Games Marketing Predictions for 2024 with Eric Seufert

[Music] welcome welcome welcome everybody to the deconstructor of fun podcast today we have returning host Mr Eric sufor founder of mobile Dev memo the primary destination for all the modern marketing professionals founder of Heracles Capital an early stage Venture fund investing into the mobile ecosystem and the former marketing lead at companies like Roo wga Network so Eric welcome back to the podcast Misa thank you for having me happy New Year brother thank you thank you how's the how's the winter treating you cuz you're now almost at the same altitude so you've been enjoying that minus 20 Celsius yeah it's I guess it's warming up today so it'll be like minus five he heat waves and so I'm I'm currently in Estonia which is where my wife is from and we got here like mid December we're going to be here till February so we're

here for quite a stretch and we got here the weather was pretty nice it was like just below freezing so it's kind of nice and crispy there there's snow on the ground and then the temperature plummeted to uh to extremes that I don't think I've ever felt before like we go to Breen Ridge Colorado every year and it's cold there but I don't think it's ever been I don't think I've ever felt a temperature that cold I mean it was likeus 26 one day uh and uh it it's so cold that like the temperature in Centigrade and Fahrenheit like converges like there's not that much of a difference that's how cold it was um but yeah it was very cold I'm I'm not having much luck with weather for the last 12 months because we had like the most brutal summer in my lifetime in Texas it was like 105 degrees Plus for like 60 days in a row and then I came here and it was minus 20 but but warming up it's going to be just below freezing today and it's actually going to be above freezing later yeah it's been cold yeah your family is utterly unprepared for these type of colds especially living in in uh in in Austin yeah not

Houston you're from Houston but you're living in Austin you should see the park I bought them because I I I had project right before we flew out here and so I I had to be in San Francisco and so I flew back and I like the next day we were leaving so I packed like very quickly and I just threw a bunch of stuff in the suitcase basically and I packed a shell jacket so you know I had like a like a patagon jacket which just a shell yeah not not you know it plug it plugs into like an underjet uh and I only packed a shell so I was just freezing I went to I was one day it was minus 26 like I was like I got to upgrade my jacket so I went to the mall and I got this par that goes down to like below my knees and it's so thick that I look like a state puff marshmallow man walk but it's so warm and comfortable no I I yeah this is the place where you need to wear your Canada Goose but um we we're not here to talk about that uh even though those are and you actually went to see the Sonic Claus I want I want to want to hear about that more but uh we're here to talk about the mobile mobile app predictions I know people want us to jump in right into the

uh the topic and you've been writing these for I think what almost a decade now the the predictions for for uh for marketing yeah so I'm publishing I since like 20143 I've been publishing predictions I've done nine Mobile gaming predictions including this year's which will have been published one day before this podcast goes live and I think I've done eight mobile marketing so over the last 10 years some years I alternates and some years I do one and not the other but yeah so in total I've done nine mobile gaming predictions and eight mobile marketing predictions throughout the year yeah and in this podcast we're going to go five out of the the 10 predictions you're going to make in in all together and for folks listening um I'm just going to ask dumb questions because I don't totally understand things but I'm sure the other people are much smarter than myself listening and they want to dive deeper they should go to mobiledev memo.com and I believe these these predictions are for

subscribers only because you launched the the subscription tier and that will have a lot of details a lot of insights and I'm sure that you will need to go kind of back to a lot of these statement statements being made here to um to kind of you know uh reach that to check them again over the year so definitely suggest that people subscribe to mobile Dev memo well thank you for suggesting that but yeah let's di all right prediction number one let's just go into it so no more shilling uh oh actually no we got to do one more Shilling we're doing an event you are doing an event in Pocket Gamer connect I'm doing an event in Pocket Gamer connect uh so on Monday 22nd of January there's going to be mobile Dev memo happy hour it's a short walk away from the brewery where the Pocket Gamer connect is happening that is at 6:00 p.m. and it's going to last all the way till 11: p.m. uh I know sufor is a little bit of a DJ so you might be you might be getting a yeah I

didn't I didn't I didn't bring my gear I'm just gonna plug my phone in yeah you don't travel like U poly what's his name poly D you remember the DJ po but uh and then there there's a deconstructor fun event that is right next to the um to the brewery so just few steps you can get your first snacks couple of beers uh that's going to start at 5:00 p.m. so uh if you are maximizing and optimizing your event you go to deconstructor fund and then you continue your path towards the uh the MDM for the rest of the night with DJ Eric D yeah the registration link to go to Mev memo.com you'll just see the at the top of the page it says London happy hour um just click on that and register unfortunately I'm not going to be able to accommodate everyone uh there's limited space but um you know I hope to hope to give tickets to as many people as possible all right so prediction number one Microsoft could launch either a Stalone Mobile gaming at Network work to operate across stores or

it could launch a search ads product on its own gaming App Store similar to those that exist in the App Store um such as Apple search ads as well as the Google Play what's what's this prediction like where did yeah so so you remember that uh Microsoft had to make a lot of concessions to get the Activision deal done right and it had made a number of public pronounce ments um that I believe it thought would endear itself to the regulatory authorities right you might remember that they published their um open app store principles last year I don't remember exactly when I think it was February um but they basically they published this list of principles uh that they believe should guide the operation of an app store right and and they contrasted um in some very significant ways with the app store policy and Google Play policy right they they basically said look we if we if we were to launch an app store we'd want we want to Foster uh you know this open

environment uh where we wouldn't uh self- preference and we wouldn't prioritize our own apps and um you know we'd be transparent in fees that were charged and so they help us that and then in March of 2023 as you know this this deal was was being held up they said look if the deal goes through if we are allowed to acquire Activision we will create create our own uh Mobile gaming App Store in the EU once the dma goes new effect right so the dma is the sort of landmark EU law which allows these alternative app stores to exist or or forces the platform operators to allow these alternative app stores to exist and also forces them to allow for sideloading right and when Microsoft said was look hey Regulators here's another reason you should support this deal if you support this deal we're actually going to increase competition in this market we're GNA we're going to create our own mobile gaming App Store now they also said last year that they were going to expand their advertising operating in Xbox right they were going to bring ads to Xbox games right and so

