The survival of Sackboy and Crackdown developer Sumo Digital

0:00The appetite for risk and investment for large, big-budget AAA games, the sorts of games that we were doing five, six, seven years ago, those 50 million budget games, we haven't seen one of those come through the door for a long time. We've downsized a lot in the UK, our Pune operations, I don't think we've lost any heads in Pune in the last two years, have we? Maybe some attrition, but we've not made any redundancies, I say, in India because they're so valuable. A lot more of the work that we do no longer qualifies for the tax reliefs in the UK. Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show. This week's edition is sponsored by Xola.

0:40Now one of the big topics we've had on the Game Business Show has been this rise in developers and publishers selling their games, DLC and add-ons directly to fans. In fact, the most successful PC game studios are no longer relying solely on traditional storefronts. they're building direct-to-consumer channels to own the relationship with their players and create an additional revenue stream with better margins. This approach already works at scale. Over 1 ,000 PC games sell direct through Xola, generating more than a billion dollars in transactions in 2025 alone. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

1:11With Xola Publishing Suite, studios can launch their own direct sales channel in days, not months, using their existing team. Ultimately, the studios that thrive in the future will be the ones that build their own storefronts and establish a direct relationship with their communities. You can find out more on the Exona website, they even have an ebook explaining how a hybrid sales model works and what is and isn't allowed. You can find a link to that on the Game Business newsletter, which went out alongside this episode. Now, back to our show. Our interview this week is with Sumo Digital's new CEOs, Gary Dunn and Andy Stewart.

1:44Now, Sumo, it's a work-for-hire and co-dev studio, but they were perhaps better known than most because it developed three Sonic Racing games. It made Crackdown 3. It took over the Sat Boy and Little Big Panic franchise and made the BAFTA winning PS5 launch game, Sat Boy, a big adventure. They made big AAA games for big companies. It's been quite the power in the UK scene. In 2018, the company went public and began a spending spree, picking up numerous teams including the Chinese Room, Red Kite Games and Lab 42. It also opened numerous offices. It even set up its own publishing label, Secret Mode, which is part of a bigger push into creating wholly owned original IP.

2:22In 2021 it was acquired by Tencent, all designed to accelerate this. But the industry struggles were beginning and that impacted Sumo. It abandoned plans to develop its own IP, sold off its publishing label, sold off the Chinese room and cut back its team size. Meanwhile, company founders Carl Cavers and Paul Porter exited the business with Gary and Andy's taking over. Sumo was once one of the UK's most influential video game studios, but it's been six years since that BAFTA winning Sat Boy game. Sega made its last Sonic racing game itself. So where are they now? I, alongside our producer Richard, went over to Sumo's HQ in Sheffield to find out exactly that.

2:59And you might be surprised by what they're thinking and how they've adapted to the modern video game industry. Check it out. Hello, Gary. Hello, Andy. Welcome to the show. Hi. Lovely offices you've got here. How are you set up now? Do people work from home? Is this a remote studio? It's a bit of a blend. I mean, obviously, it's one of a number of studios we have. Yeah. Sheffield's is more remote. Redkart in Leeds is completely in the office. Ah. Leamington Studios and Nottingham Studios are also blended. So we measure output, not input, is one of our sort of mantras. So the workflows are very much focused on what works for the teams and what works for the customers.

3:37Ah. Last time I spoke to Sumo quite a lot, you just picked up BAFTAs for Sackboy. You were making your own games, publishing third-party games. part of a$1.2,$1.3 billion acquisition from Tencent. We were like heady times, not just for TechSumo, but for the whole industry, obviously. You had to cut back. You reduced the team. You refocused your business. I'd say lots of companies have had to do this. But what specifically, what led you to having to do that? It was a great question. I think if I go back to when I joined at Sumo, which was nine years ago now, Well, I think around 80 % of our revenue was two or three clients, the Microsofts of the world, Sonys.

4:18And obviously, after the Tencent acquisition, when we were bought, it's no secret that a lot of large publishers started reining in on what they were spending money on. So we had to think differently. Where we are today is we've got a much more diverse portfolio of clients. We've probably got 30 projects on the go, dozens of clients, really, really huge names. We've had to rethink how we go about business development and our partnerships. We've had to react to changing player demands. So more players are still playing video games, but they're playing fewer AAA titles. There's more concentration there.

