Games media crisis deepens, Bloober hunts weird horror titles, and New York Games Week soft launches

0:00Guy Blomberg: This week, we dive into Bloober Team's new horror-based games label, and we discuss the future of events with New York Games Week. Hello, and welcome to the Game Business Show. Now, this week's edition is sponsored by Keyword Studios. They are, of course, the video game industry's biggest end-to-end partner. They help developers to make their games, launch them successfully, and they make sure they're supported at a global scale. They've got 13 ,000 people across 26 countries to ensure they can do just that. and they have strong technology. They know how to partner with people and connect teams with the right experts around the player experience.

0:35Guy Blomberg: And for the fans, that means marketing shaped around players, the communities and the culture. From audience insight and campaign strategy to global creative activation, Keyword Studios helps developers reach fans with work that feels relevant, timely and built for the way players actually discover, share and engage with games. You can find out more on the Keyword Studios website or alternatively, check out the links in today's newsletter that's attached with this show and speaking of this show we've got a huge one for you we've got a couple of big interviews one is with timon smek tallah and piotr babiano now timon is the new head of broken mirror games which is the sub label of bloober team and pieter is the ceo of bloober team we're going to chat to them about building and signing experimental games alongside their big triple a project such as silent hill it was a really good interesting chat and we have guy blomberg coming on after that guy is an events veteran he's worked at dreamhack he's worked at PAX.

1:27Guy Blomberg: He's worked with me on numerous games and just like biz events. He and I actually were a little involved in E3 as well, the one that never came out. Anyway, he's going to talk to us about his new project, New York Games Week, and we just sort of chat about the events industry in general. So look forward to that one as well. That's later on in the show. But before we get to them, I have a few notices. First, we're going to have a bunch of events coming up over the next three months that we'd love to see you at. So if you'd like to meet me, if you'd like to meet the game business team, come along to these.

1:53Guy Blomberg: We're going to Middlesbrough in the UK in the middle of October to host a couple of sessions, including an onstage interview with video games legend, the father of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi. We're then going to be in London at the end of October for Comic-Con to do an interview with Brenda and John Romero. That should be interesting. There's also going to be, you know, all of this will be put out as a podcast, by the way. So, you know, if you don't, can't make it, you still get the content. And then we also have a couple of interviews potentially happening at an exclusive legal event that's also in London taking place just before the Game Awards.

2:21Guy Blomberg: So join us for those if you want to. I'll give you more details as we get closer to them. Well, before I continue, I do want to mention a throwaway line in last week's episode of the show, which led to some, shall we say, unwanted headlines. So for those of you who are paid subscribers, you'll know that I do something on a Monday called Here's the Drink. And Here's the Drink is basically an opinion from me. Sometimes it's a bit of a gossip column as well. It's pretty casual. And it's for those who pay to subscribe to TGB. Now last week, I did one for Tokyo Game Show. It was me reporting on all the things I heard in the Tokyo bars, which was what was the industry chatting about, basically.

2:57Guy Blomberg: And one of the many things in that newsletter was the Hideo Kojima to Xbox story. And in that column, I talked about some of the numbers that were being thrown around about how much his game fizzing was going to cost to make. Now, this was gossip. This was rumors. But the numbers that were being thrown around ranged from$300 million to$600 million. The one I heard most frequently was$400 million. In fact, they were the people that I would most potentially trust with getting the right number. But even then, it's not something that I would run a headline on. Ultimately, though, nobody really knew what Xbox had agreed on in terms of their price.

3:30Guy Blomberg: Now, in last week's news and analysis show, this equivalent of this show last week, I actually mentioned that$400 million figure. It wasn't in the script. I kind of went off script a little bit. It isn't in the newsletter. I just casually mentioned the reported number that I'd heard. Now, naturally, they've got picked up by Resetera, by Reddit. I got a text on Saturday to say, hey, are you saying that Xbox paid$400 million for Kojima's game? So I had to quickly clarify this was just a rumor that had leaked over from one podcast into another. People were reporting my rumored figure as fact, and it absolutely should not be treated as that.

4:02Guy Blomberg: However, I actually do now now roughly exactly what Xbox is paying for visits, and it's less than half that rumored number. Maybe the$400 million figure is what PlayStation were being quoted. Maybe PlayStation might be different things. I don't know. It's all speculation. Maybe someone was just making it all up. My point being, the$400 million quote from last week was just a bit of gossip that I'd heard. I now know that's absolutely not why Xbox paid for it. Now, if you actually listen to the podcast, it was kind of irrelevant. I was sort of talking about the fact that Xbox was still investing in big projects.

