Inside Timi Studio: How Call of Duty Mobile Set the Stage for Delta Force

[Music] you've heard of heroic laps by now and we keep talking about them because you need every Edge to be successful in today's market heroic Labs gam stack is built like a Breck house you got the Nama their backend game server hero their game development framework Satori their live op service and last but not least heroic allowed to provide massive scalability heroic Labs is a battle tested partner and their Tech enables you to be flexible creative and scale for Success focus on your game avoid Tech risks grow your product with scalable live Ops and save a big chunk of cheese all with heroic Labs hey it's Phil here from deconstructor of fun I'm chatting today with Leo Yao who is the GM of te's j3

studio and if you're not familiar with Tei group and they of course were also the developer of Call of Duty mobile Pokemon unite in recently Age of Empires they do not do a ton of interviews with Western media so this was a real special treat this was a great opportunity to learn more about what's happening in China's market and also to understand more about how China sees the Western Market Leo was a fantastic guest and he was hoping to more knowledge sharing and information sharing to the East and the West without further Ado here's the episode hi Leo how are you yeah great great to see you great to meet you I hear you're a busy man you're shipping a game soon the baby is coming the GM of Timmy's is it the j3 studio so now it's called the big group of G3 but now it's dividing into three Studios y1 Y 2 Y3 but I'd like to call it G3 Studio yes and we are just a permanent they focus

on the shooter Titans yeah both development and Publishing so okay so it's not just the group of studios are working on Delta Force they're working on other things too we focus on the shooter general for 12 years so firstly is kind of PC game called sire now it's still the top five PC FPS game in China now that's a kind of PVE again then in uh 2015 is Crossfire mobile I still dominant the mobile PS Market in China then you know it's Call of Duty mobile so we're going back to 2016 I think when Call of Duty mobile came out probably in development even sooner than that and I remember following a lot of the Activision attempts in China to do Call of Duty like there was this Call of Duty play for free which was on PC yeah does the Call of Duty brand resonate in China even before Call of Duty mobile was it something that people had known about and were familiar with yeah it's clearly uh lot of the player in China play Call of Duty for sure they know Call of Duty

well especially the famous Call of Duty 4 and six right this is very famous because the the campaign C the first one for one they're very famous in China everybody knows our price ghost soap so it's it's very hard because in China that's it's not very easy to make everyone play the premier game right to pay more bucks for the game is a Famous Brand not comparing to Crossfire because cfire is definitely the number one psip in China so it's someone in like big cities in Beijing Shanghai they are the very good family kids or some of the Cities they like Call of Duty brand so before Call of Duty mobile is kind of that but I think after Call of Duty mobile it's definitely better job for Call of Duty granny in China because it's freet to play it's mobile game everybody can play and then before it

Call of Duty online but I still think Call of Duty brand it's very well known in China and Call of Duty mobile I think doing a very good job is that the idea when you were developing the game do were you developing Call of Duty mobile to succeed in both the east or the west or did that just happen yeah I think that back to 2016 because cire mobile succeed right in China and I think we saw the opportunities right so we are poos that idea Activision and they like the idea so at first we only use two months doing the newon demo so it's a kind of multiplayer 5 S5 newon in Mobile and which sh there exclusives uh the think uh the game is already done because the multiplayer Call of Duty mobile we were only using two much there we just make the deal in 201 16 I think the final

targets to make the Call of Duty just make everybody can play Call of Duty IM mobile I think after three years we we just did that right everybody can play and it's a big hit in 2019 right and in 2020 we get government Pro all then we launch in China and it's just also another big hit in China if we were to think back to the development of Call of Duty one of the things that blew my mind is how it basically launched firstperson Shooters on mobile particularly in China like controls especially the Dual stick are more common but what still surprises me is Call of Duty has succeeded in the west you know when so many other first-person shooters have failed I mean even recently right like nothing seems to stick in the West on mobile for firstperson Shooters besides Call of Duty is the market do you have any theories on why that's the case I think actually Call of Duty is a very very big brand in the west right you can see every year great market for this brand because every year they're going to

