Transcript
Speaker: All right. And so today I'm joined by Eleanor Bergman. She's the CEO and co-founder of Spaldoza Interactive, an indie game studio building cozy computer games.
Speaker: And before starting that studio, she worked across community management and production inside the games industry. And I thought this was really cool because lot of people have great ideas for games, but way fewer to and the turn those into ideas that other people can actually play.
Speaker: And so, Eleanor, you started in community management before becoming a CEO. What's something that you learned from talking to all the players that still influence your decisions CEO today?
Speaker: Yeah, oh my god, that's a hard question. um So I think when I started as a comm community manager, I was very, very green to this sort of a job. I had worked in um a grocery store before that for like seven years. So I had been talking to people. ah But it was very different joining like ah internet communities, because that's not something I had been doing before that.
Speaker: um But I think something that I've learned and kind of taken with me is that the players are sort of like the most important thing. It's very similar to how you see in like other ah industries as well. ah The customer is always right.
Speaker: ah They are always right, but they're also always wrong. And they're most of the time... um you kind of have to think that you're talking to like a child almost because you yourself, you have all the knowledge, like you know everything about your game, for example, or your product. So you kind of have to imagine that you're trying to explain something to someone who doesn't know anything. And sometimes that can be hard because you're so You're so in it, you know.
Speaker: ah Yeah, I think i think just just realizing how important the players are and wanting to bring them along for the development journey is something that i've I've learned. I think it's also something that was kind of specific about the past studio we worked at. and We worked at a small mobile game studio where the community was super important and also ah quite involved ah in the development. For example, we had contests where they could draw characters that would end up in the game, or we had... ah
Speaker: Q and A's where they could sort of ask for things that we could add, or they have like channels where they could theorize about the story and we could sort of adapt and sometimes give them cramps and things like that. That's something that sort of carried with us along our journey with this new company.
Speaker: yeah You still do that with your new company to talk a lot to the to the community? Yeah, I think it was one of the first things we did. We started a a Discord server, which is basically ah kind of like a chat room okay for your players.
Speaker: We did that very early because we we kind of we got laid off from this past studio and then we we brought all of this laid off team into Spieldosa. And we were all kind of like, yeah, we have to have to start a Discord server so we can bring some of the fans that wanted to join us on our new journey forward. So we kept some of those people that we were very close with in our past studio.
Speaker: Yeah. Interesting. So that was the the first thing you did was start the Discord server, basically. Yeah. One of the first few things. we I think... The first thing we did was just make sure that we could start a company. Like, do we all have the same kind of values? Do we all want the same thing?
Speaker: as so we kind of and set our boundaries a little bit in the beginning. We, for example, talked about, OK, do we want to continue making mobile games? That was a no. ah Do we want to ever step into like making casino games if we have to? And that was also a no, ah for example.
Speaker: and making sure that we all wanted to do the same stuff. And then we started like, okay, we already have a few people who want to join our community. Let's just just start a Discord server so they can follow along for the fully full cycle, sort of.
Speaker: Okay. So the very first thing you did was to kind of figure out where you're going? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. Kind of figure out at least if we're compatible and if we all want to go in the same direction sort of. So we had a bunch of meetings and discussions because although we had worked together, some of us for up to like six or seven years, okay and when you work at a different like company and you're just employed, it's very different from um connecting to each other through like a company.
Speaker: um so So we tried to make sure that we were on on the same page and knew where we had everyone before we decided to actually go for it sort of. Very interesting. So how did you know that that was sort of the first step that you needed to take?
Speaker: i'm not sure, actually, because we we we are part of a game incubator where we get business coaching and things like that. But this happened during our layoff period. So we weren't entirely done at this past company yet. So we didn't have any like business coach at this point in time. I think we were all just very and sort of new just that if we're going to start a company, we have to want the same kind of things. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. I wonder if there's a takeaway that for that, looking back for other people trying to do the same thing. Hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think it was very important for us to do that. And something that was also important is to continue doing that, continue talking to each other, continue to check in. Are we still on the same page? um So we have right now we're doing like meetings. ah Of course, we have meetings every week where we kind of say, what's the schedule and everything like that. We have stand-ups every day because we work in like agile scrum methods, sort of.
Speaker: ah But we have meetings every other month where we sort of just, hey, how is everyone doing? How is everyone's financial situation? Because we're still just a startup, you know, not a lot of money yet. ah And we're still kind of like just trying to check in with each other. How are you doing mentally? Because it it is a tough road ah doing game dev because most of the time,
Speaker: a game takes quite a long time to make. And we've sort of chosen the path or chosen, we've both chosen the path and all kind of been pushed towards the path of ah not taking investment, equity investment or anything like that.
