Nitro Games & the Next Wave of Games From Finland - Jussi Tahtinen, Nitro Games.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] so we're now going to welcome UC tatnan of nitro games to talk about then the next wave Nitro games and the next wave of games so you'd like to come to Stage give a round of applause please thank you very much slides up off we go thank you thank you good morning good to be back here I love this venue so much compared to where we used to be some time ago so good to be back um from nitrogames and uh today we talk about future and uh why we do so is because uh I'm an old fart and I've been playing games and

making games essentially my whole life and uh one thing that I love the most about games as a Hobby and games as a profession and the whole damn industry is that there's always changes happening one way or another and uh that's one of the things that uh I've been doing a lot in the past and Nitro has been doing a lot this trying to predict the future uh not the boring sort of Mega Trends or or macro level phenomenons that everybody's talking about like Ai and these type of things but more like can we find something a little bit more in the niche pocket that we could somehow apply to our business and the games that we do next so today again we're gonna throw some guesstimates about what might happen in the future and what are we doing about it so that when we fast forward one years two years you can call me a guy who had no clue what he was talking about so let's see let's see and um who we are where I finish mobile games Powerhouse uh we're a little bit

more than 80 people at the moment we're based here in Helsinki and also one hour East from here in a place called kotka and then we have a bunch of people uh scattered around the world working remotely or in our partner Studios and that stuff and what we do is we do games that go boom so action and shooter games is our Niche uh that's something where we specialize in so if you're looking into something in the other categories then we're not sure guys so today we very much look at everything through this lens because this is something we know about there's plenty of things that are fantastic in gaming but we have no clue about those so action and shooter games and uh how we do things in Nitro is essentially that uh we have our own games which we develop on our own and we seek to go all the way from game concepting in the pre-production Productions of loans in publishing live operating the whole Japan including the whole data funnels and Publishing activities and what have you as well but then we also work with

uh different type of Partners uh we've been around for more than 15 years now so we've been doing tons of projects with different partners on different platforms and that's another side of our looking at things when we look at Nitro but um basically stuff that we're going to go through today is basically like I said looking into the future and uh we will begin briefly by having on you on the world okay what have we seen already where do we think the world is at the moment and what do we think that it means for us moving forward and for anybody else who might or might not be interested in action and shooter game stuff and then we will throw a couple of predictions about the future and show what's our take on those predictions and that then we'll leave you guys with that so then if you are interested keep an eye on us and see how we're going about those and then we'll see um but what have we seen already basically when we talk about action and shooter games it's not just you know

Call of Duty first person shooters but it's games where there's some sort of weapon or weapon-like item which makes things go boom it's not limited to any specific platform or camera angle or anything like that but more like a mindset who am I as a consumer what type of entertainment am I enjoying whether it comes in mobile games for more console game form and so on and so on and uh we like to position these things as part of the mid core even though some games are more on the hardcore side and so might be having elements for more casual games but that's where we put these games and uh what's essentially the status as of no no is that our shooter games are essentially the on all the platforms one way or another and uh what's some something that has happened over the last few years is that the role of mobile games when it comes to the total revenues generated by shooter games has increased pretty heavily of course there's tons of Big Brand games

that uh generate a lion share of this number but still the whole sort of mobile aspect of the category has definitely opened up over the last few years and uh this is something that tying into us being doing this stuff for quite some time now uh how we look at things is that no matter if you look at platform life cycles or if you look at game category life cycles or if you look at player life cycles what you tend to see some sort of waves of same things happening over and over again and uh that's something that with shooter games we believe that it's a phenomenon that has happened already many times in the history of video games so first you had you know PC gaming going on and then you suddenly had this fantastic invention of introducing Mouse into the mix then you had quake and it became a phenomenon and one of the first big multiplayer Esports type of things uh and then you that game consoles where nobody can play a shooter

with a pad controller because it's not as good as keyboard and mouse but fast forward few years Shooters became the dominant category on consoles as well then blah blah blah happens mobile you definitely I can't do this with a touchscreen because there's no way you are able to aim with a touchscreen and have fluid controls and stuff and look what's happening now so that's basically how we look at things that these same things tend to happen over and over again but in a slightly different form and format and why that is and how we base our expectations about future is essentially the consumer I bet most of the presentations in events like this are always one way or another about the consumer and the people who create the games trying to figure out what and how and why does the consumer think and what comes to shooter games and especially on mobile screens what we're starting to see now now is more and more of people coming to age let's call it that way but people who

start to be employed and maybe have credit cards and the ability to spend who have actually grown up with touch screens as their primary first and foremost controller device they might have expanded to PC and console later on because they're Gamers of course they do that but they have learned how to play with a touchscreen and that's a big turning point that we expect to just become stronger and stronger moving forward as well and then of course you have old geezers like me who grew up with keyboards and Moses and had some whatnot and of course we might have a credit card or two in our pockets so we still love to enjoy these things on mobile as well um but long story short where we stand now is that Shooters are definitely the thing on all the platforms out there one way or another that's how we look at things including also mobile which is a healthy quarter of the total revenues in this category of course different studies split the category differently but still in terms of a big picture that's good enough then predictions future how does it look