5:00So we focused our strategy now on supporting those evergreen titles from a codev capacity. The appetite for risk and investment for large, big budget AAA games, the sorts of games that we were doing five, six, seven years ago, those 50 million budget games that we haven't seen one of those come through the door for a long time. But what we are seeing is a bit of appetite for that kind of AA space, as video games with a 15 million budget. So we rethink how we're making full games as well. And we've got several clients and projects on the go in that kind of ballpark. So yeah, we've had to kind of rethink a lot about the business model and how we go about it.

5:44And we've had to shape the business along the way. As you rightly point out, we're not doing publishing anymore, but it doesn't mean we've lost all of that publishing experience and skills that we developed during that journey. So we always try and bring a publisher mindset to the projects we're working on as well. You know, we've been, our mastery, if you like, has been working on top flight IP. And our mantra has been we always want to maximize people's IP. And I think, you know, we're just, we're using that to our best effect now. Because I think in today's investment landscape, people are rolling back to their IPs that they know and trust and have brought them revenue in.

6:24And that fits with our expertise. You know, we worked well. I mean, last week, I think last night, I don't know when it was shot, but you're speaking to Sheldon Carter at Digital Extremes. You know, we've got a long relationship working for them on Warframe now that's going really well. And, you know, it's that long-term partnership that we're used to and we're building on to lean into more. Whereas Andy said five years ago it was$50 million gains. You just don't see an RFP for anything like that anymore. It literally does not exist in what we can see. But it's about making great games at a lower price point.

7:00And that also fits into our mantra of let's get something great, the second-to-second gameplay great, and let's get it into the players' hands quickly, and then let's build from there. So that's where we want to take a sort of full game development journey with our clients. My plan for that question line-up was to go, hey, what happened? And B, who would you say you are now? You've skipped me to the second question. so thank you for that right so you were these primary developer on these sort of big franchise games like next sat boy like crackdown i like sonic racing going further back yeah then i see sega's taken sonic racing in-house is that not sumo anymore that's not really what you're you're about um i think we've got broader i don't think we've stopped doing that we are still making a number of full game experience for partners including tencent yeah so it's not something we've stopped doing.

7:52We've just seen, you know, the appetite for giving large contracts to third parties diminish over the last three to four years. Why is that? Is it just because companies are scanning back and focusing in? Are they protecting their own talent and their own teams? I think that's part of that. I think it's all part of, you know, people are risk averse. And when you're in a tough market, people are just trying to control things more, I think. But, And, you know, we're always there to provide a wraparound service to make sure, you know, we maximize the client's IP, you know. So, and it's what we've done so many times.

8:30I mean, when you look at the work we did with Sonic, that was all about taking the brand and doing games. You know, we did Sega Superstars Tennis. We did Sega Superstars Racing. None of it was the little blue fella running. But, you know, they were all incremental revenue streams. And that's where we work really well. very brand authentic, very creative and different and doing different things with the brand. And that's the place we feel strong and we want to grow again in that area. Yeah. I loved... It helped that my brother was on the team, but I loved the Sackboy game. I thought it was amazing.

9:04And I would love to see that team do another game of that type, whether it's a Sackboy game or another title. It would be nice to see some of that, right? Absolutely. And we'd love to see that team... They've been doing a lot of work, you know, and most of it sadly we can't talk about um some of it you'll see soon no of course but you know they are there and available to do work on great ips and that's where we're leaning into right now i'm sure you'll see something exciting soon i think i it might be new andy that said it um i read the games in the shop biz interview did you talked about possibly even co-funding some of that stuff is that something that's something that you're talking about that gdc that's something still in the foot yeah absolutely as gary says you know we're we're looking at any opportunity to maximize our partner's IP.

9:48That's what we do. We can do that from a codev capacity. We can do that from a full game capacity. What we're trying to do is break down barriers to investing in new games. So first thing we've looked at is how we make games. Can we make a really compelling experience for cheaper? Sometimes that isn't enough. So actually, can Sumo provide some of the funding from a co-funding perspective to make those investment decisions easier for a partner, make sure we're sharing risk and reward. We're also using the conversations we're having with our partners. There's more appetite for that. They want a development partner with skin in the game.

