What is the Audience Web? | Brenden Fraher from Game Refinery

[Music] we are now joined by Brendan frer from game Refinery how you doing today Brandon hey James wonderful to see you you have bested the rain well I'm Irish so it's not let's say my first rodo exactly unfortunately to explain we're on day two of the show here and uh the weather has turned against us and so it's uh considerably quieter um the government has said people should stay at home and which is not ideal for an event but uh we've all managed to make our way in and have a chat and in fact we were supposed to talk in San Francisco and you were you were beaten by the airline that tight weren't you so we' we've bested everything you're here now do tell us finally what is game Refinery what do you folks do sure absolutely so we're the leading uh Insight provider on feature Trends live event analysis and player engagement let's say as well so all of this let's say wrapped up tomorrow got you now I understand that used to be fairly like single platform focusing on mobile but recently you've branched out a little bit can you tell us a bit about that yeah absolutely so I guess it's no

secret that we're seeing let's say especially in the HD space free to play free to start let's say it's generating let's say like you know a lot of let's say traction let's say a momentum and then the number one I would say test lab for free-to-play let's say engagement of course is mobile right so what we've been doing is we've been analyzing all of these you know free to start let's say free to play let's say games on the console you know Xbox PlayStation steam let's say platforms because a lot of the developers there will be looking to water the bed let's say engagement mechanics and so on and they're already there because I guess maybe before maybe let's say about let's say 5 years ago there was an idea well these are mobile games these are mobile players and then now these are let's say you know PC or I'm a I play Playstation you know and so on right and and the games are quite different now those genre l or those those let's say uh um uh platform and genre let's say you know and barriers very much let's say you know grayer let's say and so on so I think people become a lot more platform agnostic

where people will just move between screens because everything is everywhere people are playing fortnite they're doing it on their switch and on their mobile and on their PC bya the same accounts it's that kind of somewhere it's centralized all the data and you can just push it to whatever screen you want another way of looking at it is audiences are looking for experiences the medium doesn't really matter now right and maybe before I guess was I remember when Xbox L it came out Xbox one it was like oh we have the second screen you know it's like we have her phone and we have like her tablet and so on well no these are actually just different medium mediums and they experience let's say follows let's say they player as well good example would be uh Call of Duty war zone right where you have Call of Duty war zone now on mobile let's say as well same progression you can do let's say your XP you can do your Cosmetics you can buy let's say and so on so when you're not let's say in front of let's say your Xbox or your PC or whatever you know you can do your grinds let's say elsewhere but what's really interesting is a lot of people are even just staying let's say on war zone as well and then let's say dipping into Call of Duty mobile as well for that other experience well given that that you've initially focused

on mobile now you've branched down into the other platforms we've talked about some of the similarities between these things what about the differences have you noticed that you have to treat certain platforms different than others with with what you do or have you discovered that actually it's a lot closer than you previously thought funly enough it's a lot closer than you think right again those genre let's say and those platform let's say and barriers let's say really come down what we're calling it is or a new new phrase alert right the audience web right okay because if you think about it it's like yeah you know I've watched Fallout let's say TV show and you see let you know people you know playing Fallout and the game went up like by 300% or let's say or something like that like you know really really interesting right and again there was a lot of like oh wow we didn't realize this was going to happen it's like well I don't think it should be let's say a major surprise right same thing let's say with Last of Us when they come on when it was out let's say HBO obviously not the biggest let's say bounce and so on but there was just so much more Fallout let's say out there and so on and it's again it goes back to audiences are looking for experiences I watched the show i binged in it I'd like to do some more let's say Fallout bang

there's like four games already there let's say that people can play there was a lot a lot of discussion after the Fallout show because everyone's saying this seems feels like a missed opportunity because as you say there's lots of Fallout games people canp jump into but the fact that there isn't a new Fallout prep to come out in the next month or two to coincide with this everyone's saying there would have been an enormous release for that game had it been considered or had people known it was going to be such a hit on TV indeed right now now we're going to come back let's say to my earlier Point let's say about engaging mechanics and so on so there was actually so bezza did actually have something let's say lined up which was the nextg patch let's say you know for Fallout 4 which again was really good granted it did come up let's say a week after right um but they also have a life service game called Fallout 76 right as you can imagine a lot of let's say the revenue went up and that people you know buying all of the stuff and so on sure there could be a little bit more vertical integration let's say with the show maybe having let's say a lot more let's say of the weapons maybe like you know the characters and stuff like that to really kind of you know pull people in a little bit and whatever but then

that's also another very interesting let's say game as well 76 where it's life service there were events and stuff like that but obviously it could be let's say a little bit more right and that's where I think developers should be really looking let's you you know to mobile and so on like and there's a couple of let's say big let's say games like um I don't want to mention too many of them right but there's a mobile version and there's a HD version and when people look at the events inside of the HD version it's like yeah I play it I have this AAA let's say experience but it's really just visalist let's say and stuff like that and I play it and it's like I I think maybe the the damnest praise I've ever seen where was like it's a great podcast game right wow which I think is like yeah okay brutal right brutal but but then they prefer to play the the mobile version because there's so many more events you know and stuff like that sure a lot of these events are designed to keep the Players let's say inside so maybe you can monetize more let's say as well but that's that's a lot of these aren't let's say necessarily P paid to win but it's like yeah you can monetize let's say if you want but we keep you let's

