Savvy Games Group’s Ambition, Strategy, and Future

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Harbor is a foundational technology loved by millions of Gamers and integrated into the communities of the largest mobile PC and web 3 gaming products on the market to learn more about this Flagship product simply head to harbor. or check out the details in the show notes and with that let's dive into the episode hi everyone I'm your host Aaron Bush and today's episode has been a long time in the making this is the final part in our three-part series on Savvy games group the Saudi bat gaming Giant in the making now if you've been listening to our podcast over the past few weeks you probably heard the first two parts which were with Craig and Nick the co-ceos of ESL Faceook group and then with Javier the co-ceo of scopely those were both great conversations and naturally so very different so I recommend checking them out if you haven't yet but today we talk with the man himself Brian Ward Brian is is the

CEO of Savvy games group and the Chief Architect of what this emerging gaming Centric holding company is turning into today we're going to spend a good amount of time unpacking what savvy's Global Ambitions are and how its operating philosophy shapes how it makes decisions and what the business is morphing into then we'll spend some time discussing the different components of savvy's business and how Brian thinks about savvy's future so in short we'll hit on several topics that I hope will help our industry better understand savvy's intentions and what its impact will ultimately be but without further Ado Brian welcome to the novic gaming podcast thanks Ain thanks for having me it's a real pleasure to be here I hope it hasn't been too long in the making um and um but I've been looking forward to this so it's a pleasure to join you awesome and and it's good that we took our time because you've had an exciting year this year and um savvy's been making moves and we'll get to get to

that in a second but I thought a good place to start Brian um would be to just talk about you for a moment um could you just share your path to becoming the leader of this business and walk us through your games industry Journey yes uh happy to Ain thanks a lot um so I started uh my training as a as a lawyer I was U I practiced law for a long time uh but I'm okay now I was in Canada where I'm from and uh I really wanted uh this was early days of the internet in the mid 90s I really wanted to do something at the intersection of technology and entertainment and uh that was games ended up getting a job at uh Electronic Arts in Vancouver at that studio that became a behemoth it was only 100 became 800 in the four years that I was there and almost half of EA's Revenue all the EA Sports stuff um and um so I had kind of a dual role in business Affairs and on the studio leadership team really love fell in love

with the product side went to Microsoft for a couple of years after the launch of the first Xbox uh to to a a strictly product related role in studios under Shane Kim got recruited by Activision in 2004 went there when it was about a billion dollars in Revenue in six Studios and um a year and a half later they asked me to run worldwide Studios we had acquired another five by that time I guess and another six and another year and a half so got up to 17 Studios and quadrupled revenue uh in four years had a great run there until 2012 that uh was also during the time um company acquired vendy games and the blizzard unit um and um then I went out on my own for a while um do uh making real money games uh mobile games for the real money side of our uh business our cousins I guess to our business uh and after eight or nine years just prior to co I thought you know what I really missed the traditional games business and uh was looking very fortunate at EA

to have been part of uh what was then the largest um development studio in the world lucky at EA to or lucky at Activision to have uh been part of building number one FPL publisher wanted another similar side crack if you like uh at something great in the industry and when this opportunity came up I thought well uh this sounds uh it has a lot of components to it that are uh that are fitting what I'm looking for so I've been here a couple years now wow yeah what an amazing opportunity too and when I look at your past uh couple of jobs I can see from a high level at least some of the relevant experiences you you have gained over the years you've managed large budgets you've overseen Studios with offices around the world you've conducted multiple Studio Acquisitions you've lobbied and worked with governments Etc um could you share a couple tactical lessons you've learned over the years that best prepared you for this unique job with savvy yeah I

can I think um a couple of things come to mind one is um I started because I started my career as a lawyer familiar with a lot of things related to government and um in fact I in my legal career I think the very first job I had out of law school was uh was working for a government agency in Canada and so how that's been helpful in Savvy is uh as as you and your listeners will know savvy's uh owned 100% by the uh pif um here in Saudi Arabia The Sovereign wealth fund which um you know of course manages public funds for uh for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so having a government experience both early in my career and also uh when I was doing the lottery stuff uh from 2012 2019 uh where we were essentially partnered with various uh governments um um uh Across America and uh even around the world uh was very helpful in coming here and understanding how things can be different when you have a government or government oriented uh stakeholder and

secondly I would say the probably the best piece of advice I got in my career was very early at on adaa um where um essentially the advice was don't spend too much time thinking about how you're going to set things up um the the uh the organizational design uh all the governance the policies how big the team's going to be and uh sort of all the foundational stuff get your line in the water and catch some fish and so when I came here uh I and I I told our vice chairman that's exactly what I was going to do we were going to try and put some points on the board and get Savvy up and running as quickly as possible I'm glad in in hindsight that we focused on that because we were able to with that um with that sort of idea we were able to capture ESL face it early on uh we were able to you know close a number of deals in our first year as opposed to focusing more on housekeeping items and building infrastructure and so forth that um would have caused us I think to miss some great opportunities gotcha well thank you than you for for sharing