setting the new series right and that make Call of Duty still the top IP and brand globally right uh in the west there's also lot of the bonus to call duty mobile that's one thing and another is like in the west they never seen like a mobile game can just doing such a great service because we just update every month for the new uh game modes Maps character weapons we're just doing lot of the great G service every year we do uh 11 to 12 Big updates that's a very huge efforts right and so I think this is like the player can feel the top service right and we just listen to the community fix all the Box very quickly so we talk to the player talk to the community I think that's something new right beyond the community's expectations I think that's the key it sounds like you have this huge operation

on even just Call of Duty mobile and my God 10 10 to 11 updates man I I can't tell you how many producers in the west would be scared just the thought of that um how many people do you even have on a game like that for Call of Duty like it's no more than 200 people in development and live teams but we have lot of the oursourcing teams there because like the whole content is huge right I mean like uh lot of the new maps game modes but the core te no more than 200 people they are doing all of the game modes Maps functions and all of the r resources we all sources in some of the companies in China we know so little over here in the west about Timmy it's called Timmy Studio group what is the group The Timmy group have more than 10 Studios globally so in China we have Studios across Shanghai shenen and chanu right globally we have Montreal we have Singapore and

also Seattle so this is a a big Studio group every Studios have their like J in Str like j3 we are very in shoters right and you know onor KS right they are just very strong mobile and also lately their age of Empire mobile release that t want High yeah yeah they are very strong in srg and we have a studio very strong at raing right needs for see a speed so every stud have their kind of establishing of kind of their own General so if we think about a game like honor of Kings versus Call of Duty both wildly successful when I looked at sensor Tower 13 billion for honor of kings and of course that's sensor Tower data so that doesn't include a lot of the app stores in China there's a million different things it doesn't include which is mindboggling they had Call of Duty at 2 billion so like insane scale does the head count differ for those two games when you said 200 for Call of Duty mobile that's a pretty big

team does honor of Kings just have a whole Army dedicated to it yeah definitely honor of King has lot of more resources at now because they have a much larger du they have uh lot of other things like e Sports and lot of other stuff inside or outside the game so definitely they need lot of the more resources so if we think about the 200 headcount that's on Call of Duty how is that organized you said Outsourcing you've got art traditionally like in the west we have a live Ops Team structure we have these product manager titles we have an analyst there might be a designer should we think about the structure of a team like Call of Duty in a similar way or are the roles different from what your experience in the da team so they're basically Divine to the DA team and the publishing team right for the development team they are like the designers level designer 16 designers and the CL engineer Ser engineer and artist including the concept uh 3D

animation VX so basically the D team consist maybe 80% of the whole and there are the publishing team right the publishing team including some of the data analysis their insights mization and engagement Creative Marketing and also we have the production team like producers for development and publish so yeah it's kind of similar to the West I think and you yourself have been at Timmy for quite a while right sure can you tell me a little bit having been there so long we talked about company culture this has been a Hot Topic recently what have you found about employees who are successful in Timmy what qualities do you think they embody the people who move up the ranks the people who stick around for a long time the passion I think is definitely in the first and the Curiosity I think this is very important another is humble I think uh this is very common in Chinese culture if you're doing a long-term live

of game like game as service right if you want to make a service to the community to the player you have to be very hum I think that's kind of our culture here not too much of the self that's very very important so now that you have operations in the west you have Studios all over North America is the random learning process at all integrating those Studios into Timmy for the C removal the operations in the US is not my team right we have some of the development team in Montreal and Seattle but that's not in my studio so for Call of Duty mobile I think something we learn from the West they just really take very seriously with Call of Duty IP and branding this is something with there right so if you're doing IP you have to give enough respect to the IP this is something I think for the yeast like just it rate faster I think that's maybe different from east and west or something I think

