PlayStack Helsinki - The new publisher and fund in the Nordics, Baltics and Russia

[Music] hello everybody so I'm you Arctic olya I'm the general manager of plastic Helsinki so what I'm doing today I'm going to be introducing to you the new publisher and funding to cover the Finland the Nordics the Baltics and Russia [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] it's okay off head cause this is a London and of course we operate globally but I'll be I'll be working here in Helsinki so about my background I've been with games ever since I was 12 the first thing I did was a game after hello world and I think it's still the reasonable thing you can do with computers games I had many many roles in the industry being from developer to scriptwriter to now being a general manager and I've been part of building the education around here in Finland - the biggest in the capital region and I've worked with loads and loads of games and received loads and awards I work with companies like leader chocolate house mark and Kazuma and I'm

a member of the knee against board so what happened to me so why am I here today this started two years ago at Pocket Gamer so that's the first time I went with play stack and at the time I would meet Aaron who was in the previous panel and Harriet's from the time and ever since that we were in talks and we have many offices of what we couldn't do together but during these talks we realized we have a mutual shared wish and this led to us been acquired by a place like so now we are very proud and happy member of the place like family and we just opened the the offices here in Helsinki in very very is one minute from the central railway station so we're very very central and and our first recommends are recruitments are going to be one 3d artist and producer and but but what this place actually do so it's a publisher and we look to make a new kind of approach on how to make this happen so we're not a traditional

publisher looking to do like okay do you have made core games which has great metrics we're going to do it a bit different so we're going to be looking to recognize great future games already in in early stage or later stage but are we looking for something that's has a potential to come something a little bit bigger in just a hit game but well what we can offer for developers we can offer help in doing the actual game and get in the game published so already we're in housing history of we're getting really really great support from the London studio so thinking about having the best possible advisors you could ever dream of that's what were you get of course you get the funding help to make the thing happen second think I'll help you can get some tools that can help your developments but any any kind of help is available and and the goal of plane stack is to make make the difference here so helping developers and a new complete way of getting their games to the market place like is a group so play

stack is the publishing part then there's play fund which provides the funds and then we have play ignites which is like marketing assets user acquisition fund which can help you in numerous ways on yearly level we look at the support 812 companies at the moment but this can of course expand during the years and currently we have offices in London has a key and Krakow so the fund was launched in 2017 and and the goal is to fund these great developers and publishing wise we look into 1215 sizes per year and the fund can provide up to 1 million per title that's the goal that's the initial idea then able' ignite this free kind of capital you can get so you can get the capital against your your forthcoming revenues from the app store or if you have some tax

credits coming up you can get for that source but also like the user acquisition part that's you can also get from the peg nights then play stack has very strong platform relationships every game published so fast be featured and the access is direct so the connections are director there and this helps a lot when you launch in your game obviously so this is a really great assets in that sense and here's one game so not so many games that theme puts out yet but there's going to be way more in the near future but one of the first ones out days called snipers versus thieves and this was launched with this whole structure in place and it's actually been featured and by Google and Apple on Ron Global and it's getting millions of users and it's making lots of profit so this is a good example that this can happen this can

work for you so here's in short what kind of games we're looking for so like I mentioned like we're looking on innovation is one key thing that there's something new to it so that we can make something maybe not unseen something I've seen yet or then it can be something innovation within the Gendry or in the games market itself but if you're looking to do the same that's been done already like we're not looking for new clash of clans with similar metrics or candy crush where you make we look at something different maybe on a new platform or new approach or new audience on how to do there so we look into innovates inside the industry yeah because - too often and - via so the people do the same so that's that's for me looking looking to do and Helsinki office will help cover this area so in Finland so we look at Finland

there's not so many publishers around here and if you look at sound zingy I think we're the first one so that's a that's a big thing big thing for Helsinki but also with the Nordics Baltics and Russia so I've been moving around I've met many many themes on the politics on Russia so I'm very familiar with with many teams and this is a known Sara Terry for me so I'll be looking and helping on discovering things on there and so if you have a game and you're looking to talk about it I'm Sonya yet very full for this event but we can of course talk later after this event but like if you contact I'd like to hear what makes your game start out what is the thing that makes your game unique and of course a playable demo or video or both and tens team description what is your seemed like I'd love to hear those and if you have any traction so far that's good to know it's not mandatory but it can of course

help and then like in many cases the development team might be just a one-game wonder so I want to here is there's like some future plans or or are you thinking of continuance or thinking of even a set of games on how to come out to the market yeah I'd be fast so that leaves more more time for questions if you have any must be some people in the room who we're looking for support to make their games reality anyone was it goodbye microphone down here great area do you offer this also do the students that are after they graduate so I'd say yes I mean there are some things with

students I mean it's a long road of from there may might be a long road from there getting to Megan a commercial products but if you're onto something and we we recognize you're really onto something groundbreaking that's when we look into how to maybe support that to to make it happen so yeah and I have a long history working with students and I think there's going to be a lot of potential there and always use this oh gosh this the block game oh ma by my own good question but that was started by students I made millions yeah I was in minecraft minecraft' off course yes so that was started as a student project kind of not she was doing it as a as a separate project and because he was working on a as I recall I don't know myself as I recall he was working for a company

