HTML5 Gaming: From Graveyard to Gold Rush

HTML 5 gaming has seen sort of multiple cycles of kind of hype and to some people some level of disappointment. So I wanted to ask you why do you believe we're now truly seeing a renaissance rather than a temporary surge? What's what's different this time? And there's not too many people right now wants to discard the HTML 5 because probably that's what you mentioned about all these problems which the HTML 5 faced many years ago. But right now uh there's a huge difference what happening. First of all the 5G and the internet is like booming everywhere and uh there's no one cares about the uh how much information you have there on your phone. Secondly, uh thank you. Thanks for the Bitcoin, for the Nvidia, for the old LM models and so on. The GPUs become really fast. And right now we have a pretty

similar experience which we have with like normal games and HTML 5 games. And there's a lot of great titles worldwide which actually kind of good have pretty similar experience to what we could get with the native gaming. And that's a story. That's a game changer. That's a disruptor actually. Okay. So, let me just try to understand when you say thanks to LLMs and things of that nature or are you just saying thanks more generally to technology which now is allowing HTML 5 games to be very performant, have better graphical capabilities and things like that. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Yeah, you're you're completely right. That's that's actually helps people to to to make the better title and just in our web browser. Right now we're in web browser actually we're recording that right here. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I could also ask you if you were look at like like in the past there were certain platforms that try to push HTML 5 games. Um what are the main ways that players access HTML 5 games today and what are

the potentially the the channels that you you think will grow? Well first of all there's plenty of platforms which you mentioned before. So some of them it's like old age from the flash era actually some of them like definitely newcomers and the thing is there's no monopoly on the web traffic worldwide. So there's uh a lot of great portals right now who just like either gaming or non gaming portals who have their own like categories for the games. So that's what what we see right now that's uh the it's it's it's like growing on any kind of platform in any kind of like a web messenger web messengers or different types of messengers they also introduced their game gaming platform like I don't know discord recently launched their platform telegram guys uh the huge amount of the web games right now on the vchhat and uh any kind of like web portal could have their own games also

the alternative stores which nowadays like soon would be launched everywhere at least it looks like uh there would be a lot of just game developers who are making their game on the HTML 5 and then this game could be introduced that's why actually what we are doing right now we help the game developers that play GMA helps game developers to distribute the uh those games everywhere just put their one SDK they play GMA bridge to uh get any kind to like actually create the all-in-one SDK for for the most of the relevant platforms for the game developer. Right. And maybe I could dig into that a little bit in more depth. So, you mentioned that there's a lot of these social and messenger apps and I I recently recorded a podcast speaking to a developer on Telegram and sounds like there is some potential to achieve a lot of virality or a lot of uh downloads on some of those platforms. Uh

you also mentioned Discord. Obviously, Discord has been thinking about gaming and they could represent a huge platform. Um, so is that where you're do you think that's the area versus web that you're seeing the most growth? And then I wanted to also u basically ask you to elaborate a little bit on the last part in terms of mobile apps and maybe alternative app stores, but how easy is it now to wrap uh some of these HTML 5 games as a mobile app? And what are what are the sort of um current status of being able to do that on either you know Apple or Android? Actually there a lot of questions in one. Let's start from from the from from the last one. Uh first of all uh I know this few guys they just did the wrapping up to the app store and Google play like just in few hours and actually that's that's with the technologies it's like really really simple experience right

now uh and that's actually one of the thing which help which we help right now to the game developers to provide their builds for the different types of app stores uh for the different types of this Google play app stores or any kind of alternative stores as Uh so I do not believe that the wrapping up it's kind of like a plugin. It's it's it's really simple story and soon it would be more commoditized than it's been before. Uh secondly, well I believe that any kind of platform uh which have the eyeballs could could soon would launch their own like kind of like a gaming portal inside just because any kind of platform have their own web browser and that means that the any kind of HTML 5 game could be definitely been launched on this platform. That's it. It's not only about the web messenger. It's not only about the web. It's not only about the messengers, it's about

