NAK3D’s Kelly Vero On Merging Fashion And Gaming To Revolutionise Game Commerce

[Music] hello world I'm your host for this wrap of some of the best talks and coolest speakers at PG connect London the global games conference my first guest up is Kelly Vero CEO and CTO of naked we chat about web 3 her specialty but we also cover digital death and Davos yes so listen in learn and love this episode where I chill and chat with Kelly I haven't been stalking you we'll talk about that later maybe others have I've been thinking about you I've been saying got to get Sean pg. biz for one we have to say hi to Brian Brian Brian yes because Brian inspired me well I met you before Brian actually but he's you know had you up at Scottish games week

and I thought to myself Kelly got to sit down got to have a chat got to actually talk about you because you know everyone is more than a title right I try to describe you how do you describe yourself I always tell people that I don't belong here even though I've been here for 30 years I've been in the games industry for 30 years but I'm a bit of a square peg in a round hole I do a little bit of everything across video games but now now also across the metaverse IP anything really um but I guess I would is describe myself as a developer I am a developer of stuff hey it makes sense now more than ever because now it is at the intersection of everything right it's games it's development it's metaverse and hey congratulations are in order because I heard this amazing news about Davis tell us about that one yeah um so I decided in my food foolish

wisdom no alcohol involved that it would be a really great idea to enter a startup contest with our company naked and we won first prize in Davos uh for Innovation as part of the Davos Innovation week um at the world economic Forum so yeah I was pretty stoked but I was more shocked and surprised when they read my name out because I just thought what are you sure you got the right person you don't mean that guy behind me they said no come to the come and get your award and I was as surprised as the next person yeah what was the prize for what was it recognizing innovation in naked or what was it about it was for recognizing Innovation so what naked does is we're a little bit five years ahead of everybody else probably and we're looking at driving insights and data about jenz and gen Alpha through digital models um and we work with brands on one side of video games on the other to make that happen

and I think that was the thing that kind of pushed us over the edge because I think they thought wait a minute we spent so much time living in the present we're not thinking about gen Z and gen Alpha which is exactly what people should be doing because those folks are coming for you in a big way the other thing that's fascinating and why I put it a little bit on pause so I stand corrected all right because I was like for me you're a metaverse diva Queen what have you you are shaping it but then you know we all lost a little bit of the love a little bit of the enthusiasm and I did so many interviews in the past couple of weeks it's just like well you know it's cooling it's readjusting all these different words that we're using to describe it but you do not share that view how can you be so bullish because I think it's really impractical to just create for today I just think you know the day ends when

the Sun goes down what have we got for tomorrow you know you've already sunsetted everything that you designed for yourself today so what are you thinking about next that's what I go to bed thinking about every day what are we doing tomorrow what are we doing in two years what are we doing in five years what are these people doing where are they going what's the new hot exciting thing what can we get involved in and it doesn't mean that you know just because markets take a little bit of a pause or a downturn that should deter us from continually creating technology moves fast and we've got to move faster and we don't and I spent some time out in Asia last year and you know the metaverse is thriving web3 is thriving out there it is doing great business and here we are just contemplating our Nabors thinking about today how's that so you're in Asia and we all know that cool stuff and Trends come from there so what have you

seen what's the most like surprising thing you've seen that you're saying that is where we in West will be sooner than you think well Esports you know is a national Pastime now in I was in South Korea and uh that's a national Pastime now the the people that are on Esports teams now are treated like pop stars like film stars they are idolized it's insane this is a really big space but also they're esport in everything so they're not just kind of doing the League of Legends e RPG type experience the MOBA doing battle arenas with everything from robots and cars to you know there's some weird stuff at the moment like VR fighting is really big in the Philippines and which is a bit nuts but you know people want to watch sports whereas previously we would be happy to sit in a boxing ring and watch people physically take you know

strips out of each other now we want to watch that virtually it seems kind of odd maybe on the surface but they're really just shifting their attention slightly away from the thing that they're super interested in and replacing that thing with digital technology which I think can only benefit an economy um I've always been a big fan of digital First Development for everything anyway and I now think it's just taking its natural steps towards also have to remember that the things that we're creating now that we think we've invented APAC regions did the ages ago crossplatform development is absolutely huge and it's just getting bigger out there so I play a game in an internet cafe I then pick that game up on my cell phone I carry on with that game on the tram on the way home on the Metro whatever I go home I pick it back up again on my console or on my PC console celles going down p sales are

