MCV/DEVELOP 966 March 2021

MCV/DEVELOP ISSUE 966 THE ART AND BUSINESS OF VIDEO GAMES MARCH 2021

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TINYBUILD IS GETTING BIG Indie publisher buys three new studios CAN AI HELP DESIGN GAMES? Ludo is all set to help find that next big hit

RIVAL PEAK Finally a TV-gaming format that works PATENT PENDING Should you be protecting your game ideas?

MTG’s MARIA REDIN ON KEEPING...

AHEAD OF THE TIMES

“I am committed to delivering an ambitious buy and build strategy for both gaming and esports” ■ DEAN ABDOU ON ARAB VILIFICATION 03 MCV 966 Editorial Cover V5 FINAL.indd 1

■ THE ART OF...

DISCO ELYSIUM

■ UNSIGNED: UNITY TITLES FROM LAUNCHPAD

■ WHEN WE MADE...

A SHORT HIKE 25/02/2021 14:29

MARCH

05 The Editor

Our virtual reality

06 Critical Path

The key dates this month

10 Industry Voices

Comment from around the industry

16 TinyBuild Games

Not so tiny anymore

22 Ins and Outs

This month's hires and moves

25 Debugging D&I

Diversity and inclusion at Rare

16 26 Recruiter Hotseat

38

A career with Firesprite

28 Rival Peak

A huge new entertainment format

34 Legal Matters

Game patents and the industry

38 Ludo AI The game ideas machine 44 The Future of Audio

48

The experts make themselves heard

48 A Modern Approach

MTG's Maria Redin on buy and build

54 Unsigned

Unity presents upcoming indie titles

58 The Art Of...

58

Disco Elysium

62 When We Made...

62

A Short Hike

66 The Final Boss

Graeme Ankers of Firesprite

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“We’re the masters of the universe right now. So let’s take advantage of that.”

TheEditor Making a better reality Good news this week when Sony, somewhat unexpectedly and without any razzmatazz whatsoever, announced that it would be creating a new PlayStation VR headset, as yet unnamed, with dev kits to go out shortly.

In the short-to-medium term, the news will come as particularly welcome to developers working in the space. As although Oculus has made great progress this year with the Quest 2, having another large player commit itself long-term to the cause will be reassuring.

It’s also something that most of us should look upon kindly. The industry has always been on the cutting edge of technological innovation, and while data centres and raytracing are wonders of the modern age, there’s always room for a marvel that’s a bit more hands-on, a bit more Tomorrow’s World. Something that captures the imagination.

And of course, a virtual reality is still looking rather appealing right now. Because even as we climb slowly out of the pit of a winter lockdown, we’re reminded once again that humans, despite all our shared pains, are often properly shitty to each other in this one.

If you read nothing else this month then turn to page 12 now for Dean Abdou’s piece The vilification of Arabs in video games. I’ll still be here when you get back.

And if that gets you thinking then I also recommend you hop over to iPlayer and watch Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head – as he explains how even our nonvirtual reality is actually just a construct of some extraordinarily poor decision making processes, ones that continue to this day.

I desperately hope that the new pandemic plan, to take us out of lockdown, is not another example of said poor decision making. It certainly looks better on the surface: it’s a long-term plan, one with all the correct caveats, one which will supposedly bend to the data, rather than cling to the dates.

It’s an approach that the games industry has always been aware of, with Miyamoto’s quote being one of the most famous in the industry: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” Although that doesn’t stop the harsh realities of business upending long-term gain for short term needs.

But maybe now is the time for that to change. In part thanks to the pandemic, our industry is now stronger and healthier than ever before. We’re the masters of the universe right now. So let’s take advantage of that. Let’s not rush things, let’s take a long-term view, let’s take time to be mindful of minorities, let’s take it easy on ourselves too. We’ve earned the opportunity to create our own reality, now let’s make it one we can all enjoy.

Seth Barton seth.barton@biz-media.co.uk

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Critical Path

Here are the key upcoming events and releases to mark in your calendar...

GDC Showcase GDC Showcase is a new free digital event that will take place March 15 through March 19. Occupying the time in March typically filled by the industry’s largest gathering of game developers. GDC Showcase will bring developers together safely online instead, to gather insights from top game makers. Additionally, later this year, from June 19-23, GDC 2021 will take place as an all-digital event.

Maquette This title from developer Graceful Decay and publisher Annapurna Interactive is responsible for teaching me a new word. A ‘Maquette’ is a sculptor’s preliminary model or sketch before beginning work on a full-scale project. The game itself meanwhile promises to be a “recursive puzzle game that takes you into a world where every building, plant, and object are simultaneously tiny and staggeringly huge,” which sounds sufficiently strange and wonderful to be an Annapurna title.

MARCH 2nd

15th - 19th

16th

Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse Announced during February’s Nintendo Direct, this is a re-release of the 2005 title, developed by Wideload Games and published by Aspyr Media. Coming to Xbox, PS4 and Switch, this game sees the player take on the role of Stubbs the Zombie himself, the animated corpse of a former travelling salesman, tasked with killing humanity and eating their brains.

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Monster Hunter Rise The latest entry to Capcom’s enormously successful Monster Hunter series is coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch. Rise is the sixth mainline installment to the franchise, and focuses on maps and weapons that allow for more vertical movement – hence the name, we suppose. The game will feature some level of cross-compatibility with the upcoming Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, which will also be a Switch exclusive.

Returnal This PS5 exclusive is developed by Housemarque (creators of Resogun) and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. This science fiction psychological horror title promises to make good use of the PS5’s features, including advanced haptic feedback and 3D spatial audio. The player controls Selene, a space pilot trapped on an alien planet, and stuck in a time loop.

MARCH 19th

23rd

26th

Overcooked! All You Can Eat Ghost Town Games and Team17’s hugely popular anarchic co-operative cooking games are being bundled together in one complete package. Coming to PC, PS4, Xbox and Switch, this bundle includes both games in the series, fully remastered alongside all existing DLC, as well as seven additional levels and three new chefs.

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We’re Playing...

CONTENT Editor: Seth Barton seth.barton@biz-media.co.uk +44 (0)203 143 8785 Staff Writer: Chris Wallace chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk +44 (0)203 143 8786 Design and Production: Steve Williams swilliams@designandmediasolutions.co.uk

ADVERTISING SALES Senior Business Development Manager: Alex Boucher alex.boucher@biz-media.co.uk +44 (0)7778538431

MANAGEMENT Media Director: Colin Wilkinson colin.wilkinson@biz-media.co.uk +44 (0)203 143 8777

SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe, change your address, or check on your current account status, please contact: subscriptions@bizmediauk.co.uk ARCHIVES Digital editions of the magazine are available to view on ISSUU.com. Recent back issues of the printed edition may be available please call +44 (0)203 143 8777 for more information.

INTERNATIONAL MCV/DEVELOP and its content are available for licensing and syndication re-use. Contact Colin Wilkinson for opportunities and permissions: colin.wilkinson@biz-media.co.uk

OK, jigsaws aren’t really games, but they’re close cousins and we’re very competitive about them here.

We’ve gone through three 1,000 piece ones in recent weeks: Totoro, Pokemon and Marvel. Away from that Warzone’s 2021 Season Two would be dragging me back in, but actually I never left.

In celebration of Zelda’s 35th anniversary, and the announcement of the Switch re-release, I’ve been dipping back into Skyward Sword.

Did you know this released for Zelda’s 25th anniversary?

Where exactly did the last decade go? Don’t mind me, I’m just going to be screaming into the void for a full month or so.

Chris Wallace, Staff Writer

My gaming habits have been remarkably unchanged this month, I’m afraid! Which means I have absolutely no excuse for having been absent from the MCV/DEVELOP Warzone games of late, and have missed out on some (incredibly sporadic and morally undeserved) victories.

Alex Boucher, Senior Business Development Manager

Seth Barton, Editor

Paws the game The best furry friends the industry has to offer. Send yours to chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk

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Pet: Egg Owner: Michael Gapper Owner’s job: Co-director at Honest PR.

Pet: Dot, Spot and Nibs Owner: Susanne Bauer Owner’s job: Localisation lead at Jagex.

Pet: Rupey Owner: Wesley Arthur Owner’s job: Lead level designer at Sumo Digital

Egg is a big chunky boy from pedigree hamster stock who tips the scales at a whopping 250g.

Egg likes cheese, carrots, dry puppy food and lots of sleep.

Dot, Spot and Nibs are siblings and rescues from Dubai – they were adopted last year and they have been the best home office buddies you could ask for!

This is Rupey, who is an 8-yearold rescued house rabbit. Rupey is very spoiled, and not only has his own bedroom but even a custom-built castle

+44 (0)203 143 8777

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Created in association with

Some reasons to start thinking about Sumo...

Sumo Digital is growing in size and vision, with ten studios and an increasing proportion of games based on home-grown IP. Want to know more?

THE IDEAS FACTORY With a long history of successful games, Sumo Digital’s recent stand out titles include Sony’s Sackboy: A Big Adventure and The Chinese Room’s Little Orpheus; both winners and nominees of multiple awards.

However, when you’ve been as successful in the work for hire sector as Sumo has, there’s sometimes the perception that big ideas are not the company’s strong suit. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Gary Dunn (pictured right), Sumo Digital’s Managing Director.

“Our partners trust us to deliver the best game designs from concept to narrative, to game mechanics and beyond. We bring this proven skillset to every project, whether it’s the latest in a series of established games, or something brand new that no one’s seen before.”

“That’s borne out by the multiple projects we have in development in the Sheffield studio alone,” added Jim Woods, Sumo Sheffield Studio Director. “We’re currently working on a range of unannounced projects that are based on some of the biggest names in entertainment, alongside brand-new IP conceptualized right here in Sheffield.”

This variety of work is a pattern repeated across Sumo’s ten studios in the UK, India, and Poland, with concept teams constantly generating innovative ideas, and publishing partners eager to take them to market.

“Our studio is literally built on Sheffield’s industrial past. On a site that once produced the world’s finest steel, we now produce incredible concepts and games at a cutting-edge facility, so it really is an ideas factory!” said Woods.

SUMO EARNS TOP ‘BEST COMPANIES’ RATING The wider Sumo Group, of which Sumo Digital is a part, was recently given the highest possible rating, a 3-star accreditation, from workplace engagement specialists Best Companies. The award reflects Sumo’s ongoing mission to understand and meet its team members’ needs, and make the working environment fun, collaborative and fulfilling.

