Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
From Stay-at-Home Dad to Six-Figure Modder: Why Your Next Big Hire is Already Playing Your Game
25 Plays3 hours ago
What does it take to turn a gaming hobby into a six-figure salary? In this episode, Greg sits down with Sandi, a stay-at-home dad who taught himself to create mods for ARK: Survival Ascended and ended up building a UGC empire with over 80 million downloads. From his first furniture mod made for his daughter to launching blockbuster premium content, Sandi shares his incredible journey and the community-driven strategies that fueled his success.
We're also joined by Shahar Sorek, CMO of Overwolf, the platform at the heart of the in-game creator economy. Shahar breaks down why UGC is no longer optional for game studios, how Overwolf provides a "white glove" service to de-risk the process for developers, and why creators like Sandi represent the future of player engagement and retention. This is a must-listen for any developer, publisher, or community manager looking to understand the power of community-led growth.
Timestamps:
- (01:47) Sandi's Origin Story: From marketing professional to stay-at-home dad and accidental modder.
- (09:03) The Creator Economy: Shahar explains Overwolf's mission to turn in-game creation into a legitimate profession.
- (17:13) Building in Public: How Sandi uses Discord, X, and community feedback to decide what to build next.
- (22:50) The Tools of the Trade: Sandi and Shahar discuss the essential tools for a UGC creator, from Unreal Engine to analytics.
- (30:10) Getting Started: Actionable advice from both Sandi and Shahar for anyone who wants to start creating UGC.
Guest Bios:
- Sandi Fais a self-taught, professional mod creator for games like ARK: Survival Ascended and Hogwarts Legacy. He is one of the top creators on the CurseForge platform, with his mods collectively reaching over 80 million downloads. You can find his work on CurseForge and connect with him on X (formerly Twitter) .
- Shahar Sorek is the Chief Marketing Officer at Overwolf, the all-in-one platform that enables creators to build, distribute, and monetize in-game apps and mods. He is focused on empowering the in-game creator economy and fostering the relationship between studios, creators, and gamers. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Key Topics:
- User-Generated Content (UGC) Monetization
- In-Game Creator Economy
- Community Building & Engagement
- Player Retention Strategies
- LiveOps and Content Pipelining
- Game Modding and Development
- Indie Game Discoverability
- The Future of Game Publishing
Relevant Links:
Credits:
Hosted by Greg Posner, founder of Player Driven — a podcast about the business of games and how smart people scale them.
Recommended
Transcript
Turning Passion into Profit
00:00:01
Speaker
What if you could turn your passion for gaming into a six-figure salary from your own home in less than a year? It's not a hypothetical. It's the new reality for the growing wave of player creators. Today on PlayerDriven, we're diving deep into UGC, that's user-generated content.
00:00:16
Speaker
We have the ultimate success story, Sandy, a self-taught modder and a stay-at-home dad who went from a hobbyist to earning six figures and creating game mods for games like Ark and Hogwarts Legacy.
00:00:27
Speaker
And today we have one of the architects of this revolution, Shahar
Empowering In-Game Creators
00:00:30
Speaker
Sorek, the CMO of Overwolf, the platform that has built the entire ecosystem to empower in-game creators and turn passions into projects for full-fledged businesses.
00:00:39
Speaker
We've got the creator and the platform, the dream and the reality all in one room, and you're not gonna wanna miss it. Sandy, Shahar, thank you so much for joining me today. Sandy, how are you doing today? I'm great, actually. How about I can't complain. It's a rainy, rainy Wednesday here, but the sun is out.
00:00:56
Speaker
and how Where are you located? Where are you located, Greg? I am in beautiful New Jersey, right outside of New York. And yourself? I'm in the center of Tel Aviv, so it's sunny.
00:01:08
Speaker
And where you joining us from? Sandy? I'm in San Diego, actually. Sunny, California. So I'm really excited to hear this. UGC has been blowing up for the past few years. We're seeing communities build great content. We're seeing games get longer legs. We're seeing increased monetization and engagement from
From Hobby to Business
00:01:26
Speaker
players. and I think it's super cool.
00:01:28
Speaker
And Sandy, I want to focus on your story because you kind of turned this dream, which I think many people out there have, and you turned it into reality. so Before you got into the UGC world, you want to let us know what your background was?
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, so let me start from the beginning. So I started, a I basically was working in marketing for for a couple of years there. That's what I went to college for. I studied, i I got the job, I did the whole thing for a while, but ah my daughter unfortunately suffers from a from seizures, she has epilepsy.
00:02:02
Speaker
And it came to the point where I just couldn't stay a at the office anymore. I'd have to be running to her school to pick her up because she was having an episode, she was having a seizure or something. So I would end up just leaving.
00:02:14
Speaker
And it just didn't look good for for the job itself, you know, having to leave midday every day. Well, not every day, but just about, you know. And ah so I came to the decision with my wife that it was just better if I just stopped working.
00:02:27
Speaker
stayed at home, became a stay at home dad and just took care of the kids. And I was able to be available for those situations with my daughter. You know, if something came up at school, I was ready. I was able to go in and just help her through the episode and then just come back and she'd be able to continue school because that was very important. You know, we didn't want her to just miss out the whole day because she had a, uh,
00:02:47
Speaker
little seizure. It wasn't even like a grandma or a big seizure. It was just a simple episode, but I was still needed to be available to go and and help out in a way. um so Eventually, what I did is I i just started ah being at home you know and Obviously, it grew stay after a while, you know, just being a stay-at-home dad, just getting in the routine, doing the same thing over and over, you know.
00:03:12
Speaker
And over time, I just used to play games with my kids, you know. One of the games that they they used to love playing with me was, well, they still do, it was art survival evolved back in the day.
00:03:23
Speaker
So we would play it, we would breed, we would build stuff just constantly. A way to basically spend time with them, you know, just out of the norm.
00:03:34
Speaker
Instead of ah me playing video games on my own, I'd be able to just sit down and do stuff with them, you know. And ah when ARK Survival came out, ah my daughter was mentioning how she wanted to do stuff. She wanted to use this. She wanted to...