this is still the key if you run in the very longterm service game if like you just C some of the bugs from the community in China we have to fix a bug today so no more than maybe 24 hours if you catch a bug catch a hacker or something like you have to fix it no more than 24 hours and we have lot of people communicating with community influencers all the day because we saw a lot of the games in the west we can't doing that fast right when we think about first person shooters broadly we've been following a lot of what you might call like just these high budget kind of Chinese Shooters on mobile pubg mobile obviously like enormous really high Content Volume as we were talking about earlier on Dawn we were folling a little bit of that one the with the Will Smith tie in Arena breakout is there really demand for these mobile firstperson Shooters in China like are you seeing growth in the mobile firsters shooter Market to justify like all these

different titles competing for players and you've got another one coming too right you've got Delta Force coming which we'll talk about later um fortunately for the only mobile shooters for the last kind of eight years right from free fire first and pubg mobile that c dut mobile that's only happen in 2017 to 2019 that's only two years right Saturday that's only the windows so all of the mobile FPS or TPS SK you can see see now still this three dominant out of the mobile FPS for TPS game so after 2019 I think because these three games has two successful and they has their own Community huge Community right uh every game free fire pubg mobile and call duty they have their own in different territories right look free fire very string leing America right pupg mobile string in mana and Call of Duty mobile uh team the USA right but I

think of after 2020s there's not single mobile FPS game had a very big success globally but thir force is another thing because we're doing the PC first right so for the mobile and maybe from my perspective I think is because the S three games free fire pubg mobile and of mobile they almost can satisfy all of the mobile shoers is there any reason you don't think we see more mobile games just ported to PC on Steam why can't we take these mobile games and and put them on PC is there anything preventing that you think it's just it's a Mis in terms of Market you could put Call of Duty Mobile on switch you could put it on PC I would love to play Call of Duty Mobile on PC like to your point I mean in ch in China you're producing content so much faster the live services are so much more engaging compared to Black Ops 6 which I I love but the Content Volume is still just so different and I think that's kind of the

thing I just want to talk about so I think in the west all of the big titles basic logic and it's still an new premier right I think that's the key because that's the thing have running for 20 years right so FIFA Call of Duty Battlefield right so just not basic fridge play game master service logic right so because that logic have running so long so I think is very hard but uh you can see Call of Duty have made a try for war zone right and it's also a big success right and Call of Duty mobile I think for mobile paring to PC the quality is still a problem because like the PC Gamer they still require a very high production value gain right and not exactly Triple A but at least call duty Mo if you part into PC is not very low end for sure but it's it's not meet the

requirements of the basic P kers so I think the logic is not that reporting so many of the mobile to PC is like we make the cross platforms this is why we think der's going to make a big success because you have to satisfy the requirements of the PC Gamer first then at the same time you do the cross progession and you have at the same time you have the mobile so when they at home they play on PC and console or when they play maybe not at home they can play in Mobile I think cross platform is still the key for dirce and we also think that something like should be the trendings for the gam industry do you expect players that are playing on mobile and playing on PC or console to play in a single game together uh no in data Force we don't allow that because that's I think for the crossplay right and even not that easy cross PC and console

right the the join stick and keyboard mouse is another problem for long days right it's not even about the mobile and the PC is not fair so you can't make them crossplay but you can make them cross progression so if if you're a PVE game maybe he hold the mobile you hold the PC PVE is doable but for PVP it definitely not work do you expect players to be playing on PC and then when they're out on the go they're going playing Delta Force on mobile we expect in different scenario people playing different devices that's something we hold them to do because in dir we have exection right for the whole extraction generalize something about the economies right something about their inventory there is a scenario that when player using their mobile to setting their things or just to make their inventory

better or something then when they back home they play on their PC to play the match so I think that's the kind of scenario we want if we were just to zoom out and go back to the Chinese PC shooter Market sure all I understand as a dummy is Crossfire I understand Crossfire uh huge success forever we can't get a version of it here in the west we haven't had the opportunity I know valerant pops up here and there on some charts OverWatch sometimes pops up what's going on in the PC Chinese shooter market so for 10 years ago when mobile games done that popular in China PC game dominant right Crossfire is the first one yeah at that time there a Counter Strike but uh of the QQ and Crossfire just such became a very big heat in Chinese SP market so it's dominant the whole general for like almost 50 years right in 2015 then mobile game c right everybody play mobile game honor King Crossfire mobile

so that's everybody play the mobile game but at the same time PC game not dying they are still very strong but we see some of the trendings that in the last while two years someone they back to the PC because still PC have the better experience the better graphics right so when some of the kids they grown up when their childhood they play play the mobile game but when they just graduate and they have their jobs they have their own PCS they find that the PC game has better experience and better graphics so you can see in China why we make thir for PC first because we saw the whole trending of the PC game so in the year you have the black right so have the black call you have the thir fors now veteran Crossfire and dir force in FS General is still very top uh you