“Receiving the 3-star accreditation despite the pressures of COVID in the last year is a wonderful acknowledgment of the work our team has put into making Sumo a great place to work,” said Darren Mills, Sumo co-founder and Group Director of Excellence and Integration.

“A minimum of 27 days’ holiday including a day off for your birthday and ‘duvet days’, plus sabbaticals, and free access to learning libraries such as Udemy are just part of the picture, and we aren’t resting on our laurels – there’s so much more we have planned to help our colleagues grow their careers and feel empowered to deliver their best work.”

IMPROVING INCLUSIVITY A ‘LONG TERM COMMITMENT’ “We’ve been working hard to ensure Sumo Digital continues to be a fulfilling and fun place to work, where everyone is welcome and has the opportunities to level up their expertise,” said Sumo Digital’s Talent Acquisition Manager Kieran Holland (pictured left). “We’ve also been working to cast a wider net in our search for talent from underrepresented groups and non-traditional educational backgrounds.

“Improving inclusivity is a priority and a long-term commitment for us, and that’s part of our efforts to maintaining Sumo’s status as an exciting and inspiring destination for anyone in the video game industry or who’s interested in joining it.”

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XXXXXX

Industry Voices

Why democratising monetisation is set to change how we consume and create video games Simon Cowell, ZEBEDEE

MCV/DEVELOP gives the industry a platform for its own views in its own words. Do you have a burning hot take for the world of games?

Get in touch!

As a teenager, my favourite game was Age of Empires. I would spend my summers hiding from the sunlight building powerful economies and winning heroic victories in battle. But as soon as I stepped away from the PC I had absolutely nothing to show for my work and time invested.

Since then, video games have become a more meaningful part of our lives, but because of the way existing in-game payment solutions work in them, they are currently limited. The legacy walled gardens of the payments industry are holding back innovation and growth in the video game ecosystem. By introducing money that is open, programmable software, not only will more stakeholders be able to benefit, but the industry itself could grow. Let me explain.

The analogy here is Stripe, an online payment platform for internet businesses. Even by 2007, it was still difficult for small businesses and entrepreneurs to deal with the paperwork, costs and red tape to receive payments using legacy banking infrastructure. Stripe replaced this complexity with a few simple APIs, enabling anyone to quickly and easily set up their own shop and receive payments. The result: an explosion in ecommerce businesses.

I believe video game economies are ripe for a similar revolution of democratisation. Over the past year a global community of players and indie developers has sprung up, experimenting with this concept by integrating Bitcoin payment infrastructure directly into their games. There is even a regular tournament series of Bitcoinintegrated games called Mintgox.

Earning as an incentive mechanism For example, Mandelduck Studios and THNDR Games have been creating mobile games which incentivise users to earn as they play. The incentive for players is clear, but for developers the model also generates a positive ROI as a cost effective way for boosting user acquisition, retention and engagement. Their download numbers also speak volumes as to their current success with players.

‘Skin in the game’ to make FPS games more engaging Bitcoin Bounty Hunt by Donner Labs is exactly what it says on the tin. In this online deathmatch FPS, players kill each other for the Bitcoin Bounty on each other’s heads, with the ability to withdraw earnings at the end of the match.

My own company ZEBEDEE has created a plug-in to operate CS:GO servers with Bitcoin.

Players pay a small amount of Bitcoin (ranging from 100-10,000 satoshis) to enter a deathmatch and at the end can withdraw their share of the prize pool based on their % of the total game score. By the end of March we will have servers pre-funded by corporate sponsors, removing the need to pay to enter.

Breaking the 4th wall With programmable money, you can have payments not only between games and players, but also between anyone watching or streaming the games. Players can send small Bitcoin payments into a game, tip a player or streamer, drop power- ups or weapons, or spark randomized events. This not only creates higher engagement but also new monetisation models.

Check out Bitcoin Rally to see this in action.

The key here is the freedom for all stakeholders in the video game industry to be entrepreneurial, to devise their own monetisation models instead of being constrained by the models derived from legacy banking infrastructure. This will also allow players to be freed from current monetisation models in the games they play now, to games where they can be rewarded for playing with more than in-game content. The only limit is the imagination of our community for both players and developers alike.

With many years of experience in the traditional finance industry, Simon is CEO and co-founder of ZEBEDEE, a payment platform for virtual worlds. Previously he was head of corporate development at Bitstamp, the world’s longeststanding Bitcoin exchange.

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... And a few more reasons to consider Sumo SUMO DIGITAL GROWS TO 10 STUDIOS With the recent acquisition of Polish developer PixelAnt Games, Sumo Digital has grown to comprise ten studios working on some of the games industry’s biggest brands and original IP. As one of Europe’s largest independent developers, the company that started in Sheffield in 2003 continues to grow with over thirty titles in development across its studios in Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Warrington, Nottingham, Leamington Spa, Brighton, Pune, India, and now, Wroclaw, Poland.

“While our studios do of course work together when it makes sense, each is its own business unit,” said Gary Dunn, Sumo Digital’s Managing Director. “They’re all leading and working on their own projects, ranging from triple-A games based on some of the biggest names in entertainment to developing new IP from the ground up and providing strike teams who can resolve the most difficult of engineering problems for our clients.”

As the founding studio, Sheffield is Sumo’s HQ and largest facility. “Stability, variety and opportunity are important keywords here,” said Jim Woods, Sumo Sheffield’s Studio Director. “We’ve been around a long time and continue to go from strength to strength, and part of that success comes from the chance for everyone on our teams to build their career in the way they want.

“We’ve had people work on Hitman, Forza, and Sackboy all in one year, as well as people who can be the pillar of a single franchise for a decade or more. Those are options we support. I’m excited to continue our growth as we look to build our teams to meet the incredible opportunities before us.”

FORGING A CAREER IN THE STEEL CITY Sumo Sheffield has been a bastion of the UK’s video game development scene for 18 years, during which it has built an eclectic portfolio of games that exemplify Sumo’s ethos and standards.

Recent hits include Sackboy: A Big Adventure – an acclaimed re-imagining of the PlayStation IP – and Spyder, an original title born from Sumo’s regular game jams.

Sheffield has also worked on Team Sonic Racing, the Forza series, and the Hitman series to name a few. In fact, the studio has delivered almost forty games since its founding in 2003.

The studio has the latest and best equipment and facilities, including a state-of-theart audio suite (pictured right), and Sumo’s benefits package is designed to be one of the most competitive in the industry.

“Sheffield is an incredible place to build your career,” added Sumo’s Group Director of HR, Karen McLoughlin. “It offers big city living and easy commutes to other metropolitan centres like Manchester and Leeds, plus access to the stunning Peak District National Park that’s literally on the doorstep. On top of that, the cost of living is so much lower than many other cities known for game development, and this all contributes to a work/life balance that’s hard to beat.”

Sumo Digital in numbers 10 Studios

750+ Employees

150+ New Hires In 2020

120+ Job Opportunities

30+ Current Projects

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The Vilification of Arabs in Video Games Dean Abdou, GAMINGbible

Six Days in Fallujah, according to its publishers, isn’t meant to be political... despite it being based on some inherently political – and utterly horrendous – events.

A lot of focus has been placed on comments made by Victure CEO Peter Tamte, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. That has been discussed to death elsewhere, instead let’s talk about the vilification of Arabs and minorities in Western media.

As someone who grew up in Western society, I was treated to the unique experience of seeing the normalisation of minority folks as the go-to bad guys in the media. As a kid I didn’t think much of it and didn’t have the mindset yet to properly digest the problematic nature of what was in front of me.

Now, as an adult, I’m very aware of how western media attempts to portray certain groups in a particular way. It’s a trope that’s being called out more as society slowly progresses, but it’s still a major problem.

Video games in particular tend to be a little more problematic due to their immersive nature.

When playing a game that normalises players killing hundreds of Arabs, it slowly indoctrinates young audiences to see brown people as just throwaway ragdolls.

Six Days in Fallujah doubles down on this normalisation with the creators’ insistence that it isn’t a political game. Highlighting that it’s just another game reinforcing the tired, negative trope of minorities being the bad guys for no reason.

It also attempts to dull the real-world atrocities of the Iraq war through things like its refusal to acknowledge the use of white phosphorus by US troops.

These issues are further compounded by a continuing lack of representation of minorities in video games. Very few games outside of indie titles focus on minority groups and on the stories of people in the Middle-East, which is why Six Days in Fallujah is already so disappointing and worrying.

What happened in Fallujah, and the Iraq war as a whole, remain complex subject matters. While many do recognise the atrocities committed, it’s still too often used as a prop in video games. Rather than use this setting as an opportunity to educate younger audiences, it’s used as a throwaway backdrop. Six Days in Fallujah is another game that broadly paints

brown people as the bad guys, the US troops as heroes and continues the vilification of Arabs.

Video games have evolved so much over the last decade or so. They’ve become an opportunity to educate, as well as entertain.

Rasheed Abueideh is a game designer who made an indie mobile game called Liyla, which highlights the story of a young girl in the war-torn region of Gaza. We need to see more of these stories in the AAA market, and studios just aren’t taking the right steps to highlight those voices.

The years of vilification of Arabs has in fact led to some of the games industry disregarding even some of the simplest aspects of representing other backgrounds.

In Hitman 3 Arab players quickly pointed out how it failed to get the basics of Arabic right in the game’s Dubai mission. When constantly exposed to the idea that a minority is lesser than everything else, that minority will come to have lesser importance.

A lot of western game developers don’t give things like the way Arabic is written a second thought. Why would you, if what you’ve been exposed to about the language in mainstream media depicts it as being a lesser language?

Years of that kind of exposure will become part of people’s unconscious bias, and that bleeds into the work they might create.

Unfortunately, with the games industry being predominantly white males, these issues will keep on happening. The way to counteract it is by having more representative voices within these studios, within Western games media, and to tell more representative stories in AAA games.

When you see an upcoming game that focuses on other minorities, or takes place in a non-english speaking foreign country, don’t just take it at face value. Do some research and listen to what folks from those backgrounds have to say. The more awareness that is brought to this, the more we can do to hopefully change things.

Dean Abdou is a French-Algerian journalist, host and video editor at GAMINGbible with an aim to bring more representation into the games industry. This article originally appeared on GAMINGbible. Find GAMINGbible online at gamingbible.co.uk; on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram; and subscribe (for free) to its Snapchat Discover editions, published three times per week.

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Mobile gaming will continue to rise after lockdown Craig Chapple, Sensor Tower

The mobile games industry faced a year like no other in 2020, as the global COVID-19 pandemic took hold and reshaped how we live our lives. Digital entertainment has been one of the few sectors to make it through the year with business not just sustaining, but rising.