anything. So the form factors would be like dozen of them. I don't know. Fridge could be probably the surface for playing the games if you need it or maybe somewhere I don't know the screens and elevators when when you are waiting for something. So that means that it would be like the simplification of the web of the game distribution of the distribution of for the HTML 5 games. And I apologize to you in the audience for uh for all the questions kind of bundled together. But just to kind of break this down a little bit more. So we have the existing uh social apps that uh they are that HTML 5 games already exist on like you know uh Telegram is is a good example and but potentially it could go to anywhere that there's a web browser. So, for example, the X platform or things like that or any kind of social web-based platform could add HTML 5 games. Um, and then you're saying that on the mobile app side, it's very easy to convert an HTML 5 game and wrap that

uh wrap the HTML 5 game into a mobile app that can then be distributed on a mobile app store. What is the current legal situation or the uh I guess the policy situation with respect to Apple and Android or or Google Play for HTML 5 games and do you potentially see that changing anytime in the near future? Well, let's divide also this question into two parts. One of them how to monetize the apps. What we know already from the web game from the web game perspective the most of the web games still in add tech era. So they most of them monetized with an app tech and I'm originally actually from the adtech. I've been an executive for the ad tech companies for for for more than decades. So actually that's why I'm here. I realized it could be like a great story to like help with this previous experience to put it inside all these new gave the game market. And uh in terms of ads, there's no any kind of restrictions

and no there's no any troubles right now with what what they people doing. If we talk about all these in-game purchases, not in up purchases, let's say in-game purchases right now and uh uh in that particular way there used to be a lot of like the laws about the gatekeepers especially I don't know in Europe right now there was a huge case between an Epic and and Apple and what uh and that would be definitely a new equilibrium right there. So would it be a different like payment solutions inside these games? Definitely. Looks like they would be different web stores for these particular games also. Uh I believe that there would be different types of providing and different types of let's say easiness of the payments inside the game for the Apple and the Google ecosystem. So I will I just believe that there would be

a different equilibrium point right now like in a year uh in terms of how uh the game developers could uh acquire the payments inside their games in the app store in a different u app app stores. Okay. So again let me try to break that down a little bit for our audience. So basically what you're saying is from a monetization perspective for an HTML 5 game, you can make money either through ads or through inapp or in-game purchases. On the ad side, you're saying there's no restrictions and possibly it's even better to do that in HTML 5 game because you wouldn't be uh confined to any kind of app store restrictions. On the payment side, you mentioned there's some impact of Epic versus Apple. Could you go into that specifically? And and you're saying that in-game payments is likely to be better in a year from now. Is that I just want to try to fully characterize that for our audience if you can. Well, I do not think that it would be better, but I'm

talking I think that it would be like a different way of thinking because Yeah, because there would be a lot of guys who already moving into the space of like creating their own like a payment processing. they are the these payments would be like I don't know either in the web or there would be different solution how to uh acquire the payments from a game player. So there would be just a different way of paying not only through the apps uh app store payments but it would be just just a different ways of how to pay inside. That's it. Okay. Right. So kind of similar to the situation with web shops and and mobile games today. Yep. That's true. That's true. That's what happens actually with a search or with the browsers and so on. So if someone would uh being a gatekeeper right now and become like too huge on the market that's what happens actually afterward that in different types of anti- monopoly cases. That's it. Okay. And I had heard that you had

recently raised some funding about $3 million in capital. So I was wondering if we could ask you about this. Right. So, it's not just you saying, "Hey, I believe that HTML 5 games are coming back." But you've got investors who are also seeing a bright future for HTML 5 gaming. Can you kind of candidly talk about So, what is the I mean, I know you've mentioned that there there's, you know, better capabilities and things like that, but what what do you think they saw as well? What's the overall thesis or story behind HTML 5 gaming that gives investors confidence that maybe there's a brighter future ahead? Well, I believe that uh all of our investors finds find something for their for their own. So, for example, the Telegram guys uh they the open platform they they found out that's uh well there's a lot of games right now in the telegram and for them it's kind of like a vital thing. For example, for the FJ

Labs, uh they are really specialized on the marketplaces classified and they definitely seen how the distribution could help this market to make it um actually bigger at the end of the day because the the bigger market is the more money would developers acquire and that at the end of the day that would mean that they could have much more money to provide the better gaming experience for the people that's uh that's actually the classified as a marketplace business and also that what they see right now it's for example New York type times case that's they already have the like more than 50% of their time spent uh they powered by the games platform not from their news platform right and that mean that any kind of classified or any kind of media in newspapers could be definitely I think uh which would get addition money. The the games fund, the

guys who are really specialized on the games, they see a huge amount of the game developers which right now switching from the uh games which been built on the different native engines to the HTML 5 because it's actually sometimes cheaper that's easier to distribute and that's actually easier to support sometimes in terms of the updates and so wants. So uh and uh I think that every single fund f uh funds something that's they believe and that's uh actually exist in their own strategy. And there we are. Okay. Well, maybe we could talk about then in in terms of if if we're if we believe that HTML 5 does have the potential to become much broader and uh have more kind of mainstream success. Can you talk about what are some of the limitations?

