Reigns: Game of Thrones: A Song of Fire and License

[Music] thank you for all all of you for coming out to rains Game of Thrones a song a fire and license want to first introduce us three panelists I'm a semi moderator but also going to be chiming in as a panelist as well just starting with myself I'm I work at devolver digital my name is Nigel Lowry excuse me and I work at devolver digital the publisher of reins game of Thrones and the reins series and hopefully we'll be able to leave this conversation yes oh I'm sorry oh I'm the designer developer and the writer of rains came from the upper ranks to it really various capacities so I'm the developer and I'm Jeff Peters I'm the VP of licensing and retail at HBO my group is in charge of basically all the consumer products for HBO's television shows which extends out to

digital games we were the team that worked directly with with devolver and Ariel to create this collaboration and so there's a lot of people behind that work at nearly all at devolver digital and HBO that worked on this but were the three that kind of hold our teams and talked about what we wanted to kind of get out there about the story of this project so the goals and the takeaways is a very brief chat the first part is a very brief chat about licensed games and their relationship to brands that's kind of how this started I wanted to speak about licensed games at first originally it was going to be a larger panel about with a lot of people that worked on a variety of licensed games but in talking to our kind of mentors at GDC they thought was best and I see why you know why doubt to tell the full story or as much as we can about rains Game of Thrones is a little more focused and about our experience so hopefully be helpful to the audience if you know in case you guys look into licensed games or have a licensed project proposed to you the bulk of this conversation is be

a discussion of reigns Game of Thrones the game I list here as an unreduced ball case study that hopefully can provide you guys with some action items some insights so stories and anecdotes that again if you guys have an opportunity work on a license game this will be of service to you I say unreproducible and we'll get to this again later a lot of games a lot of success and a lot specifically in this project you'll see as a matter of timing things coming together and a lot of luck I don't think people should be ashamed of omitting that success is a large part of luck and I think that's a lot about what we'll talk about today and then finally a question and answer session Jeff would appreciate it I would not actually but I definitely appreciate if you didn't ask about Game of Thrones spoilers if I can get something out of him of sub-sub stance I will give you $100 my wife and I would be appreciative you can't we'll see so

very quickly and again start chiming in whenever we have some thoughts but the whole thing like I said is framed around the idea of licensed games and this is intersection of art and IP I've always found it fascinating that there's there's an established brand a license a movie a comic book breakfast cereal and someone makes a game out of it and some sometimes successful sometimes monstrous ways this has changed a lot over the years I went and did a little bit of research and looked into it and I think Jeff would probably agree and Francois to it in your experience in playing games you've seen a lot of different licensed products most recently Spiderman was a huge success that took that brand to new places and probably was one of them now 10th hole you know entries and what that brand the IP is about you also have things like advergaming which I'm strangely attracted to coolspot was a video game for 7up and like there's a [ __ ] video game about 7up say icon and people don't

really care about it but it was a way of marketing for them The Witcher a lot of people probably don't think about it realize that the Witcher is based off a book and there was a licensed property and then even this week we saw Nintendo giving their license to an indie developer of great note of course and very success but they are putting out cadence of Hyrule which blew everyone's mind so a lot has happened with life in this game over the past few years and when looking at and Jeff and I and Francois talked a little bit about this prior to the session we kind of talked about it being a spectrum this isn't a judge of quality by any means it's just of what how the game relates to a brand maybe so you have the standard section again it's not buckets but these are games that take a brand make a video game out of it they can be very high quality like Aladdin for example if you ever played on the Sega Genesis the Super Nintendo Super Nintendo was the superior version in my opinion but they're basically merch not a bad thing it's not it's not a it's not a bad take on the licensed game but

they're merged they're translating it very directly where we move over into complementary we see video games as a support product right these are something that may do something with that brand that story that extends it out example being entered the matrix which again it's personal one I love it took two characters it would wander off screen in the second Matrix movie and this game would tell you what the [ __ ] did they do when they wandered off screen it was really cool as a big fan of the matrix and matrix 2 and matrix 3 I would offend them all that it was really neat to see how it rounded out that series and then thank you Jeff for the the final section he named it and he's is a really cool name exemplar these are these are the games that take it so far and this is a very sliver a small sliver of I think licensed games take something so far that they almost that game actually becomes the most important part of that franchise as I mentioned The Witcher before if you walk through the halls here I bet 95 out of 100 people were associated first with the game and most people have no idea that it was a book

series and extends these brands in that absolutely new areas things that they never expected to go and are very hard to come by and but don't win done well they're outstanding that you guys kind of agree with this spectrum that we talked about yeah you know it's a it's it's definitely a you know an interesting kind of way to break these things down when when we're talking about this as a brand holder you know so HBO owns the IP for Game of Thrones you know it's actually probably worth just taking a little step back and sort of explaining our attitude toward licensed products and license caming you want them to be you know more than just a logo slap where you're taking Game of Thrones and putting on something you know you can do that a coffee mug or a t-shirt and get away with it but when you're talking about a game those kind of things are not really that fulfilling you know and we take a lot of care to to make sure that the projects that we want to embark on are bringing more to it and that sort of standard approach the you get into the complementary tier and that's really