like first thing that we're going to talk about is cross-platform cross play because it sounds cool every time you introduce an X things sound cool so that's something that we're going to talk about that's definitely a big Trend that we're gonna see impacting a lot of games and uh the industry overall then secondly we're going to talk about power of Grants that's an area where we have done quite a few learnings some of which have been super good some of which have been epic failures and some of which have been somewhere in between but that's definitely a trend where we can expect more and more activity moving forward so we're going to talk about that and then last but not least is this fantastic thing called Innovation which is maybe the coolest part of this business that there is a constant level of innovation to come up with something new and how does that touch base to action and shooter games we're going to talk about that as well but we will begin with the cross-platform and cross play stuff so basically how we look at things is

that games are a phenomenon that's so much bigger than any of the Hardwares out there and uh the direction where everything is moving these there's not just games is that anything you consume and enjoy whether it's entertainment or something else whatever screen you have in your hand is just that it's just a screen and the future is building experiences that go beyond any hardware limitations or screen limitations and uh something that is happening now more and more and where we are engaged in is this concept of playing cross-platform experiences in a cross-play fashion and trying the best parts of all the different platforms together and not by looking at things on a surface it might seem like okay it doesn't necessarily make too much sense to bring some super AAA hardcore experience like Warframe for example on mobile because then you're fighting against the handicaps on mobile and stuff but on the other hand when you look at it through the lens of the uh

game developer and the publisher and look at it through the big scrunch scheme of things then it suddenly starts to make ton of sense because then you can introduce the benefits of mobile games marketing and the whole previous whole data-driven ecosystem and the whole new different type of consumers that you have on that platform and make them exposed to your brand and you can start to move your consumers between different platforms and look at the whole business case so much differently and we all know that still even if these things are today super powerful and the development budgets for some of the games on these platforms are already pretty insanely big we're still quite often talking about single digit Millions at Max sometimes over lifetime of course more but it's not that common to hear about mobile games which cost more than 100 million dollars to make those things have happened already but it's not common yet whereas when you go into the PC and console side getting budgets that are in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars you hear

about them all the time right so that means that when you're looking at the whole big picture that okay this is my franchise this is my brand this is my plan for the next two years five years ten years and Beyond with the live product adding a mobile component into the mix is really a no-brainer if you look at it from added cost point of view but what it unlocks in terms of the ability to boost things to the whole brand through mobile games advertising that's a whole different story and that combined with the fact that many people who play what I refer to the consumers these days they actually get into this whole gaming thing through touch screens so it also acts as a way when you have a long-term strategy with your product to throw in players into your ecosystem when they're still playing touch screens maybe they grow up and start to spend on the mobile version or maybe they convert to other platforms who knows but it's definitely a channel to expand beyond what is possible to do on the more traditional platforms and for somebody like Nitro of course it's a

fantastic opportunity to work on some really cool high-tech because uh working on projects like this it's of course a dream come true so cross-platform and cross play is something that we expect to see happening more and more and the Curious Thing moving forward is that how can we decrease the sort of cost of entry on this and that's something that we're already starting to see more and more in the so-called Indie level as well smaller companies Building Products which might be PC and mobile and stuff like that so it isn't it doesn't necessarily have to be Triple A and super big second thing power of Brands uh maybe the reason thing that we have done is the game called Nerf super blast where we use the inert brand by hospital and build a whole new mobile game of universe around that and um this is something that there has been so much discussion about IEP and Brands especially in mobile games over the past years and there has been so many great examples but also

quite a many sort of slap on IP type of approaches we have also been looking into some and we have also been working with some cases with IP which did not turn out that great uh but the key thing here again how we believe that why this is gonna still happen more and more despite there has been so many failures in the past is the fact that when you actually have a brand to gain the audience fit then it can deliver something that can overcome many of the problems that we Face currently especially if you look at mobile games and the whole challenges with the user acquisition and the Data Tracking and so on what better way to position your product than to have a customer that automatically conveniently attracts just the right target audience so this is something which when approached audience first and then the whole experience is built for the specific audience and the game and the brand are in a perfect alignment then we think that it can definitely add value especially in terms of discoverability

and helping to lower the user acquisition costs but this is something where you need to be super careful that something that might seem like a good fit on the surface isn't necessarily so much that with Nerf super plus one things that we we have learned so far which we think are super critical in making sure that the beat actually is there is that is my brand that I am using as strong as I think it is is it such a strong brand that when used with my game that it gives me things like you know features by the storefronts and stuff that actually adds value is it known in those specific countries and by those specific Target groups that I am after with my game and then you think about the visual brand that you build into the game does this visual style appeal to that very same audience and if you go sideways with any of these things then that match is gonna break and it's very likely it's not gonna work out that well but with Nerf we knew that what we're targeting is a mass audience of teens and