So for example, you you mentioned that graphics now are much more capable today and maybe that was a specific limitation, but could you talk about for example, what are the gaps do you see between a native mobile app and HTML 5 game? And then what do you think might be potential limitations to players jumping on to HTML 5 games? Well, there's still uh not the best experience right now when we are speaking about the mobile games uh uh because the most of the devices are not support still properly and uh you need to completely create the game especially for the mobile uh devices and for examp limitations is that what you're saying not only the hardware limitation but sometimes with the browser limitations as well because the browsers also have their own like addition addition they they need to take additional space and you need to think about all these full screens mode and not every single

browser uh allow this full screen modes and so on. So there's still some limitations with the browser uh browser we're thinking but uh it's um it could be avoided in some ways but still that's there's a still a huge potential for the the best gaming experience. Uh I believe that's still the for the like real triple AAA titles with a great graphics which you need to focused on. There's still a great room to grow for the game engines because they right now um just on the early stage of the optimizing their game engines for the web web and for the web browsers. Uh what else uh what other limitations I see? I believe actually not about the limitation but the opportunities for example the opportunities for the game developers on the uh when you when you for example

acquiring the traffic uh the there's still not a cookieless world and it's cheaper. You could actually attribute your traffic times easier than it happens right now with the restrictions of the apps. Yeah, maybe can we talk about that part because obviously in today's world distribution and growth is a major point of you know competition where if you're able to do growth and user acquisition well then that's something that can that can give any game studio a pretty significant advantage. So could you dive into for example I I think that one of the challenges historically with some of these HTML 5 games has been like discoverability m you know if you're if you're on like Telegram or if you're on a social app maybe discoverability might be better for you based upon the characteristics of the platform but if you were to make an HTML 5 game and you

know kind of be like could you talk about just this discoverability problem and user acquisition problem so how what Is the current state of that today relative to a mobile game? Well, on the mobile games, it looks like it's already a red ro. So, if you want to launch the games in the app stores, that means that you definitely need to acquire the traffic. There's no other way to grab a lot of people. Sometimes there could be some viral things and but most likely you need to pay for it. Uh in the web world it's still pretty different because there's a dozen of platforms like actually not dozen but hundreds of platforms worldwide some of them huge ones which still have a lot of trending games there's still a huge amount of search engine optimization uh ways of getting the traffic also all these LMS which nowadays kind of considered with the search engines

optimization as well and so there's either the uh three third party uh solution. How you you could just launch your um game somewhere on some platform which we could easily help you with the plugama bridge to just be mostly everywhere or you could just easily acquire the traffic on a like traditional basis. what you are doing right now for example with the um with the traditional like marketing sources what you're doing pretty similar to the app stores right so you would use same ad networks and things like that yeah mo most likely you would lose you would use either the same network or probably you would use kind of different because they way web based and still web based and the mobile ads acquisition they are different. For example, some of the ad networks they focused only on mobile and not focusing on the web at all. Okay. And uh well

actually all these header bidding solutions which helps people to acquire that that's that's a great story would be behind that kind of what what I believe right now actually that's why I'm here that's why I'm doing that. Okay. So um basically your perspective is that from a user acquisition point of view uh you still have a lot of capability of uh purchasing users or installs for your um HTML 5 game but uh it's uh essentially would be the same way that you would do user acquisition for web rather than just for for mobile. Yeah. But still there's there's a plenty of the traffic which uh like organic one you're getting either from the some recommendation system from the like a large biggest platform or you're getting from the co or you have the just like I don't know people who are just coming by