10:26So it's certainly conversations we're having at the moment. We have some exciting projects underway. And as Gary says, it's frustrating. We can't always tell you about them right now. No. I don't think you're going to have to wait too long at all to see something good out of the team you just mentioned and Sumo. here. How much of these changes that you've gone through, this sort of shift, has come from Tencent, this strategic focus that you're now making? How much that's come from Tencent and how much of that came from Simo? Yeah, I mean, we're definitely very much masters of our own destiny. You know, if you spoke to other Tencent portfolio companies, which I know you have, you know, you know that Tencent's model is very much, you know, hands off.

11:04They let businesses run their own way. So, and that still stands. You know, obviously when we made the decision to move away from publishing that was done with Tencent and we were all aligned on that. And we weren't able to give Secret Mode the care and investment that it needed. And you see what's happening at Secret Mode now and that's great. So we're delighted to see what's happening over there. And yeah, it wasn't right for us at that time, but that was a decision that we were very much behind. And obviously Tencent helped us with that as well. I wasn't going to ask about Secret Mode, what a journey they've been on.

11:38When they came out of Sumo, I was genuinely, I know, independent publishing is difficult. You need to find a hit. And then what they're working on, Star Wars, they're opening a studio. Like it's, they've sort of a... It's great. And we have a great partnership with Secret Remote. Yeah. We do a lot of work for them. We're very close. We will always be friends. And yeah, it is fantastic to see what's happening with them. And we'd have loved to have done the same thing with them now, but it wasn't what we, it wasn't Sumo's business. We're comfortable focusing on what we're best at, which is, you know, supporting the best AAA, you know, IPs out there, making new games with our best teams, like the Sackboy team, as you say.

12:19And yeah, that's what Sumo's core is, and that's what we're best at, and that's what we'll keep doing. Well, focus is the thing. I know every company's going through this, has gone through this sort of journey of the industry, when things were very good, everyone's looking to expand, and now everyone's looking to focus in on what they do very well. And Sumo have, historically, this is what Sumo is about. So it makes sense. But at the same time, having your own IP, being able to work on your own, something that's yours, and not only is it an exciting thing to do from a creative point of view, I know working on other big brands are also exciting, but also there's an element of, that's got value to it from a business perspective, right?

12:52If you've got your own brands and your own games and when you're always sort of reliant on other companies, you're kind of being buffeted a bit by the winds of the industry, which lately has been, maybe not necessarily, not as badly this year as in previous years, but lately has been pretty tough. Well, it's a good point, but it's a bit of a misconception that we're not doing our own IP still and that we're not doing full games. So Suma is definitely still very much in the full game business. And we are also doing our own IP, again, projects that we can't necessarily talk about. What we're not doing is fully funding our own IP.

13:26And that's the key sort of nuance. And that's where co-funding comes in. If we can create something, whether it's with a partner IP, because that's what we're best at, maximizing a partner IP, or whether it's an original idea that we've got, we will be having those conversations with our partners. And if co-funding allows to unlock that, it allows that, as you say, that sense of ownership, but also that risk or reward is shared on both sides. So we're still very much open to those conversations and we've got some projects along that way. Tencent have been hugely supportive of our new IP aspirations, and, you know, we've, you know, a number of projects that we've done with them and are underway.

14:08We're hoping to be able to tell you more soon. Yeah. As Andy said, the focus, and it's amazing, because a lot of people still come up to us at shows and go, but you're not doing your own IP, and it's like, we are. We're just not the principal financer of it. No. You know, because that's not the model we've got anymore. We partner finance, we work for hire, and we can create your IP for you from our creativity from scratch. We know we can do it. It's the nuance of the funding is not what we're going to lead. Obviously, you're one of the big UK development teams, and it's been a big year for UK-made video games.

14:45We've got some, you know, Forza, and we've had 007 First Light a little bit, and Lego Batman, and GTA, and Star Wars, and Hell Let Loose. How is the UK scene for you? obviously there's been a lot of investment into this scene how's it going for you um well i still think the uk is a jewel in the crown of global gaming personally we have so much talent here you know we have so much pedigree um we need to do what we can to protect that um one of the things actually we're seeing at the moment is a lot more of the work that we do no longer qualifies for the tax reliefs in the uk um you know as we assume you know part of our strategy as well as doing full games is to support these evergreen titles from a code of capacity that doesn't always qualify, you know, an existing title with a non-UK based publisher.

