Inside Subway Surfers, Mobile Gaming's Most Enduring Hit

Welcome to the Navit Gaming Podcast, where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games. We bring together the industry's brightest builders, investors, and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events, dissect emerging trends and games, share lessons learned, and have a great time. This podcast is also part of Navik's growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to consulting and advisory services. For more information, visit www.navic.co. This episode is brought to you by Heroic Labs, which powers some of the world's biggest games with its heroic game stack. Its composable products are Nakama, the open- source back-end game server, Hero, the game development framework for all your live service game features, including the complexity of managing offline mode, Sattorii, the

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Welcome to the Navag Gaming Podcast. I'm your host, Kaye Moore. Some studios build an empire on a single hit. Cybo built the biggest hit in the history of mobile and then spent more than a decade proving that it wasn't a fluke. Subway Surfers launched in 2012 and 14 years later it's the most downloaded mobile game of all time at nearly 5 billion downloads and it still pulls between 100 and 150 million players every single month. A lifespan almost no game of its generation has come close to matching.

The engine behind it is World Tour, which is a new city every three weeks running for 13 straight years, making it one of the longest live op cadences. A lot of that staying power no longer comes from the game at all. Subway Surfers is the third most used gaming hashtag on Tik Tok, a spot that Cybo earned without spending a single dollar. And when Conan O'Brien wanted to reach a younger audience this year at the Oscars, he did through he did so through a Subway Surfers gameplay video. Now, after 14 years, Cybo has finally has a second game. Subway Surfer Cities, which was built in-house and still inside the franchise, cracked the top five most downloaded games for 6 weeks on verality alone without cannibalizing the original. Whether it's a true second pillar or a way to extend the first one's runway is one of the most interesting open questions in mobile right now. My guest today is Matteas Gretle Norvik, CEO of Cybo, the animator founded Danish studio behind all of it,

which is now a part of mini clip and through it 10 cent. Today we're going to talk about how you keep one game alive for 14 years. What it actually takes to build a second act around a single IP and whether be a oneame studio makes you focused or fragile. Matteas, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks so much. Happy to be here. All right, let's get into the longevity of the game, which is so impressive. So, as I mentioned almost earlier that Subway Surfers is still pulling between 100 and 150 million players per month, while almost every other mobile hit from 2012 is dead. When you strip away the nostalgia, what's the actual machine that keeps a 14-year-old game at the top? What does that look like? I think I think what uh what Sylvester and Bod came up with in 2012 is uh is Lightning in a Bottle. It was a unique game, recognizable over the shoulder, intuitive gameplay. Um

it it had the fun and the funk of painting street art running from a guard and it um and it just plays really well. So the the smoothness of the graphics, the characters, the the rebelliousness means that it it it helped make street culture and underground more mainstream and is still to this day uh the most downloaded game.
Well, well done. That's no small feat. You've also kept the game feeling really current with things like PvP activations, different brand collabs and event cities with their own modes kind of layered on top of that main city. Of everything you've added over the years, what's done the most to make a 2012 game feel like something that could have shipped this year?
After the the launch of the game, I think what we've done successfully now for for more than 14 years is to empower the team. So we have uh an amazing uh

design team, an amazing art team and the engineers are continuously developing both new features but also optimizing. So it still runs on most devices. It's a game that you can play also on a handme-down. Um and then I think what we've been able to do is to encourage the community to play with us. Not just play the game, but also play with us as a studio in terms of making their own content. partner up with us, send fan art, or come with suggestions for new characters and and our collaboration with the audience, I think, is a is a key component to why we're still successful so many years after.
Can we dive into that a little bit deeper? Can you give me an example of maybe a character or a different game mode that you uh heard from the community and then implemented that?
So, we have two two very good examples actually. One of our bestselling characters, one of the fan favorites is

Bob the Blob.
Mhm.
We have um the core crew uh Jake, Tricky, Utani, and Fresh, and they are clearly coming different backgrounds, but coming from a group where they know each other. It's set in a near futuristic world, so they are clearly human. And we wanted to expand on what's possible without making it fully sci-fi.
One of our fans suggested, "What what if there was a science experiment gone wrong for Utani, the inventor of the hoverboard, and send a a concept art for a blob that could then run?" And what we could see was that the audience actually liked that we took it one step further away. We're not going laser guns and dragons, but the fact that it could be a costume or it could be a science experiment, I think made it close enough. Another example that actually went quite viral was that we had players on Tik Tok

sharing videos of them trying not to pick up coins. So, it wasn't our it didn't start as our feature. It started as a communitydriven, hey, isn't it fun to see if you think it's about picking up coins, what if I put it on his head and say it it's nothing about picking up coins? It's the opposite. So, how do you avoid the the coin lines? How do you keep making or how how low can you be on coins when you complete the run? Um, and I think that both of those are examples of of where fans have also inspired us to to keep alive and and fresh.
Uh, love that we're going to do much more of a deep dive in Tik Tok because I think this is something that you guys handle in such a very unique and interesting way. I mentioned brand collabs. Do you have any brand favorites from the past 14 years you could share? We've tried a lot of different We've had uh NFL uh players, football players

