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Navigating the Indie Apocalypse: A Publisher's Playbook for Survival and Success
41 Plays11 days ago
A deep dive into the evolving landscape of video game publishing, offering invaluable insights for indie developers on how to thrive in a crowded market. This episode of the Player Driven Podcast features an in-depth conversation with Ben Kvalo, founder of Midwest Games, and Alex Joseph, CEO of the revived Acclaim.
From the importance of a well-crafted pitch to the nuances of monetization and discoverability, this fireside chat covers the essential strategies for developers looking to partner with a publisher. Ben and Alex share their unique perspectives on the current state of the gaming industry, the resurgence of AA titles, and the future of interactive entertainment.
Key Discussion Points:
The conversation delves into the operational realities of running a publishing house, the art of negotiation, and the critical factors that can make or break a game in today's competitive environment. Ben and Alex also touch on the significance of their respective companies, Midwest Games and the new Acclaim, in fostering the next generation of games and developers.
This episode provides a rare look behind the curtain of the gaming industry, offering practical advice and strategic insights for anyone passionate about the business of video games.
Podcast Show Notes
This episode of the Player Driven Podcast brings together two titans of the new era of game publishing: Ben Kvalo of Midwest Games and Alex Joseph of the revitalized Play Acclaim. In a candid conversation, they explore the challenges and opportunities facing indie developers today. From securing funding to navigating the treacherous waters of discoverability, this episode is a masterclass for anyone looking to make their mark in the gaming world.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- The Rebirth of an Era: How Midwest Games and the new Acclaim are channeling the spirit of classic gaming into the modern age.
- The Publisher's Perspective: What Ben and Alex are currently playing and what excites them about the future of gaming.
- Monetization & The AA Revival: A nuanced discussion on game pricing, in-game purchases, and the resurgence of the "buy-to-play" model.
- The UGC Revolution: Is user-generated content a golden opportunity or a distraction for developers?
- The Discoverability Dilemma: Strategies for standing out in a market flooded with new releases and the potential of web-based games.
- The Art of the Pitch: What developers need to know before approaching a publisher, from crafting a compelling pitch to understanding the business side of their creative endeavor.
- Building a Lasting Partnership: The importance of relationships, trust, and finding the right publisher for your game.
- A Day in the Life: What it's really like to be the CEO of a game publishing company.
- Conference Survival Guide: Tips for developers on how to make the most of industry events like Gamescom and MDEV.
Recommended
Transcript
The Legacy of Classic Video Games
00:00:00
Speaker
Before we jump in, let's rewind. If you grew up on NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, WrestleMania 2000, you know the error. Midway and Acclaim weren't just games, they defined an attitude.
00:00:12
Speaker
Midway was chaos and competition, arcade energy, over-the-top gameplay, and some of the most iconic cabinets of all time.
Acclaim's Impact on Gaming
00:00:19
Speaker
And Acclaim brought the same energy home, wrestling, Turok, Shadow Man, gritty, weird, and unforgettable.
00:00:26
Speaker
These brands didn't just publish franchises, they published flavors. They made games feel wild, loud, and unfiltered. Fast forward to today, two new chapters with the same DNA.
00:00:38
Speaker
Midwest Games and revived Acclaim are channeling that spirit into something new. Back then it was about breaking the mold, but today it's about redefining the field, new platforms, new tools, new ways to play.
00:00:49
Speaker
And if they have it their way, that same spark is coming back, smarter, sharper, built for what's next.
Introducing Midwest Games and Play Acclaim
00:00:55
Speaker
Ben and Alex are both the founders of Midwest Games and Play Acclaim. We super excited to have you both here today.
00:01:02
Speaker
Ben, I'll give it to you first. Thanks for joining me. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Excited to chat. Love the, you know, the retro reminder vibes.
00:01:13
Speaker
Gotta love it. Big piece of my childhood and and just thinking about when I built my company, a lot of it was built off of kind of some of the things I grew up with.
00:01:24
Speaker
When you walked into the arcade, were you more of a blitz, NBA gem, Mortal Kombat? What type of player were you? I was definitely a blitz player. i was a huge NFL fan. I come from a long line of of actually football athletes. My great-grandfather was the first American inducted in the CFL Hall of Fame, like the Canadian Football League, and was a Hall of Famer at EW Madison as well for football and basketball and and track so it's always about was about football in fact my first career choice was to go into sports management with the Packers I went to UW Green Bay to try to get into that route didn't work out ended up in video games instead which is much better but still have a great love for the for the that NFL and blitz was you know obviously as a kid incredible safe to say you're a Packers part owner ah yes I am Packers part owner
00:02:19
Speaker
There you go. Congrats. And Alex Joseph, CEO of Play Acclaim.
Reviving Acclaim: Challenges and Strategies
00:02:22
Speaker
Thank you so much for jumping in today. You want to do a little intro of yourself and let us know as well. Are you a NFL Blitz, Jam, Mortal Kombat type of player?
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll just start with that. Definitely like definitely more Mortal Kombat, even Joust. um Just like old school old school arcade. i I remember I spent a lot of time. there was ah There was a place in my neighborhood. It was called Captain Videos, and I used to live there.
00:02:50
Speaker
um So that was really cool. Yeah, um this is exciting. This is kind of like coming full circle. i've been I've been in games for a really, really long time, and I've had the opportunity to work with a ton of great publishers, developers on the marketing side, on the publishing side. So this is a really exciting time. I'm ah um very excited to be part of Acclaim and revitalizing and rebuilding this iconic brand. So this is a, and this should be a really good time having this conversation. so I'm excited about it.
00:03:28
Speaker
Why Acclaim? Why did you decide to revive Acclaim? So, okay. Very good question. And it was not just my decision. i was involved in it. I had some folks come to me, um i don't know, a year or a little over a year ago, year, year and a half ago, and talking about, you know, they were all industry people um heavily embedded in the industry. People I've known for a long time said, um what do you think about you know looking at um some sort of like an iconic
00:04:05
Speaker
ah brand that we could sort of revitalize and and then just do really cool stuff. And, you know, sort of in line with that brand identity, but for a new gaming audience.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I loved it. I thought it was just a really cool idea. And it wasn't necessarily going to be, you know, it was a claim and there were one or two others. But we just kept coming back to a claim. i was like, I love a claim. I love a claim.
00:04:40
Speaker
And so we settled on that. And and then, you know, they're like, well, we want what if you were to spearhead this and kind of take the helm?
00:04:52
Speaker
i was like, oh, gosh, i don't know. I'm kind of like enjoying my whole consulting thing. But this sounds like a really fun project. And this this sounds really cool. So We went for it.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I was not prepared. I will admit I was not prepared for what the response would be out of the gate. It was pretty insane. And right after that, I realized sort of that the brand influence and the um and and what we could really do with this. And a lot of things changed. A lot of the sort of the the plan and the the sort of strategy for the trajectory of the brand and for the, for the company did shift a little bit.
00:05:38
Speaker
Uh, but, um, I think we have some really cool stuff planned. It's not all about, everybody's always like, well, what about, what are you going to bring back? What old IP? And it's like, why nobody under 30 knows who a claim is, you know?
Balancing Gaming and Work
00:05:53
Speaker
Um, so how about we just look at some you know forward looking stuff we look at some really cool things that are in line with some of the old ip and some of the old greats where you can say like oh this is kind of reminds me a little of this this is like you know there's some sort of connection but it's for a new audience and for but it still resonates i guess with that nostalgic uh you know gamer and the the iconic
00:06:24
Speaker
Acclaim brand. So that's sort of the objective and that's where we're going. And that's I'm super excited about it. Yeah, I am too. Like I said, I feel like it's the rebirth of the era that we kind of grew up in in gaming. And we're going to hopefully start to see that energy with with some of the smaller AA indie titles that are coming out.
00:06:45
Speaker
Before we jump too much into that, let's just talk about what games are you playing today? And maybe what's exciting you about the gaming industry as a player of video games? And Ben, you want to kick this one off?
00:06:57
Speaker
Sure. What I'm playing today. Well, I, you know, NCAA football just came out, you know, it revitalized. it Well, last year revitalized after 11 years. So I've been trying to bring my Badgers back, but then also, you know, they have a great creative team mode or create a university mode. And so I'm able to bring UW Green Bay in despite not having football team. Thanks Vince Lombardi for that. If you don't know, Vince Lombardi prevented UW-Green Bay from having a football team because they didn't want to compete with the Packers from an audience perspective, not that they would.
00:07:31
Speaker
um But that and RimWorld, which if you've never played RimWorld, one of the, I think, most rated games on Steam in history. i think I forget how many hundreds of thousands of reviews they have on Steam.
00:07:47
Speaker
And so I play that one as a colony simulation strategy game. So if I don't resource manage enough during the day as a CEO, have to do it in my gaming as well.
00:07:59
Speaker
Nice. How about Alex? What are you playing these days and what's exciting you? I'm going to be totally honest. I'm playing just, I'm inundated with games that have been submitted to us. um A combination of game submissions and then also games that we are in the process of publishing. So,
00:08:20
Speaker
We got some really cool stuff, which I'm very excited about. i wish I could talk about them right now. Go for it. I'm a little prohibited from doing that.