say engaged so imagine audiences are being trained let's say on a lot of this expectation let's say is there and so on so you go let's you know maybe to the same IP you're playing it let's say on HD and it's like oh it's a podcast game right maybe not the best what about genres themselves we talked about some specific IPS there but we noticed that hybrid casual is now generating say like 800% more monthly Revenue than hyper casual which was the previous kind of big explosion certainly on mobile do we think this is just a a fashion trend thing genres rise and fall and there's nothing necessarily that they were doing wrong it just their time came and their time went or do you think it's a situation where the people who came in for the the hyper casual games a very simple easy you know 30 second turnaround or even 10c Loops are now asking for something a little bit more do you think they're demanding more sophistication you got it that's that's exactly it right so if you think how games let's say we very basic let's say before let's say something what I always call like something like your mother would play it right now people laugh that haha but it's like yeah those

casual games that is the biggest entertainment medium on the planet right by like people oh yeah it's like the HDX no PlayStation is nothing compared to Casual games and even let's say hyper casual let's say inside there as well enormous just given the number of the people let say you actually play it but a couple years ago they were pretty basic right and then it was like okay maybe we want let's say you know audiences like maybe want like a little bit more and then it's like okay well what do they H and it's like okay let's put a couple of weight streaks inside there or let's put like some Collectibles because we know in casual that's what they like so it's really kind of slowly people are being slow boy let's say to it it's not that let's say you go and maybe not to knock them though I mean they're fantastic games but something let's say like a like a play rcks let's say game or a play Tika game or stuff like that you get in and there is so much going on maybe like a little bit maybe like you know too much but with the hybrid casual it's like oh I I can play a quick game but no I can play with friends oh there's a partner event oh there's Collectibles oh I can do let's say this renovation event let's say as well right and of course that's

the thing because audiences are looking let's say for more right plus it keeps them let's say more engaged well coming back to game Refinery what do you feel it is that you folks do different from other people within your field what would you consider your sort of USP if people going to come to work with yeah for sure so I think like a lot of the data providers let's say out there are really on revenue and downloads look let's go through let's say what's happened let's say on the market and again they're really really good at that I think that's very very important but with game refiner it's why has it happened you know and that's where we really get into like what are the building blocks of the games what have people been bringing right then what can you learn from that let's say as well then not only let's say about what have they've been bringing but how is that working inside the game so we have all of the Live Events let's say have the top games as well and then taking it to the next level again going back to the audience web right where on the motivations what motivates them let's say to play right you know and what are the different let's say player archetypes and stuff like that and then when you understand those how does that what let's say would be let's say those live event frame works that really work

with those and those features let's say as well because of course everything let's say is all they connected how have you found the Gathering of data has been affected by the sort of information clown that happened on the mobile platforms there was that little roll out you know a few years back everyone decided that you can't collect anywhere near as much data points as you used to be able to so how has that affected the way in which you gather and analyze data as a company well we are a little bit different right so we actually do all the analysis let's say ourselves let's say internally so we don't have any let's say dependency let's say like on external data plus we're all let's say on fact based so we're very good Nordic let's say company it's like look the facts are these this is how it is we're not saying oh we see let's say how things are going it's like look and it's really kind of let's say you know down down to that so it's not necessarily collecting data let's say on users you know so to speak but seeing what the reality is and then you can see the directionality and then you think oh okay I see things let's say coming let's say more from a macro let's say point of view as opposed to okay I want to Target let's say you know these particular like

you know players how can I bombard them throw the spaghetti and then see let's say what's sticks it's a it's a different way of looking at it gotcha but with that in mind usually I'd ask people what their plans for 2024 was but given given the nature of what you do what do you predict for happening in 2024 based on the the data you've been able to gather the trends that you're noticing the rise and fall what are you anticipating to see in the market both mobile and console over the next 6 12 months so so definitely a lot more let's say on the engagement the player engagement right that's definitely the real war zone right because players or audiences right it doesn't even matter oh I'm a PC player let's say or whatever I'm a PlayStation player they really only have a certain amount of time I'm always I'm always let's say reminded let's say of the the Netflix you know our biggest competition let's say asleep right so if you think of it let's say like that what media company would say it's like we want to keep people let's say inside so people pay a lot of money for like you know UA like you know trying to let's say you know um you know gather the users but keeping them in that's let's say the main thing and understanding let's say what do they want and stuff that's let's say you're going to see let's say a lot of let's

say companies let's say really you know looking at's it's all about retention yeah exactly interesting all right well finally you got to talk to you fantastic glad you were able to make it uh and hopefully see you at the next show maybe ABS a little bit dry thank you so much [Music]