June 25, 2025 • 31 mins
Scopely's senior vice president of publishing Eric Wood breaks down how the mobile gaming company has reached staggering success with "Monopoly Go" and plans for new acquisition "Pokemon Go."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast feature and conversations
with industry leaders about.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The business of media and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm Jennifer Moz, Variety's senior business writer, TV and video games. Today,
my guest is Eric Wood, senior vice president of publishing
at mobile game giant scope Lee. Founding in twenty eleven,
Scopeley has already proven itself to be a major player
within the mobile gaming industry, but in May, the company
drew more eyes than ever when its worldwide hit Monopoly
(00:35):
Go became the fastest mobile game industry to surpass five
million dollars in lifetime revenue, doing so in just twenty
four months. Additionally, scop Lee recently closed the Nantic deal,
which brings another big hit into its full Pokemon Go,
among other games. Here to speak about the success that
Scopoly has experienced and where it's going in the future
(00:55):
within the larger mobile gaming industry is Eric Wood, Senior
vice president of publishing at scope Lay.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All right, well, thank you so much for joining me today, Eric,
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You're welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Of course, Well, we're going to go into you specifically
and all the inner workings at Scope Lay. But really
I just like to start off with one huge congratulations
on the five billion dollars in lifetime revenue that milestone
from Monopoly Go. That's truly a staggering number in twenty
four months. So I'd like to start there because that
(01:41):
was announced in May. That's a very recent milestone for
you all, and I just like to get an idea
first foremost what you think that means for scoply in general,
but also for the larger a larger mobile gaming industry
that hitting that milestone.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No thanks, I mean we've we're not only happy, but
phil incredibly blessed and fortunate. You know, we have a
to have a game that not only has reached that
major milestone, which is fantastic. But for us, I think
what's more important than the financial metric is it shows
us and tells us that, you know, players and consumers
(02:16):
are loving the game, right, they're loving it. They're they're
not only giving it, they're not only sort of giving
us there and in contributing their you know, their money
to the game, but more importantly, they're contributing their time. Right.
I think that's the thing that's most important to us,
Like we want to build experiences for consumers and for
fans that completely resonate with them and for them. They
have so many considerations. I would say, you know, when
(02:40):
you think about all the things that are coming at
them day after day, moment of the moment, whether it
be streaming to podcasts, what have you, which are all amazing,
but they give us just a little slice of their
time every day. And so with that we we are
so appreciative and grateful for.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Those who might not be familiar, which probably isn't as
because of that staggering five billion number. Can you give
a little overview of exactly what Monopoly Go is and
how you will have kind of incorporated partnerships and collaborations
that keep people coming back to the game.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, I would say, so Monopoly Go has really been
I would say a. I'll use the term labor of
love right for the team, and so I'll speak Hopeles.
It's okay, I'll speak on behalf of the team right
now when I say that the development team, and that
you know they were in development that project for many
many years because they were trying to find you know,
(03:36):
the fun. They were trying to find something that was
not just a game. There's lots of games that launch,
you know, every day, and all kinds of different platforms,
but it's like, what can resident really resonate, right, Like
what can appeal to to consumers that know and love
the Monopoly brand but also more importantly they feel like
they can come back to on a daily basis. And
so this game was in development for many, many years.
(03:56):
They had several design iterations within the game, but they
ultimately said, on an experience that is not your traditional
Monopoly experience, and kudos to Hasbro. Hasbro was very willing
to go on that journey with us. You know. You know,
sometimes we understand as an owner of a brand, you know,
(04:16):
especially a very large brand that's known around the world
and has been around for as long as this man
has excuse me, sometimes you know, you will have very
specific and strict rules when it comes to that brand, right,
and how consumers think about it and how they engage
with it. And of course has has that there are
some you know, hard and steadfast rules that you you know,
(04:39):
that mister Monopoly should never do or you know, things
like that, which makes sense. But they were very open
to go with us on the journey of figuring out,
like what new experiences we could bring to a Monopoly
game in the market. That sure leverages some of the
things that fans know and love about the brand, but
maybe you wouldn't expect when it comes to a mobile game.
(05:00):
So apologies, I think things like the fact that you
know you can go and attack a friend in the game.
From a digital acy perspective is it's not what you
do in physical Monopoly, meaning you play against each other competitively. Sorry,
(05:20):
apologies you, that's something coming through. You play against people competitively,
for sure, but this concept of you actually attack someone
and go after their actual landmarks, it creates this sort
of like it's a different game pattern, but it still
leans into the things that people love about Monopoly. Meaning
if I land on Park Avenue, you own Park Avenue,
you know, you have to pay me rent and then
(05:42):
I'm kind of upset about it because I have to
pay you money. You get you know, you get agitated
or irritating in the game. We just did it in
a much different way, And I would say, like I said,
Hasbro was fantastic to work for, and I think that's
really what resonated with fans. So when we launched the game.
Of course people saw it's like, oh it's Monopoly, like
people I love, let me, let me check it out.
But I think what's kept them around is the fact
(06:03):
that we really were creative and imaginative when it comes
to what you experience when you actually play Monopoly in
this form.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I'll say one thing, you know, Like as a family,
Monopoly is a very tense game for my group. It
normally needs to get put away before we even finish it.
But Monopoly good. Yes, we love it and you forget
and then you play. But Monopoly Go does have that
(06:33):
quality where I feel like I can do it every day,
and it doesn't. It's still that fury with would be.
But there's also so many promotions that you all do,
so many in game events and partnerships like that, and
I want to know, you know how those really come about.
You talked about, you know, things mister Monopoly would never do.
So thinking through what this brand is, who is a
(06:54):
good fit to partner with, and what makes sense for
you all.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, I think first and foremost when we think about brand,
let's say collaborations, right, which is what this is, because
this is not we already have a game in the
market where there is a brand that, you know, in
this case, Monopoly and mister Monopoly that's in it, and
then we start to think about does it make sense
to bring you know, a third party, let's just say it,
(07:18):
you know, in that way into this experience it, I think,
first and foremost it has to be authentic, right, like,
would it makes sense, Like sure you could. You could
do lots of different mashups of like just some amazing
brands you know in the marketplace, which people will be
go like, oh that's interesting, it's recognizable, but when they
show up, you want to make sure that it feels
(07:38):
authentic to both brands. And I think one of the
unique things that we have when it comes to Monopoly
is that mont Hasbro and Monopoly on the physical game
board side has a long history, right working with their
pretty brands many many different ones from Star Wars to
Friends to too many of the name right where they
(08:00):
actually have really sort of intermingled these sort of two
worlds together in a very authentic way. And so you know,
when we were thinking about the game, it wasn't something
that when we built the game, when we launched the game,
where we're like, oh, we're going to do you know
other through party ip collaborations. That was never the plan.