15:33And we're trying to pitch for work on those projects and, you know, it's not always qualifying for the tax release. So I think around 60 % of the work we did last year didn't qualify for VJEC. Oh, wow. That puts us at a huge disadvantage globally. So reform to VJEC is definitely something that, you know, through our industry bodies, we need to tackle with the government because as more and more players play fewer and fewer titles, it's only going in that direction, arguably. And what we need to recognize is, you know, the video games tax relief should support the whole spectrum of video games, you know, right down to those indie developers.

16:10It needs, you know, it's right that it's more, you know, it's a bigger incentive for them. That's something we're very supportive of. But also the larger companies companies that drive employment in video gaming in the UK and the work they're doing needs the same level of support that they get in Canada where in Canada it's completely different. You just put in some states, you can just put your payroll through and get the tax relief. In the UK, you've got to jump through so many more hoops and you often find that what you're doing doesn't qualify. I guess as the industry becomes more globalized and getting development is more globalized, that's going to become more of an issue.

16:44It's definitely something that we are speaking to government with and that the industry bodies are and we speak to them regularly. So that would be the single biggest way to continue to support UK gaming. Is it true that you've got like a team or you have a way of sort of identifying dormant IPs that you can pitch to people? Yeah, so we've been looking in the last few months at a whole lot. We get so much data through our tools that we've had. Because remember, we're a publisher, so we have a lot of market data. And we've used that to start analyzing which IPs we should actively go and proactively pitch for.

17:23So there's a whole package of work that we're doing now. So what we're actually looking for is to be able to analyze an IP, say, right, this is an IP that's done these unit sales over the past. There's no known development for it, yet it interfaces with our excellence. So, you know, horror, family, platforming, adventure. And where we can see that intersection, we're happy to co-fund. We're happy to do the hard work to create that commercially viable win-win proposal for the publisher that we'll do. we'll take that to them and say, we believe we can both make this much money through this dormant IP.

18:04We're prepared to put this much skin in the game. If you join us, we're both aligned and we believe we can make a great commercial outcome for both of us. How has the departure of Carl and some of the other leaders of Sumo changed things? Has it changed things? Has it changed things? That's a really good question, isn't it? I don't know. I suppose it is. Andy and I are two different individuals to Carl and Paul. We've both known them 10 years. I've known them 20. They're friends as well as colleagues and bosses. I don't think the ethos in Sumo has changed a lot. We've evolved. We haven't had a revolution, but we have evolved to meet the changing needs of the marketplace, I think is the best way to say.

18:49Yeah. I mean, I look back on the last year, and I think, as you say, the way that we treat our people hasn't changed, our fundamentals of our cultural identity hasn't changed, but the way we go about business, I think we have changed quite a lot. We've had to react to what the market is. The market is not the same place as it was three years ago. So I think a lot of what we do under the hood has improved. As Gary said, it's not fundamentally changed course, but it's certainly improved. and we're, you know, the last year has been a real journey, but certainly in the last six months, we've seen real fruits of the changes that Gary and I have put in place and the conversations we're having, you know, with our partners now and some of the projects that we've recently onboarded, again, we're desperate to tell you about them.

19:40And in the next few years, we will tell you about them, I'm sure. Yeah. But we have new partners working with Sumo that are genre leaders, you know, in what they do. and and sumo is now supporting their games for them and their partners that we've never worked with before so you say 30. we've got about 30 projects on the go wow and we've got you we used to have well sheffield as a studio used to have two or three you know other studios more you know depending on the model but yeah so i'd say around 30 projects on the go at the moment of all different sizes and we also have our business in in gateshead atom hawk which obviously has smaller projects as so they've got their own set of 20, 30 projects as well, but that's a slightly different model.

20:22They're a fantastic creative art house. But yeah, in terms of game development, and it could be a small engineering project, or it could be a full game project that spans two or three years. We do it all. We have genre specialist pods across the business as well, but we also work across platform. And I know you've had on your show some of the cloud platforms. Yeah, lately, yeah. And yeah, we've got amazing projects going on with some of them. Again, I won't name them, but there's only a few of them, so you'll probably figure out who some of them are. But we're working across all platforms as well, and that's what Sumo's good at.