00:03:48
Speaker
ah She was big into Tocabocca at that time, too. So she was big into decorating her rooms, decorating her houses and stuff like that. So I just came came up with the idea, okay, maybe I can just create a mod for her, you know, put some furniture in so she can actually decorate her room and like do it the way she does.
00:04:07
Speaker
She likes it, you know, and... um i just grabbed the textbook. I went on Amazon. I purchased the textbook. And I learned how to how to use the the Unreal Engine, just kind of get the basics of it, you know, the...
00:04:23
Speaker
ah Yeah, just the basics of it, just how to get in and get started, you know? And ah eventually I just opened the Dev Kit. It was daunting, as you could imagine. I had no idea what I was doing.
00:04:36
Speaker
ah Slowly I started ah reading the book and then I watched the video here and there from a couple of creators and and just out of nowhere, where like it kind of clicked, you know?
00:04:47
Speaker
One thing after another, just clicked, clicked, clicked. And I just started creating more and more. And slowly I started uploading stuff into CurseForge and surprisingly people liked what I was making.
00:05:00
Speaker
And it was quite the, it was a strange feeling, you know, that people were downloading it. And right now, currently I'm sitting like a 80 million downloads, something like that on my mods, which is just mind blowing, know?
00:05:13
Speaker
And it's, yeah. And it's, um, it just became a business out of it You know, they, they provided the option to to have the premium mods and I'm like, all
Impact of UGC in Gaming
00:05:23
Speaker
right, I'll make something.
00:05:24
Speaker
People are enjoying my mods. I currently, I had like a 30 million downloads, I think when my first premium mod came out and I'm like, All right, I have the following. ah People might see my name and be like, okay, I'll purchase it, give it a try, you know?
00:05:39
Speaker
And it was a success. Just everybody started downloading and purchasing it, and i I was just mind blown, you know, by the following. And that same month, I released the second mod, premium mod, and that other one was even bigger of a success, and it just blew up.
00:05:57
Speaker
And i think it's probably the the most downloaded premium mod right now. It has like 11 million downloads, something like that, just that mod alone, which is kind of crazy, you know? And a lot of it is due to the dynamic download system. Just somebody sees, it's a skin, somebody sees the skin and then it gets downloaded by everybody else.
00:06:17
Speaker
But at the same time, it's actually, that person has to purchase it, you know? And what it does, it, ah expands that view for everybody else. So they see the the item in game and they're able to purchase it themselves. So they just walk into it.
00:06:33
Speaker
So it kind of expanded my notoriety, I guess. you know People were able to just purchase an item, and it was just a simple click of going into. They didn't even have to go to the website or anything. Everything was in-game, which is what's amazing about the this UGC platform, that everything can be done from in-game instead of having to go to a different link, having to go here, having to go there. you know its It's just one simple transaction, one simple situation. you know um So yeah, it's it just ah expanded from there. I kept creating more mods.
00:07:09
Speaker
Obviously, I created more free mods to keep getting my ah name out there more and more. But at the same time, I was concentrating on creating a good premium mods, know? ah Because ah depending on the person, some people release something smaller. I like releasing like a big pack, a mod pack per se.
00:07:28
Speaker
just with different structure sets and that's what people seem to to be gravitating to, to be pulling into. And it's come out to be a success for me, fortunately. Yeah.
00:07:39
Speaker
You said so much there and there's so much good content to digest. I don't really know where to start. But first off, I love that you did it for family. That's what drives me for all this stuff. I have two kids as well, right? like Anything for the kids. ah And the way you're talking about mods, it it truly is a business you're building up. your're marketing You're marketing. You're putting out free content to try and get people to convert into paid content.
00:08:01
Speaker
And you're building a platform. and And everything you're talking about is discoverability, right? And in the gaming market, right? And you get it, you're gaming. But in the gaming market as well, you have a lot of indie games coming out and they're they're struggling with...
00:08:14
Speaker
discoverability, but now you have someone like curse forge that has a bigger platform that has a bigger audience. And all of a sudden you become partners there, right. And it expands your awareness and your reach. And it just, ah get you're building mods, but it's so cool to hear a whole business being built out of this generating revenue, putting it back into the business to continue to grow it.
00:08:33
Speaker
And a question I have for Shahar is, As CMO, when you're looking at the audience for these types of mods, you obviously play both sides of the market, right? You want to talk to developers to get them to install the the tools possible, the SDKs or whatever it is, right?
00:08:46
Speaker
Then you also have to ah attract the the actual creators. And is it like a chicken or egg in your mind? How did, I guess, the story of Overwolf and Curseforge, right? Where did it begin and how do you see that audience continuing to grow?
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, um thank you. um Thank you both. Great to be here. I think that, you know, let's pull to 50,000 feet. i think that mods and games were always, since there were games, there were mods.
Legitimizing In-Game Creation
00:09:15
Speaker
People always love to to tinker and kind of tweak whatever they're playing. We talk about the first mod that came for one of the first mods that came for Castle Wolfenstein back in 1983 that turned the Nazis into Smurfs and they called it Castle Wolfenstein and they made these funny voices.
00:09:33
Speaker
That was very popular with no monetary. with no monetary incentive, but people really like to take an experience they can relate to or an experience they can participate in and participate more by tweaking it. So I think there is a human factor to how we like to interact with games to begin with, specifically with digital games.
00:09:54
Speaker
For us, for Overwolf, we started the path of creators ourselves. And soon we understood very quickly that there's a huge unlock in the generation that is now is now here in creating a platform that could serve creators at large and kind of lay the bridges between the support the holy trinity between gamers, creators and game studios.
00:10:22
Speaker
Creators, of course, are first gamers themselves. But up until this era of gaming, there weren't really big motions of game studios to embrace mods as they do today. And it's still it's still growing, but we've passed we've passed the point of no return where UGC is now becoming ah major growth engine for game studios. And we saw that back around 2010, 2013, we understood we need to build um you know an ecosystem that supports and can connect the dots ah in a safe ah in in safe and profitable way for everyone.
