Make Games, Better with Rupie.io | Game Dev Unchained Episode 194

[Music] ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome back to the number one podcast about game development and the life style of game developers I am one half of the team bringing to this awesome podcast my name is Larry Charles and I may as well just go ahead and reveal him now because he's on the video footage with me that's right we're doing it video for the first time ever yeah helping me with behind the scenes transitions and on-screen presentation mr. brand of film welcome everybody to another episode of game dev Unchained oh I wanted to also introduce our guests okay to two people right here Austin and Jonathan what's up guys do you guys hear us can hear us yeah yeah you guys are doing great yeah perfect yeah thank you all right oh

come on of course of course then we talk to these guys a while back but this is the first time that our audiences are gonna get a chance to hear from you guys so the first thing we like to do on our podcast is obviously just say like hey can you guys tell us a little about yourself and give us like the Cliff's Notes versions of how you got into the industry and where you are now yeah I can start by the way you guys have the coolest intro ever yeah whoever did that props right yeah my name is Austin Anderson and speak game developer back in the day transitions and web technologies worked a bunch of companies was that LinkedIn lost and then decided to get back into the game industry to give a service to do notice that there was a lot of problems plaguing you know the indie community and decided to create a software pocket instead so yeah that's that's a little bit about myself JT you want to jump in sure what's going

everyone my name is Jonathan also known as JT within groupie Austin and I met a couple years ago i i'm i self worked in technology growth marketing ye but it's been a lifelong gamer competitively game for a while and acting you know that within the model modding community found while I was there that there's a huge graph development community that was kind of yearning for a platform to better connect them to opportunities and so when Austin I started chatting about the game development space we very quickly realized that there is just great great opportunity for us to create a better destination for game developers to find each other but also to find better opportunities to contribute to real projects to actually get paid in on time things of that nature so j2 is also an eSport stuff play a a commercial a competitive counter-strike back in the 1.5 1.6 bit of Source days well before eSports really became the behemoth that

it is today but girls one of the magnetic you know the clipping the stacking gets the old-school strats that you can't really employ these things the hitboxes were those were the good old days but yeah so so it's really exciting to be able to build a platform that community that supports you know a game to bone and kind of that large so really excited to be involved with that but also really excited to be here to talk a little bit more about why that's important well we're actually really happy to have you guys don't look at our facial expressions for verification because we're getting used to talk to the TV yeah so this is new just like you guys are in the studio with us so it's awesome yeah we're we're actually not real this is a graphical demonstration of real-time rendering so obviously

great businesses start with great teams right especially with the partnership so how did you guys meet were you guys friends before were you the first bought who the first beer often had attended a conference there I was though staying at an organization at a venture capital firm that I was working at prior and that's kind of how we met we just got to talking at the events and one thing led to another we found that we both really really cared about both technology as well as creatives and that's been upheld this weekend so that was many years ago a lot has happened since then the industry has dramatically changed since then and we think that yeah there's just a given unique opportunity for something like this to happen now especially given things like remote work and and just general

communication across work platforms has really improved the barrier to entry for game development has really come down so we think that there's just a big opportunity for a lot of great talent in each other somewhere together yeah so it's actually pretty great like what you're mentioning like the the the recent progression and in smaller teams kind of being able to use the same tools and kind of produce as high quality as the bigger studios have been blossoming the last few years and it's great that you guys are supporting that because Larry and I have always felt that that has been the innovators of the industry that's actually moving the industry forward not to kind of hate or [ __ ] on like the bigger studios which because we love the blockbusters as well but they are usually the ones playing it a little safer right they're the slowest ships to move in the water exactly and so when when was the first title or time when

you guys were actually seeing like there's a huge shift in the industry right now we need to jump on this yeah that's a great question so I mean we you know we paid close attention work we're avid gamers ourselves and we actually have four co-founders so we're two at four and you know early on one of her brother friends who have helped about the company work for Val and we they've got a lot of folks on board behind groupie who are big hitters in the games industry and you know they they all kind of see the same thing you know in the reality is nobody wants to build you know Call of Duty 15 you know although the IP is fantastic you know the the indie the indie games industry is just it's shifting and evolving so quickly you know we we see a lot of these these problem areas like crunch for instance that's really controversial where these indie stood or these these if you work for game studio you may be overworked or

feel that way right and kind of like the repurposing of existing game titles we see that a lot to where there's not a lot of room for creativity we love the end we love indie games you know FTL I think is when my favorite games rust I love you know I love I love these types of games and so we kind of thought like well you know what is it that these games studios that indie Studios need to be able to compete in develop in their development cycle to be able to you know release these titles and not have to do it via early access or something like that right where we can create more trust between the actual game the game's the game Studios themselves and the consumers the gamers direction playing them and we really believe that it starts at work you know it starts at how can we help these game developers keep the lights on so that they can continue to invest in their like small indie projects and actually get it just took to release right and so to kind of jump

