Welcome To PG Connects London 2025 - Chris James

[Music] hello hello hello good morning and welcome to PGX London 2025 it's all right good morning and welcome to PG connect London 2025 that's better God my fragile ego needs this U my name is Chris James um and if you don't know me I'm the CEO of Steel media I'm going to click through is the clicker working that would be great no that's not the one this is the great thing of change that's not the first slide my friend okay anyway I'm the CE steel media um the company Behind These conferences as well as a leading media such as pocket game.com pocket game. Biz uh PG games uh PC games Insider blockchain gamer uh and various other things oh there there we go I'm just waiting for the slide to come

in yes uh there we go we can live without that first one it's fine just we we we'll go back it's right anyway moving on um anyway as always we you you don't get to see the picture of me gning as usual but we are we can say we are now part of a bigger family we're part of the Enthusiast gaming family I don't know if you know those guys but we enthusiasts run a lot of properties in the game Space from Partnerships with sports leagues like the NFL and NHL where they can combine pro Gamers uh with athletes they've got the um Luminosity Esports team uh they run uh a video network uh which is currently got a new brand coming out they run u.gg which is tools for for people playing League of Legends and other things icy vein's website The Sims resource fantasy football scouts and even have their own casual games lab label via addicting games so there's a bit of a uh an image of some of the stuff they do very exciting and uh they are now also looking to extend into the publishing space uh working with kind of Indie Games with the addicting games label my

and my colleague uh my colleague JB Elliot is here at the show so if you if you want to talk to him about that he'll be here chatting about that anyway before I get into the specific the show I'd like to take a few minutes uh to take stock of the current landscape uh and the current industry um and uh it's the time of the year when everyone's kind of doing that everyone's chalking up the data of the last year and they're making predictions for the year ahead um so that's what we're going going to do first of all um so I thought I'd get in on that I'd try and take the temperature see what's going on so first of all I I went out and asked a few kind of Select developers how they were feeling about the industry right now and the responses were were pretty varied i' say it went from kind of broadly contented um to slightly concerned now I think it's it's it's fair to say uh it wasn't all good uh it's fair to say uh it's been a tough uh period for the industry um and and with good reason a little bit of serious point over the last 18 months according to various various kind of project we

have lost uh from our ranks up to 40,000 people uh which is an incredible amount across globally um and and we do take that seriously it's that's kind of very sad hopefully it's only temporary we actually here uh run our own dedicated Career Zone we have a recruitment track all dedicated to help uh people get back into work who looking for looking for jobs and and contrary to kind of some of the popular reporting there are actually people recruiting right now so if you're in between gigs please go to our Career Zone which is over the other side of there and and and check that out um anyway onwards so talking to individual developers wasn't that useful so I thought I'd go to the real experts the the industry experts and look at their uh predictions and projections a lot of these sites our own game. beers uh Adventure beat games industry Constructor F all doing their own kind of predictions for the year uh right now and uh I've kind of tried to kind of summarize some of the the key the key Vibes going on here's a few few key statements get used to the new normal this is the year of the MinGa strategy

uh AI will simultaneously change everything be essential for every part of the games making process whilst ultimately being disappointing so it's kind of like tring as AI or something it's a new thing um yeah lots of of of positivity there we've got very Grand Theft auto6 coming it's going to sell tons but apparent it's suck the oxygen out of the PC console continued consolidation good for the big boys terrible for small Studios generally the vibe is that 2025 is going to be better but not by much um I did notably also take some time out to uh to read through Matthew B's extensive state of the industry PowerPoint all 221 slides anybody else read that I've read there's a lot of that a lot of it's broadly saying that our best year are behind us which is great to be fair I didn't read all of it but I did I did go through some of it at least I gave it a bit of a uh bit of a go but it's it's a really good report and definitely worth checking out we've also done our own survey um we've run it across several months from kind of uh sort of waterm onwards and that's going to be uh released I think next uh next weekend at

this week um uh and to be fair um there was some positive predictions in there um and and a kind of note of caution this is an interesting one this is one of the slides in the middle about how people feel about the next year and although there is some positivity there which is good uh this is the biggest neutral we've ever had and the lowest extremely positive we've ever had so so generally the vibe is people feel neutral to marginally positive at the moment which is uh inspiring of course now in recent years I've kind of I've positioned myself uh as the kind of Ted lasso of the the games industry I'm upbeat uh kind of championing especially if the underdog uh in the face of the adversity ahead of us it's going to be great it's going to be great but um you know that's we you need to need to move on and given kind of recent developments and particularly on this historic day that we are find ourselves today uh I thought it might be time to take inspiration from a different American

