What If Game Production Looked More Like A Film Set?

[Music] Hello world. Welcome to the Pocket Gamer podcast with your hosts me, Brian Baglo, and the Empress of Indie, the Sorceress of Small Studios, Peggy and Saltz. Hello, Peggy. We're making 2025 work for us, are we not? It's good to see you again. It's lovely to see you, Brian, and it feels so good in 2025. I was at an event. Um, Eric Suford and others got up on stage and told us it's all good. 2025 is going to be a good year. We're back to being optimistic. We're back to being thinking about what we can do, what we can change. And a big part of that is always going to be creative, right? It is the lever. It is the power. We have got this is the message right but again if you want to think about it smaller studios yes it's about being creative

agile but resources are limited and expectations of course skyhigh so it's in that balance that we're finding us ourselves and where we're finding our guests as well fantastic so who do we have joining us what we going to talk about because you know me indie studios champion Um I think smaller studios are the lifeblood of the whole sector. So absolutely we we need them and that's the other good thing I was hearing. Um you know good games, good creative, good strategy all has a chance. Before you could have a crap creative and a crap game, but if you could nail it in UA, you could do it. Well, now we're back to where we're all in a sense, as uh Warren Buffett would say, we're all swimming naked, right? You've heard that one before, in Scotland. Let's give it a go. Let's give it a go. I love it. But was like, you

know, in a downturn, you can see who's swimming naked. Well, yeah, that's the whole idea here. And we can also see who has the super power because we're going to decode that. We welcome as our guest Casey Dickinson, CEO of Super Faction, a company redefining creative as a service model. So, it's creative as a service as a model for game studios. Welcome to have you. Great to have you, Casey. Thanks for having me, guys. It's a it's a pleasure to be here. And I and I share those those uh sentiments about 2025. If 2024 was survive to 25 and now here we are, I think the companies that survived are well positioned. It's a super dynamic market, but when is it not? I mean, we've been in games for for quite a while. It's always ups and downs and now it it it for all accounts it appears that we're back on and up, which is which is fantastic. Fantastic. So, before we kick off, Casey, talk talking of ups and downs, that looks like quite a collection of surfboards behind you. Um, so can you tell us a little bit more about that? And, you know, let's let's

be honest, which one's your favorite? Sure. Um, yeah, I I uh moved back out to San Diego probably five, six years ago and and and started, hey, if I'm going to live by the beach, I'm going to I'm going to learn how to surf. And wow, is it humbling um for sure getting out and trying to learn something that, you know, people are good at it. They make it look real easy and sure is not. And I and I think that it's it's a a great kind of allegory towards kind of just just trying to learn. And I've always been excited about learning new things. And surfing is certainly that. Uh but it's just being out in the ocean. It's it's beautiful. It's peaceful and it gets me away from my lovely home office that that that looks cool, but it's really just my garage, you know. Uh but it gets me out in the ocean and I love it. I 100% understand. We don't have surf here. Uh I'm right down on the east coast of Scotland. We do have beautiful water locks and you know it's I'm right next to the river, the the mighty fourth. So, I I stand up paddle board, which is basically surfing for old

people with dodgy knees, you know, standing up. I can do standing up while the, you know, the ocean moves, not so much. To be fair, most of these are stand up paddle boards. I I stand up paddle surf. Uh because I too am one of the old guys that are like, you know what, that looks like a lot more fun. Uh I catch more waves and when the waves aren't good, I can just kind of paddle up and down the coast. So, I love it. There we go. You see bonding already, Peggy. What? I can see it. What a great episode. I I can see it. I can see it happening. And we're we're we're also part of what I am about always the puns. You're you're catching the waves. You're talking about indies, you know, and it has its waves. It has its ups and downs. And uh some you can see them coming, some you can't. So, it's a lot like surfing in a way. Casey, now you have shaped Super Faction into a kind of Yeah. a lifeline for studios riding those waves, we could say. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about Superfaction and how it has