that and we'll we'll spend much of the interview later talking about the the individual opportunities that you have seen and captured so far such as with ESL faceit and with scopely uh but before going further let's make sure to cover our bases um and to start Brian could you just share what is Savvy games group's Mission and at a high level what really are the main components of the business today yes savi's mandate is to build a global uh uh and uh Global leading games and Esports company uh both through building its own capabilities and investing in other great teams across um the a wide spectrum of gaming verticals and Esports um businesses and and secondarily to uh to uh lead the effort in the Kingdom to build Saudi Arabia into the next great great Global games

and Esports Hub worldwide gotcha um and in my interview with Javier a couple weeks ago he said uh that Savvy aims to be the largest games company in the world and maybe that's not like what you officially you know put on your website but you know it just highlights the the large Ambitions that that you really have U behind the scenes and how you think about your future but I just wanted to ask like why why is that you know the right goal that you thinking internally and what are the broad Strokes of how you even think um that large of an ambition can be pulled off well I I think a couple things so that is the right Vision it's not my vision it's the vision of um you know his Ro highness the Crown Prince the board um the pif our stakeholder and all under the rubric and um of vision 2030 which of course is the national strategy and road map for the transformation of Saudi Arabia which is an amazing uh thing that really all your listeners should learn

about and even see firsthand if they can and so it's a very large ambition to be number one Glo Global games and Esports company it's almost a a ridiculously audacious objective uh but everything here is is supersized in terms of ambition and effort uh towards transforming uh the kingdom uh in very positive ways and um you know and this can be done uh there are other countries that uh punch far above their weight in uh in our sector Canada uh is a global games Hub of some Renown uh you wouldn't think it from the size of the population frankly but uh some very smart policymaking 30 years ago led to uh you know the creation of over I don't know 34,000 jobs or something or rather and um 300 400 some companies uh so the Kingdom's ambition to have 250 games companies and 39,000 video games and orts jobs with a population about the same as Canada's uh frankly uh isn't unch achievable um but you know

challenging objective and what are the the broad Strokes of how that can be pulled off you think obviously um Savvy has made outsized Acquisitions it's made Investments it's it's seeding at least one studio um that I know of um so I know you have you know your your hands and and different opportunities but um can you maybe just frame up like how you think how that large of an aspiration can can really be achieved when you kind of put the strategy into operations sure and I think I uh I didn't answer part of a previous question so I'll do both at the same time so we started as a a holding company uh at the parent company level with um five operating companies underneath one um uh developing and opening gaming venues here in the Kingdom a second uh one with a mobile game studio with console Ambitions down the line uh a third company called 966

focused on the ecosystem building uh efforts here in Saudi Arabia along with other stakeholders uh an orts ambition which we've fulfilled with ESL fa it and then uh a separate company uh where the capital was meant to sit to fuel all these activities we've since simplified things a little bit and and focused more on having business units rather than separate companies doing these things around three strategic pillars so the first of those is Esports which is obviously our ESL fa it Group which was ESL fa it combined in the out in the beginning and then uh more laterally a few months ago vindex and then uh secondly the KSA ecosystem building exercise which I'm sure we'll talk about in in some depth in a couple of minutes uh building Saudi into a global games Hub uh games and orts hub and then thirdly um game development and Publishing for which you know we've made um uh a very exciting um uh investment in into acquiring uh scopely and you

know and that's uh that's our that's our pillar uh in that uh under that pillar at at the moment so I'm not sure actually I think I answered your previous question and not the question you just asked me but yes so was good you brought it all all back together um you also mentioned U before that savy is of course fully owned and funded by Saudi Arabia's public investment fund um I I was just curious to know like what does that relationship um operationally look like like how does Savvy actually engage with or plan with Saudi Arabia's leadership including the chairman and Crown Prince Muhammad Ben Salan yeah so so you know this ambition um is being fulfilled by a very super strong commitment uh from uh from the pi I think we rece I was told at the time that U we Savvy received the largest initial injection of capital of any portfolio company project in the pf's 51-year history but more than Capital it's a commitment

right from the top of the house from his Royal Highness who's our chair the PF is uh a full partner in our all of our activities really has been from the very outset I was the very first employee and for a long time I was the only employee working with the the P of the the Mina division of the PF they're split into International and Mina and the Mina working group really provide just tremendous investment and Operational Support still do we operate as one team um so they're very operationally uh involved and oriented uh and then uh super supportive in uh in uh helping us frame up our strategy and other long-term uh elements of our of our vision uh so we have a seven member board chaired by his Royal Highness our vice chair is his Royal Highness Prince fasel who is also chair of the um local Regional and I think he's now co-chair or vice chair of uh uh both uh Global Esports uh federations uh also uh responsible for the national

