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Navigating the Game: Pasqual Batalla on Leading Sandsoft and Barcelona's Gaming Boom
62 Plays6 months ago
Welcome to another exciting episode of Player: Engage Podcast! In this episode, we dive deep into the gaming industry with our special guest, Pasqual Batalla, COO of Sandsoft. Pasqual shares his journey from engineering to leading a gaming company, the growth of gaming in Barcelona, and the future of Sandsoft.
Episode Highlights:
- Pasqual's unexpected path to becoming the COO of a gaming company.
- The rise of the gaming industry in the MENA region and Barcelona's role as a tech hub.
- Sandsoft's mission, vision, and strategy for the future.
- The importance of fostering a people-first culture in the gaming industry.
- Pasqual's insights on the evolution of gaming and the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Featured Guest:
Pasqual Batalla, COO of Sandsoft
- Formerly at Socialpoint and Ad Science
- Passionate about supporting the economic, social, and cultural life of Barcelona.
- Enjoys playing casual games and social games with his kids.
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review if you enjoyed this episode. Stay tuned for more insights into the gaming world on Player: Engage Podcast!
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Transcript
Introduction to Pascal Pattaya and Sandsoft
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Player Game podcast. Greg here. Today, we're joined by Pascal Pattaya from Sandsoft. He has a really cool background. Was at some big studios at Social Point. Here's another game called Ad Science. And he is here in San Francisco joining us today to learn a little more about gaming in Barcelona and Sandsoft and everything. So, Pascal, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything that you would like to share with yourself?
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello, Brett. Thank you for inviting me to the podcast. It's a pleasure to spend some time with you and your audience to talk about the gaming industry. Yeah, I'm excited. This is a conversation I've been looking forward to because in the gaming world, the whole Mina, which is the Middle East North Africa region, is really starting to see a big boom of gaming companies coming into the scene. And Sansoft is one of the main ones that are helping lead the way. So I'm excited to hear that. But mostly as well as you starting your studio in Barcelona because that's
00:01:00
Speaker
fascinating. I'd love to learn more. So before we really get into the weeds of things, I really always like to ask my guests the question of how did you become the COO of a gaming company?
Pascal's Gaming Journey and Leadership Philosophy
00:01:12
Speaker
Because I think a lot of kids dream like, oh, one day I want to run my own gaming company. I want to do this. How do you end up in a position like this?
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, Greg, I think that's a good question. And I would say a little bit by mistake, no. It was not planned at least, no. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. Obviously, I'm married and father of two kids, so I'm proud of that. And I'm originally and currently living in Barcelona, where I'm committed to support the economic, the social and the cultural life of the city. On the academic front, I graduated as an engineer.
00:01:46
Speaker
And I also did my MBA and also graduated in the executive program of the Singularity University. So I've been having plenty of education. And on the professional side, I started as an engineer working for Hewlett-Packard. But then after my MBA, I moved into business and operations, first in a consulting firm.
00:02:06
Speaker
and later into several digital and tech startups in Barcelona. So during the last 50 years, I have been involved in managing and scaling tech and digital companies, being the last aid related with gaming companies, first at social points, and now in science.
00:02:23
Speaker
So, regarding games, when I was a kid, I used to play a game called Penguin Adventure and also Street Fighter with my friends. Now, I'm more of a casual-style type of game player, like, I don't know, WorldScapes, QS Watermelon, Zen Match, Slinko, Woodopold, Business Dute.
00:02:45
Speaker
But we also have a lot of fun when playing with my kids and more social type of games like Mario Kart or Party or FIFA or Among Us type of games. So that's a really good one myself. And definitely first working with tech companies enabled me and startups enabled me to start understanding more
00:03:05
Speaker
the world of gaming, which is an intersection between technology, creativity, and business, and art, no? So by some kind of luck, I ended up supporting Social Point when they were trying to scale the company, and I started helping them, and from there, learn more about the company and the industry, and step by step evolve into a CEO overall.
Sandsoft's Mission and Alignment with Saudi Vision 2030
00:03:31
Speaker
Very cool. I mean, I've started learning how big with heck of Barcelona has been and at the hearing that you started HP and you kind of wrote things there and every year. It's all such a cool story how you end up where you are and a lot of the fact that you're gaming with your kids because Mike, my son just turned five and I get to start gaming with him and
00:03:49
Speaker
Sometimes it's a painting in the butt, but it's a lot of fun to be able to play with them and I respect that Can you get this kind of a high level of? What is sand stuff because it is a newer studio and I think a lot of people like I may not be fully aware of what is being built here
00:04:03
Speaker
Sure, well, Sansov was founded in 2020, but a bit more on operations are more recent on 2022 and is owned by a large private holding group from Saudi Arabia. It is definitely aligned with Saudi contribution 2030, which aims to diversify the economy, being gaming one of the strategic sectors to invest and grow.
