Putting the Developer First: From Veterans to Indie Publisher PG Connects Digital #2

and next up i can see bill is joining us here hi bill oh i think you're on mute uh but a common there we are i'm good thanks how are you i'm good where are you based at the moment i'm busy in san francisco bay area oh fantastic well somewhere we know all too well we've done shows there obviously gdc every year so fantastic yeah glad to be back yeah good to have you as well and you're going to be talking about putting the developer first from veteran to indy and that's that's great that's fantastic that's exactly what we we we look to is you know helping developers and putting them forward on this indie track thank you we shared a sim call yeah exactly exactly so yeah whenever you're ready if you um

i'll stay here while you share your uh screen or anything and uh there we are we're looking forward to seeing the tracks uh yeah they'll talk so um i'll leave you too but i'm here and i just want to say quickly like you've all been doing if you've got any questions for bill throw them into the q a and i'll be here at the end it's better away to you bill thank you sophia hi good morning everyone my name is bill wang ceo and co-founder of skystone games it was an honor to be asked to speak about the indie development on publishing and pg collapse digital thank you for spending time with me today i'm going to share some of our business philosophies and the view on the industry okay so scottsdale is founded by billy breivik the creator of diablo and me we have been friends for many years we trust each other and have complimentary skill sets to provide valuable services to developers we begin

to work together to build a world-class developer and publish of multi-platform games three months ago that's how skeleton was born before scottsdale i founded the western subsidiaries of for large chinese publishers twice that is proof profound and giant and david he started three studios including blizzard north flagship studios and the great beer games so as well most my career uh about 10 years at proof of work i started proof of work u.s office back to april 2008 when i moved to the bay area from beijing as many of you remember the final crisis hit the u.s in the second half of 2008 nobody want to invest in indie

developers as lucky when my small team is seattle called rooney games they were looking for funding but have been turned down by others even though they had nothing to show me back then i really like the people there so i invest 1 million dollars into this startup on behalf of perfect world the team was able to launch project 1 and torture 2 which have sold 8 million copies so far i also invest in a small developer called unknown wars in san francisco back to 2012. the studio was running on money even though the two co-founders who have made much more money if they work for large corporations like zynga or ea they still want to pursue their dream and create games they feel passionate about so they took very little money around 14 a year in san francisco i was really

impressed by that passion and perseverance so i imagine this small team or six developers on behalf of the world about three or four years later the team launched some nordica and sold eight million copies double damage it's not a developer i invest at profile world by a team of two people they launched rebel galaxy i saw over how many copies um well as i put forward i also have built strong relationships through the platforms for example i began to visit valve regularly back 2008 and patient to do frequently publishing on steam platform i appreciate trust and they allow me to bring dota 2 says go and steal to china so that's about my background

um david uh there is my partner and the manipu many of you have heard him before he's the father of diablo he's one of the most talented developers in the industry he had run large organizations like lisa north and brazilian which had several hundreds of employees david is passionate about development he can do programming design and art by himself most recently he had worked on an indie developer by himself for three years because his developer and understand publishing as well he can provide valuable input to studios on making better quality games that can appeal to white audience okay so for skystone uh is a global multi-platform publisher

with a goal to be player first and developer focused we want to offer value to players by publishing only high quality content some developers have had bad experience working with large publishers we are different we treat developers with respect and they only work on women partnerships well while in the difficult industry it's hard to tell whether a gin can be successful or not so our will it's fun to lose money but we should never lose our repetition repetition is the most important asset for publisher we'll take care of our developers first as a result we can take out our repetition so gaming is one most small one the best industry to work at but

they're also very difficult the great thing is that that no will not play in the industry a small team can grow into a billion dollar business like blizzard right and supercell have done but it's also very difficult it's really challenging for most of developers discoverability has become a notorious issue as well as see a lot of games in the market based on our calculation like our one certain titles are released every week in the market even high quality games we know be successful may not be successful um money young developers have entered the industry a new studio has mushroomed thanks to the ship from retail to digital and lower entry barrier with a wider adoption of affordable development tools they lack experience in development and knowledge on the

