April 1, 2020 • 35 mins
In this episode of the Mobile GameDev Playbook, we take a look into the challenges faced by game developers when working with licensed IP. With a specific focus on design and feature consideration, we also discuss how licenses have affected mobile game sales in different countries, such as the US and China.
Host Jon Jordan is joined by regular guest, GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen along with special guests Rosemarie Sarno and Stephen Wark, Community specialist and Lead Game Designer at mobile developer Ludia. Ludia has published several titles around well-known IP including Jurassic Park, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dungeons & Dragons. Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the mobile game dev playbook.
This podcast is brought to youin association with game
refinery.
Join us as we uncover the latesttrends in mobile game design.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello and welcome to the mobile game dev playbook
podcast.
Thanks for tuning in for anotherepisode.
I'm your host Jon Jordan and I'mjoined as ever by Joel young
Cunnane who's VP of games atgame refinery.
Ella Joel has it going.
Hi John.
I'm great.
Great to be here again.
Good.
So just remind people, uh, themobile game, Dave playbook, uh,
provides insights into whatmakes a great mobile game and
(00:36):
what trends mobile gamedesigners should be thinking
about.
And in today's episode inparticular, we are discussing
the challenges of working withlicensed IP.
I'm specifically looking at thedesign and feature
considerations that have to betaken into account.
And we have two expert guestsjoining us to talk about that.
And we have a Rosemary Sanowho's a community specialist and
we have Steven walk who is abrand manager at a Canadian
(00:59):
developer Ludia games, which hasextensive experience of working
on high profile licenses rangingfrom how to train your dragon
drastic park, Jurassic world,teenage mutant Ninja turtles,
Dungeons and dragons and many,many more.
So thanks everyone for, uh,coming to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you for having us again.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Good.
So to kick us off, it's going toset the scene.
Um, Joel is going to give us akind of a, a kind of a broad
kind of overview, particularlooking at kind of the, the top
games, um, in different globalmarketplaces and how kind of IP,
how important IPS is to thoseand the kind of variations
they're in.
So Joel, I do want to take, takeit away.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, thanks.
Thanks John.
Yeah, so IPS are a big thing in,in mobile.
Uh, it doesn't matter if you'rein the U S or in Japan or China.
It seems that the, a number ofother share of games utilizing
third party IPS is on the rise.
Um, in the U S at the moment, ifyou look at top grossing 200 or
even 100 games, it's roughly onequarter of all of those games,
(01:57):
no matter the genre areutilizing third-party IBS and,
and TV and movies, movie brands,uh, sports brands, consumer
brands, you name it, the U S andother Western market have it.
I don't know if you go to Chinaand Japan and the number of
games utilizing the bus IPSactually rises.
So it's about half of the games[inaudible] 200 crossing.
(02:18):
Um, if you go to Japan, you bemost likely running into games
based on certain animal mangaseries.
And in China it's mostly aboutPC and console IPS, which mainly
PCI piece in China, which isquite, quite interesting.
Um, so that's, that's, that'sum, it seems that uh, a mobile
(02:38):
game market is really lovingthose brands and uh, the trend
is upwards as we speak.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (02:45):
cool.
Good.
Thanks.
Um, I guess, uh, kind ofRosemary and, uh, and see if you
guys, you know, running these,these big brands, I mean, I
guess they're Western brands.
Do you see any difference inkind of global, um, kind of
uptake or interest?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
It's been really interesting, uh, working on, um,
on, uh, Dungeons and dragons andseeing how, uh, how the
different territories aresurprisingly active in it.
Um, I would have thought, uh,initially when I started this
project a few years ago that itwould been focused mostly on,
you know, the English speakingworld, but it really does have
branches, uh, all the way, uh,across the globe.
(03:22):
So, uh, that's been reallyinteresting too.
That's been really interestingto see.
Uh, people love dragons.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
The thing about dragons, uh, yes.
So for our game as well, uh,for, I work mostly on how to
train your dragons, uh, IPS, um,with Dreamworks.
So we do see that it's really,it's a worldwide thing
considering that these are bigblockbuster movies as well.
Uh, people are super passionateabout just the characters
(03:50):
themselves.
So when it comes to the game,it's kind of a no brainer for
them.
It also, we have a lot on ourshoulders to do a good job at
making the game, but you know, agame like rice of Burke that's
been around for so many yearsand is still doing well, uh, and
players are just so passionateabout it.
I see that firsthand on oursocial pages and uh, I just love
(04:12):
hearing from them get takingpart in the Reddits and stuff.
So it really helps in keeping italive and for sure the brand is
a big part of that.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm kind of a say another kind of trend thing we
should probably consider beforewe kind of go deep into this.
This is some, some genres seemto work better, um, kind of some
kind of mobile games, genres andkind of IP seem to work better
together.
Do you want to kind of unpickthat at a high level for us as
well, just to kind of give a, anoverview of how you see that
kind of playing out acrossdifferent genres?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah.
We, again refinery, we study alot of games of course, and we
(04:47):
also study the features and thegenres of the games.
And as we track IPS anddifferent type of a brand brand
categories, we've noticed thatcertain genres are much more
kind of well aligned withutilizing third-party IPS.
Just to give you an example, um,many of the top RPG games,
location-based games or anygames, genres that fat rely on,
(05:10):
on metal layers of collectingcharacters or or, or that kind
of stuff, those usually are muchmore synergetic with IPS.
Uh, then for instance, uh,mastery games, which are much
more about the core games,swiping tiles and blasting,
dusting balloons.
So it's, it's very clear that ifyou are thinking about utilizing
the IP and kind of thinkingabout the gospel or spending
(05:32):
benefits, they are showing thegenres that are much, much more
energetic.
And that of course then realstone to features.
So when you decide to go with anIP, uh, you want to make sure
that your games features that, asupport that the IP, I can again
use the same example for usinglike a RPG RBG or games, um,
(05:54):
combined together with let's sayMarvel IP or star Wars IP for
example.
Makes that make sense.
Really good, good combination.
Um, but then on the other hand,I said certain games, uh,
features that are not as welladjusted to get most out of the
IP.
So for example, if you're doing,let's say casual star Wars
(06:14):
Metree game, it doesn't say, itdoes mean that the star Wars IP
will hurt your game per se.
But as the game is more focusedon the features that is more
focused on the core gameexperience, uh, and not, let's
say character collection or, or,uh, that kind of stuff by Beck
backstory.
So rich lore, um, the benefitsmight not be as as big.
(06:34):
So that's kind of on a higherlevel.
And of course then there stillhave to be combined the dim
player demographics or justdiabetes and all that.
But, uh, that's, that's reallyinteresting.
And, um, that's kind of where wenoticed that, uh, you might want
you think about those elementsas well when playing around with
IPS.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Good.
So, and I guess the other thingwe, um, kind of IP over the,
over the years has become muchbroader.
So as opposed to, you know, wewere, you know, maybe 10 years
ago talking much more about kindof licensing, um, kind of
external kind of, um, propertiesfrom, from the, from the game
space, bringing in films and,and other kinds of prophecies.
And whereas now we have thisother kind of thing which is
(07:13):
bringing kind of console gamesto mobile, which isn't, I guess,
not just IP, um, in that sensethat it is a game already, but
there's a kind of, uh, aninteresting kind of reimagining
the whole IP space is in factvery, um, got much deeper, I
think, much more kind ofsophisticated in how you, how
you, um, kind of chop it up,which I guess he's, yeah, yeah,
sure, sure.
Exactly.
Under, uh, if you, as Imentioned before, I compete with
(07:33):
U S T U S a and the brand types,and I'd be typed in that been
used in the top games forexample.
It's really kind of diverse.
You have your, you have your TV,movie, branch, have your
constant product, dance brands,sports brands, uh, novel brands,
celebrities,
Speaker 3 (07:47):
brands, and of course, like you mentioned some
PC and console games.
And I think the PC console, um,IPS are coming over, uh, our two
more bottle, uh, even strongerin the, in the upcoming years.
And, uh, of course, um, in Chinafor example, as I mentioned
before, uh, PC brands are thebiggest browser IPS used in, in
mobile, uh, or hub of all theIPS.
(08:11):
Uh, using top grade top games inChina are from PC, like for
example, uh, uh,[inaudible] andon a perfect world crossfire and
so on and so forth.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Um, so, uh, Rosemary and Steven, so from the Ludia
point of view, I mean, you guys,as far as I know of the company
has always been involved withIP.
Um, you know, that's kind ofbeen your kind of DNA, is that
correct?
Is that what has been the kindof the, the way you've, you've
approached the, the gamesmarket?
Oh, uh, absolutely.
I've been at Ludia for, um, uh,for 10 years and, uh, we've
always worked on, uh, uh, IPSlike that.
(08:44):
I mean, we started off with thetelevision game shows, uh, like,
uh, like the prices right?
