Interview with Dispatch developer: We were told comedy games don't sell

We were founded by two writers and two directors. Founded a game studio. You go and you talk to any person who's looking to either invest or publish or whatever and they look at two writers and two directors and it's like the two least useful people in their minds. Right. Like it's
No. Like where's your programmer? Where's your designer? You know, you don't have anyone who worked on Halo? There's another like shorthand thing that has been told to us and we heard in rooms which was discouraging to go in this route initially which is comedies don't sell in games. And now I don't know I don't know why we would ever go back to working with a publisher. Hello and welcome to the game business show with me Christopher Dring. One of the big breakthrough indie hits of last year was the interactive narrative game Dispatch. Interactive narrative games don't usually sell big numbers, certainly not since the days of The Walking Dead. And if you'd ask a publisher, this isn't a genre to invest in, not right now. And yet Dispatch has become a critical and commercial smash

hit. It's up for nine Baftas and has sold millions of copies worldwide. It also had a tough journey where it lost its initial publisher and had to change direction. And the studio very nearly collapsed before being backed by of all people Critical Role. That allowed them to finish and self-publish the game. It's a wonderful story. It's a tough story and to help me fill in the gaps I am now joined by co-founder and CEO Michael Trong and co-founder and creative director Nick Herman. Hi Nick. Hi Michael. Welcome Welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for having us. Hey Christopher. It's a pleasure to have you on. Right. I've got to congratulate you on nine Is it nine Nick? You told me nine Bafta nominations. I didn't write down the number in front of me but I knew I knew it was a lot.
Who's counting? Well more than Claire Obscura. That's the how we judge ourselves. So it took a while. Um well Claire Obscura just I mean I don't think that counts anymore. Is it That's terrible. Um You also over 3 million Is it over 3 million sales sort of by the beginning of January? We are at four now. Oh wow. Wow. How have you

found all that sudden attention? It was yeah. I mean certainly certainly it was extremely overwhelming and maybe kind of made worse by the fact that it all happened while we were still releasing the game because it was episodic. So the flood of attention really kind of hit I'd say like halfway through like after episode four dropped. We released once a week for four weeks and it was very exciting but at the same time we were still making the game and we were still releasing the game and so it was I think initially I would I was very overwhelmed. When you open up uh you know, TikTok and your socials and every time and you're you're just trying to look at other content and your content's being pushed back in your face. It was certainly a first for us but on the other side of all that it's been obviously we're we're we're thrilled and and and stoked that we found the people we were looking to find, you know. We we knew that they were out there and

um and and it worked to a degree that we weren't ready for I don't think but it's it's been phenomenal. Is that how you found it Michael? You've been enjoying it? Yeah, I mean it's been enjoying it but the the the amount of activity the swirl of attention kind of forces you to be still and essentially observe and so we've been kind of focused on just on like Nick said releasing the game on time which wasn't a foregone conclusion. And up to now it's just been observing, you know, taking a lot of meetings and meeting new folks that are that are like really neat folks like you. Which is like exciting and fun and cool but you know, we're also kind of in the background almost instantly thinking right okay like how are we going to follow this up? What's next? What are we going to do? And so it's you know there was a bit of relief but it's very quickly turning into all right now now we got to already start thinking about what's next. Now what?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously you do have a long history of doing these games I know and these sort of choice-based narrative titles I guess. But I want to know did you know you were revitalizing a genre or was this more of a happy accident? I mean I think we knew. Yeah, I mean we we were we were certainly it was an an active attempt to um fix a lot of the issues that we saw while we were making these games. I was at Telltale Games for 10 years. Mhm. And so you know, I was there from early adventure games like Sam & Max to through some some experiments like Puzzle Agent and Jurassic Park and Back to the Future. And then eventually the sort of era that everyone mostly knows Telltale for which is The Walking Dead and beyond. The Walking Dead, yeah. Um and so a lot of lessons learned, a lot of failures in there, things that didn't go go well but you know, the whole time that our four founders which which all we all met at Telltale or I'm sorry we didn't all meet at Telltale but we all worked together at Telltale. And uh we

were just kind of like taking notes the whole time, you know, like ah if if we were in charge here's what we'd do. And so you know, we're lucky enough to get that opportunity and it you know, it took seven years to to to try to get our first attempt out there but a lot of the core pillars of Dispatch are our reactions to you know, when we'd go to we'd go to friends and family and say hey we're making this great game it's called The Wolf Among Us. We think you'd really like it. It's got a great story. And then they look at it and they'd go it kind of looks looks like not my kind of game. And then we're like yeah but you love you love you watched Drive with Ryan Gosling and you thought he was your favorite film last year. Like we really think there's something here for you and they're like yeah but and they would give us a reason and it would just be like okay write that down. Like And it's like how do we how do we make that person look at our next thing and go yeah, I have to play this. And and so it was kind of a collection of those ideas that we just really shoved into Dispatch. Yeah. So I mean on that point I think rather than revitalizing something I think we were just looking

at it differently in terms of like especially in terms of the size of the opportunity. You're not going to hear more cynicism around the limited appeal of these types of games more than from other people that actually make these types of games. And so this sort of central let's say insecurity about the size of the audience that others have is is one of the very few things that we were certain about even prior to starting the studio. We knew that these games had a ceiling that hadn't been seen even through Dispatch or or previous to tests in other places. And so we knew that the opportunity was massive and so we set out to prove that not necessarily that it was dead but that maybe people were looking at it sort of in the wrong way. And so yeah, that's kind of I would I would argue Nick I don't know. I mean it's a little bit after the fact but it's almost like this thesis of the

Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Just I'm trying to read between the lines there a little bit. Is it was it was it you were trying to aim for people that that aren't necessarily gamers? Perhaps they might or maybe they are but they tend to do watch a lot of TV or film. Is is that cuz you used Drive as an example? It's certainly yeah. I mean I think everything that we do starts with story and characters and we know at this point I think everyone is a consumer of like television and everyone's seeking great stories and and I think all we're doing is you know, all we're doing is is we're telling great stories and we're making them interactive and we're and so instead of just being a passive viewer in this you're an active participant. And we think at the same time as as all this is happening people are also getting more and more comfortable with interacting with things. So people who you wouldn't consider gamers my parents are on their phones while they're watching television. And it's like can we combine those two things? And you also have to convince these people that maybe would look at your game and say I'm not a gamer. It's like no no no, it doesn't matter. This is still something you can enjoy. Yeah.

So Dispatch was built with that in mind. It wasn't necessarily built for like you know, let's get my mom and dad to play it but it was built for not like stripping down those barriers. And some some of those some people's barriers are visual fidelity. So we said this has to look like a premium animated television show. Some people's barriers are I'm not I'm not very good at video games. It's like okay, well we're going to make the gameplay and the types of interactions very simple, very approachable. So yes, it was a holistic approach and we're maybe successful in some places better than others but It sounds like the focus was the is the focus is trying to tell a story and who likes stories and whether that this story is something that might appeal to certain people rather than what medium do you like to use? Cuz and this The reason why I say that is about a year ago I had a a Ubisoft exec on our Ubisoft studio head on our on our show and she believed very adamantly stories is the way to grow this industry in the same way that TV reaches new markets and new people and attracts you know, and just influences people through

stories not through the technology or or anything like that. Completely maybe a little bit but it's not really. It's all through story. So one of the planned questions I was coming to ask but it just what you said there sort of triggered that memory. Now you had you had quite a few frustrations towards the end of Telltale and then you got put you were at Ubisoft and you got pulled around in different directions. I was reading some of this stuff. I think the initial Dispatch the sort of live-action game that you were doing sort of fell through during COVID. This is quite a lot of adversity that you've gone through to get to this point. So what what kept you motivated? Did you have any sort of doubts? Oh yeah, there'd be many many doubts and many many I mean we I mean Nick has jokes that we could make a whole series of Final Destination movies just based around all the near misses all of the existential threats that we we've had to weather across the last seven years. So yeah, of course of course there are doubts but not doubts in the places that are important, I think. I I think when it came to the

creative, even really early on, we knew that Dispatch was something special. Mhm. Um and we didn't quite know if there would be an audience for it, but we knew if there was that this would be the place that this would be the one place they can get this particular thing. Yeah, I'm trying to think of like a time when I mean, there's just so many. It's a fog of moments where we thought It's not even just the game, the the studio also. Like, it was just a really difficult challenge. We were uh we're founded by two writers and two directors. Founded a game studio. You go and you talk to any person who's looking to either invest or publish or whatever, and they look at two writers and two directors, and it's like the the two least useful people in their minds. Right? Like, it's like, where's your programmer? Where's your designer? You know, oh, you don't have anyone who worked on Halo? Like, how are you know, it's like they care about these, you know, the traditional games things. And then you go to, you know, you go to the film side, you go to Hollywood, and they're like they don't

understand games. And so, they they both those conversations were always we're kind of in between, and and then they were always difficult for different reasons. Um so, it you know, you have and then and then when you finally maybe get someone who does understand or is a fan of maybe the Telltale stuff or or the genre, then they're telling you, "Hey, these things aren't selling very well anymore. So, why would How are you guys going to do this?" And and then you have to convince them as to why those other things that had a lot of money put into them, and some of the some of the Sometimes talking to people who put money into them, you have to explain to them why we think those didn't make money. And then, you know, and it's it's just like everyone who's who's supposed to be the, you know, the industry leaders or or, you know, are incredibly intelligent and these investors who do all these, you know, run all the numbers and tell you what's going to make money, you have to tell them they're wrong. And and then, they don't believe you, and then you start to wonder if you if you know anything. Why am I Why are they