running in the game. We've had uh brands uh that that wanted to pay to to play in our universe. We've had uh celebrities talking about us or po posting us because they wanted to either be a character or would like to see how how we could work together. By far the one that has worked the best is when we work with other games
um with um my favorite example and I think that was also because it was the biggest mobile collab of last year was of course Brawl Stars
of course
where we had Subway Service live as a feature in their game and we also had the Brawl Stars characters doing a showdown PvP mode in Subway Surfers and the fact that we could make it as a had a deal saying, "Look, we're not none of us are making direct money. We can hype each other and we can see what the game teams come up with uh relatively free um playing field. What would Subway servers

look like in in Brawl Stars? And what would Brawl Stars look like in subway servers?" One example is that um or one of the the caveats or curiosities about that collaboration is that of course we don't have shooting. We don't have weapons and subway servers. It's a, as I said, near futuristic, but it's also a safe environment. It's it's it's a family family first and for all ages. And uh and it wouldn't look right if we were putting the direct sort of weapons from Brawl Stars into a near futuristic environment. Uh so we chose that perhaps things that exploded or things that would shoot were paint guns or paint bombs.
Nice. uh because you would you would also see that in the street art community that sometimes you you splash a wall or you do something to a to a piece. So uh so I think it worked really well and what I like the most but that actually also goes to Crossy Road and to Roio and the others we've played with is when the game teams inspire each other

and the marketing teams go wild at okay this is funny we can play with each other. the the banter and the sort of well this is fun we can do more has worked really well for us.
Can you share any details about the ROI? Did you get new a new audience into Subway Surfers?
The the challenge with our virality is of course that we are getting a lot of players anyway.
So we have around a million daily new installs and this is mind you still 14 years after launch. Um and therefore some other companies that would spend or hope to get spikes hope to get close to our download numbers. We we our spikes are less than than others because we have such a mature and such a strong pipeline of of people in government. But what we could see for example with Brawl Stars is that September is usually our lowest month of the year. It's the back to school lull and and the players are

are finding out their play patterns uh for for the year. Um you have parents being more busy. There's a lot of factors that means that people in general play a little less uh and the CPMs are usually not the highest in September. What we saw with September with Brawl Stars is that was the best month of the year we had.
Right. So it was on par with our December which is usually where we pride ourselves at Cybo for for owning Christmas every other game developer knows that once people get new phones whether it's because they're affluent enough to afford them whether it's the first phone they have or whether they upgrade their model Subway Surface is one of the titles that we can see spike in downloads during the Christmas days. So the fact that we could partner ourselves to a a strong September was was a proof of of concept for us. That's a that's a great ROI. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about World Tour. So, actually, maybe you can explain what World Tour is for our listeners who

maybe haven't played Subway Surfers and then once we get into that, I have some specific questions about just your live op cadence. But why don't you start with uh what is World Tour?
So, Subways is a game of running on trains collecting coins. Um, and what the founders came up with quite early the year after launch was, wouldn't it be fun if the crew actually went to new cities so that the game play is recognizable? The controls are the same, the characters can evolve, but it's a way, it's a constant fairness to make sure that the environment always looks fresh and there's a reason why new skaters, new uh, crew members are joining because now we're going to Paris, now we're going to New York, now we're going to Beijing. it um it has become the uh blueprint for all other live ops that uses a world tour subway surface was proudly introducing it and it means that that we have it as a way of making sure that the

app stores know that we have a new city coming. We know that the players love that now there is a new city with some new characters. We make sure to visit, I would say, all over the world, but of course we have an over representation in in uh in our main markets.
And then we make sure to both show a culturally relevant sort of historic version of what that country looks like, but also a modern version. So when we went to Shanghai, we both had someone dressed a character dressed very Shanghai historic like 100 years ago, but we also had what you what a no modern Shanghai Chinese would would look like today. Uh and I think what that does is that allows players to sort of explore the world with us. Um the the fun fact is that when you see other cities, you can definitely feel like those cities because the artists we have are amazing and makes make art based on

either having been there or googled or watched shows and found both the trains, the style of a guard, the style of of bridges and elements in the environment. But at the same time uh if you if once we visit your own city we've actually seen sometimes that those are the harshest critics because an endless runner is of course endless by design.
So it keeps running that means that you are not once you cross the tower bridge of London you're not getting to pick ailly necessarily every time.
Yeah. So, so if you're having parts of the world where you're running and it's recognizable, it feels like your city, but it isn't your city. And I think um that's sometimes we have people saying, "Oh, but I would like if it could be the route I normally go to work or the the way I did when I was younger." That's that we cannot give. But we uh we can see that the players love that we come