00:04:27
Speaker
With a team of more than 60 people and more than 25 nationalities, offices in the beyond, Barcelona, Helsinki and Shanghai, we focus on publishing, developing and investing in high-quality, core mobile free-to-play games across the world, not only in Mina. At Soundsoft, our purpose is to craft and enable joy.
00:04:49
Speaker
Our vision is to be the leading mobile first games publisher and developer from the MENA region, that our mission is to be the destination company to world four and the nucleus of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia games industry. Regarding our product strategy, we want to create innovative, accessible core social games that bring people together
Role and Responsibilities of a COO
00:05:11
Speaker
from all over the world and are played for years to come. Regarding our strategy, we have a people first culture.
00:05:19
Speaker
building our studios to create our own games, developing a publishing powerhouse unit to support third-party game developers in order to distribute and scale their games, and we also have an investment unit to explore acquisitions and balance sheets with top-talented teams. Regarding our company called Banyans that guide our team attitude, art growths, wellness, and togetherness,
00:05:45
Speaker
Finally, looking at the bullets for 2024, we want to continue building a great team of game makers to become a third-party publishing powerhouse, to start creating and publishing our own games, and to grow our audience. So, plenty of challenges, but lots of excitement for Samsung.
00:06:05
Speaker
It's cool. You were at social point during the growth stage and now you're back at Sansoft during the growth stage. It's obviously a stage you've come to learn and love, but were there any learnings that you learned from the experience at social point that either A, you said, I definitely want to do this again at Sansoft or like, this didn't quite work. Yeah, that way we're going to do it a little different this time or
00:06:33
Speaker
Well, Sociopo was a great experience for me, where I spent more than seven years and moved through the different stages of the company, as we were saying, not from startup, scale up, acquired company, then integrated it. And finally,
00:06:48
Speaker
up to be part of a large corporation like Take Two and Zing apparently, no? I also had multiple roles there. I did not start at the CEO world, no? And led a vanity of teams, projects and challenges that helped me to have a 360 view of the company in the English.
Barcelona as a Gaming Hub
00:07:05
Speaker
So I just could name a few of them.
00:07:07
Speaker
I was working on the localization department, also on the QA, on outsourcing, on market intelligence, on merchant acquisitions, on business development. I also acted as head of a studio for some time. I helped a lot and collaborated a lot and participated a lot on the integration with Tech2 and later with Zynga. And at some point, I even became the interim general manager for the studio when the founders left.
00:07:35
Speaker
So this experience was very valuable to me as I did not have a gaming background before and has helped me to realize the importance of people's first culture and building strong teams for creativity and execution, also to value the importance of diversity and to understand the evolution of the gaming industry during the last decade. So being such a Yahoo company with relatively slower team than social point,
00:08:02
Speaker
I'm a more hands-on leader and like to work across the teams to support decision-making. I have a sediment leadership approach and attitude, being at the disposal of the teams to help them execute company strategy, remove blockers, and facilitate the team to take the best decisions. Very cool.
00:08:20
Speaker
And it's great, I mean, with all the, you know, the in and out to gaming there, right? I think of the services that we provide at Keywords and they're talking about localization and talking about QA, like everything you're saying is like hitting home. It's fun that you have that experience. You can learn from that experience. It kind of helps you grow and figure out what you love best at the industry, how you want to get it to go.
00:08:40
Speaker
And I think you kind of just answered this question, but I'd like to kind of double tap it because I think it's important is as the CEO of a gaming company, what is and you don't have to go to detail, but what's your day to day like or what skill set do you have that you think you tap into the most or you need to use?
