Beyond Balatro and taking risks: Why Playstack doesn’t want a 100% hit rate

0:00Before Bellaccio launched, we knew we had something special. Nobody knows how special that could have been, but there was such a buzz about the game, such an excitement about it. And we all had a little wildest dream forecast for how the game might do, and we were all low on how it did. We are really proud of that, but the 15 % is really important too, because if you only did things that were safe, and only did things that were going to be profitable, or any things that could work, you don't take as many risks. and i don't think indie publishing is about that i think indie publishing is an indie development is about taking risks it's about having an idea that people just generally don't quite see how but it's become phenomenal and capture people so maybe 85 is a really nice number maybe 70 would be brilliant too yeah but 100 we're probably making some mistakes there in in what we're filtering out

0:51Hello there and welcome to the Game Business Show. This edition is sponsored by HelpShift, a Keyword Studios platform. Now HelpShift says that players already trust AI to help them. The problem is that most AI in gaming wasn't built to. According to the company, 66 % of players are comfortable with AI handling their issue first as long as there's a human behind it. 74 % want it resolved without leaving the game and 58 % will quit over a bad support experience. Now studios agree as well, 80 % see AI becoming the default for player support. Their worry isn't AI, it's AI that doesn't understand games.

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2:16Now Playstack celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and it's done so by changing owners. It was acquired by integrated media company, the owner of Fandom and GameSpot, when it valued Playstack at£125 million. So we thought this would be a great excuse to catch up with Playstack CEO Harvey Elliott. Now what you're going to get is actually two interviews because we spoke to Playstack before its IMC acquisition. So part one is going to be about Bellatro and indie publishing and the market in general. While we'll have a quick mini chat about its new owners after that. Enjoy. Hello, Harvey. Welcome to the show.

2:52Thank you, Chris. Nice to be here. You know what? I haven't caught up with you since Bellatro. Which is actually two years ago. I know. Two years, three months. Which is upsetting. But what a seismic release. What a huge success. Has that changed PlayStack? A little bit, yes. I mean, the place out for what we do, what we set out to do, isn't any different to when we set out 10 years ago. But when you have something like Ballatro happen, and, you know, it's a once-in-a-lifetime type of game. The reach has had the phenomenon that it is. It's just very validating, and it makes everyone feel like what we do is worth it, that it really matters.

3:31And we're so proud of every game that we publish. You know, we genuinely put our heart and soul into every title. but when one like that just sort of catches and catches players in a way you didn't know it was going to and it just the reach has had the success it's had it's very validating and it makes us feel very positive and it gives us a little spring in our step but it doesn't change the steps we're taking we just bounce a little bit more as we take them certain games give publishers a unintentionally maybe like a brand or a vibe or this is the publisher you know, Team 17 because of Worms for ages, this is the publisher that does sort of quirky multiplayer games.

4:08Devolver, because of maybe Hotline Miami, is the one that does edgy sort of those sort of games. It's not true because they do lots of different types of games, but have you found that you're getting approached by certain developers who make certain types of games? Well, definitely that's true to an extent. I think on the inside of those companies, I don't know that Team 17 feel like the Worms company or Devolver feel like the Hotline Miami company because they know all the other things they do, but you can't necessarily help how people will perceive you. And for a lot of people, the only thing they will know PlayStack for is Balatro.

4:41Hopefully they know us for Abiotic Factors, and they know us for Recoign, and they know us for other titles. And actually, to that point, Recoign's a really good example. There's no way we would have been publishing Recoign if we hadn't published Balatro, because they saw us publish Balatro, and oh my goodness, they've got to publish this. They probably were inspired by Balatro, so Recoign probably only existed because Balatro existed. and because Recoin existed and we'd published Balatro, they had to bring it to us. So it created, I think, Recoin in that way. And we've got a surprising number of those sort of parlor, roguelike games being pitched to us and approached and we've got a couple more coming out.

5:19So yes, it sort of created a sort of a theme within the games, but there's still a very small proportion of what we do in that sort of category of game. And really there only is one Balatro. We have other games that sort of capture some of that sentiment, but not in the same way. So, yes, it changes what we've pitched. Yes, it changes how some people might perceive us. But inside, we don't feel like that's all we do. So in 2016, a story that I would have definitely have edited was when PlayStack was announced, and it was Gamescom, I think. It was a Gamescom edition of MCD anyway it was in. And you said at the time you wanted to fix the word publisher.