to cities and we have a lot of incoming requests for could it be my city next or you haven't been to this or it's been a while since you were in my city. When do you come back?
So you've been doing a new city every 3 weeks for 13 years straight. Is that correct?
Uh no because people hope and expect that we visit the main ones more often.
Okay.
So we've been to New York several times. We've been to Paris. uh several times um the cities where people have the clearest anticipation of what the hallmarks are. So if I say um Paris then people say Eiffel Tower. It's a little bit harder once you get a bit out of the top 20 cities in the world because then you might not as a un sort of a completely normal person not know hallmarks of what would the hallmark be of Houston, what would the hallmark be of Iceland. Um so we what we've tried is

to find out how do we make them distinctive um artistically and color scheme wise but also for Houston we went with NASA for Iceland we went with some of the fjords so so we tried to find things that also make the local uh players proud that this is our city on display.
Do you have a favorite city?
Do I have a favorite child? So thankfully I only have one son. I have a bonus daughter and I love her too. But uh um it's uh it's hard to say. I think the one that I love that we keep coming back to is Copenhagen
because Copenhagen is a relatively small city and the fact that we have it as a as a recurring sort of this is our anniversary. One of the event cities of our anniversary is always Copenhagen in a new way means that we also bring global fans to see uh the city I was born in.

And how big is the live ops team? First the first first question is how big is the live ops team? And then because you've been doing this for so long, I'm sure you guys have a formula, but it also probably takes a lot of time and effort to create a new city. Can you just walk me through what that process looks like? So um it depends on how you count because of course we also have some central functions that I would be remiss if I don't give them credit for also supporting the team that does it. But in principle uh we have 130 people. A third is artists and designers and animators. A third is programmers and uh business intelligence data. And then the third is support, HR, finance,
legal, uh, QA and so forth service. Um, I think um, with subway service in our cadence, we we have a lot of people who focus on making the new city or features

that goes into that. We're part driven. So there's a part that makes sure that the cadence of the flywheel goes. That's a that's almost a third of the team. And there's a part making new features and then there's a part trying to optimize um what we already have.
Let's talk about the second game. So Subway Surfer Cities, you soft launched this as Hoverboard Heroes, which was built inhouse. Why soft launch it under a different brand name? And when did you decide that it was ready to carry the Subway Surfers brand?
So it's been on our wish list for many years. I have a um a workshop notes from 2013 where we dreamt that this that the game would be ready for 2016. U contractually we couldn't so we had to wait until 2020. But uh along the way we've had a few restarts where we said look this is not subway service is such

a phenomenon it's part of the cultural side. We know that we have entertained billions of people around the world and how do we make sure that it stands the test of time and that we make something that is truly um a next chapter. In the beginning we want we thought it should be a sequel. It was uh it was clear that that that doesn't really exist in mobile.
Yeah.
So people think that if they if they see a two after something that number one has been shut down and of course we wanted it to coexist. which we didn't want to cannibalize. Um the biggest risk of cannibalization we had was actually not a traditional cannibalization of one download going to a new game but from the algorithmic boost that top has. If a few downloads disappeared from that and all of a sudden we saw that the algorithmic boost the featuring and the the virality we have was disappearing that would be a shame. So we had uh the team has worked on it

four to five years in the in the version that then went live on the 26th of February.
Um in the beginning we thought we would make it ready mostly for high-end. Um we realized that we were reaching too few devices and that probably it would require the next generation of phones to really be the smooth experience we know software services on all devices. So the team has spent a lot of time the last year trying to make it or not trying to but succeeding in making it playable by almost all the devices that can play software. Of course if you get to the lowest of specs then a lot of games are a bit more wonky a bit more um glitchy uh but I think you still have a good experience compared to what other games you have on your phone. We have always soft launch titles, but of course we know that subway service is such a phenomenon that if we went out with that name, we could puncture the balloon that we were ready to pop uh at

launch if people started seeing that this is subway surfers. So we did have some people saying have you noticed that there is a copy of your of your game? Uh, and then of course some of the industry veterans said, "It's funny that this game company that has launched Hoverboard Heroes has you as the CEO and is sitting on the same address as you are." So um so we were we were carefully playing it like most bigger studios are that there are lots of soft launch uh territories or titles that were where we just what we could see is that the players the players always over city as you said we were the fifth most downloaded game for 6 weeks uh uh after launch that's a massive achievement those number of downloads is what other companies are spending spending a fortune getting the players love it. We have good reviews. We have a lot of um