00:08:31
Speaker
But outside of that, I just haven't had a whole lot of time. while i'll be Actually, I have been playing a bit. Shout out to Mod Retro and the Chromatic. I've been playing Tetris like on that on that. If you guys know that, the Mod Retro Chromatic.
00:08:48
Speaker
Um, I got hooked on that, which I was, ah used to be hooked on that, uh, many, many years ago, probably 30 plus years ago, ah to the point where I'd be falling asleep and seeing Tetris bricks falling in my, in my sleep.
00:09:06
Speaker
Uh, but that is just still as addictive as it once was. And that's a really cool device. So, um, but I've been, I've been pretty, uh, I've been pretty inundated with, uh, game submissions and we have some really cool stuff. So that's pretty awesome.
00:09:21
Speaker
How do you make time, I guess for both of you, right? I mean, you want to play these new hits that are coming out. You also want to check out these cool Indies that are coming out. And to your point, you're probably getting hundreds, if not thousands of submissions of games that want to be plug published by you. Right? Like at at some point gaming must be a chore, not a hobby anymore. Right. And how do you kind of click your brain from work mode play to casual mode play?
00:09:45
Speaker
you That's a not difficult one because i mean you kind of hit the nail on the head, like the whole chore and hobby. When it's your work, the question is, is it still a hobby or is it now your work?
00:09:58
Speaker
and And how much of your work are are you going to want to do in your off time? I still love to play. I think I'm a lot more selective in the games that I play and the games that I'm playing for just sort of leisure time.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I'm also coming across so much great stuff that in terms of submissions, game submissions and things that aren't out there yet and things where there's a game demo and we're evaluating it that I'm i mean there's one game that we're looking at right now and i've i've already put in just in over the weekend like three and a half hours on the demo and i didn't expect that at all it sort of cost caught me off guard so um yeah that's it's tough though to sort of separate the two and still keep
00:10:49
Speaker
leisure gaming enjoyable and also be able to set aside time if there's a game that that I have my eye on or something or something that I'm excited about releasing and I want to play.
00:11:02
Speaker
So carving out the time for that.
Assessing Game Potential
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny you say that. I find myself going a lot back to kind of just the games I know, Fortnite, because you could just kind of turn your brain off. it's ah yeah It's an interesting...
00:11:15
Speaker
um because a lot of people, because of just the amount of content and things getting you're getting swarmed with at all times, whether it be games or shows or whatnot, lot of us go back to that you know wherever we feel comfortable. I think that's the reason people love Steam because it still feels like it's from 20 years ago.
00:11:34
Speaker
And there's like something comfortable about that. And some of the games you you used to play or just know, like you don't at the end of the day, Like our days are so full of so many different things happening, you know, for as a business owner, like fundraising and, you know, managing a team, you know, trying to come up with all the strategy.
00:11:55
Speaker
I just don't want to learn something like new. So I go back to a game that I'm used to. It's something I already know the parameters around. I know I can just dive in I can zone out.
00:12:06
Speaker
um But as far as playing titles, you know, I still – I love games. i I could play games all the time. I think what people don't think about with some of the games, like, oh, it must be cool to like see all these new games all the time, reviewing them, like evaluating them.
00:12:22
Speaker
Well, yeah, no because they're all broken. they're all you have to like could look through a lens of what they could be months, years from now compared to where they are now, which is oftentimes really rough or broken or there's many issues. And so those all of those are like, you know, you have to play them in a very different way. You have to put on your potential hat, you have to be able to evaluate the studio and and what the vision is and be able say, Oh, yeah, this thing is going to eventually be it, even though i can barely get through a level right now. And so that can be, you know, it can take away some of the fun of it. But still, a guy that loves to look at the potential of what something can become. And so
00:13:08
Speaker
That's the part that I'm always excited about with creators. Cause if I can like envision what they're envisioning, like that gets me really excited. I have this question, I don't know how it comes off, right? But when you're playing this game, are you looking more for kind of that core loop of what you're having fun with, the potential and how that could be monetized? Is it a fair mix of both? It's a slippery slope, right? i mean What I like about the AA revival that we're seeing right now is that there's no in-game purchases, right? So you're basically spending 30 bucks on on the game itself. and
00:13:38
Speaker
we're seeing that have a comeback now, right? And maybe it has people rethinking, hey, what is our live ops strategy? Are we going to continue this down the line? Can we make enough from this one-time purchase? And I'm curious, when you're playing a game, like how do you juggle that?
00:13:54
Speaker
want start at either one, Alex? Where to where to start with that? ah I mean, you never want to focus too much on the monetization piece, but at the same point, you can't not think about it being ah piece of the overall pie because if you want to build a successful title that can you know grow into something larger, which is i think the goal of a lot of these things. like If your goal isn't to build an audience and make make money, there's absolutely, you can do that, but just know that you're probably not going to work with a publisher because the publisher is thinking about that.
00:14:31
Speaker
But there's, a i think, a good way to think about it and there's a kind of toxic way to think about it. If you're only ever thinking about the monetization, well, maybe like free-to-play mobile is your world like because that's that's all they do, ah you know, in a lot of ways is is think about it. Now they still have to get a core game loop and all of that kind of stuff, but I do see a shift towards now that devices, even mobile devices can be played with like premium type of games, larger experiences, things like that.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot more of just like one purchase and that's it. And so then if that's really the strategy, you have to make sure that you're at the right price point. Does it evaluate against the rest of the comps around it and still not look like it's overpriced?
00:15:21
Speaker
Like you you want people to think, oh, what a deal compared to what I'm getting in some ways. So you have to be thinking about it because the market will evaluate it, whether they they realize it or not.
00:15:32
Speaker
But at same point, if you're only thinking about the monetization, you're ignoring the audience that you're trying to go after. the audience is what's most important. And what what they are okay with paying and what they are okay with like ah just looking at you know what the title is. like You have to think about what the audience is going perceive the title as based on the price and the quality and what you're offering with it.
00:16:02
Speaker
I strategically let you go first on that one. ah That's a really interesting question and it's very difficult. Look, this is a business ah no matter how you look at it.
00:16:15
Speaker
You got to look at it as a business because otherwise, you know what's what are we doing? What are we in this for? We're in this particular kind of area of business because we love games. But the idea is that we find a way and we determine a way. I mean, a lot of the reason that a developer wants to work with a publisher, let's say, is to help them to, you know, make money for their games so they can make money so that they can build or sustain their studio and so that they can make more games.
00:16:46
Speaker
Um, the unfortunate thing is there's an audience of gamers that are, are kind of have this, uh,
00:16:58
Speaker
a predetermined or preset sort of view on what a game should cost and what it should deliver terms amount gameplay.
Game Pricing and Development Costs
00:17:12
Speaker
and it doesn't seem to be moving. Like that needle seems stuck. Like games are, ah you know, indie titles seem to be stuck at X amount, you know, this little range between, I don't know, 12 and $20 or 12 and $25 for, I don't know how many years, you know, the last decade plus.
00:17:32
Speaker
um Not even adjusting for inflation and not even taking into consideration, you know, you go out to the you go out to a movie for two hours and you buy popcorn and so does i'm i'm constantly saying this you i can't walk out of there for for less than like you know 50 60 bucks it's crazy but god forbid you have a game that's you know an indie title that's priced more you know higher than 20 uh and you're not delivering like like tens of hours of gameplay and very you know it's it's a little crazy but then again like a live ops game or a game with in-app purchases all of a sudden someone will spend you know 50 60 70 100 120 on you know cosmetic upgrades and um you know buffs etc and they won't even think twice about that so
00:18:27
Speaker
I'm a big fan of supporting a game that has, you know, here's what it is.
00:18:34
Speaker
It's a one-time purchase and it's going to provide you with a really solid amount of entertainment. And the developers poured their heart and soul into it, whether they've been developing it for three years or 10 years.
00:18:47
Speaker
And, you know, give them kudos for that is it worth it's worth your 20 or 25 it doesn't have to be 15 or 10 it's worth 30 bucks it's worth you know or more than that for the enjoyment that it's going to give you and for the replayability that it's going to give you and for the effort that the developer put in so that's my take on that uh i'm not a big you know i think live ops and the whole you know in-game purchasing is a whole other beast that's a lot more difficult to navigate and there's maybe a whole other science to that.
00:19:20
Speaker
So yeah I would tend to shy away from that myself personally. I love that. I always tell my wife and she actually got into the habit now of like she's been playing the same game for years. I'm just like,
00:19:32
Speaker
pay like it's a few bucks a month right like you're supporting these people that are building these levels right like think of all the hours of entertainment you said it perfectly right like a movie and a date is going to cost you 50 bucks you've been playing this game for 20 hours now and you haven't put a penny and it's like cool but you're going to watch ads and don't complain and like again it's the time value of money right people have to realize that you're spending so much time doing this and i think I'm going to change the topic here a little bit, but but maybe it's just me. But I feel like in the past few months, the tide in gaming starting to turn.
User-Generated Content and Persistent Games
00:20:04
Speaker
We're seeing kind of the success of double A's. We're seeing some more indies come out. I think there's still obviously some problems in the industry, but I feel like there's there's there's light at the end of the tunnel. And I think there's some cool topics that are kind of...
