Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the IP2 Podcast.
Speaker: I'm Shey Ashby and as always, I'm joined by Felix Chung.
Speaker: We are honored to be joined by Carlo Opley today.
Speaker: He is the founder and chairman of the Unbox group of companies, one of the largest technology websites in the Philippines, but that's not all.
Speaker: He's an LGS owner and his store will be hosting the upcoming Battle Heart in Manila.
Speaker: Plus, he is the owner of Team Unbox and creator of the Unbox Fab channel on YouTube.
Speaker: Carlo, welcome to our show.
Speaker: Hey guys, happy to be here.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Yeah, we're really excited to have you with us today.
Speaker: Can you help our audience get to know you a little bit better?
Speaker: Who are you?
Speaker: What are your accomplishments so far?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So I'm your typical 40-year-old DCG fan who grew up playing Magic when I was literally... God, when I started playing Magic, when Ice Age came out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we were ripping packs and pulling IC manipulators and we were thinking, whoa, this is so sick, right?
Speaker: And I even remember trading a Tundra that I pulled for a Royal Assassin.
Speaker: Both very good cards back then.
Speaker: Yeah, back then.
Speaker: So, yeah, I've been in and out of TCGs throughout my life.
Speaker: Different games and
Speaker: It's just something that they keep coming back to.
Speaker: And after I kind of retired from my corporate career, so I worked for close to 20 years, I think, in corporate different roles.
Speaker: My last role was I was the vice president for marketing for the biggest telco here in the Philippines for marketing communications.
Speaker: And when I retired, I put up my own group of companies.
Speaker: I went for entrepreneurship.
Speaker: And part of the thing that I wanted to do was to invest also in things that made me happy, things that gave me fulfillment.
Speaker: And that's when I found myself back to going back to trading to TCGs.
Speaker: I went back to Magic first, got really pissed after one set.
Speaker: I think it was like aftermath.
Speaker: And then I realized it felt like they just want my money.
Speaker: The product release was like every month, right?
Speaker: So it was just so hard to keep up with.
Speaker: And then there were so many permutations of every card and it stopped feeling, it stopped being like,
Speaker: so much fun for me because I like opening packs and I like opening boxes.
Speaker: That has always been a fun thing for me.
Speaker: I still play occasionally the EDH stuff and the multiplayer, but the competitive side, I gave up on that.
Speaker: And then on one day, I decided to open a flesh and blood box in the LGS that I put up.
Speaker: And then when I opened, I think it was an outsider's box.
Speaker: And the first pack that I opened had the Marvel Codex of Frailty.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: And that was like, okay, I am still getting into this game.
Speaker: Yeah, that's one way to get hooked for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, so that was the rabbit hole that I fell into.
Speaker: And it just went out of control, I guess.
Speaker: I picked up, since I kind of had some resources, I sold some magic cards, bought several, I guess, decks for Fab.
Speaker: just to get the feel for the game and then to find which hero that I would love to.
Speaker: Ended up playing Briar.
Speaker: And then joined Armouries, met people, started getting to know the local community, and trying to find out the ways I can help contribute to build and grow Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: Because I really felt invested in the growth of the community.
Speaker: So that's when I invested more in the shop, invested more in hosting tournaments, hosting events, doing learn to play, joining competitions.
Speaker: My first international competition was calling in Taiping, I think.
Speaker: Then I ended up qualifying for Worlds, played in Barcelona, didn't do too well, sadly.
Speaker: I played Romai thinking that I would avoid ninjas, fought ninjas all day long.
Speaker: So it was a bad, bad,
Speaker: Meta call for me.
Speaker: And then one of you pro quests, one of you skirmishes qualified for Pro Tour LA.
Speaker: So that's what we're preparing for right now.
Speaker: And then yeah, so now we're getting ready and preparing for Battleheart.
Speaker: I've been campaigning so hard.
Speaker: to get battle hardened here in the Philippines.
Speaker: So I'm super happy that LSS finally agreed and we are so stoked, super excited to actually have battle hardened in February.
Speaker: So the team is working really hard.
Speaker: I don't know if you guys seen the promotion materials.
Speaker: It's feeling like a calling, even though it's just a battle hardened.
Speaker: We have like international artists, we have international vendors, and it's really super exciting for the local Flexion Blood community.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: We can't wait to touch on that a little bit more later in the episode.
Speaker: A couple of follow-up questions.
Speaker: You mentioned that you were retired, but you also are part of the greater community with running a store.
Speaker: What would you say that your, I guess, current day job is then if you're retired, but also still part like store owner?
Speaker: I'd say I'm retired from corporate in the sense that I don't want to go back to having a full-time job.
Speaker: If you know what I mean, I stayed there for 20 years, climbed up the corporate ladder.
Speaker: Uh, and I don't see myself going back there anymore.
Speaker: And what my priority would be pursuing things that make me fulfilled and happy.
Speaker: You know, we only have one life to live, right?
Speaker: I don't want to live the rest of my life.
Speaker: I'm 40, I'm turning 42.
Speaker: I don't know how much, I mean, I don't know how long I have in this lifetime and I don't want to spend
Speaker: the best years of my life working for someone else, right?
Speaker: I mean, that's my viewpoint.
Speaker: So I work really hard to be able to afford to kind of retire early.
Speaker: But it doesn't mean I don't work.
Speaker: So I have a couple of businesses that I run.
Speaker: I have a digital agency.
Speaker: I have a talent agency where I represent the top tech creators in the Philippines.
Speaker: I also run the shop, which I mentioned.
Speaker: We have...
Speaker: I own a barbershop, a coffee shop, and several other small businesses that make me happy.
Speaker: So that was kind of like the driving force.
Speaker: I even wrote a book, by the way, which was called, in Filipino, it says, well, it's not enough.
Speaker: In English, that would mean salary is not enough.
Speaker: So you have to build businesses and build rackets and stuff like that to eventually afford to just pursue what it is that you want to do.
Speaker: So to give you an idea, every day I wake up, my shop is literally a five minute walk from where I live.
Speaker: I walk to the shop, I host all my meetings in my shop.
Speaker: So all the different business units that I run, that I own, they meet me there for the usual stand-ups and stuff like that or town hall meetings.
Speaker: We have an event space at the top, which I use for meetings with our employees.
Speaker: Everything revolves around that area, that corner of the mall where the shop is, and it's starting to look like my pseudo office already.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you say the shop, that's your game store, right?
Speaker: Like not your barber shop.
Speaker: The barber shop is literally beside the game store and the coffee shop is inside the game store.
Speaker: It all centers around the game store.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's Sammy.
Speaker: Retired, but still a lot on the go and doing stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't sound like you're retired.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Retired from corporate life.
Speaker: That's probably the best way to put it.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: One more question on the getting to know Carlo.
Speaker: Do you have any other hobbies outside of fab that you enjoy?
Speaker: Travel.
Speaker: I love travel.
Speaker: That's why I love Flesh and Blood so much because the play the game, see the world thing is so alive.
Speaker: I traveled with my wife.
Speaker: So we went to Barcelona, played the game.
Speaker: Then we took a side trip to Switzerland and
Speaker: When we were in Taiwan, we also spent some time going around looking forward to LA.
Speaker: I even flew to Malaysia for the Sea Throne recently just to play over the weekend.
Speaker: So I'm enjoying the travel bit a lot.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Sorry, I got one follow-up question.
Speaker: Are you still a sneakerhead as well?
Speaker: Oh, good question.
Speaker: So I was trying to look for the sneakers that I bought.
Speaker: Well, I used to be super heavy into shoes.
Speaker: I have a YouTube channel that has close to 750,000 or 770,000 subscribers.
Speaker: That's mainly around sneakers and hype stuff.
Speaker: I still buy every now and then, but it's not as intense as it used to be.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I know that we have a few sneaker people out here where we are, so I thought that would be interesting to bring up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shoes are supposed to be worn.
Speaker: Dude, I bought a pair of sneakers just to share.
