How To Reinvent Yourself During A Market Downturn

[Music] hello world welcome to the Pocket Gamer podcast with your hosts me Brian Bago and our fearless champion of change the ever awesome Peggy anals hello Peggy good to see you again oh Brian that that I could almost hug you for that one champion of change I love it first of all that's like right aligned with my passions and align with the topic on the show without even thinking it through you you've you've hit you've won on two counts already well I always like to start strong and then let you do all the heavy lifting across the rest of the show well I think you're going to like this one Brian I was thinking about you all summer while I was planning it because I've worked with you now hosted with you now shared well over a year with you and enjoying every minute looking forward to the future obviously but a lot of it has

also impressed me that you look beyond the games you look Beyond how to make winning title you're about winning strategies things that are sustainable things that things that matter Brian I think it's in your DNA and I say that with with with admiration thank you Peggy it's really easy to get caught up in the games and it's all about the games together you know it's not just the creativity the technical expertise building a team you know um and as we've said many many times in this podcast as Peggy the one constant in the games world is change so if you're not resilient you're not agile and you're not willing to look Beyond um the mechanic and the game play Then sadly you may not be around to do your second title the rapid evolution of the gaming industry at multiple levels there's layoffs there's Ai and there's people who tell me at the conferences you know I just want to do something different still in gaming but I want to do something different because I neither need to move on or burn out so this is

what's happening all this is forcing us to change and this show is here because we educate our audience we show them they're not alone we're sharing things freely which is why I am absolutely delighted because when it comes to sharing educating and really giving back I can only think of Faith price director of growth marketing at Double Down interactive we've had her on the show before amazing woman in the industry and came with another person our new guest Gwen Chell she is a digital marketer and educator it's great to have you both faith and Gwen thank you thank you Peggy thank you Brian it's as always wonderful to talk with you about industry and where we're going where we've been all of the challenges all of the excitement we have for what's in the future I'm delighted to join the conversation thank you for having me on it's a pleasure to have you both here um and very nice to

meet you both I might I might add that the big smiles that they both have right tell me that career reinvention can be a great journey can be positive I mean you're obviously both in a good place I mean Faith you're director of growth marketing at Double Down interactive Gwen you have a job that you love I wouldn't even say a job I would say um a mission I love digital marketing and just about every aspect of it and as part of what I do now is I teach courses for different programs I'm a mentor I also have some clients that I help them build their businesses up and it has just been an amazing experience it's genuinely lovely to have people who have had more of a a people focus so I'm really looking forward to this so so let's dive in shall we um so Gwen your career privot from self-described high school dropout to achieving two master's degrees that's no slouch and and working in two very very different fields TBL

talk gaming and digital marketing I mean that that's kind of inspiring what sparked that change and and how has it shaped the way you approached you know your career as a whole U well my career in gaming had started uh and it was really my first professional career uh with Wizards of the Coast um I started doing events and then became a writer and editor of TBL toop role playing games I enjoyed doing it but it was that marriage of Hobby and career that meant that there was no mental time off no thing to do on vacation from your job is to do more of what you love but it it became um a point where I looked at what I was doing and said I need a little bit of a change here so um I also this was quite a few years ago did not have a lot of faith that the tabletop industry would continue to flourish and I'm very very glad to have been wrong for the sake of my hobby and

many of my friends um but uh when I looked about I decided that digital marketing being able to still do the things that I loved writing editing creating things connecting people to content and uh that let me uh pivot into an entirely different field so at this point in time you know the games industry has been rocked by layoff after layoff and you know so many people being made redundant losing their jobs across every sort of company from the the the largest multinationals to the smallest in Indies it's a really turbulent time um and a lot of professionals are feeling the pressure to reinvent themselves Faith you've been through this experience multiple times and now as the Director of growth Mar marketing at Double Down interactive a lot of changes how have you mentally prepared yourself for those transition moments in your career I think the biggest thing because I um um I have

