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A Publishing Success Story with Manor Lords (ft. Tim Bender) | Dev Heads Podcast
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This week, the crew is joined by Tim Bender, CEO of Hooded Horse, to talk about games publishing and their big recent success story with Manor Lords!
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
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Meet Tim Bender, CEO of Hooded Horse
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Dev Heads, the podcast focused on the ins, outs and goings on of game development with hosts. Experience ranging from indie double to triple A. I'm Jay, joined by my wonderful co-host Tina. Hello, how's it going? I'm triple A. And Mikey. Hello, I'm Mikey. Two E's and two A's for double A. And we are joined today by a very special guest, Mr. Tim Bender, the CEO of Hooded Horse. Hello, Tim. How are you doing? Hi, I'm doing good. Great. Welcome. How you doing? You good? You good? Yes. Awesome. Perfect. what So Tim, for people who don't know who you are, tell tell our audience what you're about, where you're from.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, I am. i am a So, Hooded Horse, i'm a CEO of Hooded Horse, and we are an indie publisher. So, we publish third-party games. We don't own any studios ourselves. We don't do development ourselves. We do just the marketing, distribution, sales, strategic partnerships, localization, and so forth for indie game developers. And I'm personally here in Seattle, and that's where I live, which is a great place to be for games and also just a great place to live. Yeah. Your publisher's kind of unique in the sense that you kind of focus specifically on kind of one kind of realm of games, which is kind of unique for for publishers. Do you find that gives you a specific advantage?
00:01:58
Speaker
Yes, I mean, I think that so we built ourselves entirely focused on strategic and tactical games and not narrowly um defined rather broadly defined, but still without as a real focus. So every game that we do is, you know, it might be an RPG, but it's got tactical battles, you know, it's Everything has a strategic and tactical element to it. ah you know there's some you know You're building your base while doing other things. That would be that would bring it within our portfolio. So all of it has strategic and tactical elements. And what that does is it creates a common core around which our team you know can have expertise and understand it.
00:02:35
Speaker
Because we all love these games, we all enjoy them. We all also love other sorts of games, of course, too, like, you know, everyone plays Helldivers. But, you know, the, ah but we, um but we all have, this is a kind of game we like, that we all like, and therefore that we understand and therefore that we can be effective at publishing. um and At the same time, it also has a there's a reason they're related to um how consumers perceive us as a publisher because a publisher an indie publisher is in large part in marketing a marketing entity. It's it's it's the core of what what they do. There are other aspects too, but that is core. and By having a unified identity around a type of game that we're rather
00:03:16
Speaker
a range of types of games, but that a common group of gamers is interested in, it allows us to it allows people to feel like, oh, well, I can be excited about the next sort of horse game, because it's probably for me. Never invariably so, because everyone has you know differing interests, even with our own company. We have the different kinds of strategies to focus with on. But there's always sort of a common element of like a potential interest that
Founding Story of Hooded Horse
00:03:41
Speaker
unites it. And so it works well in terms of our ability to function and us understanding the games. be effective and also works well with the players and knowing that this is this is a this is where they go if they like these types of games. I gotta note, too like it must have been a hard niche to carve out, but what was that whole process like, like establishing that audience, making those first contact? can Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and like how you stepped into this and what it was like building it?
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, ah at the very beginning, it goes back to, so um I was a big fan. So when I first found the company, it's basically just me. It's about 30 people now. But if we go back to the initial thing, it's it's basically just, but no, it is literally just me. um and first The first game we signed is again called Terran Vecta. It was not the first game we released. The first game we released was Old World, which is a wonderful historical forex by Soren Johnson, who is the lead designer of civilization for Civilization III. But the the first game that we signed, which released a few months after Old World, was Terran Vecta.
00:04:44
Speaker
And that one, I was a big fan of XCOM long war. And, um you know, that mod for XCOM, and I would just play it, you know, all the time, really loved it. And I got a newsletter from being having to subscribe to the the the mining team's newsletter, saying that they're planning um a Kickstarter for the game Kara Victor. And so and there was something, it's just like, you know, I'm gonna reach out and I'm gonna talk to them because this is a project that is really exciting. And then I reached out and met John Lumpkin, you know, and we started ah the, we started talking and then eventually, and that was it. We signed a publishing agreement. So it started, it started with Taran Victor and it started with really, really loving the long horned mods for Xcom.
00:05:25
Speaker
I always thought that was so cool. um ah I came from modding, right? I got involved in like the Half-Life 2 modding scene and and I've just always been a big fan of mods in general, even to this day. And I remember reading about that saying like, oh, the Terran Victor devs, they're from the long war mod. That's so cool. I'm glad they went commercial. And you helped them with that. That's awesome. We were lucky to be able to work with them. It's just, it's great. that's like the spark, right? I think it comes from a place of love though. Like that's the thing that was so excited to hear what you were talking about there, which was you had a love for, you know, a game and that kind of pushed you in the direction for your career and what you wanted to do with her to the horse. And I think that's really exciting. And it allows people to get excited, like you said about
00:06:09
Speaker
ah Hooded Horse and your games that you're publishing because they know it's also coming from that place of love. And we've seen that success with, ah you know, congratulations on Mana Lords and all the success that's been seeing. It's been um really exciting to watch. Did you kind of expect that kind of, you know, hype to to to build up? Is that something you were you
Company's Growth & Sustainability Focus
00:06:30
Speaker
were gearing towards or was it a surprise? I guess if we're going way back to the beginning, I didn't have particular ends or goals or like thought like, oh, we want to be this big or anything like that. I just knew that we want to be sustainable, that we want to do a good job for the developers. And that was sort of it. I mean, like at the beginning, I mean, I think
00:06:52
Speaker
but mean we weren't like and we've never taken any money from venture capital or private equity or any like professional and you know like investing entity instead it was just like you know a friend of mine initially and then actually you know like and and then some friends along the way but all who care about games and all individuals and not anyone particularly focused on growth or like you know achieving some end here something so you're saying you threw in your own cash to help publish these games Oh man, I wish I could say that, but it was actually my friend. Yeah, your friends. Okay. I worked without being paid. Um, so that was, that was my contribution is, um, that I worked for the first, I think three years for without being paid. So I guess in a way I threw in my own money, but honestly the money came from them. So basically it came from a friend of mine. Um, uh, so I don't know if he wants me to say his name publicly. Well, okay. I have a friend. my friend And he he put up the initial everything. He's actually the one who who got me to do it. because So modding backgrounds, i was creating I created a mod called Viking Conquest Balance Mod, which was for a DLC for Mounted Blade Warband called Viking Conquest. And somehow, I thought it was a good idea to mod a five-year-old DLC.