Speaker: They can be worn, but they can also be great investments.
Speaker: So I bought a pair of sneakers before the Jordan 4 Manila.
Speaker: It was like 150 pieces only.
Speaker: I was able to buy it, I think, for like $200,000.
Speaker: It was like $4,000 US.
Speaker: I ended up selling it for, what's 1 million pesos?
Speaker: $20,000 US.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So it can be an investment if you know which pair to buy.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right, well, we're going to deep dive into FAB pretty soon here, Carlo, but if you just don't mind telling me a little bit more before we get into that, just about the Philippines.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, just, yeah, can you tell some of our listeners more about your country, some interesting information, and maybe if they're thinking about visiting the Southeast Asia region, you know, why they should visit the Philippines?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Philippines has a good mix of everything that you would want.
Speaker: Good weather, in my opinion.
Speaker: We have the greatest beaches, I think, in the world.
Speaker: We have warm, fun, happy people.
Speaker: That always gets media attention, how happy and warm and hospitable Filipinos are.
Speaker: But if you want like urban, fast-paced stuff like city life, you also have that here in Metro Manila.
Speaker: We have a lot of, you know, nice, hip areas.
Speaker: So there's really something for everyone, but ultimately what makes it unique, in my opinion, is really the people.
Speaker: I mean, the Filipinos are just genuinely warm and hospitable.
Speaker: We're an English-speaking country, so if you guys go here, you won't have any problem talking to anyone.
Speaker: The accent might be different for some regions of the Philippines, but most of us here, probably 90%, I think.
Speaker: I might be wrong with that number, but I think an overwhelming majority speaks English.
Speaker: No, that's great.
Speaker: And honestly, here where we live, it was like minus 40 degrees last week.
Speaker: So somewhere that's nice and warm with beaches sounds very, very good to me right now.
Speaker: And just thinking about the Philippines as a general region, can you tell me what sort of games before FAB people like to play in the country?
Speaker: Well, the first TCG that really became popular here was obviously Magic the Gathering.
Speaker: And it still, I think, remains to be the number one game, especially Commander and EDH more than the competitive side of things.
Speaker: When Standard kind of faded, everybody really shifted to Modern and all the other formats.
Speaker: But the one that has the most following until today is really Commander and EDH.
Speaker: Apart from that, there were... Ah, man, probably Pokemon and One Piece are big games here as well.
Speaker: But Flesh and Blood has been climbing really fast, if I can say so.
Speaker: A lot of former MTG players, a lot of new players are also discovering Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: Lurkana kind of rose for a bit, but then died really fast here.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then just thinking about the local game store scene in Manila or in the Philippines, and even thinking to here where, you know, in our city, there used to be quite a few LGSs, but over the last 10 years or so, I think many of them have closed down, sadly.
Speaker: Over to you, are there still a lot of game stores?
Speaker: Is there one every community, one every block, or are you seeing something similar for you?
Speaker: I think it's actually at the growth stage now.
Speaker: You know what in business I always say that the first world countries are like a crystal ball for the Philippines.
Speaker: We're like three years behind.
Speaker: So that's what I usually say to people who want to do business in the Philippines, want to get into digital business and stuff like that.
Speaker: So for example, if in the first world you're already seeing a decline on some game stores, it just means that it's about to explode.
Speaker: Here in the Philippines.
Speaker: So you're actually seeing a lot of game stores popping up now.
Speaker: And you can kind of foresee that it will be an upswing on an uptrend considerably, at least for the next few years, with more trading card games coming out, with the fragmentation of TCGs.
Speaker: it's kind of like it's kind of like the the social media phenomenon you know everybody was on facebook then it fragmented then people went to instagram some people went to twitter some people went to whatever it's the same thing with card games uh everyone used to be on magic now it's fragmenting and there is a there is a trading card game for everyone you just don't know what it is yet it can be for example grand archive or vanguard for people who like the anime style art and uh you know stuff like that
Speaker: It can be sorcery if you want more of a board game, old school feel.
Speaker: It can be flesh and blood if you want something that appeals to your competitive nature and one piece for the anime people.
Speaker: So it really can appeal to a very wide range of people.
Speaker: Can you tell me a bit more about being a store owner?
Speaker: You had mentioned a bit of it was born out of passion, but how did you get started ultimately?
Speaker: Oh, so our store is kind of unique in the sense that we actually run a very big space.
Speaker: So it started with an idea that we saw in Japan.
Speaker: So if you go to Japan, there are some stores with like big glass cabinets and lots of glass cabinets, and they would have lots of toys and collectibles.
Speaker: But the thing there is the store owner doesn't actually own all the stock or all the glass cabinets.
Speaker: They rent it out to different people, hobbyists and merchants.
Speaker: So that's what we actually put up here in the Philippines.
Speaker: It's called Unboxed.
Speaker: So we have a 500 square meter space.
Speaker: We have over 200 cabinets that are for rent.
Speaker: And we have a central area where people can, you know, a community area where you can play games, you can play board games, you can do trading cards, you can do NBA card, swap meets, sports cards and stuff like that.
Speaker: So that business, the shop, literally, I put it up in the middle of the pandemic when we had lockdown here in the Philippines.
Speaker: When I say lockdown, here in the Philippines, it was so crazy.
Speaker: You guys remember the mask thing, right?
Speaker: We had something even more than a mask.
Speaker: We had a face shield that we were compelled to wear on top of the mask.
Speaker: So imagine people...
Speaker: going to the mall with the mask and then a face shield and then they would go to our shop and stuff like that.
Speaker: So it's very prohibitive.
Speaker: But the reason why we set the shop up like that was that it, one, it was so easy to negotiate for mall space during the pandemic, right?
Speaker: Because people were leaving malls.
Speaker: So I knew that it was to my advantage to negotiate hard, as in really hard to get the rates that I wanted.
Speaker: But it also had the risk, right?
Speaker: um and then secondly if i could find the business model that didn't entail me carrying or getting a lot of capital stock on stocks on you know retail products right so that's where unbox was born we literally just had to buy the cabinet set up the space do the marketing and then get people to rent the cabinets to be able for us to afford our overhead and to make our profit and then events would be our way of
Speaker: generating incremental revenue.
Speaker: So that was kind of like the thinking behind it.
Speaker: We were successful in the sense that we were able to lock in our pandemic rates all the way until 2025.
Speaker: So that was kind of like how we negotiated during that time.
Speaker: I guess this is kind of like perks of getting into business when you're like 40 plus years old already and you have like a ton of corporate experience.
Speaker: You get to leverage a lot of those things, right?
Speaker: So yeah, that was the beginning of Unbox.
Speaker: And we, up to date, up until today, all of our cabinets are fully rented out.
Speaker: We have over 250 cabinets rented out in Unbox.
Speaker: Different collectibles.
Speaker: Some people sell sneakers.
Speaker: Some people sell sports cards.
Speaker: A lot of people sell magic and flesh and blood.
Speaker: Some people sell Pokemon.
Speaker: So when you go in, it's like a museum of different collectibles.
Speaker: It's like a happy place for grown men.
Speaker: It sounds pretty awesome.
Speaker: So to elaborate a little bit more, I guess, how does, uh, we don't have anything like that here in North America.
Speaker: So if I was to walk into the store and you have all of these cabinets, do I talk to somebody or they lock?
Speaker: Like, how do I get access to the product and purchasing stuff?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So every cabinet has like, uh, you know, instructions for you to just call a staff.
Speaker: We have lots of people going around the store that can assist people who want to shop.
Speaker: We thought of doing like a way to digitize everything, but the inventory management system that you would have to come up with and forcing 250 plus people, renters to constantly, you know, input and output all of their stocks is just going to be crazy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it didn't make sense.
Speaker: So it's very manual hard labor.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: So what are some of the challenges that you have of owning a store like this?
Speaker: Oh, well, it's a really different business model.
Speaker: So it's finding people who believe in the vision,
Speaker: of having a shared space, a shared community of collectibles.
