GameDev Livestream: Shadow City Mysteries- Transmedia Worldbuilding & Team Empowerment

Unknown: Welcome back everybody. You are on the game development livestream or you're watching it anyway. You could be on it.

Jon Radoff: We actually have done that before and brought people in live. But this is where we talk about game development in the trenches with game developers working on games for people who are also building in games. It's my goal to just have you learn a hell of a lot from this. And my name is Jon Radoff. I am one of the founders of beamable. I've been a game developer before beamable. But beamable is a platform for building the back end of games. So all that boring online stuff that's fun to play, but really boring to build, really boring to think about. We do the boring stuff so you can build a great game. That's what we do. We've got about a hundred games live on the platform today about three million people a month are playing the games that are on the platform. So we are taking off and growing a lot. I'm delighted today because I've been able to get here on the stream. Someone with incredible background in game development leading games leading game development teams leading studios and also just doing what I think of as sort of innovative slash weird new stuff. We saw the shark tank based raise for a game or at least the attempt to we have you're doing stuff in Saudi Arabia with NEOM. So we're going to talk about stuff we have never talked about on this program before. And that's really exciting. But let me introduce Christopher Christopher rather than me introduce you. Why don't you just share us your background like what got you to this particular point in time and space today.

Guest: Sure. Thanks for having me on. So I'm Christopher Miffsood was born in the United States. I grew up in a comic store. I had a new age mom and a nerdy dad. So I was surrounded by nerdy stuff all my life. I started playing video games at a very young age, probably a tarry 2600 burned out a lantis cartridge. So I had to buy that twice. I didn't have to Nintendo NES went into elementary school at school in middle school playing tabletop RPGs with my friends and then got into college where I studied philosophy and religious studies, which seemed like a non mix. But didn't did some retail management and then got into video games while also pursuing a small short career and special effects makeup. So I did a lot of stuff. Got into video games, started out a typical game developer background. Of course, right. Yeah, good good. Good mix of everything right. So. Jumped into jumped in the video games because of that film background and also the management side of things actually actually helped me quite a bit and start working on an MMO called Fall on Earth and then worked on a game called Dexter for the iPhone. And nearly like 3G era of it. So that was a big hit went on to do quite a bit more games, move around the United States a bit, move the Canada for a little while, live in Quebec. Did some work for Fremont work for higher there did some cool stuff of them then moved to India worked for Disney there. Coolest title of my life associate director new experiences. So did a bunch of fun stuff with VR and XR and AR early days of it. Move the Malta because Disney Pivots all to save that and do a little bit of in eye gaming so do a little bit gambling games for a little bit and then. So Poland, I know been back to Malta and then been consulting and running a small indie studio since then.

Jon Radoff: All right. You have trekked all over the world.

Guest: Yeah, it's been fun. It's one of the best parts about the game industry is if you're willing to relocate. There's a lot of opportunities for you.

Jon Radoff: What's the pattern there? What have you learned about entering some of these regions? It sounds like some of them like India, for example, India still I would describe as an emerging.

Guest: I think especially when I was there that was like 2014 through 2016 was definitely getting you know starting to get hot and I think it's a lot better than it was before but even Quebec when I was there and that was 2011 to 2014 was emerging right I mean it was getting hot and the whole company's removing there and but the. The industry was growing there and then when I moved to India the industry was growing there I mean I think everyone's predictions were always a little off right like everyone was always like 2020 it's going to it's going to boom that area and then it was 2025 and now it's probably more on track for like 2030 but you know as as as an industry I think it's it's good and it's hot and it's moving on even Malta you know where I live now has an emerging industry here that's one of the things. I kind of enjoy I kind of like coming into ecosystems when they're just getting started and being in helping support them and teaching them like best practices and things like that and you know give them a little guidance on like how do you grow this how do you support it how do you how do you create an ecosystem when there's nothing there to begin with so.

Jon Radoff: So I want to come back to some of those learning experiences from essentially bootstrapping game development in new regions where they're. About game development but let's take a moment though like.

Guest: I'm not on what are you doing right now tell us about the studio and what you're working on today so right now we're a without little rock that they showed in the middle of the Mediterranean we have a I'm an indie game studio where we. We're actually a train train media studios so we're we're basically focused on creating original IP brands for you know for folks for everyone so there's a story for everyone in our first one. So we're working on is IP is a shadow city mysteries and so we've got a number of different products that we're creating and support that so the core game is actually the near adventure game shadow city mysteries clockwork noir so think blade runner by way of love craft country set in a Frank Miller since the kind of world so black and white monochromatic punches of color which are just metallics.

Unknown: And you're going to go to some sound there on that one to the the follow up for that and it's prequel is a series of visual novel.

Guest: Called case files and so there's six of those and they each tell a story of the secondary characters in the main game and the choices you make in those stories will provide you a code and then those codes are printed the main game and it'll set the narrative world set so. If you decide to kill somebody as the racking and his story when you meet them in the main game they'll might make mention of that or someone in the background well and then on top of that we had a successful backer kit last year where we did a tabletop RPG which was going to print later this year. And that is said in the same world where it's based on tnd 5th edition and then in a couple weeks we're actually having an actual play. That's basically said in that world we'll be running and you can catch that weekly on on twitch and youtube so yeah.

Jon Radoff: So transmedia is a word I haven't used personally in a while but I think I built transmedia games even though we didn't use that term there either but that I op and this is fun because I don't always talk about that on on this stream that before beamable I had a game studio called disruptor beam. We shipped a game of thrones game and we shipped the content update every week that was based on the TV show you just watched. I did a Star Trek game that tapped into I think the count at the time was about 700 episodes in the Star Trek backlog and we tried to bring all the characters back from all those episodes into a collecting economy build a walking head game. So was I building transmedia what is transmedia.

Guest: 100% yeah I mean transmedia is just taking a popular IP brand and then finding and then finding ways to bring it into other forms of media right appropriately there's bad transmedia out there right there's people that try to force into a comic or graphic novel or even a regular book bad storytelling for that it's inappropriate and that's when it's jarring you know people don't like that but you know transmedia is everything. Everything from Star Wars to Pokemon to anything where you know there's multiple media forums in areas for you know your audience to engage into your your IP brand and the idea ideally you're trying to create multiple ways to funnel into your your audience so they can enjoy it and give them other opportunities to engage in that medium and share it with other people right because not everyone's going to get into a video game or has the time for video game but a graphic novel. Short video clips tabletop RPG or great ways to introduce people to cool things.

