TWIG #364 Off-Air Relationships and Personal Reflections

My promise for this year is I would definitely want to be much less sarcastic and much more American. And it doesn't matter how crazy the proposition for the company is. If there's five people launching a FIFA game, I will say that could work. That sounds amazing. I'll be there for the next sentence saying this is the biggest [ __ ] I've ever heard, right? So don't worry about it. [music] Hello everyone and welcome to this week in games 364. We're calling this the year end or the year beginning episode since we are now recording it on January 2nd. I'm Jen Do. I fill the marketing and publishing role on the podcast. Today we have
Eric Crest strategy and investing black monetization sar is Katkov friend of the founders.
All right so here's what we're doing on today's very special episode. We're going to answer a bunch of questions that we often get from listeners when we go to different shows like how does this

get made? There's a lot of questions that we get. So, we're going to go through some of those and then it's the episode that absolutely is horrified Mr. Data Phil. We're going to get all mushy and vulnerable. It's going to be Bnee Brown like on display here and everyone's going to do some touchy feely answers to some emotional questions. And then remember back when EA said, "Can a computer make you cry?" Well, today it's going to be can a podcast make you cry. Actually, apparently I made someone cry when I talked about some of my medical stuff a couple months ago. So, I guess the answer is yes. When [clears throat] I told the story about how Stan's daughter gave me the card with, you know, you're going to do really good in surgery.
Oh my god. A friend of mine was like, I was in a cab and I was listening and I was balling [laughter] and it was a guy, too. Anyway, so here's a quick shill. I wanted to promote Chris and I did a quick junior episode with our on the ground reporters Rocky who's 12 and Mickey who's 10. There's a lots to share from the episode. Go give it a listen. It's really fascinating. It's

like a peak into the minds of Gen Alpha. But two key things I wanted to point out from that episode. Number one is Supercell has figured out how to make games that last forever for 10 to 12 year olds. So last year it was Brawl Stars and all of that resurgence, a lot of it came from 12-year-olds. This year they've done the same thing with Clash Royale. So this is not I mean Pocus group of a few 12-year-olds, but every time I talk to a 12-year-old, they are playing Clash Royale and they say that their entire school is playing it. So a really interesting note there. I Mishka, if you haven't pissed off Supercell so much, I would try to get them on the phone and ask them about this. Maybe they'll still take my call. They're probably spending UA dollars directly against this audience, right? I mean,
aren't they just the one pissing off Super? I think Phil Black has been I've been just getting splash damage. [laughter]
What?
By the way, since this is a D Lo episode and we're essentially talking about everything else except the news because there was no news. I've actually reached

out to Supercell's PR. I think I reached out to them Oh, during my visit in Finland during slush. No reply. And and I was kind of surprised because
every single company that we talked to gets back to us like Timmy, Scopley, Riot, Roblox, you name it. We we're on like a firstname basis with PR teams, but Supercell's PR lady has not replied. So I don't know lady if we offended you. That was not the goal. It was a very nice email. We'd like to We did specific [ __ ] on [laughter] Supercell PR.
Okay. I apologize. You really do. This [laughter] isn't I I apologize, lady. I apologize. And we would like to correct anything we've done wrong by having you on the podcast.
I would like to be the official Deconstructor of Fun spokesperson. Please call me instead of Mishka and I'll try to smooth it over. [laughter]
All right. So, the the other thing that we talked about was that Fortnite is

really getting squeezed by Roblox and GTA 6 is likely going to squeeze it from the top end. So Fortnite's going to continue to make all the inroads that it can to compete with Roblox. Uh the kids seem to be really preferring what Roblox is offering. Even for the boy standpoint, I know we had often talked about it aging out, but it seems like they're able to keep them with grow a garden and steal a brain rot kind of game. Although the kids seem to be over that one.
There is a third
oh
takeaway. The third takeaway is that Prize Pix is marketing to children
and corrupting the future generations of children with gambling. We actually 100% cleared this up and confirmed it with these two 12 and 10 year olds. So,
they did say they they saw it more in like legacy like watching sports than they did see it in UA on a phone
and YouTube videos
that they're watching
which again.
Got it. Yeah, that that was uh our bonus add-on question that we we put in there. You're right. Mishka, what do you have?

Predictions, those are out. So, 12 predictions for the next 12 months. Check it out on Deconstructive Fun newsletter podcast and of course the upcoming events during PGC London. I was just looking at the game executive subber club which is on which is the the Sunday roast edition. It's looking pretty full. We haven't approved about 100 people who are still in line and we got about 20 places to go. So, I need to get on that. But please, if you haven't applied, do it now because we're sending approvals at this moment.
So, what's your count on your predictions? You have some numbers here. I want you to
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, as always, when we talk about predictions, I I always go a year back [laughter] and then see the the predictions how correct they were. So, last year I did six predictions. Four of them were quite correct. One was clearly incorrect. The one incorrect was I thought that the western companies would be distancing themselves from China due to all the geopolitical shuffle but apparently only the Chinese companies distanced themselves from the

US [laughter] the other way around and probably no political agenda. They were just like this is too expensive and slow and one was unverified. So I would say 75% correct which is a good number. If you're doing like close to 100, that means you're making safe bets. And again, with the next 12, there's a lot of crazy predictions, but you know, you got to swing for the fences.
All right.
No, I I No, no, we can't let this we can't let this get away. They're under scoped. Like, I need I need to see bolder bets. [laughter]
Like, if you look at the odds on these, it's like GTA will be the biggest game. AI will matter. Like, let's let's ramp up the risk profile here.
I'm predicting like an AI bust. What are you talking about? There's no bold things happening. It's like really hard to make bold prediction when nothing's really changing on them.
What are the dark horses? I think that that remains an elusive question.
Chinese puzzle games. I'm I'm thinking that's [laughter] going to be a big one
with 4x season
maybe.
All right. Well, why don't you write

your own blog post, Phil, and let's talk about it next week.
Let's see. Yeah, let's see some audacious predictions from Mr. Philip Black.
I I put my bets forward. I got I got a Nemo on my on my card. What else we got?
All right. Okay.
Press. Big announcement. We need
I have a quick announcement. Yes. Now, I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but after almost two decades of client work, I am now completely focused on the podcast and independent analysis in 2026, which basically means that you will get a completely unfiltered version of me with zero conflicts from clients. So, buckle up this year. No, no, no issues. So, quote unquote se semi-retired this year. So,
I thought we already had unfiltered crest. So, it gets worse. I mean, better.
Oh, it can get a lot worse. Yeah. No, believe me.
Well, congratulations.
The first of the many over the last year. [laughter] So,

