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Live from GDC 24: Exploring the Gaming Landscape with Keywords Studios CEO Bertrand Bodson
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Player: Engage Podcast: Live from GDC with Bertrand Bodson, CEO of Keywords Studios!
Welcome to a special live episode of the Player: Engage Podcast, where host Greg sits down with Bertrand Bodson, the CEO of Keywords, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). Bertrand shares his journey from aspiring tennis player to leading a major player in the gaming industry, his insights on AI, and the entrepreneurial spirit that drives Keywords.
Episode Highlights:
- Bertrand's diverse background from Boston Consulting Group to Amazon, and his role in bringing technology to healthcare at Novartis.
- The energy and excitement of GDC and the gaming industry's potential for innovation.
- Bertrand's aspirations as a young man and his path to becoming a key figure in the gaming world.
- The parallels between developing AAA games and bringing new drugs to market.
- Keywords' approach to AI and ethical considerations in its deployment.
- The importance of human expertise in an increasingly tech-driven industry.
- Keywords' balance of autonomy and cohesion among its studios.
- The gaming industry's resilience and the opportunities ahead in 2024.
- Keywords' role in supporting the industry's growth and the concept of "Imagine More."
Quickfire Round with Bertrand:
- Breakfast routine: Cereal and fruit.
- Go-to drink: Martini or Diet Coke.
- Last game played: Eleven on VR.
- Recent book: Fiction by Alan Cumming.
- Favorite Tennis Open: Wimbledon.
Connect with Keywords and Bertrand:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Player Engage Podcast and Guest Bertrand Batson
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Player Engage Podcast. Greg here. We are coming to you live from GDC, and today my guest joining me is Bertrand Batson, the CEO of Keywords, who I'm really excited to do my first live podcast
Bertrand Batson's Diverse Career Path
00:00:21
Speaker
with. Bertrand has an awesome background. He started with Boston Consulting Group. He was at EMI Music. He was a product manager at Amazon, and before Keywords, he came from Novartis, as he was the first
00:00:32
Speaker
Chief digital officer there and the person to help bring kind of the future and technology to a health care firm I think that's awesome. So first off Richard. Thank you so much for joining me today. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our group? No, great to be here and a great idea to do that from GDC It's it's always a very energizing place again
00:00:50
Speaker
You know, when there's gamers around, there's just energy going on. It's a fun place to be. And before we really get into the podcast, the one thing that really strikes me, and I'm really curious about the industry, is what did a young Bertrand aspire to do? You know, everyone dreams, or if you're a gamer, you want to run or be a part of a video game company. And looking at your background, it's funny, you went from all these different medias to Amazon to healthcare. Like, what did you want to be when you were growing up? How did you end up
Keywords' Reach and Technological Influence in Gaming
00:01:14
Speaker
here? Oh, that's a big question.
00:01:17
Speaker
And truthfully, I was hoping to be a tennis player, but that really didn't work out. And I started my career early at Amazon, where all we had a bit more than 20 years ago was called BMVD, books, music, video, and DVDs. And so video game was a big part of that. So it was definitely on the agenda. It was one of the four divisions. So it's really good to be back.
00:01:37
Speaker
to be back to that. I think it's an amazing industry. It's a fascinating one. There's a lot of fashion. At the end of the day, we're serving almost three and a half billion players across the planet. I have three young kids. I'm very popular with my children in the world in there. And what I really love about this industry and maybe about keywords in particular as well is that it's very entrepreneurial. There's still so much to be invented. There are so much to be
00:01:59
Speaker
To be shaped, I get the chance to work with entrepreneurs every single day, and as much as there are some talk about times out there, I think this is an ideal moment to really go and imagine more and to really create amazing experiences quite frankly. And often you get some of the best inventions, the best creations that are coming from those times where you have to be. We think a bit differently, so I think we have a few exciting years ahead of us.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. You mentioned your entrepreneurial spirit. One of the articles I read talked about when you were making the decision to come to Keywords. Part of the idea was you wanted to take over more of a global entrepreneurial venture. And it seems like such a cool opportunity. And it boggled my mind when I first read that you came from health care. Because I was like, that's awesome. But where health care and gaming really connected, I didn't get it. The more I read about what it was is that you came into Novartis, I think, around 2017, 2018. And you were there to bring technology.