00:08:58
Speaker
I think the COO role is kind of, it varies depending on the company and the needs. And I think that's the beauty of that whole knock. In some places you are in the execution mode, in some other places you might need to define more the strategy. Definitely you need to help the company to build the right teams and to help the right teams to make the right decisions. So on my day to day,
00:09:22
Speaker
I'm really trying to execute the company strategy that has been defined and supporting the teams to execute towards that strategy because you define a plan, but then things don't happen as it were planned on the beginning with us. So you need to act and react and pivot and change and decide. And that's what I think that I push the teams to do because they have the know-how
00:09:51
Speaker
and they have the ownership to do it, but I'm just there to support them on these different, on these tags. So what else is on the CEO role? I think it's also a lot about guiding the team on the right priorities, okay? And helping the team towards making, let's say, some
Educational Pathways into Gaming
00:10:11
Speaker
compromises, no? As a company, we have limited resources. We need to decide which are the projects that we want to push. We need to decide,
00:10:19
Speaker
how we can collaborate data to push them and make them happen. So I would say I have the honor to have a role where you can go from very hands-on to very strategic, from working with the management team to working with every single individual contributor or not. And I really enjoy that. You mentioned, I think the studio is named for Barcelona, Riyadh, Helsinki, Japan. Is that the idea if it was right?
00:10:47
Speaker
Yes. How do you collaborate with the other studios? Is it strictly like a team type of thing? Are there tools that you use to collaborate with one another? Is that something you're still trying to figure out? Well, in Helsinki, we have a team working on business development as well as in Shanghai.
00:11:06
Speaker
But in Riyadh and in Barcelona, we are building our own studios, and there we are setting up the same tours for both studios, at least in terms of tours like networks, or like, it could be help sheets, or it could be any technological tours, no?
00:11:24
Speaker
Then obviously each team has the capacity to decide on their day-to-day what's the best way to approach the game development, and there might be here some small differences, but I think that it's pretty standard at this moment. I have one last question about the COO role, and I'll stop pestering about those questions. But if you were going to go back to university, you were going to figure out what path you are to making university, what are the classes you think most align with the responsibilities of the COO?
00:11:51
Speaker
I studied engineering and there's a lot of technical stuff there while on a COO, you need to be more on the execution part. So what I think that it was more useful from the university is the capacity to learn constantly, which I think it's needed as a COO because you definitely rely on the teams
00:12:16
Speaker
to make the decisions or to take the decisions, but definitely you need to challenge them and support them, so you need to have some know-how about that. And then the capacity to have a mindset of problem-solving. And I think that as an engineer, you spend your whole university degree solving problems. That's the way you learn. They teach you some theory, but then
00:12:39
Speaker
The way they try to check if you have consolidated though that theory is by solving problems. And I think that on my day to day, that's what I'm trying to do, solve problems, solve blockers that can help the company to look forward and execute on the strategy.
00:12:56
Speaker
how did I feel like it's every kid's exciting it's like you know you play a game and you solve the problems in the game and if you can make that become your real life your day-to-day it's something you just love to do all right so so thank you for sharing that i would love to talk about barcelona right that's some of the main things we want to talk about today because it is a very fast growing gaming hub you have studios like social points there sandsoft is there obviously i think this game loft is there i think uh lorraine also is based out of barcelona so many
00:13:25
Speaker
big and up-and-coming gaming studios are based out of there. Clearly, I mean, they've got a big growing game ecosystem, right? There's a lot of investment in cash or growth from within there. It's an innovation in tech hub in Europe. And I'd like to kind of tap into each one of those and figure it out. But how do you think Sansoft is going to continue to leverage the ecosystem in Barcelona to keep building it out as a gaming hub? And how does this, I guess, excite you, if that even makes sense?
00:13:50
Speaker
Yes, I'm very excited to talk about Barcelona, as you know, it's a city that I promote and that I try to win.
00:13:59
Speaker
continue improving and be active there. But yeah, Absalora has emerged during the last 10 years as a key global hub, especially on mobile, but also growing on PC console, as you said, they move to the software, IO Interactive, Digital Legend, so I think more and more PC and console companies from abroad are joining the city, no?
00:14:23
Speaker
As far as I know, with some data, around 40% of the world gaming leading companies have presence in the city, and therefore a strong pool of professionals with a know-how and experience are established there. It's a mix of local talent, but also the city has the capacity to attract international talent, no? Added to an existing network of technological startups promoted by the Mobile World Congress, these have nurtured a gaming ecosystem in the city.
00:14:53
Speaker
Moreover, Barcelona is well known by creativity and innovation, being a reference in terms of architecture and modernism, which fosters the presence of creative and artistic profiles that the gaming industry embraces. Finally, it has great quality of life and competitive costs, being very well connected to the rest of European cities with excellent astronomy and wine. While Sansoft has a strong commitment,
00:15:18
Speaker
to grow and develop the gaming ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, it also understood that it would take some time in the region to develop the ecosystem and talent needed. Therefore, decided to open a studio in Europe that would eventually fast-track its capabilities and execution capacity to develop and publish games. When considering several European locations like London, Helsinki, Berlin, or Amsterdam, which by the way are great cities, Barcelona emerged.
