Gaming Is Becoming The Commerce Layer

the identity of what a gamer is is completely changed to. So PGC connects is about the gaming industry but the change in the gaming industry that's why we had for example a gaming and non-gaming tracks it's all coming together and it's coming together interestingly enough Berkeley around commerce you know we are discovering that and we're also thinking about Exola differently because not just the rebrand I think it's a very different company so why don't we start there tell me how you would describe Exola to someone who doesn't know you if there is anyone who doesn't in one sentence.
So, we are a video game commerce company. Our mission is to help build all the things to help video game developers be successful. No matter if you're an indie studio or aaa, you're located in the UK or Southeast Asia to provide those opportunities to solve those inherent challenges through the

tools and services that we're able to offer. It could be a web shop for a mobile game. lots of changes in the industry over the last year. This is the year for DTOC and as we put all those changes into practice, it could be a PC game from a publishing distribution perspective and you can still do take some of the same principles. We've been doing it for years with our developers to help them be successful to reach out directly to their players and own that experience. The publicity and everything recently has been Apple, Google, and what's been going on. mobile why we're all here at PA Gamer and a lot of those conversations have been happening but us as a company we launched a new brand in December uh we did it in LA around the game awards in our home base and headquarters area so it was really important for us as we celebrated a 20th anniversary to talk about where our vision is going and about the future forward ideas that we have that is beyond payments we're more than a payments company

we're we helping publish publishing, we help in distribution, we help in promotions to be able to do that and provide all the things as we talk about to help game developers launch, grow and win. It could be for mobile monetization, it could be reaching Southeast Asia players. It could be reaching to a thousand different payment methods in opening up those opportunities. And what does that mean for them to be able to do that and to reach players around the world by allowing them to pay
how they want and play their favorite games? So you got me there because that's it. Payments is where it all started. But it's going and DTOC is having a moment. I was intrigued. You mentioned Southeast Asia. I was in Vietnam and I'm very excited to go back again because it is it is moving moving very quickly. Where's the connection there? Fill me in on that.
That's one of the fastest growing markets in the world.
Absolutely.
Not only from a development that's going on, but player base. games that come out

of Southeast Asia are weekly
it feels like and it's moving at an accelerating rate faster and faster and faster new iterations new IP based games new color schemes things like that that somebody gravitated to and it was a pull from a consumer that they wanted to have the market's growing and it's mobile there's a lot of mobile engagement obviously because of the mobile economy digital wallets folks in Asia have been a lot faster to adopt the digital wallet experience than they have in the west. As I would say, we're a little slower to adopt that.
So, what do you do? Do you let me?
So, we're able to bridge that together. So, that's a great point is bridge that technology together and to provide those opportunities and open it up. So, if you're a developer, say from the UK, because we're sitting here in London,
and you want to launch your game and you want to test it in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, as an example, we can open that up for you, turn those payment methods on, and then you can be able to test it and measure your results that

you're getting to know, hey, was that a right choice for us? Is that a right market? So then you can take it and compound it and go all right let's reach out to some influencers that are in that market local language local following and really can amplify your direct to consumer engagement.
That's just it. It's the engagement and that's where we're looking more and I'm hearing it from so many interviews that you know we're looking at the ad experience as an engagement journey and we're architecting it. They're thinking very carefully about like ingesting data around the ad. You know, the ad that brought someone in. When we're in a world of signal loss, every signal matters. So, you're seeing a lot across the gamut, you know, across the different stages. How are you bringing that all together? Because you could you're having a lot of visibility into this into something that can help a publisher say, "This is what I need to do. This is how I need to architect my ad experience." Maybe I have an offer.