5:57Is that mission complete? I don't think it's ever complete but I think we made some really good steps to that yes and I think it can never be complete because there are so many publishers out there that mean the publishing means so many things to so many people but what we set out to do I think we do deliver that and I really I feel very proud of it and what we try and do is we say every game is unique every development team is unique and they will have things that they all need but in different proportions some need funding, some need direction, some need guidance. None of them need to be told how to make the game.

6:33They know that's the one thing, you know, we're very aware of, but they still need help and support and structure and champions and people who believe in them and people who can find audiences for their games. And I think those are missions that we do accomplish for our developers and our partners. So I do think that's definitely working. I think there's always more we can do and there's always lessons we take from every game, and even hits like Balatro, there are things we could do differently for the next time around. So I think it's always going to be a work in progress, but I do feel like we made some really positive steps, yes.

7:08You teased something there. What did you learn from Balatro? Well, when you get a game that goes as wild as that went, the success of Balatro happened... Actually, before Balatro launched, we knew we had something special. Nobody knows how special that could have been, but there was such a buzz about the game, such an excitement about it. And we all had a little wildest dream forecast for how the game might do, and we were all low on how it did. But every time you create an additional version of Alatro, like, so we have, it was developed for PC, and we managed to get it to console for launch, and that was fantastic.

7:51So we launched on PC and console. We didn't have a mobile version ready. I really wish we'd had a mobile version ready. We knew we had something so special so quickly. The mobile version came in September, so that did brilliantly well. And we were very lucky to get Apple Arcade support and to be able to release as a premium game on Google and Apple. If those had all happened at the same time together, perhaps that would have given, you know, different kind of moments. So there's some lesson in there. But equally, we knew we'd built this sort of fervor for the game. I mean, the game built the fervor for itself.

8:27We just gave it a voice and we gave it some audience and gave it some reach. But the game just really captivated an imagination and it made people feel very smart because you have to be pretty smart when you're getting really, really good at the combos and trying to work out the right way to put your jokers and how you prepare your deck. And I think it was those sorts of lessons, the launch planning and timing the game releases and getting it out there and just little things about when you submit a game on multiple platforms all at once. We've done more complicated things since because of Balatro, but we didn't necessarily do them all with Balatro first time.

9:05You know, a multi-skew release is complicated, especially with a solo dev driving the creative and driving the game. We can talk about Balatro all day, but another very smart publisher told me you shouldn't look at the breakout hits in terms of judging whether a publisher is a good one to work with. you should look at whether the games have been less successful. How did they support those games? After that, what did they do if a title didn't deliver success or the breakout success? Because I think there is an element of truth to the fact, you know, a Bellatro is an excellent game, but in this market, you do need a bit of luck.

9:37I think he's absolutely right. You can't just judge one game to judge a publisher or to judge a team. Like, you can't judge them by one thing. And I think it's how, maybe a different way, maybe the question actually is, you know, how do you measure whether you're doing the right things? How do you measure whether you're doing the things you set out to do? Do you want to do this job? And I can... No, no, because you're definitely better at this job. But I think, so my answer is obviously sales is the easy answer. How many copies did you sell? What are the reviews like? But for us, it's more about, you know, my favorite metrics.

10:15I've got two pretty favorite metrics. One is, does that team want to work with us again? Have they come back to us with their next game or their next thing? Or are they going to continue to work with us? Because that's a real testament that being through games development is so hard. And publishing a game and getting a game out there is such a difficult journey. And it's a long journey. So to get to the end of that and say, let's do it again, everyone. Let's go again. And for me, that's my favorite sort of metric, the repeat attempts we have with people. And we're really lucky. We've got multiple developers who are working with us on their second titles.

10:50We've got one developer who's going into their third, the Color Grey team. We've done Case of the Golden Idol and Rise of the Golden Idol and six different DLC packs within it. So there's already eight SKUs in the old SKU matrix on multiple platforms. And we've signed up for their next game. So we've got another game coming from them in the future. And so to go around three times with someone, I think, is really encouraging. But lots of developers we've worked with a second time. We have Mortal Shell developers. We're making Mortal Shell 2 for later this year. We made the Entropy Center back in 23.