what interests us you know we're looking for ways for our brands to be enriched by a game and you know that matrix example is a good one you know it's basically a side story you know you know content within the world that goes into a new place we've done some games like that reigns's is a similar thing like we we allowed the characters into the universe of reins and let the narrative take them places that aren't happening in the show the the exemplars about this last week is to me it's a really interesting thing that really is kind of a holy grail where if you can create something that is so powerful that it's almost like putting out new content altogether and a new part of your brand that's a that's just a really attractive thing as a licensed or and as a you know as a storyteller as a brand holder it's hard to do and I would say there are probably very few examples of that actually happening actually didn't think of many more yes I mean I could argue that Spiderman was so big but still I mean

there's movies there's comic book so it's hard to really push it to that point of something so singular like The Witcher yeah yeah I think indeed also we we we sort of naturally tended to go to worlds were complementary a kind of position for reigns Game of Thrones because because we with with the size of our series and the books pay I admit but the series game of Rosa it's such such a very large landscape of its own universe if you want and they created a very very strong visual Universal and our game I could not at any point be like a substitute for that universe and it's really something that that adds something that that lets the player uses memories and as visual artifacts that had come directly from the show and and turned them into something else but that's not related necessarily to it was told in the series

so very like an extension or and let play a player like play while they wait for the new series while while they they sort of prepare for for what happens next in the show and it's way in this way but it's a complementary kind of approach I think yeah and so I think there's I mean a whole nother GDC panel on licensed games because I think there are some really interesting things being done both historically and you know modern-day and I think we are really artists and Golden Age of licensed games which brings us to reins Game of Thrones and unlikely but obvious pairing just quick history is this was collaboration between HBO and near Ewell this game came out if you're not familiar with it it did come out at the end of last year on mobile and on Steam it'll be coming out three days before season 8 starts on Nintendo switch good timing yeah we we planned that out remarkably well that's assuming the publishers smart ideas I

think it's a case study the reason we're here is it's a case study on how a small developer a small development team can work with a global brand and how it can much - I mean honestly you know our shop work out super smoothly again a lot of luck and the people involved as we make this happen but it was a story that I think was worth telling again like I said it's unreproducible and by the way unreproducible irreproducible of both words and I changes three times this presentation but unreproducible luck is contributing factor so it's hard to replicate and I don't think you know doesn't sound like sounds guerrilla self-congratulatory it's not it's really an attribution and nod to the fact that this is a lot of luck and timing involved here so there's some discussion points walking through everything from collaboration to release and then learning and an interest time which one or up jump right into the collaboration I'd love for you guys to tell the story from both your sides how did this collaboration come to come into being yeah so why don't I start

with my little anecdote this this game kind of hit our radar you know I've got some folks on my staff who are over here who are kind of our game team and they they knew about rains and you know the the original game got some really great love and for you know well deserve it and and so it was sort of on our radar as like that's an interesting game and you guys that devolver had been trying to kind of figure out how to have a conversation with us because you were thinking you know maybe there's something there with that you know that mega show Game of Thrones you had made contact through a third party that we both work with and somebody knew somebody who called somebody else and eventually an email ended up on my in my inbox right and we had a very quick back and forth exchange saying like this could be interesting so two or three days later I don't remember exactly how long we got an email from Dan Weiss who's one of the creators of Game of Thrones and Dan said we're over here in Belfast shooting I think they were shooting season seven have you guys heard of this game brain

it's like we're obsessed and we're playing it all the time could we do that for Game of Thrones could you guys make that happen and I mean talk about making me look good we were able to just literally like say oh yeah we know those guys no problem you know we'll hook you up and so it was it was the ultimate like you know smooth moment for me professionally so that was great but then you know knowing that they were really into this you know it was an immediate like yeah let's see if we can make this happen you know and then we'll get deeper in after that but that was kind of our like little kismet moment and then getting from there to getting a game done is the whole rest of the story that you know there's there's some interesting twists and turns along the way and Francois do you mind I know I mean because I'm involved I know this story I mean when you first pitched the original reins to our team yeah so yeah Matt was in 2015 December and I saw the pitch to developer because I didn't know I didn't do any any

each before that so that was like I was starting as an indie if you want very much in the like a the proper one who was scrubbing all right anyway so I was a Santa Ursula made two to four Parker saying okay I got this great concept it's a mix of tinder and a game of frog and that's how is I sold the game to to deliver in a way like a to and and then yeah I remember like afterwards were like remember the brains are sorry tinder Game of Thrones concept they're like that's how you pitched it what if we could do that yeah and and I was a I I totally didn't expect even at that point even after the success of rags to actually make you okay so we got a deal done right mm-hm well we started on a deal how did you I'm this is questions for Jeff how did you push this internally like if you have the producers but how did you work through HBO because I kind of think that's important yeah that's that's

definitely worth mentioning you know every every company is different obviously you know but from from our you know with our process it's you know there's several rungs of a ladder you have to climb you know on this one and Dan and David are one of them they kind of we hit that rung early because they wanted to do this but then you know we the next step was you know to begin talking to you guys about a business deal what is the deal here and you know it's worth noting that when you know when when we do a deal for for example for a big free-to-play game that's a much bigger financial opportunity which comes with completely different royalty rates and guarantees and all these things you know we looked at this we couldn't hold them hostage for you know a gigantic minimum guarantee because that's just not how the business works also we don't have a gigantic movie right they would it would have died on the vine right that yeah you know so we were lucky that we can come with some flexibility in that sense and so we began thinking about well you know what