positive feedback on that. This is the game experience I was missing. I would like to go deeper. I would like to explore the characters more or upgrade my way to to deeper game experiences. At the same time, we can also see that that it's additive and and nice in our uh balance sheet, but that we would like to keep investing in finding the final formula of the next chapter because
our bread and butter is still subway one. We still will keep investing in that. That's the biggest team for Subway Server City. We have a lot of ideas for how we can make the experience that the players seemingly love most about it more of the core going forward. So the team is is working hard to to iterate and say look this is still a great core the concepts are fine but how do we balance in a way that meets the player expectations a bit clearer?
Can you share any more details about that? Like what does that balance look like? What are you rolling out in the

next couple months? Um, it's still too soon to say, but I think one of the things that that it's clear if you look on comments and and reviews, people love the finite runs.
Mhm.
So, Subway Surfers uh, one is inherently more infinite in its style. You run forever and you make high scores on that. The fact that we did some trial runs or trials in in Subway Sur City is something that the players love and we're trying to figure out how we how we um serve that up in a in a clearer way.
One other major change is that city swaps the world tours rotating real world cities that we just talked about for a more permanent uh metropolis. I would love to thinking behind that like what did the 13 years of the world tour teach you that made you want to move to a persistent world with the second game?
We're back to Campalization. We we have proven with the world tour that that

works. It's we couldn't trademark. Oh, I wish we could have uh patented both the threelane mechanic and the world tour and these things. But um but we also love that we can inspire others to make three lane runners in a worth to a sin. Um we didn't want to touch what was working so well. We wanted to see if we again rethought this is the crew. Of course they can go to other cities and explore new cities every 3 weeks. But what if it was actually like our Gotham or our uh sort of um Hogwarts that this city is what you explore and these are the parts of the map that you want to unlock. So uh so we haven't we have we still have a lot more parts of the city that hasn't been released uh with a sort of fog of war that look you can see the city you can have an idea of what's what is there but there's also new things coming where

the game team is playing with new game modes or new control schemes. Um and therefore making it more of a here we are exploring
a fixed city. It makes a little bit more sense that they are living in this metropolis than them going on a plane every 3 weeks traveling to a new city. But but allowing those two um ways of of meeting the fans to coexist rather than having the two similar crews traveling in the same world tour or not the similar world tour and then having people debate over why is our city in one, why is it not in the other. So this was a way of of making sure that we have a a cadence of releasing new content with with looks and feels that are differing at the same time not necessarily just uh carbon copying what we have proven to write in uh in one makes sense. I want to shift gears a little bit to a topic I'm very excited about which is Tik Tok and the culture

engine that has been built around Subway Surfers. So, Subway Surfers gameplay became the background layer of sludge content on Tik Tok. And this is something that happened to you before you even leaned in to it, but you leaned in really fast with a kind of meet the fans where they are stance. When did you realize that Tik Tok was going to be the distribution channel that it is today and not just a meme? And like, how did you decide how hard to lean in without killing what made it organic and special? As soon as as we saw uh the hashtag grow it was clear that okay this is this is fans enjoying the brand and wanting to play with it. So, so we saw the original sort of the first part of SL content we noticed was people telling quite heartfelt and severe or serious stories about their lives where they used the split screen as a look there is something recognizable that plays underneath. Um it's uh it's not just me

telling a story or I you hear my voice but you're seeing something you relate with with sin or sort of a gameplay you recognize. Mhm.
Um, our marketing team has been state-of-the-art uh forever. We we leaned in quite hard in the sense of how do we authentically add to what is happening. If there is a um a trend, then our team will also make a subway version of that. If there's a movie launching, another game, a social media team that makes something funny, how do we make sure that we also sort of helping bring uh uh wood to the fire? It we we love the fact that fans can have ideas. We love the the way that fans use our brand. Uh it also requires us to be a bit bolder than many other brands are because of course if you had a really strong brand pipeline or a brand guideline you would probably insist that this has to be taken down or no one can

use our uh imagery without paying us royalties and then we wouldn't have gotten to nearly 5 billion downloads. So so it's it's about playing with the fans but also playing with the other brands that also have social media team. One of the good examples is Dualingo. There was a lot of banter going back and forth between our team and their team. And some people were questioning, well, do you have some sort of agreement or do you have a contract with them? What's the setup? And I we could honestly say, look, the setup is that it seems they have a management on their side that empowers their team equally much. And then it's fun to see what two creative teams are coming up with. um it it it can only exist if you empower the team to really go with the flow of the day or the the flavor of the week.
One of the things that you mentioned in our prep call that I found so interesting was as you mentioned you have a team of I think 10 on community and social and they have real free reign