And adapting those into, uh,into PC games and then, uh,
variations as the otherplatforms up and
Speaker 5 (08:56):
now working with, uh, with big IP brands.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And when mobile started out, that was kind of,
you know, mobile games, youknow, got big and absolutes,
clinical Lords.
So that was seen as quite, um, Imean, Oh, maybe I'll just the
wrong word, but it was kind of,there's kind of a lot of
creative, um, you know, kind of,uh, creativity going on with
these, any developers coming upwith this kind of crazy stuff.
We could do this, they do thesethings on mobile devices for the
first time and, and for, youknow, Canadian company to come
(09:23):
out and do and do these kind ofbig, uh, you know, TV IP to
begin with.
And then moving up.
He was, I think, seen as, as alittle bit at least different.
Obviously it's been successfulfor you because you've grown to
a fairly substantial company.
And, um, but it's kindainteresting that there's not so
many people have taken thatroute.
I mean, people willtraditionally mobile people kind
of have a go.
Um, we put up, I mentioned thatthere's a few big games coming
out at the moment, whichinvolves kind of IP and, but the
(09:45):
company is not set up aroundthat.
So do you think kind of come theway you, the company set up is
different because of the type ofgames you make and how you think
about new projects and how youthink about operating in live
ops?
That sorta stuff.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I think that's an interesting way of, uh, of, of
looking at it from a, from adesign perspective.
I mean we're looking at, uh,what are, uh, the familiar
things that people really enjoyin terms of media and in terms
of gameplay to terms offamiliarity and try to find ways
for them to bring thatexperience, uh, with them on the
go no matter what that is.
If they really like, um, youknow, Battlestar Galactica, we
(10:23):
had the Battlestar Galacticagame for awhile.
If you really like teenagemutant Ninja turtles, here's a
way that you can play in thatworld.
Uh, same thing for Dungeons anddragons or if you really like
the, um, the prices, right?
That was, uh, how we gotstarted.
We looked at things that peoplealready liked and uh, you know,
honestly given their longevity,loved and um, and found ways to
(10:46):
surprise the players with, um,with those twists that mobile
makes possible.
Speaker 8 (10:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And I guess kind of Rosemary from a community
standpoint, that's kind of thatkind of balance between the kind
of the rich kind of law andcharacters you have in an
available in IB and what thecommunity, what you to do with
them and what the lesson sawallowed you to do them.
It's an interesting creativetension, let's put it that way.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Oh yeah.
Cause we see it a lot on thepages as well.
Like players will chime in andthey will correct you if
something is wrong.
Absolutely.
So we do try to take it to heartand we are all people working on
those games, whether it'sJurassic or how to train your
dragon, really get into theworld to learn to then produce
these games.
It's, it's something that takesa lot of time and dedication.
(11:33):
Um, and you get really tied tothe games you work on.
You, you see like you walkthrough our, our office and you,
you really feel like these arepeople who enjoy what they're
doing, um, and are passionateabout it just as much as the
players.
Uh, on the front line.
I get to actually see that and Iget to feel the tension when,
(11:53):
you know, certain things are notaccurate.
Um, but it rarely ever happens.
Um, and uh, one thing that youwere mentioning before about
bringing the lore into the gameand trying to choose a proper
features that are stillrepresenting the world that
we're giving to players in ourmobile games, uh, for one is
something that's challenging ina way because we're trying to
(12:14):
stay true to what let's say forhow to train your dragon to the
book that then got turned into amovie trying to represent all
the dragons while creating newones.
Uh, in our newest game, dragontighten up rising, we have
hybrids.
So this is a whole process ofapprovals that we go through
with Dreamworks and our artistswho create these dragons.
(12:35):
And, uh, yeah, it's just coolwork for the people working on
the project and just thepassionate players and people
who follow these movies for 10years.
Just love to see it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
That's a really interesting point because
particularly if you have, youknow, um, games based around
specific movies rather than kindof kind of, I guess deeper
universities, but specificmovies you kind of want to be,
you know, you need to be closeenough to what was going on in
the movie.
Cause people who watched themovie, you kind of, they want
some of that.
But equally if you're going torun something for, for many
years, then also you need to, Imean the game in a sense is, is
(13:07):
the, becomes the livingembodiment of that IP rather
than it being like a thirdparty.
I'd be, I mean the game is, ithas much more, you know, going
on, cause it has to, cause I'llsee films, Jenny lost two hours
and there's only so much I canput it in and even says
backstory it game again going onfor years and years and years is
almost, you become the creative,um, kind of holders of, of, of
that kind of vision to somedegree.
I mean, honestly, you're not thelicense, but, but you're kind of
(13:28):
doing the work that, you know,thousands, maybe millions people
are playing.
You're on.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Yeah.
I think, I think Steven, you hadquite a challenge with that in D
and D such as like an expandeduniverse.
So like taking, trying to figureout what should we bring into
the game.
Uh, I don't work on D and D, butStephen, a hats off to you.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
It, uh, it was, it was a huge challenge to figure
out what kind of characters, forexample, to put into the world.
Like what was the, we had hugebrainstorming sessions at the
start of the warriors of water Dproject to figure out what, what
were the iconic monsters of, um,of Dungeons and dragons.
What were the elements that wereally needed to have in the
game, uh, for it to beconsidered an authentic game.
(14:13):
Something that, you know,matches all the other different
ways that people experience, youknow, the brand of Dungeons and
dragons.
And so where did we, where didwe fit in with that?
And that was not only just aboutcontent, but also about, uh,
game play mechanics themselves.
What would you expect to see?
You'd expect to cast a lot offireballs and, and, uh, have a
lot of exploration in and, uh,even rule a lot of dice, even
(14:36):
though it's on a mobile, on amobile game, we had to find
those, those familiar elementsthat people might've been
reminded of.
Uh, when they watched, uh, otherpeople play or saw, you know,
those stranger things, uh,references and went, Oh yeah,
that's what D and D is like,what, what are elements them, I
don't know, the popular culturecould we put in, uh, to have, um
(14:56):
, have an authentic, uh,gameplay and brand experience
that was still fun.
You know, in and of itself.
It didn't, it's not entirelynostalgia dependent, but is,
could get somebody interested inthe brand in that sense that we
were talking about of, um,being, you know, also a, a big
pro, the game being a bigproponent of the, of the, of the
(15:16):
brand.
Um, but also, um, uh, have themhave fun just for, uh, just for
the quality of the game itself.
So there were a lot of, a lot ofdiscussions in, there were a lot
of, a lot of listening.
It had to happen with thecommunity to have to figure out
what kinds of things people werelooking for.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Hmm.
Cause I guess the other thing weusing a brand is, is you want
you, I guess when you choosebrands, maybe this will be a, a
future question, but yeah, howdo you, how do you choose
brands?
But you want to choose brandobviously have broad appeal.
Um, but equally the broader theappeal, then say someone like me
who's who I did play, the what,the one of your, one of your
train your dragon games.
Or they will have totally thewrong target audience and never
(15:56):
saw the films.
Um, so for me the kind of thelaw didn't matter because I
didn't know the game, but youknow, you've just as something
that I'll download that and thensee what it's like.
So you have this kind ofactually quite a broad spectrum
of audience.
Then you put it if a game, ifyou choose the right brand, you
have a very kind of newbieaudience.
You don't know it apart frommaybe the name.
And then you have people who arelike really into it.
And that's again, anotherdifficult balance in this, I
(16:17):
guess.
I don't know if that's wheresome IP games based on might be
kind of go wrong.
They go to too newbie and thenthe fans don't like it or they
go too fat too hardcore and thenit's a great game for the 20
people who play it.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Yeah.
Well one thing that Ludia doesreally well is try to manage
expectations.
And so a lot of games, we'll seehow it works and then add
features as we go on.
We'll listen to the audience,get the feedback and see, okay,
gilts, we should OD gilts tothis.
And it works with the IP.
It works with the game andstructure and how it is.
(16:54):
Um, so like now a JWA, which isa geo-location game, uh, has,
uh, gilts.
Uh, so does D and D, so doesdrag and tighten uprising.
It just really helps bring thecommunity together.
It's a lot of discussions aroundcreating clans, uh, getting
groups of people playing.
Um, it helps with, uh, keepingpeople engaged as well.
(17:17):
Uh, and it, it fits with the IPS, uh, with the dinosaurs, with
the dragons and with the D andD.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Hmm.
Joel, coming back to the kind ofa, a more kind of kind of trend
level I guess because the kindof IP licensing kind of goes in
cycles.
So I guess where we had a fewyears ago when we had this kind
of star Wars reboot, we had likejust tons and tons of style or
star Wars games.
And I guess, you know, we've hada lot of game of Thrones games.
Um, what's your kind of kind ofview that, that when you see
multiple kinds of games allwatching roughly at the same
(17:44):
time and maybe having an RPG andin a, in a, maybe a match three
in a, in a, in a, in a strategygame, all based on the same IP.