wall, maybe I have something else, maybe I have all of the above. It's about a mix, right? Just like it was in advertising.
So, that's one of the things in our core belief with all the things to be able to provide a unique experience to every developer because every developer doesn't have the same desires, the same goals, the same challenges that they have through our offer wall solution. You can do exactly that. you can provide in the centerbased program, co-brand it, bring generate attention, no tie it with some other technologies to bring people in there and attract that and make that engagement. So you see games that are going to continue to do ad monetization into their games, but then also how do you build on some of those experiences and also do your own monetization for your game? additional in-game items, currencies, topups, subscription model, season passes, battle passes that you want to be able to offer that value to a user to take it from A to Z. So, being able to engage with them from an ad unit, bring them into the experience

they're playing, then they can top up that experience once they've gone through that process. So you're engaging, measuring, testing again, measuring again, rinse, repeat as you try the different campaigns and programs that you have. So that's a unique experience that you have, but you learn from that and you make adjustments as you can try some different things.
So you said co-branding, which made me think of brands overall. And last time I was chatting with Exol, it was also about that because I was very excited. And I had just interviewed for Paga Gamer uh the head of the gaming practice at Adidas for example you know and we were very very excited about like you know what can brands be doing not just an easy brand like Adidas but you know like all the brands even the even the heavy duty brands right uh straight commerce for example
what's changed in maybe because you have these relationships you have these discussions is this going to be it the

DTOC moment brands are coming or brands are still a little bit cautious.
I think you're going to see more and more brands coming into it. We have more conversations about how do I get into gaming from call it non-endemic brands, you know, the Coca-Cas, the Kelloggs, the different folks like that that want to come into games. You see, we saw Jordan brand in Fortnite.
You see different You see the NFL doing skins in Fortnite. Other places like that, other games that are happening. you see it's games being featured in movie content alongside of some beverage or a hamburger or a sandwich or whatever brand. It's it's all integrating together in one ecosystem that
people are used to it. Everybody's a gamer.
I don't care if you're playing Scrabble.
Tetra is one of the most franchise legacy games in the history of the world right
going into it. Obviously a game some people think oh you have to be playing Call of Duty. You have to be playing Fortnite to do amazing experiences,

amazing games. They're gamers. Candy Crush, you're a gamer. You're playing Minecraft, you're a gamer. The identity of what a gamer is is completely changed to, you know, you thought you had a stereotype before.
There are no stereotypes anymore. There are none. It's everybody, anyone, anytime, anywhere, any place. That's why we look at it from the technology that we're able to provide and the tools and services to help the developers to solve that challenge.
Whether you're on the tube going home because you got a 45minute ride because you live outside of town or you're in a taxi or you're on the way on the Heathrow Express just trying to catch the flight out of here because we're on to the next event figure out your connections and then you play a game. How do you solve that challenge? And one of the ways you solve that and I was looking at because I'm a little bit of a data nerd is um you help people make strategic decisions and plan all of a sudden I'm seeing a ton of really exciting research out of Exola. I think

you've accelerated the pace of that as well. Um it's not your job Berkeley to be a data nerd with me but you know if you could because I think that that's part of your rebrand in a way. So maybe run me through a couple of the surprises in there because uh even to get your copy I had to sign up to download it but I would have I already have it so I got I absolutely so walk me through the report.
So yeah we we had the insight we actually demoed it here in physicality form last year and bride that the exola report and people want more insights more data points and looking at it and they know that we come from a diverse set of games that we represent. We don't highlight specific games, but we talk about the whole ecosystem as a whole and what's going on and see over 4,000 plus 5,000 games and the ecosystem that we've been able to collaborate with in certain markets and what we're seeing. You're seeing the market penetration continue to grow. These insights and what we're seeing from a mobile position and it looks at it was like only free-to-play games should have a

web shop. That is not true and the data shows that point. We're seeing casual games being a big in influence because the user of a casual game, if you're going to go make a profile of that, is used to e-commerce based transactions. They're used to going online, opening it up, adding the cart, making the purchase, go through the checkout process. So to create a web shop on a mobile browser or even on a tablet or on your laptop, you're used to that experience. Then you go redeem it. We found that casual games are doing significantly well. um other game genres, you're seeing it that the capture rate is growing, continue to grow higher double digits as we keep going forward. And it's something that's really been exciting to see as we've been doing web shop since 2021 to like understand what is happening continue to grow. We make pivots with our game developers and to be able to help them out um and gather those insights. And it's not it's