As the team was thinking about the roadmap for the game,
(08:20):
we were thinking about a lot of different angles, and
the marketing team was obviously thinking about things that we
could do, and what came up was what's authentic to
the brand? And that's when we're like, well, let's look
at what people think of when they think of physical
and they're like, what would make sense in our world?
And that's when sort of third party brands you know,
came about and we're like and we talked to Hasro
about it and they were like, yeah, actually we never
(08:40):
thought about that. That actually is super cool. Once again,
you're leaning into the fandom, right, the sort of history,
the ethos of the brand itself, and so that was
first and foremost we needed to make sure it felt
authentic to the actual the brand right itself. And then
the second thing is our marketing team, our community teams.
Be's a lot of time with the players and doing
(09:03):
constant sort of or having constant conversations with them about
where they like in the game, where they don't like
in the game, whichould they change, lots of feedback, which
we love feedback from our players, but specifically asking about
what would you like and one of the things you
because you gotta be careful about how you introduce or
talk to community because you don't want to kind of
tip your hat. But we were talking about just sort
of third party brands and what they resonate with and
(09:25):
that kind of stuff, and it was clear that the
fans of this game were excited about the idea of
us potentially partnering with different brands, and so we did
a lot of research, a lot of sort of consumer
insights work, and that's sort of how we got to
the place where we started to think about, okay, what
would be the you know, sort of first brands that
we would actually work with, and for us, you know,
we knew it would have to be globally recognizable brands,
(09:48):
you know, brands that once again resonate with I think
the Monopoly franchise right and have a history, and that's
obviously how we we landed in places like the first
collaboration last year was with with Marvel, which we actually executed,
which was fantastic. The Marvel team was amazing to work with.
I will say when we went to them and said,
what do you think about Monopoly Go. They were like
(10:12):
really like they were like one of those like it
never was obvious to them of us doing that, and
kudos to them once again. They were very open and
they're like, well, what would that even look like? And
we're like, here's how we think about honoring both brands,
and they're like, that's amazing. Uh, and you know, and
well we've done since then. The next one that we
did is Star Wars, which is now live in the game,
(10:32):
and I would say the fans have been responding so
positive to positively to that integration. They've done an amazing
They've they've you know, when it comes to their actual
engagement in the game, but also just what we hear
in social and through community channels, like they're all kind
of trying to anticipate what element or aspect of Star
(10:52):
Wars is going to show up next in the game itself,
which to us is that's rewarding because that means they're
enjoying it. They're loving it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Now I've taken a step back here. You know, obviously
Monopoly Go is a huge one ferial, It's probably what
you're best known for at the moment, but looking at
Scopoly as a whole if you can, you kind of
give an over here what you guys do when you
came on the scene and what else do you have
to offer?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, specifically you're asking about IP collaborations.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
No scope, Lee just in general as a company.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh, got it. Yes, I would say there's really a
couple of things that are really important to us, right
as a company. Obviously, we're the number one mobile game
company in the world today.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You talked about some of the actual major milestones that
we've had over the last couple of years, which is fantastic.
But I think the thing that for us is incredibly
important is that we want to make sure that we're
designing games that are blending narrative, you know, social mechanics
that make sense for different games, and then at the
end of the day, doing that for bloff print or
(11:52):
fan bases, right, and whether that's in working with other
IP partners. We have a long history right of working
with IP partners, right, everything from Hasro Mattel to Disney
to WWE to it feels kind of like you name it,
we've kind of have worked with them. And it doesn't
mean that we work with everyone, but we really kind
(12:12):
of try to figure out like, where are there extremely
passionate fans and consumers that love right in IP And
we figure out, like, Okay, how do we actually bring
what's important to us in great game making? Right has
great creative and then really bring those two things together
and marry them. I say that's one, and that's that's
you know, of utmost important to us. And then the
(12:35):
other thing is, you know, how do we actually do
that in a forever franchise sort of like manner, meaning
we're not looking to just build games and to build
games that like have a lifespan of three years or
four years. Our goal is like we want this game
to be around and not just around, but in consumers
lives for ten plus years. That is like the utmost
(12:56):
important to us. And we take a lot of pride
in that and and we were really committed to actually
doing that for fans on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I'd love to know about your background specifically, and then
if you can speak to you know what your role
as seen your vice president publishing at Scope looks like
on a day to day basis, what is your purview?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Sure exactly, I have no problem. So I have been
in the digital entertainment space, I would say for the
last twenty plus years. Started early in my career at
EA and worked at EA. I had the pleasure of
working at Disney for a period of time, and then
moved into the free to play gaming space with Zinga
back when Zinga was early days on Facebook. Think of
(13:38):
games like Farmville and Cityville, which was amazing when you
think about the move to free to play. I then
had a short departure where I left and went to
Nikate working in the digital and direct consumer space, and
then saw my way back the games that was missing
it and have spent now the last five and a
half years split between Activision Blizzard. In the last two
and a half years here at Scopoly.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
From and then as far as my role and what
I'm responsible responsible for here at Scope Lee one, my
team works with all of our distribution relationships on a
day to day basis, so from everyone from Xbox, PlayStation, Steam,
you name it when it comes to distribution or contents.
I also lead our director consumer sort of operations for
the company, but also I'm responsible for everything we do
(14:24):
from a business development perspective, so obviously working with IP
partners on a day to day basis. Is one of
the main priorities that I am my team focus on.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
As we've already mentioned a couple of times here, scope
ly is a giant in the mobile gaming industry, but
you all got even bigger with the Pokemon Go and
Nantech acquisition here, So I'd like to talk about that
and you know how you will see that in positioning
yourselves even further as a leader within the mobile gaming
industry and what you plan to do with that brand
moving forward.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, I look weird so excited about the being part
of the team. Obviously that brings part of that acquisition.
It brings a global, you know phenomenon when you think
about Pokemon Go. When think about when that game watched
in twenty sixteen, like it was everywhere and it still is.
It's a massive game. But it brings that game as
(15:15):
well as other great games to our portfolio, which is fantastic.
