that studio because it's just full of uh an amazing group of s players um and you know being that kind of Midwest uh attitude is full of just amazing people so it's it's as Midwest as you can go like it's the uh it's the definition of Midwest cuz like I bet people don't even know what the capital of Iowa is I like for some crazy reason I bet you don't know how to say it well this is uh de Moy yeah there you go there you go because because uh this is just absolutely because our kindergarten uh teacher here in Finland super far away um so the head of kindergarten this young lady she's married to an American man who happens to be from Iowa de Mo what that's crazy that's how I know yeah cuz like every time we have like these uh you know like the get togethers

with the kindergarten whatnot and I talk to the uh he thinks I'm an American because of my accent so he gravitates towards my my accent right right and I learned that he's from De Moine so so yes Iowa that's that's uh that's fascinating okay yeah so there and many questions that I have here but like one of the things I remember that that when we were talking with um Joshua like maybe a year or so ago like he talked about these six elements that company has been investing and one of them is of course this datadriven agility that you're talking about so segmentation to personalization being able to really make decisions in real time which is is that a good thing to make decisions real time or not actually question that's sound reactive yeah no no uh I think uh I think I said it earlier in the uh in the interview um but it it can be a double-edged sword right so a as long as you're um making the the correct decisions in real time

yes it can be a very very effective way to run a business but you need to make sure again like you better be right four out of five times right like it's it's uh it and so that's why I think we you know we go through a very rigorous uh process in in training our our PMs and monetization teams um and so it is it is very difficult uh to you know just because just because you have the tools to do it doesn't mean everybody needs to go wild and just start making a bunch of changes to the game um but I think if you look at SCI playay again three to five years ago we were almost so far on the other side where um we may not have been as reactive as we needed to be and so we invested uh a ton in making us you know top top of the Sol casino chain at being super reactive and we are still

super reactive but there are times where I'm not going to say that we haven't made mistakes in being too reactive to things so there's a balance to all of this um and I think you know we're constantly uh even myself checking ourselves to say okay maybe we need to pull back this way a little bit and you know it's a constant struggle there so yeah yeah no like let's say you have the capability to make the decisions in real time that doesn't mean that you should be making decisions in real time any situation of life we we do and I and I can tell you like this this year has been a been a great one for for us to learn um I think that's that's where like we don't have any egos here like it it it's so much about you know it's okay to fail um but we better learn from from our mistakes like it's very rarely that um that we have individuals you know

even myself like we're not making the same mistake twice like yeah we'll fail we'll learn like I think you know we talked about uh Josh a little bit already but like his one of his favorite quotes is like let's let's fail fast right and so don't don't allow yourself six months to fail like if you're going to fail fail in that week and learn from it and move on to the next thing so yeah uh but yeah kind of back to my point I got like sidetracked with the uh with a quick decision making but uh the other investment that you did was um was unified infrastructure for game decision essentially what it means is you've instead of making all the features from the startup from all the different games you kind of unified the ways you're building in a more modular way which just makes sense if you're doing battle pass and or similar mechanic in one one of your games it should be compatible almost directly at least on the uh on the back end and on the uh like the code

side so that it can be just you know made look different than other one but the the third element what I want to talk about was direct to Consumer empowerment that that Josh talked about and that's um that's essentially web shops right and controlling your your relationship with the uh with the customer and we've seen like Social Casino has been really on the Forefront of this but you know midcore companies especially the ones with strategy games and RPG games have really be making significant investment into direct to Consumer uh technology or approach or however you want to talk about it but like how big of part of of your business has that been uh since the investment yeah so uh this year was was a big year for us in in that category um what I will say is we always wanted to do what we always want to do what best for the player right and so we're very strategic in how we go about um you know

creating a directed consumer platform and so we've ran multiple tests uh on multiple games with different cohorts of players and the reality is is that you have to be super careful about how you send people when you send people um and I I'm not sure a lot of companies have done a lot of due diligence on that side um and so we're we're very we're very careful on How We Do It um and I think like that's been a big learning point for us because I've also heard other strategies of like oh well it's it's just free AE why wouldn't we do it let's just get this web shop out there and send everybody to that platform um and I I'll tell you like it is uh again it can be a very dangerous thing if you're not doing it uh in the in a very correct way so we're always keeping our players you know top of mind um and I think we're

