Gram Games on its open company culture and prototype Fridays

[Music] hey guys we are here at Pocket Gamer connects 2017 in London I've been joined by Erin O'Brien from Graham games hello tell us a little bit about Graham games well Graham was founded in 2012 and kind of made its name for itself with 10/10 and since then has had two other hit puzzle titles which is merged in six and so now Graham is actually expanding into the UK and founding a mid core IP based studio which is super exciting so we're kind of coming in and not only exploring a new place but exploring a new genre and diversifying things and kind of testing the limits of our talent so it's a really really exciting time so the puzzle games you might be known for things like 10/10 with a premium titles or free to play or where are they were free-to-play titles yeah so it was it was actually an ad based structure right but so we've had kind of had the three titles and we're really excited to be moving into something different and kind of mixing it up because we're still gonna have those titles out of our Istanbul studio but we're gonna kind of

diversify and expand by exploring those mid core titles and what we can do with the IIP based structure when you say pushing towards something like the I ap structure are you thinking more of the sort of like strategy management games what's the kind of style you going for yeah yeah so it's it's like strategy management type games world based games and what some of them will be larger scope some of them will be smaller scope but as I mean I think we discussed but as sorry Graham has a very open culture so the idea is that if you have an idea or you have something you want to do or anything then you can bring it to the table and we have you know we have prototyping days every single Friday so we can't we're not really prescribing what this studio is gonna be we're giving a general yeah maybe maybe try this but you know if we we believe that the people we are gonna bring into the studio and the people we have in the studio are the best and that their ideas are are gonna work or can work in some way so we trust the people who work at Graham and they're gonna define what IP based looks like for Graham and what it looks like when what mid court looks like for us gotcha yeah so why specifically the UK if you're setting up

a studio over here why go for this location over others around the world yeah well I think that we really I wanted to be among the greats and I think that right now London is really a hub for that and I think that it's also it's a place where you know a lot so it's a very global city and it's you know there's a lot of interesting things everywhere and I think it's also just lost but ya know and so I think that it helps to be next to the people who are doing similar things to you but are also you know trying out new things every single day and being in the middle of that kind of energy and being in the middle of developing technologies developing genres everything is really what we wanted to go for in London is one of the best places for that when you speak about developing genres and over the past few years you've seen the shift from premium to free-to-play it's been incredible rise of things like from clash of clans being that strategy talked about to clash Royale which is a weird fusion MOBAs and three lanes and what do you see is the thing that's gonna push forward into 2017 I mean the

AI and VR trend is gonna be huge this year because right now I mean it's really cool what they have what's out there and what exists out there but it's still clunky it's not quite it's it's not quite there and I mean at the speed at which that has developed I can only imagine what this year is going to bring for that and Graham of course we don't have anything you know necessarily prescribed in the books for this but we're always excited about new technologies always excited about seeing what we can do so I think it's gonna be really really exciting to be not only exploring a new genre this time but exploring new technologies being among people exploring new technologies and being able to like feed off the buzz in this city on all of that so yeah it's safe to say you're on the lookout for new ideas and potentially like people to come and yeah we rock up we're super excited about bringing people into the new studio because I mean culture I mean it inevitably but culture is a product of the people that are within it right so at Graham every time we bring a new person onto the team it's exciting because you get to see how things shift and you get to see you know how people interact and we are all friends when it

comes down to it primarily and then we happen to work with each other and so yeah we have a couple core tenets as and you know creativity and honesty and familiarity and communication that we push to our people but I forgot to breathe but but we but it's always exciting to see how a new personality and new talent and new technical still skills really kind of shifts that are and usually for the positive so as we expand here we're gonna be seeing a lot of that as well and it's super exciting okay we were talking before the interview about the idea of the way that Studios can kind of often be siloed off from one another you can lose that kind of communication between two groups how are you gonna try and sort of maintain the connection squeeze these between these disparate locations yeah well I mean technology is huge so I mean I think some of the people I communicate with the most are here in the UK when I'm not based here I talked to some people more than I talked like my dad but but no but also I think that what

we've done kind of is we're shifting over some people from the original studio to the new studio and then bringing in talent on both ends so if you think of it as I don't know like sourdough bread or something like we're starting we're kind of bringing the original were bringing the culture into the office and introducing it kind of as a concept right so and then and then bringing new people in on both sides and you know allowing them to shape it and kind of morph it in their own way but blending instead of kind of saying okay we want a new studio here we're gonna start in a studio here find an entirely local talent because I think that often that's really problematic for companies because they lose that core kind of indie connected friendly feel because I mean I think that one of the scariest things for any expanding company is losing the connection because in an industry like games you have to have happy people you have to have people who are having fun otherwise quite frankly they're not going to produce good games so and a big part of being happy and having fun is

having a friendly work environment and an open communicative you know comfortable work environment where you can be yourself and you don't have to have this like work self and home self and feel like you can't fully express yourself when you in the place where you spend most of your time right sure so I think that we've that has definitely worked out so far in our original studio and work event bring as much as that over as we can and then also bring in people who are willing to work in that kind of environment and who not only want to come in but want to develop it and make it stronger and kind of see where I can go so yeah it's it's an exciting time and I mean above all else it's gonna be so cool to meet of the talent in this incredible industry and kind of see what's out there speaking of which we're at the conference today we're at connect what's the kind of reason that you come here we ask everybody because it's it's kind of drastically different depending on which segment in the industry you come from your perspective what's the benefit of a place like this well I think that it's easy to kind of get lost in your own world in this industry because you're

literally creating worlds and and so it's really exciting to kind of come out here and you know just be among as I said earlier the buzz and the energy and kind of see what's out there and see the new ideas and see what people are working on because sometimes it's something you haven't even considered hadn't even fathomed and it it helps I think it helps our company on all ends like I in in every sorry aspect of the company it helps people to kind of like get their minds racing and it's the same reason why like we have prototype days on Fridays because you you need to pop out and remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing and I think this has a similar effect and if people are interested in coming and finding your your stuff or interested in contacting you about there's like a new studio how would they do that well we on our website on our join us page we have all the available positions listed but I mean as you said we don't really prescribe positions or hierarchy or anything like that yeah we do have a flat structure I know but inside no but yes so on the join us page there's all the available positions but we always encourage encourage people

to reach out even if you don't see your exact kind of you know ideal job listed there because it's a very flexible environment so yeah jobs at Graham games and the join us page and also check out our website while you have a chance because there's a bunch of stuff kind of about the activities we do in the culture we've created and how we all like each other and happen to party together everyone yeah it organic thank you so much [Music]