I mean, this is a big milestone. You're in a sense kind of retiring, right? like is that the right word or should we just say
I am semi-retired let's say I mean this has been a plan for quite a while now so and then when my daughter got into school I don't want to spend a lot of time on this but if you guys want anybody want to talk about it I'd be happy to do it [laughter] but when my daughter got into school it just seemed pretty apparent that I didn't really want to work anymore I just want to do what I want to do right and the podcast is kind of one of the best things I do so I'm going to just focus on that maybe post a little bit more like incinary [ __ ] on LinkedIn [laughter]
thank god We need more of that.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the cesspool that is LinkedIn these days. So, I'm going to add to that cesspool, but getting away from client work, that is that is tough.
Well, congratulations.
Maybe more than one Crest Corner episode a year. Maybe we'll up that the number up. [laughter]
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll start interviewing people that like I'm going to maybe I'll interview uh Mr. uh Lightseed
Mortz. Let's go back there.
Oh, I really want to facilitate that.

I want to see you take on the EA strategy guy from Toronto.
Oh, I think that could be fun. I think you should do it.
He reached out. I I I'll actually try it. I'll try.
Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah,
let's do it.
Cuz he said he wanted to clarify. And now that he's not at a public traded company, he should be free to [ __ ] talk to me all he wants.
Oh,
you know, he doesn't have any like restrictions either or less restrictions, let's say.
Okay. I volunteer to moderate. Those are going to be awesome. All right. So, let's get into the first section. These are more kind of like podcast related questions like behind the scenes. We get this one all the time. How do you make the podcast? How do you make Twig? And I think Phil's got a a pretty good one coming up too, which is, you know, at a high level, I do a little bit more of like the executive producer cat wrangling is what I call it. But basically, you know, I kind of make [clears throat] sure we have record on certain dates that the editor knows what when we're recording so that he can turn it around. we have this document that we

all kind of asynchronously collaborate into. So it it kind of works like a welloiled machine at this point. Sometimes it's just wrangling who's going to be on the podcast and who's not and can Laura or Adam kind of fill in when Phil or Mishka are out or when I was out for a month. We also do a bunch of side podcast. Mishka, you're the one I think when I add it up you do like almost 30 side podcasts, deep dives every half a year. I do maybe I don't know three to five and so you have that kind of going really well. Phil has shooter monthly which has been awesome dude. I love shooter monthly. Super fun.
So that that's a little bit. Why don't you guys go into the rest of it?
I don't know. I just show up right and my people do the rest, right? You know my I have all these people. No, I'm just kidding. We all prepare ahead of time. Some more than others. And I'm looking at Mishka because Mishka is the worst. Okay. Just in general on average.
Yeah. But I, you know, overall it's a lot smoother these days it seems anyway in terms of getting [ __ ] together for

it. So it's there's some days that are bad, but most of the time it's pretty good.
So on the background there's we always put in notes. So this this podcast is the most edited just because there's many speakers and just because we want to cover as many topics as possible. We do some of the conversations. So what was good, what was not. Phil is usually central at those whether this sucked or was good. He gives a thumbs up, thumbs down like an emperor after every episode. And my [clears throat] process is really simple. In my head, I always aim at putting my notes by the end of Monday, which gives everybody else some time to check them out. But in reality, I'm like, "Okay, it's Tuesday already, but I'll do my notes." And then again, more work, more stuff comes in, and [ __ ] it's Wednesday, so I cram in my notes. Then I get mad message from Jen of like, "What is this? Where did it came from?" And blah blah blah. And then I have to edit. And that's why everybody's pissed because I'm the last. So that's normal. But sometimes I'm correct and do it on the on the right moment. Like this week I was again putting my notes last minute adding different questions and you guys were like, "What the [ __ ] is this? We're not

doing this." [laughter]
All of us are in different places around the world. So Crest is in San Francisco, I'm in LA, Phil's in Cypress, and Mishka is in Athens. So those two have actually moved, but you've stayed pretty much in a time like time zones away from us, like 9 hours difference from us. And so when you get in and you do all your notes, when you think it's like a normal time, we have no time to see what you wrote, to catch up, and then you insert it on top of somebody else's already done work. And that's why I yell at you, but it's all with love, Mishka. No,
I'm like, yeah, you're absolutely right. [laughter] I don't even I'm used to it.
But the one who's actually the best at this is Crest. Crest is always in there on time if not early doing, you know, puts his thoughts in.
You know, Crest wins at who's the most prepared and then Phil is the best at bringing in all the game information because
he wants to talk all about games. And so you do a great job bringing data and then I try to just do some stuff. I

bring in some stories. I bring in I try to do the summaries and the recap of what the news is. So then allows us to then talk about because sometimes we all dive in without like refreshing the audience on like what the topic was. Cool. All right. Next question is what are your relationships like off air? So Crest is 100% Crest but just a little less aggro unless you fire him up which I've seen happen and then he becomes podcast crest in front of people. That's pretty funny. So he and I do all kinds of different stuff together kind of off podcast and it's a ton of fun. Actually, I think we have a little comedy show going off the podcast. Mishka is our I I call you our visionary. You have a lot of great ideas about like what we're doing. What is deconstruct?
I'm described like a US executive now. [laughter]
Hype man.
Yeah, he's the hype man. He gets us the sponsors. He is the best schmoozer. If you've ever seen him at GDC, he is like