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through their customize secure payment architecture and dedicated support team exola powering game developers to achieve Global [Music] success and you had mentioned when you are doing the PC and you're doing the mobile version that you want to start with PC Why not start with mobile why is it easier to go from PC to mobile than the inverse yeah it's a very funny story so the game at first is like a mobile first last year we went to gamescub right so we talked to so many of the media and so many of the developers right and we found that none of them has really taken seriously with the mobile game talk to them hey I'm the executive producer of the Call of Duty mobile and you you can find that as a developer

they don't think that's very I don't know you can't see that we not success we are successful but gameing industry PC and console still is like a top right so at that time I felt that we have to be PC first we have the real opportunity to be success not only in China but also the West means that last August we decided to to the PC first so we only use five to six months and to do the PC first then for the March 2024 we have the PC test in China and it has a huge success the PC test in China as well yeah yeah I mean that because we have already launched in China right where this September the 26th but it have the Ala test and beta test so ala test begin six or seven months ago it means we only make the decisions over in

Gamescom then we may five to six months make a PC first then test in China is it built in unity or on real or like a different engine in AEL 4 because the AAL 4 is very suitable for AC cross platform so NRE 5 it's great but not that very adaptive yeah and you're you're operating in this large I I call it almost like large scale firstperson shooter market so you've got Battlefield which is dominated or at least some ways you can argue created the large scale first-person shooter Market you've seen hell at loose that's been pretty interesting enlisted is a game that I personally follow a lot how do we fit Delta Force into that landscape yeah I think the fit is still like that make high production value kind of Battlefield General game freet to playay for everybody can play and which every month full of the content updated and had I think that's the thing that's all the thing they make free toplay high

frequency update content and the very good anti-hack Battlefield Chate so that's I think that's lot of the player they want right I can tell you as someone who worked on Battlefield that was the number one complaint we'd get over and over again is that it's really cheaters that was something that really has been troubling that game for a really long time and it's hard to know okay is this just a couple people complaining or is this a real deal but it's a comment that is surfaced over and over again super super should we expect content updates to Delta Force that are similar to Call of Duty mobile yeah I think that's even more because you just expect that every one or two months is I don't know one or two maps so you can see in the last two or three months we have already update two of the new maps Battlefield General mode right and um I think we can just expect every two months a new map operators a lot of the weapons lot of the vehicles let's just

keep updating and we talk to many of the West developers then they are all shock because our speed is so fast we have 400 people teams for the dev team so half them for the TR shooter half them the large scale and yeah I think that's the key and also the an Haack is a top priority because I think we have the top technology the and have and if we got the hacker their PCS are blocked for 10 years they just can't play for 10 years and if other they change their PC otherwise they just can't play for 10 years so I think that's the key that's that's not complicated it's very simple it's doing the good service doing the good quality of lives to The Gamers so when we think about that live service one of the conversations we were having we actually just had a a panel um about Shooters recently cuz there's been a lot of failures particularly in the West recently things that haven't really taken off we've seen the finals x

defyant a million extraction Shooters at least really struggle to gain a foothold in the west when we think about that live service you were talking about I'm sure one component of the live service is just shipping a lot of content shipping a lot of widgets should we think about live service as more than just shipping Widgets or shipping content is there is there more to it than that yeah I think it's not only about the content quantity is still about the content quality for sure and also is whether you want to listen to the community that's very important so if you see thir Force official in YouTube or in we just talk to the community very humbly and we just listen to their ideas and we just fix very quickly so as I talked before I think it's still like the bance or the something we want to do or something player one right I think some of the