00:08:00
Speaker
I'm like, I know, but I got in there and I created this, and I just needed, like I was balance wobbles. I just intended to do a couple quick changes, but then it grew and by version 13, I had like 10 page single space mod change logs and stuff. And it became like the, the, the, the, the, the, the mod for that DLC. I'm looking at the mod DB page right now. That's so cool. Yeah. Well, I like mean i think I've still got a hundred percent positive reviews unless someone's. You do. You do. I'm, I'm unreasonably proud of my tiny little mod. So yeah anyway, the, um, so my friend Aaron, read i said its name that's okay. I haven't said the last name, but he reached, he basically said to me, you know, um,
00:08:40
Speaker
the uh you know well you're you've been having fun doing this modding thing you seem to like games what if i funded you to do a company involved in games and i sort of like yeah yeah that was the start and then um and then we just picked up a couple more people along the way but it was people we sort of met accidentally um and became friends with and then it ended up in a nice position so you know like it was just individuals there's no there's no pressure no one's so we never had like a lofty like growth, but the the plan was just like, let's make it so that like, this can be sustainable, we can like, you know, you know, have it be like, you know, a company that exists and is able to sustain itself and, you know, maybe hire all people and then and then things grew, but things I think grew in a way that like where we might kind of be near the end of that growth, because we don't want to grow professionally. And we're at around We're we're at about 25 people right now, and we're going to be about 30 when we're, you know, it's about like our final
Academic Journey vs. Gaming Industry
00:09:40
Speaker
size. um And we're sort of doing the things that we want to do. So we're we're you know already getting things, you know, ports are being produced for consoles, and we've got DLC for some of the games that have gone 1.0. And we've, you know, we've got a nice pipeline of games, we've got the position filter. So we probably are around our final state. And it's really actually nice to be able to have a final state rather than just keep growing forever and until you start the layoffs. So it's good to feel very much more sustainable, I think, just like we've got our intended size. And now now our focus is just on sustainability, saving for ourselves, for our developers especially, making sure that we do a job for all of them so that they, you know, because it's just like there's way too much boom and bust, you know, like,
00:10:25
Speaker
until you end up with layoffs and all sorts of things that have a human tragedy to them and just lose so much creativity and potential for art. So I think a part of avoiding that is like we have our our our what we want it to do. and yeah yeah I want to rewind a little bit because um you have a very unique story of getting into video games. And I think one of the biggest questions we get from fans is, how do you get into video games? And I think a lot of people just assume, like, development's the only path. And clearly, you've taken a unique path. But I also think you have an amazing background. um I read that you have two master's degrees, but you also had like a legal degree. and
00:11:03
Speaker
You decided to not necessarily check that all the way, but you kind of like threw it to the side to do publishing and I want to know like how how did you decide this is it, like this is what I want to do. Yeah. it's it's some So
Historical Games Interest
00:11:20
Speaker
it's interesting, right? Yeah. I mean, it is true. like I probably didn't need to spend those three years in law school. um you know it's When I get to like the rationalization mood, I start to think things like, well, there's an advantage here, because I can just edit the contract while I'm talking with the devs. And what we're figuring things out. Yeah. This this is rationalization, one tells oneself. I see.
00:11:39
Speaker
yeah multiple years so it's it's it's not real um the uh but um the and then like it's the same way like with the the couple masteries both the ones in um ones in regional studies east asia which is basically the regional politics uh and the other one is um ah in ancient Chinese history. so little yeah no i i was I was going to be an academic. I was in a PhD program at Harvard to become a historian of ancient China, a social sort cultural historian. And then I just mean i i just gave up took a term of a master's and obeyed the lure of the video games, I guess. but
00:12:16
Speaker
so But but I could maybe like argue that like, well, I mean, I still get some benefit from that. It was like to the Chinese audience. And, you know, it's a very important idea. In reality, it probably didn't need the like six years spent reading 2000 year old texts and learning ancient, you know, It's not modern Chinese, but ancient Chinese language, which is different than modern Chinese, right? like ah i can I can hear it, though, Tim. like I can hear Tim Bender in the great courses as I'm, you know, for a walk or something, yeah talking about ancient Chinese. You have the voice and the delivery for that. I can definitely hear it. It could have been a a good pass for you, too.
00:12:51
Speaker
Just throwing like an idea out there to you a free idea like why don't you get a team to do a romance of the three kingdoms like strategy game i know we've played like. You know i played kessen back in the day but that was. Oh my god, don't even know how... K-E-S-S-E-N. It was from Koei before they merged with Tecmo. Yeah, Koei Tecmo is what I think they are now. um But yeah, like, I haven't seen a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game in a very long time, and I think maybe the fans are long overdue for something like that.
00:13:25
Speaker
You know, I think there's a lot of potential in looking into China. I definitely agree with that. um The Three Kingdoms there is wonderful. um It's something that we'd love to publish a game in. There's also like some really interesting areas that are largely unexplored. The Spring and Autumn period does not have much games. It's a much more ancient period. um You
Philosophy on Game Support
00:13:46
Speaker
know, there's just so much there. You're absolutely right. That would be really interesting to to do games. and And we are keeping an eye out for that. i can't I've got nothing that i can say right now but you know like we've been keeping our eye out and um it's it's definitely ah we would love to do to to do games out there and then um and i would say uh you know like in in this sort of like more general sort of historical interest because you know like one of the things that i find so attractive to men about mannerlords and that drew me to the project is that it is sort of a work very interested in social and cultural history which was the kind of historian that I was trained in. Yeah, it's it's it's not ah it's not a work that's concerned with like the grand politics of the Homeric Holy Roman Empire and what was happening. It's a work that's concerned with how did people you know raise chickens in their backyards and throw vegetables and what are their buildings with them? What did they wear and how did they live their lives? And what and to the extent it engages with things in warfare, what's beautiful about Mantlelords is not that there's you know like
00:14:45
Speaker
gigantic battles because there's relatively few and they're of a small scale, it's that you see your people put down their tools, stop working in the fields, go to their house, pick up their shield and their weapon, go for it, and then you see them come back and you feel the human cost of it all. ah and you know it's it's that is that That's what drew me to social and cultural history rather than political history, is is the the the sort of that that aspect of things and how interesting that is compared to just like how the borders change. Um, so yeah, I mean, if, if, if, I mean, it's, it's, anyway, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just rambling. No, I love this. not Yeah. I mean, it probably lends itself. Go ahead. Sorry. That's okay. It's just, I think that the passion for that lends itself to the success of the game, right? As you can kind of get lost in a time period and learn more about it. I think that's what's really cool about Mandalords. But, um, what were you going to say, Mike?