But those games attract today over one hundred million unique players, right,
That's that's an incredible privilege for us to bring that
into the portfolio and how we actually help serve them
on a daily basis. They have today over thirty million
(15:35):
in AU When you think about scale, and even just
looking at their business last year, it's been over a
billion dollars in revenue. Like so like when we talk
about some of the you know, success, I would say
that Scope Plays had recently, which is amazing. Then we're
pairing that the opportunity to pair that with another amazing
company that has some amazing franchises. It's like like, in
(15:56):
some ways it kind of pinch ourselves and say, I
can't believe that we actually get to partner together. The
other thing I would say is that's I think it's
why it's a great such a great fit is that
we focus on as a company. One of the things
we focus on as a company is player engagement, meaning
like how much how often do players play in the game,
and how often do they come back? Like not sure,
(16:17):
we're a business, and so revenue is obviously things that
have that keeps the lights on, but really if players
are giving us their time, right, that's the most important thing.
And when we look at Pokemon Go, I mean they
spend on average forty minutes in the game on a
daily basis. That is pretty phenomenal. And so once again
the idea of them coming into the into the mix
and being part of our portfolio is amazing and our
(16:40):
hope is that we we're going to be here to
support them, you know, help give them all the resource
or all the help that they can actually ever need
to hope they continue to notly you know, you know,
make fans appreciate the game, but hopefully grow that game
even more. So we're credibly excited about that.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We'll be backed more from Scopely after this break. When
you look at, you know, the the overall gaming industry
at the moment, you know, there's a lot that it's
gone through just in the past couple of years. There
was a pandemic boom, then there were changes, there was
a lot of stuff, and no one's really been immune
(17:17):
to that. But one thing I want to focus on
here is just the mobile gaming industry and the amount
of growth and the amount that that really takes up
within overall gaming. And I feel like that goes unnoticed
every now and then because we look at Splashy, Triple A,
we look at big titles, we look at big players,
and forget how much of the overall gaming is made
(17:38):
up by mobile. So I want to get kind of
your take, especially on a potential stigma there for what
mobile gaming is, because I know I'll talk to like
my parents when they're like, I'm talking about games with
them and they're like, oh, I don't game, and I'm like, okay,
the games you're playing on your phone those are games, guys.
And they're like, oh, okay, well then in that case, yes,
I'm a gamer. So I'd like to get your take
(18:00):
on that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Look, I have similar story with my mom. I remember
years ago where she was we were talking about the
industry and she did she was like, I don't really understand.
She goes, I'm not a gamer, and I lily said, well,
open up your phone. What do you have on your phone?
And it was one of those and I can't remember
what she had, but she had a casual game on
her phone. I'm like, you are a Gamer's like, no,
i'm not. And I'm like, you are a gamer. I'm like,
why do you think that? She goes and she has
(18:23):
the stigma and that sort of like idea of like
a gamer looks like this and plays in this way.
You know, plays in front of a big screen, right,
plays on a console, plays on a PC, which, look,
those are amazing mediums to deliver amazing stories and franchises.
Like I there are some amazing games that I personally
(18:43):
my kids play on a on a constant basis. When
it comes to like Triple A, I would say, the
thing that makes mobile so unique, and specifically from a
gaming perspective is thinks are obvious, but it's on a
device that's in your pocket all day every day. It's accessible.
Everyone has it. Like while console on a PC is
amazing because it's amazing piece of hardware that can deliver
(19:05):
some fantastic experiences, it does have, you know, a barrier,
right when not everyone can actually afford it from a
pricing perspective, or just maybe they don't have like the
space or what have you. A phone is everyone has one.
It's democratized, right, And the fact that we can actually
leverage that piece of hardware and that device to actually
bring amazing experiences to consumers is it's amazing. Right. So
(19:29):
that sort of solves like the distribution scale problem when
you think about mobile. And then another thing that I
think makes mobile very unique is that you know, we
are focused on building amazing experiences. I would say sometimes
Triple A, they're amazing games, but they're very much focused
on the visual quality, right, which is great, I think
(19:52):
what mobile and we deliver great visual quality, but we
over index on I think is really are we making
sure that we engage the player? Like, what do the
behavior patterns that we see? Do players like this experience?
Does that actually motivate them to come back and give
us more time and play you know tomorrow? Well? And
so we have this, We're constantly iterating and testing different
(20:13):
concepts and ideas, and the goal for us is just like,
how are once again going to my twitarlier point, how
are consumers showing us that they love something with their time?
And I think that's the unique thing that mobile provides
us that maybe Triple A just does not. It's scale
right in democratization of actually access to the consumer. And two,
I would say that the patterns of play patterns for
(20:34):
consumers on mobile, or if it's my mom, your mom,
they're not expecting a Triple A sort of like experience
it needs to look and feel this way. They're much
more open to, you know, sort of what a game
will look like. And I think mobile game developers have
really leaned into that in a way and said, Okay,
a game doesn't have to look just like this, which
I think has allowed us to really sort of open
(20:55):
up play patterns.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
One thing that I know can be a little bit
of a barrier to people who want to get into
mobile gaming is saying, like there's a million micro transactions.
I feel like I'm going to spend a lot of
money playing this game in order to enjoy the game
or to beat the game or whatever. So I'd like
to know how you all, let scopely look at handling
that what you give for free versus what's paywalled, and
then also kind of a sub question about how you
(21:18):
handle that when it comes to like younger players as well,
because I know there's people who are like, I can't
let me hip play this game. I don't know what
they're going to.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Spend on it. So yeah, yeah, I would say when
it comes to your first question, I would say, we
have a philosophy that anything you can pay for in
the game, you should also be able to earn it,
meaning you know, I mean, we're not going to block
you from progress only through payments, right, Like that's that's
a choice that a consumer makes, Like it's almost like
a you know, a value for money or time for money,
(21:47):
sort of like exchange right, Like, our view is that
it shouldn't be the sort of pay to win sort
of model. It's to be one that's really should be
enjoyable to everyone. If you decide that, you're like, listen,
I want to I want to be the best. I
want to top the leader boards, and I want to
be there first. I got want to do that first. Like,
that's my that's my goal. You're a maximizer, Fine, then
(22:09):
we'll give them the mechanisms to do that. That's their choice.
But if for someone who is like to your point,
like I will never pay. I mean, my mom's that way.
She's like, I will never pay. I think she actually has,
but she will tell me that, but I will never pay. Fine,
you should still have a great pleasurable experience. So I
think that's how we think about it. One is not
better than the other. It's choice, right from a consumer perspective.
(22:31):
And then apologies. Your second question was well again, oh.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Talking about younger players and how you have to handle that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, I would say first or foremost, if there's
a game that we think, uh and or we see
that is potentially resonating with kids, we take that very serious.
And so typically we're always implementing some type of age game, right.