could we accept what would make sense we immediately you know pitch this internally to the executives that have sort of a checkmark for us as a halo game as something that is going to bring you know it fits per with with the you know with the show it's it's got this really great point of view and a stylistic view that we really like and we just had this vision we actually asked you guys I think to mock up what Tyrion would look like well yeah there are some examples examples here on the screen oh yeah they needed to have a purchase show yeah so having some art was excellent because it's you know it's one thing to just say that's a game where you swipe left and right but being able to show what it's really going to look like was helpful we also have to take our digital deals to George Martin who's a creator of you know the books and the universe so we have a close relationship with him on gaming in particular and so we had to be able to pitch his team you know and we we worked pretty closely with you guys to help hone that it took a while it was

probably a better part of a year that was one thing that you know yeah if they could teach about or make a point about is it's the one thing that will not change I bet in most licensed games whether you guys are any other licensed or is it just takes so much time and you actually have to build that obviously not into like I want to get this approved but the process in general is it's not going to turn around a licensed game very quickly because there may be you know to me I'm talking to will and dust and Jeff but then there's a lot of people that I've never talked to will never see that have to approve these things and it's kind of mind-blowing to think about because we we as a company and I know France walls company we're pretty quick to turn things around because there's only a few people but you have to keep in mind how many people have to prove this and then I mean talk we can talk about now or later but the the casting could not even think about I had no idea about how casting works and their talent mm-hmm yeah and yeah I think overall the the making of the game was nine months and signing the

contracts wise was a year so that was longer than making the game short but that's totally I mean they had reins Her Majesty in the meantime selves yeah exactly I made another gaming women in fact I was actually really helpful that you guys had some work on yeah yeah yeah we were definitely I mean it's a the you know it's it's definitely that internal approval process but it's also legal you know we are big corporations and we have very rigid legal departments so we had to negotiate agreement with you guys and go through that doesn't happen overnight you know it's uh it I will say as a you know a testament to you guys you hung in there with us all the way you know and we're there and we weren't doing anything else really just hanging out yeah but it's that's an important thing you know if we're speaking to folks who maybe you know want to have an idea to do something like this with a license property you know I would say just from our perspective some some advice is you do need to come with some flexibility and and you know perseverance and you

know in kind of patience and the we try to be really communicative on our side like we try to keep you posted and I always say I never really mind when people bug me saying like you have an update you have an update you know I'll be happy to tell you no we don't have an update that could be different with a different license or you know you don't have to probably gauge that like what's the back-and-forth like it's it is a process and it's it's gonna be different for every project we have to think about things like our other digital game projects that were underway right how do we launch this one what time does it go out you know you're talking about marketing you know and user acquisition you know if we've got one other game that's out there in the market buying ads and doing a big spend for Game of Thrones it's not a great idea to put out a second one so you're both competing and you're just driving up the spend rates for everybody you know so we try to we try to be very organized with that and kind of put things out with like an air traffic controller you know like got a bunch of planes to take off how do we do it the right way and that's that's all a part of the

internal discussion so that leads me to a question for Francois because there's this big machine working and obviously you have this I think I say here yeah cultural phenomenon of Game of Thrones what were you and your team what were you thinking we scared of this yeah I think I think we were we were very very proud because I'm a big fan of the book like yeah I can I can show you my 1996 version edition of gamma fronds and and the end of a series that we watch a couple of times before so that that was like huge thing as a fan to be able to touch it and play with it and make something with it so that that was like I think a bigger responsibility anyway and and also yeah all this process but that's sort of we sort of inherited like a year of discussing this deal and stuff

and so so we the production the progression phase couldn't fail you know yeah you we add a certain pressure to make things happen in a continuous and and with quality and with but with the aim of getting somewhere in the time that we define because that made sense for your air traffic control so we can actually postponed like I would have done for for another project we couldn't postpone the thing truth too long anything yeah and then the final part of the collaboration and you've mentioned a little bit of this this is for Jeff you know it's still surprising to me even to this day and we appreciate it but was there pushback on a small team small team working on a pre I don't know a different kind of game for your flagship IPA HBO I assume that pushback is maybe too strong of a word but it is that's

that was something that I had to basically have an answer for when I went up to my executive team you know I had to say to them look this isn't you know this isn't EA right but this is why we think it's an interesting opportunity two things why interrupt it like I think that you guys are known you have a bunch of a very successful like free-to-play I think Game of Thrones games right and and bigger games but was their concern I mean did you guys go in and say look there's a pretty limited financial gain to be had here compared comparatively yeah okay yeah that was that was definitely part of the analysis and it's always one of the questions what are we gonna earn you know and the again so that that feeds into the presentation and I you know I I feel personally at HBO I have a luxury of being able to say we want to do something because it's a halo product this is something that is going to be you know it's it's gonna get some shine it's not just putting out something to crank out royalty checks and that's not always a case um some