00:02:50
Speaker
look at their data and some of the things I was reading about online was awesome. First of all, I didn't realize healthcare was embracing AI as much as they are and then I was reading things that you were taking a look at or you were thinking of how you can look at all the patient data over the years and start looking at that and first I thought how come they weren't already doing that and it makes sense but I guess it doesn't make sense until it does.
AI's Role and Ethical Considerations in Gaming
00:03:11
Speaker
I guess, can you go and tell us a little bit about what you've learned from Novartis and the healthcare and how that can transition to the gaming world? Yeah, sure. So at Novartis we used to serve about 800 million patients every year, so there was a big, big mission of also imagining more.
00:03:27
Speaker
On behalf of patients, technology was a very big way, an incredible amount of data, very responsibly handled as you can imagine, a lot of clinical trials, big, big productions as well, not too dissimilar to here. It took us, on average, 12 years and 2.5 billion to get a drug over the nine, so you can see when we talk about 100 million,
00:03:45
Speaker
and several years to get a AAA over the line. There are some similarities and technology had to be part of the solution. Data was a big part of the solution to the point that now Healthcare is seriously looking into what we call in-siddico modeling. So how can you, instead of having to do just physical experiments in a very linear way, how can you really model that? How can you model
00:04:05
Speaker
what patients could do, how can you have digital points of patients themselves as part of it. So technology was really much of the core. You are spot on. And then beyond that, it's all largely as one of our leadership about geographic footprints. I think I find that back in key words, in big ways.
00:04:22
Speaker
Again, a lot of entrepreneurs. There's, I think, a great culture as well. How do you make sure you keep the entrepreneurial side of all of our studios while at the same time making it work as one keyword? Not to be similar to what I had as an artist where we have six different therapeutic areas. How do you make it cohesively work for the visions or for the players in this case? Global Geography could print keywords. We have about 26 countries now.
00:04:45
Speaker
which I really enjoy. You end up a lot in the plane, but that's part of the joy of it. We have a lot of technology that we're bringing in. Really, AI technology is a big one. It seems to have a lot of M&A, a lot of transactions as well, but we're trying to really make it work.
00:05:00
Speaker
at the end of the day, it's a good cultural fit. It's the best of the best quality and then do the financial work, but that's the end of the process itself. It's much more about the seed that we find all together. So, bizarrely maybe to your question, a lot of similarities on technology, a lot of similarities on leadership, a lot of similarities in terms of global footprint and probably an aspiration to do something that hasn't been done before and to transform the industry.
Project EVA: AI Tools in Game Development
00:05:24
Speaker
I love the fact that, I mean, I read that you were talking about at Novartis about how long it takes for a drug to get to market and how you just compare that to a AAA game. It's like, you're right. You don't think about it, but a game is a process. It takes a long time. A drug is a process. It takes a long time. But maybe we could skip ahead a little bit. You mentioned AI, and I think AI is, everyone comes on the podcast and they all want to always talk about AI. And you get this special privilege of running
00:05:50
Speaker
a large company that has to deal with AI and has to take a look at it carefully and say, how do we want to use this technology? How can we improve it? What do we want to do? We don't want to burn any bridges. We want to make sure we're ethically using AI. So how do you make these decisions? And do you allow your own studios to look at it themselves? Or is it something you're thinking it's got to be a big picture thing for everyone?
00:06:13
Speaker
That's a very important topic for us collectively for the industry of course a very emotive topic as well as you're touching in the very core of ethical questions about IP rights on that. So the approach we have taken is of course in the context of really responsible AI where at the end of the day we do on behalf of our Purdue.
00:06:30
Speaker
our publishers, our clients, our partners, we would always do it in partnership. That's absolutely clear. We have maybe two different approaches depending on production or post-production. On the production side, we don't necessarily feel that we need to own the stack itself. There are so many innovations happening. There are so many startups, from big ones to opening up posts to majority to 33.
00:06:52
Speaker
to Gemini, etc., all the way to slow the startups in the environment, build the charisma into the seas, or above, for example, in physics, in middleware. So how do we assess all that? We see our role as we have, we're fortunate to have four and a half thousand engineers, designers, technical artists, creative startups, creative engineering. That's an incredible force for good to be able to test those four, five, six hundred layers that are basically out there.