on the call. You mentioned in 13 years you've only vetoed content twice. I'd love to hear about like what the actual line is and like what made you say no to those two content ideas.
Yeah. In our prep call, I think it was interesting that that yes, there is very few examples of where I have said look this I don't I don't think this would fly. And it's not that I didn't think it would fly, but the fact that I thought this might be too close to something. We have had um something where people afterwards said maybe that was a bit too uh progressive or maybe this was a bit something. There was one which was religious where I said look it's it's funny because we can also play with our own backgrounds. Um but uh but I don't want it to jeopardize that someone would feel that this was against them not self sort of sarcastic on our own behalf. Um, and the other one was uh um I don't think it went that viral from us, but

there was a blob like a a toad type animal or maybe a deep sea water creature that um someone had animated to threaten to come and beat you up. And uh and when you put that same soundtrack on our characters, it became a bit more humanistic.
Mhm.
A bit more humanic um in nature. So, so um so I think uh I said look I don't want anyone to see this and think that our character would ever uh come to someone's home or exist in real life. This is clearly a fantasy game. Um 4 8 or 9 billion downloads in people know that Subway Service is this uh safe environment to to uh collect coins and and explore the world. So, so those are the only two examples of me saying maybe not that, but I'm I'm really proud of the team and what they keep coming up

with. Um,
it's also it takes a lot of
in 13 years. It's really really impressive.
And what we can see is that some of the celebrities, the singers and the actors also reach out because their their um community managers are saying, "What can we what can we do? It would be fun to play with you. we have an artist that either have loved subways with us or wants to do more in this space and and you seem like the perfect candidate. A few times it has worked. Most of the times it it stops when um when we get to the legal track because of course it requires the whoever wants to play with us to also let it loose a bit and therefore if it gets down to uh music rights and and everything else then it's not a business case for us. It's because we want to stay viral. It's not because we're monetizing all the collaborations.
Okay. So, that's actually, I think, a kind of interesting question. Like, obviously, you're you're the third most used gaming hashtag on TikTok. Zero

dollars spent obviously keeps you guys top of mind. As I mentioned at the top, Conan O'Brien mentioned you at the Oscars. Is there a user acquisition component to this as well? Are you getting players that are discovering you on Tik Tok or is that completely separate from your your Tik Tok strategy?
We can see that we go viral every now and then in bigger or smaller waves. So we have made a lot of videos that gets our definition of v viral video is when they get more than a million views. Um, and I think we've made uh 100 of those in the last uh 6 to 10 months with the record being maybe 3740 million views. We can of course see sometimes that it spikes with downloads following a a video. But the main thing for us is actually just that we prove that we are part of the cultural side guys that we are in that space because we believe

that the algorithms from Apple and Google are picking up that this is also trending on other platforms. And what's interesting was then that when when the Oscar show was on, sometimes I watched the Oscars. This year I didn't, but I was woken up by a lot of texts coming in saying, "Oh, uh, well done with the with the collaboration." And we said, "Look, this wasn't planned. This is just a writer team that knows what's trending, and if they are to make a joke about something being hip and young or viral, then Subway Surfers is the underlying." We've seen it in the Tonight Show. We've seen it in in Last Week tonight. We've seen it in other shows where they know that World Subway Service is this game and this is part of the Tik Tok wave.
Mhm. Amazing. Okay. I want to also talk a little bit about distribution because obviously you've been in the games industry for a while. Mobile games have gone through huge changes, especially with discoverability. So, in addition to your mobile game, you launched on Pokey, which is a web browserbased platform,

and Subway Surfers has logged 1.7 billion sessions and something like 21,000 total years of gameplay on the platform. I would love to hear how you think about mobile and crossplatform today and how that's changed over the last couple of years. We've stayed relatively uh lean in our organization because we know that if we just have the main platforms then we can focus on making the best experiences for mobile. Um it would we we are frequently offered a lot of money to be on even more platforms with mobile. But what we would risk uh would be that we take away our own virality because the engines are pushing us so strong and suggesting us to players worldwide. Um I think um what we can see with HTML 5 or instant play is that that's another way to meet the players. Um, we put Subway servers on Apple Arcade uh because we knew that there

were uh players or parents that said we would like a more premium sort of experience and we have not seen any uh um deteration of our own download numbers on the freetoplay version. Likewise, I think those that sit in front of a computer or are in a place where they would like to play um games like Subway Surfers, we think that that a company like Pokei is perfectly suited to uh to be a partner for us in that space. Um and um the numbers as you mentioned are also of course insane on even on web that you can amass so many play sessions uh speaks to both to the gameplay quality but also the optimization to get it to a smaller build and of course the fact that we can monetize it to rats
and then we didn't talk about this on the prep call so if you don't want to I can cut this out too but I would love to hear how you guys are approaching going you know D to C and really owning the