periodically gone through this it seems like when it comes to downturns marketing is one of the first teams that they look at um especially if they can't directly tie it into the rowes though Mobile gaming were a little better at that um is uh is looking to um um what can I do to keep learning right like there's always the big initial um there's always the big initial okay great um this has happened my life is going from uh one you know one sort of routine to having very little routine and a lot of uncertainty um what is it what is it that I can do myself to uh to keep motivated to keep learning uh to keep connecting with people to keep up in the industry and so you know one of the

things you can do in advance is do those things right like um you should be learning in your job you should be connecting with people you should be networking you should be looking to where the industry is going um and preparing you know preparing yourself in terms of what resources what skills are going to be needed but then if you're caught up in that time right like if this is a if this is something that's happened to you one of the things that I realized is the first thing you have to do is um take a break and take care of yourself right a lot of a lot of it uh I think one of the the first times this happened to me uh I was I was quite frankly pretty burnt out it had been a we knew that the company was going to be closing down it had been like a six-month period of closing things out um you know there it was there was a lot of like emotions to work through there was a lot of I needed to

just have a time to relax and uh and thankfully actually I got to spend a lot of time with when at that during that time um uh and I and it was a great safe place for me to sort of wind down um but after I got out of that and got another job and was learning more skills and I I have to tell you like I was so excited doing what you love makes you excited when you go to work because after that after that layoff period I got back into marketing and I was just I I could not honestly work enough hours I was so excited to be doing what I loved again um so you know so that helps but I did realize um that I also when I you know when I have those times need to be doing something meaningful so the next time I went through a a layoff period um I volunteered at the local food bank a

couple times a week to make sure that I was you know getting out of the house meeting other people seeing other situations recognizing that you know that there are people in a lot of stages of life that might need uh might need somebody positive there um I took a class I I did a corsera class on business strategy so it was really about you know like how can I how can I be useful and helpful and contribu in the world and um how can I help improve myself so that way when that next opportunity comes along that opportunity that you're continuing to look for during this time like you're ready for it you're like not only do I have all of the previous skills from my jobs I also learn this new one that's going to help me in this role and and I think this is something that that we can miss in the game sector all too often is be because so many people have come through this sector as kind of technologist creatives artists animator etc those people's skills um can

sometimes be lacking and and just as you said lifelong learning it's like networking connections with people and an ability to sort of look at different roles and approach things from different perspectives I think can can benefit every single person listening to this podcast so change can be a choice if you're not being laid off but in whichever case um however you get to this point you have to maintain as you just said that direction of per Direction and purpose so have you guys had any kind of habits or tools that have made a significant difference in helping you be comfortable in uncertainty and really um I guess that have made a difference to you absolutely um uh beyond the esoteric continuous learning that uh you and Faith have both alluded to um one thing that I found has always

been very sustaining for me is to keep a feel-good book and that book has had a number of articles in it that I wrote with faith um on Fay and dark Fay and gaming and um other things that have come out from a reviews or interviews with colleagues or just an email that I got as a thank you I'll just print it out yes I'm old school and um slap it into a book and then I'll have it at my desk I'll occasionally flick through it builds my confidence and it's all things that I've done all things that I've touched in other people's lives and ways that I've helped and it has been very sustaining and a great thing to do 10 minutes before an interview fantastic qu Faith how about you I think for me um one of the things that I do is I do I have a bit of a list of like uh articles I want to read webinars I want to watch topics I want to learn about

and so um it's it's a bit of a long list but it is a list that I go back to and um and I I've even uh implemented goals of like trying to get through certain you know certain number of them each week uh to really keep myself up to date on interesting and new topics as well as things that are d directly related to um to what I do now so uh not just on gaming apps could be on other types of apps on you know non-related uh non-related categories um just sort of anything where I feel like there's something interesting and and useful about you know how how things work how the world Works how marketing Works how business works you know um

and then you know and it's probably uh it's probably not great for my for my teams because whenever I go through some of them that I think are specifically interesting and I'm taking all these notes you know the next team meeting I'm like hey have we thought about this or that um so but but I do think uh it allows you to be really versatile so when those other opportunities come to to like reinvent yourself or to take on a new role like you've you've got a you've got a wider knowledge base to help um inform you Faith you know in your career you shifted from UA to ASO right which was meaning that it doesn't have to be that it's a transition from company to company this was a creating a role for yourself within your company um that wasn't even there before for that matter matter I mean how does that work when you're

