How Midwest Games Is Changing Gaming Right Now!

37:55But that's not what they're necessarily looking for. And they're not necessarily doing it for the same reasons that somebody in San Francisco or LA or Seattle might be doing it for. And so it's a completely different mentality that I think creates a lot of opportunity for game making. And I think that's why Wisconsin has a long, rich history in games. A lot of people don't realize that dungeons and dragons was created in wisconsin and lake geneva like the reason gen con exists is actually geneva like uh right and then they move to indianapolis eventually right but you know there's a there is a long history and also a game development hub in madison wisconsin and so uh you see uh you know a lot of folks that come and i think similar to your story like have to go to the west coast but what my experience in working at 2k and blizzard and netflix is it felt like at times half the people i was working with were from the midwest or from the middle of the country in some way and wait a second if half of these companies are from these places anyways what if you create opportunities in these places that are lower cost better quality of life i mean you know in wisconsin you buy a house for less than 300 000 dollars that's the average house three bedroom two bath uh with property it's it's insane in comparison to places like california and i love california i'm not one to like to to crap on it it's just ultimately there's some real downsides to it and let's give people an option to be in these other places and i think we're going to get incredible outcomes hard-working folks that just want opportunity might not have had the ability to relocate their lives to somewhere else for this industry that we can suddenly bring to them i mean you're speaking you're speaking to the choir on that one i'm down for that in every way possible because i know i have been harping for them to figure out someone to figure out making a new studio here in portland uh here in oregon because i'm like it's the perfect in-between spot between you know very expensive and very expensive you You know, like, how do you find a good spot here for that?

40:14But I love to hear you talk about the different stories you're hearing and kind of seeing within the games that you're signing for the work you all do. And also really cool to see you all working not only just in the Midwest, but also internationally too, you know, with The Legend of Babu, with the team out in Turkey. Like, are there also learnings there that folks are, you know, the regional kind of cultural exchange that is happening through those discussions and through those signings and things like that. Like, are you seeing very specific things happen in those discussions as well, where you're bringing a very, you know, either, you know, Midwestern or American, you know, understandings of how this all works to international folks who are like, this is what the market looks like here.

40:57Although it is a very international industry, here's the way it may be received in the States and all those kinds of things. What's that been like for working with folks out of the country as well? Yeah, what's incredible about it is game development knows no boundaries. And, and folks have been able to learn they have the tools that like the accessibility to be able to create games is truly global. Now, what is missing in these other places is kind of the the knowledge and know how around publishing and how to put out a game that go to market practices. and frankly the network is in connections they're owned by very few people in very few places around the world and that makes it extremely challenging to get that exposure and if you think about it name one university that teaches games publishing right there is there that's not a thing it doesn't exist you only learn it if you go and work for a publisher and there's only about 200 to 300 publishers worldwide so you have to first get to one of those and then if you look at a publishing unit what a lot of people don't realize they see these big names but they don't realize the units are actually really small and the teams the amount of people that work on a game on a publisher is pretty small.

42:23Now you'll see in the credits, a huge list. That's everybody at a publisher, but a publisher naturally has 10 or more projects going on at one time. They're not all working on every project. They split it, they manage resources. You'll have one marketing manager, you'll have one or more producers. You'll have even big AAA projects. Yeah, they might have five, six producers, but still that's not an enormous amount of people. So publishing from a skillset perspective is something that's really hard to get, but once you have it, it doesn't take many people to do it. And so that naturally hasn't encouraged a, a, uh, outpouring of like educational resources towards how to publish, how to use these things.

43:13Cause it's not something you can just easily pick up. You're not going to be able to read some article or watch a video and understand what goes into publishing. And there's 40 plus disciplines that exist in publishing. And so there's a lot there, but if you learn it, then you ultimately have this incredible skillset. But guess what? Most places around the world don't have this because most of it's in the US or China, which is a more restricted market. Or, you know, again, giant hubs. You look at London, you look at Singapore, you look at Paris, you like all the typical giant cities is where there's a lot of the international hubs.