The mobile games industry generated a record $79.6 billion from the App Store and Google Play in 2020, up 26.2 per cent year-over-year, or to put it in clear perspective, an increase of more $16 billion from 2019.

Downloads also surged to 56.3 billion, up 33 per cent year-over-year–an increase of approximately 14 billion installs from 2019.

These installs not only drove an increase in player spending, but a rise in ad revenue, too.

Analyzing the top 100 titles in each genre in the U.S. last year, we can see that Simulation saw the largest percentage gains in 2020, with the category seeing player spending rise by 61.8 per cent Y/Y to $2 billion. The second fastest growing genre was Casino, with revenue increasing by approximately 49 per cent Y/Y to $4.5 billion, while Lifestyle rounded out the top three genres with player spending increasing by 47.5 per cent Y/Y to $770.5 million. Across the board, each genre saw double digit gains in revenue, and it’s clear that the mobile games sector has attracted more players than ever, but will they stay?

MARKET PREDICTIONS According to Sensor Tower’s new mobile market forecast, player spending will continue to increase over the next few years, reaching $138 billion in 2025, an increase of 73.4 per cent from 2020, while downloads are projected to rise to 79 billion, up 40.3 per cent from last year. Growth, however, will be slower. App Store games revenue will increase

at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 per cent, reaching $78 billion by 2025. This, however, trails the previous 19.4 per cent CAGR during the last four years. On Google Play, meanwhile, player spending will have a CAGR of 13.3 per cent, climbing to $60 billion, also slower than the 21.2 per cent CAGR over the previous four years.

When it comes to downloads, we anticipate App Store installs of mobile games will see a 5.2 per cent CAGR, reaching 13 billion in 2025. Over on Google Play, downloads have a projected 7.5 per cent CAGR, and are forecast to rise to 66 billion installs by 2025.

In terms of the wider market, while in 2020 mobile games accounted for 66 per cent of global consumer spending on the App Store, this is expected to shrink to 42 per cent in 2025 as non-gaming apps are set for enormous–and faster–growth. On Google Play, gaming’s share of revenue is predicted to drop from 83 per cent in 2020 to 71 per cent by 2025. Overall, games revenue will represent 51 per cent of global app revenue across the two stores combined by 2025, down from 71.8 per cent in 2020.

While mobile gaming is losing market share, the market is still expected to perform strongly.

However, the most pressing concern for many publishers in the industry are the imminent changes to App Store privacy, with a new optin for the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) set to shake up user acquisition, a cornerstone of the market’s success.

Craig Chapple is Mobile Insights Strategist, EMEA at mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower and was previously Senior Editor at PocketGamer.biz. www.sensortower.com

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BUILDING UP THE NEIGHBOR-HOOD

Four new titles, three newly-acquired studios and one huge sequel in the works. There’s nothing tiny about TinyBuild anymore.

Seth Barton catches up with CEO Alex Nichiporchik to discuss TinyBuild Direct, Steam demos, pivoting designs, the Pigeon Simulator collaboration and how piracy doesn’t keep him up at night anymore

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A

lex Nichiporchik, TinyBuild’s talkative CEO, appears before us in a very bright orange jacket. Usually that would raise an eyebrow, but we saw the same jacket only a few days before when Nichiporchik hosted the first TinyBuild Direct (pictured left), a showcase of four new titles from the publisher.

And it’s no secret where the choice of name came from.

“Nintendo has a great format. And it gives you an idea of what to expect,” Nichiporchik tells us. The format, a series of new titles with trailers, is certainly familiar, there’s even demos on Steam to play straightaway after.

However, Nintendo has a fanbase that knows what to expect from the company. So with that in mind, does TinyBuild have a similar connected appeal across its titles, we wonder?

The publisher is best known for the smash-hit Hello Neighbor franchise, you could say the Neighbor is Mario in this analogy – but he doesn’t define the company, argues Nichiporchik, despite the IP having clocked up 16m installs to date.

“The original game came out in 2017, then a prequel came out in 2018, a multiplayer spin off in 2019. And now we’re working on a sequel and a Stadia spinoff [Hello Engineer]. So that’s a lot of products and 16m downloads between them.

“Then last April we launched Totally Reliable Delivery Service (TRDS) on seven platforms, basically everywhere except Steam because it was an Epic Games Store exclusive. And that one game has over 14m downloads already in less than a year.” A fact which is all the more impressive as Steam is where TinyBuild built its reputation.

brand, and eventually they will buy something,” he says unconcerned.

Building an IP, though, requires longer term thinking than simply selling a title, which is why just after the recent TinyBuild Direct, the publisher announced it had acquired three game studios, bringing previous partners in-house in order to focus their energies going forward.

TINY BUILD ACQUISITIONS First of the three is TRDS developer, Minneapolis-based We’re Five Games. The five-person team is currently working on an updated Steam version of the game, as well as being in pre-production for a second entry in the Totally Reliable universe, expected to be revealed later this year. Clearly following Nichiporchik’s template for building up IPs. There’s also Moscow-based Hungry Couch, who is working on Black Skylands – an open world action RPG set to release Q2. The initial solo developer has grown to a team of twelve. “The studio will remain independent, and the acquisition allows it to continue scaling and working on more projects,” says Nichiporchik.

Below (top to bottom): We’re Five Games Totally Reliable Delivery Service has hit 14m downloads; and the upcoming Black Skylands from Hungry Couch

IP OVER PIRACY The publisher has long spread beyond its initial stomping ground though, and is now keen to establish and grow its IPs everywhere. One aspect of that is getting its games the widest possible exposure. For example, both Hello Neighbor and TRDS are on Xbox Game Pass, something that Nichiporchik calls a “really awesome programme for game developers.”

And that aspiration to get in front of as many people as possible has adjusted Nichiporchik’s outlook on piracy too, something he was once, understandably, very vocal in his opposition of.

“Actually, we’ve kind of decided to ignore that for now.

I think what’s really happening is games are becoming more of a commodity. Between the likes of Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, all of these subscriptions, it becomes more about competing for people’s time.

“And then if people want to get my game on the pirate seas, they can still enjoy it, they’ll be exposed to our

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And then there’s Moon Moose, also based in Russia, in St Petersburg. The team of eight there is working on Cartel Tycoon – a drug-trade spin on the city-building genre, which is set for an early 2021 release (pictured below).

TinyBuild already owned the IP for all the titles from the three developers. With Nichiporchik telling us that the acquisitions were instead about changing the “transactional nature” of the usual publisher-developer relationship.

“So in that transaction, the game gets released, it may do phenomenally well. But if the developer and publisher are not aligned in one direction – to continue working on this, making it bigger, or making spin offs – basically turning it into a franchise, then you have just created something, that has value as an intellectual property, that can reach really high levels. And then it doesn’t, because you stopped working on it!”

“So it’s about how do you create aligned incentives between a publisher and developer so that it doesn’t feel like ‘we’re the publisher, you’re the developer’.

“And that’s what we have shown with the Hello Neighbor franchise, we have shipped three games, we have two more in development, we have books, we have everything else. There was like a central hive mind behind that franchise.

“And when the team is external, it’s just so much more difficult. Because they may not be incentivized to continue working on this IP. And what I want to prevent is situations like a typical third-party publishing relationship.”

TinyBuild has previous form in this area, having “acqui-hired” the developers of the original Hello Neighbor from original development partner Dynamic Pixels. As Nichiporchik explains: “We co-owned the intellectual property with Dynamic Pixels. And then we decided that it makes sense to consolidate everything internally. And during the transaction with the owners of Dynamic Pixels, the only thing that they wanted to keep was the Dynamic Pixels brand, Because they had a history before as an outsourcing studio.

“So, I know, it’s a little bit confusing, but essentially, we took the whole team that was working on Hello Neighbor, started

HELLO... TV

Y

ou know you have a hit IP on your hands when you start thinking about translating it to other forms of media. And while many have floundered in the attempt, TinyBuild is taking Hello Neighbor to TV, with a pilot from last year having notched up over 13m views to date.

“What we want to do is a transition from games to other mediums, while keeping them consistent – within the same rules, the same universe. We published the pilot, and right now we’re busy writing the full season,” Nichiporchik updates us. Although he says that the process hasn’t been entirely smooth.

“One thing that we noticed the hard way, it’s arrogant for a game development company to say ‘we’re going to write and make a full script for a TV season... erhh... we have experience in books’.

“So when we started writing that, like a book, because we had some experience in them and working with the author of the books, we then had to do, I think it was 12 rewrites. And after we actually got the first animation draft, then we had to do maybe half a dozen re-edits of that draft.

“It’s not like you have a lot of footage that you’re going to splice together, like when you do live action. With animation, it’s just that, that’s why there’s a five minute version of the pilot and then the full 22 minute version.”

We do wonder why the studio didn’t animate the whole thing inside the game, or at least using assets from the game. After all, Epic and Unity are endlessly reminding us that they are production-ready tools for real-time media.

“And they are absolutely right. It’s just that I’m a huge fan of Gravity Falls. When we’re writing the first episode, and the season outline, I just re-watched the whole thing in a single sitting.”

But it’s not just Nichiporchik’s fandom that makes a traditional animation make sense, it’s about making something that appeals to the broadest possible audience.

“Animation can have a very broad appeal. Family TV shows such as Bob’s Burgers, the humour there, Oh my God! If you’re a kid you will not get it but the parents get a huge chuckle, a lot of adult related jokes.

“The idea that someone who is, let’s say, early 30s, with their kids watching the Hello Neighbor animated TV series, both enjoying it on different levels, both trying to figure out what the lore is, and then trying to connect that to the games. That latter part has not been done before.”

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relocating them to Netherlands, bought the IP, and that’s why we say it was acqui-hire. Because we didn’t actually acquire the company, that was the technicality.”

Nichiporchik is keen to build up small indies and then take them on in order to grow them further still: “Most of the teams that we partnered up with, early on, they were like two to five people. And so in the example of Black Skylands, initially we just found a guy who was working in a web design studio, and part-time making a prototype, sharing it on Facebook, we noticed that and reached out to him saying, ‘hey, you want to make games full time?’

“And today, there are over a dozen people moving towards launch. And it took only 18 months – we helped build that. So that was kind of like, you know, we started dating, and then put a ring on it.”

Ahh, romance in the games industry. Though this is no two-person tango, with TinyBuild now scaling up to a sizeable community of polyamorous relationships: “Now we are over 127 people. We have seven internal studios, including those we just announced. We have launched 40 projects to date, and we have 23 projects in the pipeline,” summarises Nichiporchik.