00:15:36
Speaker
I was just going to say, ah to to when I was playing it, to drive your point home about how it's about the socio-cultural, I think is how you said it, aspect. Yeah, I ah blinked when I thought, oh, I'm not assigning worker units to this field. I'm assigning families. And I thought about the unit there. And then I zoomed in. I'm like, wait, look, they're all going over here. And they're cutting down that tree and they're coming over there. it was ah very super, de said seven years makes sense when you see the detail and the depth and all the highlighted proper nouns and each nice, uh, well-developed wellveloped ah tutorial pop up. It's a, it was really cool to see. Uh, but yeah, kind of speaking of that, I'm curious, like, what's it been like with the manner Lord's launch? Obviously it was, it was huge. And, and, uh, it sounds like it wasn't something that like was, was as expected to be as huge as it was. What's that process been like for you for, for the developer Greg and and for your team?
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was ah you know, I mean it's it's it's an interesting thing because it was definitely um Like bigger, you know, like we had it was about twice what we were what we were hoping for, you know, it was It would have been um It would have been a little crazy for us to expect to be as big as it is It had more concurrent players on launch than civilization six dead on its launch or total war war 3 dead, you know And no one was gonna shoot Yeah. Like we were expecting more like, okay, let's be like one of the giant grand strategy game launches or giant city builder launches, but it ended up being like, it's like the most of the highest concurrent player count of any city builder, but it's like times two or more in that. And we were expecting more like our our hopeful expectations were more like, you know, like about half of that. Um, so it's established brands, man.
00:17:19
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's it's um it would but at the same time, the interesting thing is like when you're when things are It's sort of like, you know, it's like an interesting question of scale because like in terms of like how it is like, okay, do we have a deluge of user reports that we need like, you know, a quality assurance firm to help, you know, work
Challenges in Marketing and Support
00:17:39
Speaker
through and organize? Yes, we need them, but we wouldn't need them if it had been 10% as bid, right? And do we need to, you know, like have really good communication that's designed around, you know, like a lot of players being there? Yeah, we need that. But again, 10% is big. We probably still would have needed that. um So in the interesting thing is like,
00:17:58
Speaker
It hasn't really changed they're theyre probably the reality of things much because it was just like okay it's it's you know like twice what the biggest thing we were you know expecting was, but at the same time, at that scale, the twice still is just really, really big and they you still have to do all the things that you would otherwise. so it hasn't It probably hasn't changed things as much in terms of a ah and And, you know, in in terms of like, you know, the financial thing, will the project be sustainable? Yeah, I mean, that's past that, laughed out a few times. So, you know, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really nice to see it hasn't, but it hasn't posed new requirements that we weren't expecting.
00:18:37
Speaker
Okay, right on. It sounds like you reacted and then adapted as you needed to, and you were prepared, largely speaking. Yeah. and I'm interested to hear about what the process looks like for you know signing so owning a team to for you for you to publish, right? like Because you just publish games that are from specific kind of genre archetypes. When you go in and you get pitches handed into you, are you looking for things that are trying to do something a little bit different to what the the rest of the genre is doing? Or are you trying to find something that's just doing that one niche thing really well?
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think we definitely are looking for the unique things that it's doing, the different things that it's doing. It's, you know, every game should have something to just fall in love with. And, you know, it may have a range in terms of like how wide that audience is that would fall in love with. I mean, you look at what there is to fall in love with manual arts, which we've talked about that social culture aspect, the impact, the zoomed in nature, the That is is is clearly a very wide market, and then you can have, um and and and sets the extreme there, but you have varying levels of, you know, sort of like how wide it is. Like another of our games that is obviously not as big as Man of Lords, but is just as much something to love is a nebulous fleet command.
00:19:59
Speaker
And nebulas league command uh involves a look at sort of like what space warfare would be like um would actually be like a full electronic countermeasures and all the complexity and it is um absolutely just a beautifully designed experience you can't get this anywhere else um it is there's something to absolutely fall in love with and then when you have that. um or Or another of our games, Clan Folk, which is a historically accurate um Scottish ah like family clan simulator. um And it's ah it's a colony set where there really is no violence. I mean, there's like, you can get like coming in a fisticuffs, and that's like, as far as it goes, right? Because it's more concerned with like the growth of the family, people being born, taking care of the elderly, and just like, how and and and and the kinds of foods people ate in Scotland, you know, in this parttime period of history. So
00:20:49
Speaker
These are all things, you know, what what unites all the games is that there's something you just absolutely love about them. They're doing something that you can't get out. They're offering experience you can't get out because that's the wonderful thing about these games, right? They offer experience as something something to try out. And when when there's some that that that unique experience, there's something this game delivers that but some people are going to fall in love with. That's that's the thing that makes sure a game, I think, will succeed as long as it has a controlled budget, you know, like it's not Like, you know, like I'm actually you can't put 100 people on everything and and then come out OK. But like when you're talking with small teams, what you really you need something where there's something to fall in love with. And and then that will that that is what I think and that's what I think generates a success. 100 percent. Yeah. And speaking to success, obviously,
Game Selection Criteria
00:21:40
Speaker
you've spoken about this, I think, in a game developer article, Tina that Tina read a while ago.
00:21:48
Speaker
Did I speak where it came from? ah It was a game developer article ah that came out recently, I think it was in within the last month, but um you said that there's, um I'm paraphrasing, but there's basically like ah publishers that will sign five games, four will flop, one will succeed, and then they forget about the flops, and then pull out all their effort on the one that's succeeding. um ah And you said that's way too common in publishers, um because they prematurely like kick the others to the side. What, in your perspective, should publishers be doing for the four flops? Yeah, it's i mean it's I think that the the thing is these
00:22:32
Speaker
There's an approach that sort of determines how things go that starts before any of this, right? It's it's how you look at the games and and how you, if a publisher has an attitude where everything is about, let's get the most the highest return on investment possible and let's make sure that in these games are just tools towards like an average out success financially and you know like it's interchangeable let's we get a better return this game versus the other let's invest that one then that's part of what generates the flux right that's that's it's an approach where they will make decisions along the way like oh this game might need delay funding to reach its full potential or where do you put the marketing attention that generates the sales on release so it's really i think it's the approach initially that determines a lot of whether
00:23:18
Speaker
ah games will flop. It also determines whether do they either do the due diligence to make sure before they sign the game that they're going to be able to solve for it, right? um Also, how many, you know, like, how do they structure things? Do they just sign everything they possibly can to to look for some mysterious viral hit that they can ride? Or are they actually looking and saying like, oh, we have the resources and we have the capability to assist this particular game. We know how to market this game and we see how to do it. And so it's i think it's a path it's about a path that leads to games doing better. That having said, when you do get to, inevitably nothing can be set for certain, right? So when you do get to a game that struggles, although I think most of those, in that example, most of those loss are probably generated by decisions that were being made long before the game released by the publisher. But when you get to those, I think it becomes a question
00:24:04
Speaker
of like, um, well, how, what do you do then? Do you like have the developer be buried under recoup terms where they have to, you know, where all the money is coming to you and the developer has nothing to support themselves or do you not have those terms set up and instead like be sharing the kind of, you know, like the developer from the, the the beginning getting enough revenue to support themselves. Do you adapt and look into how you can provide more resources or assistance to that developer to help them you know like solve whatever it is that needs to be solved? And I think like it does come back to that original, like if you
00:24:37
Speaker
There's original decision about like how you're signing, how you're looking at the games you sign. Is this about like just like, oh, i'm in you know I'm a publisher. I'm going to be a middleman. I'm going to place bets. I'm going to see what succeeds and and ride that. Or do you look at it as like, hey, i I think I can support this game. I can deliver a good success to this game. I can provide what it needs. Because if you do that, then
Marketing Strategies for Indie Games
00:24:57
Speaker
it's a continuing commitment. Yeah, just from my perspective of working with publishers, I do find the value in working with a publisher or people at the publishing side that understand the game you're making and have like a personal investment in what it is and enjoy it themselves too.