00:07:19
Speaker
How do we stay two, three steps ahead on behalf of our partners so that it's not about AI good or AI bad? It's about how can we get to the granularity towards what works, what doesn't work, and the which circumstances. I'll come back on that. Separately from that, on first production, there we want to own more of the stack because we feel that we have
00:07:37
Speaker
a right to act on behalf of the industry. It's not just me what publishers want to do every single day in terms of testing, in terms of organization, in terms of the stack to do play engagement. But we have the privilege to work for most of the top 25 and for newcomers as well. How can we be an aggregator in each of those? We have made some moves with HelpShift in particular, where you're coming from, with Mighty Gales, which I see in the background,
00:08:01
Speaker
by Canton AI, with xDock. So I think this is an incredible potential stack that we could use with the right humans, with the right talent behind, and the combination of the two can help be way, way more efficient and to create better experiences as well. So that's a bit of where we're thinking about it. And production,
Managing and Collaborating Across Keywords' Studios
00:08:16
Speaker
do we stay two, three steps ahead? And really get a great productivity with the muscle that we have on what is happening with our partners. On the production side, it's more about how do we build, and we're investing now, we have three uses, we have 250,
00:08:30
Speaker
heads, or positive urban engineers, including at Helpsicht, who I think will be building that secular future for the industry, which I think is an important step before investment for us. Yeah, that's a great point. We did a podcast a few weeks ago with Steven Kika, and he runs our head of games AI for those who are listening.
00:08:48
Speaker
You know, everyone's talking about AI now, and everyone just goes directly to Gen AI, and how it's going to impact the industry. But I love that you're talking about introduction, because these tools do help testing, they help make things go quicker, it helps make the process end. You don't want to fall behind in technology, so it's important to make sure you at least know what's going on, weigh, implement ethically, responsibly, and it kind of goes down to the next question, right?
00:09:10
Speaker
And if I may, Greg. I want to speak a small part of the project we're talking about later today, and actually from now here at GDC, which is Project Eva. So on the production side, the question we had with Ashley, with Steven Picker, with Jamie and the team was, how do you assess 400 tools, 400 partners, and it's working so fast, and to some extent it's scaringly exciting at the same time?
00:09:34
Speaker
So that's where, a year ago, we started the project EVA. There was electric spray, one of our studios raised their hands of saying, like, what if we were to build a shippable game? The intent was not to ship it, but a shippable game so that we would want to build practical applications together to see what was, what doesn't work, and which circumstances. And I'm really proud to see that every month that goes by, we have actually more and more of our studios involved. We now have several studios involved behind EVA.
00:09:59
Speaker
They've been testing Be Alive with what works and which circumstances. How do you handle the APLs? How do you connect the content of those partners together? Guess what? As soon as you get into a character build, you need more and more designers to make sense of it and to make sure that those characters can also be consistent as the technology keeps evolving, as you build your games. We need really people to understand how other players even bring to Be Alive in three years from now, which is important when you're building for the long term. So which ones are really work solid? Which ones can we help?
00:10:27
Speaker
legal and ethical implications as well to understand which ones are absolutely no-go because you cannot trace it back and it's completely black box. We do a gear-runner, half of them actually fill it up, hurdle, but which ones actually really interesting and where with partners we can bring them over the line. So I love the, I love that experiment that we've been doing there because it's an R&D project.
00:10:48
Speaker
But it gets closer to that goal of being our four and a half thousand engineers or the technology creatives to be actually curious about it and to build. And it gives a good, I think, third process, or most innovation process in machines so that with farmers more and more, we can go and test this thing if you step too heavy. It's interesting. I'm curious, you know, it's cool that Electric Square raises our hands and puts our hands up.
00:11:11
Speaker
Is there common feedback, and maybe you're not quite sure yet, from the studios that have been working on it that are learning just internally? A, you're obviously testing different tools, right? You're probably testing Mid-Journey, Dolly, all the other image generations, but is there a common theme that A, humans are still needed? This worked, but it's not good, or is there a common thing you are doing?
