Toys x Games (with Spin Master)

[Music] welcome to the navic 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 management and more than 500 Investments across the US Europe and Asia with its dedicated gaming practice light speed gaming the firm is investing from over $7 billion in early and growth stage

Capital making it by far the largest fund focused on gaming and interactive technology Light speed's Team combines deep expertise in gaming with a global multi-stage investment platform and a culture that truly puts Founders first selected Investments include epic games snap and stability AI as well as game designers and producers who led the creation of titles like fortnite Call of Duty League of Legends valerant Starcraft 2 and many more for more information simply simp L go to gaming. lsvp tocom or check out the details in the show notes and with that let's jump into the episode welcome to the novic gaming podcast I'm your host David Taylor and today we're diving into the fascinating intersection of toy companies and video games as we saw with the overnight hit Monopoly go generating two billion in Revenue in just 10 months players are eager to engage with beloved toy IP major toy companies like spinmaster Mattel and Hasbro have been expanding their influence Beyond traditional toys for many years now Spin

Master who will'll be discussing today is known for launching popular Entertainment Properties like Paw Patrol and Bakugan which have seamlessly transitioned into digital formats in the form of TV serieses movies and of course video games Spin Master has also not been afraid to acquire properties when it sees a strategic opportunity and a good fit for the Spin Master brand as was the case with its acquisition of toab boka the children's mobile app developer in 2016 I was interested in learning more about what Spin Master stands for how it thinks about cultivating new versus existing IP and its Approach at the intersection of toys video games and entertainment broadly so today I'm excited to welcome Eve Sada to the head of strategic partnership that Spin Master to the podcast Eve welcome hey David thank you for having me and I'm very excited to be with you today um so yeah you know we we um just to to uh to be clear on on what I'm focusing here at spein master I'm I'm leading the partnership team and we're I would say we're mostly working on uh three

dimensioned in terms of collaboration one is around uh partnership with a tech and giving company uh second is really about content collaboration and the third is really about uh Roblox collaboration and development uh so that's what yeah me and my team are working on um and I just to give you a little bit of personal background uh so previously I worked at uh Pokemon uh and I work there on developing like digital media and educational experiences uh globally uh which was really interesting in terms of brand management and also like uh the connection of digital games at a very large scale and brand that that basically become a full consumer brand starting from from games and TV shows and then um I spent eight years uh at Disney before Spin Master uh where I manage a mobile team in the consumer product division uh and where my team

develop basically games for all the you know across all the Disney brands from Princess to Star Wars to Marvel and I would say you know through these jobs I really develop a lot of like skill set in terms of uh developing products and developing so marketing towards families and and kids so that's that's how the the path to Spin Master came kind of organically that's awesome and so it sounds like you have a ton of experience developing and working with some of the biggest IPS in the world both uh in mobile games as well as you know broader entertainment so you know zooming out a bit and before we get into sort of the details I was just wondering if you could give the audience a lay of the land of sort of what spinmaster it does it seems to have its hands in a lot of pots so just help us understand the different parts of the business sure so uh spin we have what we call like free creative centers so in fact 30 this year the companies 30 years

old uh and we started uh thank you we started with a toy business and then in 2008 I believe we started an entertainment business with Bakugan and then later on with Paw Patrol in terms of TV series uh you know with global distribution and then as you mentioned 2016 was the beginning of our digital games group uh through the acquisition of tokaboka and SEO mini uh and then we um we continue developing that that that the digital games with a combination of like organic development and and more Studio Acquisitions got it and do you have a perspective on just sort of how those three pillars intersect with one another you know obviously there's cross marketing but you know is there a is there a you know I think what's really interesting today is that um each Dimension is adding in fact new layers to Brands so for example if you take something like Paw Patrol uh you know