not just in the US. It's not in North America. It's not a west thing. We're seeing huge impacts in Asia. In Southeast Asia, we're seeing that consumer wants to see offers and they're used to that experience. They're used to marketplaces, super apps,
offer walls, that is a normal behavior, a purchase behavior. So to integrate that into the things and what we're doing with our friendly drone as we like to call
um with our with our symbol here with the brand and putting that together to use that as a mechanism to showcase what we're doing, what we're talking about, highlight things of what's what's happening.
Exciting. You tack them all together. You have like the best of, right? It would be great.
You have you have the industry there. And it's interesting that you're talking about collaborations because again I talked to a lot of publishers in my work and they're saying, you know what, we thought we needed really attractive IP to do this, but we don't. We can do it. And they're talking to each other. It's

sort of like the mid level of saying like almost like in a shopping mall, you know, if we all go in on this, we can we can we can like own the the floor, right? So do you are you seeing that like that rather that it becomes a super app? it becomes like a super app group.
So what we are seeing is people brands you talk about brands coming into it creating that experience and having a one-stop shop. See the airlines do it.
Oh yeah.
See the telecoms do it.
Absolutely.
And that's what we're helping those guys and trying to figure out some of those models and how do we get games into that experience so it's a one-stop experience. It's a one-stop shop.
So you have content, they're thirsty for content.
You know, you look at credit cards in the United States as an example. their third super content and additional ways to showcase how you can use your Mastercard, your Visa, your American Express, your Discover card to go make payments and put that together and go make purchases and do offers that goes into it. So, what if you what if you made a purchase here and then we know based on your engagement experience,

you're highly likely to be tied to like a Target brand, you know, to go make a purchase. So, is there's a new offer that could come from Target, it could come from a reteller, it could come from a coffee manufacturer. It could come from somebody or coffee provider um uh to put that together based on what's going on and bring that together that experience. So, you're starting to see those brands touch base in different places.
I think the east you're talking about marketplaces and super apps a little further ahead than we are in the US.
That's things we need to catch up on and be able to push forward. But bringing those brands together and that's one of the things that we're doing within our alpha wallet experience is to bring in brands together provide that unique opportunity and then leave it up to you know our payment partners
to go into that and figure out how we want to market and crossell crossromote cross brand and it brings everybody back into ultimately back in the game. back in the game. Good pun pun Berkeley. I'm going to swing it around and and you

know bring it home here because it was the case that we thought DOC was going to be it's everything about the game. But I'm talking to some
publishers, they're thinking, you know what, it's wider than that. You know, it's not just the merch
of the game around the game. It's like merchandise period. You know, taking a web shop to be a web shop. So, you know, and I'm talking to royalty companies. They're like, "Hey, yeah, we want to be in there and our partners want to be in there and we all want to be in there because guess what? Looking out from the new position of Exola, you know, where you are, it's more of a marketplace that you're enabling, not just payments." Um, where do you see that going? You know, are is the gaming business going to be a business?
1,000% it's going to be a business. It's going to continue to evolve. I mean, we you look at the just the math of being bigger than uh music and movies combined, right? It's going to continue to grow. People want a piece of the pie. We're looking at how do we help grow that pie and going forward and the

vision, the future of what games and the potential are is unlimitless. It's content. You're you're seeing that the businesses continue to grow. You take hot projects in college dorm rooms to hobbies
to creative ventures and now we have now movies are being made about them. You know, it's what's going on. Uncharted was a game and now you got, you know, Tom Mahal and Mark Wahlberg like starring in the movie.
Like it's the other way around,
right? And like what's going on and putting it together and like you have Spider-Man and as a game, you know, people are like, "Oh, it's another version." That game was amazing.
And like what's going on and putting that together and you're seeing that cross sector in the industry to continue to rise and continue to grow. We're going to make some resets. We're going to make some moves. We're gonna make some adjustments just like any industry is as you go forward. It's an exciting time to be where we are. Every we say

