Our Games Industry Predictions for 2024

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the things that have happened biggest winners and losers now we're actually going to look forward going into 2024 obviously putting on our uh our our prediction caps and not really so much our uh analyst caps for the past numbers but we're going to be trying to use those to project forward so hopefully we make the right guesses obviously you're gonna be holding our feet to the fire if we make some wild some wild guesses here in this episode but uh yeah a quick followup to a topic from last week that we just wanted to make sure that everyone got updated on because it happened pretty quick was on the uh the ESRB rating Gods Unchained as adults only and potentially other web 3 games due to the the nft uh potential rewards and actually uh rather than that get reversed or changed in anyway epic has said okay that's fine that they Adults Only We Will carve out an exception for web 3 games that are rated for that reason and just allow them to be on the store which is cool that was one of the outcomes we were hoping for so kudos to Epic for for jumping on that unfortunately may not help uh the Apple App Store unless they carve out an exception as well because

Gods on chain was trying to go to mobile it has been for a while we're actually hoping to get it out this month I'm guessing that's probably not going to be the case now so maybe we'll figure out something in early 2024 so there's there's one minor prediction I guess launch things off but uh yeah we're just going to go through kind of topic by topic uh on some of the different areas and what might be going on with them next year hopefully all these have interesting things going on next year we'll just start off with uh consoles and uh Taylor what you think is gonna happen with consoles yeah the the the console markets it it seems to be innovating extremely quickly and there seems to be a lot of different strategies here obviously Nintendo's had a a long history of of the hand handheld strategy uh throughout their their entire history and now we're starting to see almost as competition between who can control and own the majority of the the end users time and I think there's like really two core strategies here and I will predict on which one I do think will be the best one which will be either this the strategy to continue to keep people within your own ecosystem um

this is essentially the Sony strategy they obviously have the PlayStation they launched the psvr2 they now have also launched the Portal 2 but I think what we're what we're slowly seeing with with that ecosystem is that there's a lot of um substitute opportunities here and I think trying to keep people within your own ecosystem is going to be a struggle going forward uh we obviously saw the psvr2 drastically undersold expectations U I think at beginning of the year they were expecting 2 million sales they ended up um lowering that to a million and then only hit 600,000 um and then now you have the the portal to which I I would say it's artificially um looking good because they had a limited Supply but even in I think the month of November they were the fourth best selling console uh with without very much competition which was a little bit um I would say underwhelming to me but I I the way I view this going forward is you're not going to be able to compete continually by just building the the

same product for your own content um and you know if you look at this I think Microsoft has a really compelling strategy here the goal for them isn't to bring people into their own ecosystem it's to bring their ecosystem to other Gamers whether that's going the you know the most recently announced um partnership with meta Quest and bringing the game pass to to VR um there there are concerns there obviously but I think the goal here is just I just want to have more users have access to to our ecosystem and to keep them playing within our ecosystem no matter what access ecosystem they're actually using um and and if you look at their General strategy I mean they've never they're pretty clear about not wanting to build their own VR headset they either have you know they do have the hollow enss or the Vive within their ecosystem but and then when you also look at the handheld space they're very open like this is not something they want to go after um going forward and instead it's just hey I want I want you to be able to access us on Steam deck I want you to access us on

potentially the N Nintendo switch 2 uh we want want you to access us through PC and mobile and the goal there is just no it makes way more sense it's less Capital intensive to to not build your own hardware and just offer the subscription service with all your content available I think the biggest news obviously is a Nintendo switch it's can't be it can't really be a prediction for 2024 so I think the goal here is to launch that in 2025 but that will compete directly according to them with the the quality and Fidelity of your Xbox and and Playstation I I I think I have some some hesitancy around that around if they'll actually be able to reach that quality of content but I I I do believe the the winner that's gon to come out in the space is going to continue to be Microsoft because they're just not actually even competing in that space every ecosystem is going to need them more than Microsoft needs that ecosystem they have the they have the content they have the user base and I and I think we'll continue to see them expand their content offering and just just expand access to that through other

con consoles themselves I think Sony's probably in the weirdest spot right now going forward that it's going to be a struggle for them to continue to just they they they they want to they they seem to want to have their own wall garden and I just don't think that from a consumer perspective is is what we want as Gamers we want to be able to access all the content we can wherever we are through whatever ecosystem we prefer and going forward I think we're going we're going to see Microsoft Microsoft strategy contain continue to be the the the winning strategy um I think you know there's the the jury's still out on the portal too I think that'll be um interesting to watch as they kind of expand their their supply of of devices I me they did sell them out there was it was extremely hard to get them but I think that's more of a strategy from Sony than anything else of make it make it seem like it's it's scarce and we'll we'll see if they can continue to to scale up but I mean if they're going to try to compete with Nintendo switch 2 or

you know whatever Next Generation steam deck we have I think that's going to be a massive struggle and then I think I I I just I just believe the psvr2 is is is one of those one of those Hardware pieces that isn't going to have enough to encourage you to buy that itself you have to be a PlayStation player you have to already be in the Sony ecosystem you have to love that ecosystem and and want to just bet on the the historical context of of Sony's quality content going forward and so I I I do believe we're gonna see Microsoft win this fight um I I I just struggle to believe Sony is going to be able to really um encourage the majority of their users to stay within their ecosystem as Gamers just want want to play different different types of content they just they just want to be able to use the you know the form factor that is best for them and I think that's going to be the strategy they'll have to go after and then we'll we we'll see in a little while that the Microsoft only needed the Xbox that's at at the core of their

business Game Pass is going to be what I think is most successful and I think is going to be the the best opportunity to acquire new users and keep users within their ecosystem so I guess the question I have then is you talking about Xbox being trying to go everywhere that the players are uh obviously I mean unless I totally missed it uh Xbox cloud gaming stuff is not available on Nintendo switch currently right despite the fact that you don't need higher-end hardware for that uh not that Nintendo's ever been super great about like their online strategies and en but I do Wonder like you know would that be something they'd be able to even get on Nintendo switch 2 or whatever they call it uh to be able to continue that strategy or is it not that big of a deal because you know like they're not necessarily trying to to compete for that audience as much as like the PlayStation audience obviously like I don't I don't see the portal supporting it as well right so it more comes down to for handhelds maybe just the steam deck uh when it and then your phone of course right like the potential because you could run it on your phone currently um and then also whether or not Microsoft could potentially like try

and uh dip more into sort of the VR AR space as they had with the hollow lens so like that obviously they're you know testing that water in a way with uh being on Quest but that's a competitors's platform in a way although obviously meta is not really so much in the console space like they are a bit but that's that doesn't seem to be their play they're still kind of moving towards social aspects of that we're hoping to at least with Horizon worlds if they could turn that around uh things like that so like going forward when it comes to those other platforms like where do you see Microsoft strategy uh or just adaptations to not being able to execute on some of that yeah I think we I I think we will see them push into the switch market and I think if Nintendo switch has the capabilities to to run games that are AAA high quality we could see them offering a game a version of game pass through the switch now the issue is is I don't know if Nintendo's willing to risk their brand and I think they want to you know their entire I would say their entire strategy going back is you know we have the we have this content you come to switch for our content and