And I guess at the moment wehave it with Marvel.
I mean the whole Marvel universeis, that's the point of it.
So I think, um, do you thinkthat that that's, that's a good
thing.
Will, you know, do you thinkdevelopers get a bit sucked into
like, Oh, I'm doing a Marvelgame and they kind of forget
that there's like another 25mobile games also out there at
(18:06):
the same time?
Probably only one's going to besuccessful.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, I think that's it.
That's it really, really well.
It points.
Uh, of course I will, I like totake the day, look at the data
and look at the games utilizingIPS.
I always say that even with thebest IP, it doesn't replace any
mistakes you make in the gamedesigner.
So, so even if you had thehottest brand, let's say after
infinity war you had the MarvelBryan up your hands and you
(18:29):
making, making game, um, thekeys.
So of course, as I said before,you understand how the IP fits
your genre, how the IP featurefeature sets and how the ho the
IP feature play demographics.
So, even with the most powerfulbrand, if you don't understand,
um, the, the kind of, uh,features that you should have in
your genre or, or the featuresthat you're a core audience is
(18:52):
going to love or, or expect fromthe game.
Um, this I best, I got a bigchance of, of, of not, not, not
kinda unleashing the fullpotential of your, of your
package.
Um, but then, um, when it comesto kind of oversaturation of,
for certain brands, uh, wehaven't yet seen any kind of
statistical data, uh, killingthat direction.
(19:14):
But what we have seen is that,um, people are all designers
taking branch that they thinkare, let's say, um, kind of home
medium or, or even very hot atthe moment.
And then, uh, kind of fat losingthe potential because they fail
to kind of understand the IP andgeography and feature fit.
(19:36):
So it's, it's, uh, it's not toomuch about players getting bored
of certain brand, but, but more,more about people and players.
Um, kind of, uh, being let downwhen, when they play the game
and it doesn't fit theirexpectations of the offer.
Maybe the IP for that, for thehardcore fans, uh, or then the
other game mechanics, uh,players expect.
(19:58):
So that's kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, you do, you do kind of end up, I mean, I'm sure
it's just just to kind of thejournalist in me kind of, but we
do kind of seem to go for these,these phases of having like
cursed IPS.
I mean, particularly the starWars one a few years ago, but
there were a lot of star Warsgames came out on only really,
um, galaxy of heroes was, wasthe one that made it.
And I guess we've had a fewattempts at different sorts of
Harry Potter games.
Um, I think all of which hadbeen kind of interesting and,
(20:20):
and you could say kind of welldesigned games, but certainly,
um, not all found, found theaudience and found maybe the
Harry audience had, had kind of,um, moved on potentially or that
know, I guess it's somethingelse to mention.
Um, Logan, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Oh, my snicker.
Um, well, uh, so I was reallylooking forward to the
geolocation game.
Uh, so, uh, you know, I playedit for a bit and I kind of
dropped off.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
Geo-locations games are very, um, not time
consuming, but you know, it's,it's, it's dedication.
It takes dedication.
So even a game like Pokemon go,you're relying on the nostalgia
factor, but you're also takinginto account like, okay, every
time I'm walking around I needto open my phone cause I need to
be catching certain things.
So how do you gain someone'sdedication?
Um, right.
(21:08):
And honestly, I haven't lookedat the stats after the first
month of it launching.
I'm not too sure how it's, uh,doing our JWA, uh, is still, is
still going strong.
So I am, I'm, I'm, I stillplaying, collect my dinosaurs as
for what it is, but I have kindof dropped off on the Harry
Potter one.
Uh, it didn't really run well onmy phone as well.
(21:30):
So there's a whole issue withdevices and GPS and there's a
lot to take into account.
It's just, it's, it's, uh,they're big games, you know?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Hmm.
Hmm.
And I guess, you know something,I was kind of, I mean I know how
much you can kind of say onthis, this sort of stuff.
Um, or do you want to say, butyou know, they're kind of the,
you know, the, the, the power inthis kind of scenario in talking
about sort of any kind of bigkind of movie, sort of that
external IP is, is the licenseor has kind of the power, cause
they get[inaudible] they'rerisking their IP a little bit,
but obviously they, they'regetting a cut of the revenue all
(22:02):
the time.
And um, and the business modelfor IP games, games based around
IP can be quite difficultbecause you're giving up, you
know, you're giving up your,your app store share and then
you potentially giving upanother, you know, however many
percent each of the, of yourkind of gross, uh, maybe on, on
to the license.
Also, you know, very sensiblefor Disney to decide.
It's not making games anymorethan license everything out.
Cause I, you know, obviouslydoing very well off that.
(22:24):
Um, but, but, um, you know, how,how, how does that kind of play
into your thinking that, youknow, you're getting a license,
you're getting kind of access tosomeone else's fan base, but,
but you are going to have to ina sense, yeah.
Go, these games have to be quitebig.
Um, um, and, and you know, you,you have to have all the, um, I
guess the process of dealingwith the license saw and you
(22:45):
can't just go, we're going toput in your character in the
next week.
You have it cause you have tothose turnaround times, I mean,
maybe some license was a quickerthan others, but maybe some have
a big whole process that he hasto go to another license or, and
then you can't, you know, it maytake a couple of months to put
new characters in.
Um, how, how does that impingeon your kind of flexibility to
do the things you wouldotherwise want to do in a mobile
game?
(23:06):
It's, uh, it's really hard to,uh, you know, to, to turn those
corners really quickly.
Right.
It requires a lot of planning.
Uh, you know, internally itrequires a lot of communication
with the, uh, with, uh, thelicenser to discuss the
different ways any, uh, the nextsteps, the next, uh, the next
updates can go because, uh,you're right, there's, there are
(23:29):
all kinds of, uh, all kinds ofapproval processes and, um,
every, every relationship isdifferent.
Some IP holders, um, hold'emkeep a much tighter oversight
over things.
Other ones, ones are a littlebit looser.
Once, you know, trust has beenestablished and you can,
Speaker 5 (23:46):
you don't need quite so many intermediate reviews of
a, like, say a charactercreation process or a
environment creation process.
Um, so that, that can make the a, that can make the Workday, you
know, more or less stressful asit, uh, as a company.
Because you, you, I'm working inthe games, you know, from, from
(24:09):
my perspective, you know, as adesigner, I'm very, uh, you
know, player focused.
I want the fans of the brand tobe happy and pleasantly
surprised all the time by what,um, what the implementation of
their, of their favorite brandis inside the game.
Uh, I also wanna, you know, turnnew players on to, uh, this cool
brand.
I think this is the part of thevirtuous cycle of, uh, of
(24:32):
licensed IP.
I think that's pretty cool.
Um, and then I want to make surethat, uh, all the business
objectives, uh, are met at thesame time.
This is the, uh, the other, uh,the other bit of tension, make
sure that everything, all, youknow, we hit the deadlines,
everything is nicely approvedand we're getting, we're
building up, uh, that, uh, thatgreat community that, uh, that
(24:52):
is always possible with, uh,with fans of a brand.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Kind of on the lookout for a of yours, kind of
think about new games that you'dwant to make, but you know, how,
how does that process go, youknow, do you come up with a game
or doing that and think, whatbrand would that appeal to or do
you go, we realized that there'sa couple of people, we really
love this brand and we were inthe company and we kind of
picked your game.
I guess it's, you know, put abit of both.
But, um, cause it's kind of a,is it interesting that, you
know, when we talk about brands,we maybe talk about the, you
know, the big, the Harry pottersand the star Wars and the game
(25:18):
of Thrones and which obviouslymassive, um, in, in their kind
of original kind of form.
Um, and honestly expense forthat as well.
But, but you, but you guys areworking with, you know, I mean
dressy[inaudible] was massive.
Um, but then some of the otherones that, you know, doesn't
have dragons is bigger as a butnot, it doesn't have that kind
of similar appeal I suppose.
And train your reg and w was, Iguess I don't know how you, how
you measure kind of kind of, um,the size of an IP, but I guess
(25:42):
we could say it's like a, like amid ranking IP and maybe mid
racking.
My P's are better cause you havea bit more flexibility.
They're not so expensive.
Um, that was a very prolongedquestion.
Uh, we have an outstandingbusiness development department.
Uh, the,
Speaker 5 (25:57):
the, the answer a lot of those questions, uh, uh, for
us, I don't know, sometimes,sometimes I'm just presented
with, uh, with the project we'regoing to make, uh, we're, we're
looking into making card gamesand we'd like, we, we have
these, these IPS available,which ones would you think would
be the best fit?
And I'm like, Oh, well, this isa really interesting list and
let's, you know, let's gothrough and let's see what's
(26:17):
possible and let's see what I,you know, as a designer, um, in
so far as I'm, you know, I'mwriting the pitch, what would I
like to do with the game genrethat's different, knowing what's
in the market and what bits Ithink might be, um, might be
missing or could be donedifferently, and then find it
where they match up to the, thekey experiences of the IP.