20:56We do the difficult really well, and our clients come to us when they've got a challenging project and they want help from someone like Sumo. I guess because you have all these different clients, you have to be quite on the cutting edge. You have to sort of imagine sometimes they go to you, can you make a streaming game? And you go, yeah, I'm sure we can. Yeah, I mean, a great example of this is when Arm, about a year and a half ago, Arm came to us and said, we've got this great neural AI graphics chip that we're going to launch at the back end of 26. We've never done it before, but we want to launch with a game.

21:30We don't even know where, you know, we're not game makers. We need to help us. This technology doesn't really exist. We're making it over the next 18 months. It's on a roadmap. But, you know, we're Unreal Gold partners. We're experts. And it was tough, you know. We're making a game for a phone that's... that we started making this game in the beginning of 2025. The phone's not out yet. I think it's launched in Shanghai in next month. You know, it's public now. We can talk about it. And, you know, Neural Dawn is groundbreaking. You know, mega lights on mobile, it wasn't supposed to be possible, the sort of graphical fidelity that we're seeing.

22:09And the technology we've employed is great, and it's been great to partner with them. But that's, Andy used the phrase, we do the difficult, but that's one of the things we're known for, because that's not new. Because we're there, you know, we did, going back further, we did Kinect Sports on Kinect for Microsoft. And that was sort of, can you try and do something with this camera that's entertaining, please? um well the story you were telling me before before you even hear when it was working with was it sumo on the on the football game when and xbox live yes of the code masters and that was that was a similar story where yeah you were saying we can't do it and then it was xbox that was saying to you but these folks might be able to and they did and we've done that we've got a history of doing that and it's we love a challenge we love you know we've done numerous launch titles obviously sack boy was a was a launch title on playstation 5 which we delivered on time in covid you know a lot of time at that point things were falling out of that launch slate you know very quickly and you know we weren't you know we were working from home and we were determined to deliver and we did something we're really proud of under pretty exceptional circumstances yeah and i think that's what one of our strengths is that high quality reliability that i think now plays into where a lot of publishers need to be.

23:28They need someone that can deliver that quality and know they're going to get it because it's all right going... There's a bit of a race to the bottom in the development industry at the moment. Okay, so that's people undercutting you. You know, we see a lot of stories where people have gone for the cheaper option, but actually it's either been really late or it's never seen the light of day. We've had people come back to us and go, you know that thing that you were too expensive for? could you please now rebid? I was going to ask about this because obviously it's cheaper to outsource to Eastern Europe, I guess, and certain Asian territories and things like that.

24:03And obviously you're doing this, I mean, Sheffield's not the most expensive place in the world, but it's, it's, you are, it's obviously, it's not, it's not California, but it's, it's, it's probably pricier to make games here than it is in other markets. You may have just answered my question, but how are you reacting to that um well don't forget sumo's second oldest studio is our pune studio it's 20 years old next year it's 2007 we launched pune so our relationship with them they're literally part of our fabric they're not a second thought they're not an outsourcer they're integrated into our teams and and our developers in pune sit alongside our uk-based developers as absolute equals and do and work the same workflows, the same production methodologies.

24:49So, that's our model, you know, and we find it useful. And we've downsized a lot in the UK. Our Pune operations, I don't think we've lost any heads in Pune in the last two years, have we? Maybe some attrition, but not, you know, we've not made any redundancies in India, because they're so valuable. And, yeah, and, you know, low-cost geo is part of staying competitive. Yeah. I was just going to add also about how we make games. We approach games in a different way than we used to. So keeping the development team lean until you've found the fun. Not scaling up too big too quickly. That's another thing that I know a lot of people are talking about and we've been doing that as well.

25:32What we're not seeing at the moment is, go back 18 months ago, we were being asked to compete and race to the bottom on price. We tried to hold on with that and we were largely successful with it. But nowadays we're seeing a lot less of that. I think A, because I guess we've become cheaper and more agile and done what we need to do. But also I think as Gary says, we've had clients come back to us and gone, yeah, okay, that project that we went cheap with didn't work out. So we're now, I think we always try and as Sumo hold our value. We can do things others can't do. And yeah, you come to Sumo, you get a job Well done.

