The New Business of Narrative

[Music] welcome to the novic gaming podcast where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games we bring together the industry's brightest Builders investors and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events dissect emerging Trends and games share Lessons Learned and have a great time this podcast is also part of novic growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to Consulting and AD advisory services for more information visit [Music] www.nic.edu zebedy provides a plug-in playay API and SDK for seamless integration of instant borderless and low fee payments using the Bitcoin lightning network with fees less than 1 cent zeid Powers over 4,000 developers across sectors processing

millions of transactions monthly you too can unlock the potential of borderless transactions to better engage and monetize your Global user base including the unbanked and simplify the way you handle payments start for free at zebedy doio integrate with just a few steps and monetize your experiences again that's zeid doio or check out the link in the show notes and with that let's jump into the episode what's up everyone and welcome to the nov gaming podcast I'm your host Alex te and this is interviews so in a talk by Warren Spectre who most members in the audience will identify as the Director and producer of critically acclaimed DSX he shared a quote in a DDC talk from a book by J morray which states the following the video game includes still images moving images text audio three-dimensional navigable space and more of the building blocks of Storytelling than any single medium has ever offered us and I personally have

conviction and I bet our guests today would agree that games are one of the most powerful storytelling mediums on the planet and not only from an A to B style narrative think something like the last of us or God of War but through other story structures retold stories so think of something like a card game or a match three game you know I almost got it but then I didn't and then the next round was different um decisions and consequences so think any jrpg or The Witcher and sandbox or something like Minecraft but as much as games have been a powerful Avenue for narrative there's been limited innovation in how the stories are told about whom they are told how they are monetized and by whom they are created and so today I'm excited to welcome two other fellow Forbes 30 under 30s Emily pitcher the founder of saering and Carla Ray the founder of Anima interactive both are female founders of two Studios that are focusing on narrative Innovation and to tell socially conscious stories to me they represent a new kind of game developer native to the social media content creator ecosystem sing for example has I think around 55 5K

followers on Tik Tok which is just wow um and building Studios that are representative of the actual stories that they plan to tell so um welcome to the show guys thanks so much for having us hell yeah it's awesome to have you guys on um and I know that I gave you guys a loose intro but Emily and Carla um I know you guys know each other but I would love for you to tell the audience a bit more about your background in games how you came to found your Studios and at a high level you know what narrative scape is your studio focusing on for its first product uh Carla we'll go to you first sure thanks so much so again name's Carla Reyes pronouns are she her um Alex kindly gave a bit of overview but um my background is primarily as a game designer so I started my career in the industry at Square Enix where I was helping build out their mobile publishing division in Europe and then I moved over to Niantic so I was working on augmented reality games but I think the through line in a lot of my experience has been that I've

always been deeply curious about the ways in which video games can drive real world social impact and I've also in tendem done a lot of advocacy work so I helped build an organization called code coven which saering studio actually participated in um one of the programs but it's essentially a classroom and accelerator for underrepresented game talent and uh I've just been doing a lot of work to try to increase representation at all levels within the industry both behind and on screen um and then as far as the focus for anima so you alluded to it earlier uh Alex but basically we call ourselves socially conscious and so what this means is that we're really thinking critically about a lot of social justice issues in the world and exploring ways that interactive media can address them to Foster greater empathy and awareness around them and um while our first game is unannounced um I can kind of speak broadly to the fact that the The Narrative scope is a you know addressing real world human story stories um and

there are themes of the Immigrant experience broadly fantastic yeah I think honestly a background like yours always makes me feel like I should be doing a lot more um you are thank you this is this is it in action since You' involved in so many awesome things I know code cubin is a really um has had a tremendous impact on the industry um especially for um female coders and um getting more people into the gaming industry from the from even from the earliest funnel of uh recruiting and um just you know being younger and knowing how knowing that's actually like a career pathway um in the first place um so thank you for sharing about that and uh Emily maybe uh I'll have you next so hi I'm Emily I'm the founder of soldering Studio we make artistic narrative games that focus on Asian-American representation my gaming Journey started in college when I joined UCLA's game development Club immediately fell in love with the craft and it was through a game Jam game that I made made called the T of the past that really

gave me the confidence to propel my gaming career further and to start my own business and studio um as you mentioned earlier I'm also a content creator mainly on Instagram Tik Tok and YouTube I make videos about insights to making games my favorite indie games inclusivity in the industry and sometimes mes as well that's amazing yeah I took a look at your at your portfolio page and it's uh it's actually really it was really funny I definitely found them to be quite humorous and uh I think it's a very effective way to kind of create compelling content I recently recorded an episode with the uh heads of global gaming at Tik Tok and humor is the way is the way to win on that platform so it takes a very unique content creator um and it's awesome to to have you here um so thank you both for sharing a bit about your background and I hope that gives the audience some grounding for the kinds of Studios that you guys are building and the kinds of games that you're trying to make um and so today we're going to talk about the

full stack of narrative right so how stories are told in games and what mechanics are used to influence narrative flow will then turn towards your stories the stud that your studios are planning to tell and how and why you plan to operatively staff and build that studio to support the socially conscious Mission you know I.E what I'm calling I guess the rise of the new game developer and then finally we'll conclude with discussing the predicament of the narrative business model um which is you know to me very very interesting State and uh needs a shake up for sure um so before we dive into the kinds of Studios that your stories that your studos want to tell I want to spend some time on the field of narrative game making and what new Innovations have been brought to the space over the past years and what narrative can do to influence Society so an opening question might be you know what story structures today do you think are the most interesting um and Carla maybe we we'll start with you sure oh gosh um so much right and I think this