evolved to make certain that yes, these indies can ride that wave, can ride the wave of opportunity coming in 2025. Sure. Um, I took over as CEO of of credits as we were called back then back in back in March and rebranded the company to Super Faction back in June and really started looking at what is what does the market need right now from from a creative partner. Um, I think that historically you could say, hey, you know, just give us a bunch of creative by the end of the week. Do they have to be good? No, but we just need a lot of them. And then you would just feed the funnel, the black box would spit out and then you can iterate on it. Um, what we found kind of post IDFA and all of the changes that happened was actually it needs to be less and it needs to be better. Um, so refocusing around quality, around CGI, around playables kind of always have a space. Finding that right mix for our publishing partners I think is super important. And we're also diversifying who our clients really are. I think

traditionally we were working with AAA and we still are. We have a handful of the biggest publishers in the world and we do quite a bit of work for them. but also kind of this refocus on what are we doing for the indies if this is the market where the next great game companies are being developed out of the ashes of all of this layoffs and all of this turmoil that we've had. How can we help support them? Because once we're partners with them, we're partners for life. That's the way we look at it. And and really finding out what is it that they need? Do they just need a trailer, a launch trailer? Okay, we can do that. We've been doing that for a very long time. What else that might they need? and kind of going to a little bit further up the funnel and thinking about, okay, you want to launch in Japan. How is that going to work? It's like, we're not just going to do some localized creative, let's bring on a product manager. Let's talk about pricing structure in Japan. Let's talk about are there any holidays or events that we can be leveraging that would be useful in that audience? Because if you just localize creative and throw it over the fence and hope for the best, I don't

think you're going to find really great results. I think we really need to have I mean and that's just in when we're looking at expanding to new territories and markets. So we're really trying to think about okay let's let's move the conversation from just talking to growth managers that are handling UA budgets. Let's talk to EPs and studio heads. What do they need? What are the goals that they're trying to accomplish? And how can we use our network of our internal team as well as our vendors and freelancer structure to help them solve their problems? talking to a totally different audience that actually does shape that. Um, UA is one thing, but as you said yourself, it was, you know, just do something, do a playable ad, do a trailer, do whatever. This is more about the strategy of that, right? Yeah. And I think that that that's certainly a piece of it. And then the other area that we're kind of pushing into a little bit more uh is talking about licensing and IP. I think licensing and IP have always had a place to help solve the discoverability problem. but where my

old company uh FTX Games that I ran and um we got acquired by Tilting Point before I kind of wanted to get entrepreneurial again. But I have a decade of experience kind of doing this licensing side of things. And if you're building a game from scratch, specifically for a license, that comes with a bunch of risk on both sides. And now I think that there the trend is more towards brand integrations. Taking these big existing games which represent less risk to the lensur and then only doing them for a three-month stint around that marketing window for that particular project which decreases the risk on the developer and publisher side. So that's another place that we're kind of pushing into working off of kind of my my experience and my network around that as well as our ability to drive, you know, AAA creative around promoting those integrations and kind of handling them. That's another place that I'm really interested in. And then how that fits with our other audience with that indie audience. Whenever I've talked to licensors, they're like, "Okay, you

know, you're always talking about the same handful of 10 different licenses that work really, really well for freetoplay, but there's massive amounts of competition around those. What about all of that overlooked licenses that have a niche audience that don't fit the mold of a big cast of collectible characters with upgrade paths and all these other things? How can we start looking at some of those and figure out is there an indie fit that makes the perfect game for that particular license that makes sense? I think Netflix is doing a bunch of really great stuff in that particular realm, but they're working mostly with their particular IP, right? So, I think that that's another space. So, when I think about like kind of where are the opportunities kind of looking at from an indie space be like, okay, what you know what are the what are the projects? What's the your favorite movie of all time? what show are you watching right now? How about making a game that might fit? What would you do to create a bespoke game specifically to capture what's really unique about that? Um, so that's another