pass by through that portals and looking for that games. Okay. Then what what would you say like let's say I'm I decided I want to launch HTML 5 games. I create an HTML 5 game. What is the most difficult part for game developers to achieve success in in your opinion if you go into this HTML 5 gaming space? Uh what what do you think is going to be the most difficult part to achieve success or to achieve profitability from a game developer? Well, one of the thing which we already faced and the seen with different developers, some of them just want to port their game from the mobile to the web. And actually that's a huge difference between the mobile because it's actually kind from my software developer perspective. It's completely different architectures because for the mobile games it's you downloading every kind of assets and so on and then then you have

you like you're preloading actually all the data here you have to work like with some lazy initialization uh get the data upon request and so that's uh and the game play is actually it's easier to start but the the problem is that it's harder to get this person for decade because he's like he's going somewhere else. And for the mobile for the uh app perspective when the person downloaded the app that mean that app still have the icon on his uh phone and from the web games perspective it's really easy to lose the person who played the game. So a lot of viral mechanics which person which the game developers need to be focused a lot of things how to uh make these games more um like uh let's say uh interesting for

that person to and the working on the retention is really vital thing for the game developers to to be there. So in terms of the viral mechanics, are is that would that then favor you launching an HTML 5 game on one of the social apps like Telegram or on a platform where there are existing kind of viral capabilities rather than just being in a web portal and then you might be dependent upon the web portal platform to feature you. How how should I be thinking about that as a developer? Well, what what we know already and that's just to make a get good game. If you want to be featured, that game have to be good. Okay. And what does it mean? It's need to have a good monetization definitely. Uh and definitely need to have the great time spent and the the some retention factors. So if these

games if this game like actually work in that three I don't know thinking about the three dimensions and not losing the users because it's really too heavy it's have a crash and so on. So I'm not talking about like all these technical things because I think that's like it's kind of like a baseline. The game have to work at the end of the day. It mean that you you need to focus on the three dimensions. Monetization, retention, and the time spent inside the game. And one more thing which I really like about that uh that's any any kind of platform they are actually really different. the audience from for example the telegram and the audience on I don't know let's say on MSN games they are so different actually the these people are not even met each other on the street sometimes sure and definitely you need to know a lot about the audience which you are looking for and for example some match

three games and some arcade games probably would not work for this particular audience and if you have some problems with reaching your the right audience in that particular pro platform definitely could just uh try the different one and this could be just the right game for for the other platform that's it right and as a mobile game developer we often talk a lot about a lot of differences between mobile and HD meaning PC and console games and a lot of design differences and things of that nature that you need to be aware of to optimize the game for a specific audience and you're saying is that for HTML 5 games, it might be even a little bit more complicated than that because there are differences in terms of what the audience seeks based upon platform. So if you're So maybe could you talk about some of those differences between like a Telegram or whatever's happening with Discord or just a web portal? What

kinds of games have you seen succeed on some of those platforms or what do you think the differences in the audiences are between some just talk about a couple of the major platforms? Well, I uh first of all what what I've seen right now for example the telegram or any kind like a messengers they have their mostly mobile first audience and the secondly they could be easily interrupted by other I don't know uh pushed from the other person and from other messages. So that mean that if that person could be easily interrupted that mean that the game play have to be also easily interrupted and there could not be like the whole experience. For example, if you talk about the for example Discord, it looks like there's a lot of people who are uh using this discord, they're using it on the desktop and so that's could be like more um full-sized let's say experience and the

people and the person who play it's more dedicated to that game and we definitely need to keep that in mind. So for example the desktop game they are more the the people there they are more dedicated to the to they play instead of the people who are playing on a mobile phones especially on a different browsers and that means that and for discord would you also say more like real time social because I noticed like when you play some some discord games you've got everybody you can see there like everyone's talking to each other things well I am not the expert in the discord I believe there's still no one expert in the discord they recently launched So hopefully we we we would went we we would go through that journey together with the discord as well. Uh but uh what what I believe it would be like a lot of viral things you you need to play with your uh friends and so on. But I believe that's any kind of game right now most of the game right now have to have these uh social things

inside the game. Uh, I think that's the that's actually decreasing your marketing costs. If you don't have the social interactions, that means that you're losing your audience at the end of the day. Right. Right. So, I really like that question because thank you for that because people sometimes the game developers sometimes forgetting that the the most popular games they are really social. Right. Right. And I I guess to to some degree the the point that you made about being very social and viral is important because you may not have some of the retention. Well, some of the features as you mentioned because you don't have the app store icon on your phone that kind of reminds you, oh yeah, I have this game. I I'll play it again. So then to some degree, uh you might be losing some retention because of the the placement on your phone. So then you have to be a little bit more viral. You have to add some things to help remind players to

