The Studio Shaping the African Gaming Sector and What To Expect from the Region in 2025

[Music] hello world welcome to the bucket gamer podcast with your hosts me Brian Bago and the giant of the global mobile entertainment sector Miss Peggy and Sals hello Peggy it's a joy as always to see you how are you I am very much much better Brian after like sort of cold not cold flu event getting sick coming back lots of stories to tell about my travels and many more to come but for right now I am happy to be stationary it's lovely to have you back because I know you've been off you've been here you've been there we had PGC it's you kicked off 2025 like you're determined to single-handedly span the world so I'm glad to have you back it's been a while since we've done one of these so um I'm really looking forward to

well I said I had stories to tell that's that's one of the reasons I do this I mean it's not just like oh I travel it's like no because I could meet people in real life get a feel for their own stories and figure out what that story might be back over here on Pocket Gamer that's the case with our guest today who is Hugo Obie founder and CEO of Malo games it's great to have you Hugo and to have you after having met you in real life so we we we do both hi hi Brian um lovely to be here as well and um great to see you again yeah it's great to see you and the reason we have you Hugo is because I was just so interested in storytelling you know we hear that games have to be stories but you're looking at storytelling on a global scale and then you're a connector and a cultivator of talent in Africa so there you have you know you're not just building great games but you're building great stories so I thought I have to

have you here with us today and that is why you're here so it's again great to have you and uh gonna listen to some great stories Brian so uh you know we'll be we'll be ready for perfect we we we love a story we love we do love a story in this podcast H go welcome thank you so much for joining us really really good to have you with us um before we dive into you know your work in the games industry your journey I I I have to ask from what Peggy tells me you started out in financial services and the you know financial sector before founding a game Studio that's not normal um so can you tell us a little bit more about that well it's not completely abnormal if you think about it um in a different way so my educational background is actually economics um so I did economics and then I went off to go study uh actually business and economics and then I went to go work in financial services and then you know like somehow by luck by chance you know by Fortune ended up in the games industry

predominantly um because you know like I guess like at heart I am a a Creator I am a creative right um discovered myself as a creative and wanted to create games um I love stories I think every single person in the world right has to love stories because you encounter stories that's the reason why you watch films you read books and when I discovered that games could be a great medium for telling story I realized that this is what I should pursue um and that was mostly because you know like I come from I've come from Nigeria I live in Lagos um and I realized that we are not using this new medium of Storytelling and we've used all mediums of Storytelling very well but we've never quite explored gaming and I found that to be an exciting challenge for you know like somebody with a financial and economics background to take on all I was going to say is it's so nice to actually welcome

somebody from the financial services into the gaming world because here here no no seriously H go here in Scotland you know we we in one of our big cities Glasgow we have barklay we have JP Morgan we have all these Financial Giants who stand outside student graduations with buckets of money telling people would you like to pay your mortgage off by the time you're 30 and so they're not joining the games industry they're not setting up their own Studios they're all going and achieving Financial Security um and it's later in life that they may come come back so well done you made the leap into the perilous world of uh of games so I am thrilled and delighted to welcome you it's I I feel that we are Kindred thank you very much it's a pleasure to be you made the leap that that requires you know some some some grit and and you also um you know your move into gaming uh wasn't just a career change um or just saying look just don't want to do

Finance only but you also want to bring stories to life specifically African stories to life so um games from Africa are having that impact what what what is what is driving that well I think I think there are a couple of things um so the first thing is that um you know we are storytellers you know like we have told stories you know like naturally for a very long time we have a great film industry we have a great music industry um and we also have great um you know like um accomplished writers um from here and as well as the you know art traditional arts and fashion the other thing is um you know we're mobile First Market which means that you know like out of Africa's 1.4 billion population um I think something like 60% of them are on mobile phones obviously considering most of the adults are on mobile phones and that is a great piece of hardware and people are playing games um but what kind of games do they what options of games do they have to

play it's games that are made in the west um you know like the beautiful thing about the games industry is that you know like we can distribute globally um so we are playing the same bucket of games that people are playing in North America people are playing in Europe right um but without the added option um for games that are culturally relevant that tell stories that are slightly more um representative or more more familiar um then the Third which is more recent is you know like we have this really young population this you know new kids growing up right and they are playing you know like they are native players of video games because unlike you know like back in the 80s and the 90s where you know like video games was mostly through console today pretty much everyone has those mobile consoles right uh those mobile phones so accessibility has grown significantly and for that you know like