it's it started at as a show when you have very successful to line and for example last fall we launch an app called Paw Patrol Academy which is an educational app and you know it was a really new dimension for PO for Paw Patrol uh which was mostly you know around entertainment in terms of experiences and so I think what's what interesting is that uh when you start adding each creative Center you can add you know more texture and and and strength to to our core Brands uh you know Rubik's Cube is another example where we acquired the brand Rubik's Cube in 2020 and uh in a few months we're launching an app called Rubik's match and so same thing this is this will be a casual game in fact this year is the 50th anniversary of Rubik's Cube which is also a big deal and um we're you know we develop pretty a casual game for all ages it's not just like for kids uh it's really anyone in the family can will be

able to to play that game so we're trying to add basically yeah New Dimensions that you didn't necessarily have through I entertainment of food toys got it and so that's interesting I didn't realize Paw Patrol was a a TV series first and so I guess my question would be around you know does how does Spin Master identify do they think of themselves as a toy company first and then there's these sort of adjacencies or or is it whatever opportunities come up that are around entertaining kids like that's that's sort of what Master's bread and butter is I will say it's kind of both meaning that you have definitely uh work in each division developing their own IPS and their own product but at the same time there is always that notion of like you know can this exist you know as entertainment can this exist as a digital game and vice versa we you know we look all the time at new ideas for games uh and and sometime thinking

hey can this game could this game you know have also an existence in terms of consumer product uh so this is something where we don't see necessarily delation I mean there these are three very different Industries but at the same time you know the teams are collaborating a lot so for example I'll take another example coming from digital with a brand Sego mini uh our entertainment team created a TV series on Apple Plus so again like we we took that game but just existed in the app stores and we brought it to to give it a life uh you know in a linear format got it is there any so where would you draw the line is it anything that is entertaining for kids is is is you know in in the realm of possibility I me I think it's not just kids I mean yeah I would say the core of our products are definitely mostly for kids but I would say it's kids and families okay uh typically and then um some products are really for all the ages you know we

could we call that kids of all ages so for example Rubik's Cube is a perfect example where I am sure that you will enjoy playing with some of our products from the Rubik Cube product line a six-year-old also would love to start you know solving one level of Rubik Cube and then again like uh in a few months we'll have some you know more like mobile casual uh Gamers who might be a little bit afraid by you know solving the 3X3 Cube but they will be you know comfort ball with um playing with with casual game we' got m match fre that makes sense I'm I'm personally more of an action figures guy I was never smart enough to really figure out how to solve a Rubik's Cube but uh I understand that that more there are many smart people and many smart kids in this world who who uh very much enjoy a Rubik's Cube so I want to hop into gaming a little bit at this point and I just want to sort of understand you know coming from the gaming space how you think about gaming

and what's your approach in terms of identifying opportunities uh in gaming in in relation to sort of the broader the broader company yeah so I mean the first thing was really like to we look at gaming as uh again that third Force you know that first cre third creative centers but at the same time in terms of goals it's really important for us to look at gaming as a huge source of growth basically but the go goals is that uh to have um you know gaming representing about 20% of the revenue of a company so it shows you that you know this this is going to to become really substantial overall as as our business and then the way we look at it is I think really uh Studios owning Studios where we do our development so we have five Studios right now inside digital games so we have three studios in Sweden and and two studios in in North America and so what we're we look can look at

trying to do is really uh developing uh products with different um angle so you have tokaboka that has already this brand segini in in Canada that already also it's on brand but developing new experiences but then we wanted to really create original titles based on RP so we have a studio called nlight in Sweden who's developing that big match title I mentioned earlier so that's really try you know to to find like different angles uh we have another Studio who's developing a unicorn Academy game so all all of that is really like how we're restructuring um uh gaming and then uh it's also looking at you know we look also at at different platforms so obviously Roblox is a platform that that came in the in the equation uh in terms more of for now as a marketing platform and an engagement platform uh that's really the the the main way today we're