relation relationship with your players and how that has changed over the last couple years.
We're seeing uh a lot of studios exploring D2C.
Mhm. um it hasn't been high on our agenda because again our main um driver is our flywheel of content and the fact that the app stores uh Google Play and Apple App Store um love our product and our quality and therefore um it wouldn't make sense for us at least short-term midterm to take away anything from that uh great partnership. Mhm.
Um, it makes sense that some studios that have higher LTVs are exploring new ways of owning those relationships. But for us, the main focus has been to keep the focus on community, keep the focus on virality, and keep the focus on the core gameplay being what drives the fact that we still have a lot of players

tomorrow as well.
Yeah.
So, we would
Yeah. So we would and my my strategic assessment is that I think we would lose both a part of our virality and we would lose actually also part of the authenticity in our player relationships if we went too hard after the few ones that spend a lot in software surfers. They they are currently just a part of a community group that we that we care for in the broadest pos possible sense. So, Mini Clip acquired Cybo in 2022, which was one of the largest deals in Danish gaming history. Congratulations. Mini Clip is majority owned by Tencent. At the time, you framed it as wrapping up the first season of Cybo's Journey. Four plus years in now. What has changed about how you operate? And also, what's the most surprising thing that hasn't changed? I think when we started dipping our toes in 2021 to see we we had a lot of

incoming requests for acquisitions all through the years because Subway Service has been viral since launch. In 2021 I went to the founders and said look now the time is is right if you want to consider it um we can dip the toes and if there's no interesting bits then of course we we just dipped the toes. We didn't go uh skinny dipping in the ocean. Um so uh the the bits came in we had an amazing traction. There is definitely scarcity value in having subway service still being so viral. So we were not only the biggest transaction in Danish history uh I I think we will see uh in the coming years some someone bigger selling but until now we are the biggest. Um we were also the biggest I think mobile transaction one of them if not the one the biggest in 2022 because the market stopped but our transaction was still going. Um with mini clip we've we've gotten a partner that has been very uh patient with us but also brought

a lot more process and a better understanding of product. Um we have been very gut-driven and was very um used to having certain ways of of doing our workflow uh that that worked very well in terms of product and output uh creative quality but sometimes came at a at a loss in time because we took too long to make some things. Uh some of the things we've could we've been able to inspire mainly with is of course our work with with virality and our ways of doing IP work because we are a bit of an outline and a portfolio when it comes to having a a full IP bible and ambitions to make TV shows and and uh and we had lines of merchandise we tried. Um, so I would say that the the things we've gotten with some of the talent uh from Mini Clip and also some of the things we've learned is definitely that we become a bit more predictable. We've had really good um things coming in. And then of course we have the the the

ongoing balancing act of what is then quality and creativity versus predictability and uh and profitability. So we we uh we continue having those talks saying this is what makes us truly unique, what makes us cyber, but of course this is also what makes us a high performing asset in a wider portfolio for a corporate
and that's actually a perfect sub uh segue because I really want to talk about IP expansion in trans medium. So you have an animated series that's crossed 100 million views. Cybo TV has 3.3 million subscribers. Fans clearly want more. You've also been really candid that you haven't found the story or format worthy of a game that's been downloaded nearly 5 billion times. What would a Subway Surfer film or series actually have to do to clear that bar?
I feel a bit like so back in the days I would say sometimes our founders were window shoppers because they knew when

it was there. when they spotted the right thing in the window, we could go in and buy it.
Yeah,
we haven't seen that item in the window yet.
So, in this regard, we are all a bit window shoppers. We've tried brainstorming. Uh we've uh storyboarded, we've we've made concepts, we've worked with different partners or we've taken in bits from different partners that have said we think we can bring that to the big screen. With the 11 episodes, we did a first take. I think it's a solid piece of content. We had uh more than two millennia of watch time and we have a lot of fans saying we would love to see a 12th episode or a 13th episode or when do when do we see more about this or that. Um we also sat between two chairs. It became a bit too young in storyline and a bit too sort of oriented towards licensing. At the same time, the founders would have liked it also to be more edgy and um and sort of a bit swear wordy or a bit more mature story lines.

And therefore, I think we've we uh we we took a step back and said, what would we then want if it was a live action movie or an animated movie full feature for the cinemas? And the the work we've had with different studios or different story writers about that looks really interesting. I'm not going to lie. I think some of it is very close but then it's the step from going from the short version to the full script where we see that we are still not fully aligned on this is the movie because we've seen successful launches of the Mario of Barbie of um of Last of Us other things that live in IP world from games that now go into the big screen we would love to to do that eventually but it's because we have so many fans and so many people who have played it. We also care deeply about not coming out with something where people are like this was this was a cash grab or this

was just to make a movie. We only wanted out if we would also uh uh proudly watch it many times.
I love that and I hope that you find exactly what you're looking for one day because I would love to see it in the theaters. You also during our prep call talked about some licensing attempts and some learnings from that. I'd love to have you speak a little bit more about what those licensing attempts were and and how you approach licensing moving forward.
So, we've learned that we're not a licensing company. I think that's the that's the final conclusion. We uh when the game came out uh we had a a a local partner that was a more of a sort of logo slap on quick tomarket attempt which I think um didn't help the brand and it wasn't to the quality that the founders uh were seeking. So so when we stopped that it was clear that we still had the ambition. The founders wanted to