place that we're really kind of looking at and be like, okay, I think that there's there's pretty interesting opportunities to kind of help people out and help some of these indies get get discoverability, which is always a challenge. absolutely inspiring to be honest with you Casey because I know so many studios on the indie end of the market the smaller younger end of the market who make great games they've got the creative and technical skills to make phenomenal things but that's their core focus you know they don't have the marketing teams they don't have the licensing teams and they in a lot of cases they don't know where to start so plugging into this huge global market in a way which makes them relevant to the brand owners the IP holders ers to, you know, not just, as you said at the at the top of the show, pumping out a huge quantity of creatives, but helping them discern what to do with it, what works, what's quality, makes a huge amount of sense because we've got some really talented people out there. But in a lot

of cases, they're they're sort of inwardlooking, if that's not a horrible thing to say. you know, we know we can make great games, but how do we take that and then make it relevant to a much much bigger audience? So, can you explain a bit more how you layer on these extra services? And do you have any examples, case studies, or maybe even some numbers you could share with us? Yeah, I I think the we're we're beholden to a lot of our partners from a from a NDA perspective on on a number of the initiatives that we can kind of being an agency. We'd rather highlight our clients in in places where where they can kind of drive that that narrative. But I think what you're saying I think is really interesting from a perspective of a lot of these indie devs looking inward. We want them to, right? That's where the innovation happens. That's where they're really kind of focused and that's where they're really going to be able to succeed. we don't need them to be focused on all of the marketing stuff like and and functionally historically

speaking that was the publisher that would kind of come in and these indies would lose a lot of their the control of being able to how to do that. So I think that there is a new model of development around this of thinking about what does light touch publishing mean? How light touch can you be where you're keeping their the destiny of that project in that studio in the hands of the creatives but the at the same time just giving them the assistance that where they need it and that comes in from a publishing perspective of IP licensing. There's a funding aspect to that. There's a bunch of pieces of that that I think become very very interesting to kind of to kind of go down. So, we want those indie developers to stay indie. We want them to stay innovative. That's where the next great stuff is going to be made. From a perspective of which IPs and licenses that we've kind of worked with, I think that there's there's a couple of things that we're working on right now. Um, there's a couple of bigger ones where we're like, okay, let's do some the like I had mentioned, we're on the AAA piece of things. We've done historically. We've done some stuff

with PUBG. We've done some stuff that's kind of out there with with a handful of other projects. my company historically we we did a you know the the litany of all of those big AAA licenses of Star Trek and um and Naros Breaking Bad and a bunch of other things that that we've done through the years. Um, so there's those two really interesting buckets and I I still think that there's this opportunity for that overlooked IP which I'm I'm pretty excited about. The opportunity for indie developers to to work with these licenses, especially when it's a brand takeover, you know, so it's a limited time thing that ties into a lot of the user acquisition that we've talked about, you know, when we you run an event. Um, and being able to bring in some of those niche um, products or brands is incredibly valuable. Um, I way back in the olden days, uh, when Peggy and I started in mobile, uh, the company I worked with picked up a Star Trek license um, through a meeting in a pub

and we came up with something absolutely phenomenal. uh which never actually hit the market, but that was only because the the company in question didn't exist at that point. But it can be transformative for studios to be able to take that creativity and indie sensibility and and connect with something. It might be niche, but it's still introducing them to a whole new audience. So I I absolutely hear what you're what you're bringing to this and it's it's joyful to hear that there's a a company out there that's not necessarily a publisher but that is on the side of the developers. Yeah. And and I and you you had asked about some numbers and and there's numbers for sure around um what that licensing looks like and the value that that adds to projects when you when you see your organic traffic explode. you know, when you'll be able to cut your user acquisition costs by 80% for that initial launch window. Those are all the types of things that give this this this

generalized lift. We're like, "Wow, that was sometimes it could be quite a bit of work to get approval process." That still happens for sure. We I I I think anybody that's done license game has horror stories of oh my gosh this one actor went on hiatus for however long and you're like we just need him to approve this one shot but he has complete control over how his likeness is presented in the game and you have to wait. So building the expertise and understanding how to navigate that approval process is one thing and then when you finally get to launch your your publish your development partners just like I hope that work was worth it right I hope that work made all sense. Um, and you see it from the fan base. If you've done an authentic job of kind of representing that IP, you see it in the fan base like, "Oh my god, I can't believe they included the cat from We did a Hunger Games game. I can't believe they they made the color of the cat right from the book because the movie messed it up." It's like the little details that the super fans going to see. When you nail that stuff, they love