Why would I be right?
Mhm. So, we had to basically push through so much of that um to get this game made, and just continue to believe in the team. Um and, you know, we hired a lot of junior people. Half of our team never shipped a game before. Um we hired We were working with a an animation house that had never worked in games. They've only done linear. So, it's just like we were kind of this weird scrappy Mhm. little machine that that didn't didn't make sense on paper, but we just, you know, it's you're following your gut and Yeah. Well, you From an investor point of view, there's high risk with all of the things that you just said. Yeah, well, I It's interesting you said that you had to tell people why they were wrong. Why were they wrong? I mean, we I mean, we know they are. Yeah. From like a really why like a foundational perspective is that it's it's it's actually for the kinds of games that we make, it's actually a question about creative. Mhm. And so, if you can't tell the difference, if you're

looking for people that can tell the difference between what's going to work and what's not going to work, or what's good enough and not good enough, um then it's going to be hard for them to judge cases like this. And so, they'll they'll go to their checklist of, "Okay, this is a new IP, that's a risk. Is it, you know what I mean? Is it a team that's proven? Okay, maybe that's not so much a risk." And so, ultimately, they're asking a creative question, which is is this story something that's going to work for a broad audience where the that will sort of take care of the business side of things. And the people that are often times, let's say, the people that are in that space are people that make these things are people and so, aren't really people that can judge
or are used to judging things on a completely different criteria. They're used to picking up the controller and being like, "Oh man, this is the shooting mechanics are really good here." But, then you're like, "Hey, here's some dialogue options." You know, they're like, "What What do I do with this?" Um but it but I I mean, I've said it before, but it's like it would be akin

to saying like, "Hey, the last 10 movies that came out in the box office, they all they did they underperformed. Um you know, maybe movies are dead." And that's what it kind of feels like when they're talking to us about like the last five, you know, interactive narrative games. Like, they didn't they didn't go anywhere. It's like, "I think this genre's gone." It's kind of missing what makes those great. And and I think, you know, it's hard to say, "Yeah, but we're better than that." Right? Cuz you're basically saying we're more talented than that team. And it and it feels gross, but but we had to push through the grossness to to to get here. But, that's that's I mean, honestly, I think it is a big part of it. And, you know, it's it maybe a little bit more in the weeds on on the why, but we're focused on telling great stories with great characters, with great writing. And I think a lot of people are are focused on telling great stories. And like plots. And like, "Oh, look how complicated this is. Look how you know, isn't this cool this twist at the end here?" And we're less interested in that and more interested in creating a a cast of characters that you want to

invest in, your time in, and relationships in. And we find like that's more compelling, and and then the writing of those characters is way undervalued in our industry. And And but then when you go to TV, it's like all they care about. Yeah, yeah. I I did a creative writing course. I was told once that not to know too much about what your story is going to do, and let the characters tell you where it's going to go. And I'm and I that that blew my mind. It's That's how it works. You sort of, you know, you don't really know. It's interesting. This might be a naive question, and I'm sort of I will talk about it more about the game in a moment, but how pricey is it making a game like this? Cuz obviously, I look at it and I think like maybe it's not that expensive. Obviously, you've got famous actors in it. You've got this incredible animation. You've got multiple different narrative components. I get the impression people might think these games are relatively affordable. Perhaps they maybe underestimate it a bit. Depends on it depends on the the context of the frame of reference. I would say it is on the middle lower end of the double A sort of like space. Right. If you're just a consumer that doesn't sort

of work in games, it might sound like a lot, but I think if you're compared relative to the budgets that we're seeing Yeah, absolutely. incredibly today, it's like we're a tiny fraction of of those. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's it's uh we also probably got a little bit We got a It's probably it was cheaper for us this time because it's our first one, and we're we I mean, we we had a lot of green talent. We've got, you know, people signing on to the project to, you know, our cast a lot of our cast they're not here for the paycheck. They're here cuz they saw they read the scripts. They saw the um you know, they saw the animation, and they were fans, and they wanted to like help make this happen. We're not going to get those, you know, a lot of those numbers are going to turn up across the board. Our vendors are probably, you know, looking at 4 million. Um but uh but yeah, I mean, it it it but surprisingly, yeah, it's um games games take a lot. But, also it I

think we're in this weird like transition where like double A was like death for a long time. You said you were a double A game, that was like, "Okay, you're not getting funding." Um so, we either had to be super indie, or you had to be, you know, you have you know, 30 to 50 million plus, right? Um and we're kind of in this weird transition. You get things like Claire Obscure, you know, coming out and saying that, you know, they cost like 10 million or less, which is wild. Yeah.
Um so, it's in this transition period, and I think we're we're kind of on the we're on that sort of the crest of that wave. I say this a lot on on this show. But, I actually don't view Claire Obscure as double A or even your game as double A. I think you're triple A at what you do. And and so, I used to always use the word focus triple A, where the triple A game probably tries to do everything. Um and a lot of these double A games that we're talking about, they're not less quality not the quality isn't below what GTA or whatever's doing. It's just that what they do is of the highest quality. Dispatch is the highest quality of the type of game you make. Claire Obscure is is is a fantastic game of the type of title they make. Double A budgets. I

think that's probably what we're talking about here. But, when games in this space work, I think it's because they're not they're trying to just do something very specifically to the highest possible standard.
Oh my goodness, I I I I wish we would have had this conversation like a year ago, because it's such a jujitsu flip. You're double A? No, we're triple A at what we do. I love I love how that sounds. Like, how confident it sounds. We never we never thought of it that that way. I did read in your interview with with with Rob over at You're a Gamer that you when you were making when you were starting this this project, and it was during COVID, uh the game started a lot darker. Or the project started a lot darker, and then it became more hopeful as the as as the project went on, and as the world got darker, I guess. Now, was that a conscious decision? Were you thinking people don't need misery right now? Or was it more reflective of what you wanted to talk about and write about? I think Pierre's probably the person who who drove that initial. This is Pierre, our uh the sort of lead writer and narrative director, co-founder. And I think he was I mean,