Jon Radoff: It seems like the big shift in the last few years though is the direction of transmedia has changed it used to be that we were all out there like I was hunting for game of thrones so I can create a game around it because it had a huge audience. Actually I think I brought tremendous value to game of thrones I think we actually helped them build their audience because we had a game that there were 11 million installs on this game so we had this active audience that was coming back to game of thrones so I mean so it could be said that you were actually responsible for the success of game of thrones on HBO personally it was actually. That's what I heard maybe just a little bit but in fact it was part of their strategy that a game could help grow the audience. We were that game that they had it launched to help do that so I will take a very tiny piece of credit for it but all the credit really goes to George Har Martin for envisioning that world and then Dan and Dave for executing it pretty well at least for most of the first seasons of game thrones they did an amazing job so I like that all the way through I'm not a hater so yeah I like and it was just to rush it's just to rush but and I can't really agree as they they covered three seasons but too many times. There's three seasons material and one season and that was that was tough so you didn't get to see the progressive character development at the same rate that you were used to.

Guest: There's a lot of movement around an area that was much bigger than should have been right very quickly they're like one space I mean I know the riding dragons but they move that fast I don't know but yeah you're right but I think it's mixed right so there's hard transmitting the soft trans media right hard trans media is like Pokemon where they

Unknown: intentionally had cards cartoon everything planned out and they put it out there and then you have soft trans media which is something that just happens more more organically and gradually right star was actually was really kind of like that right the way it wasn't like you know now you have everything and you think back you're like oh everything was planned no everything wasn't

Guest: plan right the toys came out they built on it you know the movies progressively the expanded series which is kind of forgotten now or the extended university call it now I guess whatever so it builds out the thing is is like I think the problem is the reason why people don't jump into it right away is there's a high risk right like there's always the chance that you're going to create content that either your audience doesn't care about or your or your IP isn't even ready to rip enough and there's not enough people for it but the opposite end of it you kind of miss out on that zeitgeist of like the immediate appeal that people have of your product and they're looking for more stuff and it's not ready it's going to take two years three years four years right and then like I worked on a number of products I can't quite discuss but they're definitely at the tail end of their their lifespan and it's just kind of like why are we making a game for this now and it's the last season like it carries it a little bit of the long tail but like at all honestly like you know the you know, you showed that in the middle of the A4 or whatever seasons that any show had, right? You know, I mean, we looked at what I originally did, the Dexter game back in the day.

Unknown: Like, that was still in the mid, like, it's still had a ways to go before.

Guest: In fact, they even showed that game in one of the seasons, you know, as a like a preview, like, you know, the next season, they actually put the game in the TV show. So, it's fun. Yeah. It works out. But again, that's what we're trying to look at for, right? We want to make sure that like when we come out with our products, we have a number of things set up and ready for people who want all the shadows of the issues that they want. So, you know, they can get where they want.

Jon Radoff: Yeah, Crypt does ask, I guess this is about Game of Thrones because he falls up with some game cruises. Do we based on the book? Yeah, we actually, the TV series was not out yet at the point that we were working on the game. So, we had some graphics that HBO shared with us, like the Targaryen logo. We could use that because of the peculiarities of HBO, they had no actor likenesses. We couldn't use any of the actors anyway. So, we represented things iconically. But yeah, it was based on the book before we saw the show. But then we started being able to see the show like two or three weeks before they aired. So, we had a production process where we actually created it up until roughly the fifth season. At the fifth season, there were too many leaks getting out about what they were doing in the show. So, HBO actually locked it down. And what we had to do is actually watch the show when it came out on Sunday night. And then we kind of guessed what was in there, but as we'd have all also read the books, we guessed what was going to be in it. And we had like content ready to go based on our guests. And we were still shipping the next day based on what we saw on the show. So, but it got a lot more complicated. And fortunately, we built a production pipeline that was super fast. Ryan's mentioning how could have gotten 13 seasons. Yeah, I think Dan and Dave were getting a little fatigue there at the end, which is why that happened. And crypto does not like the way Ria killed off the main white walker in the end. Yep, we moved too fast at the end. But this is interesting because these are topics we don't often talk about. Or actually, I don't think we've ever talked about it on this program. So, this is just showing how it hates the audiences around this IP. Quick mention before I want to return to one more topic on TransMedia. But bit night earlier, if I can find the messages in here, was asking about beamable and our plans. And if I'm going to share it, yes, I'm going to be sharing some real alpha and beamable later in this program. So, stay tuned when I give out the code later. You're not going to give it out quite yet. We're going to give out the magic code for the leaderboards and everyone doing there. I'll share what that is. And I'll give a little bit of insight about what's coming right down the pipe. And you're going to want to listen and pay attention to all the words we're saying in here. But that said, it's coming later. And keep talking about TransMedia. Keep talking about all the topics that we've got here. And ask your questions. Because what makes this really fun as a stream is that it isn't a pre-recorded podcast. It isn't a pre-recorded video. We do this live for the number one reason. Well, okay, honestly, the number one reason is turned out that editing and all that stuff after the fact is too much work. I can't think of it.

Guest: It's too... For reals, it is. It's a lot of work. It's better to just let it flow. Yeah, so while it's using...

Jon Radoff: But the other reason, the strategic reason, not the tactical reason, is we get all of you here. And you get to ask questions live. It also makes it easier for me. Because then I don't have to think of every question. But we love that engagement with the audience where you guys come in and ask your questions. Sumon's asking, what's in your cupboard, Chris? Lots of miracle stories. I think he's looking at the boxes behind you.

Guest: Yeah, no, I mean, I've got lots of tabletop games and RPGs. And then, of course, like, the mask of Dr. Doom. But, you know, I've got... Let's see. Band by the Masquerade Rival. Shivers, which is this awesome pop-up board game. Flabbergasted, which is actually a book created by another company here in Malta. I work with them. They do a lot of our graphics and stuff like that. They're awesome. City of Mist is one of my favorite tabletop RPGs, which is the... It's own system in itself. And I know the team there. They're really great folks as well. So it's basically... It's all the books and Borgazam allowed to have. My wife keeps it to one shelf only. But you do see a little bit of overflow up on that top there. So that's... But yeah.

Unknown: What is that?