people need to um have different other options Beyond just the traditional games that are mostly designed with a particular audience in mind so the way that we think about it is that we do want to export our culture to the rest of the world so that people could experience our stories um through games medium um but also we want to be able to be authentic to ourselves right and be able to have familiarity with like environment and sound and visual within the games right in the same way that we have it in other Arts so that's really what the key driver for us is so I have to ask Hugo you know it's exciting to me to understand what those stories or what the narratives would be that are just particularly culturally relevant in in that region I mean like there there's so many like layers to think about that question but at the surface level you know like you're looking at character development you're looking at World development um you looking at sound um development um

you're looking at context as well so like that's really surface level and then when you go obviously underneath it um you're then looking at you know like folklore you're looking at myths you're looking at you know like original experiences um and then you know like you're also exploring kind of like what I want to call like interesting mechanics so like mechanics that don't quite exist today um so one of the Studios um you know based here in Nigeria as well is working on a game where you have a talking drum and a talking drum is now being used as a weapon uh as a fighting weapon um because traditionally talking drums was a tool for combat as an example um so looking at how you can introduce this sort of like you know like new and interesting mechanics using tools and equipments that are not your traditional guns or swords into games um but that's still you know like that's still very

like very nent at the moment in that not a lot of people are doing that but I think like on the surface level it's really about world development character development story development um and even dialogue and then the context between which that story is told and I can speak about specific games where we're telling familiar stories but in a completely different environment I think this is incredibly important Hugo because uh as you say as as more and more of the world is exposed to games and have the opportunity to play games you know we can't just have a very small pool of traditional if I can say that developers you know who are are creating games for the global market of course big games are big games in countries around the world but bringing through that culture bringing through that representation from all of these different markets is hugely important because um I've been doing this for a while and you know from the the early days of the arcades 99% of all the developers were in us or Japan and then the UK came in

and so as more and more of the world starts to play games and has access to games through mobile it can only be healthy um and I have to ask what what sort of games what titles what sort of genres are are being played um across Nigeria across your area of Africa so I I will focus mostly on just mobile um partly because this is p connect but also partly because you know like 95% of the revenue from Africa is mobile so it's it's mostly casual and and hybrid casual games um so the really big ones you know like your candy crush your homescapes um your you know like Call of Duty pubg mobile um free fire um Ludo king um I sort of like broadly the CL you know the top the top 10 games that have been played top 10 gross in most downloaded games um that I've been played so it's it's mostly in that casual um hyperd casual space um that you see um you know people playing um so

people are not um especially those who play on mobile I think you know like mobile native mobile players are more casual players as opposed to more competitive more hardcore players who then move into playing on consoles and PCs but that's what we've seen from the data I just stay with the data actually because you don't just grow your studio and games but you're also about growth in the region because as I understand it not quite sure how this works you can tell me Hugo but you're like the force behind Recent research into the Africa gaming market so you're you're contributing to this research and and and coming up with some amazing findings you just put out a report not too long ago still very relevant um first of all I'll ask you what what do you do do you contribute to that research do you drive that research what what is this I mean like that that's really you know like that's one of the big challenges um that we have on a continent is that you

really have to do everything you know you can't just be a studio in isolation right so the research came about um partly because I go to International conferences and I meet with people and you know everyone has that level of curiosity around oh wow Africa's the market I know very little I've heard very little you know like you guys are making games there what kind of games are you making so those types of questions always come up um and you know like I I have to constantly repeat myself right so you know like yes there are Studios these are kind of games um you know we are growing it's still new so it done on me actually it was it was in 2023 when I was on a trip to um Brazil for you know back then the the big indie game Festival um that I I came across an industry report on the you know by Abra games and you know it gave me a healthy understanding of the of the South American market and the Brazilian market and I realized that we have all of these Internationals who come to the

continent for Africa games week and and we don't have you know something structured that really articulates you know what is happening in the industry and I said to myself you know we've got to get this done it's always about getting things done and getting them done very quickly uh because we don't have a big you know we don't have a panafrican industry Association you know we have very little government support and that was what led to the report and this is the second year that we've put out the report and it's been a very great resource um for for everybody you know like everybody reads it everyone is grateful for it for his existence we run the largest survey of game developers on the continent um as part of that report every single year to kind of like show what the landscape looks like so it's it's very helpful I think it's one of the most meaningful things that we have done you know like and it takes a lot of effort because we have a really small team that does that and we actually do it as part of the studio so we don't Outsource it externally um and it takes a lot of work to put it together but it's it's always worth it effort and I don't know what you should look forward