00:25:15
Speaker
Because i I feel like that's almost like a ah fail safe to make sure that we're all set up for success. um Just to share a personal story very quickly. When I was working on Apex and I was working with EA, um I met a couple of people on the publishing side. you know They don't represent the whole publisher, just mind you. I need to preface that because there was there wass a lot of people that were very dismissive towards me about the game we were making. before it released. And um to be quite honest, it didn't have the support of the publisher from my perspective. Right. That's why we did like the surprise launch and we didn't have the marketing backing. We didn't have the money for that. um We did gain it after the release because they saw the return of investment. Right. Like you said. um And we got anthem commercial spots because I guess that game wasn't doing well at the time. um
00:26:13
Speaker
But yeah, it's just interesting that like yeah how quickly ah a publisher can write something off, like you said. um And sorry, Tina. So you're saying that doing the surprise launch was part of partly as a result of not getting the attention that you needed? Uh, I would say so just from what I've experienced. Um, I don't think the, from the people I talked to, they didn't really feel like Apex was going anywhere and you know, the developers really believed in it and we played it all the time. Um, but.
00:26:46
Speaker
Like ah just to set the the tone, like I went to a meet and greet at EA's campus and we did like a roundtable with like seven other people and our introduction was like, what do you want to do in five years? Everyone I talked to didn't want to be in games in five years. They wanted to start a yoga studio. They wanted to get into baking. They wanted to work for Google or something. So it wasn't like I was talking to people that got what we were trying to achieve with our our future fan base, right? um And so that, for me, was very frustrating. But also, I have one question for you, Tim. that's
00:27:26
Speaker
That's always like kind of followed my career path from publishers, which is don't cannibalize our other games that are shooters. Stay away from specific themes or like features. um But you work in you know mainly like strategy games. Correct me if um if I'm not representing that um fairly, because I just summarized that. but ah Do you ever feel like you're cannibalizing your own games that you've published in the past when you bring on another one? I assume no, but I'd love you to share your thoughts on that.
00:27:59
Speaker
No, I mean, I think that gamers love new experiences and that if there is something to, if there's just something to love about the game, right? Like if if there is something unique about it and that's a new experience, it's something new club, we have tons of games that, I mean, I guess if you were to say like space strategy, okay, we've got Nebula's Tarabekta Farm Frontier, Fragile Existence, you know, Capital Command, I mean, it goes on and on. and Yeah, there's like seven or nine. Yeah. Yeah, so there's no cannibalization there. If anything, they're supportive of each other because someone who likes one um is very likely to check out the others. And so they all help each other. um And that I think is the, I mean, I mean i think people, as long as it's, people like new experiences, right? that's what we're you know If something unique and wonderful about each of these games, then that will carry through and people will want to play it for that reason.
00:28:49
Speaker
you're You're building a space for that as well. Like you said, um towards the beginning, Hooded Horse is a space for people to check out those things. um and, you know, be able to return to, say, your publisher page on Steam and see new things that they wouldn't otherwise because of, you know,
Naming Challenges in Gaming
00:29:07
Speaker
say certain marketing things. But speaking of marketing, this question I had for you, we've seen recently ah from a lot of the um digging into how much it costs to get a one minute ad at the Summer Games Fest. I think correct me if I'm wrong guys, but it was like 250k. What is the process like for marketing an indie or double A ah game? How do you market that from a publisher's perspective? is that What are the difficulties there?
00:29:34
Speaker
i think that You know, I mean, it's, and of course, we'd never be at the head that's on another scale. um The, um the, ah I think the fundamental thing that we start with, when when we're looking at marketing game is is to really understand it deeply. It's one of the reasons for, you know, our portfolio scope is that we really get in and look to understand what it is about the game. And this happens before signing, and then it just keeps happening afterwards. um Understanding what the unique, ah wonderful thing about the game is, understanding the the the different types of gameplay offered, understanding all the details of what makes the game appealing.
00:30:13
Speaker
And then after that understanding, which, you know, it's because you never want to be marketing games. It's just like, oh, it's like this other popular gamer. Oh, it fits into this popular genre because then it's like, well, that's not the unique thing about the game. It's something that's going to make people fall in love with the game. So when you fully understand that, then the next step is ah to express that and make sure that that that those unique things are what is communicated in the marketing materials. And so if we take, you know, the The trailer for a game we published called Novaroma, you'll see there's a lot there about controlling water. It's a game in ancient Rome. One of the coolest things is how you control water in the game and you know build around water. and so The trailer focused on that because that's what people love. and you have to sort of like understand what people You have to understand the gamers who are going to love it to understand what they're going to love. because If you don't understand,
00:31:04
Speaker
you would go to Nova Roman, you would not think water is like the thing, but it is such a thing with that game. it is going to be and And so you present that um as clearly as you can. you know It designs all the store page materials, the marketing, the trailers, around what there is to love about that game. And presenting as complete information as possible. i mean if you go um And in in in as much detail as possible, really just explain what the game is, showing what the game is. um No CGI trailers or things that are just you know like divorced from that, um but but show what the game is. And then the nice thing about that is that if i mean if if If you're right, there are things to love about this game, then this is perfect for then allowing those people who would love those things to see it, to share it, to talk about it, um and allowing you know content creators who are so generous with their time to to to see and recognize that too, that there's something that they would love and their audience would love, and allowing you know members of the press to to see that as well. i mean ultimately like
00:32:07
Speaker
most people I mean, most everyone involved in games is there for a reason, right? we We love games and we want to, you know, like we want to express that we don't appreciate the things we're going to love. So I think that that is marketing for us, is is that just that honest approach to presenting what the game is and what there is to love about it. Yeah, 100%. We actually have a question from one of our viewers, which has been sent in to me, which is, can you speak to where the name Hooded Horse came from? Yeah, sure. that's ah So there's there's like the boring and the fun answers to that. And so and both are true because I'm picking a name, I was trying to satisfy both, right? ah the the The boring answer is, you know it's it's it's it's it's nice and alliterative, memorable, easy to spell, dot com was open, all that stuff, right? That that that was necessary.