00:15:48
Speaker
on top as we were able to hire an attract that I provide that the company need. For example, our head of studio, our lead game designer. So that were aspects that were key to finally decide Barcelona was the right place to land. So in conclusion, Barcelona allows us to engage with a high-caliber of mobile-first talent based in the city.
00:16:16
Speaker
and connect with a driving development scene look. And you mentioned as our pre-call, right? You have cities like Helsinki that have companies like Supercell and you have cities like Israel that has a few big gaming studios.
00:16:32
Speaker
It does, I mean, obviously Lorraine has the biggest game of the year last year, right? Which is Bulther's Gate 3, the biggest thing out there. But what's it gonna take to get Barcelon to that next level? Now that it's starting to mature as the gaming hub, it seems, like, how do you... And again, I feel like this is a silly question asking this, right? Because it's like, hey, make a good game and then we get there, but like, how do you take that to the next level? And that question made sense, I kind of as well, I feel like.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, totally agree. I think the fact that we have been growing as an Indian half doesn't mean that we don't need to continue growing, no?
Diversity and Innovation in Gaming Roles
00:17:06
Speaker
Because at the end, as you said, there are different cities that also provide a lot of talent, no? We could also be talking about Istanbul, Helsinki, obviously, London, Berlin, I'm certain. There are plenty of cities in Europe with great, great talent and great, again, talent, no? But it's also Barcelona.
00:17:27
Speaker
And as you were mentioning, having a company that could launch one video game would be definitely something proving a success of the ecosystem. But while this does not happen, even if we had good success cases like social point, for example, or Scopli, has a huge massive operation in Barcelona or PIM, also operating some of their games from the city.
00:17:56
Speaker
I think that while this does not happen, there are other aspects that we could be fostering and improving. First of all, the gaming industry is all about talent, so why not becoming a gaming educational hub to develop the best talent in certain areas of gaming?
00:18:17
Speaker
Or for example, why not having an international gaming event in Barcelona like GDC or like Gamescom that would gather the best industry professionals into the city? Also, in terms of let's say fiscal incentives and support to the industry,
00:18:36
Speaker
I think there is more that we could be doing. Having, for example, a private fund to invest in gaming, as for example, some private funds that are fostering and supporting young companies to appear and to work on their games.
00:18:53
Speaker
So while I think those are some of the ideas that we could continue pushing and that me personally, I work with the local, let's say, with the local institutions to continue pushing for the city.
00:19:10
Speaker
So in terms of Barcelona, how is Sansoft fostering and contributing and leveraging Barcelona to help foster innovation within the community? Well, we see ourselves with a commitment to further develop the gaming ecosystem in the city and contribute to create great games for players to enjoy from Barcelona to the world. As well as to continue to inform, inspire, educate, and attract the wider industry in terms of talent.
00:19:40
Speaker
Due to our team background tenure and network, we have become an active actor in the Barcelona gaming system. We participate and contribute in different events to promote the gaming community and elevate the understanding of the industry inside the city. We also will be a very CEO team of game makers to create innovative and accessible core social games that bring people together.
00:20:09
Speaker
definitely attracting local talent and also international talent into this team. Finally, we are also a point of contact between the city and the vibrant economy of Saudi Arabia, no? And not only the economy, also the court. I like that because you mentioned people first at the beginning of the podcast and I think that's a very important way to look at it, that you're people first and when you're looking at Barcelona and how do you want to help contribute, right? It has to do with the people, you're getting talent from the people, you're sharing that and you're helping do that. So I think that's really well said.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think talent is key, you know, and attracting the right talent that had the aim to build games. You know, in Barcelona, we have a lot of companies operating games, but not so many at least large, big companies creating new games, you know, or maybe sometimes not everybody has the capacity to work on building new games. And I think that that's something that we are also offering to the city now.
00:21:07
Speaker
It's interesting, you mentioned the big conferences, GDC Games, Como, Piccolo, something in Barcelona, but with that many studios in the location, do you have knowledge share between some studios? Are there different ways? I'm thinking as someone that maybe lives in Barcelona, wants to get into the gaming scene, are there things they can be doing? Are there people that they can be talking to?