in i answer the question i would say it really dawned upon us no pun intended when we heard that horizon zero dawn was actually developed by a mostly a distributed team a very very high-end triple-a title with like very very equal asset in the world so engine right when we saw that that was something that was possible that really kind of you know a blend what went off in there like wow you know games can actually be built by teams that comprise about from different pockets of the world the fact that that's possible now really made us realize Bob there's definitely an opportunity here for Studios both small and large to take advantage of this kind of new modality of game development so interesting to that you know I think we're seeing that happen industry-wide you know not actually not just in other industries as well where remote work because to your guys that's important the tooling now is becoming more

accessible to pull these teams together right to be able to not have to be on location in person working and so like what is it I guess the rhetorical question is like what does it take to actually get somebody I get a team to that point where they can do that effectively well I gotta say anybody who's running any sort of platform given once again or business right if you spent any time playing rest I would trust you as a business leader because I know you know about threat assessment nonverbal communication and opportunistic taking advantage of situations because that's all so I would I would trust your businesses working through P is like sitting in a little cabin in the middle of doing something walking on the outside and like desperately trying to reach out to them hey are you friendly and [ __ ] like that I yeah so all jokes

aside if we are going to give our listeners now they they know the name and we kind of know I guess we're dancing around the edges of like what the platform is gonna do an offer if you could give like a two-minute pitch to our audience directly to tell them exactly what Ruby de IO is as a platform and how it helps developers explicitly and then let's take the conversation from there yeah yeah so we're a community focused work platform and we basically match our talent with the right projects we can manage your schedule automatically as a game developer an artist we also guarantee payments that's all on the talent side so we really knowledge for you in terms of a developer you know what what is it that we can do to help you in your career connect with the right projects etc and automate all the logistics all the boring stuff that you don't really want to deal with and on the studio side we also provide the the proprietary talent matching it's really smart we manage the schedules for the studios handle payments all the back office tax

automation that sort of thing and we do that so that we can really provide a cohesive offering in terms of our platform and then we also have a bunch of community features as well or right now we're actually in Portland Oregon for the summer slow jam which is hosted by a pig squad I don't have to your viewers may know pig slaughter you guys might know my little clueless yeah so they're a nonprofit organization into a lot of game jam type and education type workshops around the port little organ area they do on average you think it's 70 to 100 games for Game Jam Rose City game is actually a studio shout-out to Rose City games they did they did some like a Cartoon Network title I think they want they they want to think number 1 indie spot for their their game III just recently so we're here with them representing the community and basically helping the community figure out how to take their

Game Jam project and give it life but you post Jam like like what can we do to basically help you continue to build this game in the long term but also the interim connect you with awesome opportunities so that you can you make some cash and then hopefully continue to build your game you want to add something to me yeah no I mean really in summer it's just to make work better and easier for people in the game development space so whether it's finding the right person finding the right company but also you know exchanging information as well as anything work related assets communications payments all those all those transactions are going to be seamlessly managed on the platform so which one's gonna get really easy for anyone to kind of jack themselves into the community and make cool games exactly so cool yeah my next question for you guys is what about growth I guess is there like a top level efficiency limit where like hey if you have a team size of over like 200 you should have a different solution or can

I start my indie team with 5 and grow to as big as I want and still have you know the same kind of experience or the same efficiencies with using Ruby to i/o Larry that's the premier package no that's a great question you know and what's fascinating is the term indie is changed so rapidly for sure we've met people who say it's you know teams of 200 people or lasses like consider Indian we're pretty a stealing solution that basically works across the board we definitely appeal more to the indie crowd but we actually have some template projects that were working with and we really want to solve the question of when is my team a studio and I think a lot of times I think your your your viewers might feel this way it's like when do I appreciate my team as a studio and so we're trying to get creative path

right like a happy path to solve for that so you're like start as a small team you can grow it to toot answer question infinitely in size create an organization later on that has that manages multiple teams so really and just you can scale up yeah this is discipline definitely being designed for scale in mind I mean our goal really is to become B be place where Studios can become as big or as small or break out into small teams however it is that they want to run their org they should be able to scale up or down on our platform pretty seamlessly so that that's that's really built yeah mm-hmm well do you guys get a lot of feedback from the people who use your platform and maybe suggest features and I guess what's that relationship like we're like hey you know we're using this and we thought this would be a great idea and you guys like hey great thanks you know or I guess how our suggestion box next to their dead next to the trash yeah we have always have an open communication

