Trends at the Intersection of Entertainment & Games | BITKRAFT Summit 2024

good morning everyone um people in the back uh this is the first keynote of the day please feel free to come a little bit closer don't be shy um we got with us today Mac Reynolds from uh iMagic dragons and um a new game Studio that they're building um we got Kenny yay from CAA run strategic development over there and Paul cross from Netflix who has the creative Direction um on the game side great to have you all um with us today and um let's let's kick it off with ma uh you've had tremendous success in music um the Imagine Dragons are probably the games rock band if you will without having a a two specific style um you know you've you've done kind of the first major collaboration with uh riot

games that's been fantastic always gives me personally Goosebumps when I hear Warriors um how are you thinking about you know Journey creating authentic Mass audience products with games and how do you think you want to connect music and games going forward thanks Jasper um first off we have to acknowledge that walkr music because I made a joke backstage I was like do they have my walkr music queued up and I was I was just making a joke and then that was that was a little embarrassing but um thanks for having us I'm here with uh much more qualified people than myself so grateful to be here on the stage um you know I've been I was thinking when I was back here I've been uh I've been managing Imagine Dragons for 15 years now so it's been a kind of a long and winding journey and um you know it looks probably for the outside like it was a very quick one but we were slogging it out pretty pretty poor for a few years I recently dug up an email um I was looking through some old emails from the start of the band and I sound I found one where I

convinced the guys that we had to play this battle the bands because we could quote walk away with a cool $200 and and I they we did play it by the way we got our $200 um but it's it's been a journey since then and you know uh for Dan and I in the band you know um gaming has been a huge part of our life we grew up I'm aging myself here we grew up around the commodor 64 and huddled around our PC playing Sierra games and Lucas arts and s and all these Studios that had such a huge impact on our life uh we've always thought gaming is magical right because it combines so many interesting uh platforms into one right you have the medium of you know art visual art you have music you have sound you have storytelling it's interactive all these other things so with the band we took advantage of every opportunity we've had could have to collaborate in gaming and so you know 10 years ago uh we put together a streaming rig and we got a

custom guitar case and we and we took it out on the road with us and we did Twitch streaming while we were touring and we've got to collaborate with like you mentioned you know Riot games and uh and Bethesda more recently and Nintendo and you know those were really really magical moments for us and really eye openening for me and then I'm going to stop talking here because I want to hear from these other folks but uh really eye openening for me because it it showed me that relationship between you know gaming and music is still very young and not as established in the same way that music and TV and film are there's a lot of understanding and expectation gaps that we had to work through so uh anyway very very excited to be here and uh and and hopefully talk a little bit more about this stuff awesome thank you Mac um Paul you've worked on a lot of uh games before joining Netflix like The Sims lots of real brands in there racing games lots of real cars in there um how how kind of has this informed you all

right cing it up for Paul again I think that's his music right um and um so how has this informed you when you're thinking about working with external games at Netflix um you know any any War Stories what are you most excited about you know maybe what are people missing what what are the common pitfalls well I have to be careful on the War Stories so uh I think the thing that's been fascinating over the years is when we're working on burnout and people would say can you put real cars in the game but the moment you put licensed cars in the game you wouldn't be able to smash them up in the same way and if any of you know that game it's all about ripping those cars to shred so you don't want to put real cars in and move away from the emotional promise and then when you got to The Sims which is all about relationships and living the lives of little people then there was a Star Wars pack and of course you can't date kylo Ren and Ry and these folks so that again put these kind of constraints that move the game away from the emotional promise the

reason that players are going to be there and it's always really important for us to remember that the players don't care about your brand restrictions they just want to have fun in that world so when we're bringing these these different brands in or different IPS in and connecting them I think it's really vital for us to actually make sure that they they align to that emotional promise that they're going to be complimentary and not create that friction and undermine why the player came in the first place makes a ton of sense and when uh some of the Studios potentially in the audience today think about you know working with Netflix when they come through your scrutiny what what should they be aware of sorry I I you have so when when Studios want to work with Netflix right when you look at them what what are you looking for what are kind of maybe things that people are pitching that are just generally off you know that we as VCS might give them as advice do never put that in your deck okay tough question right in front of a crowd um so I think when we're looking at pitches we're trying to understand first first of all is it clear what this game