to doing the next one well I did see a lot in there and I have to say the surveys you know you get you speak to the developers so we understand how they're seeing things I'll start with some Topline numbers because that's always impressive I mean yeah revenues are set to surpass one billion this year you said it yourself with mobile accounting for Lion Share of that growth something like 90% so just as a bit so Brian and I can sort of understand and the drivers here maybe you break down some of that growth across the region because um example is Nigeria right super fast growing Market nearly five exing uh revenu so there's you know there's different regions how they compare what's going on what's your take yeah so you have a few clusters um obviously Nigeria is one of them because of its large population um you have Kenya you have South Africa you have Egypt um and these are sort of like the the big hubs that Drive pretty much I

think like you know like 70% if not 80% of the revenue is is driven by those those core markets they are English-speaking um which also helps um I mean maybe aside from from from Egypt um but like the rest of them are are English speaking um and they do account for a sizable chunk of the population obviously South Africa is the is the largest GDP Market um so that explains partly the reason why it's it's is the the largest market in terms of like single country Revenue um but again it demonstrates that people are playing games and we've been seeing year onye growth u in terms of consumptions and we talked about the types of games that people are playing so people are spending more times um in the in their favorite games and and people are starting to spend money in their games where we have some bit of challenge when it comes to that number is that that doesn't reflect the state of the local Studios so you know local Studios don't account for pretty much any of that Revenue right so that is revenue going to Global Studios International Studios right so that all

of that money is going out um and and that's also because we're not creating enough um we're not creating enough we're not creating for the market um when we don't have the capacity the capability to be able to build games that can compete with some of those big Global titles and that is starting to change or at least like that is an effort that we are also doing to kind of like change that narrative and that you know requires us to develop Talent who can make high quality games and that takes again a long time to do uh but you know like it's a longterm Vision it's a longterm View and I think like we would have um hopefully payoff um in the not too you know distant future where at least we can start to command maybe 10 15 or 20% of that total revenue um in the market that that makes so much sense to me Hugo it really doesn't um you know you guys are not alone Strangely I uh slightly randomly had a similar conversation with the uh Indonesian embassy here in the UK who who reached out to say you know we have a thriving

games Community but you know everyone's playing the big Global games how do how do you approach building up your local developers your local talent and making it relevant to the players so I think this is something that that so many different countries and regions around the world are facing you know there's a massive appetite there but it does take time to kind of catch up and figure out what your players want and be able to sort of meet that demand yeah and the the kind of like fine line um that that courses this is you know a lot of the more established Studios and experience um you know Focus their energy on on doing outsourced work right so you know like doing work for those big IPS um and not necessarily creating own IPS um and then what you also find is that people have a single you know like area of competence and for you to build a successful you like you know successful IP you have to gain

competencies across multiple disciplines I mean like a wide range of disciplines and I would even argue you know back to Peggy's Point around you know having somebody in finance I would argue that less than 30% of that is you know like engineering you know like a lot of that is non- engineering and non core development um areas yeah of Competency so you know like I think we should definitely have more bankers and more economists um stepping into the games industry not to make games but to actually enable Gam stri mhm yeah yeah again it makes such a huge amount of sense and in back when I started every developer was like if I just make it good enough if I build my game well enough people will come and play it but you know the competition is so incredibly Fierce that that's no longer true and we talk about this on the show all the time don't we Peggy you know it's your user acquisition your lifetime value your monetization Community Management Live Events live Ops you know it's there's so much more to this than just making games it's absolutely a business it's a business

that comes from the heart you know because we love the games but I hear that also more and more and it last PGC it came across again you know this is now a business which doesn't mean it has to be a business but those business Basics they have to be part of that mix yeah let's let's let's talk about about you Hugo not only have you come thankfully over from the financial side of the business which means you can build a business but you've built a studio and it's evolving but I could also see you offering that knowledge those learnings um as some sort of services to the other Indies working out there whether it be client work that they're working on that they can just do better or as you said yourself you know break out build a brand build your own IP yeah yeah we're already doing that actually to other Indies um so that we we do that pro bono um so as an example we ran a game Jam in December um in