he was the, you know, at the front lines of of trying to figure out the tone of the story and the characters. And we did start in a darker place. There were versions of Robert where there was like a mass casualty event at his, you know, because of some a mistake he made. And he was like, you know, sort of drinking himself uh to sleep every night. But, it was kind of just this like, "Man, what are we doing? Like, this is just sad. Like, this is this is what we're putting out there right now." And sure, it's compelling, you know, from a narrative standpoint, but it's not um not doesn't make me feel good. And and so, and so, then and then it was like we're like watching Ted Lasso and talking about how great that felt. And like, "Oh man, it's so nice to just like be around a, you know, a group of people that you that you like and want to continue to interact with. And um and be a force of good. And be the guy who's championing other people, lifting them up. And um and so, that I just as a as like a archetype was something that was that that was something we were chasing and it was kind of like we were like, maybe it's like a mix between like Ted Lasso

and The Bear and we're just like kind of like, you know, jamming things together. Um, but yeah, it was conscious and and and it's funny now cuz like you start to you know, there's like articles being written about like like hope core and like, you know, Project Hail Mary is now, you know, Yeah. It's it's it's this feel good. It's a it's a sci-fi movie that, you know, is I almost spoil the ending, but you know, it's like it's about uh, everyone just looking for to feel good right now, I think and like it continues to be true even though we're 6 years out of a pandemic. Um, so I don't know. It's it's I maybe we got lucky. Maybe I'm just like we're in the moment that, you know, that we happen to make the right decisions 4 years ago, but Yeah. But there's a you know, there's another like shorthand thing that is has been told to us and we heard in rooms which was discouraging to go in this route initially which is comedies don't sell in games. That's also a thing that we'd been told and so we were discouraged and so we had a such a stack of things that felt like risk.

So adding a yet another one via genre felt like kind of kind of egregious. So it took some time and convincing and to see actual like real world references that worked in the way that we would we would hope. So, yeah. Took a while to get there. Comedy's an interesting one because games are often funny even if they're unintentionally funny. Like when people when people play together, I think that's inevitably quite funny. People put funny tags on their characters or that kind of stuff, you know, Fortnite's funny. Um, but not necessarily not necessarily in a story sense. And I'm I'm I love comedy games. One of my probably one of the most influential games in my career is Conker's Bad Fur Day, right? I love I love a funny game and there are more than than I think people realize. So is is that what you're told? You're told that comedy games don't sell. That might explain why there isn't as many of them as there should be.
Well, it's not the top of the list of the reasons uh, that this is a risky project, but it's in there. It's it was like number three or four and it was a

constant sort of thing that we heard.
And again, it's what when they're saying that, I don't think they realize that they're saying games that are trying to be funny and aren't don't sell is basically what I think that it's not like there's all these incredible hilarious games that no one's buying. Um, it's just that like you said, I think games are normally like maybe funny from a more like physical standpoint or you know, something like QWOP or like, you know, Baby Steps or something like that. So it's, you know, it's kind of a trust fall where we're like, no, no, no, we can actually be funny in our game and we had but we had to prove it. We can't just say that. So I think Political Animals is all the proof you need, I think. Um, um, um, and then even okay, it's maybe not funny story wise, but Sea of Thieves is is just funny all the way through pretty much. I'm a big fan of Rare. So I mentioned Conker, but all of their games are funny. Yeah. Even the ones that aren't supposed to be. Um, uh, well, I think they are supposed to be. They just put they stick it in there. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'm I'm going to ask a question I'm pretty sure everybody has asked you which is the episodic approach cuz I again, I know you've spoken about it before, but why what why go down that

route? Was it always is it because of that history which is obviously that's what you're going to do? Uh, and not always what we were going to it was definitely the default because we we we'd been there at Telltale and the the this is another thing. This is another sort of like risk thing where people are like, you guys are going to do it episodic? What are you guys What are you guys doing? But And the and the nuance here is that at this scale, we don't think we're not sure if there are many precedents of games that have done it episodically in this way which is same day every single week across across, you know, 4 weeks until you're done. So it So that's it was just an it was another thing that people were like, so we we stopped telling people that we were going to release it episodically at some point to to yeah, to cross it off the list. But there was also a lot of internal sort of conversations around that and where we landed, I think, is um, we did playtesting and we we knew that

there was this play this point at which people play would finish the game and that was roughly around the end of episode four. People played it.
episode four, we would know we knew that you would finish the whole game. There were conversations about doing one a week for 8 weeks. There were conversations about just 2 weeks. So we we talked about different versions of it and then we landed on 2 weeks so that we can get you to episode four as quickly as possible. Um, so it was pretty late in the game for us to even decide to do it episodic. Yeah, it was it was changing it was changing the whole time. Wow. And so the fact that it worked out the way that it did um, is a lot of it is, you know, a decision, but to to say that we would knew exactly how that would play out and we would be we would be lying. The thing that we knew well, I also like I have to say like I like watching things episodically just