strategy on games and orts uh we have other uh board members of course uh comprising the other five and then we have an executive committee um that comprises six people probably half from the PF and uh and some others where we're a fully commercial fully a fully independent commercial uh entity just like any other company just except we have one shareholder and and that shareholder really provides a lot of operational strategic support okay uh that's helpful to understand and um we'll we'll get to more of the subcomponents of Savvy uh in a minute but before we do that I want to unpack a bit more your your operating philosophy and and your strategy of just like how you view running a holding company like this um and and maybe to to start here in terms of performance there are obviously many good holding companies out there but there are also many more bad ones um and I'm curious you know what other organizations that

are holding companies are you inspired by and like who have you learned from and or studied from as you you build out Savvy like who are who are sort of um like guideposts for you as you as you think about building out this business yeah great question Ain so I think there are a few aspects to our operating philosophy one is uh and you will uh you will appreciate and probably Harbor the same sentiment uh uh that um you know we believe like most people who have been in the industry a long time that games really are a Force for good um there's a lot of benefit not just entertainment obviously but health benefits um educational benefits and so forth that come from uh come from games and um and in terms of operating philosophy uh when I joined Activision in 2004 the very distributed decentralized Aon autonomous and independent nature of that company particularly on the studio side was not

really the norm it was kind of more uh common to see a top down uh orientation towards managing business units like EA at the time since then however just about everybody has adopted a more independent autonomous model and and really that's Now sort of part of my sort of core DNA on the philosophy operating philosophy side so we um intend to um you know be not just a not a passive investor an active investor but aimed at at empowering great teams to achieve their best potential and so if we can provide uh strategic long-term capital to great team by by way of minority investment or by way of uh you know control or controlling positions and provide them with a long-term uh Runway to achieve an outsized ambition that that might not be available to them without our long-term orientation then we think we're uh providing something unique to them uh that uh is also

differentiated from uh you know other um companies like ours uh in the industry gotcha but are there any like organizations that you're inspired by that are other holding companies or such oh yeah yeah I mean tensent does an amazing job and has done an amazing job I it's a behemoth it's a behemoth that's only what 15 years old in games I might be I might be slightly off on that but a a tremendous record of investing in great companies and empowering great teams slightly different orientation than ours and they're not probably as operationally uh broad as we are across the different verticals that I described earlier but but uh fantastic um I learned a t I've been so fortunate to have spent time at Activision uh and at Microsoft and at electronic essentially my entire career in this industry has been working with other great people who have been tremendously successful so I've taken inspiration from all of those uh from all those those teams that I've Had The Good Fortune to work with and I think

they've all done like obviously they've done amazing things because they're all leaders okay great and it's it's obviously been reported that Savvy is planning to invest $38 billion through 2030 um could you walk me through your Capital allocation framework um first of all how would you describe that framework and uh second what are the zones that you are generally focused on within that yeah when we started um the Mandate of the fund where all the capital set had um a couple different components to it one uh it was intended to make direct Investments both of a minority nature and majority or controlling position nature um uh secondly also intending and we did uh make some indirect Investments as a limited partner uh in venture capital or private Equity firms and then thirdly the orientation was

also or the the expectation was that the Investments that the pif had made independently out of its International Group so the different group than the group that gave birth to Savvy um in companies like Nintendo and Capcom and Nexon and Activision EA take two Etc I think there's eight of those Al together that the pif invested in independent of Savvy uh purely for financial returns purposes that that those Investments would uh would fold into to Savvy and we would manage those positions and operationalize those relationships at some future point I think that's still the expectation but um you know we have that hasn't occurred yet and so um and so now we're oriented around um uh we're oriented around those three pillars that I described earlier Esports uh KSA ecosystem building and games development and Publishing and frankly I think you know uh with the with the acquisition of ESL face it and more more laterally vindex I think we probably

deployed as much Capital you know um for the time being as we're going to I'm not saying we're never going to invest in orts again I think that that's I wouldn't say that but um we are now focused on Esports in in uh uh first of all managing those Integrations and making sure we've got operational excellence uh in those three group there's no small feat to combine just DSL and face it never mind adding vindex to it uh just a few months later and and so there's work to do there there's work to do which was the initial ambition in improving the product portfolio across live entertainments across broadcasting and and event production across across the online portion of the business uh as well and um and so I and and KSA ecosystem building isn't really an investment exercise it's an investment in building capabilities in conjunction with other stakeholders but it requires more time um than capital and uh so I would expect that most of of our future Capital deployment would be in the game