trying to as you put it you're thinking about what's coming next and you want to make certain that your company that you're working with is also moving with that so you and reinvent your it's about Reinventing yourself and within the company so yeah so interestingly enough when I was hired into Big Fish Games 10 years ago I was actually hired in to run their affiliate program for desktop and from like within I think about three months I moved over to uh to mobile UA and was managing a team there and I I looked around at like um you know what were all the components going into user acquisition um and at that time it was around two two 2015 early 2016 you know we had been sort of thinking about about about ASO a little bit like it was starting to

become more of a Hot Topic and so I had done some research I had started talking to some of the game studios within Big Fish there's about four Studios and said hey can we like test this what about testing that um you know we did some basic uh uh title um testing and saw really good results and I realized that there was no there was no single person at the company um who was thinking about ASO holistically like there wasn't being thought about by the product teams it wasn't being thought about by the advertising or marketing or UA nobody was really thinking about it there was just occasional conversations so I put together and I thought you know what this is really key for UA too right like um UA improves if you can get improvements in your conversion at the at the point of install and so I put

together a presentation I did a bunch of research um put together presentation uh a deck that said like this is what ASO is this is why it's important here's the preliminary like little test we did with the good results and I think it should be not I I wasn't thinking at the time like I think this should be an entire role I was like here's why I think we should add it to my role um and it so happened to coincide with a time when they were transitioning uh the way that the the UA team was being um segmented and managed and they were like mixing up all the the you know all of the the little UA teams and making it a larger UA team and said you know what we do think this is a good idea and we do think it's enough to be one role um but it will happen to be under another team and so I left UA for

a couple of years and moved into advertising and um took on all of the ASO and then happened to add some SEO and some um and managing people who were doing like organic social uh just you know learning as I went so to speak um into that role but I think the key thing is right is to you have to be aware of what's going on in the IND in the industry and Brian you're right like curiosity is huge and when I'm talking to like team members about growth like when they want to grow in their career it's like you need to be curious you can't wait for your manager or for somebody else to feed you information right like you need to be curious yourself and go out and find it and that was sort of the key is I was curious is like I I said what

is what is what else is there that will help the company that's related to what I do and then went out and you know researched it that's great because your your your reinvention um you made your own opportunity for that you know you identified it you saw it and uh and you went after it and that's why I like your story Gwen when you were explaining it because you've gone across Industries you've gone across roles and you had to overcome the fear of starting over from going from one place to another taking a step in a new career path what are strategies or mindsets or approaches that have helped you Embrace change accept it even even celebrate it my ultimate goal with um my day-to-day work is that I look forward to waking up in the morning and starting work as Faith said I was working tons of hours but it felt like a joy and that is the place

you want to be you honestly in something like the gaming industry or digital marketing you can craft your career in such a direction that you don't have to do those things that don't bring you that sort of joy you can um choose to um gain skills and become an asset to the company or to your clients in ways that that are are remarkable um and in trying to go out there and get a new job or get a new client um a friend of mine gave me excellent advice he's also in the gaming industry meler of Lone shark games once told me and he probably won't remember this Gwen you can't turn down a job you haven't been offered I'd been asking about whether I should apply for something he's like you can't turn down a job you haven't been offered just go ahead and apply out there and I was also a little bit curious about about that and I did some research and there are

some strong gender differences between what we're willing who we are willing to put ourselves out for and women tend to look at the job description and say okay I hit every point I'll apply for that whereas um men statistically are like well I meet 70% of this I'll go ahead and toss my resume out so I've I've been mentally preparing to take that sort of chance and I've had folks like faith and like Mike who are like just go ahead you know what do you have to lose by applying for that go ahead and give it a try it does require a different mindset of putting yourself out there but honestly it's worth it I like that I like that very much because that is very true I've heard that and and and Brian this is not about you because first of all you're a great guy but secondly it really is true women are like can I do that can I really do 100 100% and men are like oh it's you know good is good