00:11:31
Speaker
Well, the interesting piece is that every month that goes by, the team is asking me for more and more resources. So it's like humans are definitely needed, domain experts are really needed. The key is how do you get the domain experts to be super curious about it, which tools can give them superpowers. So, no surprise that we sort of probably all expected that, we all know that.
00:11:49
Speaker
like in the age of technology, right? From Unreal 1 to Unreal 5.4, it's from Unity, from proprietary engine. At the end of the day, the more they become sophisticated, the more advanced the technology becomes, the more you need them in experts and the more you need engineers. We traced that data, we showcased it publicly a few months ago.
00:12:07
Speaker
where the more technology evolves, we see the 5X increase in the number of engineering type of capabilities that have been needed over the last decade alone. Just think about the type of project that we have here in the games. I think AI in a broader way is just an extra tool and an extra superpower in the hands for the ones we're going to use well, but hopefully we're going to unlock some new potential here.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, I want to come back to that point because, as you mentioned, there's more people now getting involved. I feel like that's also expanding the process of how long it takes. Like you mentioned the AAA game to launch. How do you juggle that? How do you, I guess, AI helps increase the speed at which you could put that stuff out there. But I do want to come back to that. But first, with these projects, you often hear about
00:12:50
Speaker
I'm looking at the big, big studios, the AAA studios that own multiple studios, and some companies you hear have a lot of oversight. You have to follow these rules, you have to do that. There's some studios that let all the subsidiaries do whatever they want for the most part. How do you find a juggling act when you're running about 23 different studios internally?
00:13:08
Speaker
manage how much hands-on or how much hands-off you need to be with those studios. And in that, being an entrepreneur myself, I've been known as my own business at the time. In that, I always go back to the entrepreneurial side. So I think it's very, very tempting to bring things too closely together. You think it's optimized. I prefer to leave a little bit less optimized, but entrepreneurs always win at the end of the day in my book and certainly on all the creative areas. So if I separate, maybe break the little areas in
00:13:35
Speaker
On the Create area, which is Game Dev and Art, we have about 25 studios. To me, I want each of them to be able to run the P&L. They have all their own creative ways of working. But where we put some, I would say, craziness behind it is that we have organized the studios across regions as well.
00:13:50
Speaker
As the region has, we can think about standard development across the region more consistently, for example. We can think about, when we do M&A, of how do we find the right time inside that design. When we think about career management, we can also do that in a cohesive way there. It makes also from a leadership point of view a bit easier to get
00:14:07
Speaker
to also get progress in your own career as part of it. That's one side of the world. I think that's working quite well. We're finding that we call it one keyword. So it's a balancing act all the time between the entrepreneurial side and at the same time making sure that we have the right rigor. And there are a few things on the back end in terms of infosec, cybersecurity, in terms of a force-finance reporting, in terms of HR, IT, etc. They were trying to be systematic with the muscle of it.
00:14:30
Speaker
Think about that the other way around. What's in it in the shoes of a studio? I would hope that if we do it well, we can be serving leaders to a studio where they can get access to bigger partnerships, bigger publishers, bigger titles, bigger pieces that they could do on their own. If they really make the best of everything that Keywords is to offer, they can tap into the technology know how that we have it for subgroup. We do that to openly worry about cyber security because we can also handle that at broader scale and make the right investment behind.
00:14:58
Speaker
There is carrier growth as well where they can tap into new title pools as well behind. So always invite our studio to make the best of what keywords is to work more broadly there.
00:15:07
Speaker
In areas like global hands, there is a bit different, because that's testing capability, localization of all the developments. There is more than one single brand. It's really the keyword brands, but there we want to be 20, 30 percent more efficient than what an individual publisher could do. And that's why I think the right showing across the globe, I think the right capabilities around the world, all over the place where there's between Montreal, between Poland, between Mexico, between India, between China.
00:15:33
Speaker
I think there's a really good offering there for our plans. And that's where tech also comes in on the post-production side. How can we be way more efficient? How can we be way more scalable? And the best of the human and the best of technology to be able to serve achieve the tsunami of content that is coming if you think about it in the next decade.