4:33Guy Blomberg: They weren't just cutting stuff. They were making things as well. And that was a point I was trying to make. And whether it was$400 million,$200 million,$150 million,$10 million, the point still stands. But regardless, I just want to clarify that that number was, isn't true. anyway before i head over to our interviews this week i just want to talk about the games media very briefly because it's been a bit of another tough week for people working in the world we're writing about video games we just had layoffs at future including people at games radar and tech radar there's also been metro in the uk that's a uk newspaper that has a big game section yeah they've all been put on notice as well we've talked about the state of the games media a lot um there's a few things going on here the ad market sort of okay at the moment but people are struggling with traffic acquisition this is partly to do with google in fact this mostly to do with google the ai google algorithm which means that now you don't need to click through to the website to get the information you need google scan the website take the information and present it on the google search bar and some media outlets view this as stealing their content effectively now obviously there are journalists doing the things that i'm doing with sub stacks and podcasts and paywalls and patreons and all sorts to try and break their reliance on google but although that's okay for influencers and sort of small outlets like the game business where we don't have huge overheads it's tough for more dedicated websites with big teams that are built on basically getting lots of traffic now AI is really unsettling the media space right now and more important than ever it's become about audience which is a good thing but unfortunately there is a whole media industry that's having to adapt to that and frankly it's going to inevitably get smaller and we're seeing lots of people lose their jobs as a result as much as I believe in the rise of these publications such as this one obviously i believe in this there's very little room for growth in terms of being able to hire multiple journalists so stuff like this or what steven tortillo is doing and all those wonderful people it's interesting it's fascinating i enjoy doing it but i can't actually see it replacing what's sort of falling away of course traditional media won't go away entirely it'll get to the level it will get to a level it will stabilize and gta should be a nice boost for the media sector as well in come november but i don't think that'll be a long-term boost and we will see more of these stories in the months weeks and years ahead now on that cheery note let's talk about horror shall we um one of the big horror studios in the world is bloober team they make silent hill 2 they make chronos they do loads of cool stuff and the developer started off making when they started they did sort of okay horror games they were all right and then they've been getting gradually better and silent hill 2 was like brilliant the developer now wants to become known as the greatest horror game studio in the world and to do that alongside its big AAA games it's now launched a new label designed to find more interesting unique different horror titles from other studios that label they've launched is called Broken Mirror Games and it's being led by a chap called Timon Smektala who used to be the franchise director on the Dying Lights series.

7:20Guy Blomberg: Now Broken Mirror Games is working on numerous titles but the two that have been announced are the licensed game Saw Genesis and the Switch 2 exclusive called Onyx the Dark Whip which I actually saw at Tokyo Game Show it's very interesting. Now the reason why I thought this interview would be good is we just had Tencent on the show on Tuesday just gone and they talked about how the studios it looks to invest in are studios that are like Larian and From Software have a long-term vision to be leaders in the sector that they're in maybe not with game one maybe not with game two maybe not even with game three but eventually have a path to becoming the leader in the space they operate in.

7:52Guy Blomberg: Bloober team which has been invested in by Tencent has that goal that's what it wants to be the world's leading horror studio and this new label is part of that vision. So I found this really interesting. So do enjoy my chat with Pieter and Timian and Broken Mirror Games. Hello, welcome to the show. Hello, welcome.

8:12Bloober Team: So are you new to the family? Me, of course. I'm new to the Bluebird Team family. I have joined starting September, so basically this is my first month. But I'm not, of course, new to the industry. I have spent more than 20 years in the game industry. A lot of that time was in the early part of my career was actually game journalism. I was covering the whole industry in the biggest Polish magazine called CdAction. But this is actually ancient history for me because the last 13 years I have spent at Techland where I was working on the diamond functions. And in the last few years, I started basically as a producer slash junior game designer.

8:55Bloober Team: I ended up as a franchise director for the whole series. So it was quite an adventure, quite a trip. And in the last years, I was responsible for the franchise as a whole. It's position on the market, transmedia, publishing, also game direction. So a lot of things in that area. And now I, based on the invite from Piotr from BlueWare team, I decided to join our own curated imprint called Broke and Mirror Games, which I will take over managing the portfolio and making sure that it delivers the quality and some additional elements that we will talk about in this.

9:38Guy Blomberg: Wow. That's quite a step to go from that massive franchise to why make the move? What was the inspiration?

9:44Bloober Team: I think the promise and the vision for both Bluebird and Eurogames that I got from Peter was something that excited me a lot. Because I think the strategy for the whole group is super clear. Bluebird focuses on their particular brand of psychological horror. So Bluebird knows what it's doing, but also Bluebird wants to basically become a platform, a name to go to for horror games. and then when you focus like when you know what you're doing, when you focus on the thing that you do best, you also realize that there are different aspects of horror, different perspectives of horror and Broken Mirror Games is supposed to deliver that.

10:24Bloober Team: So we are this crazy, inventive adventurous child of Blueberry team that has the liberty to try different things and I think the titles that we have already announced and that the public knows about them already kind of show and we look at horror from different angles. So definitely that was the thing. I am that kind of a person that constantly is looking for something. He constantly is looking for new experiences. And if you look at my history, I have spent 13 years making parkour zombie games. So I decided it's time to open up some new sit-ups connections in my brain.

11:03Guy Blomberg: I went to see Onyx at Tokyo Game Show. and you can already get a distinct vibe there. You sort of said it there, but sort of I've got it top line. What is the vision for Broken Mirror? What is the goal of it? You've sort of talked about why it's different to Bloober.

11:19Bloober Team: It's actually there in the name. It's a broken mirror. So you want to show different perspectives of horror. When you break a mirror, it gets fractured. And even though you look at the same thing through it, or each part of the mirror shows it slightly differently. And this is exactly what we are trying to do. So it's email player, it's multiplayer, it's a big release, PC consoles or Switch exclusive. It's more action-oriented table horror. It's like whatever we come up with, whatever we find exciting, whatever we feel that it brings something new to the horror genre, we will try to explore that.

11:59Guy Blomberg: So obviously this is great and I think it's a really cool thing to do something that's allowed you to explore and be inventive. And I'll ask about Onyx and stuff in a moment. But how do you make sure it doesn't get in the way of those important AAA projects, the Silent Hills, the Kronos, the Bluebird Team? How do you make sure you can stay focused?