license or some companies really aren't they're not that focused on that they're much more about mass plays and and really maximizing earnings so that's sort of how we positioned it and we've done this in many other things with jewelry and sneakers and you know other things like that where you know maybe our going to earn a ton but like the the the attention you're gonna get the the fan reaction the surprise you know and all of that is valuable to us so this was really positioned that way as this is a game that just makes so much sense when we put it out there yeah we're not gonna you know fund a new season of a game of Thrones spin-off on the royalty checks from this project but the the value is gonna be there and we were right you know the the the reaction to this game was fantastic and it's exactly what we did it for awesome thank you yeah so I'm gonna move on to the concept production and we've kind of gone over a little bit of this already so this is

gonna be a performing thing but I think that first question for a Francois so you mentioned you obviously read the books since 1996 watch the show what was your I mean what kind of research did you do did you go back because it seems like a pretty overwhelming like I'm still amazed actually myself of the detail you know what kind of research did you do do if we started so yeah I did a lot of research and that's where the fact that you you you you play with the universe and not just just a single IP IP that's not very well known is that you got like a corpus of information and of that that's very very detailed and very afford like you got you got like vacanam you got the fan theories and this is very very clear like there was like a continent of information you can you can go through but that's been criticized and and reviewed by

people so you can you can very easily find information about everything from the on of winter or see if you take some sort of details that are just spread out in inver series two to two very very obvious things like like the wall and so on so you can really easily and that's really like three three three things for me that's what TV series are the first things that we really looked into and research the books and and the fan site and but that are always an interesting force especially because our gaming in a way is a it's a bit like a like a fan fiction simulator in a way so it's this is in the end what what we sort of created like we wanted the player to be able to tell himself to bring the story where he could imagine it to go so that was really what we wanted to do and

that's what fan fiction is so so that was really want to look at that material and it's a very extremely detailed material on the internet for gaming from them so one of the things that I think that me surprised me in the process and this is what I wanted to ask you guys about it and I think maybe we helpful for the folks watching here there's this idea of an approval process versus the collaboration because I went into this honestly thinking again big scary corporation that I didn't know yet that it would be approval process you send something and they tell you the no to X things right and then you have to go back and do it but what was surprising I think probably to I know to you and I was that it was pretty collaborative yeah so can you guys talk a little bit about the process maybe how in general you do it as license or and then you know Francois maybe about how it worked with Game of Thrones yeah yeah so we you know we have a lot of approvals that we have to do we have to really think as the brand holder you know anything we

put out there public has to be on it has to you know not create a headache my you know like I would wake up in a cold sweat the middle of the night thinking like oh did we put out something that you know somebody's gonna be pissed off that we you know we put in it so we we take good care to make sure we're really kind of doing something that's one going to do the brand proud but to work in our universe talent likeness is a big thing right again a lot of every company is different in this case but for Game of Thrones our actors have the right to approve those illustrations and so that requires us to get the drawings send it out to their representatives they look at it they may request changes I think mostly and this is the talent themself to clarify like it's correct actors yeah the actors I mean some of them their agent does it for them or their manager some of them the you know the actor themself Peter Dinklage's all you know you'll just rent you right back but the you know that's oh that's a whole other process that's something we had to work in this story

was very much a concern for us because this is a very narrative driven game we're putting it out in between Season seven and eight and you know that finale is coming and we had to make sure we weren't putting in something that was going to be you know wrong for the game and so we had to really take care and think about that you know you guys would submit outlines and narratives and and my team wouldn't just pour through them and make sure something wasn't incorrect I remember one specific thing I think it was I think it was Cersei it was about a Daenerys but it's something that we'll who's sitting up here it's like well no her braid is usually over here and like her part is here like was something so specific and there's things I didn't think about was like that just looks like that looks like Sur sheets Cersei right but there's a lot of details that the actor and then the brand holders gonna want to yeah yeah and I would say you know the one of the reasons why we

get really specific like that is because input you know Game of Thrones in particularly there is a there's a fan base out there that notices those things and doesn't like it you know they want it to be all so we you know we're really careful yeah it was gonna say I think so to that point I just realized sorry sorry I just realize looking at this on the left is the pitch right it's the pitch image on the right for the final image and that's how long we talk about how long the deal took a lot happened to Searcy between that pitch and when that game came out yeah she rose to power and also that haircut yeah it's also you know in the final image we decided the setting which was around such 2007 so yeah we had to stick to our she looked at that point so tacos already approval from your side I think I think the approval and especially a mile mile available in collaboration with weave will we there was over very is it was very interesting also because it's not just like some sort of censorship process that just cut your finger tell you what no you can't do

that you never say that he said always you should do that instead like it's more like a collaboration sense were you always were always bringing something new to the game that was adding value to it and maybe I can I can because I'd looked at a few of your discussion we had and that's very interesting way of explaining are we made the game better together that's not where the collaboration with licensed work was interesting so for example I had this God okay a delegation of arc masters from the Citadel easier we are asking you to select the next one Meister so we'll say I don't think this set of card works when masters are pretty much in a political organization and the grand maester is selected by Viacom in stirs not by the ruler of Westeros which was totally true and totally right so to VII answer and this is where will you see the discussion and where we we come to something that's a bit better