the bell of the ball. Everyone wants to talk to him. But if you want something done, call me. That's gonna [laughter] that's kind of how this works. Sadly, we don't get a lot of Adam. But it, you know, every time we do, it's an absolute pleasure. Like one of the smartest guys ever in gaming, especially from all angles, like product from even marketing. Like he and I can talk marketing stuff all day long. The best is when he comes in town. He's in based in Canada, right? So he had another one who's not here. So when he comes to LA because he works at Scopely. We'll do dinner a lot of times and it's like the best girls dinner of all time. We bring a couple friends and we just gossip and then Phil, you know, oh, Phil, besides him [ __ ] on marketing, which I'm going to just explode every time that happens, I actually did a couple projects with Phil and had a lovely enjoyable time. [laughter] And I I just love that you bring all the data and everything and and and fill out the rest of the podcast. So anyway, that's mine. Adam is much more sarcastic in real life than he is on the podcast. [laughter] Somehow it's he's like he's the most

sarcastic of us and yet he comes out as the sort of a thoughtful like very methodical and then he's comes
he's vicious [laughter] Canadian Wolverine you know claws something else.
Yeah. [laughter] It's like oh [ __ ] can you say like wow if you would have said that on a podcast like that would have [laughter] been brilliant.
He's funny about it too. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I love working with Adam. He's Adam is basically a genius, but he's Canadian, right? So, that basically [laughter] trumps the fact that he's a genius, but he works his ass off. I've never seen someone work so much so diligently on projects. When we were at Warner, he was insane, right? So, he's so [ __ ] thorough, but he's still [ __ ] Canadian, right? [laughter] That's I mean, I don't know. You can't forgive him for that. Let's see. Jen, I think Jen's kind of like a work wife, right? I have to admit, she keeps me and everyone else for that matter, kind of on track and she also helps me personally engage because I'm more of an

introvert. I don't really like going to events, but she gets me out there to go to the events and the talks and stuff. So, it's good for me to have someone like Jen Mishka, you know, we've [laughter] been
I've known you for a long bucket of time, right? We have an interesting relationship because
in some senses he's literally the opposite of me, right? So he's an extrovert. He's a salesman. He's an idea guy. He's basically a less successful Moritz, you know, [laughter] but but compliment massive compliment. But but successful, you're successful in your own right. Like none of this [ __ ] would happen without him, right? He gets the sponsors, he gets the promotions, he puts on the events,
he's out there like hustling, you know, constantly. He is the man, right? But also, he can be very very very very frustrating. Yes. [laughter] I mean, if you've ever done a present presentation on stage with him, it is like an absolute exercise in frustration because for me, I'm a [ __ ] nervous wreck and I am like preparing, preparing, preparing, preparing. Him, he doesn't

finish his slides till like an hour before the presentation and he's getting up there [ __ ] winging it.
True.
It's such [ __ ] dude. It's such [ __ ] All right, but anyway, that's my problem. Okay, Phillip. Philip is like, you know, an super intelligent child. [laughter] He's got he's got tons of smarts and lots of gusto, but very very little wisdom. [laughter] The only few years he's had on this earth, right? And his whole lens is based upon some econometrics [ __ ] right? So like this is how he looks at the world, right? But, you know, sometimes I really just don't have the heart to correct him because he just needs to learn and and understand the world as it is as opposed to what the econometric books say it is, Mr. Phillip. [laughter] But I actually really enjoy listening to Philip rant and talk about [ __ ] because he is very, very smart man. Well, boy, I guess. But [laughter] yes, that's it. Gee, thanks. All right. What I guess what I would say here is this kind of like there's another company in your building and you

kind of see them in the hallways for lunch and you maybe have hung out with them. There's like a sense of camaraderie in this group. And I would say the thing that unites all of us that comes on here is a fierce sense of independence in some sense. Like we all do our own [ __ ] Like we all have our own little consulting businesses and like we come together for twig. So I would say that's very interesting to work with [laughter] cuz everyone has their own their own ideas of how things should work. And I think I think the most amazing part is that it does work, right? I don't think it should on paper but it does. And sometimes we do collabs, which is fun. You know, we [clears throat] have a chat channel, but it's a nice group. We always get together at GDC. We'll probably go to Eric's retirement club. What is [laughter] it?
Club.
It just smells like 50-year-old dude sweat. There's just a musk.
There's nothing better. Nothing better than that. Mr. Black, [laughter]
just towel service. It just It's something. It's Yeah, it's it's an interesting group.
Yeah, I love hang. Yeah,

exactly. I I I think Phil put it that's my whole vision is like this rebel alliance. I always like that versus like the the Empire versus Rebel Alliance and kind of like everybody's independent and everybody has their own thing. There's no central control which is clear [laughter] but by the way does this run and and it's interesting how this group has also evolved over time because the original ones like when talking about JK and and Crest like I knew both from real life from San Francisco. I knew Adam back from Berlin already. I knew Seuford who was on this back from Finland. Like he him I knew the longest. And so as as the group has evolved, there's more people like amazing people like Jen, like like Phil and I mean Ethan, I knew him a little bit in real life, but you too and and Laura. So it's almost like a like a remote work and and it's a little bit harder to do the deeper relationship because as Phil said, it's like we're not in the same place. We're almost like working at different companies but having lunch together every week. So,

it's like really friendly relationship. But, but yeah, it would be something if everybody would be in the same city that that would be probably a very very different type of a setup. But yeah, as I said, like whenever we meet up, it feels like pen pals or like long-distance lovers are meeting. So, it's it's it's fun.
Yeah. A lot of the the good stuff is before or after we record. That's where, you know, we get to, you know, have some real talk and stuff we can't say on the podcast. So that that's a lot of fun.
Talk a lot of [ __ ] about Mishka.
Yeah.
Yeah. [laughter]
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Chris, what about you?
You know, the shilling stuff drives me insane, right? I know it's the way of the world, but for me, I just I can't I

can't do it. I can't stand it, but you know, that's what keeps the world running. I [laughter] would say anything that doesn't feel fun for us because again, this is not a job. And I think the longevity of the show has largely been because we are doing what we like to do and what we want to do. And yeah, we do listen to the audience. We have questionnaires that we might send some days to to guide us to a certain specific way. But just like with Jen was giving me some feedback from from another person. I was said, you know, my my take on it was like feedback received, but in the end, like I'm doing the type of interviews, for example, that I like to do. Like I like to talk to founders and if somebody doesn't like that that's perfectly fine. I'm not going to change that as an example. But if if there's one thing that I would like to change about the show that would be about myself and that's like limitation of my own sarcasm. Like I'm not nearly as sarcastic as Adam but I say it out loud which is the [laughter] problem. And and so I was kind of like thinking about this today because we had this question open here and I was like