(26:40):
What, what are the keyexperiences of, um, of, uh, of
this brand?
I worked on, uh, on a card gamebased on the, uh, the underworld
franchise of movies, uh, thelast two specifically.
And, uh, that was a fun match tosee, you know, OK, there's a,
there's a vampire will versuswerewolf war going on.
Great.
I have a foundation now, how canI turn this into a, a card game
(27:03):
with the team?
And, uh, it's, it's, uh, that initself is a fun, uh, uh, game of
game design, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Joe, you've been talking, you know, can you kick
us off, talk about kind of theglobal, um, kind of, uh, kind
of, kind of view, and it seemedto be particularly kind of in
the West versus kind of some ofthe Asian, um, big Asian markets
that there's a kind of aglobalness also a localness.
Do you think that as, you know,more us kind of films get
launched in, in, in, in Chinaand, and you know, these are the
(27:37):
kind of IPS that we could beusing.
Are they becoming more, moreglobal?
Um, we still haven't seen anawful lot of say, kind of.
There's really big Japanese kindof, um, anime or manga brands.
I mean they appeal to the kindof hardcore, you know, guys in
the West, but they haven'treally, an I pocket one was the
obvious one.
But do we think that we're goingto get kind of more, more
global, these brands are goingto kind of get more global over
(27:58):
the next kind of, you know, fiveto 10 years.
So we'll be seeing more andmore, you know, I feel become
more and more important part of,of mobile games.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I will.
Well my bet is that, um, even atleast in David upcoming couple
of years, um, each region let'shave these major regions like
the use of the Western markets.
Japan and China will, will havetheir own kind of unique, unique
, um, IPS and brands work inthose specific regions.
Like for example, certain animeand manga manga high piece will
(28:27):
still be, uh, hot in Japan and,and rather unknown in, in the
West.
But there, there is, um, ofcourse some exchanged, uh, cross
borders.
Uh, just from top of my head,the newest, um, big brand Unimog
brand, a seven deadly sins is inour RPG game.
That's actually doing reallywell in, in, in the U S U S
(28:49):
charts.
Um, based on, based on thatJapanese animal, you can
actually watch this fromNetflix.
It's really, really well madegame, RPG timbers, RPG game.
Uh, I strongly suggest you checkit out.
So there is, this is the CS thatyou can see a couple of titles
based on based on regional IPS,uh, making it in, in other,
(29:11):
other regions as well.
But then of course, uh, um, Isaid like in China when you have
the IPS are based on their ownown on a PC, PCPs or even their
own folklore, like a journey tothe West store or romance of the
street in them.
So, so it will probably increasekind of cross cultural it change
.
But, uh, I still bet that, uh,even in[inaudible] let's say
(29:36):
five to 10 years, we will stillhave our own own, own, um, stay
Western, Western IPS.
We really, really, really aresuccessful.
And Hudson here and, and then ofcourse Korea market will have
their own and China, Japan throwin as well.
I'm not, at least in the broadspectrum, I would say.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm gonna guess.
It was interesting just thinkingabout the film thing with
[inaudible] with the parasitefilm winning, winning the Oscar
and I guess in general[inaudible] in general kind of
thing say the same, but you kindof have, if you pick the right
example of two, it'd be prettyhard to make a mobile game based
on parasite.
I mean obviously I'm sure she'llkeep an idea of how you do that,
but yeah, but that's not thefirst one.
That kind of appeals.
But you can kind of see how, howI think kind of stuff does break
through different cultures.
(30:14):
So you can imagine, you know,you can imagine.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And I've been, I've been, do youhave your kind of, uh, let's say
you had like a cable bands forexample, this PDs game, like a
kind of visual Nobel game ininterviews, pretty, pretty
successful here in the West aswell, based on really, really
hot Korean pop band.
Don't ask me about, and I don'tknow anything about it, but I
just noticed that there was this, uh, for example that that's
(30:37):
kind of a game or then you havea, um, I remember that Warcraft
movies, they were a big thing inChina, uh, commercially.
Uh, but then if you look at thestar Wars movies, they are not
speaking China.
And then you asked, as I said,you have the[inaudible] been
doing pretty well, uh, in, in,in the West as well.
And the game is based on that,uh, or the Dragonball Z enema
series that's pretty, are in itso that we will always be this
(31:00):
health, couple of big pots.
Brian's from, from Japan andChina probably I'm going to be
making it here in the West aswell, especially with their kind
of hardcore target ODS that alsomight have a lot of purchasing
power when it comes to IAP.
So, so kind of boosting, theymade charts.
So it's interesting, interestingphenomenon.
And I were really kind oflooking forward seeing how it
(31:22):
evolves.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Hmm.
Just to kind of finish up.
I kind of thought it might be anice thing for us to kind of go
through what our kind offavorite, uh, kind of mobile IP
games where and, and why we likethem.
I can kind of kick off.
So, so, um, I am not a big starWars fan byte by any means,
although I'm the right kind ofdemographic.
But, um, I've really liked, uh,galaxy heroes actually played it
for over three years.
(31:44):
Um, and it was interestingbecause, because I didn't really
care, I could, I didn't reallycare about the characters very
much.
Um, that was almost in a weirdway, made it more enjoyable for
me.
And it was, it was just enoughso I wasn't like desperate to
unlock the, the special, um, uh,doth data, you know, character.
Um, but it was just familiarenough that it kind of just,
just kind of kept me going.
And there were other reasons whyI played for a long time.
I was in a kind of good Guildand, uh, did a lot of that cause
(32:08):
, that kind of stuff.
Um, so it was just, it was justkind of enough that without that
kind of, um, kind offamiliarity.
Um, I, I think I probablydropped out much early and often
that game has been been, youknow, very, very successful.
So, um, um, Steven, I guess youcan choose what one of the games
you worked on, whether thatwould that would, that would not
smokes, but any, any, any, uh,IP, mobile game that you've
(32:28):
really enjoyed and why?
I really enjoyed, um, I can'tforget, I can't remember the
full title, but there was a WWE,a world wrestling, uh, game, uh,
that was a sort of a tap Titansstyle,
Speaker 5 (32:40):
uh, idle game where you had, uh, four wrestlers in
the ring battling, you know, arecurring series of bosses.
And it was just, I'm not a hugewrestling fan, although like you
said, for star Wars, I kind offit the demographic, but I
recognized quite a few names.
They had a big classicrepertoire of heroes.
And mechanically it was, um, itwas more than just tapping on
(33:01):
the screen while I was watchinga different show on Netflix.
And, uh, I played that one forrelentlessly for, uh, for almost
a year.
So anything that had, uh,characters that were just
familiar enough and a game playthat was, um, uh, that held my
attention to something that I,uh, that I latch on.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Joel,
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I, I have to go with the same driver that you picked
up, but they are biggest tribalsso, uh, was force.
Uh, I think it's for me toinvest RBG I like typi and why I
P a and the game, I have to sayit's really well polished, uh,
offers excellent, excellentquality and a lot of lot of
things to do.
(33:44):
And if you are in a good guilt[inaudible] heroes, um, you kind
of, you kind of just have tocome back on.
I'm gonna keep crime being on,uh, I, I enjoyed the grind.
Uh, so that if I have to be justto one and Hearthstone would
pick close second.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah.
I have to say I really, I wasplaying with Strikeforce as well
at the same time with us.
And[inaudible] Guild kind of hada Guild over there as well, but
it became impossible to playboth those games at the same
time.
It just took up hours and hoursof time.
I had to choose one.
But I guess it's kind of aninteresting conclusion cause I
guess we, you know, none of ushave gone for, um, you know, we
were massive fans of, of the IP.
It was just kind of like, youknow, we'll put Steve and it was
kind of kind of familiar enoughand maybe S maybe when we talk
(34:25):
about IP, we certainly tooktalking.
You know, we were doing the fanbase in the wrong way.
It was just, it was just one,one extra thing, maybe not the
main reason we played that game.
It was enough to get us inthere.
And then we found that, youknow, other things that kind of
kept us going.
So maybe that's a, a good, um,sort of point to conclude really
good.
So thank you very much.
Thanks for your, uh, thanks yourtime, Steven.
(34:47):
Uh, thank you very much for, uh,for inviting me.
It's been a real pleasure.
Good.
And, uh, thanks to Rosemary aswell who has a few kind of
technical issues, but thanks forher input and one of the
community side, Joel enteredover for the, uh, the high level
, uh, trends.
I your honor.
Thank you.
And uh, just to say thank you,uh, listeners for listening and
I'm making it through a anotherpodcast.
(35:08):
We hope you have a subscribed orwe'll subscribe to the mobile
game dev playbook.
We are coming out regularly witha podcast looking at what's
going on in the world of mobilegames, always vast amount going
on there.