11:26We launched Voidbreaker into early access last year. It's coming out. Hopefully it's 1.0 released this year. That's with the same developer, SoloDev down in Brighton. And those are very positive and affirming moments for me. That sort of repeat visit. the other success that I really like is when we write the first royalty check to a developer it basically means okay it's making money now here's some here's a life here's a living that you can make from what you've put so much effort and commitment into and so I like those metrics a lot and then we say to developers when we're talking to new developers who want to sign with a publisher or I'm not sure if they want to sign with a publisher but talk to someone we've work with and find out what they say.

12:10And, you know, if you need contact details, let us know, but normally you can find somebody and message them. And when developers come and join us and they say, well, I, you know, asked a few people you'd work with and they were really positive because someone's always going to say nice things or most of the time they'll say nice things to your face. But if they're talking to somebody, you know, over a pint or just at a coffee or away from things, what would they say out of school? And if they're consistent with what we believe in and they say what we've done for them and people like that, then that's a reason that they'll come and work, you know, developers come and work with us.

12:44So those are my metrics. Obviously, I know that you were at EA back in the day, but it must be quite terrifying to sort of, for those decisions to be out of your hands, effectively, you could have launched a big hit, a successful game, whether it's any of the titles that you just mentioned, and then you don't know if you're going to get the next one. It's a real role reversal, really, isn't it, from where the industry was 25 years ago? It is a bit, yes. Yes. Although I've always known that, I'd never phrase it like that in my head. Don't you have a hit rate of like 85%, isn't that what I read?

13:16Yes. That's quite impressive. The hit rate, what we try and do with every developer is make sure they can afford to make their game. They can afford to get it out. And if it needs extra time, we're there to help make sure it's got the money and the support to get it done. But when the game is paying a royalty to the developer, that means the costs have come back, it's recouped, it's now profitable. And the hit rate for us is when we're paying positive royalties out, the games are profitable, you can afford to reinvest in them or you can afford to invest in the next title. And yes, it's 85%. I think it's probably a little bit higher because it just depends how many games we've just released, they may not quite have fully recouped yet.

13:53So we are really proud of that. But the 15 % is really important too, because if you only did things that were safe and only did things that were going to be profitable or any things that could work, you don't take as many risks. And I don't think indie publishing is about that. I think indie publishing and indie development is about taking risks. It's about having an idea that people just generally don't quite see how, but it's become phenomenal and captured people. So maybe 85 % is a really nice number. Maybe 70 % would be brilliant too. But 100 % we're probably making some mistakes there in what we're filtering out.

14:32Yeah, because I think it is this space, I talk about this a lot on the show, it is this space where the innovation is coming from, the new IP creation is coming from. And I know a lot of it stays in the indie space or the AA space. Then some of it, you know, potentially could break out from that. The next games could be bigger and then bigger and you can scale those sort of things. And you're not really going to get much of this from the AAA end. I think you sort of need to start at, whether it's indie or AA, but you need to start at that level. And when I use those terms, I'm talking budget, because I don't think you can always tell in terms of quality.

15:04I think that's fair. I think big budgets, which we have some bigger budget games, but with really big budgets, you can't afford to take chances. You know, you need that to work in order to get your money back. but it also forces you to make choices that perhaps a little bit compromised and indie can be quite fearless you know i'm thinking of color gray games in case of golden idol which has a very distinctive 2d art aesthetic and a quite traditional sort of old school point and click style gameplay that could never be a triple a experience because that's a risk and a challenge that people never take and it's been really successful and it's led to a franchise and And I was going to pick out on IP and say, oh, no, no, it's not about IP or about individual games.

15:52So then I talked about Case of the Golden Island, Rise of the Golden Island, 60LC. So it's actually become an IP. But it was fearless. And I like the fact it was fearless. And it could afford to be fearless because it didn't have the world's greatest expectation on it. It's turned out to be brilliant. And it's created a studio and created a team. But it could afford to take those risks. And I think you're right. with the bigger budgeted games, those risks are harder to take. You can still have exceptional games and exceptional content, but there is something quite refreshing about where indie games can go and what you can see with indie developers.