personally. And then I think we have other people on the team do too. And it's just I I mean, I really enjoyed watching A Night of the Seven Kingdoms like and having to wait and watching week to week and being excited and the anticipation and like I'm and it's if I had binge that all in one weekend, I don't think I'd be thinking about that show. You know, I think it was good, but like I think because it it just gives you that sort of like it feels like it's been a part of my life longer and I and I and not and and when it's good, that's awesome. When it's bad, that sucks, right? You're like get get let's get this over with. But um, so there's just that thing. It's kind of old-fashioned now. Everyone kind of wants to binge stuff, but I think we're sort of like forcing people to do this thing that they don't want to do, but then once they've done it, they're happy they did. So it's this like if you're wrong, you're really wrong. Um, but uh, yeah. It does feel like we've pivoted back a little bit. I mean, I'm just I went Dead Ever was released this week and I put it on a phone. Oh, it's one episode. Scrubs is back. Oh, it's one episode a week. That was two to

begin with and then Stranger Things, I know that was done in bulk, but even then they had three drops and and it was it does seem to be where there's an maybe I'm maybe it's just the shows I watch doing it. There seem to be there's a little bit of a push back. I think so. Yeah. But I'm interested cuz you you mentioned something you just triggered something there when you said that when you got people got to the end of episode four, they tend they tend to finish the game. A how close are you looking at those metrics or you know, how many people went from episode one to episode two and how many people do you drop off and I don't even know what good looks like when it comes to an episodic game. Yeah, I mean, once the game I mean, cuz we were testing we were we were doing like, you know, early builds of the game that we were testing to kind of get a sense of all sorts of things, but one of them was um, essentially how people were enjoying the experience as it went on and essentially it just went up basically. It just but we knew episode four was the moment where people were like, I have to finish this game now. Like they would that's what they're answering in that little bubble quiz.

Um, and so we so once it came to release, I mean, I it was for the I mean, I don't think there was a much of a drop off, right? If you even if you just started the season, it seemed like most people were going all the way. I if there was I don't know if we have the data, but it's very very low like single percent. Um, where people with if they started the game, they basically finished. It's it's only, you know, 8 to 10 hours. So it's not that that big of an ask. Well, talk me through. So you did find a partner in in Critical Role which is an unusual partner, I guess, in many ways. How did that come about? We knew them already. Um, and we we talked about this a bit. Um, when we released the teaser at The Game Awards, it seemed to cut through uh, a really busy TGA and one of the people that saw it and just like bowled over not just because of what it looked like, but because he knew us was Travis at at Critical Role and Laura as well. And so they reached out to Nick and then Nick

Actually, it's not to completely say what you just said is Um, Oh, but but here we go. There we go. Here it is. Travis. No, it was actually a year a year prior to that is actually when Travis reached out because he cuz we had cast Laura uh, um, this is a gal and and so she was and we sent her animation to kind of we're trying to like pitch her. We, you know, we had a good relationship, but we wanted to give her as much context before she took the role. And so she's seeing all this animation and the scripts and Travis that, you know, they're married. Um, he was just seeing it over her shoulder going like, oh my god, that looks awesome. Like what is this? And so she was kind of telling him and then at that point they were at Critical Role trying to figure out their game strategy like how it they've got comics and board games and all this other stuff, but they haven't um, made their own game yet. And so this thing finally clicked for him. He's like, I this is what we want our games to be. Um, so then we started talking with them

about doing something in their universe while we were still developing Dispatch and eventually we kind of had issues with our publisher and and then we were looking around and and then we we realized like what what we just before we do this, let's help us with Dispatch. And and so that's when it was like it all clicked and and we kind of got there. So then we were at the TGAs with the trailer without a deal. And then and then because of the TGAs and the impact that it had on wishlists, for instance, the conversations with the Critical Role became much more serious and uh, accelerated and then we closed that like later on later on in the following year. My yeah, I it seems to be at they were at the Game Awards. I know another I'm aware that I'm you know, Jeff Keighley's behind the game business so I'm aware that I'm this sounds like I'm just blowing smoke at my But there was somebody we I met at the game awards last year who announced a game at the show and they've just told me that as soon as that happened they were frantically meeting with people and

there was there was a lot of a lot of interest and a lot of buzz. You sort of you think about it as a means to drive interest amongst consumers which it is but it also does it in the industry as well and I don't think people always always see that.
Yeah. What I mean without that show I don't know if the dispatch would have made it. I think we were I mean we we were we could see the end of the runway not too far into the next year and we needed that huge spike in interest to to generate con- confidence in other in others you know investors so it's huge. Now I understand Critical Role helped you with financially but it sounds like you did most of the publishing yourself. Is that right? Yeah we're self-published. Yeah. Um how have you found that? Uh I we're very glad we did it. Um it was it was a it was certainly a journey. I mean we had never we had I didn't have anyone on our team who'd ever published a game before. It was sort of that like sort of that that naivete of of you know I was at Telltale for 10 years and they self-published everything they did so

