Panel: How Lockdown has Unlocked the Games Industry PG Connects Digital #2

the lockdown and how that has unlocked the games industry I noticed my bad language I'm sure and so we got Stuart Lindsay who's gonna join us from curve we've got Bronco from nautious Kim I think Kim from Kakori Charlotte from bid stack Petra from Rovio and Shaun from come on so hopefully you guys are all gonna join us I think if you see Shaun bangs head up so hopefully you'll all be brought in by James so hasty oh hi how's things how's things a year in the land of curve very good actually we've we've benefited from one of the

things I want to talk about which is we're a digital publisher and exactly and you've been doing lots of work with football teams as I recall as well so I'm gonna leave you to talk to the team's about lockdown and games and I'll come back with some questions later same thing Thanks hello everybody hello hello we got everybody here yes it looks like we have so I'm going to very quickly walk around and see if you would like to just introduce yourself briefly to our audience I know one of you Charlotte and and I spoke to one of you earlier and I spoke to one of you last week but they're two people here that I don't know very much so we'll start with Charlotte just very briefly can you give us an intro to what you do and how you're in the industry moment yeah I

work in stack as the VP of gaming and so bid stack is a native in-game advertising company platform that basically provides the technology to enable games publishers and developers to advertise in their games and I've worked in the industry for just under ten years now previously working at Sega and before that I'd take two and also recently attack on people that does digital distribution and forth games industry thank you Petre hello hello thanks from my name is Patrick Ronda I work for Romeo and we are fairly known with our brand so no not not going to talk much about the company here what I do here is actually that it's my 9th here at Romeo at the moment been there quite quite some time and I'm a CTO so leading central technology and ID and we have a quite a kind of a strong technical platform that we've created over the years I think you're next

thanks Bronco here I am the co-founder of nerdiest I serve as the chief executive you probably know the company through the game called top 11 which is one of the most successful sports games on a mobile device justic sure everybody's I'm showing some I've been working at game industry along 20 years I've been worked at their mobile and Yahoo and listened to you almost nine years at Combe Korea at this moment I'm looking at some kind of eSports education and platform as a cs4 lovely thank you and finally Kim hi everybody my name is Kim Soros I'm founder and CEO of - Cori mobile

entertainment a small but elite Finnish mobile game developer I usually say on my background that I have been gamer since 1979 so it's it's my sixth decade already being a gamer and for the past 20 years I have been also game developer thank you very much so more crack on my first question is really its kind of revealed by the topic in its called how has looked on unlock the games industry that kind of suggests that there has been a benefit to the industry from the recent period it can be a little bit embarrassing to admit but would you agree and I'll start with Charlotte we'll go around just naturally would you agree that whether it's embarrass or not there has been something about Kovac bounced for the industry overall either for your business for the industry at large yeah and I think the industry at

large it was inevitable with people being trapped at home not allowed out that they were going to turn to you know media and hobbies that they could do within their home and say gaming has directly benefitted from that and you know player numbers audience numbers increasing significantly and I think kovetz probably accelerated some of it but you know I think everyone knows the games industry is growing exponentially anyway so and I think it's people being trapped at home there's probably accelerated that and in terms of bed stack we definitely have seen an increase in interest from advertisers because of people being at home and so you know traditional out of home options that were there so tournaments like the euros this year where people have big budgets to spend you know have been cancelled so how can they pivot and strategize to look at new channels and so we've definitely seen a positive response in that respect on our side entry yes so on robia side it's it's been it's been clear inbox or we've seen

an increase in the number of the downloads and we have also seen a increased user engagement amongst our games I think it's it's at this point it's very hard to say how solid that is going to pay but at least so far we've seen inbox run on maybe enough and a positive business side well well the situation itself isn't anything positive one thing I'd like to highlight there from the technical angle is that we wave or at the moment interpretating the numbers lot because there are a lot of LTV models and such that we are basing our business operations on so it's interesting challenge for the data teams do you know the update the behaviors because they've changed so much the data actually may have an impact on the models how we are using them I think we probably all agree that there has been a lift so maybe if I just move it move for topic on just slightly Franco for you just have you seen any