12:14Bloober Team: Can I take that as well? I don't want to be alarmed. Well, so we also have a very unique development model where Bluebird Team has its own tips. They work on the games that Bluebird Team does, and we kind of build the expertise there. For Broken Mirror Games, we look at partners from other development studios, either established, I would say, horror luminaries or just people we believe in, people we trust in, people that sometimes even come up to us with a pitch. and if we see an developer that gets the horror in the same way or with the same depth that we do or maybe has a cool game idea and needs that Bluebird Hill expertise to bring horror into that cool game idea or make sure that the horror is expressed there, those are the approaches that we are considering.

13:03Bloober Team: Of course, everyone knows that the industry is in a very tough place, so we also need to be meaningful of the margin side of it and the business side of it, but definitely we started with the idea, we started with the pitch, we started with the question, does it bring something new to the genre? Is it something that excites us? Is it something that we have not known before because we also don't want to repeat ourselves too much?

13:27Guy Blomberg: Well, I think Onyx, let's talk about that because I think that kind of embodies it in a way because, look, Peter, we talked about this last year, I'm a big Eternal Darkness fan. I was excited when I saw that project. One of the first things I did was say, hey, can I go and see this at Tokyo Game Show? But it's a switch to exclusive. You can only play it in handheld mode. It feels like quite a risky project. You're narrowing down your audience quite a bit by doing that. Is that sort of indicative of what we can expect, the fact that actually we're not necessarily going to follow the rules of what the industry says?

14:00Bloober Team: So I cannot say we'll just jump already on the risky projects. I don't think Peter will allow me to do so, But still, of course, only see something that interests us. But also, what's important to say here is that we are looking at this long term. I have just joined, so, you know, everything is special. But when we are talking with people regarding how we see broken mirror games, we are not talking about how we see broken mirror games today. We are not talking about how we see broken mirror games in six months. We are talking about how we see in a year. we actually have a much more long-term plans for the imprint.

14:40Bloober Team: And Onyx is a good example of that. We understand it's a risky project, but this is actually a project... Actually, risky is not the best word. I will get back to it in a second. But it's also a project that allows us to build a relation with Nintendo and allows us to build a relation with Nintendo players. And now I will get back to the risky part. You say risky, I would prefer to call it innovative or novel or vain to invent something new. And also when you look at Nintendo as a brand, Nintendo has the quality that they bring to the market, the gaming market. This is exactly what Nintendo is bringing.

15:17Bloober Team: They don't chase the trends. They don't chase higher specs and the poor shaders. What they chase is innovation that fuels gameplay. And so Onyx is that kind of a game. Sometimes you just have to take those innovation leap of faiths, and we are doing that with Onyx. I actually would love you to play the version of Onyx that we have right now in the studio, because the Tokyo one is not the newest one, which I think shows even more how innovative this game will be. And of course, that's maybe for the future. So I think that kind of answers your question. I think Christopher and the Doctor together on GameStone more than a year ago.

15:56Bloober Team: Yeah. And I told you that I'm a fusion to the channel. I'm doing my right muscles very deeply in my house. And by the way, I was also a game journalist. I made the first website in Poland, which was the world of Nintendo. And then I organized the first two Nintendo camps in Poland. So it was pretty cool. And right now, because of Onyx, I'm also making my dreams also. Because I really would like to get an exclusive horrors on Nintendo platforms. and the god era of Gamecube now with Eternal Darkness, with Resident Evil Zero, which was our indie cool game. I would like to get back to those times.

16:36Bloober Team: We are trying to do this right now. So as you can see, it's not only business. It's just making dreams come true.

16:42Guy Blomberg: Resident Evil Zero and the remake and 4 and Eternal Darkness. It was a glorious time to be a horror fan and a Nintendo fan. And Luigi's Mansion, obviously, as well, to a degree, I guess. Peter, last year you told me, I think you said you were 250 people at Bluebird last year. And you talked about doing the best you can to avoid layoffs because if you can keep a team together, they learn and they develop. And I love that. And that would make me assume that you're going to be a little bit more risk averse, be a bit safer with the projects that you choose to sign and work on. Whereas this, I know the word risky isn't the word you use there.

17:14Guy Blomberg: It's novel and innovative. But it feels like you're taking a few rolls of the dice on that. I mean, what makes you comfortable doing this sort of thing?

17:22Bloober Team: Oh, you know, I'm always telling you that every single step should be safe for the company. This project will not destroy the studio. So I told you about 250 people, right now we have 170.

17:36Guy Blomberg: Okay.

17:37Bloober Team: So we are going into a little bit contrary to the market. And we don't want to be bigger, and we don't want to create projects which are very big but taking at the same time risks. So if you think about Onyx, if you think about some other second party projects, they are a little bit smaller than those which you are doing on first party. But at the same time, we are putting a lot of our attention and even if we are feeling that maybe it's too much to put a much bigger budget into this project, we still believe in the quality because you are as good as your last project and we would like if we are not sure that we are able to deliver the quality it's better to cancel the project.

18:25Bloober Team: Right now we have seven titles in our portfolio two on first part and five on the second part and we are very proud about what we are doing so I As long as you are keeping doing this job, you will be able to succeed. And you know, the way that we organized our company in a little bit more vertical rather than horizontal way, it's helping us to understood players, but also not making the same mistakes by creating the other things. Because if you are doing a different kind of game, it's a huge risk that you will fail again. and if you did something great in your last title, you will be able to improve it if you are going into the same river.

19:12Bloober Team: So, sub-balance, I would say, of course, this is all saying that you don't have to have all of your eggs in World Basket, right? So, actually, this is that. The second part is also a way to build another pillar around Bluebird's skill stability. but we try to apply logic, apply reason, apply sense first. When we look at things, is it self-publishing? Is it publisher? How big the team is? What's the genre? Who's the marketing partner? So even though the project might seem risky, then I think the business side is much more stable and actually tries to balance different approaches and different things.