we're focused on growing our overall business obviously you know we're in a market where a Eva and profit is is incredibly important but um we're always top of Mind of growing our overall business um you know the the top line and the bottom line so and and you you know as any any casino or Social Casino company especially you know you you probably have really good customer relationship man management already existing and so that helps with uh since you already have that direct relationship with a customer it helps with uh with direct selling of course of different packages absolutely like it's you know um in this market um you know you're you are dealing with um with players that that are you know very much um you know actual players you know in the real world right and so um you know you're working almost in a hospitality industry

as well um which which makes our industry a little bit different from the others because these players are used to receiving Hospitality uh in in the real world um I can tell you much like myself like uh I I am a huge uh you know Vegas person uh so to call it right um I absolutely love it uh it's where and I think it's because we have to be players ourselves how are you supposed to understand um you know what what a player is doing if you can't feel that uh yourself like but I've always I've always been that way with anything like you know if you whatever your profession is like if you sell knives you should use the knife right if you uh whatever you do if you sell cars you should sit in the car and drive it and understand it like so I think um we're very very passionate on uh individuals feeling what our players feel yeah so if you you

know if you live it you have to love it you you do like that's I think that's that's us to a tea for sure um and and so interesting so talking about like actually no I have a question um who who is the social Cino player because like is it very us focused audience um so we are a very us uh you know heavy company uh there's no doubt about that um but you know a one of the larger second largest you know uh demographics is over in Australia and so um Australia obviously is is a fairly large country and and uh you know Sol casino is is a big Market over there and so that is you know a market that that we're certainly breaking into too uh which is exciting um you know and

there's more to come on that in the future but um you know we're we are predominantly you know North America based but U we are doing things to break into to other countries I think the the thing that you know we're we're learning is like you can't run games the same way uh that that you would in you know necessarily North America there's a different strategy there's a different foule that you have to do there's different content that is more successful um and you know we're we're happy to to partner with um you know our our businesses at at light and wonder um because this is an industry that they absolutely know and so I think that's what makes us very powerful as as a business is um you know we're a Content company um you know together with light and wonder and so we're constantly using over the last two years where we have an amazing partnership with them and we're

learning a ton on both sides of the business so it's it's it's really is a great partnership so learning from you know the uh the real Casino or like it wouldn't say real casino but like what do you call it for it I mean look they you know it's interesting because s playay like we we own our players right yeah um at light and wonder um they they are content company right they they make um these slot machines you know and their customers are are the casino you know operators themselves and so um to be able to look at both sides of that coin is is really powerful and we're we're excited about that so and and how does the uh how does the like I assume that that a lot of the cooperation not collaborate cooporation because you were saying the company but a lot of the knowledge sharing goes probably through the different machines that are working uh or different Technologies is it like

you can test something really quickly digitally and bring it back physically or vice versa there are some machines that are you know hot currently in Vegas and you bring them again in a some kind of a form to your uh digital platform yeah it's it's vice versa like um you know we released a stat uh the other year at g2e 93% of of sciplay players uh go to the casino at least once a year and it was I think 20 times a year was like 60 plus per. right so there there is a there's a massive crossover um and I'll tell you we had two machines uh that were social first games actually launch on on land um this year um and we have much more coming and so we're actually really coming together on you know our product road map our strategy with how we release machines do you release at the same time like we've learned so much over the last really two

two and a half years um and I think that you know uh you know Matt Wilson our our CEO at light and wonder it's certainly one of their uh large initiatives and um you know our CEO Josh like and Matt and together with a number of us at s playay are working phenomenally together to to grow the overall business and S play is a big piece of that so and so before we [ __ ] I want to ask like two different questions one is I'll ask this first because like whenever like I remember working at zingo and casino was naturally a big part of the business um a lot of the stuff was was the uh the machines or or even like separate games were launched with like Game of thron Thrones slots and so forth like a big IP is is that still the strategy that you're seeing or are these more like these IP Integrations more launched inside of the the existing casino

games um I I would say it's hard to say that IP's you know less or more important than it is you know today I think there's um because Frankenstein we actually just launched on uh all of our Platforms in the last week for Halloween like Ed it up pretty pretty perfect right um but uh Universal been an amazing partner for us both you know on the landbased casino and you know in in our casinos as well and uh as well with hasbo and our Monopoly casino and so um I think that we take a more directed approach to IP I think you know back in the day you would especially with the Zinga products like you saw you saw IPS all over the board I mean there was tons of we and we had tons of them too and I think what we learned is that when you take a directed approach and you're working directly with the IP holder on