I think if you look at all three of those things it seems uh reasonable to conclude that they would bring ads to this mobile gaming App Store that they're going to launch in Europe once the dma goes new there I think it's I mean I think that's I put that first in the pr because I think it's actually kind of a no-brainer right they already operate a big ad product or they they already operate um you know advertising technology which is Xander right they bought uh they bought a company a few years ago was it kind of quiet I think it was the year before last it was right before the end of the year it was during the holiday period they closed it after Nexus and they they call it Vander right and um that is what empowers Netflix's ads product is Xander right so Netflix doesn't have its own adtech they actually uh they have a deal with Microsoft Andro Powers uh Netflix's ad product well so they have the adte they're I'm almost certain they're going to create the mobile gaming app store right they had a big sort of reshuffle in the Xbox provision I think they've got a lot of you know Progressive uh fresh blood agressive ideas uh Forward

Thinking uh people leading the the gaming efforts there I'm fairly certain they're going to launch a mobile gaming App Store why wouldn't they introduce ads especially after the deal closed with Activision because what does that give them that gives them a massive footprint on mobile that's as of the last earnings so when when the deal was under consideration Activision wasn't publishing financials but they were still doing earnings reports and as of the last earnings report they published as an independent company uh they said that King had 238 million Maus right that's a massive quickprint you know across the entire Kandy Crush spr so just even starting there imagine that they built this they either so in the predictions I say okay either the Standalone ad Network that would look something like Unity something like app Lin something like you know vungle um either they create one of those and they sort of seed it with their own Ma footprint which is massive so that's that 238 that was just kidding that doesn't include Call of Duty that doesn't include the blizzard titles which I don't think that big but nonetheless it doesn't include Minecraft

which is for kids but nonetheless I they have a massive mobile footprint now what if they launch a mobile ad Network that's a little bit of a bigger lift but they could seed that with the existing ma right and then you know you could sell The Impressions that that lead to anywhere they don't have to lead to the App Store they don't have to lead to Google Play they can lead to the Microsoft app store right now the other option is if they just launch an app an app store and they have search ad right which is probably easier to implement that just looks exactly like it looks in Google Play and in in the App Store you search for a keyword and they've got an ad at the top of the sech search results but that that's my prediction my prediction is is in 2024 Microsoft launches their mobile gaming store and they it it they also uh you know in in parallel they launch some kind of AD product that allows for distribution even in their own store or across all the store yeah it kind of makes the uh the first part where you say they built their own at Network and populated through through King and Activision and blizzard and so forth makes more sense because I'm having a hard time

understanding how Microsoft's own store let's say if I like a Samsung store could be uh you know could offer some kind of a powerful value over what Google play or or iOS store offers like what what am I not seeing like what would make Microsoft App Store relevant well um it's Microsoft right so they have the wherewithal to promote it right I mean like here's my my and we might get to this I don't I don't remember if this is one of the predictions that um that I included to talk about in the podcast but yeah the issue with the dma is I think a lot of people are overly optimistic about how much it's actually going to change right so I think the dma really what it does is it opens the door for like a couple of the largest companies in the world to create app stores but it's going to be very difficult to compete with the defaults right unless you have you know the balance sheet you know the the financial wherewithal to promote it right and Microsoft does Epic does maybe maybe bve does maybe Nintendo does maybe

Sony does but there's a handful of companies that that probably could launch and gain any sort of traction with a mobile app store and we'll also talk about side loing and why I don't maybe I I can't remember if we will talk about that but I talk about the predictions I don't think side side loading is going to be a meaningful um is gonna sort like be a meaningful consumer Behavior Uh in Europe even when it's allowed under the dma right so first of all it's already allowed on Android right and no one uses it no app app Developers for the most part don't publish games that way uh very few installs happen that way and it's hard for me to believe that consumer Behavior would be meaningly different on Apple than it is on Android where it's already allowed but if you're Microsoft first of all you have the ability to promote this mobile gaming App Store you've got the Xbox platform that you can use to kind of cross promote and drive awareness you can do kind of like second screen Integrations um and then they've got the Xbox Connect user base which as of the last touch point was like 25 million subscribers right so they have connectivity to some you know this this sort of gaming user 25 million is not that much uh you know in in in terms of the App Store which I think the last time Apple

published any sort of metrics I could be misremembering this but they had 600 million Wows so weekly acuses so 25 million is not a lot but it's Microsoft right and you know they have the ability to to build this they have the ability to promote it and and and gain distribution now the other thing they have are their own gains right so you could imagine that you know they make their own games some subset of their own games exclusively available there you know they could push more people to down loed um now keep in mind dma only impacts the EU and so we're always really talking about the EU here we're not talking about globally um but my sense is at some point the US follows suit maybe not with legislation but there'll be Pro probably more through litigation right so the App Store is they have a there's a big there's likely to be a big doj suit filed against Apple this year and it targets its practices you know related to um competition and you know one of those practices you the

way that they treat developers at the App Store so and consumer so my sense is this will also these sort of like competition reforms will happen in the US too and you know if there is a company that can gain traction with an independent gaming store it is Microsoft they obviously see gaming as a a important priority for them right and um you know they they spelled out like there there were the Leakes documents that came out of their um out of the uh the the um regulatory scrutiny from the uh from the proposed merger or acquisition and they they had spelled out there's a memo that that got leaked and it said yeah gaming and advertising are two biggest priorities to the company right so given that You' want to have a seal pred on mobile yeah if I can build upon your prediction I would say this is this is something that Henrik s founder of play venture or the the founding partner of play Venture has been uh made this prediction I think

that and I agree with him I think that uh Microsoft buys unity and with that they get two things first of all they get access to atte especially for mobile uh and quite a big of an inventory and secondly they will make their App Store much better or not much better but much more viable because if they would say uh should you publish your games exclusively on Microsoft app store we will wave the uh the unity runtime fee and now you get to populate it with all these games and that way it becomes a prominent platform what do you think about that type of prediction I I don't understand why they would want to do that and I can understand why Unity would want to sell to Microsoft I I don't know that they could get that done from a regulatory standpoint especially if they were operating an app store right it kind of feels like you get to do one or the other you either get to have the dominant game publishing engine on mobile or you get to have an an app store but I don't think you get to do both um the year runtime fee I think that was

so poorly understood and it became such a firestorm that I think um it for whatever reason the fact that most developers were going to have to pay that was neglected like even even with the first set of terms I mean it wasn't going to apply to that many developers it was going to apply to zingos in the world and you know the the SC supercells of the world and the kings of the world but I don't think that it wasn't going to apply to the majority of developers right there a r rual so they just weren't very clear about it like they didn't publish that with a calculator if they published that with a calculator I don't think any there would have been near the controversy that that erupted they just didn't have a calculator so people had no idea what they were going to owe because the problem was it was going to be dependent if a Gio it gonna be Goo uh it was going to be the B was GNA be calculated by Geo and so you had to look at your Dow by Goo like you're installs by Gio and and then you'd have to calculate the fee and then you'd have to look at the threshold I mean and especially in in the um the form it takes now it's like the vast majority of developers don't have to