00:15:50
Speaker
Think about the content we created. It needs to be tested. Think about what will come for technologies. It needs to be tested. And that's where things are really brilliant like that. So there's more than the keywords in Breda, but with consistent, level-up type of ranking, carrier opportunity as well, the round doors. So that's a bit how we think about one keyword. Big, big entrepreneurship within the studio, the creative jewels, like watching the games. And at the same time, the sort of big machine, super-efficient is how with the right talent and human and leaders on the first production
Challenges and Innovations in 2023
00:16:20
Speaker
side.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. We've spoken to a few of the studios on these podcasts. You can tell they're happy. They have that freedom. They can still do what they love. Keywords Labs is a thing now where we're trying to get some new innovation, new technology. Maybe we can all align in certain places where there's inefficiencies. I love how you have these happy studios that start to collaborate on things if they're using the same tools and using everything.
00:16:44
Speaker
You just make better games when everyone's working together, they have their freedom, and you don't take their identity away. I think it's the entrepreneurial spirit. They built this baby. It's their baby. They want to maintain their baby. Absolutely. That would be my biggest pride. It's like everybody feels that it's their baby. John Bork, who is the CEO, tends to drop with me saying, I can go on holiday for six months. He just runs. He's right.
00:17:09
Speaker
The beauty of getting to work with entrepreneurs, part of what we're trying to build is actually broad infrastructure that goes behind, has the right culture hopefully across the group as well. I think when I'm not in parking around keywords and I don't think that for climate, it's that there is a natural culture of collaboration as well. People want to work together, people see bigger opportunity together.
00:17:27
Speaker
Even when we do M&A, half of the time we spend when we do an M&A is just a set of cultural fits. Do I want to work together? Look, we had a Keywords event last night, seven, eight hundred guests. We invited a lot of new players who are interested to Keywords to join us and just to get a sense of what does it feel to be inside as well. So I think that's critically important. There's a soft ingredient to make all that work. Thank you. That's a great answer. And I want to take a little pivot here towards the next question. You know, 2023 was kind of a
00:17:55
Speaker
a weird step in the gaming industry, for lack of better words. Looking forward, there's a lot of positives that came out in 2023. We've had some fantastic games that came out. It was a great year for the gamer working in gaming. It was a little tougher towards the end of the year with what was happening in the industry. But as we come into 2024, the gaming community is coming together. They're looking for new opportunities. Are there things out there that you think or information that
00:18:19
Speaker
Do you think it's important for gamers to know about this industry? I don't even know if this question makes sense now that I'm saying it out loud. It does, it does. I know it always sounds a little bit like it has been a tougher environment than in some of the COVID years, if I didn't say it that way.
Keywords' Growth and Expansion Strategies
00:18:34
Speaker
But let's not forget as well some amazing things that happened last year, first and foremost, you're right. We had amazing titles coming out, right?
00:18:42
Speaker
It was actually spectacular. Look at the Game Awards in December. Very proud, by the way, that there was a piece of keywords inside 70% of the winners of the Game Awards. That's something that as keywordians who are listening in as well, we should be super proud about. It's a humble servant of the industry, but great to be able to contribute today.
00:19:01
Speaker
as a business with about 30% growth. Last year, we had a bit more on the picks and shovels in the industry, but that gives us also a moment to give a choice from a leadership point of view to make in those years. It's like, do you go and anchor down? Or in the current week, do you go and invest in the new setup? So of course, we have the short term to manage. I want to make sure that we absolutely serve our clients super well. And at CIPDAM, how do we invest in those patterns? Everything we asked earlier in terms of what we're talking about in terms of tech innovations, how do you build
00:19:31
Speaker
the post-production tech platform as well at the end, that's 250 professionals, product developers at the end. Those are big choices that we're making because we see a bright future coming up. And again, I'm probably optimistic, but I see a lot of win-shoes coming in, but not here right now. We're having amazing discussions all over the place happening. Some are even using this time to reconsider their own business model as partners. Hopefully we can be good partners in their role as well, and making the best of it so we can shoulder together at the end of that.