business side they need guidance on the environment as well as on publishing so scott's doom can bridge the gap by inventing a new way to help developers succeed we can help developers make better games better processes and bring attention to their creations without traditional publishing services we want to develop long-term relationships with developers through investment like have done with unique unknown words and double damage will allow both parties to have a land interest and focus on the long-term success we will want to create a family-like environment so that our studios can share know-how and the best practices eventually we can create a network effects that benefits all the participants

in terms of publishing we provide food suite publishing services from pr marketing company management localization qa to platform relations we have existing relationships with platform owners media and influencers most of my team members have been in industry for over 10 years we have experience with both free play and premium games with launch games on pc console and mobile we work on large skill projects like mmos including net winter online and marvel heroes online as well as small indie hits like torchlight and some nordica many people ask me how you can stand out compared to large much bigger companies from our perspective there are several advantages being small but like a close need family where we value

input and treat our member members with respect everyone is encouraged to express his opinion and ideas one involved and the jail so we can make quick decisions and adjustments we need it for example when we sign our first titles it took us about three days to sign turn sheet and less than one week to get long form done also we had direct connections with our partners uh different from we work for large companies you have to go talk to uh your contacts and your content you talk to your case manager or talk to their ceo uh i guess dome is very different it's very easy to communicate that effectively without going through the channel command david and i are always available to talk to our partners

so um we have a few principles to follow when we grow our business number one talent first peasant's key for success life is short we only want to work with great people we'll travel around the world to find talent studios and treat them with respect number two multi platform going multiplatform is the best way to maximize the terms and reach out to as many players as possible number three we called hardcore um we know what we don't know we stick to what we know the best so if you develop a couple casual games we're not right partner for you we'll focus on all the platforms but won't stick to record hardcore space number four low development cost uh tv and i and most of team members are in the san francisco barrier

because of living have been going up so much that's very difficult to retain talent for example even if you pay 200k or 250k a year for a senior programmer he or she can still double his or her pay by jumping to ipoh google netflix oh facebook so i put that word um we see the issue you know it's very hard to return talent that's the reason we prefer to work with developers in low living cost regions like europe canada asia or south america number five well free pr and influencers courage um so my team have launched a mobile game called paso's wager back to january without spending any money we got a lot of courage from media online and also influencers we got over 70

articles and the videos from media's online and we got over 100 influencers uh to share our game with our subscribers with over 30 million people number six before a candidate where in a small industry as i said repetition is the most important eyesight we will never make a one-sided deal that only benefits gaston tv and i very straightforward and always available to our partners so we will share everything without departments uh good news or venues so we we're here where we are uh we are inside two titles and dying from developers in beijing called animals the game will be launched on pc console and mobile in year 2021 is a survival zombie adventure game um

it's very emotional story a mom you teach herself how to survive in zombie world uh we showed the game at the packs e3 and the gamescom and got great regular reviews from players and the media reporters the second title uh switzerland crew comes from studio in sao paulo brazil it's a procedure generated called adventure game it's really neat game uh made by a small team that's some time people so this game will be published on peace and console in the first half of 2021. we plan to publish four to six titles next year these are the two we are working on a few more games we plan to bring two or four titles to the market last year so stay tuned

so here's our propositions if you are a developer you may ask me why i should work with you my answer rush street forward number one while trustworthy we care about rubble or repetition and we'll take care of you very well number two wherever prudential records or hyping developers succeed i've supported great developers like project developer runic subnautica developer underwears and the rebel galaxy developer double damage and david and as a developer he also have a good retention in the commun developer community number three we have a capacity to supply not only publishing services that exist at traditional publishers but also take it to the next level by leveraging previous development skills david will work with you as an ep he

will get involved into development and help you make better coffee games in summary we believe we can make a difference on how more developers succeed and grow the industry together with you guys so uh i have traveled around the world to identify tandy studios and have them succeed for the past 12 years one of the biggest drawings in this industry is to uncovering on hidden gems projects and talent that are special but don't get much attention they deserve please feel free to contact me if you are interested in working with skystone games my email address is built at skystone.games and on our website skystone.games you can also sum your pitch materials we'll respond with you we respond back to you in 24 hours that's our promise so that's the end of