Speaker: Now, the great thing is when I launched this business, I already had the YouTube channel with over 700,000 subscribers and a sizable community backing me.
Speaker: So it was kind of relatively marketing and reach was never a problem.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: customer acquisition cost was never a problem because of the built in advantage of being a creator.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That has always been the advantage of a creator.
Speaker: So you can easily sell products.
Speaker: So for example, in a very flesh and blood example, we I think I can consider unbox is one of the biggest
Speaker: Flesh and Blood stores, or at least communities in the Philippines.
Speaker: So we literally just put up a post of different Fab Metal tokens for sale, Metal Fab tokens.
Speaker: I know you guys know them.
Speaker: And we sold out in like less than 15 minutes.
Speaker: Again, because you already have the reach.
Speaker: You have the marketing built in.
Speaker: So that's kind of like the model that I've been following across all the different businesses that I've put up, regardless if it's the shop or the marketing agency and stuff like that.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: I guess one more final question here.
Speaker: What's your favorite thing about being a store owner?
Speaker: Oh, the people, meeting the people.
Speaker: I love, you know, meeting different kinds of people from different walks of life, different ages.
Speaker: It's the best way to feel young, to be able to meet younger people and, you know, kind of compete with them in a way.
Speaker: Sometimes people kind of consider me their, I guess their TCG uncle.
Speaker: So some of them would go up to me, ask for advice about life in general, business.
Speaker: Some people would ask career advice.
Speaker: Some people would ask relationship advice.
Speaker: It's really fun.
Speaker: It really feels like a community more than anything else, which is why I love TCGs and Flesh and Blood in general.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, like from all of the things that you've already described with what you've done in your, in your life and what you're doing now, I can totally see that definitely being a thing where people come to you for all sorts of things.
Speaker: You've, you've clearly been successful and, you know, a lot of things that you've tried to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So could you maybe take me back to the beginning of the flesh and blood community getting started in the Philippines?
Speaker: Can you just walk me through how that happened in the Philippines?
Speaker: When did the game start getting popular and just walk me through that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when I got into the game, there were only a few shops initially carrying it.
Speaker: Scry Games was one of them.
Speaker: Vault, I mean, it was just really a small community back then.
Speaker: And it grew fast.
Speaker: Actually, it just snowballed out of nowhere.
Speaker: I don't know if it was because of people from Magic who were frustrated and were just looking for another game.
Speaker: But it just snowballed quickly and then we went on board.
Speaker: Another distributor, Ludus, in a chain of shops called Neutral Grounds picked it up as well.
Speaker: And then it just grew, rapidly grew like crazy.
Speaker: And then the next thing we knew, we were running armories of 20 to 30 people.
Speaker: We had an armory that hit like 70 people, which is crazy.
Speaker: It was like insane.
Speaker: Imagine 70 people competing for a cold foil Dawnblade or something.
Speaker: I know not the Dawnblade, what was the sword of DTD?
Speaker: I forgot.
Speaker: Oh, uh, Beaming Blade.
Speaker: Beaming Blade.
Speaker: Yeah, so imagine 70 people competing for a Beaming Blade Cold Foil.
Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So, it really just snowballed.
Speaker: I think a big part of it was...
Speaker: probably the emphasis on player recruitment that at least I would like to think I kind of spearheaded as well in the local community.
Speaker: For example, I mentioned to you guys I'm a marketer, right?
Speaker: So I kind of look at games in a very different way or communities in a very different way.
Speaker: I don't look at them and see just players.
Speaker: And I see churn.
Speaker: I see the people leaving the game and I can feel and see that the community will constantly lose players unless you constantly recruit.
Speaker: Attrition is forever.
Speaker: The attrition is eternal.
Speaker: So people will keep leaving the game for whatever reason.
Speaker: Either they find a new game, life gets in the way, they get bored, they get tired of losing or whatever reason that is, people will keep leaving.
Speaker: So if you do not keep recruiting, then eventually the churn will outweigh the new users and the new players.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that has been a central key focus for us.
Speaker: So we do learn to play events probably two to three times a month, at least in a box.
Speaker: And we encourage a lot of shops to also do the same.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: And what you said, churn is eternal.
Speaker: I think it's true for so many different things in life.
Speaker: It's something that, you know, in professional life is very important as well, too.
Speaker: Like you're always losing customers as well.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Someone, someone, something someone told me early in my career was that the best time to look for new customers is when you have a lot because, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to lose some coming up here.
Speaker: You don't want to be looking when you don't have a lot.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We're going to cover this point a little more when we go through your five tips for community building.
Speaker: But just so we don't neglect telling the full story of the overall flesh and blood community in the Philippines for a little bit here.
Speaker: Why do you think flesh and blood took off in the Philippines the way that it has with, like you said, all of the different competition out there from, you know, maybe magic coming back or one piece or whatever.
Speaker: Pokemon or all these other games.
Speaker: Like I know you were a big push for it, making a big push for it on a marketing perspective, but still there's so much competition out there.
Speaker: Like, what do you think Flesh and Blood, like why Flesh and Blood?
Speaker: I can speak in behalf of my experience running the store and from what I saw of the player base and the community that I have.
Speaker: Obviously some stores might have a very different
Speaker: experience.
Speaker: But for me, ultimately, it clicked because of the competitive nature of Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: I mean, you do not deny the beast what... You do not deny the beast their nature, right?
Speaker: I mean, that's why I kind of laugh when I see... I don't laugh, but UPF is fun, right?
Speaker: But ultimately, Flesh and Blood is about one-on-one competition.
Speaker: at least in my head, it's about competition, it's one-on-one, it's brutal, it's visceral, it's like a fighting game.
Speaker: And that's what I zeroed in when I was promoting the game.
Speaker: I said that it was one of the most competitive, complex, strategic games that you could play.
Speaker: It can be rewarding.
Speaker: I would zero in and talk about the pro play circuit and how huge that was.
Speaker: And that attracted a certain segment of the market.
Speaker: And in
Speaker: And that I think is key when you try to grow communities is that you don't target everyone.
Speaker: I mean, you lose when you try to target everyone, because if you're trying to target everyone, then you're fighting against every single game, every single person or company that's trying to put up a game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But if you target a specific niche, a specific segment and then grow from there, then the chances of you being more successful are much higher.
Speaker: So that was kind of like the strategy.
Speaker: We focused on competitive TCG players or people who had an inclination, strong leaning towards competition.
Speaker: And all the marketing materials, all the stuff that we did spoke to that particular persona, spoke to that particular customer.
Speaker: If you weren't a highly competitive TCG persona or a competitive people person, then I'm kind of sure that the materials that I put out wouldn't work.
Speaker: and they want to track you.
Speaker: And it's okay, and it's perfectly fine.
Speaker: If you want to play EDH, play EDH.
Speaker: If you want to play Lurkana, play Lurkana.
Speaker: If you want to play Pokemon, One Piece, go ahead.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not competing for your attention because you are not a competitive, like, TCG player.
Speaker: By all means, enjoy what you want to enjoy.
Speaker: No judgment.
Speaker: But if you are one of us, like our tribe, or at least what I feel like our tribe is, then I would want you here badly.
Speaker: Because I feel that those players are high-quality players that will stay for the long term.
Speaker: And I saw it so much during our Learn to Play sessions.
Speaker: I can tell quickly if this player will stay with flesh and blood for a long period of time.
Speaker: Within the first 10 minutes of watching someone play, I can instantly tell this guy will stay.
Speaker: This person will not.
Speaker: And most of the time, I'm correct.
Speaker: No, that's a really good point.
Speaker: And again, jumping ahead to some of those five points that we're going to go through in detail, identifying your audience and all that.
Speaker: But before we move on here, you have so much experience with...
Speaker: with marketing and with selling the game.
Speaker: And one of the things that I see on Twitter sometimes is people from all over the world saying, hey, why doesn't LSS market like this?
Speaker: Why don't they advertise themselves?
Speaker: you know, by putting the product in Walmart?