now uh I may not agree with like 99% of his politics but there's no denying that Mr Trump's approach has proved kind of inspirational for many uh and uh and Promises she's results um so I thought rather than simply kind of railing against this as I have been doing on on X if you follow me um I thought maybe I'll look at this and see what we can learn from it and how can I apply that and obviously you start you know the whole point of this is you start with your own business Pocket Gamer first so I've started with this which is the very catchy uh make Pocket Gamer great again I'm I'm thinking how we can apply the lessons of Maga and Trump um obviously uh PG is going quite well this is our 11th uh Year we're entering now we've had we won I think the biggest independent games conference series uh we're very happy with those numbers we're already planning expansion this year we are uh going to be in Barcelona we're going to to Shanghai we're going to uh Singapore uh and hopefully also add toward the end of the

year but I don't know if we're thinking big enough I was trying to take the inspiration so I've been thinking about where else we could go we've done several events in Canada we've done events in the nordics the next natural step is of course PG connects Greenland that's the big audience there big resources I hear about it's a good place to go and I know but for some people go that's ridiculous very small little this is very cold fair point we're not just going Northern we are also thinking of of a of an expansion of our American activities into Central America so PG connect Panama is also on the uh on the offing I've uh I think that'll be the the second one coming up um a bit more muted that it's a shame because we've already hiired the boat so I was kind of hoping You' be into that um another part another thing we want to take inspiration from of course is is is not just about expanding uh externally it's about combating the Enemy Within and and so we feel it's about time we need to get rid of some of those problematic uh media there so um we'll be getting rid of a lot of the fake news over this year don't worry about that pocket gamer.

beers is your new truth social um uh you know and another area which is quite especially kind of important or especially relevant sort of last couple of days is uh is this world of if you you know you want to think Mag you got to think about how you can monetize it you got think about merch you got to think of of of meme currencies and obviously you know Trump if you don't know he's he coined his own uh cryptocurrency which is currently worth anything between 500 billion and and nothing whatever but it's it's that's at the moment it's going incredibly well and I'm thinking actually we're already ahead of the game there though we've already done we've already done the currency so I think we're we're working on that and that's actually held its value over there so you can use those uh use those vouchers at all our events um and uh there were so many great ideas in fact the problem once you get into it there's so many great ideas that you can consider um uh we would did think about um tariffs obviously very popular with with the the the orange one uh so we had this idea of bringing tariffs to our meeting systems that 20% of all the deals you do here uh would be

retained uh By Us apparently I've got some of the government Representatives that came here said that's not legal so we won't be doing that don't worry until we take over the Supreme Court so that's that's out of the way for the moment um the second thing we did also consider sending everyone back uh on day one from the conference who wasn't from the UK but then we realized that's like 55% of the attendees uh and most of our sponsors so we're not doing that either so we've abandoned that um so in all seriousness um I do think those things we can do from this I mean whilst not everything that uh that Trump does uh is is is is relevant to to us and our industry and even our country it's not like farri politics would ever work here um but um you know and I'm no I'm no I'm no kind of trump or musk I don't I don't despite my kind of growing waistline and and my uh and my medor influence I'm I'm neither of those guys but there are some things you can take from uh from this movement I think if we can just ignore the kind of inconvenient Fascism and Madness and tap the energy kind of

bravado and creative thinking of this movement there is something for us here it's about thinking kind of bigger so we need to think bigger when you think big box we need to be ambitious we need to get that kind of uh that Vibe going so I I saw this uh I saw this meme uh which is doing the rounds on on the on the X uh and I thought this is kind of on the right Lin there's a few corrections I need there uh first we need the anti-che uh code in there so that sorted that um topical and and then I thought actually who cares about Elon this is what we need need we we need collectively it's me but we need to collectively make the games industry great again so so with that in mind I'm I'm getting with a program and this is uh this is where we're going and I think there is um I think despite the challenges we're facing uh the hits we've taken people we've lost hopefully temporarily uh the opportunities that lay ahead of us really are greater than they've ever been um the games industry is huge it is bigly huge it is it is last year was anywhere between 188 and and 200 billion