00:21:26
Speaker
Maybe these are two separate questions, right? Maybe the first one is more so, how do the studios, if they share any knowledge or best practices, is there any way that happens today? And second one which we can answer after is, if you are a young student that is studying gaming in Barcelona, what would be the most logical step they take to make their dreams come true?
00:21:46
Speaker
Both are good questions. On the first one, what I have seen is that the gaming industry is very clever. I'm not sure we've seen each other as competitors, because most of the times each company is working on a different type of game for a different audience. So I think we've seen more ourselves as part of the ecosystem. And in the ecosystem, you need
00:22:09
Speaker
many different players. You need big companies, small companies, medium companies. In this, you need universities, you need incubators, you need accelerators. So if you don't have all of these, then the ecosystem is not healthy, no? So yes, the answer is, as an industry, we tend to collaborate a lot, we tend to share a lot which are our problems, which solutions were working for us.
00:22:37
Speaker
We try to provide advice and we try to gather together. So this is something definitely you can find in Barcelona.
Future Trends in Gaming
00:22:46
Speaker
Regarding on your second question for young talent, I think that's one of the areas where as an industry we need to improve or at least in Barcelona, because nobody at universities or schools deliver very smart and talented professionals.
00:23:06
Speaker
But that isn't realistic at the same time, no? And I think it makes sense because when you are 18 years old, you know what you want to do most of the time, you know? So as a university, they need to give you a broad picture of different options that you could do in any matter. It would be, for example, in the gaming industry, no?
00:23:25
Speaker
How is to be a developer, how is to be an artist, how is to be a game designer, how is to be a producer, for example, no? And then once you have view of those, it's when maybe you can decide, hey, I would like to specialize more on this, or I would like to go deeper on that, no?
00:23:43
Speaker
Eventually, universities and schools deliver quite realistic profiles, while gaming companies are looking for very specific and professionalized and very specialized profiles. So there is a gap there.
00:23:59
Speaker
that we need to solve, okay? We need to see how we jump this gap. And sometimes I have seen, and it's not that easy gap to jump, because then students come to you asking for leadership programs, and as a company we have some interest that the volume of students that call out every year is quite big, no?
00:24:23
Speaker
And being companies preferring specialized senior profiles, it's difficult to allocate for a lot of junior profiles. So as some things are happening, for example, how you continue from the project that you ended in the university or in the school, how you can give, let's say, a faster life into this project, into moving into an incubator or later into a generator.
00:24:49
Speaker
It would definitely help you to continue working and experiencing and getting this kind of experience, not a specialization. Also, probably, I think we can use studios on their heavy projects. And definitely, also, as an industry, we need to make a better job on integrating this young talent into our teams. So I think I cannot answer you easily or what's the best way to enter into the industry.
00:25:16
Speaker
But doing your own games, collaborating within the studios, accessing to all type of incubators and accelerators at the end, nothing is preventing you from working on your own games or building a team that can continue working on games. And this is definitely going to give the your talent, this type of experience and a specialization that the companies are, if why.
00:25:41
Speaker
Something that I'm going to go back to is, and this is something we also spoke about before we started recording, is kind of the idea of these niche roles that these studios are hiring for. I, myself, didn't know how vast each department is. Do you think design is probably taking care of all the design of the game? But then you look into it and there's level design and there's character design and there's all these other things.
00:26:03
Speaker
People think, oh, games should be fairly quick to spin up and it's easy, and the thing is, and maybe it's a question of view, is did you know in the gaming world that all these roles go significantly deeper than you thought they were, or was it kind of a shock to you the first time you stepped into a studio and you said, wow, these are really expansive?
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think when I joined the gaming industry, I was very surprised to see the big amount of roles that I needed, no? Obviously, standing from the gaming side, you need the developers, you need, like, artists, but the concept artists, and then the 2D artists, and then the animators, and the 3D artists, and the BFFs, and then you go into technical artists, no? And then for developers, you have, like, the mobile, the packets, the systems.
