Why mobile gaming matters to Activision

I'm gonna have a discussion about where triple-a publishing fits in the mobile market what the attitude of to play pubs is it so I'm absolutely delighted to wealth of the stage Activision's vp of product management strategy erico dangelo who'd like to come and join me we've got water we'll have a fire shortly oh okay people going in people coming out right we can have a fire q fire that's cool alright um Erica how are you doing good it's good so first off just for the benefit video and for buddy can you explain what is what you do is we can fit in sure so I'm basically responsible for everything free to play under the call of duty banner so we have a PC business and a mobile business the piece of business is

actually not very well known because our big game is only available in China it's a call duty online so it's you know reasonably big down there but we haven't really made a decision to bring it over to to the west yeah and then on the mobile side you know where the few products out and hopefully more to come okay um so let's let's let's let's kind of crack in it so obviously mobile according to you can kill you in various different ways but mobile is currently there appears to be the biggest part the games distri currently it's kind of gone from being like a little bit outside a bit just just sort of taking over off so it depends how you cut it in which part of the country but um some point is it for triple-a games publisher you're doing quite well and piecing consoles right ah well I think it's very important obviously we look at the market continuously in strategically and obviously mobile is a high-growth segment and that's undeniable and is every everybody knows that right at the same time we also know that our game is

our communities are very engaged in mobile so in the india we're always striving to engage our communities on as many platform as we can and get our brands in front of them all the time and have them engage with our friends all the time so we know that they love mobile games they play a lot of mobile games so we have to be there because we want them to consume our content on mobile as well and we also believe that triple-a franchises are actually very powerful mobile I think you know the what the two talks that we listened to you know previously thing confirmed that and we absolutely agree with that I think especially in the environment like today's where you know user acquisition is getting really tough yeah having a brand that already has a user base a huge user base of gamers yeah is a big advantage yeah yeah no fair enough no it's a very interesting of dance to talking about how you can adapt the game as well yeah I think obviously there are different players in

the mobile space different established players and I think aside from PA you kind of approached you really any jammed out and they kind of went in the popcap later in games triple gauge spokes you were quite late to the party that's why he's quite kind of slow to embrace I do you think it's any reason for that um ah you know well there's many reasons I think I think you know I think it depends on the publisher to be honest that you know some publishers are more open to experimentation and you know seeing you know new markets in your portunities and jumped on them and try until they succeed other publishers are more you know careful and they want to see a proven business model repeatable business model yeah before they actually jump in and make the investment so I can't really speak to you know other publishers strategies but as far as we're concerned with obviously obviously you know follow the market for a while and you know at some point we decided that it was mature enough and big enough yeah you know to you know to make the

genocide attends I've got picked up and I was like that pavement is reasonable exactly I mean Activision is all about big bats you know your father is very focused you're all about few very big you know bets and games and I think you know the same approach would be yeah well it's just you made a big batter now it's there is a good acquisition huh I guess you obviously say you're charging kind of cool duty is is it do you think that that connectivity and other the plugs are seeing it as a space for extend existing franchises or something to play with kind of new franchise so I would say that we obviously play this bass to our advantage yeah so we have a built-in user base and community that is very active there lots of brands and you know I think it would be unwise to start you know by not taking advantage of what we have sure at the same time you know it is our you know strong conviction that if we do something on mobile it has to be made

for mobile so taking a successful concert product and you know copying it on on glass yeah we don't think that's the right way to go and I mean I think there are plenty of examples of you know games failing because of their or games that didn't do that and succeed it so whatever we do you know it's fair to say they will be built you know from the ground out yeah go for mobile and you know likely leverage get batteries that we have as far as our communities no no that makes our assistance I think so skipping sites to the global market a little bit this sort track is east meets west we will later on we talking about the sort of Chinese Japanese Korean markets um obviously biggest suppliers like content and Softbank and the ease are now competing head-to-head in this market with kind of Western ones and it's obviously been a very big acquisition from Tencent recently um juju does this kind of drive a different approach or do you just kind of stick to your strengths and going what would you know what you're doing I don't think he

does a different approach when it comes to the west I also think that you know China and I mean I talked about China because it's the market that I know you know best I can say I've spent too much time in south korea japan but you know China is an incredible market it's growing it's still in its infancy and as far as you know what's possible and what has been done so it also i look at that as an opportunity for you know Western brands and publishers publishers to actually establish you know products in that market at the same time you know it's a very different market from mobile wise what we know here you know gamers have different preferences the genres that they play are completely different if you look at the top 10 in China yeah you know most of the games are you know ports from pc and you know the biggest genres are the biggest runners on pc from MOBA to shooters to you know hardcore RPGs and if you look at our top 10 it actually looks quite