close is close enough see what happen listen different I I I I take your points entirely and yes I have applied for jobs that I am in no way qualified to do but they sounded really interesting and the pay was good and it was a different city so you know I'll work it out it's so uh I I own that I own that it's I am I am one of those guys who it's entirely fair oh I think it's actually a better way of being because Taking Chances doing doing something that honestly what does it take you an extra hour to put your resume Out Create a good cover letter you know it's rolling the dice Tak a chance something that is well worthwhile to pick up on that point um I suspect a lot of our listeners are going to be doing exactly that they'll be looking at Reinventing themselves um whether it's been in a Ro for a long time or you know

they've maybe been subject to some of the the redundancies and job losses so what advice would you give to somebody looking to either transition to a different part of the industry or even as as you did Faith propose a whole new role um any advice any pointers you can give to listeners if you're looking to transition within your own company um and this is advice I've given to uh you know somebody who actually reported up to me and um you know we had a conversation like is this really the role that you like right like is this like she had transitioned in from another team um and I was like you know if this isn't what's ex excites you what are things that do what is it that you enjoy about this job and then what is it that you don't enjoy about this job and can we find something that's more similar to the things you enjoy and so um once we sort of came up with

that it was like great okay well maybe you should be in product management or or you know producer something like that and so aligned her with um aligned her up with some people within the company that she could talk to who did those roles um allowed her to do some job shadowing uh so that she could see like is this really what I want to do and sort of you know got her an idea of like okay great if this is what I really want to do then here are the skills I need to practice you know here are the people I need to connect with here's the things I need to learn in order to move into that role um and we do some of that where I'm at now like I have um a person on the user engagement team which is also most people probably call life cycle marketing um you know push email social um where they're interested in

CTV uh which falls under UA so you know they're working on a project to learn all about about CTV and then they're going to be paired up with a member of the UA team to actually try launching a CTV campaign you know completely different because they come out of push you know push marketing and and have worked with email and social and so I think it's like like if it's within the company great like figure out what those roles are that you're interested in um and find people who do them and and see if you can you know get get more information learning experience from them uh if it's like oh I want to do something completely different um or I want to do a role that's not I would say more if you want to do a role that doesn't exist in your company and you know what that role is then you need to be the entrepreneur

right like you need to be motivated to go put together essentially your own job description with the value attached to it because that's what companies care about they want to know what's the value and if as long as you can show that um you know then then I think again it's what's the value and then you know to take into what gyland says right like you got to be brave you've gotta you've got to be willing to step out and be like like here's something new I know we're not doing it here's why I think it's really valuable to the company here's why I think I should be the one that you know starts to take that on just thinking about what you said Brian you know and probably there's more opportunities here than we're initially seeing because everything is coming together you know those boundaries those silos they are disappearing I mean have to simply because of the nature of the gaming industry so you know it's that transition from from where you are in

life cycle marketing to Something in CTV I mean that's not as odd as it sounds that's actually a great extension and a great way to mix those disciplines I I think this is a it's the cross discipline approach and and having people you know uh what's the term margin Walkers so the people who can meet bring together the disciplines and translate is is incredibly valuable and Gwen do you have anything you would like to bring in at this point it doesn't um take a formal role or formal position or job title to go out there and start doing something if you think you are interested in it explore it have that sense of curiosity we talked about earlier and that continuous learning of find out how people are doing it if you are curious about how you're being targeted on social media create a meta business account and find out what the targeting options are and see what does it mean to be in market for a service or

um what sort of demographics can they tell about me um do and have a portfolio of stuff that you're doing and it will make your transition that much easier for some people who aren't as Brave as our guest Brian I did include the whole idea of like okay let's talk about moments when you're feeling lost because I'm talking to some people in the industry who are like yes you know I am passionate I am interested but right now I feel overwhelmed and lost um was there a moment you felt completely lost and how did you find your way back I feel um I feel that a lot of the lessons I learned from the very first time I was in you know in a in a layoff situation um are what really helped me and it might seem a little um it might not seem intuitive but at some point you also have to figure out that life's not all about you