Speaker: Or on the other hand, why don't they advertise themselves by making this pre-constructed product?
Speaker: Or everyone has a different opinion and it comes from all over the spectrum, right?
Speaker: Some people want it this way, some people want a Netflix movie, some people say want more lore and stories, some people say, no, add even more prizes to the Pro Tour, that's how you do it.
Speaker: What's your assessment of,
Speaker: the marketing push behind Flesh and Blood from LSS.
Speaker: Has it been good so far?
Speaker: Could it be better?
Speaker: What would you say about that?
Speaker: Well, first I would say congratulations to them because the game has grown dramatically ever since it started, right?
Speaker: And if there's one thing you cannot argue against, it's success.
Speaker: And the fact that they are enjoying the success that they have right now validates a lot of the things that they did in the past.
Speaker: The fact that they would put a lot of their, you know, you kind of can tell what their priorities are just by looking how they spend their money.
Speaker: So for example, you know that bulk of their marketing budget actually goes to the price pool of the ProPlay.
Speaker: Because they don't run like a lot of Facebook ads.
Speaker: Their merchandising is kind of there, but not really the best.
Speaker: So you, and a lot of the things, a lot of the content that you see is actually very heavily community-driven and creator-driven.
Speaker: So you can kind of sense already that what they've been doing is creating events and competition that incentivizes creators and communities to keep creating content and activities that will promote the game to a much wider audience, which they wouldn't be able to get if they spent the money just plainly on advertising.
Speaker: You guys can understand.
Speaker: It's like a very massive ripple effect.
Speaker: of being able to use the ProPlay as a central beacon.
Speaker: And then every, the creators, the people, you know, kind of like flock to it.
Speaker: And then you would see like all of those ripples spread across different markets and different segments.
Speaker: Now, having said that, can they do better?
Speaker: Obviously, yeah.
Speaker: Any organization, any business, any brand can always do better.
Speaker: And I think it will eventually reach a point where they will outgrow what they've been doing.
Speaker: Because what you, there's to say, what you did
Speaker: before cannot bring you to where you're supposed to go, something like that.
Speaker: You know what they mean?
Speaker: What made you successful before will not be the thing that will make you successful tomorrow, kind of like that.
Speaker: That, I think, is where Elisabeth is headed.
Speaker: They did a great job bringing the game this far.
Speaker: But if they want to take it to the next level, then that's where a lot of thinking and a lot of re-strategizing has to come, especially when it comes to branding and being able to build the brand of flesh and blood.
Speaker: You know, building the brand entails the lore, entails the IP of flesh and blood, entails so many other things that they can do and invest on.
Speaker: And that's the exciting part.
Speaker: And I wish them nothing but the best, but I really feel they're kind of headed towards there, especially the heavy hitters.
Speaker: Mad, the
Speaker: I'm super loving heavy hitters.
Speaker: I mean, the player in me, super excited.
Speaker: And the marketer in me, seeing what they've done, what they did.
Speaker: I know the Celebrational was kind of like received negatively in some way by some people in the community.
Speaker: But, I mean, it's Twitter.
Speaker: Come on, guys.
Speaker: Twitter is like where everybody goes to complain, right?
Speaker: You brought up a really interesting point about the marketing and where they're spending their money.
Speaker: I feel like some people think that LSS has an unlimited budget, which they don't.
Speaker: Yeah, they do not.
Speaker: look at the venue for worlds it was received uh sorry first world wasn't received very well because of the venue that it was in they upgraded you know at in the second uh worlds event they made it a lot better but when you talk about about marketing i've never felt like lss's um
Speaker: putting out fluff.
Speaker: They do the bare minimum of marketing to make sure that people know what's happening, but I've never felt like anything they've ever done is fake.
Speaker: And that was kind of something that I got from what you said when you were talking about marketing is that or where they're spending their money and they're spending their money in the prize pool to make sure that the game grows with intent and it's not just here for one time this year and then it goes away like a flash in the pan.
Speaker: So I thought that was really interesting eye opening statement that you made for me anyways.
Speaker: That's kind of how I interpret it.
Speaker: So I agree with you in that regard.
Speaker: Yeah, I think James, James White, and the rest of the LSS people really knows the bullseye target market that they want to talk to.
Speaker: And they've been investing heavily in talking to that particular segment because it's been successful for them.
Speaker: And again, will it bring them to the next level of success?
Speaker: That remains to be seen.
Speaker: Probably, but it wouldn't hurt to see how they would explore that.
Speaker: building the brand more, the story more, because those are things that would really make it so much more interesting and make it more sticky as the years go by.
Speaker: All right, moving on to the Twitter post that we talked about a little bit earlier.
Speaker: Around a month ago, you posted five tips for community growth from an LGS perspective.
Speaker: I'd like to go into detail.
Speaker: One of the first things that you said was awareness, attract and get their attention, posters at the store, photos on social media.
Speaker: Can you elaborate a little bit more on what stores can do or maybe even community members that don't necessarily have a lot of reach beyond a store to help put that out there, that awareness?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So maybe we have to take a step back and take a look at the framework as a whole.
Speaker: So when you talk marketing, there's really like the customer journey or the sales funnel.
Speaker: It sounds technical, but please bear with me.
Speaker: But the main essence is that you do not convert someone just by showing them one material, one time.
Speaker: That barely works, right?
Speaker: So you need to pike their interest.
Speaker: You need to get them curious.
Speaker: You need to find a way to get them to ask that question.
Speaker: Hey, what's that game?
Speaker: Where can I learn?
Speaker: Where can I learn more about it?
Speaker: And then you get, you need to get them to go to the place where they actually learn how to play, be it the website or an event.
Speaker: And then you need to find a way to catch them so that it's not a revolving door.
Speaker: What do I mean by revolving door?
Speaker: Wherein they don't just learn and then they leave.
Speaker: You need to have a program in place that will guide them
Speaker: and kind of plug them into a social circle that will make the game so much more sticky so that they stay for the long term.
Speaker: Now, if I were to translate that in marketing sales talk, that's the customer journey, or the marketing funnel or the sales funnel.
Speaker: And it starts with awareness, generally getting the word out and letting people find out that there is a game like Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: But it is not enough to just show a picture of Brevard or Reinar and show that there's a game called Flesh and Blood, right?
Speaker: Because to a total stranger,
Speaker: It just looks like a bloody orc screaming.
Speaker: So there has to be something there that will talk to that person or talk to the specific person that you want to talk to or niche or target market so that they will get interested and that they will ask the next question, hey, where do I learn to play?
Speaker: And for me, since I was targeting, again, the competitive TCG player, it was kind of straightforward.
Speaker: Flesh and Blood is a game with a 1.5 million USD pro-play circuit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it speaks immediately to the, to the competitive side.
Speaker: It speaks volumes already on what, what are the incentives.
Speaker: Um, and it will speak directly to the competitive TCG player.
Speaker: So that's the kind of like the initial awareness part.
Speaker: And you do that by having posters in shops, by having content on social media that people will get to see creators probably who will occasionally talk about it on their Twitter account or any.
Speaker: any platform or space where you get to get the word out that there is a game called Flesh and Blood, the TCG.
Speaker: They have a 1.5 million US pro tour, pro play package next year.
Speaker: And yeah, that's kind of like, and you can go here to learn how to play the game.
Speaker: Okay, so going through the rest of point three, you also outlined some other tactics for recruitment.
Speaker: So the next one that you outlined is consideration, just informing and giving them more details apart from just that surface level engagement and incentivizing current player base to be ambassadors.
Speaker: Can you elaborate on what your store has done particularly in terms of that consideration?
Speaker: Yeah, so the consideration phase is basically where people are curious and they ask,
Speaker: the question of what the game is actually about, right?
Speaker: You need to give them an avenue to give that information.
Speaker: So that's usually your social media page, your social media channels, your YouTube channel.
Speaker: That's why we have a YouTube channel that can be the players that you have or the current community that you have and then arming them and equipping them so that they can be ambassadors for the game.