Speaker: okay Sort of the first few years was hard. ah Back in 2023, no one was investing in games anymore because they put out so much money like around 2020, 2021.
Speaker: twenty twenty twenty one ah And then their pockets started to get empty. so They stopped investing in like 2023. We were a big team and we were like, okay, there's no there's no equity to be had.
Speaker: and There was a lot of companies who shut down. So eventually we were like, let's see if we can do this. ah independently. ah But that also means we've had a lot of financial struggles. so it's been super important for us to just keep on and checking in with each other. Do we still want the same things? Are you doing okay?
Speaker: How is your finances doing? um Yeah, things like that. So how do you finance it? and Right now we've been doing co-development, which means that we were basically freelancing. Sometimes like singular people in the team do smaller contracts. ah Since I'm a marketer and community manager to begin with, I usually don't do team-based freelancing. So for me, there's usually just small contracts. But for the past like year, two years, we've been doing bigger contracts as well, where...
Speaker: like half of the team sometimes are involved. Right now we're working with ah another game who's also here from Covde, released a few months ago called Esoteric Eb. So for them we're doing um some programming stuff, but also some art.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. you couldn't get funding in 2023. And so you decided to keep going down that road. What made you not seek funding later?
Speaker: So we've sort of, there are a few different ways to seek funding in game dev. You can either go for like the equity route with VC or angels or like grants, of course. That's a different one. And then we also have a publisher. A publisher can also help fund development. We're big team. We're expensive. We've also, when we started, decided to have, everyone has equal amount of shares in our team.
Speaker: yeah Yes, very communistic of us in a way. um Yeah, so those are the different paths. When we started out, our business coaches were very much like, go for equity, start making a ah pitch deck where you pitch this towards VCs and angels, et cetera, et cetera. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: we we We tried that for like a year or something. And then we decided, OK, this is very dry. there is It's a hard hard climate out there right now.
Speaker: It was for everyone in the industry in 2023 and 2024. So we sort of decided, let's let's see let's make a game that we can make ourselves, but will apply for a publisher at the same time.
Speaker: ah Because the first game we started making in the first year was more aimed to like equity investors. It was a bigger game. VCs usually want a big game so they can take, you know, big risk, big reward sort of thing.
Speaker: okay yeah But then we kind of turned it down, started looking at a publisher, ah couldn't find one. ah So we decided to, write right now we're doing like the final push for a publisher.
Speaker: ah But since we've been doing co-development instead for this past year, we have been able to fund ourselves, even though it's very, very little money we've been getting by. And now we're probably going to self-publish, which means we're going to handle all of the marketing ourselves, ah which includes like a lot of work. But we are 10 people, so we're hoping we can make it work. um Code development is taking up some time, though.
Speaker: um But that's just like the price you kind of have to pay if you want to go independent. We could definitely have had... a publisher if we really, really wanted to, but then we would have taken a bad deal. So I think we've gotten more picky as the years have been going on, sort of. Like when we started out, we were sort of even open to someone acquiring us 100%. There were actors in the industry who were doing it back then, and we had contacts there.
Speaker: ah But we were like, hmm... It's starting to look like yeah if if you actually if they shut down, you are not going to keep anything. You're not going to keep your game. You're not going to keep your company. So we're like, maybe not that route. And after that, we've just got have more and more more picky.
Speaker: So now we just want the best sort of. so So how do you decide that when someone, because that must be really difficult to know if you're going to go with the kind of the not the sellout route, but taken taking some funding and kind of compromising on your, I guess your values a little bit um or your ideas versus going on your own and kind of struggling financially.
Speaker: um I think we, from the beginning have had very ah strong minds and not really wanted to bend that much. ah We're also very like,
Speaker: I would say um a bit pessimistic or a bit like realistic, which doesn't really fit the equity VC, at least investor kind of mindset. They kind of want you to be a bit the Lulu in a way. Explain that. How so?
Speaker: um Because i feel i in my experience, they they want you to sell something that's going to be like as big as Disney. And that That is so rare. like In a realistic world, I'm like, OK, realistically, it could go like this s well. But if we're going to be like actually realistic, it's going to be like this well. And the realistic well is like almost never you know return on investment times 5 or 10 or whatever they're looking for. um
Speaker: Those are usually, you know, special cases, but they want you to sell it as it's at least the special case, sometimes even the very, very unprobable case. And I think that's just not really, it doesn't really suit us as a team.
Speaker: um As I'm the CEO, I'm trying to sort of gather all the voices in my team and kind of form form that when I speak to external people. partners, just shape it into to something that is all of our voice and not just mine.
Speaker: right Like you say, we we could have just could have just ignored some of our values to get money, but I think we just prioritized um our priorities and what we want to do before that. Because we also kind of discovered that, oh, we can do code dev and it's going quite well.
