two & a half gamers session #12 - Metacore 65M loss, Niantic 1 hit wonder, Industry conference guide

[Music] hello everybody Welcome this is no [ __ ] gaming podcast 2 and a half Gamers session number number number session number 12 this casting latest news fun stuff and dropping some knowledge uh and don't forget this is 4:00 a.m. conference discussion vies so let's not take it too seriously let's dive in and you know let's let's enjoy it together welcome guys Felix and yakob how was your week I think I got Co [Music] again outstanding move surprise well that's that's uh what you get uh for uh attending EDM uh uh music festival right yeah exactly yeah and sharing glasses and stuff so yeah yeah you know you get what you deserve well let's see well there's uh

one in July in Slovakia and then another one in August so let's see what I can I can get during the summer yeah I have hit the end of the content threadmill on lar currently pretty much not much content left all you all you always talk about do you have life of course you always always speak about lost he lives in the metaverse he lives in the metaverse what you know game design is like to play if you didn't know sure okay do do you have any other news besides the Lost Arc of course of course there's spring coming here and you know going for walks out oh my God ah oh man okay well it feels like ages since he last talked with stepen and he was like last last week so great to be talking to you guys so today we're going to talk about meta

core and meta as well Mets lots of meta metav verse uh also about like how US Government thinks uh the crypto highed axi Infinity was pulled by North Korea interesting and uh Niantic with the new AR game talk about Sonic the Hedgehog and CD project red cells and we have our main topic at the end which is an industry conference guide so uh yeah well let's start Mata you need to start with the first story you're the one that been championing this for ages well I had a lot of comments uh as soon as they started doing these TV commercials with uh Katy Bates so okay so metacore the The Finnish company spent around 20 million on TV commercials with Hollywood stars

and uh they rotated the the TV ad during the prime time on Fox and ABC so pretty large TV stations right so large advertising Investments increase metac course net net sales to almost 60 million but they produced kind of like what 65 million loss already this year yeah something like that which is interesting but but but they expect the revenue of 150 to 180 million that's what I wanted to say so um so they're aiming for getting these money back in one and a half years or two years so in in the world of UA you have uh always a problem if you have small budget you don't know where to spend it efficiently or if you have very high budget you don't know where to spend it because you're spending already on every channel that is out there so um it's interesting that they're saying uh um this uh in a headline this is a mathematical system

where money is put in and this is known how to get it back I mean you get some money back after you spend it back so it's who would said that right I I mean I I think this TV spot ad is not necessarily like I can see how it could have been a great idea on paper I can see some people sitting in like a boardroom on the marketing team and being like how do we reach our golden cohort which is women aged 4 5 to 60 which is like you know their kind of Golden Goose laying cohort and you know someone might be like oh tv ads and then like oh how do we stand out oh we have just like well how much did they borrow from supercell like they lent 15 yeah 15 and then they're like oh we should easily spend like you know 2% of that on a TV ad like why not like that's how you reach these people and then like on paper it sounds amazing but you know reality is not on paper and like when

this probably hit the Airways you know like I'm sure this like TV ad since they're not doing another one pretty much says that it was abysmal well they they claimed the TV commercials uh performed a little bit worse than they hoped surprise surprise but Felix you are on fire I I love it I love that well look so if you spent already on all the channels out there then the TV is uh well a really nice addition to everything it adds up to all the branding [ __ ] that uh a lot of marketing team uh is is speaking about because well you know oh well you know 150 million like you said we can spend it on TV well okay which is qu questionable because if you if you spend 20 million on on TV with um well underperforming results or sub power results then you could spend that