is why video games especially intrigue me because you can explore nonlinear and you know that quote that you open the podcast with really resonates because we can really tell stories through so many different media within the the broader media of video games right so um you know you think about things like environmental storytelling which is done through Visual Art or there's so much emotion that you can capture through audio and music and it's just a fully Dynamic immersive experience and I think that that's that's what really excites me um I and I I think that there are a lot of people exploring new techniques within within video games um as far as like narrative more narrative driven games and the life is strange series is is one that's been obviously very impactful to to me and inspiring um just because I think it was a really effective way of showing uh choice and consequence right and that's you know you to that earlier as well but um so

many more to name but I'll I'll let Emily address it as well yeah for me I think the big change in narrative is just making characters that have deeper backstories making more empathetic stories I think a great example of this is Jinx from League of Legends if you read her lore there is a line that says like oh Jinx was always this crazy and there's no reason why she just is that crazy but then obviously RI games made Arcane which really delved into that backstory and explained why she is that way and that was a huge success I think also my favorite game of all time is called before your eyes it's a narrative game that's told through blinking like literally it uses your webcam and blinking his mechanic the saying is that like life flashes before your eyes so it tells a story of a young boy from birth um so when he grows older through blinking and that was a massive success I think

people are looking at gaming as more of an art form and because of that we're moving towards more diverse stories yeah I think I love that the approach around mechanics and I think you know Carla you mentioned life is strange and Emily you mentioned this blinking mechanic I think one of the profound things about life is strange it's personally also a game that I've played is the actual unique gameplay feature of the rewind time mechanic as a way that is very like synchronous with the storytelling and The Motif right and I think um life is strange has done that Gardens between has done that and I think that that's actually a very very very interesting way of actually tying together the game design and game mechanics with the actual story itself um and so you know from this you know right you know we talked a little bit about story structures and interactive story games right um Carla about selling stories through the environment telling th stories through scripts that you can read in the environment through audio through blinking through a a variety of other things you know for you guys

particularly and at your Studios you know what do you think some of the uh most compelling game Mechanics for narrative are and kind of why and what do you plan on using at your Studios yeah I I can talk a little bit about it um and maybe it's worth discussing our approach to narrative a little bit um so for this particular project uh it's rooted in a lot of real world stories and inspired by a lot of real world stories so we have um a lot of consultation and uh interviews that we're conducting with people with lived experience of the theme and the context and the setting that we're portraying in the in the game and I think that being able to translate something that's rooted in reality into a fictional world because inevitably it is fictional as much as it is you know kind of realistic because it is a video game and it's a piece of art um and that that's been an interesting challenge but I think there's it's also a welcomes a new

opportunity and and a lot of excitement to to try to innovate around that and uh some of the things that we're doing um or that you know we're exploring is obviously as even just simple imagery like 2D uh illustrations can be so powerful and can you know you think about somebody's a photograph or a memory right so that uh as a moment of Stillness in in a video game can can be quite powerful and compelling um I think cinematic are are very useful you know narrative um mechanics as well and being able to strike a balance between the interactivity while also having the passive viewing allows the player to to meditate on something and then actually engage yeah I see that there is this um you know for you guys that are making us stories about that are grounded in the real world reality having something like a Fantastical realism of a life is strange rewind feature obviously pred prevents uh kind of contradictions to

the authenticity of making and telling a real world story um I think we were talking um before we got on air but you were saying that um you're focusing mostly on migrant stories which theoretically those people wouldn't have superpowers um and you know a lot of the reason for why people play deeply single person narrative games is to feel powerful right and to feel like a hero but in reality what you're trying to tell in your story is to try to put somebody in the shoes of that actual jour um which is really fascinating and um you know uh Emily I would give you a chance to react to that but I think another additional question would be uh you know from the point of balancing interactive gameplay with cinematics you know a lot of the other issue is that people uh want to do economical storytelling so they want to get into the action very quickly and don't have the patience for the cut scene um so everybody's like Skip Skip Skip and they skip the story so what do you guys think about that kind of as a framework for

people who is it just an audience mismatch or is there something else that games can be doing to tell stories in a way that's not through cinematics well that's actually a struggle that my studio was having so our game that we're working on right now has a lot of cutscenes and our original intention was to have the player just like sit through them and watch them and we realized actually this GDC when showing off our game to other designers that it doesn't lead to the most compelling experience like it almost makes you wonder like you know should the story be told through a book or a movie Why is it specifically a game and so for us one thing that we're evaluating right now is how to add interaction in cutcenes to make them feel more alive one thing I realized that like even simpler mechanics like isn't necessarily have to be like dialogue choice or walk you know it could just be like walking around clicking through the dialogue picking up objects like those like small moments of

interaction can actually contribute a lot to keeping the player engaged during a cut scene yeah something a little bit more in the what um what remains of Edith Finch style right right exactly definitely yeah you think about a lot of walking Sims and even though there are a lot of cinematic moments just simple interactions like Emily just mentioned are can be quite effective um a game that comes to mind that I think does it effectively is we arek which is essentially an En irely like narrative driven experience right it's um it's a story for yeah those who don't know it's a story of a virtual band in in Los Angeles and um but it's it's a hugely narrative driven experience and they have these music video moments where you're essentially watching a music video but then you can play there are some mechanics where you can play while you're in the music video which is unique and I don't know I think experimenting with with things like that is um is cool yeah do you think that there's something that in the past two years you guys are the most um have

found to be the most Innovative I think that's the other thing that you know we're sort of struggling with is like as narrative has gone on some of these things have not are not really not necessarily new or novel and it's I think it's very rare um that there's something that steps onto the scenes like maybe like a what reign of Edith Finch that really like tectonically changes the way that narrative is framed um what are the projects for example that you guys most admire in terms of in terms of that well I was going to say like just hearkening back to before your eyes like that game genuinely changed the way that I felt about narrative gaming it was a game where um very similar to the before your ice team like my team for us narrative is the pillar it's like the most important thing that we care about like art atmosphere it's like The Vibes the feelings you get when playing your game and then everything else is supposed to support that um and what I love about before your eyes is that um it is a game about blinking which is firstly just such a unique mechanic but it's not just blinking