we're using Roblox and we're partnering Roblox and then um you know for now we've been focusing mostly on mobile development because we find that like the monetization in terms of in a purchase subscription is a model that's working really well got it well I think you just did a great job of sort of summarizing everything we're about to cover in the next 30 to 45 minutes um and so I think we should just go through everything you just named Maybe one by one starting with the uh acquisition of toab boka I would love to just sort of understand you know and I understanding that you've you know been at Spin Master probably not for the entire time that tokaboka has been around but you know based on your understanding of the company and how they cultivate IP like how maybe in the context of that how do you see them uh identifying and then cultivating and growing because that did grow significantly from the time that it came

into Spin Master possession yeah absolutely like we're close to on average close to 60 million monthly active user wow mostly active users on on tabuka world uh so it's definitely like one of our you know it's a huge success and like you said it it was much smaller when it was acquired 16 um you know I will say that uh TOA bua is a lot of innovation its DNA and it's been also a lot of uh values from for speed master when you talk to a lot of people in the industry and the the f one of the first word that comes about Spin Master is innovation and so there was really like you know kind of like very similar values I think also that it was uh a great fit in terms of in that time in terms of uh fitting really well with Gen Alpha in terms of self-expression creativity uh versus many of the games that were not as open play and and I think in general like we like open play and products really enable kids to be to

be creative with a with a product and so but when when you look at tokaboka and even simp with SEO Min you know these are very like open play uh Studio I mean products in terms of experience got it makes sense and I also saw that you guys launched a new tokaboka game as well curious yeah you know how does that factor into into your strategy yeah I mean at the same time you know one thing really interesting with tokaboka so you know the company started in 2010 and so the you you know players are getting older uh and uh in fact when you look at at a product like tokaboka world uh the core demographic is about six to 14 uh and so we're seeing basically you know the players aging up so at the same time we do a lot of research you know we we really spend a lot of time with players and asking what we enjoy what we like and we see that the notion of a

multiplayer game also the notion of 3D was something really important for other players and so we we develop uh tokaboka days uh which was announced recently and that's launching uh later this fall uh which is really multiplayer 3D it's all about creativity and self-expression but I will say again like for kind of older kids more like for twin and teens uh they will really like connect with that experience got it and is that aging up sort of does that also cross over Beyond games to entertainment as well are you is the company trying to age up with its with its initial core audience or how does is that just unique to gaming I mean I think gaming in general is more what we call I don't know if you've heard the term like El elasticity for Brands meaning like if you take an IP typically and you bring it inside a digital game it will t to have a wider age range up

and down okay compared to if you take it as a toy or if you take it at TV show okay uh so digital games typically has like this kind of elasticity that it brings to Brand got it so the the idea being if you design a game that has sort of game mechanics targeted towards an older audience the fact that it's sort of a younger brand will be overlooked as long as the game is fun yeah exactly absolutely yeah that makes sense and then you mentioned the sort of your the way that you've structured Your Studios I'd love to just dig in deeper here so you acquired nordlight games I think in 2022 in order to build the Rubik's Cube game I'm curious just like how do you think about whether to uh you know work for hire is a common practice in the gaming industry do you do any work for hire how do you think about work for hire versus bringing studios in house and develop it I think yeah it it really depends of the

the the depth level and how much is going to be involved with the brands but for example on Rubik's because we knew it would be kind of a long and pretty very involved project with our brand Team we really wanted the that game to reflect a lot of what Rubik's as its in DNA and it's really hard to do that uh you know with an Outsourcing Studio which usually is is you know is um as a different business model meaning that you know they're kind of like paid by the hour or you know they want to to Lo at a certain amount of time so we wanted like a full dedication and that you only get it through you know Studios that that are kind of in a house uh but at the same time what's interesting with that team is that uh it's a team that has a lot of experience with match free games and Casual gaming and so that that was also like the the choice was to to pick up a team that had the right skill set and that you you that come like a