TinyBuild is no longer an ‘indie’ publisher then, but a mid-sized games publisher with numerous in-house development teams… not unlike a tiny Nintendo then.

Which brings us back around to our early question, does TinyBuild have a defining style of game, something coherent that justifies cross-marketing its titles via a Direct-style video.

DEMOS DIRECT Well, much like Nintendo, there’s no one defining genre or audience, but there is an identifiable Venn diagram of mechanics that hold together many of TinyBuild’s key offerings to date.

The core here is that TinyBuild’s games are largely influencer-friendly. Hello Neighbor has been hugely

popular with streamers thanks to the inherent tension in its stealth-based gameplay and the myriad of secrets and easter eggs hidden waiting to be discovered.

TRDS is also a popular choice with content creators, but for very different reasons. As a multiplayer, physicsbased title it has a lot of comedic, emergent gameplay.

Of the titles featured in the TinyBuild Direct, Pigeon Simulator is closest to TRDS, centering on physics-based emergent fun, with players taking control of a supercharged avian menace. That said, its city is procedurally generated and it will undoubtedly contain hidden hilarity that content creators will be able to unearth to delight and inform viewers.

While inverting the camera is live-action title Not For Broadcast, which is receiving an Episode 2. The game charges you with running a TV new show under a dystopian oppressive regime. Choose news, cue the ads, and censor anything that might upset your paymasters, or not. Again you can see the appeal of the game to those who spend their lives on camera.

Then there’s Expedition Zero, a survival horror title, which is firmly on the Neighbor side of our Venn diagram with its tense gameplay. And back in emergent fun, there’s Potion Craft, an alchemy simulator, where brewing potions to help the local villagers will bring both reward as well as some unpredictable results.

Finally there’s Despot’s Game, which Nichiporchik describes as “FTL meets Kingdom Rush.” In which the player is given a random selection of off-the-wall powers and weapons to assign to their army of “puny humans” which are then run through a Smash TV style series of procedurally generated levels of

Above: Survival Horror title Expedition Zero was announced in the recent TinyBuild Direct

Left: Pigeon Simulator has flown over from Bossa Studios to find a new perch at TinyBuild

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Above: Despot’s Game is one of the most imaginative titles we’ve seen of late

Right: Potion Craft’s concoctions are rendered in sublime medieval detail

action, pitted against equally bizarre and varied sets of foes.

You can take it from us, these titles are something quite special.

In fact you don’t have to take it from us, as demos were made available of Despot’s Game, Expedition Zero and Potion Craft, from as soon as they made their TinyBuild Direct appearances.

There’s a previous demo of Pigeon Simulator too, but more on that later.

“Today, it’s really important to release something playable, when you announce things” Nichiporchik tells us. “Because that shows what the game is, you’re not trying to pull a CGI trailer on someone.

“Getting a playable demo out there, when you can, is paramount,” Nichiporchik reiterates. “That’s one of the most important things to drive your marketing. Because if your game, really early on, gets traction, that gives you confidence that what you’re working on is going to get attention.”

But it’s not just marketing either, the demos provide feedback: “It gives you valuable information on what works and what doesn’t work in the game. Because then if the [demo] doesn’t get traction, it still gives you a lot of information. And then it’s about pinpointing why.”

To that end, there’s no release date set for any of the new titles yet. “The demos that are out there today on Steam, we’re evaluating all of them really closely. And then based on the player feedback, deciding when we could consider them ready.”

We suggest that it’s a kind of softer early access, no money taken, but still an

opportunity for potential players to feedback and the developers to see their titles in the wild.

“Kind of, pre-early access,” Nichiporchik qualifies. “Because, you know, that famous saying that ‘a game is ready when it’s ready’. With our upcoming portfolio, we really take that to heart.

“There are some [of our] games that have been delayed, not because the developer missed some milestones or something. But instead, where we, as a partner just come in and say, ‘Hey, guys, this looks like it maybe needs some more time’. So it’s kind of like the opposite way, where usually a publisher will say, like, rush, rush, rush…”

Nichiporchik is open that Despot’s Game required just such a patient approach. With the title needing a lot of iteration to get the core loop just right: “I’m a production guy, so I need timelines. I used to go: ‘OK, six months for this, three months for that.’ But when you trust a creative person to deliver on their vision, And then that magical moment comes when you go ‘Oooh!’ It’s like, OK, my loss of hairline was worth it for the result.”

THE BLESSED BIRD Another title that has seen iteration of a different sort is Pigeon Simulator. Originally announced by Bossa in 2019, publishing duties have now shifted across to TinyBuild. It’s rare to see a title with such obvious potential switch hands in such a way, so we ask Nichiporchik about the background.

“Pigeon Sim is being developed by Hack Jack, from Idaho, previously he was a sole developer

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that made Guts and Glory,” a well-received physics-based title, “where a father and son get on a bicycle and ride through deadly traps. And it gets as bloody as you would imagine… and he spent a lot of time brainstorming his next game.”

Meanwhile, “we were talking to Bossa, I really love Enrique, their CEO, and we’ve spent a lot of time learning from each other on company organisation.

They have this internal game jam process, that’s really empowering for creative people.

“And one of the creatives there came up with this concept of Pigeon Simulator two years ago. But a company like Bossa can deliver on production, but working on too many projects at once it’s difficult to focus. So they had to choose which projects they put into production.

“And personally, I just love Pigeon Sim. I love the idea. I love everything about it, so it was a threeway negotiation. Hack Jack has this idea of a physics destruction sandbox for his next game. And we were thinking, what kind of IP should we develop? Or maybe what kind should we buy?

“So we went to Bossa and said, ‘Hey, can you sell us Pigeon Sim?’ And they did. So we made the deal there.

I can’t discuss the terms in detail. But it’s a deal where all parties benefit. And we’re working on an IP that has essentially proven itself at concept level.

“Typically, when we do investments, we need data points, we like being driven by some sort of data, because then you combine data with intuition, and you have a higher likelihood of a good outcome,” and that brings us nicely back round to TRDS, a great example of data and intuition coming together.

THE GUT-O-METER Complaining about deliveries has become part of the fabric of life – although in recent months the perception of your local Hermes driver has likely shifted from ‘that bloke who chucks stuff behind our bins’ to ‘local hero of lockdown who can do no wrong.’

Either way, deliveries are a big part of our online retail addiction. And it was Nichiporchik’s move to the US, and a door camera that captured a laptop “going airborne” in the last few meters of its journey to his door, that really cemented the hook behind TinyBuild’s physics-based multiplayer sandbox. And a game about hilariously terrible delivery drivers was born.

So that’s the intuition side, but how did TinyBuild cover the data points to see if their new idea had legs?

Well the success of Human Fall Flat certainly provided a touchstone here, Nichiporchik had even been pitched that title when it did the rounds of publishers before

settling at Curve Digital, though he had chosen to invest in Hello Neighbor instead at the time.

“I know what the market wants. But we still needed to verify the vision of this game,” continued Nichiporchik on TRDS. “So very early on, summer 2019, we did a beta.

No one had done an open world online multiplayer game before with physics – think GTA but with physics characters. And we made it very emergent so that it would appeal to both very casual players and to the core YouTube style players. So when we did the beta, over 700,000 people participated.”

Most impressive and it’s gone on to do 22 times that in downloads of course. But what if the hook wasn’t right, what if delivery drivers hadn’t hit the mark, how committed at that stage was the publisher in terms of the budget, fifty per cent?

“In this example, we knew that the game had the potential to be mass market,” Nichiporchik replies. “So therefore, it would need to launch on every platform possible, so a lot of the budget was for ports. So therefore, if we include that, it would be less than that.

If we did not see the results that we saw to reaffirm our hypothesis, we will essentially pivot.” Utilising the underlying tech but with a different hook.

Above: Not For Broadcast’s second season looks to be just as groundbreaking as its first

RELIABLE NEIGHBORS From talking to Nichiporchik, he shows both immense passion and knowledge about every game that’s under development, or every one that we’re allowed to discuss.

But with 23 projects in the pipeline it seems certain that his relationship with individual titles will distance.

“There was definitely a tipping point in the company’s growth when you can’t be hands on anymore on everything. So we have a team of close to a dozen producers. And each producer has a few projects under them and then we sync up constantly, we figure things out, I still help try to help with some things. But in general, yes, much less hands on.”

Nichiporchik’s less hands-on approach certainly seems to be working, though. And TinyBuild’s next phase, as a sizable group of internal studios alongside third-party titles, appears to have potential. An upcoming Direct will have news about Hello Neighbor 2 and the next installment in what will become the Totally Reliable series is now underway. Tiny has got big.

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RECRUITMENT

Ins and Outs: Industry hires and moves 1

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We start this month’s roundup of job movers at Curve Digital, where the publisher has announced three new hires.

First, JARVIS CROFTS (1) joins as VP of commercial and publishing strategy.

Crofts was previously at Sega Europe, where he had spent the past nine years working as director of commercial analysis.

Also at Curve Digital, JAMES GOURLAY (2) joins as director of digital strategy. Like Crofts, Gourlay also joins Curve Digital from Sega Europe.

Gourlay had held a number of roles at Sega, having joined in 2011 as a QA functional lead, before being promoted through the ranks to become senior product launch manager in 2018.

Finally at Curve Digital, IAN BUCKLEY (3) has been named as the company’s new CFO. Buckley joins from Blast, the esports network, having held the title of CFO previously at Wildstone and Global Live and Financial Control Director at Vue entertainment.

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There’s been a change-up over at Eurogamer, with three new promotions at the website.

First, after ten years at Eurogamer, WESLEY YIN-POOLE (4) has been promoted to editor.

According to editor in chief Oli Welsh, “Wes believes passionately in improving the standards of reporting around video games; he’s also the architect of our internship scheme and a wonderful boss, mentor and friend. I’m really excited to see what he will do with the site.”

Next up at Eurogamer, MARTIN ROBINSON (5) is stepping into Yin-Poole’s former role as deputy editor. Robinson was previously Eurogamer’s features and reviews editor, having joined the website from IGN back in 2011.

Finally, MATTHEW REYNOLDS’ (6) job title changes from guides editor to associate editor.

Reynolds has been at Eurogamer for four years now, having joined in 2016 having previously worked for Digital Spy as their gaming editor.

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Sumo Digital announced two major new hires at the company.

CHRIS BLACK (7) joins Sumo’s Sheffield studio as an art director with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry. Black has worked on over 50 titles from PlayStation’s TOCA series to Worms Rumble and Overcooked 2.