00:20:00
Speaker
Some have amazing titles that are in the making, some are looking at what the technology could be, hopefully we can guide. So I think that there is a, we still have some work to do with this year to navigate for that as an industry together, but I'm super optimistic for what is coming. And you're back to the speed of entrepreneurship, which is our industry is really good at being innovative at the end of the day, and that's why I would favor entrepreneurs to be
00:20:22
Speaker
every day of the week, because that's where we'll come up with new experiences together, we'll come up with new formats, we'll come up with new approaches. I see mini studios where saying, what is really the code, where I've had someone mess up with the right partners to be able to do that in a very, very scalable way. A lot of the seeds of the next decade are happening right now. It's funny, you mentioned, kind of mentioned this by the way, we're on the floor at GDC right now, and maybe added a few, can you just turn the camera, sit, show the booth?
00:20:49
Speaker
I got him working. See, I have an employee now, kind of. But we're hiring, right? There's people here, and a lot of people are looking for work, and they all still have smiles on their face. I think it's just something about the industry. It's a tough time, but we're all still gamers, and people know there's going to be work again. We came off a hive, I guess you would call it, during
00:21:07
Speaker
during the pandemic years and kind of self-correcting now, but I like everything you said. The entrepreneurial spirit, hopefully you'll get a bunch of indie studios that start to build up. You got a lot of creative minds out there, and I think it's a trappy time, but I think it's an exciting time for gaming, because I think around the corner there's going to be some great stuff that comes out there. Absolutely.
00:21:28
Speaker
One, we're definitely hiring, and honestly, we're building our engaged propositions as well, big time. I think it's sort of a mini-keyword in making its own ride. Now we have great capabilities in terms of trainers, in terms of social marketing. We still do digital media management, for example. We have building capabilities with help shifts in the entire VIP proposition community, in management, in PR.
00:21:50
Speaker
And then there's much more to be created there. And there we only have a few pieces of the puzzle. We want to bring it together in a super crazy proposition. We need some of the best talent for that. On engineering, on the creative side, absolutely. If we could find an extra 500,000 super talent tomorrow, I would take them on right away, frankly. I think the team would as well. On Globalize, we're building something that is quite unique where many publishers are thinking about moving the things cost to variable cost. This is an interesting moment where we can generally go and help and create value
00:22:18
Speaker
with the list work and the strengths that we have in blackboard eyes. Look at, we haven't talked about the media, the table space, with LED, with what DMM does as well in that space, but you didn't tie a new adjacency. It's the only building market, by the way, where most are turning out to the gaming industry to look at how do you do in game with real time, with Unreal, with your type of capabilities. That's super exciting about what we could do there. And look at the other way around. When you look at Disney, Lego,
00:22:45
Speaker
coming into a space, basically putting one and a half billion into a big, you know, a big ring like there's new tomorrow as well, incredible wins as well with Lego, with racing, with concerts going into there.
Keywords' Mission in the Gaming Industry
00:22:57
Speaker
Let's not forget all those experiences as well that are also coming up, and I think we have a role to play there, but how do we guide those steps? How do we help create the right content in those types of setup? More importantly, how do we create the right experiences? All along for the community that make sense. So again, I need that to be,
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, and on that note, I'm looking everywhere in the booth and we have our logo and under it it says Imagine More, and that's been the tagline of keywords for a little bit of time now, so why is Imagine More? Exactly as you said, because it's easy to be very tactical about it, I really was, the team pushed me on that, I think they are right, it's more inspirational, it's more, it fits us, I think, it fits the industry, but probably it fits our decision to go beyond the boundaries that we have as well, they're putting me there to them and some other
00:23:42
Speaker
we're coming in, we're doing transmedia, because there's so much to be invented. And it doesn't have to be just a creative set. It can also be technology to make it scalable. But how do we imagine more really together with our partner? And I think that's what gives a bright future if we keep on going and coming back to that. Yeah, I agree. I think that makes sense. And that's well said. And something just out of the ordinary, but like,
00:24:05
Speaker
something that's really cool about Keywords and it's just you know we had a party last night and I'm sitting around talking to our own employees and I'm learning what they do and it still just boggles my mind all the stuff that we did it's like a learning experience for me I was talking to people from FQA that's functional QA testing and
00:24:20
Speaker
It's just such a cool experience. So anyone that is out there eventually looking for their next career, everything is at keywords. We can handle anything from a small little project of DLC to providing customer support. And I think just what I love being there is just curiosity kills the cat. You're just so curious about what everyone does and how they do it. It's just mind boggling. And I give you credit for keeping that spirit alive, that entrepreneurial spirit, where people do get excited about being able to do work.