there are moments in the game where you have to hold your eyes open to make sure that you hear this dialogue there are moments in the game where you have to keep your eyes closed and I really admire the way they use such a simple mechanic in different ways to tell the story's themes yeah I will say I I know Oli and Graham who are the primary developers but behind before your eyes and I have such deep respect and and admiration for for what they've done it's it's definitely up there as far as um narrative Inspirations um I guess I can talk about venba uh you know I played that I don't know if either of you have played that one but I thought that really did it it did a really nice job I was actually a juror for the bafta games Awards and they won the the category that um that I had um served for on the jury for which was the best debut game and which is which is very exciting because it shows that there's a lot of interest um in narrative driven experiences but basically something effective that I think Bena did was that um it told told some you know some

pretty heavy-hitting uh like stories right about the Immigrant experience um but it also wrapped it in this very light-hearted mechanic which was the cooking mechanic right something that a lot of people can kind of get wrap their heads around and so it doesn't feel like trauma porn right like necessarily it's that there's uh you can address adversities but know that the The Human Experience is nuance and complex and and it there's there's a whole spectrum of emotions and being able to package set up and serve it on a platter no pun intended in given the vena cooking mechanic but yeah I think um that was certainly an inspiration for us as well wait I definitely want to talk a little bit more I'm also like the biggest fan of empa um so my team we actually also made a narrative cooking game about the Immigrant experience uh we actually were making it at the same time and then we realized oh wait we're making similar games we should be friends uh but one thing that I found really interesting was how we approach the cooking differently so in my game the mother teaches you how to cook and

so like for example it's like At first it's like oh chop these vegetables and then with each part of the cooking process the instructions will go away kind of showing that you are growing to your mother is teaching you how to cook and now you're no longer need your guidance you can just do it on your own and in vmba they had it so your mother left recipes for you but some of the parts are grayed out or difficult to read and so you have to fill in the blanks there and gain independence through partly following your mother's instructions but also relying on your own taste and memory H yeah that's pretty cool both of these games I have not played so now I can also the purpose of this podcast was to recruit um sorry to basically like elicit new um new games for me to play which um these sound fantastic and amazing um a question that I would have in those games is you know how important do you think dialogue design is to that narration um especially since we know that dialogue right now as a trend in our industry is one expensive um voice

actors cost a lot of money um you might be hit with some kind of uh animosity if you use AI as for your voiceovers as well and so how are you guys thinking about actual dialogue in terms of Storytelling and some of the pros and cons of that especially in the production production stack gosh I'm I'm grappling with this every day because I think especially when you're telling real world stories you want to hear those human voices because they they so poignantly capture emotion but of course production costs are high with with vo I think there are a lot of mechanics that you can explore that still involve you know text so you know we we've talked about what remains of Edith Finch but the the text animations and the text effects that they use are so compelling and not very expensive to produce right like now Unity has all this whole Suite of amazing plugins for for for you know text animations and um I think being able to just digest dialogue um through

these interesting like animated effects could be compelling because it's all about the the perception right and as you're um as the story is unfolding the way it unfolds you can explore so many different um mechanics and manifestations of that I was going to say for me I'm the writer of my studio so for me dialogue love it I love thinking about like the rhythm of how people talk obsessing over every single word um I guess can talk about this a little bit with the game that I'm working on it's currently unannounced but I can talk about it in a more broad level so our game is divided into two different worlds a Fantastical world where there's magical realism it's inspired by Chinese mythologies so there's figures in like Chinese history and then a real world which is a bit more like gritty um and they're supposed to juxtapose each other to show the highlights and aspects of each world for us the real world is very very very heavy in dialogue um the story

centers around a young girl and her family and every family member is voiced versus in a Fantastical world it's not voiced at all and we rely more on environmental storytelling to get the point across and for me like I think what's important like is dialogue of course and crafting that dialogue to be beautiful but I think a tool that you can use is also when there's no dialogue or when there's no voice acting for a certain dialogue like I very much believe of actually using voiceover maybe a bit more sparingly so those moments can be highlighted even more yeah I I fully Echo what Emily says I think less can be more especially when you're telling you know poignant stories um leaving it to the player's imagination I think is is really exciting right uh so so there's a lot you can do there yeah it was super funny um because I think you know obviously the method is you know less is more but games are longer than movies or something like that so there was like

this funny meme that was like uh a film script and for those that can't see us on YouTube like I'm it's a small stack a film script is maybe like two inches thick and then like The Witcher script is like yep like 9 feet tall because there's so many lines of dialogue and there's so many characters and so um you know it's interesting and to see how you're using voice and dialogue as a way of a powerful point of like oh this part of my world is loud with voices but this other part of my world is quiet um as a means of actually like creating an actual Ambiance and an effect um and so I love that example um MLA between your game and I know that you it's unannounced but that's very helpful context and grounding for how you're thinking about dialogue um one thing that I want to touch on before we kind of shift to you know you mentioned that your story is T told mostly about um asian-americans and Carla you talked about you know the migrant and the migrant story right um is the concept of using consequences and choices and

narrative games to teach and address social behavior um you know I grew up playing a lot of jrpgs where if you make the bad decisions like you end up getting the bad ending uh either other people die you kill yourself um you kill everybody else or something else that's very horrific that only a modlin writer could potentially imagine happens right and these are consistent motifs across a lot of games like sea of stars Final Fantasy Tales ofilia um and even Western titles as well um you know you talked about building socially conscious Studios um for narrative specifically what are you guys thinking about in terms of choices and consequences in your games um in general I can answer this question so for the game that I'm currently working on the theme is about finding Beauty in the broken making mistakes and owning them but also knowing that you can come back from your St mistakes you can ask for forgiveness you can become a better person to despite your flaws so I think for our