I'll put it on my Eastern European upbringing because there there's a difference between the cultures like the American culture and the Eastern European culture. And I put in this on chat GPT and I was like what are the differences? And and apparently in Eastern European cultures like the support comes wrapped in silence, expectations and corrections. And if something isn't criticized it's assumed to be good enough. And praise is rare because it's considered dangerous. something that might soften you, slow you down or make you complacent and so forth. So maybe these cultural differences. So my promise for this year is I would definitely want to be much less sarcastic and much more American. And it doesn't matter how crazy the proposition for the company is. If there's five people launching a FIFA game, I will say that could work. That sounds amazing. Like that's [laughter] that's I really believe in that. I'll be there for the next sentence saying this is the biggest [ __ ] I've ever heard. Right? So, don't worry about it.
But I think it's easy to be sarcastic, but it's also very easy to be super

positive about everything and never say anything negative. Are you talking about sarcastic or critical? I think a lot of this is like my sarcastic humor. like yes I'm critical sometimes but oftentimes like I will continue to be being critical or raising challenges in in certain propositions or companies or products but a lot of the times like I just joke around about companies just in sarcastic way and it comes off wrong like it I'm not laughing at them I'm just being sarcastic and then some people are listening like oh he's so mean I was like oh yeah I get it how you would take it that way and that's not my goal. Like for example, with Supercell, I didn't know I was being mean. Apparently, I was, but I think I was sarcastic about certain things, but anyways, it is what it is. So, I'll try to do that less.
Okay, Phil, what do you got?
I want to be crystal clear. [laughter] Do you know how much clarity I've seen, Eric? I don't think I had this side project of a soundboard for a really

long time, and the space bar is going to be crystal clear. [laughter] Do I really say that a lot? I don't I that is
like I've edited you guys once or twice and when you edit someone, you can like figure out all their audio ticks because I also do edit notes for the podcast
and so I have to listen intently. Yikes. [laughter]
All of you have your ticks and safety. I do too. But that one's really funny.
Yeah, that is funny. Actually, the other one that I really did want to mention now that I think about it is I got to stop using the word [ __ ] Like I mean it is out of control. One episode I tried like years ago to just not say it and it wasn't actually that hard. I think I got it down to like three or four, right? So I'm going to be better. I should be able to express myself without using the word f you.
Can you use more creativity? Like kind of like a Gordon Ramsay, you know, situ.
I don't know what that means, but I will take it under advisement.
The reason why we've been trying to dial back on the f-word is that if you use

too many fbombs, it'll styy the YouTube algorithm. And so we won't get reach. And so we've actually started the bleep. I think the last episode Dom who is our editor started bleeping and the whole episode when Crest talks is a bleep. So yes,
I got complaints from listeners about that. They were like this this ruins the whole episode. [laughter]
Yeah. So yes, let's let's
Wait, the bleeping or the f word? Bleeping.
The bleeping.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Well, because it it just interrupts your flow because
Yeah. because I can't I can't possibly process without using the word [ __ ] you know.
And funny enough, it's like sea sutor reached out like what what the [ __ ] is going on with this? Like stop bleeding. [laughter]
All right.
Uh and then we don't want to ask our editor to do a podcast version and a YouTube version. Well, maybe we do. Okay. Next question. Who would you most like to interview and what is the one question you're dying to know? And like let's assume that someone gave them truth serum and they had to answer you on this. So for me, I picked it was

really tough. I picked Sarah Bond who's president at Xbox or you know our good friends Bill Spencer. How does Xbox Everywhere messaging work from a nextG console maker? Like I I just don't understand how they are trying to say you can play Xbox everywhere and we want to eventually sell you another console but you can play it everywhere. I just don't get it. And I'm a fan. I am a huge huge fan of Xbox. I just want them to pick a lane. I want them to stop their console maker versus third party publisher identity crisis. So my second one I had to do an asking for a friend is Gabe from you know the Valve god is what the [ __ ] is with Halflife 3. That's my other one.
I only have one that I could think of really because I think I know the answer of a lot of things that they would have to answer honestly but maybe not. So I would ask Lars from Embracer is did you ever really think that this acquisition strategy was actually going to work? Right. And then the following question is if you did believe at what point did

you realize that this is not working right? I mean I'm sure it was years before the collapse, right? But like yeah I mean he must have known like this was a was the house of cards and this was a total Ponzi scheme type thing. So anyway that's what I would ask Mr. Lars who is still [ __ ]
president of of Embracer which is crazy, right? Like it blows my mind. Blows my mind. Ano, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, Mishka, who is the game lead at Supercell. He also was temporarily the lead on Squadbusters, if I remember correctly. He did a great GDC talk about Clash of Clans. He talked about consumables. This guy seems like a brilliant human being. I don't think he does like any press. He appeared in one Squadbusters video. He's super into econ. He had a consulting startup called Virtual Economics. Seems like a really smart guy. Supercell PR. Let's make this

happen. Like, all I want to do is showcase this guy. I don't even really want to talk about Supercell. Like, I don't want to get anything out of this other than to showcase him and be like, "You guys have been trying to recruit. Like, show off your employees. Like, open them up to us. You got a lot of smart people underneath the hood. And plus, I will do it on site and Rablo, you can poison me while I'm there."
[laughter]
You pretty much actually said my email. I said exactly those things like we can do that. We don't have to supercell. We know you you're recruiting a lot of people so let us represent you correctly. [laughter]
I didn't say that they can poison us but you know we'll take it.
The one other one I'll include here is Will Wright.
Where is Will Wright? Where where is Will Wright? He's doing a game right now. He has a startup. He's doing a simulation game. I just wish he would be a stronger voice in this industry. Like I've been bubbling a piece about the game engineer founder that's like died out and he was of this class. And I like to ask him about where is the crop of engineer AI founders is something that's