And it's great that we can kindof bring in experts in the
field.
I am certainly not one of those,but group, we can have these,
these guests in to kind of shinea light on what's going on in
(35:28):
this field.
So thanks very much forlistening and come back next
time and find out what we'retalking about then.
[inaudible].
Welcome to the mobile game dev playbook.
This podcast is brought to youin association with game
refinery.
Join us as we uncover the latesttrends in mobile game design.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello and welcome to the mobile game dev playbook
podcast.
Thanks for tuning in for anotherepisode.
I'm your host Jon Jordan and I'mjoined as ever by Joel young
Cunnane who's VP of games atgame refinery.
Ella Joel has it going.
Hi John.
I'm great.
Great to be here again.
Good.
So just remind people, uh, themobile game, Dave playbook, uh,
provides insights into whatmakes a great mobile game and
(00:36):
what trends mobile gamedesigners should be thinking
about.
And in today's episode inparticular, we are discussing
the challenges of working withlicensed IP.
I'm specifically looking at thedesign and feature
considerations that have to betaken into account.
And we have two expert guestsjoining us to talk about that.
And we have a Rosemary Sanowho's a community specialist and
we have Steven walk who is abrand manager at a Canadian
(00:59):
developer Ludia games, which hasextensive experience of working
on high profile licenses rangingfrom how to train your dragon
drastic park, Jurassic world,teenage mutant Ninja turtles,
Dungeons and dragons and many,many more.
So thanks everyone for, uh,coming to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you for having us again.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Good.
So to kick us off, it's going toset the scene.
Um, Joel is going to give us akind of a, a kind of a broad
kind of overview, particularlooking at kind of the, the top
games, um, in different globalmarketplaces and how kind of IP,
how important IPS is to thoseand the kind of variations
they're in.
So Joel, I do want to take, takeit away.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, thanks.
Thanks John.
Yeah, so IPS are a big thing in,in mobile.
Uh, it doesn't matter if you'rein the U S or in Japan or China.
It seems that the, a number ofother share of games utilizing
third party IPS is on the rise.
Um, in the U S at the moment, ifyou look at top grossing 200 or
even 100 games, it's roughly onequarter of all of those games,
(01:57):
no matter the genre areutilizing third-party IBS and,
and TV and movies, movie brands,uh, sports brands, consumer
brands, you name it, the U S andother Western market have it.
I don't know if you go to Chinaand Japan and the number of
games utilizing the bus IPSactually rises.
So it's about half of the games[inaudible] 200 crossing.
(02:18):
Um, if you go to Japan, you bemost likely running into games
based on certain animal mangaseries.
And in China it's mostly aboutPC and console IPS, which mainly
PCI piece in China, which isquite, quite interesting.
Um, so that's, that's, that'sum, it seems that uh, a mobile
(02:38):
game market is really lovingthose brands and uh, the trend
is upwards as we speak.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (02:45):
cool.
Good.
Thanks.
Um, I guess, uh, kind ofRosemary and, uh, and see if you
guys, you know, running these,these big brands, I mean, I
guess they're Western brands.
Do you see any difference inkind of global, um, kind of
uptake or interest?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
It's been really interesting, uh, working on, um,
on, uh, Dungeons and dragons andseeing how, uh, how the
different territories aresurprisingly active in it.
Um, I would have thought, uh,initially when I started this
project a few years ago that itwould been focused mostly on,
you know, the English speakingworld, but it really does have
branches, uh, all the way, uh,across the globe.
(03:22):
So, uh, that's been reallyinteresting too.
That's been really interestingto see.
Uh, people love dragons.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
The thing about dragons, uh, yes.
So for our game as well, uh,for, I work mostly on how to
train your dragons, uh, IPS, um,with Dreamworks.
So we do see that it's really,it's a worldwide thing
considering that these are bigblockbuster movies as well.
Uh, people are super passionateabout just the characters
(03:50):
themselves.
So when it comes to the game,it's kind of a no brainer for
them.
It also, we have a lot on ourshoulders to do a good job at
making the game, but you know, agame like rice of Burke that's
been around for so many yearsand is still doing well, uh, and
players are just so passionateabout it.
I see that firsthand on oursocial pages and uh, I just love
(04:12):
hearing from them get takingpart in the Reddits and stuff.
So it really helps in keeping italive and for sure the brand is
a big part of that.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm kind of a say another kind of trend thing we
should probably consider beforewe kind of go deep into this.
This is some, some genres seemto work better, um, kind of some
kind of mobile games, genres andkind of IP seem to work better
together.
Do you want to kind of unpickthat at a high level for us as
well, just to kind of give a, anoverview of how you see that
kind of playing out acrossdifferent genres?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah.
We, again refinery, we study alot of games of course, and we
(04:47):
also study the features and thegenres of the games.
And as we track IPS anddifferent type of a brand brand
categories, we've noticed thatcertain genres are much more
kind of well aligned withutilizing third-party IPS.
Just to give you an example, um,many of the top RPG games,
location-based games or anygames, genres that fat rely on,
(05:10):
on metal layers of collectingcharacters or or, or that kind
of stuff, those usually are muchmore synergetic with IPS.
Uh, then for instance, uh,mastery games, which are much
more about the core games,swiping tiles and blasting,
dusting balloons.
So it's, it's very clear that ifyou are thinking about utilizing
the IP and kind of thinkingabout the gospel or spending
(05:32):
benefits, they are showing thegenres that are much, much more
energetic.
And that of course then realstone to features.
So when you decide to go with anIP, uh, you want to make sure
that your games features that, asupport that the IP, I can again
use the same example for usinglike a RPG RBG or games, um,
(05:54):
combined together with let's sayMarvel IP or star Wars IP for
example.
Makes that make sense.
Really good, good combination.
Um, but then on the other hand,I said certain games, uh,
features that are not as welladjusted to get most out of the
IP.
So for example, if you're doing,let's say casual star Wars
(06:14):
Metree game, it doesn't say, itdoes mean that the star Wars IP
will hurt your game per se.
But as the game is more focusedon the features that is more
focused on the core gameexperience, uh, and not, let's
say character collection or, or,uh, that kind of stuff by Beck
backstory.
So rich lore, um, the benefitsmight not be as as big.
(06:34):
So that's kind of on a higherlevel.
And of course then there stillhave to be combined the dim
player demographics or justdiabetes and all that.
But, uh, that's, that's reallyinteresting.
And, um, that's kind of where wenoticed that, uh, you might want
you think about those elementsas well when playing around with
IPS.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Good.
So, and I guess the other thingwe, um, kind of IP over the,
over the years has become muchbroader.
So as opposed to, you know, wewere, you know, maybe 10 years
ago talking much more about kindof licensing, um, kind of
external kind of, um, propertiesfrom, from the, from the game
space, bringing in films and,and other kinds of prophecies.
And whereas now we have thisother kind of thing which is
(07:13):
bringing kind of console gamesto mobile, which isn't, I guess,
not just IP, um, in that sensethat it is a game already, but
there's a kind of, uh, aninteresting kind of reimagining
the whole IP space is in factvery, um, got much deeper, I
think, much more kind ofsophisticated in how you, how
you, um, kind of chop it up,which I guess he's, yeah, yeah,
sure, sure.
Exactly.
Under, uh, if you, as Imentioned before, I compete with
(07:33):
U S T U S a and the brand types,and I'd be typed in that been
used in the top games forexample.
It's really kind of diverse.
You have your, you have your TV,movie, branch, have your
constant product, dance brands,sports brands, uh, novel brands,
celebrities,
Speaker 3 (07:47):
brands, and of course, like you mentioned some
PC and console games.
And I think the PC console, um,IPS are coming over, uh, our two
more bottle, uh, even strongerin the, in the upcoming years.
And, uh, of course, um, in Chinafor example, as I mentioned
before, uh, PC brands are thebiggest browser IPS used in, in
mobile, uh, or hub of all theIPS.
(08:11):
Uh, using top grade top games inChina are from PC, like for
example, uh, uh,[inaudible] andon a perfect world crossfire and
so on and so forth.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Um, so, uh, Rosemary and Steven, so from the Ludia
point of view, I mean, you guys,as far as I know of the company
has always been involved withIP.
Um, you know, that's kind ofbeen your kind of DNA, is that
correct?
Is that what has been the kindof the, the way you've, you've
approached the, the gamesmarket?
Oh, uh, absolutely.
I've been at Ludia for, um, uh,for 10 years and, uh, we've
always worked on, uh, uh, IPSlike that.
(08:44):
I mean, we started off with thetelevision game shows, uh, like,
uh, like the prices right?
And adapting those into, uh,into PC games and then, uh,
variations as the otherplatforms up and
Speaker 5 (08:56):
now working with, uh, with big IP brands.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And when mobile started out, that was kind of,
you know, mobile games, youknow, got big and absolutes,
clinical Lords.