our content is perfect for this form factor but there doesn't seem to really be a reason like or it there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason outside of brand for Nintendo not to offer a Game Pass offering if if they can support it um now I I would have I definitely have hesitancy around their ability to support Cloud um at any at any sort of you know quality that a consumer would love and you know the the best part about switch is is portability and the fact you can use it anywhere and a lot of the games I I don't require a internet connection there single player games but that's that's core to allowing for cloud gaming so I I do think we will We my guess would be that we do see Microsoft and Nintendo partnering at some point um for that for the ne for the Next Generation switch but if it didn't happen I think it'd be more Nintendo's Choice than than Microsoft's um and then on the Oculus side I I I think I would push back do I I do believe they are competitive um I think

meta is viewing the console I'm sorry viewing the Oculus as a console itself um and that's and that's kind of the direction I believe this is going to go it's it's not going to be as much a Computing platform in the sense of you know AR or or mixed reality headsets it's it's going to be focused more on this this is this is a games platform and or even you know or an entertainment system because obviously they will have the you know your your Fitness games your meditation platforms you'll have your your general games as well but I I don't think the Oculus is Oculus especially the quest 3 um is it anywhere near the the level that it would take for this to become like an everyday all day used product um there's there's a lot of Hardware limitations there there's just a form factor isn't is isn't isn't what you want and so I think they're going to continue to push into this console Market this is you know they're they're heavily investing in in the uh you know the quest store ecos EOS system um

they're even you know continuing to support the Quest Labs ecosystem which is you know their direct pipeline to their you know the next games that are going to be offered there and I don't think Microsoft sees VR as like a a core opportunity for them they they aren't they aren't building games at the same at any level close to like what Sony's even doing you know nonetheless uh meta as well and so I I think they're just going to continue to view this as hey this is just another eego system we won our games we played on we're a games company wherever they can be played they will be played but I think Dave has brought up a good point even before we chatted of VR has VR has a a motion problem it's just you know these games do need to be at a level of of quality to to make that experience good enough and not just it's not just about access it's about actually being able to play these games for long periods of time and meta is gonna do anything to keep people in those ecosystems longer uh and so they'll they'll continue to to make these Partnerships and hopefully continue to um increase the quality of their their

Hardware to a point where you can play anything and you can spend time there and this this is this this isn't just it offers a different type of experience for users that I think will be coveted by by the community it's as you move into VR it's not just VR games anymore it's I'm playing Xbox games as well and I have the ability to create a bigger screen and do something that I think Gamers just haven't been able to really do uh I my prediction is I I do think game pass on Quest will become good in enough and people will play play games through the you know your your artificially 80in screens that will create like a different level of immersion that you get playing on your TV or your monitor uh and just to jump in one quick note and and just my thoughts on the Nintendo switch um especially like the The Game Pass and Nintendo switch uh piece I do think that Nintendo has been opening up a lot more like you know the switch itself opened up to Indie Games big Publishers right like we're seeing

you know catalog content being published there for from um EA and the likes right so I think that's not you know if we don't see Microsoft in in the game pass as part of the switch to offering I think it's going to be potentially more of a readon Nintendo seeing that a bit more of as an existential thread in terms of actually competing for the uh you know subscription based dollars from those players as opposed to what kind of was more of the defa for Nintendo of protecting their ecosystem they still have a lot you know it takes a a big effort to get a game published on the switch and approved so you know there's they're still very protective uh and that's probably never going away but I think it's going to be much more around you know if if they actually see that as a in a Potential Threat in terms

of uh you know eating a part of their pie B basically yeah just just to add to that yeah they they did sign a you know Microsoft and Nintendo have signed a 10-year contract to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players now that's not game pass that is a different that the different level of this but yeah there's I think I think Nintendo is becoming much more open to expanding the content they they offer to players and I think Call of Duty alone as a as as a franchise is is is a clear indication of this shift in types of games they want to offer to their players um that's Call of Duty is not a traditional Nintendo type of game but making that commitment I think does give some hint to a larger commitment in the future to what what they're willing to give their players access to yeah for me I think the biggest question is actually around something that was just brought up was around approvals so if you've got titles that have been uh you know designed built for a

particular platform you know for the Xbox um and streaming it onto the um you know onto the switch you have the potential for a less than quality experience and so I wonder if Nintendo if they are interested in having you know something like a you know Game Pass coming in if they have a secondary approval process where they say look we'll open it up but we need to make sure that the players are going to have a good experience when they play on our platform um I do think it does I agree uh with you Taylor that I think this really is a Nintendo brand question than it is a willingness for Microsoft to work with with other uh Partners um you know Microsoft certainly has demonstrated that yes they are willing to put the the the game pass wherever and whenever they can but uh yeah I I do think that this is a it's going to be a question from Nintendo about what is the

experience that the players are going to have it's to wonder if they could uh get away with just making it so you requires a Nintendo Online subscription to to be able to play game pass so that way they get their their slice of that I mean that seems like a fair compromise right where it's like hey just make sure you're still participating heavily in our ecosystem then yeah go ahead and play those games because if those games aren't necessarily coming over here anyways and if they are coming over here people would still prefer to play them locally on the on the console rather than via the cloud just most of the time right in General people uh unless they have a reason for the preference will usually prefer to not play the cloud version uh because it's just could be better performance especially for action oriented games so I think that you know it's not a huge threat to them other than them again looking like they're behind on internet stuff which they've always been but I think they're also pretty comfortable with that it seems I don't imagine Nintendo's like man I wish we had this Cloud stuff gaming you know going like it's just going to be okay well cool we'll see what they do and learn from it and do what we want to do going forward because Nintendo doesn't seem to actually have to compete I mean

I feel like the the only time they've really tried to kind of push forward maybe more than they really can is like on mobile where they kind of tried to push into that and like some of it worked some of it didn't work and I feel like they've kind of cooled on trying that experimentation but also Sony hasn't really seemed to do a lot there either like they haven't really pushed Chev into that space I I don't think we'll see like Sony games on switch either right I think that I think that's pretty much a big like not going to happen but like obviously the Xbox game pass like Cloud stuff does offer kind of that weird opportunity where it's like okay that's okay because it's more like an app than it is a specific game and there was all that contention over that on the App Stores whereas like are we rating this as a game do we rate individual games like is this a loophole for the store that kind of thing whereas you know Nintendo's not looking necessarily at it like the way Apple does where it's like I need that 30% of everything kind of mentality uh so I think it's plausible it's just a question whether or not like again they're okay with it and if they are I'm sure Microsoft's like yeah we're we're going to do that