20 million on other AD networks with uh maybe a little bit worse Roi but at least you could uh well evaluate properly a bit more I mean I mean I mean you you measure this the same way pretty much as old school tv ads and the way you measured old school tv ads is you look at the attribution data like if it spikes during the time the commercial airs I would love to take a look they're probably using ABS flyer or adjust or something like that I would love to take a look at it and see what actually happened when they air this like on the two TV stations if there was even a bump or if it was just I'm sure that there was a bump I'm sure there was a bump yeah the main question is of course that uh you're spending already on UA channels it's not the question of do we do either tvss or UA we do both but the the real question is if these 20 million tv ads that's just the cost of production not the actual cost of the advertising time is still more worth it than actually throwing UA into other channels that's

that's the main question in my book well in my opinion you you always uh you always hear what I am about to say about this branding [ __ ] activities although I ran several tv ads in the past in not in Us in UK Germany France and it was kind of nice uh well uh during the global launch but really afterwards I wouldn't most probably I wouldn't do it again would rather spend it on different channels than than TV because you can still reach those players on other channels okay here's a question oh nice all right question let's like put yourself in this situation I'm the person in the Medicore like board reading room or the like the marketing person who's pitching this but instead of saying it's going to be on NBC a prime time I say we spend 60 million instead of the 20 million but we put it during super Super Bowl what do you guys

think does that change anything I'm not sure if that target audience is there yeah there's a mismatch with the audience definitely there that's the thing I mean The Clash of Clans or crash roale what was which one was it with the CL Clans Li niss yeah yeah so that was definitely like a competitive males that that's what you want to get yeah exactly so that made sense but uh well merch mention during Super Bowl I'm not sure I'm not sure but I might I well I would do it I would do it anyway [ __ ] it I would do it anyway just for fun now Jes aside uh as soon as this was uh released it was also used for HR type of campaigns for metacore and I was seeing those ads across LinkedIn all the time all the time it was just uh ridiculous

but I have to say so um their ads at the moment and I I've been targeted a lot in in the last couple of months well obviously because they need to expand the target audience with that kind of budget um and I see pretty nice amount of comments and and shares and reactions under those those creatives so I was really really skeptical but then um players comment always about okay wow this is amazing we are really curious how The Story Goes what's next so they are looking at this uh as kind of like a series of of creatives something similar that Lily Garden did which already kind of exctly don't want to say copying but taking heavy inspiration it's the same thing it's the same thing all over again they just used uh celebrity and it's like very much like more expensive than the little what can we do I mean like Felix

like you said it's it looks very good on paper but in real in reality I'm not fully convinced that this is something that works well when when you ran these TV commercials yourself which genre was it I think it was casual it was casual yeah Adventure how did it convert like how did you you track The Bumps by just seeing when they airs but like how how were they like was it like in Germany was it like 500 install was it a thousand installs like what actually Baseline a couple of thousand installs actually during those uh like overall during the whole um TV spot and also what we found out is that um there was some like decrease in terms of the CPI um around those um times that we add the TV spot but we never actually were able to prove this is actually because of the TV spot so yeah because then you know you don't see player X ads running in the TV these days exactly exact the main

main point here very good point that yeah that's the thing so uh either you do fake ads and and try to to maximize the the lowest CPI possible or you go TV well I know what I would choose okay we can move on with that yeah let's do okay So Meta again in the headlines uh or let's say Facebook uh former Facebook said that they will charge creators up to 47.5% to sell virtual items in their version of metaverse which the company said that uh or let me pretty much break it down so first you pay 30% of the cost when you buy something on Oculus quest uh platform and then you pay additional 25% out of the rest of it uh to have some kind of a trading fee if I understand correctly and if you add those tools up

you end up with 47.5 percentage sale price uh for each dollar depending on yeah where the sale price take place and this is kind of interesting because Mark Zuckerberg was the one that previously criticize Apple for charging developers too high of a fee of 30% which now they even increased why not I told you he was criticizing Apple because 30% is really low they should charge more they should charge more yeah so they're starting to pretty much roll out their monetization machine in their if I get it right this is the Horizon worlds app that they want to have this kind of a metaverse in which currently is just people without legs uh in this kind of animated Avatar circus so don't know if what's happening there I think they even said that they're using circus is that's that's perfect but they said they they using it as some kind of remote workpl during Corona or

something yeah they have their meetings in in the Horizon world with with headsets on and everything so like I should be the one speaking for this because I did the VR game before but it means that I know all the limitations damn it yeah well that's the thing uh this maybe it's going to happen in 20 years not uh right now yeah the text definitely not there unfortunately it's more of a like there's so much stuff that can be improved and we are not able to do it because the cost would be horrendous like the current headsets that are out there they're great they're like such a step up from what was there in the '90s but still if we want to go really further they would be costing 10,000 not not like the the price that Facebook is pretty much undercutting currently when they're selling the quest Oculus headsets M so we'll see but it's it's like a steep cost