00:26:51
Speaker
It's super specialized. As you were saying also in game design, you have the level designers, the game designers, the product managers, the producers, then people looking at the analytics that they have a much more analytics background. And eventually then you start looking at other profiles like localization to help localize the games. You have QA to test and help the teams to embrace this kind of quality
00:27:23
Speaker
but then to more traditional roles like the market move role, like the finance role, the talent acquisition role. So you need a big variety of profiles to in a gaming company. And that's why we think that it's a very,
00:27:44
Speaker
let's say, an added value industry, no, because it relies on talent and no. So yeah, definitely quite surprised on the big amount of specialization that it requires, but also it brings the opportunity to be more diverse teams and therefore better solutions and better decisions.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, I love when you have a couple of guys I spoke to in the podcast, they all sit down, they kind of spit ball ideas around to kind of see what sticks. And when you can start collaborating with
Sandsoft's Future and Strategic Goals
00:28:20
Speaker
people, especially when you have people who are in special, special season, different areas, you can get a different view of and I think it's such a cool thing to be able to like just come up with a game sitting at the Lush table and do that. And I think
00:28:33
Speaker
Sometimes, I think it's too many rules because it's a lot, but at the same time, having those perspectives on things can be a great way to understand what's possible and what's not possible. Yeah, we're past halfway through, but usually about halfway through, I do something called our crick fire round. I'm going to ask five questions, super simple questions. You good for that? Yeah, sure. Question one, when you're not settling, what do you have for breakfast?
00:28:57
Speaker
For breakfast? Yes. OK, look, I love that. OK, in fact, I've been fasting for that since 2020, since January 2020. So I skip dinner, which means that lunch is my last meal. But breakfast is my preferred meal. And not just because I did not have beer and I'm kind of hungry, but it had always been. So nobody has more than one breakfast. I love it so much that
00:29:26
Speaker
I might have an every bite and then I'll meet a morning bite and maybe in a late morning bite, no?
00:29:34
Speaker
But let me think, I always have a sandwich with a baguette, like this kind of baguette bread. I like to have it quite big. And then I like to put their fweat, which is kind of a salami, but made from, it's from Catalonia, no? And let's say that for you to understand it's kind of a salami. I also like the Spanish ham.
00:30:00
Speaker
or those are my favorite. And then on top of that, I also like to have a mix of different cereals and then I mix all together or some piece of food as well. I guess I shouldn't tell you, I don't really like the breakfast meal. I feel like it's overrated, but I will lose that battle against you. I see that. If you were to go to a bar, what type of drink would you order?
00:30:27
Speaker
That's a good question. I don't like beer, but everybody treats beer. So sometimes I end up...
00:30:36
Speaker
trying to drink my beer, but most of the time I'm not even able to fix it. So I'm more of a sweet person in terms of taste. So I like sweet tastes. I would like to have, I don't know, for example, a strawberry, strawberry milkshake or like this kind of drinks. Eventually I end up drinking sparkling water.
00:31:12
Speaker
What is your preferred gaming platform?
00:31:19
Speaker
This is the mobile. I'm not so much of a hardcore player. So I think mobile is a platform where I can enjoy and access anytime, any moment. The type of games are also more sweet to me. The length of the sessions are also more sweet to me.
00:31:41
Speaker
I think it's a great platform and it has enabled the gaming industry to grow massively during the last 10 years, no? So I think that that would be my answer. What is the last book you read? I'm reading The Five Disfunctions from Lencioni because we are we are working as a team in San Jose to improve facilitation team. I strongly recommend that one. And I'm rereading that because
00:32:10
Speaker
I already read that one when I was at social point. It was really useful for our leadership team to improve as a team. And now we are doing the same exercise. We're doing the same exercise at Sansa. My last question of the fire floor round is what show have you last binge watched? Last show? You mean like a Sydney show? Sydney show, yeah. Look, I really enjoy Yellowstone. You think I'll ever finish it?
00:32:39
Speaker
I think, yeah, but it's not the last one. Then the thing we catch in the last one, because it's something that we do with my wife in order to have some time together, no? But yeah, not the last show, but the last movie we have seen together is The Open, Oppenheimer.
00:32:57
Speaker
And regarding Shosh, we really enjoyed the episode. Awesome. You're off to Hasi. Thank you. I want to talk about the evolution of gaming because we're in such a cool time for gaming. There's so many cool tools, platforms that are enabling, changing in gaming.
00:33:13
Speaker
are confusing and some are less confusing. You have things like Web3, you have things like VR, you have mobile, like you mentioned, that's leading the way of even consoles taking notes from, from how mobile is doing it, right? Are there specific frames that personally, not, not, not fans off, but, but for yourself as well that excite you the most and for the whole industry, what, what type of challenges or opportunities do you think are going to be coming up in the next couple of years? And then that's a loaded question. So I'm sorry.
00:33:43
Speaker
In terms of platforms, I think the industry is ready to be disrupted. Definitely, this industry will embrace any technology or any opportunity that enables a more integrated, immersive experience.