19:52Bloober Team: I think this is something that elasticity, that being agile, is actually something that the current state of the industry wants.

20:00Guy Blomberg: It's interesting because I was talking to Tencent, this week's episode is Tencent, and I know that there's history there. But their strategy is that they believe that studios should focus in on something they're really good at. And then the next game, they talked about the From Software journey where they went from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls to Bloodborne and then it led to Elden Ring. and it's sort of you can see the journey because they were they basically stayed in a genre and they learned from it and they developed it and they did sort of side ones but it all led to a sort of a journey for that studio larian was another one that went you know those divinities led into boulder's gate and i guess that's the sort of similar thing that you're doing here with you've got your horror games you know the ones you're making first party be working with these other studios you're learning from them you're seeing what works what doesn't work and then it all feeds into basically becoming a better studio at the thing you do and i and i guess that's what I picked up from what you just said, Peter, and it sounds like a sensible thought-out strategy.

20:51Bloober Team: There's no question there. Yeah, but actually I think there's something that I can add to because I think there's actually even slightly more to it. Of course, Tesla is everywhere in the game industry right now, and Edwell listens to what they say. But the first part, the Bluebird King, is exactly doing that. They're building expertise within the genre, within the type of experience, within the type of the game that Bluebird wants to make. But at the same time, I think the ambition is bigger than just the creator of this particular brand of games. The ambition for Bloober team is to be the horror household name, horror platform.

21:28Bloober Team: And then it seems it makes sense looking at the popularity of horror in book culture. The biggest franchises in movies are basically the horror franchises. So Bloober follows the strategy that we convention that it seems Denson is also championing. but also has bigger ambitions and tries to build a bigger platform a bigger perspective on horror in general and i think this is actually why it starts to make even more sense would you be able to do this by our first party games of course from technical point of view but it's like breaking the eye of the studio so so that's why we would like to stick what what we are doing the best at first party and on second part of broken mirror games we are able to create new things by working with studios which have expertise on this particular things.

22:16Guy Blomberg: You said you're working on, is it five at the second party broken mirror side of things at the moment? How many can you? Is there a limit to how many you can handle? Is it five?

22:26Bloober Team: Right now, again, it's a question of balance. And I think we would not like to work on more today. I'm not saying what the answer will be next month. I'm not saying what the answer will be in two months. but I think we already have our playful and of course we are focusing on the games that have been already announced and these are Soul Genesis and Onix that are great, both with the release platform next year it is a lot, definitely and I also don't want to kind of jump onto it, expanding the team too much right now, just going crazy with ideas, we already have a lot actually 5 is a super substantial number, how do you think of it So I would not like to expand that much.

23:14Bloober Team: But having said so, if there's a great idea, if there's a great pitch, if we find a game that's, I don't know, like Gamescom Asia and we find a game from a TIE team that is super interesting and we feel it has potential, then of course we will reconsider. But I think, again, you have to be risk averse with the current climate. You have to be reasonable. You have to be focused on what you are doing. And this is the path to success, and this is what we are trying to achieve. From the business perspective, we don't switch more than five, but we are dream catchers. And if we'll find something like OIC, for example, again, I can't promise you that we're not more.

23:55Guy Blomberg: What do you look for then? You mentioned there it's sort of unique teams doing innovative things that sort of capture attention. Is there something more nailed down when it comes to partners that you do work with? Is there like you need a proven track record or?

24:07Bloober Team: The pitch needs to be strong. And when I say pitch needs to be strong, I don't mean that there's a nice deck where all of the USPs and game pillars are defined. It needs to be an idea where we look at it and we say, wow, this is something that really brings a new take on the horror genre. Basically, we need to see new backdrops, new obsession in the game form, if you get the parallel. And even if we look at something that's a little bit established, like for example, the online horror multiplayer of Soul Genesis, I think the experience that we will be bringing with Soul Genesis is different than everything that's out there in the market.

24:44Bloober Team: This is a genre, okay, but how we take on the genre is different in a way that like the dynamics between the hero, let's say, judge in our case and the victims, the accused in our case is completely different. We built a completely different experience just using some of our elements of the genre. So definitely the creative first. You were asking about teams. So far we are working mostly with teams that we have some kind of a history as Glover and that were part of the for us for some time and we kind of build the relation, build trust, build common understanding of what we are trying to achieve.

25:21Bloober Team: So for example, first of all, Genesis, it's a actual studios for Onyx is Parasite, a studio that basically was built by ex-Bluebert team members. So there's a history there, but it's not the whole story. I don't want to go into too many details, but we have just announced those two titles at this at this moment and again i would also like to emphasize that we will be looking everywhere for those horror experiences so if it's a cool horror game made in thailand or brazil or or somewhere in poland then then we will definitely consider that i mean i don't know if you had to say is that is there like a limit on the sort of budgets that you work within we don't have for limitation in thinking of course it has to make sinos on all the business side we don't want to get smaller products i would say that orax is uh programs because you know we are thinking to add additional value we spend a lot of time by creating double a and almost triple eight items and we are feeling here very well so you could expect those things which will be doing in the future rather not small but a little bit smaller than this what we had in the first part.

26:43Bloober Team: But again, we don't have that defined. I think that's the best answer to your question. Is the top budget for a Broadly Mirroring Games project defined? It's not. Well, again, we start with the creative part and then we try to make it work if we deliver it. So looking for partners, trying to finance by ourselves, just trying to build a business case behind it. So So I can easily imagine that if those stars align, you can also go AAA if that will happen. But I think the order of things is a good idea, there's a great developer that we trust and that we feel has this vision defined in their heads, in their documentation, in the team.