43:58And so in those places, there's very few people that know a lot of how to put these things out. And so even if you have worked for a publisher, part of like one of the challenges I see is most haven't worked across multiple departments and haven't seen the full publishing picture. Even if you are working in marketing for a publisher, guess what? Your site is on the marketing piece. You are not going deep in the production piece. You are not going into the technical realm and working with middleware vendors and dealing with HR and finance and all of these other things that are involved in the publishing unit.

44:43Typically, you're focused on your one area and you just have a team that focuses on a game. And so my argument is even for folks that have been in publishing, they don't have the vast exposure across all of the different disciplines. Like I mentioned, there's 40 plus different disciplines. And so even the folks that think they know publishing often don't know publishing. And so that I think just creates a lot of misinformation around people going out there saying, well, this is how you publish your game. Look at what this indie project did, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. It's when someone goes, look at this indie project.

45:20Look at how they succeeded. and then come up with a bunch of things that missed the whole point of what happened and the fact that no one will repeat that right because a thousand people tried it before them a thousand people will try it after them and they're the only ones that are going to succeed in that way and people just miss that nuance and like try to pretend like this is all easy and it's extremely complicated it takes an entire team of people uh and they are all specialized in certain areas god that just brought up so many other things that i want to talk to you about but that's but that's brilliant because i don't think a lot of people understand that right um i you know for i'll even use myself as an example i'm in what you would consider mid-career you know i'm in my mid mid-40s uh have been in the industry probably about 10 years or so on the social media comms side, community manager side of things.

46:15And I'm also looking to re-pivot, right? But there isn't an avenue for that that I can see. Like, it's not like you had when you were in school and you go to your school counselors, like, I want to do this job. I need a mentor for this thing. Can you help me figure out what that thing is and help me figure that out while I'm already employed in a position and doing a thing that takes all of your day and all of your time and there aren't real avenues for secondary learning in the ways that we see in traditional job spaces. One of the things I loved in my time working at Intel was you would, I forgot what they called it, but basically you red badge.

46:56And what you wind up doing is for six months, you go work in another BU and you learn what it's like to do that job in that other BU. And there is no avenue for that in games. Is there a space where you're hearing or even seeing even remnants of a discussion of what it's like for the folks who are in a job who are like maybe i maybe it's time to pivot and it may be not even be because of layoffs maybe it's just because you're like i don't want to do that thing anymore it's not fun to do anymore or the space doesn't necessarily is it doesn't need it as much as it is in that space are you hearing or seeing anything in those realms about like avenues for that ability to learn those things that don't involve you either leaving that space or poking at people on linkedin for mentorship that are already busy and doing that work is there any space for that that you've seen at all no i mean cross training is a is an art that i think has been lost over time i think so many people look at someone's background and say that they're only good in this one thing yeah and it's so hard to move outside of it.

48:06Now, the one opportunity I do see is in the startup world because the reality of any startup is, yeah, you're going to be the marketing person, but guess what? You're going to have 10 other hats, and you might discover that you really like this other thing and start to go towards that a little bit more, and then you're able to say, oh, well, I have experience in that thing from being in a startup and whatnot. So that is an area that you naturally have to cross-train because of the requirements of being in this crazy world of starting up a business. But in any kind of corporate, they have so many people that are so specialized in what they do that it's hard to compete unless you become more specialized.

48:54frankly like you know even as i look at my career and in a place like netflix you know the reality of me is i'm a generalist that it does a lot of things has a has a good amount of knowledge in each thing but i'm in no way a specialist i'm in no way the the expert in any one of these areas there's always somebody that has vastly more knowledge than me in any one of these areas I'm just good at bringing it together. And so I'm great in a situation where you're starting up something or building new initiatives. So I worked really well when I was in the early days of 2K because, you know, they were doing so many different things and they needed to build a core technical group.

49:38So I got to go in the engineering side of things and really learn the challenges of working with a dev and providing these resources and middleware and, you know, licensing. I used to just deal with legal agreements nonstop. So I learned all the legalese to the point that one of my investors was like, you're like a half lawyer, even though I've never like, you know, there's no professional training, but I used to have to do that. And then I jumped into marketing off of that and was given those opportunities. And so those kinds of situations are really rare. But then I also look at my career and I look at Netflix and I go, well, Netflix doesn't need a person like me anymore.