on our on our site pretty much everywhere on the side there's a feedback entry area where people can just let us know flag things or or offer their opinions we really really value that that feedback cycle because ultimately we are servants to the people building and so we look for any opportunities we can to get cool feedback from from the community but I would say in terms of like features that we have various communication features and tools form like things that enable community members to engage with each other we've seen you know various handle that asset handling management solutions that we people have recommended work flow kind of feedback it really does run the gamut because to your point like different studios of different sizes have different needs and ultimately we want to address the core need for allowing future kids to get the best of us so we can't claim to be a community platform anomalous into the

community how can we better listen to the community you know so we may not like ship it something huge based on one person's feedback but we're always listening and aggregating feedback over time and I think that's like you know really one of our core philosophies and it coming on Rubeus is totally free like we want to make sure that it doesn't matter how small you are you can come on Ruby and even if you don't qualify to work on Ruby we're actually providing you know a lot of like work platforms will basically say you know the 2% can actually work with the rest like screw all of you right and you're kind of gone but for us we are working with a bunch of partners we're working with you know we've got part of the plate crafty and girls make games etc to create workshops in the future where you know you can actually come on and improve your profile improve your chances to you know actually work in India method work around rupee

through education right and through actually like increasing your ability we want to be able to say the 90% of people who are just starting in the game industry who just like graduated college you were at GDC talking to graduates and they were like you know their last year and they're literally saying I don't know what we're gonna do I have no idea where I'm going to go how to do this they did we paid they want to working in development but they don't know where to store ass right and it kind of makes sense but not all the articles aren't necessarily directly geared towards game development even though a lot of people at these institutions were properly trained to make games you know are definitely qualified to work on them but there's just not a super clear profit so we really want to help you know on board a bunch of people who you know have the ability to make into the baby may not necessarily know how to directly apply themselves exactly how can we help you become educated right and like in the workforce and you guys know you both you know long careers in the game

industry so you know you know how hard it is at the beginning right yeah I would not be where I am now without help and I know explicitly and each individual time it's individual time where like especially in the beginning where someone was directly contributing to my success there's definitely a Spartan mentality is like once you leave school you're kind of off on your own and once you're off and you know and finding jobs and you get laid off you're off on your own again there isn't really a strong community even with professionals a small and big that actually uh has a place for you in terms of like here's a job site it's basically between friends and it's very unofficial so the the guys that you guys are helping with especially the small indie developers that we talk to often you're they're juggling a million things at once they're trying to learn biz dev on the go type of and it's crazy because most of these developers even if they

are skilled they build a career around their tools and techniques talking to people is actually a very hard and difficult thing and that is necessary for you to make deals and and actually get these games financed so it's actually a piece of the market that you guys are definitely definitely taking advantage of that we see that is very advantageous because more often than not these developers don't know what they're doing and so they're juggling and they're figuring out their new roles it's not like me kind of rolling off from a company and being able to do the same role it's like multiple rules within just making the game and then have to think outside of the game yes it's kind of my headaches yeah yeah I got through our you know so learn the game industry and there you know self-described introverts are a and and they're like I don't want to mess with you know how you know like you know talk to me be definitely it but I just want to build a game right and how is how can I do that

you know but also like you said manage my time and juggle learning these soft skills you know to be able to do this so it's like that's really what we're trying to do it like create these binding agents so you know maybe some management and automation there so that you could just focus on your passion project like focus on what you want your wanting to build because you know we think games are like the the exelon of creative you know manifestations or whatever it's like the most amazing thing so it's like whatever we can do to help enable that I think we're doing I think we're doing the community is service and that's what we're trying to do is is do that so I'm gonna segue off of that then in ask and this might be a little unfair to ask because I know your platforms agile and has a lot to offer but you consider like an indie like a traditionally known indie team small group of guys and girls working on 10 15 person studio level like and even that might be big from

what a lot of people consider indie what would you say is like the biggest headache that you guys solve for like the small indie developer would you say like if you could champion one main feature as a selling point to be like look if you have this problem come to us because we have the best solution if you were gonna check out one thing honestly I think I think it would be our matchmaking because I think that's really what it comes down to is you put a group of people together that have a set of skills finding the right match to get your team work if you're doing that which the majority of teams and individuals that we know outsource themselves at the same time as like building their title because they have to you know especially if you're building an indie game you're not financed you're gonna have to make money somehow right and so why not do it in parallel you know the same platform and I think in my opinion it's it's the