development and Publishing um uh pillar okay uh that makes sense and um many companies including many big companies invest in gaming um but would you say there's anything uniquely Savvy about the way that you invest or acquire um and maybe you can talk a bit more about how these investment and m&a decisions um get made too sure um so I think what our unique selling proposition if you like uh when we're in a competitive situation for an acquisition um or um making an investment is the long-term orientation of our business thanks to the very long-dated patient capital of the PF so and this was the idea at the time of ESL fa it as an example we you know we could see coming out of Co that there was tremendous engagement across everything

that related to you know entertaining yourselves indoors under quarantine and um and we also thought that there would be given the fragmented nature of the Esports ecosystem we thought there would be a lot of consolidation and we thought okay well just about everybody else in the space has a three to fiveyear time Horizon they're they're a a listed company or they a VC or private Equity Firm with uh you know expectations on returning Capital to shareholders at some Point we've don't have a three to five year time Horizon we've got a s 10 or even 10 plus year time Horizon and we thought we could make strategic decisions based on a longer time Horizon that would be attractive to teams like the ones at ESL face it and and and at scopely uh for instance who were looking for long-term strategic Partners without an orientation towards more short-term I'm not saying short-term thinking is bad I'm just saying it's a different orientation we have um given our stakeholders um uh uh given our given who our stakeholder is and so I

think this is the really unique thing uh that enables us to pitch something slightly different than than other potential investors okay and I I will say that that has shined through in this interview series even I remember a couple weeks ago talking with Javier and the long-term orientation of Savvy um he mentioned was an important piece of of why um scopely chose to to work with Savvy and you know between that the high level of ambition to to be the largest games company in the world is uh probably you know also helping you be able to retain some of these awesome leaders and keep them excited for the future which you also don't see it through all acquisitions and holding companies too um so I can see how um you know that that cocktail of factors um you know leads to unique and interesting uh outcomes I I also wanted to to ask you know many large organizations or funds um who are flush with cash or hungry for deal making um like soft

bank's Vision fund um Etc often have made big moves which can warp an industry or in Market uh but in hindsight you know having twoo much Capital was often detrimental to returns um I'm curious how you think about that Dynamic and Savvy and what you and the team are doing to ensure that um that type of outcome is not the case in your situation yeah well hopefully it won't be the case we'll do our best to make sure that isn't the case um the um I think I think it comes back to uh the fact that we've got a single shareholder that single shareholder is a sovereign wealth fund that Sovereign wealth fund is managing essentially public money I mean this is money that belongs to the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and there are a lot of checks and balances in place um with our shareholder to ensure that we we um are thoughtful in our strategy we're

thoughtful and uh and very diligent in in uh pursuing opportunities um we're not in a rush to deploy the rest of the capital um you know we've got a lot of capital left to deploy but with a very long time Horizon and long and very patient Capital uh the pif is is very helpful in ensuring that we are measured in how we're thinking about deploying it uh and um and that we you know to the to the greatest extent possible make the make the best decisions okay um and Brian somewhat selfishly I'm also uh Curious how leaders like you manage organizations that operate across different regions with different Customs different focuses time zones different company cultures Etc um how do you create Unity across an organization with so many differences um or would you say the magic is in how the

operations are centralized uh what's the case with Savvy I I think the the model in our industry which has more predominantly become a very independent and autonomous model um is the right one I think creative teams generally speaking are uh are very uh Team oriented towards their you know their local group their Studio or what or what have you and I think to the greatest extent possible it's our job uh to get out of the way to to invest in the strategy that is the sound strategy for which you invested in or acquired that unit in the first place and to empower the people who are executing on that strategy and hopefully you've been successful in your investment and your m&a activity to attract all of the great people uh now there are some examples in our industry where you know the team te did not come over or they came over and

didn't stay and generally speaking those don't work out very well and uh so our job is to make sure that um we are very clear about Our intention in investing in the strategy and continuing the path of success that the company or the business unit or studio is on providing that continuity and following through with what we said and helping them uh formulate a road map that um that builds upon and amplifies that you know their ambition over a long period of time gotcha uh I just have a couple more questions before we dive more into the the details of the individual units first could you help us Envision what you want the final product of Savvy to look like after most of the capital has been deployed you you've hit on this a little bit but I just kind of wanted to ask it directly like let's say the year is 2033 10 years from now how do you think Savvy looks and works differently

compared to today okay do you know how old I'm going to be in 2033 by the way I'm not goingon to tell you but um I doubt well that's probably good so um I will tell you that okay let's say it's 2033 so three years after you know Vision 2030 comes to fruition in most of its respects across all of the elements of that strategy so what would Savvy look like in 2033 well uh we will be a global games uh leader and investing in great uh teams and enabling great teams to continue uh you know aiming towards an outsized ambition that might not have been possible without our long-dated impatient Capital uh and support uh we will have largely stayed out of the way of those entities and allowed them continue to build their uh business and build their teams um you know build upon the culture that they've successfully instilled in their people um we don't want to mess with any of that we want to provide continuity to the greatest