partnership with the with the US Embassy here in Nigeria and at the end of that game Jam we we essentially mentoring three of the teams that came out of that game Jam to really optimize their the games that they developed with the framework that we use at at the studio so these are like three different teams learning from us having you know like experienced producers from our studio sit down with them every single day of the week um to really help them think through processes um um and you know we we're constantly looking at ways that we can partner we're thinking about an accelerator program with one with European studio um we're thinking about a work experience program with an American studio so like you know any way that we can give the knowledge and experience that we have without obviously impacting our production processes but this is what I spend a lot of more of my time doing is you know like helping support and grow because I do care very much about growing the the industry I think like that that catalyst has to you know like impact a lot more

people than just one Studio I want Malia to be super successful I want Malia to be the front runner but I don't want Malo to be the only studio and I think like there's so much that we've learned there's so much that we've been blessed with that we can offer to other people because when when I started there was nothing uh but I feel like the people who are starting now can have a strong Baseline to be able to build on top and not just start from zero building an industry ecosystem that's always I mean Brian that's your passion you know so oh happens listen you have to apply effort I'm listening I'm listening along and and yeah I I'm cheering you on the inside you go because I think a it's incredibly Wise It's You know the the more you build you know the more people you attract the more successful the sector becomes the more impact you can have um and again games have so much more to offer than just entertainment you know it reaches into Healthcare it reaches into social inclusion you know um medicine and well-being you know there's so many roles and if you can

build those connections and that support for games in it it really can be a transformative technology as well as being a whole lot of fun absolutely I love that I love that last bit yeah and it's also a lot of fun I also applaud that and I want to talk a little bit about the talent but I do want to talk about what went into what you're doing because you're doing your own catalog obviously but you also had a great collaboration with Disney um and uh you know work working on iwu the rising Chef so waju Rising Chef game now there's challenges and there's triumphs when you're working on client projects and you never say no to them but uhbe you can share a little bit about that and also um what you learned along the way because I mean you know they're Indies listening in and they're saying you know hey we want to do client work we want do our own work but we want to do client work and we want to do it well yeah I mean like we were just fortunate um let's just start with that

um I think the first thing is you know you can say no to clients or you can say no to client work but but you can't say no to Disney work right you know like you just I don't care I don't care who you are I don't think you can right especially if you've never done it before uh so that was that was really for us a you know pinch yourself moment um just to be even in the in the in the running for that and and being considered so Disney wanted to make a game they wanted to work work with an African Studio to make this game they were working on on their first Africa focused IP IU um and they reached out and you know like connected with a whole bunch of people and selected us to work with them at the time when they did that we were still I would call it in phase two of our talent development so we'd already trained up a bunch of talent um we had put them through the mail uh but we hadn't put them out there to actually do life production so that was the first life production um project that they were actually doing so so you know like

and the mouth moment where we weren quite sure if we were going to be able to pull this off uh but you know like 14 months later we're able to deliver a game that Disney was very um satisfied with and in that process I think we were able to you know one validate the capability of the talent that we were training so like that training model actually worked and were able to refine and improve our processes so there was a lot that we learned from that journey and obviously we got the financial support that you know like was really lacking um in our Market you know like so Disney comes and hands a check I think like that really changes the trajectory for for your studio for forever I mean like again depends on what you make of it um so when we were done with the project um you know like instantly we moved into into project Elevate uh which was essentially to take all of that knowledge um put it in the coola and apply it to the next you know three projects um you like develop three new IPS based off that model um and then you know have our own IP that we can go to market with and I think like that is

where the the struggle is you know like you have got to keep the lights on somehow I am I'm intentional not to pitch ourselves as an outsourced sourcing studio studio who does client work that's not the ambition for us our ambition is to build original Ip and that would always be the ambition for us we will do client work out of necessity um because we need to figure out the way to to to to balance the equation but you know like the fundamental principle and this is my finance background now is is that I'm not going to get rich of doing client work let's just be clear about it I will be able to pay the bills and that the reason why I left finance and come into games is not be able to pay the bills I did that because I wanted to to get rich right so um so you know like that understanding is always there so the best way to achieve that is by building own IP and and have having this direct consumer relationship so even working with Publishers is not something that you know I find terribly attractive um you know the goal for me is to to do self-publish um and to build you know again we we