going up Mobile sales are going through the roof mobile is still a big winner in the APAC regions what are some of the uh experiences you had there we talked about you know virtual fighting and you understand the culture from there but what can you actually take or what might you even be taking and bringing into naked we were really fortunate to meet with the guys from zapeto and the guys from spatial two massive metaverse platforms they focus is hugely on gen Z and gen Alpha and what they want to be able to bring them is Brands but the kids they don't want Brands like right now they're not into it what they want are items assets things that they can take with them things that they can put experience points into and then mint those items and assets to create nfts and then carry th those things around with them for life or trade them in to buy a new Jack jaet from Chanel or

Forever 21 or Balenciaga or whatever I think it's quite interesting that the entire product life cycle process is pretty much sewn up now which makes things super easy for what we're doing at naked because being digital first you know we don't need to actually have anything physical before we create a digital property which can then be branded and sold inside video games then back out closing the physical Circle so bring me to the evolution of naked because it's been a couple years watching this and I'm hearing something very interesting here about data so it's more than the expression we were talking was always about the passion of expression in you and building worlds and and and making the guardrails yourself now you're telling me about influencing Behavior but at a very very very exciting level I mean it's amazing the way that this area is exploded did

we take a a beautiful dress like you're wearing today we pull the data from that dress so how was it made where was it made what is the product number what did it sell for what all of this information we digitize It Bake all of that information into the actual model itself place that model with a unique identifier directly into the video game and we're able to trace the entire life of that item meaning that every time gen Z or gen Alpha interacts with that object we get that feedback so we're getting the Insight we're knowing where they're wearing it we know that they're going to take it out of the game and say mom or you know I've got money I really want to go and buy these Todds loafers or these H&M jeans or whatever and this is great because this is going to lower returns and therefore cure the landfill situation you know everybody makes these big claims about I can save you 25% on

landfill waste it's a load of BS if you can save a company 2% you've already won the race you know and I think going digital first for everybody is exactly what we wanted to do at naked and that's why we're really going for it now we just did a big deal with a huge company uh wow it's you're going to see a huge fashion Emporium in the next year or so appear on every single video game fashion is coming for video games in a big way and we will not be able to stop it and it's all my fault and I'm all right with that but this is really different from naked cuz when I first met you I was like I have to say it excuse me but holy what a woman I will never forget actually you were on a panel all men only woman there and you just came in and just blew them away and you were talking so openly and fr about sexuality and and and and being yourself and you certainly are yourself I mean there's this is this is this is

unfiltered you live an unfiltered life yeah so where does that naked fit in with this naked well I think he's that isn't it I think you know we're so protective of data we're so protective of our assets and our inventory I wanted to totally democratize it and blow it open a little bit and say that Peggy you can have that dress in every single game that you play you can wear that dress you can carry it around in your digital wallet you can monetize it you can turn it into an nft you can do whatever the hell you want with it I mean it's wrong for us to kind of we are the creators of video games and we are the developers we're the thinkers and we're also the doers but we're not putting ourselves in the position of our users in thinking what I said earlier what happens tomorrow are you there for that no no one's there for that but your users are they're thinking about what they're going to do that's why we've got mods right people have been modding for years years for this very reason because they

want to bring a bit of themselves into what it is that they're creating and I just wanted to be able to you know put that in a jar for a little bit and see what happened the games industry was so reluctant to get involved in this stuff initially because they were like oh no data it's we're so protective of it it so belongs to us but data belongs to everybody and data is being constantly developed when you're not there it's a persistent entity so what are you you sitting on a stockpile of first party data is that really where you're at yeah we've got quite a lot but I mean it's it's weird because it's not coming from that traditional place where people are going through the usual motions of you know app focused you know IAP in game advertising getting the data understanding the users no we're we're putting it back onto the user and saying here's the object take it everywhere you would take an object usually and we just measure it and obviously for the purpose