I'll be honest, Like, if you think of my Monopoly Go,
we didn't think the target audience at all was going
(22:58):
to be kids. And not that we have a lot
of kids playing a game. I'm not saying we do,
but when you look at the data early on, we
saw that there was actually some younger, you know, kids
that were playing and we're like, oh geez, wow, And
we responded to it very quickly, said, okay, we need
to implement an age game right to make sure that
we are not surfacing certain features in the game that
would not be appropriate to someone of a certain age.
(23:19):
So we take it very serious. We want to make
sure that we are, you know, doing what's right by
the player based upon their age.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Going back to partnerships, talking about a different title from Monopolygo.
This episode of the podcast will come out just around
the Jurassic World release, and I know you guys have
a big partnership coming up with Stumble guys, so i'd
like to, you know, go into that a little bit,
how that came about and another reason why you feel
like that partnership is a good fit for the Scope
Lee brand.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, So excited to announce that we're collaborating with Universal
Products and Experiences and part of their digital team on
a Drastic World experience that's going to be coming to
stumble Guys next month. That's awesome, super excited about it.
We've been working with that team for for quite some
time now. The cool thing about it is it's going
(24:11):
to be timed with the release of the new film
that's in the franchise, which is going to be Drastic
World Rebirth. Super excited about that film film. I've been
seeing a lot of the trailers. I definitely will go
see with my kids, and that collaboration is going to
basically be aligned with the launch of the movie, and
we're going to The idea is that how we bring
that experience to life for players and for consumers within
(24:34):
the world of Stumble Guys. So we think it's going
to be amazing. It's obviously going to give us ability
to night a global audience that exists in Stumble Guys.
You bring the iconic sort of Drastic World cinematic storytelling adventure,
you know, drama. Like the idea that how we bring
that all to life. We're super excited. We think we
(24:55):
think the team is done on our side in partnership
with the Universal team, an amazing job of doing. I
mean that in a way that once again it's going
to feel authentic and of the time when you think
about the universe or the Jurassic Park franchise.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Asking just in general the mobile gaming space, you know
what scopely looks at in terms of continuing to own
that area when there are constantly others getting into that game.
Netflix is making a big push for that right now.
They have a lot of really strong IP but there's
only so much time that people have in a day,
and there's already so many titles. So I want to
(25:32):
know how you keep coming at people coming back to
Monopoly Go, keep coming people coming. And then also when
you look at developing new games, the ROI in that
are you really looking at you know, we already have
this good slate, let's invest in this, let's invest in
Pokemon Go that we now have, or do you look
to create new titles?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, when it comes to your first question about how
we bring them back daily, Look, I think this is
a combination and really a tight combination of partship between
both the game team constantly thinking about what's important to
the game that we think is going to be interesting
and fun and exciting, unique, right, inspiring for players. But
couple that with the marketing team and the community team
(26:13):
constantly talking to the actual player base. Now, it doesn't
mean we do everything the players tell us, because obviously
not everything makes sense, but I would say there's a
great marriage between the two of how we bring those
insights in from the consumers and from the players into
the product team. The product team's constantly thinking about, you know,
different inspiration that they get, not only from other games.
I think that's something that games have done many many years,
(26:36):
Like how do I take inspiration from either a game
that's in the market now or a game that's it
was in the market ten years ago that I loved
as a child? Right? Are there elements of those games
or mechanics in those games that I can bring forward
in this game, but maybe reimagine in a new way.
And then how do you couple that once again with
insights Like that's that's something that's constantly going on, and
we're I would say, always testing a b testing new
(27:00):
features and functionality for players to see what resonates. I
think that's also one of the things that is very
unique to mobile games versus Triple A is that we
have this ability to constantly and it's in our DNA
to kind of test and iterate versus like say, this
is what it is and that's what we're bringing the market.
You know, if we think something's great and we go
test it with like you know, basic consumers are like, eh,
(27:23):
it's not really resonating. It's like, okay, we go back
to the drawing board, right, and we get their feedback.
So that's definitely I would say a big priority for us.
And then on the second question again, what was it
that again? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, it's looking at the ROI for existing franchises versus
developing a new game. You know, if I go explore
a new game created by Scope Play, that's the less
time I'm playing on Monopoly Go kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, I think we look we continue to build forever franchises.
That's our big priority, right And that's why obviously the
the Niantic acquisition with Pokemon Go and there are other
franchise like Monster Hunter makes such a makes such made
so much sense. We are always thinking about new opportunities. Now,
(28:07):
it's not about we need to launch X number of
games per year. That's definitely not the priority for us.
It's more about, do we think there's a unique idea
and opportunity that a creative team on our side is
excited about that we think fills a need a void
right from a consumer perspective, from a genre perspective. And
do we have the right team, the studio team, the
(28:30):
right development team that actually we feel like do an
amazing job and bringing that to market. And so those
two things are incredibly important for us, even if it's
in a space that you could say is like maybe crowded, right,
because there's other gains in the space. If we have
a conviction around it, because we think we've come up
a really unique sort of angle and an idea that
a creative team is excited about, that we've sort of
(28:51):
validated with consumers. And then we have a team that
not just can build a game, but let's say I'm
making it up, it's like an RPG, right, Let's say genre,
what does that team have credibility? Do they have a
history of building great RPG games that fans love. When
we sort of bring those two things together, that's when
we know, like, okay, that makes sense for us to
(29:11):
invest in that project moving forward. Like I said, it's
not about having a specific slate where we have a
specific number of titles that we were launching every year,
because once again, our job is to really grow the
existing franchises we have. So for us, when we think
about any new project, it's really an opportunity cost right,
So we need to have really strong conviction that we
(29:31):
think that that project has a big opportunity to actually
really resonate with fans.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, those are all my questions for you today, Eric,
I just didn't know if there's anything else. Maybe you
feel like our listeners would want to know about you
all at this time, or something in particular we didn't
get to.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, look, I think I think we want our fans
and consumers to know that we appreciate everything that they
do when it comes to giving us their time and attention.
We think it's fantastic, and you know, we just can't
wait to deliver some amazing new experiences to consumers. We
have some new things in the works, and obviously stuff
that we can talk about now we'll see when it's written.
But you know, we have more stuff that's coming and
(30:09):
we're super excited about what that's gonna what that's gonna
look like, and so look, obviously for anyone that's interested,
just follow along, you know, follow us on LinkedIn, follow
us on scopey dot com, and you'll you'll get more
updates on everything that's coming.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
All right, we'll talk when you can talk about that.