extent possible uh we will have built uh re um uh Gilla uh and help build neom uh and maybe even jeda into uh you know a great Powerhouse of um games and Esports activity uh and um and have created thousands and thousands of jobs hopefully 39,000 because that's actually the magic number um and um and we will continue to build upon on the Esports side I think um provide move Beyond this sort of fragmented um ecosystem into one where hopefully we're a dominant player and through long-term investing in building the pro building the product quality and the operational excellence of the teams executing on the on the product Vision as well as broadening the um appeal of Esports outside of it Niche fairly Niche you know Esports Enthusiast gamer Enthusiast

audience that it is today and if we can improve that um audience breadth and its um and its appeal we think we can monetize that sector better as you know engagement in orts is off the charts monetization is kind of off the charts in the opposite direction and we think we can help improve that and um and then uh well let me stop there I think that's a would be a pretty satisfying uh end State okay yeah that makes sense and I have a bunch of follow-ups to to several of the pieces that you said in there that'll get you in just a moment but um really the final question of this section uh that I wanted to ask is most of the games industry both the Insiders Executives and also players are not used to a Saudi based business being a key mover and Shaker in the games industry so um yeah I just wanted to ask what do you feel is misunderstood or any misconceptions

about running a Saudi based business that the rest of the world would be better off knowing well I think that that's a great question and two years ago my answer would have been a little different than it is today I think but a I think a lot of those what I would say misconceptions uh about Saudi Arabia have largely evaporated in the two years that I've been here and I don't get very many questions about Saudi anymore uh to be honest or what is it like there or kind of this like video games Saudi Arabia is that going to work uh people are sort of beyond that because a lot of people have visited here a lot of people read about the uh ambition of the Kingdom in uh games and orts a lot of people read about the uh announcement and uh and the early stages of the national strategy on games and orts so get more sort of operational questions around okay what is it like to do business there how do we come there and publish there how do we come and set up a studio there and and a lot L around and I I would say this two years ago was probably the transformation of the Kingdom in all respects not just in games and orts but you know the society

itself and all of the uh investment and expansion in industrial sectors under Vision 2030 as exce it's the pace of this erand is astonishing from a Westerner perspective I mean this is the most astonishing transformation of a country uh on the planet in 35 years in my estimation and I think people are starting to get the idea that there's a lot going on here and it's happening at a rapid pace and uh people just needed a little bit of time to sort of catch up okay that sounds exciting and I would love to visit and and see it for my myself too um but thanks for answering that but okay we we kind of talked high level about uh a bunch of Savvy oriented points uh let's go ahead and really spend the rest of this conversation kind of digging into a bit more of the specifics of the businesses that you own and um how you view their Futures and I actually wanted to to to start here more

talking about the Mina region this is something that we've kind of been dancing around uh you said you know you want several cities to kind of turn more into games hubs create 39,000 jobs and really just make Saudi Arabia more of a of a major Hub um in the world for Esports and gaming at large and um 966 one of your your businesses is um you know a big part of making that happen from from what I can tell from the outside but I just wanted to give you the floor to kind of talk a bit more about like what exactly Savvy is doing to move the needle in in that direction and how any of your specific subsidiaries in particular are kind of taking outsize roles and and making that happen what does that look like so with regard to mina um region this is really the remit of 966 966 exists in order to uh help um you know realize um the full

potential of this Market which has more you know they're more active gamers in Mina than there are in Western Europe or America people don't know that it's also I think the second largest growing uh region globally in our industry after Lam and um and highly monetizable I mean people spend a lot of money and a very young educated techsavvy um uh demographic that's very very very knowledgeable about games I mean they're in love with games they know a lot about games and um you know what is it uh 70% of um uh of the people in Saudi Arabia are under the age of 35 68% identify as Gamers you know Aon as you know a lot of people who play games on mobile phones don't necessarily self-identify as a gamer right but for 68% of the population to self-identify as a gamer is an extraordinarily high percentage so 966 job is to essentially do three things one uh work with um uh government Ministries and other stakeholders to

develop the sorts of incentives and programs that would attract foreign investment so companies that might want to come here set up a studio or some other U facility maybe it's QA maybe it's localization maybe it's some other Outsourcing uh bring leadership and then hire local people because no matter how much Capital we have to deploy Savvy can't build the KSA ecosystem all by itself we need other people to come into the kingdom help us do that other great companies from around the industry and um and so this you wouldn't normally as a commercial entity invite your competitors to come into your home Market but this in fact is our mandate to do this the second thing 966 does is work with stakeholders again um sometimes um government oriented stakeholders but sometimes not uh to develop uh essentially incubation and acceleration uh and then follow on support programs for local entrepreneurs who might want to start a studio or some other gaming entity and there's a lot of enthusiasm for entrepreneurship