of Regulation it's totally cleansed and it meets all the criteria and compliance but it's really opening the doors for brands for example because now they get to Super understand a segment of society that they would never have known I mean who really understands the Roblox generation not even Roblox exactly I heard that panel so help me out here Kelly I'm think this through and I'm saying okay I get it data first party data in the sense that you are seeing the cycle you're seeing the stages and I would understand why fashion brands would say you know what this is very cool because jenz Jen Jen Alpha this is what they do this is where they live so I get that that interaction is going to be gold how does someone interact with you not personally it's just talk business first personal be very interesting uh no business-wise how

do they do that because they are starting to see this congratulations talked about a deal so you've got a deal fashion is getting this but how does it actually work and of that data what am I getting with you when I interact with you I mean how much of it I guess is the question that is an absolutely amazing question the most important thing actually is probably not the data on the naked side that's for the brands to deal with we just literally Farm it the important part is the quality the quality of the objects are so vital to the games element of this you know on the fashion side or we only really work with fashion so they have got a real desire to see something that's of a really high quality of course it's their garment they designed it on the game side the games industry is so protective of every IP that they create put something into an engine that's

going to break it's going to break the entire game that's just never going to happen so that Intel operability question is a really interesting one for us that needs to be solved but furthermore I think the interesting part about this is we're reaching games because we're leading by example we've worked with companies like Alexander McQueen Lulu Guinness you know Neta Porte those types zando Etc so we know that we can do Omni Channel as well as or if not better than Amazon yeah Microsoft Microsoft has a biggest Omni Channel retail in the world and we think that this is the new opportunity for games to really understand their user now I'm not going to poo poo any of the stuff that you do because I I think you're an absolute genius in understanding uh Solutions

with regards metrics and analytics Etc but I reckon and I'm going to make a big pronouncement here and I'm going to look into my crystal ball and say I think in the next five years we're going to be using digital objects to source that information for us we're not going to be using pixels coming out of a couple panels today where it's like yes I'm just going to put everything in ai ai will do it then I'll send it back into Ai and chat he like continually iterate itself you know I can buy into that I can buy into that because the objects themselves will be the interaction objects are alive objects are alive they're a living thing this dress it's gorgeous by the way when you hang it up in the wardrobe it's still going to be in the wardrobe the next time you go to it it's living its life and like when you're not wearing it it's still generating data if you want it to and so

that's what I think we're missing by just saying you know what we'll just attack attach a pixel here and we'll get AI to sort of read it out and look for it and whatever how boring you know there's so many different ways that you can do things better in those different ways of digital objects because they live with the player you're someone who likes to push the boundaries push the envelope like upsetting people as well Peggy as you well know I do I do I I will remember that I just remember the the the looks it must been like four or five years ago you were just like blowing people's minds yeah that was before we had like panels with loads of women too remember remember those days wow actually some of those days happened yesterday as well I saw some all male panels when they came off the stage and everyone was applauding I said yeah yeah great guys that was really really good where are the women well it was AI panel as well and they said oh yeah well we don't know anybody in AI I said hi I'm Kelly Kell and bring everyone with you remember

help them help them up the wrong so what I want to say is that like rules don't really exist for you no so what are you like the most frustrated by what would you do if you could do it if people would just get out of your way I would Place games in the same Omni Channel position as the Amazon and the microsofts of this world I would completely democratize this experience for everybody I think the thing that we need to really get through actually if there was no barriers is and sorry for everybody especially Brian watching at home all the Boomers you know they they they're the they're the decision makers currently on everything that we do and we've got to get past this sort of hierarchical drain it's not getting us

anywhere so I think that's probably what I'd do is destroy every single board meeting in the world to get games into a situation where they become the leading Commerce channel in the world well you didn't start off with the gcommerce I've used that a couple times in articles I think that's only yours by the way another thing that's yours because you know you have to you always have to affect change from within the system that's the way it works you don't come in and say well that all is the wrong thing and this is the right you have to go through it and you've done that in a sense because you've also published a book so it's knowledge sharing and it's trying to raise everyone up to the level so we can start to think a little bit with you about this now I have to admit I only saw that you published it but I haven't really delved into it so give us the top level you a copy today Peggy because oh do I get an autograph yeah sure oh hell yeah okay great you're on you're on I love that well give us a little bit of that give us sort of like um I wouldn't say the you know the