particular effect on a business model or anything to do with your business as opposed to the wider greater number of people playing games what specifically have you noticed the most so actually maybe an introspective so there is a I think I don't like that has a business impact on us which is social distancing and essentially switching to working from home model kind of all of a sudden so games are arts and science a lot of value gets created through collaboration and then people not being able to you know bounce ideas back of each other over a hunch or in a room and all of that makes it quite hard to create new stuff and solve some really complex problems to me like that that was you

know one of the worries of the of the cove it so obvious you know uplift in engagement creativity the individuals working for you yes so I don't think it's gonna be so noticeable in the short term but I I'm afraid it's going to bite us you know over amid the long term so essentially there there are a few components to it one is what I just described collaboration like people being together socializing is very important aspect of any workshop or or anything and then there is also you know the mental fatigue you experience in a lockdown and again you know our industry is all about brains so we create and we do work using our brains so mental fatigue is probably the the biggest impediment so again short-term you can't really tell much but there are some science I'm

afraid you know what's going to happen if if this continuous for a year or two sure sure you mentioned that you're currently working on on an eSports project lockdowns kind of curious for eSports isn't it because lots of events have been affected and canceled and yet there's also a belief that it's kind of opened up the idea of eSports to the world of general public no it's actually to the government all the operating activities in clean game or any other industry inside although outside the activities is prohibited therefore as you mentioned like eSports like stadium gathering or some kind of pc cafe playing has been not allowed by the government over so those kind of sectors are there some kind of damaged but overall in terms of

the overall game industry sales numbers the gross comparing to the last year's numbers when you look at those some numbers though it's kind of 23% put into the year-over-year data so we said that like a PC kefir or some kind of useful to playing its own custom negatively impact but generally came in the C's that is the growing on there have been a number of eSports events have actually appeared on TV watching it is that a global phenomenon or or the UK driving that misgivings I mean I'm just wondering if the TV companies have had a number of events in the UK they did the Grand National and some Formula one on Sky I was just one I wondered whether

you thought that was a global movement and and broadcasters all around the world are looking for eSports content to broadcast or whether UK is leading that actually so I'm not sure about any other platform formulas other but so when I'm looking at like the game eSport yourself there isn't no any activities or some championships at the Opera inside therefore that we are to order the play all the users they artists to watch at TV keep repeated recording the program's only okay Kim you mentioned you've been in the business quite a long time and you're obviously in the mobile sector do you think it is that I think I read this somewhere but is it the mobile sector do

you think that benefit oh and if it's the most out of any sector of gaming and do you think if this continues which we which we all unfortunately think it probably will do you think it will affect mobile game design or mobile trends did you mean that if the co-lead has impacted mobile gaming possibly more than other other platforms yeah in terms of amount of hours or maybe the amount of money spent yeah actually I'm not sure because what I see has a game of myself for example I do play a lot maybe even to Mars for example call of duty modern warfare and there has been a lot of optic on users and and downloads and on play time during the pandemic I guess mobile sees the same more or less as other other gaming platforms what somebody mentioned already is that

there is an obstacle I inning of course time spans even in some games money spent as well I do think that if this goes on for much longer if we will see a downside as well because I mean looking at the unemployment figures in the US alone or any different countries in Europe there's bound to be kind of like t-bars going to spend less money in the future I this goes on on for much longer yeah that's that's increasingly being covered actually I saw something the Sunday Times just last week and they saying that the booming industry was the worst possible thing that could happen you you also about the eSports in TV and at least here in Finland our national broadcaster does cover csgo and stuff like that a regular basis Charlotte this

this is some so curious one isn't it for our industry because it's been an absolutely terrible time globally news there are a lot of people suffering health-wise and there is as Kim says essentially an economic hit as well just around the corner or going to get worse is it is it is this challenging for our industry in terms of how we respond to benefiting during generally a terrible time well what can the games industry do and has the games industry done enough so act responsibly through this period yeah I think what you said I mean it's it's it's an awkward thing isn't it to admit that you would be benefitting from something that you know socioeconomically around the world is impacted so many people and being devastating and so I think the messaging people put out has to be very considered and conciliatory of that I think I mean