16:32You talked to me a little bit about how you think about hit rate and risk, I guess, but what about portfolio makeup? Obviously, I talked earlier about how Balatro, so you might be getting pitched certain types of games and therefore you've got certain games that have a certain vibe to them, But how do you think about your portfolio? It's funny because similarly to the way I think about profit and revenue, so they are lovely things to have. A portfolio is lovely to have, but a portfolio will only build from success and revenue and profits will only build from success. So the portfolio is sort of the byproduct of doing a really good job of finding great games and building great relationships with developers.

17:08So you can look at your portfolio and go, we feel really good about the games we've got in the lineup and the titles that we've got. In terms of category or genre, when I started PlayStars, so 10 years ago, my kids were quite young. They were 12 and 10 and 5. And there was no way I could have a risk of them coming into the room while I'm playing a game, and there'd be something really gruesome or horror based on the screen. So I said, we can't do horror in case the kids come in while I'm playing that. And I really don't understand American football. so there's no horror and there's no American football at PlayStack.

17:44The kids are older now. They play games that are definitely on the other edge of things. And so horror is fine. Gruesome is fine. I still don't get American football. But that really was the restriction on PlayStack. What we all have learned is we aren't a genre team. We do have some games which happen to resonate around certain genres and that just happens. You know, we had Case of Golden, Rise of Golden Isle, and we now have another detective-esque game that we're going to announce later this year. We've had Balatro, which has led to Recoin, and two more that we'll be announcing later this year.

18:20And so there are categories, but we're really a variety publisher in that our taste as players is all sorts of games, and we want to be able to publish all sorts of games. And the diversity is also what makes us work so well. So for me, the portfolio will look its best when it's varied and interesting with a diversified mixture of games inside it. And that portfolio will only build if we're successful in publishing great games from creative developers. And so it becomes a bit of a byproduct of what we do. But of course, we would like to have a strong catalog of games, because if we have a strong catalog of games, then we've got a lot of developers who are getting good, healthy incomes from the projects they've made with us, which can then enable them to do more innovative and more creative titles on the other side.

19:08I guess they're an advantage of being good at certain things. If you're launching a game like Recoin, right, and you've got an idea now who that audience is, where you can reach that audience, you know, or detective genre, you know where those people are hiding, which Discord channels, which Reddit, you know, there must be some advantages to that kind of thing. You must be, every time you go into a new genre, you're kind of going out of your comfort zone, right? Yes, you're absolutely right. It's really true. But let's say you've got this group, this huge audience love Balatro, and we say, hey, would you like Raccoon?

19:43And then, oh, I quite like Raccoon. It's a smaller group within that Balatro audience. I like Raccoon. And we go, here's another one. Oh, and it could be a smaller group. will the next game grow the group that Balatro was in? Could it be a bigger game than Balatro? And I would argue Balatro is a defining game in its category and it was very unlikely that we would have another game that would reach more people than that. So it's great to be able to go back to those audiences and say we've got more for you that you might really like. But the new successes will be something different. And I think that's sort of back to indie.

20:19I remember my time at EA, which I genuinely loved and was there for almost 10 years. But our investments were so high, your games kind of had to have, here's our game. It's a new game. And then we'll do number two. Then we'll do number three, number four. And then you'd have a franchise because that helps justify all the investment you put into building it. And the brilliant thing about indie is you don't need that. You don't have to put sequels into your plan. and so you can afford to take chances and build new audiences and take that sort of bold leap with every game that you make and you find a new audience.

20:55And there are lots of things that we can talk to the same players and say, look, we know you love this game. Here's something completely different with publishing you may be interested in. But probably there's not that huge crossover either, so maybe I'm under, you know, but the ability to find an audience and build an audience for any game is something that we should get good at, not good at just talking to the same audience over and over again because it by definition would automatically shrink each time we talk to them hey you've got another one oh right you again great well they get old or they get married and they have kids so they don't have time to play and then okay now what oh yeah well we're still waiting for them to get to retire and then come back that's what we're doing at the moment in this industry um so let's talk about this 10 years 10 years of place that how do you feel indie publishing has changed compared with when you started i think the indie market has thrived in that time especially where you know steam's been a brilliant platform and a brilliant a brilliant champion for fruity games that has been for a long time i really feel like um we kind of talk about triple a and and like you're saying triple a i think you're right triple a definition in 10 years time will be different to definition today they've sort of grown to a size where they're they're such behemoths almost they have to be successful in order to work and the investments are eye-watering.