game like how we're approaching choice is that you probably will make mistakes you will make the wrong decisions but actually that's good in a way celebrate the fact that you're human and you're imperfect that's what makes life worthwhile and meaningful so I guess like that's how we're approaching in our game like mistakes are good almost um we're not sure about like alternate endings yet we're still earlier in production um but like for us like the again because the theme of our game is that um to celebrate imperfection we almost encourage the player to say sometimes the wrong thing so do I get to save or is that not a is that yeah no it's it's so interesting because um as we're capturing you know real world stories how do we sensitively portray like what people have actually lived through right and how do we not gamify that so much and so it has to be a little bit more Curative a little bit more authored there aren't infinite

branching paths right like choices have real consequences in the real world and and we show that um and I think that resilience so kind of thematically similar to what Emily's just mentioned about um acceptance and you know accepting that you're going to make mistakes but continuing to persevere amidst and after adversity those themes are are really Salient through through what we're designing and that means that even if you make the wrong choice quote unquote um that you learn from it and that you have the opportunity for a second chance right uh sometimes you don't get a second chance on that specific event but if you survive if you remain alive right you'll you'll grow wiser and you know in the next iteration that looks similar to that a circumstance right then then you make a different Choice yeah I mean even thinking about it myself like perhaps actually even like not having a save function um would be an interesting Innovation within the narrative genre itself right I mean I found myself in every pen and paper RPG saving

immediately before like disco Le I'm about to like I'm going about to go do the skill check and I'm like ah don't like that going to go back right even right now playing Final Fantasy rebirth and I'm like I think I said the wrong thing to be it just gonna just gonna reload just rewind yeah and perhaps actually that's an element of replayability right that um you know for a smaller scale game like if you wanted to experience all the variety of the of the things that could potentially happen all the branching trees you know depending on how many you have um that could be something that's like hey like you're not allowed to to to save and go back um which is I think an interesting uh proposition um but I think actually by now might be a good time to actually transition to talking about the kinds of stories that you guys are telling um and Hollywood and TV there's been this exhaustive push to increase onscreen representation of minority groups um I.E shows like insecure on HBO that explicitly focus on being black in La amazing show if anybody hasn't watched that worked on a game that was about it

it's called insecure the comeup game I was an early programmer and prototyp yeah for for that yeah and the the mechanic was actually like um wrapping in front of the mirror right because that's what does so awesome yeah that is awesome I'll have to look that up that's so cool that show is so funny and that's a great and clever way to do that mechanic EXA oh that's so cool um but anyway shout out to insecure if anybody hasn't watched that um but just you know know Korean dramas and shows that have high representation of sexuality and gender spectrums and more um and in games however I think we're lagging a little bit behind right so only 6% of popular games feature female protagonists and unfortunately when you think of big narrative Heavy Hitters especially in PC console Last of Us God of War Red Dead Redemption Uncharted Witcher and even like Final Fantasy um there's a positive gender diversity there especially too um ethnic diversity sexual diversity and the like um and you guys are building two Studios that are going to tell a different story um and

Emily you know I I would love to start with you we talked about the fact that you're building Studios that are center around being Chinese American but you know what's the first story that you're going to start with telling for that demographic and why do you think that it's going to resonate yeah so for us we're telling in my next game we're going to be telling a story of a Chinese American Girl grappling with growing up so Coming of Age having a complicated relationship with her family and also having that generation grap of her mom and grandparents are from China they were born in China and they have that culture and yet she was born in America so not only like an age Gap but just like a culture Gap and coming to terms with like balancing these both cultures like is she American is she Chinese like what word you fit in this world um and I think that this is really going to resonate with audiences I think about movies like everything every all at once and books

like crying in hemart that achieved extreme critical and Commercial Success and so for me I don't see my game as risky for taking this type of more Niche narrow story I think that it's time for these stories to be told to resonate with other Chinese Americans but also people in China who have relatives live living abroad and they want to know what their lives are like something that I think a lot about is that actually Chinese is the most popular language on Steam and so for me like I don't see my game as a I what I'm trying to say is like I see my game as a more I guess like reliable investment I think that this game could be the game that Bridges the gap between you know how movies are ahead of us we could be there soon I think um no I think like I Echo everything that

Emily has said um something that I I haven't mentioned yet is that at our studio we're not just building our own content inhouse but we're also trying to empower creators um more broadly and so we've actually hosted a couple of game jams um or one um more prominent one most recently which was actually in partnership with a um an organization that was historically a film production company and specializes in narrative and storytelling but is in interested in investing in new media and video games and I think we're seeing a lot of that now right Hollywood is very intrigued by video games being the largest entertainment medium in the world uh and so how do we exchange notes how do we collaborate and and so I'm personally very excited about the the impact driven lens that we can take through that right um because there's obviously uh greater impact through Collective action and so um what we've done is we've basically been trying to just Empower creators with addressing different social justice

issues through video games um so the game gem that we ran last year it was themed around Justice and we asked um developers around the world to um to basically weave different Justice narratives in video games through their prototypes and we had about a 100 participants from 20 countries and that all culminated in a showcase and award ceremony at South by Southwest and we're actually um going to be continuing that building off of the momentum and Community we've built there so uh things will be announced soon around that but um I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to learn from you know as Emily was saying from from film and TV and there's a lot of catching up to do there's also immense on top potential in our industry being the largest entertainment medium we should be thinking about sharing these new stories and I know we've talked about you know um the global majority right it's is is is really our audience so when we think about these more uh quote unquote Niche stories they're actually about like you know a