already so my my my two cents here is that I'm still betting more on something like epic or some other company that takes this kind of a crusade to create the metaverse well of course epic with the andreal engine five that makes makes all the sense and they they what they rais like two billion because that that cost and everything and even the whole article and all information from they're saying they're pretty much symbolizing the I industries from Ready Player One the bad guys to try to take over the metaverse yeah man like I when I saw the headline I really thought it was a joke and then I read in the article I was like oh no a spokesperson confirmed it's 47 and a half plus like then after like you need to pay your taxes yeah and then I'm just like so people need to buy the headset and then the creators also need a headset and then like they're going to be taken to the cleaners like why would you want to encourage like a metaverse

where you give the creators the least amount like you want to encourage a newly fledging metaverse to be as big as possible you don't do that by taxing the living [ __ ] out of the creators like it bro Zach you're going to [ __ ] the company bro like no you know the 10 10 billion investment that it's being burned out on VR have to return somewhere we'll see L than Roblox L than Roblox we we checked it uh it's 27th of April that Facebook announces their quot result for first quarter this year we will be definitely watching what happen there we will be watching so yeah oh my God darev will right there yeah let's continue yeah man right this yeah a good one this is a good one so uh your favorite piranha States or

second favorite probably right now actually but you know the traditional favorite piranha State North Korea uh basically has this state sponsored hacking group called Lazarus Group which now the US says has been linked to the $600 million axi infinity crypto Heist which means that North Korean hackers were behind the biggest Heist a crypto Heist of a crypto game to date man like this is just a gift that keeps on coming with the news last week that they raised another 150 million to pay back the users and then this it's just man like I you can't make this up what yeah I I I I tell you like in in one year or two years we'll find out it was an inside drop I tell I tell you that not North Korea but someone from inside just took six 600 million but it's nice to know that everyone now who's playing axi just

know you know you are supporting the dictator like Kim you're literally founding the nuclear weapons program of North Korea yeah man CU let me guess like part of the tokens haven't been sold yet so they're H by North Korean controlled wallets which means that if the crypto goes up in like value that means that they will go up in value and earn more money which means that a16z and binance and all these people if they get more money so does the North Korean State man there was an article about one guy um being in prison because uh he was presenting um really nice uh deck in North Korea about how to avoid sanctions by uh crypto using crypto yeah using crypto now he's in prison uh in the US for uh five years yeah five years was he American or Yes Man what an idiot

oh he he he could be glad he only got five years because the original yeah original some was 20 but yeah it's it's hard to kind of prove when you're like uh have photos of yourself uh with the board that says no sanctions Smiley that you weren't teaching them how to pretty much bypass the sanctions yeah but let's see I think most of the funds are still in the wallet so the jury is still this like how they will actually kind of spend it move it or whatever do with it but yeah I guess this story will still bear some more continuation of course there will be so so much speculation uh in the in the next next months and like I don't even know what else to say to that news it's just like funny yeah then we have uh a new upcoming AR game from Niantic about breeding unique creatures which is called Peridot whatever that means so um they

are coming with this um this game into the soft Lounge next month after the success of Pokemon then they have they have Peck in not no idea if that's successful or not but I didn't I haven't had a chance to play it and uh then Harry Potter which already got c yeah which is already already died am I the only one who thinks that basic in NCH like they tried sric Katan didn't work Harry Potter didn't work like it's only Pokemon right one one note the Harry Potter game was if I understood correctly just on their infrastructure cooperation something it was mainly warnerbros warnerbros yeah yeah they wos partnered with Niantic about the infrastructure and then they launched the game because they have the nodes and mapped Earth and everything that they use for these games to work yeah but they were working on carcasson right or what was what the Yeah like