Speaker: we've even had like We haven't had to look that hard either to to get jobs. I think we we instill a sort of comfort in the people we work with. We also have years of experience, lots of us. Many of the devs, since we didn't really... a lot of the people who start a new studio, they come right out of school, at least in Sweden.
Speaker: um So it's it's not as common that new new studios doing codev are as experienced. um So that's been like a good part for us at least.
Speaker: So ah basically to fund it, you're working ah jobs on the side, basically. ah Basically, but it's more like freelance gigs that we do in-house.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. That sounds tough, is it? Yes, it is. It's hard to to switch focus, but we're kind of like the... in Back in 2024, I was doing most of the consulting and our artists were doing some... um Mine, I think, could fund two or three salaries in the team. And the artists were covering ah ah their own salaries, sort of.
Speaker: And now it's more programmer heavy. And like this past autumn, it was a bit game design heavy. So it kind of goes in waves, sort of. So we we take turns, you can say. Nice.
Speaker: Very interesting. um It's very cool. um So... You're focused a lot, or it seems like you're focused a lot about on building ah a community for this game, pre-launch, for this new game. you Yeah, yeah. I think to us as a team and also to me, I think it it kind of becomes like...
Speaker: Like I mentioned earlier, I try to gather all of the team's opinions and voices into me, but also how I feel and what I think is important sort of kind of spreads out onto the team as well in a way. and yeah So community has been something that like, it was important in the past studio we worked at and because I ended up in the position I am, it's sort of become important for us now as well. um and And I think it's just, it's just,
Speaker: one road you can take as a game developer, but like your players will always be important, but some don't prioritize it or even have to prioritize it until they release the game.
Speaker: As a small studio, I think it's it's hard to get visibility, but it's easier if you can get people to champion for you. as Basically sharing your game out with the world, ah like peer-to-peer, friend-to-friend,
Speaker: So gathering that community and making sure that you have people in that community who are passionate enough to to help you grow and it' is something that we've prioritized along the way, and it's definitely helped.
Speaker: One way we measure how many sales we can expect on a game is through wish lists on Steam. So people can add your game to to their wish lists. And I think it's about...
Speaker: 10 to 15% of the wishlist you get that you can expect in sales. okay But that's like an approximate and very generalized version of it. right um But like in the first, I think it took us a year to get to 20,000 wishlists. But in this past year, we've added like more than 20,000 in half a year. So it's ah definitely just, you know, picking up in speed.
Speaker: and that's, I think a lot, thanks to our, our community also just growing and helping us spread the word about the game sort of. So have you been, have, have you been doing anything else or has it all been sort of organic growth?
Speaker: ah We're definitely doing a lot, but we haven't put any any money into it, like no paid the ads or anything like that. I think I've just tried like one or two ah paid videos on TikTok and I didn't think it was worth it really. um Otherwise, it just it's just my my time, which is basically like 60 70% since I'm doing other things as well.
Speaker: um And other than that, it's just been organic. Okay. So how did you, you did a couple on on TikTok, and but you how did you decide that wasn't worth it?
Speaker: um So I didn't think ah the money warranted enough views or wish lists. um So you kind of have like ah usually a set goal of ah what you want to pay per wish list, for example, or per per view of a video.
Speaker: and I didn't think it was worth it. ah Personally, I already sort of knew that ah Reddit ads is usually the best bang for the buck when it comes to marketing at least video games for PC.
Speaker: ah mobile games can still do like TikTok and meta like Facebook and Instagram. But for PC games, Reddit ads are usually the best value. And especially if you have a smaller budget as an indie team. But ah a pay paid TikTok video had done really, really good for another company in the incubator we're a part of. and So when she tried, i decided I'll give it a go as well. But I tried it on two videos and I didn't think it was very good. so I decided that we should like prioritize our money elsewhere. and yeah and and so where where did you well Where did you prioritize your money instead
Speaker: So most of our money goes to just paying our developers. We did get ah like a bigger contract this autumn. And then we spent like, I think almost a third of that on new computers, which proved to be very important because like we we could not have finished this game on the old computers we had.
Speaker: Computers we had before that, I think we, we bought from the gaming community we are part of. So they, I think they were more than 10 years old or something like that. um Not great. But like computers, also software, ah like yeah creating 3D assets, ah also sound libraries, ah the game engine, we're building the game in, um but also ah some trips to pitch the games to publishers and get connections and things like that. So we've been traveling around the world. ah Some of the travels or most of the travels have been...
Speaker: um like some Some of the money has come from the game incubator helping to support us. We're also a part of a EU grant. um Like, what what do you call it? like Accelerator booster. That's like Swedish, Finland, and Estonian, I think.