27:25Bloober Team: They know what they try to believe and they have a chance of delivering it. And then we try to build the business case around.

27:31Guy Blomberg: I don't know. How big is the Broken Mirror team? Is it entirely self-contained? Do you lean on resources from Bloober as well?

27:37Bloober Team: A little. So like it's mostly, you know, because we work in majority with external developers, that a lot of the development work is handled by those things. What we have here is, I would say, like a creative and production and business and marketing team understands that gets the visual and broken your games and can help to produce those games, can help with the creative part, with the design part, with the direction part. Of course, can help with publishing and marketing, if that's on our site. And the DNA, the creative part, the DNA, this is something that you can also attach to our project as broken neural games.

28:16Bloober Team: And this uses the heritage, the knowledge, the know-how of the team. Now, when it comes to development-centric resources, if you put it this way, depends on the setup. Sometimes you use, let's say, the mock-up teams, the animation teams, the audio teams, whatever is needed and wherever Bloober can apply the experience that it gets. I think that it also correlates with the actual stage of the first part of the development because for example if we are working on the preparation, the whole team is not involved in the preparation so we are able to put some of our box into second part of the project so in some way it's also giving us the right balance because we don't need to think about okay we are finishing the game so maybe we should have some stuff we always are thinking okay how we could use our resources and all the best of all is that most of those people are with us for more than five ten years so they have the DNA of Bluebird team and we don't want to change it.

29:21Bloober Team: I think I need to say this at this point that may be embarrassing, Peter, a little, but I think the first thing that I got, and I got it almost instantly as I entered the offices, that, you know, the long-term family-based relation building that happens in this team is something very, very unique. In a way, like, we have a Polish heart, but this is super Japanese in a way that we built those relations basically last decades. And honestly, I have just joined, but I can easily see myself working at Google and being with Robin Mirror Games like 20 years from now. Oh, wow. If we have a fun house, because we are not the youngest.

30:03Bloober Team: Yeah, this is...

30:05Guy Blomberg: Although I'm sorry, I'm worried about Timmons' cough that it might not make it... It might not make it to the end of the interview.

30:11Bloober Team: I think it's a very strong AC here, so that's the reason. Well,

30:17Guy Blomberg: I'll end actually with one final question, a question I often ask at the end, because you've talked about having this long-term, you know, relationships, you start here and then, you know, you're thinking perhaps multiple games ahead and all that kind of stuff. But where would you like to see Broken Mirror in five years, shall we say?

30:33Bloober Team: I think it's actually a very easy thing to answer. like. So first of all, I think bigger in terms of Bluebirding, what I would like to see and also help to happen is that we'll get closer to building that horror platform. So when players think horror game, the first developer, they think about it's Bluebirding, right? They see that logo and they say, oh wow, we are into like really tense horror, right? Like we'll get scared and we'll have lots of fun as we get scared. When it comes to broken newer games, I see us as adding to that legacy by being this imprint that surprises people. That basically, I like this metaphor, so sorry but I will repeat it.

31:17Bloober Team: I'd like us to be the Buckrof's love session. Like this year, you got Insidious, you got Eagle Dead, like the established horror genres, they were successful, but then Buckingham surprised everyone no one expected this movie to be so strong and it's a different take of horror so I would like us to be able to deliver that and now going back to what players will feel what I would like to achieve is that imagine there is like the Game Awards on Southern Game Fest and the logo appears, broken mirror games imprint on the Bluver team and they already think oh wow, I will get scared I will have lots of fun and I wonder will they have cooked up this time because I'm sure this will be something that I have never played before.

31:59Guy Blomberg: It's always quite special, I imagine, for a studio when the logo of the studio is the one that gets the roar from the crowd, right?

32:07Bloober Team: So this is the goal for us as the Bluebird team. And like me, I think I'm going to part with the team from the Broken Mirror game side.

32:17Guy Blomberg: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to Onyx. It's on my wish list if they existed on the Nintendo. But I'm very much looking forward to that game. And yeah, I think it sounds fun what you're doing. So good luck with it all. Thank you so much for my support. Thank you to Peter and Timmyn there. Right, next week there is a video games event on. You may not have heard about it because they've announced it quite last minute. It's called New York Games Week. It's a collection of events under this one banner all taking place in New York City. And one of the people behind it is Guy Blomberg.

32:46Guy Blomberg: Guy's an old friend of mine. He's a video games events veteran. He's worked on PAX, he's worked on E3, he's worked on Comic-Cons, he's worked on DreamHack. He's very, very, very well known for working on big video game shows, and he's sort of soft launching this New York project. And he's taking a slightly different decentralized approach to this one, which he hopes will enable the event to avoid some of the challenges that other events like GDC have been facing. So I decided to chat to Guy all about it. And here he is. Hello, Guy. Welcome to the show. Hello, Dreen. How are you? I'm doing really well.

33:18Guy Blomberg: It's been a long time. Well, actually, it's not been a long time since we've spoken.

33:20Broken Mirror Games: No, it's probably been a while since we've been in an official capacity with each other. How's that?

33:26Guy Blomberg: Yeah, that is absolutely true. And now you're doing a new event, sort of. It's a festival, is that the way to call it? Or is it New York Games Week?

33:34Broken Mirror Games: I think festival is accurate. I think festival is a celebration. Like, you know, it's more celebratory. It's more fun. And so, yeah, it's over the period of a week, New York Games Week.

33:43Guy Blomberg: Yeah. You announced it quite late. We're doing New York Games Week, although it's on in a month. Yes. Has it been behind the scenes for a little while, or was this experimental? Talk me through it.