Also at Sumo, HOLLIE PATTISON (8) joins the Sumo Digital team as marketing manager. Pattison has been responsible for the strategic planning and implementation of numerous marketing campaigns.

Publisher Inkitt has announced that PAVEL MURNIKOV (9) has joined the company as VP of engineering. Prior to joining Inkitt, Murnikov was VP of technology at US esports and video game company Activision Blizzard.

SEAN CLEAVER (10) has joined Blaze Entertainment as its new marketing manager. He just spent 3 years at Asus, and before that wrote for DEVELOP.

Heaven Media has two new hires to shout about.

First, MIKE MCKAY (11), joins Heaven Media’s senior leadership team as operations director and is responsible for managing resources, and developing and implementing the firm’s operational plan.

Next up is NICOLE HALL (12) who joins as the newest member of Heaven Media’s PR team. Nicole was previously a freelance writer, with by-lines in the likes of The Daily Star, OPM and Eurogamer.

Brighton-based Snap Finger Click has appointed FLORENCE BURCHILL (13) as their new production assistant. Burchill is a recent graduate from the University of Sussex.

QA, localisation and compliance specialist Testronic has appointed STEPHEN WATFORD (14) as their chief operating officer.

Watford has previously held chief financial and operational roles at both AKA Group and Havas Media UK

d3t has expanded its senior leadership team with the appointment of new head of production, MIKE COX (15). Cox has been working in game development since 1994. Having held senior positions at EA, Kuju and Exient he brings a wealth of experience across a range of diverse projects.

Hiro Capital has hired industry veteran and deep monetisation expert NICHOLAS LOVELL (16) in the role of venture specialist, free to play games. Lovell is the founder of Gamesbrief, a website dedicated to the business of games, and a successful author of multiple books on game design and monetisation.

After almost four years at Trusted Reviews, JADE KING (17) is leaving to join TheGamer as the site’s new features editor.

Industry veteran DAVID TYLER (18) has joined Tencent as director of global marketing for PC and console games. Tyler has over 20 years of experience, including 13 spent at Activision Blizzard.

Got an appointment you’d like to share with the industry? Email Chris Wallace at chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk 22 | MCV/DEVELOP March 2021

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RECRUITMENT

Rising Star

Every month, we pick the brain of an up-and-coming talent

Gabriela Woch, junior 3D game artist at The Chinese Room, talks about pivoting into games, how her autism affects communication at work, and her ambition to invent a new archetype

How did you break into games?

When I was young, I always wanted a career in the gaming industry but didn’t have the confidence to pursue it. As an alternative I chose to study Costume and Performance Design as my university degree due to my love for the theatre and films. However, once I started my first year of study, it became very clear that my real passion was still my love of video games. I continued with my degree but attended many supplementary evening courses during my second and final years focused on 3D software and concept designing. After I graduated, I took a year out to continue my self-learning which gave me the confidence to go for a formal Masters Course in Computer Games Art & Design.

While studying, I participated in the ‘Search For A Star‘ game dev challenge, organised by Grads in Games. Even though I didn’t get far in the competition itself, it became my ticket to the industry, as soon after I entered, I was offered a position as a Junior 3D game artist with The Chinese Room.

What is your proudest achievement so far?

Honestly, breaking into the industry in the first place. Changing my ambition and field of study was incredibly difficult for me due to the obstacles I had to conquer. When I was 4 years old, I was diagnosed with autism.

Although my symptoms were not severe, they did make it hard for me to keep up with my studies. My lack of confidence in particular got the better of me throughout my life meaning I had to spend more time than others just to keep up. Looking back on my journey,

What do you enjoy most about your job?

My best moments come from getting the opportunity to express and exchange creative ideas within my team for upcoming projects. It really is fun hearing everyone bouncing off ideas from one another.

Another aspect I would happily add is the discovery of new skills and techniques, either using the software that I have already had experience with or getting stuck into new tools.

Being able to then incorporate them into my working environment and expanding my variety of outputs in the art department is the most rewarding part of my job.

I’m genuinely surprised that I didn’t give up throughout those hard times.

What’s been your biggest challenge so far?

Due to my disability, my biggest obstacles are always around communication; specifically receiving, understanding or conveying information. It takes me longer to process and internalise inputs than others so having time to do this is important to me. My job, being my first step into the gaming industry, has been a great learning curve for me particularly given the production itself continues to change and adapt continuously. Thankfully, The Chinese Room has been incredibly supportive throughout my endeavours, not once treating me any differently to my colleagues which I am truly grateful for.

What’s your biggest ambition in games?

My biggest ambition within this medium is to hopefully create new innovation that also has a positive impact on the audience. Video games are a fantastic way to not only bring entertainment, but also to convey emotional or relatable topics in today’s society. A stretch goal is to get the chance to invent a new archetype, either through one character, one story or one game; so long as it brings a positive impact.

What advice would you give to any aspiring 3D artists?

‘Be a shepherd not a sheep’ as my mother always says. If you are building an art portfolio, create something that people have never seen before. Focus more on quality than quantity and be proud of your mistakes. This might feel strange at first but if you show your journey and your failed attempts in your portfolio as a ‘before’ and ‘after’, it will show your growth and your willingness to learn.

If there’s a rising star at your company, contact Chris Wallace at chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk March 2021 MCV/DEVELOP | 23

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RECRUITMENT

Cherry picked advice to help you reach the next level in your career

Alasdair Hibberd, product manager at Frontier Developments talks about how his indie experience provided a broad knowledge base to lead marketing on Elite Dangerous opportunity to reflect on what’s happening in the community on any given day, and take any reactive action that may be needed.

What is your job role and how would you describe your typical day at work?

I’m the product manager for Elite Dangerous at Frontier Developments. My key role is to set the marketing strategy of the game and manage its execution, working directly with the development team to make sure we’re doing everything in our power to give our players a great experience.

My typical day at work is pretty varied, but it always begins with a daily stand-up. These meetings are crucial to keeping communication within the team open and ensuring our focus is on the right areas, and on schedule. For a game like Elite the stand-ups are also a great

What qualifications and/ or experience do you need to land this job?

A product manager’s role involves coordination of all marketing disciplines, making sure they’re not only moving together and aligned with the overall strategy, but also ensuring each discipline has everything they need in terms of both assets and knowledge of the product.

Product managers are forged by their experience more than their qualifications. They need to be able to demonstrate that they have a practical understanding of each of the key areas, and are able to put together a cohesive product plan that works to the game’s strengths. This often means demonstrable experience of having run campaigns previously, as well as being able to present your vision for a game campaign as part of the interview process.

If you were interviewing someone for your team, what would you look for?

The ideal candidate, for me, would show they can maintain consistent attention to detail whilst demonstrating an understanding of the

bigger picture. Time spent in games is always advantageous, but if someone can display competency in these areas from the off, then the specifics of our industry can be picked up pretty fast.

“Time spent in the indie games space prepared me well for my role at Frontier” When it comes to product management specifically, I would say you can think of each game as a step on a ladder. It’s good to cut your teeth on smaller titles as a way to prepare you for the next step up. Time spent in the indie games space prepared me well for my role at Frontier and the compact teams at indie publishing houses mean you’re often more hands on in different areas, giving you a really clear understanding of what you’re asking of your colleagues.

What opportunities are there for career progression?

A good product manager has a fundamental understanding of each of the marketing disciplines along with budgeting, project management and more. Ultimately, this makes the logical next step to move up to a senior product manager but positions them well to as natural team leads.

Want to talk about your career and inspire people to follow the same path? Contact Chris Wallace at chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk

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Debugging D&I Amiqus’ Liz Prince speaks to Rare’s D&I Lead Veronica (Vee) Heath and Executive Producer Louise O’Connor about the importance that leadership teams play in diversity and inclusion strategies How important is it that leadership teams drive D&I initiatives from the top?

O’Connor: It’s important that leadership teams drive D&I to show a commitment to thinking differently about game development. A commitment to diversifying is an opportunity for the business, for the team and for the games we make. We have a responsibility to think, at a leadership level, about how inclusive and welcoming our teams and games are. Rare have an incredible leadership team, who work very hard together to discuss all D&I around the studio.

Do some companies struggle with D&I because management often believes it’s ‘just something for HR’ to manage?

O’Connor: I think it is the job of everyone, across the studio, to embody D&I. At Rare, we take the time to train our teams about D&I, we have specialists in the studio (like Vee) dedicated to thinking about our D&I strategy from a studio perspective. Vee works with everyone to help us focus on clear goals that support our mission to diversify across our teams.

There’s much talk of how ‘company culture’ is important – but some are confused about what that means…

Heath: Company culture goes hand in hand with inclusivity. Each team member has a responsibility to nurture our inclusive culture and we treat it as such.

After all, inclusivity happens when teams interact with one another, ideas are shared, and feedback listened to. We foster a culture where diverse perspectives are welcomed and respected, we see a change in how individuals feel at work.

D&I within some businesses has been put on the back burner during the pandemic. Why should it stay top of the agenda?

Heath: Your current team - and potential talent - look at a studio’s commitment to D&I. They are asking is it somewhere they want to be and feel supported?

Keeping D&I at the top of the agenda means you are looking towards the future. Most of us are working from home, so being able to think about the experience of someone working remotely who has never seen the studio is new but very important.

Outreach such as mentoring is also still important and can be done from the comfort of our desks rather than venturing out.

Has remote working helped or hindered D&I ambitions?

Heath: My role evolved through the pandemic into diversity and inclusion lead, so I firmly believe it has helped our ambitions! Our 2021 D&I strategy is built on areas and changes we can make despite the pandemic, through core areas of the business. So, whatever happens in these next few months, we continue to keep the topic on the table and adapt.

O’Connor: I’ve been so inspired by everyone at Rare, and across other studios, who have had to embrace working from home and still aim to deliver quality experiences and support for teams throughout this difficult time. I also think that with new challenges, comes growth and learning, and as we learn to develop and work as a team remotely, it’s helped us to refresh our thinking on what we are used to.

Finally, tell us about Women of Xbox!

O’Connor: We were very excited to launch the Women of Xbox UK last year. At Xbox, there are incredible communities and groups that offer a place to network and connect with individuals like you.

As we saw the UK Xbox base of studios grow with the addition of Ninja Theory and Playground (Rare have been a part of Xbox since 2002), we wanted to take the opportunity to extend our studio WIG group to connect to other UK based studios. We are committed to inspiring a new generation of developers into our studios and to continue to grow and mentor the incredible women who work across our teams.