generally speaking in the Kingdom across all sectors uh under Vision 2030 is a much more ENT entrepreneurial place than it was say 10 years ago at least this is what I'm told uh and there you know there's High enthusiasm for our sector so there's a lot of people who want to you know try and develop something in it and it's our job to try and support those people and then thirdly training and development you can't take people out of University and make them an executive producer overnight you need to train them up and develop them and you need to have vocational programs you need to have academic programs uh you need to have a lot of support from both um uh educational institutions and other commercial Partners who are who are well versed in in developing talent in other jurisdictions to come here and help T Train up a very sort of readymade Market of people who just don't have the experience but they have everything else cool uh that's a really interesting answer I also somewhat tangentially was just going to ask why do you think think um the government cares so much about

gaming specifically and I just ask because it's Unique compared to the rest of of the world you know if you look at you know other very developed regions whether it's the US Europe the government's not really thinking about gaming if you look at somewhere like China if anything the government's been more hostile to gaming um obviously it's a it's a growth Market it's you know an important growing branch of entertainment but why care so much about gaming well I think a goes down to Vision 2030 so Vision 2030 is the strategy and blueprint for transforming the country and diversifying the economy away from oil and gas which just by itself seems like a pretty good idea to be honest right uh and uh and and providing more opportunities for women and and and in in investing in 13 industrial sectors one of those 13 is entertainment what's the biggest part of Entertainment Games by a country mile we're bigger than film and TV and music all put together now so that's part of of it I also leadership like the rest of this country is very young here and

there are Avid Gamers amongst you know the most senior people uh in the country and so I think there's a natural affinity for our our our sector and a great deal of knowledge about our sector not just about the products but about how our business Works about the opportunity that it provides to young people and the places where there are Global hubs uh and about the values and culture of our industry which you know are part of the transformation of theom so I think those are the two components of the answer okay that's really interesting especially the the ethen point from a group of younger leaders I do think that is pretty I mean Aon this is the only country on the planet that has a national strategy for games and Esports yeah it it's very very unique hence my many questions about about it um it's very very interesting to unpack um I wanted to to kind of switch gears to talk a bit about um scopely which of course is you know know the biggest piece of news from from this past year

um and stvvy but also I think is the largest part of of your business now although you can correct me if that's not the case um but I just wanted to ask at a high level um why acquire scopely especially at a time when mobile at large has faced major structural setbacks like in your mind like what was so special about them to make that large of a move when much of the the market gone pretty pretty silent from an m&a front well first of all um if you're going to be a global leader or the global leader in games and Esports you can't ignore mobile or companies that are mobile first and I wouldn't call um I wouldn't call Scully a mobile company they're really a free-to-play live services company that's mobile first but with crossplatform capabilities and Ambitions and a fairly significant web and PC uh presence already with you know console coming next year so they're a live services company that's mobile

first not a mobile not a mobile company but they were the last company of that type that was independent and scaled and then two other things they've got a large number of franch they're not dependent on one thing I mean Monopoly go has been a runaway success in the last six months but they've got 12 franchises that have done over uh 100 million dollars in lifetime Revenue they got six that have done over a half billion in lifetime Revenue so they're not a they're not a one trick pony and they've got the play gamy platform which is the platform for monetization uh and player uh retention and engagement so those were the real those were the real reasons okay and if you're listening to to this episode I do recommend checking out that interview with Javier he did a great job just just scroll back in your feed uh about two three weeks and it'll be there but I highly recommend uh checking it out um Brian Javier also mentioned how postacquisition not much has changed in the way way of how scopely operates uh which gets to the point you're making

earlier about providing some autonomy to enable creativity um but he also did point out that savvy's um you know Capital does enable the business to potentially expand into to new opportunities that it might not have been able to do on its own at least as easily um otherwise how important was was that part of it scopely becoming more than something uh than what it is today or was at the time to um to to the acquisition that Savvy made well I think if I'm you know to be really uh Frank about it they didn't need our Capital to get from their run rate which was maybe you know1 and a half billion dollar Topline run rate at the time of uh the deal signing they didn't need our help to double that and get to three billion uh under any circumstances what they what they probably needed was long-term strategic Capital to get to nine or 10 billion and

I remember a slide in the management presentation that talked about their long-term ambition that was very inspiring uh and uh very exciting and so we thought if we can be if we can help provide what they need in that respect it gets to an exponentially larger outcome 10 years from now um then that's uh that's that's that's exactly right up our alley and that's something we should be doing and and if we can a very young um Sue super super capable leadership team and great people uh across the country uh across the company rather um and if we can attract all of those people and provide a longer term uh runway for their you know for for them to uh uh fulfill their Ambitions and building a legacy business the same sort of ambition the leadership team had ESL face it uh to be honest long you know wanting to stay for the long term and build something really meaningful as a legacy um then this was uh you know something that was really attractive to us your right that scopely is the biggest part of our company I think we're 30 overall in Savvy I think we're