it. They love it. they share it and all of that lift starts happening and you create this kind of cycle of where you're you're bringing audience in. You're having a a dialogue with fans about that license and really making them understand that you love it as much as they do. So, I think it's really important to kind of have that pairing right. But when you have that pairing right, um the numbers are great. The numbers are absolutely fantastic. Casey, I want to keep things going because I'm I'm aware of time. We're looking at the shift towards just in time mo models, you know, um that you described as similar to what Hollywood does. Can you explain a little bit more for me about what you mean by that and and what the the value is and what we can can learn from the the whole Hollywood approach? Yeah. Um so because my company was doing working and I think we've talked quite a bit about about licensing in Hollywood. um watching the way movies get made, which is by all accounts a much mature medium relative to the games industry. Um, there's just this crazy

unsustainability about the way that we're making games that just we we we're seeing it obviously play out where, you know, you build these giant monolithic teams that function incredibly inefficiently, but it really didn't matter because the entire like the industry as long as the industry's going up, it's fine to kind of be a little bit wasteful because the winners are going to be winners and everybody else is just going to go find another job after they release their game and they get laid off. And I don't think I I think we've hit that that threshold. I think it was um it it it was exacerbated by, you know, the COVID push and then decline where we're in this place where we had these gargantuan teams that were kind of overfunded and we had this massive amount of layoffs. And going back to what I was saying before about having people that were great product managers that were exposed to a lot of different games, that seems like a much better model. When you're when you're making a movie in Hollywood, you have a core production team that's relatively small and everybody else that's on set is coming on to be just in time for the piece that they need. They need to be on

set. Maybe they're on one set in the morning and they're on another set in the afternoon. They're getting more reps about being able to be good at their job. And at the same time, the production company's not carrying the cost of a guy to stand in the corner and wait his turn to do his thing. And meanwhile, the games industry has been doing that forever. You have serve engineers that are just sitting there waiting for the client to be built. you have uh concept artists that are really important at the beginning of a project and really important for DLC and add-ons, but a lot of times in the middle they're literally sitting in the corner and doodling. They could be getting better at their job. The publisher doesn't need to be carrying their cost through all of it. Why can't we move towards more of an outsource and freelance model that is more sustainable where people that workers are getting mastery over their own destiny? I think that they're burnt out. I think that they're looking at the publishing system, they're like, "This is my third fourth layoff in in in the last five years. This is crazy. It's not sustainable anymore." Um, so I much rather and that was one of the things then when I set out to create super

faction and really the name why we renamed it to superfaction. The idea that we have this super faction and underneath it we have all of these factions of workers that can come on and do their thing to help solve problems for those core development teams finding those core teams figuring out what they need providing this umbrella be like okay you're going to work on this and then providing those workers with consistent available projects to work on. So I I have this you know this grandiose vision of where I think that the the industry is going with these smaller teams increased reliance on outsourced vendors and tools in the forms of AI and others where I'm like how can I position to be in the right place to help that happen and then pair that with you have all of these great indie development teams that were spawn spun off of big publishers that are now making the game that they wanted to make the whole time they were working on live ops for a 5-year-old project, right? So, now they have the opportunity to make their passion project. They're super smart, super capable. What are the tools

that they need to be able to succeed? And how can we provide them in a an efficient uh manner that that kind of makes sense for everybody? And there is of course that that talent pool. Casey, are you are you dipping into that? Because you brought it up yourself. You know, it's so soul destroying to be, you know, three studios, three layoffs in three years. And I know people who've gone through that. Yeah, I think we all do. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, we're we're doing some outreach for that. So, you know, if anybody sees this and they be like, "Hey, you know, I'm into that like join the faction. Let's bring them all on board." Um, we have projects that are coming in like I I have my network of folks and we're always trying to grow that database. So, to answer your question, yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to collect those people, really smart people that are capable. Let's find them work. Let's find the projects and then let's find the funding because I I think it's a great time. You the the adage of get greedy when everybody's scared, get be scared when everybody's greedy. I think everybody was greedy for a long