then and the fact that the discussions publicly around the steam deck have been pretty positive even for Val side shows that if you're not overprotective of your 30% cut thing you're just like that's fine we just want Gamers on here we want people buying this this Hardware we want people in this ecosystem even if they're not necessarily always playing the games that we're selling that's fine uh I hope hope one of this ecosystems like that but then like you saying Taylor if that happens then we do kind of see start to see Sony as the loser in that because they're the ones not being comfortable being everywhere and finding a way to make that work and just behind on investing there now to be fair Sony has made some investments in Cloud technology uh I believe it was during the last year um they bought you know a number of people that were involved in Cloud technology they have some of that on tap they could be developing some of that kind of secretly obviously they they might be even using some of that in Portal uh to to be able to help with that streaming technology um but I I guess we'll we'll have to wait and see if Sony's got something that but they have pretty much bowed out of handhelds

uh for the most part after the vaita and they just kind of like no we're not going to really do that anymore for now um but I guess time will tell on that but I I would it's you know on the topic of subscriptions in general uh obviously that's become a Hot Topic over the last year and as as Taylor points out that's certainly not going away that's probably going to get uh much bigger as a as a service including you know others besides Xbox uh and so Dave what do you think we're going to see for subscription gaming in general yeah the ways that I look at right now there really four main subscription services so Apple arcade uh Netflix Xbox game pass uh and PlayStations offering um you know just in reverse order PlayStation certainly has been investing in um you know in streaming content uh being able to stream their titles um I mean they they purchased David Perry's was it Gen Kai back in oh wow it was probably almost a decade ago you know eight if not eight years ago um so they certainly have been

interested in in getting that technology into the PlayStation ecosystem um I don't really see them changing that much in terms of how they structure their offerings to the players I expect that they will continue to look at continue to broaden their overall um library of games inside there but I don't see them moving from their uh their internal position of not offering games day one uh or you know first party titles or even third party titles day one on the service um I do see them as continuing on as you know this is more of a a legacy title uh type of subscription service if you want you know the latest in for PlayStation you're going to go out and buy the either the digital or the um or the physical copy of it um XBox uh with their game pass they might see a little bit of Interest since they're adding in some really small games like Call of Duty Diablo and you

know a number of Activision Blizzard titles uh over uh 2024 um I do see it as being something that does generate a lot more interest for the game pass just because of the the quality of the titles that are being added in um it will be interesting to see how they handle uh any sort of you know DLC or additional uh content uh if they just you know keep on adding that in as they as they have been or are they GNA have that little bit of um you know the the free version is available for you for game class players but we're gonna have a little bit of a you know new content is going to be a bit of an aftercharge similar to what they did with um uh with some of their recent titles um but I do see the fact that you know they are bringing in all these Activision titles blizzard titles uh that they will see an uptick in interest

um they certainly haven't been able to hit the numbers that they were hoping to uh in previous years in terms of previous quarters in terms of uh growth to their subscription platform I do expect that they'll they'll start seeing some some large growth percentage numbers um in addition there you know Taylor's talking about you know PlayStation versus Xbox and their and their wall Gardens um you know Xbox I think we'll be seeing a lot more around around a Mobile store as to whether or not they are going to move forward with their own mobile store um whether or not that happens in 2024 is a good question they're going to want to you know get the acquire the content for it uh and see what the what it is that they can put together for that store um but I think we'll we certainly will hear more about it and then they have the the evitable position of having players from mobile across console and across PC they have you know the the largest swath of players players that that any other uh publisher or developer has and I think

it's um they may be you know third place in terms of overall console sales but their breath of reach uh is is really uh going to be unmatched across um across any of the other Publishers um and interesting to see you know what kind of pricing what kind of new types of pricing that they they will have inside the Xbox game pass um an ad supported tier you know is that going to be something where you can have uh potentially you know limited access to some of the titles maybe not all of the titles um are they going to have a little bit more tiering inside their pricing than they do right now um right now it's a little bit more around platform access uh versus you know PlayStation's style of whether are bands of content that you have access to um so it will be interesting to see how they uh look at adjusting their their XBox uh Game Pass uh offerings to see if they you know get to a wider consumer base one of the one of the more interesting

things that came out this this last week is is you know Netflix is you know obviously been moving into into the gaming space and uh earlier this week you three of the top six games were all required a Netflix subscription now I think there's some Nuance to that um to that data point all three of them were Grand Theft Auto games which is a brand in itself but Netflix is heavily pushing into the space and it's it's I think it's going to completely change the the ecosystem and I think one of like the biggest Tailwinds they have is the the improvements that mobile phones are having um you know there's I think there's a lot actually like a decent amount of Tailwinds like we initially saw Apple arcade get launched it was we're g to give you this premium offering for for mobile gaming uh but the premium offering I I don't think ever seem to be that premium or that attractive to to Consumers but I think where where this is going going is due to this you know the the the newest

A7 Pro chip that is you know 20% better than the last uh you know a16 chip it's going to allow for some extremely high quality and High Fidelity games being played they're already doing demos and have you have expectations of being able to play Assassin's Creed on your mobile phone I mean this it almost it almost like brings me back to the the Cyber Punk launch and and in kind of how every you know you you were building for an ecosystem that wasn't there yet and I think even Apple had that that issue of we're going to build this ecosystem for premium games but the phone can't really um process and and and allow for truly premium games we were just we were talking about premium as better than hyper casual and I don't think that was what consumers really cared for that wasn't enough to um to to to capture that value that that consumers um that consumers wanted and and but I I I just do think everything's moving to subscriptions and I think the ecosystem are getting so powerful that we're going

to be playing the the highest quality of games across any ecosystem through these different subscriptions and it just kind of seems like it's going to look just like traditional media where we all have four or five subscriptions to to these different you um content libraries and you know at the end of the day we're still paying $100 a month for for for all these subscriptions but we have access to tons of games and we can play them anywhere just directly through these subscriptions and and if cloud gaming actually does become as powerful and and um as as powerful as it can be we we aren't going to really have the the limitations that we we have we've had in the past with different different Hardwares yeah I I do think it is going to come down to what are the offerings to some degree what are the offerings for the developers themselves people making the games um you know as a parent as a game player I love subscription I mean the my Xbox game pass gets used a ton by Myself by my son just because we're able

to try you know a huge breath of titles um and especially you know if if if the games are being offered day one on Xbox game pass it's like well of course I'm G to pay the you know $15 a month $20 a month for that versus you know $100 for buying you know a title outright because I can play all these other games at the same time um but on the on the developer side they you know when when we're in an economy right now where people are having some challenges and trying to make sure that their game's going to do uh going to do well and this is maybe a little bit more on the free-to-play side necessarily than on the um uh on the physical or you know payto playay side of things but um you know on freeo play you're taking a huge risk in terms of you're you're doing this cash outlay you're not sure if the game's actually going to make any money get it gets released versus if you're going the subscription you know that you're going to be paid for your efforts um and you're you know you're