00:11:03
Speaker
so So Sandy's kind of the at the pinnacle of the latest rollout. And he mentioned a few things like dynamic downloading and all sorts of things that we baked in rather recently into our products. But UGC is anything from, you know, a mod, an overlay, a private server, complete new world. There's many, many, including, you know, to for for website publishers and then game studios, there's so many forms of it.
00:11:33
Speaker
And our role in the world is to turn, ah you know, modders or as we call them, in-game creators into a legitimate profession, very much like due to what YouTube did to streamers where that was never a word and you would just put up videos and then they brought in a whole financial model that can support that as a business. And then they changed the world of ah that side of user generated content we want to do with folks such as Sandy. And it's really now, you know, within our ecosystem, we have 178,000 creators of different sizes and scopes. And some of them have massive teams already on there. And some of them are single creators.
00:12:13
Speaker
um and and And there's some a few really great success stories, Sandy being one of them. We also have a creator on the platform that a year ago, bootstrapped creator that sold you know an application he built on Overwolf for $54 million. dollars and There's all sorts of of success stories. And we see a world...
00:12:37
Speaker
The way we see the world is that creators in many, many ways are the new creator category in games that is going to drive the next era of gaming. We see it at scale also with Roblox and Fortnite and with Overwolf. Each of them serves a different type of creator category. We're more of a horizontal player. We serve over 1,500 titles.
00:12:59
Speaker
Ark Survival Ascended is one of them, but we have anything from Minecraft to League Legends to GTA V to work for Warcraft and the list goes on and on. So the mission is turn in-game creation into a legitimate profession and enable the creators in the studios to as seamlessly as possible work together for making games, the best games, even better.
00:13:23
Speaker
And
Community Engagement and Tools
00:13:24
Speaker
for making creation something you can actually generate a living and create a following. So just like Sandy said before, you know, he started working and Whatever he's doing creatively is working. And our job is to make sure everybody sees it and and to help him monetize his creation for the benefit of it's the really win-win for everybody, including the consumer that gets an expression of creation that the studio would never bother with because they need to run a game.
00:13:50
Speaker
And it's a very, very taxing and financially ah taxing job. So but that That's kind of it in a nutshell. We have a North Star by 2030 to pay billion dollars out to creators.
00:14:07
Speaker
ah this year i mean Last year, we were at $240 million. This year, we'll be higher. So slowly tracking game by game, community by community, UGC component by UGC component to to kind of bring this to life.
00:14:23
Speaker
I think that that's really cool. i think i was looking at your site earlier, right? And I see you're releasing more and more tools to help with the full, the full cycle, right? I think there's Tebex.
00:14:34
Speaker
so I'm not sure if i'm pronouncing that right. Right. To help with the monetization. And I think recently, Nuzu mentioned that about $325 is the average spend for players who spend money on UGC in a game. And that's mind-boggling because if you think think about that across the spread of players, right, like all of a sudden, people are willing to spend money, right? it's So you have to create that content that they want to engage with.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah. and And it's important to say, and and maybe this is a small story, but it really drives the point. So TEDx is our web store ah payment solution. And we're very active within the private server community.
00:15:13
Speaker
And private servers, there's two games that private servers are massive at. One is GTA 5 and the other one is Minecraft. But with GTA 5, There's a cluster of private server, of role-play private servers that are very big.
00:15:28
Speaker
And GTA V is either number one anywhere between number one, two, or three most watched ah games on Twitch. But the version that is watched is the modded version.
00:15:41
Speaker
So the game is extremely popular and it's constantly driving sales. But what is being consumed is modded content on Twitch. on on on on people watching and and kind of being attached to it.
00:15:53
Speaker
That's not driving a lot of sales per se, but it's driving enormous amount of awareness and sticking this to the game. And Tevex is right there allowing for these private servers to monetize. That's another way, that's another expression of UGC.
00:16:07
Speaker
And it's amazing to see how these micro communities that are extremely loyal to their creator and their their relationship there is much more gratifying for everyone because there's a real strong kind of emotional hook and allegiance between the creator and this community in a way that the game really can't manufacture, right?
00:16:30
Speaker
ah Clearly, when there's somebody like Sandy that also has a very strong emotional, good, do-good power, energy around it. Like it's really helping him on on a very relatable way.
00:16:43
Speaker
It's, it's, it's very, it's extremely compelling. We feel very, uh, you know, blessed and honored to be able to provide that service eventually to this extent. Um, and, and hopefully we'll be able to drive it more, but the the core thing is like all these communities all over the place are really benefiting from these sub clustered communities that have high, high, uh, feedback loops between the creator and and their community.
00:17:09
Speaker
Sandy, I'd love to dig into that community aspect with with you, right? Because I often talk about community and I'm not as familiar from the actual creator side. I look at it from the indie studio or a studio side and how they build their community out, right? And I'm curious on on if you interact with your community, How do you go about doing Are specific tools? Is it Discord? Is it built into the platform? And also, how does that decide what games you want to potentially work on? Is it still more of a passion? You follow the games that you want to build, are you listening to that community and drive choosing that direction based on what they're asking you?
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, so so i I use different platforms. I go through Discord. That's my main source of communication. I just... I'm very open with people. Like if they ask a question, I go in and I answer, or if they have a suggestion, I'll take it. And if it's doable, I'll go ahead and and apply it. you know, if it's, um, obviously there's things that I won't be able to do just because the system itself doesn't allow, you know, uh, another source that I use is, uh, X that's my primary source of marketing, I guess that's where I promote everything.
00:18:14
Speaker
And, um, I throw a little sneak peeks, a little picture or something, you know, just to kind of get the crowd going. And then ah depending on the engagement that I get off of that, that's how I decide, okay, it's worth applying more time into it versus just a quick thing, just knock it out of the park quickly, you know?
00:18:31
Speaker
And basically that's that's how I go about it. I just use those two sources for the most part. I do go on Facebook every once in a while because that's where the...