there's been lots of coverage probably earlier on less so now around you know people large publishers I think Sony in particular donating huge sums of money to funds to help support charities and projects you know beyond this and and I think as an industry you know it's an our best interest to continue doing that through this and lots of companies as well have responded incredibly positively to supporting their staff and you know through this making sure stars mental well-being is is looked after and I don't work on the development side but I imagine that's been particularly challenging you know continuing projects when people are based remotely and there's probably put a lot of pressure on on businesses and you know so having to come through that but I think ultimately it will you know it's been important to respond in the right way and a bit stuck we we used our technology to promote the stay home save lives messaging in rally and which is something we did in collaboration with code masters and public health England because whilst you've got all these people playing it felt important to you know spread out that messaging that was

so vitally important in terms of their campaign and so yeah I think I think the industry is always very good at rallying when it's difficult and they will continue to do so and it will just be an interesting time to see what happens in the next six months or so you know as we start to come out of this and people return to normality absolutely patria alongside that there is the there's the perception of our industries in there from from government the industry was under a lot of pressure moving up to the outbreak of Corona towards the end of last year and business models such as blue boxes or whether it may be just be gaming as a pastime from the World Health Organization do you think that perhaps the the social benefits or the accessibility of games might have changed some perceptions or do you think all of the traditional challenges of our industry are going to come back that's that's a buff question and and I've been

giving it a lot of thought since we've been working from Rovio and also it with many industry peers on topics such as regulation and privacy and so forth and one of the one of the things in in this area for example you mentioned WH also World Health Organization and and and we among with many other peers also were a part of this play apart together initiative it's a it's kind of a it's easy to lift these things up what we truly are clearing how we message these things to our players and how we miss these things to the public so I I think it's all somehow it's maybe a bit naive view into this thing but in my view at least in games mobile games industrial games industry altogether I don't think they have shown like not care at all I think there's been a plenty of like like different events for example in Revere what we did at the very beginning was that we decided not to

participate in take something down of the economy so we kept on even if we closed the office and pushed people to the remote work we kept on the therapy workers and and the kind of at the facility like like supporters and the stuff on on working and we were able to do a lot of little things like basic improvements in the offices for example in the meanwhile what people were home but the idea of this was that not just hospital I think like all the peers I know they've been very it's been very delicate how it's been communicated and yeah III can't say more on that but I feel that games industry so I'm doing quite okay there you mentioned earlier the mental well-being of your staff how difficult has that been and what have you done specifically with your staff to ensure that they don't suffer during

this period of working through lockdown and you know think that you're making loads of money as a company but actually their personal happiness may have reduced fun enough we had increase in all engagement metrics of the staff during these previous months so there's a few things so the first like when when the pandemic looked imminent spreading from China towards Europe it wasn't like super hard to figure out what's going to happen except to all the governments but I like to people in companies it was kind of obvious so we we were quite ready in the sense that you know the the first imperative was to really safeguard in our lives and and and the business so I think that that played a major role how quickly we enabled everybody to shift home not really worried about getting infected and you know have enough time to really

take care of you know their parents or other their children and all of that so we for example over the the working week two to four days and Friday was you know flexible optional we did a lot of these things and then as soon as we did that we moved to actually supporting the community something badly mentioned so we we've donated a lot of money bought ventilators we also took part in the initiative play part together there is a lot of activities helping other companies you know figure out remote or whatnot so I think that you know getting together and really sorting the priorities by like first we save guard their lives our families we help others in need and then you know once we do that then we will figure out how we can you know continue growing the business and all of that that really helped people you know feel good and and then like reacted all these things Kim one of

the things I've noticed the curve is that I mean as a company we everybody started working from home week before the lockdown in the UK it's about 25 or 30 people but it feels like the the working day for the average member staff is probably longer and and maybe more intense in a kind of way there's a there's a kind of a and a big kink to to the next meeting and the next task have you found that your cell phone at your company that in some ways it's created a burden of work that will lock down is creating an additional burden of work if that makes any sense I mean I think it's obvious that it's easier to keep on working a lot of like unaware that you actually did put in about 12 hours today instead of 8 when you're working from home especially if you're not accustomed to it but yeah I think people might work

more and the to some extent the hours are more effective because at least our people said that when we started working from home 16 weeks ago and at least initially people were reporting that they are more productive at working alone from home because there's not like interruptions from co-workers about the new latest cat video or just like this chit chat next to the coffee machine but then again of course we we had all the plans in place already for the next update and whatnot now that we have been doing this for 16 weeks and now we are making new designs and new stuff for programmers and artists to do then now we kind of like are noticing that it's not as easy to do design or communicated in slack or in zoom that it is in a face-to-face but do the original