going to make a little bit of money hopefully you've done the proper thing and built in a bit of a margin inside what your costs are and Netflix or apple are going to look after that but the other side of it the tail end is where you know there's a huge difference you have the potential you know if you make coin master of you know bringing in you know over a billion dollars in Revenue if you're on the free-to-play side of things if you're on the subscription side you are not bringing in a billion dollars of Revenue you know the all the the upside for that particular title is going to the subscription uh provider versus you as a developer in reality um so I I do wonder will will people will the developers want to um you know put their titles out there without that potential for uh seeing without the potential of seeing you know a significant upside for their

work on the on the games and I do wonder if there that's where the hesitation is and the part of the developers of actually um going into you know making their games ready for like an apple arcade or or a Netflix system um when you know they're not necessarily um have that potential for for having a huge upside um I agree that you know GTA is it's it's its own its own thing uh and anywhere it goes it's going to see big numbers regardless of what platform it's on people are just going to go and buy it um Netflix titles outside of those games have had challenges in terms of uh in terms of downloads uh if you compare them to you know free-to-play titles um that level of friction certainly doesn't allow it to to directly compete just from a you know from the for the against the freeto playay titles um but I do see a difference though between approaches between apple arcade and Netflix over

you know for the next year Apple arcade I I don't see changing that much I expect to see you know some they'll continue to bring in new games um but I don't necessarily see them bringing in huge uh Blockbusters um uh for the games uh they'll probably pull out some of their uh non- performant or or lesser performant titles in terms of being able to retain players for retention uh and other retention type kpis um but Netflix uh yeah they're they're going all in right now um they've got over 90 games in the pipeline uh you know as mentioned before they're they're no longer just mobile it's you know mobile and PC uh and they're looking you know to try and get out on as many platforms as they possibly can so you know they started off on the iOS and Google Play Stores um but now spreading out to you know Smart TVs they're going to see wherever you know if they can get get the Netflix uh subscription games out to wherever they

can um console will be an interesting question you know maybe that comes out uh um in you know 2025 if they make it somewhere in the in the console side of things um but I think this year we'll definitely see uh a lot more titles coming out for uh mobile and PC and it'll be interesting to see how um how well the games do on the PC side of things well I guess so one area too that we we haven't talked about and I hope becomes an actual topic at some point is cloud gaming for actual mobile games uh we generally are looking at it as usually for the triaa games that are on Console or PC never really like uh streaming a uh mobile game and with Microsoft now owning King there's always the potential that we get cloud gaming version of a candy crash right uh I just I just see this as like an interesting opportunity because like Google has always tried to push into the sort of instant play Space right and they've had trouble doing that stadia is like in my personal experience by far the best cloud technology and they've pretty much

just sheld it like that's a great opportunity for them to provide that as a service to game developers to help justify their cut which they are now going to have to defend thanks to the Epic case like now they could be like hey we're jying our cut by providing this new cloud service where now you want to try lots of games you're having trouble acquiring users because they're having to download 10 gigs of data for your game before they can start playing it which is almost the norm now for a lot of games sadly now they can just stream it now they don't have to update it all the time it's always updated they could just always play right away and then you look at something like Netflix where you know you browse through Netflix to pick a TV show imagine if you're doing that for the games you open up the Netflix app uh in the game section and you're just picking a game and it's instant loading stream just like you would a TV show that's an opportunity for them because they also have streaming Tech now I don't know if they streaming tech level of being able to handle the input because judging by even just playing some of their interactive stuff they don't uh but again I think there's some opportunity there but I don't want to get too deep into that just something I feel like doesn't ever get really mentioned uh and

you know there's lots of lots of possibilities for the the whole space but switching from kind of the consumer side then we're going to go bit over to the uh the production side of things looking at of course one of the Hot Topics this year Ai and how that might Trend into next year or is it like kind of at a stopping point uh yeah that's a that's a great transition over to the Game Dev side and uh I'll start by saying that uh we published a really good deep dive on games and AI uh in the navig Deep dive section so if you want to kind of read deeper into it just go check it out um from my point of view while I have a healthy you know dose of skepticism around AI generated content because it does have its limits I also believe that the next you know call it web or platform leap or Game Dev leap will be fueled in some way or form by generative Ai and that's just from what we're already seeing in the space and

the teams that will you know that embrace it uh will have that Competitive Edge or more or or even like flipping it a little bit teams that don't embrace it will lose a Competitive Edge won't have you know won't be playing in the same um League or level so looking at 2024 you know that that's a little bit more like longer term right so looking at 2024 uh you know from from my point of view I think teams are going to continue to explore how AI can be plugged in to enhance their toolboxes and seek efficiencies I think that that's the first stop is just seeking efficiencies Nimble and adaptable teams will become even more so so more Nimble more effective more efficient on the live UPS front we're going to continue to see all of these optimizations but nothing revolutionary in my opinion is just going to be better and better because it's something that we've been doing now for many years if not you know over a decade it just gets smarter and smarter

as we have you know better predictive algorithms better AI Etc um I do think that you know a lot of the focus is going to be on tools again that build uh efficiencies through AI from the ones that are ingrained into Game Dev things like Unity 6 that's going to launch next year they have this whole you know piece to it that it's called Muse and it's like all their you know AI tool set or you know things like figma where a lot of teams are prototyping these days and and building flows and whatnot and if you know if you can speed that process know you can get to a great game much faster to a myriad of new tools being built from the ground up in AI with Leever leveraging AI but more importantly I think that we're going to start seeing the first AI native games being launched and that is games um game launches built with and in collaboration quote unquote I I'll do

air quotes there in collaboration with generative AI um and you know first we're going to see a lot of efforts for incremental improvements uh but the winning teams I think are going to be the ones that are pushing the boundary to create more novel immersive experiences leveraging Ai and that can be from you know you know smarter dialogue adapted dialogue you know just level balancing a game you know based on the player and kind of keeping everyone at that like sweet spot of like Challenge and and reward right so it's it's just creating a lot of opportunity there to just create these much more unique experiences both from from the back end as well as you know what the the player is experiencing uh on the flip side I think it also is going to you know bring this uh piece that we're going to continue to wrestle with the ethical dilemmas the risks of using

AI uh you know there's there's a little bit of like a panic right of of in in values question especially as you know we have had a very rough year in the industry with um you know layoffs and a lot of job losses in you know we can see a lot of it you know potentially not coming back uh as part of you know hey let's just use tools to You Know cover these types of roles that before you know were covered by uh you know folks in from by people um and then there's also a piece of like creativity and originality so I think it's going to be kind of like this push and pull of like exciting you know Innovation but also this wrestling with you know everything that that that Innovation comes with um so I think I I you know from it might be a little bit over overly optimistic but I'm willing to like put put my um kind of prediction had on this and say

that I think that 2024 is is going to be pivotal on uh how we establish the foundation of uh Ai and how we build games in a way that it will have repercussions on how we build games in the long run so it will you know either help us rise together or you know will continue to wrestle with a lot of the the challenges um in you know I I don't know if you guys have any other thoughts on on the AI front uh you know on areas that AI will have a significant impact in in Game Dev in the game pipeline or in other areas of the industry yeah I think I think one of the areas that that's interesting that you brought up at the very end of this is the the current trends we're seeing it I I don't I feel like perfect storm is not the right word because that has a very optimistic view or like a positive view but the the the the fact that we are in the that you know in the same year we essentially have all these