00:32:58
Speaker
But the origin of the the thing is I was trying to, because because I mean, this was originally also something that I ended up using as my modern name, right? And I was trying to do something with ah with with with Norse mythology and Norse language. So yeah there's a Kenning, um which is a construction of two words that means something else, right? In in Old Norse. So the world tree, Yggdrasil, Yggdr means terrible, which refers to the the terrible one, or Odin, basically.
Competition and Relationships
00:33:27
Speaker
so you know, um so the first part, egg, is referring to Odin, and gersel means horse in Old Norse. So, um the, so, egg gersel in the World Tree is Odin's horse, which goes back to a story where he would, where he hung himself from the the tree and impaled himself with a spear and blood in order to learn the runes and the magic of the runes. So, um this is, so hooded horse is me like playing around
00:33:54
Speaker
with that because, you know, Odin also knows like the hooded one or the masked one. Um, so I basically took, they took hooded for the first part. They're representing Odin again, Durssel, Horace, and then basically Hooded Horace is referring to Yggdrassel, the world tree. It's basically a badly constructed in English, Old Norse Kennic. That was kind of what I was expecting at all. That's awesome, dude. And that was your mind. Damn. That was your hand as it was your hand. Okay. That's sick. I'm glad you like the story. Yeah, it's also so many. Here's here's like this is I want to call it a pet peeve or something, but it's all too common that at like indie or modern levels of production, you have names that are just like, oh, I did something that sounded cute, laser robot law. And that's fine. And it's cute. And it's fun. But I didn't expect you to get mythological with us. That's badass. Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
Well, we refer to it. So like the logo for her horse, which is a horse, you heard that the argument should be a tree, right? But we we chose the horse. We refer to it as dress up. There you go. There you go. Yeah. if i ever Need a name idea. I'm going to come to you because I feel like a lot of names for things that come out and are so wild. Like you see all the commercials for, um, like new medicines and they're just, your hate this That means nothing. yeah tim Tim should be naming all the medicines. And I think it doesn't mean anything. like I'm pretty sure my family's in medicine. From what I've heard, it's actually just a bunch of clinicians or not even clinicians. Again, they're like, all right, what should this one sound like? Where do we put the vowels here? Garosa. Oh, that's that's a new, what's that?
00:35:45
Speaker
did just call it something bullshit like trick said Treco Beck and all and then just yeah and you need an on all at the end or Aaron or something because that sounds medical it yeah right it's it's hard to name stuff though like I that's something I feel like people were um might not like I know, as developers, like whatever you're going to name is going to be out there and on the lips and and in the chats of a lot of different people. You got to make sure you're not accidentally using somebody else's name. You got to make sure it's not like, I don't know, a pun or something else with a different language. You got to get the rights. It's got to sound cool. It's a global thing too.
00:36:21
Speaker
Have you guys ever named something, gotten the rights to it in like the US or the UK and then someone in China just takes up that name and then tries to sell it to you for a huge profit? That happens a lot. No, that happened. Yeah, it happens a lot. Like you start a new company or release the name of a game and then they'll just steal that name before you can like get the rights to it in China. It's crazy. oh yeah that's That's an interesting question. um Tim, within the publishing space, do you see a lot of competitiveness with other publishers? Like, are they trying to step on each other's toes in a certain way? Or do you find that it's, you know, quite friendly?
00:37:02
Speaker
yeah know I think it's quite friendly. um you know yeah yeah i mean least at least people Maybe I'm just spending time with the right people. um yeah Maybe I just know nice guys. yeah I know a lot of people, and ah other publishers, and they've they've been very, very nice. but yeah it might just be It's a selection bias. you tend to become friendly with the
Community Building Insights
00:37:23
Speaker
nicer ones. But yeah, i it's it's it's mostly, I think there's a common theme, at least in most of the people that I've met, of just like, you know, really liking games and liking to see, you know, to see games succeed and just, you know, yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
yeah People are not trying to open up a yoga studio in a few years. yeah You have a ranking of publishers that are that are chill in your eyes, that are like doing good for games. Give us the T. Who should we be cheering for in publishing, yeah apart from the details, of course? but i I like a lot of ah you know i'm a lot of different publishers for a lot of different reasons. and Now I'm going to feel bad because if we start naming some, and then I'm going to forget to name at least a couple. It's fine. can feel well you say over it but then my dear
00:38:09
Speaker
bull shit are we jeopardizing it reputation right now Okay, okay, okay, would you be able to share what who you think is like the worst publisher and why? obviously that's works that's what the other end of the spectrum thats that think yeah i like I mean, here's one that no one ah like i um no one will complain if I just praised Evolver probably because like it's praised Evolver. So it's pretty safe for me to praise Evolver. But I like everyone I've met from there. I know several people, leadership team, really nice people. They obviously do a great job. They obviously care about the games that they publish. great They respect games as art. I think that Evolver is a great archetype of ah of a great indie publisher. you know they um
00:38:57
Speaker
in in all sorts of ways. They did capture the attention and like chaos of E3 in a perfect way where you're like, what is going on? and you radio right Didn't they make a video? I think so. I'm, I'm just so that there isn't an E3 anymore for publishers to just sort of like go wild with stuff. And that goes back to like knowing yourself, right? Because yeah you know, Hooded Horse knows knows what it is, knows what it's about, and then the community respond to that. You know, Devolver, they know what they are, and they advertise themselves accordingly, and people respond to that. I think it's just about honesty. Like, be honest with your players about what you're about, and you'll attract the right people, right? I think that's what it's all about.
00:39:45
Speaker
I saw a Reddit comment of someone, it kind of made me laugh. I'm curious what you think, Tim. Someone's saying, oh, hooded horse, they're really kicking ass right now and eating paradoxes lunch, which kind of plays into that sort of competitiveness and adversarialness. So that i also can, yeah. That restaurant you saw was from a journalist. It was? Oh, was it? Okay. That's, that's probably Leanna Hafer's medium art. Liana is probably the leading strategy game journalist. or as i should now now i'm definitely a She is looking for this way she's one of my absolute favorite strategy game journalists. um they she' is one of like several that There's a list of about 10 journalists that I know by name and I just have respect for and you know she's on that. I know everything she does. I played games just because she
00:40:34
Speaker
Like I played Pentamet because Leanna covered it and just, ah you know, like I watched her review and um she reviews for IGN, PC Gamer sometimes writes, you know, for for for others as well. um But yeah, she's just, she's one of the reviewers I respect the most. So in terms of that, I think, um like I, read but but she also, I should say, Leanna is a huge fan of Paradox. And um the I know the article in question like if if you really sure I mean she's she's she's really good at turning a phrase so there are you know like she turned some phrases in some fun ways and that's just the way she got some biting comments because she's a brilliant writer but also if you look at it what shows through is her love for paradox as well.