really bothered me right now. Like we should be seeing them. Those were the original game designers. They were engineers and we're not seeing it in AI and that really bothers me. So I like to ask them about that. And yeah, I would say those two those two jump to the top of the list. Cool. Mishka.
Okay, so first Strauss Zelnik. So this has been on my list forever and I've told everybody about this. I've told it at Zingga and Rolling like hey we'll make it happen. So I want to interview him because he seems to be like this super executive. Like if you would put in a super executive out of US like that would be Straing. How he looks, how he operates, the size of the company, the size of bets, the everything that he does like [laughter]
Yeah. I'm like like he's he's like a superman but a super executive. So I'd like to hold on. Do do you want to wait do you want to get professional advice or do you want to get like exercise advice? You know like [laughter]
we'll take both. So I definitely want to work out with him. I've also stated this interest too [laughter]

and then other people at take two. But yeah, I would love to have a podcast just to meet a person like this and and understand their life and like how do they operate? I would love to know what is a day in life with Strauss Selnic like I'm just fascinated. [snorts] Second of the sort of super executives maybe on the founder route would be Adam Furugi. You say Furugi or Fuji CEO of Applovin just
that's a good one.
Yeah. Just company building and like from the outside feels like he has a chip on his shoulder like how he how he [laughter] just operates.
[ __ ] gangster.
Super aggress. Yeah. Super aggressive. I love it. and and you know the little things that I've heard about him and and so forth just makes it a very interesting conversation and again I would put this person like maybe these two even though they're are public company CEOs I feel like they are open at speaking so they would say their mind without fear and so forth so they don't need maybe the whole PR team around them Gabe Newell naturally founder of Valve my main thing to understand is what

comes first culture or product because they have the famous culture book and they've made amazing products and I was just Do you understand how that came to be? Ricardo Zakonei, founder of King, he is the most positive person I've met in my life. And so I'd like to understand where that positive comes from. And you know, again, these are podcasts just share that information with others. He makes the whole room happy around him. At least that's my experience. And then finally, Bookman Brothers, the the founders of Playre.
Yeah. And this one I I would do the challenge. I would do only the Russian version. I would do like the Alex Freriedman version where where [laughter] 11 Labs does the difference outs because that would be not only super interesting. I mean it's a bootstrap multi-billion dollar company just understanding where they came from and the steps and and the journey of those brothers through through their company. And also it's a challenge like I'm very good in Russian but I'm not native speaker. So it's a it's an interesting challenge to take on. So those would be my top five in no

particular order.
Yeah. I thought of one when you were talking about Strauss is Bernard Kim BK who did the if you remember he was like a executive at EA and then went to Zinga and then Match
and then left match and is now
he got fired at match just to be clear CEOs get fired that's a that's a normal ending of a public company CEO it's it's a gig for most
he had no business being a CEO of a publicly traded company just to be clear
I would not start the interview that way uh But [laughter]
well, I I would be interested in his journey. I I really interested in that journey and the learnings from that and I knew him a little bit when I was at EA and there's never been an executive who has played more games than mobile games than that guy.
Yeah. Don't get me started that this is a good one for the new year. We'll we'll we'll we'll couch this until [laughter]
Okay. Okay. Got it. All right. So, let's do a little bit of the personal corner. Well, if we can. What was your biggest

miss? So for me, my big mouth can can get me into a lot of trouble. And I think the difficult thing, especially being a woman in the industry, is we aren't often allowed to sometimes voice all of our honest and direct feedback. I have to be super careful when I do that because I can people have told me I'm mean and rude if I give super direct feedback. So I have to be really careful. But being independent and being a consultant now for almost three years after being at all the big companies has in a sense turned a negative into a positive for me. Because when you're a consultant, people call you up because they want your honest and direct feedback. But when you're inside of a company, especially as a woman, they tend to want you to tow the company line and just do what you're told. There's been a couple of times and Chris and Chris and I relate a lot on this where sometimes I open my big mouth to clients about something I'm a little bit harder

than I probably should be. I can't give too many specifics, but that that that happened to me with some big clients this year.
Yeah, actually that's one of my big ones actually. But my the first one is that even though I was right about Switch 2 being really strong this year, the holiday sales have been really bad for Switch 2 and a lot of it is probably the fact that it's been frontloaded. But I expected it to be really strong cuz there's nothing else to buy over holiday and I think I was just wrong right about that. So that that was a big miss this year cuz you know Nintendo's stock has gotten crushed since the holidays. So we still have December but it just doesn't look like based on checks it's not going to happen. But my biggest miss was the same idea as what Jen is saying and I will be more specific now that Amazon shut down. But I did a presentation to Amazon about what products I think they should make based upon market data and information like this. And so I spent I swear like 5 10 minutes like [ __ ] on MOBAs and [ __ ] on racing games. And what I didn't know is that Amazon was working

on a MOA in a racing game, right? So, I can say all I want that I don't care about what other people think and I want to be independent, but like sometimes a little diligence and a little grace may be required because it was it was a bad bad bad look. So, I apologize to those Amazon execs and my friend who got me in there. So, anyway, yes, that was probably my biggest mistake of the year. I actually didn't pay. No one paid, but now Amazon shut down. So, anyway, there we go.
Maybe they should have listened.
Well, it was a little bit too late by then.
Too late. Yes.
Yes.
Phil,
when I work with founders, they're the people who would always request the most direct, precise feedback on any part of their business. I'm surprised that you're holding back. I I think they pay me not to hold back. They pay me just to like look at I'm going to I'm going to tell you what's up. when I
when you're talking about like small company founders, sure, but when you're talking about big company like that's entrenched in what they're doing and execs are at the higher level telling

them what they want they should be doing like which is the certain situation Amazon
you you don't have agency at that point really.
Chris and I both still work with a lot of the bigger companies and you still have to play the political Game of Thrones a little bit even as a consultant. You can give the information and be honest and direct, but the way that you massage and deliver the information still has to have a little bit of Jedi mind tricking to it.
Fair enough. Fair enough. I would say on my side, since this is under the personal category rather than the market category, I would say I just underestimated the work involved in moving businesses, moving countries is enormous. I didn't budget it as a contract itself. And that's ultimately when you're consultant, your time is currency. I didn't want to put it in the P&L because then it goes down in the L, not the P. And that feels like another L, you know? Like that's the thing. If you don't work, you don't eat here in this land. So like it's hard it's hard to take the hit for that. I will say