condensed version but what was the most exciting point or the most surprising but when you were writing it because you know when you write things it's almost like saying a dragon it's like you didn't set out to do it but you do it in the end it's like wow did I actually capture that I'm amazing myself where did you amaze yourself in the book um I think with the uh going back over because the book is set in three sections is to sort enhance verticals outside of video games as to how gamification and game development can help with every sector of society and so what I wanted to do was tell you the story of where we came from in the video games industry what those kind of you know circuit boards looked like 40 years ago what that arcade cabinet was like when you were playing po position how there were tiny little teams in Japan building huge games for

Konomi and other sort of Publishers you know how Nintendo really started and these sort of electronics companies that had a super idea that we now totally take for granted in our cell phones consoles Etc I think that for me going over that really reminded me of what an awesome opportunity we have in technology and how we shouldn't waste that technology opportunity how it's going to teach us but as also how we can teach it how we can tell it exactly what it is that we want especially now with AI but it it really reminded me that we take tech for granted quite a lot we just assume that when we want something it's going to be there and somebody will have invented it or there will be a new device model that will be able to answer all of our needs and questions and problems when actually it all goes back

to a handful of unfortunately men there was some women as well but you know mostly men that worked in these big rooms full of computers with the exception of ANC actually which is filled with women so they were all brilliant computer Pioneers um but you know the Colossus of the world these have huge Laboratories full of computers and we've condensed them and condensed them using Mo law techniques and now we've got something really tiny but we seem to be on a plateau and I would love to be able to see with the advancements of spatial and Edge Computing where we'll actually go in the future with some of this technology I'm ready you know technology that's it when it's invisible It's Magic but you pointed out we also then ignore it we don't really think of the applications we sort of have plateaued in a sense that it's like

been there done that what else is there but they're spatial you said it was in three sections now you got me going and I have a flight back so guess what I can start reading yay but um where do you take us because you're always looking at the future so you divided it up you you did the evolution and the where do you take us in it what what where do you want to take us death I actually take toward seriously yeah talk about digital death you know it's the kind of last Bastion of Technology really isn't it where do we go when we die what do we leave behind are we leaving a a digital Altar for people to leave tributes or are we creating a digital Vault that no one can get in that is a sort of Fort nox that contains all of our secrets and where is that server and what does it do what does it serve and what will the technology principles be 20 years from now to be able to protect us don't forget that you and me are going to be the first generation that go through a

digital retirement so we need to plan for that kind of stuff how are we going to navigate that you never even thought about this I love it I can see the cogs turning viewers I can can see everything in Peggy's eyes all of a sudden the alpha to Omega I was just thinking there because it sounds really far out initially but I remember the disc questions you know what do you do when you have you know all of your content and you can't leave it to someone remember there were those court cases you know someone died and I don't know they've got some amazing you know Vault of content in Apple TV I don't know what it is but I remember that and now you've got me thinking yeah it's not just that it's me as well remember that one time with the chip you're supposed to have the chip and then they said the joke was you won't need Psychotherapy ever on the planet Earth again because the chip Will C capture your really experiences so there won't be any like oh I had this horribly

traumatic experience when actually you didn't chip will correct you you know and that was kind of cool for a while so so this this I yeah cogs are spinning here a lot of things are spinning you're in for a really good read then on the plain journey home I hope yeah I'm going to take you through everything from the birth all the way through to the death and the metaverse in between it's also like a really nice section in the middle about storytelling and how we're becoming much more uh averse to the traditional linear methods of Storytelling you know Steven Spielberg said recently in the last sort of 15 years there are uh no more endings to stories there are only beginnings and that's true um and I think that's something that we have to think about as we come we become more content driven more content hungry we're going through a phase I think thinking life at the moment where we're in the McDonald's

drive-through of content right so after 20 minutes we're hungry again I like that analogy that is pretty cool and it makes me very helpful because I'm hoping that you know we do consume content that is consumable you know that is that is worth it a lot of people you know put a lot of work into these games I put a lot of work in my articles about games and uh yeah that they'll be hungry that it won't be just you know snackable and at some point um yeah no more appetite you've got an appetite for change but you've also got personality how do you find that you stay grounded so you can come to a show like this or speak in the industry where people are already and bring them with you because I mean let's face it this is a time where we're talking about you know there is no UA without Ai and AI is all about optimizing optimizing automating automating and it's not about breaking out and Beyond that to look anywhere where near where you are so how do you