like can't be that hard. Um we learned. We were we were very humbled by that experience but it obviously means there's a lot of upside to to being in control of that piece and and there's a financial upside too. Um and now I don't know I don't know why we would ever go back to working with a publisher um I was going to ask my next question is now that you've done it yourself and I know the next game is a Critical Role title or at least you're working on one of those but like would you go back would you do a publisher and it's there? You've danced it for me. I I guess maybe we I would never I wouldn't cross it off completely but it would have to make a lot of sense. I mean we're we've now kind of you know now we just yesterday announced we're coming to Xbox. Yeah so we're put we know how it works on all these first-party platforms. We have these relationships. We we you know we'll have done it before. Certainly help is is useful and there's other pieces to publishing. There's marketing. There's you know a lot of sort of weird stuff that we're learning about but it's it's

also I I mean I was one of I was the person building the stores and pushing hitting the button to set the game live and all that stuff so yeah first first-hand experience and there's something that I really personally enjoy about it and and getting in there and understanding it and there's kind of there's an art to building a Steam page for example like something that is successful that catches people's eyes and uh there's a lot to that that I think is exciting and cool that that I like owning or I like our studio owning. Pete Hines used to be the boss boss of Bethesda publishing where he says that he always has Todd Howard and everyone involved in the marketing because the first time a consumer customer player touches a game is the first time they see the trailer. It's the first time they see the artwork. It's the first time they see the logo. That's and so it really needs to come from the developers and I think actually what you're saying there is that you're you have this art and you'll be it's it was your game. You know it better than anybody anybody even even a publisher completely gets your game they're not going to get better than you. Which you know is that kind of thing.

Did you I mean but is it read your work with you know I know you're working with a PR team and all that kind of things you guess you have to find all those and influencer agencies and all kind of legwork. Yeah. I mean I don't I don't know I mean I I we've one of the things that I mean we've been around for a little over 7 years now. We're every year we're at all the conferences. We're at DICE. We're at GDC. We're going to Gamescom and we've been building this network of of relationships and contacts and and friends of the studio who were a big part in us being able to self-publish to be honest. We would have these people we can reach out to and say hey how do you you know how do you handle this? Like what is your how do you do discounts? Like how what is your strategy? How are you thinking about promotion? How are you thinking you know what's the value of being part of this event versus this event or you know how much should we be paying to get into this you know this thing and and so we

we did not do this by ourselves just in like a just want to make that clear. We've we've got a lot of people helping us but that's that took 7 years to build that that network and that that relationship. Um So I don't know I mean Mike I feel like you're kind of at the center of a lot of those conversations and Yeah I mean we we had a lot of help but we're tiny team but like folks like Jake at Guillotine who is UK-based helping us with influencers and the creator program. They came up in my Meugenics interview. It's the second mention of Amazing. Well I mean there's a reason there's a reason they look at that sort of space very very differently. It's a human approach to um creator relationships. It's a it's a relationship approach let's say to like creator marketing. More than that Jake's just a great guy to to know and across the 7 years there's a lot of people that tell you a lot of things. There's very few people

that actually can follow through and deliver on those things. But Jake was one of those and so that's a huge part of why the game kind of had this early speed boost when it came to YouTube and all the different social media praises. Yeah and if we're name-dropping I feel like we should we should you know at the very least acknowledge like that other sort of big folks who've been super helpful but you know Kepler or we've been close with Kepler for a while. A lot of their team has been was was behind the scenes helping us advising us. Supergiant another group of people who are just incredibly generous and you know it's it's it's kind of shocking when like when you find out that your heroes are actually genuinely good people. Like I've been a Supergiant fan since the beginning since Bastion and Um so so yeah I mean the industry is you know small in a lot of ways and and you know you kind of find out who the who the real ones are by by surviving as long as we have and and

Um yeah so that's I mean it's one of the best things about the games industry and like things like GDC or these other developer conferences where people are just so willing to share and and Um and be helpful and and and so it's it's we we again it's tough to say that we did this ourselves because it's it's built on the on the backs of a lot of other people's hard work. It's true of everything I think that I'm I'm conscious of the time. I was going to ask you know what did you find most difficult about publishing and is there anything you do differently? Um but I I don't want to take up too much of your time. I don't want to talk too long about publishing but I we can probably go over too if that's if I don't know if that's right. But but I but I will say too like the other piece of this like it's not um like we've been thinking like things like episodic were obviously a piece of the marketing thing right? I mean we've talked about that experiencing stories over time. I do love that but also it's great to build momentum. It's great to build and and we saw like you know every time we dropped an episode it kind of the the peaks of the concurrent player count was like were were jumping up and I mean for a for a

story game to get you know 220,000 people playing simultaneously is is pretty insane. Um also our our approach to casting it was very kind of that there was a sort of like a high-level idea of let's sort of like place a lot of bets. We've got Hollywood stars. We've got VO you know legends with Laura Baileys and and and Travis and and Matt. Um and then we've got these sort of creators who were fans of just genuinely fans of we want to work with who we also know are going to bring their own reach and so it's kind of like there wasn't one big idea for how we're going to market this game. It was just a consistent throughout the process of you know we want this game to look really really good and appealing and something that when you see it on screen you're like leaning in and you want to know more. So it was it was it was something we're constantly kind of checking like throughout development. It wasn't just something we waited until the end and said all right how are we going to market this game? But Christopher I mean what do you what do you think

what do you think this says? I mean there's there's us there's E3 other teams. I mean you mentioned Meugenics which is like a sneaky indie because that's there's a long sort of history and a well-earned fan base but like what do you think this says about sort of the industry kind of at large like that studios like ours or Claire is doing what they're doing? Um there is this isn't this isn't particularly exclusive to the time we're in now but I think it's more the case now is that we are bombarded with as as people with stuff right? We are you know whether it's on TikTok but also TV and it's more TV than ever and and also we don't have to go anywhere for it anymore. We don't have to travel anywhere. It's just been beamed into our brains. It's everywhere. And so to succeed as creators in this space what not needs to happen is you need to do something that just make is interesting that cut I use the word cut through which is a very marketing term but basically that makes people go oh I'd like to do that.