and more interesting I say I answer to that yes you're right but without choice minute cards like that to recruit when you and you Meister if Lee if maybe if you kill the Meister and you need a recruit when you want how do you do that but me as a game designer who say I need this in a way and an announcer it's very interesting because that's how we we put things forward if you want they could be executed in a more devious way I think it's reasonable that the King Queen will want to influence with a point on the ground but we should not make it as simple as speaking like this so you see our the discussion sort of brought the design forward and made the game better in Vienna and we had that sort of things on the 1600 cards of the game if you want so that process was was a very much process to bring quality to the game and not just say you can't put that because if I complete that what do i do you know i was very very on very much understood the way i was i was designing my thing if you want that's that's very important

and everyone because that's a funny one so it's like so one of the card was dragon is afflicted with an acute liturgy I mean able to cure do you wish to see him so that was one of a car and we'll say to this can you remind me what is the story with dragon being asleep like this tight don't [ __ ] with my dragons you know so yeah so I thought that we had a lot of that always in the in a tomb that was out fooled and I'm not not just saying oh don't don't do that it's not going to work so not that's just yeah an example of the collaboration and the last Lord had asked about I mean we've kind of talked about a little bit but what was the surprise to me and again I would love to communicate to the audience here is you get blessed with this universe right to work with but you don't business reasons will revenge you from being able to work with all parts of it right so for example the casting we just mentioned an approval process but we can't put 400

individual actors in this game right right yeah we have we have some limitations again this is all unique to our short business but you know it's it's there's only so many actors we can put anything before too much and we disap eight they're you know they're paid out of our royalties as they should be and so we we have a cap we only have so many we can put in and you know that was that was difficult because I remember Francois you had sort of this archetype a list of we need somebody to you know one because we're melding in your existing game engine we need all of these characters how do we do them and so we had to come up with things like well alright you're gonna have to have just like instead of Lord Janos Slynt the you know the captain of the of the city watch we have to have a generic captain of the city watch and let's write it let's crafted if her name for that guy you know we had to be a little flexible on that stuff generic stark soldier instead of you know a guy that you know from the show that type of thing yeah that was a bit

surprising to be I know yeah I think well so one good thing for that part of your range of approvals which are visual approval for talents the good thing about ranks is that you got one portrait of Cersei one portrait of Janey over difficult it is to do Jamie that's not a problem one portrait of each of the characters so you don't we we don't have like eight months for production to get to the point where we got all the visuals of Tyrion if you want and that makes it that's that's very useful because we we were mana we were able to work in priority on these visuals at the start in the first three four months of the project to be able to simply return them to approval and it takes quite a long time we were a bit worried at some point and just to be able that to in parallel work on the on the story because the story we don't need yeah

well we just did we approval from the license team but not from the from a cherry on on on what she says in the game so so this is this is our we we manage like the overall process of the production it's like we we had to prioritize a few things to get the approval in time to for the release if you want yet I also this reminds me of a key moment in the game design where the original rains came and and her majesty there's one monarch it's yeah you know he gets a new name every time he's regenerated but we when we started talking about this we said well who is sitting on the throne like are we really going to pick one right you know like yeah can we really pick one I don't know if we can and that you know the design twist on that was okay well these are visions that Melisandre is having we kicked around several different ideas on both sides and had a really long back one how do we do that how do you have different Game of Thrones characters

sitting on the throne who don't belong there necessary and and and when we did finally land on that you know visions and the fire thing it was like aha and it was that also then influence well which which actors or do we need to put in this thing you know and it was all a really complex kind of yeah that you know I remember that's very precise yeah there's a lot lot of talk about that yeah we spend a lot of time because the first idea where it was to imagine you know at some point dinner is end up in the Tower of warlocks in cough and that that could have been like old revisions she got at that point and that was in season seven so that was six seven maybe you don't remember but that's wasn't too bad a long time that was actually he's a big fan that's the reason why I didn't that was our complaint was really that was season two yes yes yes Troy yeah yeah just yeah so that would have been an

interesting way to add to you know mix up with explain that we got visions in the game so but the idea of medicine was interesting but was more much more interesting because she's got she she failed a bit with Stannis so she's looking for for the new king of a new queen to follow and that that gives a very interesting motive to motif to a game but but really vibrates very well with yeah and and her foul ability which we've seen in the show like yes she's certain she had the right guy and it wasn't true that worked perfectly in this thing because we figured oh well every time you regenerate it's her being like oh no that wasn't it it maybe it was sort of it's Jon Snow you know yeah worked out really well for this and that's what I guess the goal of this particular section is is if you're working with somebody and we're obviously very fortunate but if you're working with somebody on a licensed game like this the collaborative process versus just the simple approval process is ultra important

this what makes a maybe from the standard thing that we talked about to something more complimentary because you're doing something that adds the experience of your fan base to your fan base and the licenses fan base we don't have time to really delve into it this was part of the discussion but Francois shared this this is the if you pull the hood back on or any reins game it's a 2 F and spreadsheet so right it's just thousands of choices that can be made and where it goes yeah and these would be dumped over - well - like home - yeah so yes that's just shared she'll spread sheet if you want and the whole process also well what was good for visas that we had one single shared spreadsheet and not I was not sending text to approval and it was something it back with we were red pencil no so it's not like that's - no like a yeah yeah we had a full process with a we very Annie could change the status of each line and we come back we really did we and this