developer in the west they are still want to find that balance that something we want to do or something playar what right but for Chinese developers or something we may take more seriously of what playar was so you can see every our designers they talk to the influencers they talk to a player they just view every community that ready discore uh YouTube all the day they work in their daytime then just after work they review all of his channels and talk to them uh one by one I think that that is the key because only the call players they know what is good for your game right and what is bad for and you have to listen to their voices I still think that the content quality is more important than content quantity right it's like you update so many of the microtransaction or lot of the content that's not mean a

lot but like something maybe player complain your ground control a player complain your balance or you have to just uh fix it very quickly and also for anti-ad I think you can see lot of the free to play game is die on the hackers so that's needs lot of the technology so when we think about the West when it comes to monetization as someone who worked on Battlefield I can tell you how many players would complain about mization no matter what it was if it something's more than $3 it triggers a complaint three three USD how can we think about monetization and Delta Force and balancing that particularly for a game that that looks like it's going to have strong cross region appeal it seems like there are different Norms from onization in the East and the West although I don't know Call of Duty mobile seems to be doing pretty well but on PC at least there seems to be different Norms yeah I think the firstly is not PID to win right this is definitely not PID away this is very

important then I think the price is very important but uh if you see Call of Duty you see veteran and also the price is very high right and espe Veteran because this package has the luxury right just not the quality have to be very high that it have to be very unique right yeah I think we have very confident because we have doing five years of call duty mobile right just Call of Duty mainl and we would learn from each other we learn from them and they that learn from us so we just really know that and also we do some of the IP collaboration right so the thing is not PID wi and doing some of the unique I think quality have to be match with their price and also in thir Force we doing lot of things that if you doing lot of the engagement in the exra shooter you get the mandor break right in the battlefield General you just also get that then you can set sell them the free currency can buy everything so it means

you don't have to be paid through the lot of Engagement you you can get all of the things so that that think that's the key so we think about you know you've got this large scale mode you said half the team is on it 200 headcount you also have this extraction shooter mode and we've been following a lot about extraction Shooters over here in the west we've been taking a look at like escape from tarov which has been forever the cycle I don't know if you remember that one that was a pivot there's a p there was the cycle there was Call of Duty Call of Duty took a shot Mainland Call of Duty franchise yeah D um Off the Grid I don't know if you've been following that one that's been interesting none of these games have stuck none of them have stock I think in China there might be more success with some of the mobile extraction Shooters tell me if I'm wrong there but why is this genre not taking off it seems like there's been so much capital investment in a genre that's had so little return yeah that's a very good question we saw that have some of the problem if you see in YouTube because there are more and more exraction game come right and some

are just T off like some are darker darker even more right you can see more you can see the top reviews is always be not extraction again right so why the extraction shoulders after the top off it's not another big heat it's because so top off is very special right is very hardcore High pressures right this has very unique experience right and I think everybody want to do not that hardcore right doing some of thing of arcade something tting the very very high uh challenge the top challenge when we doing the exraction in terap for is still that audience in the west they just can't find their Target in the structure so because all of the FPS General in the last 20 or 30 years is about wi no loots right is about whether you kill someone you win uh or you die a

lot of times to boot right for the exceptions they are not a standard of win or lose the the thing is about you just cannot kill someone then you can just extraction and get lot of the coins right and we found lot of the players they feel very confused they find that in the match the target is very confusing for a lot of the FPS General players so some of the games the vibe is not right every game doing that right every been have the same UI right everybody have a inventory have loot system have something like that so it make player make the community more confused about the third of us we trying to solve that problems right since our thought is like firstly we don't want to do hardcore because if hardcore no one can p t off we want to do more tactics in be some of the tactics between arcade

and hot this is something we confirm first game play have to be like if you kill someone kill the boards or kill the enemy that's very arcade or you just kind of lot of fun when you kill the BS when you kill the other enemy then when you play L of the match someone can find the fun of the economy someone can find the fun of the tactics then just two different uh groupall players right they can choose their own someone can their target is to get more coins and someone to like make it like a more like a Battle Royal right kill more of the other teams and we have the opers right this is very good because it can highlight their moments of the battles say very very important so yeah I think it's a very hard question because we still don't know whether Force exraction going to be another success because the key is