soldiers of Katan or whatever was the game or something there's like multitudes of these geolocation games that are dying and nobody's noticing those like as I said the only one that I notice is the Japanese one with like thousands LTV that nobody talks about that's making like nobody knows about it only you're big in Japan you're big in Japan bro but 50 million a month man or some some ridiculous number like that nobody cares nobody cares it's Japan leave uh live here do it play Pokemon P all right REM Rema talk talk to us about this new game what do you think what's your take on it um I'm kind of puzzled to be honest because uh I haven't seen anything new in this whole concept of like you having some kind of a creature going with you or catching in the wild or whatever it seems to me like Pokemon itself so and without the IP that we all love and cherish so that's the problem that works there that's yeah yeah of course because

it's it's matches Pokemon that's the thing it matches the team the mechanics everything that's that's the thing and everybody want have that yeah of course but for this this thing if they cannot I I I I think like this whole genre needs to have some kind of disruption Revolution idea or something probably within the technology itself like like the technology was the thing that brought it here in the first place like we all remember it was based on that like April 1 Google video that they did like whatever four years before Pokemon go went out but it was actually technology of it that they had that previous game um Ingress yeah yeah so they they already built it they know how to do it and they just SLP Pokemon team on it and improved it so it was a really really big bump because as you see here within the cooperation of uh Warner Bros and Harry Potter even Warner Bros wasn't building in themselves they just took it from nanik as as a cooperation because it takes sotic not netic come on netic

sorry anyway I hate when you I'm hard I'm hard I'm hard to pronounce it as well netic but but but the thing is it's like it's a similar leap like a clash Royale game where they did the synchronous multiplayer so well because it's a technological leap so I think in order to progress in this genre we again need something similar not like more of the same because I don't think more of the same will work here yeah I agree or work there the genre Mastery yeah the genre Mastery is great but if if your genre Mastery and your whole genre is pretty much one game where's the genre Master they're one hit wonder so far they haven't proved that they can make a second game as like good as their first one because they had Pokemon like even if you slap Digimon on it it's nowhere near as big IP as Pokemon the thing is how they yeah how they can innovate is they need to find different game IP and different mechanics rather than just uh collecting creatures and breeding them yeah any

ideas what IP would work really good any any ideas what would work really well here blockchain yeah slap web tree and then build the Geo jail location again that's a lot of damage yeah wow nice don't know like we need some kind of new technology there definitely like I'm I'm I'm guessing in order to make blockchain technology of course it's going great it is let's let's not go there let's not go there because uh you're here the crypto yeah but overall like my take here is that I don't think so this will be bigger than Pokemon go definitely no chance I don't think so it will be even one1 over siiz that that's that's my my current current feeling that I have one of this maybe maybe it's not like never going to leave the soft Lounge that's it's going to get killed very soon it's

going to get Katan oh nice very nice okay I love it yeah but like you know cheering for the thing here that like hopefully nanti can do something with it but uh the thing is that it's super hard it's super hard if you try more of the same like bottom line is like why would I play this new game when I can play with my favorite Bulbasaur like you know grow into so like I'm not going to go into a new universe like this universe was with me since childhood like and the Pokémon Go game is still going super strong don't get me it's a great game great game and they make a [ __ ] ton of money yeah exactly what's a what's another amazing game an IP another your childhood IP is getting murdered okay so there's the Sonic the Hedgehog cooperation with the Roblox uh specifically through company called gamef fam that specializes only in

making Roblox games on the Roblox platform and uh on April 14 which means from yesterday players will be able to use their favorite Sonic the Hedgehog to play through Sonic Speed simulator if I read this correctly for free of course and then there's some kind of merchandising with the possibility to acquire Sonic teed items for your avatar on Roblox and all the usual cooperation nonsense yeah those to play Ventures they invested in game fam pretty fast pretty fast a long time ago uh it's nice and uh well yeah I think the the company is pretty much the product of consolidation of the whole Roblox platform in a way that you know these days it's not anymore like kids making viral hits or whatever it's pretty much specialized companies that are I think they said that they have like 50 or 100 Man team already yeah yeah so it's it's yeah it's a completely different game