00:18:42
Speaker
the the players who have been around the longest for ARK Survival Evolved usually sit around and go on. they They tend not to go on X or Discord because they they don't like joining those communities. you know ah So I do reach out to them through there. And usually when I'm about to release a mod, I post something just so they get an idea of what's coming. And like I go by engagement there as well and see what what the community likes and if they want to keep if they're going actually engage and download it and use it.
00:19:11
Speaker
ah So it's ah it's just an interesting situation with the but community itself. I just um i'm not a ah i was always never one to be engaging with anybody. you know I had a small YouTube channel back in the day, and it was just mainly to put a build videos for people and for my daughter to follow along to. you know And at the end of the day, it' just ah I guess it started growing from there.
00:19:36
Speaker
And once Mods started releasing, I started like expanding everything more. And the good thing is that I have the, ah just from being on YouTube back in the day, I built relationships with other content creators, at the other YouTube content creators. And so they're able to promote my stuff for for free just out of the friendship of itself. You know, i don't actually ask them to promote anything, but they go ahead and do it just because we have that relationship, you know.
00:20:04
Speaker
it
Partnering with Developers
00:20:05
Speaker
It does kind of, put you in a nifty situation though, once you you do start reaching out in marketing purposes, I guess, trying to sell your thing and be like, okay, how about I i give you this, I give you some codes, like I do pay you some sort of balance and then they they go from there and like, okay, it kind of bridges the gap between friendship and business, I suppose, you know?
00:20:30
Speaker
ah But yeah, basically my community, I just go by it up through my Discord. That's where I reach out to most people. And it's worked out. It's built quite the ah large following through there.
00:20:41
Speaker
And just getting to know other modders and other creators from there, it's it's just expanded. for for everybody, you know for myself. And I've been able to teach other modders how to do stuff and they they're able to reach out to their community and tell them, okay, Sandy taught me this. you know This is why I'm making it now because he did it. So I get that community to follow me along as well, just from that.
00:21:05
Speaker
And ah the way I go about choosing what to work on next, ah be it a new game or something, a lot of it has to do with my daughter, ah games that she wants to get into, wants to play.
00:21:17
Speaker
or something that I see that's coming that is getting mods. like ah When Hogwarts Legacy came out and Insoy came out with mods, it was such a great opportunity. Hurstford was actually the one that reached out to me and was like, would you be interested in this?
00:21:31
Speaker
Obviously, I'd have to be in and in an NDA situation where I wouldn't be able to share anything until it actually released. So that kind of... bothered me a little bit in community standpoint, because I wasn't able to just show them at everybody like, okay, this is what I'm doing.
00:21:45
Speaker
Do you like it? Do you want to expand on it? But at the end of the day, I knew it was things that ah people liked. And I would go on Reddit, I would go on just communities and ask like, Oh, what is it that you guys are are doing? What are you liking?
00:21:58
Speaker
And things like that, you know, and that's how I would kind of gauge with them. But just those opportunities that came up, ah especially with InSoul, it just ended up being a ah great situation just because it I was able to communicate through CurseForge with the actual game developers.
00:22:16
Speaker
And that was such a... It's just so interesting for me, just a simple modder, to be able to communicate and reach out to the actual game developers who are able to do stuff on their end, but they can't exactly...
00:22:30
Speaker
create the things themselves. Like you mentioned before, it's a, they're limited by, i guess the game itself. And then modders can come in and just create something with the, the idea that somebody else has, or you the idea that a modder has, and just be able to expand on that, you know?
00:22:47
Speaker
I'm sorry. I tend to ramble lot. No, I love it. And it has me thinking like you're a UGC creator. Do you look at yourself as an influencer in the marketplace? I originally didn't, but, ah I was recently on a on a podcast and they were like, yeah, you're you're a game developer. You're a game developer. And I'm like, I still don't see it, but but thank you so much for saying that. like i it's it I guess it's a new line of influence right the mod creator. you know
00:23:18
Speaker
We went from ah obviously streamers and YouTube creators to this UGC platform offering it to mod creators to be able to be the new the new content creator.
00:23:29
Speaker
in itself, I guess. Yeah, I would say you're probably the most powerful type of influencer there is, whether you feel it or not, because you're creating this and you have this following coming to purchase these games or these mods because they see the stuff that you're making. it And Shahar, I'm curious, like you you're um guessing you're talking to studios within Zoe right before the game comes out to help help show these to these people and say, hey, let's start creating content before it comes out. So we're ready to go. Right. Like,
00:23:55
Speaker
when you approach these studios, or you're saying, hey, we have influencers, or we have UGC creators ready to go. Once you're plugged in we'll start pounding away. Yeah. So one of
UGC's Influence on Market Dynamics
00:24:04
Speaker
the things that makes us unique is that we offer what we call like a full white glove solution.
00:24:10
Speaker
So, I mean, you could, you could, you know, even the most creative, high quality mods could struggle to gain visibility without a central trusted distribution point.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I think that what we're doing, what we're building with a game is that we're coming to the game and we're saying, we're going to take care of everything. We'll work on the creation kit together. And that depends on the game's, the core studio's ability to either, we could take ever we could take care of everything that has to do with development as well.
00:24:43
Speaker
But that's a sensitive thing because it has to touch the core the core game, which was the reason games never really went all in. on UGC because it's very close to their game experience and they don't want anybody to tinker with a game.
00:24:58
Speaker
And the bigger the game, the more averse they are for that participation, because you know you're talking about at times hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, Hogwarts Legacy, Kraft and Enzoi, these are the biggest titles in the market to now open them up to modders is, it could be a very risky thing.
00:25:19
Speaker
um so on one hand to guarantee safety for everybody and we also do moderation and creation and we have a whole system that knows how to roll out content and we also try to do the whole go-to-market strategy which is is very tough in general to do because the fact that you're opening up a game for modding doesn't mean a crowd that it's gonna it's gonna have the Sandys of the world in them, because even the Sandys of the world don't know they're the Sandy.