Speaker: they ah They've also given us some money to travel to conventions, conferences, to to pitch the game to publishers. um So we've been to Tokyo, we've been to ah Cologne Gamescom, and we've been to Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, Nordic Game Conference in Malmö. I was invited to Umeå Game Conference and this January. So we've been a lot of places just ah pitching the game and talking to people.
Speaker: You were invited? Yeah, I was invited to talk in a women in games panel. So we talked we talked about ah the struggle for women in the games scene industry, sort of.
Speaker: Well, must have been, that's kind of a shift, eh? Going from from going to church now conventions, going to them versus being invited. that's Yeah, it did it did feel like a ah big thing. I was like, they... they yeah bought the tickets, they bought the the hotel and everything, and they got me like access to Meet2Match, which is a system where you can book meetings as well. So they they just really both like let me attend and be in a panel, which was awesome, but also just you know be able to be there and do business as well, which was super, super valuable.
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was it was cool. Okay, so but ah so the money when you're kind of trying to decide where to, well, not just your money, but I guess your energy ah ah towards marketing or development or growing or a how do you decide which, how do you decide where to go?
Speaker: um So most of the time and money goes to like developing the game because Marketing is an amplifier of a game. If the game is shit, it's not going to sell no matter how good the marketing is. you know yeah ah ah so So marketing is just an amplifier. So so it's it's been mostly kind of if it's if the money does not go to game dev, it's been mostly just feeling it out. Where do we think we see value? um Like last autumn, we we we did see some value in going to events. And this year we've been and like down prioritizing that because we haven't seen as much value from them because they haven't generated deals that we ah were able to take sort of. Like we've definitely had the publisher deals on the table, but they haven't really been...
Speaker: ah fitting like our situation haven't been that suitable. How so? voices it's Like I said, we've gotten picky over the years. But also, we we do have like, since we're a bigger team, we do have a big budget. And our game is also and less secure in a way. ah if you If you make a game that's like co-op or multiplayer, it's usually a safer bet. And also, if you make a game that's endless for playability, like you can either have
Speaker: Or it's not the only two, but you can have a linear game or you can have endless replayability where you can just continue playing forever because it it changes somehow. Okay. and But we have a linear game. It's more and more like, a you know, interactive movie sort of in a way.
Speaker: Um, so, so both of those are making it a bit, bit of a higher risk and publishers, uh, like around that time in 2023, when everyone stopped spending money, everyone got very, very risk averse, like people's money got very, very risk averse. Uh, and that also is for like publishers trying to get money to, to themselves as well. So they can invest. They haven't either like gotten any money. So, um,
Speaker: They've gotten more risk-overs, and then they started looking at, like, sort of those two kind of rules. At least around, like, 2024, everyone we talked to were like, oh, is there co-op? Is it endless replayability? And we're like, no, it's not. ah And there's there's still games, like, releasing that sort of have the same setup as ours. One example is Stray, where you play as a cat in a...
Speaker: future dystopian kind of world with robots and things like that. It's very similar to how our setup is, sort of, like with how you play through it. You play through it once, you play it for a couple of hours, you explore. It's linear, so you don't kind of backtrack in the game. You always go forward, sort of.
Speaker: um And that game did really, really well. So there's still there's still a lot of games with the sort of setup we have that do well, but it's a bit more risky, I guess.
Speaker: So you basically, you went with the, there's a lot, it sounds like there was, well, maybe not a bunch of people, but certainly some people telling you that it would be better going with the endless replayability versus the linear option. You still went with the linear option.
Speaker: Yes. And that that was sort of a decision we made early because we we used to work with 2D mobile games ah that had had very,
Speaker: simple simple like graphics and design sort of you collected cats basically and that was all you did ah it had a very casino like game design which a lot of mobile games have you know they have boxes where you open them up and then you can get different rarity on the cat sort of um So it was more about like ah monetization design and not as much like level design as you have like in a platformer. And we when we made the move to PC, we we yeah we kind of thought about doing a 2D game at first, but the game concept that we started pitching ah kind of just blew out of proportion because people were gaining interest and they were like, oh, I want to see this and I want to see this.
Speaker: ah So we we went the down the 3D route as well. and So when we got to the point ah when we decided to not look for... VCs and equity investors. That's sort of when we decided to make a smaller game, self-publish, and that's when we also decided, okay, let's make it linear. Let's not have multiplayer because all of those things make games more complicated, sort of. We wanted to make something simple, but it's taking more time than we planned. We were like, oh we can make this in a year. And now it's been two and a half years. But ah we are closing in on release date very soon, which is very, very nice. did
Speaker: did it have ah Does it have a set release date? and Not yet, but we are hopefully announcing it this autumn. Very cool. Very cool.