3,500 people roughly around the world in 22 countries um scopely would be about 2,300 uh of those people okay um and I'm curious what your daytoday looks like when it comes to working with the leaders of these organizations uh like when you talk to them like what type of support do you offer what do they come to you for could you just kind of unpack what that relationship between these units and the holding company specifically you looks like yeah I I think our main job is to provide continuity um provide continuity and don't screw it up basically so um uh and then um participate in helping develop a long-term strategic road map that you know is consistent with their current strategy and the success that they've had over numerous years my job is to figure out how to Sol my entire job is solving problems so how to uh solve problems that they might have uh that

maybe they're Capital related we haven't we haven't encountered any of those but they could be uh or maybe they're related to uh you know long-term strategic planning maybe they're related to our ownership and the expectations of our stakeholder there's a lot of interpretation we do here at Savvy between the stakeholder and the business units um you know because know it's different it's different having a sovereign wealth fund as your as your uh sole shareholder uh everybody works extremely well together we've had a tremendously successful trip out to California with our with our sh with senior people from our shareholder so that's kind of my job is I feel like I'm kind of an interpreter and helping uh you know make sure that everybody sort of remains on the same page that we provide continuity and that we are consistent in helping them Advance their long-term strategic Direction okay uh sounds good um you we we talked about scopy for a minute you mentioned ESL face it and I also had a great conversation ation with Craig and Nick um there and one of the notable

takeaways for me from that conversation was how the subsidiaries aspirations similarly to to scop PL expanded as a result of merging together and becoming a more multifaceted Esports ecosystem facilitated by by Savvy um but considering the sustainability driven reset that Esports is going through like we've seen phze Clan sell for much less than it was we're seeing the OverWatch League shut down and you know the list is a pretty long one of how how Esports is currently being reset you know on one hand that conversation with ESL fa it it made me realized like wow th this ecosystem is actually coming together in a pretty unique and interesting way that hasn't really been seen before in Esports and maybe is a a noteworthy zag while the industry is going in in this direction um but I wanted to to get your view of

why why Focus so heavily on Esports at a time when Esports is going through such a big reset U like is there anything notable about the timing there or was it just purely about the kind of the business opportunity um and I I'll stop there but I might have a followup okay so I mean Esports was a very uh important part of the founding strategy that came out of the pif and the and the founding board and then the board of directors itself uh so that was one thing that was clear and I think if you fast forward two years to the recently announced uh Esports World Cup uh having already uh posted you know two successful years of Gamers a you know by far the biggest uh Esports events in uh in history uh you can sort of see the uh foundation for why Savvy might have been encouraged to focus on Esports you know starting a a couple of years ago and of

course as you know as everybody will appreciate Esports has been somewhat separate from games development and games publishing and Publishers for the for the longest time viewed it as kind of like a nice marketing thing and not much else uh and weren't really on side with a lot of the Esports operators a lot of the Esports operators had some difficulty scaling because nobody's been able to make you know consistent profits in the space and that's not just Esports operators but across the Esports ecosystem and it's also the economic interests uh in Esports are very fragmented uh between or amongst Publishers and and uh operators and uh teams and and uh media rights holders and and so forth so we thought well covid kind of accelerated um adoption or engagement we thought there would be a lot of consolidation we thought we could probably participate or lead that some of that consolidation and if we did we might get to a place where we could Pro provide a different level of services and Operational Support for the IP

holders uh and and maybe even participate in figuring out better economics for everyone in the ecosystem from players and teams to to Publishers to operators great um well let's go ahead and keep the conversation moving uh could could talk to you all day about any one of these uh components but um I also wanted to to ask about steer Studios um so from my view you're not just acquiring existing games companies but also seeding at least this one from Ground Zero um so I just wanted to ask why take this approach and can you tell us just what can we know about steer Studios so far steer so far is uh I think around 80 people now um from a standing start of zero 18 months ago um I would say there's 17 different nationalities probably employed amongst those 80 people almost 30% female participation which is pretty high for uh for a game development

studio um I think our uh our saudization Target or our saudization uh metric in there is somewhere around 55% or something like that which will increase over time we'll probably have 80% Saudis in that studio um again the foundation uh you know or forming a studio from scratch was an important component of the strategy uh that came out of the founding board and the and the and the board itself of uh Savvy as you will know there are very very few scaled games companies that build Studios from scratch you know Studios get built by teams who spin out from somewhere else and and then they get Acquired and um you know Ubisoft is probably the only scaled operator that's built a number of Studios from scratch fortunately we've got some veterans uh from Ubisoft leading this effort and um and are doing a great job uh in in instilling a great games oriented culture they've won several