matchmaking piece because we can automate that we can automate your calendar you're like hey I am open to work these days and let's go right and we things together we're vetted whatever like hey somebody's just inquired - for your team to do in a six month contract on something yeah and interact that why matchmaking is so good on our platforms that we actively bet not just for kind of the hard skills required to to determine whether someone's qualified to work on something but we in our research and in having been invited into game developing community we've also found that there are a bunch of soft skills and kind of things in between that lead to turnover within organizations so you could hire someone I don't know some some long-term veteran from LucasArts or from Pixar but maybe you know even though they make great work maybe the pace at which they make the work doesn't quite fit the type of game that you're making because you're making like a mobile game that you're looking for in-game assets that you want to turn out

every week right where is this person you know makes amazing work but what it is used to working on it for weeks at a time and so they're just like little nuances in you know different roles within game development that we really like to kind of that for such that well you know that when you're hiring someone on our platform or putting yourself out for hire you're going to be matched with the right project that matches your specific specifications your work style specialization yeah it just it's very nuanced and we basically try to cover all the bases when it comes to that nuance so you know you're gonna get a good match all right so I gotta ask then after hearing that pitch I'm LinkedIn and I've got the monies right like I want to buy that are you guys for sale yeah that's like that's something that a big probably would seriously want to acquire you guys are sitting on some technology there yeah I you know I do already obviously is great we're serving

a community that I think that I think has some unique properties right and so whether it's LinkedIn or some other platform that really wants to address this class of worker happy to chat but for now like all we're focused on is you know turning Ruby into that best destination for creatives that want to get involved currently game development projects and so yeah the technology is going to continue to develop we're gonna continue to improve our algorithms um and yeah who knows who knows what opportunities will rise but for now like all we're focused on is helping helping the communities and its utopian to say I think that the reality is to create something like we're creating you really have to have a direct connection to the community intimately you can't really like selling out is something that can happen right like finding the right partners finding the right you can do a

line in philosophy right I mean it's no matter a lot doesn't it huge right so we're thinking about that all the way through because like I said in the beginning you know we're we're a community first platform and because of that that's got some you know great power comes great responsibility stuff added to that right and so we're trying our best and and just keeping our ear to the ground and reaching out as much as we can so what have been some of the big hassles you guys have had to overcome to get Ruby to where it is right now I'm assuming like in the idea phase sure it all looks great on paper but when you start buying servers when you start setting up infrastructure or when you start trying to advertise this to potential people to join to be the first adopters you know to me know there's there's a lot of hurdles to cross there to gain those people's trust so I guess would have been some of the notable I guess achievements that you guys have gone through from now till you start for oh well I mean first and

foremost starting an organization like this and especially one that we hope to be as long-standing as Ruby does require some early backing from some people who know what they're doing in the industry have been building games or have been working with game builders for a long time so we went on and corralled as as many of the best experts as we possibly could from the industry and so for instance I could mentioned on some of our initial advisors and investors include you know the cofounders of twitch cofounders of Guitar Hero the former Square Enix CEO folks that have actually seen these communities come together coalesce develop together communicate together these are the people that we want on our to really you know under help us understand best the people that we're looking to serve and so that was kind of our first step right on the onset was like finding the right advocates for what it is that we're doing to make sure

that we were going into this with the right mindset with the right support and that so that kind of helped us id8 our first iteration of repeat but you know as with any business idea the idea kind of evolved with time especially as we started getting in front of our customers that directly and so when we co-hosted our first conference out of New York which is play at YC we really talked sure I talked to a lot of devs and that's what we realized you know some of our assumptions around what it is that devs needed and at the time ruby was targeted more as kind of like a crowdfunding platform and crowd building platform for games we realized that you know these devs are actually that was where we learn like devs are actually outsourcing themselves and they're either themselves or their teams to other larger projects they were basically looking to keep the lights on with other gigs and that's when the light over for us what up we're like wow like gigs matter a lot for people in this community because it's not like tech where you can just go out and raise

a bunch of money for your studio through a couple pitches and you know in the right vision it just doesn't quite work that way and so a lot of people are doing contract for hire work and so we wanted to build a platform to better support kind of the core needs the fundamental needs of the backbone of game development and so that's kind of what led to rekey is it's going to stay about that process of getting that feedback was definitely tough challenge is challenging for sure and I think it's adding to that I think the other one of the big challenges to is just try communicating to you know potential investors etc the opportunity for gaming right and just gaming in general so many people don't understand gaming still it's just mind-boggling right I mean they're like you're on gaming right and then you're like yeah but actually you know the total market for gaming is is larger than the music industry movie industry combined it's it's it's massive there's so many people participating in creating awesome content but