Speaker: So we do that.
Speaker: We have a team unbox.
Speaker: When we do tutorials, it's actually the team members who do the teaching.
Speaker: So it's not like a random person or an employee of the store.
Speaker: It's the team that will actually teach you how to play the game.
Speaker: So they actually give their time, which I'm super thankful for, for Team Unbox, who volunteered their time to teach the players.
Speaker: So we also open that up to other vets and people who play within our community.
Speaker: If they want to teach, invite them.
Speaker: We tell them to, hey, tell your friends to join.
Speaker: We'll make it as easy as possible to get your friends, your circle, into flesh and blood, right?
Speaker: Because of our Learn to Play events.
Speaker: So that's kind of like how we do it.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: And it's really great to hear that even the top players of a team in box will step in and help out at something like a learn to play, as well as other members of the community like that.
Speaker: So that just goes to show how strong that message is heard up and down at your scene.
Speaker: The next point that you make there is about conversion, just about having a strong, easy and singular program for learn to plays.
Speaker: And then you say you give everyone pre-made blitz decks from ShopBalk and the community pile.
Speaker: So based on what you were describing earlier, it sounds like that this is something that's actually a very successful program for you.
Speaker: Yeah, so I'll elaborate.
Speaker: So this is kind of a funny story.
Speaker: And a lot of the team unboxed people tease me about it.
Speaker: So I'm a Drawmai main.
Speaker: So I play Drawmai in Classic Constructed.
Speaker: I bought so many Uprising boxes that I have like a ton of bulk commons and rares.
Speaker: And the easiest deck to make is Fi, right?
Speaker: So we actually gave birth to probably over 105 players.
Speaker: because of our learn to play.
Speaker: And it translates actually to our armories.
Speaker: So you see a lot of Phi players in our armories.
Speaker: And if you're a Draw My player, it's so frustrating to play against multiple Phies in multiple rounds of armories because that's the player base that you actually birthed into the world, right?
Speaker: So that's what we did.
Speaker: We took a look at all of our bulk.
Speaker: We actually made the Phi decks ourselves.
Speaker: We did the Blitz decks.
Speaker: We wanted it so that they could pick it up and go to an armory and play versus, you know, the Aira deck, which is not even legal.
Speaker: If you think about it, right?
Speaker: So, yeah, it's been very successful because we did a couple of Aira decks.
Speaker: We did a couple of, I'm sorry, we did a couple of Phi decks, a couple of Dash decks, and we just gave them away for free as opposed to the cards just, you know, staying in our bulk boxes gathering dust.
Speaker: And it has been a very successful program.
Speaker: And as someone who sells singles, I have never seen the amount of flame scale furnaces fly off the shelves of my store as fast as ever since we did the program.
Speaker: And we have had dozens of requests nearing probably more than probably 50, 60 of people wanting to buy full decks already.
Speaker: And most of these people came from our Learn to Play program.
Speaker: Wow, that's really great.
Speaker: And I mean, one thing that I think about learn to play is a lot of times they seem like a hard sell or maybe the first one is a tough sell and no one shows up and maybe it looks a little bit sad to people just trying to get their communities going.
Speaker: But persistence is key.
Speaker: Like you say, having a program, not just a one-off learn to play, but even if no one shows up one time, you keep on consistently showing out time and time again.
Speaker: Um, you know, eventually that program can become very successful.
Speaker: Like, uh, like you've shown.
Speaker: If I may, if I may, that's why it's important to have an audience existing already.
Speaker: So I mentioned earlier that, that, that I, myself, I, I ha I'm like a creator, right?
Speaker: So I have like a bunch of followers across different social platforms and I'm not shy to use whatever I built.
Speaker: from the world of sneakers and from the world of tech, all the different audiences that I've had in the past to really push the game.
Speaker: And I think that that's also been key, right?
Speaker: But apart from that, even our shop, we have over, I think, 30, 40,000 followers on Facebook.
Speaker: So those are the things that really matter because if you have that reach, if you have that built-in community, it's easier to launch marketing programs versus launching it
Speaker: in the vastness of social media with no one listening to you.
Speaker: Yeah, especially if you're not going to spend for ads, right?
Speaker: So that's why it's key to think like a creator in this day and age.
Speaker: If you're a shop, you have to think like a creator, because if you think like a creator, you'll be able to build communities, you'll be able to create content that will attract people.
Speaker: And then from there, you can pretty much launch whatever it is that you want to launch because you already have a platform, a system that talks to a wider audience.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's a really good point.
Speaker: The next point that you have for recruitment is to plug them into the community by adding them to your Fab Shop group chat or Discord, et cetera.
Speaker: And I mean, I like that because we hand out invites to our Discord for our community, like Candy, like, please, please join.
Speaker: And I mean, that's just even more ways to get them connected, to get them to learn the people, you know, make friends.
Speaker: And, you know, it's totally fine to have a bigger Discord for everyone.
Speaker: You can still have other Discords just for your little group of friends.
Speaker: But I think it's very important to have somewhere everyone can hang out.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I learned that from church.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: When you, for example, if you're a born-again Christian, right, the customer journey is like you do the altar call, and then from then, they will plug you into like a discipleship group and stuff like that.
Speaker: That's how it, you know, the church kind of works.
Speaker: I was thinking, I want to do something like that for flesh and blood.
Speaker: So after they learn...
Speaker: I need to put them somewhere where people will guide them and stick with them.
Speaker: People that they can ask about the game so that they can grow and mature in the game.
Speaker: So that was kind of like the thinking behind that particular point, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And then the last point here under step three is loyalty.
Speaker: Incentivize them to attend their first armory and upgrade their decks with one-time discounts and all of that.
Speaker: And I mean, incentives, they don't just have to be...
Speaker: money related, like here's your discount, you know, 10% off your first purchase.
Speaker: It could be that it could be friendship.
Speaker: It could be that sense of community that you were talking about where you're the uncle of the group and they can come to you for advice.
Speaker: There's so many different incentives and reasons to join a group, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So for us, it's a variety of things.
Speaker: So we have a rookie of the month program, wherein we recognize the most active
Speaker: player who came from our Learn to Play month in and month out, they get like a prize for it, store credits and stuff like that.
Speaker: But it's beyond the money.
Speaker: Sometimes it's really the recognition that people crave for.
Speaker: And if you're able to build a platform in a system that rewards that, then that usually does a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, no, exactly.
Speaker: And especially for something like Flesh and Blood, which, you know, on some level is, like you described, a brutal one-versus-one fight-to-the-death game, knowing that there's a broader community out there that does care about you, that recognizes you, that goes so far, you know, in building the community outside of the game.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I want to take us back to the first point that you posted.
Speaker: Clearly identify what player segment you want to target, competitive, casual, social, et cetera.
Speaker: So you mentioned that for your group specifically, it was always a very competitive group.
Speaker: Like, was that a intent full decision because you saw that certain other games were leaving an opening for those competitive players?
Speaker: Or like, is it more, you know, your local community, you know, this is what they're gonna go for.
Speaker: Like, how would someone look at their local community and say, I have a competitive community just like, you know, Carlos or my community is more social.
Speaker: Like how does someone do that?
Speaker: I think every community has a different mix.
Speaker: You have, you know, every community has a segment that you have competitive people, you have social people, you have casual people, right?
Speaker: I think what's important is that when you are an LGS owner or a store, you have to take a look at all the games as your tools.
Speaker: And every game, you have to maximize the strength of each game.
Speaker: So for me, the most social right now is Commander, EDH.
Speaker: So I still run EDH and Commander events on a weekly basis.
Speaker: because it caters to that particular segment.
Speaker: Now, the pro-play circuit of MTG is there, but I felt that I would get better returns if I pour that particular effort and investment in the pro-play side of Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: So that's been yielding really good returns for us, because you kind of focus the strength of the IP and the game on what it is strongest as, if you know what I mean.
Speaker: And then for...