come back to your game. Is that would would you care? Would you say that's true? Um it's really complicated because you still have a lot of well you still have a lot of ways how to interact with the games. You have a lot of I don't know favorites buttons and so on. You still have all these progressive web apps and you could easily put this uh game on your mobile phone. So it depends on what kind of uh the way of interaction and way of retention the game developers or the platform used to retain the their gamers. It's well that that's why it's tricky because for example uh we we have a lot of like uh experiments with progressive web apps and it works for the for the retention. That's it. So and that means that you are asking person to install the progressive web app or install the icon or and it would

look like just any other mobile mobile game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would look like completely like either mobile game or the desktop game because there still a lot of uh the sim links for the for for the browser or they put it inside the favorite but inside the favorite. So it's it looks like that you just need to like switch because at uh from the app store perspective you are installing the game and then person playing and that should be that just vice versa. Okay the person interacting with the game and then you're asking the this person to install this game. That's right. That's I think that's the biggest difference between the web with the HTML 5 games and web games actually and the app store games. It's easier. it's easier to start. Okay. And um maybe we could talk a little bit more about Playgama. Could you u tell us a little bit about the background of the company as well as the current you know whether it's uh game or the what is the current business

strategy and the products that you guys are focused on? Well, actually uh few years ago I realized that the web game market 5 market is like not far from the renaissance let's say because I've seen that all these game engines they be they grow kind of fast and I finished my Harvard degree and thought about what I'm going to do next and realize that's actually the great place to be in right now and uh I've seen the really heterogenic market that's hundreds of platform which we already mentioned uh that's a lot of platforms are going to be with their games as a lot of non-gamer portal also going to launch that and a lot of game developers I ask them and they've been struggled to get all these contracts pass by all these KYC's KYBS for every kind of platforms and so on and they actually needs that distribution that's uh uh as a start from my background from the developers

process. That's how I could help them to do that. And we did uh we create the SDK which uh help the game developers for the most games engines to uh easily to launch on any kind of platform. So it's like kind of allin-one solution and plugin which you could just plug into your code and then it encapsulates most of the methods of any kind of platform and so we're working with most of the platforms like Microsoft Facebook instant games we're working with soon we would launch like the the largest ones and also the I don't know Telegram the crazy games and so on so on so there's plenty of them And uh right now we help the game developers to be everywhere and help the and at the end of the day the some websites who do not have their platform came to us and said okay guys but you have the games maybe you would

help us to launch the game portal as well and what we did we help them to launch kind of like a white label solutions and uh it's also growing kind of rapidly. So what we're doing right now we increasing amount of the game play worldwide. Yeah. with HTML 5 games and I believe that's it's kind of like the strategy to put the games everywhere on any kind of surface. Okay. So just ju just for me and and and potentially the audience to understand your business. So you have an SDK. It's kind of like a wrapper for an HTML 5 game that can then help it help that game get distribution across multiple platforms. And then the second line of business that you guys have is a white label solution for anyone that's looking to start like a web portal for HTML 5 games. You guys help them set that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not not only web portal but some probably some embedded JavaScript that you could play just game on any kind of website or name. So any any kind of

Right. Okay. Cool. And one of the things I think I saw from the website was this uh this kind of focus on trying to centralize monetization and marketing. And so could you describe what does that mean and why why is it important to centralize monetization and marketing for HTML 5 games? Uh well uh the let's start with monetization. We know that's a lot of platforms they also struggling to implement all these methods and all these SDKs and SSPs and DSPs and so on to achieve the higher bidder. So that's what we are helping the game portals to get to get the highest speed and to not let we are trying to help the game developers not to get additional um costs to integrate any kind of solutions from the uh monetizing their traffic. And from the marketing perspective of

course well we when we are distributing the games in any kind of platform we exactly we have already an experience that this game would probably would this game probably would work on this platform or probably not. And that means that we are actually lowering the costs for the game developer and for the platforms to realize that this probably this game would not work there and just to uh stop unnecessary hustle right there. So it just about the like uh precise way of marketing uh the games at the end of the day. Okay, let me try to understand that. So I think the first thing you said so are you do you guys also have an ad mediation product not right now but still it's in the process we already help few guys to make their roization better so okay so you you're working on an ad mediation yeah yeah soon it will be launched so it's it's well actually for