Speaker: And so so it's it sounds like sort of the the linear game is more of a I want to say proper game, but it's more of a sort of foundational sort of game and less casino-y to use.
Speaker: um i think it's it it's more to, I think you can compare it more to Our game is a premium game. You pay once and then you can play through the whole game. And I think endless replayability can also be like that.
Speaker: ah But live service games, which is more like um the finals, for example, that is made by a Swedish studio. ah It's a multiplayer ah where you can buy skins in the game for characters, for example, or you can pay money to get coins in the game. That is more similar to the mobile games market. But usually when it comes to PC, it's not as aggressive as it is on mobile.
Speaker: um Mobile games usually have, you you know, if you pay this amount of gems, you can continue playing. If you watch this ad, you can continue this and you can get this reward. um So mobile games is still very, very much much closer to like the casino kind of mindset than Even the live service games on PC ah won't probably ever get that close to.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Less dopamine, I guess, sort of thing. Yeah. Very interesting. um And so you're, I wanted to, on your, you know, I read a quite a bit on your website and different interviews you guys did and stuff. And, and you guys talk a lot about ah sustainability and healthy work-life balances and, and how, and you've already touched on this a little bit actually, but how, how does that, how does that collide with, well, the cost of doing business, I guess?
Speaker: Yeah, so it definitely collides a lot. ah But because of that, we've sort of taken the approach of not having... We're not sort of, since we know that people are getting paid way too little, we kind of trust ah everyone in the team to put in as much as they can and are able to. ah Because if we don't, we're not going to succeed, you know. But we also want to be very wary of burnout because it's something that can happen and something that has happened, ah like not to
Speaker: people in our team right now, but in the past workplace where we worked, there were multiple people who burnt out and because they had sort of made a business model that was very, very straining on the game artists since they were just, you know, selling new cats all of the time. um So we've been very wary of that and make sure that people, if they have to sleep in, then they're going to have to sleep in. But then that person always kind of works a few more hours in the evening.
Speaker: like It always sort of balances out and we we put a lot of trust into each other. So we have a few i have a few like set times during the day where we meet up. We always have stand up in the morning 10.
Speaker: And then people either start around 8 or 9 or 10. And then we usually have meetings that can go on until like 5 in the afternoon. And then some people work until 4, some until 5, 6, 7. It really depends. um And since we also sometimes have meetings with people like in Japan or in the US, in other places in the world, we also sometimes work during the evenings and things like that.
Speaker: and So it's it's very flexible. And it was something we decided early that we want to work more around ah your your sort of output and your contributions rather than just having like a set timetable.
Speaker: i don't know if you've read any articles about this, but in the games industry, we do have a lot of people with autism. ah Okay. I've not. Yeah, no, it's it's actually quite common. like I don't know what it is, but they they sort of gravitate towards the games industry. And we've have ah we we do have people in the team who are like either on the spectrum or close to being on the spectrum. So we are we are doing like those kind of adaptations as well to make sure that they are comfortable and can like do the best they can, sort of.
Speaker: um We don't want to like say that you have to be in at this time. Lunch is exactly at this time. Instead, we just have ah make sure that you ah you show up in the meetings, you do the tasks and that you've been dealt in a certain amount of time. um And we do we work in sprints that are usually two or three weeks long. Right now, we have three weeks long since we're doing a lot of code development.
Speaker: Okay. um And this means that we set tasks and do the planning for three weeks forward. And then after those three weeks, we do a little review um and we check back. Hey, you weren't able to make this task. What happened? Why weren't this task finished? Oh, you were sick for a week.
Speaker: ah because you got COVID or something. All right. Or and this task that we have planned is half done. Why is that? Oh, because we underestimated it a lot. It was it was a lot harder to finish than we thought. and Or we've we've done more than we planned, for example. So it's, it's um we sort of always check it, make sure, and we can all also, because of the system, kind of measure how fast we are developing something as well. Okay. And it's been it's been a lot easier and now that we've kind of stepped into production. We've left ah pre-production, stepped into production, which means that all of like the game's basic features are set. All of like the the toolbox, everything that we need to build, how the game should work, and now we're just producing like content. um
Speaker: which means that we've been able to sort of gauge our our velocity ah more precise, and which is also why we've been able to kind of set a release date finally that feels realistic.
Speaker: And how have you been able to... how Why is that easier?
Speaker: How do you mean? Well, I mean, that yeah you mentioned that the you're able to gauge your velocity more accurately. ah Yeah, it's because ah ah what we're doing right now, we basically have, um since we have, we don't have to figure out how something works. Now, in the pre-production, we kind of answered, this is how this ah is supposed to work. This is how this is supposed to work.