I don't think it been long from anything student and he was doing this is a side project okay I understood the initial version was done as soon as I've been attacking a boom yeah maybe yeah it just shows those lots of student 1 my favorite example is the company called state of play yeah who did Lou destitute which is basically this beautiful piece of art yeah which is a narrative based game and it's all basically real world model screen captured and then having gameplay layered on top of that screen capture amazing you wouldn't get that without having an outreach to a student audience yeah and also an interest of people think like okay let's remake this remake this mega little twisted but like I think the students are without the burden so they can look freely into the field I think like what's missing here what could we do their fill here so that's the way that it can happen then the next question is the execution and that's that can't be use it at the barrier but that's where we could possibly help yeah so I mean one things

that I think is really interesting about this process is how we thought how you find great games yeah and I think part that like you said with other key things is you know this ability to show that it's a team that you're working with not individual game title so it's interesting with a student question how you then kind of add you defined way to balance off the about relating this identify talent potential yeah when you've got one end professionals with tens of years of experience and other end you've got students doing something innovative and interesting how do you yeah that's the problem on because usually there's no reference points of it if it's totally something new there's no reference point and usually people want to get the reference point and then understand can it be doable so the more you go into this this area the more you have to kind of guess and the more riskier comes but then again like if that's potential we recognize then we can work on it I think this is one of the things that I find some of the work

we're doing is with a company happens to be a partner company with play sex it's a fund and we've just written a greenlight process it's a separate thing from this and part of what we've been trying to do with that is trying to work out well what do you need to submit and that's why I think it's really important to see things like the video and unplayable but the difficulty is explained before what we mean by a playable do we mean a vertical slice so if you've had old school console company definition of virtual vertical slice is very different from the kind of video that you might expect to give to I'd now say an investor to see because you want to be able to get people who can show you that the idea is very you know has scale has potential has scope is playable is going to be fun but you need the money to be able to go make it so I think I don't know you but for me the key thing is that the playable piece has to communicate where the fun is hmm it doesn't have to look right yeah

and it's really hard for people who are doing that kind of demo to you know to give up having to make it look perfect because there's a perfectionist in all of this I'm sure do you have that sort of experience to you for that yeah it's kind of like if you have the vision that's then we would like need to see that be nailed in the demo so that you can execute that then you can deliver that mission so yeah I mean it doesn't matter if the graphics are wrong but as long as it's worked in the right way and get some response I put it this response that sores are already a good signal yeah so it's kind of saying like we looking for Minecraft before it's out yeah yeah because actually if you look at minecraft aren't you could argue which he looked at it back in the old days you'd never get that that was gonna be a great yeah because the graphics were terrible and the networking setup was awful and he was supposed to be

playing together in the scene why would that work yeah and people might reject not minecraft without any metrics yeah yeah well I think at the time when I first saw monocrop personally I didn't get and didn't but everybody in I was working at PlayStation home at the time in the Sony London team every guess what all the coders are doing though play Minecraft and it was really fascinating here wasn't the end audience but what made the end audience work and I think this is an area you pick up when you look at somebody's attitude a mindset is that the timing of YouTube happened and so instead of the barriers of not being a connect the game sessions together became actually part of the exclusivity that fact we can show you a bit of video of what we've just done yeah amazing yeah so yeah I think it's all about putting a context is understanding where your game fits in the wider scheme of things being aware of the competitive nature yeah I

understand the trends and what's gonna be the next big thing and kind of hitting there and challenging them a lot of shaking it up and yeah disruption I think is kind of key but I said I'll give you another example and so I'm working with a particular client I won't say who they are and they want to make basically an educational MMO and Dustyn that'd be great won't it except they don't actually tell me how it's going to be played it's going to be amazing it's tied into this this narrative arc which is written by an author that's very well known in their territory but they're gonna get a million downloads in the first month where's the evidence where's the structure where's the you know show show people what it is you're going to deliver yeah and how and have some evidence of background in the real world so gives you confidence and actually I think this company will do well but they

won't do well until somebody makes them simplify what it is they're trying to do so they can communicate their idea in a way that other people can understand it and nothing I've done every Eva that's for me that one of the biggest challenges is somebody who has an eye to this by the way I've done this so many times myself I fail to present properly concepts I want to make the idea that you've got to show people something exciting and interesting yeah but it's got to be based on something we grounded so the you can have the confidence of the other person you know then then you get all these bus thing about this concept that then what do you ask what do you actually do in the game and then it's like oh yeah just click click click click oh yeah after each other so it's yeah we've had actually my business partner and I have this fantastic routine where I basically taught this fantastic grand design but she's a producer so she says okay what do I see on the screen what do i how do i interact with it what happens when I do that interaction and it's like no you're taking away the

spirit of the beauty oh yeah actually what she's doing she's forcing me to tell her what I've already decided in my head I just haven't explained and that's I think where the beauty of having to create a playable experience matters you know make it grey boxes or whatever looks like there's a question there so we'll just go grab that so I'm waffling on because I find this whole area I'm sorry for the heart turn here from that discussion do it I have a very practical question so what the scale and scale of projects and team sizes is placed at looking to focus more on the most on and promote because I'm left with the impression that it's mostly about mobile and like smoke to mid-size team sizes and projects no no it can be bigger and it can be other platforms so it's not locked to mobile it could be even like mean to the switch thing but as long as it has this factor to it so yeah so how big is the team doing snipers versus thieves she don't

know I don't actually so yeah okay 20 is it yeah yeah if there's a it's a relatively sizable you know team isn't it intensive you know so if that seems a bit a little bit bigger than most sort of small mobile teams that would start out so [Music]