layoffs happening due to cost cutting and AI tools elevating uh you know workflows and processes these Studios aren't going to stop building games they're just going to start leveraging the cheapest alternatives to to human capital and the I would say that the biggest concern here is going to be that it all works you know if you're if we're talking about like a purely ethical um you know argument if it all works there's there's there's going to be the concern of well we don't need to also rehire then we we've actually found that replacement it's you know a percent of the cost that that it used to be and the quality is good enough and like that that that to me is it's very it's a it's a very positive indicator for AI as a as a market but I do not think it's a great indicator for the you know the ethical discussion here of like we're cutting costs and like these these individuals are probably not going to get their jobs back if all this if all this does work but I think what the best thing that is or or the most interesting aspect of AI is we generally

see these new technological innovations as like we've you know we we fix synchronization or we have a better ad targeting platform with AI it seems to be touching every single aspect of of of all gaming whether it's creating new assets whether it's doing live Ops whether it's um yeah it's it's optimizing the ad creative process it's it's it's scales everything so much more than we've ever been able to you know comprehend and it's it's it's going to completely the way we do build games in the future and I've kind of had this this like opinion of like in five years is are like are the most like sought-after games going to be the ones that are fully human you know Capital driven and it's like we're gonna start pitching this is this game used no AI to to build it and that's going to feel even you know it's gonna and I think there's an argument that that it's it's gonna be it is going to be more attractive to Consumers we're gonna want that we're gonna say no I don't I don't want the game that a computer buil I want the game that somebody's you know creative mind built and like that that like that's going to be in and like this

this's this super interesting Concept in the future I forget what I forget what movie it was or what game it was they like they released a trailer and then at the end of it said this this trailer was fully built by AI the push like the feedback on that was terrible it was people were not happy about that but I think that is a like a future looking view of no this like I generally like without without you telling me that was AI my first thought was oh my gosh that like that that preview or was really good that was really that was really cool and now you're telling me that was built with AI That's not the that not not the best indicator for the the future of uh you know of games hiring and needing these needing these individuals to come back but I I I do just think the AI is it's moving so fast I mean we're we see tons of developers come to us and we generally ask them you know about companies we're looking at hey would you ever use this product and their first thought is we would but we just built it ourselves like there's there's so many opport opportunities out there and there's so many tools out there that allow experienced developers to to experiment

and they're going to because when it comes to building games it's it's not cheap and I think that's that's a a very very much a positive outlook for for where AI is going to go yeah I think one of the questions that I have is um you know definitely around rights in terms of AI generated content do you have the rights to those uh assets that you've built inside the game um you know this summer came out the the stories about steam rejecting titles because the developer wasn't able to say that you know yes they had used AI to generate the the assets did they 100% have the rights over those assets uh and in those particular cases you know steam was saying if it's AR generated right now there's no definitive um definition of Rights ownership over those so no we won't publish those for though we we won't make those games available on the store um so I do think that there are some

legal questions that are going to have to be solved um alongside those ethical questions uh obviously those are G to be two separate streams something may be entirely legal to do but still people find uh challenging on on an ethic side um you know I certainly see it as as very for me it really is a very challenging issue because on one hand I can see the the the potential for you know a single person who is talented you know is a very talented game designer or a very talented engineer or a very talented artist all of sudden being able to do much more in terms of creating a game by themselves because they are able to leverage AI to fill in those pieces that they don't have the skill set in order to be able to do um much more so than you know what you can do through you know uh you know just being able to use Unity obviously gives you access to you know a base code base access to Unity assets and so forth um AI really

is a bit of a multiplier in that regard and being able to increase what you're able to do as as an individual um but at the same time you know it's I you know again I also struggle with that you know I want to make sure that you know the the games that are being built are being built with um a a purpose you C crafted vision and how those things were built um and AI you know it isn't there it's it it's the same as AI has always been it follows a set of rules uh it's just that the rule sets are a lot broader today than they were you know when we were first introducing AI into games uh you know decades ago um so for me it's it's still a very much a a very large ethical question and and I do have a question as to whether or not you know what the results really are like you still see AI generated characters with six fingers on their hands and that's something that a human artist would never do unless it was part of a a you

know a very crafted vision for that uh for that particular asset or game I think the way I look at it at this point is it's still a tool and it's like when Photoshop came out yeah that technically put a lot of people that were having to do a lot of that stuff by hand out of work when unity and unreal took over a ton of programmers probably uh essentially were out of a job in a sense that they were not needed to make the game engine anymore and game engines aren't always as big a deal as they used was like oh God you have a 3D engine you know like you had to know all this stuff to be able to do that and now you're just like load up Unity but to your to to what's Dave saying like uh people aren't finishing in that they're starting in that and like whether that be building on top of what unreal does because you have access to the source code or just building tons of stuff on top of what Unity provides it's providing a new Bas layer to start from but it's not finishing for you it's it's still giving you the six-fingered person and you know unless this is a Princess Bride you're not going to keep that you're going to have to fix that yourself and move on from there so that's like that's where it comes out to it's like if it's just another tool that speeds things up and allows us to go

back to smaller teams that just means more game companies potentially for all those people that are laid off hey now you have the opportunity to start a game company if you're willing to take the time to learn the AI tools you've actually got an advantage now because if you tried to start this company you know 10 years ago you would have been actually like short on technology so I think there's there's positive ways to look at it as well but we just have to solve the ethical and legal dilemmas in terms of uh especially around rights in terms of that a lot of this is really kind of like puking up like a combination of other people's stuff but let's be honest that's most of creativity anyways just sometimes off you skate it a bit more so I I anticipate 2024 will at least start to come to a head on this stuff to figure it out but it'll be tricky because you know we're talking about on the game developer side but as this transitions over to the player creation side where we're looking at you know AI creation tools inside ugc platforms and stuff like that that that becomes even trickier right because obviously you know companies like roblocks are wanting to make it so that people can make games much faster from a prompt or from a set of tools that lets them get the ball

rolling faster so they're not like having to learn a coding language to be able to build stuff uh I I gota imagine even you know ufn would be like hey if we can leverage some AI to let people make their own fortnite Islands faster cool like because they're gon to finish it themselves they're just going to start it with AI and I think if we look at it AI as just a starting place where they start to create content like the um the bark generator sort of thing that Ubisoft was showing off they weren't like being like oh cool ship ship whatever AI does it's like cool we'll use that as just a way to get the ball rolling quick and I think this just helps with pre-production and production phase but it doesn't help ship a game like at the end and that's still going to come down to humans for now but in terms of the ugc stuff I think we wanted to cover a little bit about ugc predictions as well because that's been a Hot Topic whether that be about AI or just Platforms in general yeah so um GNA talk about uh the two largest plat ugc platforms right now Roblox and um obviously our our latest uh contestant to the world uh the fortnite platform

now fortnite no longer being considered just a game it's now a a full-on platform um and you know with the release of of fortnite creative certainly did increase uh interest in the platform you started bringing players back into the uh fortnite uh ecosystem now I guess we can call it as a whole um they were seeing a DE increase in terms of overall ma like if uh you know according to active player um if you took a look at the Mau over you know December time frame for the last few years uh December 2021 it was about 275 Million last December was about 251 million uh last 30 days is about 235 million so we are seeing you know a decrease overall in terms of um what their their monthly active users are um um and a slight decrease inside uh in terms of uh you know their