have the capacity we have the the human capital we just have to channel them um for that right productive output so there are lots of advantages that we have being on the continent it's 1.4 billion people I'm sure I can find 20 really highly competent individuals from that to help me build a global Studio you know you're you're you're absolutely your focus is on bringing everything in house refining what you do and I think you've you've kind of really Illustrated for our listeners the the difference between work for higher codevelopment call it what you will which will pay the bills and you know potentially give you a sustainable Studio but it's never going to give you that breakout hit the potential for that you know huge income um and the impact that new and original games can have you know and I'm with you don't turn down the Disney work but you know it's the the the first billion dollar game from from afca afca is probably in development in the studio

somewhere right now maybe even yours hugle I'll keep my fingers crossed you made some strides in that direction because I was looking at Safari City so that's your original title um first of all I just like to understand a little bit more about the step you know the the inspiration that that moment that says yes create an original title like Safari City because it's a it's a different type of game yeah so Safari city is combines three different genres narrative and property renovation or redesign um and match three um it's already been popularized by games like gardenscapes homeescapes um Royal match um so it's it's a really well proven genre and and this is kind of like this space that I think Malo plays in is looking at like successful IPS and looking at how we can sort of like replicate re-engineer replicate for our own local audience uh but what is striking about what what

made us choose toar City over say maybe a different you know different kind of game is that you know people love properties in Africa it's you know everyone loves properties I think yeah not not just Africa you know like you have property shows that do really really well and people love decorations and people love to decorate right match threes are have proven to be like a like a like golden star mechanic that you just can't get wrong um ever um and you know like back to the question around you know like Africa you know African inspired storytelling right so storytelling creating characters unique characters like Mama gold as an example we can come up with this kind of like just idealistic you know like original I remember how we came up with Mama gold I was having a conversation with um with one of with our our game designer and I was like you know what do you call your friends like we were trying to find a name and I was like your friends must have nicknames you know what are your friends nicknames and she was like oh

there's one of my friends that we call Mama gold and I'm like that's it well we're going to call our character gold right and then we can just build a story around that that personality and I said think about your friend why do you guys call her mama gold why you know and you know we just kept going and bouncing of ideas and and we've you know created this character that we all Adore we haven't put all of the life within her but certainly she can go a very long way um you know if if we get it right um so so that's really for us is you know we we build I mean like we're building for Africa first right you know like yeah my fundamental principle when it comes to building games is build for people around you build for people that you see every single day so you know when I get home and my kids ask me Oh Daddy what game are you guys working on and I say you know working on Safari City and my daughter who's 10 now sits down and plays the game and she says oh I really like this right like that's my I mean kids are not my audience but Le like you know she can relate with the characters

she can relate with the story she can relate with the environment and when we go out to like local conferences or we meet with people and they say oh what games have you guys worked on and we shared the game with them and they can connect with the characters with the story instantly connect with them that's the primary goal right the secondary goal obviously is to go Global right but you know like in in where I come from we have the saying that you have to dance you have to perfect your downsteps at home before you take it out because you know you don't want to look stupid right but if everyone says you really your steps are really great at home then you can have the confidence to go out and and people might not appreciate your moves but at least like you're not you know like you're not doing something wrong right you say oh that's different right um yeah so so that's that's really what that that that driver is and I think like the the third thing is whenever I go out and I speak to you know like VC always speak to Publishers or you know they always look and say

Africa is a very narrow Market you know the gaming industry is like a billion dollar sorry $200 billion Africa is $1 billion like you know we want right if I if I run a game that generates $10 million a year in Revenue I generate $15 million a year in Revenue in Africa alone you know I probably one one of the most successful if not the most successful gaming studio on the continent and that for me is satisfactory enough right and I think like if the games do well in this market um which has really low cost for user acquisition um and monetize well enough then in theory we can apply that same principle in the more expensive markets in North America Europe uh so there is a lot that we can learn from being here before we take our games elsewhere I like that before you make your moves elsewhere pret you moves just want to pick up on one thought before we we move on to some other areas we still want to

have tons of questions for you Hugo but you know you said it reflects your your your vision that you know it's you're developing for Africa first and Safari City you know resonates with you resonates with your daughter also you think is it that type of game and mechanic and and character in Mama gold that it can also appeal globally is that the is that the the way you see this no absolutely absolutely there are things that resonates with everybody um so like you know like humor as an example right might be different but certainly something that people recognize wealth right U might be different but everyone recognizes it so I think um and then like you know if you look at you know different sort of like popular cultures from different parts of the world South America K-pop in in in South Korea um you know like manga and Japan that have been able to translate borders right languages and so some cases so you know like I think it's a journey of Discovery