talk to people when they're like where's the money where's the opportunity how long is it going to take you know the typical mindset of games is a business which is part of it as well I mean you're a businesswoman yeah I think we're we're living in very mysterious times because games generally are at a saturation Point um we're in a really weird space at the moment I don't know how anybody's making any money but somehow it's happening but I think this is because games are un willing to diversify one of the big jobs that I do in my role as C naked and CTO by the way yes I'm a woman um I wrote all the dech and also uh in everything that I do in evangelizing is thinking like a little bit more about looking outside educating and yeah evangelizing about different verticals different sectors hell I've

mentored everybody from htech and fem Tech to you know hyper casual and you know deep RPGs Rim World Games whatever um and I find the same pain points everywhere of course the main one is like how do we make money but the other one is how what is our timeline what is our lead time before this Marketplace gets saturated how long do have you know how much oxygen is in this room before we all start choking and falling on the floor and that's I think one of the things that people coming into this industry don't understand they don't see the lay of the land and they don't know what's outside that they could bring in those transferable skills and that transferable knowledge you know we're not saving lives here we're creating video games we're creating experiences hopefully enjoyable memorable experiences but you know you you can't

make an omelet without cracking some eggs you know when you talk about memorable experiences I couldn't hope for a better segue Kelly this has been memorable this has been awesome we've G miss that link amazing no but it was I picked up on it's like amazing experiences I was like yeah sh yeah I'm going to be seeing you a lot I can imagine this year there are different shows different opportunities there's a lot going on but what are you looking forward to most Beyond just seeing me again okay what are you looking forward to yeah I'd love to see you every day of my life really but um let's say you know we're meeting up what do you want to be telling me what do you want to be saying is even cooler than having maybe one in your invation award in Davos or just you know talking to the companies you're talking to I mean what's what's what's this year going to be that you're going to say Peggy you got to hear this

one oh that is such a good question because obviously I'm quite Deep In The Weeds right now I'm down in it um and I'm really just taking quite a lot of the things that I saw last year and starting to put together a strategy or road map about what's coming next I really do think if you and I sat here this time next year which we certainly will be we will be I think this place is going to be split I think it's going to be split between 60% traditional games and a 40% gamified experiences applications and other verticals because I've had some people visit here today and they come from completely outside of this specialism and discipline and this place blew them away and they said we need this in our industry we need to have these people around us we need to learn from the games industry so I think

there is a lot of great work that's being done here that is going to continue into 2024 and Beyond but I think it's not going to be focused on the saturation points inside of this space I think it's going to be much more far-reaching and hey next year they'll have a metaverse track as well right oh I do hope so I mean come on the the metaverse is coming back in a big way if you any of the talks today from blockchain and web 3 you would say I mean Marcus pullen's talk was absolutely staggering once again and uh I am really boyed by you know this incredible I I don't like to say a bare Market too much because I think it just sounds so Crypt broes but I totally feel bullish about the metaverse nfts and web do I think they're coming back in a big way we've got great sponsor here at the event today from nefta there's some super cool stuff happening

in this space like so I think we're going to get our track back next year cool and I've got Lobby Chris now do that and I'm gonna check out NAA because hey it's a podcast series we're growing and uh got to pay attention to these things and that's why I said this is it this is fantastic Kelly what do I say you've inspired me you've like fed my soul woman oh I'm too absolutely I'm so glad we could chat thanks again oh the pleasure has been all mine I'm so glad that finally we got sit down together one brain against the other brain I'm glad I could understand at this time I think just like three years ago you were just like I would talk to you and I'd say nope no it doesn't compute I don't want to be like yeah it was like no no no but now now woman this is your time yay yes thanks again thanks and thanks thank

you Brian we'll do another one with you this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market and all its wonderful complexity strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast at pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz SLP podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want

to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian Bago I'm Peggy and saltz and that's a wrap till next [Music] week yes