00:34:06
Speaker
So obviously the technology is improving, every time we have better graphics, but eventually we will end up being like the gaming and the movies will become much closer because you will be able to
00:34:27
Speaker
The experience would be like being in a movie, but you being part of the movie. So while a movie is just one direction, in the beginning, you will be able to participate in that concept and to be part of that story. So anything that is more immersive and also integrates, it's going to be great to experience. And that's probably where the industry will go.
00:34:52
Speaker
It's true that AR and VR have not been able to become a big business, nor to transform the industry. It's true that also from the experience perspective, it brings a good experience, but it has some challenges at the same time. I'm a true believer that the industry will
00:35:13
Speaker
We grow and we evolve into better player experience, more integrated, more immersive. And that's what's going to keep making this industry the biggest in the entertainment segment. No?
00:35:31
Speaker
But going back to your question, and looking at the current situation, on the whole, the consumer standing in gaming faced some kind of decline in 2023 after also many good years during COVID, no?
00:35:50
Speaker
And considering the overall economic context, I think it's important for the industry to stay cautious of the market conditions, not according market conditions. There is definitely a situation in the market and conservation. Those are clear trends happening at this moment.
00:36:09
Speaker
together with some, let's say, privacy restrictions on distribution, some gaining regulation in certain regions, and as we all know, some financial constraints due to higher interest rates are clearly affecting the outage.
00:36:26
Speaker
Seeing the scale of redundancies through the industry every last year and this year has been disappointing, no? But let's take a look at which added trends where I do believe that the industry is also moving, no?
00:36:40
Speaker
Overall, we expect new games to be created by passionate professionals that maybe have been recently redundant from some company. So the good point of the professionals in these industries is that they love doing games. So I'm quite sure that there's going to be new teams, exciting new games, creating new experiences.
00:37:05
Speaker
Also, during the next decade, we will see emerging markets to improve on infrastructure connectivity, access to devices by the population, increased economic purchase power by this population, that will definitely foster the industry to continue to grow.
00:37:26
Speaker
We are talking about countries and regions like India, Brazil, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin, Mina. So there's still a big number of people to join into this identity industry. And that's definitely going to help the industry to continue growing and evolving.
00:37:49
Speaker
Also, there will be a generation replacement of all the population that is less engaged with digital and gaming by those generations that have video games as part of their DNA, you know, in regards to entertainment and day-to-day habits. We see these with our kids, you know, and definitely how they
00:38:13
Speaker
in how they interact with the games with digital. And then when we compare this with our parents or with our older generations, it's not the same. And this is going to be happening during the next 10 to 15 years.
00:38:29
Speaker
Finally, the industry, as I was saying, is ready to be disrupted again by technology that will enhance player speedings. We need to imagine video games in a decade will be more immersive and interactive, with more mid-quantity graphics, accessible to all at any time and at any place, not fundamentally fostering more growth into the industry, as a best entertainment experience at affordable costs.
00:38:58
Speaker
I think that's well said. There's a few points that I really enjoy. And so you're kind of saying this and I was having a debate with some, not really a debate, but I was telling how the cut scenes in video games are so good now that you can just watch it as a movie. It's probably better than half the movies out there if you're watching a pretty good game and you can just see the production level that goes into it. And it's just it's mind bodily how the industry is is just maturing so quickly. You mentioned new teams being formed. And I think that's something
00:39:27
Speaker
We all like to imagine it is happening, right? I mean, the layoffs that are happening are stink, but hopefully some of these veterans from different studios who are going to start their own new studios in the next few years build some crazy new projects that are really in the push of boundaries of what we've seen before.
00:39:44
Speaker
I kind of shake it up, right? I mean, I love Call of Duty, but you get the same thing every year. And a lot of those games are just kind of, it's a very, it's not very rare, but I feel like it's rare where we get something new, right? I mean, Boltos Gate kind of took everyone by surprise, I feel like last year, and it crushed it. But I think my favorite thing you mentioned was player immersion.
00:40:02
Speaker
I think that's becoming such a new, many news out the white word, maybe I'm not right thing that it's becoming so much more the forefront of a game. I mean, the whole player experience, that's, that's the reason my podcast, like people, because we sell customer support tools and everyone's like, why is that part of the player experience? And I get why you think that, but like, if you.