worry about this I mean I had startups in my portfolio saying oh we need to switch engines I'm like why build successful game first if if you qualify for the runtime B uh then then then let's talk that then then then you're doing well but uh don't don't start freaking out you know pre soft launch um about this hypothetical fee that you might have to pay in success yeah that's uh that's well put but yeah yeah I think yeah okay I got it the regulatory issues will be I mean Microsoft is facing them all front so that's probably the the biggest hurdle to overcome but you know looking at where Unity is going I think their CEO is former Microsoft I think he was the CEO of red hat that was acquired by Microsoft and now um so there's there's a lot of things that are pulling towards this direction where where Unity would find a very nice home inside Microsoft's portfolio so but I understand the uh the regulatory issues so something you touched upon was the uh was was the MD dma act uh no not MDMA act dma dma MDMA

act I just lost yeah it's a dma act and and your prediction number two was actually that less than 10% of game monetization in the EU shifts to sideloaded apps or alternative inapp payments as the dma goes into effect and something that you wrote that I I would like to understand a little bit better you said uh Google and presumably Apple will mely discount the fee it applies to inapp payments collected in apps that are downloaded from Google Play by 3% what does that mean or off platform right so um yeah so let me just take a step back so do you remember at do Istanbul two years ago yes uh the first one and I said hey who here in this audience knows what the dma is the DSA is and no one raised their hands right I mean this is this is you this has been um the the law

was passed more than two years ago right I mean it's not new um and you know I published about it then but I think there's been a lot of attention paid to it recently because it goes the dma goes no facts in in March right um so basically what happened was with the dma they have all these the set of criteria that determines which companies are so-called Gatekeepers right so Gatekeepers is a term they came up with um that you know desribes these companies that these restrictions to to which these restrictions apply right so if you're a gatekeeper the restrictions apply so they published the list of Gatekeepers last year and then say okay got six months to come into compliance so that's March right so we know who The Gatekeepers are we know what restrictions apply to them and come Marge they're going to apply right like these Gatekeepers um you know will need to be compliant um or face you know pretty substantial FS right and so what they've all been formulating their complaints right and so now taking

another step back and I'll get I'll get the point in a second but there's some interesting background I think that needs to cover first so we already have cases where alternative inapp purchases are mandated or the the ability to implement Alternatives in that purchas or mandate right South Korea they pass a law that requires that these platform operators allow alternative inapp inof platform purchases right and um in the meal dating apps right there was yeah this case uh 2021 I published a lot about it with dating apps in the Netherlands the competition Authority said no for whatever reason they they narrowed the scope for just dating apps but they said look you've got to allow alternative inapp purchases off platform purchases and so what Apple did in the netherland's case said okay fine we'll allow this but here's what you have to do you have to publish a separate uh bundle you have to implement this model that when you try to make the alternative purchase whether it's inapp or off platform going off platform to make it on the web you have to implement this model that says hey you're leaving

apple is not responsible for whatever happens to you it's it's very scary language it's very prescriptive language you couldn't edit it for the most part similar to at prom right it says look you know all bets are off you're clicking out this person's gonna this person's gonna process his transaction we can't guarantee that it won't be fraudulent and you won't you might not be able to do re get it refunded um and then you all this reporting this this extra recing to to tell Apple what purchases were made through these alternative uh systems and on top of that you still had to pay a fee you still had to pay a fee they they discount the fee by 3% so instead of 30 it's 27 instead of 15 it's 12 so why would anybody do that so do you were using stripe let's say you're using stripe on the web to process these these payments right or or even in the app right you got to click on the mod the user is going to click on the modal that says hey look all bets are off you know we can't guarantee that this is safe we can't guarantee that they're going to honor this but you know you know proceed at your own risk okay that's already converged friction then uh they okay let's say they

complete the checkout you might use apple Bay you can still use apple Bay so you don't necessarily need to enter your credit card information but uh so let's say you just use Apple pay there's no friction there it's just Apple pay complete the transaction that's fine strike charges a fixed speed per transaction on top of the uh percentage of the transaction price and so like I calculated that you know in in the Netherland if you use strike to process these transactions uh when you account for the fixed speed plus the percentage of the transaction price uh it would have been like 50% like the the overall fees paid would have been like 50% and so that's you know that's obviously much more than the 30% of the 15% that Apple's in charge and so what what developer would do that right so we've already got pres and and they both do the same thing in South Korea they discount the fee by 4% not instead of three but they both do the exact same thing in South Korea they they they Institute all those frictions and they still charge a fee on the transaction right and you have to implement these uh entitlements right like it's in app you these entitlement that basically register the purchases

right and do the reporting and so what Google said was like look they they published their compliance like a month or two ago and they said yeah okay to comply with the dma we're going to allow alternative inapp in off platform purchases but you still have to pay the Fe you can discount the fee by 3% if you don't offer the Google Play checkout as an option and 4% if you do okay great so you save three to 4% but now you've got to implement stripe you've got to do all this other stuff you've got to pay the extra fee right so who is going to do that why would that change anything now the thing is if you sideo the app then they have no sort of uh they have no sort of rights to their transactions because it's not it it hasn't been delivered through their store and so they don't get to Institute the entitlements but then you've got to S then you've got to get people to sideload it and what Google said so Google just Google had a big class action suit in the US that they just resolved in September but the terms of it didn't come out until last month and what they said and it and it was a it was this class action suit from I think 30 something States they sued uh Google Google settled they didn't take the

court they didn't take the the case to court but as part of the settlement they have to like reduce the the the twep modal so like if you want to S load an app on Android it's like two steps now it'll just be one but they still get to have the warning right they had to tone it down that was part of the settlement they still got still got to exist right so you still got the the scary popup model but but the other problem is I think just like people are so used to downloading apps through Google Play and in the App Store and I think if you want to get someone to download your app like from the web on your phone which is scary proposition because it's it's totally new and untested now maybe over time it's consumer behaviors changed but certainly at the start it's GNA be hard to you I think you have to have a lot of existing consumer trust and who has that there's a handful of companies that have that fortnite couldn't even get that fortnite couldn't even gain tracktion with side load and they they ultimately capitulated they published on Google Play because they said the modal prevented us from gaining any traction with the installs but they were also subject to lot of fraud people just started publishing uh apps called