lot of people in the world have have experienced this so um for example in our case with the migrant Journey The Immigrant experience or the refugee experience right this is something that a lot of people can can resonate with whether they've experienced it themselves or if they're a product of the second generation or third generation especially in the US for example right like we are a nation of immigrants so I think that a lot of people could um you know resonate with that experience if you can think about like Spanish is like um slowly becoming the most widely spoken language in the US right as opposed to to English so it's you know the the tables are turning and it's an exciting and opportune time for the rise of you know these new audiences new uh new creators and and new characters yeah so tldr what I'm learning Chinese is the most spoken language on steam or written language on Ste Spanish is the highest spoken language in the US and so therefore yeah but I think it makes sense right

and you even aptly correct corrected myself like it's not the minority story it's actually like the story of the majority right like um you know I myself as an as a half Asian-American right may even resonate with some of these Journeys I was reading this thing on the New York Times about um what it's like to be half Japanese right because in Japan you are absolutely utterly rejected as being Japanese if you're not Japanese like and someone like even like Naomi Osaka is just like they don't consider her Japanese at all right and it's an interesting like life it's an interesting life story and interesting like way to to be and games can obviously like let really physically let you stand and play actively in the shoes of somebody else and so it's incredibly powerful and so I love that um and so actually question Carla for you like will your game be in English or Spanish first or actually developing it bilingually so it's a little bit of Spanglish at the moment but um but yeah I think it's an interesting one I for for the audience and maybe based on

the Publishers English is probably going to be the primary language but um of course it will will work on localization see Emily what about you anything in Chinese yeah so our game is currently mostly in English but there is like a little bit of Chinese here and there so for example in the Chinese you have a you there's a Chinese zodiac and you're born in a year of a certain animal so the main character is born in the year of the rabbit and so the grandpa as a pet name will'll call her sha which means little rabbit so there's little hints here and there but we obviously do want to localize it as well got it I see and actually that might be it's another great way to shift into our next topic which is you know how do you do Jed to those stories and is there a truth and you know what I call Creator truth to the developers behind the game so if you're going to build this game in Spanish you're going to build this game in Chinese right and it sounds like you guys are thinking about that or considering it or like you said there's elements of it who are the people at your Studios and why are they uniquely qualified to tell these stories stories um and has it also in that same capacity

been challenging to build a studio like that that's already r with diversity from the ground up I know that we talked a little bit about what what you what your studios are doing and what kind of games they're making but I also love to hear about who's in who are the developers inside of them um so Carla we'll start with you yeah gosh um this is such a yeah big question for me because I'm very excited to answer it because we're doing a lot of groundwork um in the way that we're approaching these stories and what we're mindful of is every individual has a unique lived experience so while representation matters just because somebody identifies with a specific background doesn't mean that they are the experts in that right specific topic or theme and I think that's something that as I've gone through a lot of kind of diversity and inclusion work in the industry it's come up as a Salient theme right just because you have um a person of color or let's say you have a you know a Latin American person on your team it doesn't mean that

they're going to be able to speak as experts on this specific you know experience lived experience so we need to make sure that um there are also people with lived experience that are involved in the development process um depending on what it is that you're capturing and so we have several external Consultants um we also uh partner with like academic institutions um because of the culture so we have uh you know an anthropology Lab at UCLA that's been supporting us as as well um and I think that that's been really enlightening and a really powerful resource for us um but it's been really fun because our so our team is very uh distributed and and diverse like we are I think over 85% people of color over 60% female non-binary um and we're kind of dotted across three continents um many of whom are in Latin America but uh I think that adds a lot of richness to the development experience and what I've like discovered over time is that everybody like the themes and stories

that we're telling um are truly like touched by everybody behind the project and it's all kind of coming together and it's very eclectic and it's always that's the fun of game development right it's like when you when you see what everybody has to bring to the table and uh and then it kind of comes together but um yeah I the the tldr of that is that um don't assume that just because somebody is like representative of a speci specific right like demographic that they're going to be the the the best people to be you know telling that story uh and so make sure that you're kind of doing the due diligence and research as well yeah so for my team a ma vast majority of us are Asian living in a different country so Asian-American Asian Australian Asian Canadian so for us when we were deciding what type of game we wanted to make it was almost very natural like this is just making a game about our lived experiences also somewhere to you Carla I think the majority of my studio is either wom or

non-binary for me I never really had diverse to be honest I really didn't have diversity in mind when building my studio thinking oh I need to have like this genetic makeup of the people working I've just always been extremely clear about the types of games that I want to make from the very beginning of me making games I knew I wanted to make story-driven empathetic games for me making games of being Asian-American just also just came naturally because that's just who I am and as I made it abundantly clear to everyone I ever collaborated with what types of games I want to make naturally the people who gravitated towards that probably also had a more diverse perspective or just understood you know this is the type of game that Emily wants to make she's not going to change her mind if I join her for that Journey I'm gonna be making that game too um but thankfully you know through working in games for so long I have formed a really passionate and talented team of people making the game um I also really want to touch on the fact that like although of course this

is a game about cultural representation and diversity for us the number one goal is just to make an objectively good game we're not just trying to appeal to an immigrant audience for us we're trying to appeal to everyone um maybe people who are Asian or immigrants have a special connection to our game but it's a type of story that is human not just Asian-American yeah yeah I think that's a really important point that Emily makes is that we're not just trying to preach to the converted right even though that Global majority would like that game would resonate with them um our hypothesis is that there's a large portion of the population that simply isn't really aware because they don't have the association with it in any capacity but if you wrap it in um experiences that are Universal right because I think things can be deeply personal but also Universal and that I think that's what makes a great story right that's what makes you connect with any character right even though it's not this character is in AR type but they're not necessarily who you are but you can still be inspired by them and look up to