00:20:17
Speaker
front and center for for studios right now. And I'm curious how excited or exciting these are to you guys when you see games that have these tools in them, right? So for example, the first one we hear a lot about these days UGC. It helps build community. It helps build engagement. it helps build monetization strategies, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
Are you interested in technologies like this? And when you see a game that comes up in front of you that has a plan for that, does it create a little like spark of excitement for you? i think that I definitely think that that can be a very cool... We're actually dealing with this and and kind of with one of our titles right now.
00:20:56
Speaker
I think depending on what the what type of game it is, UGC can be... extremely valuable and it can help to build and foster a community and, um, an interaction and create longevity for a game.
00:21:18
Speaker
ah that said, I think it, unfortunately, well, or fortunately, whatever, it requires a little bit of, um,
00:21:27
Speaker
oversight and policing ah so things don't go haywire depending on what what type of you know content it is that's that is able to be created. um I think it's a really important part of gaming to have, you know, this is such an interactive art or activity that it's so important to make the community and the players feel a part of the game
00:21:56
Speaker
and integrate their creativity versus just having them play, ah if that makes sense. That said, I don't think it's absolutely necessary. I just think it's like an added component. It's it's an added perk. it's and And I think that a game can be great with or without.
00:22:17
Speaker
So kind of, in a way, don't force a technology or something into a game when it doesn't fit properly, right? Just because it's the new sexy thing on the street doesn't mean the right thing for you. Yeah, don't, yeah, yeah no no square pegs and round holes.
00:22:32
Speaker
Well, and we also have to remember, it's not not like it's new. ah Now, people have turned it into a way, like Fortnite, like Roblox, into a way to engage your users to be creators and to essentially make you more money.
00:22:52
Speaker
But you know this is this was happening 15, 20, 25 years ago as well. So it's not not new. It's just it's become a way to create a walled garden for people. And people are retaining users at higher rates than they ever have in the history of games, which is why you know older games have lasted longer than ever before.
00:23:16
Speaker
ah But at the same point, it's not for everybody. And it also, you we have to realize what it's doing to our overall ecosystem because it's preventing people from going and buying new games.
00:23:30
Speaker
So as much as like Fortnite thrives, it's directly attributed also to the other side of things of people not buying new games and not going out and also having an expectation that I can get free experiences from these these titles, I don't have pay anything. So it devalues our value as game developers as well.
00:23:57
Speaker
So there's a real negative to it, if not you know thought about right. And also, they brag about the amount of money going into UGC platforms and saying, oh, well, we paid out this much money to creators.
00:24:14
Speaker
but they don't But if you do the calculation per creator that has put out something, people are barely making anything off of those, except for the platform, except for the game.
00:24:25
Speaker
And so we just have to remember what what it is used for. it is used to engage users more in an individual experience. But then as an industry, ah too much of that, I think, actually is harming our entire industry.
00:24:41
Speaker
And... I think it's ah it could become a real problem if ah Fortnite weren't able to retain all their users for the next 20 years ah because of of all everything like that, the rest of the industry is going to look very different than it looked in in the past.
00:25:00
Speaker
these forever games, how do new experiences come in?
Game Discoverability and Web Games
00:25:03
Speaker
And it also had me thinking, when you look at the top 10 games out right now, is there going to be a point where one of those top 10 games is an in-game experience on one of these platforms? Because you already have so many eyeballs on that platform. Can it ever do that? All right, let's jump to the second thing I see being top of mind a lot these days is discoverability.
00:25:22
Speaker
People are talking about Steam. It's getting hard to be delivered be discovered on Steam. Steam is throwing a lot new kind of Next Fest, Summer Games Fest, all these other things that are on there. So they're having all these Steam sales. i From what I'm seeing, I'm seeing more games come out on platforms like itch.io. I think it's reminding me of my high school days where you used to do the web games in there. And it seems like they're coming back And I'm curious if, you know, these web games excite you guys at all of these things you're paying attention to. And are you seeing kind of, or how you helping some of your studios with discoverability?
00:25:56
Speaker
So web games create accessibility to games. ah You know, it is a low barrier of entry towards these titles. And so as, you know, the ah idea of,
00:26:11
Speaker
you know the democratization of platforms, being able to play any game anywhere on any device. you know Web fits really well into that. you know You can play take basically take your web game, even put it on Discord now.
00:26:26
Speaker
So the ability to just easily access games is going to continually increase the amount of gamers worldwide, which there's already, what, close to 3.8 billion.
00:26:37
Speaker
billion i and a lot of the limitation on why it's not 8 billion is just the accessibility to be able to play games easily ah from anywhere in the world.
00:26:49
Speaker
And so I see it as an accessibility piece that will open it up, but how, you know, how does that work with the monetization piece? You know, I think we're in,
00:27:02
Speaker
kind of an early stage, probably more similar to when mobile was first coming online as a viable gaming download location.
00:27:12
Speaker
i see that it needs to be figured out. Is it going to be part of like larger services? Are we going to see folks like Netflix go on and attach into the web game space in larger ways? Or ah we going see i you know are we goingnna see you know Others just try to figure out how they can put their their game on really any platform imaginable.
00:27:37
Speaker
And so it's it's an exciting point because anybody can game, but you know how are we going to adjust to the limitations that are on web in comparison? And does it does it match what the market is looking for? Does the TikTok generation want those kinds of gaming experiences? If so, those are they're going to take off in a huge, huge way because you're you're going to be able to accept access them.
00:28:02
Speaker
anywhere. So I think it's it's an exciting time because we have a lot of new ways people can play. We're not stuck on a console or on anything like that. And if you can imagine it, you can probably figure out a way to play it on something that you wouldn't normally think you could play games on.
00:28:21
Speaker
Have you played any WebGL games recently? I'm an advisor and on a group that put out a game on Discord um called Well, it's just Blackjack.
00:28:32
Speaker
And you know they got over a million m MAU on that game on Discord. um So yeah, so so that one. um But not a lot of others.
00:28:45
Speaker
a like a lot of the games we we review and support are PC-focused first. um But I am seeing more of that kind of come up. And I think traditional publishers don't look at that as much because they're smaller...
00:29:01
Speaker
more focused experiences, but that it's actually huge opportunities. I think we're going to see some new publishers or new entities explode by focusing in on that a bit and that being their specialty.
00:29:13
Speaker
So it's that part is exciting, but you know, the traditional folks, it's really hard to take your, your, the ways that they evaluate things and evaluate risk and then put it towards kind of this new wave of, and new types of games.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's interesting. I mean, you even just mentioned the Netflix model. I mean, and they're in gaming, but it makes perfect sense, right? Like you already could go to itch. You have a well curated list of games you can scroll and obviously itch is just like it, but you could sell that subscription for it and just charge people with access to that high premium. Well, it becomes a discovery challenge at at that point. I think the big one of the biggest problems and challenges right now is just discovery of games that you want to play and how how do you feature? We don't have a player curation platform in the entire industry.
00:29:57
Speaker
Like nothing serves you just what you would want to play. It's always based around, well, what how much will the platform make off of this? And it's a calculation on their end to serve you the thing that is ultimately going to make them the most amount of money.
00:30:12
Speaker
It might not be the thing that you want to play. So we don't really have a player curation platform. I think somebody is going to come up with a way to do that and serve the game that you really want in the moment that you want it.
00:30:24
Speaker
My fear of that would be the Pandora effect, right?
Indie Developers Facing Market Challenges
00:30:26
Speaker
You've listened to Pandora long enough and you just get the same band that's playing over and over again, right? And then you're stuck in first-person shooters. How do I ever find out the latest casual game that's coming out, right? So that would be kind of phase two of that.
00:30:41
Speaker
i mean, what you get look at your Netflix. It does it does that. It does a consumer curation of of what it is. And so, yeah, if you just watch you know holiday rom-coms, you're going to get up you're going to get a lot of that how about Alex, have you ah kept your eye on the web space at all? Is it something that excites you?
00:30:58
Speaker
ah It's interesting. I have not had my eye on it um and pretty much at all. It's definitely interesting. I think there's there's something there in terms of future and future growth.
00:31:14
Speaker
Not super high on my radar right now at the moment. You asked the question about discoverability. i think that's just a bear. it's It's really...
00:31:28
Speaker
i don't know it's not an art it's not a science it's uh it's there's there's some sort of component of both of those just doing the best that you possibly can to let's just talk about steam like optimizing for steam you know taking advantage of every single possible tool or or everything that every tactic that you can utilize to take advantage of the algorithm and to
00:31:56
Speaker
exploit and promote the game in every way that you possibly can on
00:32:04
Speaker
socials, PR, et cetera. It's just a, it's an uphill battle. I mean, every year there's more and more games releasing.
00:32:16
Speaker
well We'll eclipse last year, this year. Last year we eclipsed the year before. I think we're almost already at this year. I was looking this up a few days ago, but I could be totally wrong. I think we're almost at the total number of games that were released two years ago this year.