00:25:46
Speaker
You know, everybody's kind of rediscovering this is a possibility right now. And what we're trying to do through our playbooks is make sure that on one hand, the game studio gets the best line of defense to its terms and services and high fidelity mods that come to the surface.
00:26:05
Speaker
And on the other hand, we're trying to surface up these potential modders that can create something at a high fidelity. Because ah for a mod to sell like Sandy's mods are selling, first of all, Sandy needs and modder needs to develop a level of proficiency and creation that isn't trivial.
00:26:22
Speaker
This is not your regular, i have an idea. You need to know how to bring value to a community that a craft is making a game for. That means you need to step up your level to to a place where we can say, and we think we can price this at this point.
00:26:37
Speaker
Or we think we can drive traffic because Overwolf today reaches, the Overwolf ecosystem reaches over 113 million gamers per month. So we can also drive traffic in certain ways.
00:26:49
Speaker
Naturally, we could tailor influencers. We could do all sorts of things to amplify behind the scenes and in front of the scene, depending on what the mod is and what the platform is and what the game is, to enhance the the the creator.
00:27:02
Speaker
But it's it's a profession that is being built now. So if anybody would... I think that it's very open. and Anybody can become a moderate tomorrow if they really wanted to, but to become a moderate that has an impact that requires some devotion. It's not as easy as, you know, getting in and just coding. You need to, you need to teach yourself and you need to be extremely passionate about the game you're playing.
00:27:23
Speaker
One thing we were seeing time and time again is that people that have or find themselves um proficient and passionate about a certain game are usually come up to be the best creators.
00:27:36
Speaker
Because we have game studios that are developing for all these games as well. Because a lot of the small outfits today can, you know, they have ah and you know an experienced game studio with 20 people that are great and they're already released games that are worthwhile to the market.
00:27:53
Speaker
know that it's very tough and long to release a big game. It takes years. So in the meantime, they can come to ARC, they can come to Hogwarts, they can come to Inzor, they can come to many other games and create these small premium experiences. And in the meantime, cover the bills.
00:28:07
Speaker
What we found out, if they don't have a strong creative that is actually playing and is in-depth with the game, they'll go as experienced as they are. They'll go up against a creator like Sandy, and and Sandy's going to take it. Unless we help a lot, unless we infuse, which is something we also do, infuse other creators with other creators and build teams.
00:28:27
Speaker
So it's it's it's up it's a whole new world out there and when it comes to to this creator category. And... and um And I think the discoverability and safety and and is it iss at the core. And the go-to-market is as as complicated as rolling out a game. But it is a mini-game experience.
00:28:50
Speaker
what Again, you you hampered on discoverability, which I love. And as this continues to move forward, there'll be more and more creators that are coming out, right? That will be good for games. It will make it tougher for the wannabe Sandys of the world, which is fine. But I think it goes back to then showing the business acumen that you have, right? You're researching yourself. you're and I think i think one one thing I want to say in 2024 on Steam alone, on Steam alone, there were close to 19 thousand games, new games released.
00:29:19
Speaker
Just for you to understand. And here's Sandy. And Sandy's not, and I mean, he's doing well, but he's not an anomaly. There's a few Sandys, quite a few Sandys. They're not part of that statistic and they're doing way better ah in terms of just the economy and the dynamics of the market. So when you look at the market and you see this amount, and then then this year, many games are going to come out as well. Indy teams, big teams. I mean, there's a lot of versatility and variety within them.
00:29:46
Speaker
whatever is being released, you have to pause and think, as a person who wants to make a game, maybe it's better for me to go to one of these platforms. I mean, it could also be Fortnite and Roblox or one of our games i mean or or a few. Let me try half a year here, half a year there and release auxiliary modded content as a way to make a living rather than I have an idea for a game because it's so noisy out there.
00:30:11
Speaker
And also because of this noise, the main tentpole platforms know they have to allow for UGC because it's a massive offer. If ARK is allowing UGC and all these other games are not, for instance, all these other games are going to leak eventually to ARK or a big portion of them because ARK is providing, it's constantly building stars with gravity around it content wise.
00:30:35
Speaker
And that's where the game worlds is right now and even going further. So So I think the big platforms understand that. I don't know, ah and and and and in general, creators at large and even game game developers need to understand this might be a more and probably more relevant pathway to success than let me you know try to shoot out a game for whatnot.
00:31:01
Speaker
I was recently speaking to
The Future of Gaming Through UGC
00:31:03
Speaker
two publishers, the founders, and and they love UGC, but they said the biggest issue they see with UGC right now is that it's making these forever games hard to leave, right? And you have Fortnite that maybe has 50% of the ah audience, let's just call it that, right? And they're all looking at Fortnite and the experience is created in Fortnite.
00:31:20
Speaker
Great. UEFN is great. They're building some cool stuff, but those players are still in Fortnite. They're not going to go check out another game. And it's hurting the discoverability of other games. And I'm curious if you had any thoughts on that. like Arc 2 is a good example. They've been talking about Arc 2 for about five years now, right? And there's been no progress on that. And the truth is, I get it. Like you have a platform that has a bunch of users.
00:31:40
Speaker
If you're to make the change, you got to hope these users make the jump with you. but But do you think that's kind of putting us in a tough position of creating newer experiences? Or maybe we just have to make better experiences?
00:31:51
Speaker
Maybe that's the key. um I think it's complex. I think that, yes, it makes it really hard to make new experiences. One of the challenges of UGC is that it's competing. I mean, if you can't just build a game and say UGC if UGC is not at its core.
00:32:07
Speaker
So a good example would be Enzoi. Enzoi, the main game designer is a modder. so And he spent endless time endless amounts of time on Curse Forge and other games.
00:32:18
Speaker
So he built the game with modding in mind, and it's so baked in that it had to launch with mods, and it needed support from us. But many of the game designers and studios don't have that because they're legacy studios.
00:32:33
Speaker
so they don't so So what happens is development cycles and design cycles are going to compete with UGC cycles. And UGC is going to lose. Because if you don't really know to use these experiences, then not many people do.