00:40:21
Speaker
leave the game if he doesn't know who you are like you're a little less immersed and you have so many other options of games out there right if you think of a match 3 game if you think of an RTS if you pick up anything there's so many different games out there and the big pool but if a game can pull you in and you are in that game like
00:40:37
Speaker
that means that Studio Head has done their job and they've pulled you away then. And I think with so many games out there, the immersion is what's going to be the difference. So obviously the game has to be good, but the way they make you the player feel, I think it's going to be the most important thing. I mean, you look at a game like Monopoly Go, it's amazing. But the thing is, and I don't want to say anything bad, it's a great game. It's almost not a game. You press a button and you move and you press a button and you move. It's like a dopamine hit.
00:41:04
Speaker
People feel good playing it and they're doing that It's crazy to see how studios are figuring out new ways to get players to play games I feel like they're part of that story and I gave Monopoly grow all the credit for that because Players are excited to jump in and keep going and keep going and clearly they hit the notes right there So I love that I'm sorry I'm rambling here But I love the fact that you talked about player inversion because that is one of my favorite trends I'm seeing in gaming right now because who doesn't want to feel like they're part of the game the great
00:41:32
Speaker
So with that, how do you see Santa Softee evolving in the next year? You're going to be almost four years old. I guess you have about four years old, five years old as a company. I just said 2020. So how do you see Santa Softee evolving both? I guess it's up to you. How do you want to answer this question? Maybe in just Barcelona or Barcelona and Riyadh?
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit of both. At least in Barcelona, we are planning to grow the Barcelona team up to 60 people during the next three years. So we naturally need to fight by talent to achieve that goal. We have a reach of open positions currently across various skills in Barcelona and also some others in Riyadh.
00:42:18
Speaker
Looking at our publishing division, it's exploring partnerships with independent mobile studios that will materialize in the first half of the year and reaching our portfolio of publisher titles on top of current games that we have now, like DC Heroes and Billions, from Rudy, our champion, you know?
00:42:40
Speaker
I'm quite excited about a few of them that we can hopefully announce soon and I encourage any gaming company developer that does not have publishing ambition or capabilities to contact us in order to explore a collaboration opportunity.
00:42:56
Speaker
Similarly, Sansov is exploring further partnerships in Asia, in the same way we have been doing in Europe and North America. We see ourselves as the best place to connect the East and the West, and to support companies in leveraging the global opportunities we see in mobile gaming. I'm sure we will announce some good names very soon regarding the Asian topic.
00:43:22
Speaker
And finally, on the long term, we have the ambition to create amazing games for players to enjoy. Be recognized as one of the world's top gaming companies and the place to work for talented game makers. I think I read an article, it's a bit, Sansoft is on the top 50 game publishers worldwide now. And is that, and maybe I'm just naive, is that very quick for a studio to go from new to already being that high on the list?
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, thanks to pocket dimmer team that last year classified as on position number 44, definitely for the ambition and growth and team that we are assembling, no? And looking forward to continue being recognized as one of the companies that is trying to make a change in the dipping industry.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's exciting. Again, like you said, breath of fresh air to the industry, innovation will start to come for that. Are you guys, and I know you and I are sitting here in San Francisco, but you guys have a presence at GDC this year? Are you guys just doing your own work or do you have a booth?
00:44:31
Speaker
We don't have a booth, but we've been having plenty of meetings with the developers and with other partners to explore our collaboration opportunities. It's been a busy agenda with the team here, and yeah, looking forward to see which of them we can execute.
00:44:53
Speaker
and also realize that the mood of the industry, at least during these days, has been more optimistic and positive than what I perceive probably during last month's events. I think that's all the questions I have for you today, Pascal.
00:45:11
Speaker
I really appreciate you taking the time this is such a fun conversation for me just to learn more because again as a kid growing up you aspire to run the studio one day and in my world I always thought you needed to know how to code and now after all the people I'm talking to you're learning more and more that no you have to have these other skill sets and I think it's awesome I hope the people listening can also understand that
00:45:32
Speaker
You don't necessarily need to code. Is it going to help you? Probably. But there's so many other roles available to you. So I thank you so much for coming out. But before you do go, is there anything that you just want to talk about or say? The whole break, it's been a pleasure. It's always great to speak with people like you about games, you know, and just building each of us different perspectives. But at the end, when you work with people, magic has to happen. And that's what I'm expecting this industry to continue to bring.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, can't wait. And again, we'll have information on a squall as well as sand soft at our player engage website. And we'll have anything you need. So thanks for coming and listening today has quality. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a great rest of your debt. Thank you.