00:32:34
Speaker
um Or very close to it, within like a thousand. That's insane. And it's just going to continue to grow and and discoverability. And that's that's the most difficult thing, I think, for a solo like indie developer, unless they get some sort of enormous success and and you know there's some crazy virality with a trailer or something or an announcement and they get very lucky it's really difficult it's really difficult if you don't have like an immense budget because you're competing with just so many not only is it all the noise but you're competing with games that have immense marketing budgets uh and you know or
00:33:20
Speaker
professional marketers behind it in terms of, you know, in in the sense of like agencies or whatnot, ah the big AAA budgets, it's it's very difficult. And a lot of the events like whatever, summer summer sale, NextFest, whatever, these are great.
00:33:39
Speaker
They can be great. if you utilize them in the right way, or they can totally crush you if you don't utilize them in the right way and you you know launch a game. And I just watched ah a great game launch during um the summer sale and just get totally buried.
00:33:58
Speaker
And it did, unfortunately, not nearly as well as it should have. So i was I felt really badly for the developer. i I did a podcast with one of the guys, Mark Otero. He's the founder of Azure Games. He did Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. And he made this comment. He said, by the time a game chooses you, you've already been selected. And it was fascinating because it's...
00:34:23
Speaker
making a game look at their marketing budget and say, hey, who am I going to properly market to? Because I'm going to find my audience. And it was interesting, right Because we always talk about audience building. How do you find the right people to play your game? What's the demographic? What channel are they on? It's going back to everything you're talking about, discoverability. And now it comes back to, I need budget to be able to do this. How am I going to be able to afford this? I'm making this really cool little game and need to get in front of these people and I got to go through ea and Activision. how How am I supposed to take down those? Right. then we go back to even earlier in our conversation where we were talking about ah the content creators who do the, the, the viral game playing of these games influencers. Right. So it seems to be this cycle and it's kind of vicious. And I feel like eventually kind of the Indies are going to start to become bigger Indies. Right. And be able to afford a little more. Right. I think that's how the cycle has to kind of conclude.
00:35:14
Speaker
Well, only only if we can get indies to create repeated success. They're not going to grow into this like middle class if if they have one flash in the pan success.
00:35:27
Speaker
And the challenge right now is we're just not in a sustainable environment to support studios to be able to have lasting success. They give up too much of their rights too much rev share, too much ah ah whatever to be able to get into their own cycle. And then it's also really difficult to ever have two successes.
00:35:49
Speaker
A studio that can create a second big success is really, really, really, really rare because it's really rare to have a first success. And you know to Alex's point around the amount of games, what, it was almost 19,000 games last year I'm expecting like 25,000 this year coming out.
00:36:08
Speaker
You're just competing with so many. And there is no formula. People keep wanting to do, be like, oh, look what this game did. And and that is the formula for success.
00:36:21
Speaker
That's a bunch of BS. Like everyone that looks at that, they ignore the thousand games before them, the thousand games after them that did the same exact thing and didn't succeed. All these things are are tools that that might increase your chance.
00:36:36
Speaker
But the reality with the volume of titles is your chances are very, very low. So you want to try to get as many of those tools as you possibly can. You want to do everything right.
00:36:47
Speaker
um But the you still have to know that there are massive challenges to cutting through the noise. Some of it is completely out of your control and there's people that get lucky.
00:36:58
Speaker
ah with with featuring or timing or unlucky with featuring and timing. They get buried by some other thing or EA randomly puts out something you know without it. you know we We had an announcement where suddenly, i what was it, Bethesda announced and released a game on the same day that we had an announcement of something and we had no idea that was and was coming.
The Role of Publishers in Game Development
00:37:24
Speaker
And so you try to line up everything as best you can what I encourage folks to do is be ready to pivot quickly towards the audience that it's resonating with, i you know, engage them more, go down that hole of like, you might, it might be an unexpected rabbit hole, but you got to go down it and be ready to just like run at that. If, if you start to see traction in some areas, so you have to be very nimble and flexible in this environment,
00:37:54
Speaker
because you have to find, like whatever trail you can find, go after that trail and see if it leads somewhere. ah Because there is no tried and true way of doing things. You can't just, oh yeah, we're going to do this beat, this beat, this beat.
00:38:08
Speaker
We're going to have, you know, we're going to be at GameStop. We're going at Walmart. We're going to be like, there's, that does, that world no longer exists. I mean, there's, you can make some money off of that if if you have a game that gets to that level.
00:38:20
Speaker
But for the most part, you have to be able to take all the best practices and then try to put your own spin on it and find your own audience in your own unique way. And if you're able to do that, like that's where you can see ah folks finding success.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, and it's that's well said. Yeah, the the democratization of game publishing has kind of been, i think, a blessing and a curse. Whereas it makes it very,
00:38:49
Speaker
easy and accessible in terms of being able to create a game and get it out on yeah you know, make it available to the public, whether that's on Steam or or console.
00:39:03
Speaker
I think Steam, it becomes really, really difficult because you're not, um you know, console, there's an opportunity if you're discovered there to get some and to get some ah support from from the various platforms.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think you see that a little bit more than with Bautista, Steam where you're not even going to ever talk to anybody. Steve Bautista, Nobody's going to discover you and reach out to you and going at it alone.
00:39:31
Speaker
Bautista, You only know what you know, so you you can only get as far as you can. Steve Bautista, And what you don't know is like this enormous.
00:39:43
Speaker
abyss that can really work against you. So it's it just makes it so much more difficult for an independent developer. And I think that's a lot of times why they'll look at partnering or working with a publisher.
00:39:59
Speaker
i mean, at the end of the day, I always liken the this industry a lot to music. Back years ago, I was kind of little bit involved in the music industry, just kind of on the fringes and with some of the people that I hung out with SoCal.
00:40:19
Speaker
And you it was the creatives were, you know, the the musicians and the people that were creating awesome music and, and had these awesome bands. And then there were the, you know, music record labels or, you know, record, uh, music publishers or whatever that were the business side of things. And it was a little bit of a screwy dynamic, but the, the creatives, they didn't have the, uh, you know, they want to make awesome music and then, you know, go out and tour and and make money and party.
00:40:57
Speaker
And, uh, which was awesome, but you know who's gonna do the business part of it and who's going to market and record and this and that, right? And and cut and edit.
00:41:08
Speaker
and And so it's very similar, I think, that dynamic and that relationship, and but it's a lot more collaborative. And I think that there's really good opportunities for developers to work alongside publishers in a very collaborative way and get their game
00:41:29
Speaker
help them to get their game much further than if they were to just go at it alone. I love the you only know what you know comment. I think that's something that kind of strikes home here, but it's everyone should be aware, right? You only know the stuff that you know. i don't know how Steam works. Someone else has been there before. And it kind of leads to what Ben was saying. It's like, you need to learn from the experience of the people that have been here before, right? We've we've fallen, we've gotten back up, we've wiped off our knees and we we hopefully learn from that, right?
00:41:58
Speaker
And years down the line through the cycle, we will fall again. But the idea is to keep learning from this experience. And if people have gone through discoverability issues, if people have gone through how to get my game listed on Steam or how to market to the right audience, right? Like, why are you going to try starting to learn from scratch?
00:42:13
Speaker
It leads into why do we go to a publisher, right? I think if I'm an indie studio, i'm thinking to myself, if I go to a publisher, i'm going to have to give up half of my rights. I'm going to have to give up half of my IP and I'm screwed.
00:42:26
Speaker
What does publishing look like for a studio's perspective? What are they forfeiting? Maybe that's not the best word to use, but that's the one that came to mind. Well, I mean, what are they getting? like they they get They get those services. They get the support. And and I think the knowledge in this space expires pretty quickly these days.
00:42:48
Speaker
Your knowledge of Steam with how fast Steam is changing expires at a certain point. If you release a game two years ago, is it still relevant to what Steam is today?
00:42:59
Speaker
i would argue it's not. I would argue it's a completely different system than it than it was two years ago. And so you have what you're getting is the most up-to-date knowledge to give you the best chance of success by having a partner that has resources to help complement some of the gaps that you may have as a developer. Every developer is different.
00:43:21
Speaker
Some people are really might be really good with community building and social. Some developers are not. ah But what a publisher does is provides a lot of those experiences for a developer to be able to essentially gain them without having to learn them. And the learning piece takes a long time.
00:43:43
Speaker
believe that to really understand publishing as a holistic entity, you have to be in it for 10 plus years. It's not something you just can problem solve and and and work your way through because by the time you do,
00:43:56
Speaker
because ah you're only putting out a game every so often, you lose like you lose your knowledge quickly. it's It's just really inefficient to do it that way versus a group that is always doing this. my One of my comparisons i said to somebody other day was, listen, and like it's not that a game developer that just put out their game is wrong. there They're kind of like a ah fitness YouTuber.
00:44:21
Speaker
Like it's not that a fitness YouTuber is wrong about it, but their experience is relevant to them and kind of themselves. It might not even be, it might be relevant to their own body versus a doctor that studies this and understands the full perspective of something and studies it, spends years doing it, has gone through many, many case studies to kind of evaluate it and just has a better better perspective div to be able to help support what you're trying to do in that case from a fitness or, or from a health level of things, but from our case, from a helping to put something out.