50:17I mean, they may be doing some of their new initiatives, but they're at a state as a company. And I think each of these companies get there. You have to kind of be self-aware with who you are, what you're trying to do, and realize once a company gets to this big, large state, they don't need someone like me. They need someone that's very specialized in certain areas that they are most focused around. And in fact, someone like me is going to cause too much disruption because I'm going to want to continue to build, iterate, grow certain areas. And maybe that's not what their strategic area is anymore.

50:51Maybe that's not where they're trying to grow. And luckily, I was given two different opportunities to build and grow within Netflix. But I realized by the three years into the films unit, like I wasn't really that fit anymore. They need someone just to continue to do what we had built together. And the same with games. And then, you know, so I ultimately realized my route is in startup land, like in building new initiatives, we're building new companies. And that's where there is a lot of room for growth. But you have to, with that, comes a lot of other challenges and a lot of other risks. So I think it's a lot of folks trying to figure out, like, what is right for them?

51:33Are they someone that wants to just dive deeper and deeper and deeper into a role? Or they want to be somebody that wants to work across a lot of things. And then you have to go to the company that is trying to do the same kind of thing or has the same kind of needs. I think too often people want to be generalists. And then they want to go work for a company like Blizzard or like that is well established, doesn't need that in any way anymore. And it's just a mismatch at that point. And then obviously they become probably some of the first on chopping blocks because not because they're not a good employee, because they're just a mismatch with where that company is at in comparison.

52:14Yeah, that makes it sound a sense. I mean, it is the you as a employee these days have to be reading the tea leaves way in advance. Right. Like, I think when we see sudden things come down the pipeline where we see mass layer. So things like that, you know, I think a lot of folks either have gotten that I'm not going to say too comfortable in their position because that's not that's not real. That's not the way it works in your own brain because you're just doing your job every day. But the ability to see what the job is doing and looking at your role and saying, well, I'm in this weird between space where, again, I'm so heads down doing the things that I'm tasked with.

52:57I don't have brain space or even time on my calendar to block out, to be like, here's a time for me that's just for self-learning. Or here's a time for mentorship with another person on the team. Like, you know, one of the things that is institutional knowledge that comes across not only from, you know, big umbrellas like publishers where teams are able to, you know, pull in other folks and be able to have, you know, those moments where you're talking and building and understanding, you know, what are you doing on your game? Oh, that's working really well. Here's the thing I'd love to learn from you.

53:29Like, I know that that's not happening across teams in most places. So even on an individual employee basis, that's even harder to be able to kind of come together with. Well, and to that, if we think about where, you know, that kind of like learning environment started from, it started from places that wanted people to stay for a long time. And I don't think that is the world we live in anymore. And so I think the reality is you have to take it on yourself. An employer is not going to do it. They realize it's inefficient for them to do that, even if they have the best of intent. Like I don't think it's actually like a lot of people will want to hammer a company for doing that.

54:16I think it just doesn't. It's the reality of the world today is a company is not going to invest heavily into an employee's education outside of their role because they know that their longevity at the company is pretty small, especially in games. And so they're not going to do those things. So you have to take it on yourself. And what I think is a challenge right now is there's not a lot of opportunities to get those learnings or know where to go to get them because there's not a lot of central resources. So my hope is that we can get more central resources and education. We try to do a monthly for the love of games type of like exposure mechanism where we bring on localization experts or producers or folks and they share their expertise and their knowledge from publishing end of things and what they do, how they do it, why they do it as a way of teaching people.

55:13Because someone might be like, oh, I've always been in QA, but I'm really interested in localization. and that creates a route for them to get enough education where they can go, okay, well, here's the skill sets that I have and here's how we can sell that those are transferable skills to a position in localization or to a producer position because there are a lot of transferable skills, but you have to know what those skills you have are and what the skills are of the position you're going for and how much overlap it is. And then you have to sell that to somebody that's going to take a chance on you.