Louise O’Connor, Rare

Veronica Heath, Rare

At Amiqus, we have many resources available to help, so please do get in touch via liz.prince@amiqus.com

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RECRUITMENT

Recruiter Hotseat The Liverpool-based studio Firesprite is hiring! Sharan Bassi, senior recruiter, tells us more about the studio.

What differentiates your studio from others?

Firesprite was founded with the goal of creating incredible experiences on new hardware platforms. We are based in a region of the UK which has a long heritage in the UK games industry, dating back to Psygnosis in the 8-bit era and then subsequently Sony Liverpool Studios. Our founders have decades of collective experience across business, art, production, code and design disciplines and we believe that these agnostic foundations have fostered more collaborative and inclusive sensibilities in the way we operate at Firesprite. There is no single discipline which takes priority in the way we ‘think’ and our teams are encouraged to be creatively brave, to speak out and also to be responsive to the fast changing industry around us.

What is the culture like at your studio?

We are a friendly bunch of game developers from all experience levels and backgrounds. I spoke to some of our aspirations before but we also value professionalism, and an entrepreneurial spirit too.

We have worked hard to create an environment where people enjoy coming into work and feeling empowered, but also listened to. We have an open-door policy all of the way up to the senior leadership team including our MD, Graeme. In these times of COVID and especially when we have grown pretty rapidly over the last two years, our people engagement team have been doing a great job to keep staff connected both formally via internal updates and informally via remote events arranged for staff also!

How many staff are you currently looking to take on?

As I mentioned, we have grown rapidly in the last few years – not only just in terms of people but

our processes, ambitions and the opportunities available for our development teams. It’s a really exciting time to join Firesprite; we have over 60 open roles across all disciplines and levels of seniority across a variety of really exciting projects and we’ll continue to grow well into 2021!

What perks are available at your studio?

There are numerous that we have introduced – healthcare, mental wellbeing support, enhanced paternity and maternity allowances alongside a company bonus scheme and competitive salary. We’ve refactored holiday leave also so that Christmas closures are not deducted from allowances, bringing holiday leave to over 30 days a year and for those who want to get fit and reduce their carbon footprint, we are introducing a cycle scheme when we reopen the office for those who wish to take advantage of it.

We are also planning for the remote future with solely remote, in office and flexible location working as and when we are ready.

Has the pandemic affected recruitment?

We’ve been fortunate enough to be in an industry that has thrived during what has been a terrible time for a lot of people. It has also been an adjustment for Firesprite, but one that we were able to take in our stride. We have continued to hire and took on over 85 people last year, the vast majority during the pandemic.

The pandemic also brought forward one of our goals to offer remote work. All our roles are open to remote options as well as in-house or even opportunities for hybrid, when it’s of course safe to do so and we’re working on how we manage the flexible location working in practical terms when it’s safe to do so, for those employees that choose to.

How have you onboarded staff remotely?

We were prepared for the pandemic in early 2020 and our management team set up a steering group to safely move our employees out of the studio and to layout an onboarding process to keep the recruitment pipeline moving forwards.

This involved liaising with hiring managers, getting the logistics of securing and sending kit/software to our new employees alongside frequent communications throughout the process.

IT, HR and the Dev teams played a huge part in keeping us moving in that regard and we haven’t slowed down during the pandemic, continuing to hire and continuing to look at ways to improve how we onboard our new ‘Sprites’! We have regular touchpoints with any new starters before they join us, right up to their first day. One thing we were very aware of from early stages is how daunting it can be to start a new role when you’ve never actually met anyone you’ll be working with, we want to make sure all new starters receive the Firesprite warm welcome from the moment that they accept an offer and know where to go if they need to speak to us!

If you’d like to feature your recruitment team on this page then contact Alex Boucher – alex.boucher@biz-media.co.uk 26 | MCV/DEVELOP March 2021

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Peak Engagement

Does your gaming IP need less interactivity? What if you could engage your players – along with their favourite streamers – with a less-intensive format? One that they could enjoy when they’re playing games. Interested? Then take a look at Genvid and Rival Peak, Seth Barton certainly is.

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R

ival Peak isn’t an established IP, it’s a new, experimental interactive TV format, and yet it clocked up over 30m minutes of engagement on Facebook alone in its first six weeks (and that’s even without iPhone support). Those are the kind of numbers that turn heads, and they are, with at least one triple-A publisher looking to create something similar “around one of the biggest IPs in gaming.”

Those are the words of Jacob Navok, Rival Peak’s showrunner and CEO of Genvid, the company whose technology powers the show. And he’s no games industry newcomer, having run Square Enix’s Shinra Technologies – a cloud gaming initiative – whose team went on to form the core of Genvid.

So then, I’m sure you’re wondering: just what is Rival Peak?

Well to sum it up, Rival Peak is a digital reality TV show, a blend of Big Brother and Survivor with a healthy dose of Lost thrown in too. And of course, as a digital reality TV show, it has big advantages at present, after all none of Navok’s contestants have to socially distance.

And social is a key word here, with the show being run exclusively through Facebook. So you might be thinking, what’s this got to do with games exactly?

Well the show is an interactive event, with viewers able to affect the character’s choices and actions as they watch them live. It’s interactive, just not as intensively interactive as say Call of Duty.

PEAK PLAYS “We’ve been together now for ten plus years, working on cloud and streaming experiences,” says Navok. “And we had a very strong philosophy that games that were built for the cloud would result in new experiences.

“But we started to change what we thought a cloud game was going to be around six years ago, when we first saw Twitch Plays Pokémon,” he recalls. As the stream phenomenon saw a world recordsetting number of people ‘collaborate’ via Twitch to play a single game of Pokemon Red from beginning to end.

“There were a million people interacting with a stream. And it was a new form of entertainment. But it wasn’t about people playing, it was a community getting together to create an experience.

“And so we wanted to build a suite of tools, a suite of software, to help enable what we called massive interactive live events, millions of people changing content together, that became the basis of this company, Genvid.”

“And we started working on a series of different technologies, encoding, streaming, game engine integrations, that allowed for many people to interact with data at the same time. As we were working on this, we began working with external developers, so now we’re kind of like a Unity for interactivity. We work on Twitch and Facebook and YouTube. And developers are our customers to help them enable those experiences.”

Genvid’s technology has powered many titles, but Rival Peak’s virtual reality show has surpassed them all. With its shipwrecked contestants, relying on the help of viewers to survive, proving an irresistible combination.

“We went to pitch a TV show version of this to a lot of different platforms. And in the end, it was Facebook who showed the most interest. And as we began to think about what a full production version of Rival Peak would look like, you started to see elements of what you get in Rival Peak today.”

And what you get is quite something. It’s a 12-week show running 24/7 around the globe. With millions of fans watching the contestants live and guiding their actions via taps on their phones. With a weekly TV summary show, Rival Speak, hosted by commander-in-geek Wil Wheaton. Plus an array of streamers supporting the show though their own output.

By watching and voting, the viewers are totting up points for that particular character. The least popular character, in classic reality-TV format, is removed from the show at the end of every week.

In addition, player input affects the relationships between the characters.

Jacob Navok, CEO Genvid

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request, ‘don’t make this into a game please, make it into interactive television.’ The resulting product that you see is a response to the directions that we were given.”

Above: This diagram provides an overview of how Rival Peak works

...SO WHAT IS IT? So how does it actually work?

Well the virtual element of the show runs on a single server, known as The Authority. “That’s the main system that controls the show. And that lives on an AWS super node with multiple GPUs on it.

It controls the simulation and the character AI, but it doesn’t do rendering.”

So then there’s 13 rendering nodes, one for the home screen and one for each character in Rival Peak. That means viewers can switch to any character of their choosing at any time. And those video streams are then sent out via a typical Facebook video stream, but with an HTML5 overlay in order to allow viewers to switch streams and to let them interact with the characters, by helping choose what they do next.

The format could be more game-like, but Genvid has tailored it very much for Facebook.

“We were trying to build for the audience and the platform’s requests. So the Rival Peak that we built for Facebook is a bit different than the one that we would have done for Twitch.

Which is to say, we were asked to do something that is very simple and very mobile-oriented.

“It’s a very, very VOD television focus. But that’s not a question of the technology or the process, which could be very much more gamelike if we wanted. There was an explicit

A DIFFERENT CLOUD So this is cloud gaming in a form, but it’s a very, very different approach from those who are trying to shift the games console into server farms.

This is a far less intensive implementation, less interactive but still highly engaging it appears.

And capable of reaching numbers that xCloud and Stadia can only dream about.

“The key thing to understand here is that Facebook is 99 per cent mobile at this point,” states Navok. “We started with Android, and we launched iPhone recently too. What’s really interesting is that while our number one user base right now is the United States, our number two user base is India, our number three is Mexico.

“Which is why you see the numbers that you’re seeing.” Half-way through its run Rival Peak posted figures of “810,000 registered users… 55m views of Rival Speak… 50m minutes watched on the series. “[That’s] happening because we’re not doing one-to-one cloud streaming with ultra low latency.

We’re using [Facebook’s] standard video streaming system to get it done. And so as a result, you have a much, much bigger opportunity. We have users in Palestine, we have users in Bangladesh, we have users in Argentina. Anywhere that a Facebook Live stream works, it works… You’re not getting that with something like Stadia, and you’re not getting that with xCloud.”

Of course running a 24/7 interactive livestream around the globe brings its own challenges.

“The way that we set up the live process live operations process, we did it based off of my experiences with MMOs at Square Enix, which was the follow the Sun 8-8-8 process, meaning eight hours North America, eight hours Europe, eight hours Asia.

“And so the streams will restart every eight hours, we’re on Day 53. Day 53 will take place for eight hours, and we’ll restart every eight so that each region gets an opportunity to experience [and interact with it] it in their real time.”

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CLIFFHANGER ENDINGS The show is a blend of user-directed action alongside a scripted arc of mysteries. So how does that play out for the production team every week? As at the start of the week, they don’t know who’s going out.

Once that’s decided by the players, the team has to adjust dialogue for the characters, work that into the Rival Speak show script with Wil and create animation to support the event.

“It looks like a very well polished TV show. And it is, the episodes are really nicely done to watch. But it is really done on the fly in the days before because we don’t know what the users have done.

“We know some things that are going to happen because there are events that we’ve pre-packaged into it.

We know that there’s going to be a cutscene but we don’t know which characters are going to be in it. We don’t know which ones the users have selected. So it’s a very intense process.”

The narrative team has impressive experience, though. “There are a lot of branching narratives. The writing team is ex-Telltale, the group that did The Wolf Among Us, so they’re very used to these branching narrative products, which is one of the reasons we brought them on.”