00:44:59
Speaker
Now, it doesn't mean that it always is going to go smooth. It doesn't mean that it's going to be perfect. Uh, and it doesn't mean that the, the YouTuber is wrong. Like that's, and that's the thing about it is you just have to understand there's a larger perspective. There's 25,000 games coming out.
00:45:15
Speaker
So there's 25,000 different case studies. And a lot of people will do the same thing and fail as somebody that succeeds. So what is it actually that's making something succeed? And that's what a publisher, I think, brings is a lot of perspective.
00:45:30
Speaker
I think the most important thing that a developer and should sit and ask themselves is, how much how much of this do I want to go at all on my own? What am I good at?
00:45:42
Speaker
What am I not good at? Where could a if I was to work with a partner, like a publisher, what do I need from them? Where can they help me?
00:45:54
Speaker
And what am I bringing to the table for them? ah That's really important because it's a, at the end of the day, it's a partnership. I think it should be a collaboration. I think there are certain questions that I never hear a developer ask that I think are important to ask.
00:46:13
Speaker
And it's a lot of focus on, I think, the wrong things. A lot of it is just focused on you know the dollars and cents and the money and the split and this and that.
00:46:24
Speaker
I think there's a lot more involved that needs to be discussed and determined and for a developer ah to feel comfortable moving forward with a publisher. Because not all publishers are are the same.
00:46:40
Speaker
um In fact, a lot of them are... extremely, very, very different, drastically different in the way they operate, the way that they what they're providing, how they're providing it.
00:46:55
Speaker
I mean, all kinds of things. And it has to be the right fit for the developer and it has to be the right fit for the game. That said, I mean, I think the obvious things that a developer is looking for from a publisher is maybe some public, maybe some funding,
00:47:10
Speaker
Maybe some um you know marketing support that's not something that they want to handle on their own. ah Maybe some ah help with outside sort of vendors or you know ah services like localization, QA, porting is a big one.
00:47:29
Speaker
And those are the obvious things that a publisher can come in and help with. Why are they going to do those better than a developer on their own?
00:47:40
Speaker
Maybe it's because they've got relationships that doing more volume with certain partners so that they can get negotiated rates.
00:47:51
Speaker
Maybe it's because they've you know vetted certain partners and they've been through three different localization companies, reporting companies. They know, okay, these two leave us hanging. This one always delivers on time. They're thorough. And you know we get through LQA and everything is is peachy.
00:48:10
Speaker
um They're solid. They're not going to waste our time. They're not going to waste our money. ah Maybe it's because, you know, maybe the the publisher has solid relationships with like the, you know, the consoles, um Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, ah and and are able to negotiate marketing support or whatnot for ah game.
00:48:35
Speaker
ah Any number of things. But I think but without getting too long-winded, the important things that, you ah developer should be asking is, well, how can you help me without being heavy handed and changing my game or being or, or you know, trying to be a creative because I've got that down.
00:48:59
Speaker
What can you bring to the table for me in terms of feedback and play testing and to help me make my game the best that it can possibly be? And that's what I never hear a developer ask. And that's in That's super important, right? i want ah I want to drive that point home when we're talking to developers.
00:49:19
Speaker
And I'm always part of those conversations because I want to look at a game and I want to be able to get, want to see it and I want to be like, okay, I see where there's an audience for this game and I get where that audience lives. And, you know, I dig this game, this game's cool.
00:49:32
Speaker
um But I want to be able to explain, hey, this is what we're going to bring to the table. You know, we're going to put a lot of effort into this besides like the dollars that are going to be spent. This is how we're justifying what we're going to take in terms of what we're asking for in terms of a, you know, this is a ah collaboration and a shared venture.
00:49:52
Speaker
And this is what we're going to provide to you in terms of feedback for your game to help you make the best game possible. um Because at the end of the day, we all want to, you know Whether it's a a single, a double, or a home run. right Not every single game is going to be a grand slam, home run, sell a million units.
00:50:10
Speaker
But we want to we want the developer to walk away at the end of the day feeling like that was a way better experience than I would have had on my own. like I wouldn't any i wouldn' have gotten anywhere near that level of response for my game or sales on my own.
00:50:28
Speaker
Well, Alex, I think you just said a key thing with that is is it's all in comparison to if you were to do it yourself. is it Is it driving like an above and beyond?
00:50:40
Speaker
And sometimes the amount you can get is only so much. And sometimes like it gets you into something that you would have never gotten into, whether it be like a showcase or a featuring with a with a partner or things like that.
00:50:54
Speaker
And that one thing could be all the difference between you know, having something that ultimately is drowned out by everything else versus something that actually gets featured, gets a lot of sales and you're able to kind of grow past that.
00:51:08
Speaker
The other thing I'll say is, is there's also new, I think new ways that we can be approaching this whole publishing model. Like there's the traditional way that's all about rev share, IP rights or like long-term like attachments.
00:51:22
Speaker
And then there's, you know, we, we created shadow publishing where, It is for hire service. We don't take any ref share. We don't take any IP rights. You can just hire us. But in order to do that, you have to budget so that you have money to be able to pay for these services that then you don't have to give up your rights on the back end because you actually have the money on the front end. ah with So that requires a lot more extensive knowledge of the business ecosystem, ah how to how to raise your own money, how to budget it.
00:51:55
Speaker
ah you know, like, and what partners could we do? What are my options in this space?
Business Acumen for Developers
00:52:01
Speaker
And so I think a big piece of this overall is we need developers to get more sophisticated in the business end of things, because that will allow them to really have options on the table versus they don't understand that they're running a business ah and they're just going after their creative endeavor, which fine, if that's what you want to do.
00:52:20
Speaker
But if you don't understand you're running a business, then the business that you're potentially going to partner with could take advantage of you and get, you rights that don't make sense, like that anyone would look at and be like, wow, that is a bit like predatory.
00:52:36
Speaker
But the reality is like, I think we have to have a developer ecosystem that gets more sophisticated in this space so that they understand what these things mean, both short term and long term.
00:52:49
Speaker
And then they can make decisions off of it and just know if you're coming to the table and you have no money, you're going to really struggle to negotiate a great deal with a publisher unless you have something that has something else like traction if you come to the table and you already have 200 000 wishlists awesome you have traction and you have some leverage that you can and so then you can understand how to get a better deal but you have to understand that we're business everybody is even if you're putting out a game even if it's just for creative endeavors you're still running a business because the of the day you could make money off of that
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think you guys said so much. And I think it's so great. And the ones that ah really kind of stand out were for me ah with your shadow publishing, Ben, right? Like, you're giving them access to all these tools, right? We've always talked about how publishing needs to change. And and it's fascinating how, yes, you pay a little money up front, right? Beforehand, but you get to keep everything in your game. And then you have access to this suite. And I think All this is about education and you both kind of led to this whole relationship as being win, win, win right? Because that's the ideal, right? The publisher wins, the studio, the developer wins, the player wins because you have a better product, right? It comes to market quicker, you get found.
00:54:01
Speaker
And Alex, as you were talking, it's kind of going through my head like, holy shit, it is hard to become a publisher. You guys both are the CEO of a publishing company. And I'm curious, like Alex, as you're talking, I'm sitting here thinking,
00:54:14
Speaker
You're probably doing a lot of networking throughout the day or or like, because maybe it was Ben that was saying who has the best relationship with this studio or that studio. And I'm thinking to myself, like, you guys are playing games all day. You're doing this. No, you're not playing games all day. Right. But like, what skills do you think you use mostly on a day to day basis as a founder of a publishing studio? Like what what hat do you wear the most?
00:54:37
Speaker
That's a really good question.
00:54:41
Speaker
A hundred percent. I'm going to say at this at this juncture, it's a lot of, it's the negotiating hat with with partners, with ah vendors, and just ensuring that we're going to have the, we're going to be providing the the best services for the best possible rates for developers.
00:55:11
Speaker
So in negotiating across the board, even with developers, I mean, the business negotiations, they have to be done in ah in a fair manner, but in ah in a manner that makes sense. And it has to make sense for both.
00:55:26
Speaker
And if not, it will just lead to just not a good ah good situation in the future. You should never she never enter into any type of business ah you know business arrangement where there's the possibility for resentment in the future.
00:55:46
Speaker
um And sometimes the you know best ah negotiated compromise is the compromise where both parties walk away unhappy. um That's probably the sign of of the best compromise.
00:56:00
Speaker
ah But I would say that. And yeah, a bit of the networking and and then just keeping the, you know, management is sort of management, sort of the high level.
00:56:15
Speaker
It's just keeping the train on the tracks and having really, really solid people that you can count on and that you can trust implicitly and that you know will come to you if there's a question about something and, um you know, if you need to weigh in.
00:56:30
Speaker
So that's, that's one, uh, that's, I, so I'd say the other area is just being aware, highly aware of everything that is going on, but not having to micromanage or be, uh, you know, involved in every single thing.
00:56:45
Speaker
All right. You're very business focused. That's what I'm getting from, uh, he's all about that. And I love it, man. Like you, you need that. Look at it when you're looking at a company, right? Like you're here to grow the company. You're here to make the smartest choice possible. Right? Like I love that, that,
00:57:01
Speaker
I'm super, I'm look, I'm, I'm, I'm very aware of, um, spending other people's money. Uh, in fact, it's something that like, I have no problem. Like I was like bleed through my own, but, uh, not really, but I'm, I'm much more judicious and, and just aware of what I'm doing and how I'm spending with other people's money.