you know what I call earlier with is like kids of all ages Target yeah so that all makes sense and I think the counter I mean the counter point would be that when you acquire a studio you're sort of it's like a marriage you're you're committed and so how what was sort of your approach or how did you know that this was a you know a studio that you wanted to work with for the long term versus you know trying it out and seeing went you know I mean I think they were um the teams met you know the team is also based in Stockholm where we have to coka so we had a lot of you know time spent together and really having you know people you know evaluating uh that potential longer collaboration and it it really worked uh and it became like very obvious uh with their team being very excited to work on something like like Rubik's but also potentially other brands in the future you know we have um

dozens of Brands under the portfolio uh so that's what's exciting you know from again developer perspective uh we have an embarassment of riches here got it so you know what I was about to say is the the pent of that back to to your to your question is when we look at Outsourcing it tends to be like you know shorter uh period of time more like uh uh burst of work and so it's been a lot more Outsourcing on Roblox for example uh because we we've done Integrations mostly or we've done collaboration with some game studios uh and so this is typically you know a few months to a year partnership and so that's that's what uh that model in that case really worked well for us also because it was a new platform uh and so it felt also a good way for us to learn um obviously Roblox is a very different platform in terms of development compared to mobile and so we we just wanted to make sure

that um you know that that was a good way for us to to enter that new territory yeah that makes sense I just so the audience can sort of better understand that what would what have you experienced as the key differences between mobile and and uh Roblox yeah I would say mobile as you know has a very clear uh monetization model uh you have a very curated app stores and and uh you know although it's also challenging to have uh when we talk about Discovery to to have your game discovered in in either you know Apple Google or Amazon stores these are much more M mature business in terms of discoverability and marketing versus Roblox is still like relatively new at least in terms of um uh how you can find a game and and what the game's experiences are uh so it tends to be a bit simpler also we find that uh we Roblox because it's its own

ecosystem and that also it's it's very so it's all multiplayer so you know like I said most of our apps have been single player until until B uh so it was also you know looking at it in a completely different manner okay for now also I would say that uh Roblox monetization is not obvious not so many game studios are you know uh are able to recup investment or even you know really make money from um their game so I think it's it's for now we're looking at that with a different lens uh that's why I was saying earlier we see Roblox more as a uh marketing and engagement platform uh we we see the path to monetization but it's definitely going to take a few years to to get there okay well I want to ask you more questions about roadblock but before we we get into that you know I feel like one of the things that is a key differentiator about the games you're making is that these are IP driven games and I'm

curious have you seen like when you talk about acquisition is the fact that it's a tokaboka game does that come with a guaranteed audience or do you are you still finding that you need to you know spend in order to get get uh the game in front of people what's sort of the benefit of the IP in the game from A Game's perspective yeah I mean you know it's interesting you're asking about that for for example for tokaboka because it is already um you know know so successful and we're we're getting a lot of uh Support also from the the App Store on a regular basis because we have a very active live operation schedule I meant for like the new game the new game for example like yeah so the new game you know again like there will be that that branding existing and and we know that a lot of new players mean current players will want to to get in the new game but at the same time there is a way to have a much more curated uh experience and and marketing uh versus on I would say

on Roblox because you're against multiple game in fact when you look at at data on from players on Roblox they tend to go to much more games in a day in a single day or in a week versus the App Store where I think players are much more um I would say loyal to fewer games got it that makes sense all right so let's let's chat a little bit about Roblox I I'm curious just when you look at the platform and you set your goals what are the goals that you're really looking for on Roblox so we it you know but we we like the engagement that you can get on on Roblox uh it's you know it's something that we we basically we started working on Roblox about three and a half years ago now okay we saw the growth you know post uh covid uh of audience and um we really felt that like we wanted to to uh to connect and to to work on that

platform at the same time we were really looking for the right the right way to do it m uh and so in fact the first thing I did was really in fact meeting with a partnership team at ROBLOX and sitting down and really trying to learn I sat down with a lot of developers also to really understand how they worked and how Their audience uh was responding and uh and then you know it was also about finding the right um timing so one thing that um you know we we decided to do to when starting was video so to bring a bit of entertainment inside Roblox okay uh so we um in fact our first uh activation on Roblox was basically bringing uh TV series from Bakugan uh but we took basically we asked our our partner Netflix uh if we could Premiere some new episodes of Bakugan on Roblox first so it was something new for Roblox for Netflix but