have a line out there. We brought in uh specialists. We did the full program. Uh Naz Quivers helped us uh sort of strategize it and build it. We used Power Station for style guides. We had things going with Walmart and a lot of the big partners. I think that attempt had it been in 2012 2013 would have worked really well. Uh I think we came a bit after Roio having flooded the market and therefore not necessarily uh retailers seeing that an evergreen should have merchandise.
Mhm.
And then I think we learned the hard way that we are people's snack. I and I love us being that because I think it keeps us viral, but it also means that we're not we're not people's primary game necessarily. Of course, for some and because we have 150 to 100 to 150 million people playing every month, that

group of people is still big. But for a lot of players of Subway, we are the game that they play in between other games, in between work meetings, in between school sessions, on the way to or from work in the metro when they don't have connectivity, but it's not necessarily the game that they spend money in, or it's not necessarily the game that they want on their t-shirt.
Yeah. because that year it was Fortnite or that year it was Among Us. Subway Surfers was just number two. And the fact that we have then been consistent in top five under the hyped games of every year means that we are probably one of the only mobile evergreens if not the only. At the same time, it also means that we that the share of wallet is probably lower because people are like, "Oh yeah, I play that." But that's not the if you ask me what I play, I wouldn't say that. That's just another game I play. Um and therefore we we we learned I think the hard way that okay we actually have all the partners lined up. We have

the things we can see that it sells um we outsold some of the other big IPs in the Walmart activation but of course it would still have been on the shelves if we saw that this was a massive business opportunity. So we also sort of uh calmed the expectations and said look this we are first and foremost a gaming studio and we want to be part of a gaming group. We're not going for the uh entertainment first strategy. I
think that's incredibly self-aware of you guys. Now I have to ask you the topic that every podcast asks about these days which is AI and gaming. So you're an animator founded studio that prides itself on handmade characters and you've drawn a pretty sharp line that AI can build a foundation lift productivity like when it comes to finance QA and prototyping but it's backward looking and it can't leaprog that has to come from your people. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you deal with

AI internally, if there's any sort of a mandate, and then also if there's been any I don't want to say backlash from players, but just any feedback at all about AI when it comes to Subway Surfers.
No backlash because Subway Surfers is basically not non AI for for now. Um it's it's a game that where we can see every asset going in has been handcrafted or uh handheld. Uh I think what we what we started with was actually the support functions. We are uh I would say almost bestin-class and as our CFO has driven a a finance uh transformation where we can optimize a lot of things uh and not necessarily be fewer but uh inspire the the whole group and and drive a lot of things out of that. Um we've done it with with things where we can see that uh in business analytics and uh and some of the other aspects supporting games that it's a we can drive a lot of findings through AI

or LMS. I think the area where it's touchier is of course when it comes to character creation when it comes to environment creation we have amazing artists. We we want them to explore the mandate is clearly to explore ideiation just like they would Google things which is also backward-looking. they would Google how does uh Iceland look like if you haven't been can you share me some examples of what are the animals what are the scenery what is the um how how does a town look what is a train look like so so the things that we have been googling before we are encouraging look also have some takes because we have made more than 300 characters over the years and of course it's interesting for us to see what does that what foundation does that little stand on, but also how do we then let the artist make a race to the top, make it look nicer, make it do

better rather than race to the bottom. Um, and I think what we're seeing there is that they that it becomes more of an internal discussion of this task is repetitive. I feel too senior for this. Well, then let's explore what does AI can AI help us do less of the task we don't like because our artists are so talented that we would like them to spend time what excites them and what drives the what moves the needle upwards. So, so I think as a studio we are not as AIdriven as a lot of other studios, but of course we can see that the industry is moving and what my uh quality stamp would be is that the everything that goes into a live game should be handheld. It should have a sender with a instructor sort of saying this is what I want. if aspects of that are googled or uh generated, as long as it clearly has a sort of hand touch um before it hits

the the the shelf, then I then I'm happy. If the artists are happy, I'm happy.
I love that. That's a good uh framework. If the artists are happy, I'm happy. I think every game studio should adopt that. All right. Before we end, you come at sustainability from a real personal conviction as well as through Cybo as the company. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you approach sustainability and also how you think game studios in general should be approaching sustainability.
I uh I I keep mentioning uh PB Longsttocking. So her quote was that if you are incredibly strong, you have to be incredibly kind. I think it even predates uh Spider-Man who had a similar similar sentencing of for me the fact that we can entertain between 100 and 150 million people is insane. It's such a privilege. It's such it comes with such an accountability that we show the best possible game that