and if you think too much about your own circumstances and your own situation and you know you can start to feel um it's especially if it's been a while right especially if you're in that that layoff situation for a while which I know unfortunately like a a number of people I know have been in that um you know you can start to to feel a little discouraged and that was one of the reasons why um I did things that forced myself to get out and meet other people and contribute in other ways and continue to grow um and so I think es especially like your network can really help too right like if you're not if you're not that type of person to say okay I'm I'm just willing to go out and volunteer here and do this that thing that I've never done before um know make sure that you're at least staying in conf contact with people and in in your

network and and um you know maybe even finding times to you know say Hey you you're you're in a role right now like um you know if you were you know if if you were going to hire what sort of skills would you be looking for right so help me help me sort of align where I'm at with maybe what I need to have for the future I want to kind of go back to your point faith if I if I may and ask your network is important without a support network you know trying to do this think your way through this alone can be overwhelming so do you have any tips for for people working in games and terms of how you build that Network and how you kind of create that support around you if you can make yourself leave your house I know that's a that's a trial after we've all been you know conditioned to like work remote so much but leave your house leave your comfort zone and um get out and meet new people

that's one way to build your network you just have to you know you have to make yourself do it um the other thing I would say is there's a lot of Industry boards that I'm on there's an ASO board there's um like mobile um uh mobile Dev memo there's just a number of like slack Channel these slack Channel boards um you'll see people's names pop up again and again um sometimes um I reach out to them if they say something that I think is interesting and I form a connection that way uh and then going to Industry events um you know reading blog posts watching webinars and contacting people that way and listening to our podcast of course 100% like you guys always have interesting people on so yeah I think you um if it's not your like I'm I'm naturally an inter um so if it's you know if it's not

necessarily always your thing um you you still need to you know you still need to do it you do indeed it's and Gwen how about yourself do you have any any advice for people on building their support also an introvert and for anyone else out there who's an introvert I recommend Susan K's uh quiet um book it's very good and empowering it won't won't tell you how to fix yourself like most introvert books do it will instead talk about the psychology of it and how you can go out there and do all these things I'm an introvert but I can go out and do a podcast I can go to a networking event it's just going to cost me later and I need to schedule some time to myself so that I can have that breath that reentering and then I can make a point of adding to my list of things to do contacting and following up on these folks because one-on-one

interactions small groups it's U much easier as an introvert to um start to bond with one or two people that I met at that big event and it's worthwhile coming out of that event with a couple of good contacts you wouldn't think it Brian for all the work that I do and all the travel that I do but I actually consider myself an introvert so there there you go what you see before you is the product of many years of hard work I was so painfully shy as a teen that the very idea of doing this podcast would have had me throwing up in fear so I I spent a long time cultivating the ability to be around people and I know I love it you know I I draw energy in from people so I I seem to have turned myself into an extrovert but um glad you did for a sector that that thank you so much um but for a sector that can be so insular um I I would like to offer a couple of pieces of advice for me if if if that's okay um one is that the games industry

can be very very inward-looking and I've found an awful lot of value stepping outside and going to other types of event whether they're General business whether they're Tech the creative Industries so here in in Scotland I'm I'm I'm on the board of a uh an organization called creative Edinburgh which has 6,000 members and there are artists filmmakers you know graffiti artists dancers choreographers all sorts and going out and and talking to people from outside games can be hugely hugely beneficial um because they do bring a completely different perspective so I I uh I think that's really valuable and the other thing just briefly is don't just go to social events you know if you're if you're at a a business event go and look for mentors go and look for you know peers don't just go hang out drink the beer eat the pizza and kind of put up with the noise you know go in

with a go in with a purpose with a plan I like that I like that I've had too many loud loud discussions and you need to be focused on this I think well you you are the the master at this Peggy you go to so many events and you go in and you know who's going to be there you you I've seen you work the room all right there is a reason that our podcast is so well stocked with fabulous guests well look what I do I bring them back I bring them in I want to switch to something else not because I like the topic necessarily but I always check a bit in conferences what people are talking about and I thought no let's let's talk about this we have faith we have Gwen let's talk about the importance of continuous learning yes we've covered that but we also have the advance of AI and there's a sense that AI can be a tool for enhancing roles is what I want to try and focus on rather than replacing them and I will show this in of course the video but for someone