22:11And it's leaving this gap behind, which has given space for indie games to thrive. But cut through is always the challenge for every game. How does your game get to be the one that reaches audience? How does your game become the one that people have a shot at playing and understanding? And you can never engineer a complete success, but you can give it the very best possible start in life. And I think when we started, and I started PlayStack 10 years ago, I think a lot of people would say I'll just do it myself I'll self-publish I'll put my own game out there and I think self-publishing is still our biggest competitor in terms of what a developer is choosing to do whether to go with PlaySack or to publish themselves but I think we've also proven the value of having a strong publishing partner and allowing a developer to really focus on making the game exceptional to allow publisher fill the gaps and do the bit that makes the marketing the reach successful.

23:07And I think we've proven that there's a definite role for a publisher. Whereas I think 10 years ago, it was sort of a question. I need a publisher because I need some funding, not I need a publisher because I want to reach a bigger audience. I want to reach more people. It's interesting you mentioned self-publishing as being your biggest competitor. I've really like a bipolar sort of reaction to self-publishing because on the one hand, I spoke to the Mugenics folks earlier in the year. I love the fact that they have full control. They know their audience. they get they see every penny from the success of that they don't feel trapped in a loop of having to go back to a publisher and ask for money every time that freedom it's so attractive i can see it but honestly from an industry publication i want to see money the industry because at the moment we're not getting a lot of outside investment so seeing the industry generate its own revenue and then that revenue being used to fund more games and more projects is is i think really really important so when i see a really smash hit breakout success in the indie space from a self-published game where I'm like, oh, that's a lot of nice yachts that that team might now have or fast cars or something like that.

24:09Which is why I love it when you get like the Phasmophobia folks launch their own publishing label and then they'd put that money back into the thing. I do love those stories. It's something that just sort of appeals to me. I didn't have a question there, but it's just you really talked about self-publishing. But I think that's a really good observation. And I agree with you, actually. I think what you sort of asked, you know, what's Bellatro changed about PlayStack? and it told us we're doing the right things. It gave us that spring in our step. It has given us the ability to fund more projects and back more games and invest in more titles.

24:40So we never want to be gigantic. We never want to be publishing another place at that game. That's not who we are. We probably have eight releases this year, which is quite a lot. It's busy, it's healthy. It's a competitive year as well. Yeah, it's a very competitive year for sure. So I think, but it enables us to do more. And I like the fact we can help, you know, just play a small part in helping the industry grow. Where do you think indie publishing goes in 10 years' time? The reverse of the question. I always, 10 years is a long time. I'm always wary of saying 10 years. It's, do you know what, it is and isn't.

25:17A lot of games, a lot of game teams take, you know, two years to make a game. They can take, you know, 18 months to make a game. So if you're a studio, you might make five games in 10 years. You might make four, you might make three, you may not all be successful. As a publisher, we can work quite fast. We can work on six to eight games in a year. So in 10 years, we could publish another 60, 80 games. So there's a huge journey that's going to happen. Yes, it's a very small number proportionate to the number of games made, but I think it can be quite an impactful number. We can learn a lot and we do learn a lot.

25:55And, you know, I'm really pleased that in all the time we've just been speaking just now, we haven't talked about AI, we haven't talked about, you know, those disruptors in the market and what they're going to do. they will be disruptors they will change the nature of some game development i really hope they only become enablers to help us make more of our games and not the games themselves and i really hope that we can continue to champion even more variety of indie development and indie indie games and i hope there are genres and categories that we never knew would exist that exist in 10 years of time.

26:31And I'm not sure how much technology is genuinely going to change, you know, revolutionize the way in which we interact with or play with games. There'll be a control interface and there'll be a screen of some sort. And that's, you know, that's going to be a large part of it. So the innovation, whereas, you know, if we go back 20 years, the innovation is in tech, the tech getting faster, the tech getting better. And I don't know that that makes as much a difference in indie game development as it might have done before. So I think what we're going to see is more innovation more creativity perhaps more audience diversification and so for publishers like ours I think the work will increase I think the the responsibility of helping games find increasingly diverse and increasingly increasingly interesting audiences and be able to cut through to them an incredibly competitive landscape just for noise of things that people have to see or hear so I think the landscape is going to intensify but I think you will you know we'll look back and I hope feel very proud of what the foundations we've built in these first 10 years of PlayStack will see that coming in the next 10 years and not just for us but across the industry where there's just some genuinely innovative creative imaginative games that everyone gets to experience.