them Etc and I think um that that's something that that we should be and can be exploring yeah there's a movie called the half of it it's about a young Asian-American girl who is a lesbian and when they were doing testing for the movie they actually specifically showed it in a rural conservative areas because the goal of the movie was to change the minds or expand people's perspective Ives of those who may not already be accepting of PE you people of color or people in the lgbtq community and that's like something that I really resonate with my game too I definitely don't want it to just appeal to people who are already accepting of these ideas I want it to bridge people's cultures expand perspectives and make people think uh think of Asians with more empathy um especially after the stop Asian hate movement or with the stop Asian hate movement yeah um I I hate to go all

cringey cringey Stanford but our slogan is change lives change organizations change the world and so I think when you said that Emily that's the first thing I thought of um I definitely drank a little of the Kool-Aid so I will 100% admit that but I do think it's important and I I think what I go ahead go ahead no I just wanted to like um just append to that because like our thesis at at animar like our theory of change is that like entertainment moves culture and culture moves Society Right video games as the largest entertainment medium in the world we have um an unparalleled opportunity also some responsibility right because we are the ones bringing the narrative to the the culture to the world to society and so it the stories that we share will have an impact inevitably so we have to be thinking critically about the stories that we share yeah and but honestly I think the most impressive thing is that Beyond just the actual like you said um you know the creative uh and entertainment

content can change perspectives and and change um you know people's hearts and Minds you're also walking the talk on who is making who are making those games right because as we mentioned before you know I talked about Hollywood increasing its onscreen diversity but back of the set it's still incredibly low right the directors the Gaffers the grips the cinematographers the entire business staff that actually builds Hollywood content is still by far drastically lagging onscreen representation and so I think what's so impressive here is that you guys have built Studios that are actually like uniquely equipped to tell these stories from a truthful perspective and they're also supporting a new generation of people who will be the future game developers right um because it's one thing to just tell a new story and it's another thing to actually have the industry and the people who are the labor behind it actually be representative of those stories which I think is just super incredible um which I guess also goes to my next question right I think Emily you mentioned that you are a games development content creator um and you

mentioned that before that this has given you access to a lot of developers that you would never have actually met can you talk a little bit about kind of the balance of being a social media Creator and a games content creator having a mass of Fairly like large following on Tik Tok through game development and content videos and then also recruiting to your studio and how you formed relationships with those people that you brought on board yeah I should say um social media growing this becoming a content creator was firstly an accident um I started making videos on Tik Tok just wanting to spread the word about my game I kind of saw marketing as this evil but necessary tool and then I started growing an audience there and then I reposted one of my videos from Tik Tok to Instagram and that video got 2 million views I gained like 10,000 followers within like a week and now Instagram is my biggest platform with 160,000 followers for me

social media has been a huge help in elevating my games career so for example I was in the game awards future class which is the game awards every year they nominate 50 people who represent the bright bold inclusive feature of gaming and I had people from my audience nominate me to be on this list if it hadn't been for social media I would not have been on that list and being in that Network I got to meet so many of my favorite Developers for example like I got to meet like developers from Among Us right um and just like you know also just like getting their help has helped me immensely so for example like this is my first time starting any type of business and so there's all these things that I do not know about like for example how should your business be structured Revenue share all these different things how should you pitch your game to investors these are things I'm incredibly unfamiliar with before I started this process but it was through through the help of people at Future class who would guide me at conventions I remember like um Nick from

AGR crab he is like lowy kind of my mentor who I met through future class I would just like whenever we see each other at conventions I'll ask him all my questions and like furiously write the answer on my phone then I'll meet up with my team and I was like this is what Nick told us to do and like actually he's helped us a lot um in terms of like how we structure our business or how we went about pitching and he also gave input on our budget which has been massively successful um if I didn't have the momentum of being on the game War future class I probably wouldn't have made it on Forbes 30 under 30 which is another big accomplishment for me in terms of like making myself and my studio seem more legitimate um in terms of like pitching my game to investors we do talk about the fact that we have such a big social media following across platforms before we've even made our game we have an audience of perspective players we got the marketing on lock if you partner with us um also it's just been like fantastic in terms of like um inspiring other young developers I

remember at GDC this year I made a a ton of bracelets uh for like my fans I thought it' be a cute handmade gift I gave all of them and on Friday I had none more to give um and it was really rewarding I even had a meet up at GDC for people who followed me and it was just so awesome to see that my audience is also developers who are doing their own thing which is usually immensely cool I got to see you know the games that my fans are working on and it was really rewarding that's fantastic um and if you're wondering from the VC world we call what you have a unique distribution Edge um if you want to use that okay I like it um but I think it's a it's it's it's incredible right and I think that's also been um it's a new era of of basically of people who are building and creating that content online I think that there's such a difference um and an awesome like new innovation and Brilliance that it's brought from being a younger developer and having that kind of community which is just you know kind ofely you know

different from the you know people who started making games in the 9s it's just a different era and it's a different Generation Um so I really appreciate you sharing a little bit about your content creation experience and how it's had an impact on games um before we move on to the business narrative business of narrative I do want to touch a little bit about you know what the actual industry is doing today to empower that new branded developer I think car like you talked about some of the programs that you might have been partnered with um can you tell us a little bit about um bit more about that before we we move to the next topic yeah I think it's really aligned with what um Emily's just discussed as far as Community Building Community is so essential and I think uh our approach is a little different I I will admit I'm not the greatest with social media I'm much more of a Grassroots marketer and campaigner kind of person so I'm Pro probably more focused on just like engaged deep relationships even if they're fewer rather than having like a large falling but I totally see the value and I have such respect and admiration for Emily