fortnite and they were fraudulent apps they actually had like they had they had trouble with that and ironically enough it was a Google engineer that pointed it out uh so you know there there's a lot of friction to getting people to sideload apps my sense is you know you look I mean I'm sympathetic to developer I I work for a lot of gaming companies right I'm sympathetic to the fact that the 30% fee on I on oneoff I APS and even the 15 % on your two subs I'm sympathetic to the fact that that's probably not an appropriate uh percentage of Revenue to take in the year 2024 right because just having access to the App Store of Google Play doesn't provide that much of a benefit you still need to support the product of marketing right you still you know the the the sort of the the visual Fidelity the quality of games I mean it's requires a lot more upfront investment I mean I I I am sympathetic to the fact that that that that level of a fee is probably inappropriately high

but the stores do provide benefit it's not like they provide zero benefit I mean they provide a lot of safety they provide uh you know editorial duration um they they provide easy access to uh tax reporting and transactions right I mean like these are not trivial things these are not trivial uh benefits to to provide and so it's not zero right and I think a lot of companies you know they while they would prefer it to pay zero um it's it's it's it's only the companies that could afford to build those kind of tools themselves that are really advocating for that right because I think most small businesses and a lot of these small business remember they're not paying 30% anyway they're paying 15% because both platforms have a small business program yeah right that that caps the B at a c under a certain Revenue threshold I think a lot of those small business would say no you know this is a fair deal 15% for getting all of these tools and systems um I think is a they they would probably they would probably rather do that than not have the option to to access those those those those tools and that functionality

yeah I I agree with that like there's a lot of things being said about side loading and how you can directly download it from an ad and it just goes to a web page and download a different app that is not on on the store not probably the biggest businesses but I'm curious on your take on the uh the alternative payment providers because with the dma you can actually advertise web stores and we've been seeing that these web stores have been having quite a boom I've heard of of some of the top grossing games actually making these days almost 50% of their revenue from the web stores because they've clearly moved their payers to make the payments outside the app and of course those are a little bit different than people just downloading an app they know they've been engaging with the game for for years and now they can get more value for their purchase by making them directly um how are how is dma affecting those like not the side loads but more pushing players to to make purchases through web stores rather than through the

platform so um well I mean that obviously already exists right it's just that the discovery mechanism is independent of the app right like this is you know so there there's kind of two cases that have changed this a little bit and this is this is Meaningful but this is very different from alternative inapp and alternatives inapp to off platform right because alternative inapp off platform is like hey buy this click this click this button and I'll take you to a web page right which again that's the friction there right that's alternative inapp to off platform that is what gets Allowed by the dma having a web store is already you know it's already a pretty widespread phenomenon right and it has been for for a while especially like health and fitness apps like if you look at a lot of health and fitness apps you know especially now the majority of their usmen might be on the web not even in app they're driving people to the website getting them to register there get them to purchase there and then getting them to download the app now a lot of times it's are cross functional right because it's fairly it's much more these these apps are much more basic right than a game which you can't

really most mobile games wouldn't be able to be played on the web right but um but that's that's been that's been a sort of like dominant phenomenon in in some in some categories on on mobile for a while just just pushing the pushing the transaction of the web now with games like to your point yeah some of the top prods in games I mean they're they're generating a substantial proportion of the revenue on the web like you look at plka publicly traded right so they they um disclose this is 25% 25% of the revenue generated on the web they call it DBC right so it's it's an important source of Revenue that doesn't change too much in the dma but where that might change is um so there's kind of two cases here that have altered the landscape a little bit one was a class action lawsuit from developers against Apple that got settled I want to say it was in 2022 um it maybe in early 2023 I don't remember what up my head but um basically in that suit uh they reached a settlement and apple said okay you know what where where it was previously um not allowed for developers to

contact uh uh app users outside of the app they allowed that so now you can collect their email and then you can send an email to them after they've like registered and said hey and you say look um you know there's this there's this uh inapp purchase or there's this subscription in the app it's this much on the web it's this much so why don't you click through and and and buy on the web right so that that's been a lot for a while that hasn't that hasn't changed you know the Dynamics of the industry too much but it's it's allowed the other was the outcome of the Aris of the Epic the Apple case right so if you remember epic VA Apple it was uh decided in 2021 and in 2021 and the J basically rejected all but one of epics U of the counts in in epic's lawsuit but the one where they did um side with epic was that developers should be allowed to link to account management portals from within the app which could include you know registrations and and payments right and so Apple appealed it and it went to the

N District appeals court the appeals court upheld the decision Apple appealed that to the Supreme Court um and now you know we're waiting for the Supreme Court to either hear it or just reject it if they reject it then I think they all side with the appeals court epic sued to have the decision go into effect immediately and that got overturned by the Supreme Court that got rejected by the Supreme Court so until the Supreme Court will either hear the case or they'll reject the case um in which case the ninth District's ruling will stand which is that Apple must allow companies to lay to these account management systems from within the web from within the app now the question there is does the entitlement system still apply because it might so if they if if they're just saying look you can link to your website from within the app and on your website you may to make purchases register whatever but you still have to use our external entitlements program right um that applies to yeah you know the the alternative payments now in South Korea

Netherlands and soon the and soon the EU as a result of the dma now I don't know that's that seems un clear to me um although they do have an external account linking system for reader apps right so reader apps are like this group of apps that are like basically Exempted from all these different restrictions in the app store they have that carve out for reader apps now where the there is no fee applied right the the problem is you know I wrote piece about this a while back called the App Store is a game store Apple's App Store Services revenue is you know 80% 90% games I mean because basically every other category is Exempted and so I think they're going to try to cling to these fees for as long as they can one one idea I have that I thought about including as a prediction but I think it's it's probably not plausible was that they just increased the revenue threshold for the small business program because the thing is like once you get that small if you you could find like the optim Revenue threshold that maintains you

know a big chunk of your app store Services Revenue while also exempting just like the a massive majority of all developers if they found that Revenue threshold which is let's call like two and a half million right it's like okay we're gonna lose some revenue from this but it's going to be like you know 05% of devs that suppli to and so you're just going to get a lot more Goodwill from the the majority of the de developer Community they might they could do that I don't think they will but if they did that I feel like it would achieve a lot they lose a little bit of Revenue but it'd be like the biggest developers that were paying the fee and so you could say well what are you complaining about you're a huge developer you're huge company but all like the vast majority of like smbs and smaller developers would be would be Exempted or they'd have to to be only at 15% which I think probably would at least gain them like a lot of Goodwill I don't know you know so so maybe that would be an option But but so I don't know about how the dma impacts direct linking to the web stores I feel like then they' still just imp apply the entitlements I think the only way that you get to avoid the V all together with the web store is if all