different yeah and so you know I think you need to understand what that audience wants to you know create you know the right product for that audience and again it's easier said than done you know there are examples of Western companies that have done very well in China mean we always a blizzard is one of them here they are stone has been really doing really well down there you know supercell obviously you know is doing fantastic job now there but you know generally speaking it's very hard yeah especially for specific genres and IPS you know it's a matter of you know controls and meta game and you know visuals there's a lot of adaptation that needs to occur and I think you know obviously I'm we work with ten cent on our PC product and I've seen it you know first for you know firsthand what it takes to actually take a established you know brand like Call of Duty making a shooter so we're not even making like

something different but the amount of detail and work that you need to you know to put in to you know create something that is compelling for for that audiences is massive so it's an opportunity I would say but not something to be taken lightly and I'm convinced that a partner adds a lot of value in that context yeah yeah okay know that that makes absolute sense um I guess obviously you've got that you've got a cool cos platform Browns you've got things that very successful on console versions of it versus on pc do you see back in a day used to be the idea that mobile was going to be this kind of augmentation of those things that was going to be this kind of third screen gaming and stuffed it right is that is that something you can't believe in do you think that that's something that yeah I say is kind of it it's something that the compliments rather than this game experience masone was it'll be us up well I mean I think that the idea of second screen as yet to catch on as far as a purely you know complementary or companion color experience what I think the other day each experience on each

screen has to be compelling by itself if there's a good feature they are not moving to the second screen and it's a good feature you should probably be in the main product anyway yeah so I think that second screen is powerful in terms of extending the world or connecting the users to the same lore and I think you know fallout has done a great job with the other issue shelter yeah I mean it wasn't a companion experience in a sense that he connected in this game the boxing I was like you know they did well and and you know commercially and I think it was a very powerful tool to actually really advertise the game and get people thinking about the game months before the game actually came out so I believe in that model I think that just you know moving features out of a game to put them on a screen almost there doing a disservice to you know to the players again it's if it's important you should be in the main game and if it's not important why would I want to use the you know the companion FML make some systems another big trend right now

on which we can talk about a layer today is it's going to eSports eSports is whole and tickly mobile eSports obviously is it a very hot sore topic do you think it obviously from from you know you have games that have been using these sports and can be use knee support me out activision i was looking through that very seriously and do you think has a kind of a big role to play in the future of that I think so I mean I think it all depends on soda genre and the games are popular and you know obviously sports works well with some and not so well with others yeah I definitely see you know competitive games and synchronous competitive games you know becoming I think they will become more and more prevalent you know as you know genres evolved I think we are in a bit of a it's a turning point as far as mobile genres I think we've seen a lot of the same genres with different you know products attach them being you know pushed out over and over again and I

think now we're looking at an evolution as far as you know the underlying technology that allows you know players to really engage the same way you know they engage on other platforms in the competitiveness is a is a basic human you know need or something that people really like to do regardless of where they are and obviously it in different terms depending on the platform but there's no question in my mind at some point you know I don't think very far into the future people will start looking at competitive games on mobile and at that point and synchronous competitive competitive gaming and you know right now and there's only a few that I you know reach success I mean class reality is obviously one you know art stone is not really synchronous but you know I think it's close enough to indicate that you know there's definitely an appetite for that type of you know had to had gameplay so you know and when that kicks in I think the eSports will be a natural complement to you know to that type of game playing and I think that communities will really embrace that so yes I believe in eSports obviously we

call of duty on console we have a lot going on with MLG but I think that as we as again new genres you know appear a mobile i think is possibly a big component and if you look at China there you know in many respects gives us you know a glimpse into the future now it's true but you know it's often true you actually see sports you know on mobile being actually quite developed yeah and you know this you know money is being invested in big competition it's purely a mobile cell yeah you know that makes that makes sense um like the questions I think one question I've got here is that Activision and the big companies like you used to spending a you know invest in incredible mouth in games they're very very big very very big budget projects and I'll obviously my ball what was kind of getting larger but did you see a time where you know the activision

rather play would be spending the same amount on it on a mobile title as as a carry thing that can console and PC time I mean I think we'll eventually get there you know I see I definitely see the level of investments in mobile projects you're only going up yeah that's driven obviously by you know marketing costs which are you know already through the roof and you know it's true I don't see that you know coming down a time soon but I think also in terms of you know technology you know supporting games I think that will also require you know you know a heftier investments you know I talked about you know PDP and synchronous competitive gameplay and obviously that is that requires you know infrastructure and it requires you know tech that is there needs to be built and you know though there's already there are already examples of that out there I don't know if they are you know as good or as or comparable to what people are used to when it comes to you know the compelling platforms like such as console and PC so so I think building