this, like seeking out help is something that I've been doing more and more, especially with the power of paying people, using the power of incentives. Like if I've known someone who's done something, I'll be like, "Can I just buy like an hour or two of your time and they sometimes will refuse payment?" And you should try to pay them because then it creates an obligation. [laughter] But like getting expert help can speed things up. Experience does matter.
Wisdom does matter.
There we go, Philip. I mean, never. [laughter]
Now, we have another word for wisdom. It's called empirical evidence. You might want to get [laughter] friendly with it, but that's useful. Mr. Mr. Beast earlier in the year, I don't know if you you you caught this, but he did a memo basically talking about this. I would suggest people reread that. It's a beautiful memo on like him begging people to use consultants to basically avoid problems. It's almost always worth it just for an hour or two of time. Just get that tip of knowledge. So, I think I'm I'm I'm trying to do even more of that this year. Even just for an hour or

two for various things.
Yeah, I plus one that. That's a good one, Phil.
I remember we were sharing that one. I I want to kind of talk about a little bit the points Cres and Jen you made because you were saying that some of the people get upset of what is being said or how it's being said like that's absolutely correct but that's kind of like the theme of the show is a lot of people would get upset of what we say and the interesting part about that is that what we say is pretty much what everybody's already talking about on the water coolers like we're not coming up with a narrative not some like an anti-PR team against the company and we come up with this like investigative journalism about like like a kotaku style like no we're just saying the things that everybody's already saying about your company and kind of the company's getting pissed at us for saying it out loud that everybody's already saying is the weirdest thing but anyway going back to this question I think the the biggest challenge is similar than with Phil is taking on too much both on the work side and the personal life side I also

relocated but also have kids and and family and everything so that's schools and so forth So it's like 2x probably of of what it takes or no 3x let me put it 3x I've relocated without family so that's way easier but still hard and then again having like too many clients which I think kind of led to this quality suffering that I felt personally just too much work and when there's too much work also these sort of like a long-term goals evaporated under that dayto-day of kind of like chasing I got to do this I got to do that I got to do this for a client and you're not having enough time even to service everybody that you're working with. So, it's overall kind of created maybe the toughest year emotionally because like at the end of the year, yes, the sort of a revenue number is quite positive, but if you count everything else, I would put it on negative. So, kind of like the next year's I'm going to take it much more slower and focus much more on doing good work and less clients.
Interesting. So, you think this year was

one of your hardest emotional years that you've had ever or just a long time?
Of course, not ever. Like, there's been others, but like Yeah, in a while, I would say so. Maybe it's part of like turning 40, so that's I know I look super young and I speak I speak like a like a 16year-old.
Jesus Christ.
But I would say just like not getting progress.
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All right, so we're going to go to our biggest win. I have a work one, which was Neil Long from mobile gamer.biz. Nicest guy. I don't know if anyone's had a chance to meet him, but he rang me and we did this off thereord event in LA in June and we kind of pulled it together in like two or three weeks. We had like 130 people show up around LA and it was at the Google Venice office. We had great sponsors, a great response and it was just Crest came down for that one. It was just a really fulfilling, fun, like if we could do more industry events like that. That's what I really enjoy

doing because I love the people side of our industry, how like awesome people are, how how sharing and giving people are with what's going on. So, I looking forward to doing more of that. So, thanks to Neil for that kind of win. And then on the on the personal side, you know, I'll save it for the next one, but I think I had some things that made me a better wife, a better friend, a better manager. I'll I'll wait for the next one to to dive into that one. But Chris, what did you have?
There was nothing even came close really like getting Natalie into college was just such a huge existential moment. Like for me,
kids flying the coupe type thing, you know, empty nest type stuff. it just was there's so much work and effort going into getting [laughter] a kid to that level to get her going. So that you know it was just a huge huge moment and it just created like this [clears throat] existential thing for me personally. So anyway that was by far my biggest win this year.
It's been very
You get a sports car to [laughter]

celebrate
your existential Christmas.
No, I did finally buy a Porsche again. So I bought a Porsche in January. Yes, that that too. That that was a big win for Mr. Crest was I got my Porsche But back after years, you may know me well enough to know is that I I am thinking about the future. I don't give a [ __ ] about the past. I don't even really think about the present. All I do is think about the future. I have been planning on buying this Porsche in January for like three years. So it's like it was like it was something that I had thought about and then I bought my son a car. So anyway, yes. Yes, my Porsche is very fun.
Yes, it was fun being involved in the process of like this one or this one or this one.
[laughter]
I felt like I was like car shopping by association. Phil, what do you have?
Bill Bichc is the greatest game PM anyone has ever known and like always listen to Bill Bichc's advice and he always would say build for the team you have not the team you want. And I would say I've also felt that in consulting like there's so much [ __ ] to do and I wanted [ __ ] done but some of the people

I work with I'm like okay what are you good at though or what do you want to do and what are you good at? kind of finding the ven diagram I think is is a huge win to unlocking people is just like get good people in who are diligent and then build to their strengths is something I've learned do like my executive cons you know assistant actually helped basically do almost all my moving for me like she was there on moving day and so she's good at some things so I'm trying to figure out okay how do I apply this to other people I work with too like hey what do you want to do and what are you good at I think is key billichc always right
tell people who Bill Bich is because Oh, please. Do we have to explain this to people?
No, we don't. We don't. We don't need to explain.
Echo reverberates. Reverberates. I don't know how I could explain it. [laughter]
Former.
What's the equivalent? Mishka. Mishka. What's the What's the equivalent?
It's your Alex Ferguson.
If he was twice as successful.
Oh, come on. Come on. [laughter] Sir Alex Ferguson for sure. That would be like a legendary coach in football. Yeah. I I kind of echo what what Phil