creating a great slot machine game like that's where it does incredible um and we've seen a lot of growth there um but we are very strategic again on how we use these Brands um and so that's that's what I'd say on the IP front yeah just sounds like like to make a a whole separate game with an IP just with a revenue share and everything it's kind of like you that you can't go back where versus if it's a machine you can run it for six months you can take it out you can get it back again with a new iteration inside that one bigger app and then you're using that IP to grow your existing app rather than putting all your eggs and baskets in this joint venture of an app for sure and I think you know the other thing is like um you know go if you go walk around a casino floor you're going to see all these different thematic elements right and you know if you're if you're just trying to go after one theme for the player

like I think it's very hard for a player to live just within that theme like um you know even even our game like Monopoly has a number of different themed games with inside of it um because slot players are they're very superstitious right like if they um are playing one game like they may not say you know what like my Ori Oriental maches like they're not working today so I'm going to go switch to my more cartoony character machines or I'm going to go switch to you know a 3ot game or you could go on and on about um now we do know that players do uh they're they're very much like they like the machine that they like and they'll spend a lot of time on that specific machine but they'll have three or four that they always keep in the back pocket to go hey I'm I'm not hitting here I'm gonna move to the next one so and and this is something that I remember back from from

Zinga days is that people played about like five different machines of the or they they would play back in the days I remember they they would play like what almost up to five different casino app five five different Socia casino apps um yeah and then switch when one goes cold yep um and so like the DAT the data is always a little muddy there um I can tell you that you know it's probably changed a little bit to where it's a little bit less because the games have become so much deeper um than what what they were back then but um we do know that uh many of our players play multiple Soul casino games uh sometimes even within our own portfolio and sometimes not right and so um and they do like but and they'll play one game maybe to because it's you know it has a specific slot machine in it or they play that game where they where they don't pay any money in right but typically they're spending in one maybe two and so

you're really hoping to get the bulk of their session in the game that they love so um it's soci Casino players are interesting like that and you know a lot of the the members that uh you know that we talk about and talk with our players like uh you know their phone absolutely has multiple Sol casino games I can tell you that my own phone has multiple casino games because I actually I I love like I don't do it because I work in the industry I I love playing Soul casino games so because it's like it's my zen time where I'm sitting there watching watching a football game at night and you know Sola casino is almost uh can sometimes be a very idle uh experience where you're you know you're playing through the meta but you're sitting there you know on Auto Spin allowing allowing your game to play through that meta while while you're you know Auto Spin or idling so say yeah yes and people who don't play these games or

don't know the audience really well I've noticed that they have sort of a like a sad perception of people who play Social Casino games they do and like I'll give an example I remember like since you talked about Australia so my uh brother-in-law is Australian and as a family now we were in the on a beach there and his friend is like a you know successful founder sold his company like all that jazz and I remember he was he he spent at least like um he was on the beach like two hours just playing Social Casino game and I had to ask him like dude like like what did you play and how like yeah I spent a couple hundred dollars and you know he just enjoyed himself just just playing this Social Casino game and he was not a loser he was not like he was as as as you know as nice of a lad or a bloke or whatever they call him a mate as you can find H but that was just his exactly as you as you as you portrayed

he was like uh that was his pastime just a couple hours it it's entertainment um and I think that that's you know when people ask us who our competitors are of course we have competitors within our space but um we we look at our competitors as Netflix uh or you know really anything that is you know going out to dinner could be a competitor of ours right like because ultimately um you know a a person's time is is you know that that's the one thing that nobody can buy right and so you're ultimately trying to engage uh and entertain them uh during during their free time and so yeah um but yes uh we we are very aware of the sentiment uh of Sol casino but at the at the end of the day we're game makers that's that's what we do we make games um and regardless of

you know if it's a social casino game a match three like um the game Loops are you know similar uh but different in ways but ultimately games are games um so and that's the way we look at stuff well talking about like loving you know creating these games and and and you know enjoying Social Casino um and by Social Casino we mean like Bingo poker like all of that um so so how do you how do you like you know make new machines make new games improve your games like what's the uh what's the Innovation process if you will like at side playay yeah so you know I think a lot of I think the Innovation things in the market are the things that you that you can't see um and I you know we we talk about a lot of this internally where you know even even individuals say well you know may maybe we're not Innovative enough and I always ask that question

like what what do you mean by Innovative do you do you not believe Innovative is how we have created realtime metrics do do we not believe Innovative like those are the things that I think are the most Innovative things in today's industry it's again it's going back to um you know just because you're not uh innovating this brand new feature that the whole market ends up taking um that's not the only thing that is innovative it's actually how you operate your game how you think how you grow how you org like all of this is where I would say sciplay is extremely uh Innovative in yeah so the uh the operational aspect of of the work where I I would say um again I we can't see uh into any other you know company's crystal ball there either but um we're extremely Innovative on that front we're very proud uh to to