00:32:45
Speaker
This is a new thing that's coming. you won't You won't end up doing UGC. And you'll be one of those studios that promises everything and doesn't deliver anything. And that's really hard. um So I think that it would make releasing, I think we're gonna see smaller experiences and games come out and huge tent poles come out. Anything in the middle right now is going, I mean, it's gonna disappear. Hence, we see the shift in the gaming community. I think in the last four years, over 35, don't know what the number is, 35,000 developers were fired across all the companies because the middle of the chain
00:33:22
Speaker
The $10 million, $20 million, $50 million dollars games are gone because you need to invest in distribution and whatnot. Here you have a small game or or today even, you know, whether it's a model or it's really small teams that can execute and bring games in a very relatively competitive price to the market, make their money, not be knee deep in expenses.
00:33:46
Speaker
Big tent poles. I mean, there aren't much, but, you know, the mother low GTA six, you know, $2 billion dollars title, um I think that you know already has organically around GTA 5 a UGC ecosystem.
00:33:59
Speaker
I can assume that will continue in one way or another to to GTA 6. And they you know take to itself, bought the modding ecosystem eventually that was rogue.
00:34:11
Speaker
I mean, the studio understands it's investing all this money. It has to have UGC in it. Yeah. Or if not, it needs to be a really razor sharp, thin experience game for it to have any justification in the market.
00:34:28
Speaker
And we're we're living through that change now. Another thing that we're going to, that's a whole other conversation that I won't interject, is more of transmedia titles, which will be able to offset and create fandom, crossover fandom.
00:34:43
Speaker
So now if I'm a fan of a certain TV show or a game, I can start connecting and creating in ways that I haven't been able before. I think we're going to see that generation come. I think creators, Sandy, personifies people.
00:34:56
Speaker
that cluster group are going to lead the games market in their new era. like It's going to be about the creators and the economies and the communities they create. Yeah, I can't disagree with that. I think you look at the top few games on Steam over the course of the last five years, you've probably got a mix of Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, everything that has some sort of UGC built into it because the fandom is keeping it there. And you know Battlefield's about to launch, it's going to have UGC built into it, and I'm curious how that's going to do. And I think if you're launching a game that's built for an audience and you're not putting UGC in there right now, you're going to have a...
00:35:32
Speaker
Unless you have a kick-ass LiveOps team that's pounding out content, you're going to fall behind some other games. and And I have a question for you, Sandy. you know You taught yourself Unreal to start building mods to to play games with your daughter, which I love.
00:35:47
Speaker
But now if you take a look at your day-to-day, what are the top one or two skills that you've learned over the past few years that you actually use on a day-to-day basis? Is it the coding or is it other stuff?
00:35:58
Speaker
I partially use the coding, but for the most part, it's just being the going through the creative process and creating actual items, new new designs. I started teaching myself to use a Blender and the modeling tools in Unreal Engine.
00:36:13
Speaker
ah I started with Blender and it just was very overwhelming, it's just too much. So I jumped onto to the modeling tools in the Unreal Engine, and if it's just quick and easy. you know I was able to turn around a simple object and create something different out of it. you know And it's it's just become a, it's I think that's the way forward for me, just sticking with the Unreal Engine itself. And the coding, obviously, it helps for creating materials and things like that, and just
00:36:45
Speaker
creating different operations for the material itself, whether it moves, it creates some sort of different design to it. ah But the big follow through right now, it seems to be just new items, things things that people can use, things that people can create out of it, you know?
00:37:02
Speaker
And I've been a recently thinking of going into just developing levels and because there's that seems to be a great option for a lot of games nowadays, you know?
00:37:13
Speaker
ah You guys mentioned Fortnite. I know they have their experiences and that might be a good route to go with, you know? And another thing that, ah that does catch people's eyes is just ah the items that I do create, you know, it, it might ah get the attention of a brand or something like that, you know, and it, they might want to be kind of integrated into one of my mods, depending on the game, obviously, because not all the games allow it. So it might be a good situation that they can,
00:37:41
Speaker
reach out to me or I can reach out to them and be here. I can offer you this in the game. I can create this for you. It's going to look good and you'll get a following, you know, and that kind of brings back into ah bringing people back into the game itself because they, they have this, all these new items coming in, all these new, new experiences coming in, you know, and it's ah going back to your question, to your comment about the whole,
00:38:09
Speaker
how new games, they don't get as much attention anymore. That's true because UGC does kind of retain people in with their mods and they keep coming back just because the new mods keep releasing, you know?
00:38:21
Speaker
But it's basically the same as a DLC, you know? When a game comes in with a live ops and brings more DLCs into the game, that brings back the player for ah certain amount of time, you know?
00:38:31
Speaker
And what mods are creating is that it just... it kind of bridges that gap in between each DLC or a new game release per se. And people are able to just come back and join and participate and enjoy that game once again, because something else came out for it, you know?
00:38:48
Speaker
and ah And recently, funny enough, ah somebody started like a ah thread of wire cartridge, hire Sandy to create the structures for the game, you know? And, but it's, it's, I don't think it's something that I would ah want to go into just because,
00:39:03
Speaker
ah once again, they are kind of limited on things that they can do, you know, and I, it would, uh, damper my creativity, I suppose, you know, and what I can create, what kind of coding I can add to it, what kind of, uh, new items I can add to it, you know, and it's, uh, I like kind of just dumping a bunch of stuff into the, into the mods, the things that I know people are, want people really desire in the game itself, you know, and it's, if I were to go with the,
00:39:30
Speaker
creating content for a company itself, like an actual game studio, I guess I would be limited into what I can create, you know? And so, yeah. I think I have a question about the tool sets that you guys use. I think the question is going to Sandy, but Shahar, I'd like you to come and say kind of what are the tools that Overwolf provides to help with this type of stuff. But, you know,
00:39:51
Speaker
now that you're kind of building out how this works, how this scales, what are the tools that you do utilize that maybe people don't realize? Like I'm thinking Unreal, that's your main driver, right? And then you got CurseForge. But what other tools exist in the marketplace that maybe people don't even know exists?