said like work-wise, you know, getting other people to work with you. I had a person a friend of mine actually joined. I was able to talk him to join me consulting and work together at way back in the days at Zingga. He joined and I'm I was like the proudest thing honestly business-wise this year was that in one year he was like earning it as I would say like a European VP level. So, not American VP level, but European VP level, which means like it's sustainable. And so, I was so happy and so proud about that to work with a friend on on these cases. He's been absolutely phenomenal. So, just what Phil said, like bringing the right people along and and again, low input, crazy high output. And on personal is again like personal wise the biggest win has definitely been taking our daughter so our eldest she was bullied at school for like couple of years and we came here to Greece and she's found like all new friends and she she loves going to school where previously she dreaded going to school because as you know some

of you that nobody bullies as hard as girls. So yes,
that sort of like emotional bullying is like next level viciousness and it's totally over and she's like really happy. So that's I think like the biggest achievement and the second one is like working with a friend now.
Oh, that's so great to hear. Oh, that's that's awesome.
I also echo, you know, Phil, you know, I have I've got junior folks working with me now and seeing them grow and be better is like I'm the proudest Yoda. It it's kind of nice to like not in a sense yes the work is important but also seeing the growth of other people is a really big kind of win. I should have mentioned that a bit more. So what had the biggest impact on you? So for me God I hope I don't cry. Like I had a medical thing. So I had to have somebody drill into my skull and fix a hole in the bottom of my skull and power wash the inside of my brain out. That was like just so hard to grasp that going into

that and it was like a a month waiting for that whole process to happen. I had felt really bad for like 2 years leading up to it. I was misdiagnosed and I think the hardest thing was watching my wife go through it. Oh my god, she took it so hard because you know I sadly I am over 50 and hopefully I don't look like it but we're getting to the age where medical stuff is like I had a college reunion and the first 30 minutes was all of us talking about our medical [ __ ] and I'm like when did I become that person where like our gossip is about medical stuff? So I still have specialists that I have to see unfortunately. You know, I got one coming up in February because it didn't quite fix all of the problems. But, you know, my advice to everyone is, you know, think about how this impacts your family and your friends and your co-workers. And, you know, it's not just you. And so, I think that just like

shook my world a little bit. It still does actually to be honest with you. And yeah, so that was my big one. I'll tell you the uh image of your brain and the leak in your brain is like etched in my brain right now. [laughter] Like I can't I can't I can't unsee that. That was like it was really insane to look at. So I'm
I'm glad they fixed everything
for me. I mean it's again the empty nest thing. It was really like even my son is starting to pull away, right? Because he's getting older and he's got a car. He's doesn't he doesn't need me anymore. He doesn't want to hang out anymore. That type of thing. So it got me really kind of thinking again about what I was doing and I read these two books that I would recommend if you are in that pro process is Die with Zero and The Wealth Ladder. Die with Zero in particular really just convinced me to think about what's next. So yeah, that's kind of the big thing for me from a personal like the big impact. I guess I'm actually really worried about Phil. Phil, can you show me your t-shirt just just so I know like

what does it say?
Okay, Billionaire Boys Club. Okay. So, he's he's been he's been in Cyprus for like couple of months and he's thinking about buying a Lotus. Was it Lotus or was it Porsche? He's hanging around with people with bad influence. I get Russian speaking messages about Phil.
Uh coffee shop. He's wearing a billionaires boy club t-shirt which would not fly in Stockholm, Sweden.
I'm worried. [laughter]
Fashion has been unlocked again. Thank god. Oh god. All right, moving on.
Okay, what did you learn? [laughter]
All right, so this section is called what did you learn? It's a little bit related to my medical stuff, but I didn't realize that it's a lot of pressure as the sick person to tell people how they could help me. I probably had between LinkedIn and Slack and everything just thousands of messages come in, how can I help? How can I help? And it's actually a lot of pressure to respond to everyone to make them feel okay that you know you're the

one who's sick. I also suck at asking for help. I'm never the one to be like, "Oh, I could use a Door Dash gift card." I'm like, "Not going to tell you that. That's like so awkward for me." So, what I learned, and I guess my advice to everyone is instead of saying if someone is sick, how can I help? Just do something for them that is most likely going to help them. So, just send them a Door Dash gift card. Just be there for them. Ask them how they're doing. Don't just check in one time, follow up with them. You know, that was also really evident of like who were my friends. It's like somebody who said something once and the people that weeks later or months later would be like, "Hey, how are you doing?" You know, tell me about what's going on. That's just something that I learned that I think I need to change about what I do is instead of just asking someone, "How can I help?" Just doing something.
All right. Now, I'm going to go back to the business side of things. What I learned this year on the business side of the world, first of all, predictive markets are gambling, right? I

definitely learned that. And they target children to bring them to the seven levels of hell, right? So, they they are basically corrupting the youth. I I learned that and very specifically and proven now in my mind. The bright spots in the gaming space I found from a business perspective. Well, first obviously Steam and PCs is crushing it, particularly China. gambling apps like Prize Picks and Underdog and those type of things are doing extremely well. And this micro drama [ __ ] is really taking off too, which is a huge companies like Dorian that are building platforms to do micro dramas. That is obviously huge. And obviously all the Chinese guys are just crushing it both on mobile but also on PC console. So that should be so those are things I kind of learned this year.
I've been working a lot in gambling. [laughter] uh slots and sports book like also sweeps all this stuff that's kind of like on the edges and when I talk about it I don't necessarily endorse it by the way on the podcast nor do I endorse any

specific policy for me personally it's just a new mountain to conquer is like how does this thing work and when you start to think about slots and sports book it's like the pure distillation of at least a version of gamification and there's a whole idea of juicy which is that there's almost no agent in these mechanics. And so like how do you create something where the entertainment value is just watching your return to player be less than one? Cuz that is what entertainment is in many cases. It's just you just consuming something you paid a fixed price up front for. It's just delivered in a different way.
Wow, Phil.
Wow. [laughter] So yeah, also yeah, it it's also why it's not gambling. Gaming traditional gaming stuff is not gambling. It really comes down to the gamblers's fallacy. This is something that you've missed in all of your analysis, Eric, is that you can never be trapped in the gamblers's fallacy if there's a non-tradable market that can't be exported to like real money. I think that's been an important differentiation. We actually never really did have this debate, but the

reality of it is is if it's recreating the same dopamine response, then it is the same thing.
No, regardless of the mechanics of it, this is not some econ book, dude. This is like real life, real people that are playing games and and feeling these feelings. I'm making an observable prediction about the strength of the relationship based on whether or not gamblers's fallacy is the variable in play.
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0.
It's not one zero. Not zero. I' I'd be happy I'd be happy to put this up to research.
What do you mean by the gamblers's fallacy?
So the gambler's fallacy is that basically you can gain back your losses, right? Because you can take money out of the system. And so sometimes people double down. But you got to remember like casinos always have less than one return to player. That's like literally how they function, right? You are going to be losing money on average. And I think that ability to gain your money back is what drives a lot of the bad behavior we see in sports booking casino is people doubling down their losses.