time. Now everybody's scared. I think it's a fantastic time to put money into projects. I think there's great projects that are being developed right now. Man, I wish I had some money to put into it. I'm working on that, too. That's another I've got I've got some irons in the fire, but that's another one that I'm I'm really interested in trying to solve because I think those are the pieces that are going to bring this maturity to this industry in a way that that we hadn't seen yet. And I think it's the time for us to get there. I think this is the time, Brian. You're right. After so much doom and gloom, this is what we're hearing. This is the time. It's really It's really Yeah, it's encouraging to hear it, Casey. Oh, hugely. And and I think you're you're you're absolutely hitting it right on the head, the nail in the head there, Casey. Specialization is is where it's at. The sort of the generalist approach to everything under one roof. We need to be able to do localization and QA and marketing and you know, UA and live ops and blah blah blah blah blah. There are elements of that. You need somebody inhouse who understands that and can

have those conversations. But you don't necessarily need, as you said, you know, 25, 50, 100 QA engineers and testers sitting in a big building at the start of a project. So I uh I absolutely hear you. I if you look at games as the intersection between technology and art, um Hollywood's was was art and increasingly becoming more technology. Games are technology increasingly becoming art. So yeah, there is this where a lot of these things are are are converging in ways that I think are are very interesting. I want to swing back a little bit more to the IP because you made this so core to what you're doing. You know, understanding the IP, licensing the IP, you know, to get it right, integrate it properly. That is extremely important. But we've had people, and you remember as well, Brian, we had Iron Fox games, one of our most popular shows last year. So talking about the untapped opportunity in sort of nostalgic older IPs reviving for

example old classic video games and that was his thought about you know where the opportunity is. What's your thought or advice for studios who are looking to leverage IPs in a meaningful way maybe even going on the hunt for some classical uh classic video games to to bring in to the mobile space. Um, I think nostalgic gaming IP has it has its place for sure. And we're in a generation now where people, you know, that are um that are my age grew up playing a lot of games their entire life. And and bringing back a lot of that stuff makes a lot of sense because there's an audience for it. The problem that I've always had specifically with gaming IP is that it comes with a very specific set of expectations. like this is a game, but you're going to take my game and you're going to make a totally different game in a different genre that doesn't really work. And I've always been like, h is that does that work? And then like Monopoly goes like, you know,

hold on, let me show you how much this works. So, I think that there's a lot of places for that to to there's a lot, but again, I would go back, you know, it's it's a passion project. Let's make sure that that it fits. Let's make sure that it fits. and the audience that you're going after is is also going to be receptive to it. There's a lot of ways, you know, we we've gotten very good as an industry be able to test thesis. Like, how can we test to see if our market's really going to like that? We have tons of data. We have a ton of ways that we can kind of get that in front of people, examine that and kind of test around it. Um, run ads around it. Kind of bringing to, you know, app store, pick app store. There's a million ways for kind of test those thesis. That's one of the things that Super Faction has done historically for quite a bit is like, okay, you have a great idea. Before you drop a million dollars in developing that idea, let's figure out art style. Let's figure out audience. Let's figure out genre. Let's figure out so we can create these mockups and and get that into the market. So, I would test a lot of those thesis. We're still

going to be a data driven industry as a whole, but pairing it with the passion around what that team wants to do um I think is is absolutely critical. But I equally love the fact that um Hasbro has taken Monopoly, which I find, forgive me Peggy, the most tedious 8 to 10 hours of your life because you can't have a short game, and turn it into a mobile game, which I find completely joyful, you know. So, it's it works both ways. But I I absolutely hear you, Casey. Yeah, it it has to be appropriate. It has to be something the team, the players that works for you as a as a studio. So, let's talk about strategy because that's what you're helping studios with as well. Could you share a bit of a checklist about the steps you could recommend for a studio on the verge of launching a big event or campaign push? The struggle is always specifically with these timed events because because the