some guys so if anyone wants just let me know and the second the second part that you mentioned about not wasting people's time by not going to certain platforms. Could you explain that part? I didn't quite understand what you mean. Well, actually that's not every single game uh relevant for any kind of platform. For example, some of the games you wants to launch some like desktop HTML 5 game and you're trying to achieve the guys who have like more than 90% of their mobile traffic. It's actually unnecessary cost for you and necessary I don't know cost for the platforms and so on. So you just don't need to go there. And in terms of marketing, we right now helping the game developers to uh make the better create uh the better pictures for that games, better video for that games. We're working with their marketing materials. We're working with this the app store optimiz store but uh in platform optimization. I'm not sure how to it's

not an ASO but it's in app store optimization. That's a new term. So you guys are also doing a little bit of like UA agency. We help them to well right now the LLMs and all these guys for example the our friends just launched they just got around and they are the friends of us who help us to make this process for for the creatives easier. Okay. So, to some degree, it sounds like what you guys are doing is just saying, "Hey, if you have a great HTML 5 game, we'll help you with everything else, the distribution, the advertising, the all that other stuff." Is that fair to say? You're trying to plug in the holes to just make it easy for developers to get their HTML 5 game and to try and make Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm not the guy who create the great games. I don't into this I'm not into this sphere but I know a lot of about the marketing about the classified about the how to acquire the traffic and how to make this process better. So I'm trying to uh put all this

experience from a different spheres into the gaming process and make this process here like smoother, faster and easier and what's our team actually uh dedicated to do. Okay. And maybe another question I can ask you is obviously you're kind of betting your career and future on HTML 5 games or something you saw a couple of years ago. There's something that your investors believed in. And so in a successful scenario, let's let's say 5 years in the future, if everything were to go according to plan, what would that gaming landscape look like for HTML 5 games? What would be a scenario of success in your mind in 5 years? Well, I like that you ask because it's I believe that it's way way way broader market that uh at the end of the day how many games would be like kind of HTML 5 or on the game on the games engine which would be kind of everywhere. I believe that

like right now it's like a not a tiny percent but it's like still the minority and I believe that it would be more than a half or something like that. So there most of the new game new games would be on the uh on the games engines which could be like kind of like a crossplatform. when I was a kid there was like a lot of things which I everyone wants to be like crossplatform afterwards they've been like a decade uh where they've been like the particular platform and a lot of guys been been build games on for the these particular platforms right now that's a new story and I believe that still would be an era for the fully crossplatform gaming and for fully crossplatform experience and that means that we would be here really relevant and secondly it would be a lot of platforms where you could play at the

end of the the day. So when you say crossplatform you mean like with PC console like with HD or in what way? Well, crossplatform that means you are building one game mostly one game for the most of the surfaces like not mind not console or PC or web or app stores or any kind of like a traffic which you could acquire from different perspective. So more or less. So you mean crossplatform in terms of like the HML 5 that's because telegram discord you know whatever because in in terms of time spent where people could get these uh additional I don't know eyeballs okay and m maybe like the the last set of questions I can ask you would be more around your personal journey and you know obviously the gaming industry today there a lot of people who are a little bit sour on the industry just because

there have been a lot of layoffs and there's been a little bit of rationalization in the games industry. But like if you were to uh talk to us about your own story and why you feel there's more optimism in HTML 5 games, could you take us back to you I think you said you started two years ago. Walk us through like the how you kind of uh set everything up, how you kind of started the business. Uh well I started the business like almost two years ago uh because I've seen that huge potential in terms of market and I've seen that more and more game developers begin to think about the simma 5 also because they didn't struggle in terms of how to get additional money from the app stores uh because the traffic being really expensive they could not get additional installs and all these u customer acquisition cost been like way way way higher than the LTVs and they begin to

think about the new uh potential channels and so they begin to work with uh HTML 5 and create the some games for different platforms and they some of them realize that okay that's that's a great revenue stream the new one yeah maybe it's been like lower than the app store revenue stream when you are creating the super title but in terms of the average game developers and it's been like kind of relevant for And they told okay that's fine but there's a lot of platforms how to be everywhere because if you well there's still there's still no platform which I don't know get like 10% of the whole time spent or the game played worldwide. that's a really fragmented market and I asked them how I could help and they told me that yeah that's probably a good idea to make some kind like the some kind of way how to make the plug-in or something like that to to be everywhere and also they ask to help them with all these legal restrictions