Although Rival Peak isn’t quite like a Telltale game.

“It’s a branching narrative where the rest of the users will never see those branches. It’s not like an adventure game where you can go and press the reset button. And so we build that branch based off the user’s interactions, we have some of it pre-locked and loaded – and we have some of it that simply isn’t. Therefore it’s a very, very intense, daily process.

“If you look at where we are here, on Day 53, the look and feel of the area and locations and the stuff they’re doing. These are all very, very different from where we began the show. They have different animations and different features and different functionalities than where we began the show. This area here, this campground is quite a different location than where we started in those initial camps. And it’s going to get more and more strange as they begin to go up the mountain and discover different mysteries.”

EDUCATING INDIA While it’s based on a familiar format, Rival Peak still had some teething troubles when it came to explaining itself to its newfound audience, Navok tells us:

“We had two problems that came from the concept being fundamentally unique. The TV audience didn’t understand that they could interact and didn’t understand that what they did affected things. While the video game audience thought that they would control the characters.”

“We’ve had to educate them significantly,” Navok continues. “And we did that by constantly iterating on the tutorial, though I’m not sure that we’ve still gotten to a place where the thing makes sense to everyone. But we do now have Wil introducing it in the tutorial and explaining it to you.

“We’ve got a tutorial that takes you through every interaction and functionality and what it means. But it’s a constant tweaking process. I think we’ve redone this tutorial six times, since we started, once every week, based off of where we see that we’re failing to explain things to users.”

Of course, endless iteration of the tutorial is not at all unusual for say a mobile game, but Rival Peak, as a 12-week live season, doesn’t really have the option to soft launch in Malaysia for three months so that they can fine tune everything. Therefore, another way that the show is helping to explain itself to audiences is via what Navok calls “concierge streamers.”

“A lot of people use streamers to market their titles, I don’t really need to market the title because I’m on the world’s largest marketing platform. But I need to explain what the hell it is. So we have these streamers whose job it is to explain the game. So instead of you looking at the AI or trying to make sense of the tutorial, you can talk to the streamer and the streamer is going

Above: The Rival Peak campsite, where the show’s contestants can get some rest

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Above: The Wil Wheaton hosted weekly show helps viewers keep up to date with the latest

to explain to you what it is that you’re seeing.

Future iterations of this will probably integrate that even more deeply into this process.

“But it is pretty exhausting for the streamers because they’re constantly engaging and explaining and explaining and explaining. And so sometimes what they do is instead of explaining everything, they’ve got regulars in the audience.

And they just chat with them about conspiracy theories in the show. So then what we’ve done is we’ve taken some of the things that they’ve chatted about in their talks, and we’ve put it into the [Rival Speak] show.”

THE NEXT ISLAND IS A CONTINENT Genvid is undoubtedly someone you should be talking to if you’re looking to build interactivity with streamers into your title. But the opportunities are far broader than that. After all, the format is able to allow gaming IP holders to create something that engages users, without it being an enormous time-sink.

“What’s interesting about it, from a game developer and a publisher perspective, is that it’s not at odds with the work that you do for players.

Instead it expands your opportunity as a game developer to go and eat away at media time.

“And here’s what I mean. The average American watches about four and a half hours to five hours of television a day. Of which one hour is immersive, Game of Thrones, I’m paying attention.

And the rest of it is, I’m cooking, I’m cleaning, I’m doing whatever and it’s on in the background. And that’s your reality TV cooking programme.

“But games are fundamentally immersive, right?

They demand your attention, I’m not going to

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move forward in Call of Duty unless I push the button. I can’t even crush candy in Candy Crush unless I tap on the screen.

And so what is the equivalent of the remaining four hours of television for video games?

“And that’s what I think is really interesting about Rival Peak. You don’t need to be immersed in it, you don’t need to be focused on it, it will happen. And if you want to engage with it, or if you just want to leave in the background, you can go ahead and do so.

Navok is dismissive of cloud gaming’s ability to bring the industry those other 5bn gamers.

Instead he tells us that “audience expansion is not necessarily an expansion of people. It’s an expansion of access and time with content that’s appropriate for that time.

“And so what I want to do is have bits of engagement at a very high level of quality, and make it so that my experience matters. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to create that access. And I think that expands the market opportunity for game developers and publishers… as now you can capture those remaining four hours, which means you can monetize a much bigger audience.

“Is it the same whale level monetization that you’re dealing with in video games? Probably not.

But you know, you’re accessing way more people, because you’re not just focused on immersion.”

It’s certainly a compelling argument. In Rival Peak, Genvid and its partners have created a relatively simplistic world, one aimed at the widest possible audience.

It would be intriguing to see what possibilities there are for the video stream and overlay to interact with a more complex existing world, with more powerful AI characters, or with streamers navigating that world [in or out of character] with their actions guided by an audience that, when it finds the time, can also join them in playing ‘fully’ via console or PC. Among Us has shown that streamer-centric, and video-centric interactive experiences are a big part of the future of gaming, and Genvid’s technology adds huge potential to that future.

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Brought to you by

A Swift Spotlight: Games Careers Week The first annual Games Careers Week will soon be upon us, but how did this industry-wide push for diversity and employability come to be?

T

he games industry over the last few years has come on leaps and bounds, ensuring games careers are more accurately mapped out and demystified to those looking to join the sector, but what about the general public, especially those from more diverse backgrounds that the industry tends to struggle to recruit?

With more and more outreach by charities, studios, not-for-profits, recruiters, and educational institutions happening every year, how can the industry as a whole ensure that more people from every background have the chance to start careers in games?

Jimmy Bowers of Aardvark Swift speaks to the three co-founders of Games Careers Week to find out what they have planned for this festival of industry employment.

“We need to change the diversity profile of the games workforce,” says Rick Gibson, CEO of The BGI, a games education charity that was founded as a result of a long-running campaign from over 600 studios and universities to create a new agency for games culture and education.

“When we first started talking about this initiative, one of the key realisations was that no one organisation, no matter their size, has a monopoly over the education to employment pathway. Instead, what we have is this patchwork quilt of amazing programs who each do their own thing well in their own specific area, but they’re usually disconnected,” Gibson says.

The desire to better link up these organisations and initiatives is at the core of what Games Careers Week is, creating a more accessible, user-friendly roadmap to industry employment. “As Grads in Games, we work with thousands of students every year, helping them get ready for a career in games. It’s the next step on from the early years work done by Declan and Into Games, the finishing touches of a long journey into the industry,” adds Andy Driver, operations manager at Grads in Games, a not-for-profit community-interest company, originally set up eleven years ago by Aardvark Swift.

“Understanding this journey starts at a young age is important, working your way through primary education and into secondary.” confirms Declan Cassidy, CEO of Into Games, a non-profit that supports people in finding rewarding careers in video games by connecting education and industry. “We started roughly at the same time as The BGI, during a shift as studios began to realise the value in connecting with education and strengthening those pathways.”

Games Careers Week matches what The BGI, Into Games, and Grads in Games all want to achieve, inspiring students, teachers, parents, and guardians from all backgrounds to discover careers in games.

“As collaborative organisations that are used to working with others, it makes so much sense for us to come together and link up at a specific time of year, not just to showcase our own work, but to welcome others to do the same,” adds Gibson. “We, as an industry, are really good at talking to each other and understanding our own jargon, but to make a real difference we have to talk to the public in order to change the deep-rooted challenges that exist in the sector around skills shortages and diversity in the workforce.”

The drive of Games Careers Week, as well as providing employment advice, is showcasing to the wider public that there are life-long and well-paid careers in video games for everyone. “It’s the right time to do something like this. There’s been a noticeable shift, with positive stories about games being given more of a platform, especially in the media which influences how they’re perceived by parents,” says Cassidy.

Games Careers Week launches on March 26th, keep apprised of updates via their website gamescareersweek. org. Listen to the full conversation with Rick Gibson, Declan Cassidy, and Andy Driver, and learn more about how to get involved with Games Careers Week, in an upcoming episode of the Aardvark Swift Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, third party apps, and the aswift.com website.

Andy Driver, operations manager, Grads in Games

Declan Cassidy, CEO, Into Games

Rick Gibson, CEO, The BGI

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The Orcish Patent The Nemesis system has prompted a debate about patenting video game mechanics.

Chris Wallace talks to patent law experts to find out more about the practice.

M

iddle Earth has unexpectedly become the backdrop for a recent debate about video game patents.

For those unaware, last month Warner Bros secured a patent for the Nemesis system, the much-loved mechanic from both Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War. The mechanic featured a hierarchy of enemies, who would remember the player, hold grudges and carry longterm injuries, before ultimately being replaced – either once killed by the player, or deposed due to the usual Orcish in-fighting.

The patent, which came into effect on February 23rd, protects “Nemesis characters, nemesis forts, social vendettas and followers in computer games.” Essentially encompassing the core of the hugely popular mechanic.

Once the news broke, the reaction within games industry Twitter was particularly damning – with many bemoaning the patent stifling creativity in the industry, some even going so far as to call Warner Bros hypocritical for the move.

It’s hard not to be somewhat sympathetic to these arguments. The Shadow of Mordor series benefitted hugely from work that came before it – many of its mechanics closely resemble those of popular franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, and the Batman: Arkham series. To deny other developers the right to iterate upon the Nemesis system does, on its face, seem antithetical to the creative stepping stones that the series owes so much to.

However, it needs to be said that the Nemesis system situation is perhaps the first time many in the wider games industry has had to think about game patents.

It might sound unreasonable when discussed in the nuance-averse Twittersphere, but these conversations require a wider context.

Patents are of course, not in and of themselves a bad thing, but are often a vital part of doing business. Indeed, many complaints were not about Warner Bros simply acquiring a patent, but that they felt the patent in question was far too broad. Which prompts the question: How unique or specific does a game mechanic have to be in order to qualify for a patent?

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“Very,” says Kostyantyn Lobov, of Harbottle & Lewis. “In order to successfully apply for a patent, two of the things you have to show are that your invention is novel and has an inventive step. If a similar invention already exists, or has been described in enough detail in a textbook or article, it could make the invention unpatentable.

“Unlike other registered IP rights, patents go through a fairly rigorous examination during the application process. After the application is filed, the relevant patent office will carry out a search of the ‘prior art’ (i.e. things that are already out there, like existing patents and other publications) and will list things it finds which it considers could be problematic. The patentee then has to overcome those challenges, either by arguing that they are not relevant, or by tweaking the scope of its patent application. If it can’t, the application may need to be abandoned.”