the discovery of that web store happens outside of the app interesting so so what you're saying is just to recap is that if I see if inside of the game I'm playing my whatever Clash of Clans or Candy Crush and I'm seeing an ad or when I'm going to buy more lives or whatever it is they give me two options I can do it either inside the app or I can leave the app and go to the web shop and and buy stuff from there if I do that and if it's promoted to me inside the app then Apple will come back and basically ask for 25% and I'll end up paying more because of the uh the trans transaction cost that that will be occurring outside uh the app but if I'm just you know cruising on Instagram or Tik Tok and there will be add for a web shop to do exact same purchase in an app that I already have on my phone then that one is going to be exempt of that Apple's 25% or Google's 25% yeah because Apple had nothing to do

with that that was advertised in the web that was like fulfilled on the web and it just it just so happens to we delivered in the app Apple wouldn't really be able to know about that how would they even know that it happened got it so so in this case the CRM systems that these big Publishers have is quite important because if they can directly Target the user through email campaigns that that seems to be the uh the most effect or even text messages if they have that information their CR system then they can promote the sales uh and without Apple or Google taking a portion out of it yeah sorry I mean I mean SMS not push but yes exactly yeah so if you're commun and you're allowed to do that now right because of that class action lawsuit um but yeah I mean like I think one thing to keep in mind with with these companies it's like it's hard to get optimistic about any these changes because they're going to try to claim to this Revenue however they can right and so like kind of just like first principles is Apple really going to give this away like you think Apple's not going to I mean like Google's analysts are going to take the fee and

they've both been doing it in South Korea but like you really think they're just going to give up they're going to give up on this they're going to walk away I mean they're gonna fight this tooth and nail they're taking this that that epic decision to the Supreme Court like they don't want to give anything away and that's just a link inside the air which already is going to introduce more frictions than just being able to double click I mean one thing that like and I mean I'd love to hear your thoughts on this but like I think one thing that people don't generally understand about especially in in-game I is it's like these are the ultimate impulse purchases I mean except for like certain types of games where you have genuine like whale behavior and you got you know a lot of the reg driv through like liveops and competitions and Guild play and stuff like that where people actually make I think um you know calculated decisions about what they're buying in a puzzle game you think if someone actually spent more than two seconds considering that they'd still do it this is like buying the National enquire at the grocery store it's like you know what I mean it's it's buying a pack of gum that you can eat one piece of and throw the rest away these are impulse Buy and if you have to think about it for more than half a second and you have to do more than just double

click the side button are you really going to continue doing it I think developers going to see that it's like I think some developers I think have like they just deluded themselves into how critical these iaps are to their players lives and happiness right and how habitual their games have become in their lives versus just like yeah I'm on a toilet like I guess I could use this uh uh these extra Gems or whatever yeah no I I 100% AG and that's why I think we're seeing the effect already of the web stores uh taking place on certain genres and not on the certain ones like we seeing that the more casual the puzzle games are doing better than ever and then we're seeing clear Revenue decline in the more core Brands and core genres and sometimes we're not even seeing the decline of downloads we're just seeing the decline of of Revenue and this is looking at uh data AI data for example but then when you start talking to some of these Studios behind some of the top grossing games they're saying that hey we are making money hand over a fist through

web stores these days we're just not public about it um whatever the reasons are but you know i' I've heard from you know top Publishers saying 50% of that game's revenue is coming in and then when I look at the uh the Revenue data of that game on data AI it says like the game is down by 35% it's like I don't knowly offsets but you know clearly well that's that's the thing about I talked about in the predictions post so newu said that the mobile Gaming revenue is down 1.6 but that didn't account for web revenue and my senses it's probably flat maybe even up a little bit when you do account for web Revenue because it is the more core games from the biggest Studios that can Implement that and you know I've talked about this a lot with you know related to like the power of these web stores is that you can construct any kind of bundle you want any kind of discount you want it's so the web is so much more flexible of a platform for doing for building a storefront right because you know if you do it in the app you know

unless you build like a whole custom system for this but you still have to register all the different IPS right and so you know and they Apple expanded the number but still it's it's it's onerous and then if you have to make a big change you have to push an update which takes time if you want to do that on the web like you can do anything you want it's infinite flexibility right so okay you know someone's a high monetizer construct like this really um intricate bundle for them that's like very high price point and for the games that do have that sort of like deep well of retention and that sort of like flat longterm protection where there's either the competitive component um you know or the guil play where you know it's more social like that those kind of games I think are are are the best positions to benefit from that now on the Casual side well the Casual side is what everyone ping do post at right so they can still kind of do distribution efficiently right and that's why you've seen you know a lot of the Casual games like the sort of the iaps based casual games take take over that the you know top top 10 downloaded in grossing ranks to some extent because that's where everyone is letting into post at and you know C Candy Crush is is is has you know been

doing like Gang Busters the last two years because they have the exact type of game that is uh very efficiently promoted post at whereas all the core stuff they're basically just uh you know I don't want to say exploiting but they're they're an extraction phase on the existing user bits yeah dream games the same thing and um yeah no no this is definitely we'll see the the correct data when supercell comes out with their um real numbers because they have to publicize them as being F based they have to show their balance sheets they have to show their their income statements and then we can start comparing that to the uh the data AI data and kind of see what the uh what the uh Delta is between those because we also know that they're not making significant inapp ad Revenue through their games so that will give us uh a nice nice view and they have done a lot of investments into the the supercell store store uh I think they just hired recently some some uh some pretty heavy

hitter from Japan to uh to further take the uh the the supercell store to the uh the next level so that will be interesting Evolution because that's I think the most transparent version of that Trend that we can see yeah scope scopely too though I mean if you go and look at the scopely store I mean it's it's pretty extensive they are they are doing from all the hearsay is they're doing extremely well but the problem is we don't know scopy numbers and it's very hard for us to to compare those and also scop does significant Revenue I believe they have a lot of uh you know the yatsi games and so so the it's going to be harder to find the Delta but with supercells like whatever four games that they're making most of their revenue from uh we'll be able to uh to see that and compare it to the the the income numbers from from the um filed reports um so moving on to prediction number three uh you said that the uh the cohort of 2020 and 2022 of mobile gaming studi so basically Studios that were founded during the uh the lockdown periods uh