So that was seen as quite, um, Imean, Oh, maybe I'll just the
wrong word, but it was kind of,there's kind of a lot of
creative, um, you know, kind of,uh, creativity going on with
these, any developers coming upwith this kind of crazy stuff.
We could do this, they do thesethings on mobile devices for the
first time and, and for, youknow, Canadian company to come
(09:23):
out and do and do these kind ofbig, uh, you know, TV IP to
begin with.
And then moving up.
He was, I think, seen as, as alittle bit at least different.
Obviously it's been successfulfor you because you've grown to
a fairly substantial company.
And, um, but it's kindainteresting that there's not so
many people have taken thatroute.
I mean, people willtraditionally mobile people kind
of have a go.
Um, we put up, I mentioned thatthere's a few big games coming
out at the moment, whichinvolves kind of IP and, but the
(09:45):
company is not set up aroundthat.
So do you think kind of come theway you, the company set up is
different because of the type ofgames you make and how you think
about new projects and how youthink about operating in live
ops?
That sorta stuff.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I think that's an interesting way of, uh, of, of
looking at it from a, from adesign perspective.
I mean we're looking at, uh,what are, uh, the familiar
things that people really enjoyin terms of media and in terms
of gameplay to terms offamiliarity and try to find ways
for them to bring thatexperience, uh, with them on the
go no matter what that is.
If they really like, um, youknow, Battlestar Galactica, we
(10:23):
had the Battlestar Galacticagame for awhile.
If you really like teenagemutant Ninja turtles, here's a
way that you can play in thatworld.
Uh, same thing for Dungeons anddragons or if you really like
the, um, the prices, right?
That was, uh, how we gotstarted.
We looked at things that peoplealready liked and uh, you know,
honestly given their longevity,loved and um, and found ways to
(10:46):
surprise the players with, um,with those twists that mobile
makes possible.
Speaker 8 (10:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And I guess kind of Rosemary from a community
standpoint, that's kind of thatkind of balance between the kind
of the rich kind of law andcharacters you have in an
available in IB and what thecommunity, what you to do with
them and what the lesson sawallowed you to do them.
It's an interesting creativetension, let's put it that way.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Oh yeah.
Cause we see it a lot on thepages as well.
Like players will chime in andthey will correct you if
something is wrong.
Absolutely.
So we do try to take it to heartand we are all people working on
those games, whether it'sJurassic or how to train your
dragon, really get into theworld to learn to then produce
these games.
It's, it's something that takesa lot of time and dedication.
(11:33):
Um, and you get really tied tothe games you work on.
You, you see like you walkthrough our, our office and you,
you really feel like these arepeople who enjoy what they're
doing, um, and are passionateabout it just as much as the
players.
Uh, on the front line.
I get to actually see that and Iget to feel the tension when,
(11:53):
you know, certain things are notaccurate.
Um, but it rarely ever happens.
Um, and uh, one thing that youwere mentioning before about
bringing the lore into the gameand trying to choose a proper
features that are stillrepresenting the world that
we're giving to players in ourmobile games, uh, for one is
something that's challenging ina way because we're trying to
(12:14):
stay true to what let's say forhow to train your dragon to the
book that then got turned into amovie trying to represent all
the dragons while creating newones.
Uh, in our newest game, dragontighten up rising, we have
hybrids.
So this is a whole process ofapprovals that we go through
with Dreamworks and our artistswho create these dragons.
(12:35):
And, uh, yeah, it's just coolwork for the people working on
the project and just thepassionate players and people
who follow these movies for 10years.
Just love to see it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
That's a really interesting point because
particularly if you have, youknow, um, games based around
specific movies rather than kindof kind of, I guess deeper
universities, but specificmovies you kind of want to be,
you know, you need to be closeenough to what was going on in
the movie.
Cause people who watched themovie, you kind of, they want
some of that.
But equally if you're going torun something for, for many
years, then also you need to, Imean the game in a sense is, is
(13:07):
the, becomes the livingembodiment of that IP rather
than it being like a thirdparty.
I'd be, I mean the game is, ithas much more, you know, going
on, cause it has to, cause I'llsee films, Jenny lost two hours
and there's only so much I canput it in and even says
backstory it game again going onfor years and years and years is
almost, you become the creative,um, kind of holders of, of, of
that kind of vision to somedegree.
I mean, honestly, you're not thelicense, but, but you're kind of
(13:28):
doing the work that, you know,thousands, maybe millions people
are playing.
You're on.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Yeah.
I think, I think Steven, you hadquite a challenge with that in D
and D such as like an expandeduniverse.
So like taking, trying to figureout what should we bring into
the game.
Uh, I don't work on D and D, butStephen, a hats off to you.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
It, uh, it was, it was a huge challenge to figure
out what kind of characters, forexample, to put into the world.
Like what was the, we had hugebrainstorming sessions at the
start of the warriors of water Dproject to figure out what, what
were the iconic monsters of, um,of Dungeons and dragons.
What were the elements that wereally needed to have in the
game, uh, for it to beconsidered an authentic game.
(14:13):
Something that, you know,matches all the other different
ways that people experience, youknow, the brand of Dungeons and
dragons.
And so where did we, where didwe fit in with that?
And that was not only just aboutcontent, but also about, uh,
game play mechanics themselves.
What would you expect to see?
You'd expect to cast a lot offireballs and, and, uh, have a
lot of exploration in and, uh,even rule a lot of dice, even
(14:36):
though it's on a mobile, on amobile game, we had to find
those, those familiar elementsthat people might've been
reminded of.
Uh, when they watched, uh, otherpeople play or saw, you know,
those stranger things, uh,references and went, Oh yeah,
that's what D and D is like,what, what are elements them, I
don't know, the popular culturecould we put in, uh, to have, um
(14:56):
, have an authentic, uh,gameplay and brand experience
that was still fun.
You know, in and of itself.
It didn't, it's not entirelynostalgia dependent, but is,
could get somebody interested inthe brand in that sense that we
were talking about of, um,being, you know, also a, a big
pro, the game being a bigproponent of the, of the, of the
(15:16):
brand.
Um, but also, um, uh, have themhave fun just for, uh, just for
the quality of the game itself.
So there were a lot of, a lot ofdiscussions in, there were a lot
of, a lot of listening.
It had to happen with thecommunity to have to figure out
what kinds of things people werelooking for.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Hmm.
Cause I guess the other thing weusing a brand is, is you want
you, I guess when you choosebrands, maybe this will be a, a
future question, but yeah, howdo you, how do you choose
brands?
But you want to choose brandobviously have broad appeal.
Um, but equally the broader theappeal, then say someone like me
who's who I did play, the what,the one of your, one of your
train your dragon games.
Or they will have totally thewrong target audience and never
(15:56):
saw the films.
Um, so for me the kind of thelaw didn't matter because I
didn't know the game, but youknow, you've just as something
that I'll download that and thensee what it's like.
So you have this kind ofactually quite a broad spectrum
of audience.
Then you put it if a game, ifyou choose the right brand, you
have a very kind of newbieaudience.
You don't know it apart frommaybe the name.
And then you have people who arelike really into it.
And that's again, anotherdifficult balance in this, I
(16:17):
guess.
I don't know if that's wheresome IP games based on might be
kind of go wrong.
They go to too newbie and thenthe fans don't like it or they
go too fat too hardcore and thenit's a great game for the 20
people who play it.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Yeah.
Well one thing that Ludia doesreally well is try to manage
expectations.
And so a lot of games, we'll seehow it works and then add
features as we go on.
We'll listen to the audience,get the feedback and see, okay,
gilts, we should OD gilts tothis.
And it works with the IP.
It works with the game andstructure and how it is.
(16:54):
Um, so like now a JWA, which isa geo-location game, uh, has,
uh, gilts.
Uh, so does D and D, so doesdrag and tighten uprising.
It just really helps bring thecommunity together.
It's a lot of discussions aroundcreating clans, uh, getting
groups of people playing.
Um, it helps with, uh, keepingpeople engaged as well.
(17:17):
Uh, and it, it fits with the IPS, uh, with the dinosaurs, with
the dragons and with the D andD.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Hmm.
Joel, coming back to the kind ofa, a more kind of kind of trend
level I guess because the kindof IP licensing kind of goes in
cycles.
So I guess where we had a fewyears ago when we had this kind
of star Wars reboot, we had likejust tons and tons of style or
star Wars games.
And I guess, you know, we've hada lot of game of Thrones games.
Um, what's your kind of kind ofview that, that when you see
multiple kinds of games allwatching roughly at the same
(17:44):
time and maybe having an RPG andin a, in a, maybe a match three
in a, in a, in a, in a strategygame, all based on the same IP.
And I guess at the moment wehave it with Marvel.
I mean the whole Marvel universeis, that's the point of it.
So I think, um, do you thinkthat that that's, that's a good
thing.