26:13Gary always tells me we've got 99.9 % milestones delivered on time, you know, to scope. We offer that level of certainty. We offer, you know, we call it the Sumo guarantee. And I know everyone has a guarantee in their contracts. We promise we'll do what we say we do. But we mean it and we actually do it, you know, whereas not everybody, you know. Who's responsible for the 0.1 % then? Yeah. Actually, do you know what? We've got a board pack that we go through, and it's one of the 10 cent metrics that KPIs is that metric. And actually this month we looked at the board pack and 62 milestones delivered and 62 milestones accepted on time and delivered on time.

26:54So it's actually 100 % this month for the first time. It normally goes to about 98, but yeah, it was 100 % this time, so no one. The point is, we're super proud of the people we've got working for us and the talent that they bring to the industry. And we're super excited what we've got to do going forward. Well, it's what we were talking about, Andy, before we were chatting. If you want an incredible platform game, for instance, there aren't that many. You could probably outsource it to somewhere else, but they're here, right? So in an artistic, talent-based industry, you can go cheap in how competitive the marketplace is.

27:30you really want to go with the best that you can afford, right? And so there's that element to it, I guess. Well, I keep hearing that people are leaning on outsource more. But is that actually true? I'm trying to work this out for some of the answers you've been giving me. Or are they shrinking external development? It seems to me like there's a bit of both going on. Is that right? Is that fair? I think what we are seeing is our partners are now being held to smaller teams in-house. So that is an opportunity for an outsourcer like Sumo because we can provide the scale that they need if a project takes off.

28:05So there definitely is an opportunity for outsourcers. It's not to say that the outsourcing world is easier or growing, particularly in the West, because obviously we are competing with lower cost areas now more than we ever have been. But there is definitely an appetite from our key partners where they're saying, we've got to keep our team to 50 people, but we want you to come on this journey with us. and maybe we'll take 10 people to start with, but we might grow to 200 if the game takes off. But all that growth will come from Sumo because we want to keep that agile lean model. And that's what Sumo can do.

28:40We're small enough that we can provide that kind of boutique white glove service, but we're big enough that we can scale with your project as well. So that's kind of where we see Sumo and sitting in the world, definitely. Is AI a threat to you in the sense that maybe they don't sign developers only to do quite so much outsourcing because they've got tools and tech that can do some of it for them? I think at the moment we're seeing AI is very much an opportunity for us, you know, in terms of the projects that we've got as well. You know, we'll always be, you know, partner-led in terms of how we approach AI.

29:13So we have some partners that tell us, you know, no AI in this project at all. And that's fine. We do that. We have some partners that'll say, look, you know, we want you to explore AI with us and tell us what's possible. So they're almost looking at external development and saying, we don't have all the answers on AI. I guess nobody does right now, but we want you to tell us what you think. So we have some projects where we're going through some really Vanguard kind of explorations with their partners on their projects to try and get a project to deliver that compelling gaming experience for players.

29:46You must have a unique perspective on that kind of thing because we're working on 30 different projects. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if there's 30 different clients. I tend to ask, this is my final question, but we'll see if something spins out of it, but where would you like to be in five years? I'd like to see the fruits of our own IP, you know, bearing that fruit. So having some evergreen games of our own, I would like to fuse that experience. We see it's a catalogue of the premium partners throughout the world, and what we want to do is have this virtuous circle whereby we're folding that experience back into what we do, and we're then pushing that experience back out to our partners, and I just want to see it grow.

30:25And I would like to see us being still at the bleeding edge of development. I think we've done, you know, we want to continue our, our create, you know, our trap line is create, innovate, support. And I want to be pushing forward or we want to be pushing forward on all of those areas. But in innovation, I'm excited by what we're doing in AI. It's a great enabler. We want to be human centric, AI enabled game developers. And we're starting to see some real fruits of that. We started a great presentation from... We formed a technology leadership group in Sumo earlier this year. We didn't want to have a single person responsible for it.