for us um you know like one that is driven by data and I think it's really that's really what is going to be that key driver that intelligence understanding what what people like and what people don't like you know how does this compare from one market to the other and then of course we have a huge diasporan population right there's a huge black population in the US um so those are also consumers of games right who would also appreciate the games um but you know like I can't speak to segmentation and how we can reach those types of audiences but I certainly know that a good game is a good game um first um and then a popular game is also a popular game as well right um and if even if even if that means that it's popular in Nigeria if it's popular in Nigeria then it will be popular in other markets as well right absolutely absolutely it's trying to get you know the players in in in my country to appreciate the developers in my country and and bring them both together and to go back to what you were saying at the

start of the the the show um Hugo the datadriven approach is really wise because there are certain universals you know you mentioned the match 3 mechanic you've got certain gameplay elements genres which have that Global appeal but rooting that in stories and narrative that come from your culture from your region you know from your people just lets you tie that familiarity those those familiar elements into a global market no game comes out and goes Global immediately and I I love the example of anime you know I was confused by anime for a long long time until I found the ghost in the machine H Ghost in the Shell sorry that was the one that did it for me and made me go uh oh I get it now and so became a big anime fan so it can be your third game your fifth game maybe even your 11th game but there will be something out there that that absolutely gets you that that Global recognition so

I can't wait to see it yeah yeah and and something that I've also learned recently um is comparing game studios to car manufacturers okay all right I want to hear this one so I think of the idea of making a game as when somebody sketches out like a concept for a car all right right that's the easy parts right it's like really nice beautiful lines slick lights and everything then you make the shell right then you realize that you have to fit an interior right again that's very easy you put in like nice little lce seats you know padded right infotainment all exterior then you realize that you need to put an infotainment system then you need to put an engine then you need to put Transmissions then you need to put you know like um you know everything else that goes into it but beautiful thing about that journey is that a lot

of those components are reusable yeah once you've built a car the only thing that changes is the exterior everything else well the exterior and the interior everything else that's under the hood is reusable and that is the beauty about what we're doing true true I like that sort of modular Innovation which is what it is I mean that's what happened in the car industry it's like yeah we'll just put something else but it's the same motor essentially then but that's not the point the point is that you can reuse so much of it that's it and and to and to go back to what you were talking about the talent and the you know the repeatability there's there's a lot of backlash against the idea of an assembly line but a creative assembly line where you can get the games coming out and you've got that consistency that high production value you know the quality that's a pretty ferocious Force um in the creative and entertainment world so

yeah it's that that absolutely speaks to us I think Peggy we're going to shift gear slightly um and bring it back to what we were discussing earlier which is developing talent and it's a huge issue you know the games industry is not famous for nurturing and bringing Talent through in a lot of areas so you know your game of Africa initiative has been really instrumental in training and mentoring developers and bringing that Talent through what inspired you to launch the program and can you talk about any sort of notable successes yeah so the the the idea to to launch the program actually came from the fact that when I realized that if we wanted to if I wanted to achieve my goals I needed an army of people who could make games like we're talking about just talking about the assembly line so you need an army of individuals who can help pull that through um and the market was not creating talent for games um so we had to become Innovative and I think like this is pretty much how every other Market started off is by you

know essentially mentoring incubating we just formalized that process you know like built it as a separate unit outside of the studio and called it game of Africa as an initiative I think in the first two years we we worked with Google on that project to kind of like really make it scale um and that has been a foundational point because all of the talents that work for us today came through that Pipeline and and for us it's a conversion program right it's essentially like a graduate um you know graduate training program if you want to think about it that way with like you know like traditional Industries right um so that's that's the way that's the model that we that we took um to kind of like train people up hire the best from the the training incubate them and from a success standpoint you know like the notable success of that program is that 75% of the people who worked on the Disney project came through that pipeline all of the projects that we're working on today so Safari City crazy Ludo um you know like secret letter all of