industry doesn't we don't do very well with hard deadlines to to put it mildly. So all of a sudden you have a hard deadline. That was the other big struggle with licensing. It's like you can't miss the marketing window. The game's got to come out in sync with the, you know, the marketing window that's 60 days ahead of a theatrical release. If you're any day that you're late, you're just leaving money on the table and you're kind of missing it. So I think it's it requires um a very very you know let be thoughtful. Let's be realistic about what can get done and what can't get done. But like making sure that the pieces are fitting in a way where there's no surprises. Like surprise is the enemy of of success. So really trying to figure out the right places to kind of communicate and so everybody's in kind of lock step to kind of get this stuff done and what needs to happen where. So from a licensing perspective that's always like we need approvals like what's the first approval that we're going to get? Let's knock those things out kind of absolutely first and let's make sure that we're on board. so that any delays in that aren't going to

affect everything else. But when you're getting ready to kind of launch something, figure it out. Do this one thing postmortemament at the end. What went right? What went wrong? I know that's a pain because it's like, oh, that's going to slow us down from getting to the next. It's like, but then you're going to make the same mistake again. So, it's going to cost you more. Slow down. Be very direct and deliberate with how you're kind of managing things, I think, is is super important. I I would like to pick up on that if I if I could, Casey, because you know, we've talked about the specialization, not trying to do absolutely everything, but but leveraging partnerships. So, in my experience and from some of the conversations we've had, there are certain kind of like core skills that that developers see as theirs and that they're loathed to share. So, do you have any advice or tips for our listeners on leveraging partnerships, you know, and maybe not being precious about what's mine and what's yours or, you know, what what have you seen that uh, you know, some of the studios run into when it's like the that willingness

to share? Because I absolutely agree, we're a fantastically open sector, but there is a point where it's like here and no further. Yeah. The silos. Yeah, for sure. and and and I think code and tech is always going to be a little bit of that even when we're kind of it depends on the size of the team and kind of what they're looking at. I I would say that people are being a little bit too precious over their data still like if we're a creative agency and we're trying to make great ads that are going to work. Give us the data like let us help you in a way that kind of makes sense. And that was a that was a and that's still a struggle um to to this day. It's still a struggle to kind of get be like, "Guys, just give us agency access to your MMP." Like, let let us go kind of go in and be able to see firsthand and we'll help you kind of with reporting. Um, because a lot of times they'll be like, "No, no, this is what an ad like, okay, we're just going to send you how this this work. Let's be more open with the data." Most of the times you can kind of get it anyway. There's enough tools out there where you can kind of get a pretty good sense of a lot of different games. Um, so I think

that data needs to be more open. And I think tech was always going to be the slow mover to kind of get there and that that kind of generally makes sense. Uh but it's not I think that we need to be able to kind of share great ideas with each other and I think we do a good job of those pieces but I think the data piece needs to be a little bit more open. And the point about the data is that you know everything is in there. All the answers in are in there. So you want people to be looking at it with a different lens and understand what is really in there. Um which is not where we are right now, you know. Um and it's it's very difficult to get to that point. But we all understand that we have to get there. Mhm. So if that's part of the partnership, you know, one of the things that we need to be looking at, I like to look at partnerships overall in the longer term. You know, here we are 2025, take a longer term view out into the year. And

if a studio is thinking longer term, where do you think they should be focusing or thinking where this is all headed? because it's about creative services, partnerships, licensing. There's a lot that you've unpacked throughout the entire episode, Casey. It's gives us a lot to think about, but what's your take on the future for creative in the gaming space? Yeah, I think that there's a I think the it's the convergence of all these ideas that I think the common thread kind of through all of this is we went through massive disruption. the pieces are all over the ground. How are we going to be rebuilding a structure that kind of makes sense for everybody in a way that it's not a winner take all where where there's all of these great teams that are going to be when we've seen this type of disruption before when mobile launched when freeto play took off from all of these digital distribution we've seen these big kind of earth shaking