31:02We want, obviously, we're multi-site, we're multi-studio. We wanted to have a collective of people sharing the knowledge and sharing the focus of technology, and of which AI forms a core part at the moment. And we're starting to see some really exciting things, you know. The example I was gonna give was, Yeah, on game team, you know, you've always got tools engineers, but there's always a whole bunch of people waiting for that tool to be built that unleashes the game team. You know, we've built tools in an afternoon with AI's assistance. It would take a week. It's still a tools engineer setting it up and getting it up, but he's managed to do it quickly and unblock the rest of the dev team.

31:48So what you're getting, you're getting more bang for your buck. You're getting your developers to do more development, because you're unleashing their creativity by unblocking some things that you used to take a lot further. And I'm excited by being able to do that, because we talked earlier about wanting to get great game experiences into players' hands quickly and grow them. And I think that's how we do it. So is it a speed thing rather than a quality thing? I know some people, I talked about AI, the question is, is it going to speed up the making of games? Or are you just going to be able to do more?

32:22I think it depends what sort of segment of the marketplace. I think if you're making friend slop games and try and turn loads of them out quick, then you're probably going to want to do it more for quicker. But, you know, certainly for us, it's about enabling us to do more iterations. On one of our projects, we used it in the early part of the process to do some testing in concepts. It just allowed us, we didn't use AI art, but we used AI to turbocharge the process to give more iteration. It closed our iteration loop, so we had more opportunity to test and get a better product out at the end. Yeah, yeah.

33:04So it's a quality thing? It's both. Yeah, okay. I don't want to pigeonhole it. I think it's wrong to pigeonhole it and say it's quality. It's about reducing costs. It's about making better games, I think. is, you know, because that's what we want. We want the player experience to improve, don't we? Yeah. And if that can be unlocked by AI, then I'm all for it. Interestingly, I wasn't actually asking about AI. No. But it's interesting. Andy, would you... Five years. I mean, I'm going to actually say, because I don't want to wait five years for this stuff, so let's say two years from now, some of the partnerships we've recently onboarded, onboarded, real evergreen genre leading titles.

33:46I want to see Sumo's involvement. We want to be able to tell the world about those things in the same way we can talk about our partnership with Digital Extremes on Warframe. So I'd like to see two or three of those grow to that sort of level of success. That's on the co-dev side. In terms of full games, over the next two years, I can think of four or five full games across different platforms that you're going to see coming out where sumo is the developer and i also like a lot of people are desperate to see what the texas chainsaw massacre team are going to do next and you're not going to have to wait too long for that and what the sackboy team is going to have to do next and and again you're not going to have to wait five years for that so oh wow two to three years time you know we're gonna that's that's where i want the business to be maybe a few more baftas yeah maybe a few more baftas yeah absolutely i was asked one of our questions which is how ambitious are you being with your own ip i mean how is this what we're talking about it's a double level can you tell me can you hint um it's we it's probably double a you know it's it's you know it's not the hundred two hundred million dollar game i think those i think those are dying out yeah exactly it's you know we have to be cheaper ultimately we're trying to make games for under under 50 million now i'm not saying that uh every game in our nip will be that that level but that that's what we're targeting you know so and as gary says it's that it's that virtuous loop so So if we make the next game and it might cost us five million, let's expand for 10 million.

35:16It's a stepping stone process as well. And it does depend on the team. So there's a bigger game out there as well that we're going to get in people's hands. So it's all of the above, really. It's what we talk. I've talked you, if you listen to the show, you know, I've talked about it a few times. I did wonder if the sort of drive to these clear obscure style 30, 40, 50 million dollar games. Yeah. Some of them will stay at that level. That studio go, I want to stay a small studio. I want to stay making games of that size. but some of them might go, oh, we've got a hit, we've got an IP now, we can go a bit bigger.

35:45And I think that's an okay journey to go on in this industry. Completely agree. And Sumo can help you with it. Nice. Well, thank you, Gary. Thank you, Andy, for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show. Thank you to Andy and Gary for inviting us up to Sheffield. We will be back, of course, with more news analysis, insight and interviews in the days and weeks ahead. If you want to make sure you don't miss any of it, just go to thegamebusiness.com put in your email address and you'll get an alert every time we put out an episode we do put episodes on Monday for paid subscribers they're sort of a micro roundup of the big news stories with a bit of analysis you can get those too if you pay to subscribe but most of what we do is completely free so do sign up if you haven't already but that's it from me today until next time thank you for tuning in