Opening & Welcome to Pocket Gamer Connects, Helsinki 2024 - Chris James, Steel Media Ltd.

[Music] this is uh as I say this is our 10th anniversary year here um but this is not by no means was 2014 beginning of our our love affair with Helsinki this is 2024 we've been been here for 10 years 10 years of PGC 10 years of PGC Helsinki but like I say this was not the beginning of our our love affair or my love affair with Helsinki we've been coming here uh for a long time this is steel media is almost 20 years old next year will be our 20th anniversary year at some point and we've been coming here and I've been coming here since around 2007 I think was the first time back in the area of of Eng age uh and I was I

was lucky enough when I came to meet uh many inspirational figures from the from the likes of digital Cher and roio Mr good living and many others who who generously shared their time and insights and this kind of helped convince me that what I was doing was right mobile games were going to be big uh and also more importantly that Finland was very much the heart of the mobile games industry um like which is something I still firmly believe and and like many people in this room this conference I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for noia so shout out for noia I've bit of love for them um they were fantastic um during all these trips um I the pleasure attend several igda meets um and the openness uh of knowledge sharing the the kind of flat hierarchy of those events we had C Level execs sort big game C Level exex with students and and the competitors it was a huge huge inspiration for for for me and for us and when we wanted to launch our own networking events what we wanted to do so it was only appropriate that when we started doing our networking events the very first was in in tare um

and we've done many more in in Helsinki uh afterwards and of course when it came to going one step further and to launch their own conference where else would we look but Helsinki um we almost actually launched alongside slash in 2013 SL incredible event as you guys know um but we couldn't quite get things right we couldn't get quite get align so we launched in London in the end in 2014 but we wanted to come uh we knew we had to come to Helsinki so later that year we came we came in June that first year which as it turned out was not ideal CU you're all preparing for your summer break so that we moved it a little bit later which is where we are uh now um and and yeah and we've we've kind of we've been coming every every uh year since and sharing great insights and uh and wisdom during the days and enjoying the nights of course as well um it's not immediately clear on the surface but no one parties quite as as hard or as long uh as the Finnish industry I I think this was the place where I discovered

the concept of the after after after party uh which I you know I've embraced as you can see from my my physique um but there we go um obviously in the time we've been involved uh the infinish industry has grown hugely that was the last report 3.2 billion Revenue 4,100 people employed I'm sure cop will talk about where we are now and although I'm not a native born Finn um and I don't make games uh um I'm really kind of proud of what's been achieved here and and proud to play even the very smallest kind of uh kind of part in that that story um so one first thing I want to say is is that I'm very grateful to the support we've had over the years and and to be very genuinely say nowhere nowhere in the world has been more Central to supporting us and and our mission to help encourage the games industry so I want to say a big uh big Kos to everyone in in in the room for that thank you so much um we we uh it's been Central to our mission and we don't expect it to to

change either which kind of brings me up to date slightly more sobering um more recent times have lean a little bit uh a little bit turbulent it's fair to say um the games industry is always In Perpetual change it's it's very nature is disruption um but the last few years we've had a particularly tough series we were coming out of covid and that covid boom and trying to get accustomed to that and then the the platforms particularly Apple through spaning the works with the the marketing made that hard Russia invaded Ukraine which screwed the the economy a little bit uh and caused inflation and that meant people had less money and then obviously investment started to dry up and you also had various kind of governments interfering as well especially in in China which added further pressure so it's been a very it's been a tough couple of years um and of course this led this led to this led to kind of uh many uh many studios and related companies having to scale back their their plans and and and maybe unfortunately some close entirely we've had kind of the large number of

layoffs uh in in recent history which is not great this has been the attitude of the industry for a little while um but if any if you know me at all and you've seen me speak before you know that I'm not someone that deals with this well I am much more the Ted lasso uh of the games industry I I like to be upbeat I like to be positive and I I believe there's I'm going to talk now about why I think there's absolute cause uh to be that way obviously the fins when you first meet them and I know you know you can't tell yourself but you don't always come across as the most enthusiastic of audiences I wouldn't say the most optimistic wild optimism is not a trait that's necessarily shared here but as as Seline pointed out on leadership day yesterday I actually think the fins that are ideally suited to deal with disruption and and I've proved it time and time again if you look a little bit of the history back when phones this is what you had to play with and made one of the most the best most neran games ever snake was incredible um and then when we went you know we went into feature phone space and the

proliferation of phones uh Finland again was making just some of the very best quality games uh that had no right to exist on those phones and like the Playman series like tower blocks like like how about there's so many great games and of course unfortunately you know Nokia noia claps engage didn't quite deliver on its promise was decent device M um and out of those kind of Ashes of engaged kind of a noia um sort of grew a whole new uh industry um and incredible games incredible Studios angry Birds uh Clash of Clans Hill clim Racing best fiend Tri stream and so many others in the mobile space it wasn't just mobile of course you've at the same time you've got remedy houseart CL order smashing it and and kind of PC and console and many others picking up countless Awards I know there companies like kind of 10 ton do an incredible job now as well so I'm I'm not to about Finland so I think you guys have just proven time again you can deal with it but beyond that the the there's lots of other reasons to be careful the data is turning our way the underlying data predictions are showing growth uh new's