Gaming is still pretty scary for a lot of people and so really painting a picture of what's happening right now in the industry where things aren't going right we're really trying to be future forward in terms of our work will be in the future you know not just in game the game industry but all industries especially technology but also what's happening in terms of you know the indie movement the brain EDR large studios into smaller studios and how everything is kind of subdividing now and everybody's going lean and everybody's distributed you know and what that looks like in the next you know four or five six years you know that takes a lot of it takes a lot of work and research and talking to a lot of people well speak on some of that like without giving your competitor in the band for the force you know the next four to six years with III just freshly wrapping up with bigger studios being far fewer than before or

there's we're talking about maybe six major publishers now and announcing games at e3 what's happening where you see that they're followed the big guys are gonna constantly play in their own playground it's gonna be very concentrated do you see the only reason that's holding the indie developers back is because of resources and maybe lack of education in terms of the business side of things like what's holding the end of development back right now to become like a bigger industry than the bigger companies in your opinion yeah there's a stat it's like 85% of games filled to release I mean its massive right and there's a lot of variables in that you know why a game doesn't make it to release a lot of a lot of times it comes down to user feedback right for instance where the somebody will iterate on a game for years and release it and

community research is bad and it just kind of flops right or they just it's not qualitative enough at the beginning or just maybe not even a good idea something like that I think there's a lot of that and I think also definitely resources is it's a big deal that's why I think we see a lot of alternative means to make funding quickly through early access and things like that but that creates kind of a problem like when it comes down to trust like consumer trust right because it we've seen this so much on red in you know in different communities where people are complaining about early access or Lu boxes because those are the ways to survive right you got to look at it that way you got to look at it these are people just trying to get their game out there so that they can make some cash so that they can continue to hopefully build the game right and but but it creates kind of a distaste I think for the community at

large and so that's you know that's why we're trying to figure out ways that we can help create more fair monetization and to increase that that level of trust that consumer trust for these indie Studios you know what is it how can you other fans you know participate in in in helping drive feedback you know or participating in doing the work like imagine that imagine a future where you know I think like in the PC gaming industry alone over 55% of the gamers are developers right so they're all technical so why not hire your fans right to do work for you right these are the people who are trying to give you ideas in the first place so don't I think one way we're trying to look at it so yeah the community stuff like feedback loop is really important for game development in general I think on the flip side the talents I really kind of democratizing access to talent a lot

of which is actually trapped up in a lot of these triple ace videos that you mentioned giving like creating opportunity for folks like that to work on passion projects of their own and this a lot again is like why we really believe in the game jam community a lot of these folks are current employees at Ubisoft Activision you know all these majors to use that we've all heard of the games from those folks are you know wanting to work on their own kind of passion projects too and so creating a bridge you know for people in the indie community to actually have access to talent that has actually worked on big triple-a games I said I think a big step in the right direction and a lot of folks who are bill looking to build their first teams or their initial talent guides for their first projects just don't know where to look right like where would I go to find you know a lead designer on a game that was published by like a big big major triple-a publisher most people don't really know how to do that or even how to approach that but if

these people are making themselves available to work on the projects on on on our platform that really opens up the possibilities of what indie games can become because there's a lot of they're just a lot of things that you learn I think in the process of building a Korean game development things like process right resource management planning these are all things that you know we as a platform also want to help as we progress right we're 20 miles turned out a project when you get assigned to project timing the the estimation of time the cost estimation these are all things that people who are experienced industry should be able to kind of bring in to projects that they participate in and of course the platform itself will continue to evolve to accommodate these things but I think eventually the wealth of experience that is currently largely trapped at the top we want to make them accessible to people in the mid tier and even in the Lord's ear and an earlier stage game development yeah right well let me ask this next question so you were mentioning creating

a bridge for a lot of these developers who want to participate in your platform and everything and it's actually a really relevant point because we come from the triple-eight industry and I just had a conversation last week with someone at Epic and a lot of the problems with these bigger guys are these companies that feel trapped or are actually really trapped is that there's a clause where they can't work on outside projects personal project anything they were due outside of the workplace is owned by the company it's a contract that everybody has to sign to agree to and they try to sidestep that with saying like oh let's list all the things that you own before you come company so there's obviously a desire and the passion from a lot of these Triple A developers wanting to do something else wanting to create that bridge but are constantly showing up it being demolished by the very company that they work for and I don't know if

you guys talk to a lot of these developers and I'm sure you guys are meeting at back alleys and everything that being that they can't really openly say that I want to work on side stuff to get things going for myself in case things happen right all right yeah that's up your designer yeah yeah I would I mean yeah so so to your point we're not looking to get people to illicitly we're like a great contract to work on projects that's not what we're trying to do I think it's more capturing a lot of the talent that often gets let go from projects that get released because there is a cycle to can releases where once a game hits the market you know especially contractors that work on games that a lot of these games are fueled by contract for higher talent right um that are bound literally by contract until like a game being you know gets released so there's a huge kind of sloughing off of talent because it just makes those it doesn't make sense at that point to keep them on the