changes to the industry how we rebuild it is kind of up to us to kind of figure out what actually makes sense and what makes sense to me is that we're finding innovation again because I think that we've strayed um that we're supporting our resource, our most precious resource, our people. That we're open-minded about tools in tech that become not just viewed as threatening for removing jobs, but enabling for creating amazing creative and still allowing people to kind of be at the helm of what that creative looks like. And then from a perspective of how we're marketing this and what the industry and what players want and need um I think is a is a very interesting rumor is always like it's okay we'll find a new audience. I think we've hit the new audience like this is it like if 90% of people are playing games on some sort of device. You've got kind of market saturation. It is what it is. Will that change? For sure. You look at the stuff that's going on UGC and Roblox and all

these other things. kids are growing up with an entirely different and that wave is going to be pushing through. So watching kind of what what's happening I think becomes more interesting because the line isn't always just automatically going to go up like it always did in the past. We can't just keep tapping new audiences. There's emerging markets sure yes there's great it's you know India, Northern Africa, all this stuff is really fantastic and yes they're all but they're already playing games. We just have to figure out how to monetize people that are that are playing those games. So I think it's it's more about looking at a little bit internally which the industry hasn't done a very good job of because again we just kept growing so it didn't matter. We didn't have to we didn't have to be um efficient because things were just growing. So looking internally, looking at kind of how we can help solve like clean up our house a little bit and make it so it's more of a sustainable way that we're treating our players better, that we're treating our our our workers better, um, and that we're building kind of the next wave. And I think there's a lot when I share

these thoughts with other people in the industry, I think there's a lot of people that are looking at it the same way. like this is the chance for us to kind of look at what the future's going to be and help shape what that's going to be rather than kind of just doing what we always did because it works and finding those those new efficiencies. I mean you're bringing together the art and science in a way if I think about it and the whole idea of creative services. Yeah. Creative as a service that's the art and science of it coming together. The data of it coming together. Um, I have to ask you then because you bring it up. It's about efficiencies. So, where could small studios start immediately to move in that direction? What do they need to to cut, to increase, to do better, to to avoid to start moving in this direction? What are they doing that they should start doing or stop doing? It's always going to be a challenge for these smaller studios

because that what they what they need is they need they need money and they need they need people and resources. Uh and then they need players. Uh and finding all of those things. I think that the traditional model is like, oh, I'm just going to go to GDC and I'm going to pitch a bunch of publishers and hopefully they fund me and hopefully that deal structure allows me to keep the lights on and maybe this game will make me big enough that I can forge my own destiny, become a publisher, become like or get an exit like that. Those are the pieces and I think that that's become such a such a challenge because the way of those deals have historically been structured and I and I've been on the other side of that. I was my my company was running a publishing. I think we had a a bit of a of a of a kinder uh model with our developers, but I think that those are those are difficult they're they're difficult partnerships to kind of get into. So, I think that for smaller publishers, start looking at what you can kind of accomplish by yourself and things that they can potentially do. I think there's a lot of opportunities if you're if

you're, you know, from a funding perspective, I think that there's new opportunities that are surfacing now with crowdfunding and and a bunch of other different ways that that didn't necessarily always exist. I think that, you know, the IP licensing thing will help with discoverability, but do you need a publisher to do that? No, you don't need a publisher to do that. You can find a licensing agent. You can contact a lot of these people yourself. You can put those pieces together. I think Apple and Netflix, you know, they're amazing vehicles for people for for those for those indie developers to get exposure and get their their cost covered and get, you know, get a game to market that doesn't necessarily have all of the um strings attached to it that a a typical publisher agreement will. So, I think those are fantastic. And they als I can I can gush about how much I like subscription models for for mobile games because it it just flipped the script on what kind of game you're making uh and really opened the door for for a lot of new innovation where now you're being your core KPI is D30 engagement rather than ARPD out like

that's amazing you're making a fun game then your goal is to make fun game for an audience that keeps playing it monthto monthth like that's great that's super uh fantastic. So, I think that there's a lot of different but it can be totally overwhelming. Um, talk to me. I'm I'm like I mentioned, I'm I'm always happy to just, you know, help people out. We did a we did a big indie outreach uh campaign uh a few months ago where we just sent we we spammed literally just a ton of indie devs and be like, "Here's my calendarly. Just like book some time with me." And I had call after call after call with a bunch of indie developers being like, "What's your pain point? like how can we help you guys be able to succeed and find your way into it? It's fantastic. Maybe I planted a bunch of seeds for collaboration later. I know I took a lot of out of those conversations myself just getting an idea of like what are they working on? What what are they trying to trying to solve? How can I position Superfaction to be in a place to help them solve it when they're ready? Okay, I like this guy Peggy. He