Speaker: So we have all of those those things nailed down. Right now, we're basically just expanding on For example, ah so in the game you play as Pelle, Pelle has a water gun. In the pre-production we decided Pelle is supposed to have different nozzles for this water gun, one that does this, one that does this.
Speaker: um And also in pre-production, we planned that, okay, you're going to play through this level, then this level, then this level, then this level. And we did a sort of sketch of all of those kind of, but like inn in the game engine. So like a pro prototype kind of a thing.
Speaker: And now we're just making that sketch ah fully rendered sort of. We're making it done. right that's that's how we what Once we had done one level, we could sort of gauge that, okay, this level is slightly bigger bigger than the level we just did, so it should be about the same time as this, but a little bit more.
Speaker: ah And then we started working on the next level and we saw, okay, that took a bit longer than we had estimated. Then we have to put a bit more time for this next level that we're just making ready for release.
Speaker: um So like you work very iteratively and not very linear when you make a when you make a game. and You work in very different places all of the time, sort of.
Speaker: But when you when you're in production, you sort of have a more set list of tasks to do. And it becomes a bit more linear than pre-production.
Speaker: Linear as in everyone's doing sort of working towards it. Well, everyone's always working towards the same thing, but working at the same thing or how, how more linear? Hmm.
Speaker: Not exactly, because you can't really when you make a game, you can't work exactly in the same spot, because then you're going to overwrite each other's work and progress. yeah ah But we're sort of at least working in the same area, and we're working with, like, OK, you take this area of this level, you take this area of this level, you take this area. Whilst before it was more, oh, I am developing this nozzle and I'm trying to figure out how this thing works and I'm going to have to see if it works in every part of the game. and Now we're working more like more focused sort of and everyone in the same same sort of space, at least a more narrow space.
Speaker: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. And then it's easier to understand what everyone's doing and how long everything's going to take. Exactly. It's it's been a lot easier to measure. Nice.
Speaker: Very cool. and So, okay. So um going back to sort of your community manager sort of experience, um when you are looking for player feedback and getting player feedback, how do you know what's an actual problem versus something that's sort of ah pulling the game away from its or original vision because it seems like there's a really, there's a big solid red thread vision in this game, right?
Speaker: Yeah. So we we do have ah one person in the team who is named creative director. Okay. And this person sort of holds the vision and makes sure that the game stays on it.
Speaker: Uh, so we basically gather all the feedback we get. Sometimes we have, uh, like after, after we've released something big, like the demo back in February, a month after that, we did an analysis of all of the feedback we've gotten back and tried to look at, okay, is this something multiple people are saying, or is it just one or two? Um,
Speaker: And the feedback that multiple people had been saying and was things we started discussing. how can we And we were more reading it as like, if a player says, hey, I want a sprint button, which has been a big feedback, instead of just, oh, let's add a sprint, and it's just going to break the whole game, because we've measured, for example, we measured that this jump needs to be this far. But if we add a sprint and you can run faster, then that jump is going to maybe you can jump further than you're supposed to, for example.
Speaker: So, OK, what is the actual issue they're having? They find that it's going slow when they're moving between places. Why is that? And then you start to dig deeper and deeper, and then you try to find like a solution to it that both fits your constraints as a developer and also ah what the player is sort of looking for and needs in the game for it to feel good and for them to actually leave a good review, because that's very important.
Speaker: um so So for the sprint, for example, that's something we've been hearing for a while. And when we did the analysis back in in March, it was. I think we were we we said, like, we we actually have to do something now because now it's just it it hasn't been one or two people who's been saying it at conferences when we've been exploring the game. Now it's actually a lot of players who's been testing the game at home by themselves. and So we have added something that we're going to test in a play test next week, actually.
Speaker: Uh, that sort of like stayed within the constraints that we have, but should be a solution to their issue. And it's not exactly a sprint, but it's still a button they can press to go faster sort of with some, some limitations.
Speaker: So how do you do that? How do you decide which is sort of the the basis of the the foundation of the problem? um You look at context, like ah some players, they just write, I want the sprint button. But maybe if you look at the next question we've asked in this form where they can fill out feedback, and maybe they say that, oh, I'm having a hard time locating this. So then we figure out, oh, they want the sprint button because they're having a hard time finding things.
Speaker: Maybe the solution is not just adding something for them to move faster. Maybe the solution is also making it easier to find things, for example. So so it's it's it's about sort of at first you take a glance, what is the biggest feedback we're getting? Okay, now let's dig and see if we can find context for these things. um So it does take some time, but usually it's very valuable and we try to make sure that we do it at a suitable time, like for example, one month after demo release. So we had gotten a sufficient amount of feedback. And the same thing with like playtests. We don't use external playtests with our community ah that often. We just do it when we know and that, okay, now we have to test
Speaker: and it's going to give us something valuable. and But we ah we also have the luxury of sitting in this game incubator where there are like 14 other game studios on the same floor in this building. And we can just go and ask them if they want up play to playtest something real quick. um so So like testing testing something small is is ah easy to just do on the fly as well here, which is very nice. Right. how about How valuable is that to you to to be near other game developers?