00:41:19
Speaker
um So even though she's you know that that that medium article the the hooded horses eating paradoxes lunch or whatever it was Like if you if you read it closely, you'll see the love she has for paradox shows there as well She just loves paradox games. I mean, it's it's go to her Twitter sometime and You're gonna see how much she did and her Twitter is incredibly fun. Like I read your Twitter for a fun but the um it's it's ah There is some frustration, I think, in there and you know like that that plays into that is involved in the article and how it's doing it, but it comes from a position of love. It comes from a position of love of what paradox does and various hopes for them and such. And you know and I can say that i we all share that love, too. like you know' ah So when you get to the issue of like
00:42:03
Speaker
Competitiveness i mean it's it's really don't feel competitive for paradox we were all big fans of paradox we look forward to their releases we look forward to that we love their games you know it's just like every everyone in our car. No i get that i am. Yeah, it's on my end, in the tactical shooter community, the there's there's a I always like to describe it as like there's a spectrum anyway, right? Like every tactical shooter, it's small, but they're all very different from each other. They all feel different. Playing Arma feels very different from Squad, from Escape from Tarkov, from Insurgency, that the series I worked on. And ah at the end of the day, like I think this applies to any genre, that they all feel different. And then even if they didn't though, like in the subtle ways that they would be different anyway, we all appreciate them because at our cores, we're all kind of gamers. like that's that's a That's a big reason why you get into game development. So there's always going to be that kind of passion and love that's going to, in a sense, rise above the competition. Naturally, there's there's going to be competition, but but also because games are
00:43:07
Speaker
ah There's so many of them now and it's super saturated and we all have our audiences and there's audiences to spare. There's still going to be the other love for love for the art that's going to carry us through whether we're developers or gamers. So I think I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so with articles like that, I mean, I think it's just ah You know, I mean, it it just, it comes from a place of loving the games, loving the companies, hoping for the best of them. And in the end, you know, we're just, uh, yeah, there's not much feeling in competitiveness. I think it's, it's, it's, you know, to us, it's just, it's paradox is
Diverse Portfolio Engagement
00:43:43
Speaker
wonderful. You know, uh, creative assembly, total war games, um, wonderful, uh, fear access and their games just wonderful. We're just looking forward to all the games.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, you clearly like strategy games. You clearly want to play them. If you didn't have any competition, you would be a more bored gamer, right? You'd be a less fulfilled gamer. So yeah I hear you make sense. All right, because of the time, I think we've got ah we've got a couple donations to go through, just a handful of them, but um they might spin off into some questions. So I know we've got about, you know, 15 minutes before you need to bounce off Tim. So we'll we'll see if we can get through some of these. Just a reminder, guys, that if you would like to support this show and everything on Second Wind, you know, Patreon is a great way to do that, as well as your donations here. You can ask us questions and it goes directly supporting shows like this. So thank you for your donations.
00:44:36
Speaker
So, Snake in the Garden gives two euros and says, my new favorite podcast, thanks for joining us, Tim. Yay. yes yeah Sorry I was drinking. I'm also saying yay. the record, I celebrate the celebration of the podcast. Tim, you just seem so wholesome, by the way. You're such a nice man. Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to say that. I like the timing there, Tina.
00:45:02
Speaker
Stranded Rusulka gives five quid. Thank you so much says love in the podcast so far And as a poll just got to take joy in you guys talking about the game by an indie Polish dev Hell yeah and yeah More diversity in games. Let's go much love on the Eastern European developers. Yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, that's all good. John Brooks gives 10 quid. Thank you so much. Says, Viking conquest is one of the best detailed and replayable historic RPGs. I play it more than base mountain blade. Kudos. Tim, the big question here on dev heads and second wind is, have you got any pets?
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't like run in, but I've got a 120-pound Great Pyrenees that usually gets attracted by the sound. I mean, I think all I heard was a ball. Let's see if you can see it. Let's get in here. Sorry, Eric, put that screen back. Oh, well, there's a little. All right. We're going to zoom in for. oh Oh, huge. Look at that one. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty,
00:46:15
Speaker
she's okay now she's she's taken her spot so she's goingnna just be where under the table Kitty, but so but know listenersers We're currently showing off pets. So if you want to see them come on a second wind you can watch with a This is Ludo Tim. She's the the star of my show. My show is animated and everyone loves Ludo more than me. That is a great song. So cute.
00:46:48
Speaker
ah beautiful. all right Greg, Greg M gives $9.99. Thank you so much. says As a design doc, I'm really glad that I stumbled onto this pod and game. Cheers. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate you. Oh, another donation. Dark Jackal gives $5 and says, Hey Tim, if you weren't publishing strategy games, are there any other genres you'd be interested in? who
00:47:14
Speaker
I mean, man, I love RPGs. I think, yeah, that would probably be my, my, my, which we are able to do many RPGs, but not, not the entire range. I think like if I were, if I were putting another focus area, it would probably be RPGs. Just love RPGs. Have you ever got a pitch from a game that you've really wanted to publish but it doesn't really fit your wheelhouse? Or do you only really get applicants or seek out games that are part of your like genre wheelhouse? We get a ton of applicants. I guess that's the thing. So most RPGs we can do because most of them you know have the strategic tactical elements. The ones that we can't do would be very action-oriented action-oriented action RPGs.
00:47:55
Speaker
I'm so and we can use some of them if they have tactical out okay so this is i'm not gonna go into like the dissertation on like you know i apologize like but the point is like um there there are occasionally sort of like some rpgs occasions and building type games um that that just are a little bit outside there's occasionally just. any kind of game, really. I mean, like i like you know that I like action games. I like all sorts of games. it's the yeah And we're able to do some of them because we have a pretty broad definition because it's like, basically, as long as there's an element that lines up with us, then the other elements could be separate. right you know As long as there's some element that that connects up, which means that we can get to most games. But yeah, it's um there there' is that there is a focus there.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. All right, I think that is all of our donations for today, unless any come in crazy and we they come in right at the end there. Is there anything, Tina or Mikey, that you'd you'd like to ask Tim before we shine off? Well, i mean I'm curious. ah I'm curious what you've been playing lately. too one of the thing This is kind of a question that I always like to to ask um whenever I you know meet developers when we do this kind of thing. I think it's a good opportunity. we all are Just like we were talking about, we're all gamers, right? I'm curious what you've been playing lately. When when you find the time, I'm sure you got a busy schedule. What's captured you lately and and what are you looking forward to that's gone up soon in the future?