everyone was willing to test and um we created an experience around that with some games and uh and video streaming basically of this anime episodes and you know we we saw really a huge success uh and so for us that was really an interesting way to to look at it in terms of like uh really tackling about audience but Global audience also you know we we see for example for anime content you have like a global audience that's very interested in in that type of of content so it was a good way for us to test completely new things uh on on a new platform so and just you said it was a massive success you know what are the what are the metrics you're looking at that that tell you that it's successful yeah so I think we see we're looking at you know the the kind of like a million of gaming stations okay attached to the experience where what you have uh what we're looking at also is uh we have very um we have a really good

set of analytics where we're able to also look at what's happening at retail uh and so we're able we were able to see really an impact uh at retail and and so this was really important for us to see that you know toys do that brand were doing very well at retail so there was a real impact in terms of a wareness for a brand and demand for a brand got it so we say about for us I was again like you were asking earlier about our kpis yeah it's really like you know awareness and sales uh are already what we're looking at got it and then in terms of success like you know a typical marketing Endeavor you might look for well if we're talking about digital marketing you'd look for sort of a customer acquisition cost that's below you know your margin on toy sales I'm curious is that the same approach that you're taking here or is it more of a brand building exercise where it's sort

of the 50% of my marketing uh is ineffective I just don't know which half no I think it you know what happened also is that we had um if you if you look at about five years ago you have the sharp decline of uh kids watching TV okay and and so when we think about you know where do we put our marketing dollars Al so that was a factor because uh kids are you know spending a lot more time today you know mean you know it's two and a half hours on average a day on on Roblox yeah uh and so that was also you know one of the factor is that's really seeing that level of Engagement and we were able to uh instead of just counting in Impressions counting in engagement uh and and we value that much more you know when the kid is spending time with your characters with your stories it's it's a real connection uh it's not just an ad you know flying on on a mobile phone or on TV and so that's

also like one of the thing that made us stick to to Roblox because we saw uh bad level of Engagement very lar you know tens of millions uh of players and then yes result at at retail uh in conjunction with his Investments so I guess the the question I'm and if this is too if I'm prying too too much let me know I'm just wondering like when you when you've advertised on Roblox and I know you've you've had a number of activations which I want to sort of break down in a sec but would you say that in the case of this Bakugan activation that you derived more value than you spent on the activation itself yeah I mean it's it you know we did it a few times so I think if we did it a few times it means that it was successful uh got it that's your answer well I think you know it's a I think it's a question that a lot of our audience who are you know brand managers

and who are familiar with Roblox are uh curious about is is you know yes you can have a huge audience on Roblox but does that convert into customers regardless of what you're selling whether it be corre entertainment IP or cars for example yeah and but I think you know not every brand is equal and I think it's also like the um Affinity between the platform the type of play ERS and your Brands not every band will be successful on Roblox yeah you know I think there are some for example you you shouldn't put a preschool brand on Roblox because you don't really have like you know players under six so there are things like that but also you you know you have to take into account and V there are some I think there are some story based Brands uh or some characters that would be less of a fit in that uh framework of in in the framework of Rob yeah for a second I

thought you were going to call out a couple Brands specifically that you less than no I think everyone is testing you know I don't think everyone has a a magical formula so uh I respect everyone who was testing so you know you you you described your most successful activation I'm curious you know it's not our most successful activation okay you just you described your first activation could you describe exactly that was our first activation could you describe if you're able a couple more activations maybe give us the spectrum of what's worked and what hasn't I'm not sure I'm going to talk about what didn't work but I I'll talk about another one but that was great for us uh because we different so last fall um we were we are co-producer with Netflix of a TV of a series called unicorn Academy and so we launch that show was uh scheduled to be launch on on Netflix in November and So based on you know some of his