Speaker: for the more casual games, we tried Lorkana.
Speaker: But the problem is there's no local distributor for Lorkana in the Philippines.
Speaker: It's so hard to get product at a good price locally, so we had to stop.
Speaker: But eventually when they get a local distributor, I would love to use Lorkana as a means to get more casual people into the game store.
Speaker: Understood.
Speaker: For the next tip on building LGS, you said to tailor fit your message and propositions for audiences you want to target.
Speaker: For us, the focus is competitive players, which is why a lot of our comms, we emphasize the $1.5 million US pro play.
Speaker: and various tier three and four local and international events and testimonials of successful players.
Speaker: How has this been received among your player base by you pushing the competitive narrative?
Speaker: Did it drum up a lot of excitement?
Speaker: Oh yeah, it's done a lot.
Speaker: I mean, that's I think the primary reason why people are so excited for Flesh and Blood this year.
Speaker: That's why a lot of people are excited for Battle Hardened because they know it's like the entry
Speaker: gateway for all of the other big events that will happen this year for Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: The Armouries right now are peaking like crazy.
Speaker: I mean, multiple stores are reporting attendances of like 20 to 24 to 30, primarily because there was a rumor that came out that XP is already being counted for nationals.
Speaker: So you kind of get the feel that the communication has been working significantly.
Speaker: And then even, for example, a recent
Speaker: A recent material that we posted in our different group chats was we kind of laid out how much money is on the line in the next three months.
Speaker: You know, this is how much money is on the line for Battle Heart in Manila.
Speaker: This is how much money is available or at stake at the calling Southeast Asia in Phuket.
Speaker: This is how much money is up for stake at Pro Tour LA.
Speaker: And the question to everyone, and we post this to the community is, how good do you think you are that you deserve a piece of that pie?
Speaker: So you challenge them because that's how you get competitive players amped up.
Speaker: You don't tell them, please play.
Speaker: You don't get competitive players to play like that.
Speaker: You tell them, are you good enough?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: You challenge that side of them.
Speaker: Because if you just tell them, hey, we have a cute game, that will never work.
Speaker: Or you try to plead with them to play.
Speaker: You appeal to their sense of competition.
Speaker: You appeal to their sense of ego where they, hey, I really want to prove something.
Speaker: I should be there.
Speaker: I should be playing there.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And you showcase other players in your local community who have done well.
Speaker: Justin Cook, who won the calling, which was part of TNBox.
Speaker: was a lightning rod for a lot of this to happen because suddenly a lot of Filipinos suddenly realized if he can do it, we should be able to do that as well.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So that was also like a big thing for us locally.
Speaker: Watching the video of Justin winning the calling, I actually cried.
Speaker: Like, I'm not... Don't worry, me too.
Speaker: Like, yeah, just the way the entire team came around him to celebrate.
Speaker: Yeah, it was quite a moment.
Speaker: Yeah, Justin is a really cool guy.
Speaker: I mean, the reason why we celebrated the way that we did, as I told you, Filipinos are very warm, hospitable.
Speaker: It's genuinely...
Speaker: Filipino to do stuff like that.
Speaker: And then when we were preparing for calling Taipei, it was more of like bonding than training.
Speaker: It wasn't like going to a house and then doing multiple reps of just, you know, draft.
Speaker: I mean, it was really...
Speaker: You know, sharing stories, eating together, playing, playtesting, but in between all of that, all of that thing, all of the other things that you do to build relationships.
Speaker: And that's probably why the reason that when he won, everybody was just over the moon together with him.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: One of the next points that you make as far as the building community was getting people to try the game is easy, but getting them to play competitively is totally different.
Speaker: And that this has, you mentioned before, the highest rate of attrition in the process.
Speaker: um it's an assault sorry and that this has the highest rate of attrition in the process and is ultimately only solved if you attract the right players yes how would you how do you go about you know attracting those players um for the competitive side well like what i mentioned earlier it's really the entire funnel that i mentioned but it starts with whatever what what is your key communication what is your one piece what is your one-liner pitch for the game
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: For Lorkana, it's easy.
Speaker: I mean, there's Elsa.
Speaker: I mean, that's why stronger IPs have an advantage, right?
Speaker: Because you don't have to say much and it will already talk a lot to the person.
Speaker: Or One Piece, it's Luffy and stuff like that.
Speaker: So you talk to the One Piece fan base.
Speaker: For Flesh and Blood, you really need to anchor it on something more than just the IP because the IP is not yet there.
Speaker: The IP is not strong.
Speaker: I mean, the only people who know Rhaenar are people who play Flesh and Blood, right?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So that's both a good thing and a bad thing.
Speaker: The good thing is that because you're coming from nothing, you can pretty much say anything, right?
Speaker: So in a field of...
Speaker: bland TCGs, you can pick a spot.
Speaker: And for me, and I think that's what the LSS guys did when they did the pro play move, and I just aligned myself to what it is that they were probably thinking, I felt that it was really the pro play thing, which is the 1.5 million US for this year.
Speaker: So that's what I went hard on.
Speaker: And that was the key communication that I centered everything on.
Speaker: And I feel that a lot of the people who were attracted by that statement
Speaker: had a much higher chance of graduating our Learn to Play, going to our armories, interacting with everybody else in our local community, and staying.
Speaker: And just to share, one of the guys who did our Learn to Play recently just won
Speaker: like our Road to Battle hardened event today.
Speaker: His name is Dodge.
Speaker: He learned two months ago, played Dash.
Speaker: We gave him the Dash Learn to Play deck that we built from our bulk cards.
Speaker: He just uprooted it himself.
Speaker: And he won an event earlier which gave him like a Sigil Merlion, you know, the promo.
Speaker: And we were just super proud and happy for him because that guy literally just started two months ago.
Speaker: And in the armory earlier today, he even beat me, which... So it's good to see progress like that, right?
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Thanks for that.
Speaker: But with being so focused on competitive play, is it important to also target the casual base or are you more focused, like you said, this year on the competitive play and bringing in people on that aspect?
Speaker: If the product is developed already...
Speaker: I mean, if the product is strong enough to stand, uh, the casual social play side of things that I, I wouldn't mind pushing it and giving it a shot.
Speaker: But again, the moment you go towards that lane, you are fighting commander.
Speaker: You're fighting EDH.
Speaker: So the challenge you ask yourself is, is the product that LSS made.
Speaker: And I'm talking as a marketer and as a, you know, an LSS, uh, uh, LGS owner is UPF going to stand toe to toe with commander.
Speaker: If the answer is no, then I'll spend most of my efforts and resources, see resources pushing the competitive side.
Speaker: So up until there is an offering that is unique and that can stand on its own.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And that I think, but, but I think they kind of know.
Speaker: That's the case.
Speaker: And that's why they initially started thinking of PvE.
Speaker: And that's why I was so disappointed when it didn't happen because I felt that that would be the unique thing that LSS would have.
Speaker: And that would allow LGS owners to talk about something that all the other games don't have.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So I think they're betting on the wrong thing.
Speaker: They're betting on UPF when they should be betting on PvE.
Speaker: Because the moment they bet on UPF, they're saying that this can compete against Commander.
Speaker: And sorry, it cannot.
Speaker: I don't think it can.
Speaker: And for the simple premise that Commander is fun because you build board states, right?
Speaker: You build, you amass armies, you talk while you're doing your armies, and then you attack one another with your dinosaurs or whatever.
Speaker: In Flesh and Blood, it's one on one.
Speaker: I mean, the cards that you hold, unless you are an illusionist, are all attacks.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how can it be as fun as Commander when you can take your time and chill and, you know, set up like different things before you can, you know, it's really very different.
Speaker: But if they went towards the PVE side of things, I mean, man, that would have been a...
Speaker: completely different beast.
Speaker: And I think that's where they should focus on, at least from my opinion, as a marketer and a LGS owner, because that can stand on its own, that can compete, and that can talk to an audience of its own that will allow for flesh and blood to grow.
