Nerial: From Reigns to Game of Thrones

[Music] thank you thank you for coming my name is Francois Leo I'm the director and designer of nariyal and I worked on this canvas which was out in August 2016 and my talk is from rangs to rangamma france also Game of Thrones which we released two months ago about so I'm gonna play a trailer here we go claps sound that would be great [Music]

so that's the trade of our last game in the series arranged game of phones just if you don't know rank okay so this is how it looks you play by swiping left or right against to make decisions of it like tinder but with you play a king or

queen so that's the first one on the left ranks where you play King the second one you play the king a queen and a third one you play a one of characters of game of France okay so yeah just just a few a few demo and this is this is video I introduced the game to my publisher devolver I said like three years ago this is this is a mix of tinder and Game of Thrones I didn't expect that they actually took my word for it and just asked Anika game so beyond beyond beyond this theory what I'm gonna talk about is is they began with Drona from range to gamma front which is basically the most exciting idea in the world right now I think what I'm going to talk about is how you can maybe sell premium games

consistently app stores and such so say see which is very similar to being able to make fire on a remote island without any means consistently like every time you try it it actually makes fires a bit risky but it's sort of work for us so I'm gonna try to go through our process and and a few of you take out from from this journey so my my preamble is just a quick a quick view of the mobile market seen from the point of view of an any indie game developers because I think it's important to sort of understand how we see this market so thought when I started making video games was basically this one so this this is this is what you imagine when you're needy you starts making your games on the App Store

you've got this beautiful shoe store and and you got you got your game in the front front window and people come and they buy your game and that's it you know classic classic classic bargain but but that was in truth for the first week on the app store for us like we actually did this Vissing credible run of of being featured an so that's the old feature feature system so we we've done 16 that was the end of the old app store so when your game was featured on the App Store you had a week of of crazy sales to be honest and that's that's what you expect when you start but the reality is small like like like a mole if you want so the App Store is more like like a big meta store like a mole so you enter and then you got a lot of smaller stores which are the actual

games of fortnight mind cousin thing something I oh these are stores inside the big mole if you want and you the guy who said is indie games your your premium indie games you're you're like I know the charity at the entrance of the mall or of the cellar it's dog coffee if you want with this carton but that's a bit what's happening so that was the next the next few years for full range so in this in this in this sort of setting out of you are do you make a living with with games like that how do you do you expand and do you create your your value while limiting the risk you're taking of course so so that's the first first thing it's so a few reasons of the first reason is is really for me as been entering a label and that ladder is a

devolver so if you don't know de volver volver is a publisher escal the probably be better described as some sort of post-punk desktop publisher not mobile initially if you only know mobile games you probably not have heard of them but but they're pretty popular on PC and they bring this this what we got which is very unique is the label they create the sort of the sort of thing you can see in music like a post some sort of rock label that that really makes as a consistent lineup of games but always push further the boundaries of what's possible and acceptable from from outline my me to pick unique who without

tomorrow I think so they very define not not just like like a set of games that are all potentially [Music] we make money but they also other this visa this consistency in the in the game they pick and they ever promote which doesn't necessarily it's not necessary linked to the money very we make so another thing that this label never brought brought to me is a very ability to do cross-platform nicely so we had the president of Darwin which is a game that was really on every platform both Google Play App Store's Jean every platform of same Davison price and and it actually worked like it was not bought from mobile to pc or import from

PC to mobile so they they made something that was both successful on PC and on the on mobile that that was something that was really interested in at the indeed and our days of for rain sales 20% of all steam so it's not just a mobile game it is because it was also available on Steam that it made it made a breakthrough so yeah I can I can answer more questions on that later via the last thing that this Villa LaValle brought to me is a indeed ver deal with HBO so two years ago we started talking with with HBO about about a possible range game which started pitching to them through who wrote Evolver and thus that's also a lot thanks to devolve our favor we made this connection and and we

really worked from there for for HBO I'm not really going to talk about the relationship but I'm going to give you a few hints of oh it worked HBO is is very interested in in games like Earth's ours because they bring something a bit bit that brings value to VIP without sounding like money grab and and stuff like that so we we actually Vash owner of the show Game of Thrones were players of Franks and they they advised the license team to work with us so this is how it started and this gave us a very strong position and throughout the whole process