Peak number of uh players in a day um but you know the the more recent additions of Lego of Rocket League of uh you know the music game is it it certainly has sparked a lot of interest back into the the fortnite platform uh same as what you know creative did uh earlier this year um so it is interesting to see the number of people coming in and we're now seeing similar to what we saw around Roblox new companies being started up to work on uh you know creating experiences inside fortnite and where I expect 2024 uh is going to be in terms of the fortnite side of things is we're going to continue seeing uh new companies being started up uh and and really exploring what it is to be a company building experiences inside fortnite as a whole um there are a lot of challenges in when building uh inside fortnite you know you can't really treat it as a a free-to-play

platform uh because there is no deep linking so it's hard to do any sort of user acquisition and be able to deep link directly into uh into a game um and you know Discovery is a huge challenge as well you know unless you're handing out you know the exact code for uh for your for your Island it's hard to actually be able to get into to where you want to go and then on the monetization side uh you know it's it's the the early indications are people are having a challenge with you know with seeing large monetization um a lot of uh from what I've heard from some people I've talked to it's know it's closer to hyper casual monetization than it is uh you know any sort of core experience monetization but these are early early days so these are the times when people are still trying to figure out what types of games do well inside um inside the fortnite plat platform um you know what are the things that players are going to gravitate to not only from in terms of you know where

they going to spend their time but you know what are the things that are actually going to um you know earn the developers uh money um and if you do a comparison to Roblox you know if you look at uh the number of teams that are making over a million dollars a year inside Roblox it's something like 110 companies making much inside Roblox and Roblox is right now about twice the size of fortnite so again you know according to active player uh daily active users is in the 65 million uh 65 million user range uh so more than doubled than what fortnite is seeing and uh you know they're you know they're continuing to grow as an overall platform Contin to bring in uh users a number I found incred baffling just given the number of people there are on the earth as a whole uh there are

apparently 5.3 billion registered accounts for Roblox right now so there are a lot of people out there apparently with multiple accounts because I don't think that represents uh you know more than half of the people in the entire Earth have a Roblox account but again so you know on Roblox side of things yes they're continuing to you know uh better the tool sets yes they're working on better ways of attract Ing and monetizing the players trying to you know take that age range and and bring it up uh which is you know Roblox or sorry fortnite you know with the introd of Lego you know trying to bring their age range down potentially but uh but the Developers for Roblox themselves you know it still is a challenge in order to actually you know make money on it so as I mentioned you know there's about 110 groups that make over a million dollars a year and revenue paid out and this caning across multiple types of games uh apparently there are 4.2 million developers right now inside the Roblox

ecosystem so it is challenging for people if you're looking at trying to make uh games for Roblox or for fortnite right now um as a as a professional you know uh entity it is challenging uh to make uh a decent amount of money there certainly are companies out there that have done it there are VC back companies uh Game Fan in the robox side of things I think is probably the most uh you know well-known example of that um but I expect that on the fortnite side we'll see more and more teams uh coming up building you know building up companies specifically to do experiences on fortnite um and for me the interesting thing is seeing veterans that have been inside the games industry for 20 25 years having that um that spark reignited and going you know we're really excited about going and building new stuff for fortnite I think it will be uh 2024 will be uh on the fortnite side of things um a lot of

trying and testing out new things uh Roblox I think will continue to see some growth um they'll still be having you know similar challenges to try and age up their uh their uh audience um uh but I'm not seeing that much difference in terms of what what the Roblox experience is going to be so I think on the ugc platform side fortnite is what we're going to see the most uh new and interesting things uh over the course of 2024 yeah only thing I want to add here is well well first of all I want to just completely agree with the distribution and Discovery side of of U ufn will always be a heads scratcher to me I I don't really get it doesn't make much sense they're gonna need to fix that but I think that the the most important the most important aspect of of ufn and why why I do believe it's going to be very successful is is due to the I think there's well there is a lot of historical precedent that successful games in coule companies can spin out of already well um wellmaintained and successful communities you have the csgo

with halflife you have DOTA with Warcraft and I I do believe we are going to see maybe not next year but we'll see like the those initial um indications of a potential billion dollar business being built through ufn off of that brand through the IP cut Partnerships they have and you know they they've they've now released like the the different camera angles that would allow you to build a MOBA or aze scroller or you know your another battle royale but I think that's what what I initially failed with with ufn was everyone was just building another version of fortnite and that's not what people wanted people wanted another version again a complete new game and I think they they've really pushed into this space um from technology and Partnerships to to allow for creators to be able to really explore what can be built in that ecosystem and I I think we'll continue to see funding the same way we have with Roblox um for these um independent Studios and Publishers that will build directly in those ecosystems

and we we and and I I I really do think ufn is going to be that that next massive platform but I I would like to see them figure out some discoverability yeah it's it's gonna be a a real problem I think in general just because like the more you encourage people to get on and start building stuff themselves the more that discoverability becomes a problem because it's just more and more people making stuff and uh you know the I think forttnite also has the that it's a lot more complex to develop for when it comes to the programming side than using Lua in uh Roblox I mean versus definitely trying to be more of a advanced programming language even though it's actually like supposed to be for lower level it's definitely not a very simple programming language and I think Roblox kind of wins a bit there in terms of accessibility for kids now obviously uh I'm certainly not trying to underestimate kids they can certainly like uh get way up there and just you know totally understand that stuff and be awesome at it but it's a pretty big barrier to entry because it's not an easy program or or even forgiving programming language is very strict uh to try and protect the things from

crashing but also when you're learning programming that's not something that's fun to deal with uh so I definitely anticipate some problems for that there but uh it'll be really interesting to see like what uh what they're actually going to do going forward and whether or not this becomes a huge game platform but with verse being much more difficult I see the advantage than going to game development teams versus individual players that want to make their own game uh and whether or not that becomes like uh something that they end up doing like as a as a business uh more often and I think we see that and it's an interesting twist that we're in this position now because we had so many of those mods that you mentioned that were like turning into their own games whether it be autochess or battle Royals which also came out of a mod or all these other games that were mods originally all of them were stuck with this problem of how to monetize because they were part of a game that didn't really allow that kind of monetization and so it's it's kind of ironic that we're now actually flipped to system where monetization is part of the the platform and therefore you are are actually encouraged to do it because it benefits both you and the developer imagine if blizzard instead of being