33:53Broken Mirror Games: Well, I just don't think people have the attention span to actually think about an event more than one month out. So we figure we just announce it one month out. No, that's not true. This came about at the beginning of the year. So I've been in New York for about eight years now, and I know a lot of the event organizers here, the Game Days of Color, Tribank Games Festival, the Harold and the New York Game Critics Circle Game Awards, and all this kind of stuff. And a lot of these smaller gaming events are kind of, They're awesome in their own mind, but they're very disparate and spread out. And there was this idea, this collaborative idea to try and get everyone to kind of come together during a similar period of time to try and create like a sense of, oh, we should be in New York around about this time.

34:34Broken Mirror Games: And so the idea came about at the beginning of the year, and then it's just been slowly worked on. We were going to actually do it next year when we had enough time, but we figured, oh, let's just do it this year. Let's put a flag in the ground and see how it goes. That way you can kind of iron out the bugs and figure out what does and doesn't work a bit without, you know, too much pressure. But it's gone much bigger and much better than anticipated for the first year, which is a good and bad on mid-levels.

35:03Guy Blomberg: So you've gone into early access on New York Games Week.

35:07Broken Mirror Games: I think that's a great way of phrasing it. I wouldn't want to call it like the beta or the trial period or things like this, but it is what it is. and it's coming together pretty well.

35:18Guy Blomberg: So what is coming together pretty well?

35:21Broken Mirror Games: It's funny because you and I have been working in events. We've done events and we've been around events. And then many people listening to this obviously, you know, experience with events. This is coming at it without the idea of a singular physical location. The way I'm kind of thinking about it is almost decentralized. I think a lot of gaming events that we go to are trying very hard to try and pull people back into the physical location. And rightfully so. Like everyone, we go to a lot of events. It's like, oh, are you going to that event? No, I'll be in the city around about that time. I'll be at the hotel bars around that time.

35:56Broken Mirror Games: The idea of this was, well, what if we can create something that works around that and goes backwards from that? So it is industry-focused. There's a B2B component to it, probably the most important component. But it's also consumer-focused. Every bar and venue around the city is going to be doing something. there'll be signage up around the city and you know a celebration that's the festival component but the part that interests me the most is maybe possibly building a b2b industry fomo event where the city itself is the venue which i think is uniquely specific to new york city but we'll see this is why it's kind of new and interesting and exciting to see what happens because we obviously

36:38Guy Blomberg: briefly and you know we've still got the scars touched on e3 we did um and and that was that was tough because there were lots of people as well going oh we can be around the city and i know from an attendee point of view going to e3 and then having to go through multiple different security checkpoints and go and even now summer game fest which is brilliant um there's still multiple you know you're still traveling around and things it's not the best experience gdc is obviously trying to embrace the city approach as well, as well as having the centralized thing. But I guess, I guess for me, I've always worried about the business model behind.

37:13Guy Blomberg: Of course. Like what is the role of the central organizing committee, I guess. But I guess you start from the point, you know, you don't have the, got to protect the show floor. You've got that. Yeah, I'm talking, I'm giving your answer for you.

37:25Broken Mirror Games: No, but that's kind of the interesting thing. Like I haven't really seen anyone else try and do this before. This is why it's, it's interesting. And I'd say there's, there's three tiers that I think about when you come to like a B2B business event model and the tiers of people that come to it. One tier is students, students or people trying to get into the industry or trying to actually meet and network or find out more information. For them, I think a lot of panels and talks and curated opportunities and workshops and things of this are really important and valuable. The second tier, I would say, are people that are either starting out or they're from underrepresented countries or they don't have a lot of contacts within the games industry.

38:04Broken Mirror Games: When they come to an event like GDC or DICE or like a game speed or whatever, like they don't know a lot of people there. They're trying to forge those relationships and those connections. And then you've got the third tier, which is the people that already know everyone or the people that know most people or they're going to the event, but they're not going to the event. They're just going around the event because the fact that they're in town, most of their meetings will actually happen around those events. So if you think about those three tiers, right? And I think about the people primarily who are, you know, like you or me or a lot of, you know, colleagues and people that we know that they go to these spaces and they're around.

38:37Broken Mirror Games: They're organizing their own dinners and meetups and they're hanging out in the hotels and a lot of the rooms where they're doing demos and things like this. Like they don't need a physical location. And for the other folks, is there a better way to actually connect people rather than telling them you need to buy a ticket and go to this physical location? I don't know. We'll find out.

38:58Guy Blomberg: I think you might know. What's What's the goal then? You're not calling it a test run, but I appreciate there's an element of getting feedback this year and seeing how it goes and then adapting. But where do you want this to be?

39:08Broken Mirror Games: You know what? I would like this to become a beat on the global gaming calendar. I would like this to be in the same conversation that a lot of people talk about when they're like, oh yeah, we're going to, yeah, we'll be at Gamescom or we'll be at PAX, we'll be at DICE, we'll be at like, you know, a Tokyo Game Show, whatever kind of thing. I would like New York Games Week to be part of that same conversation because they're really outside of PAX East. There's not really a lot of beats on the East Coast here in North America that really draw people here. Why is that? I think the West Coast is primarily where a lot of your game publishers and game developers have sprung up from.

39:44Broken Mirror Games: We think about L.A. and San Francisco and areas over there. That's Silicon Valley. That's where Microsoft, that's where Amazon, that's where Seattle and the West Coast. That's where they're all located. Not so much here. New York is interesting because you don't have a lot of the developers. You've got no publishers except for, you know, Rockstar and Atari. You know, you've got very few mid-tier gaming companies. What you do have is your finance. You have your journalists. You have your media. You have your headquarters. And I think that's interesting. What if we can actually build a beat where a lot of the people that have funding or money or our adjacent marketing or in the film industry or IP?