00:57:21
Speaker
And, but you know, overall I'm, I'm also pretty laid back. I'm not like all business CEO. Um, you know I had ah i had like someone on my team today just be all like, you I just love that you're like chill.
00:57:33
Speaker
I'm like, well, I don't know how else to be. they um It's just how I am. so But way what's it's worked for me so far, fortunately. What about you, Ben? What do you find yourself? Which hat most often?
00:57:47
Speaker
yeah i'm I'm constantly in in solutions or like problem solving or like um like more the sales opportunity, you know, looking at something and saying, how could, how could we make this work?
00:58:03
Speaker
How could we take what they're doing and support them in the best possible way to make an outcome that is beneficial for them? And then what is, what is the right justification for what we get for that?
00:58:22
Speaker
And how is that? And is, it and is it fair? at the end of the day? And and is it, you know to what Alex said, you know is it kind of is it going to be good you know a year from now? Are you still going to like each other based on that? Or is there something in this agreement or in you know what what we're you're working with that is going to actually probably sour over time?
00:58:46
Speaker
Because it is sometimes something looks very positive, especially like people just don't realize maybe something. And then down the line, it will come back and bite you because you didn't really think about that piece of it. So a lot of it is just like, how, you know, how do we think about the long-term of what we want this thing to be and create an agreement or create a partnership that will work both in the short-term and the long-term. And sometimes that's not possible.
00:59:16
Speaker
Sometimes it just, it doesn't work. You have different long-term goals or different short-term goals. And, You know, so I'm always just I have this problem solving hat on or I guess like putting a puzzle together. You know, I'm always putting puzzles together. That's all I do all day long is like puzzle solving. And it's it's a lot around kind of the business and negotiations and sales and then the networking. Like how does how could me meeting somebody benefit somebody else that obviously then yeah also can benefit us in what we're doing.
00:59:53
Speaker
And how do all those pieces work together? And so I network a lot, a lot like, and obviously my LinkedIn stuff has like gone viral at times.
01:00:05
Speaker
And it's all about kind of like making those connections, making that network so that you can create the best solutions for somebody else that ultimately, yeah, benefits us, but in a fair way, like, because other people are getting benefits from from those things happening and we're able to come up with a way that we can all work together to be able to push forward.
01:00:29
Speaker
And this is like, a lot of it has to do with our business style is is a bit different than most, um you know, and I see ourselves more like a film production company than ah games company where we help enable and and champion ah creative and help connect them to the right pieces on the board.
Networking and Diversity in Publishing
01:00:51
Speaker
And we bring together all the best board pieces that we can in a given situation to give them the best chance at succeeding with that. Love it And this goes to kind of what you were saying before about networking, learning from experience, and people have done it before, right? When you build out that network, you understand how people work.
01:01:10
Speaker
you both kind of said the same thing as don't burn a bridge, right? If you're gonna, you don't want to screw people over. You don't want to be screwed over by people. if if it's kind of the best deal to just walk away from something, it seems like bite your tongue, walk away and try and see. It's a small industry. It's a great industry, but it's a small industry. And the one thing I love is that I'm a terrible networker, but, uh, like I'm not going to gamescom. I'm like, I just feel like I'm gonna way more effective staying home.
01:01:37
Speaker
Um, And I love to get involved in like the day-to-day stuff too. I'm not totally disconnected from that. Like I said, I'm aware, but I also love to roll up my sleeves. We have a big kind of ah marketing beat coming up and, um and I just love the whole strategy of that and working with the individual developers and,
01:01:58
Speaker
um and talking to them. like Every developer has my cell phone number. like Call me if you get if you want to talk. And sometimes there's there's one of them that lives somewhat close to me and we get together and and go have lunch every once in a while.
01:02:13
Speaker
And I love that. It's really cool just to sort of bond. ah But the what was I talking about? the in How small the industry totally went off on a tangent.
01:02:27
Speaker
at At GDC, it sort of dawned on me when I was just running into people and meeting up with people because after the whole acclaim announcement, everybody was like going cuckoo and like, hey, let's meet up at GDC.
01:02:40
Speaker
And it just it really hit me how long some of these people have been in the industry and how i there's people that I know that I've known years.
01:02:53
Speaker
25, 30 years. And it's so cool. It's so cool to see them still still around, still in the industry, being being able to like reminisce and talk about things from back in the day.
01:03:07
Speaker
It's just really, really such a cool, warm industry. And I ah can't imagine that translating to anything to anything else. you know maybe like Maybe film and music, but this is probably a lot less douchey.
01:03:24
Speaker
Debatable. When you become a publisher, right? Do you tell yourself, I'm going to be looking games in the United States only that target these, these, uh, genres? Are you pretty much open to saying, Hey, you know what? We're going to listen to triple A's. We're going to listen to single A's. We're going to listen indies, right? Like, are you laser focused?
01:03:50
Speaker
For me, i I would say that the door is open. um i want to see everything. I know there's certain things that maybe are not ah our cup of tea.
01:04:03
Speaker
you know I can look at something and say, this looks really cool, but it's probably not a good fit for what we're doing. Whereas other things, I can look at them and say, like this is an acclaimed game 100%.
01:04:14
Speaker
um I don't think it matters where it's from. like we have a very interesting and diverse lineup in terms of, um, our developers. They're from all over the place.
01:04:27
Speaker
We've got, you know, ah developers in South America, Europe, uh, Australia, Africa, North America. So five different continents.
01:04:39
Speaker
Um, and they're all really cool games and very interesting and very unique, very different from each other. So it's, Yeah, it's it's pretty awesome. they're ah They're very different genres. Some of them are the same um or similar at least, um but they're different genres, different you know styles of game, um different development scenarios. And it's just it's just a whole it's a whole mix. So we're looking at everything.
01:05:12
Speaker
I think the one thing that we've really been focused on is not kind of
01:05:18
Speaker
Blowing the bankroll on one game. You know, there was a lot of stuff that was being presented right out of the gate where people were like, yeah, hey, we've got this awesome game and it's sort of in the concept phase and we just need 15 million and we're going to be able to, you know, get that prototype ready. And we're like, yeah, it's not going good fit for us. Like I don't seeing talking about anything that's where there's not, you know, a prototype or MVP or something like that, I don't think is a good idea.
01:05:47
Speaker
um especially in this environment and in this sort of climate with games and who knows what, the economy in general. um
01:06:00
Speaker
You brought up a good thing, and i actually got a question from and an audience member, which is very exciting. So thank you, Justin. um for a For a publisher, where does the money actually come from? Is it private equity? Is it something we're allowed to talk about? It's my piggy bank.
01:06:18
Speaker
It's one of my piggy banks. It depends. I think Alex said earlier, like every publisher is different. Every publisher is funded differently too. It could be via someone's personal bank. It could be be a venture. It could be i you know an offshoot underneath some company.
01:06:39
Speaker
It is really good like as a developer to know where is the funding for the publisher coming from. Because the priorities and and other things are are, you know, kind of connected to whatever the priorities of the larger entity potentially or or owner, whoever it is, and goes kind of to their whim. So, you know, if if a publisher is under some publicly traded company, they're going to make decisions based off of the public market and what is happening on that market. So you have to know that
01:07:16
Speaker
If that company has a lot of arms and maybe the publishing arm isn't their biggest arm, there's always a chance like they cut that piece and it's happened a number of times. And so understanding where it comes from is key. And then if it's a venture backed publisher, which is pretty rare, ah you have to know that, well, that publisher is trying 10, 100 X, whatever it is, because they have venture money and venture money is always looking for that large 100x unicorn return. That's why they invest in some of these those kinds of things. so
01:07:51
Speaker
But it could really come from anywhere from my perspective.
01:07:57
Speaker
All right. Yeah, agreed. ah But that is a very good point that I didn't really ever think of. And I think maybe my initial reaction, if a developer was like, you know, who's your, who's funding you or where's your funding coming from would be like, well, that's none of your business, but that is actually a very good and valid point. And maybe ah a very good, if I was in the shoes of a developer and one thing I'm always doing, like, as you know, with heading up publishing you trying to so to turn the tape trying to trying to spin it around and say, okay, if I was this developer, what would be important to me? What would be, you know, and and look at it from that perspective.
01:08:36
Speaker
And I think that that is an important question to say, hey, this is my baby I've been working on. I want to know that, first of all, you know, you guys are are likely to be around in a couple of years. And, you know, or by the time my game comes out and that you're going to be able to support it,
01:08:54
Speaker
And that you're, you know, um
01:08:59
Speaker
and you may not, it's not like a publisher is required to provide you with their, you know, their P&L or their balance sheet or something like that. So you may just get a response of like, yeah, we're we're solid.
01:09:16
Speaker
If you're worried about it, then, you know, look elsewhere. But i The funding can come from any number of places. And I think as long as you know that it's a publisher that has ah you know, a fairly solid reputation and that they're well-funded and that the people that are involved with the company have pretty solid, um you know, reputation, i think
01:09:42
Speaker
I would be, you know, you're always operating off of, you know, ah the people within the publishing entity or, you know, the, don't always know the yeah like I don't sign the checks, you know, um but I'm operating off of the the the information provided to me. And, um you know, hopefully that that's that's good. I'd like to have my job in a year.