oh there we go 200 28 and 200 billion um and uh some people put the market forecast even bigger than that statista who seem to have more faith in SEO than actual data tell us no offense tell us we're worth 450 to 500 billion well we aren't but it's it's creative thinking it's what is what we need so uh that's stia um we are the biggest caus industry we have been the biggest ENT industry for some time and our IP and technology is uh is is in massive Demand by other Industries who want to cross over everyone wants a piece of the games games pie whether that's from the movie studios the sports League subscription TV uh channels music stars even newspapers like the New York Times are getting on the ACT and and the biggest stars as I said before are lining up uh to appear in films and TV shows based on our IP and that's still happening some of these come out some of them are coming and crucially we are growing we're a growing industry um most analysts haven't yet come out with their 2025 uh predictions pop st uh new we're still waiting for uh but we've got to

expect that that that they're going to be predicting to 200 billion is this year um and our player base is growing not just the revenues our player base is definitely growing we have almost half the getting towards half kind of the world is playing games um and and more importantly it's we're a truly Global Market as we're covering our kind of global Trends uh track sort of later on we are the the games industry is growing all over the world and it's growing fastest in some of these Emerging Markets investors are slowly returning I know it doesn't feel like that but they are here we've got over 140 investors at this event this week so hunt them out um uh and and we're seeing more and more deal flow kind of coming through on PG's Biz and it's not just it's not just seed investment and it's not just Acquisitions we had uh a seed a series a for uh turkey Studio Grand games of the day for 30 $30 million for instance and there's a lot of that kind of news coming through we'll have uh this is this all the data up qy3 was showing uh steady growth again we haven't had Q4 yet we're waiting again for Drake star and the others on that that might be

revealed in our sh me the money track uh I think it's later today um and and and generally there are a number of forces or as Matthew B calls them growth engines that make me think we come on the verge genuinely of a new golden age for games like one of the key things is this kind of distribution Revolution like the hierarchy is being disrupted before our eyes apple and Google's duopoly has been challenged and the Court's been challenged by the industry um nothing against these guys they they what they've done and what they are doing is has been vital to to our industry uh it's helped the industry kind of grow and get to where it is but there is time to move on and change we're seeing app stores coming fast from liks VAP toid Huawei Samsung Epic Games of course here today we'll be talking later that're they're doing activity and there's even as as many app stores there are there are even kind of more dtoc portals springing up um with the likes of aat charola uh and uh I me and others um and even the mobile operators are getting back in on the game so the distri bution is changing that is going

to create huge opportunities alongside that we have a proliferation of new channels and platforms for people to play games on uh I call this gaming everywhere everything now is becoming a games platform telegram's been blowing up with like 20% of the world is playing games we chat minis made 2.4 billion in the first half of last year Discord uh is bringing games experiences New York Times has it games on LinkedIn and and alongside that the HML 5 browser gaming Tech is getting better all the time the experiences you can browse and stream are better than ever you've got kind of cloud gaming coming through regular TVs from Samsung and mobile devices from Samsung and obviously the likes of of the games pass offering crossplatform experiences gaming everywhere and game distribution are huge opportunities for all of us there's other Tech new tech adop as well uh to adopt as well vrm XR headsets get more powerful less intrusive ever duration new console hardw on the way obviously the switch 2 is is coming uh web 3 gaming uh is still chipping away it's delivering a few results in and and and we're starting to

see signs of what that might look like and and it's like to be given a flip by the the rally in cryptocurrencies and the way that the uh US government isn't going to be favorable for this and of course underlying it all is ai ai ai ai relentlessly advancing into every element of games production uh from audiation design and marketing to UA QA and economy testing uh and and it even offers at the far end of that OB the the promise of entirely new uh games experiences uh created easily and personalized to the player um so yeah big opportunities from the tech side there is um sadly we talked about at the start about the the that there's job losses but that does mean there's a huge talent pool out there to draw on right now some very very smart people who hopefully will be rejoining the industry e in startups or established businesses looking to to to go and there and there are many many more reasons uh to be to be cheerful Al those incredibly smart monetization and UA and advertising folks have continued to innovate uh despite the pressures theyve faced new hybrid business modelss

are emerging rewarded services not just for UA and advertising but also for just playing uh uh games are kind of increasingly uh prevalent and the changing our player economics the brand advertising remains a huge opportunity we're still getting a very small piece of that pie um government support is another reason to be shareful that the not just an emerging market like meina the UK's come out uh confidently saying they want to support the The Gamers industry more and of course we have you know one of the biggest games in the world let situation coming out which is going to be exciting and it might well raise the expected price of video games which is going to be helpful that's one of the things that Matthew talks about his report hasn't really increased for a long time so there's a lot of good reasons uh to be cheerful and as I say Matthew do check out this report even though it is massively long there's a lot of interesting data in there and of course the future's brighter uh even brighter more engaged games I show the slide a lot every successive generation they may not be going out drinking they may not be going to nightclubs but they are playing games uh and and they're playing more Gam games that are more engaged than ever so the future for our