they actually accepted a lot of things that that I did with their amazing IP that probably will not have been possible of voice so I got a I'm gonna do go to the next point the second point I wanted to make is the consistency beams and now as an indie a great way to limit limit your risk is to to work on developing a brand and an IP so this whispering games rank the rank the majesty and rank Game of Thrones when current space but creates its own brand in a way so the first thing we did is we stayed in D so throughout the whole process through the each of game we kept for some similar sale arranged the game is like two to three people for nine months so a writer an artist and we subcontract a few a few of our people of

like musician and stuff like that and we kept the same the same structure for every game even arranged Game of Thrones and that that sort of simplicity in the way we with set of things was actually a very big asset in in making this game with HBO it was just a one and one to one connection I I had one contact at HBO with which I worked for nine months under text and stuff and Eva validly we worked on every every every single detail of the game but we we run two teams fifteen people talking to each other so that make made things very very smooth and easy and envied and profitable the other thing is to be consistent so each game developed on the ground of the first the first IP the first IP rangs and is an extension or on on on each of

the thing we we dis define on on game so that that makes the brand expand and cross-promote so each game is actually saying the very view of a games the sorry because it's don't don't risk in progress another very important point for me that none of these games is just the same as previous ones at the same time so each time we brought new things like in no majesty who brought an inventory we bought new new new storylines in range Game of Thrones you have possibility to select two characters so you could be a queen or king which was not possible in the previous game and and you have a lot of like very subtle changed of the typical gameplay but the meaningful because they still work with a consistency we would establish previously the third and the

last point is a is a notice of finding new ground by protect by connecting your products together so basically it worked like like this so you had rings okay and that rings sort of established a first target of players like players like mobile games were they able to pay for for vague for the game and want to pay for the games people who were like devolver like the style of different games and were allowed amount of people so we define a very very interesting call people that we tracked and we we developed then the van the second the second like mini mini subset of of people we touched is a ring ring the Majesty through notably for the writer rang the majesty

Ali Alexander who brought a completely new new and very interesting way to write the cards in rings and we had the long process to learn to do that together but in Vienna she she really brought a new new appeal to the game and really completely renew of became the initial game by it's not just where Queen version of gangs is very going a bit further and this two brought new new people into our tag if you want and then finally is its of course ranks Game of Thrones which which really expanded our or is writen very strongly and but still is a very important way to to that it stays connected to V over games because it brought new play new players to our

previous games and that it's very very consistent and and we will show you for sales we made after that one thing for that's a very important limit limit of a big IP is that although it's made it's it's very defined set of people that you will touch through through an IP like Game of Thrones you will touch post potentially all the people who are interested in the show and that will be here we will be about it but but it's also limiting and a factor because you you will only touch the people who are into the show or are interested in the show people who play on the phone so it's sort of cross a lot of a lot of that you you probably it's very niche but it's a very very car to rise and and define a niche but that

will will sell the game for a very long time so so every time we we create links between each games so each game promotes the other games at some point of the gameplay and I will and by by just showing you the importance of this crush so this bizarre Versailles of rains and so the first game for the last last two years and we see that but every time we release new a new very new game we have a big big ourselves and they they that that does but just like a fraction of each games ourselves but but it's it's sort of demonstrate with with importance of creating mesh of games that are connected together and that that's just promote your new IP so so I think as the

conclusion its sustainability and predictability especially in a premium mobile game is is very weak and as outdoors but as some so at some point you have to embrace this risk and and by using the ladder that is develop devolver by by creating connection between the games we manage to do that with rains and right now we we sold over 3.4 million copies of of the games so it's not even in drop in the ocean of the free-to-play market but that gives us plenty of support to make new things and develop develop our idea are we wanted there we go thank you very much as if you have questions [Applause]

they're next I mean obviously you've kind of peaked in terms of IP are you gonna carry on doing rinse like games or are you gonna find a new way to use that model of kind of creating a core IP and then expanding over time is that kind of what you're planning so our aim so far so for now is to think we set up like a trilogy of game that works together and we we don't want to create a range fatigue so we not expand that setting for now but we will we're working on on free to play terrains to give access to this this game which will be also connected to via other games so that will be a very important thing for us and after that no it's really more like we're gonna renew a little bit and that's so the chance we got we don't have to support that much our games like it's not like a monetization scheme so

that that just needs constant updates to stay alive so we we can just develop new things like each game is also already a bit a new development around the core the core thing but we can go a bit further and try new things and that's that's what we want to do and I think it does just one which is like once you know how to make it system work you've learned so much information about how that approach works if you're not reusing it yeah you're wasting all that all that knowledge and I think that's something that we should all think I mean I'm lucky as a consultant I get to play around a lot but I'm very aware that the more you specialize the more effective you can be thank you very much thank you [Music]