Speaker: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: I was also disappointed we didn't get PvE last year, but fingers crossed we'll get it this year or soon.
Speaker: Yeah, dude, I have a Cold Foil Core Shem ready to go, so...
Speaker: I mean, it could just be a case of resources, right?
Speaker: They have to focus on what they're doing well right now until they, you know, get enough space to put more time and development into something like PvE.
Speaker: But I think a lot of people were super excited, like all three of us here were really looking forward to PvE.
Speaker: And I still, you know, we're still looking forward to an announcement, hopefully, at some point that that actually does happen.
Speaker: Yeah, and I hope they do it soon before another game does.
Speaker: Because, I mean...
Speaker: It's only a matter of time before someone else does it, right?
Speaker: And there's always first mover advantage.
Speaker: And if LSS, I'm sure it's in their pipeline and they're probably working on it as we speak or whatever.
Speaker: So I'm just expressing my hope, I guess, that it comes sooner than later because I feel that it can be such a big thing to help
Speaker: grow the game, and create a secondary market, a more healthier secondary market, especially for the cards, you know, that don't really sell well because they're not as competitive.
Speaker: That's kind of like what EDH does for Magic, right?
Speaker: All the crappy cards get sold.
Speaker: So, right?
Speaker: I mean, people buy dinosaurs just because they want to do a dinosaur deck, for crying out loud.
Speaker: But if you're able to create that market for people who want to build up their, in a very D&D Dungeons & Dragons-ish way, if they want to build up their Kasais and their Prisms a certain way, because they want to do an adventure with their friends, I mean, wow, that would be crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I do want to just round out the five points here with one that we've already touched on.
Speaker: And your tip here that I think should be repeated is that you should never stop growing your community because churn is constant.
Speaker: Just to add on my commentary, churn is normal.
Speaker: Churn is healthy.
Speaker: There is no...
Speaker: business or you know very few things are completely immune to churn i think some people have this ideal of their game community like they're on a sitcom they're on friends or something and it's always the same people every every time and as soon as one person leaves it's a disaster but
Speaker: It's not like that.
Speaker: Like you said in your post, and as you've been telling us today, life happens, people move on, someone could have a child or move away because of a new job or something else comes along, that's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, is that something that your community understands pretty well, do you think?
Speaker: Just that people move on, we can still be friends, like still keep in touch, even though you're playing a different game.
Speaker: Yeah, I think generally people kind of understand that.
Speaker: Obviously those who go to other games, we stay in touch.
Speaker: Every now and then they play Flesh and Blood again, they play Armories again.
Speaker: And like what you said, it's normal.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be the same group of people.
Speaker: But it's less of a problem if there are always new people coming in.
Speaker: And it's only an issue if there are no new faces popping up in the circle.
Speaker: But if there are constant people joining and enriching and making the community better, then it will never be an issue.
Speaker: I want to jump to, I think, one of the most exciting pieces for you, Battleheart in Manila.
Speaker: First of all, congratulations that that's happening.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I assume you're pretty excited about that, yeah?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, super.
Speaker: I mean, we've been bugging LSSs.
Speaker: a battle hardened for the longest time the reason why we did the 70 person armory was specifically to just get the picture to post on twitter to get lsss attention that was the plan nice that was the intent we rallied everyone playing flesh and blood in the unbox community i want you guys to show up and we will fight for a friggin cfb beaming blade
Speaker: for 70 people just so we can make a statement that we deserve a battle hardened.
Speaker: So that was really the plan.
Speaker: That was the intent.
Speaker: Because again, as a marketer, I thought to myself, what can I post that would get people's attention?
Speaker: Is there a 70-person armory?
Speaker: There is none.
Speaker: Okay, so I will make a 70-person armory to get people's attention.
Speaker: So that was kind of like the intent behind it.
Speaker: So this battle hardened is kind of like a culmination of a six, seven-month
Speaker: love letter to LSS to give us a battle-hardened Manila.
Speaker: And it started with that 70-person, what do you call that, armory.
Speaker: It became an 80-plus person skirmish, a 64-person pro-quest.
Speaker: I mean, it's been crazy.
Speaker: But now, we have to put our money where our mouth is, and that means providing
Speaker: an exceptional event for our community.
Speaker: And I don't want it just like any other battle hardened where it's just, okay, here are tables, here are chairs, here are your pairings, go play.
Speaker: That's, no, especially in the Philippines that will not work.
Speaker: You know, we are a very social country and I wanted something that felt more like a festival more than your typical TCG tournament.
Speaker: So that's why, it's a good thing that I was able to go to The Calling, Taipei.
Speaker: It was a good thing I was able to go to Worlds because it exposed me to what can be.
Speaker: And what can I add on to that?
Speaker: And one thing that I loved was really the interaction with the artists.
Speaker: I love the cosplay part of things.
Speaker: I love the international vendors bringing in merchandise and cards that the local market would normally would not have access to.
Speaker: I love the fact that the stores would buy cards, which would allow for our players to liquidate some bits a bit so that they would have more money to buy other stuff.
Speaker: And if they want to sell their card so they can quit, fine, it's okay.
Speaker: At least we provided them with the service rights.
Speaker: So anything that we can do to make the event more fun.
Speaker: And that's why we're treating Battleheart in Manila as if it were a calling.
Speaker: I mean, we have two international artists coming.
Speaker: We have one of my favorites, which is Iswardi.
Speaker: Oh, man, that guy is sick, as in dope, talented player.
Speaker: It's 100, over 9,000 level in terms of power level.
Speaker: I mean, I don't know if you guys seen his commissions.
Speaker: That guy is like super dope.
Speaker: I mean, man, crazy, crazy, crazy talent.
Speaker: And then we reached out to Soyame, which also has a significant following here in the Philippines.
Speaker: And it was fortunate that that was also the reason why I flew to Kuala Lumpur, because we saw that she was there.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: So we were able to invite her, especially through our partner, Ludo, who actually knows her.
Speaker: So we have the artist.
Speaker: Then we reached out to the local game stores that I collaborated with already in the past and met with, such as Gameshaven, some of the stores in Singapore, and they're flying over as well.
Speaker: We have three international vendors coming to Battleheart in Manila.
Speaker: Gameshaven, we have Fiendal Hobby, we have One Collectibles, and of course we have the three-day competition from the Super Armory to the Battle-Harded Blitz and then to the PTI CC.
Speaker: So it promises to be a really fun weekend.
Speaker: Oh, and I'm super excited to share this.
Speaker: We're doing something unique, I think, and I'm super stoked to get it on film so I can share it with the world.
Speaker: I want to honor the local teams who built the foundation for Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: So we're going to do a parade of teams before we start the event.
Speaker: I ask for the team logos.
Speaker: We're going to print it out in nice banners, and then we'll have them go around the venue.
Speaker: We'll recognize them.
Speaker: We'll honor them, have them host the banners up high, and then just recognize them for playing a pivotal role in building the community.
Speaker: And that will be the start of Battle Hard in Manila.
Speaker: And then we get to the tournament.
Speaker: Man, that sounds amazing.
Speaker: You've been planning this and working on this for like what seems like probably close to a year.
Speaker: Actually, the working towards getting it given to us by LSS was the longer part.
Speaker: Organizing the event and getting the venue, that's like one month and a half.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: And how has that process been since you were notified of them wanting you to host the Battle Harden?
Speaker: How has been the planning since then?
Speaker: Has it been fairly simple?
Speaker: Like you said, like all the legwork was kind of done up until you got that invite.
Speaker: How has it been since?
Speaker: Well, it's been challenging in the sense that it's kind of like organizing an event, right?
Speaker: Which is never easy.
Speaker: And everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Speaker: So I'm kind of expecting that already.
Speaker: But the good thing is if you come into something like this with the experience of mounting events in the past, then...
Speaker: you can kind of bank on your experience so that when the problems come, you can fix them as they come.
Speaker: I always say that an events manager is kind of like a fireman.
Speaker: The only job that he has is putting out fires as the event goes on, right?