pre-teens who are basically using this original plastic toys from their childhood and who have a tendency of being really done good with specific type of gameplay that's how we designed that part but then especially in the states side you have a whole bunch of old farts like me who collect these things to have their garage full of these plasters and stuff and again those are the guys with credit cards unlikely with some sons and daughters and stuff so then it becomes a family hobby where they do these things together and that combined with the whole sort of YouTube phenomenon and what's happening widely online means that there is a way to put all these things into together but that's something that we think that moving forward our companies and brand owners are only going to get much much better with this that's why you have Netflix looking in the game in everybody who has different type of plants and IPS they're looking into bringing that the game in one way or another because there is this added leverage to be found there

so that's number two uh and then the number three and this is the most difficult thing but also the most fun thing if you ask me it is the sort of innovation so games is all about building and creating something new something that is super fun something that is supposed to be new that doesn't exist yet but also it must not be too new it shouldn't be too Innovative it shouldn't be doing much of this and that because otherwise people are not gonna get it and might be alien alienated by that this is especially through one mobile but of course on any other platforms as well and uh there has been quite many you know presentations in the past about this classic 80 20 rule that you should somehow take 80 old and introduce 20 new and that's the golden ratio for uh the level of innovation but while we also pretty much believe in that uh one thing that's super difficult is that okay how do you then select the parts that you actually put together and why and uh

that's something that in Innovation coming up with different type of cool ideas that's not the most difficult thing to do because we all have great ideas there's probably 200 game designers in this room right now there are ways of testing different ideas and how they appeal to different audience and stuff and we heard about that earlier today in some other pitch already so these things there are ways to go about it but the challenge comes from the fact that why are we selecting the parts that we are selecting and how does that help us to solve the problem at hand and um these Oregon Heroes that's now on the slides this is our latest game release uh which we're busy launching we just started now in June so it's only a few months old and uh we're busy ramping up the game and doing all sorts of great things with it and it's going well uh but the things that were kind of like the key components that okay why are we now in this position and why it made sense is basically a few different things we are all aware of the

user accuracies and challenges and the Data Tracking things that have been introduced on the mobile and one can only expect more and more of that things happening moving forward so if you want to bring something with your own IP you need to make it visually so that it automatically particularly clicks with your target audience our target audience for this game being plus 30 year old males who have played maybe running gun shooters when they were kids and stuff they instantly recognize the gameplay when they get to the game they figure it out but given that we know that they are all farts plus 30 years old they may be are not that good with their thumbs compared to kids for example so that's why there has to be some sort of innovation with the controls and gameplay to make it feel like they are actually you know masters of gameplay even though it's super simple so we took out the whole shooting thing it automatically fires our names and all that stuff so all you need to do is move around and jump so you need to build the Innovation with the audience in mind and then on top of that uh these days on mobile

whether you like it or not you need to build a freaking badass monetization machine so the game needs to have insanely strong uh so-called meta game components and different progression vectors and all that free to play mumbo jumbo that you need to have there to make sure that if your target audience is people with credit cards who are happy to spend for their hobby that you then actually put them through that Loop and that then returns back the drawing board when it comes to the core gameplay so we have an audience we have the core gameplay but now we need to think about the session length because these guys are busy they will go and deliver speeches and then they will have five minutes to play before they run into different meetings and stuff like that so you need to make sure that you have a look where you give them a little bit of that action enjoyment but then you go into their pockets again and then again little bit of that action enjoyment and then they need to get something or something so you need to essentially innovate everything through that same very lens which if you ask me and many guys in Nitro it's always the customer always your target audience and that's

the part that's usually at least for us and I bet my something that for others as well is the most difficult that's okay how do I justify every single decision I do with the game and the business case through my Target customer but again when you do that right we believe that that's something that you're going to see more and more of so take modern meta game Planes and combine those with classic core gameplays and all this type of shuffles so then to wrap things up our predictions about future you can hold us accountable for those uh let's meet up in one years two years time and see how we how we did here but cross platform cross play gaming that's happening right now I'm moving forward more and more power of Brands we're gonna see more and more Brands associated with games in new innovative ways not just IP bolt-on slap phones and then last but not least there's gonna be expansion in the genre of action and shooter games through product innovation in ways that we haven't even thought about yet so that's our text on the future thank you

thank you hello while we get the the there's we might have room for one quick question while we're getting the chairs out there's then we have a question for Nitro games like those people look at this thousands of people in the room um so I was gonna I was gonna ask you um how long is the uh the shooter the jump auto gun be yeah going how long has that been out that has been out since June and how was it going it's going well so we've been increasing it step by step by step so it's growing all the time so if you're interested in the data you can go to our website because we're a public company so it's all there all the revenues and kpis and everything it's all there it looks great anyways thank you very much thank you thank you [Music]