listening in audio I saw this cartoon from the marketeer uh and I thought this this is really this is really it so there's um little girl and she's telling her dad you know when I grow up I want to be a prompt engineer for the AI that does my dream job hope we're not going there but uh it does say a Lot Faith just your your thoughts here there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of when there's uncertainty there's there's some you know fear around what could happen um and so I think the way I look at it uh is really more around what's opportunity I you know look at other look at like people in IND in the industry we all know um some of the especially some of the creative agencies in the the industry who use AI a lot like try to get their learning and really approach it like okay well

for where I'm at what's useful what's interesting um but I don't but I but I also recognize um that AI isn't you know people it doesn't have the soft skills that are so key for doing well in the industry for doing well in your job for doing well at the company right like a I can't create corporate culture that makes employees happy to work there right it can't it it can certainly help with creating prompts for you know your um your UA campaign um but it's not going to necessarily understand like everything about the the user experience and the user Journey you're the one that's in your game you're the one that should understand it best so I think you know always trying to like keep up with

what's going on with it is great but letting the fear of it sort of restrict what you're doing um is is is going to interfere with your ability to continue to be curious about it to continue to learn and grow when what would you like to add there because again you are a huge proponent of continuous learning how is this going to impact that or what should our listeners be doing to stay relevant when there's so much changing so quickly and a lot of it changing through AI um I recommend trying it out going go to chat GPT it's free just go there and um test it out yourself it is also changing a lot um a few months ago I did a demo in a class and I asked it for 20 ideas for uh breakfast food and it told me things like breakfast burritos scrambled eggs

and a tortilla tortilla filled with scrambled eggs and potatoes and other things that were part of these 20 ideas so most of the ideas that will give me are eh but the value that I have as a person as a digital marketer as a writer who might use this to help with some prompts is that I have the common sense that could say what is interesting in and exciting um I wrote an article on 10 um thing DIY crafts to do with your kids I don't have kids and I do a lot of crafts but they're not simple um they're things like chain maill jewelry so they're not something I would put in this article but I asked chat GPT give me 30 ideas on crafts to do with your kids I found a few good ideas and then I went out and researched them and I put together what I think wound up being a really solid article for my class Cent um it's a good starting point it means

that you're never alone you never face the blank page anymore you can say h and then you'll be like oh that's crap what I do instead is and you have your idea that you didn't have five minutes ago that's true get away from that blank page I'll go with that have you tried it out Brian oh yeah so I have and I will be honest um I use Google workspace a lot so the fact that Gemini is now being integrated into an awful lot of what they're doing um so you can use it to as you say Kickstart or sanity check um Initial Ideas straight within a Google doc and and uh emails and like I'm I'm really enjoying it's not replacing what I do it's not you know I I will ask it for 300 words on on something or I'll give it an article that you know if I get a lot of press releases and rather than just turn it and rewrite the press release can you do this so there's some really useful starting points and some some good shortcuts but you're you're

absolutely right to pick up on on what you were saying Faith you know it's it's not going to be replacing you know it's not going to be building things around people it's not going to be changing the way we work but for me it the interesting thing I find is how many people across the games industry which as we've said from the outset is subject to change change change who flat out refuse to engage with with new technology whether it's AI whether it's crypto and web 3 whether it's you know a lot of these emerging Technologies um and they're just going no it's it's it's unethical or it goes against my beliefs and so therefore I will not engage um and I think that's going to cause an awful lot of people problems in the relatively near future because even if you as you said so um concisely Gwen look at it and decide not to use it at the very least you kind of understand what the limitations are and