than before but they are doing this for a long time already you know I remember um last year I think or or a year before even uh there's some kind of interview with the the game fam um found CEO yeah yeah nice it's interesting but uh it suits well again Sonic is a good IP for the match of the Roblox player base so like from that point of moon it seem seems like is it that's the question I wanted to ask well I have never played a Sonic mobile game and I just had to research it that the ex exists you want to create new new audience in your IP and you want to have kids where do you find them in Roblox or uh or I'm not talking about or in fortnite or in fortnite I'm not talking about you know people like us who grew up with the IPS that some of us did some of us never heard of it but actually create because these games like the Japanese they never change they are still the same and soning is pretty massive these days when

they have the second movie this year so why not why don't the audience you know mhm okay makes sense makes sense so what do we have there left a banging on CD project red I'll you let you take that one as well Remo this is your favorite okay so CD Project Read everyone's favorite developer of cyber Punk everyone's favorite especially after that game anyway they released their annual sales numbers which seems they generated 207 million in Revenue uh that's of course a decrease 63% year-over-year for the previous year uh but that's to be expected because this company is mostly premium uh based which means that the year that they release their they game they make big and then they make less which is normal cycle within the premium companies uh by comparison uh the premium financials for the year where

they actually released cyberp Punk it was 562 million uh regarding the performance of cyberpunk they said that they already sold 18 million copies uh to date which is massively big even though it seems from a distance the game was a flop at the time of release uh I I may add that they already released a really really really heavy patch 1.5 which pretty much overhaul the whole like everything that they you still haven't played that one right not yet I'm waiting for actual content to be released not just fixes because this isual content the game is full the game is ready what the [ __ ] are you waiting for but they will be adding more content into it which which three was best when you had the two date expansions in it feure three me this is a flop man every person who spoken to who's actually played the game I'm not one of them they've said don't buy it it's buggy as [ __ ] I played the game in in like as

soon as it it was launched and I I I never encountered a bug [ __ ] you guys like what the not everyone has like a 100,000 EUR like computer to play everything on my yeah most most of the bugs are consoles of course that's why they were taken down of the PlayStation Store in the first place I really enjoyed the game I'm not sure like what you were talking about but you were a casual casual PC player Casual Gamer really yeah really because the game in that stage could be play without spending one point in the whole [ __ ] skill tree man oh whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Mr one point in the skill tree it was easy easy I'm confused do I play do I play the game or not sure play not yet wait wait for the expansion yeah so you know the game was launched when was the game launched um two two years ago one year ago I think it's 2020 December something like that 20 yeah December 2020 so it's April 202 to you have the game for one and a half

years you never played it how long you're going to wait another half a year and then what then play be yeah of course why not it it it will wait for your single player content man yeah of course but you know what you can do play it when it's launched and then replay when you know you have the new content because you already well for sure I already forgot everything that happened in the game that's why you're casual M MAA how does it compare to like a GTA like five if you're honest it's okay have you played GTA V of course when I have no idea last year maybe last year maybe yeah uh last thing I want to add uh of course they announc already V four for sure yeah which which we will see probably in 2027 or something like that 28 or 30 anyway what will come out what will come

out first Witcher or uh the new GTA game that's a tough one but I think the new GTA game is already kind of some some info was already told about that if I get it no they they admitted that they're working on new G that's all they're saying yeah yeah yeah but these games makes like take so much time to make like these are open worlds and and you don't build them as like you know you release them and then you move on you then continue to work on that game for like like additional 5 to 10 years anyway and the GTA also has that online element that goes pretty well for them so because even even cyberp Punk was was at one point promising that they would be having multiplayer within it and there would be like a separate game that would be multiplayer yeah you don't know because you don't read the news that much of course I don't read the news why would I do that but but people were expecting it to turn into something like the GTA online experience it didn't happen because you know they have their hands full with fixing the game that actually make additional content for it do you think it it will ever happen

afterwards maybe don't know I I think you need to revive the game in the first place so either like relaunch it for like I know Witcher Witcher got delayed again for the next gen release again Witcher 3 the overhaul maybe they will release cyberp Punk with some kind of new content when new consoles hit in so to kind of create that platform that they can like you know establish a base to build build on but don't know like it's hard it's really hard with like to kind of do some predictions here mhm okay let's uh let's take a little break from our discussion uh our friends from addictive have something to share with you guys if you've built a mobile game for iOS or Android you've experienced user turn you can win those users back but it's getting more and more expensive even more so to acquire totally new users enter cross promotion with adct t by identifying your users likely to turn early you can showcase another game in