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, so the a tool that I honestly use a lot and people don't kind of understand it, it's the actual analytics that the CurseForge website provides for the game itself.
00:40:18
Speaker
I'm able to guide myself, engage myself by, okay people are actually engaging with this game. Maybe I should promote something in here. I should put something in this game, in this mod, sorry, or or a game itself. If I see people, a lot of people are downloading a mod in Insoy, then I go back into it and I create something new or I add something to an existing mod, you know?
00:40:37
Speaker
And I think that's one of the big tools that I actually use, just the analytics for it itself. I'm able to just gauge myself. And Unreal is a big tool that I use a lot, obviously. and Yeah, sorry, I'm drawing a blank right now. yeah No, I mean, those are the major things, Sandy. I mean, on one hand, you have, in this case, it's Unreal. Unreal, the more proficient you are in creating unique experiences of that game in the development kit, which is Unreal-based, the better your chances are of really wowing the community. So you can have, for instance, ah but in in Arc, a big section that is very popular is all sorts of really unique creatures that modders bring to the game.
00:41:23
Speaker
that some of them are just like stunning, you know, physically, the physicality of of them. and you can find a bunch online. And, you know, it's like you could get this giant snake and you could fully pack it with just just anything. And it has all these tools, but then the way it moves in the game and it just feels so native to the game.
00:41:42
Speaker
So being able to really mesh your creativity with your ah coding ability But at the core, if you don't have the business skills also to go to the author console and see how it tracks and what it does, and then you need to, you know, you need to all these complimentary existing services, be active on Discord, know how to reach out. mean, and each and every one creator has their strong suits, but it's it's it's, there's no real anything unique that's gonna make something pop. It's the operation of all of them, plus a creativity to do DLC level things
00:42:18
Speaker
or experiences that the game will never get to and will never produce. And those keep people just hooked because they love the core experience of the game because the game developer did such a great job. But people consume today content it is at a level that is unprecedented. So you need to constantly pump up stuff. And that's where kind of this legion of creators comes to the rescue and also benefits from I want to ask about the analytics. I think that's great. I think not enough people look at the analytics of anything that they're doing to to measure their kind of their next steps. right And I'm curious, are there specific metrics that you both look at, maybe from usage of the platform? Sandy, you're probably looking at sales and downloads and stuff like that. are there any unknown metrics that are kind of north stars to you?
00:43:06
Speaker
Sandy, do you have anything on your end? Yeah, yeah. so So I do go by the the metrics that Cursework provides. And the great thing about it is that it actually shows what mods are being used.
00:43:17
Speaker
It's not necessarily what mods are being purchased. It's just I can see what mod is actually being used, how many hours it's being used for, how many players are using it, things like that. you know So you're able to gauge yourself by that.
00:43:27
Speaker
if ah okay that mod just was absolutely it did not hit at all you know or if that mod is doing great and it still got has a following you know there for example the quantum mod that one is the one with the biggest following it everybody seems to still use it on a daily basis which is fantastic for me you know and just uh for the mod itself yeah i mean i mean you can imagine like a very small atomic unit of a game and you look at everything that has to do with it time played use
00:43:58
Speaker
Sales is just one of the many legs. I mean, it's it's ah time spent mod big. We also try to look with a game studio on total time played versus on modded gameplay, retention based on modded gameplay.
00:44:17
Speaker
How many mods, you know, its it's not necessarily, although everybody is very attached to the monetary sum of premium mods. We're specifically talking premium mods, There's a lot of other stats that are as impactful.
00:44:31
Speaker
Just like I said in GTA 5, you know, the the sales around private servers are nothing compared to the sale Rockstar generating. But the hours viewed of material our civilization spends is and in the mod. So that has a massive awareness value, which has translates to a brand value in a significant way.
00:44:54
Speaker
And a lot of the things we're doing now are kind of we're building it as it goes. Yeah, and that all comes back to almost influence, right? If you have people purchasing these mods, playing these mods, people watching these mods, right? It's great that Rockstar sold how many copies ah of GTA 5, right? But how many people are still glued to their screen watching these games being played and and the majority of them are modded games? That means that's where your stickiness is. People want to keep seeing content like this. People want to play content like this, right?
00:45:21
Speaker
I'm willing to bet half the players don't even know how to get some of this stuff. So the more clear that Rockstar could be or whoever could be, right? Now that it's in the game, it's so much easier than the old days of having to download a file from the internet, find the folder structure, put the thing in there, right? It's becoming so seamless and I think it's great for everyone. I truly think it's what's going to help gaming get to that next level is this community building. Because if you look at anything in life, when there's a community around something, it grows significantly better, right? So gaming is no different than that in other verticals.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, and sorry. yeah
Advice for Aspiring Modders
00:45:54
Speaker
And it's actually expanding into... um Let's say I create a mod. ah Recently, I created a mod with the zombies in the in it that actually integrated zombies into ARK Survival Evolved, you know?
00:46:05
Speaker
And ah I reached out to a couple of my content creator friends and they started creating their own. They did series on the mod itself, you know? So it expands into, okay, they're getting all the views, they're getting all the attention, but then again, my mod is actually getting the attention as well. So it's, I guess it's a cross marketing in itself, you know, just by yeah i mean reaching out to different content creators.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah, mean we we could we definitely see this, ah you know, a mod does really well, then ani and then you know then a streamer, just a very popular streamer starts to use the mod, and then some you see a rise in sales, and this is kind of what we're trying to help do is marry all UGC sides, the streamers, the you know the extroverts and the introverts.
00:46:50
Speaker
Right. Then the last question I have for you both, and I'm hoping it's not the same answer, but it might be the exact same answer, is if there was someone that wanted to get into modding and start building UGC content today, what would be the three tips you give them on how to get started?
00:47:06
Speaker
And let's go to Sandy first.