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, i mean it's ah so i am it has been a bit of a busy time, unfortunately, so I haven't been playing as much as ah usually do. When that happens, I usually retreat to like a couple of old staples that I really like. And so lately, that's been I play the game called Dungeon Crawlstone Soup, which is a traditional roguelite. And it's, you know, it goes back I think 20 years or so to something called Lindley's dungeon crawl and then a bunch of teams took it over and kept developing that. And it's sort of a tactical Dungeons and Dragons type experience. Like, it's very high. There are hundreds of spells if you end up playing a mage across different schools. You can do all sorts of crazy things. I've never seen a spell system in a game so interesting to interact with. And, you know, and then you just it's it's like a dungeon crawl. It's in the line of descent from Rogue, you know, like Rogue. Yeah, I'm looking at it now and you can you can see that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. And that's, you know, I like that because I'll probably die in an hour or so. So like, if I don't have much time, I can be like, I got to play a game and I can get a complete experience of like creating the character, getting some advancement and then dying. And then I can be like, ah, go back to work. All right, back to work. Yeah, exactly. Especially good if I died in a frustrating manner because then it's like, uh, push it aside time though. Yeah So have you ever heard of cataclysm dark days ahead? That's just what popped into my head. You have yeah great game I mean like it's the similar sort of like thing. Yeah, it's one of the
00:50:54
Speaker
you know, there's sort of like traditional roguelikes that have just so much to them. And it's, I always, I always love them quite a lot. Diamond and Crawlstone Soup is the one that has appealed to me the most. um Certain elements of it is the line philosophy, where it's basically avoided um some of the, like, it's in a line to set from NetHack, but you know, like in NetHack, you get hit with like a some fire and you have it like stored all your scrolls away in a secret stash somewhere. So the fireball burns up all your scrolls or something. And so like NetHack, becomes a bit tedious because you've got it constantly. But like, except in water and I forgot to take a waterproof bag and wrap it around my, you know, like things and like lightning bolt hit me all the potions, I should have scored those somewhere else. So it's all of those like quality of life sort of things that are kind of fun and cool interactions, but at the same time,
00:51:41
Speaker
are kind of anti-quality of life. The new Call of Stone Soup has a quality of life focus in its gameplay. So that is, and I've been playing it long enough that I got my favorite too. So it's version 19, version 19. Oh, you don't even play the latest version. You play your version. I played version 19. It did for full respect for the dev team. When you play one of these long enough, eventually you hit the version that was the sweet spot for you. And then like, you know, and for me, that was version 19. And it's just, ah you know, so that That's where I hopped off, so I'm playing my you know little five-year-old version of the ah of an ancient game. But anyway, it's... So I love it, dude. um I told you I come from the mining community. I'm always playing mods and old games and is there's something to do. Appreciate there. And yeah, you're right. Like there's a lot of brutality to a lot of those old games. ah I'm glad that I'm glad that time people took those experiences and went like, well, I'm going to keep the hardcore in this, but I don't need to like lose all my potions. Right. I don't need to die because I stepped in water. Right. So I get.
00:52:44
Speaker
It's also, it's it's I think the thing is with NetHack that makes it annoying, and not that I don't like NetHack, I played it in respect to a lot, the amazing thing that makes these things annoying is all of those are avoidable, 100% avoidable, if you just like play in a more boring way. If you just create your staffs, store it more carefully, remind yourself to do the boring things. and this is nothing because Now I'm probably going to antagonize a bunch of... like you know You don't want to insult NetHack when there's potential developers listening, because there's too many developers who love them. I love that idea of removing the incentive to play tedious. um No, I get that. I totally get that. In in in my genre, it's like... um
00:53:23
Speaker
I liken that to the removal of no brainers. There's certain things that you don't want it to be like the way you have to play the meta play because that is kind of boring. We had a supply count system in Insurgency where you go in, you choose a class and my rifleman and my gun or whatever, and then you have like 10 points. It's like point by like Warhammer tabletop or whatever. You buy all your stuff and everybody always bought armor piercing rounds because why wouldn't you want to pierce armor? And why wouldn't you want to pierce the wall where your enemy's behind? it was too much of a no-brainer and it made the play boring. Similarly, if you make like one best way to play and it's not exciting, it prevents you from engaging with other interesting things because you weren't spending points on smoke grenades and other interesting types of ways to work with their team, then you're going to get more boring play. Yeah.
00:54:14
Speaker
You have the best of both worlds at the end of the day. And that actually feeds into our our final donation here, which is from our very own Eric. It says the one thing about strategy art is that you get hello, Eric. You get sucked into strategy games um via the gameplay or you get burned out and overwhelmed by the mechanics. Tim, do you recommend a game you've published as a starting point for new players into the genre?
00:54:40
Speaker
I like to publish a lot of games so yeah think on the catalog. I mean, manner Lords is pretty, uh, is pretty good for that. And that it's more about the immersive experience than than doing anything with this. Right. I mean, I think it, it yeah, I mean, I think Might as well try Man of Lords out. it's it's um It's the sort of game that is, now and you will have to sort of like figure it out and poke your way through. um the Because it's meant to be that sort of thing. Where you're sort of like fine discovering as you go. So I think Man of Lords is a great one to try.
00:55:13
Speaker
the yeah I mean, and if you're willing to play the tutorials, then, ah you know, like because that that is quite important. I'd say against the storm is like also a great one to to to do. If you're willing to say like, it's it's really enjoyable. There's a lot of things. It's one of those games that sort of you can get into and play and, you know, like the complexity slowly unveils itself. And this is that problem that we were talking about earlier, right? Because when I was mentioning the whole like, you know, oh, I don't want to name that thing. Because now I'm like worried, of course, in my mind. Don't worry. you're going to get those dms tim tim my game's accessible tim i have a good tutorial why didn't you think you hi
00:55:51
Speaker
whole kind Yeah, no, I think our developers wouldn't, but I would still feel that, but no, it's, um, I think, you know, the, the truth is, yeah, I mean, I think, I think giving Man of Lords a try is is a really good one to do because it's very, especially if you're just first starting, you know, like a first foray into strategy games, because it's just, it's such a nice immersive experience, uh, that you can sort of like find, you can go into third person mode and walk around your city and everything. And that that's, that's. It also has that mode where you don't have to fight, so there's not that added stress of trying to build up like your defenses immediately. You're right. Yeah, you can configure it ah yeah absolutely. You're right. They should you know configure it first to where you've got a bunch of settings, but you can figure that down to that peaceful mode and like you know do configure other things. It should be a really nice experience.
00:56:41
Speaker
The music too. like We talk about immersion, like that was pretty soothing and relaxing. and just I feel like I'm just exploring the mechanics and systems of this complex game at my leisure while feeling like I'm, I don't know, relaxed in the this peaceful world.
Future Plans and Teamwork Appreciation
00:56:56
Speaker
yeah Peaceful for now until the bandits come. but sorry jay what are you going to say no it Sorry, it's like speaking to what we were saying in the beginning, which is we'll leave a link in the chat with the publisher page for Hooded Horse. There are so many so many games you've published are under the same kind of ah genre umbrella.