is where the game was made and you got like 1600 lines like that and the last little bit of the actual game was the marketing and release I do work with a lot of marketing at devolver digital and so you know one of the things and I want to hear Francois and Jeff's take on it but one of the interesting thing is okay when you're getting ready the game was very close to completion before we announced it I mean there wasn't a whole lot left because there's a lengthy approval process we didn't want to announce it and then just kind of shrug their shoulders while we're waiting so when we did announce it one of the interesting things that you know you have to take an account versus your own game or your own project is obviously the existing fan base and with this particular one there's certainly lots of expectations as Jeff alluded to there's people looking for hints though they want they want answers and so one of the things the first prompt I have up there is you know what was important to communicate to fans of rains rains Game of Thrones and between the two

franchises and one thing that was ultra important that I guess I didn't anticipate in total right before really doing it is making sure that people understand you're working with a licensed game and there's some expectations it's getting better there's expectations that this is just a skin job and it is putting the your slapping gameofthrones maybe on reigns and we had a really avoid that we wanted to communicate that this was in fact a full-fledged standalone game it's a sequel however you want to put it it's not you know did you enjoy reigns well what if we just slap these characters on there because that's pretty common in licensed games you see this and so I don't know you know when it comes to my guess my question to you guys is how what did you think about managing those communities those expectations what was it that you sought to be the most important thing from your side when you were releasing it yeah you know that is it's always top of mind for us right like we we are nothing without our fans you know like there's no show without an amazing rabid fan base so it's it's very important to

us we we take you know it very seriously and make sure that the things that we put out there aren't going to be deemed like that where it's just a cash grab or a logo slap have you had that happened have you had any I mean without maybe giving too specifics if you had things that words of a huge blowback when you announced them or any kind of particularly sensitivities that the fans have we've got a few things that kind of landed with kind of a little head scratch reaction but nothing too terrible because we take really careful care yeah to do that but no it's it's but it's definitely important and it had to be seen as you know as complimentary to the brand and and additive to the brand not you know not taking away from there's also you know the other things that we think about a lot are about timing and all the other stuff that's going on not just for products you know not my department but for the show itself so is there gonna be a teaser trailer that's dropping the day before we announced this game if so we don't

want to do it that day because everyone's gonna be talking about that teaser they're not gonna be talking about this product you know is there do we have some other are we talking about a you know our deal with adidas that day like we need to you know we need to get breathing room in between all these things that's interesting point you brought up I remember specifically in a conversation was we were releasing the game in between seasons and I kind of of course you like your natural expectations why don't we just release this alongside a season how great that'd be yeah but I think you made the point that everyone's trying to do that whether it's you know yeah whiskey or shoes or whatever it is they're all want to be tied in but ours is a narrative kind of thing that could really say she a fan base in between I spend a good part of my workday telling people you don't want to be right next to the new season of the show because all anybody's gonna talk about is what's on TV yeah on the show and they're gonna miss you it is a firehose of Game of Thrones content right now right and more so in four

weeks three and a half weeks and you don't want a blood yeah plug plug tuned in but it's you know it is very much a concern of ours is that you need to do these things in a way where they're gonna have room to breathe and they can get lost yeah so one thing is important is I think as a licensure we go to the sort of expectation but when you think about it like five seconds you understand is very wrong that that when you work with like the game of thrones IP you you got a bit of Game of Thrones marketing but it's not that at all and it's very important to understand that you still have to sell your game and although you use VIP and you use the the universe of Game of Thrones you're not you you won't share the marketing plan of the series okay and that's super important because you you that's exactly the sort of thing you

you want to avoid actually to be on the same sort of level because it won't work for your product to be very clear yeah that was we talked about that at length I think right before the release of it is and this is again another thing that like hopefully can communicate and Early's takeaway is it still on you to market your game you have the benefit of an IP but it's definitely on you to market your game because these brands and in our case Game of Thrones they have their own strategies and they have strategies that don't necessarily you're going to accept the small indie mobile game they're not putting ads in between you know Game of Thrones and veep for this game we can expect a tweet and things that some social supporter things like that but sometimes sometimes but you'll but you know it's really on you and so it was on us on the on the publishing side to really work with you know Apple Google and steam and other partners and PR and things like that to get it out there because it's not that HBO wasn't helpful is they have a lot of things and

they can offer a little bit to you but the input you know they told us and they're right it's still on you to sell your game so that was a good piece of learning that I think I would be definitely pass on to someone working a licensed product don't think of it as an easy street like you're gonna got this this is go this is where you know licensing is different from code of you know I mean there's there's the other model where like you know we might take a whole bunch of money and pay someone to make us a game right and then we market it we would we would be doing it but let me know if you would like to do that it's know we would but you know that's actually not how we approach things we're just not set up to a lot of other studios and thinking that were to do that more often but that's that's one of the one of the wrinkles of this which which is very you know valuable as a takeaway for anyone that's thinking about doing this you know you have to have your own marketing strategies and you have to bring that in in your pitch and explain how you're gonna do it how do you acquire users right what does that mean you know is it mean blanketing Facebook with ads for your game I need to know that because I need to go to my