Jon Radoff: Chris Dick. Christopher. Yeah. So has, uh, has tried to be a flipped in the other direction though. But it has used to be that we all seek out game of front Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. All IP that I've either worked on or tried to work on. Two out of three of the ones I just listed. I never worked on Star Wars. Although people tell me I'm very fortunate that I didn't go down that path. Um... But now it's almost the other way. We've got last of us a follow up like... Dixits and the... ...have provided the foundation for really successful League of Legends, right?

Guest: You know? I mean, yeah. And the thing is it's like, you know, but I still think... I mean, that's definitely the way it's going. But I feel like again, they missed the zeitgeist of it, right?

Unknown: Like, imagine the legend's that it's...

Guest: I mean, it's still popular, right? And of course, our K&S huge, right? But they hit that a little bit earlier. I still feel like the volume that they could have gotten,

Unknown: like, money left on the table is kind of the thing with a lot of this stuff, right?

Jon Radoff: So... No, now where's the money?

Guest: Well, I just feel like... I just feel like, you know, it's a long-lived... It's a long-lived IP and everything like that, especially fallout. You look at that, um... You know, last of us is a little bit sooner. So that one, I think, actually hits about the right timing. But a lot of these could have happened right at the height of their popularity. And if they had something ready, you know, to go, it would have probably, you know, I think that spike is missed a little bit. There's a little bit of a drop down. And then you get a little bit of the return from, you know, the new audience that comes in. But ideally, you want to kind of, you know, it's like when you're chasing... When you're chasing, there's a... There's wishless numbers and the steam algorithms, and you're trying to get that kick that just keeps going as opposed to a dip. And then it and up. So...

Unknown: So just to kind of pivot to a different part of the conversation,

Jon Radoff: I talked about earlier, some of the different regions you've been involved in. So you talked about India, but we can bring a current to the places you're right now. So Malta, I don't exactly think of that as a game development region. I'm just curious, what is the scene in Malta and what's going on there? And then, and then after that, I want to talk about Saudi Arabia. Neon and what's going on with that.

Guest: So, so Malta, I'm actually a dual citizen. My father was born there, so I happened there like... I happened to write by chance, actually. I needed a Disney pivoted, and I was looking for work, and Malta happened to be on there. And I had been there before, with visiting with my family. And while obviously I got my citizenship, and then I really loved it here, because, you know, it's a new country. English is the primary language here besides Maltees.

Unknown: And then there was a growing scene here.

Guest: At the time, I didn't know that. In 2022, I showed up at a conference we have here called PlayCon. And I thought, and I was like, I'm going to start my own studio here. I'm going to be like the only one, but it's going to be great. Blah, blah, blah. And then I was, and then I found out about PlayCon, and I was like, PlayCon, what's this? And then I show up, and I get introduced to the folks that gave me Malta, who, you know, primarily they focus a lot on the eye gaming scene that's big in Malta. But they also are the team that supports our regular video game industry here. And I realized where I thought there was maybe five studios, there was about 10. And then every year it grows. Like now we're over 20 plus studios.

Unknown: And it's a very cool, tight community.

Guest: The cool thing is it's a variety of games. So, you know, like some regions that kind of like, it's a mobile country, or it's focuses on console, or it does this kind of thing, or, you know, or it's purely outsourcing and codev work, or whatever. But Malta actually is a variety of different, you know, we have teams that do kick-ass mobile games. We have teams that are doing like web browser kind of stuff.

Unknown: We have folks that are doing console and in PC, and VR and everything.

Guest: And the government is really supportive of us. We have a lot of great schemes here to help you do those kind of things. We're part of the EU. So the EU helps us too. So the like, we're part of all the creative Europe funds and everything like that. So we've accessed all of that. And because we're a small little tiny country, we get a little extra support. Because again, you know, it's a big emphasis for Europe and for Malta to build up the emerging technology and video games are included in that. So, yeah. And we have like I said, PlayCons coming up again in October. It's great. What's great about that is it's a small show. And we get a lot of publishers and investors that do come. And you're not competing. Like I love Gamescom. It's one of my favorite shows. But PlayCons are great because all the people who don't have time for me at Gamescom have really no excuse not to meet with me at PlayCons. Because there's only so many people to meet with there. So you're not competing with a ton of folks. And it's also what's great about PlayCons. It's a little mix of a B2B to C. So it helps educate the folks on the island that there is a thriving and growing video game community here. And it lets kids know and their parents know that,

Unknown: hey, this is actually a career that they can have.

Guest: So, yeah.

Jon Radoff: All right. So you said Gamescom. We were all there or we were there just a, I guess, was a few weeks ago now.

Guest: Yeah. What's your... I'm still chasing emails from it. But yeah, yeah.

Jon Radoff: We all are. It was an interesting time to just check in with the state of the industry. So the last year, like, it's been... If you look at the game industry insider type stuff, it's largely a doom and gloom narrative about layoffs and shrinkage and game cancellations. Where are we now in European Christopher and what happens next in this industry? Yeah.

Guest: I think... I mean, the money's... Money's... I mean, we look at numbers. Money's there, right? It's out there. I think it's...

Jon Radoff: From people buying games.

Guest: For buying, yeah. But I think it's... I think that everyone's expectations needs to reset a little bit. And I think people need to realize that you're going to have to do a lot more for a lot less.

Unknown: And I think, you know, when you go into that mindset and you try to be a little bit...

Guest: I wouldn't say bootstrappy, but like a little bit wiser with... The thing... The biggest issue with the gaming industry is we have a lot of really creative people who are just suck at business. And... Like, they make great games that do a lot of good stuff, but... They don't think, traditionally, like, the best way to run things. And sometimes they bring in people that are really good at business, but they don't understand games and creativity and so forth. And so then they take it to the other direction. And we end up with like end game capitalism where, you know, short... You know, big returns on short-term investments, but no long-term vision and everything like that. And I think, you know, it's balancing act. So the money's there. People are making deals. So there were a lot of deals I was seeing and there was a lot of conversations that I was having that I've never had in... So I've been in industry 25 years and I've had a lot of interesting conversations in the last three years when I started. The conversations were doom and gloom or not. Yeah, go a little further. Maybe do this. We will talk, oh, that's outside of their budget range. You have anything for like two dollars. And then we're like, what? And then... And then it's kind of... This year it's kind of moved to where we had the multiple offerings to bring to publishers and investors and they're like, oh, this looks cool.