your portfolio before they leave forever transforming a lost user into a new user increasing your revenues learn more now at ad dict.com yeah okay we're back let's let's discuss the the conference guide so what happened during the the covid in terms of conferences offline conferences offline well offline conference obviously offline do do you call online conference conferences it's just you know you you miss all the all the fun afterwards yeah the question is how how how did these Fair well like did did you went on any or like what do you think of of the model itself so the thing is I was uh I was speaking on like multiple of all these like online events and well it wasn't well conferences quote unquote um it was very different experience M I always enjoyed the the feedback from the audience uh uh and you know now I'm I was only talking to my uh well monitor

is like H you know I was like showing the the show real and all the funny creatives and usually people laugh uh during the real time conferences and face to face conferen and now I was like hm okay so what do you what do what do they think about these these creatives I have no idea and did did you did you were speaking in real time yeah I was a real time and also there was uh some conference that was that were um pre-recorded as well yeah I also did like mine two gdc's pre-recorded during Corona man I'm so sorry about that man that it's kind of yeah like the like the recording is going and people are already talking in the chat so you you talk with them because it's good like you're supposed to answer that question of course and it's great to at least have some kind of human contact there yeah yeah that's true but other than that it's all pre-recorded and it's like yeah like I never felt like the buzz of you know the GDC that I'm used to that you know and

everything around it I had I had a talk at GDC about global launching mobile games mhm there were like 8 150 people maybe and um 50% of those gave me like one star rating because they're all the in this triaa console PC developers and said oh well this is [ __ ] this is not relevant to any of what we do I was like yeah [ __ ] seriously so why why would you attend a talk which says how to like how to Global launch a mobile game or something like that well the art of global launching a mobile game like ah so uh I did enjoy and I'm really proud that I achieved this in my life but man off The Bucket List yeah yeah I can yeah exactly I can check that off my bucket list the the istanb event was way better was way better and I

think this was even like more valuable than the GDC talk because the people actually cared it was really relevant so uh yeah I think I think like I had a conversation I'm not going to name who it is but this person they organized a conference and I spoke to this person at the height of 2020 like end of 2020 and I was just like hey how's this online going I know you've done a couple of online stuff now like how's it been in they like oh best thing ever it's great you get to save on all the costs and then like he's just like running down like why it's so good that you're doing these online asked the same person about like four months ago is like oh you're finally like we're finally back live again he's like oh my God thank God we're running on like fumes and like my God we couldn't make ends me and thank God like one more year of this we would have died I'm just like all right so the online Forum wasn't as good he's

like no no no no way and that's just the truth like conferences need to be live and that's how they make their money we want to go cuz it's fun and like come on like online conferences no like how else are we going to find out if people laugh at M Johnny's goddamn creatives very true yeah very true that's very true but you know uh that's why we always start this podcast that this is 400 a.m. conf conference was almost I almost said conversion again 400 a.m. conference discussion because every time you are at the conference and you are in a bar with all like loud music obviously but all all the all the fun stuff and everything is actually happening after the conference not during the talks because let's you know admit that uh after nine years or 10 years in in the industry you already heard everything basically I don't want to sound arrogant but that's true then you know you need to meet people

you need to meet people afterwards and then uh discuss like okay so what are you doing what is working for you what's not working and share the knowledge which is happening 400 a.m. usually yeah I've learned more about mobile ads and mobile ad monetization in an evening in Las Vegas than I have like maybe working for a mobile game for like half a year like that's just the truth like that's where you find out all the gossip all the juicy details and all like screw-ups and how to avoid them it's just yeah it's super valuable yeah I think I would pretty much put the talks into like three categories one would be like the one that you can like you want to watch because there's some kind of useful information but you can watch it on the recording why waste you never watch the recording man you never do that sometimes yeah the you are the only you are you are the only person who does that I think you need to you need to if if you doing what I do you need to then the other one is that uh you have these kind of show off talks like uh for instance

epic showing their new tech or like stuff like that you want to see it for the show because you know you have like like like the trick magnificent yeah the trick they did when they were showing the real time mapping where there was an actress hidden behind the there on the stage and then they like show of her that it's it's all real time and stuff like that that's really great but it's more of a show off so you go for the show and then you have these usually use cases that are talking about the successes of something that everybody wants to attend like Pokémon go had a talk during that year or supercell had that talk about Crash Royale that you want to attend so I I would just put again this is more of like everybody will be talking about that talk that evening so that's why you want to see it but other than that like there's no other thing and you should just go to the parties and get all the chatter for everyone but it depends on the the seniority of the person so if you're it's Evolution I would say it's