55:53And there's just less people giving a chance in this current environment. I hope that changes. It's probably going to take a couple of years for everything to kind of reset. Yeah. And one of the most profound pieces of advice I've ever gotten from a higher up or a manager has been, you know, we know what you do well and you know what you want to do. This is also an opportunity to figure out what things you don't like. And that's a really good thing to know. you may think you know or you may think you like a thing until you actually start doing it you're like oh no that's totally not for me uh which which is also valuable information to be able to pull into a job and a new thing um there's one last piece of of stuff i want to dig into with you and i think it's really uh apropos and profound because i think the the thing that i'm always grappling with is what does the player need right i think the conversation that all of these things are in service of a player right building great games being finding good ways to connect with them finding good ways to to to do outreach and connect with those folks is an avenue of at the end of the day someone has to play your thing and they have to enjoy it right the you would hope i mean you'd hope right again like you know but i don't i don't think that's true i think i don't think everyone is like that uh because i think it is it is really you're always walking a fine line yeah uh of of trying to make make it about the player because yeah that's at the end of the day if they're not buying if they're not interested you know but at the same point you You know, only ever player forward that also tends to not work out either.

57:42Because, you know, I think that's where the people have bent like monetization strategies and other things to try to really bring as many players as possible. but they don't really understand the consumer, the needs, the behaviors of a friend group, all those things. And so I think there is a lack of understanding of the consumer. And these platforms are not about the consumer. And I think to something I said earlier, it is about the platform making the most amount of money they can and the publishers making money because they are the highest end customer of the platforms. And so they're only going to serve stuff that's going to make them money.

58:30My argument is that the future platform, whoever creates it, it's going to be about the player. It's a player curation. It's more like Netflix than it is anything. Because the thing that Netflix does that I love, and there's always a lot of mixed feelings about Netflix, But the thing that I love is that even if it's some big filmmaker that putting out their next big film, guess what? If you love rom-coms and that's the lowest cost content that Netflix has, it doesn't matter. They're going to serve the lowest cost content over the high-end new movie because they know that that's what you actually want.

59:09And they know that over the long run, they're going to make consumers more happy by serving the content that they actually want. And that's what we don't have in the space right now. I agree with you on that point. I think the platforms don't care, right? I think that's one layer of it. I'm curious more about the information that you're absorbing, because I think one of the things that a person in your position and your team is thinking about on a consistent basis is trying to, to a certain extent, match player with game that they see in the space, right? You're like, oh, I'm seeing data that this version of player persona is something that's bubbling up more in the space.

59:53You know, we had that moment where the Battle Royale player was the persona that everyone was looking after. You know, you had a moment when the cozy game persona was the person that you were looking to tap into for a lot of the indie space for a long period of time. the thing that i'm always a little bit baffled as as a person who's doing that work in the kind of community space is are we actually getting good information from players and and are we actually getting information from players in a way that they understand what they're saying and we're filtering and consistently filtering to try to figure out how to meet that need and i think the biggest version of that is the argument that i consistently see between full price game versus the free-to-play model versus mtx in the middle of all of that right where we have this conversation where everyone is like games are too expensive we have the stop killing games movement that's that's come that's bubbled up in the past couple of weeks around you know game sustainability and what we have an expectation for developers to do or ask for developers to do to make sure that games have a long lifespan because the idea of that you don't own a game is is you know you're licensing games as opposed to you owning them and now you're having this discussion where everybody in a mama is like the best way to do it is just make everything for you to play what's the biggest pain point you're seeing in that kind of confluence in that weird venn diagram what's the thing that players kind of don't understand that they're asking for when they're asking for things like that and how does that affect the development of a game and how does that work well i think i'll start by saying there will never be only one way of doing this sure it it there is room for all this now what is going to be the dominant way what is going to be the dominant thing you know mobile free-to-play mobile is still technically the dominant thing i don't think that is going to last forever i think there will be something else that emerges beyond that it could be more premium style games on mobile uh is you know these this whole free-to-play sure like there's there's only so many games that can own these like walled gardens and people's times before they want to move on to something else.

1:02:09There's also the longevity of those things. Already they push the boundaries of what, what, you know, the, the player base retention rates compared to most other games. And that's, that's actually harmed the industry. Now it's made a lot of money for Epic games and Roblox, It's made a lot of money, even though they're not profitable. But, you know, are they actually doing good for the industry? Because they're preventing money from going to other new ideas, new approaches, new things. And it's all becoming the same mash. Now, we've seen where there's always a rebellion moment where suddenly the player base is, you know, completely, completely flipped.