Unknown: And some were like, yeah, that we could do. And other ones were like, we don't do that,

Guest: but that looks really interesting. And we could probably do that. And I've had other people that are like, we want to do all of it. And I was like, all right, well, let's have this conversation. Which I haven't been having. And so again, we... We... I think the key was being able to show that we have multiple projects. And we have community built up around it. And we have people that are interested. And I think these things started to drive whatever made up KPIs they were making up for the moment. But they've seen the kind of fuse together. Because two years ago, people were like, what are your... blah number? And you're like, where did you come over to that? And you're like, I would even have blah number. And they're like, I don't know. We were told that you should have KPIs now. So, you know, because we weren't asking for those before. We were just putting money behind bad stuff. I'm like, oh, all right. This year was a lot more serious. The conversations were moving a lot. I had people running numbers in front of me. I've never seen that before. Where they're actually taking the numbers. I was showing, breaking it down and being like, oh, yeah, no, I break even points to this. This is good. We could do that. But I was like, what? All right, let's do this.

Unknown: So, I was happy by it.

Guest: I was the energy was a lot better.

Unknown: And I feel like, again, I was, I was basically

Guest: the Oscar earlier. I was like, there's people that like, I couldn't even get a conversation with the last two years. That were just super excited. And actually like making a point to see me even though they were running late or whatever. And I was like, all right, cool. So, you know, maybe it's survivor thing. Like, I'm still around after a couple of years and still bringing, showing something. We're moving forward and we have new stuff to show. And, you know, it's making it through the, we just have an idea phase that people are always afraid of.

Jon Radoff: But, you know, well, there is a good point for just live to get to the other side of things in the game industry.

Unknown: And you survive long enough, maybe you can pull something off.

Jon Radoff: I want to return to the questions around, or the ideas around like, who does, who does have those pools of capital that we can tap into to build a game. But before I even get to that though, we've done a bunch of studios you're working on on one now. If someone is starting a new studio today, they've got a scrappy team of one, two, three, four, five people and they're going to make a game. What is your advice to them? What are the things to focus on? What should they be thinking about?

Guest: The, well, who are audiences? This is the key thing, right? I mean, you need to make sure that you're actually making a game for people that don't want it. So, I mean, we're not even talking about it right now, but one of the big things that I, so I work as a consultant as well. One of the things I consult with all the companies is I try to make sure that like, is there an actual market for the game you're making? Like, is there, is there, you're making just something cool that you want to make? Okay, cool. That did do that as a hobby or whatever. Or if you have an infinite funds, great. But if it's not, you have to be looking at it as a business.

Unknown: And so, like, who's your market?

Guest: What's the market gap? Is there anybody who actually wants this game? How is your game different than all the other games that are probably in the same genre and same locations that? And like, what's your differentiator? And if it, if you can prove it, and then actually prove that people want that, go for it. I do caution people, though, for making cool, don't worry, I don't want to say like, don't make something you're not passionate about. But, you know, just try to do some validation early on. There's so many ways to do that nowadays, with whether it's just showing images on like Instagram and running some cheap ads and just kind of see what your click-through rate is or whatever. You could do the, like, there's a lot of companies I know,

Unknown: a lot of a few companies I know that will create steam pages and just see what the organic wish listing on that is

Guest: and see if there's anybody who actually wants, you know. And then they picked the one that has the higher, you know, organic.

Jon Radoff: And it means startup. Like, 10 years ago when I built the Star Trek game, we actually did things like test, what should we name the game instead of us just printing it? What did we do? We ran four different ads for a game with different branding. And then we just, we went with the one that people clicked the most.

Guest: It's good. But that's better than you making the choice and thinking you know who your audience is, right? Otherwise, you just be, the problem, I remember 25 years ago my first guy in the show, I was at a GDC talk and they were talking about the problem is people that look like me are making games for people who look like me and, you know, whatever. Which is okay, except there's so many other people out there that play games and there's a missing market. And so, like, if you know who your market is and who you're aiming at and you make those things for them and you ask the right questions, you know,

Unknown: like you can tap into different markets,

Guest: you can make sure that you're getting what your players actually want and you can adjust things accordingly. And there's lots of fast ways to do it now. We get information and we have so much analytics and so much information we can tap into. Why not? But I think a lot of people still make the, well, our game's cool. So I want to make something cool. Like, that's like this other game exactly,

Unknown: except it's brown.

Guest: You're like, what?

Unknown: I don't know.

Guest: Ultimately, you should think that your game is cool, but you should also be in a position to be able to show that to people and like validate that other people find it cool as well. Exactly, right? Again, if you're doing as a hobby, nothing wrong with it. Go for it, right? Like do whatever you want to do. But if you actually do serious about a business, make sure you have a customer base or whatever. And make sure, again, your customer base doesn't have to be huge or crazy, right? But do some research, right? Like don't assume you're going to sell two million copies of a game when every other game in your genre only sold 200,000. Like it doesn't make any sense that when you're doing your competitive analysis and you're showing it to a publisher and you're saying, I'm selling two million copies. And they're like, how do you even validate that?

Unknown: And you're like,

Guest: so many copies we need to break even. And you're like, okay, but is that actually realistic for your genre and the game you're making? So a little bit of business sense, I think this is coming to play. If you're starting out, do that. The other thing is if your small team realize that you're either going to have to do a lot of stuff, multiple hats, which isn't a bad thing. I do that all the time. Or you're going to have to kind of, I really feel this is the direction of the industry. You're going to have to move towards more of a movie style thing where you work with more codev or freelancers and consultants that are specialists and what they do. And you bring them on board for a short term, but very specifically know what you want from them and get them to execute on it and then move on. That's how we operate. We have a small team of five, but I work with a lot of folks that I've met over the years and bring them in very specific things, like 3D character design, animation, mocap, whatever it is. They do it, they execute, we implement, we move on. We don't have to have a UX person for full time on our team. We just bring them in for what we need in the doing, they execute on it, we implement. But you have to have a clear vision of what you're doing. Otherwise, you're going to waste a ton of money, the other way of doing that way.