00:24:45
Speaker
And that's what he mentioned always all about. It's like, I like the way you're ready when you talk about that. It's like, we can all be a bit more the kids side in us and being curious about it, curious about technology, curious about the games, curious about the dynamics, clear the games themselves. Here's about what others around us at GDC are also doing. We don't have to have all the answers ourselves. So there is really an illusion of partnership here as well to do that. And you're right, I wanted to make a vlog for my colleagues in
00:25:08
Speaker
In FQA, in LQA, not as well. We have about more than 5,000 colleges around the world doing an amazing job every day. At the end of the day, they are the unsung hero of the games. If those games are make or break, depending on the quality of it, they are the guardian of that. Using technology, using the smarts, using the experiences, finding the fun for those.
00:25:27
Speaker
And one thing I'm really proud of is when we did done most together with the 13,000 key wordings, is when I see some of our best and brightest would maybe start in QA and then aggressively ramp up actually and level up for the career and all of a sudden decide to use it as a springboard to go into war.
00:25:45
Speaker
maybe engineering or into other areas of the business. I can see some friends around here who are studio heads, who are really, really good at that. That's one of my biggest pleasures as well. Through that curiosity, to do career moves, we always try that the time will just show three or four would just embody that. So if you are a party, if you are curious, I think the world
00:26:07
Speaker
So usually in the middle of the podcast, which we're way past, I like to do like this fire around where I'm going to ask you very basic questions. Can I ask you these quick questions? Sure. All right. Normally, not now, because we're at GDC, what do you eat for breakfast? Cereals and foods. What, if you were to go to a bar, what drink are you ordering?
00:26:25
Speaker
who Martini would be if I'm really in a festival move, I guess. Otherwise, probably they'd go. Just before coming here, I've made 11 on VR. I know, obviously, the most mainstream, but big kind of it. I think the realism of it is absolutely incredible.
00:26:48
Speaker
That was a book I read. I'm reading a fiction book from Adam Covent right now, which is a bit sticky, but it will happen to me. And last question, what is the best tennis open? And you can't say French open. I feel like there's going to be a cop-out. I live in the UK, so I go for Wimbledon. All right. Wimbledon. Awesome. I have one last question for you, Bertrand. I know you're busy and you got a lot going on. This question I like to ask people is what keeps you up in height?
00:27:16
Speaker
Astley, well, unfortunately, they did three kids, super happy, they did eight.
00:27:22
Speaker
13, 12, 9. I often think people are looking for what troubles you, but actually I'm at a happy place right now. It feels like a happy mechanism like that. If I had to pick one thing that would be on fire, gets me really, really going and excited and pumped, it's how do we build a platform for the industry. So how do we, I'm proud of our mission statement at Keywords. It's like if we do our job right, thanks to us, but we're just scared to think about creating the games, creating new experiences very differently. They can have a spot that they can rely on.
00:27:51
Speaker
Not just in old sources at arm's length, it can be really even farther from the get-go. It can have impact on the business model, on the infrastructure, on the creative tools that they can bring to imagine more to dream bigger. They can count on us to invest in technology to be able to take some of the loads up as well.
Closing Remarks and Future Prospects
00:28:06
Speaker
That's what keeps me up at night. It's the short term, but I have a great team who is running that day-to-day.
00:28:10
Speaker
I think you're getting back to the entrepreneurial spirit, but fundamentally it's like there's such an opportunity to be much more integrated, to be special. How do we make sure that we don't miss that window to be able to do that? I cannot think of a better time for that. This has been an honor and a privilege, and thank you so much for cutting out a little bit of your time today to come talk to me and our audience. Before you do leave for the rest of the day, is there anything you want to share?
00:28:34
Speaker
It's great that you did that at GDC. It's good to get the energy and the buzz around us as well. So I'll keep exploring a little bit. Perfect. Bertrand, thank you so much for joining us today. We'll have information about T-Words, about Bertrand on our Player Engaged website. So come check it out. And we'll send you more clips on GDC. So stay tuned. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.