how far you've come in in building such a wide audience and I would love to learn from you honestly um but in in our work uh and it it all kind of culminated right as I uh mentioned the South by Southwest event that we hosted we hosted an awards ceremony and it's on YouTube so I can share it after if you ever want to have a have a look at it but um I think that that event was really special and a testament to the community that we're building so um as I mentioned we we had developers from about 20 countries participate in that game Jam um and it was just I think a testament to the fact that people from underrepresented um backgrounds tend to gravitate toward impact driven experiences or the want to share different types of stories or new stories perhaps because of lived experience or or something right and I think um you know as an example like we had a team from Lebanon we had developers from Venezuela right and um and they were all uh excited to talk about Justice in their video games right

so why right why why do you think that is because they're experiencing systemic injustices in in these nations right and I think that that um you know that's just a a way to start amplifying and um like our goal through that initiative was to raise visibility um of these developers um we had a lot of advocacy group uh Partners as well like igda igda foundation latinx and gaming Black and gaming Foundation these are really powerful communities um and what was cool is that you know there was a the grand prize winner got $10,000 they're now uh in talks with further developing the Prototype right it really gave people the opportunity to get their projects in front of investors and partners and funders that um they would not have had otherwise and so it's a lot of ground you know a lot of work but uh like anything worth doing is and I think that's what it takes to move the needle it's it's it took you know it took us years to to Really build out the programs with code coven as an example

right but now it's just a well-oiled machine you see they they've already had such an impact on hundreds of developers probably thousands at this point around the world and it's exciting so just more of that yeah that's awesome I think after this I I think I just need to text you and get a list of a list of organizations just like follow in LinkedIn because they're just just seems like there's so many I just it's uh you know and and that everyone is doing such great work so I would love to to kind of keep up with that um but you know we talked a lot about how the ecosystem is supporting the new developers and now I think I want to go to what I think is one of the biggest conundrums of narrative which is how do you frame narrative as a big business um and one of the ongoing predicaments I believes that the business model for narrative has been totally devoid of innovation and it's sold in one of two ways one sell a box um so complete experience and access model or episodically update narratives over time right which is lots of like lots of romance games on mobile pursue this like chapters or something like that um and when you think about

the business models for your games are you thinking about or trying any Innova go to market distribution strategies so Emily we know about your unique distribution Edge but you know so maybe less around you know go to market and more about the actual monation model and the business model for narrative um as a way to think about Innovation for your game well I want to say like for us I'm like super inspired by what Riot G games did like they have KDA which is like a whole band they have Arcane and that's something that I'm definitely interested in doing for my game so maybe the universe starts through a game but then becomes a TV show it becomes a book it becomes a comic it it can become all these different things that have Side Stories so for us like that's something that I'm super passionate about growing for by Studio but we're starting with games right now yeah I think trans media is definitely the trend and the exciting opport for narrative driven experiences uh especially now and again like

Hollywood is very intrigued um graphic novels are becoming ever more you know present and exciting I think and so there's there's a lot of opportunities uh that are lucrative um gosh you know monetization it's an interesting thing because it was kind of my bread and butter for a lot of uh time that I was working at Studios like Niantic like I was thinking a lot about um free-to-play business models versus premium and uh when it comes to narrative driven content as you said yeah there's like we we're exploring the the episodic concept right or like what's the replayability factor maybe it's through DLC um but I think other avenues are also um just thinking outside of the the games industry or traditional gamer audiences as well right it's like whom can we reach that will that might be excited about this topic um who maybe isn't isn't even that well versed in video games but if we create an accessible experience um and they're really you

know um that resonates with them then how can we reach those audiences and I think Partnerships for us uh like through you know either like different nonprofit Partners or you know academic institutions like that's kind of the the direction that we're going in that's not applicable to everybody obviously but I think being able to really hone in on who you know who your whom your target audience is uh because again like I don't know there's this theory about having like 1,000 fans right for a musician and if you can manage to curate like a fan base of like an Engaged fan base of 1,000 fans um you might end up having like a more successful career than somebody who has like you know I don't know the the millions not always obviously but um but I think that there there's something there that might be worth exploring so yeah it's also the crypto strategy as long as you have crypto people paying 800 per en you got a business that's an incredibly High ARP

down yeah I guess in the freeto playay world we call them the the Sharks right the whales the whales yeah yeah um yeah I think it's uh I think it's really interesting because you're talking about Market you're talking about Market expansion right you know perhaps the audience for my game is a is a different type of consumer right um but I think again like at the same time you know this is has been one of the challenges for narrative game making in general across the board um from The Venture side the business you know there is this kind of ongoing impression that narrative is not fundable right because that's a one Studio One game not a not a gas model not a you know and not a live service model right it's one game one hit move on make the next game shutter for shutter go dark for five years as you make the next title right and as an investor who's looking for a stable cash flow unfortunately narrative doesn't provide that and therefore so much of that Innovation and those big narrative games can only be floated by the big ticket prices of AAA Studios or the scene who's doing incredibly Innovative strategies to reduce costs and you know

tell stories through pictures without voice over and there's kind of like this like middle section of games where they're like it's better to have and I think Ben Bros said this one time he's like the worst kind of it's better to have no story than like a bad story or something like that he was like just don't have narrative in your game unless it's narrative or something like that I can't remember not a direct quote but I think you guys are speaking to some of those challenges um and yeah I presume that for right now you guys are speaking to investors on your projects and I presume that potentially Publishers are more interested in the kinds of products that you're making versus Venture given the business model framework that we kind of just discussed um but when you're talking to a publisher for example what has been the biggest challenge with you guys getting a publisher excited I know that that's kind of a hard question but um you know I'm I'm interested to hear you know because what you're sound what you're doing sounds so incredible yeah so for us there's two big challenges the first one is actually so uh when we pitched our game we pitched it as a platformer and actually