is who is it for why are they going to care cuz a lot of times people come and they talk about their incredible game mechanics but people aren't buying game mechanics that's not what they're buying they're they're buying uh an experience so we want to know who is the game for and how are they going to feel when they play it because then we can assess and see if that's true or not is that going to line up um I think with Netflix as well we have this huge established audience so we're talking about things that uh like how do we line up to that audience in a way that makes real sense so when we put a game on like uh like scripti there we go we know that's crime stories we have a huge crime viewership so that's s to line up and make sense and we see that reaction in our in our audience amazing Kenny um CIA has a very longstanding history working with Brands IPS U major content interactive experience heavy weights

um you're working with a lot of small startups at the same time um all the way to some of the biggest IP holders how should Founders think about building IP value in their own company or partnering ex with external IPS to ultimately you know Drive value perhaps at different stages in their company cycle yeah I think it's a really good question around when IP becomes something that is transferable right I I think one of the most critical things that we've seen and what's so important in at least in Hollywood is this this idea of building a trans media Behemoth everybody wants to do it and it is the goal and objective of a lot of these properties but I think what we've realized very early on with working with these groups is that it is it really comes down to building with intention category by category so what happens that or something that we've seen quite often is as you try and overextend right you're thinking about games you're thinking about film thinking about TV Comics

merchandising Etc every single one of those categories has a different margin profile has a slightly different preference in terms of fan base and while you might start with one area it's really important to sort of Master one before moving to the next right building strategically in tandem is important but you know at certain phases of your development you have to think about well what is it that my fan base is looking for now and in this category and I think that's actually what brings us to in some cases make Partnerships to say hey you should bring in uh you know license some traditional IP from Netflix and have a tie in from from here or there or hey maybe right now it's about sticking to your core what you're building over time do that well first and then we can have the conversation about migrating makes a ton of sense makes a ton of sense so trans media to stay on that topic it's been very hot for a while now people are seeing AR and they're like oh I want to do that too we

have season 2 coming up very soon um Fallout uh was was out there kind of leading the way um what do you think makes a title or a game if we start there instead of the Behemoth right away what makes it primed for Trans media success and when and how do you think some of the emerging companies whether it's on the game Studio side or more in the interactive um film drama side perhaps like scripti um how should they think about leveraging this established Partners like like you guys maybe just one quick note I mean I love those examples actually of Arcane and Fallout because it it illustrates a really interesting thing which is different facets of Ip can can lead to those trans media opportunities and in the case of both of these IPS they really got the assignment right they first created a world or an IP that people care about but then they understood what Their audience was attaching to right so Fallout arguably

you have this amazing setting in world and they really double down on that right when they when they branched out and and in Arcane like League of Legends it was really about the characters and about their relationships and they did such a an insightful job I think of diving in on those characters and extrapolating and making it meaningful um and so you know you have to first create something that people care about which I think was what Kenny was saying right and then I think you have to to also understand why they care and what they care about and really lean in there CU you can fall on your face otherwise if you don't understand that and I think in the success stories you do see that where they're like hey you know this is how people are attaching this is where we're going to kind of double down yeah to follow up on that I think you're touching on is people are responding to the clarity in the characters the clarity in the world and it's stuff that that feels very familiar to them like even though Alcan is this very imaginative uh experience it still

feels like real people and you're still connecting with them that normal like drama relationships kind of way which which again we see time and time again being successful whereas um when we move over to the Cyber punks we start to go okay now it's moving to more of that imaginary futuristic space and you see that uh still have to lean back on making sure the individuals involved are meaningful and they can be connected with I I I might go a little off-kilter here where I'd say I think any category any type of game does have the potential to be trans media and migrate the Nuance here is about how you find those opportunities and the timing right so much of it and I think one thing we've realized very quickly is you can't be a heat seeker in that space you have to be really really careful of identifying the right Partners who truly believe and love the work at its original influence you know if it's in the game Space what