still like the thing I talked you before is about the goal the target so how to make the West audience find their Target in the game is very interesting in China extraction is very pop this is what I I just can't get over is because it's mostly mobile extraction Shooters too from my understanding what's resonating is it accessibility is it just because in the East like the controls are always more sophisticated it's boggling my mind it's driving me crazy yeah yeah yeah yeah I think something in my mind is like firstly wested audience educated by Arcade FPS general for decades right Call of Duty Battlefield right so they like very arcade they like instant feedback right kill you win you run you slice that's all of the things like fortnite Call of Duty Battlefield all of the things in the main FPS audience in the west it's about years can fitback but in China for the last decades the

most two successful general or FPS games one is conract or Crossfire another is pubg right this is not that arcade it's more tactics right so extraction is combined with tactics and heart which can match Chinese FP General audience habits so it's like low Pace some of the more attacked right you just call can see some wait and wait and shoot and get loot so this is something more like Counterstrike Battle Royal and extraction this is kind of the right sequence right but for the West audience it's call duty Call of Duty Battlefield Battlefield and we saw Call of Duty they try to solve the thing in DMC and it's doing a very good job yeah but the thing we ask ourselves many times because when there for Al test in the west more and more people play the

large scale and uh less player play exraction and they feel very confused when they enter the game so we we we're trying to fix that because for the long term you know the tactics games have a very very good long-term retention right Counterstrike valin PBG they are the kind of Evergreen for decades right but for the all of the arcade games you have to by another every year to refresh their experience right this is a great Theory I think this actually makes a lot of sense because I was raised exactly as you mentioned you know I I was raised on those franchises I wasn't raised on csgo the PC market was its own thing console was its own thing now they've become much more merged but I think a lot of people to your point like I grew up on Call of Duty I grew on Call of Duty on Console exraction shooter is a weird thing for me to have that little tactical gameplay and I don't play csgo and I don't play valerant I play them as a because I'm in the games industry but why Delta Force this IP it's been around forever it's been around for centuries

no one has touched it in a really long time it hasn't had a really modern Incarnation I I forget how long it's been since the last title shipped why did Timmy decide to pick up this IP for this title I mean you you could put another skin on it but why Delta Force firstly it's like the first large scale Battlefield General game right even before Battlefield so this is one thing and other is I mean for me that IP that everybody know but it has not have a new series for decades I think is very perfect for our expectations right and you just fed all of the vipes feed all of the IP sprits right if I think if we do a more IP or we do a very big IP which is still very popular and doing their games every year which also can give us lot of the limitations right that's another thing right third of us I think we just really love that I because you know that for 20 or 25 years ago or

something like in Chinese net cafe they're very very popular that's still one thing because the producers and core teams for D Force they love the IP that's the first thing we do not want a lot of the limitations and we just want to have our freedom to do the IP and it's the first large scale Battlefield General yeah I think there's a lot of the reasons but for now I think this is very good to doing the D BOS and we also have the black H down right this very classic campaign uh in dirta series for the datta force open Beta in December the 5 we hope everybody can join that everybody can join so yeah I mean like great talking to you I mean like it's uh still a lot of the insights yeah as a former dice employee I will say this your timing couldn't be better I know as much as I love Battlefield it's weak right now there's been missteps and you guys could go for the pincer move let's see if Battlefield can survive this but

I'm excited to play yeah than you than you saw the communicating just very delighted me yeah thank you you did it you made it to the end of the episode as a fan of the show it would help us out if you subscribe and leave us a review on the podcast service of your choice more importantly are you a member of the deconstructor of fund slack group if you have 5 years or more of games industry experience go to deconstructor of fun.com slack and apply to join join the games industry best professional Community filled with peers always willing to lend a hand or subscribe to our newsletter to get all the latest insights from the deconstructor of fund content creators thanks for listening