needs to come back. So Casey, it has been an absolute joy and a pleasure. Um, so many incredibly interesting but yet tangible things that I think a lot of our developer listeners are going to be able to take away and think about. And folks, the one thing we hear every single episode is the constant we have in games is change. So the old mindsets, the old approaches are simply not going to cut it. So if 2025 is going to be the year we all want it to be and need it to be, then listen to this man for he is wise. Um, Casey, it's been an absolute joy. But before we let you go, we're going to bring it back. We have a question or a couple of questions we ask every um guest that we have on the podcast. The first is what are you playing right now? What's obsessing you? What's maybe taking up a little more time than you think it should be? And then secondly, the big one, favorite game of all time. Uh playing right now, I think I'm with like the majority of the industry playing Batro quite a bit. Uh game is so well done and every time I think I have

the strategy, I'm like, I don't need to play it. That was the strategy. I'll find another one. It's super super fun. Uh I'm also playing uh Paper Trail, which was a a game that's on Netflix. Super super innovative. Love it on PC. I'm still playing Fortnite with my kids. It's like a blast. Like we have, you know, we squad up. It's a It's a great time. Favorite game of all time? Probably Diablo II. I just I sunk so many so many hours. I loved that game. Loved that game. And I played POE 2. Um, Path of Exile 2, which is the spiritual successor for sure. I played Path of Exile for quite a while. Um, so those Yeah, those are the taking up my hours when I'm not on the paddle boards, on the bikes in the other garage, or uh getting work done. Phenomenal. And and great answers. Great answers. I'm having to limit myself in my bilateral use um quite quite strictly. So, uh I I'm with

you entirely. and Diablo II. There's an entire other podcast there when we could just like fanboy over that dirty word of genius. But Casey, thanks again. We're going to have to let you go. It's the waves are calling, the studio is calling, and quite frankly, I think the industry should be calling. Um, and if not, hopefully this podcast will change it. So, it just remains to say thank you again for your time. Thank you for being so open, so candid. Um, I've learned a lot, and I'm sure there's going to be an awful lot in there for our listeners, too, as well. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for Thank you for having me. This was a this was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. I'd just like to add on top of that, not only did we get some tough love, some great ideas, and some direction for the indies in the audience, they can also get in touch with you if they want to join, you know, the faction, be part of the super faction. So, that I find very, very encouraging and optimistic and positive. But how would they actually uh do that, Casey? What's the best way?

Just uh send me an email. Casey@superfaction. Um superfaction.com. I Yeah. And I I answer all the emails like I had mentioned before. I I love hopping on calls with people. I I love talking about talking shop talking about the industry. I've been passionate about it for two decades and I'm always open to talk some people. Excellent. I know there was a reason we had him on, Brian. So accessible and so smart. It's been a joy to have you on the show, Casey. It absolutely has 100%. And if you if you're up for it in the in the future, we'll get you back learn more about what Superfaction has done to to change the industry in 2025 and maybe hear more about the the waves and the bikes and um you know the evolution of the world of games. Thank you guys so much. Really enjoyed it. This show is all about how to do your job better, how to make an amazing game, how to market it, and you have a say. So, if you have a story or know someone

we need to shine a light on, then we would love to hear from you. We want to hear from you. We want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market in all its wonderful complexity and stranges. So, if you have any suggestions for us, if you have any feedback for us, you can always get in touch. You can email us at podcastpocketgamer.biz. You can find us on Twitter @pgbiz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website. If you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts, you can find them at pocketgamer.biz/mpodcast. And we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows. And we've got you covered on all the major platforms. So subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said, look for us on YouTube. If you want to read it, hey, you can do that, too, because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website. Tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast, and we look forward to speaking to you in the near

future. Until then, I'm Brian Baglo. I'm Peggy Unsaltz. And that's a wrap. Until next week.