And I think that naturally favors people that can just do something that's a bit weird and a bit there's all there's loads of failures in this. We obviously we you're giving us these three examples of successful things which are great examples. Um now sometimes it's stuff that's new or we haven't seen before or somebody's taking something that we that we used to love like maybe this is a little bit what you've done and done something new with it that's managed to to reach a broader market. You're very good at these games and you've just gone right how do we make a really really do this really really well and there's an audience for it and if you do something specific really really well whether it's making a game like Final Fantasy 10 or a game like Gears of War in the case of Space Marine 2 or a game like Helldivers 2 If you can something really, really well and you can speak to someone specifically, then that someone can spread out. That's how FromSoftware did it, you know, their games are the antithesis of what game people were making at the time, super hardcore games. And suddenly um they made a game for people that wanted that experience and then it just went broad. It doesn't always, in fact it doesn't most of the time, but it can

if you can be if you can do something focused and really, really well. And I think um AAA can do it as well, but it's obviously a lot more risky and people are less willing to take those punts on it. Um but I think that's what you see and I think that's just because you know, people want to see something that's that catches their eye, otherwise there's just so much noise and it's very hard to get excited about things. So um that's what I think. I've had lots of conversations about this for the over like a year of doing these shows of people of speaking to people that have succeeded. Also people that have struggled as well. Um but that's why I think you've you've you've done it. Is there anything you'd do differently if you could start you know, it's all it's been a hit, everything's worked, but was there anything you'd think you'd next time you might change this or do this differently? Not necessarily about the game, but maybe the way you marketed it or whatever. Uh I mean one of the one of the successes that we weren't able to replicate this time that we learned at Telltale was just be on everything day one. Um and so we weren't able to do

that. We had to pick and choose and so we were we we launched on uh Steam and and and and PlayStation. Um so that's that's one of like the things that again we're I'm like been pulling at that I think that publisher conversation but And it's there's one thing that I wish we would have done differently. But on the but on the creative front, I mean Nick, I mean there are plenty of things that had to be cut or thousand compromises that had to be made to fit schedule, fit budget and there's a lot of those things that we would love to have back, I would imagine.
Yeah. And and I'd say for all the pain and misery, I mean you know, again we've been we've been going all these conferences for seven years looking for money and trying to make the next six months work, you know, and it's it's been it's been hell especially for Michael. Um and you know, all the things that happened, losing our publisher, um all sorts of different disasters. Uh people said they'd give us money and then did it and like many times and um we ended at a place that was basically the best for the studio, the project,

you know, financially, creatively, um and so it's kind of hard to just to say we you know, I wish I wish this didn't happen or I wish we did this instead of this because we've we've sort of pachinkoed our way to the jackpot. Um so that's you know, something I think we need to continue to remember as as we're going forward and and it's something that I hope other people hear and you know, at least provides them a little bit of hope that that you know, even if you're in the middle of of what feels like you know, an existential crisis like that's just I mean it was tough. I mean and Michael was you know, Michael's our CEO and and I think he was the steady hand a lot of the time as as as some of the some of us were kind of losing our heads and and running around freaking out and he was just like we said we're going to do this, just keep focused, just you know, keep moving. One foot in front of the other. Yeah. And if there is anything that's regrettable is you know, we we came up with this sort of idea and this pitch before The Boys was

a thing, before Invincible came out. And The Boys has since released I don't know five seasons of a television show and they're finished now. Yeah. And so what I wish we would have sort of been able to turn this around faster and part of that was just circumstances, COVID and all these other things, but also but part of it was also us kind of like wavering and trying to figure things out and so yeah, next next time out I think we'll uh dangerously so have be encouraged to trust our guts a little bit sooner. Yeah. Are you planning now you have the success is that you're scaling up, you're being more ambitious, you're going to um what's what's I mean I guess that's the question you're having to ask yourself the moment is like what do you do? But uh what's the plan? Well, right now we're in a position where um I mean there are a lot of options, but the thing we're actually just doing is we're we're you think we think about it like at the start of this batch if we had all of the resources and all of the knowledge that we've learned, what is the actual size of the team that would

be required to make one of these games? That's where it's actually filling out the team so that it is the size the proper size so that our Nick, our creative director, doesn't also have to be publishing doing a lot of the work on the publishing part or head of publishing essentially on the Nick just told me he loves it. Okay, I do kind of like it. It was it was a welcome distraction at many points in the creative journey. So we're just doing that. We're just building out our the team so that it can kind of get to that level so that we know what that number is and then from there any anything in terms of ambition or just poured into the creative on the next thing and then like scaling and these types of things are we also look at look at that a little bit differently. I mean we think that's a creative problem less than a production problem. I think the tendency for game studios is to think like production companies and not like businesses and so they're much more concerned about output