1:02:59And I think the challenge with listening to all this chaos is you hear these really loud voices that say these dramatic things. Most of them don't actually know what they're talking about from a professional lens. It's not that they're completely wrong. A lot of them are saying things that have partial truths in them. Right. But they're making big, bold statements because guess what gets attention? Right. Big, bold statements. when in reality, you know, how big is that group? Is it 20 ,000 people yelling really loud? Guess what? There's, what, 3.8 billion gamers? Like, you know, 20 ,000 people don't know the direction of the 3.8, and most people aren't yelling.

1:03:44Most people aren't even paying attention. And so I think we – the struggle is what do you listen to? What don't you from a standpoint of like believing what the consumer really desires? And the challenge from a data standpoint is you either have a lot of really general data across everything going on and you have your own data, which your own data is great. except that if you don't do it right it's it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of your own things and your own audience and you you're not really predicting anything outside of it you're just predicting your own audience and if that's audience is growing awesome but at some point it becomes an issue and there's nothing in between those two things you either have something super general or too specific right and you're trying to expand trying to do something new.

1:04:42You need that in-between layer. It's really hard to find that data to tell you really what the consumer is looking for and wants. And so folks look at other platforms like a TikTok to see, well, generally, what are people going towards? But is that really a good indication of it? No. Some people have gone that direction. They tried to make games that are 15 seconds, games that like and yeah that you know people can find success in those areas my big thing is like focus in on what you're good at and what you what you and and focus and find an audience and and you know make sure that you're making the game for an audience and then be ready to pivot towards who that audience ends up being because it might be very different than what you think it is when you go into it and you have to be ready and you have to be willing to adjust and a lot of people aren't willing to adjust they they want this thing to be for what they built it for uh and and they don't adjust and it dies the people that are willing to adjust and be like actually we add this feature and i mean you look at fortnite fortnite failed when it first launched uh and then they added a feature because they paid attention to the audience and they were willing to adjust it was really smart of them as much as they copied you know others to do it That's what a lot of people do.

1:06:11It's, you know, just like everybody else, when you see a good idea and you're able to do it in a different way, you might find that kind of perfect center of the audience. Because some of these other ones that were also doing things similar, you know, they found an audience. But did they find this huge general global audience like Fortnite did? Not quite. They found a really, really solid audience. And there's such a large audience in games in general. it's just all of these folks want to own everybody and the reality is they aren't going to ever own everybody like there's so many different ways to play like gaming is for everybody and and for every device and for everything and that's what i'm excited about with the future here is you're going to be able to play anything on any device at any time with anybody and that's really exciting because that creates accessibility that will expand from 3.8 billion to the full the full planet can play games and so that's that's what i'm most excited about but anyone that says this is the future this is how a game is going to do they're missing the point like okay is that the thing that might overtake mobile as or free to play mobile as the largest player base maybe but you're still just a slice of an overall pie that's getting more complex with every year that goes by yeah and i think i think the you know i remember sitting at dice and hearing tim sweeney get on a stage and talk about the bringing down of the walled gardens and you know however you feel like all of that conversation has played out since that discussion a couple years ago and you know what does that mean for you as a player i think you know i'm i'm in the same boat as you I'm like, we are in some of the best times if you're a player, because you have infinite ways that you can engage with the product and various products that are fit directly towards you.

1:08:03I think the, you know, I am even more excited about the kind of future of games because of that. And, you know, once those systems kind of get, you know, connected, where we're able to kind of just do what we want, wherever we want. and we see that with the generation that's come up after us they don't have the same idea around exclusivity or platform or any of that stuff they're like is it gonna work on my phone it's the thing i have with me all the time and can i play with my friends right can i play with my friends is it easy to is it easy to access like they don't want things complicated they they you know and if if you're mindful of that and you realize the graphics aren't everything yep uh that you know if you're deliver a fun experience for many many people at one time like awesome but also there's plenty of room for people with single player experiences everyone wants to make again that big headline of like always single player games dead and then there's something that proves like that's obviously proves it wrong it was wrong all along like there's room for each of these different things but are you focused on something that that truly delivers for the player to be able to experience the way that they want to experience?