experiences earlier with Bakugan we uh suggested a you know we worked on a plan with Netflix to really um uh launch that content first on Roblox okay uh before Netflix and so in addition to basically the the video streaming uh we did also a couple of uh game integration and we also brought in uh you know several influen Serv to Rel a message on social platform so what we what you know the result of that is really when the show came out on Netflix is what it was you know in the top 10 uh you know kids and families uh show in I think 32 countries or something like that uh and so what we saw really is that Roblox had that kind of like wind fast effect in terms of really building a you know wide awareness for new PR new car actors and um and so you know but was not easy in

terms of the execution there were many details but it really showed us that uh it had a huge impact so I'm seeing more and more in fact entertainment Brands being present on Roblox uh to launch new movies new series I think there's definitely a strong Affinity there in terms of that type of content and uh and the audience on Roblox do you think that there's a world where you know Roblox is no longer a marketing funnel for Netflix but is actually a competitor in the sense of people are consuming linear content on Roblox instead of Netflix I I think you need both uh you know the the average successful game session on Roblox is 11 to 12 minutes yeah so you're not going to get a movie in 11 12 minutes that's fair so so I so I think it's um you know it's a bit like if you

look at YouTube yes you can say it's a competitor also on Netflix but there are different format so I think the length of format the the way the content is formatted uh so all of that I think is changing um at the same time we're definitely seeing some elements from gaming coming in the world of entertainment so for example uh they are recently more and more enterment companies posting videos of game plays shot inside Roblox and they use that as content uh so I think this is where also you see really the you know you know but both worlds really converging I guess what I'm wondering is for brands that are starting to look at ROBLOX what should they be doing from an approach perspective are there certain types of marketing that they should just avoid entirely um what are the sort how would you categorize where you found success that you you know recommend to other

brands well first thing I think it's to look a bit at your demographic you know about half the players on Roblox are on the 13 so for us it made a lot of sense to be on the platform I think if you're uh a brand who's interested in uh gen Z and gen Alpha you know roblock is definitely a great platform so I think it's kind of number one I think the second is a bit connected to a previous your previous question ready to you know uh impact on what is the impact where is your kpi I see some Brands clearly coming to Roblox for PR and just communication and it's a way for them to talk about Innovation I think it's totally fair and and fine and it it makes sense in their uh marketing plan I think for us it was not like I said it was really more uh engagement with brands with characters with storytelling uh and and you know having some impact on sales so I think that's really the first thing to look at uh the

second is really like you need to be Hands-On you really need to play games uh you need to have the teams who are going to work on this project to really play on Roblox and it's not easy at the beginning definitely for I think anyone above 25 uh it tends to be challenging at the beginning and then you need also to really uh like I mentioned earlier Forest you know meet different game studios and marketing agencies they are in fact relatively would say Limited number of um you know consultant and and game studios and agencies uh will um navigate in the in the Roblox universe and I think it it's important to really meet people you can uh relate to I think the other piece is really important to um not think as just a game integration but like what I mentioned earlier like should this be more of an entertainment experience should this be a gaming experience is this a concert is this an event mhm and so so you know what what

what do you want to build and then based on that you have to choose your partner you have to choose a partner who has already done what you want to do uh and in a successful way what I mean is for example if you want to create a concert talk to Studios who have already made successful Live Events and concerts don't talk to a gaming studio who's only making games yeah uh and vice versa if you want to make a game you know work with game studios that have made successful games before not just experiences so I think it's you know I say a bit the the obvious but I think it's just important to in general in gaming development to to work when you Outsource with people who have done some kind of similar projects before and and in in successful ways yeah I mean you say that it's obvious but the behavior that I've observed on the Roblox platform is that um you know brands are working with developers who haven't had you know success in terms of you know