face a fundraising Reckoning and I think this is a very interesting uh prediction because I was in that cohort of 2020 and 2020 between 2020 and 2022 and I 100% agreed with the statement already during the slash of 2021 so um so why do these companies face a reckoning there's a bunch of reasons so one is I mean it was just it was uh it an absolute frenzy right I I actually changed the prediction in the edited version It's 2021 to 2022 so I I kind of narrowed it a little bit but um there was just a frenzy right I it was investment frenzy I mean you could get three friends together and go raise 1.5 million for a studio you know in a week um and you know so for that reason I mean a lot of BC funds were raised to exploit that um Moment In Time big funds um and a lot of teams forms uh just to

chase the opportunity I mean there there was an incredible spike in engagement I people were locked down they're at home people were playing a lot more they're spending a lot more time playing mobile G yeah and um the problem is a lot of teams that wouldn't have been able to raise money when the standards were higher were able to right um and a lot of teams that were not really equipped to build and ship a game were able to raise money where they wouldn't have been able to you know in 2019 or or now right um and you the other Pro so that's one problem it's just I think the quality bar was lower the quality bar to invest in these teams was lower and I think there wasn't a lot of you know the same kind of rigor for you know an analyzing the the the prospects of a team that was applied in 2019 was not applied in 2021 right the C Miss team like you know de

the question you have to asked yourself I mean like sort of like the the initial VAR to clear right or like the sort of like the the um the kind of minimal standard to apply to making a gaming company investing it's like in this team ship a game and what proof do I have of that because if you can't ship nothing else really matters I don't care about your game design dock or your you know the the intricate you know game economy spreadsheet like if you can't get something into people's hands that's really hard it's really hard to do it's really hard to ship something um can can you can you extricate yourself from analysis paralysis and can you ship an MVP that provides enough data to help guide you in making inative improvements such that you can globally launch it that's it that's that's that's your TK as a as an early stage gaming sort of right and a lot of it I think a lot of teams that got parted just can't do that right and what's happening now is you know they're coming to the end of their um their raise their seed raay

their preed and they don't have anything to show for it right or they you know they've got a prototype they no metrics and the question is like are their existing VCS going to write another check right and and my sense is no not and so so there's kind of two issues um that intersect here the first is that this the the standard was lower so like companies that raised money in that period probably wouldn't have been able to raise money before they wouldn't be able to raise money now right um the second is that there's just much more uncertainty about the future of the mobile gaming space there there was a lot of volatility there's a lot of uncertainty because of at and because of the other privacy restrictions that um are impending right so you've got the the GID deprecation now I I talk in my marketing predictions I don't think that's going to happen 2024 but you push that off to 2025 the sooner it happens the sooner that gets clarified right so that that's actually like a bad thing for the near-term fundraising environment because people are like well it's okay if it doesn't happen in 2024 it happens 225 I'll wait till 2025 to write checks and game again right but there's just a lot more uncertainty

around the prospects for mobile gaming and so VCS are being very conservative like rightly so a lot of gaming VCS don't have backgrounds in gaming like they don't understand the space with the same level of detail that like an operator would and so they're going to default to being very conservative right um now in some ways they're not because they're chasing you know other markets that I would say are probably even more challenged than mobile like console like you're making an Overworld console game ra million you can compete with Rockstar console numbers are down the the PlayStation numbers got got leaked 3 million fewer units got sold right uh this year last year so what where's the where's the op where's the optimism there but anyway that's a sideb um uh but you know so but anyway VC's are are taking a sort of like very skeptical eye to Mobile gaming and so they're just not making uh they're they're not you know as willing to sort of like make multiple in the same company if they haven't you know brought any data to Bear to help with the decision and so what you're

seeing is a lot of gaming Studios and this is kind of like a lazy prediction because it's already kind of happening um but a lot of gaming Studios raise a million 1.5 two million they're out of Runway they've got a prototype VCS are like look if you had data it' be different or look if you find a lead I'll invest but you got to find a new lead that's a no everybody knows that's a no if you find a lead that's a no just say if you find a lead on M I'm not going to lead dude I've seen deals where the company has data they have good data they have impressive data and their lead is saying I'm not going to lead this round you got to find another lead if you find another lead off where they have data so if you're coming with the Prototype there's just I this just it's just an unacceptable risks and like you know I've had to face the same position it's like look how do I go to my LPS and say I double down on this like how could I do that I I I wouldn't be able to justify that decision and so I I think you're going to see like uh a ShakeOut in that vintage now I want to be clear what I'm not saying is I'm not saying the early stage

uh you know early stage funding will continue to be as challenged in 2024 as it was 2023 for new companies right so I think I do think it'll get a little bit easier race preed or seed call preed I think it'll be a little bit easier preed in 2024 than3 2023 like basically nothing is getting done I mean unless you're unless you were famous unless you know you coming out of one of these big companies and you're basically famous but um 2024 I think it'll be a little bit easier to raise you know your first round of capital with you know an All-Star team that is proven success before and and can demonstrably ship a game but I think there there is no Bridge round for the 2021 2022 companies like there's no follow on like no one's coming to save you save yourself get data get the soft launch as fast as you can get data and prove that you've got a scalable title that's the only that's the only basis on which you'll raise all on funding yeah even the data is very difficult like I talk to a lot of Founders and they get you know different investors ask them for totally different

data somebody might be asking for early retention somebody's asking for later retention somebody's asking for roas like they don't even like investors don't even know what they're asking anding anding and they just don't want to invest into you like there's something that is offputting so they're just going to throw in random numbers uh random data points that you will not achieve like you don't you can't achieve day 30 on your on your MVP like that's just not going to happen or if it does then just take a bank loan like it's it's an amazing right Mor if you got like 40% day 30 just mortgage your house don't take any well that's the problem me it's like how are you gonna get to day three 30 numbers anyway so okay I'm doing UA at 500 bucks a day I'm buying let's say I'm buying 500 users I'm getting cheap you know let's say I'm getting a thousand users well okay my day 30 retentions what it's it's it's whatever let's let's say it's 50% so i' got five 500 users what the hell

that's gonna be so volatile you'll never be able to trust that data 500 users a day 30 per day per cohort like you can't trust that dat it's going be all over the map yeah and and there's something that you mentioned also in the prediction or I think you mentioned this was the the high valuation so in 21 yes definitely 2020 the Valu like more companies got funded but the valuation didn't quite start going you know right but in 21 the uh the precedes were like multi-millions already and when we're talking about preed so the folks do understand preced is when you go to an investor investor comes to you you don't yet have much you might have a deck an idea or not even that and then the investor says like hey I'm going to give you money so you can start going forward already bringing the team and start working on it so that's basically the uh the preed and then C is when you're really working you might have a demo that you work bootstrapped or or you know have a more of a plan and then series a is when you have traction that's when you are scaling and you're

raising that big fund so what we're talking about is that the uh those companies that raised preed and Seed uh either or both are now having trouble because they haven't had the time to reach the traction and they are not getting resources going forward but the the the other element there was the the high valuation so can you talk a little bit about how that is an issue if you got a very big precede you just had an idea me and my buddy the VC came in said hey we like where you're heading here's $3 million that's going to be your preed round and that puts your valuation at something then we raise a 10 million seed so now our valuation is somewhere around 25 million or maybe 30 million how how is that an issue and what does down round which is following if you make an investment at a at a lower portion what does it mean for investors Founders and employees so basically just can you a little bit talk about the issues of high valuation in this climate yeah so that's a good question

so that's really important so the the Down Round is essentially when you raise a subsequent round of capital at a lower valuation than the previous round right so it's bad for a lot of reasons it's not deadly right it it's not fatal doesn't have to be but it's just bad it's un it's unfortunate and um it's not ideal um but the problem is so first of all it's Optics now the Optics aren't that important in gaming they're less important I mean everyone knows what happened in 20222 so it's it's probably less important for for that vintage in gaming um and then the other thing is like everyone well you know you see these valuations jump if you launch a hit game so it doesn't really matter if you take a 25% haircut or something pre Global launch but you're very very confident that the game is going to take off and be a hit and be scalable then that's all that really matters I mean you'll you'll make that back up right so it's it's not problematic where it's really problematic is just everyone uh gets deloted out right so existing

investors get deloted out like a lot of times gaming companies have you know three four co-founders and so they're already kind of like squeezed on the equity and and um especially if they taking one or two rounds they've they've carved out ESOP so it's everyone's gonna get diluted out and you know you get to a point where if the Down Round significant and up the the founders may not have enough skin in the game to really care right um you know and so especially if took like a $20 million seed or something like just you're you're not going to get that even at it you might get that at an a especially if you're because wa let me talk about let me talk about like milestones in a second but like so so that's the real problem it's optically it's not great but you know that's not you know existential um it's not great for morale because you've got existing employees getting deloted out um the founders may not be incentivized anymore if they get deled too much and just the investors might not they going get deluded right um and where it could be really problematic though is like where the existing investors don't think

it's necessary it's like no okay you don't need to take a Down Round so I I think I think we can just get this out and group The metrics out and then um you know then we'll be able to raise round at you know flat valuation or up valuation right and that's a big risk what you can't if you could have taken if you if you if you you could have taken the money we turn it down and then you know the game flops and now you've got a pivot and you got no more money left well then what are your existing investors going to say then sorry but so I mean like so that it could also just get like very political right but so yeah it's problematic it's not the end of the world um if you know I I think it's probably better to do it than to to roll the dice and and just hope you can get the game in market and get the metrics uh proven to the extent that you can raise the valuation at flatter up but I mean everyone knows like it with games it's it you know these things go non- layer right if it's a hit game you know it fast right you know it early you know fast right and um and so you know you'll catch back up

with the valuation whatever whatever you lost if it really does end up being a hit game um but but I think where maybe there's like some lack of clarity with Founders is like what the expectations are at the different you know stages of financing right so I think you know you're definition of preed is really good your definition of seed is really good um I would say with seed I probably want see some concept art you know I want to see some concept art I want I probably want to see like some sort of like vertical slice I want to see some some code you have to build something I want to get a test flight with a I think A's are getting done when you've got a game and soft launch the metrics look great and you're ready to scale to Global that's what you're raising the a to do it's like we're raising the a because this game is ready to go baked and it's ready to go we've proven it out we've proven it out in soft launch they give us five million give us 10 million and we're gonna scale this thing and we're gonna blow it out and we're going to be making a ton of Revenue um we've got like a two-year scale plan and then we've also got you know uh game two uh

stepped out and ready to start development in a year and that's what this money is going to go towards right that to my mind is is how you raise an A and so you're going with you're going to VCS for an A and you know you're still n soft launch or you've done a couple of like soft launch tests and Tech tests but the mentors aren't really reliable it's like well what am I giving you money for to keep developing this thing I those I just see those deals getting dark and what does that company do they either take a risk by cutting it really close on their Runway um to try to get some metrics that they think are uh you know uh convincing and compelling and then try to get the deal done really fast with like three or six months left or they start you know eight months out and if you're doing that you know you've got to have the metrics already right so I think like it's it's just my advice to anybody in that situation is you got to cut burn cut the team down to the bone to

whatever is needed to get something in the market and get metrics together because I don't think anybody's going to double down youris investor probably going to double down unless unless you have proven traction right and that sucks to hear and like you know there may be some VCS like oh it doesn't what he talking about we definitely will we but like maybe I'll just have to you know I might I might just have to sit to spell out to hard treer I don't think it's gonna happen yeah that's an interesting point you made uh cut it down to the uh to the Bone and I've been seeing that quite a lot so part of the other the the layoffs that I believe we'll be seeing this year are the ones that are coming through the startups um they have been already getting lighter but I think a lot of them will as you say go bust and and will need to make some radical measures maybe pivots and they will go back to sort of a founding teams pretty much and I've been seeing you know VCS have been pushing their Founders to tighten the belt since since

what since June last year and I've seen some of these teams go into skeleton Crews with Founders like barely taking any salary while trying to keep the lights on yeah I have I have two points there like I have certain companies that I've you know invested earlier and they are unfortunately in this point and they might have their game in certain of a kind of like an early soft launch and they are really really Lean Like few people left and and not that many months left and I'm I'm almost telling them like dude just call it a day just you know fight to live another live live to fight another day rather than go down with the ship because I I think they could struggle and eat up their savings and what I'm seeing is like this is not going to change so I think um I think there's a point also where you can Retreat I've seen some of the Investments that I've made they've basically you know given a portion back to the investors and said hey hey we're this is not going to work and then we'll rather close it down now make it fair to