have you know the operational uh Innovation that we do so yeah and and like I just remember these these six elements that that Joshua talked about in the last uh last podcast you know part of it was this Talent investment um so so really you know emphasizing homegrown Talent like you are at at s play I think you had a stint somewhere else in like midcore but then you came back yeah yeah no I I for me like uh you know I I I say this all the time too like um you know I'm I'm probably one of you know 50 people that have you know left and came back s play like I always say like you know people people don't return that to to companies that suck right um and CPL is a pretty cool place um and we have so many people that you know like myself I had let I wanted to work on a different genre of game right and you know knowing Josh for as long as I did I I remember I went to him I'm like hey

like I love mobile RPGs like I got to go try this out and he he was totally like dude seriously go do it this is the time to go do it um and so I was at boss fight uh for about a year and a half uh those guys deserve a lot of credit for helping me grow because they helped me see a a totally different side of of games and you know I think they would say the same is that they were so like design focused and we had to bring it almost the other way so um there was a lot of learning there I felt like that's where I learned how to actually make games right and I you know able to bring that back to S playay was was was amazing and so then I was at uh play Studios for for a couple years which you know is a is a competitor of ours and you know uh you know LED those guys dearly too and you know I just I've been very very lucky to have been surrounded by such amazing people in my career and I think you know I I hope that everybody

listening to this can think about the people that they surround themselves with because that's at the end of the day when your when your career is all said and done like those are going to be the things that you remember yeah yeah of course yeah working with uh with the people you want to work that's a that's an important at some point like at some point that you know when you're early in your career you're worried about so many different things whether it's compensation you know title uh you know all that stuff but at the end of the day like for me it and for many many s players it's really all about uh working with the people that you love uh and so that's what we are all about and that's that's our retention policy well well part of that part of your talent investment and part of working with the people you like is that you also work on site right we do we do so we're you tried the whole other thing and then you're like okay this is the way want to

work we did and you know I think one of the kpis that I'll tell you is uh before we had announced our uh back to office uh we had about 70% of the studio already in um and that was you know totally up to them at that point I think there's those of us that that almost had to be in because we're like oh my gosh like you know Kylie and my you know my wife and my my two my two kids like they're running around like crazy the dogs are barking UPS is it's like you know I I just uh myself and again many other side players like they just wanted to be around people uh because that's who we are like we're like tonight uh you know we'll like we have Friday is a actually a a work from home day we have probably 50 people in the studio and we'll we'll go out and head out for dinner with the group after after uh tonight and like that's just that's who we are so yeah I I like how it's like almost

controversial that you have to yeah right like oh yeah yeah we're we're radical to the office it's weird and look like when we when we made uh when we made the decision there there were of course um you know sides of it uh you know and people people really just wanted to know the why behind it and so I think we were able to explain that uh in a in a very positive way and then once we got everybody back like there was a number of people who who may have questioned it a little bit uh up front and I've had I had many people come to me afterwards and are like thank you so much like for bringing us back sometimes I just needed that that little jolt um and I can tell you like it's it's it's made us an even more successful company because again going back to who we are and where we started that's that's who we are as a company uh and that's our

competitive Advantage is is our culture um and being in office together just made that so critical yeah of course of course I think there there's there's really nothing to it every company is now doing at least hybrid like nobody's talking about remote I mean there there are certain companies and startups maybe try to compete through that which is uh pretty tough like you're choosing a not optimal way to work to compete with those who are bigger you you know you know better than anybody like it it's so when you're when you're working on games in a like creative environment like how many times have you seen you know a feature when you're traveling and you can't put it in your hands and touch it and feel it or you can't it's just or when you're sitting in a room and somebody says that that one thing or makes even Makes Body Language where you're just like you know those are the things that are so critical to to making

games in my opinion so I just we're very passionate on that FR yeah I this kind of brings me I remember working with a with a company and um they were in in a prototyping face and it wasn't going as well as as it could be and I was like I was in the call like is everybody remote like they they were in the same city they were in the same city but I was like like we're having this call and you're not in the same office and this is a prototyping face like can you like and they're like yeah we're working remotely yeah so you're prototyping even though you live in the same city yep and I was like okay and I think and then just wrote down like this this got to change and and I think the thing and I think the thing that um that makes us what we are is because we're we're not afraid to to make the decisions that nobody else is right we we made our in office decision