question yeah I think the people are putting way more hours in even unnoticed by themselves yes certainly we've tried hard we we've introduced no zoom Wednesdays and we try to have a sort of a gathering in the pub five o'clock on a Friday but it's and there are if there is a split I think among staff of those that are really enjoying it would like to continue working from home whatever happens and those sites have been a little bit solitary if you like there are other effects as well and and one of them Sean would be impact on PR marketing do you think that there has been a an effect that's made it more difficult for companies to do their usual PR marketing or given that we're in a digital business are we better position than other industries to still

bring our products to market personally I think the PR and working say don't know more so we do really teach early we resolve their issues therefore even even this kind of situation doesn't make some big impact negative impact on that only we do some kind of big title launching normally we do some kind of media but only those kind of cases there is some kind of impact but generally with that no no big impact on PRM rattling sighs okay just bringing you back in Charlotte talk about events we've we've had a few drinks and serious business meetings at the odd event over the years and we were looking forward to being in the in the bar at the top of the hill and at GDC I seem to remember and

clearly in in what you do bits that you need to talk to everybody so events are massively important to you it's like this have helped to fill the gap but do you think that that creates a problem for the industry given that we're such a positive group of networkers I think it's an it's gonna be interesting isn't it because the amount of money that must be spent on travel by companies you know every year sending all these people out that everyone here I'm sure knows the cost of hotels in San Francisco for GDC is astronomical and in theory if you've been able to do effective business development in this period without being at those events will there be this need to constantly sort of live on the road and out of a suitcase throughout the remainder of the year and I think it will make people consider which events they go to and the value of those and the digital events I think have been really good and you know at first I was a little bit unsure how they were going to work but actually they've been really

good and the meeting tools that people have come up with and things like that I think have been really good but I think you know certainly in my area of working business development commercial you know in human interaction is always going to be important and I think when you're establishing business relationships you want to get to know the person and work with those people well and I think we're never going to move away from completely having that but it will be interesting to see how it pans out and and I don't foresee any events this year for sure I think we will be looking at digital events who knows GDC guess you could be the first one and that may be in a very different format and you know maybe less large gatherings but it'll be interesting to see but I think we've you know in terms of how we've managed it I've actually found I think because people aren't constantly traveling and catching planes and jet-lagged you know when you're emailing people so to speak is about an opportunity because they are at home and maybe their day yes they are working longer but they're a little bit more time and they've been able to respond

and have those sort of conversations more upfront rather than sort of waiting catching up 20 minutes at a show and continuing over time so Petri are we gonna are we going to get into we're going to get used to not having to go to all the events and therefore go to fewer and maybe have not have as good reasons to spend all that money on flights and drinks well I guess one sale is the new the new way of working well it will it affect reduce traveling and shows some of the more sort of traditional games industry habits I think you need to take my answer with a small caveat that I'm I'm working in the tech craft leading a group of super technical people who definitely prefer you know focusing on what they work and especially when coding and then again another other thing of course is that I'm also a thin so for us this you know this you know

keeping the distance of two meters is just too close so we normally keep five both still still still want to say on that one that I think that there's there's no going back I mean there's no normal anyways the times changed and things change all the time but I can easily see that for example on our side plenty of people are going to digital events all the time plenty of people are still doing the certification exams on the tech craft for example all the time there are all electronic instead of traveling I think that's just going to keep on going and I can say from my own own own behalf that year back I travel at really a lot visit that all all all all big players plus also also good of industry events and now that those haven't been there still there are no less meetings or no less meetings with those people in in states for example so it seems that these things can be done this way and