1:09:17And is that experience a wide enough market to actually make enough money to have a viable product that you can continually build upon and run a business off of? I mean, and you see that bubble up in various conversations within the industry now, right? Like we're having, you know, post Xbox and Microsoft layoffs, we're having this new conversation again, not new, but like reheated conversation around, is Game Pass terrible for developers? Is it bad for publishers? Is it bad for people who are looking to get into that space? I think that's a thing that is a layer of discussion point that is depending upon where you are in the funnel and who you are as a developer and all that stuff.

1:09:56It depends on all of those pieces. Is there something that you're seeing and hearing? The last question for you before we jump out of here is, is there a major thing that you're seeing as an overarching narrative that kind of gets under your skin a little bit that's like this doesn't like we see this happen all the time we see this conversation happen all the time and it just isn't real like it isn't true it doesn't have enough facts to back it up from the people who are talking about it and and we see it kind of proliferate throughout the the industry both from a player and from a maybe even a developer behind the scenes conversation that you're seeing is this is there like a a nugget of something that you see right now that's like we're focusing on this thing and that's not it but we continue to talk about it yeah well you know we we continue to like pretend like this is the end of the industry like these big companies are ruining games are you know are just big evil corporations and and listen like i'm not a big fan of these big giant corporations but also we're the ones that built it like we're the ones that They're paying their money and paying them.

1:11:05If you really want to make a change, you know, put your money where your mouth is and pay it to small indies that are building, you know, trying to build a studio. But yet they keep spending on these large companies. If you want change, you have to really push for. So I think this narrative that somehow games is in this terrible state, the reality is we're in a change moment, which is a chaos moment. Like there's a lot of chaos that happens in these big change moments as an industry or any industry. And you look through history. Like let's take our lessons from history. And yeah, I think things are moving faster than they ever have.

1:11:47But we still have many lessons we can look at and know, listen, we are in a IP turn, essentially, like a wave that is focused on de-risk. like they are not taking risk they're going they're consolidating they're focusing in on what they're good at and that's not a bad move that's really smart of them because they're in a moment in time that there's so much risk because of you know platform uncertainty consumer uncertainty economic uncertainty they are doubling down on what they know is going to make them money because they want to survive because they don't want to make the decision like like you know midway did that made a bunch of bad financial decisions and then went out of business and then that was the last great publisher in the Midwest and they had to sell off all their property for like 33 million to Warner Brothers they can imagine that like things like Mortal Kombat and and all of those properties that they had with the cruising series with you know that they had accidentally not cop I think not copyright or something along the lines with nbhm so they didn't have nbhm because of that but still like they're they're being smart with it now do people like that they're super risk averse no like and and i hate it too i i hate that they're not taking risks but i understand why they're doing what they're doing and it's and yeah it's hurting hurting the the employees within the industry right now but But we also forget that during the COVID period, the industry hired like 30 ,000 plus people.

1:13:29And so guess what? On the back end of this, like 30 ,000 plus people have been let go. And so we have to look at the holistic timeline and what is happening here and then realize if we want to topple the giants, we have to create companies that will create the next wave. And so what I see this next wave as is just like when Microsoft and Apple were ruling the world and everyone thought that they were top and, you know, things like Ask Jeeves or, you know, thought they were really great. And then Google came along and disrupted the heck out of everybody to the point that, you know, like ultimate corporate folks at Microsoft started to loosen things up, started to be like, wait a second.

1:14:15If we want to compete with Google, we have to like be a little bit more chill. We have to change. We have to adapt. We're going to have that. And during those periods, a lot of companies fail. A lot of really successful companies at the time failed with the disruptor company. And I think we are about to have a disruptor company or more than one come into games and do things so completely differently and disrupt. And some of these companies will fail. I have many predictions on who they are going to be. some are going to adapt and succeed and then realize their only opportunity to grow and succeed and compete with this new entrance is to do something innovative.