social media team and explain to them this is gonna be out there these guys are gonna be buying against Game of Thrones are you trying to do the same thing in that same window should we be careful you know that it's a lot behind the scenes that you have to really think about that is you know and it's in 2019 you know that is a real concern that was another thing that popped up in the marketing that was interesting to me is it's an app store wasn't a primary place to sell the game and when you type in Game of Thrones in the App Store you're not going to be first if you're a small game like there's a lot of other bigger things out there so you had to we had to work you know we make sure we talk with Apple making sure that you know it was all it was all set up properly and things like that but you're a compete you're not the only licensee out there and that was a an eye-opening thing too it worked out fine for us we got promotion and things like that from Apple and Google and whatnot but when people are trying to organically find your game if you're one of many that was something that you just got to keep in mind in the

interest of time I just want to ask one last question before we open it to questions from you guys if you have any that aren't about season eight what in general would you take away from this what was the personal professional highs and lows of this project and that's for both of you you go first I think I think what I take from this is a very much the fact that we the the game the licensed game needs needs to be like like like connection between the license and the game so it's not and you can't have it this imbalance you got I think the bad license game are a ver you got big brands and and the weak gang you put behind that because you need to you need to do what you have some sort of game play okay and another bad game is when

you got the license is just like a layer on top of a very good game mechanic but that's just it's like like you whisk in your game so we this is very important I think and that's the main takeaway for me as a designer is a is a that make sense when when you use the license to make the game better and usually the game to enrich license in a way or explore what I say about explore a universe of a game of Thrones okay and when you got that connection that makes it works that map makes it worthwhile and you bring something to the table I would say and I think I think we we start to see that and I'm very very excited to see Indies starting to do that and I think that's also an interesting thing that's happening that in a way starting with us I suppose that that Indies like working with big a big

a piece is is something very very strong which makes sense if the gameplay makes sense it's a super strong like so you where you were talking about it can also count survival that's it so that's a huge thing and I think it makes so much sense because you always add in very in Brazil the game with the Zelda IP you always add this with this sort of very strong connection to down to dance and music we remember so you got a lot of things around that in in in Rosetta from child and and the crypt of the necrodancer game plays so perfect like it will make it makes a lot of sense both thematically and mechanically as a game design perspective Jeff what did you get out of this what you get out of that your relationship with us except I mean other than meeting you guys so that's obviously just a high point you

know we we get a lot of shine off of this you know like when you talk about again that dynamic of it's not gonna it's not gonna earn us you know the the most but we've gotten accolades we got amazing reception people reviewed this game and loved it I mean the general reaction to the announcement was oh hell yeah like that's exactly the reigns of Game of Thrones it's perfect and there's I mean talk about you know that talk about a sense of fulfillment from that that's exactly what we all were excited about the the collaboration the collaborative efforts that we've talked a lot about we're very fulfilling and you know to me it's it's a testament to the two teams and the you know the the big win on this is like it is not halo and it feels like an additive experience for our fans where we created something that we you know we're giving this new this new little you know world inside our world to play with and that's really really gratifying just professionally and personally - great well thank you

guys for answering the questions and chatting I'd love to and that's you know it for the presentation itself if you guys have any questions were happy to answer first who wants to know the end of Game of Thrones alright don't call on any of them sorry I think there's a if you need to talk over the microphone thank you so much it was very interesting to hear the insights of this experience I missed the first maybe two minutes and I didn't heard if this was the first game you you did with a IP or you have any previous experience and doing IP games I don't think you had no I didn't I I've worked on we did something for a game called broforce and it may be called the expendables called the expended brass but that was a free promotional thing it was a much smaller project okay I played that one no good

yeah it was very good it was free so why not yeah so my question is when you had to deal with IP owner and you have to set the terms of the contract and there's not much information around what are good terms like what is a reasonable mg or marketing is depend or I don't know they're there how much their license is worth for the revenue share I can tell you that to be honest I mean Jeff could I don't even how much you speak to it that's a really good question because I didn't know that either going in we had no idea but I think in my at least my limited experience and from what I've heard from others it just it depends on the IP and the license or to the license or some people I think are pretty aggressive out there yeah so there's I mean we're pretty flexible in my shop like we're open to discussing all that stuff so it's hard to say you know like you come with a million bucks or you're not going to get in the door like that might be the case some places royalty rates are

often more important in a for smaller project like this you know like if you can't offer a huge amount guaranteed like maybe you can share more on the royalty side which can help you know make that case that well if look if it does really well then our cut is is better you know yeah okay thank you because it's very difficult to to understand because probably all of the like cents game have in the a so nobody can share the information but I really look hard for information about it there's nowhere to be found anyone who tells hey this is regular this is okay I'm not sure that's regular I think that's probably what I've learned from it it just depends on sometimes there's an over inflation of value and there's a you know you have no idea I wish I getting inside just know our deal which I always can't talk about but I think you know the best way to do it is just to ask if you have a target go ask them so they'll probably be willing to say this is woman I need okay thank you yeah thank you yeah sure hi I also talked and I just

want to ask do you have any advice from for someone who wants to get close to a company to get like to make a licensing game I'll tell you Jeff alluded to this earlier I start when we started this I had no I had no contact at HBO I had no idea how to get ahold HBO I went to my HBO go and screamed at it and did nothing right I basically looked and I thought about who they might be doing business with and then worked down the ladder and through someone I might know so it was a three or four person Shane before we get to the idea of okay this is someone that may know somebody at HBO so if you have a target you're going for it suggest looking who they may be working with currently and then kind of working through those avenues because that's basically how I got it I have no other Avenue to get to talk to you HBO there is an organization called Lima which stands for licensing industry some merchandising of America I don't know what name is stands for so that's the