a lot of Publishers were like oh we really like your game like we resonate a lot with the story and the art style but Publishers are a genre that we're no longer doing and so we kind of actually reflected on that and realized like actually I don't even think platformer is necessarily the correct genre for our game so we're actually currently like reworking our genre for that um so that's been a huge struggle um especially when a publisher will be like we love your game but hate that it's a platformer and now I'm like oh like what if it wasn't a platformer and then the second this is the biggest struggle this is by far the biggest struggle I would say is we're asking for too too much money um so the the truth of it is that um I live in Los Angeles my programmer and my art director live in Los Angeles and it's very expensive to live here versus a developer that lives in I have a friend who runs a studio in the Netherlands and she says that she can live off much less money and still live a very comfortable life and so it's like

damn I want to pay a livable wage to my employees uh but that's also stopping me from being able to get funding like I think I think it's my my game itself I think a lot of Publishers actually really like it it's just the the dollar sign associated with it and then it's like do we move to a sheer part just to make the game but that's also like kind of sacrificing like our our friends our connections like like it's so great to live in LA because we get to network with other developers it's very very complicated and definitely something that I'm struggling and grappling with yeah well thank you for sharing those two things yeah um yeah on on our end we're actually quite early in our development so uh just transparently we're just about to finish our first playable so you know it's only it's it's only been a process for the last few months um so while we've planted seeds with Publishers and there's been a lot of positive reception um there hasn't been any like negativity yet thankfully

you know touchwood um it's it's really been yeah questions around what the momentto moment gameplay will be like and so that actually is um you know I guess goes back to what Emily was saying about the the genre classification because that's something that is really crucial when you're pitching and it's suchh it's such a delicate dance these days because because there's so much hybridization and there are elements of you know I'm again as a game designer like I think about games like Dave the diver I don't know if either of you played but that is like a game designer game it actually won best game design at the BOS most recently right and and it explores such a vast range of mechanics but all under this umbrella of like you are a diver managing a sushi restaurant right like at the end of the day um but uh yeah so in in our game like I think trying to um to pitch it is is interesting because the narrative element and the narrative component is so critical but we do also want to make it an engaging and compelling experience

and and mechanics uh you know and gameplay are so critical to that so shaping shaping that the narrative around the the gaml right um is has been the biggest challenge I would say but hopefully that will just it we will rather like show than tell when when the demo gets in the hands of Publishers yeah well guys I I empathize with this more than you know so um uh you know well thank you for sharing some of those thoughts I think it's always helpful because again like even the fundraising process and pitching the Publishers pitching investors is part of the business of gaming um and it is you know in order to make your game capitals the lifeblood in order to do that to B your to do something awesome um so as we're ring at the top of your top of our episode I want to ask one both of you guys one concluding question which is you know on this topic specifically of um you know building a new you know a new a foster the growth of a new type of game developer what do you think you know we

like every day like right now we could all be doing better like what's the one thing that I could be doing better or anybody that's listening could be doing better to help and help grow that um I will say thank you Alex firstly for curating this because I think it means that we like Emily and I will be reaching an audience that might not be necessarily the same audience that you know because you were just talking about for example like the VCS versus versus um Publishers right um I think that something that everybody can be doing better is like thinking a little bit outside of the box and exploring things that they typically wouldn't I don't know how gosh we're so inundated these days with media consumption and you know we have tons of algorithms and AI that drive us uh and I don't know how many people are doing things like to for Discovery right discoverability right is are they just looking at the top 10 games are they just going to ig like try thinking about different um platforms maybe ones that are a little bit more

underrepresented um and I'll send you that list of advocacy groups Alex people who are really like championing the the Indies or um because there's a lot of great talent and I think that that's something that you know I've I've learned um throughout a lot of the dni work that I've done is um there's there's a lot of talent but not a lot of opportunity where where that Talent is right and so how do we amplify the voices of people because gosh there are some brilliant ideas and I would really encourage people especially investors like if you if you want to like strike gold like you really got to dig deep you know so that's uh that's what I would encourage everyone to do for me it would be to stop seeing these more diverse games as Charity work or things you want to support in Goodwill I want to make games that are just good in general of course I have my own agenda of wanting to be culturally diers first and for us you know for example we like a female protagonist uh but at the end of the day we want to

make a good game regardless of who the audience is and regardless of the representation and so one thing that I wish investors and maybe like even the audience saw more is just like the potential of these games to really innovate and move us forward instead of oh like doing this playing this game or you know investing in this story because it makes us look good that is an amazing message to end on and so with that guys um I think that's our that's our takeaway right is that this is this is this is great gaming and it should not be thought of as um pro bono gaming which I is a phrase I just came up with just now um but um thank you guys so much for coming on air this has been so fantastic um we usually conclude by asking um the guests in case there's someone in the audience that wants to reach out to them how they can get in touch with you um Emily you seem incredibly easy to find given your 160k followers on Instagram but if someone wanted to shoot you a DM should they

just DM you um you know how can they get in touch with you yeah so if you want to contact me U my email is Emily saering studio.com saer is spelled s o n deer if you're curious about following my journey though you could find my videos on Instagram which is saering Emily my Tik Tok is saering studio and my Twitter is saering Studio awesome um for me uh LinkedIn is a good is a good way uh Twitter I'm at k121 and then my my email uh hopefully that's safe for me to throw it in the ether please don't spam me Carla animah interactive.com anima an a thanks so much ah well it sounds you know you have only like two things to remember Emily had like seven different contact her so but that's awesome guys and with that um as always friends in our audience if you've got any feedback or ideas hit me up at Alexandra

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