Speaker: Extremely valuable. Like the game industry is not as competitive in that sense ah because it's it's similar. i usually, ah when I try to explain this to to people who who are not in game dev at like presentations and things like that, i usually compare it to ah books ah and like,
Speaker: um oh what is it called in English? Detectives sort of books, crime books. Because ok those are are are like a big genre, at least in Sweden, and people buy all of them. I think Jo Nesbö is like a Danish writer in crime books. They are very, very popular here.
Speaker: I don't read a lot of crime books, but um my wife does, but I don't. Yeah. But like someone who reads those kind of books, they just buy more of them and they don't really, it's not like, oh, I pick this or this. No, I take both because I want to read both of them. And it's the same with with games. Like some games definitely have that sort of more ah competitive, like for example,
Speaker: a game like Counter-Strike, so Counter-Strike and Valorant, they they are sort of like the same kind of game. Those players, they usually lock onto and play just one of this type of game. So they are more competitors. But smaller games like ours,
Speaker: ah players are more like, oh, I want to play this, but now I want to play something that is similar to this, but not exactly like this, like the crime books. um So we are usually very, very supportive and help each other. And this like game incubator has really been super valuable to us. um Just being able to to ask questions to someone who's done something or actually be able to help someone else. it's both very both very valuable because it also helps you gain trust in in what you're doing and yourself. And sometimes you can also compare data, like how, for example, the the Reddit ads.
Speaker: um from from past freelance work, I knew that a lot of people had tried it and it it was looking good. But recently, one of the studios here actually did a full campaign and they were also able to talk to someone who worked at Reddit and get some tips and pointers. And they just shared that information with all of us because we're all under the same NDA. So we do share a lot of like For example, if someone is working with a publisher, they can tell us, oh, this has been ah something that's been hard for us, or this is something that's been working really well.
Speaker: i'm Yeah, or if we're like and we're selling our game on Steam, which is like a storefront for digital games, and sometimes someone tries something. Maybe they they try doing hosting a playtest through Steam. Okay.
Speaker: And that's like a specific feature that they offer. ah And then once they've done that, they can explain to someone else in the gaming computer how it works. and So that's been super valuable, but also just having access to subsidized offices. Because when we started out, we didn't have any money and we were able to to sit here very cheaply. And ah it's very important to game studios, most of us at least, to to have a shared office space where we can work together because it's it's definitely a group effort making a game and you have to sort of work together on a lot of stuff.
Speaker: So it's important to have a place where you kind of can meet up and. Yeah. Like there's definite definitely companies and teams out there who do it full remote. Um, but like our team, we were used to working in the same office already, as since we did that at the past studio. So for us, it was, it was very, very valuable and definitely necessary to have a place to sit together. All right.
Speaker: Very interesting. So if you, well, let's say you guys were starting over tomorrow. Um, was, what's one or two things you would do differently?
Speaker: Oh my God. So many, i have like the longest list. Yeah. Um, I think I would put, like in the beginning, we we put a lot of focus on like the business side, and getting an investor, getting this, getting that. I think I would put more effort into just focusing on the game and also focusing on learning how to make games together. ah Something that's a ah special... What is that word? Something that's a specific thing that we do in in the games industry is doing game jams, which is basically that you get maybe three days, like you get from Friday to Sunday to create the game.
Speaker: okay So you got to work quick, you've got to work sloppy. ah It's usually very messy, but then you end up with something that's either super fun or super boring. Or and not ready, for example.
Speaker: yeah But it's it helps you learn how to concept an idea fast, ah make it just exist fast, which is also something in game dev, just make it exist, sort of. okay um And also how to sort of close a circle as well.
Speaker: ah Usually games have a loop ah of like what you do in the game. So our game, it's explore, clean, restore, and then you do it again. So more like three sort of actions kind of.
Speaker: um and And learning how to do that, I think, is something which we should have focused on early. um Because that was not something we did at this past studio. We were usually just pumping out new updates to these mobile games. So sure, we we learned how to work within a team and how to work fast and efficiently. But we didn't learn how to collaborate that closely and how to turn a concept into an actual game fast.
Speaker: So that's something I would have done. And also trying to talk to as many people in the industry early on and don't like don't be afraid to to ask for help or experience that others have.