27:45During COVID I worked at games in the shop business at the time it was owned by ReadPop and ReadPop or ReadExhibitions were shown there were big massive events companies so it's the worst time every other games company were having an amazing time except for this this one because we're an events company makes most of its money from events and they pivoted drastically during that period they decided that digital was the future and they pivoted everything towards digital because they had they got in their heads that when the pandemic ended everyone would want digital and they wouldn't want the events anymore and games events did struggle to come back but the comic cons and all this sort of stuff they ran came back and they came up with a vengeance they came back bigger than they've ever been turned out we quite liked being with people but we could have told you that beforehand but there was this weird assumption that actually it's so much more convenient to to work from home and it is but also you are losing something we do like being around each other gigs are bigger than they've ever been music concerts you know it's like i know the smaller ones have struggled so when people talk about ai and they say oh everyone's just going to play these sort of AI experiences.

28:50I'm like, do they want to though? Yeah. Well, so I support you. I went to Comic-Con. I was wearing similar clothes to now. I was wearing a polo t-shirt and some trousers. And I felt really out of place because everyone was in these amazing costumes based on things that I thought I could recognize, but didn't want to risk. What is that from this in case I was wrong? And you're exactly right. The fandom and the community and the engagement. And you're exactly right. People love being around people. and I think AI as a communication device is fun, it's fascinating. Some of it's really, I'm really glad you've asked that.

29:25I'm really proud of you for asking me kind of sophisticated kind of builds and it's really interesting, but it's a little bit light. It's a little bit vacuous and it's sort of a nice thing to try, but it isn't our interaction. It's not what we should be doing. So I think AI is a tool. It's an enabler. It enables us to do more of what we're good at, But I don't think we will be playing those sorts of games, not from what I've seen so far. Again, it's just me, but I kind of want... We had Troy Baker on the show earlier in the year, and he talked about how he thinks people will pivot toward... People want authenticity.

29:56They want... That's what they want. To quote a Goldfinger song, the singer wrote the song. You know, I want it to feel relevant. Anyway, going off topic, I'm conscious of the time. I was going to ask, because we mentioned... I keep using the word indie publisher a lot. And I actually feel like this revolution in terms of publishing is sort of it seems to be happening and i you know we talk about exhibition 33 which admitted it wasn't a huge budget game but it looked amazing it's from kepler and then you've got someone like secret mode picking up a star wars game right and i look at some of the games that you've been publishing right do you feel the indie publisher tag has become a little bit redundant aren't we just talking aren't you the publishers of today the triple a publishers aren't signing games like this either they're working on their big brands so isn't this just what publishing is i think I think you're right.

30:37And I think when I say we're an indie publisher is that we publish games by indie developers. Yeah. But we don't necessarily mean we are indie pub... we are exactly that, we're a publisher. And the first thing we ever wrote for PlayStack was to reinvent publishing. Publishing reinvented, that was the... it felt so clever at the time. And it was trying to find another way of being a publisher and bringing games to market. And you're right. The definition isn't indie. I think the growing market, the growing opportunity is from indie to me is small creative teams that are unencumbered by sort of complicated infrastructures and complicated things where you you kind of have to make compromise choices to ensure you get a commercial return for your project.

31:25Whereas indie games are more of a work of passion. Somebody is creating passionately and they've created something that's unique and that stands out. And they want others just to love what they love. They don't necessarily think about it in financial terms. They think about it in terms of, will people see it? Will people enjoy it? Will people play it? And so you're right. Maybe the word indie will sort of drift away. We just want to see great games come together that people are playing and enjoying. And I think that journey has already started. Expedition 33 is a fantastic game. Blueprints was a great game.

32:03Blatro is a great game. There are so many of these great games. And then they compete at the Game Awards. They compete at the BAFTAs. And people aren't thinking, oh, that's an indie. Oh, that's AAA. It's a game. They're games that people see and play. And for us, we were nominated at the Game Awards for Best Game with Blatro. and I'm really proud of that. It's an indie game nominated alongside AAA blockbuster titles. And AAA, by what, you know, this is the, this is why I always, I don't like using these terms outside of budgetary discussions because, you know, what would a AAA Bellatro look like?