I'm kinda more welcoming it I think it will be would be great to travel a little bit but maybe not go anymore back to that that like excessive traveling Franco now I don't see you I'm not sure I don't know too much of an audience I don't think you've done many acquisitions of other studios but obviously you you talked a lot about staff and I'm wondering if there are certain parts of the business where we do need a little bit more interaction I'm wondering if perhaps it may be a slowdown in mergers and acquisitions within the business and could there even be a slowdown in hiring new staff I wonder we have never acquired a company and I don't think that's gonna change anytime soon so I'd rather not comment on a many parts of things although I'm guessing

you know back to what Betty was saying it's gonna be harder to forge you know relationships and partnerships if people are not physically together dating right on the on the personnel side of the of the of the question so again you know there are like two components one is you know the impact of the industry on our business where so far you know we are the lucky ones and we don't really have a need to slow down hiring coming from you know PNL perspective there is another thing however which is again building that partnership so I'm not sure how many companies are willing to hire without like having the candidates visits the the HQ or the offices and you know spend some time face-to-face especially if we're talking about

international talent relocating so you would probably want to like you know visit the place see the city meet people and all of that before signing up you know for a multi-year change of where you live so there are some challenges you know coming from from debts Kim Giovanni thoughts on on mergers and acquisitions I'm not sure if you're looking to buy or looking to sell right now we are looking to land an investment we started to look actively in puppet game in London in January when everything was still fine but now it's it's it's a bit different if not difficult at least different and what I have being discussing with the different investors or different colleagues from different DM companies that have landed on investment lately or are looking is

that well one thing is that investors can't really stop altogether because they have funds that need to get investments done that being said many of the investors have been kind of like spending the last three to four months on securing their already existing investments because they can't allow them to run out of runway the investor investments that they have already made in some companies but it might be that late this summer like I don't know August maybe September since things might be a bit more normal in terms of in investment landscape but one thing is for certain that if if before pandemic you you have to account for at least six months from start to finish to live in investment it's it's now more than more lighting like something from six to eight twelve months right so the time time was are longer so maybe it didn't I travelin profit of the few and they're

just going to take longer to be completed yeah I mean there was like three to four months kind of like delay like not many new investments because people were can apply ensuring that the investment that they have made I have enough money to go on get in - pandemic and after it but yeah it will take more time to do those because negocio something time there are no clementsl to go you you have to either try to take what's best about detail conventions like this for example we do have many meters here as well all dancers try to get to meetings by yourself outside of physical answers but yeah it would take more time thank you Sean I think you saw a question came up from an anonymous member of our audience asking for your opinion about the way Korea responded very quickly to the outbreak of coronavirus and I think you

were saying that that you felt that you were quite impressed and and the business was perhaps wider business was perhaps less affected done it that it has been here in the UK when you say a lit up from the situation's of world the old oil the government trying to make a some kind of boosting out all the economy and then the consumption boosting so but the so far the when you government to general is a little bit limited to the game industry sided because there is some kind of side effect like some criminal some reason to that but recently government tried to some time and try to the supporting game industry with some kind of some restriction or some kind of

some general problem issues they try to solve together so part of that recently we we got to some kind of better the daily consumption budget increasing those kind of restarting that government the people had to meet several companies that they try to discuss about the long term start of supporting problems forever so I think so with these situations a government decide try to help all over the game industry say okay and in terms of us as but as we move forward hopefully to things improving and we're all getting more used to it I'm just I think we're running out of time now and I will just wait to see if anybody from still media pops up until you want to do

next but Charlotte I'm gonna ask are you looking for a return to the office and all the bits that team being together back in an office with masks and socially distanced for example curve wearing no rush I'm just and I'm just wondering what they've got the kind of feelings amongst your companies are towards what happens next I think well it's tax based in London so the majority people have to travel using public transport which you know me personally is it's something I have nervousness around you know get on a packed tube again feels like completely a distant memory to be honest and so we're sort of following government guidance you know the minute we're not considered key essential workers that need to be back in the office and we've been able to work really effectively from home and we're quite fortunate our office is very big so we can spread out quite very effectively and they come to

the office where we ask that measures in place to your hand sanitizing stations etc and so if people want to they and feel comfortable doing so safely they can but the company's been really good and sort of allowing people to make the decision that feels right and comfortable for them which I think it's important with this because certainly what I've noticed is everyone seems to have taken the impact of covert very differently you know some people are quite relaxed about it and other people have been very anxious and you know very very nervous about it and you have to be respectful of everyone's position and so I think it'll be a while before we're back where we were you know before covert but and it you know it's been good to be work somewhere that's supportive of people's wishes and making people feel comfortable I'm sure obviously Petri Rovio is a very big company I don't know whether you work from home or whether you work in an office but what is what is the kind of the view of return to HQ that's what