01:10:13
Speaker
All right. Gamescom is coming up.
Making Impactful Pitches and Building Partnerships
01:10:15
Speaker
After that, we got MDEV coming up. And when you go to conferences like this, you know, I'm i'm pretty sure someone like you's schedule fills up really quick of people that want to pitch you games, right?
01:10:26
Speaker
I'm curious, kind of what is your survival strategy at these types of events? And how can, if people want, have a meeting with a publisher, right? How do they make the most of that time? at Any like one or two takeaways that they could go in thinking of for meetings like this?
01:10:42
Speaker
So survival strategy. Well, yeah, I have games com. Then I go to dice Europe. Then I go to Nexus Dublin, then ah M dev, and probably a couple more shows in between. So I've, I've a lot, I think opposite of Alex side network nonstop.
01:10:58
Speaker
um And it is, yeah, it it's really tough. I, I know I'm physically like harming myself by the fact that I just go so hard at these events.
01:11:10
Speaker
The, you know, the best strategy is, well, A, make sure you're drinking lots of water. um But also like try to find a location that you get people to come to that's like relatively close to the show, but not like at the show that is quiet because i think the noise at these shows, you don't realize how like it just drains you at a certain point. There's just always so much happening.
01:11:36
Speaker
you know, I have ADHD. So like, ah you know, I'm paying attention to the hundred things happening around me at all times. And so, you know, trying to find that space where you can really focus, it makes a deeper conversation, which I think so much of this is is continuing to build bridges or maintain bridges or just opportunities to connect. Cause you never know. i don't know if Alex has the same experience, but you just never know what's going to happen. Somebody goes to some new job or some opportunity within a company happens.
01:12:11
Speaker
Suddenly they want to partner with you or they want to like look at opportunities to collaborate. Or if you're looking for jobs, like they suddenly will be like, Hey, they'd be really good for this kind of role. And so, you know, I think it's just a matter of like pacing yourself as much as you can. i try to put in little blocks before and after,
01:12:31
Speaker
um, meetings, although those, those tend to disappear the more packed my schedule is. Cause I also have FOMO. I never want to miss out on an opportunity cause you never know the one that might lead to something even more exciting for myself or a partner or or something else.
01:12:47
Speaker
And so, yeah, there, it's just always a bit absurd. And then, you know, something like M dev, which, you know, I helped to plan and everything like that uh, is just a mess because there's so many things you wanna think about strategically and how how you're supporting everyone at the show as well.
01:13:06
Speaker
But it's, I don't know, i love I love going to shows, but I also am like, oh my God, the next three months are gonna be absurd. i'm gonna get very little time with my wife and my dogs. And luckily now, like I live ah on a lake in the middle of Wisconsin. And so at least when I'm back here, it's like super chill.
01:13:27
Speaker
And I'm not like in the madness of l LA, which I am sometimes, you know, still in LA part of the year. And you don't really get much of a break because there's always another thing happening at that point.
01:13:39
Speaker
Nice. What about getting one pitch? If if you're going to give a someone some of your time or an event like that, what's what's the best strategy you could give someone? i Get to know them. Like get them to be become an ambassador for you.
01:13:56
Speaker
and for your idea, like get them as excited about the ideas as you are, and they'll naturally want to continue to push it forward with their team, with with anybody. If you just come in as just like trying to sell something, like we see it all all day, every day, like make me passionate about it.
01:14:14
Speaker
Make me excited about its potential. Make me want to see it come to fruition. And if you can figure out a way to do that with somebody, like there you have a much higher chance of, even if they don't,
01:14:25
Speaker
They're not the ones invested. Guess what? We all know each other. I'll be like, oh this publisher would be, would love these types of games. Like they would, um i'll I'll connect you. Like sometimes it's that kind of stuff, but you know, get them really excited about it.
01:14:39
Speaker
um And i think they'll, they'll pass it forward and and try to help you. I love that. I think it goes back to that mantra, build the game you love, because if you truly love it, when you talk to someone about it, that love will will will come off and they'll sense that. And I think that's the most important thing a developer could take a look at when building, especially by themselves.
01:15:00
Speaker
Alex. Yes. i so i will never meet with, I don't like, I don't like meetings that are trying to get something done in the meeting at conferences.
01:15:14
Speaker
I just s think there are, it's totally just it's it's unproductive there's distractions there's noise it's like you're looking around it's really difficult i don't want to see games i want to like do a quick meet and greet like yeah let's shake hands and say hi i'd love to meet you and meet you in person and um but i like doing the hey let's just set up a call a conference call and talk and have you know 30, 45 an hour to to get to know each other and hear about the game and not have any distractions and ask all the questions that we might want to ask. And ah I just love going about it that way. I think that said, for developers that are attending conferences or you know looking to get some exposure for their games or maybe exhibiting or something like that,
01:16:11
Speaker
Not everybody has the budget or can do a, you know, Gamescom or a PAX or a GDC or whatever it is. I think a lot of these regional events, like I think MDEV and different little, you know, different regional, ah slightly smaller ah conferences where developers can be seen and have the opportunity to sort of present without like blowing the budget that it would take to get to a Gamescom or something like that are so important.
01:16:41
Speaker
And also really super important for fostering community in these various regions. um I love that. And ah I just think it's a very difficult way for me at least.
01:16:57
Speaker
And I don't even know, maybe I do have ADHD. I could, it's very possible. When I was a kid, they just called it hyperactive. But yeah. I didn't find out until a couple of years ago, so that doesn't surprise me. like That's funny. I had a friend who just found out, like a friend, like I've known him for years. And then like last year he was like, do you know, I just found out I have ADHD. It turns out we all have it.
01:17:19
Speaker
So yeah, for me, it's very difficult to, to be able to focus and really give, you know, I can look at a game, I can meet with the developer and look at the game, but it's not going to be the best a way to,
01:17:33
Speaker
ah you know, it's doing them a disservice. And that's really the reason why it's not like, I don't want to spend time looking at the game at at a conference. I'm, I just like, it's too much distraction. i can't really focus and get into it and get a feel for what the game is. So, you know, I'd rather get codes and then have a call and and go about it that way. I just think it's a much better way. and it and And it's a better opportunity for the developer.
01:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think from my time at the conferences, I'd agree. It's about networking there. You don't need to try and sell new anyone. The only thing you're trying to sell at a conference is you as an individual, right? You want to get to know this person. You want to like this person. and I think from there, you have those calls afterwards. It's a lot easier to consume that information afterwards is rather than when I'm meeting Ben's schedule or one after each other. Well, people like doing deals with people that they they believe in, that they like that they like. That's the reality of it. And Cause this is, it's a partnership, it's a relationship and you have to build a lot of foundational ah pieces before. I mean, if you look at investment, like all the data shows that it takes a long time before someone will invest in your company because they want to trust you. They want to have a relationship. Like you have to develop that over time. So if you're looking to get funding or publishing, play the long game.
01:19:00
Speaker
ah Play the game where you're developing those relationships over multiple years because it's more likely that they would actually publish you or actually work with you five years from now than it will be in the next year.
01:19:14
Speaker
Ben, you were talking about when it was time to pitch, you were talking about unless you have 200,000 wish lists, right? Or you have something already. like Then it's kind of that light bulb moment where with a publisher, I could see my path forward. But sometimes you're in the dark and you don't know what to do. And you don't know if you are ready for a publisher.
01:19:33
Speaker
What are some of those signs that aren't so obvious that like maybe i need to know this or i need to or I should start looking into this? Yeah. Well, let me answer that. First off, like 200,000 is also a sign that maybe don't need a publisher too. That's what I was going to So it's just you want to get as much traction as you – it's like a balancing act because you get to a certain point where you maybe built enough yourself. I would still argue you need certain publishing services.
01:20:04
Speaker
Do you need a full-scale everything publisher to to build it? ah Maybe you still do, and maybe you don't. I think you're always evaluating where you are versus where you want to get to and what is the best way to move into that.
01:20:20
Speaker
and And the reality of the current environment, so we're just talking right now, is you're going to have a really hard time attracting a publisher without something you can show that they can potentially...
01:20:37
Speaker
but most like ideally play so they could really can get trust in it. Cause again, you're building trust, building faith that you can get to wherever it is and that you have some kind of momentum. Now the momentum could be from internal user tests where you're able to show a ton of data around all of this and you're able to verify because you had hundreds of people or something like that, or it's done via, Hey, we did, we announced it publicly.
01:21:02
Speaker
We were able to get this traction. we were able to get this interest. We retain users for five hours in a row because they, like, all of those things are different ways to be able to say, hey, we have something, it's somewhat validated, not all the way, you're not never going to be fully validated with it, but we have some signals that are really positive.
01:21:26
Speaker
And we think if we get more support with these signals, we're going to succeed down the line. And that's when you should really be thinking about How could I get that support?
01:21:37
Speaker
Most likely it's going to be a publisher. if you have no money, a traditional publisher completely makes sense. If you already have budget, let's say you had venture dollars in something like our shadow publishing might make a ton of sense because you already have dollars you could pay for the services and keep your rev share.