Speaker: I think that has been very valuable to us because then I think we would, if we had spoken to to more people, and not just our business coaches and gotten like a broader perspective ah earlier on, it could have helped us sort of find what route suited us best earlier, instead of us sort of spending a year on trying to find a VC when it was probably not really a good fit for us.
Speaker: Uh, so, so that's definitely something. And I think that's something that's been just very valuable to us from going to all of these events, just our, our net of, uh, like connections and people in the industry, because it's, it's both helped us sort of gauge, uh, what we want and what we, what we need to do if we want to go down this path, this path or this path, but also, ah just opportunities, um,
Speaker: Also, like being part of the big game showcases that that share your game to a wide audience, or being able to go to Umeå Game Conference, for example, ah things like that. so So building a network early on, because we tried, but I don't think we went out hard enough.
Speaker: We should have been. um I think at first we just started going out to events in Skövde. We should have started thinking, bigger earlier and earlier on and also not being afraid to to ask people who reached out.
Speaker: Like we we did get early like coaching sessions from from other people than just our business coaches. and But maybe we didn't really utilize them to to the point we should have ah because we were like afraid of wasting their time or we were ah we were kind of rationalizing that, oh, we need to focus on our game instead of ah asking them about this or this. um So I think just utilizing the connections we had and trying to get even more early on would have been very valuable.
Speaker: So how did you how did you overcome that? and I think with just with time and learning as we go. i think I think we wouldn't be at the place we are now with the knowledge we have now if we hadn't done this this route. ah but If a more experienced person who had done something similar, if we could have gotten like more testimonials sort of, of people who who had done the same thing earlier on, it would have been easier to sort of pinpoint where we were going faster, I think.
Speaker: Right. So instead of it taking three years, maybe it could have taken one and a half year. Right. so not So basically not being afraid to ask for advice.
Speaker: Yeah, basically. And also putting yourself out there, not being afraid to talk to people. I still struggle with that sometimes, but, um, doing my best. if You mean putting yourself out there as in like, ah as in like a vulnerable sense?
Speaker: Um. I guess just ah having the courage to to go to an event where you know don't know anyone, ah going up to a group at the event that you don't know anyone in and just starting to talk to them, ah which can be very hard and very scary, especially if you're like introverted or a bit shy.
Speaker: ah um I think I've realized that I probably am a bit extroverted, but I've always been... i was the child that child I was hiding behind my parents when they were speaking to someone they knew. So I've always been very shy and I'm still struggling with that despite like... I've i've stood on a stage and pitched to like more than 100 people in the audience, but I think it's still super scary walking up to a group and just being like, hey, who are you guys? Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Is that how you do it? when you When you just walk up to a group and you don't know? is it Sometimes. and Like in the beginning, you kind of had to do that. And now you can sort of... There's always someone in the room that you know. The games industry is quite small okay ah in that sense.
Speaker: So going to events, there's usually someone that you know, and you can go up to them and be like, hey, can you introduce me? Sort of. Or they will introduce you to the people they are talking to, hopefully.
Speaker: Hopefully, yeah. Okay. is there Is there sort of... ah wonder if there's a there's a ah lesson there or something to for other people to kind of grab out for for other people and to...
Speaker: don't don't be I think yeah don't be afraid to be weird and don't really care about what other people think that much. i like that. Don't be afraid to be weird. Yeah, that's very good.
Speaker: That's very nice. Yeah, very good. Very good. Okay, so, um Eleanor, we're getting towards the end here. um Is there something that um you want to put out there?
Speaker: And also, where can people find out more about your your stuff? um Okay, one thing. If you get the chance to start a game studio, do it. It's super fun, it's super hard, but at least like try it out if you can. and Where can people find out more about us? You can read about the team at spildosa.com.
Speaker: ah Usually it's pretty outdated, unfortunately. So ah if you want to read more of the business stuff, go to Eleanor Bergman at LinkedIn, ah my LinkedIn. It's usually where we post most of our updates.
Speaker: um And then you can find the game on Steam. Movie Wildwoods is what it's called.
Speaker: Yeah, actually, I played your demo. It was um it was a lot of fun. I liked it. Oh, I'm happy to hear that. It was it was very... ah Yeah, it's a very nice game. It's very colorful and very sort of serene.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. And it's... it's surprisingly fun to run around with like a power washer or a hug trickx threat that we would call it in Swedish. Right. It's oddly satisfying. Right. I usually, when I try to explain the like the satisfying part in the game ah to someone who who doesn't game, I compare it to the rug cleaning videos on TikTok.
Speaker: And then they're like, oh, yeah. You should watch them. they're very They're very good. Is that a thing? with The rug cleaning videos on TikTok? Yeah. It's a thing. It's a good thing. Very cool. I'll check those out.
Speaker: All right.