that infrastructure will require in additional investments and you know just you know III think you know and if you know the industry is an example I mean if you look at you know what console gaming console investments in console games where you know ten years ago five years ago and what they're now I mean it they only go in one direction so I don't think mobile is going to be anything different no it's definitely over see as you said that it's the back head marketing spend it want to be the front-end development spending but the spend on marketing is probably it for I think similarly I think it's both obviously the marketing is going to be the biggest ticket item yeah but i think you know if again if you want to create that seamless you know experience competitive experience I think you know that also is you know pretty pretty major undertaking yeah and a lot of the you don't the smaller studios might not have you know the capabilities or the the expertise to do that yeah so you know back to your question I think you know in that respect you know we have you know an edge you know in that

respect me I don't think it's just you know the financial point i think you know money in a way the commodity but i think is about expertise and about and brands yeah the brand is obviously yes a shortcut to the user acquisition as well no obviously yeah i guess did you you might be able to tobias but bit are you seeing that there's a kind of significant cross between the people are playing your console on pc games and the customers that you know are there for mobile games or yeah absolutely i mean we we definitely do i mean we we know that our community as half sounds pretty pretty well yeah art I think it's probably an extreme example of like hi very very high over overlap between the two communities but even if you look at the call of duty community they're absolutely engaged in mobile games the beautiful thing I think is you know when you have a community that revolves around a game you know when this community translates pretty well into mobile and then I think that's the

powerful of gaming brands as opposed to just brands yeah because you know people are attached to the brand because they are attached to a specific game experience absolutely and so when the game experience or some form of that game experience is available on the other platform you see people really engaging strongly and you see actually better metrics because of it yeah so yeah I mean that I think the the fact the community is definitely translate very well across across platforms i think that the trick is to deliver the right experience on each platform yeah and that's you know the that's the biggest challenge one more question on my apprentice it as an audience question um obviously the I've been through the last 10 years and mobile its kind of changed a lot and the premium you know I'm a battle in its premium versus premium that's not that's not about people talk about so much these days so you know obviously the Frida playing games the service model is dominating mastery in the mobile space and it seems to be from an outside perspective some

more versatile you know more news to mobile answer consort seems to be the same things kind of happened happening steadily with kind of out of a DLC or subscription services or yeah is you see more and more those techniques can be coming across to console and PC yeah I mean absolutely i mean it's you know on pc i think it's kind of old news like it's you know yeah pc for to play you know it started yes one time ago but definitely console games are moving towards the more engagement centric model so engaging consumers you know throughout the year yeah and obviously Mecca transactions it's there's a live ops component to it which is you know how do I make sure that people you know come back and enjoy new content fresh con there's always something new to do yeah and obviously micro transaction is how you you monetize that engagement but I mean absolutely i mean i think there's a there's a huge effort going into into you know even console games and and I can speak for our games but i think is true you know across the board if you look at all our competitors you know from you know EA to take two they're all like embracing i think that

model yeah so i don't know if we're going to go free-to-play on constantly time soon but as far as you know back and yes absolutely yes they were well we'll keep on yeah do you have a question from the audience I've got a couple more but I've we've got back to three minutes left so anybody got a question this is one of the most powerful games to use in the world here a chance to ask them something awkward they won't answer so no questions although very quite the very timid it says I think it's the heavy night last night that it's caused them so i guess i'd asked for you what what you know what you see is the most interesting or so challenging aspects most most exciting i guess most challenging aspects of working mobile compared to the platform so i think what's exciting is although everybody or not everybody but i hear a lot of people say that the market is mature yeah i personally think we're just the beginning yeah i think that you know if you if you think about you know consoles pre you know the online sort of revolution that happened around you know early 2000s you know you

would see you know people say well no this is it you know single player games you know people are spending money and and then you know call duty and medal of honor and you know halo came in and then boom you know this whole new market opened up and I think in mobile we are at the at the end of that first phase and I think there's so much more that can be done and again I tend to use China as an example you know they are fully engaged in online multiplayer you know games and there you know hundreds of million people that play yeah so it is possible it's it's been done right now and again at the end early that the the basic Porsche or the basic needs that make people engage in these type of games are the same you know people love to compete people love to play with you know one another and right now I think what you see in mobile in the West is relatively simple compared to what could be so i think that the future is actually very exciting okay and you know to the second part of your question well

obviously is not easy to pull off so that's the challenge you know translations translating you know what we know in console and pc to mobile one to one is probably not going to work and so we need to be really thoughtful about how you know we we make that we translate that experience to mobile but ok I think we're we're we're in a pretty good spot fantastic ok well thank you very much in the last seven seconds if you come around applause please for chrome Rico