payroll and so it's not so much like getting people who are currently it like if you saw our vision to come and be like yo like screw them I'm gonna work on my own thing and we may get caught yeah we're not trying to do that it's more you previously work on a really cool title you learn some things there how do we get you to work on smaller projects that kind of a lot of a lot of great potential but maybe not as much experience as you may have how do we get you connected to those projects and how do we get you paid to work on those projects because a lot of these days is early does actually are spending a lot of their own hard-earned money their savings on building these games and making them happen so it's not that there's a dearth of like ability to be paid we just want to formalize it and make it really clear like who is available to do what work for how much and this is the amount that you're gonna be expected to pay or EA and we're gonna make that all series yeah just a quick example to here's this large studio very large then I won't name but you know they've read

you say what arms with nod so too soon they you know they just released their game and they just they laid off over 150 people right and in very normal very and and and we talked to them some of the people you know and they're like I don't know what I'm gonna do next and I'm expecting a huge gap in you know my pay I got in my work etc and I'm used to this this is how it goes this is what happens this is normal right and and you know we definitely sympathize for that those folks were like wow you know come on Ruby let's try to find you something right I mean that's that's really I think with which we're duty is going with you know the boy talk yeah that's

probably a good time to ask this switch question because with 150 people who might not know what they should be doing now what's the good opportunity for bringing them onto your platform so fizzle 747 went which hey thanks for joining us again asks what is the process for becoming part of Ruby aisle platform as a potential developer for these indie teams that you support yeah great question so we are launching so we've been doing a lot of closed work between both the developer and other side and then the projects for quite some time we're doing our our end of June beta release actually so it'll be it'll be end of June maybe the very beginning of July and we'll definitely blast out it'll be on our site it'll go through and we have a vetting process where you connect your identity and then we actually go through we take a look at your past career history etc and we have a whole like kind of gamification system

in terms of your skill betting as well as like XP and leveling and that sort of thing so it's actually pretty fun in terms of you know working on Ruby doing education through our partners and having to contribute to you know your overall presence as a profile in Ruby so to answer your question yeah so at the end of the month we'll have that opened up will be some some links and you'll be able to go through our vetting flow to to to connect its Ruby da IO is our website RUP i ee i oh you can go there and actually uh you know submit your email there will definitely be in touch with you guys and the email will go out informing you of the specifics and powers and a self on board but it will be you know a thorough process and there is a vetting process we want to make sure that all talent that is put onto the platform is is properly you know these quality talent I mean we respond quality talent to be working in quality projects you can come on to the platform that's fine it just it just whether or not you actually are going to do

immediate work on repeat yep that's that's kind of the question but like I said earlier we're not gonna abandon you yeah we're gonna we're gonna work with you to to make it so you are qualified to work on the platform unlike other work I plot so it's yes not no it's not yet kind of examine the talent quality question is is something that we kept hearing back from Studios we brought this person on but the fit wasn't quite there for this reason or that and we just want to help people fill in the gaps with it when they do have on a project the legitimate it to produce great work that fits that particular projects needs that's a that's huge for us mhm and I love well I have to imagine like working remotely online it'll it's less about the personality right am I true in this assessment like because all in the workplace 50% when we're hiring especially when for artists and

designers I guess engineers are doing a different story 50% of that is your skillset 50% of this personality can I hang out well you can work with you can we talk to you the percentage has to be slightly lower than that right when you're talking to someone online you don't really need to talk or hang out as much in my in suruc and that I mean I would say it depends on the work that is being asked of the person right yeah I think the more creatively involved in shaping the vision because we've definitely had some clients on Group B come to us and be like you know we're looking to bring on people who really believe in what we're doing who see you know the nuances of what we're after whereas others like I just want assets made right so it really it really just depends on what the developer studio is actually requesting and the type of work that's being requested but I do agree like I manage you know teens remotely for years at various companies and I I do agree that it does matter less it matters in

different ways right because you're communicating online you may do like a video call something like that right so you know it's soft skills do matter a little bit but yes your point it's you know you're not gonna you know hang out after work or something like that right so it's a little different for sure I mean Ted Bundy can be awesome for 10 minutes let's say on your flat when you have 10 buddies what I'm saying thing it's an easier task to be impressive on a Skype call and behaved right because the neck up you just you look presentable you just put on your polo but you know to you know to account for people maybe you know look good on the onset but don't eventually don't conform or don't deliver for whatever reason we have you know a reviewing system to to kind of ensure that people do deliver on what they say they can and this applies