driving significant engagement through a game uh and oftentimes you know the the results are underwhelming um even though I know I I I see that I see that Tri early and it's true but I'm always a bit surprised but at the same time you know it's it's a new platform so I think we all have to accept that there's a bit of R&D and everyone is learning and you know going back to Spin Master I'm curious how you you think about whether something would make more sense for Roblox versus a mobile game like what's what's sort of how do you bucket these these IP into well I think it's it's a bit like what I was describing earlier you know if I had to compare you know this very establish IP like uh pow Patrol or Rubik's Cube uh you know this is where we're going to be probably you know more involved with um mobile uh because for example with mobile like a PL a model we see working really well uh with with parents is

subscription in fact we have a um a subscription of multiple apps called picniic and this is something that's really like as we started last year and that's very very successful with high growth so we see that it's also that model responds well to our parents are with their phones and uh controlling their kids time I think Crow blocks we're saying you know we definitely don't want to look at preschoolers it's definitely for you know say kids twins and teens um and again you know experiences where 3D makes sense uh where also uh socialization makes sense uh because it's obviously it's a very big dimension of of Roblox is players are going to talk about the game together they're gonna bring their friends in they're going to make friend new friends in uh I mean several times when I looked at um some of our games and experiences you know seeing uh kids from different parts of the world uh you know playing together I always find that uh fascinating yeah for sure I'm curious

just when you think about the future of Roblox of spinmaster in the gaming segment of of Spin Master what are sort of the opportunities that you're most excited about so you know I mean we we look at all the trends so obviously a few weeks ago as you're aware um Walmart uh open a store on Roblox and yeah you know I I always remember from the last year Roblox developer conference um Roblox CEO mentioning that for a lot of developers the revenue coming from physical Goods might be greater than digital goods and so obviously for a company like us you know shipping millions of products a year uh this is an interesting um new paradigm and we're we're you know wmart is one of our largest customer on the toy side so all these things you know my um uh bring us in a new dimension that we don't have

today in terms of timeline do you see this happening in being an opportunity in the next couple years how honestly I I don't know I don't know I think it's for now it's very experimental from I think both wmart and Roblox I don't know their timelines and we're we're right now we're trying to get more detail information and there's obviously also some legal Dimension to it so we're looking at all that do you think anything would be POS would something be possible similarly on mobile platforms in the future where you can you know play you know tokaboka and uh you know potentially buy a plushy in in game or get a discount code or something yeah so so you you have you know regulation like Copa uh where basically you cannot really like sell to to kids so that's why it's very um um

it's it's its own ecosystem uh and and so you know this is probably like one of the more fundamental dimension in terms of bringing e-commerce into kid product but uh yeah it's it's not something that um that can be done got it so you know for for many for many yeah for just for we're we're leaving for for children we're leaving it to Roblox and apple to figure out how to execute on that um and if the opportunity presents itself then then exactly no so so I think you know to come back on your question I think some of the dimensions that are interesting for a company like us with toys is how can we connect toys and digital experiences right you know how can I basically have a toy becoming a Super toy because you already unlock this feature in your Roblox game right uh or in a mobile app so these are things that we we are you know playing with in terms of R&D and looking at uh

for now it's very clunky the connection between digital and physical is uh you know when you look at everything done is it's not something that works well but you know I I'm I'm optimistic that something will happen there um obvious see there are uh more and more gaming platforms opening up we we see a lot of his social platforms becoming also gaming platform uh like like YouTube now and over so this is also something that we're looking at and then you know we're global company and so uh I've been uh being able to exist you know in the metaverse we consider Roblox being being the metaverse it's also that notion of being able to create digital events uh so we think for you know some of our product launch or content launch this is also a great opportunity to say well you know come you know at this time and and you will all watch together this new content or we'll play together that new G so uh I think that that opens the door