00:47:09
Speaker
Honestly, it's a the big one is just get started. Just get started. ah I can't tell you how the amount of times that people will be like, oh, I'm thinking of starting to mod. I'm thinking of starting to mod.
00:47:21
Speaker
What do you think? And I'm like, just do it. It's... whether Whether you like it or not, you're not going to know until you actually give it a try. you know That's the basic of it. If you dive into it and you don't like it, you'll know right away.
00:47:36
Speaker
If you dive into it and it just gets you hooked, you know it's your thing. you know And that's what happened to me, honestly. The second one is just ah try and learn as much as you can. Just continue learning.
00:47:47
Speaker
Continue learning. That's it. It's every day I just kind of go. on Well, during my daughter's nap time, I used to just grab a book, read it. was There was a video I needed to do, to learn, to to watch because I needed to learn something. Then I'd go and jump on that, you know, and then like I would go and apply it.
00:48:07
Speaker
And third, honestly, just the reach out to your community. Your community is the one that's going to help you out and they're going to help you decide what's good, what's not, if you should continue doing it or not.
00:48:18
Speaker
I love it. Just do it. You know, you can't start swimming unless you jump in the pool. And I think that's the most important part for anyone in any journey, no matter what they're doing is you just got to start doing If this is what you want, go get it. No one's going you permission.
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah. jahar um I would. Yeah, of course, I agree with Sandy. I would I would say that, you know, whatever game, because it's not just going to mod. It depends on which game, whatever game you are in Be really great at that game.
00:48:44
Speaker
You don't need to be ranking top or anything. Just be really, really great and consume a lot of auxiliary content around it. Because any game you're going to mod, you can mod, has been modded.
00:48:55
Speaker
So watch streamers, go to forum, go on Reddit. just There's so much information you can get as you want to move in to do something. And then just do something for the fun of it at the beginning. It's very important you just Do it because you love doing it, uh, because you cannot cheat the passion of just creating something and it might not work the first two times or it might, but so, so find the games, engage it with passion and fun and, and.
00:49:26
Speaker
And do try to also, and I like the, I'll take from Sandy, his last point as well, to reach out and have discussions with people who have done it or thinking of doing it as well. Of course, you know, anything that we touch, you can go to Curse Forge. We also have people that are on forums on Slack and Discord. You can ask them questions if you need like professional guidance on something.
00:49:50
Speaker
um But be, but the core The core qualities, be very, very curious, come with passion, and just come to play and have fun. And then let let let it see where it goes from there. Don't be too shy with starting anything. You know, just jump into it.
00:50:06
Speaker
I think the second point you made there is what really sticks with me is be passionate about the game that you're building for. don't Don't build mods for a game that you're not interested in just because people are playing. and And Sandy, asked you the question earlier of how do you decide the new games? And I love how you've just kind of stayed with whatever my daughter loves playing, I want to keep building. Cause you know, that is your driver is your family. my family's having fun playing the stuff i'm building. Other people will too. And you're not trying to force a square peg through a round hole.
00:50:33
Speaker
And I think it can't be stated enough. Get in, just start doing it. Find a game you love and don't be scared to reach out to people. Most, most people don't bite when you contact them and most people are willing to help. I think this again is a community and everyone wants to see everyone do well. And I think it's great. So,
00:50:48
Speaker
I want to thank both of you for for coming out and sharing these stories, teaching us about these tools and how you use them. Before we go, I'd like each of you to say where we can find you or any last thoughts. And Shahar, we will start with you.
00:50:59
Speaker
um i all this All this is happening and it's going to continue to grow exponentially. So anybody thinking about getting into the business of creating in any game, get into it.
00:51:14
Speaker
and even the games we didn't mention so much, you know, fortnight last month had a creator that had a map that was more popular than fortnight itself for the first time, you know, this is happening.
00:51:26
Speaker
Uh, and there's a lot to be made here. There's a lot of fun. It's great people. It's really great people. The creators are just wonderful people that are passionate about doing something There's something so honest and pure about it.
00:51:38
Speaker
Join, join that way. And I, you know, the best way to find these ping me on LinkedIn, to be honest, That's like the place I'm at and professionally pushing things.
00:51:50
Speaker
And don't hesitate. i think there's less walls today than ever. I'm happy to connect over. Wait, last quick question. What game are you playing right now, Shahar? You know what? I'm playing a mobile game called Polytopia because I don't have a lot of room to play games.
00:52:06
Speaker
And my son and I play that. I'm also watching him a lot play Grow a Garden, which has taken over his 10-year-old category. that Those kids are like submerged in that game.
00:52:19
Speaker
These are my top games. Love it. Sandy, let us know where we can find you, if we could find you, or and or what game are you playing?
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, so um I can easily be reached through the CurseForge site. Just ah search me, Sandy underscore zero zero. And sorry, CurseForge provides it ah wonderful messaging system there that they can just message me and reach out to me if they need to. Or they can find me on a X, my main source of marketing. it's ah I'm an adnelfo Sandman.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah. and ah I mean, it's this is just such a great opportunity for everybody, honestly. If anybody wants to jump in, just go ahead and do it. it It's fun. it's a It is a learning curve, a learning experience, you know but at the same time, it's it's a great learning experience. And there are so many options opening up for people now.
00:53:10
Speaker
So there's plenty of things for people to jump into. Just any game that they love, try and make a mod for it. Simple as that. yeah you What game are you playing? ah Right now I'm playing Ark, obviously.
00:53:21
Speaker
I play that with my daughter and she's gotten into Roblox a lot lately again. so So I'm kind of just watching her play it and ah getting ideas. And um she asked me, can you make something for this game? I'm like, I don't know about that one, but I can certainly give it a try.
00:53:37
Speaker
So yeah, Roblox is the one that she's into right now. So that that might be my next avenue to go to, you know? There you go. Well, gentlemen, again, thank you so much for your time today. This was really enlightening. We'll have links to Curse Forge, to Overwolf, to Sandy's profile maybe, or we'll see you how that goes.
00:53:54
Speaker
But again, I thank you both so much for your time today. i Hope you have a great rest of your day.