40:24Broken Mirror Games: What if they're all here and we have a reason for everyone else in the games industry to actually come together? I don't know. I'm curious to see how it goes as well, but I'm pretty excited that we've been able to put something together with the support of the Economic Development Group and the mayor's office as well. So, yeah.

40:40Guy Blomberg: Well, starting from scratch, because obviously one of the things I know we came out of COVID was trying to make existing events work and trying to maintain what was already built and trying to adapt to where the market is today. Obviously, where do you see, this is quite a broad question, but as someone who's worked on PAXs and DreamHacks and all this sort of thing, where do you see the problem with events that you're hoping that you can avoid by starting from scratch, basically?

41:06Broken Mirror Games: Yeah, I think there's two sides to it, right? And you and I did this when we were doing the E3 stuff. We're trying to solve a problem and trying to find a solution, you know, that makes sense for the industry as opposed to actually just trying to maintain the relevance of an existing and longstanding brand, right? The idea of coming at New York Games Week fresh is we're not actually building up any physical component of it that might not be needed. I think the goal is if you can get everyone in town, ironically, around that same time, then you'll actually see what is needed pop up around that.

41:44Broken Mirror Games: There's thoughts that we've got in the future, such as what if we can get like a networking or meet-to-match system that exists over the top of all of it, which is what they're doing down in Melbourne International Games Week, which I love to see. How important are the conference or talk or panel components to it compared to the networking or components to it? What is actually needed? I like the idea of filling in those gaps once we see or hear it as opposed to actually creating something based off a model that might be outdated. the other one is like i think again we we you and i would try and do this with with e3 and we see it with with gdc with like they're trying to you know uh work with the community events summer game fest is a perfect example of decentralized you know even though it's got you know jeff and john's like activations and whatnot it very much is like you know this thing where people are in town so we'll see i i think creating it and starting it was very much just like i said putting a flag in the ground being this is new york games week thankfully it doesn't really compete with a lot of other gaming events either uh outside of north america at the very least like it's pretty in between a lot of the big global beats which is nice so i think there's a chance for it to to really pop off plus and the big one is new york city's a destination location

43:05Guy Blomberg: people like the idea of coming here right right chris right yeah well i'd love to go i went to New York once for the launch of the PlayStation 4 for like 24 hours. Or the reveal of the PlayStation 4 rather. Yeah.

43:18Broken Mirror Games: You need to spend a little bit more time here in New York City. And I mean the pitch, the great thing about New York Games Week is that you'd get around the city. You're not just going to stay inside a convention center and never. Yeah.

43:28Guy Blomberg: Well, one of the things about New York, because I've been quite like the brief period I was there, it reminded very much of a European city. I felt oddly at home in America. But who's involved then? So you mentioned some of the names of the other events that you're, who's involved in it this year.

43:44Broken Mirror Games: Other events, yeah. So it's actually being put on by myself, Amit, who runs the IGDA NYC chapter here, and Christy Pride, who runs the PlayNYC, the larger gaming consumer event that's been in town for a while and is now partnered with AnimeNYC. Other events that are popping up, like we've got the IGDA Game of Palooza, which is like the largest indie event that's showcasing, I think about 70 or 80 indie developers are showcasing there. There's all the different venues around the city, Wonderville and OSNYC and Coexist are popping up with talks and panels and activations and showcases. NYU, the Alamo Draft House is doing a bunch of D &D campaigns.

44:26Broken Mirror Games: All the gaming industry groups, Gumbo, the Indie NYC Collective, are doing industry events. There's a boat trip on a yacht under the Brooklyn Bridge for industry folks. The Gig, the Games Institute Gathering is doing a meeting. Gumbo is celebrating 10 years. There's a bunch of industry-specific stuff and then consumer stuff. Sega's doing a big 35th anniversary for Sonic the Hedgehog. There's a launch party for Clive Barker's Hellraiser. There's a Fashion in Gaming Awards event. New York Comic Con is part of it as well. I think that's a big thing, this giant consumer show that might not be gaming, but has a huge amount of gaming elements in it.

45:10Broken Mirror Games: And I think there's another interesting part to this, which is not really being promoted or spoken about yet, because we need to figure out how this all fits together. But New York Games Week happens the same time as New York Comic Con, the same time as New York Ad Week, Advertising Week, and the same time as the New York Film Festival. And it's interesting that there's all these other not gaming, but gaming adjacent industry things that are taking place during the week, which has led to a lot of really interesting conversations about, you know, there's a couple of, I don't know, there's some industry dinners and parties that are being held by, you know, IP holders that are trying to connect with developers.

45:50Broken Mirror Games: There's some interesting conversations to be had.

45:55Guy Blomberg: Is the city involved?

45:56Broken Mirror Games: Yes. Yep. We got the New York Mayor's Office that are behind it and they're supportive of it. Zohan and the team, I mean, they're gamers. They get it. They've been supporting the games industry here in New York for quite some time. The Economic Development Association are behind it as well. So we've got the support of the city and the promotion, the marketing that's going to blast this out to the entire of New York City as well, which is, you know, important. So yeah, it feels really good.