Speaker: So put out as many fires as you can.
Speaker: So that will be the state.
Speaker: But of course, whatever we can plan for in advance, we're working on.
Speaker: So tomorrow we have a meeting.
Speaker: I'm meeting with our partner organizer as well as the team that will be doing the streaming.
Speaker: I'm meeting with the team also who will be handling the live content that will be pushed out across the social channels.
Speaker: If there's one thing I learned in business is that your product or event will live and die with your processes and your SOPs, right?
Speaker: So if you have weak processes and systems, your event will die.
Speaker: So I am putting in as many SOPs, processes, and systems in place now so that when there is a new event later on, it will be easier.
Speaker: But more importantly, so that anybody who we hired to be part of the organizing team is well-equipped to do their job because they know what to do.
Speaker: And there is as least vagueness as possible.
Speaker: And when I say SOPs, dude, I'm telling you, it's like rule number one, do this.
Speaker: Number two, do this.
Speaker: For social coverage, make sure you have this.
Speaker: Post X amount of times.
Speaker: Post on Twitter this.
Speaker: It's really spelled out.
Speaker: Because the more SOPs and processes you can put in place like that, the better it will be for everyone.
Speaker: So that's what we're working on right now.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So with how competitive your local scene is, how fierce do you expect the competition to be at this battleharden?
Speaker: Oh, insane.
Speaker: I just saw the registrations and we're seeing a lot of registrations from China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand.
Speaker: So there are a lot of people flying in within the region.
Speaker: I think the trip to KL was very helpful because we were able to invite the people from Singapore and KL and Taiwan and Thailand who flew there to play.
Speaker: So for me, it was actually a battle hard in Manila marketing trip than me just playing.
Speaker: which turned out to be cool, right?
Speaker: So the international scene, or at least the local scene, the regional scene is definitely taking notice and they're registering.
Speaker: I'm super excited to host them and provide them with a great player experience.
Speaker: Locally,
Speaker: Man, I think it's going to be insane, especially with heavy hitters.
Speaker: I mean, the group chats of all the different teams are just popping like crazy right now about all the different builds.
Speaker: There's a lot of talk about Reinar, a lot of talk about Kayo, some talk about Viktor, especially in Blitz, right?
Speaker: Because Blitz is like the main event for this time around.
Speaker: So you only have like 20 life.
Speaker: I mean, you can get steamrolled by Dash for...
Speaker: Like a Teclo Pounder, boost, boost, boost, then Max Nelo.
Speaker: That's it, right?
Speaker: Yeah, taking like 20 damage on turn zero.
Speaker: Or a turn zero channel mount from Briar, right?
Speaker: I mean, that's why I think apart from the competitive strategic side, you also have to deal with the variance of Blitz, which I think is going to be insane.
Speaker: So I'm looking forward to it and I'm super excited.
Speaker: I'm sure a lot of players and people locally and within the region are racking their brains as to what would be the best pick for Battleheart in Manila.
Speaker: We covered a bunch of specific questions about Battle Hard Manila.
Speaker: Was there anything that you left out that you wanted to share?
Speaker: Anything else that's exciting that you find?
Speaker: Well, maybe just a few things.
Speaker: And probably it will be a way for us to invite more people.
Speaker: We're doing it in a really nice venue.
Speaker: Usually, you'd probably see Battle Hardens and TCG events in schools.
Speaker: I think that's been a big venue recently.
Speaker: We rented out.
Speaker: a massive activity center in the middle of one of the nicest poshiest malls in manila so i think it's deserving of of of international like visitors yeah uh so i'm super excited to to be able to have people experience that and and have a tournament with great customer experience so i'm not promising it will be perfect i'm sure we will make mistakes but
Speaker: We will try our best to make sure that people are comfortable, people are happy, and people are satisfied when they play at Battle Hard in Manila.
Speaker: Because while the love letter for Battle Hard in Manila has probably reached its conclusion, will reach its conclusion on Feb 2-4,
Speaker: It only means that the love letter to LSS for calling Manila has begun.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: I mean, you're making me want to travel to Manila to go to this.
Speaker: You should.
Speaker: I know I would love to, but all of what you're putting into this sounds like it's going to be the best battle heart.
Speaker: And I'm super excited for you and for those that get to attend it.
Speaker: So I'm kind of.
Speaker: If you won't be able to go, we are investing heavily in content from same-day edit videos to short clips.
Speaker: So I'll make it a point for people who are not there to at least feel like they're there or share the emotion of what's happening so that you make it a point to visit us when we do Calling Manila.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: I mean, I watched your ProQuest setup a few months ago, so I'm a bit of a night owl.
Speaker: So I will definitely be looking forward to that coverage.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, we're going to be wrapping things up here in a little bit here, Carlo.
Speaker: But man, just to echo what Shay said, listening to you describe all the work that both yourself and the broader community have put in to make this Battlehearted truly special.
Speaker: And even looking through your Twitter, looking at all these cool extras and all these things that you're doing and all the ways they're going above and beyond for everyone that's going to be there and tuning in online.
Speaker: I'm massively excited.
Speaker: I can't wait.
Speaker: And I guess just to broaden the scope a little bit before we wrap things up completely here, can you tell us your favorite memory in Flesh and Blood so far before Battle-Hardened Manila?
Speaker: Oh, favorite Flesha.
Speaker: Oh, it's probably from a comp- I'll share two things.
Speaker: Number one, from a competitive, and then number two would be more of a social thing.
Speaker: The competitive thing would probably be winning a... I don't know, yeah, winning... Actually, it's attending Worlds.
Speaker: I mean, that was like insane.
Speaker: I mean, the vibe, meeting people, meeting your, you know, fab idols, getting time to chat with James and the professor.
Speaker: That was like the best.
Speaker: I mean, in terms of like bigness, but if I were to just zero in on one competitive instance, winning a ProQuest was fun.
Speaker: Winning my first ProQuest, and it was draft, which was the format I said I would never win.
Speaker: So it was just surreal to be able to win a ProQuest and get that ticket to ProTour LA.
Speaker: So that's probably the favorite in terms of...
Speaker: competitiveness or competition.
Speaker: A favorite moment, I'll do three.
Speaker: A favorite moment, just recently, it's those big, crazy moments that you get with your deck.
Speaker: So I play Briar, right?
Speaker: And Briar in Blitz has sick, crazy moments.
Speaker: For example, earlier today, I was playing at an Armory,
Speaker: I had a 17 point damage CNC come across my opponent.
Speaker: So I had channel mount.
Speaker: I put down earth lore surge red plus five.
Speaker: I had a plunder run from arsenal, which was plus three.
Speaker: So that's plus three, plus three, plus five.
Speaker: And then CNC with embodiment of lighting, which meant it had go again.
Speaker: So after CNC, I drew a card from plunder run.
Speaker: I think it was...
Speaker: a Ravenous Rabble for seven, and then I had one floating for a Rosetta Thorn for four.
Speaker: So it's those moments that you remember, right?
Speaker: But from a social moment that I will forever remember, it's definitely Justin winning.
Speaker: That kind of bonded the team a lot.
Speaker: And it's a moment that I would love for a lot of other Filipino teams to experience in the months to come.
Speaker: Well, from the both of us, thank you so much once again.
Speaker: This was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker: If anyone wants to reach out to you or learn more about yourself or Unbox or the battle-hardened Manila, how would they do that?
Speaker: Twitter would be the ACS way right now, so just tweet me.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: My Twitter was dead for the longest time until I got into flesh and blood.
Speaker: Now it's like so alive.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, just hit me up on Twitter and I'll do my best to engage and interact or answer any questions that might come up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And your handle on Twitter is?
Speaker: At Carloople, C-A-R-L-O-O-P-L-E.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And you've been listening to the IP2 podcast.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: You can find us on Twitter at IP2 podcast, on YouTube, IP2 podcast, and on Blue Sky, IP2 podcast.
Speaker: Thank you.