the employ employees make it you know fair to everybody we don't have what it takes so we're going to we're going to you know call it quits rather than slam our heads against the uh the wall like what's your what's your take on that like is is there either or or should you always kind of tighten the belt and go to the end well I think there's a couple so a couple reactions to that one is if you do tighten the belt and you get your burn down significantly your existing investors you're probably more likely to put some more money in right because if if that gets you to the point where you can raise the next round and and all it takes is like 250 versus 700 because you you know because you you uh you cut a lot of expenses then then yeah you probably have a there there's probably it's probably more realistic that your invest your existing investors will support you to get to that point but but you're gonna have to spell out the path from here to there very clearly right it's like okay we've got we've got three Sprints left we know exactly what we need to do we've got metrics that prove that these are what we need to address and think with each one of these Sprints we're going to address this this and

this and by the time we finish this out we need 100K 200k to do that then we will have Med and that includes UA spend because we're going to be gathering data right we're going to be gathering feedback uh from the market on the the the you know the the efficacy of a game and at that point we will have a case we will have a case that is that we feel like is compelling to to raise another round on that that's a possibility right um but yeah I mean it's a very personal decision right to shutter a startup or not and I've worked at startups that failed right it sucks that is the worst feeling in the world and as an employee you feel like [ __ ] leaving you feel like absolute [ __ ] you feel disloyal you feel like you're giving up you feel like you're abandoning the people that you work with uh for X number of years but you know what I've already got so many years of my life that I can you know potentially make money in and if I'm going to spend the next year making you know below Market uh to ultimately achieve nothing with this like I got to make the decision that's best for me and my family right and it's it's the worst feeling in the world to be a faing

startup and you know it's just it's so Contex dependent personal like you know I would never you know try to make a prescription there but like just just just keep in mind like you only get so many at bats right that's that's what I used to say like you know when I worked at these large gaming companies that the teams where the game just wasn't improving and it's been softw for a year it's like look you get so many at BS would you rather start working on a game that you think could become a hit first is a game that could be like this middling success story like you only get so many tries at this you only get so many ATS like wouldn't you rather abandon this and go work on the thing that actually could potentially be a hit because this is not going to be a hit even if it gets to be just good enough to go to Global and support it's never going to be a hit would you rather would you rather start something new that potentially could and it's the same thing with a startup right and I I understand the conviction and I understand sort of like emotional attachment but you got to make a decision that's best for like the sort of like long-term well-being of your yourself of the employees who might not make ratal decisions because they feel like we're part of a mission right of your family like there's just a lot more

at stake than like your pride or your ego yeah those are I this is I I love it this is exactly what um actually uh it was har from uh from play Ventures kind of told me like there's only one way to fail at a startup and that is not by you know trying something and crashing and burning uh but it's kind of be in the um in that middle ground where you're not successful but you're not failing either and you're kind of hanging along for about 10 years or something and you lose on all the um all the potential that that you would have even as an employee you would have made much more money you would have you know by now have a car in a house but you were at the startup paying yourself less than minimum wage and really grinding it out and it's not going anywhere so so it's uh it's you know I would say like yeah that's uh that's the most challenging thing is to know when to call it a day and it's very hard uh with with some of the founders because they've so emotionally invested and

because there's a lot of fear failure even though there's a talk of oh fail fast and move forward but there is it's it's awful to uh to shut down your your uh your studio your company something that you've started so yeah something for uh for you know folks to uh to be critical about and maybe ask for advice from others and kind of have a third perspective is what they're doing something that that could work or are they just doing it for sort of a giving an impression that they will never give up because that's uh that might not be the the smartest thing so yeah and and also you know I think people get um they get seduced by these stories of like oh we had you know six weeks of Runway left and you know the game took off and blah blah I mean like that's just survivorship bias you talk to nine out of 10 companies that were in that situation and they failed 99 out of 100 999 out of a thousand that's that's that's so rare that that happens I mean

there just the Allure of like that it could all change in a second mentality like that's not strategic thinking that's not logical I mean at some point you have to kind of be logical about this I understand that you've got your heart wrapped up in this and starts aren't logical for the most part they're not you know the vast majority of times you'd be much better off not doing a startup just working somewhere right I and it's ill logical often to start a startup and you know that you can have an amazing outcome doing that you also fail you're Mo most likely to fail right but but there comes a point where you've got to not let the naked optimism uh be your only Guiding Light you actually do have to allow yourself to be more logical than you had been previously because I've just seen so many companies get uh you know just just just get misled by by by only um by only adhering to that sort of like optimistic strain yeah right because that's very important at first because if you didn't if you didn't only adhere to the optimistic strain of thought You' never start a startup no one ever would no

startups would ever get started but there comes a point where you have to let a little bit more of the logic in like okay what are we really going to achieve here even if we sort of like raise another round delute ourselves out like you know are we really do I see a lot of potential here and I think at some point you just have to call it now I'm not saying like that should be the default position and it's obviously a very personal decision but I I think it's it's it makes it's something that maybe some some of the companies TOS should consider I think another thing is you need to raise enough money to have more than just one you know shot at this like you need to raise enough money to have a pivot like that's the problem with raising like a million or a million and a half like you get you get one you got one bull in the chamber you get one shot at this you get to you get you get to chase one project you have be able to Pivot yeah exactly you don't want to be that 65-year-old waitress in Hollywood thinking that she's still going to get the the lead role like give it your all if it doesn't work out that's fine for most people it

doesn't and and uh I'd rather those people start another startup than kind of grind it out through till till they're bitter and S you know and just shells of of of the positive selves that they were 10 years ago so um I think we're out of time we went only through three predictions so sufor has done 10 predictions there's there's stuff about mobile attribution there's stuff about fingerprinting and how the end of that is going to affect the mobile marketing or games marketing ecosystem I truly you know recommend everybody to sign up to MDM uh mobile Dev memo Subscription Service where you can get a lot of insights uh from from Mr sufor and most importantly go through all the predictions that are going to be very valuable for your business whether you're a startup or a scaleup or a publisher or any type of modern marketing person so um I think we're we're we're good we're going to see

everybody in late January on 22nd in London come to say hi to myself come to say hi to Mr suur and uh come hang out with us yeah let's do it thanks for having me on um appreciate appreciate uh being the inaugural podcast for the year and uh I uh I'm I'm I'm I'm still a big fan of the twe podcast even though um I'm I had to retire retire my mic uh and hand it over to Philip but he's doing a great job and uh and yeah keep up the great work man your uh do it's been awesome to see it evolve and and grow into like basically a media company and and I'm excited to see what 2024 brings for you guys thank you so much all right thank you everybody and we'll see you later hopefully this month in London bye-bye