Will, you know, do you thinkdevelopers get a bit sucked into
like, Oh, I'm doing a Marvelgame and they kind of forget
that there's like another 25mobile games also out there at
(18:06):
the same time?
Probably only one's going to besuccessful.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, I think that's it.
That's it really, really well.
It points.
Uh, of course I will, I like totake the day, look at the data
and look at the games utilizingIPS.
I always say that even with thebest IP, it doesn't replace any
mistakes you make in the gamedesigner.
So, so even if you had thehottest brand, let's say after
infinity war you had the MarvelBryan up your hands and you
(18:29):
making, making game, um, thekeys.
So of course, as I said before,you understand how the IP fits
your genre, how the IP featurefeature sets and how the ho the
IP feature play demographics.
So, even with the most powerfulbrand, if you don't understand,
um, the, the kind of, uh,features that you should have in
your genre or, or the featuresthat you're a core audience is
(18:52):
going to love or, or expect fromthe game.
Um, this I best, I got a bigchance of, of, of not, not, not
kinda unleashing the fullpotential of your, of your
package.
Um, but then, um, when it comesto kind of oversaturation of,
for certain brands, uh, wehaven't yet seen any kind of
statistical data, uh, killingthat direction.
(19:14):
But what we have seen is that,um, people are all designers
taking branch that they thinkare, let's say, um, kind of home
medium or, or even very hot atthe moment.
And then, uh, kind of fat losingthe potential because they fail
to kind of understand the IP andgeography and feature fit.
(19:36):
So it's, it's, uh, it's not toomuch about players getting bored
of certain brand, but, but more,more about people and players.
Um, kind of, uh, being let downwhen, when they play the game
and it doesn't fit theirexpectations of the offer.
Maybe the IP for that, for thehardcore fans, uh, or then the
other game mechanics, uh,players expect.
(19:58):
So that's kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, you do, you do kind of end up, I mean, I'm sure
it's just just to kind of thejournalist in me kind of, but we
do kind of seem to go for these,these phases of having like
cursed IPS.
I mean, particularly the starWars one a few years ago, but
there were a lot of star Warsgames came out on only really,
um, galaxy of heroes was, wasthe one that made it.
And I guess we've had a fewattempts at different sorts of
Harry Potter games.
Um, I think all of which hadbeen kind of interesting and,
(20:20):
and you could say kind of welldesigned games, but certainly,
um, not all found, found theaudience and found maybe the
Harry audience had, had kind of,um, moved on potentially or that
know, I guess it's somethingelse to mention.
Um, Logan, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Oh, my snicker.
Um, well, uh, so I was reallylooking forward to the
geolocation game.
Uh, so, uh, you know, I playedit for a bit and I kind of
dropped off.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
Geo-locations games are very, um, not time
consuming, but you know, it's,it's, it's dedication.
It takes dedication.
So even a game like Pokemon go,you're relying on the nostalgia
factor, but you're also takinginto account like, okay, every
time I'm walking around I needto open my phone cause I need to
be catching certain things.
So how do you gain someone'sdedication?
Um, right.
(21:08):
And honestly, I haven't lookedat the stats after the first
month of it launching.
I'm not too sure how it's, uh,doing our JWA, uh, is still, is
still going strong.
So I am, I'm, I'm, I stillplaying, collect my dinosaurs as
for what it is, but I have kindof dropped off on the Harry
Potter one.
Uh, it didn't really run well onmy phone as well.
(21:30):
So there's a whole issue withdevices and GPS and there's a
lot to take into account.
It's just, it's, it's, uh,they're big games, you know?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Hmm.
Hmm.
And I guess, you know something,I was kind of, I mean I know how
much you can kind of say onthis, this sort of stuff.
Um, or do you want to say, butyou know, they're kind of the,
you know, the, the, the power inthis kind of scenario in talking
about sort of any kind of bigkind of movie, sort of that
external IP is, is the licenseor has kind of the power, cause
they get[inaudible] they'rerisking their IP a little bit,
but obviously they, they'regetting a cut of the revenue all
(22:02):
the time.
And um, and the business modelfor IP games, games based around
IP can be quite difficultbecause you're giving up, you
know, you're giving up your,your app store share and then
you potentially giving upanother, you know, however many
percent each of the, of yourkind of gross, uh, maybe on, on
to the license.
Also, you know, very sensiblefor Disney to decide.
It's not making games anymorethan license everything out.
Cause I, you know, obviouslydoing very well off that.
(22:24):
Um, but, but, um, you know, how,how, how does that kind of play
into your thinking that, youknow, you're getting a license,
you're getting kind of access tosomeone else's fan base, but,
but you are going to have to ina sense, yeah.
Go, these games have to be quitebig.
Um, um, and, and you know, you,you have to have all the, um, I
guess the process of dealingwith the license saw and you
(22:45):
can't just go, we're going toput in your character in the
next week.
You have it cause you have tothose turnaround times, I mean,
maybe some license was a quickerthan others, but maybe some have
a big whole process that he hasto go to another license or, and
then you can't, you know, it maytake a couple of months to put
new characters in.
Um, how, how does that impingeon your kind of flexibility to
do the things you wouldotherwise want to do in a mobile
game?
(23:06):
It's, uh, it's really hard to,uh, you know, to, to turn those
corners really quickly.
Right.
It requires a lot of planning.
Uh, you know, internally itrequires a lot of communication
with the, uh, with, uh, thelicenser to discuss the
different ways any, uh, the nextsteps, the next, uh, the next
updates can go because, uh,you're right, there's, there are
(23:29):
all kinds of, uh, all kinds ofapproval processes and, um,
every, every relationship isdifferent.
Some IP holders, um, hold'emkeep a much tighter oversight
over things.
Other ones, ones are a littlebit looser.
Once, you know, trust has beenestablished and you can,
Speaker 5 (23:46):
you don't need quite so many intermediate reviews of
a, like, say a charactercreation process or a
environment creation process.
Um, so that, that can make the a, that can make the Workday, you
know, more or less stressful asit, uh, as a company.
Because you, you, I'm working inthe games, you know, from, from
(24:09):
my perspective, you know, as adesigner, I'm very, uh, you
know, player focused.
I want the fans of the brand tobe happy and pleasantly
surprised all the time by what,um, what the implementation of
their, of their favorite brandis inside the game.
Uh, I also wanna, you know, turnnew players on to, uh, this cool
brand.
I think this is the part of thevirtuous cycle of, uh, of
(24:32):
licensed IP.
I think that's pretty cool.
Um, and then I want to make surethat, uh, all the business
objectives, uh, are met at thesame time.
This is the, uh, the other, uh,the other bit of tension, make
sure that everything, all, youknow, we hit the deadlines,
everything is nicely approvedand we're getting, we're
building up, uh, that, uh, thatgreat community that, uh, that
(24:52):
is always possible with, uh,with fans of a brand.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Kind of on the lookout for a of yours, kind of
think about new games that you'dwant to make, but you know, how,
how does that process go, youknow, do you come up with a game
or doing that and think, whatbrand would that appeal to or do
you go, we realized that there'sa couple of people, we really
love this brand and we were inthe company and we kind of
picked your game.
I guess it's, you know, put abit of both.
But, um, cause it's kind of a,is it interesting that, you
know, when we talk about brands,we maybe talk about the, you
know, the big, the Harry pottersand the star Wars and the game
(25:18):
of Thrones and which obviouslymassive, um, in, in their kind
of original kind of form.
Um, and honestly expense forthat as well.
But, but you, but you guys areworking with, you know, I mean
dressy[inaudible] was massive.
Um, but then some of the otherones that, you know, doesn't
have dragons is bigger as a butnot, it doesn't have that kind
of similar appeal I suppose.
And train your reg and w was, Iguess I don't know how you, how
you measure kind of kind of, um,the size of an IP, but I guess
(25:42):
we could say it's like a, like amid ranking IP and maybe mid
racking.
My P's are better cause you havea bit more flexibility.
They're not so expensive.
Um, that was a very prolongedquestion.
Uh, we have an outstandingbusiness development department.
Uh, the,
Speaker 5 (25:57):
the, the answer a lot of those questions, uh, uh, for
us, I don't know, sometimes,sometimes I'm just presented
with, uh, with the project we'regoing to make, uh, we're, we're
looking into making card gamesand we'd like, we, we have
these, these IPS available,which ones would you think would
be the best fit?
And I'm like, Oh, well, this isa really interesting list and
let's, you know, let's gothrough and let's see what's
(26:17):
possible and let's see what I,you know, as a designer, um, in
so far as I'm, you know, I'mwriting the pitch, what would I
like to do with the game genrethat's different, knowing what's
in the market and what bits Ithink might be, um, might be
missing or could be donedifferently, and then find it
where they match up to the, thekey experiences of the IP.
(26:40):
What, what are the keyexperiences of, um, of, uh, of
this brand?
I worked on, uh, on a card gamebased on the, uh, the underworld
franchise of movies, uh, thelast two specifically.