1:14:59So they start to lean into risk. So they start to take more chances. They start to invest more in, into riskier properties. And so then it becomes the cycle of more risk taking. And then guess what? After that, there'll be another cycle of less risk taking and so i think we just have to look at the history and know these things go in cycles and in the moment it's really hard to accept that because there's chaos people are losing their jobs um and then you add on all the economic things happening in the especially in the us right now but also worldwide because the us has such an effect worldwide I think it just feels like a greater weight than maybe some of the other times this has happened throughout history.

1:15:43And I think we just have to realize that it doesn't mean it's the end of games. It doesn't mean these big companies are going to rule forever or that, you know, that's the only way forward. But it does mean that we need to be innovative. We need to come up with new solutions. We need to come up with new approaches. And if we succeed at doing that, I think we're going to have a whole new wave of new companies that will create this innovation moment within the industry. And then we'll look back at this period and be like, whoa, like why were people acting the way they did? Why did they not invest more in some of these risky things?

1:16:19Because even like somebody like EA, EA was built during a down market, like during when people were not or against taking risks. And that's how they were built. So they were built in a moment like this. And I think some others are going to be built in a moment like this. And I hope that changes player behavior, too, you know, to a certain extent. Like, as a person who wants to see new things in the space from a gameplay perspective, and I want to see teams delve into new ideas and new stories and new technologies and other ways that we can be interactive together, I'm hoping for those moments, too.

1:16:57but that also takes players to you know you have you have to also change it up in your own layer of of play right like i saw this this this conversation pop up on social the other day that was like oh the games from yesteryear were so much better but we had so much much more variety and i was like there's you can't even say that these days like there is no so much stuff to be able to play are you trying it that's a different conversation in in in the grand scheme so yeah i get you but Every generation, like it changes, right? You know, the generation before us, like it was very different in how they approached it.

1:17:36The generation after Gen Z, which I can't remember what that one's called yet, is like it's going to be completely different. And at some point they're going to be like, oh, remember Gen Z and how they played games. It's just we have to accept that it's going to constantly change. I think that, you know, there also are generational bubbles of opportunity. Because, yeah, for folks that want to play a game that feels more like what maybe we were used to growing up or, you know, like Halo 1 and things like that, there are games out there that, like, scratch that itch. And those games have found success.

1:18:21and so I think if you can focus in on that and deliver upon what a consumer really wants. Now, the problem is a lot of people will make it for themselves. Sure. Actually, there isn't a market for that thing or they didn't market it well enough to really find that consumer and get them to get to the point of word of mouth. You have to get to the point of word of mouth in order to really capture a market. You have to create a talkable moment. It feels now like your odds are better of making the NBA than getting your game seen on Steam, which is a wild thing. Well, do the math. One of my favorite or least favorite stats right now, I guess, is, you know, you look at what, 11 years ago, there was about 300 games that came out a year on Steam.

1:19:19And not all of them succeeded, but a lot of them succeeded. And then you look at, you know, last year, 19 ,000. Guess how many games succeeded? About 300. And so, you know, so there's, it's going to be 25 ,000. Guess how many are probably going to succeed? About 300. About 300. and so it's the same amount it's just when you do 25 000 you know with 300 like that's what point zero zero zero one two percent chance of success if all things were created equal right which we know that they're not right uh and so even if even if all things are created equal your chances of success are so minuscule which is why having a publisher matters so yeah you know just full full circle like that that is why it matters because every little thing that gives you a higher chance of success um makes a big difference in an environment like this well this is why i'm happy we had you on the show uh because you've talked me off of many ledges while we were discussing this and again like i just love the the the thoughtful even keel layers of understanding that you share uh you know during during our time together today because i think it's important to to understand the scope of where we are to have the, the data points that you have and to be able to frame it in a way that is reasonable for folks to be able to understand, like what is the thing that you're stepping into when you're coming into this space and understanding that we as Midwest games can be extremely helpful in getting you into the spaces that you want to get to.

1:20:52So you can potentially be one of those 300 in, in, in that number, uh, in that space, man, I could, I could steal you for a whole other hour just to talk about a whole bunch of other stuff man i love getting a chance to talk to you i love getting a chance to hang out with you and sharing this information i think is really important um for for a lot of the folks who are listening to this show who are in the industry who are having those moments where they might have either just been laid off or they're thinking about what it what it means to be a potential first-time maker of a game and looking for a publisher to work with um ben thank you man thank you so much for spending some time with me today you have made my day this is this is great I appreciate your time.