32:42Radically different to what it is now, you know? I really hope not. You know, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that more money couldn't have been spent on it in terms of, but I think, it's a game that does its thing as well as it possibly can and you give that give the same concept to i don't know you know um the battlefield team and it won't be much different right it's it's just i i don't i i think i think they're just perhaps more focused they're not quite as they're not filled with as many things but anyway and i think maybe you're right maybe triple a is just about investment levels or numbers of people working on it.

33:19And we always struggle. How do you call the really successful indie games? What do you call them? You can't call them double A, because it's not as good as triple A. It's triple I, but actually in most fonts, the triple I just looks like LLL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just great. You know, games from smaller, just great. I'm pleased things are going well after 10 years at PlayStack. I just find it really interesting how the industry has changed. when you go to an event like Summer Game Fest or the Game Awards and you see the games being announced and the logos at the end of it, it's not just EA and Ubisoft and Konami and whatever.

33:52They're in there too, but it's these companies that didn't even exist 10 years ago and they're the ones that are bringing these games to market. And I find that, I feel like it's happened gradually, but now it's just the norm. And I think that's the right thing. You know, we're seeing a really broad group of games from so many categories and so many genres and so many styles and it isn't dominated by one group or one entity or one publisher or one aesthetic or even you know one genre we're seeing such diversity in games and such a breadth of experience that perhaps you know 10 years ago you look to today and you think well there's platformers then there's first person shooters then there's multiplayer thing you sort of the categories are nothing like that they're not they're not defined by a camera position or defined by how many players are in it they're just there's so much diversity so much change and when we talk about balaccio a little bit early just the audience and you know how each new game in that category would always be a little bit smaller we expect categories to come and go you know play stack is the name way back when was a stack of games you want to play that's why it's called play stack It's just a stack of games you want to play.

35:06And you want to play loads of great games. And what's in the stacks and what the stacks are categorized as will change. They will evolve every year or every few years. And that's the excitement bit. That's the bit that the kind of publishing that we do are the hits that we will have in 10 years' time will be nothing like the hits we have today. The games will be different. The genres will be different. But they will all have been a work of passion. and they'll all have creative developers behind them who just want to share their great work with somebody else. Brilliant. Harvey, thank you so much for your time.

35:38Thank you, Chris. Harvey, welcome back. Thank you. I didn't expect to see you so soon. No, so something happened, which we were sort of expecting, but perhaps not so soon. Does it change anything? Does this acquisition change anything? No, the good news is you don't have to do a full re-record. So everything we talked about before is completely valid And, you know, we did have this in mind. So as we were discussing, I knew what we thought the business would be. So no, it doesn't change anything. I've got no earn outs or escape clauses. I'm here, you know, still as committed as ever to the business.

36:12So, yeah, very excited about what's coming. Does the investor bring anything new that you weren't getting before? Yes. I mean, they've got some experience from the games industry, like proper genuine connections to people in games and having worked in games. So I think that's always good. We really value that. They have a fresh mindset. You know, we've worked really well with Truthin for the last 10 years, but we have grown quite a lot within that. And it's good for us and healthy for us to have a slightly bigger investor group that we can talk to about things and we can talk to about new directions and things we'd like to do as a business.

36:48Everything in games evolves, so we've got to keep evolving with it. So I think those are the things that we're most excited about and they love us for who we are. So that's a good thing too. Obviously, they've got some connections to other companies in fandom mainly. Is there collaboration opportunities there or is it very separate? I think it's, you know, we would we would look at the collaborations with companies like fandom anyway, so I don't think it's changed a, you know, a structural thing or anything like that. There's no integrated services. We're not going to, oh, we're all now in the same office.

37:20No, that's going to happen. So I think, you know, we we are running as a games publishing business within IMC. IMC happened to have investments in four other verticals. And so, you know, maybe there'll be a mixer and we can talk to them. That'd be a good idea. But it's not an integrated system like that, no. The valuation at$125 million, that's all right, isn't it? Yeah. I think you need to say it the way I like to say it. It's one eighth of a billion pounds. Oh, that's good. We could all do that. Does that surprise you? There's always that. Perhaps it opens a few people's eyes to how big you are.