does it mean for that fan base when it's in the game Space if I'm trying to move it to TV right what adaptations what sort of changes do I need to make what additions can I make so that it's not just about porting the game audience over it's about extending the audience for TV so you know you take an example like The Last of Us with Craig Mason and others like what they did is they took of course a great story line that existed within the game but they expanded it specifically to say what are the stories that couldn't really be told in a game format but could be told in a TV format right I think a lot of it comes into you know when you see major successes of any sort of Ip translation it does come with that intentionality in time not a games example but you know Barbie has been around for 65 years we at CA in some way shape reform we're talking about a movie I think since 2009 it's not until you know just handful of years ago that they finally

found the right director the right Stars the right people to say this is where Barbie can actually be a true liveaction film that is differentiated and meeting the fans where they want to be you know it it takes a lot of that intentionality and look you can make a Tetris movie it can totally happen it's not a bad one so uh you know I I think there's an opportunity as you think think about any sort of Ip if as long as you approach it in that way there is there's something about being trans media that is possible yeah that that that's fantastic I mean Barbie movie is a is a very interesting one and then you get emergent Behavior like the barbon Heimer all of the sudden right but also it hits a interesting cultural moment when um it's kind of the Nostalgia right the right people are at the right age that they grew up with that toy at a certain time if they tried to do it 10 years sooner maybe it wouldn't have hit that well maybe if they did it five years later the same thing so creating something culturally relevant that is authentic to the IP or

the brand is um the the crucial one that we take away here I'd say so now we're in an unprecedented time of the highest kind of virtual real life crossover touch points for IPs Brands content um when you're thinking about more distribution platforms than ever um more forms of content than ever how's kind of the creative process to actually bring that to life to to start that um to make that decision hey we should you know do something with Barbie we should do something with our game IP um how does that come together and how do you think it's it's continuing to change as we're looking to the next years I guess I was nominated so creative process wise it goes back to understanding the essence of the IP more and more wanted to make sure that the feelings that were evoked in the original material can continue into to whatever Medium you're expressing it in

whether it be music or film or TV because I think so much of the time we get caught mened earlier get caught in the mechanics of things and say oh we're going to make a game of of so and so and we make these cool mechanics but forget to actually carry through the way you felt at the time I remember I remember when I was a kid and uh watching the dragon dragon the Bruce Lee Story if any of you saw that back in the day and when I left there with left the cinema with my friends everyone was kicking punching each other they wanted to carry those feelings on and I was thinking okay well that's the game they want to play right now it's obviously you know nice easy example but if you're watching too hot to handle and you want to carry on those feelings different experience that you're going to want so I think it's really important for us to continue to identify what's at the core what's the essence what are those emotional expectations and then see those through into the other mediums I'll just point out I mean I think one of the challenges is a lot of times the people who have the reign the IP are not the same generation as the

people who are going to consume their trans media opportunities and that can be really challenging because it's changing so fast you're always trying to figure out where people are and how to meet them and you know it's it's still like great stories and characters and like that's still the heart of it but like people are consuming in different ways whether it's web Tunes where people are scrolling vertically on their phone now and it's easier for them to kind of attach to it but it is it's it's a challenge to cut through and to and to find I mean for example I mean there is 120,000 new songs being created every day right now uh being released every day that's nuts it's it's terrible but it's also great it's you know it's like and that barrier to entry for creating content just keeps lowering and it's going to get there for games and get there for everything and so um you know you really have to lean in on your creativity when it comes to creating those cultural moments that cut through