Evolution like when you start in the industry first you try to attend the lectures and learn as much as possible then after two years you discover that there's pretty much 60% ofu same people all over again yeah there's no actual knowledge to be shared like most of the times there's no actual numbers use cases are like practical stuff half of it is hidden advertisement uh in the worst case it's yeah paay lectures are the the worst basically yeah yeah and then then when you are pretty much getting into it and starting to see more of those familiar faces you actually start to hang out with those familiar faces and then you get the real information yeah and this takes around three years well even more man even more for me it took at least like five M and uh yeah I was actively like presenting uh already for some some years when uh this actually panned out guys it's how the three of us met we met at a Nordic game true yeah yeah very true very true but not with yob though

right um I think I met Felix sometime before but didn't really uh you know no that's [ __ ] because like the Nordic game I was there I'd only been working on industry for like a couple months or something well we met with Felix and Nordic game but uh I'm not sure two of you guys were you actually met oh we met somewhere different like either kco or some other like local oh yeah maybe maybe it was dig dragons yeah or in Berlin somewhere in Treasure no definitely not there well for you know for sure true that's not true yeah anyway but like it's quite interesting also with the conferences having been like in the start of my career on like the vendor side it's like the only place you can actually meet people to actually sell something to because you know right now like doing admon I get maybe 10 to 15 incoming emails every week and I'm not going to answer any of them like that's the truth like honestly like like when I

get an email saying like oh yeah Special discount 100K for in like putting in my SDK in your game I'm like no I'm not trusting that and it's the only way really you can speak to someone and actually get anything done and yeah yeah that's true well I just uh well received one interesting uh message on I was so funny hey mate uh I love what you're doing at L char. me uh I can help you acquire some mobile paying users oh thank you very much man uh well I wasn't uh making fun of of this guy but it was really like okay I didn't know you're a mobile app as well much Dam yeah me neither me neither is this the only thing only thing left for these guys to kind of just Mass bombard LinkedIn and and just you know wait for someone to reply you still have the the online conferences and and it's very true that during the online conferences uh like you can't

approach so many people like you you do during the real uh conferences from the vendor side I mean I mean yeah all right well uh the the the deconstructor fun conference in in Istanbul was amazing it was after what first Conference face to face for me after what like two years oh I enjoy that so much so definitely want to get back definitely want to get back could I ask both of you actually to list uh like the top three conferences you think in terms of content where it's good if you work in gaming to actually attend if you want to work in Mobile gaming maybe one for game design and one for UA well for UA it's uh well ma 100% it's uh mobile mobile apps unlocked in Las Vegas and I was there what four times free time speaker obiously there you go I really enjoy

that uh but it's actually really like mobile marketing UA retention CRM everything that's the yeah that's the conference where you want to be from game design perspective I would say GDC is really important I want to say like don't say GDC please don't say because there's so much like quality info there that you can directly ask to people like I was able to you know ask like questions supercell game Elite and stuff like that you don't have to don't get that so that's one of the thing and then of course like anything Finland based in Helsinki supercell even have their own conference that they used to have the what was it mobile one or something one forgot the name of it but they they had there where they had like their talks which are super super kind of technical so and you can you get to hang out so any kind of what do it like Pocket Gamer or whatever kind of happens in Helsinki that's yeah Pocket Gamer was good when it was face to face online yeah it needs to be face to face sorry sorry guys but