to both the talent and the studios so keeping people accountable on the platform this is a huge huge tenet of rupee so peanuts yeah you can you can you can pretend but it will have ramifications if you get out of it so yeah this is why betting does matter and matchmaking does matter because we want to ensure that people have largely a good experience when they come in and do work or request work yeah it was really we're calling we don't work for you to do as a developer but we're not gonna just like you know you you just became a game developer yesterday and then connect you and then how that happened right well so it sounds like we're about a month away from the development portal being opened up for more people to submit to you guys but since I have you here in the podcast I'm actually just gonna pitch to you right now I yeah I've been developing a game for about the past two and a half years and I think it's ready for

primetime so I'd like you guys to evaluate it live on the podcast and let me know if you think it's a project that I could you know continue to further on your platform yeah can i play with state yes it's played live you can you can play it with we're actually already running it on stadia then let me let me show you why the games the games called the Fast Five I'm gonna ask you guys five rapid-fire questions and all I need from you is five rapid-fire answers you guys ready to play yeah pull that up Jamie all right question number one if you could activate any video game powerup that you've ever played with for one day which one would it be probably like a

hundred x XP multiplier just in general yeah question number two a similar question if you could be any video game character for one day which which character persona would you take on Kirby anybody else that's fantastic enemy unassuming yeah sore spot maybe you'd like a link probably okay question number three who has the who is the best unlockable character that you guys have ever unlocked in any game I mean I keep going back to Smash Brothers

because I just grew up loving that game probably in the NASS I love I just love how weird his physics are and how tricky it means just like oh really you're unlockable character but it's actually very powerful looking not easy yeah probably like Road Rash 64 where you'd like you can unlock those insanely fast bikes where you're just flying over the entire map question number four if it was your money and you had to pick a project would you greenlight World of Warcraft remastered or World of Warcraft to last last question question number five are you guys going to be day one supporters of Google stadia or not yes where we are we're platform agnostic in

terms of it's more genre you know like okay for the game are you building not necessarily a code and whatever gets more you know people playing games we're all four there's Google Vidya just makes it more accessible to more people we're super down for that obviously like you know we'll see how it all shakes out but ultimately more gamers are gonna be exposed to more games know what was that the company answer was that your personal individual answer it cleaned up real nice at the end yeah sliding a check to the right no camera to the right we're good

all right well cool so that was my game thank you guys for playing now to bring it back bring back all the attention to you guys there was a question I did want to ask because working in indie sometimes people will pay you like in dollars and then sometimes they pay you in promises you know for example hey this is a back-end deal we're going to when we make money you will get X % or you will get you know some sort of monetary revenue but at once we start making the money so it may not even be a percentage base it could actually be like a flat value but once money comes in yeah does your platform allow for similar payment structures as well or I guess how do you deal with those types of cities I'll take promising I sent you a promise no that's actually a really good question something we talked about and we hear a lot actually so what I can say is not right away not at the gates we're experimenting with you know volunteer type gigs that you could potentially do the rev share buffer

share stuff and something very complicated I in terms of contractual agreements a lot of stuff's custom legal footwork but we're looking into that because I think that that's one thing that a lot of people are interested we are focused on paying people fairly making sure that the transactions happen you know because because the reality is you guys like we hear from both sides some people say as an artist those are the types of deals I'm only approached with in and because of it none of these projects pan out and I still have to pay my bills right and so it could become kind of controversial on the project owner side for sure it's like it's it makes perfect sense to be able to get people to come help you for a future prospect but in reality that on the developer side it can screw them over they can feel that way yeah and we just don't want to enable any bad actors on that front when it comes to you know studio operators

we're making making unfulfilled promises and we've talked to enough developers who've been burned by those types of deals such that we really just on the onset really wanted to focus on gigs but if there is a way to maintain you know project attribution which is actually something that we've built technology to support just have not deployed and we can enforce that attribution down stream through some form of you know legal binding then that's that's been as something we would definitely entertain as a fully you know full feature on the platform but until we can basically guarantee that people that promises that are made will be fulfilled by the studio when it comes to things like red fear profiteering equity that kind of thing we until that compromise can be made me probably will not watch that okay I like what you guys stand over there you're protecting with the community and I like I've been offered that many times myself so and I even I even did a little bit

with go play the iPhone game company but we delivered we didn't get paid a lot but they got their percents right like I so yeah I'm familiar with both sides and yeah do you guys want to come help with repeat um you know a percentage sometime if it's in writing if it's in writing I'll consider it now I'm really excited about what you guys are building I think that you won you sell it very well and I can see that there's a personal feeling attached to this none of it was very corporate until you answer the last question seriously like I trust you even just in our teleconference with you someone on the other side of your camera has a clipboard and they're like showing you guys notes how to answer the question shout out here you know dear