01:21:53
Speaker
So you always have to be evaluating it based on where you're at, where you're trying to go and what traction you're seeing. And the more traction points you have, I think the better chance you have at getting a publisher in the current environment. that's ah That's solid. And i you know i also just feel that no if you're you know if you're looking at or thinking about pitching a publisher, get a good idea of what the publisher that you're you know the publishers that you're talking to.
01:22:24
Speaker
uh, what it is that they're typically looking for and, and how they work. Um, I think there's not always a lot of that. It's just sort of a blanket, uh, like a blanket pitch and put some, some solid thought into your, ah pitch deck, what your pitch, you know, what your pitch is, what you really truly need, what you're bringing to the table, have something playable, you know, have prototype MVP, um,
01:22:53
Speaker
And sometimes, the depending on what the environment is, the economic environment and the the the industry environment, you know having a game late stage can be very attractive for a publisher.
01:23:09
Speaker
if they're If they're not risking a bunch of money and three years of development, you know when who knows what's going to be going on in three years? um you know that's
01:23:24
Speaker
That's important. And that's you know that's very, that can be, that can really resonate with a publisher. So I love seeing something that's just like well thought out and it doesn't necessarily have to have, you know, be killing it in terms of wish lists.
01:23:42
Speaker
You know, it's understandable if a developer, like they don't really know how to market the game or they haven't done a bunch of marketing or they haven't done any marketing. but they have an awesome looking game. They have like a really solid prototype or a really solid demo.
01:23:57
Speaker
And the game's coming out, you know, inside of 12 months. And it's it it fits really well with, you know, there's an audience on PC and also on console.
01:24:12
Speaker
And they've thought out their budget That's an important one. Sometimes I see just sort of like an arbitrary number. you know It's like, we need $750,000. Okay, well, where's that money going?
01:24:28
Speaker
and And does it make sense for this game, for the for the level of development that's going into this game, for the size of the team? Or is it that you're just trying to sort of fund your studio?
01:24:40
Speaker
Like, is this now? Now publisher is going to look at this and be like, is this really a collaboration and a partnership or is this like a contract for hire? um And that's something important for a developer to think about, like come into this as, you know, a partnership, not as like, Hey, we're trying to get paid and then get paid again.
01:25:03
Speaker
I need it back into numbers, right? Like in fact, instead of 750,000, say seems like, at least seems like a much much more like exact reasoning, but also then show what you're trying to hire, why you're trying, why there's needs to be justification for everything, what it is that just, it just helps what you never want to have is a red flag in a publisher's head of being like, that doesn't make sense.
01:25:31
Speaker
Like that, that seems odd because that could immediately set back what they could get really excited about a bunch of things and then see a red flag and that could completely set them off course. Another thing to like mention thinking about is think about publisher's slate.
01:25:47
Speaker
Like a publisher is always thinking about their entire slate and there's certain windows that sometimes happen. And so sometimes it's just that things line up timing wise. And if you have a game to Alex's point of like coming out of the next year and suddenly i have a gap because something else may be moved out and you're looking to fill that gap with something and yours happens to fall in that gap, like that sometimes is an opportunity title where you're like, okay, well, we have a gap, you know, our slate this year is less than we expected. so we're looking to fill that with something.
01:26:20
Speaker
and then sometimes that becomes the the way. So understanding ah publisher's slate, what they're doing, what they've announced, what their typical dollar amount that they invest in is, like all of those are really valuable things to know.
01:26:35
Speaker
it yeah Sounds so great, right? But like, there's two things that popped to my mind right away. One is like, is there just a comprehensive checklist of like, hey, here's the things you should take a look at before even considering even launching a game, right? Like certain things you're mentioning here don't even make sense. And the second is like,
01:26:52
Speaker
how do I find this out about my publisher? I guess we just got to talk, right? We have a meeting and and ask the right questions, right? I think that's a lot of this is your own due diligence, right? That you have to do, right? And hopefully they're listening to this podcast here to say, hey, these are the questions I need to be asking, right? There's nothing much more straightforward than that, right?
01:27:10
Speaker
Well, it's not any different than the investment scene, right? Like if you if you are a startup going out to get investment, Now, the difference is a little bit, not not all of them, but there's like there's some investors that will list this stuff on their website. We go, we do this range. We do this type of investment. we do pre-seed, Series A, whatever it is.
01:27:33
Speaker
And maybe they'll do some of your homework. But the reality is you have to do homework with every investor to understand what they're looking for, how you might fit. And what that often means is I have talked to thousands of investors at this point.
01:27:49
Speaker
And it's just you have to talk to a lot of folks. It's a lot of legwork for identifying what could be just one group. ah And that's what you have to do in order to find kind of the right publisher. Otherwise, you're operating kind of blind. And and your offer might reflect that even if they do offer it. You you might be going with somebody that's actually a really bad fit for you.
01:28:12
Speaker
Well, you have both dumped a ton of awesome information here. I feel like I got to go and just kind of reread and relook at this type
Future of Acclaim and Midwest Games
01:28:21
Speaker
of data. ah Love the idea of kind of this new generation of Acclaim versus, not versus, Acclaim and Midwest Games kind of building kind of this next generation of games. And I think it's going to bring kind of good spirit into the gaming industry. I feel like there's just positive vibes that that come from ah from from publishers like this to help kind of raise studios up.
01:28:43
Speaker
I can't thank the two of you enough for taking all this time to answer all these silly questions. you. Good questions. Yeah. um Before we go, I'm going to let you each say goodbye and let us know where we can find you. And if you want to talk about anything you're releasing, I know Alex isn't allowed to, but hopefully he'll come back one day. But let us know where we can find you and your information, Alex.
01:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, we'll um we'll we'll be talking about some stuff very soon. So um that's that's the tease right there. Just ah you know keep a you know keep ah keep aware and and so and keep watching. We'll be announcing stuff soon.
01:29:21
Speaker
And there's there's a submission form on the playacclaim.com website. We can link to it. We'll have it on the player-driven page. blog? Is IGN the one that's going to get these hot takes? Are you going drop them off on the IGN Next or whatever it is?
01:29:37
Speaker
We're not going to do any like, you know, it's because everyone's going to get it. There you go. Ben? yeah you can Yeah, you can find me personally pretty easily on LinkedIn. I'm the only Ben Quallo in the world, so I'm most active there on LinkedIn, but then MidwestGames.com.
01:29:56
Speaker
You can find Midwest Games on all your social channels, TikTok, Twitter, IG. And then, you know, we have a couple exciting games coming up ah that are getting a ton of traction lately.
01:30:11
Speaker
Tombwater, which we, you know, just did a reveal of a map, the map full map that we got some really good press around. There's a demo out right now.
01:30:22
Speaker
So if you're not familiar, it's a Souls-like Western, kind of in the classic Zelda pixel art. But, uh, vastly bigger than than zelda you know somebody said on the level of red red redemption 2 and i was like okay i'll go for that um and then we have a game called the legend of babu also just recently went viral on instagram and tiktok which was exciting and so uh essentially a action adventure from a studio in turkey you're a a young kid with a big fluffy dog named babu
01:30:57
Speaker
and go on an adventure and you can ride the dog. They're your companion. They saw help you solve puzzles. So really exciting one as well that we're working on.
01:31:08
Speaker
Nice. It's been awesome. This has been super, super exciting. I really enjoyed this. Nice. Yeah, i appreciate both of your times. So here's what I'm walking away with and what I hope you are too if you're building something new right now.
01:31:22
Speaker
Publishing is a partnership, not a surrender. It's not about giving up your IP or your rights. It's about deciding where you need help finding a partner who respects your creative vision while bringing the business muscle you might not have the time to build.
01:31:34
Speaker
Know what you're good at and what you're not. If you're great at community and comms but hate thinking about the marketing strategy or platform relations, that's where a publisher can fill in the gaps.
01:31:45
Speaker
Don't just focus on rev share, ask the right questions. Too many devs only ask what percentage do you take, how much does it cost, not things like how will you help me shape my roadmap or what relationships you have with Steam or PlayStation or Xbox or how do you support testing, feedback and localization or even why those are important.
01:32:04
Speaker
You need to be a business, even if you're an artist at heart. If you're walking into a deal without budgeting and this is your baby, or understanding with the scope creep or planning for long-term monetization, you're giving the other party leverage.
01:32:17
Speaker
Understand the business or find someone you trust who does. Shadow publishing is an option. Ben mentioned an emerging model where studios pay upfront for services instead of giving up long-term royalties or IP.
01:32:30
Speaker
That takes more prep, business readiness, but it gives you full control. Worth exploring. The first game is hard. The second game is even harder. Sustainable success doesn't come from one hit. It comes from building the foundation and learning what scales.
01:32:45
Speaker
That's why choosing the right publisher support at the right time matters more than ever. There is so much more, but if you are looking to learn any more, you can check out the player-driven blog. We have links to everywhere you need to go to find Ben or to find Alex.
01:32:59
Speaker
And you like this or you know anyone that would, please let them know about it, share it with them. And if you have any questions, drop them our comments. Thanks for listening and have a great rest of your week.