that's a good question from from our side we started immediately when when the kind of what the crisis started so mid-march we started to give a guidance that everyone should work from home which by the way in Rovia is something that it's allowed anyway so we had most of the people quite used to that and then moving on from first of June Finnish government released a little bit of the pressure so it definitely isn't over here anything like either yet but the thing is that we also made it possible for people who felt pressure no matter for what reason what they couldn't work as efficiently in home anymore as they as the others so we made a survey and we we basically have opened the office until mid-august for these people and the others are still saying staying home and there's about 450 revisions altogether so it's kind of a kind of a kind of a nice experience to release it like like step by step Franco

what what do you think will be the sort of the lasting impact on the industry of this period however what do you think is what how will it change this industry how will people reflect on what happens to our business in 2020 so from a consumer point of view looking at mobile I think you know the uplift that happened is going to some extent stay there especially if you look at you know phones and tablets as a second screen experience and I also expect you know some of the new types of games to emerge you know from that point so there's going to be like a direct consequence from staff point of view I think it's gonna introduce even more flexibility to an already flexible industry so we are

we're fully digital meaning you know we are ahead of the curve when it comes to flexibility but this is gonna show that you know we can be even more flexible and that some things that maybe will use them and think about before now we're pushed into and you know we can we can take the learnings and you know change how the new normal or in the future looks like Kim do you think when I put my you key hats on on the chairman of the of the trade association you key has been asking people to fill in a survey recently trying to find out is there anything that people in the games industry would like to see what could be done for example by the government that you could say back to the government this is the support the games industry needs there any level whether that's developers publishers funding it feels like the games industry has obviously but quite well with the current situation but if there was an

opportunity to to send a message back to governments in different territories this is the kind of support we could we could benefit from now that we've been through lockdown and the consequences our lockdown is there anything that you would love to see offered by governments to support the industry well yeah I'll go with the example what we already have here in Finland at least the the business Finland which is a government organisation for funding tech and things like that they have two different grants that companies can apply for both the in companies and other companies smaller is ten ten thousand euros and the larger one is up to 100,000 euros and I think they have already leased out like around 700 million euros on those brands for

different companies and I think games industry was quite well represented in in those other one is and I think those those would apply beautifully for for other countries of course as well for for other colleagues in our companies and another one is can apply to backing up loans that in-game companies might might take for some more cleanness FINA better which is governmental organization as well is backing up to 80% of the loans to begin companies or other companies will take convert in relation to Kovac 19 so if it helps you to kind of like survive the whatever kind of validates by the carrier's you might be experiencing here but I think even though yeah it would be nice to say something more but yeah I think it's often boils down to money and finances and if governments can help that they do well in the long term they will save

their own money because then then companies will survive this okay and you not know we probably ought to close it off strip and I let it keep going it was quite useful we were happy to go last no I was also going to check in like there was a report from the GDS were talking about 17% of European studios saying that it will be forced to close as a result of Coe bid which I'm not too sure if that's happen it was it was a bad month ago I think when the survey was done but it shows the level of difference between the success we've been seeing in terms of people's use of games and the slowdown in terms of investment mostly the studio's concerned our TMS over were people who are not cash rich who were relying on funding and I know in our in our case the publishers we've been working with have not stopped but they you know the timing

is kind of the worst possible because end of financial year in the UK and they're not ready to start warming up yeah so I think there is some really interesting problems but as you said sue in fact all of you have said it's been an amazing kind of period of time for games in general and people's acceptance of the use of technology and distance engagement I mean there's lots of really powerful stuff which I think will be a legacy for the good but then I also know a lot of my friends who are sitting there on furlough and you know not just in the games industry outside the games tree as well and it's a very tricky time for a lot of people but and I do think in the end I think to your point all your points in general it's we I feel a little embarrassed that things are going to hell and not least I think what's been fascinating for me is the increase in the importance of social responsibility that a lot of games leaders have shown and yeah when we've got situations going on in the States in

terms of black lives matter when we've got the situation's we've got in terms of isolation domestic violence that's happening in academic numbers throughout you know all the regions where people are locked down we are in a really difficult time for a lot of people and hopefully we can bring at least some joy to as many people as we can well say Thank You Oscar thank you guys thank you for watching thank you very much thank you you