you have some frame of reference whenever I have somebody who is on that other end of the spectrum of oh AI is the solution for everything I challenge them have it create a recipe for you and do it as is if you believe in it so much it can provide a good dinner recipe for you it doesn't do a great job it will never replace a talented chef and I think there's a lot of solace in that for folks at the other end of the spectrum and that it's a tool it's not truly creative inventive and there's no replacement for human Common Sense yeah I I feel like it's all about how can you use it right now it's like how can you use it to be more efficient right rather than thinking about it like oh it's going to replace what I do how can I use it to make myself more valuable in my role so I want to wrap it up with some advice some advice to someone starting over in their career right now today if you could give them one piece of advice what would it be uh assess what um you

love and what you hate and lean into what you love how about you Faith be willing to put effort into it right like a lot of I think I think the biggest challenge for people is like oh I want change but then they're not necessarily willing to do the things that would get the change um but be willing but you know recognize that it's going to be that it's going to be difficult it's going to be work um and embrace the uncertainty of it right like mentally prepare yourself to that you know that you're this is a challenge it is something new um it might you might not succeed at everything you're setting off to do in your role right like if if it's if it's something new you've never done before like 100% success like is one it doesn't really happen and two you don't learn a lot from it so just be prepared that some of the things you try are going to

be successful some of them are going to fail um and hopefully there will always be learnings so that the next you know so that your next steps are even better these are these are great these are absolutely fantastic you know lean into put your love you know do something that brings you Joy um be comfortable in uncertainty and I would just one of the things that I found when I started going to Tech events Faith was the whole mantra fa small fa fast fa cheap you know it's if you're not sure if something's going to fall apart make sure it's not you know the end of the world for you or the the end of your career or your business so um again it's one of those things I learned from going out and networking but some fantastic advice and pointers I think for for every single person listening to this Peggy absolutely um a lot there a lot to unpack and a lot that's um relevant in all areas of gaming I mean we were

talking about Marketing in UA but this applies to community this applies to product this applies to those who are now having to morph and become life cycle marketers as we heard in a recent uh episode or just learning to sell I mean now games are Commerce so you have to be a shopkeeper on top of everything else so you are always Reinventing yourself in this industry I think that's why why we're in it Brian never ever a doll moment absolutely we've we've both tried civilan jobs and we still get sucked by because it's just such a fun and fascinating place to be let's let's draw things to a close and hopefully we'll be able to invite you back at some point soon before we go we have a couple of questions that brings it right back to the heart of games that we ask all of our guests the first is what is it you're playing right now what's obsessing you what's on your mobile your PC or your console secondly what's your favorite favor game of all time social group we've started playing um

minoria um play a couple times a week and um loving it it's but it's all about the the social group but it's a solid game as well favorite game of all time is a tougher one um flourish it is uh Falls the board game card game category and I find that it has it is innovative it is approachable and it entered into a very busy Marketplace there's tons of games out there it has lots of replayability and it has Cooperative or competitive modes love it so that is my favorite game of all time right now uh so what I'm playing right now I have two mobile games that take up um probably more of my time than they should uh one is called top troops it is an it is like a squad-based RP RPG of sorts um so it's been fun to play it's also super

interesting as a case study in what happens when the Game Dev team decides that they have a whole bunch of things that they need to change and they make the changes all at the same time so so yeah so it's it's not only just been fun it's been like wow from a marketing perspective this is super interesting to watch um because I'm also active in the forums uh and then I play a game that's probably quite a bit opposite to that which is called the cat game which is all about collecting cats oh that sounds wonderful I love it now yeah so favorite game of all time um I there's so many games I play a lot of which I play with um gendin in our social group um I'm a huge board gamer tabletop gamer

like gwendolin um I think uh one of the games that I could probably sit down and play um almost anytime is called It's a Wonderful World um which is a sort of deck building slash a little bit a little bit like um not necessarily worker placement but um but definitely like a production production economy game cool When Faith it has been delightful a learning experience and enlightening I couldn't have couldn't have chosen a better topic with two better people to discuss it thanks so much absolutely this has been a complete Joy thank you both very much for your time well thank you it was great to it was great to be on and speak with you guys it's been a pleasure this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you

have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games Market in all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz SLP podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you

in the near future