46:23Guy Blomberg: It's difficult because obviously, you know, I love video game events. i do think the value of them isn't always easy to explain on a spreadsheet but i think when you go to the i don't know you feel the same way but um it does feel challenging and games can just had a very successful games come if you ignore the heists but i think it you know is a very busy and very successful event but it's of a certain scale that yeah and then you've got gdc's i think gdc was actually pretty good but it's it's struggling right it's trying to rebuild itself in a way for the industry going forward I look at the impacts is a sort of still there and you know I and then the London Game Festival is doing a thing where it's now moving closer to a week and they're sort of scaling up a little bit yeah but yeah I I do feel that that entire segment of the industry is proving difficult uh you know when you've got you've got those things like a reboot and stuff that collapsed and those sort of things and and people try and work out what they need in an industry where there isn't a lot of money at the moment going around and that's why people go to these events is to find the money.

47:19Guy Blomberg: Sure. I don't have a question. I was wondering where you were going with it.

47:26Broken Mirror Games: But it is interesting, isn't it? Like, you know, Gamescom is like the model. And even, you know, when we're doing E3 stuff, like that was the model that we were looking for, this consumer and industry kind of, you know, two-hander that could justify getting everyone coming to it. But at scale, that's what works. I actually, at a personal level, I think what's more interesting is the smaller, more regional events. I agree. You know, that actually happened to bring the industry together in a specific location and create more of a community. I think that's really interesting and that's really powerful.

47:58Broken Mirror Games: I do think like GD, I love the stuff that GDC are doing with their business hall kind of thing. You know, it's like, oh, we're creating more of a space for business. I'm just looking at it from an East Coast. There's not really much here, but there should be. but I wonder if we can build a gaming convention or a gaming component that serves a purpose in a more, maybe more meaningful way or a way that future proofs it in a different way. I don't know.

48:28Guy Blomberg: Yeah. Well, good luck with it. I mean, we did do an investment summit back in the day at PAX East, didn't we? And lots of people turned up to it. It was a very busy event. And I think it just shows that you'd be put these things on.

48:40Broken Mirror Games: I'm so glad you brought that up because I guess you'll be doing a game business investment summit at New York Games Week next week. That's great. We've heard it here first. Brilliant. I love to hear it. That's such a great commitment this far out. I would love to.

48:54Guy Blomberg: Oh, it's next year. Oh, maybe.

48:58Guy Blomberg: Actually, next week. Good luck. Maybe a game business live. See if we can get big names from New York. Maybe Reggie or Strauss. I mean, yeah.

49:11Broken Mirror Games: I mean, it's certainly good. Oh, actually, that's, I mean, look, I don't know if this is for the video or not or whatever, but like because of the support from the mayor's office, venues and things like this, anyone that does want to come and actually do like a B2B event, like we've got access to venues and spaces. The Comic-Con folks are really, you know, the Repop Comic-Con folks are actually really open to this as well. They're like, if there's someone that wants to do like a conference or a big B2B component, they've got spaces and access too. Like, I think there's a lot we can do for next year when we have the time to think about it, you know.

49:41Broken Mirror Games: So for right now, it's just the fact that we're doing it. It's gotten a lot of attention. It's got a lot of positivity, both with the local New York gaming industry and relevant gaming communities. And, you know, I think people want an excuse to travel to New York and this would be a good one. So good luck with it, Guy. Thanks, Chris.

49:59Guy Blomberg: Thank you to Guy there. That's it for our interviews today. The only thing left for me to do is our news wrap up. There's only a few stories, but some of them are good ones. Xbox's digital program is now available to all users. The feature which lets players turn their Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs into digital games has been available for testing to Xbox Insiders since the end of August and now it's going to be available to everybody. Moving over to the other platform holder, Sony is skipping CES 2027. It's historically been one of the show's biggest exhibitors, stretching all the way back to 1967.

50:30Guy Blomberg: Sony says it is due to shifting its focus towards entertainment IP and technology that supports creators. We're a positive sales number here. War Dogs, who of course have been on our show, has now sold 3 million copies worldwide. The shooter is from Bulkhead Interactive in the UK. We had a couple of stories from Meta last week. Meta revealed AI-powered game tools that let players make games using prompts on mobile devices and browsers. Horizon Create is designed for mobile, while Horizon Studio is intended for browsers. Both platforms allow assets, systems and iteration history to transfer between them.

51:00Guy Blomberg: Users simply make text prompts describing their desired game. the Meta Horizon engine then generates a playable game, which can be published to Facebook and Instagram. Lots of that going on at the moment. Meta also unveiled VR glasses. This VR is back at Meta, which will have Unity support from day one. The glasses are five times lighter than Meta Quest 3, do not include straps or heavy hardware, and feature a 5K infinite display. It will cost$1 ,300 from Spring 2027. MindsEye developer Builder Rocketboy has appointed administrators. Following its recent wave of layoffs, the studio formed by Leslie Benzies was initially developing a large metaverse-style project but pivoted to a smaller action title but failed to impress gamers.

51:37Guy Blomberg: Killer7, No More Heroes and Romeo as a Dead Man developer, Grasshopper Manufacturer is separating from NetEase Games to become an independent studio, so another Chinese company pulling out of a Japanese company. It's been a bit of a trend that one. And the final two stories, Trophy Games will acquire Plarion, the studio behind Airlines Manager and Airport Simulator First Class. It'll cost them$2.6 million. Plarion is currently owned by Paradox Interactive. And finally, King signed a collective bargaining agreement with two Swedish unions that prevented a planned strike last week. Well, that is it for me today.

52:05Guy Blomberg: Thank you all for joining us. We've got loads of big episodes next week as well. I'll tease you about those and to our paying subscribers on our Monday morning edition. So stay tuned for that one. If you're not a subscriber, paying or otherwise, you can become one by going to thegamebusiness.com and signing up to our newsletter and you'll get an alert every time we put out an episode. That's it from us today. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.