We'll talk when Monopoly gocrosses ten billion in revenue. So
thank you for your time today, Eric sounds good, Take.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Care, Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a
review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to
hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and
sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and
don't forget to tune in next week for another episode
(30:54):
of Strictly Business
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast feature and conversations
with industry leaders about.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The business of media and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm Jennifer Moz, Variety's senior business writer, TV and video games. Today,
my guest is Eric Wood, senior vice president of publishing
at mobile game giant scope Lee. Founding in twenty eleven,
Scopeley has already proven itself to be a major player
within the mobile gaming industry, but in May, the company
drew more eyes than ever when its worldwide hit Monopoly
(00:35):
Go became the fastest mobile game industry to surpass five
million dollars in lifetime revenue, doing so in just twenty
four months. Additionally, scop Lee recently closed the Nantic deal,
which brings another big hit into its full Pokemon Go,
among other games. Here to speak about the success that
Scopoly has experienced and where it's going in the future
(00:55):
within the larger mobile gaming industry is Eric Wood, Senior
vice president of publishing at scope Lay.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All right, well, thank you so much for joining me today, Eric,
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You're welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Of course, Well, we're going to go into you specifically
and all the inner workings at Scope Lay. But really
I just like to start off with one huge congratulations
on the five billion dollars in lifetime revenue that milestone
from Monopoly Go. That's truly a staggering number in twenty
four months. So I'd like to start there because that
(01:41):
was announced in May. That's a very recent milestone for
you all, and I just like to get an idea
first foremost what you think that means for scoply in general,
but also for the larger a larger mobile gaming industry
that hitting that milestone.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No thanks, I mean we've we're not only happy, but
phil incredibly blessed and fortunate. You know, we have a
to have a game that not only has reached that
major milestone, which is fantastic. But for us, I think
what's more important than the financial metric is it shows
us and tells us that, you know, players and consumers
(02:16):
are loving the game, right, they're loving it. They're they're
not only giving it, they're not only sort of giving
us there and in contributing their you know, their money
to the game, but more importantly, they're contributing their time. Right.
I think that's the thing that's most important to us,
Like we want to build experiences for consumers and for
fans that completely resonate with them and for them. They
have so many considerations. I would say, you know, when
(02:40):
you think about all the things that are coming at
them day after day, moment of the moment, whether it
be streaming to podcasts, what have you, which are all amazing,
but they give us just a little slice of their
time every day. And so with that we we are
so appreciative and grateful for.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Those who might not be familiar, which probably isn't as
because of that staggering five billion number. Can you give
a little overview of exactly what Monopoly Go is and
how you will have kind of incorporated partnerships and collaborations
that keep people coming back to the game.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, I would say, so Monopoly Go has really been
I would say a. I'll use the term labor of
love right for the team, and so I'll speak Hopeles.
It's okay, I'll speak on behalf of the team right
now when I say that the development team, and that
you know they were in development that project for many
many years because they were trying to find you know,
(03:36):
the fun. They were trying to find something that was
not just a game. There's lots of games that launch,
you know, every day, and all kinds of different platforms,
but it's like, what can resident really resonate, right, Like
what can appeal to to consumers that know and love
the Monopoly brand but also more importantly they feel like
they can come back to on a daily basis. And
so this game was in development for many, many years.
(03:56):
They had several design iterations within the game, but they
ultimately said, on an experience that is not your traditional
Monopoly experience, and kudos to Hasbro. Hasbro was very willing
to go on that journey with us. You know. You know,
sometimes we understand as an owner of a brand, you know,
(04:16):
especially a very large brand that's known around the world
and has been around for as long as this man
has excuse me, sometimes you know, you will have very
specific and strict rules when it comes to that brand, right,
and how consumers think about it and how they engage
with it. And of course has has that there are
some you know, hard and steadfast rules that you you know,
(04:39):
that mister Monopoly should never do or you know, things
like that, which makes sense. But they were very open
to go with us on the journey of figuring out,
like what new experiences we could bring to a Monopoly
game in the market. That sure leverages some of the
things that fans know and love about the brand, but
maybe you wouldn't expect when it comes to a mobile game.
(05:00):
So apologies, I think things like the fact that you
know you can go and attack a friend in the game.
From a digital acy perspective is it's not what you
do in physical Monopoly, meaning you play against each other competitively. Sorry,
(05:20):
apologies you, that's something coming through. You play against people competitively,
for sure, but this concept of you actually attack someone
and go after their actual landmarks, it creates this sort
of like it's a different game pattern, but it still
leans into the things that people love about Monopoly. Meaning
if I land on Park Avenue, you own Park Avenue,
you know, you have to pay me rent and then
(05:42):
I'm kind of upset about it because I have to
pay you money. You get you know, you get agitated
or irritating in the game. We just did it in
a much different way, And I would say, like I said,
Hasbro was fantastic to work for, and I think that's
really what resonated with fans. So when we launched the game.
Of course people saw it's like, oh it's Monopoly, like
people I love, let me, let me check it out.
But I think what's kept them around is the fact
(06:03):
that we really were creative and imaginative when it comes
to what you experience when you actually play Monopoly in
this form.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I'll say one thing, you know, Like as a family,
Monopoly is a very tense game for my group. It
normally needs to get put away before we even finish it.
But Monopoly good. Yes, we love it and you forget
and then you play. But Monopoly Go does have that
(06:33):
quality where I feel like I can do it every day,
and it doesn't. It's still that fury with would be.
But there's also so many promotions that you all do,
so many in game events and partnerships like that, and
I want to know, you know how those really come about.
You talked about, you know, things mister Monopoly would never do.
So thinking through what this brand is, who is a
(06:54):
good fit to partner with, and what makes sense for
you all.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, I think first and foremost when we think about brand,
let's say collaborations, right, which is what this is, because
this is not we already have a game in the
market where there is a brand that, you know, in
this case, Monopoly and mister Monopoly that's in it, and
then we start to think about does it make sense
to bring you know, a third party, let's just say it,
(07:18):
you know, in that way into this experience it, I think,
first and foremost it has to be authentic, right, like,
would it makes sense, Like sure you could. You could
do lots of different mashups of like just some amazing
brands you know in the marketplace, which people will be
go like, oh that's interesting, it's recognizable, but when they
show up, you want to make sure that it feels
(07:38):
authentic to both brands. And I think one of the
unique things that we have when it comes to Monopoly
is that mont Hasbro and Monopoly on the physical game
board side has a long history, right working with their
pretty brands many many different ones from Star Wars to
Friends to too many of the name right where they
(08:00):
actually have really sort of intermingled these sort of two
worlds together in a very authentic way. And so you know,
when we were thinking about the game, it wasn't something
that when we built the game, when we launched the game,
where we're like, oh, we're going to do you know
other through party ip collaborations. That was never the plan.