the content was so shitty no no no no no it needs to be face to face because you get to hang out with these guys not that you you know look at the lectures they don't even have the lectures there supercell I don't think so go on PO they just go to GDC if they need to yeah also during the GDC the you know the the Nord breakfast every year that they uh organized that was amazing I met also so team were from supercell there and others other guys from from the industry there so it was really like really interesting uh thing that was going on for every year every every year this yeah that's uh those side events during the GDC that's where the the actual knowledge is Magic happen yeah magic happens yeah I'd say from an admon perspective probably games Forum like it's like a conference specifically for everything related to ad monetization super good but it's very specific like it's like yeah Remo wouldn't have a good time going there at all by the way is there a

nice expo at least yeah by the way Expo no Expo doesn't matter doesn't matter couple stalls yeah oh okay for me I usually enjoy talking and having presentations not on the marketing conferences or UA related conferences but uh conferences like digital dragons um G well GDC not that much but um Pocket Gamer maybe so there are like more producers game designers and not like UA people mean developers more yeah more developers because UA people are like Ah that's [ __ ] I already know everything he has to say but when you talk actually yeah yeah well I know I know what I'm talking about but actually if you if you talk to the producers game designers they yeah they like ah okay this is really interesting um okay so our UA team doesn't know that but but if you talk to the they will say oh yeah we know we know everything so it's always

better to talk to the to the different departments that's uh that's that's at least like my experience and I really enjoyed way more the the conference is oriented for the the other departments all right so we all have said which conference we like the most but if you like something you also have to hate something so which conference do you hate the most now what was the the worst what was the worst it's easy guys come on I hate Gamescom every year go oh yeah okay man like oh it's exhausting but not Gamescom not Gamescom but the devcom that was like Dev that was that was terrible because that well usually like back in days when there was a Gamescom it was GDC in Cologne but then they canceled it in Europe which was really unfortunate but what what can we do then there was like nothing happening alongside

Gamescom and they they brought the devcom which is total [ __ ] but okay Gamescom what what do you mean I mean it's it's cologne which is almost like a dead City but what can you what can you do but it's a consumer conference manbe yeah exactly very different type of you go there for the fun like the actual fun no no no you know what what he does always like he always walks around and try to find anime characters and and these like [ __ ] statues with huge tits and whatever else like man that was so amazing when we were just walking around the gamees SC I had so much fun they have so much good merchandising there man I'm going to I'm going to go this year but like what I think I'm going to do is just not like try to go to The Venue the venue what Would You Do the whole day man there's nothing to do in the venue is great point I didn't think that true yeah blizzard I think they have their official shop set up there always with like new stuff and merch and stuff like that but anyway like you meet people and you don't just talk about

that much industry stuff there definitely like you don't want to do that in Gamescom Gamescom is more about like different things usually well but on the other hand everybody is in in town because well you have GDC in in San Francisco then you have Gamescom in in Cologne so everybody travels there so you can actually meet a lot of uh good old faces second day like after party at the mar Hotel bar like that's where you meet every sea level at every European gaming company from here to North America yeah that's what I want to say that the mar after after yeah 2 a.m. always packed the nth in that room is astonishing like it's astonishing net worth in that room oh yeah yeah yeah yeah very true all right so I can't get you guys on the record of saying one conference you guys don't like come on oh well I I really didn't like the the PGC conference online ones that was really that was really well terrible quality sorry guys but that's

true don't know like on my side like maybe even PGC something that's not not like that organized like even maybe the London one like for me it doesn't really cut it to be honest there that not that many people that go there oh really whoa I would never say that I would say the opposite like you you talk to different people man because you're more in the vendor side you're not the developer side well well there we have it folks yeah I think so ah man again looking forward to to be back and uh maybe we'll see each other again uh while during the games come maybe maybe in the venue yeah all right so I think that's uh that's it right uh for today yeah this is a light one uh but still

thank you very much guys and uh see you see you next week yeah see you next week oh yeah see you and uh byebye was there a Sonic game in 2015 for mobile [ __ ] yeah there was [ __ ] yeah don't know there's lot of Sonic stuff you have the movies coming in and they were kind of you know pretty R yeah of course yeah and there's the second one this year coming so what the [ __ ] was it called again Sonic Sonic the Hedgehog was [Laughter] it Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 there you go yeah yeah yeah they had the Olympic G yeah ah okay let's uh let's start let's start yeah yeah

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