like so ridiculous about their mods and wanting to control it it had been like cool Warcraft is now a platform you could build your own ugc and we're going to like monetize it like the way they started kind of leaning into a Starcraft arcade uh it's I don't know it's it's kind of ironic that they ended up in this position being helping build two big genres with mobas and Tower Defense both coming out of their platform yet they failed to capture them and and in in a boneheaded sense just would double down on on taking the stupid approach there but uh speaking of like uh Investments and and building up companies around this sort of thing uh we just want to really look look really quickly at the investment side of things next year as of course money is going to be a big driver of a lot of this yeah this this is I mean obviously been a Content Trend even this year investment's down VCS are kind of sitting on the sidelines a little bit more it's becoming extremely hard to fundraise especially within the studio space um I I I quickly you know we we were looking at some some data from from this past year and I think one of the

most glaring points we saw which I I again similar to other arguments always has Nuance to it this is the available public data that you'd have on VC investing where we we've seen 50% less VCS across the market invest in more than five rounds of at least $2 million those are essentially seed rounds so that's in in my view this is you know 50% less seed businesses are being funded and what I think this actually is is is going to is is going to usher in is this is is similar to what we're talking about with AI which is people are gonna have to find a way to cut cost they're gonna like the business can't stop running and we're going to see a lot of people probably move into lower budgets leveraging more technology because funding's not going to be available I think this is also going to be a great opportunity for platforms like like ufn and roox as people are as people are thinking more of I I need to find a way to hack distribution I need to find a way to hack user acquisition and we're going to start and we're going to see a lot of a lot of these Studios potentially pivot into building games

specifically for these ecosystems studios are not being funded as as much as they they were in the past and I think what's what's happening is there's and I know I know me and Dave have talked about this before as well is like this they're VC investing for games is is tough it's it's a capital intensive business and there's I think there's a lot of Tailwind saying that it might not be as capital intensive as it used to be but there the the issue there is how do we continue to fund ra or how do I invest in a company today that's going to be able to continually fundraise in the future so that they can launch a quality game and hopefully return our investment um and and more on top of that I know we're we we've seen a drastic increase in um games funding shifting away from content into technology over the last year I do believe that's going to continue and I think this is going to open up massive opportunities for for Publishers to come in and find great quality teams that they can invest in or buy for very cheap and bring into their own ecosystems

we're seeing companies like like net EAS drastically increase investments into their own first-party Studios uh I know we're we're also seeing companies like 10 cent pull out of Investments and not move forward with um as many as they they used to be doing and so I like I I do think we're just GNA continue to see this trend of of game studios specifically taking the brunt of a lack of investment but the general I think General in for the entire gaming ecosystem we're going to see a lot of people um a lot of companies struggle to raise I think we're going to see a lot of shutdowns next year um or a lot of pivots into into new markets and I think we've already seen that we've seen a ton of companies pivot from blockchain companies to to AI companies and like that that that that's one initial Trend but I think we'll we'll also start to see a lot of companies try to Pivot even potentially outside of gaming um technology may already be built but the fundraising is not going to be there for for your games company as as much as it was was in 2021 um and and I just think traditionally the like triaa or double a

type of games are really just going to struggle to to to raise Capital with trying to pitch you know we're g to need 10 152 million dos to to build this game I think I I think I think the general prediction is it's going to continue and I think it's going to get worse um I I just say we we we see this on a day-to-day basis now of of how hard it is to actually get people to commit to these rounds it's easy to wait now and people don't want to take those early stage as as much as they used to and I think a lot of capital is going to shift into I think more e more easily justifiable Investments which is General basic SAS businesses that can potentially scale Revenue at a much earlier or a much quicker pace and than a traditional Studio would be able to yeah and that's pretty broad across games right but like I think maybe getting more narrow into because of the business having shift a little bit over the last two years and and hopefully being resilient uh I think we could to like kind of focus a bit on like what what does this mean for mobile gaming in general because the capital intensive part through UA and the difficulties

with that and uh just just how that might affect some of these different platforms and whether or not that becomes like a big part of this or that's just a side part to the the console and PC side I I I actually think mobile you know has has taken a lot of the the brunt of this initially because it was always easy like we're gonna we're gonna fund the the ex developers from name your big big game Studio to build the next you know build the next Riot or build the next ea uh but in Mobile it it's just there's there's so much there's so much concern around the the future of privacy and data Integrity how we target users and and the I would say the the the increasingly competitive landscape people don't play two games at once you may have two games downloaded that you play You're switching off of but you play one game and there's always a substitute and that's why we see a lot of these successful companies like a um like a voodoo games like their entire strategy is is based off of this it's I'm going to monetize you as much as I can in the first couple days and then hopefully you move on to our next our

next game in our portfolio but I actually but I think the move into premium games on mobile is going to then increase that investment appetite for investors ecosystems adopted by the most people across all games no one has no like no no console provider has more users than Apple or Google does for their their phones so I do think mobile games will come back I think privacy will be or I think this the user acquisition will will be fixed it'll just that that will just create another very big company that does figure out how to do this in the most effective and cost- effective way possible I will I will asterisk uh one of pieces that you said of uh users don't play more than one game I think it is very genre dependent and very kind of audience and segment dependent uh which is part of kind of like the broader mobile ecosystem I think that's part of what we're going to see see over the next year in Mobile is specifically just you

know certain genres coming back uh in some of them getting kind of much smaller in terms of you know what what they can do and the type of audiences that they can uh retain because that's that's going to be like the biggest piece and you know it does the the the piece that you were saying of like hey the hyper casual strategy of like you know get as much money as possible within like the first session like that's that's no longer feasible so I think it's it's a little bit more Nuance than just saying like you know players only play one one game um and just to kind of almost like close close a conversation with uh you know a little bit of a little bit more info on and kind of thinking around like what we could potentially see on mobile I think it's it's worth just acknowledging what you are saying Taylor of um you know mobile has taken a lot the last few years uh we've been through six years of constant shifts with the within the mobile red ocean starting with Apple's

2017 apps for changes that triggered effectively the death of organic Discovery in reaching a peak with Performance Marketing getting pretty much you know killed as well uh or a huge shake up thanks to you know the introduction of at and all this stuff um so what I what I do think is that 2024 feels a little bit more helpful in terms of um teams starting to find their footing in a new city state for mobile so we've seen kind of like all these uh sismic shifts in the platform itself and the ability of te for teams to navigate that uh from all points of view from like funding what you were mentioning to um you know the appsters changes and all all that and you know use for acquisition being a challenge um which I do think that will like L see mobile stabiliz and start growing in in 2024 which you know data AI also

released that in in their forecast uh for you know calling a very small I would say almost like a flat year but a small four% growth uh year-over-year being the first year of growth since 2021 so kind of getting getting a little bit back to you know the trajectory that we were on before uh tying some of the topics that we've covered subscription services will continue to land games from talented teams that are willing to you know take that route and not go for the risk of you know big freeo playay reward uh lower chance but higher upside uh you know one topic that we haven't covered is off platform SL web stores uh that's going to be you know it's been a big push I think it's going to be more ubiquitous across teams and even now uh again according to data I casino games um already generating 25% of their revenue roughly uh of platform