you know again taking music again radio used to be you have a great song you can get it on radio you will have a hit then it was like nope no more now it's play playlisting you get a great playlist you got a hit nope then it was like Tik Tok and then nobody knew how to do the algorithm and so you know you were constantly chasing this but at the end of the day you're trying to find a way to create a cultural moment around your IP and uh I just basically posed a question instead of an answer so that was really unhelpful sorry now I just realized I no I I mean I think ex everything you said I mean both of you is is exactly right in terms of what we've been seeing on the on you know the talent agency side right one thing that we've seen in particular when you talk about new Distribution Systems new social media all of these different things that can impact and build cultural moments has been around the intentionality of the brand and IP you built right so I'll give one example which is that we happen to work with a studio that creates these horror games

their entire intention is to build around Mystique right how do I build up the Wonder the conspiracy behind the game behind you know you know volume one to volume two to volume three they don't interact with their fan base at all that's incredibly intentional they have no they don't post people are complaining about this that whatever else they don't say a thing and in that way I think it's actually incredibly compelling and powerful for them because it actually adds to what they're doing you know when they when they were announcing a new game they just had you know one of those black boxes ticking with numbers and people like trying to decipher it because there's so little engagement but that's what aligned with their brand versus others it is about you know I want radical transparency I want to build a moment where people are following along with what we're doing on Tik Tok and other things I I think so much of it does come down to you know from the very beginning of what you are building like how are you being intentional of like what are the touch

points I actually want with our fans I'm sure you see this in music all the time like where do we actually want to talk to them where do we want them to talk to us and where are the places that honestly it's better for us not to play so how do you how do you make that decision ultimately what what what can you know people in the audience take away if they say okay we want to try to expand our IP to through this medium maybe it's even something like hey we're doing a beta announcement we're launching a trailer or we'll work with this amazing artist and music group to try and promote this or do some song integration or something like that how do people kind of go through the process to make the right choices for for their IP so one small thing which is authenticity I mean especially in gaming it's like the beginning and end right and and it this goes to what you're saying Kenny about understanding your brand and being loyal to it you know you can get the biggest collaboration name ever and if it doesn't resonate with your community it's going to flop and so that you know

we that's something we tried to always keep a careful eye on with us you know with the dragons you know and maybe we did it right sometimes and wrong sometimes but we always it had to be something that was real for us if we were going to collaborate on a song like the guys have to play the game they have to be a part of that community and and make sure that people understand that they're a part of that Community too but anyway authenticity is one facet I'm sure Kenny's got more in Paul so we were talking earlier about uh Rock Smith and talking about the fact when we uh we had Imagine Dragons songs in the game it's a game where you basically feel like a rock star playing with a real guitar and uh of course a lot of reaction of the the sort of Hardcore like audience were oh Imagine Dragons that's pop music and we're going yeah that's short for popular so it's kind of good and we see that in the response like it's very dangerous to just listen to what you're hearing on the Internet it's like the don't read the comments aspect you may be Capt ing a portion of the audience but it probably doesn't

represent the broad swath of people you're trying to reach so really trying to understand what their needs are what they're actually leaning into from whether it's behavioral data or deeper consumer insights rather than Reddit is I think super important so then you can find these great winning moments that may not have align like lined up with the uh the core community that that's the most perfect Netflix answer I can imagine I mean you guys are so data driven right like I I think that is exactly what we and encourage the studios that we work with to do as well which is look it is the com it's perfect I'm sitting between you guys it's the authenticity part first and then it's thinking about what are those you know externalities that are acting within that vertical you're looking at so if it is TV if we're thinking about an adaptation when we take it out to writers producers directors you know to talk about linear adaptation we don't just talk about this is the fan base of this one IP in game we talk about well what else is working out there in market right what are other

writers excited about what are people watching what are people consuming because it does start from knowing your IP in and out right establishing where you want your brand presence but part of it comes down to well what is the market demanding what are what are the broader fans wanting because I I really believe it comes back to that principle of look you are building you know let's say within video games you build up an incredible fan base within that space you want to move them to other categories but when you move them to other categories it's about re-expanding your width right it's about thinking how do I make this property something that was great for games but now is great for TV by itself and that's so much of what we spend our time trying to think through and I think you know that's what it is it's that authenticity meets the meets The Market Outlook piece that that is really what's been working so far so Mac you had a lot of um great hits that still don't have a 100% you know Imagine