Jon Radoff: Like you said, there's nothing wrong with not doing that. If you just have an idea that you're passionate about, if it's your own model, right? So like Eric Veroni, the guy who made Stardew Valley, as far as I know, his girlfriend funded him for five years. And that's at least the apocryphal story that he basically was just living in the house for five years, making the game by himself. And I think he's made tens of millions of dollars off this game at this point, because the only guy doing it, I'm not sure he, I don't think he spent the first year crunching numbers in a spreadsheet. Okay, how do I optimize to a particular market? I think he just had a vision for what he thought would be

Unknown: a lot of fun and he did it.

Guest: And it worked out, he put it out there.

Unknown: But that's again, not everyone, right?

Guest: Like again, we could always look at the outliers and go, look at this person here. And then I can show you, you know, a thousand plus people who did the same thing and failed visually, right?

Unknown: Like so, you know, I mean, yeah,

Guest: I don't imagine when he made that, when he made that game, he was not imagining its success. He was not building it towards being a, there was no way he was like, I'm gonna make this thing and it's gonna make 10 million dollars, because that's the math I'm seeing. Like that was just like an amazing accident and an attribute to what he made of it. But yeah, there's been a hundred thousand other Stardew Valley derivatives and maybe a few of them, like Stardew Valley derivatives and maybe a few of them, like Stardew Valley derivatives and maybe a few of them,

Jon Radoff: but if you're watching the stream or you know where I could get on the stream, we wanna hear you tell the story. Like what did we do?

Guest: Oh, yeah, story too, yeah, yeah. That gave us incredible. But there have been people who've been making it, right? But again, you can do it. You can go, hey, look at there's an audience here. Hey, I could do the same thing, but you have to bake a game as good as Stardew Valley, you know, because there's Stardew Valley. So why would I play that otherwise, right? Okay, I want a little bit more variety. All right, well, but if it's missing anything, the people are gonna note that. They're like, this isn't as good as Stardew Valley because it's missing this, this, this, this. But it has this, right? I think Vampire Survivor is a good example of a bunch of people that took that very stripped down mechanic and they're like, okay, it's gonna be Vampire Survivor, but in a sci-fi distilping blah blah, or it's like, it's a very simple mechanic to iterate off of. And it's good. I know a lot of people doing that. I know a lot of people doing that and doing some cool, cool jams off of that. And it works. But again, like you said, it has to be as good as this, and then also fill some kind of gap in the market or something that people actually want or do does better here, here, here, right? And you can do that, market research, right? Go listen, go to the steam pages, go to Reddit, even though it's full of scummy villainy. Like check out those kind of things and like listen to what the people are saying there and being like, hey, we can make that better. We can do that better. Otherwise, I mean, it's the same thing. Like when you're pitching, when you're pitching to

Unknown: the to a publisher and they're like, so what makes your game

Guest: better than the other thing?

Unknown: And your answer is like, we're gonna do a cooler?

Guest: Like no, have some actual reasons, the kind of point to like, we've seen that there's a need or an ask for this in the market or whatever and then show them like numbers. I don't know. I know everyone can't do the business side of things and I know that everybody wants to pass in and wants to like, we just wanna make cool games and do the thing or whatever. I think you gotta have some business sense. And I think that's the problem is there's a lot of people without the business sense and this is why we've seen so many things like shut down because people keep thinking we're gonna print money and pass it out there like, you know.

Jon Radoff: Christopher, you and I I think could host a seminar or something because here's what I see here, I'll start with the problem that I see in most pitch decks and then what I usually end up telling people. So the main problem in most game pitch decks

Unknown: that I'm privy to are people are so in love

Jon Radoff: with the product idea, it's all they wanna talk about is the product. And of course, we have anyone who's gonna fund that expects that you're passionate about the product idea but it's kind of putting the cart before the horse because before you can even really talk about the product you have to explain, I think you have to prove a couple of things. Number one, it's exactly what you were saying that you understand, there's an audience out there and that audience is not being fully satisfied. There's essentially a market problem, there's a market need that if only these people got the thing they really wanted, you'd be able to sell a lot of copies of this game to them. So it starts with the audience in that understanding. I think there's another thing you have to be able to prove pretty well though which is that the team you're putting together, can you deliver it? It cannot only deliver it but frankly, where in such an unfair industry, you need the unfair advantage of not only being able to deliver and this might be what you're getting at, it's you probably have to be about the best team in the world for delivering that particular vision of the way that product should be and it's gotta be informed by something, it's gotta be deep next piece in that particular category where you saw firsthand what the missing piece was and if only you addressed that, you'd be able to deliver something, people just hadn't been able to play before but would if they could and there's not enough of that, hey, there's a great audience out there and by the way, we know this audience better than anybody else so we're the ones to build this. If you can do that in your deck, you're probably have a pretty good shot at funding it.

Guest: No, 100%. I mean, that's what I'm getting at, right? Like the things I always look at is like, who's the team, can they do this? What's the thing that they're gonna try and do, right? And then can they deliver on what they're saying with whatever it is, right? And that's how I want people to kind of pitch, because do I believe it, right? Like at the end, it's like, okay, it's a cool team, it has a cool product, them combined, all right, there's a timeline, the money, whatever makes sense. You know, you're selling a dream to a point but at some point in time, you just gotta be a touch of reality in there. You know, I think long gone are the days of people like throwing Hail Mary's for what seems like a good idea.

Jon Radoff: Irene is posting, I have so many thoughts. Irene is a game developer. So Irene, we want to hear from you, just post your thoughts and we'll talk about them on the program. But while you're gathering your thoughts that you want to post, I want to talk about Saudi Arabia and Neon. I'm like, so first of all, Saudi Arabia, what kind of game market is that? There's games that are going.

Guest: It's growing, I mean, it's very nascent, it's very nascent, right? But I mean, part of the Kingdom's 2030 vision, right? Is expanding on that market in particular, video games, esports, you know, I mean, doing a lot with other sports in Hollywood and things like that, but I'm mostly into the video game aspect there. And so they want to grow that industry there and that's either a mix of people moving to the region and there's people that support that and that's not actually what I work with, but I touch on them briefly. But they want to build that ecosystem there. And so the program I work with is accelerator, level up accelerator. So it's both Neon and DigiPen for the United States, whatever. So I work with the team there. I've been a mentor and part of that for like last three years. We're basically doing our third cohort. So the first cohort was four teams, the second cohort was six teams and actually yesterday and today, the new batch has just done their presentation.

Unknown: So we'll find out soon who gets into that program.

Guest: It's pretty exciting. It's a range of different things, right? So we have teams that are doing mobile. We have teams that are doing a lot of like steam and console games. It's a mix back. And this year it's even crazier. I can't go into details on all of them, but there's some cool stuff. And it's a year long program, right? So they get funding, but most importantly, they get mentorship for a year from some really experienced folks in a variety of different things. Financial, marketing, game design, production, business operations, business development. And we meet with them on a weekly to sometimes buy weekly basis. And we just get them up and running because the idea here for Neon is that they want basically sustainable businesses that when Neon is fully up and running that line, that super city that they're building, right? These companies will still be around and be able to move in and be a part of that bigger dream and goal there. And it's definitely been an exciting experience. But again, we're talking about folks that, like they're very limited. Over the last few years, they've got more and more training, more and more education and experience there. But basically folks that are just like we have a great idea, want to do a thing. And just trying to train them up and get them to be a sustainable business. And we've had a lot of success stories. Lots of them have gone publishers. A lot of them have gone in additional funding through Morocco and impact 46 and a couple of other things. So there's a lot of things going on there. That's really interesting.

Jon Radoff: So when I visited Riyadh a couple of years back, at the time there was a lot of interest in basically, if I wanted to move to Riyadh and sput up a studio there and employ local people and teach them game development, there was a hell of a lot of capital for that, if you wanted. It wasn't going to work for me personally. But I know of other people who have done exactly that,

Unknown: which I think points to, if you really want to build a game,

Jon Radoff: there is an aspect of creativity around the financing

Unknown: and the structure too, which is, depending on what unnatural acts

Jon Radoff: you're willing to perform in the process of building your game, there are options for you. One of them might be, there's not a Arabia, build your game there. They would love you to buy. They would.

Guest: Dubai, Dubai. I mean, the whole mean region is booming right now. They all do have capital. Now again, some of the, and it also just depends on what types of products you're putting out there. Like regular games are there, what three is really big in Dubai and also growing in, inside of Arabia as well. We don't do those per se that were three ones. But again, there is funding for that in the mean region. And the support's not going away, at least not for a while.

Unknown: So it's there.

Guest: I mean, I work at NIO and focus is only on studios that are in Saudi Arabia. This year, we opened it up to Jordanian studios as well. But like, Morocco does a program as well that they're doing. They're on their second cohort. I think they just closed the thing.

Unknown: But that's open to foreign studios.

Guest: But they do have to open that office in Saudi Arabia in order to get access to that funding. But it's a good program as well. So there is money there. Again, it's just, it always involves relocation, right? All these lots of countries want you to go to them and provide you lots of incentives and so forth. But it always requires you to have an office or business. And sometimes it requires you to have your main office there. So you've got to look at all the fine details.

Unknown: You've got to look at how, there's a whole bunch of things

Guest: like arms, length, rules, and other things that are interesting. So if you do have a studio in one country and another one, you can't just be giving stuff away for free between each other. There's a whole financial thing. You have to charge that company. I don't think they have other people to worry about that. But you do have to be thinking about it. It's not as easy as just opening a studio there and just funneling all your money over to you. That's not how that's supposed to work.

Jon Radoff: Right, so Saudi Arabia is one option for creative ideas that maybe some folks watching this weren't not fully aware of. But you mentioned earlier that you saw some of the publishers, for example, or certain to maybe open up the purse strings a little bit at this last game's comm. If you're a small team getting started with your idea, I guess there's two pieces that I'm curious that you've seen. How far along do you have to get with the game before you're really going to talk to a publisher? Can I? Are the days gone if I can throw together a nice PowerPoint deck? Oh, this is this Gen A.I. art and I can pitch my game.

Guest: I will. I think those days have been gone for a while. I'll be honest, I went to GDC in 2023 with just one piece of key art that I chopped up a bunch to put into my PowerPoint. And while I got a lot of people really excited about it, it's for the Shadows City mysteries. They were all like, well, get something to play. And then it didn't go, it didn't go to move along. Like I said, I got to games comm in 2023. And I had a early prototype that showed off movements, stuff and stuff. And the visuals and things like that. And they're like, well, maybe a little bit further. And then it's almost too a vertical slice for a lot of them. Some publishers want you to have almost a complete game. And I actually, in today's world, if I have a complete game, I don't know what I need to publish or for. There's plenty of other services that are out there now that will handle what a publisher used to do. So I don't understand publishers that aren't doing funding

Unknown: because that's, I'll be doing it around.

Guest: They provide a lot of other things. But a publisher will even tell you that. Unless you have your own community, they're not going to build a community for you. They're just going to leverage your community better for you. So there's a lot of things that it's just like, well, if you're not providing funding, and all you're doing is a little bit of marketing and then giving us better access to some of the stores

Unknown: and so forth like that.

Guest: And what's the point? And that's why you're seeing a lot of people providing services, usually x publisher people, doing kind of like that shadow publishing thing, which I think is a really cool concept, right? Where they do like a small service or a take. And then they don't do any funding, but they do all those other pieces that a publisher used to do. But it almost seems like even all the publishers are moving away because they don't have any, well, they say they don't have any money. But like, you know, they're just trying to get content because I think 2026, 2027, these pipelines that a lot of these folks had very full for 2024, 2025 or emptying out. And so they're trying to find any which way they can

Unknown: to fill those up. And you know, unless things take a heavier turn

Guest: by the end of the year, and early next year, I think 2028 will be in the same space. So, you know, we'll see.

Jon Radoff: Irene did follow up with a post in some of her thoughts. She's coming back to IIT adaptation. A market I'm done enough with probably for my entire life at this point, between Game of Thrones walking dead and Star Trek, and I could share so many war stories of this. You probably said in a program we should get some people to talk about IIT, but what Irene really reminded me of isn't just, I think sometimes people think there's a culture difference between the way games are made and the way TV is made. And that's 100% true. Like the whole process structurally is very different, and that's where things break down. But it's actually more than that. I think that there's actually huge incentive misalignments. So the biggest thing, and I talked to, like those are the three that I, well, and then Archer would be a fourth. Those are the four that I directly was involved in licensing building the deal. But I talked to everybody. I boiled the ocean talking to those, and I talked to virtually every of the, what you consider the big IITs. The biggest issue was that at virtually every owner of big IIT, there's a biz dev guy who works there, who cares about one thing. What is my bonus check that I get at the end of this year for signing someone up? And how big is that fat advanced check that I can get someone to pay so that I can maximize my bonus check? That's probably the biggest issue I ran into, which is just, there isn't usually, and I'd say, but what we found with, say, HBO, for example, like there was real strategic alignment there, they got it that wasn't about one guy licensing and getting a win. It was more about how do we build the program around the game as well as the content. It's a hell of a problem to find people who exist in these media companies who actually understand the potential of games to actually just throw off cash for a long time, if you would, right? There are potential to build audiences and to help you actually provide a lot of strategic value beyond the check. So that I found to be the biggest problem. And actually, I just counseled developers like, I'm not sure IP licensing, inbound IP licensing, is great unless it's a brand new platform

Unknown: where no one's seen it yet. Yeah. I have a mix back.

Guest: I had some really great experiences with some of the folks that I did, IP and then I have other stories that, it wasn't so much the bonus guy, it was the guy

Unknown: who actually had no clue about the IP

Guest: and was just pitching ideas that you're just like, do you not know your IP that you're representing because that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Like who would actually allow that? And I won't tell any of those stories,

Unknown: but there's definitely been some like eyebrow raised moments

Guest: in meetings being like, oh, that should not fly. And nobody should allow that ever to happen. The money side, I think that's always gets in the way, right? Like everyone's always like, what's the guarantee? What's the end result on that? What's the potential here? I think it works well when you partner with someone and they realize like there's more to it than just necessarily money. Like it's expanding your audience, it's creating a greater reach, creating like a better, you know, you're respecting your audience too, right? There's like, by giving them more content that they can, so sometimes, you know, I always discuss Transmedia

Unknown: as being a mix of additional streams of revenue, but also marketing, right?

Guest: So every single, when I pitch, I mean, in my deck, I'm not gonna show you my deck, but in my deck, I pitch basically all the Transmedia pieces I do as marketing that has the potential of being additional streams of revenue. And so when you look at it that way, you're just like, okay, well, I, because a lot of folks, especially IP folks,

Unknown: they understand marketing, right?

Guest: So if you just tell them like, this is a marketing thing, and then this you're gonna get this many eyeballs on your product and that's gonna turn around and potentially funnel a number of people, either viewers or potential sales or whatever to this, they go, oh, that I understand, right? But video games just direct numbers and sales, like, you're, you know, they're just like, is that real? Like, because they don't, you know, but I think that's changing too over time, that people understand that there's money in video games and there's actually more money in video games, you know, than in the other industries combined now, right? So I think that number's still true, right?

Unknown: We've out, we've eclipsed movies, music,

Guest: and everything else combined as a, as an industry. So I don't think that's changing any time fast. Now, the number of people that work in an industry is this is changing and going down, but, you know, that's,

Jon Radoff: and I wanna return to that.

Unknown: Team composition, staffing across the industry,

Jon Radoff: number of people who can work on this stuff because I think that's very topical for right now,

Unknown: kind of pointing to the, maybe the doom and gloom inero

Jon Radoff: of maybe what AI is gonna do to big parts of the industry, and there could be other reasons as well. Before I do that, we're coming up, believe it or not, we're almost in a row. Like so easy to talk to you about this stuff, Christopher, but I do need to share the code of this. Yeah, the code. Audience, because if I forget, you know, when game developers really fuck up and piss off their audience, this would be one of those. This would be one of them, I think it's it. I'm not in this code. So, and I'm gonna give you the context around the code everybody too, because there's a little bit of alpha coming away, but the code today is ticket. T-I-C-K-E-T ticket. How do you get that? You go to our discord, you type slash claim and ticket, and you earn your points towards the leaderboards and the final airdrop season that we're in. So why is it ticket? Well, we are minting the premium airdrop tickets on Magic Edom as we speak. It's happening, it's going. Next week, we're gonna be starting to mint the seasonal ticket. So, all the ticket, the minting on Magic Edom, it's all underway. So if you didn't know that, or you were just so focused on scoring the points, but you didn't know about the ticket that's minting, like I'm letting you know, it's all happening. So don't miss out on that if you qualify for one of those, that's happening on Magic Edom now. And there is so much happening, you really gotta be paying close attention to our socials over the next couple of weeks. Like now, next week, we are gonna be sharing a lot about the plans for the token launch and all kinds of other things, ability to maybe open up a few more nodes that we're gonna make available. We sold out the original allocation. We know that there's demand for it more from our community. So we're gonna try to make a few more available for people that wanna participate before we do the token launch. So all that's coming, that you just gotta be in there. You gotta watch what's going on. Watch programs like this, or frankly, the easiest follow me and be mobile network on X. That's the easiest way to learn about things.

Unknown: All right, Christopher,

Jon Radoff: let's return to like the systemic issues on the labor side of our industry. What's happening here? You said the overall head count is going down?

Guest: Yeah, it's definitely going down. I mean, I don't know if you're on LinkedIn, it seems like every other day, there's still, and this is not the laugh about, but there's a lot of studios being shut down still. And again, whether it's poor performance, just can't get the money back in. It's awful, what do we have? Is it 40K? I think over the last three years.

Jon Radoff: You see that being able to wear a platform and hear all the news from people,

Unknown: which is sort of like, we hear the good news.

Jon Radoff: Hey, I'm launching, but like sometimes it's funny. They launched the game, and then it just shows up one day and we're like, hey, that's awesome. Would have been nice to know that you're about to launch on our platform, because we want to help out if we can. So if you're building a game unbeatable, like let us know, we like that.

Guest: Like we can get a little marketing in there.

Jon Radoff: Try to help. Yeah, that's pretty good at it. Sometimes we have this community, we just gave around the code a moment ago. Like that community is 1.2 million people per month are in that community. And we've told them, hey, go amplify signal on a new game launch. And guess what? They do it, because they want to earn more points. And it gets widespread marketing for some of our pillars. So give us a heads up. If you're building a game unbeatable, we want to know. But if it's top secret, that's fine. We get it too. We've got some games like that going on. But unfortunately, we hear the other side of things. People have been working on things for a while. And then they're like, uh, we- This is the Greg Regg is bull building. And that account basically goes into Stasis. And we've seen more of that, frankly, over the last few months. And also just a lot of studios kind of hunkering down, almost in a hothin pattern.

Guest: Well, yeah. I mean, even we've had to do that a little bit, right? We had a pivot. Originally, we were, you're going to go full-bore into the, the, the narrative adventure game. And it's actually been beneficial for us a little bit, right? Because we haven't, we didn't go full-bore into that and finish that out. We able to pivot. We spend more time on world development and everything else. So, you know, we've got a lot more to work with for the main game, which is great, which means that it'll be even more full of awesome stuff that we're working on. But, you know, the industry is a little shaky. And I think it's going to continue to be, um, not great. And I think that makes what the worst part about it is, is there's a combo, right? So reducing teams, and then companies are hiring, but, you know, that, that ideal work from home situation is kind of going away. So people are requiring you to return to the office, which means that if you want to take a new job, you have to move your family or yourself or whatever, if it's just you, ever to a new location, which in these times is super scary. Like, do I want to move, relocate to a whole new place with, uh, and I've seen people get laid off twice in a year, um, you know, with, with the situation. So, and this with people like relocating, so you're going to relocate somebody with the off-chance, that you, you know, you don't actually have the financial stability to keep, maintain them, which again, everything's risky, but it's a really risky environment nowadays. So, if you're in the United States, it probably it's higher risk. I think you're up in Asia, it's less of a risk, because again, you know, the, I think the numbers are showing that there are jobs, just they're not growing back up in the United States as much as like other parts of the globe. So, again, if you're not willing to relocate and you're not, like, and also, I've moved around a lot, and I've given a lot of advice on, on moving around the world and working globally, but you have to realize you're competing with a lot of other people, and if you don't bring something special to the table, why is somebody going to pay for your visa and everything else through relocation, right? So, it's definitely not an option for a lot of people that are just getting in the industry either. It's for folks that are a little bit more veterans or whatever the problem is, the veterans don't really want to, you know, uphold their entire, like lifestyle and everything to a new country or whatever, you know.

Jon Radoff: But just, I guess the key question though is,

Unknown: is this a moment in time, and it's just state of the industry,

Jon Radoff: and then at some point in the future, like headcount growth resumes, or is this a sea change in the industry where just the team composition is changing, and it's going to be smaller.

Guest: The team composition is changing. I think it's smaller. I think, again, I lean into that whole movie style. I think it's going to be smaller team. I mean, you'll still have your triple A companies that want to do these huge things or whatever. But I think it's going to be a lot smaller teams, working with specialists or whatever to fill in those gaps that they need as they need them, and it's going to be project by project, not full project, right? So it would be space of a project there. I think that's kind of the way it's going. I wish I could say a little bit more. I've been, you know, again, 25, I saw it in 2009, 2010, 2015 was pretty bad, but these last three years of the worst I've ever seen in the industry. And I don't like the word right sizing. I think that's incorrect. I think it's just, there's a number of things going on in the industry. Now, I think in some cases, I think people over compensated and they're going to have to rehire in, right? So they cut a lot of jobs because of whatever they think, certain technologies are going to fix that right away. And I still think we're a little ways off of that. And I think there's going to be a rehiring in.

Unknown: But the worst thing is, though,

Guest: is the loss of specialists and the loss of knowledge that's going to happen. Because the thing is, I've always said this, is you could work in any other industry than the video game industry and make a lot more money. And so you do it for the passion, you do it for other things. But when there's no options out there and you're just tired, I think people are just going to go to other jobs that pay better, easier to do. And there's this huge knowledge gap we're going to be losing.

Unknown: So.

Jon Radoff: I've heard some people point to AI and say, AI is already reducing team size. And I very bullish on AI.

Unknown: I think it's a, I think it's a great tool.

Jon Radoff: Species level change for us. It's going to change everything. I'm a little more skeptical that on a big studio run, game projects are suddenly like drop in headcount because they're vibe coding and doing.

Guest: No, it's art. Well, if they are doing that, that's where I was alluding to. I think they're going to rehire back in because they realize that they cut, they slash too hard. And they actually, the functionality that they were promised isn't quite there yet. Now, will it be there? Who knows?

Unknown: Maybe. But, you know, the, the, but as a tool, things like that,

Guest: I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem with AI, but I think for full, I think they're always easy to be the human touch.

Unknown: And so, you know, there's a, there's always a better way

Guest: to go about it. But again, sadly, I think this is where you look at end game capitalism. And I think that's that's that's that's having a bigger play here than than actual. And this is where I'm hoping we get more indie triple high double A studios that are there for the passion or wherever and they, you know, guillotine the, the business people who have no idea, like,

Unknown: I've actually worked with a couple of really good

Jon Radoff: MVA. I do. By the way, so I don't want to make it a general. No, no, no, but, you know, they are punching back. So we'll, we'll say that anyway. Christopher, we're running up on the end of the hour. This has been a really fun conversation. I've got this developing idea and my brain of, I'm really, I'm going to do probably a longer stream. And it's going to be a pitching your game seminar because I think people need to hear this.

Unknown: I see so many bad decks virtually every deck I see for

Jon Radoff: game is terrible. I'll just say that right now. So don't feel bad if your deck is terrible. It just means you're the norm. Yeah, it could be a lot better and probably a very small amount of work, frankly, especially if you can serve the state back. Take feedback. Listen to it. Change it.

Guest: Alter it. I went through like a thousand different iterations from the beginning to the by-time I was on Shark Tank, which we briefly mentioned, but the, the, to where I got it and how I got it there was taking tons of feedback from people. Between every single meaning I had, I was adjusting my, my deck from the very beginning until I had gone through so many questions and answers and so forth that I felt like, by deck, by the cover to everything or most things.

Jon Radoff: So yeah, love iteration and velocity to, to values that I try to encourage people to bring into their game development. So when I do that, I would love to have you come back. There's one or two other why I have in mind for that will set up a panel will bring in game studios who can talk

Unknown: about their pitch decks.

Jon Radoff: Anyone who wants to use some live examples, this will be a lot of fun. I think we've got to do this. That's great. Help people in the industry. But this is our, the end of our time or we're two minutes over time today, Christopher. And we got to go back to building tech, building games. So this is it for today. I want to thank you so much for being here, Chris and also thank all of you in the audience. We've got 2,000 of you walked in live right now. We could not do the same program without all of you here asking your questions, posting your comments. I just get so much joy out of it myself. And hopefully you all get to learn something along the way. So thanks, Chris. Until next time, everybody, this is this is today's program.