every year is a pivotal year.
From a DTOC perspective, this is the year that you're going to really see people double down on the experiences. You're going to double down on what's possible and what's happening. We figured out, we've settled all the legal the regulations. There's going to be more countries are going to open up. There's be some adjustments in some countries because the government's be like that's not exactly what we said or not exactly what we thought. So we've learned through all that everybody has collectively together and now g now the powers back with the games to go help put more games more opportunity more value back into the consumer's hands their thumbs their palms their eyes to go play you know from a console perspective or a PC game going happen to it. It's a really exciting time to be here um to motivation. It's part why we did the rebrand when we did. We're at another moment. We had another moment during lockdown obviously and that changed
how people engage. So it's gaming plus

it's gaming plus and then gaming's going to be at the center point of all of that experience and what's going on the the economies the marketplace is what's happening. You talk about how do you gamify your experience if you're a CBG brand or you're a car manufacturer? Like how do you do that? It's all comes back to that that belief and that idea that you have to create an experience. People want that. They want entertainment. They want content. And particularly these generations coming up, they're going to be on the mobile device. They may never have may what if they never had a PC going into it? They're going to learn the stuff that they're going to be doing. Alpha Zet. Z,
alpha, beta, whatever the next one's going to be
is they're coming up and they're going to be so smart on the mobile device and mobile games is going to be there that in that content intersection and who knows we take some of these mobile games and put them on the big screen, you know, to have music being inter intertwined into that. You're having

music, you know, concerts about it and that the idea came from a game.
Well, I can't do an interview. I mean literally cannot do an interview without asking you about you. You brought a new identity to the company. What are you going to bring as a CMO? I mean what are you going to tell me?
There's a lot of new things that are coming from us that we're not yet ready to share. I'm coming on six years here at Soul and I love have loved every moment of it. the challenge, the opportunity, the impact. And it we keep our eye on the hall
that says we get to impact billions of users every year around the world. There's no brand that gets to do that
and it's so exciting. And what's going in a connector to be able to put that together,
bring brands to fans, consumers to be able to do that in countries that I still have to Google and to like understand like where we're going. And like we had some idea, some insight came out of some small country

Africa or Middle East or Southeast Asia to go learn something. This is about what's next. We're rewriting history as we go into it. And it's very exciting to be where we're at.
It's very motivating. You feel the buzz in this room.
You feel the energy. You can walk around and feel it in the floors and feel it in our bones. And what's exciting and what's coming into the future of games and it's it's changing how movies are created. It's changing how jobs are getting done and how technologies evolving and putting into it. How music gets created. How brands think about going to market on other aspects that were very traditional 100 200 year old companies are looking at games like how do they do it? How do they reach a new consumer? How do they reach engagement? It's very it's a great spot to be. It's very motivating to do what we do. Um we get to try new stuff all the time. We have new ideas, new visions where we're

going. But our core vision, our core mission is going to remain as we make these strategic decisions to help build all those things. So it's what's next? What's next in what three? What's next in uh localization and what's next in loyalty programs and engagement and going into it. So, how do we cross those together? Make the connection and redefine what is possible. That's what keeps me up at night that keeps me motivated in the morning grabbing a cup of coffee over here and keeping going. So, look out for there's going to be a lot more. I'd love to sit down with you in a year and talk about
remember all those things that we couldn't talk about.
Here's what we accomplished and what improved out. It'll be a lot of fun. I think that that's like what intrigues me the most is because how it fits together.
I mean, it's the platform play all over again. You know, it's like the HBR articles all over again that say the platform, the keystone is the sustainable edge.
It's when you orchestrate, not when you

create entirely and you're doing that. So, I will make that a date to see how you bring all the pieces together. I can see how it fits together. Um, and I will meet you again next year, even before Berkeley. It was a pleasure.
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