those projects have been led by people so Safari C just an example is a 14 Man team that all came through the pipeline certainly that you know like the Disney project validated that the training model um in terms of the ability to train High Caliber and that gave us the confidence to then push them to the next phase which is building out their own IPS and then supporting those IPS to kind of like build large audiences for them fantastic and can I can I ask how do you find and identify the people to bring in is it is it kind of self- selecting is it through you know schools or colleges how how are you finding the individuals to bring into the the whole process so we do want Outreach um we do obviously we have like an online for um you know when we started obviously the partnership with Google really helped catalyze that um initially so I think like that first two years that we were partnering with Google really helped with the reach because Google had a lot of like Talent initiatives um back then um and then subsequently you know like

the reputation then just you know like exist and people know about it I think the first year that we run the program without Google we had like 25 applicants um the next the first year that we run the program with Google we had 1,500 applicants and the following year we had like 4,000 applicants um so that definitely helped with the you know with capitalizing and and that was an intentional approach to kind of like find a partner that could help us maximize reach initially um um and then you know like then we have a natural self- selection system built into the the training experience because it's Project based self-paced um and we have like all of these kind of like Gates that people have to kind of like Get over till they get to the end and then the people who graduate then have the option to apply for internships in the studio and then that's another gate that they go through and we use this peer review system to kind of like do self- selection to find you know like really high caliber team um because like it's a really team based approach that we have

so finding people who can work together very well and today all of the teams that we have on the studio have been working together for the last two to three years um and the retention for that program is incredible the talent really does retain very well when you train them up as compared to when you hire outside of the program I like the idea that you're working so closely together with with Google on that I remember doing some work with them when we were working on sustainable growth forum long before it's time and the whole idea was you know you need to create the talent you need to nurture that potential so I'm I'm pleased that you're doing it in such a structured way because then it will have legs it will continue yeah and that continuity also was part of the design right so that's also part of the reason why we we separated it out and called it game of Africa the idea is that that would always be there to serve that Talent pipeline for the industry um and we are evolving the model to kind

of like provide um work experience for you know like individuals who go through the program who don't necessarily get jobs because ultimately what matters in our industry is practical experience you know people want to see what you've done yeah so you know figuring out ways that we can support them to build out their portfolios without necessarily being employed with us um is something that we actively doing Hugo we we could carry on because this this has been a genuine joy and thank you so much for your time but before we let you go we have a couple of questions we ask everyone that brings it right back to the heart of things which is all about the games so first thing is what game you playing right now where you should be going out and nurturing and developing new talent and striking business deals with the world's largest entertainment companies so what is it that you're you're playing just now um and second of all what's your favorite game of all time so the games that I'm playing right now unfortunately are all of our games right because I'm constantly testing but but interestingly enjoying myself right

so we have a game I love Ludo I love Ludo and I find myself and we have a timer so we we we have timed sessions or all of our sessions are timed right so it's like a an 8 minute session so I know that the game would end in eight minutes right so like I find myself whenever I have like a little bit of time I feel like ah let me just have a quick session and I pretend like I'm actually just testing and trying to give feedback but really I'm just like you know like trying to like keep away from work um but aside from that um I I also enjoy playing Call of Duty sorry um Not Call of Duty um fc25 you know like I know it's irritatingly annoying um but that's you isn't it it's it's okay there are no wrong answers here and you are allowed to play your own games that that is entirely accept um yeah and listen you know it's

we don't have guilty secrets we don't have shameful games you know if you like it you like it and uh thank you for sharing now you're very welcome well it was awesome Hugo I am so glad we made it happen so glad we had a chance meeting and looking forward to watching what you're doing because yes you are a man on a mission and I want to find out more and what will be I guess phase right yes yes yes the next the next iteration I mean it's really exciting it's a great amount of energy um I can't sleep at night which is always a good sign um my brain is constantly active um we're hiring people when we shouldn't be hiring people but that's you know again like that's positive signs but it's all fantastic and we've got this three beautiful games that we're working on and I can't wait to share some of that updates with you guys hopefully I'll be at PG connect next year and I can talk about the journe Mak the games that's what we'll

do that's exactly what we'll do perect and it's will and we will we'll bring you back you can talk about the games once they're on the market and and tell us you know what it takes to go out and buy an island in Africa [Laughter] for yeah certainly certainly thanks Brian thanks Peggy thanks for having me this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market and all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast at pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in

listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz SLP podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next Edition edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian Bago I'm Peggy and salts and that's a wrap until next week