00:57:17
Speaker
that if one of them takes your fancy, you know, you can check it out and you can kind of expect the same kind of quality that you're going to get from Man of Lords in every other game that Hooded Horse has published. So, you know, go to that link in chat, guys, and just check see what takes your fancy. We just got a great question in the chat. a Snake in the Garden donated two euros and says, Tim, thoughts on free to play and microtransactions? iff You know, I mean I think there's ways to do it um that are respectful gamers and ways that aren't um and You know, like it's ah I mean in the end like I mean we all seen the praise for helldivers too, right and the ah And the way they've done transactions within the game, of course not free to play but you know um And you know our chairman of the board of her for sham sure Johnny is the CEO of arrowhead
00:58:04
Speaker
so it's ah so i can't say anything negative i held ours but honestly i would be doing nothing but raving about it anyway like it's it's it's a great game that's managed to figure out how to do transactions within the game in a way that's very respectful players and it's um the yeah and yeah so i mean it's it's a Yeah, I think there's ways to do it. I mean, I'm not probably the biggest expert on this because, you know, for the most part, we're focused on premium. That's not to say that we'll never do a free to play game. If we do, we'll be looking for a way to do it in a way that's very respectful of players. And, um you know, it probably isn't the most value or profit maximizing approach because it's, think you know, like, but I think I'd probably. Yeah. So anyway.
00:58:49
Speaker
I got you. I understand. i've been there I've lived it. I've lived having to do microtransactions for the publisher. ah to To toot my own horn for for for just a moment, ah in the tax shooter genre, as you can imagine, pretty hardcore, pretty ah sensitive when it comes to microtransactions, because you often kind of ruin your aesthetic. When you do that, you have to be very careful what you end up doing. And and I think it's fair to say that we, like the Insurgency series, we were the first tactical shooter to sell um
00:59:20
Speaker
like cosmetic microtransactions and doing themed updates and all that kind of thing. And I kind of had to spearhead that. And it was very, very difficult, I could say, for personal experience. ah but But speaking from my experience, while there were some, you know, ways we could have done better, for sure, and we we learned, I think for the most part we did okay because we did it exactly the way that you're describing it Tim, which is like we respected players, we respected the aesthetic. we We also like took baby steps in a sense. We didn't go hog wild. If we went in a direction that wasn't good, people let us know and we reeled back and ah ah yeah I think it's possible. ah that the The kind of rule of thumb for me, at least the rule of thumb back then was like, we'll just keep it cosmetic.
01:00:02
Speaker
You don't want to have to pay to to get better, to pay to win, et cetera, et cetera. And make sure you be very careful about harming your own aesthetic. Yeah, that makes sense. I just got inspired to ask a question that I probably should have asked at the beginning of the show. um When you're working with developers, how many of them are female? Do you have any females coming up to you and ask asking you to help publish? There are some, some women on the development teams that we work with. Um, there are a couple of leads. So, uh, old world's, um, creative director, uh, is Layla Johnson. So basically it's a husband and wife team. Um, uh, like Sarah cool. yeah sira Oh wow. Yeah. Lori and Corey Cole. And yeah yeah, yeah, exactly. I didn't think I knew that cause I'm younger, but I do.
01:00:53
Speaker
i love I love this year. Okay, well, anyway, husband-to-wife gaming development teams are amazing. So Layla is the creative director of NCO, of the of developer, and then her husband, Sorin, is ah the, you know, forget the exact title, but, you know, design. is it's But the two of them work together on all that, and so it's a wonderful collaboration there. um We also have another husband-wife team, so I can't see everything, so um Balancing Monkey Games, which develops a game we're publishing beyond these stars, that one's still upcoming. um They are likewise a husband-wife team.
01:01:30
Speaker
so wow Yeah, it's been great. And there's there's also other teams working in the background in other ways and in it. um and And her divorce actually is a husband and wife team. Because snow, my wife, she is, yes, she's the president of the company, the CF and the CFO. So, um nolan yeah, she's she's she's great. So it's it's ah it's it's so wonderful. I mean, it's just fun. You know, like we've got our desk. she Her desk, she's not there right now because, you know, we're doing this, but her desk is like right there for me. And it's just, um, and't know much I That's so cute. I love that answer. yeah It's awesome to you. The passion is there, right? The passion you guys have for that a couple you guys have for each other and getting to work and create stuff together. it's It must be a crazy experience. What's that like? Yeah, it's it's it's great. And we just, we, and it's,
01:02:26
Speaker
it's It's fun. she's She's got strength that I don't have, um obviously. And honestly, she's got a much better, like I trust her judgment much more than I trust my own. So she's she's got final say on all sorts of things because you know she's president CFO. So anything that costs money and she has final say on it, since everything costs money, he ends up having final say on everything, which is good. She's also our resident expert in the turn-based tactical genre, so like any turn-based tactical game that comes in, she's got, you know, like, it's very tough to to to to to to please, you know, like she plays the thing, she's got very high standards. We actually, act the whole XCOM on war, we played it together and we'd like to take turns controlling the missions and keep a spreadsheet of the game.
01:03:10
Speaker
We award little medals to them, like that we made up like this guy got this for bravery and stuff. And so you guys, that's cool. Yeah, actually long before we're in the game industry, actually our marriage announcement is like filled with us just talking about video games. So like the Harvard paper did a marriage announcement for, for, for snow. And I, and it was just like in the interview, she's just talking about like the games we played together, including, including XCOM long war. This is completely adorable. That's so cool. Yeah.
01:03:41
Speaker
Oh my God. We should have you on again when we are were filling down and out about stuff. Just give us some hope. Yeah. Yeah. If we ever feel down, we'll get Tim back on and we'll put some life back
Conclusion and Patreon Reminder
01:03:53
Speaker
into the industry. ah I hate to be the bad guy because I'm absolutely adoring speaking to you, Tim. But because of yeah because of stuff that we need to do, we're going to need to wrap this up. But I just want to say thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. I enjoyed this so much. I'd love to come back anytime that you want. Awesome. Awesome. And i could so you know I think I'd say this from everyone here at Second Wind. um We're so happy that you're seeing that success that you are with Hooded Horse and we wish you ah more and more in the future. But yeah, keep pushing. The world needs more indie strategy games. We have never have enough. There's so many themes to explore. There's so many designs to have. just Keep pushing. But don't grow beyond your, as you said, you know, respect. Yeah. yeah Just keep existing. Yeah. hundred thats the plan Thank you so much. you Thank you. okay
01:04:39
Speaker
thank you so much guys yeah so just remember guys that before we sign off this show and everything at second wind is supported directly by you guys if you'd like to support us patreon second wind uh over there is the best way to do that and we'd love to see you over there we can help support this wonderful content that we're making here and thank you so much for joining and we'll see you in the next one bye bye guys bye everybody bye