As the team was thinking about the roadmap for the game,
(08:20):
we were thinking about a lot of different angles, and
the marketing team was obviously thinking about things that we
could do, and what came up was what's authentic to
the brand? And that's when we're like, well, let's look
at what people think of when they think of physical
and they're like, what would make sense in our world?
And that's when sort of third party brands you know,
came about and we're like and we talked to Hasro
about it and they were like, yeah, actually we never
(08:40):
thought about that. That actually is super cool. Once again,
you're leaning into the fandom, right, the sort of history,
the ethos of the brand itself, and so that was
first and foremost we needed to make sure it felt
authentic to the actual the brand right itself. And then
the second thing is our marketing team, our community teams.
Be's a lot of time with the players and doing
(09:03):
constant sort of or having constant conversations with them about
where they like in the game, where they don't like
in the game, whichould they change, lots of feedback, which
we love feedback from our players, but specifically asking about
what would you like and one of the things you
because you gotta be careful about how you introduce or
talk to community because you don't want to kind of
tip your hat. But we were talking about just sort
of third party brands and what they resonate with and
(09:25):
that kind of stuff, and it was clear that the
fans of this game were excited about the idea of
us potentially partnering with different brands, and so we did
a lot of research, a lot of sort of consumer
insights work, and that's sort of how we got to
the place where we started to think about, okay, what
would be the you know, sort of first brands that
we would actually work with, and for us, you know,
we knew it would have to be globally recognizable brands,
(09:48):
you know, brands that once again resonate with I think
the Monopoly franchise right and have a history, and that's
obviously how we we landed in places like the first
collaboration last year was with with Marvel, which we actually executed,
which was fantastic. The Marvel team was amazing to work with.
I will say when we went to them and said,
what do you think about Monopoly Go. They were like
(10:12):
really like they were like one of those like it
never was obvious to them of us doing that, and
kudos to them once again. They were very open and
they're like, well, what would that even look like? And
we're like, here's how we think about honoring both brands,
and they're like, that's amazing. Uh, and you know, and
well we've done since then. The next one that we
did is Star Wars, which is now live in the game,
(10:32):
and I would say the fans have been responding so
positive to positively to that integration. They've done an amazing
They've they've you know, when it comes to their actual
engagement in the game, but also just what we hear
in social and through community channels, like they're all kind
of trying to anticipate what element or aspect of Star
(10:52):
Wars is going to show up next in the game itself,
which to us is that's rewarding because that means they're
enjoying it. They're loving it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Now I've taken a step back here. You know, obviously
Monopoly Go is a huge one ferial, It's probably what
you're best known for at the moment, but looking at
Scopoly as a whole if you can, you kind of
give an over here what you guys do when you
came on the scene and what else do you have
to offer?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, specifically you're asking about IP collaborations.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
No scope, Lee just in general as a company.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh, got it. Yes, I would say there's really a
couple of things that are really important to us, right
as a company. Obviously, we're the number one mobile game
company in the world today.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You talked about some of the actual major milestones that
we've had over the last couple of years, which is fantastic.
But I think the thing that for us is incredibly
important is that we want to make sure that we're
designing games that are blending narrative, you know, social mechanics
that make sense for different games, and then at the
end of the day, doing that for bloff print or
(11:52):
fan bases, right, and whether that's in working with other
IP partners. We have a long history right of working
with IP partners, right, everything from Hasro Mattel to Disney
to WWE to it feels kind of like you name it,
we've kind of have worked with them. And it doesn't
mean that we work with everyone, but we really kind
(12:12):
of try to figure out like, where are there extremely
passionate fans and consumers that love right in IP And
we figure out, like, Okay, how do we actually bring
what's important to us in great game making? Right has
great creative and then really bring those two things together
and marry them. I say that's one, and that's that's
you know, of utmost important to us. And then the
(12:35):
other thing is, you know, how do we actually do
that in a forever franchise sort of like manner, meaning
we're not looking to just build games and to build
games that like have a lifespan of three years or
four years. Our goal is like we want this game
to be around and not just around, but in consumers
lives for ten plus years. That is like the utmost
(12:56):
important to us. And we take a lot of pride
in that and and we were really committed to actually
doing that for fans on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I'd love to know about your background specifically, and then
if you can speak to you know what your role
as seen your vice president publishing at Scope looks like
on a day to day basis, what is your purview?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Sure exactly, I have no problem. So I have been
in the digital entertainment space, I would say for the
last twenty plus years. Started early in my career at
EA and worked at EA. I had the pleasure of
working at Disney for a period of time, and then
moved into the free to play gaming space with Zinga
back when Zinga was early days on Facebook. Think of
(13:38):
games like Farmville and Cityville, which was amazing when you
think about the move to free to play. I then
had a short departure where I left and went to
Nikate working in the digital and direct consumer space, and
then saw my way back the games that was missing
it and have spent now the last five and a
half years split between Activision Blizzard. In the last two
and a half years here at Scopoly.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
From and then as far as my role and what
I'm responsible responsible for here at Scope Lee one, my
team works with all of our distribution relationships on a
day to day basis, so from everyone from Xbox, PlayStation, Steam,
you name it when it comes to distribution or contents.
I also lead our director consumer sort of operations for
the company, but also I'm responsible for everything we do
(14:24):
from a business development perspective, so obviously working with IP
partners on a day to day basis. Is one of
the main priorities that I am my team focus on.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
As we've already mentioned a couple of times here, scope
ly is a giant in the mobile gaming industry, but
you all got even bigger with the Pokemon Go and
Nantech acquisition here, So I'd like to talk about that
and you know how you will see that in positioning
yourselves even further as a leader within the mobile gaming
industry and what you plan to do with that brand
moving forward.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, I look weird so excited about the being part
of the team. Obviously that brings part of that acquisition.
It brings a global, you know phenomenon when you think
about Pokemon Go. When think about when that game watched
in twenty sixteen, like it was everywhere and it still is.
It's a massive game. But it brings that game as
(15:15):
well as other great games to our portfolio, which is fantastic.