with all these KYCs with all these IPS problems which market also have so that's what that's what we decide to do and uh from my previous background there was a lot of things which we faced with that and that's was just I think developer and classified experience helped me to to to think about in a different perspective that's it right so kind of sounds like what you're saying is you started by just talking to a lot of people in the HTML 5 gaming market um finding out about their problems and trying to help them out but then how did you practically start was it just you did you have co-founders And then how did you kind of close on that initial round of funding? Oh well actually I had a previous experience as a CEO of classified and the chief revenue for the really huge group of company called Yandex seven years ago and uh during that time already had a few exits from the company. So I started on my own

money, built the team, find out few guys who are ready to work on a startup and then in maybe in a year we realize it's uh we found out at least a product market fit fit and my friends from the different funds asked me it's probably it's good idea to get the money and to make the first round of investments right now because they also believe in the market. they seem that uh in such kind of market there would be like the it looks like they are already kind of like they're waiting for the disruption. Okay. And uh because a few years ago we disrupted a little bit the classified market. Yeah. Uh so probably it's good time to it's good timing to make the new new disruption. Right. Right. There. So sounds like you were previously successful. you self-funded this current effort and then once you got to a certain level of traction sounds like you also had some friends who were venture capitalists or whatever and so

that I guess that that helped and so then you you then closed the the round and kind of started this business. Okay, that's true. That's true. So last question, Dimmitri, what's what's next when you look at the kind of the short to medium-term future for PlayMama? What's coming up in terms of milestones or next uh next sort of achievements that you're hoping to see? Uh well actually right now we are we are in a scaling process. We have a lot of clients who are wants and they are already some of them waiting. That's actually a huge line for the game developers. It's actually already a huge line for the guys who are waiting for their uh web portals to embed our games and uh what you told uh what you asked before it's uh about the we need we definitely need to create the additional solutions for the uh ads and mediations and so on. So so right now we're working

on that as well. So I do not think that's we have a lot of like northstar metrics which we are covering right now. Of course our main northstar metric it's how many game played we uh bring to that market, how many times spent we bring to that market and we are mostly focusing on that. So, but there's a huge network effect if we would have the one of the best at tech solutions and I believe that's my team that could definitely build that if we would have a lot of uh product advantages for the game developers to with our SDK with our statistics with that and if we would have a lot of great product advantages for the platforms and additional money which they could earn that would be definitely a thing which how which helps us to uh actually increase that network effect higher and higher. That's it. Okay. And the our best milestone is that

the a lot of um actually reviews like really great reviews from the game developers. They told me many times it's thank you guys. Right now we don't need additional efforts and we could just build games and not to think about all other processes right that's the thing also the play gama bridge SDK is an open source solution anyone could use it if if they wants to be to use it by his own but we believe that the quality of service which we provides to the game developers it's cost like small revenue share for them that's it okay yeah so maybe Uh just just ask you one more question. So what does that look like in terms of like the pricing or if if a developer wanted to work with you? What is the pricing model? How much does it typically cost? All that kind of thing that the it's actually the economics kind of simple. We have the revenue share model. Uh so if these game

developers earn additional money, we have the we take the rake from like 10 to 30%, it depends on the uh the volume and so on. So it depends on different like circumstances but most likely it's just a revenue share model between us and the game developers to provide that. Got it. They most simply think in the distribution way of thinking because I'm from this business and I believe that's we don't need to create some additional like let's say financing or commercial strategies. Okay. All right Dimmitri that was my last question. So maybe we could end on just was there anything that I left out or is there a final message that you have for the audience and if they wanted to contact you to try and work with you how would they contact you? Well actually playgama.com anyone could just uh send the for the developers links and just come to us and or Google playgama and there would be easy way to find out

us. Uh so and uh my last message that's a tricky question uh just play games and build games and I believe that's it would be really helpful. Sounds good. All right Dimmitri thank you so much for talking to us about your business and for our audience. We will catch you next time. Thanks Dmitri. Thank you. I appreciate that. [Music] [Music]