you know almost to I think is greater than two years ago now and so nobody was doing it at that point we made the decision to move monetization of product we know that many companies you know uh many Israeli companies are are absolutely doing that but it's very rare to do it in the US and we hope to be at the front of that so I think there's a lot of credit um that that Josh you know deserves there to and the executive team in general to make the calls that nobody else is we're not we're not afraid to do what's right for the business and the people which I think makes us special yeah I mean when you make a decision you'd like to make decisions always that everybody else likes that everybody cheers and sometimes you know you're in a face where you have to make the right decision that might not be the right for everybody it's the right for the majority but it's not but but there's going to be people who are upset uh people who built their plans and and

their their lives around for example remote work and that's that's unfortunate uh but nevertheless as a as a business like I understand uh that type of decision- making and it's very difficult when it turns like somebody can get be get to be remote somebody else can't and so forth like rather than making a one uh decision but anyways I want to talk about talk about kind of like your growth on other side because another part of the discussion last time was strategic Acquisitions for Synergy as well as diversification with core Focus so acquisition pretty clear like you you acquired electus from from Turkey I think there were some other companies as well and that's diversification with a core Focus this was interesting because this was was what Joshua was talking about before Monopoly Gulf so it's essentially taking Social Casino learnings Social Casino core that is proven to retain and monetize yep but enter markets which are not typical

Social Casino players so so what what uh what Monopoly go did you probably looked at it like God damn it like we even have the Monopoly IP exactly so so can you talk a little bit about like the evolution of Social Casino and especially this sort of a diversification while still having the core of a Social Casino yeah absolutely so look our core products are are bread and butter um that's I think we've proven to the market that's that's what we're good at and that's what we'll continue to be good at and we'll we have a very healthy uh investment path you know on our core products um the other side of it is the investment that you know that we have you know in in a game like match Hotel um so coming from the elus studio the our turkey studio and so um you know the obviously we all kind of understand what what has happened to you

know hyper casual gaming obviously when idfa came out it became a little bit more difficult to to run in that way and so a lot more difficult yeah exactly uh but the the pivot that that studio has been able to make to go from hyper casual and you know we're almost I guess could call a little bit of a new genre of you know uh hyper casual meets um a little bit of you know Sol casino or casual itself and so um match Hotel um definitely go out and play it it's it's an amazing game um it's it's a kind of a a picker so to say it um but very very fun um and and we're very excited about you know its performance uh in in the early stages um and you know we're even doing it on the Sola Casino side uh with a game like dancing drums which is our IAA uh only uh Casino as well so um as

we continue to to innovate um in those sides of the market I think we're going to see uh some really good growth areas as there there as well so yeah interesting so you you alus is not a part of the uh I was just opening up like app charge uh sorry app charge app magic actually just looking at the uh uh at the the data so it's like it's still under its own publishing IP it's not under side playay published yeah technically and I think um you know that that will change over time obviously you know during um during all of it it's uh you're you're making sure that you align you know culturally with the studio which 100% like uh I I haven't had the chance to be over there but everything that I've heard from from all the members uh that have been over there has been you know absolutely amazing and so we're 100% line there and then then you have all the other stuff that you have to get done as part of an acquisition and so some of the some of the things

lag but what we're focused on is culturally you know is the studio aligned with us 100% they are and then ultimately making sure that uh we get performance uh from the games in the in the ways that we see it and so we're very excited about uh the things they they're working on over there and and this is of course not a new strategy for uh Social Casino or a casino company to enter adjacent genres I mean plka Aristocrat is a is a good example of course uh with that like how are you doing this differently and and what kind of a learnings are you taking from from your Rivals um I I'll tell you one big difference and again um you know we don't know exactly the the thought process behind you know the other companies are but what we said ourselves is you know four years ago you know when we were public uh there was a lot of feedback for us on like you guys got to do different games

you guys got to do different games suy your portfolio yeah sua casino is is going to be flat um I think we've been hearing that for years and we said you know what like to to your point you know s play right now I think we're 11 we're about 11 and a half percent and we're the third developer in sua Casino market like 50% 60% % of the soci casino Market is wide open and so like our focus is going to continue on gaining market share uh in in this market and I think that that is something that we will never lose and I we feel like some other companies may have said you know and looked at some shiny new objects and almost neglected their social Casino portfolio and I think if if we would have done that that that would have been a massive mistake for us and so um in fact it's been somewhat of a good thing that maybe some other companies did that