But those games attract today over one hundred million unique players, right,
That's that's an incredible privilege for us to bring that
into the portfolio and how we actually help serve them
on a daily basis. They have today over thirty million
(15:35):
in AU When you think about scale, and even just
looking at their business last year, it's been over a
billion dollars in revenue. Like so like when we talk
about some of the you know, success, I would say
that Scope Plays had recently, which is amazing. Then we're
pairing that the opportunity to pair that with another amazing
company that has some amazing franchises. It's like like, in
(15:56):
some ways it kind of pinch ourselves and say, I
can't believe that we actually get to partner together. The
other thing I would say is that's I think it's
why it's a great such a great fit is that
we focus on as a company. One of the things
we focus on as a company is player engagement, meaning
like how much how often do players play in the game,
and how often do they come back? Like not sure,
(16:17):
we're a business, and so revenue is obviously things that
have that keeps the lights on, but really if players
are giving us their time, right, that's the most important thing.
And when we look at Pokemon Go, I mean they
spend on average forty minutes in the game on a
daily basis. That is pretty phenomenal. And so once again
the idea of them coming into the into the mix
and being part of our portfolio is amazing and our
(16:40):
hope is that we we're going to be here to
support them, you know, help give them all the resource
or all the help that they can actually ever need
to hope they continue to notly you know, you know,
make fans appreciate the game, but hopefully grow that game
even more. So we're credibly excited about that.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We'll be backed more from Scopely after this break. When
you look at, you know, the the overall gaming industry
at the moment, you know, there's a lot that it's
gone through just in the past couple of years. There
was a pandemic boom, then there were changes, there was
a lot of stuff, and no one's really been immune
(17:17):
to that. But one thing I want to focus on
here is just the mobile gaming industry and the amount
of growth and the amount that that really takes up
within overall gaming. And I feel like that goes unnoticed
every now and then because we look at Splashy, Triple A,
we look at big titles, we look at big players,
and forget how much of the overall gaming is made
(17:38):
up by mobile. So I want to get kind of
your take, especially on a potential stigma there for what
mobile gaming is, because I know I'll talk to like
my parents when they're like, I'm talking about games with
them and they're like, oh, I don't game, and I'm like, okay,
the games you're playing on your phone those are games, guys.
And they're like, oh, okay, well then in that case, yes,
I'm a gamer. So I'd like to get your take
(18:00):
on that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Look, I have similar story with my mom. I remember
years ago where she was we were talking about the
industry and she did she was like, I don't really understand.
She goes, I'm not a gamer, and I lily said, well,
open up your phone. What do you have on your phone?
And it was one of those and I can't remember
what she had, but she had a casual game on
her phone. I'm like, you are a Gamer's like, no,
i'm not. And I'm like, you are a gamer. I'm like,
why do you think that? She goes and she has
(18:23):
the stigma and that sort of like idea of like
a gamer looks like this and plays in this way.
You know, plays in front of a big screen, right,
plays on a console, plays on a PC, which, look,
those are amazing mediums to deliver amazing stories and franchises.
Like I there are some amazing games that I personally
(18:43):
my kids play on a on a constant basis. When
it comes to like Triple A, I would say, the
thing that makes mobile so unique, and specifically from a
gaming perspective is thinks are obvious, but it's on a
device that's in your pocket all day every day. It's accessible.
Everyone has it. Like while console on a PC is
amazing because it's amazing piece of hardware that can deliver
(19:05):
some fantastic experiences, it does have, you know, a barrier,
right when not everyone can actually afford it from a
pricing perspective, or just maybe they don't have like the
space or what have you. A phone is everyone has one.
It's democratized, right, And the fact that we can actually
leverage that piece of hardware and that device to actually
bring amazing experiences to consumers is it's amazing. Right. So
(19:29):
that sort of solves like the distribution scale problem when
you think about mobile. And then another thing that I
think makes mobile very unique is that you know, we
are focused on building amazing experiences. I would say sometimes
Triple A, they're amazing games, but they're very much focused
on the visual quality, right, which is great, I think
(19:52):
what mobile and we deliver great visual quality, but we
over index on I think is really are we making
sure that we engage the player? Like, what do the
behavior patterns that we see? Do players like this experience?
Does that actually motivate them to come back and give
us more time and play you know tomorrow? Well? And
so we have this, We're constantly iterating and testing different
(20:13):
concepts and ideas, and the goal for us is just like,
how are once again going to my twitarlier point, how
are consumers showing us that they love something with their time?
And I think that's the unique thing that mobile provides
us that maybe Triple A just does not. It's scale
right in democratization of actually access to the consumer. And two,
I would say that the patterns of play patterns for
(20:34):
consumers on mobile, or if it's my mom, your mom,
they're not expecting a Triple A sort of like experience
it needs to look and feel this way. They're much
more open to, you know, sort of what a game
will look like. And I think mobile game developers have
really leaned into that in a way and said, Okay,
a game doesn't have to look just like this, which
I think has allowed us to really sort of open
(20:55):
up play patterns.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
One thing that I know can be a little bit
of a barrier to people who want to get into
mobile gaming is saying, like there's a million micro transactions.
I feel like I'm going to spend a lot of
money playing this game in order to enjoy the game
or to beat the game or whatever. So I'd like
to know how you all, let scopely look at handling
that what you give for free versus what's paywalled, and
then also kind of a sub question about how you
(21:18):
handle that when it comes to like younger players as well,
because I know there's people who are like, I can't
let me hip play this game. I don't know what
they're going to.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Spend on it. So yeah, yeah, I would say when
it comes to your first question, I would say, we
have a philosophy that anything you can pay for in
the game, you should also be able to earn it,
meaning you know, I mean, we're not going to block
you from progress only through payments, right, Like that's that's
a choice that a consumer makes, Like it's almost like
a you know, a value for money or time for money,
(21:47):
sort of like exchange right, Like, our view is that
it shouldn't be the sort of pay to win sort
of model. It's to be one that's really should be
enjoyable to everyone. If you decide that, you're like, listen,
I want to I want to be the best. I
want to top the leader boards, and I want to
be there first. I got want to do that first. Like,
that's my that's my goal. You're a maximizer, Fine, then
(22:09):
we'll give them the mechanisms to do that. That's their choice.
But if for someone who is like to your point,
like I will never pay. I mean, my mom's that way.
She's like, I will never pay. I think she actually has,
but she will tell me that, but I will never pay. Fine,
you should still have a great pleasurable experience. So I
think that's how we think about it. One is not
better than the other. It's choice, right from a consumer perspective.
(22:31):
And then apologies. Your second question was well again, oh.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Talking about younger players and how you have to handle that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, I would say first or foremost, if there's
a game that we think, uh and or we see
that is potentially resonating with kids, we take that very serious.
And so typically we're always implementing some type of age game, right.