industry literally could not uh be be brighter um so all of which leads me to think that 2025 is the the year then we can make games and the games industry great again are you with me yes that's good okay so obviously you can't do that with just you know slogan on a hat uh or or a few slides so over the next couple of days we're going to have loads more detail about many of the trends I've talked about here and many of the opportunities we've got 31 trend every two days in four track rooms all of that content uh see as much as you can live all that content will be available on uh on video within two to three weeks after the show and you can browse out if you've missed anything uh and if you don't know what's going on check the schedule it's on the site it's in Meet to match if you haven't gone to meet to match go into meet to match uh we've got over two and a half thousand delegates the moment registered not all of them in Meet to match everybody gets meet to match but a lot of them are in there um 1,300 companies so please go in there check that out arrange some business meetings or at least say no thanks to people who Tred to meet with you there's a great show to explore got

three floors uh there's Expo and meeting as a top Expo in the middle track rooms all over the place we've got two we've got a whole new Marquee to sit in outside and the mount Cal Fringe events going on if you're part of this uh investor connect is starting this morning at 10: we've got the big Indie pitch mobile this afternoon big Indie pitch console tomorrow morning and the publish developer speed match a lot of these are already full and planned but uh some of them involve allow you to kind of walk up and and if you are doing that try and get the time to make sure you know where you are we do also have a journalist bar which disappointingly remains a dry bar journalism is not what it was but if you want a drink we will be having we'll be we'll be having our party tonight from 7 uh at uh bounce uh the usual play so you can play ping pong and drink some shots with Alo and tick Tok supporting and if you a VIP got the golden ticket uh our VIP reception I think starts from 5:30 or 6 in the VIP space you can have some have some cocktails and canipes before we kick off

if you've got any problems uh visit reception we've got some very helpful people there maybe give it half an hour while we's coming in but but they will help you out there's a really useful FAQ on the site uh and the support mail is actually the best way to get help right now support PG connect.com and um uh if you're enjoying the show just want to share uh something with someone or just want to get into a massive argument about politics uh This Is The Place To Go apparently so uh use the hashtag PG connects uh on the new Twitter and we will uh tweat with you engage Wi-Fi it's on your badge don't need that so A few final thank yous because I'm not over too much um none of this happens without help so I need I need I need your help to help me thank some of the the guys behind all this our sponsors so a huge thank you to our Diamond sponsor Al media can we get Round of Applause for the diamond sponsor please thank you and to our titanium sponsors Tik Tok and epic uh store and uh our plasma sponsors cash Kick exol app charge and oh keep going there course fine our gold sponsor centor Tower digital turbine and Dev de boom bit raps PR bid machine supercell

Pokey cackle gaming lab Unity the British Columbia government adjust fast spring user Centric smartex Maloo aptoid personality and cloudfare um thank you so much for all your support we really love you guys we also have silver sponsor and brand bronze sponsors who are also brilliant but you've got to pay more if you want to read your name out and uh thanks to our I can't read all day thanks to thanks to our track sponsors as well who who who are who who will be speaking and sharing their Insight some of the other tracks our sponsors uh and our Media Partners uh who help get the word out huge thank you to our incredible speakers I've have over 280 uh taking part and sharing their insights we really appreciate them and of course the steel media team Who Do Stuff uh so thanks to them they they're working very hard finally if you do enjoy this um we will be more of it you can do the same thing uh in lots of different places around the world we'd be in San Francisco in uh March just before GDC and GDC week then we're going to be in Dubai uh star of May for Dubai games Expo Summit which is the biggest uh games business event in Dubai uh

we've got a new event coming to Barcelona in June P Barcelona start of June date will be confirmed in the next week we're just finalizing the venue at the moment and uh we're in Shanghai uh we do have a date for that's not on there in uh the week of China Joy we're doing a summit there and then we'll be uh also going be we'll be in Helsinki as usual uh at start of October we will also be in Singapore this year we're also going to be back in the Middle East again uh in uh in in Jordan in akaba this year and almost certainly in Riad towards the end of the year as well more of that to come so um the other things that are happening um we are actually it's not we've not got a slide for it but we are going to be celebrating the best of UK game developers uh in our top 50 UK game developers reveal which is taking part in track room 3 from 1240 on the big screen uh Heroes track [Music]