All right, moving on. Moving on. I'm not going I'm not going down this road, dude.
This is the deal. This is long onto some some other learning. So when you pick something up, you have to put something else down. And that's kind of a important sentence that I'm thinking about now that it's, you know, January and you're making New Year's promises and we always want to say all these things are going to change. I'm going to start doing this and I'm going to start doing that. But instead of like doing the same mistake I did last year of like I'm going to do this, this, this, and that, I'm just going to say I'm going to do this, but if I want to do this, I actually have to drop something else. And that's been kind of a slow process of actually getting into what I want to do. And then leading to that, I read a book in December kind of like trying to figure out my productivity challenges and I read this book by Cal Newport. This called Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment. Phil, don't read this. You grind. This is for for people [laughter] in later stages. So basically like there's five elements out of this

book, which is like number one is limit the number of active projects you have. Number two, this is what I'm doing. Number two is parking ideas in a backlog instead of keeping them warm. So this is a lot of things that I've been happening is I'm like promising I get back to somebody. Oh, we record this podcast. Yeah, sure. And that kind of creates that sort of a background stress. Number three is building realistic timelines and putting in that extra time that allows you to iterate and improve in your thinking rather than like you know we got to ship this today. It's like I'm going to put it on Wednesday. I'm going to have more time. This doesn't by the way podcast Twig does is not part of this. So that still will be coming at last minute. [laughter] Uh number four is like accepting that there are seasons. So there's the grind time but there should be also the sort of a recovery time. And number four is spending and being proud to spend disproportionate amount of time on small outputs that matter for you. So if it's a creating a thumbnail or doing a specific thing or writing a specific thing even though like dollar value is

not there but if that really is important for you then it's fine to spend that amount of time rather than thinking about what else you could be doing. So very good book for people who are not in the grind phase and kind of thinking about like how to be much more methodical and happy with your output.
I like that. Look at you. Are you going to actually do this?
No, that's not me. That's Cal Newport. This is again not me. This is actually books have a lot of good information. So, no go figure.
So, I read this. It makes a lot of sense, but it is hard to put in practice just like any management book. Productivity books are the same. It's like, how do you make the choice between this and that? Because again, if you're a consultant, you don't want to put all of your eggs in one client. Like, oh, I'm going to limit. I'm going to work only with one client. When that client leaves, what? You lose like 100% of your revenue. That doesn't make any sense. So, it's again just being methodical, but having this sort of a template in your background. Got it. All right. So, our last question is, what is your hope or dream for the next year as we enter 2026? So, for me on the personal side, I

I hope there's an end to my medical drama. I like being told that I'm special, but I really don't like being told I'm special by medical specialists. Apparently, I have rare rare problems and I don't like hearing that. But you guys can tell me I'm special. That's fine. So, the next thing for me is Mishka. I'm super excited about our roundts that we are going to be doing in the US and in Europe. I'm going to run the West Coast ones and so Crest is going to come to a bunch of these. We have LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver probably June, July. So, we pick the time a year where you actually want to go to these cities. So, I'm excited about these kinds of events after, you know, the trial run that I had with Neil doing these here. So, you're doing them in Europe, right? You've got cool cities.
Barcelona, London, Limasal, Tel Aviv.
What I love is just getting the community of game folks together and being able to talk. I mean, we all work from home, right? Like, it's just nice to see humans in real life. All right, Phil, what do you have?
Uh, I'm working in sports this year. I've got some sports clients. Like, not

necessarily sports book, but like sports games. So, I'm going to be spending a lot more time with sports. Already have. You're going to be hearing a lot about what's wrong with sports. HD, mobile, just the whole thing.
All right. Football or like
all the things. All the things all the things on multiple multiple fronts.
All right. Interesting. Mishko, what do you have?
Number one is of course that Crest doesn't retire for media. So that's the most important part, but he already said that in the beginning. So So that's I bought this whole like a course on how to set up a a studio for podcasting like at home. So I need to send those kind of footnotes to Chris so we can get him like a better setup. Not the bike on the background, but the correct lighting and everything. Um, so that's that's one. And then the second thing is of course what I said before doing less but doing it better. And the high goal that's something that I need to get back to is like thinking about strategically and that is executing against this rebel alliance dream of mine. So I've taken already first steps much respect to few people who are helping out with that few

of the executives who are lending their strategic thinking. So that's that's been quite interesting. Chris,
well, my hope is I get down to 15% body fat like Mr. [laughter] uh M.
I'm back on that again, dude.
All supplements, baby. All supplements.
No, I'm not doing T. I'm not doing double tea or what the [ __ ] you're doing, dude. Or any like GP [ __ ] I want to do like get down to 15% but the real way. I have a plan. I need to execute. I'm getting it done, right? This is this is my plan for this year. This is my goal as age 55 years old. So, I also like I need to travel more. I need to get out of here a little bit. I want to I will do more events. Yeah. As much as it makes sense. And then also I want to visit friends that I've kind of been neglecting for all these years with kids. So, my friends in Florida and London and stuff. So, I'll be traveling a little bit more this year.
Awesome. All right, everyone. That is a wrap on 2025. Thanks to all of our listeners. We love you guys. Hopefully, that answered some of your burning questions. Happy New Year. And we will

have the Golden Twig winners next time. What's interesting about Golden Twig, we were just looking at some of the numbers, there in many cases aren't clear winners.
No, it's really close.
It was really, really close on a ton of these. I guess it just shows you how much happened in the game industry this year. All right, everyone. See you next week.
Go Enzoy. [laughter]
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