38:01I think it's because we've been profitable and we're consistently profitable. It's a healthy multiple, but it's not outside of the realms of normality. You've got some good benchmarks there. I think it's a surprise when somebody actually says it out loud and you go, oh, that's really quite exciting. But we're not really here for the money. I don't think anyone in games is here for the money, really. a nice thing that happens. We love games, we love publishing, and we love getting involved in titles. But it is a nice benchmark. We passed 10 years, and we talked about this before. 10 years in the industry for a company is a fantastic milestone.

38:36We now know 10 years and£125 million, and those are great benchmarks. Okay, well, where can we go next? That's the big question. So to recap, nothing changes at all. There might be some opportunities. Well, put it very simply, we had a business plan that we signed off with truth in at the end of last year and that's the exact same business plan we've adopted with uh imc our new ownership structure so our job is to deliver the exact same number of games the exact same revenue opportunities um what it will change is if we have bigger appetites for some things in the future we've got a little bit more headroom or a lot more headroom with titles we might want to get behind and how we want to support games but we didn't really test limits of that with Drewfinn.

39:21We've had really great support from them but we do know we're getting close to being a majority, quite a significant majority share of their business. So for us having more headroom is very useful and very important but we're not changing the standards. The game selection process that we use, the way the team have to be passionate and get behind the game, the forecasting methodology we use, all of those things are still true. So maybe some bigger games in your future. Yes, but we've got to make sure the numbers make sense for everyone. The developers have to become profitable on the back of the game successes.

39:56If we're going to get involved, it's because we believe we can help them create something very successful and profitable. So we can't just spend this extortionate amount of money in the game that needs to come out before anyone's earning royalties and income. And we only earn from the success when the developer's earning from the success. So we might have appetite for some bigger games, but only if the numbers stack up and if it makes sense. And there are some growth opportunities for us as a business, you know, where we think we could do more. That was already part of our business plan. But the constraint is on us and our ambition, not on, you know, how much money is in the bank and what are we thinking.

40:33I'm always going to make sure we're profitable with a great growth plan. But sometimes you're funding projects for, you know, two, three years out. So you want to make sure you've got the cash flow for that for sure. so you're not getting ahead of your skis that's good no you can't not your star thank you harvey brilliant thanks chris congratulations as well thank you that's it for today's episode of the game business show we'll be back with more news with more analysis insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead please do make sure to put your email address into our website at thegamebusiness.com that means every time we put something out every podcast every article you'll be the first to know but until that time that's it from us today thank you for tuning in what company games otherwise inspires you you get different things from different people but for me when apple put something together when they launch their best products like their phone or the tablet the tv they just did it exceptionally well and so for me that that has become a mantra for us quality so i have to put apple what one indie game do you wish you'd published well i wish there was just see what happened then when you asked that is my brain went oh this one this one this one expedition 33 really good i would love to publish that blueprints actually really love a game would have loved to publish uh silksong would have loved to publish it hollow knight before i mean just any what is your favorite movie i've got three okay okay 1989 batman although i did watch it the other night and it hasn't aged as well as I remember it, but it was the first three inventions of superheroes.

42:08That was was very, very high for me. I loved Heat. There was something about the way that was shot, the gunfights, the character development and Groundhog Day, which is the sort of striving for this perfect day that isn't actually about striving for the perfect day. It's just about reliving those same moments and making little choices. So any of those I'd happily watch. Obviously, your career goes back to the 90s of Acclaim and the early noughties with the Electronic Arts. If you could bring back one classic franchise from that period of time, it doesn't have to be from Acclaim or EA, what would you bring back?

42:41There are two I really loved that when I first joined EA, I was going to get involved with, which was Syndicate, that Bullfrog had made, and Divisional Theme Park Games, although the two-point team do a phenomenal job with reinventing that genre. So probably Syndicate. I think that was one that deserves to be retold and was actually a really clever, really innovative game that is just as relevant today in what it told as a narrative as it was back then. And what one advice would you give to a new independent developer looking to get their game to market? I think every developer needs to know they shouldn't have to do it alone.

43:13What's brilliant about games and brilliant about the industry is the industry supports the industry. People will help. People want to share. GDC is a great example. You know, people sharing their knowledge with people to tell them what they've done, why it's phenomenal. And if you're starting out, just don't be afraid to ask for advice and take advice. But equally, don't be afraid to listen to the advice and go your own way and make your own choices. But listen in the first place and make your own opinions. But there's so much free knowledge that the industry is so proud to share. You've just got to listen.