viewers these two really really really care about the community we talk to them a few times and you know I mean Bar None may be second to us really really care so definitely stick around these guys are definitely in for you know the long run with you yeah these are real tears by the way yeah I mean like it was I mean the first time we met on teleconference there was instant like synergy between us because we saw basically us on the other side helping in this crowd like but I mean this industry is a funny industry it's a it's it's very profitable yeah but what a mess it is there is no clear path for

anybody that is maybe shipping the number one game last year or really building up like this resource for themselves to publish games on their own no one's talking to each other and there's a huge disconnect with all the communities indie devs triple-a Mobile everyone's in their own little corner and the only guys that are talking to each other are the corporate heads just having what colors better breakfast together oh you got the target oh yeah it's there's a reason why I mean there's a reason why we're so disconnected right because everyone's you know it's a hard industry you gotta get through everyone's just earning their nine-to-five getting home and trying to reset for the morning and so there's really not enough people like you guys like us kind of thinking beyond that thinking the extra steps thinking about what is my 65 you know is it what's being here

I'd say it's hard to put other people on your shoulders these days right like and this isn't too like big up either one of us this is just like kind of my observation is a lot of people have so many personal struggles on the Mac on the micro level yeah that the macro level concern is just pretty much it's too far away and I'm already dealing with all this and all that why am I supposed to yes and it's yes that's why it's very important whenever I see people who are like community based or help centric yeah or or a very generous or do a lot of philanthropy that like I try to shine as much spotlight there as I can because I know that those benefits actually do trickle down yes that's a properly used trickle down term because it's like going from one thing and dispersing right now that's trickle down yeah taking from this because you think that the industry is just fine right we don't exist because we think the industry is just fine and just in working we exist because we are at the

beginning of some big changes and we are supporting the underdog because we ourselves understand what it's like to be that person yeah and and I think that like to your to your guys's point we have to really we have to really come together there's a lot of money over there right on and the big corporate side and but it we're seeing it doesn't matter as much some indie games out outperform your play titles 10x I mean look at then follow how game versus you know something else like the Super Meat Boy or something right I mean like it's it's amazing to see that happen and I think it's only going to continue that direction so thank you for being who you are coming from where you come in representing in the way that you're representing because I think you're representing the future of gaming game development and an artistry etc I think

it's it's the future yep yeah let me give my ego a second to come back down to normal size I'm looking at the clock down here and we've been podcasting for just about 59 minutes so I can safely say that we've done enough to make it the our podcast length and at this time we obviously brand I usually go and like get water refill the coffee mugs and we let you guys talk directly to the audience to shout out promote or raise awareness for something you're involved in something you think is cool or just anything in general business or personal that you think just needs more spotlight so without further ado the floor is yours cool yeah I think the first just the first part is you know we're we're definitely new to the scene you know we're trying to do something to support you as a developer as a studio as a you know pleasuring studio whatever it doesn't matter doesn't really actually matter your size

as an artist especially to to be able to work in a way that that really accommodates you're a healthy lifestyle right and not just a healthy lifestyle but allows you to focus on what you care about and not focus on things that just take up your time needlessly or burn you out or you know 9:00 to 5:00 was mentioned let's be real it's more like you know 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. now this especially in triple-a game development so you know like come come help us do this come come be a part of our community you know come to the game gem for a part of and we really really care about you you guys in girls I mean that's something that I personally really do you know I I started name development back in the flash days like I'll buy a black sheep new grounds etc and you know yeah and I know and I just I know how hard it is and and but things are

changing and I'm really excited about those changes and so my I ask is definitely just come be a part of it come come give us feedback come work with with us you know not for us just with us we're not we don't own the talent we just we just build tools to help you did you want to have done no I mean echoing everything that Austin just said game development is evolving very quickly and was where we as a platform are skating to where we believe that puck is going to end up five years from now ten years from now and especially as all these new platforms are coming out to either promote games or to get more games in the hands of actual players we just think that the door is about to be blown wide open for game developers specifically and their opportunities to actually build meaningful games that get a meaningful traction and see meaningful playtime we just want to be there to support the builders of these

experiences that we believe more and more people are going to be able to experience pretty much on demand literally on demand and and so it's really really excited to be you know in involved in the community building portion of that entire value chain and we just think that there's just so much opportunity for people to build and also people that have fun while doing it but you know really the core is just helping people focus on what they want to do which is to build right a little handle kind of everything in the background you just focus on building being creative building building an amazing immersive experiences that's that's what we want also check out Rose City games here in Portland and in summer slow-jam I mean dude it's called summer slugger to come over the next two weeks and Brandon deliria thank you you guys are amazing

or so or just we're hard but thank you so much for being a part of this I will say even though it's the middle of the day in bright daylight I'm Larry Charles and I'm sorry Brandon Pham thank you for joining us and our guest I will sorry guys [Music] you [Music]