latest revision shows the industry up that's from August up 188 billion pretty much up 2% this year mobile leading this up 3% Convoy is slightly more bullish 189 Aldora another go even further saying that mobile itself could be worth 109 billion and and player spend is growing that's kind of chart from sensor Tower um and in turn investment Taps are very slightly starting to ease this is from Drake star latest report shows an increase in m&a volumes over the last three quarters so m&a is continuing uh I was up to three and a half billion Q2 I think it could be quite uh tasting key3 as well with a few big deals and more importantly than that the Taps lower down that they have opened a little bit certainly for early stage um Convoy data show that in Q2 of this year was the highest for almost two years of early stage Investments mid-stage later around still a little bit tricky they are happening a bit bit slower but is happening investment is starting to happen again and um although a lot of it comes into platforms AI mixed reality uh

and tools are also games money is coming into games again so good news if you're trying to raise just stick in there obviously you know some of the leading companies are from here as well play Ventures sissu game Ventures F4 Rel recent with formed by Yim these are you know investors that know about games so there's another reason to be cheerful uh new channels is a reason to be cheerful um there might be descent with that with apple and other wall Gardens but but new channels are threatening to disrupt you got epic who I think are here there they've got a new app open Apptoid also here they they have a they were the first have an IOS app store Huawei and Samsung doing great guns as well to create different opportunities and and and the biggest games are moving to these platforms now to to they're seeing the opportunities um we've also got Microsoft coming on the scene but it's not just app stores uh there's new director consumer models new channels where we can you can reach out consumer you can kind of cut the middleman out a little bit um and and uh these These are these are getting support the EU are very much behind this break up the abols

a little bit their power and you've got companies like agar aola and app charge and others who who are really leading the way um and of course you know these good news individual games companies are getting their mojo back no no one more so than supercell there are a lot of great companies here but supercell of course are are kind of a bell weather for the industry and particularly this local industry and and you know they've delivered more unicorn games than any other uh developer or publisher but by their own high standards and their own admission by 's own admission they've you last few years have not gone according to plan um but they are battling back they've got new plan new structural approach and delivering some of the most impressive numbers ever with games like brawl Stars absolutely smashing it new new titles like Squad Busters coming out there are uh back in in in form again I'd say and that's kind of there's a a typical of the tone and a certain optimism that is spreading across the industry belatedly but but but but finally this was a this was a survey from sansoft with with raptor recently and of their survey they said 81% of developers in the survey

were working on new games which after all a lot of people have can projects that's quite good and there is a narrow it's a bit brex it's like 51 52 to 49 but um but there is a a belief that we're finally kind of uh reaching the turn I know there are still layoffs coming and I know there's still some bad news but it does feel like it's turning the right way and we've actually if you're and if you want to share your story is good bad or indifferent we've still got our own mobile gam survey ongoing and you can you can help us but you can also o win yourself some prizes if you enter into that we got tickets and various other things and of course even the layoffs are a positive side it's not great if you're laid off but for for people looking to recruit there's some incredible Talent available we've got the Career Zone uh going on with game Factory talents and jobs boards and and you know it's it's a good time to be hiring definitely I've been hearing a lot about this thing called survived 25 um I'm not sure this is what they meant when they said it but anyway um I'm not quite as I I I'm not in favor of this for a number of reasons however

um I prefer this I prefer thriv in 25 I I I see the next year as being the opportunity for us to really push on and have a great have a great year there are her wins um the market is competitive we're working but we are working in the biggest and best entertainment industry in the whole damn world that's more than worth more than almost all the others combined other media are throwing over you know they're crawling over themselves to get part of what we were involved in we've got TV shows like the last of us and Ballout showing what showing how valuable our IPS are Sports League like NFL and NHL and others curing up to have a a game component um to what they're doing even like football leagues like premier league and La Liga are trying to explore the games World um media giants like Netflix of course bought a studio here of course um next games they're ramping up and they continue to commit to to gaming subscriptions even the New York Times has a game section now and that's not to even touch on all the Esports the game influences that consuming more hours of Engagement than pretty much anything else um and Talking of film and T and and then and then then's talking film and TV production which I kind of

mentioned there because the technology is being used there there are currently over 40 uh games IPS in Hollywood TV in Hollywood or TV production pipeline right now and every single one of them is guaranteed to smash hits and do incredibly well come on it's a Borderlands joke it was terrible anyway um Borderlands didn't do well fullart did incredibly well this this here's just a sample of the other great games that working right now obviously Sonic uh is part you know Sonic and uh uh and roio get s R together now got K Reeves queing app play Sonic KL Urban in Mortal Kombat Jason M Mo in Minecraft possibly Tom hollander's link We we'll wait to see that confirmed and there's just so much other so many other reasons to be cheerful there there's there's new technology to adopt AI is making huge in RADS VR andm continues to grow even the much malign web 3 is starting to show some positive signs in certain quarters of course the PC markets PR to grade to we've got a new console on the way from the switch there's a big trend of of web-based Gaming um and and there's a lot of new

technology basically to explore and we'll be talking about that in in our various tracks and in our big screen gaming track and and the most important thing is the games industry has got incredibly strong record that's one of my favorite graphs of it just shows how much growth we've had over the last 30 years and you know we're going to continue up and to the right and the future is even brighter um every generation the audience our audience is already the most engaged of any media and the most opinionated probably as well but the next Generations are only ever more engaged this is kind of generation Alpha born with a control in their hand and not only that we've got whole new markets coming on stream the Middle East and L time are growing Africa's coming on there's so much growth still for the games industry so these are the reasons why I'm ultimately bullish and I believe this is the best time to be in the games industry and the best time to be in Finland despite the drop caps there so thank you very much over the next few days we're going to be exploring all this um and we're going to help we're going to share some Trends and techniques will help guide you to success

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