Dragon style you maybe have your brother Dan's voice that is the you know permeating thing through but a lot of songs are in such different styles how do you continue to stay on top of you know what the cultural moment is um well I'll just say with music they've never chased a cultural moment I don't think in terms of songwriting um they were very lucky early on that Dan writes in such a diverse way um that the let me put it this way let's make a comparison to uh oh who's the band I'm thinking of right now the uh the Banjo band not Lumineers anyway I can think of that they were acoustic and then they went electric and everybody went crazy and someone on the stage is going to realize what I'm talking about they're British M friend and Sons thank you and uh and we were very lucky though that our tent was so wide from the beginning that people understand they're going to expect anything from us and the through line is Dan's voice and the fact that he writes all the lyrics and the Melodies and it's it's got that like you know core at it

but everything else uh everything else has been whatever's interesting to him at the time so when we're trying to give something to the audience about where might be you know the the sight gu headed what are some cultural pieces some behavioral patterns that are changing today you say part of it is just in dense gut and creative genius to continue to hit it right um what what are perhaps some of the things on if you try to put a a method to the Met um what would you say can people learn from it I'm I'm going to give an very unsexy answer here but I I think and I think back in the history of dragons in our first few years where we had labels come and go like we had the same labels that passed on us came back later and we got signed and our we kept our head down and our philosophy was always you focus on what you can control and what you can control is your relationship with the community and their relationship with each other that is in your that is up to you and your art that you're creating I think it's similar for gaming and you

know we looked at like firewood every fan was another piece of firewood more points of entry for the spark more possibility for burning long and by by focusing on that and kind of forgetting about the rest it was very empowering and um and and for us eventually you can't always control where those cultural moments come where something takes off especially today right like good luck trying to be viral on Tik Tok right like when people say I created a viral video that they have haven't put out yet I just you know you kind of chuckle um and so yeah we uh we we we focused on that very early on and and that understanding that core base and super serving them has been what we've tried to do since the beginning and I and I think that translates to a lot of Ip it's it's really about building an authentic relationship even if that relationship is based on Mystique you know as you've said you know that could be a part of it um and understanding it and trying to Foster it

fantastic do you guys have any answers to the to the question predicting the future of cultural Zeitgeist moments yeah yeah well um so I got Oasis tickets this morning so I'm very excited about that and so putting that through the lens of that question I think it goes back to looking back through history and thinking about how old we were when they were big right so I go you know musical tastes a lot of your entertainment tastes start to get locked in when you're that sort of mid teenage kind of area so some 30 years later as we hit our our midlife not crisis just midlife we're getting excited about it again we're thinking about our youths we're having those moments so when we think about the different audiences we're trying to hit if you're aiming if you're aiming for folks like me capturing those nostalgic moments are a big deal but then thinking what's fresh about it so is that getting the band back together in that case or is it putting this new Twist on it is it like what what are you bringing that's new to the party that makes it feel like something you already know and love and can trust but now has

that 10 degrees of innovation that's actually going to respark it I think that's um something I'm always wondering about like what can we do there how do we get there so the answer is more I think about it in those terms what are people cycling through how do we uh how do we capatch those next set of waves rather than having a perfect it's this because obviously if I Shar that then everyone will be doing because it's easy right I mean I I can't help but agree I I I think you can just look at a lot of the recent successes of I mean something like black myth Wukong right everybody's been talking about it I mean that entire storyline everything is is stuff that I mean of course majority of it sales are in China that entire storyline is something that everybody grew up with but it's that principle that you just said of of working off of nostalgia working off of what exists and has been cultural Trends and bringing it back and iterating and I think actually that's a lot of what's compelling about you know the most popular content that we're