we let people have fun with subway servers. But if we're then also able to have some windmills or solar panels in the background, if we can inspire what would a plant-based day look like if you if you ever tried one, what would how do we include more people in our society so people can be who they are and love who they do? If you can if you can keep keep inspiring people for what a better world looks like then I then I think games as a medium is not just entertainment but sort of nutritional in its in its core. Um and we're working actually very closely with our um our mothering uh group uh Tensent on raising healthy gamers and healthy gameplay because we think that this will also be an agenda that keeps uh giving because parents are interested in getting to know they want to understand what gaming means. And

what um everyone says is that they would love to play more. Even when you ask young people, they say, "I wish my parents would would play with me. They we wish this could be a shared experience." Jude was one of the wave makers for why we have playing for the planet, which was the UN EPbacked organization where we bring brought the biggest gaming companies together to try and see how can we put green features into games. Then uh she was doing a book was interviewing me for that and then I ended up co-authoring it with her called gaming for good which came out a couple of years ago and then we turned that into a podcast which launch launched in Davos in this January and what we can see is everyone we talk to in the industry or adjacent to the industry sees the potential of the power of the platform. We have such an amazing opportunity to bring people together to inspire action and to make people aware of their

surroundings. And that in that sense we're sort of the architecture of culture because now it's games is still relatively low on the on the perceived fanciness of culture.
Yeah.
Opera and ballet are quite high and once you get near the bottom then games come. So, you will still meet adults that say, "I don't game. I don't have time for that." And then when you ask them what else they do, I could think of three or four things where like, you would have a better time if you just had a great game session than than doing these things. Um, and not taking anything from any of the other on the on the spectrum. Just acknowledging that games is still sort of trying to show that it exists and it has a resendetra in in that. If we can inspire more studios to do right, I also think that we can inspire more players to do right. And therefore the the whole sort of when given a choice, choose right. Sometimes you have two similar features, two similar

characters, two similar storylines. And if you choose the one that is a bit more just, a bit more social, a bit more green, a bit bit more inclusive, then I think in the end we can be prouder of having entertained so many people.
Could you give me an example? It could be a person in the games industry or a studio who's building games either from the book or for your podcast that has done some initiative. It could even be a small one that you just thought was like wow like that is so creative but could have so much impact. I think one of the guests that um that we had on the podcast um Nick from um from Special Effect was probably the most heart heartfelt one because what they do is that they help um players that have disabilities that are impaired in in some way to play the games anyway. That means that if you have a limp arm, then maybe you can play with the other hand. If you can only move your eyes, there are ways of controlling a game anyway. And and the stories he told which I

think had both me and Jude and himself in tears was basically uh kids, siblings that in the past would have been disconnected now could play a game together and therefore could have some shared memories of this is something that we do together. Um and having uh both a son and a bonus kid that's super meaningful for me. If we if games can be the enabler for people to sometimes healthily escape from their reality, that's super meaningful. I think the the healthy escapism, which I call it, is what I think games can do the best. You can still be uh brave and the hero of a story even if you're shy in at work or in school. You can still be running if you're even if you're not running in real life. You can still be uh completely charming and fluent even if

you're stuttering or or lisping. So there's so many things where games allow you to play with who you are and experience a different side of yourself maybe or revealing I am actually this person. Um and some of that might not be acceptable or in I don't believe that we're progressive. I just think that we're humanistic. Um, and I understand that that word can be misinterpreted, but allowing people who they are to be who they are, I think is is a super meaningful context. And if we can include healthy gameplay in as many games as possible, I think we will actually have see sense of belonging going up, I think we will see mental health go up and I think we will also see uh loneliness decline.
It's a really beautiful example. I'll make sure to link the episode in our show notes so everyone can listen to that as well. Okay, I have one final question for you. Subway Surfers is 14 years old, the most downloaded game in

history. When you imagine it in another 20 to 25 years, does it stay the same beloved endless runner, or does Subway Surfers have to become something structurally different to survive another 20 years?
That's a really good question. I think I think the beauty of an evergreen is that there is still some nostalgic qualities that you'd never change. I would love Subway Servers to stay a threelane handheld uh runner uh even when we have more holograms and more uh wearables and all these other things that technology will provide in the next 20 to 30 years. Um, so I think that will remain a factor. But of course, I also can see that since inception, we've been able to keep our game alive and fresh and relevant. So the fact that we can stay culturally relevant will of course also mean that we will have to explore if new platforms emerge or new new ways of

gaming emerge, then how do we also meet the fans where they are. Well, atas, thank you so much for joining me on the Navic Gaming podcast, and I look forward to revisiting this with you 20 years from now to talk about the new platforms and how the gameplay has changed. Thank you again.
Thank you so much for having me.
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