I think Exel is going to be a big winner here in terms of businesses doing really well because they positioned themselves excellently in in that space uh at this point uh alternative app store distributions will probably be more bluntly explored now that epic has been pushing the boundary there Microsoft reportedly is working on this and um we mentioned that earlier uh but I think that you know at the core teams are going to have to focus on know high quality with smaller teams move away from small incremental improvements really you know try to push the boundary of the games that are presenting to players refocus on building games uh with deep engagement monetization design regardless of the genre and kind of going back from to more of like these liveops um forever Games quote unquote um from what we were doing before in the last few years which is like more snackable games I would I call like these quick

quick fixes so uh that also means you know the balance of Ip Revenue versus S monetization and free to play you know I think it's going to shift back to iip we're already seeing that uh but at the end of the day you know biggest point you made uh Taylor is you know teams are going to have to create um get creative to solve the distribution problem they need to find the users it's still a very crowded ecosystem and it will continue to be so so if you want to play there um you know teams are going to have to uh really take this as part of the design of the game and not an afterthought I think that the you know teams that are trying to like do fake UDC or appeal to platforms like Tik Tok as an afterthought or you know push for influencer marketing as an afterthought are not going to be as effective as those that really you know bringing it in as part of like the DNA of the game um and you know have designed

considerations for sharability Vi reality you know community building and really having that as part of of the game um so I think it it'll be an interesting year to see like what what are the games that end up kind of cracking you know the the quote unquote new formula I don't think it's it's going to be as simple as that um for mobile but it'll be it'll be interesting to see that in in 2024 that's for sure yeah and I think we're starting to see a little bit of that growth even this year I think on the Google Play store they're seeing a a tiny bit of upward movement but um I agree you know 2024 certainly is going to be not a huge uptick I think you know basically exactly what you said Tammy it's it's going to be hard for performance markers to be able to allow for those huge spikes in terms of overall Revenue growth um it'll be interesting to see how many people uh you know in addition to trying to have uh really solid integration

through social platforms or through alternative methods of of of distribution or or even just getting the message out how many companies are going to go back to Brand marketing when it comes to uh you know trying to get the word out around the titles um which I think is an interesting thing for a lot of mobile companies you know they've built out entire teams around Performance Marketing you know how can we get uh you know players at the cheapest um you know for the cheapest numbers that are you know directly targeted and are going to have to actually look at do we actually change the makeup of our marketing departments and and go into uh some additional brand marketing uh on top of uh some of the social marketing side of things um I do think that mobile you know mobile is and has been for a little while a very you know the biggest chunk of Revenue inside the the games industry as a whole um I do think it will be interesting to see where uh Mobile's games go you know there's a talk of you know Apple saying hey you can now play

console quality games uh on your on the latest and greatest iPhone um it's been interesting to see what net EAS for example has been doing with their games you know they produce games using the Unreal Engine there are gorgeous looking games uh on the iPhone none of them have really blown up so the question for me is well what is it that actually is going to make um you know the games do really well it's not going to be the graphics by themselves so you may have a game that looks like it's a console quality but it actually needs to be something that is um you know something that mobile game players want to have uh so you know quality Graphics by themselves are you know that upper echelon uh bar for visual quality or Fidelity um isn't the thing that's going to necessarily uh make or break it for the games but um I I agreee with you Tammy that I think it's going to be given the uh Financial challenges around

around funding that people are going to be looking at how can I create smaller games uh distribute uh distribute the games through uh you know non-traditional channels um and when it comes to you know funding some of the user acquisition side not necessarily going the VC route but looking for alternative methods there are companies that will you know help provide uh UA funding um for percentage of Revenue rather than going the the route of uh of VCS um so I think it would be interesting to see the not only the the the alternative paths for distribution but alternative paths for for funding for uh for acquiring the players well one additional final twist too we'll have to all this to look forward to next year is uh in the Epic versus Google case uh the the remedies were proposed on top of some some monetary p penalties that were meant to be used in a certain way there was also sort of an order to uh start to allow for some direct payment and kind of move

outside of requiring Google's building system which was supposed to be kind of putting a little bit on parody with some of the EU rules been put out so we'll see what the ramifications of that are obviously I'm sure Google will try and appeal that stuff and try and block it but we may have you know maybe that will be the Savior for mobile games is not better funding not better UA just a better margin on the inet purchases might make a big difference at least epic seems to think so where they wouldn't be spending so much money fighting that but but we'll see that's definitely going to be a 2024 will this be a big thing and will it affect Apple kind of question so 2024 or 2034 by the time it makes it through all the appeals cour you I don't know it's it depends on whether or not Google is proactive in trying to look like the good guy and make some changes and concessions early and in the appeals then hoping that that makes them look good but we'll see Google likes to do a little bit of that where they're like hey we're trying to do the right thing over here but like have secret meetings now and try and fix this so who knows right that's uh that's I do predict though that 2024 is a year we could see some slight shakeup around uh payment systems and building uh and that could be a big factor in a lot of

this but we'll see what that ends up being as of course all of them are fighting tooth and nail to avoid the uh the inevitable future of more money hopefully going to developers and less to platforms but we'll see but I hope hopefully everyone out there enjoyed the sort of like very chalk full episode we got here because it is the last one of the year so we wanted to make sure it counted and that you had plenty to listen to during your holiday break of course so that a little bit extra length there just means uh you know more more to do when spending time away from the family for a brief moment or or driving somewhere if you are flying whatever you could of course download it you know to your phone let's do it in Airplane Mode why not you know if you get a long flight this is plenty for that so definitely do that if you can but I definitely want to wish everyone of course all my panelists not just you guys but also everyone we've had throughout the year I think it's been a great year for the novic Round Table in terms of a lot of great discussions a lot of great thought a lot of uh sort of initial things and then follow-ups and then conclusions around things like Microsoft act Activision cases the Epic versus Google we had a lot of good sagas

of stories this year that I think should make for an interesting 2024 as we start to see the repercussions so hopefully the predictions here were at least in sightful enough to uh Drive some some interesting uh Reflections by the end of next year but anyways I want to wish everyone a happy holidays I hope wherever you are whatever you're doing that you're having a great end of the year and a and a great new year and starting off 2024 right as I mentioned we will not be here next week so you know if you've already listened to this by that point go ahead and listen again why not or catch the back episodes you missed and also make sure of course to subscribe to the newsletter which is you know has been putting out tons of content I think will be taking a little bit of a break during that that week next week as well but plenty of backlog I imagine I don't think it anyone's really fully caught up on everything we've put out uh with all the good stuff out there so make sure you subscribed to that on nov. and uh of course we will catch you all in the new year so in the meantime have a great one and thanks everyone if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite

podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a fstar review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast nov. or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website www.nic.edu newsletter novic digest or contact us to learn about our wide- ranging Consulting and advisory Services again that is www.nic.edu [Music]