1:21:30And give the folks a little bit of information at home about where they can find more info about Midwest Games. Yeah, so you can go to midwestgames.com or go to our publisher page on Steam. So you can just search Midwest Games and follow our publisher page. We've got a couple games coming out, coming up here. Tomb Water, we have a demo out for Tomb Water, which is a great Souls-like Western, Zelda-like, you know, pixel art. And then The Legend of Babu, which uh you know if you love like kenna or like legend of zelda but a big fluffy dog that's your companion like that's that's the game for you um and then floor is what which is a party game that we're working on as well and so we have a bunch of games coming up we have a bunch of games that we've put out over the last uh a year and a half um and then you can follow me on linkedin uh that's where you see me post way too much uh just search just search my name i'm the only one in the world so easy to find.

1:22:25Oh my goodness. Whenever you want to build that next layer of, hey, we want to get all the folks who are looking to make that career pivot. Let's go into business and make that happen. I'm down to be your cohort in that space for sure. Ben, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Appreciate you. I love your insights that you share and continued success for you and your team because I really do think you have something special moving here with Midway Games. So thank you again for the time today. Everybody at home, we're going to take a quick break with some more Spawn of You on the back half of some ads.

1:23:00We'll be right back after this. What if you could transform your body, level up your mind, and unleash your warrior spirit all by playing a role-playing game? Well, now you can with Infinite, the world's first science-backed fitness fantasy RPG where real-world progress becomes your power. Create your avatar based on your goals and level, then explore game modes like the Dungeon, Academy, and Sanctum using powerful tools and apps to forge real transformation. You ready to combine fitness and gaming to unlock your ultimate potential? Then visit fitnessfantasyrpg.com and use the code SPAWNOMME for 10 % off your custom plan.

1:23:44Play Infinite and become the hero of your own fitness story. Hey there, my name is Naomi and you might know me from internet things like hosting for IGN. I'd like to introduce you to my new show This Week in Gaming. It's 20 minutes, short and sweet, and every week I go through all the important gaming news that you need to know. And then we have folks on like Khalif Adams, who shows up quite often, talk about all the important news. And you get to listen to it wherever you get your podcasts, so it's easy to find. Just look for This Week in Gaming and make sure to give it a follow. and every week Monday at 9 p.m.

1:24:16Pacific time, you get a brand new episode. I hope you'll join me. Well, again, give a big shout out to Ben Cavillow for coming and rocking with us on today's show. I think it was a really insightful episode. We got a chance to check out and hear from folks who know. Again, you know, I like to try to bring subject matter experts onto the show to discuss, you know, what the topic is of the day and kind of give a good, you know, layer of discussion for what that means. So big shout out to Ben and definitely go check out the work that they're doing over at Midwest Games. Before we go, I did want to say there's one really fun title that I'm looking forward to that just got a release date.

1:24:52And I would love to talk a little bit about that because it's super fun is Time Flies. I got a chance to check this thing out. I think it was at Summer Games Fest, maybe even last year. And we didn't see if it got a actual release date. But now we get a chance to check this thing out and it's super fun. I think it's a really interesting game that we didn't get a chance to see a genre like this really get any love in a long time since probably like the PS3 days. I feel like games like this don't really exist except for only in the indie space. It's cool to be able to see this game get some more love.

1:25:27And you're kind of basically living out the time span, the lifespan of a fly. And it's just really fun. I love stuff like this where you get a chance to have, you know, weird and wacky games kind of come out and have a new flavor that I think you should definitely check out when it drops on July. End of July, July 31st, I believe. So definitely check that thing out and give it some love. So massive love to them. Mass love to Ben and massive love to you for all checking out the episode today. So make sure that you go check out all the work we're doing on Spawn on Me. Check out our YouTube channel.

1:26:01Check out our TikTok. Check out our Instagram. all those things are where you can find more content for me and from the rest of the crew. So we'll see you soon. Have a good rest of your weekend. Much love to you all. Peace.