because we were able to gobble up more market share in the last three years right and so um our focus is always going to be you know in our core products but as we continue to grow and as we continue to learn um you know we'll scale where we believe is is necessary so yeah and you're also not like you don't have to per se generate an inv like investor narrative by diversifying your portfolio Etc to show growth because you're already a part of a larger company absolutely light and wonder so you kind of don't have to do things for for the sake of pleasing analysts let's put it that way absolutely and I think you know there look there's a lot of good there um and we've gotten a lot of amazing advice over the years too but ultimately um again we have to make the decisions that are that are best for us and the wider family of of light and wonder and so we're very much aligned uh with the two

groups of how we run and operate our products how what our growth strategy is um it's it's really an amazing partnership with with uh with light and wonder so all right Cameron Before I Let You Go I have two questions yeah these are easy ones yeah yeah so number one is what if if you'd have to share or help somebody who's from outside Social Casino with the learnings of Social Casino in terms of live operation retention monetization you name it running successful games like what are the key learnings or key insights you would share like how would you advise them um I think number one I would say like forget about all the stuff that you've learned in the last 10 years um don't throw it all away but um like be willing to to rethink retest um and and kind of turn a new leaf on on how to operate your games I think the market

has drastically changed and you need to like we all need to change with it um and I think the the games have come to a place where operational uh awareness is critical it's not necessarily all about the next best feature it's how you operate them I think that's number one and then I think number two is is you know how the industry looks at Talent I think we're always trying to it kind of goes with number one but we're always trying to look at like you know where you know where we're trying to find the best resume so to say and I think that although that's very important I think there's you have to look internally to how people think and when you're interviewing people and training people and uh evaluating talent it's so much more about how people think uh rather than you know what they know um and so we're really we're really like leaning

in that direction of making sure that you know our interview processes the way we train people like it's it's finding those critical thinkers it's finding those um you know passionate uh hardworking individuals that um has been most successful for us got it and the uh the last question is like well kind of you kind of touched upon it a couple of times but like um what makes c playay a good place to work um look I think uh if you want to join a a place that's you know fastpaced where you're going to you know drink from a fire hose and learn more than anything you've learned in the in the past you know number of careers uh or number of years that you've been in this industry like s play is that place if you want to work with intelligent people who are passionate about what they do um who you know culturally are are going to high-five you in the hallway and and and

give you a hug when they see you like that's that's who sciplay is um we are you know very we're very open culture we're we're very um again uh excite like excitement is the is the phrase that I'll use like um and if you want to see people's faces like that's who we are because we're we're back in the office and we're proud of that so well that's um so s play is you know the third time you guys own on the podcast and and there's a reason for it because uh I think you're very methodical very structured uh company in a way you approach and make decisions and and grow your business and especially by focusing not on the shiny object outside but the uh the fundamentals of the business and the infrastructure of it the boring you know tools Tech platform things things that make you know you run rather than the uh the the newest features so always a pleasure pleasure to have you on uh

and uh I want to give a shout out in the end normally it's the shout out of the guest but I'm gonna give a shout out to to Matt Thompson who's a director of product at at cplay he's a he's an old uh colleague of mine from back Zinga days so um down there in in Austin Texas yeah yeah he's actually uh is he's he's in Mexico right now he he did I do not doubt that at all I know Matt Thompson pretty well we had we had our QB we had our qbrs yesterday and he and he popped in it was like Matt you're you're on vacation in Mexico but no he's yeah he's an amazing amazing dude like we're we're so lucky to have him and he he survived his first uh development conference so he's here to stay now that's good that's good I'm happy for him and happy happy for everybody not going to tell anything more about my relationship with Matt thomp we'll stop there a so anyway cam thank you so much

for for coming on podcast can't wait to to have more people from s playay really to learn about your business and and uh because it's like fundamentally very yeah well functioning so that's very interesting next time you're in the US like please please please hit us up uh love to to grab a drink or go out to dinner like uh be great so in Vegas hopefully yes yes yeah and then yeah and then after that yeah we won't we won't talk for a few days we'll be like all right I've had my time sounds like my time with Matt th anyway so uh well cam thanks thanks again for for hopping on a podcast and sharing all the insights absolutely we always uh we very much appreciate it and we're huge fans of your guys' show so uh keep doing an amazing job thank you and thank you everybody for listening all right bye bye bye you did it you made it to the end of the episode as a fan of the show it would

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