And, uh, that was a fun match tosee, you know, OK, there's a,
there's a vampire will versuswerewolf war going on.
Great.
I have a foundation now, how canI turn this into a, a card game
(27:03):
with the team?
And, uh, it's, it's, uh, that initself is a fun, uh, uh, game of
game design, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Joe, you've been talking, you know, can you kick
us off, talk about kind of theglobal, um, kind of, uh, kind
of, kind of view, and it seemedto be particularly kind of in
the West versus kind of some ofthe Asian, um, big Asian markets
that there's a kind of aglobalness also a localness.
Do you think that as, you know,more us kind of films get
launched in, in, in, in Chinaand, and you know, these are the
(27:37):
kind of IPS that we could beusing.
Are they becoming more, moreglobal?
Um, we still haven't seen anawful lot of say, kind of.
There's really big Japanese kindof, um, anime or manga brands.
I mean they appeal to the kindof hardcore, you know, guys in
the West, but they haven'treally, an I pocket one was the
obvious one.
But do we think that we're goingto get kind of more, more
global, these brands are goingto kind of get more global over
(27:58):
the next kind of, you know, fiveto 10 years.
So we'll be seeing more andmore, you know, I feel become
more and more important part of,of mobile games.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I will.
Well my bet is that, um, even atleast in David upcoming couple
of years, um, each region let'shave these major regions like
the use of the Western markets.
Japan and China will, will havetheir own kind of unique, unique
, um, IPS and brands work inthose specific regions.
Like for example, certain animeand manga manga high piece will
(28:27):
still be, uh, hot in Japan and,and rather unknown in, in the
West.
But there, there is, um, ofcourse some exchanged, uh, cross
borders.
Uh, just from top of my head,the newest, um, big brand Unimog
brand, a seven deadly sins is inour RPG game.
That's actually doing reallywell in, in, in the U S U S
(28:49):
charts.
Um, based on, based on thatJapanese animal, you can
actually watch this fromNetflix.
It's really, really well madegame, RPG timbers, RPG game.
Uh, I strongly suggest you checkit out.
So there is, this is the CS thatyou can see a couple of titles
based on based on regional IPS,uh, making it in, in other,
(29:11):
other regions as well.
But then of course, uh, um, Isaid like in China when you have
the IPS are based on their ownown on a PC, PCPs or even their
own folklore, like a journey tothe West store or romance of the
street in them.
So, so it will probably increasekind of cross cultural it change
.
But, uh, I still bet that, uh,even in[inaudible] let's say
(29:36):
five to 10 years, we will stillhave our own own, own, um, stay
Western, Western IPS.
We really, really, really aresuccessful.
And Hudson here and, and then ofcourse Korea market will have
their own and China, Japan throwin as well.
I'm not, at least in the broadspectrum, I would say.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm gonna guess.
It was interesting just thinkingabout the film thing with
[inaudible] with the parasitefilm winning, winning the Oscar
and I guess in general[inaudible] in general kind of
thing say the same, but you kindof have, if you pick the right
example of two, it'd be prettyhard to make a mobile game based
on parasite.
I mean obviously I'm sure she'llkeep an idea of how you do that,
but yeah, but that's not thefirst one.
That kind of appeals.
But you can kind of see how, howI think kind of stuff does break
through different cultures.
(30:14):
So you can imagine, you know,you can imagine.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And I've been, I've been, do youhave your kind of, uh, let's say
you had like a cable bands forexample, this PDs game, like a
kind of visual Nobel game ininterviews, pretty, pretty
successful here in the West aswell, based on really, really
hot Korean pop band.
Don't ask me about, and I don'tknow anything about it, but I
just noticed that there was this, uh, for example that that's
(30:37):
kind of a game or then you havea, um, I remember that Warcraft
movies, they were a big thing inChina, uh, commercially.
Uh, but then if you look at thestar Wars movies, they are not
speaking China.
And then you asked, as I said,you have the[inaudible] been
doing pretty well, uh, in, in,in the West as well.
And the game is based on that,uh, or the Dragonball Z enema
series that's pretty, are in itso that we will always be this
(31:00):
health, couple of big pots.
Brian's from, from Japan andChina probably I'm going to be
making it here in the West aswell, especially with their kind
of hardcore target ODS that alsomight have a lot of purchasing
power when it comes to IAP.
So, so kind of boosting, theymade charts.
So it's interesting, interestingphenomenon.
And I were really kind oflooking forward seeing how it
(31:22):
evolves.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Hmm.
Just to kind of finish up.
I kind of thought it might be anice thing for us to kind of go
through what our kind offavorite, uh, kind of mobile IP
games where and, and why we likethem.
I can kind of kick off.
So, so, um, I am not a big starWars fan byte by any means,
although I'm the right kind ofdemographic.
But, um, I've really liked, uh,galaxy heroes actually played it
for over three years.
(31:44):
Um, and it was interestingbecause, because I didn't really
care, I could, I didn't reallycare about the characters very
much.
Um, that was almost in a weirdway, made it more enjoyable for
me.
And it was, it was just enoughso I wasn't like desperate to
unlock the, the special, um, uh,doth data, you know, character.
Um, but it was just familiarenough that it kind of just,
just kind of kept me going.
And there were other reasons whyI played for a long time.
I was in a kind of good Guildand, uh, did a lot of that cause
(32:08):
, that kind of stuff.
Um, so it was just, it was justkind of enough that without that
kind of, um, kind offamiliarity.
Um, I, I think I probablydropped out much early and often
that game has been been, youknow, very, very successful.
So, um, um, Steven, I guess youcan choose what one of the games
you worked on, whether thatwould that would, that would not
smokes, but any, any, any, uh,IP, mobile game that you've
(32:28):
really enjoyed and why?
I really enjoyed, um, I can'tforget, I can't remember the
full title, but there was a WWE,a world wrestling, uh, game, uh,
that was a sort of a tap Titansstyle,
Speaker 5 (32:40):
uh, idle game where you had, uh, four wrestlers in
the ring battling, you know, arecurring series of bosses.
And it was just, I'm not a hugewrestling fan, although like you
said, for star Wars, I kind offit the demographic, but I
recognized quite a few names.
They had a big classicrepertoire of heroes.
And mechanically it was, um, itwas more than just tapping on
(33:01):
the screen while I was watchinga different show on Netflix.
And, uh, I played that one forrelentlessly for, uh, for almost
a year.
So anything that had, uh,characters that were just
familiar enough and a game playthat was, um, uh, that held my
attention to something that I,uh, that I latch on.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Joel,
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I, I have to go with the same driver that you picked
up, but they are biggest tribalsso, uh, was force.
Uh, I think it's for me toinvest RBG I like typi and why I
P a and the game, I have to sayit's really well polished, uh,
offers excellent, excellentquality and a lot of lot of
things to do.
(33:44):
And if you are in a good guilt[inaudible] heroes, um, you kind
of, you kind of just have tocome back on.
I'm gonna keep crime being on,uh, I, I enjoyed the grind.
Uh, so that if I have to be justto one and Hearthstone would
pick close second.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah.
I have to say I really, I wasplaying with Strikeforce as well
at the same time with us.
And[inaudible] Guild kind of hada Guild over there as well, but
it became impossible to playboth those games at the same
time.
It just took up hours and hoursof time.
I had to choose one.
But I guess it's kind of aninteresting conclusion cause I
guess we, you know, none of ushave gone for, um, you know, we
were massive fans of, of the IP.
It was just kind of like, youknow, we'll put Steve and it was
kind of kind of familiar enoughand maybe S maybe when we talk
(34:25):
about IP, we certainly tooktalking.
You know, we were doing the fanbase in the wrong way.
It was just, it was just one,one extra thing, maybe not the
main reason we played that game.
It was enough to get us inthere.
And then we found that, youknow, other things that kind of
kept us going.
So maybe that's a, a good, um,sort of point to conclude really
good.
So thank you very much.
Thanks for your, uh, thanks yourtime, Steven.
(34:47):
Uh, thank you very much for, uh,for inviting me.
It's been a real pleasure.
Good.
And, uh, thanks to Rosemary aswell who has a few kind of
technical issues, but thanks forher input and one of the
community side, Joel enteredover for the, uh, the high level
, uh, trends.
I your honor.
Thank you.
And uh, just to say thank you,uh, listeners for listening and
I'm making it through a anotherpodcast.
(35:08):
We hope you have a subscribed orwe'll subscribe to the mobile
game dev playbook.
We are coming out regularly witha podcast looking at what's
going on in the world of mobilegames, always vast amount going
on there.
And it's great that we can kindof bring in experts in the
field.
I am certainly not one of those,but group, we can have these,
these guests in to kind of shinea light on what's going on in
(35:28):
this field.
So thanks very much forlistening and come back next
time and find out what we'retalking about then.
[inaudible].
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