and like what's what a potential output is versus what the outcomes are and so for us we make we're we're making creative games. We need to make the things that actually connect to people. We don't want to just build a studio that can make things. We want it to make things we want to be optimized to make things that actually connect with people and so to do that you have to solve you have to scale Yeah. creative leadership essentially prior to to scaling proper as it's generally understood.
Yeah. Yeah, you don't greenlight a film without a script or without a creative you know, a director and writer attached, right?
Yeah. So And I guess in some ways the success you've had is probably because of the constraints and the challenges that you've you've got and there is that there is that urge to go oh how we can create the next one. We don't have to worry about cutting anything. We can put everything in there and then it becomes a very bloated and and and long project again and I guess that's the that's a balance you've got to try and strike as well. Yeah, and constraints are really useful. They're pre-made decisions essentially

and so and this is the you know, you know, in a sort of timeline where you have to make thousands of decisions you know, across the you know, four years or so that it takes to develop. So I actually really like constraints. Um I think I think Nick would agree. I we actually really like working inside of constraints because um it sort of deletes things we have to actually worry about. Um yeah. I like that answer. Um Nick, Michael, I've taken up too much of your time, but also I'm out of questions so it's fine. Um the um good luck. I'm really excited. I will hopefully see you at the Baftas in a couple of weeks.
great. I I mean I normally am. I haven't sorted out yet, but but but I usually go. Um that's where the the beginning of the game business started as a conversation at the Baftas. Um but um um but I'm really, really pleased this game has done been such a hit and it's a wonderful game and it's sort of I love

games that prove all the rules are wrong. That's the thing with any publisher, ask them, they know all the rules are wrong. They know there's no really any rules to anything. But they have to pretend. They have to have their tick box. So um um congratulations. Um congratulations on its success. I know it's coming to Xbox and Game Pass I think as well, is it in the sort of thing and Uh not not Game Pass, but yeah, Xbox Play Anywhere it's on Xbox. Play Anywhere, that Play Play Anywhere.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a cool thing. But congratulations on a year, Christopher. It's been fun to watch. I mean we listened to this stuff we listened to the show itself. Um it's cool to be it's cool to be on. Oh, that's brilliant. Well, it's I'm privileged to have you on, but so thank you for your time and good luck at the Baftas. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show. We'll be back with more news, analysis and interviews in the weeks ahead. As a reminder, we still have an offer going on until tomorrow, which is April 1st, depending on when you listen to this, where we're offering 20% off paid subscriptions to The Game Business. This is part of our one-year anniversary celebration. Now paid subscriptions get you access to our

micro show, which we do on a Monday. We also do a monthly market report. We actually put out the last one just last week and you can find out more all about that um at the gamebusiness.com. But that's it from me. Until next time. Thank you for tuning in. What is the greatest TV show of all time? Oh god. I have a bit of a controversial one. It's the one that I watch once a year. It's Boardwalk Empire. Oh wow. I'd say the first thing that comes to mind is The Americans. Mhm. Just because it's great all the way to the end. One day when I ask that question someone will say Doctor Who. Right. Um If you could work on one IP that isn't your own, what would it be? Man. Well, I will say I mean our studio is absolutely obsessed with anything F1 related. So It's close as we got to turning that into like an actual pitch was like an F1 F0 game. Oh. Oh, that's right. You know, which I think is still pretty cool. Nintendo, PlayStation or Xbox? I love them all, but Dreamcast.

Good answer. Which video game company inspires you the most? Nick's got the perfect actor, I think. Do I? Inspires you the most? I mean Come on.
I I I'm I'm scared to say it now cuz what if what if I'm wrong? Okay. I'm a huge Supergiant fan, so that's the one Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Yeah. And not just because of the games that they make, but also just because of the studio, with the people in it and the decisions they make.
But I also and despite getting our ass kicked by them at every award show, I think Santa Monica is inspiring too. Just looking at what they did and knowing pretty intimately what it took. Okay, I'll ask two more. If you could work with any actor alive today, who would you like to work with? I got a weird one. It's also weird that I don't know how to pronounce her name. Okay, I know I know who you're thinking of. She's a Norwegian actress. Renate I I always see it on screen and then never attempt to say it out loud. She's the actor One of my favorite movies in

the last like 10 years is The Worst Person in the World. Yeah, I'm watching, rewatching Ozark right now, so I can't think of anyone other than Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. And one last one. What advice would you give to studios, cuz you've had this journey and it's been tough, and there's studios out there right now going through every event, hustling, trying to find a partner. What advice would you give to those people? The best advice I got was from Matt, the COO of our animation partner, Igloo. We're we're in the middle of all these things. We're asking for favors from them. We're We're just in the middle of all of the chaos. And he just looked at me and said, "Hey, you've got to focus on the product. Just focus on the game, the thing that you're making." That was really helpful because then I would just go and play the build. And I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, this is funny."