awards for best place to work uh in the last I think six awards for best place to work in the last year and a half and are you know helping you know train up people in so far you know casual mobile games but with uh you know some cons console aspirations down the line so I don't know that we'll build another Studio from scratch uh here under Savvy but um but I think it was a sound idea to to you know take the learnings that we're uh that we're realizing from steer and be able to uh transmit and educate others who are coming into the kingdom about what it's been like to build a studio or an entity here uh because we want other people to come here and try the same thing gotcha uh well it's really interesting to see and and I look forward to following how it goes I was also asking just because other holding companies in in the games industry it seems like an emerging uh Strate stry to start creating new Studios elsewhere kind of in replacement of m&a and in certain

certain ways uh but obviously in in your case you still have a lot of capital to to deploy and you have you know different uh goals and aspirations around how you build in in the region so I'm just curious to see how that will will play out over time um but one final question about these parts of your business um which is really like is there any other active subsidiaries or projects or strategies that we we didn't talk about yet today that you want to to highlight and make sure that the audience understands no I think we've hit on the main ones I we've got these three strategic pillars and we're executing U with 966 under the KSA one EF EFG a self faed group under the Esports strategy and scopely is our anchor in uh so far in um in game development and Publishing and uh you know we'll hopefully uh realize some other great opportunities I would expect mostly in game development and Publishing will be taking uh taking into

uh account and following to a certain extent scop Le's strategic lead in in this area um uh because they're an experts in that sort of business model um as it applies to our business and and um I can't think of anything else that might be of interest to your listeners that we haven't touched on okay sounds good um we we've also hit on this question in a couple ways but you know just say again it's 33 um and so you're still looking young You're Still Still excited about savvy's um future um but you know at that time if we were to do a podcast episode then and we're looking back over the past 10 years of what savvy's impact on the games industry has been not not just what Savvy has kind of achieved for itself but like what its impact um has been um what would make you happy you know then to to to say like we did this we stood for this um we accomplished you know X XYZ what impacts

would you be happy to have achieved great question if I still if I look young in 2033 that'll be a miracle of modern Medical Technology but um I would say a couple of things one um we will be able to say that we created a really robust games and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia with thousands of Saudis having well-paying jobs in a sector that they're already naturally very excited and knowledgeable about that would be that would be huge um I would say uh hopefully we will have figured out a way not by ourselves but in conjunction with other people how to improve the economics for all the participants in the Esports space so that we're all happier with the with the prospects there to the benefit of everyone from viewers to players teams Publishers Etc and I think on the on the games development and uh publishing side if we're able to say that we made some great investments in excellent teams who who were able to real realize uh a longer term ambition uh that might not

have a been available to them without our capital and participation then that that would be uh that would be the trifecta awesome uh well I hope all of that comes true it's certainly going to be exciting to watch um as we wrap up here I wanted to ask you one uh nons Savvy related question which is just what else in the games industry are you excited about it could be a trend other companies games what what has piqued your interest and made you excited about our industry's future I I think you know when I started in this business um I don't know what the sector was worth then but we thought man wouldn't it be awesome if someday we were bigger than the music guys wouldn't that be like amazing and now we're bigger than them and film and somebody else put together um and when I look forward to you know I've been asked this question a few times around the impact of AI uh as an

example and other tools that are you know some of which we are on the horizon some of which we don't even know about yet that really is really super exciting because I think that provides so much opportunity for expanding um uh for expanding the medium and expanding the number of uh you know uh available jobs and the skill sets uh that uh provides a lot of not just enjoyment entertainment uh to people but a lot of uh like the number of people who are employed in our industry worldwide uh and the number of families who depend on our industry for their livelihood is really exciting compared to where we were say 20 years ago amazing uh well let's go ahead and and wrap up here final final question um if anyone wishes to to reach out to you or Savvy either they want to work with you or get to get to know what you're about and more detail hopefully today helped but if they want to know um even more get in touch where should they go that's

a great question I should have the answer right at hand team take note no um I am sure there is something on the uh website uh in relation to how people can get a hold of us and uh if not I can assure you that within a day or two that will be there um and uh it is not hard to find the people uh who are leading our HR function function the people who are leading our Communications function and so forth and and so any of those channels would be uh uh terrific okay great and I I will confirm that it is easy to get in touch from the website that's how I got in touch with you um so so that should work out pretty well I hope um also well Brian I I really sincerely could chat with you all day but we got to wrap um thank you again for hopping on today and and sharing how Savvy Works how you think and best of luck and your quest to build out savvy's future if you enjoyed today's episode

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