to things that we couldn't do uh necessarily on mobile got it makes sense when you so speaking of the metaverse you know we've talked a lot about Roblox are there other platforms that are interesting and why or why not yeah I mean you know I'm always looking at the data and the number of active players M uh so we're of course looking at fortnite for now when I look at uh fortnite creative uh experiences the numbers are much much smaller than what we're talking on on Roblox the other piece that I understand from uh a lot of experts on on fortnite is that the the core uh game play of of of basically you know being a competition and shooting all the other players around you is still like the main cplay and you know we don't do anything with guns so it doesn't doesn't match really what what we do here um and uh yeah

again like we we've been looking at over PL metaverse platform but for now the the numbers are really far apart from what we've been able to do on on Ro block so we're very focused on on that platform yeah makes sense there's so much opportunity so many different ways that you can many on the platform exactly awesome anything else that is sort of top of mind in the future I think really like you know again when we were talking earlier about the success of uh tokaboka world it's really a success of a live operation business it's really like game as a service call that uh and so when we we launch new products like uh tabuka days that's what we're looking at is like how do we create an architecture and and a product roadmap and also content you know collaboration or you know various Partnerships to to expand this product uh it's going to be a lot about this you

know live operation and and and really keeping this product you know iterating these products at a at a fast space but really growing them uh you know globally and also in terms of audiences well I always say if you want to have a sustainable live operations then you should probably think about ugc as a as a key part of that have you guys are you guys thinking about ugc in in the next iteration so you know the my favorite number about tabuka world is uh so you know it's all about creating your room your little house customizing it yeah and uh players are basically posting millions of videos every month uh in fact when we total the Tik Tok and YouTube post it's about three billion views a mon wow for to exactly and so that's where the ugc is and and I know that uh in fact I was I keep thinking that we need to invent a

new term because ugc is a bit too many different things yeah uh today uh but when we talk about the old definition of ugc which is you know generating video content uh we're seeing that as incredibly successful uh phaba too kaboka world and again it's you know this is basically the number one marketing source for a platform and we're hoping that for tokaboka is it will be will be very similar yeah and and I when you mentioned the 60 million Ma I looked up sort of where toab boka is on data. in terms of ranking and it's number 19 right now in terms of all games in the world so this is a a massive uh mobile game and so I guess it's not so surprising that that many people are posting about it on Tik Tok correct and and what's been interesting is that also now in fact we have uh Brands and companies who want to collaborate with us inside tokaboka so recently we we partnered with sanre and

Hello Kitty inside tokaboka and created you know a lot of uh fun Avatar tools and customization tools with them uh we just announced uh this week we launch with um an artist Conan gray I'm not sure if you're familiar with him uh he's a big uh Universal music artist and okay so we we are basically this uh Vella uh area it's kind of it's a coach of tokaboka world uh and uh and we are concert and you can play music inside so it's a it's a uh it's it's a it's a really interesting way to to look at the development of of that platform again like it's all been by you know live operations and iteration of a product I mean we've been talking about Roblox as a platform where brands are integrating but you know here is tokaboka world doing the exact same thing yeah I mean it's much more curated you know we we we talk to many Brands and uh we want to

have a very very strong Affinity between what the players of tokaboka uh World want uh in terms of brands or artists um and uh yeah we we're going to have uh more Brands last year we also partner with uh SpongeBob and and withon so ni we we're bringing regularly new brands into kaboka world because it's yeah it's massive uh and again like there's all this like fun creations that we can create with this brand so uh it it's um yeah it's a really interesting area of growth for us that's super cool yeah uh and just going forward as we wrap up the call how can people get in touch with you how can they follow you what's the best way to to get in touch LinkedIn I'm on LinkedIn we can connect with me on Linkin and I don't um yeah I I I'm I I I check regularly messages and when

there is something that makes sense I I will respond awesome well thanks so much for joining the podcast it's been great to have You Spin Master seems like it's uh you know on the Forefront of video games entertainment broadly linear television it's uh it's a really exciting place to be so thanks for sharing thank you so much if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like like subscribe comment or give a fstar review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast novic doco or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website www.nic.edu and advisory Services again that is www. nov. thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode