GEC BONUS EP: What's up at GDC 2023?

Transcript

Phil: 0:00

Hey, I'm Phil, host of Game Economist Cast, I went to GDC for the first time this year. It was an absolute blast. When I was on the Deconstruct Fund podcast last week, I described it as something of a high school reunion meets SP dating conference centered around TED Talks. There's a lot of ground hogging, random bump ins with people on the streets. Some of those, sign my yearbook hags interactions, how? Can I help you type interactions? You never know who you're gonna meet at G D C. I got to talk to a ton of interesting people at gc. That's one of the most fun things about being there, reaching out, spending 30 minutes an hour. I had enough espressos to make the people of Italy proud. I wanted to record some of those conversations. People say interesting things. I think those things should scale beyond just the one person listening. And with their permission, I present to you a bunch of different conversations, some long, some short so without further ado, here's at G D C. bonus episode. Game Economist Cast.

Henrae Chen: 1:17

I'm here with Henry. What's up? What's your company? Company is Peanut games. We run web three Gaming Studio a bunch of free to play games that we're building right now. What we're trying to do here a, I feel like I've been in the web three industry for so long that I felt losing touch of what's actually going on in the game industry. So that's one B. We are starting our private round raise. And we had a bunch of set up meetings with investors and old friends. What are the investors trying to ask you? Oh, actually, they're asking us what is the appeal of the web three part. They're very curious about how this is gonna work because for them, they want. Completely seamless process where they don't even have to think about the blockchain. Cuz that's the thing that we realize and that's what we're doing you can just be really simple. Even a five year old can just access it. They don't even need to know the blockchain. What do you think is a product that's executing on this right now? I shit a lot on the web three gaming space. Oh we all do We all do. But it's ironic because I'm in it, right? But I believe that it's we're so early to answer your question, no. I haven't seen any things. So I hear this a lot. It's so early. When isn't it going to be early? When does this get mature? I have a very controversial stance on this. I think we're 10 years too early. You think it's gonna be 10 years in just infrastructure development to make I, I think 10 years till it's actually when everyone gets it, is crypto market growing or does it take market share from everyone else? I don't think it's taking,, I'm biased if you ask me. I don't see it taking. I think it's actually giving value to other industries because it's giving them a different revenue source. It's also growing their market share. As well, because it's a whole new audience, you're combining a lot of different aspects. And also gamers are just growing every year. Henry, it's been great to talk to you. Can I download a game for you in the app store? Yes. What do I search for in the app Store? Our most basic MVP version completely private just through our community, but you can download now, it's called Mini Bots on the app store. Feel free to. Join our Discord community and give us feedback. We're open to hearing all types of feedback. Thanks,

Ashan Naji: 3:10

I'm here with S in N. I recently just left Epic after 15 years at EA on their biggest franchises, FIFA Battlefield, within their central tech team, basically supporting every other piece of tech that they, every other studio that they work. My marketplace system that I built. Now in Apex, in every other game.. Has supported every other version of Battlefield, every other version of need for speed. So here's my. Actually knowing how to build and plan a live content schedule that's post-release is the next step of being production. So there are production attention to how you're going to launch and then how you're actually gonna have a content workflow and pipeline that lets you sustainably build and fill your players' expectations is the next major area that people are gonna need to start thinking about.

Phil: 3:59

So is that a process or is it like a piece of technology?

Ashan Naji: 4:02

I personally think it's a bit of both. So the process I won is just people caring about it. The number of times I got called in when I was at EA on, hey, this team needs help figuring out their life team. And I go in and go what's your life team like? We don't know. We're going on to the next project. I'm like no wonder your life plan's not gonna work.

Laura Tartino: 4:18

They come from console,

Ashan Naji: 4:19

they come from mostly console and pc. So a lot of these big legacy teams are always focused on moving people onto the next project and as a result, There are life plans and never as smoothly as they think it will, right? They're

Laura Tartino: 4:30

not into commitment. They're Hey, we got this thing done

Ashan Naji: 4:32

exactly too later. And by the time you figure out, oh, it's either great and we need to now feed the beast. It's too late. You don't have anything in your pipeline and you're screwed.

Phil: 4:41

What is the piece of tech you could build around this is it a workflow tool? Is it just in-house, more of the supply chain?

Ashan Naji: 4:46

it's about what is the value prop for your game. So the number of studios I know that work on narrative tech where the narrative is still complet. Into the actual final executable that they have little flexibility in what they can do to build more narrative quickly and efficiently. After that, adding quests, adding missions, you just saw a couple days ago, just yesterday, respawn Madison, Wisconsin has just been announced. Three studios, three studios. On Apex. Unbelievable. And what is the criticism of Apex since the day got watched, didn't have enough live content, cuz it's really expensive for them and the model that they have where a lot of their units of retention are built on mastery of characters, which for them take a really expensive, really long time to build. We have to ask, what's the AI angle, if any Is there. That it can play in the pipeline cuz it doesn't need to own everything. It can own something. It can do something better. I think there's a lot of things that AI can do. So we've seen in experiments that we've run in referrals that have had things like spout transfer, Hey automatically transition this entire level from this style to this style in an intelligent manner that considerably reduces the art production costs, the lighting costs, all of that stuff so that you can still get a similar looking level or a similar playing level that can be reconfigured. But it's now actually made to your game spec. because it's actually using good data as an input. Yeah, so I think AI has a huge role to play procedural generation and for like content and quest and stuff. You've seen things like the Nemesis system in shadow of Mordor, which works great at constantly producing replayable content, bringing something like that into a live game. Hugely valuable.

Laura Tartino: 6:19

Out curiosity for a AAA game, and I'm obviously coming from. My assumption is, so you want all these tools to build post-game content for live maintenance. But I'm just thinking like most of those, I assume most of those players just want like the PVP element. They don't actually want more campaign or what is the division do? Actually people want more of that kind of

Ashan Naji: 6:38

single player campaign. Really, it really depends on what the game is itself. Okay. So for example, if the game is Assassin Street. Assassin Street doesn't have pvp, but the person who is going to an assassin C Street is there for Story Quest based ppv. Okay. So for them, that's the kind of content that makes sense for a game like a battlefield where it's more pvp, then that makes more sense for them. The thing I think you see now is like the super mega titles, the Call of Duties, which have multiple modes that are meant to hit as many parts of the market as humanly possible. The PBE Campaign fans, the PVP fans, everyone, they are the ones who really struggle with having enough content in all of those areas. Call Duty does an awesome job, more PVP content, but if any, there's. Doesn't, buy if only buys it for the campaign, they drop out the moment they're done the campaign. So they're not staying engaged, they're waiting for next year's Call of Duty. Geez. And there's nothing that actually transitions anyone from one side to the other or encourages them to pick up and play the other parts of the game that they might not be right

Laura Tartino: 7:35

now. Okay. So one of those games you just mentioned that has a little something for everyone. Yes. Obviously, if they were gonna make live maintenance and have to cover every facet, that is a huge amount of work. Yes. So how would you advise them to

Ashan Naji: 7:45

prioritize? Advise them to basically take a long-term view and figure out what is the thing that they can do to efficiently provide content in each of those areas. I think an example that gets really broadly overlooked across the games industry, and Phil knows this really well, is FIFA drives almost all of its end-game content and is probably the absolute best about this with tools. If you look at what FIFA Ultimate team is able to do, and you said how many people are in their live content team? It's five people. So them producing all of their events, sales, promotions, everything, all those cards, it's about five people, plus a couple people who are involved in data collection. And by the way, in those five, I'm including art. So basically they're magicians. They are magicians. They figured out let's generate content with tools and have a data driven game. That's the thing that gives him a real competitive edge. That's very cool.

Neil Long: 8:36

Hello, my name is Neil Long. I run mobile gamer.biz. What's my hot take? My hot take is that American toilets are repulsive.

Phil: 8:45

Not just San Francisco toilets. Oh, it's American. Just appalling. Yeah, I've seen like really? Yeah. You've literally seen some chips.

Neil Long: 8:52

Another thing I saw earlier today is a guy clipping his toenails in the cubicle next to me. So this wasn't even on the streets of San Francisco? No. This is like in, in the cubicle, near the press for him earlier today. A man clipping his toenails. Why are you taking toenail clippers to. Which series of events Happens so that you are clipping your toenails in the toilets at G D C.

Phil: 9:14

Do you mind introducing yourselves

esports Guy: 9:15

justin Vagi, director of Business Development at Wisdom Gaming. And what does Wisdom Gaming do? Wisdom Gaming is a production and activation facility based out in Minneapolis, in the Mall of America. We have an 18,000 square foot facility where we do everything from takeovers all the way to high level productions. For folks like write games and Odyssey Interactive. Basically our pitch is very simple. You come with an idea whether it's cultivating it and creating an eSports ecosystem all the way to creating compelling content that involves influencers for your game launches. And we execute that from start to finish to make it so that it's super simple on your side. So

Phil: 9:55

We were talking about eSports earlier. One of the things I told you I was struggling with is my inability to find an entry point into eSports. Yes. So I've been watching a lot of drive to survive on Netflix. It's gotten best an F1.

esports Guy: 10:07

How do I get into eSports? Yeah. And I'm so glad you brought up Drive to Survive because it's the perfect use case, right? It's got

Phil: 10:13

mean f1

esports Guy: 10:13

what American Yeah, in f1. It's wild. The one thing I want to lean in on, especially because of your experience with Drive to Survive, is the content problem. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think eSports Kenley does a very bad job of speaking to the uninitiated, and what I mean by that is when you look at most eSports. The convert in regards to the number of people that own the game. To the number of people that watch that game's. eSports is very small. And this is like about as easy of a sell as it is, right? You're playing the game, here's the game at the highest level, watch it so you can be a better player. And yet for whatever reason, eSports doesn't do a good job. And I think a lot of that is because the industry is very bad at telling stories that resonate with people who don't know what eSports is. I akin it to a trip to Wonderland, right? Yeah. Where, usually, like for me, like I had somebody guide me through the rabbit hole, and when I was there, I was in it, right? But what we need here are more pieces similar to drive to survive, right? Where you're able to come in with no perspective whatsoever. And because you're given this really deep, intimate look. The players, you're understanding why it's more than just pixels. You get super invested. And looking at drive to survive is like a use case, right? If you look at the interest of F1 in the states before 2018 and after incredible skyrocketed. Yeah. And it's literally because of that one content piece. And eSports is still, I think every eSports team. Organization, it's still waiting on like that moment. So people need to

Phil: 11:43

tell better stories

esports Guy: 11:44

you think? Exactly. Could make this more captivating. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that we've taken, there's been a lot of shortcuts. You know, One thing I've been a little critical of in the past is say maybe like a a model where the shortcuts of that is just slapping a city name onto onto a team and then being like we've done it, we're reaching the gen pop. And that's not really. Accurate. Yep. I think that only whenever you can tell great stories and make it relatable to truly show the gap that exists between like your average player

Phil: 12:12

and a top level pro,

esports Guy: 12:13

like that's the only way you can get more people to buy it.

Phil: 12:15

I'm here with Meet Gokin of the infamous Vader Research Do you mind introducing

Mete: 12:20

yourself? I work as an economic design consultant, helping electric games build sustainable economies and Build economies that align incentives across different stakeholders.

Phil: 12:30

How is the web free presence span are people

Mete: 12:33

showing up? I was here last year as well, and there were a lot of projects, but this year it's just,

Phil: 12:38

A lot of projects. Anything that's stood out to you, any interesting.

Mete: 12:42

No. I think the web three guys spent a lot of money to, to get the best booths. Who is the most

Phil: 12:47

impressive

Mete: 12:48

Web three booth I think. think Avalanche.

Phil: 12:50

I'm with you on that one. Yep. It's got that big circle circular like banner. It's got a nice big,

Mete: 12:55

That was pretty cool. Gaming chairs. exactly. And other than that, they're like, there are a lot of diff interesting. And projects. But who knows which, who knows whether Webre gaming is, whether it's gonna be a big market as expected. Or whether it'll stay as a relatively smaller niche. That when I say small, maybe as a market size, market value, this might get big. Yep. But in terms of the size of the audience, it might stay small. And through having conversations with the smart people like you I am leaning towards more the latter. Ooh. It stays as a small

Phil: 13:35

audience. Do you think AI's like the bigger story coming out of G? Yeah, definitely. I haven't seen as much integration of Web three and AI as I expected. Yeah. I thought that would be like a double buzzword, but it feels like the temperature's kind of cooled a little

Mete: 13:48

bit. Actually there there are like a few, there's actually. Very well venture backed company.

Phil: 13:54

I do have to ask, Has there been a good party you've been to? What has been the best party you've been to?

Mete: 14:00

I haven't been to the party I was like at bed by 10 30.

Phil: 14:03

Boo.

Mete: 14:04

know, Waking up at six, seven and having meetings all day. Oof.

Phil: 14:08

When you talk to the different people here, particularly with the VCs, are anything that like they're finding interesting? Any questions that they're trying to have?

Mete: 14:16

Yeah. I think there's a narrative around building games for the high LTV audience, for the small high LTV audience that is I think realistically VCs like metric gaming vs. Have realized that AAA games are probably gonna, it's not gonna be that easy for AAA a games to be successful cuz they're gonna be competing with. Free to play competitors in addition to having the struggle to build a very, sophisticated, complex economy, which is tough. So what we're seeing more is, these game studios or these I don't know, actually publishers projects and already have an existing audience of high LTV users, which. We don't mind spending money on, risky, volatile assets that might fluctuate in price, Do you find that they're

Phil: 15:04

dedicated to Web three? Is there anything preventing a web three VC from saying, Hey, we were interested in more traditional gaming, or is that just counter to their thesis?

Mete: 15:13

That's, that was tough because when they raise cap capital from lp, they raise with the narrative of investing in that tree. And it might be tough even like Reg from a legal perspective, but also I think Tre gaming provides early liquid liquidity Because of to token aspect And VCs love that.

Phil: 15:33

Turns out cash. Cash is good. Cash is king. Exactly. Exactly. Meet, Great to meet you. Good luck in Istanbul. Yeah. A safe flight home. Yeah.

Camille: 15:40

I'm Ka I'm a project manager in the video game industry.

Phil: 15:43

So first gc, favorite moment,

Camille: 15:46

favorite

Phil: 15:46

It's last day

Camille: 15:48

At gc I learned a little bit about, work, of course by the talks course, but also all about myself and the type of games that I like. Are you in crypto now? I'm, no, I'm not in crypto. I really enjoy like cozy game And I've heard that there is a genre of it, which is called all some games. And I did, I wasn't aware of it. So now I know a little bit more about it

Phil: 16:06

hello, I'm Jose. Hi, Jo Josay.

Jose: 16:08

Where do you work? Working at Behavior Interactive. Head of Product Strategy.

Phil: 16:12

And what has been your favorite talk? This G

Jose: 16:14

D C. I think there have been a couple, which are really interesting. One was discussing about audio build events connecting to emotion cuz the game is very much about emotion and they don't want to make just any other event with very cosmetic et cetera. So how do you. Events which connect well with what they were trying to achieve with the game, which is this childlike childhood memories trying to build. So they build some cool stuff from music, for example, where you build those activities where you have a kind of a memory of the events that you are going to keep forever. So they did something pretty cool. When you go back

Phil: 16:50

to your roadmap, is it going to look like a mood board in the future? I,

Jose: 16:53

I don't know. But, There is another one, another tool that I did which was from the team working on. And it was about 10 live service lessons at the loan. Yep. And they mentioned, for example, this knockout city interview example, which was all about. The cosmetic type of economy is all about scale. And ultimately, thinking about Sky and thinking about Dauntless, what it gets to me is you need to understand what game you have in your end. Not just trying to take all the best practices which exist, and you cosmetic store, and an event, and a battle person. Because if you don't have a game for those things, don't make those things and try to understand what your game is about. So that was really good.

Phil: 17:31

So my name is Stan

Stan Kwon: 17:32

Claude, CEO of Beta Hat. We're consumer insights agency based in Oakland, California, working on games and technology. Anything

Phil: 17:38

interesting you've overheard at G D C Some

Stan Kwon: 17:41

of the more interesting things I've heard about is a shift back into AAA publishing, being front and center. Let's talk about web three. Let West Less talk about crypto. I was expecting to hear more about generative ai.

Phil: 17:54

You think it's too early?

Stan Kwon: 17:55

I don't know if it's too early, although where I have heard about generative ai is when you have people who are throwing a lot of the buzzwords around and combining everything together and saying Web three and general AI in the same sentence. And I've heard that.

Phil: 18:08

Do you have any hot takes coming out of this?

Stan Kwon: 18:11

No. As a

Phil: 18:11

researcher, I'm just listening. Has there been anything that's. Stuck with you as a researcher.

Stan Kwon: 18:17

What I have seen is a renewed interest around understanding players. A lot of interest around UX research. Some of my colleagues who are in the UX space who are doing talks on UX or posting events, those have all sold out.

Phil: 18:32

Why do you think driving that Why would people going back to UX now, I think

Stan Kwon: 18:36

the UX to me is essentially an insurance policy that you're going in the right direction. Okay. And my guess is in a period where it costs a lot more. To borrow money. Or it costs a lot more to develop something new and there is more risk aversion. I think UX research or research plays a larger role in making sure that you're going in the right direction so that you're not losing any money over time. So I think just having confidence in the decisions that you're making, I think has more value today

Phil: 19:12

do you think people wanna fail faster

Stan Kwon: 19:14

almost? I think in some ways yes, but I think they want, if they do fail faster, they want to feel that is, that was backed by some type of information. That gives them the confidence that was the right move

Phil: 19:25

to make. Data driven, empirically driven. Maybe there's, science

Stan Kwon: 19:29

is a buzzword. I hate the word data driven, but I think empiric two of us empirically driven. I love it is better. Love it. I

Phil: 19:34

love it. I'm on that train too. Totally. Cool beans. How can people reach you

Stan Kwon: 19:39

they can reach out to me over LinkedIn. You can just find me under Stan Kwan. My company name is Beta Hat, b e t a h a T. Also my email address is stan beta hat m r.com. And we also have uh, website.