seeing today is it's not necessarily a completely new formula it is a it is a Twist on the existing and that piece of innovation that think that think that thinking around how do I take something that people want and are comfortable with but really just push it a little bit further right that's been a lot of what we've been finding as sort of you know the most critical part of find of creating something substantial you know we're going to go back to Barbie again but incredible film but in particular because it went through so many iterations the story line was completely different in multiple different periods there was different writers different directors different actors it really took understanding what is the cultural moment today what is the Nostalgia you you feel for the IP and how do I enhance it how do I be a little bit meta about it how do I actually bring it into the modern day era that made it the success that it is and I think that's true across

category so if you're looking at your products just the last one what are you most excited about and how you're bringing kind of the trans media uh Magic to life well uh yeah you know we so we have a kind of a small startup studio right and and this is a very relevant conversation for us today because you know limited resources trying to cut through how do you do that and and I don't know the answers but this is I this is I think we've done a lot of kind of looking back on IP questions today this is like a looking forward you're creating a new IP so for us it's kind of two things we're focused on which is you know number one if you're if you're thinking about trans media opportunities after you've created your IP it's probably too late right like as you're building with your community you need to they need to feel like you care about the world you're building and that it matters to you and it has to matter to them right and so we're trying to

plant those seeds very early and and think about those hooks and giving people discoverability because I think and that's one of the things that's kind of big and so in the game we're making there's a lot of hidden things that are not spoonfed to you and you can get ahead of the storyline if you're smart and you're exploratory and you're sharing theories and clues with other people so um treating people like they're smart showing them you care about the IP uh and then and then hopefully being able to lean on the community to help you see where that story goes right that's the one you know there's we're all afraid well I don't know not every probably some people are ecstatic about uh how how easy it's going to be to create content in the future but that also means your community can create content easily and so for us I'm very excited to see how can the community help expand our story through their through their fan art through their storytelling and leveraging that community and supporting that Community um to help find those trans media opportunities is a is a great way to sidestep that um that low

resource question that a lot of us face when we're trying to cut through yeah I mean I think in particular where where we sit right we are at the intersection of Hollywood and and just entertainment broadly so for us a lot of it has been the very traditional sense of trans media taking Hollywood IP helping license into a video game and and now what we're starting to see is the interest the other way around right we've got writers directors producers is coming to us and asking about what are the opportunities to option this game or think about this IP the most important thing and the thing I'm most excited about I is really getting that sort of collaboration more hand inand right how do you get it so that one hand shakes the other building the flywheel you know I think even in a lot of the successes that we've had there certainly missed opportunities of co-promotion really working with the fans and thinking about what can amplify this even more and more I know growing up I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan one

of the best things about every time a movie came out was EA released a game some of which were incredible right the fact that that doesn't happen anymore with some of these really really major you know Hollywood Blockbusters feels like a Miss there's opportunities there for us to keep thinking about how this space interacts and and that's what we're going to be spending so much more time on and and that's where it really goes yes to all of that um you talk about bringing those things closer together and that's going through my mind I think from a video game point of view I think the quality of the writing and the stories uh has not been at the same level as our film Netflix film and Series in general there are a few exceptions but then when you look at those games there's a lot of filler content they're trying to expand the uh length of the game rather than trying to expand the enjoyment of the game and I think that's something that is going to shift especially when we think about subscription model for for us in particular I think we need to make sure

we have the quality of the writing that they expect that our members are going to hold them to they're going to expect film and series quality writing and they want to get on with it they don't want to be uh held in a loop of killing a bunch of bad guys just to make the game longer so I think those those shifts in the mentality and the way that we edit games like we edit movies I think it's going to need to be brought in pretty hard to say bring us closer together but allow the writers allow the people that tell these incredible stories and the other mediums to actually be able to express them well in games amazing thank you guys so much we ran slightly over it was super insightful um and uh in audience please stay please stay seated we got the next one coming right up here yens