I'll be honest, Like, if you think of my Monopoly Go,
we didn't think the target audience at all was going
(22:58):
to be kids. And not that we have a lot
of kids playing a game. I'm not saying we do,
but when you look at the data early on, we
saw that there was actually some younger, you know, kids
that were playing and we're like, oh geez, wow, And
we responded to it very quickly, said, okay, we need
to implement an age game right to make sure that
we are not surfacing certain features in the game that
would not be appropriate to someone of a certain age.
(23:19):
So we take it very serious. We want to make
sure that we are, you know, doing what's right by
the player based upon their age.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Going back to partnerships, talking about a different title from Monopolygo.
This episode of the podcast will come out just around
the Jurassic World release, and I know you guys have
a big partnership coming up with Stumble guys, so i'd
like to, you know, go into that a little bit,
how that came about and another reason why you feel
like that partnership is a good fit for the Scope
Lee brand.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, So excited to announce that we're collaborating with Universal
Products and Experiences and part of their digital team on
a Drastic World experience that's going to be coming to
stumble Guys next month. That's awesome, super excited about it.
We've been working with that team for for quite some
time now. The cool thing about it is it's going
(24:11):
to be timed with the release of the new film
that's in the franchise, which is going to be Drastic
World Rebirth. Super excited about that film film. I've been
seeing a lot of the trailers. I definitely will go
see with my kids, and that collaboration is going to
basically be aligned with the launch of the movie, and
we're going to The idea is that how we bring
that experience to life for players and for consumers within
(24:34):
the world of Stumble Guys. So we think it's going
to be amazing. It's obviously going to give us ability
to night a global audience that exists in Stumble Guys.
You bring the iconic sort of Drastic World cinematic storytelling adventure,
you know, drama. Like the idea that how we bring
that all to life. We're super excited. We think we
(24:55):
think the team is done on our side in partnership
with the Universal team, an amazing job of doing. I
mean that in a way that once again it's going
to feel authentic and of the time when you think
about the universe or the Jurassic Park franchise.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Asking just in general the mobile gaming space, you know
what scopely looks at in terms of continuing to own
that area when there are constantly others getting into that game.
Netflix is making a big push for that right now.
They have a lot of really strong IP but there's
only so much time that people have in a day,
and there's already so many titles. So I want to
(25:32):
know how you keep coming at people coming back to
Monopoly Go, keep coming people coming. And then also when
you look at developing new games, the ROI in that
are you really looking at you know, we already have
this good slate, let's invest in this, let's invest in
Pokemon Go that we now have, or do you look
to create new titles?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, when it comes to your first question about how
we bring them back daily, Look, I think this is
a combination and really a tight combination of partship between
both the game team constantly thinking about what's important to
the game that we think is going to be interesting
and fun and exciting, unique, right, inspiring for players. But
couple that with the marketing team and the community team
(26:13):
constantly talking to the actual player base. Now, it doesn't
mean we do everything the players tell us, because obviously
not everything makes sense, but I would say there's a
great marriage between the two of how we bring those
insights in from the consumers and from the players into
the product team. The product team's constantly thinking about, you know,
different inspiration that they get, not only from other games.
I think that's something that games have done many many years,
(26:36):
Like how do I take inspiration from either a game
that's in the market now or a game that's it
was in the market ten years ago that I loved
as a child? Right? Are there elements of those games
or mechanics in those games that I can bring forward
in this game, but maybe reimagine in a new way.
And then how do you couple that once again with
insights Like that's that's something that's constantly going on, and
we're I would say, always testing a b testing new
(27:00):
features and functionality for players to see what resonates. I
think that's also one of the things that is very
unique to mobile games versus Triple A is that we
have this ability to constantly and it's in our DNA
to kind of test and iterate versus like say, this
is what it is and that's what we're bringing the market.
You know, if we think something's great and we go
test it with like you know, basic consumers are like, eh,
(27:23):
it's not really resonating. It's like, okay, we go back
to the drawing board, right, and we get their feedback.
So that's definitely I would say a big priority for us.
And then on the second question again, what was it
that again? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, it's looking at the ROI for existing franchises versus
developing a new game. You know, if I go explore
a new game created by Scope Play, that's the less
time I'm playing on Monopoly Go kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, I think we look we continue to build forever franchises.
That's our big priority, right And that's why obviously the
the Niantic acquisition with Pokemon Go and there are other
franchise like Monster Hunter makes such a makes such made
so much sense. We are always thinking about new opportunities. Now,
(28:07):
it's not about we need to launch X number of
games per year. That's definitely not the priority for us.
It's more about, do we think there's a unique idea
and opportunity that a creative team on our side is
excited about that we think fills a need a void
right from a consumer perspective, from a genre perspective. And
do we have the right team, the studio team, the
(28:30):
right development team that actually we feel like do an
amazing job and bringing that to market. And so those
two things are incredibly important for us, even if it's
in a space that you could say is like maybe crowded, right,
because there's other gains in the space. If we have
a conviction around it, because we think we've come up
a really unique sort of angle and an idea that
a creative team is excited about, that we've sort of
(28:51):
validated with consumers. And then we have a team that
not just can build a game, but let's say I'm
making it up, it's like an RPG, right, Let's say genre,
what does that team have credibility? Do they have a
history of building great RPG games that fans love. When
we sort of bring those two things together, that's when
we know, like, okay, that makes sense for us to
(29:11):
invest in that project moving forward. Like I said, it's
not about having a specific slate where we have a
specific number of titles that we were launching every year,
because once again, our job is to really grow the
existing franchises we have. So for us, when we think
about any new project, it's really an opportunity cost right,
So we need to have really strong conviction that we
(29:31):
think that that project has a big opportunity to actually
really resonate with fans.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, those are all my questions for you today, Eric,
I just didn't know if there's anything else. Maybe you
feel like our listeners would want to know about you
all at this time, or something in particular we didn't
get to.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, look, I think I think we want our fans
and consumers to know that we appreciate everything that they
do when it comes to giving us their time and attention.
We think it's fantastic, and you know, we just can't
wait to deliver some amazing new experiences to consumers. We
have some new things in the works, and obviously stuff
that we can talk about now we'll see when it's written.
But you know, we have more stuff that's coming and
(30:09):
we're super excited about what that's gonna what that's gonna
look like, and so look, obviously for anyone that's interested,
just follow along, you know, follow us on LinkedIn, follow
us on scopey dot com, and you'll you'll get more
updates on everything that's coming.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
All right, we'll talk when you can talk about that.
We'll talk when Monopoly gocrosses ten billion in revenue. So
thank you for your time today, Eric sounds good, Take.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Care, Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a
review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to
hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and
sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and
don't forget to tune in next week for another episode
(30:54):
of Strictly Business
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