my presentation feel free to ask any questions you may have hi bill fantastic thank you so much like a really great ethos there at the company about wanting to support and help indies and it's really impressive all the people that you've worked with thank you so much thank you so happy birthday yeah and you you know we've got one question here from the audience and given what you said about um you know if you want to submit your game to you guys to show it off i think this is an interesting question so um one of our audience members has said nowadays publishers focus more in investing in teams than ips can an inexperienced team with a great game have a good chance of working with you the answer is yes um we don't care about well we care about people um so when i worked with underwears they had no much success before but i like the people so i invest in the studio

uh for speeds and crew team the team we signed this year it's also small team they have not much success in the past but they have some great ideas so last reason we signed with them it's about nobody whether they have done something really successful in the past it's about the the people whether they are passionate about the game they want to make i will ask many times what kind of you want to publish yeah go making your own publish now as always it's not about what we care it's not about what we want to publish it's about what you want to make you want something you want to you want to make you feel passionate about that you believe in that's kind of team we're looking for that's a project we want to publish yeah and i mean on that point do you look for games or teams in specific regions or targeting specific regions or are you more looking for for you know is it global or is it just anyone who's got something interesting to share

well we believe talent uh is everywhere so uh from past years i travel iron mass to asia and europe um and also i've been to south america as well uh my partner david also speak a lot of events last december he went to belarus and ukraine and give a speech there so we believe can come from everywhere and we don't talk to developers no matter where they are we care about talent we don't care about um geographic location we have no restrictions on genres yeah i think that's fantastic because that's exactly why you know from my side we do the big indie pitch all around the world because it's just there's an amazing amount of talent in all sorts of different places and you know like you mentioned working with a team in sao paulo in brazil and actually we see a lot of good talent coming from south america at the moment so i think it is good for studio and for publishers to to be aware of the more global reach of gaming

at the moment and also the global talent pool yeah exactly uh over 12 years ago what began to invest in developers most developers talked to uh were in north america or western europe but these days by total developers as it can come from everywhere you know last year i've been to croatia romania serbia poland uh czech republic i met really interesting developers there and someone have been very successful yeah yeah i think that'll catch up i agree no i definitely agree and one person has put in a question into the q a which is on the topic we're discussing which is do you feel developers in different countries have different insights about how games about games and the reach that they have does this culture influence gaming ideas a lot that's very good question um for example uh

i work with many times developers in the past um someone asked me how i can make a game for the western market my answer always like try to work and succeed your home country first for example let's do a big casual gap between east and west if 10 developer won't succeed in the west first i think that's priority should wrong we'll make sure you succeed in china or other part of asia first we will think about western market similarly investment developer told me okay one focus on china market tell me how we can succeed in china i tell them don't do that try to succeed in your home market first um that's our wheel well in the global market but still there's cultural differences so try to focus on your home market to market your familiar ways first before you think about global i think that's great advice i think that is i think that that's really really great advice for developers is you know it's not to say think small it's just you know you can

only do so much at once so focus on your area and then you can grow from there as success begins exactly you know hard to have across our success and cause it's the last uh i know i can count number of successful western titles in china with my hands yeah i know my success there yeah exactly no definitely well thank you so much for being a part of the show i think you know it's it's been fascinating to learn more about skystone and you know like you said uh hopefully there's a lot of indie developers who are in the in the talk or watch later on youtube or something when we put it live and get in touch with you because i think what you guys are doing is really great work and i think you've got the right ethos of the publisher so i you know i'm i'm looking forward to seeing all the stuff that you're you're working on you know you said to keep an eye out for it and i will definitely be keeping an eye on it thank you so much sophia thank you for having me and thank you for listening to our speech no no thank you for being here it's been insightful and

very interesting and you know uh yeah i'm grateful to have you especially as one of our final speakers for the show so thank you so much thank you have good evening you too thank you