licensing Trade Organization that most of us belong to you can probably I mean that if it doesn't hurt to call them they've got a website and just say who do I contact at HBO or Sony or you know Warner Brothers or whatever like they might be able to help you out that way and Google you know like Google it up again we get a lot of cold calls that people just kind of find our details out there online and just one quick question and who do you want to get the Iron Throne yeah that's a hard one I've actually said this publicly before so it won't come back to haunt me but my favorite character is tormund Giantsbane so yeah I want to see torment on the throne I'd be dope alright thank you very much how's it going hi my name is Ashley and I am leading marketing for Activision and Blizzard consumer products so Jeff never heard of them I know a little tiny company I think we spend a lot of our days in the same way shortly to partners about marketing so thank you for that I

question either for you specifically jeffer for you guys how you navigate confidentiality so wanting to make sure that you are servicing the fans and giving them you know what they want in regards to programs that might be day and date etc but obviously dealing with extremely sensitive materials and timelines any interesting anecdotes if you guys could or wanted to share so to answer the first question you know we you know we were very serious about it right like our well we can we don't often like to do NDA's ahead of having a deal because it's just extra paperwork to do so we don't share anything you know and then our license agreements have full confidentiality clauses with complete you know ironclad requirements that said we actually don't let anything we didn't tell them anything yeah like nothing when when we had things where we were like oh you can't have that in the game because it's

potentially going to be you know we found ways to communicate that time without saying take that out it's going to be in the final season you know we're pretty we're pretty careful yeah so if I can add to this we we had we had some sort of way to circumvent even getting closer to doing spoilers and stuff well potential spoilers because we can also accidentally find them you know so so basically what we did for a game of throne for ranking front is that to to just do all the possible spoilers so it's like every everything that can happen in the series so it's like it's like it's really but it's maybe but that's also a way to do the fact that we make a narrative game so we have to tell stories you know and become just mess around so we but the fact is that but because of rains and

because of the like like the lie the probabilistic system we got beyond that just create stories with whatever happens to the player and you can have ranks that you cannot have millions of possible ranks if you want so so that just creates like like potential things that can happen with the game of furnace well why I talk about like fine fiction simulator like we just we just embrace the Possible's cup and we never tell you we can't and of course you guys don't even know we don't even know so we we come tell you this is very ver right on sirs if you want but maybe we we have it in a couple months he's gonna see some things on TV that he's been like oh yeah that's sort of a [ __ ] we'll have a couple minutes so just quickly we get both of them but just if we could do be quickly yeah so I'm sure you guys at HP I'll get a ton of pitches from different mobile game companies would you say that getting the email from you know Dan and David is the thing

that set the project above others or was it gonna happen regardless you think hey I mean it's certainly helped and again it was one of those like it made us look good but we really liked rains and and we're interested in anyway and probably would have you know depending the conversation with these guys to make sure there's actually something there we probably would have pitched this up you know to them but you know so it doesn't require that right and it's very rare that that that would be the case it's much more likely that you know your producers or showrunners aren't sending Susie so you think it would have happened regardless of it I think so yeah and and Dan and Dave are really unique in that Dave they are really they love the license product in the March and they're really engaged with us in that and often say like what not theirs what about that yeah yeah hey quick question I don't know if you can disclose that but is there a reason why came up from scratch Chai's hasn't break-in like the triple a game stuff like I've seen Lee who you

see spider-man star wargames all these big brands yeah and gamers count like the biggest PC gamer I guess it's like the telltale series yeah so we we haven't really found the right opportunity to do that and we've we've looked at things and we will continue to look at things it's a I'll tell you what from from a license or standpoint knowing what it takes to build a triple-a console game one hundred million dollars and then a couple more million I look at me I don't know I mean a couple more hundred million and market the game you know like that's a massive massive investment from the from the studio and the and the publisher and all that and it has to be right and it has to be fantastic and good if you look at the track record we talked about this a little bit in the beginning about the history of license gaming you know there's a lot of roadkill out there over the years with you know with licensed console games and we began looking when we first started looking at what we call the video games you know this was like twelve years ago

we should do a video game no one calls them that anymore but that we started looking at that and one of the we did some research and we looked at case studies and there are there you know that the spiderman game from this year has been revelatory in that sense but you know if I always look at avatar and if there's anyone here from I think Sony I you know no offense but avatar was the biggest movie in the world it set all the box records it blew the doors off of everything they put out a console game and it was a complete dud you know that would that and that's our nightmare you know right but there it's all well if you look at the modifications for someone to games there are some pretty great game up for moths there's obviously some more unlicensed mods and Game of Thrones is a yeah unlicensed monster like arrows has like this certain adhesive with some of the games because you know way they weren't franchise works so yeah yeah no it's it's something we are looking at we've

heard pitches and for the right opportunity I think we totally would you know it's also the other products or your dick you know dev cycle - right so it's a it's it's a commitment it's a it's a bear to take on something like that I imagine yeah well thank you all very much thank you for the question and thank you all very much for coming out [Applause]