With this in mind, acquiring a patent for the Nemesis system does not seem particularly unfair.

The reason it attracted so much attention in the first place was that it was unlike anything we’d seen in the industry before. With a process this strict (the Nemesis system patent itself was years in the making), it would be reasonable to conclude that the mechanic is at least unique enough to be worthy of legal protection.

THE SPECIFICS But that’s not to say it cannot be criticised for being too broad, of preventing future mechanics that are inspired by the Nemesis system, and not simply recreating it wholesale.

So are these types of patents usually hyper specific, so other developers can create similar but non-infringing technology, or can they be used more broadly to block the use of an entire technical field?

“It is a mixture,” says Calum Smyth, partner at Wiggin. “With a nascent technology it is generally easier to obtain broad protection as there is very little pre-existing that is similar in operation. That makes the test for novelty and inventive step easier to satisfy in respect of the fundamental aspects of the technology, aspects which will need to be used by a third party irrespective of the specific application.

“It can be difficult to avoid such third party patent risks and developers may need a wholesale

change in technical direction or to take a licence from the owner (if possible). In established technologies, patents may be granted for more incremental developments which, though inventive, are narrower in scope (e.g. for a specific application or method of use). The more specific the scope of the patent claim, the easier it can be for a developer to alter the work product to avoid infringement without materially impacting functionality.”

Still, as previously discussed, any aspect of a game must meet specific criteria in order to qualify for a patent. The broader the patent, the more likely it is to be dismissed. Though the simplicity of an invention can be a benefit here – something as basic as the Lego brick was the subject of several patents in the 1960s.

It’s worth noting that these patents aren’t particularly uncommon in the industry – though it’s certainly more common to see patents for hardware (Nintendo once patented its D-Pad design, or ‘multi-directional switch’), or back-end elements such as graphic engines and improved ways of handling multiplayer matchmaking.

“One of the reasons for this is that inventions have to be technical in nature,” says Harbottle & Lewis’ Lobov, “and some types of invention are excluded altogether, ‘rules or methods for performing a mental act or playing a game’ being one such exclusion.”

Kostyantyn Lobov, Harbottle & Lewis

Calum Smyth, Partner at Wiggin

A COMMON LAW? Still, Shadow of Mordor is hardly the first gaming mechanic to receive a patent. For instance, the Mass Effect dialogue wheel was the subject of a patent, as was the loading screen mini-game (much to Twitter’s chagrin).

“Big tech companies that also operate computer game divisions have vast patent portfolios,” says Wiggin’s Smyth, “and no doubt some of those inventions will underpin both game and nongame related technology. But pureplay computer games companies have also been actively pursuing patents.”

Japanese companies tend to have the largest patent portfolios – with Nintendo in particular holding a large number of patents. Though as a hardware manufacturer, this is perhaps to be expected. However, even outside of Japan, the use

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of patents in the industry has been steadily increasing over the years (see chart below).

These patents are territorial, too. US patents are only effective in the US, for instance. While Harbottle & Lewis’ Lobov points out that it is fairly common for identical patent applications to be filed in several countries at once, US-based companies tend to only protect their inventions in their home countries.

Meaning that companies are free to use this technology outside of the US. Of course, the realities of a global market prevent this.

“Game publishers will no doubt want to release the same game unaltered in all markets simultaneously,” says Wiggin’s Smyth, “and creating a US version that avoids patented technology that supports a game mechanic feature may be commercially impractical and technically unfeasible (for example in relation to MMO games).

“Nonetheless, there are risks in having such limited, countryspecific protection for a technology that is sold and used globally.”

ENFORCEMENT So now we know how to qualify for a patent, how common they are and where they apply – but how often are they enforced? With so many patents out there, it seems a potential minefield for developers and publishers, but we don’t tend to hear stories about

lawsuits over game mechanics. “We don’t see a lot of litigation relating to gameplay patents specifically,” agrees Harbottle & Lewis’ Lobov, “which is probably in part because there are fewer of them than patents of other types. However, that doesn’t mean there are never any disputes. It’s worth bearing in mind that the only cases which you hear about are the ones where legal proceedings have been started.

“There could, in theory, be cease and desist letters and other legal correspondence happening in the background. If a dispute is settled before legal proceedings are started, you will most likely never hear about it.”

Most litigation in video games is not between game companies, however. The majority of legal proceedings (merely threatened or otherwise) are brought by companies who acquire these patents, but do not create games themselves. These are known as ‘non-practising entities’ (NPEs), and are prevalent in the United States.

NPEs can pose a particular threat to game companies, as they’re invulnerable to an infringement counterclaim – as they don’t produce anything.

Following a 2014 US supreme court decision (Alice v CLS Bank), as well as cross-industry efforts to keep patent assets away from NPEs, the threat they pose has waned in recent years (see chart below).

“However, the risk continues to present problems for the industry as many companies remain willing to sell their patent assets to NPEs,” notes Wiggin’s Smyth.

Additionally, we need to remember that these patents aren’t just a weapon to be used. They can be

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used defensively (to retaliate if sued by a rival company), or even as part of collaborative efforts.

“There could be several different reasons for applying for a patent,” says Harbottle & Lewis’ Lobov. “Enforcement is one of them. Patents can also be exploited through licensing, act as a deterrent, and be used to make a company more attractive to investors.”

“Patents can provide value in ways other than enforcement or the threat of enforcement,” adds Wiggin’s Smyth. “For example, they can form the centrepiece of joint development or technical collaboration projects, and may also be used by their owners in order to benefit from jurisdictional tax-related rules designed to promote innovation (e.g. the Patent Box regime in the UK).”

SCROLL OF PROTECTION With all of that said, existing patents can absolutely pose a risk to developers. With so many patents out there, there’s certainly the potential for accidental infringement if you’re not careful.

“Patents are a true monopoly right,” says Harbottle & Lewis’ Lobov, “meaning you can infringe one without even realising it exists (unlike copyright, for example, which requires an act of copying).

“That said, there are literally millions of patents out there, and searching for them is not very straightforward. Even if you do find a patent which looks like it may be relevant, unless you have experience of reading patents, they can be difficult to understand. They are often written in obscure and highly technical language, using long sentences with multiple sub-clauses. This is because patent attorneys have to be extremely precise about the scope of the invention which is being claimed.

“From a practical perspective, if a game is doing something which has been done many times before, the chances are that it will be low risk. If a developer suspects that what they are doing could be the subject of a patent, or knows of a specific patent which could be problematic, the safest course of action is to speak to an advisor, who can help assess the risk and carry out a freedom to operate search if necessary.”

Patent litigation may not be as common in the games industry as in other industries, but developers still need to be aware of the risks.

“Strategic and commercial motivations over whether to enforce a patent or not can change

quickly,” says Wiggin’s Smyth, “and so it makes sense to keep an eye on risks presented by third party assets if possible.

“If you become aware of a problematic competitor patent during the product development design phase, it may be possible to avoid infringement by ‘designing around’ the patent claims, depending on the specificity of the claimed invention. If you are collaborating with another company, you should think carefully up front about how to contractually allocate the risk of any resulting work product being the subject of third party patent enforcement proceedings.”

“Patents can provide value in ways other than enforcement or the threat of enforcement” Additionally, developers should be aware of the need to protect their own creations. Again, these patents can be used defensively, and it’s better to be prepared ahead of time.

“As regards obtaining patent protection,” Smyth continues, “the more difficult the problem that needs solving and the more technical the solution needed to solve it, the more you should consider filing for patent protection. Should a material dispute arise with competitors, a strong patent portfolio can only help to strengthen your bargaining position, and if you don’t have one, it will be too late to rectify. But there is a balance to be struck; building a patent estate can take effort, time and money.

“Much like in other sectors, computer games companies should look to develop an appropriate patent strategy that reflects their industry, their technical innovation and their resources. The strategy should account not only for the risks of litigation, but also the opportunities to leverage patent value through licensing (e.g. in technical collaborations) and in other commercial contexts (e.g. to benefit from specific tax rules).”

So does this mean the Shadow of Mordor patent was fair? Look, I’m not going to tell Twitter what to think. I’m just disappointed we may now never see the Super Mario nemesis system.

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THE PINTEREST OF GAME DESIGN JetPlay is bringing machine learning to the earliest stage of game development. Chris Wallace talks to CEO Tom Pigott to find out more.

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J

etPlay wants to offer you the game ideas machine.

That’s the promising prospect from the startup behind Ludo AI – the world’s first true AI platform for games concepting and ideation.

Ludo promises to make the games concepting process simple, by allowing the user to search by keywords through its database of almost one million games, to deliver a brand new game concept – complete with text description, images and comparisons of similar games.

Ludo, Latin for ‘I play,’ uses machine learning and natural language processing to deliver a series of brand new game ideas each time. The platform’s capabilities are within the reach of studios of any size, with Ludo arguably being most useful for the quick turnaround of the hyper-casual space.

To find out a little more about Ludo, and its potential for the games industry, we sat down with Tom Pigott, CEO of JetPlay Jetplay has a history of game development itself, with a background in creating games in the virtual reality space, and more recently has experience with hypercasual titles.

“A commonly used phrase is ‘necessity is the mother of invention’,” says Pigott. “And as a hypercasual studio, we’re in a very competitive segment, right? There’s this constant need to come up with new game concepts to test, particularly in that space. And most of them really don’t make it past the initial metrics.

“And so, as we looked at it, in this very crowded field with many, many competing studios worldwide... Was there an opportunity to maybe have a tool, given some advances that were going on in machine learning, that could aid us with sorting game concepts?”

The platform’s library of almost one million games definitely skews heavily towards the hypercasual market – mostly because, as Pigott points out, there’s just more of those out on the market.

GAME-STORMING So how does Ludo work, from a user perspective?

“Ludo is built upon open source machine learning models,” says Pigott. “It has eight million web pages, that is really its base, in terms of vocabulary. And then what we did was to focus it on games and gaming. And so we have this enormous library of games, most of which are skewed towards, hyper-casual indie style games, because obviously, there’s just a lot more of those.

“So as a game creator, you go to Ludo, and maybe you have a thought of a concept in your head that you want to explore more. You can enter in just keywords: it might be a mechanic like swerving or tapping or stacking, or it might be, ‘hey, I want to focus on a zombie game.’

“You can type as little as you want into Ludo, and what happens is that the machine learning is based on natural language processing. And it comes back to you with a complete concept along with accompanying game images of some similar type of games.

“The exciting thing about it is that it doesn’t just do that once. You can do it scores and scores of times, and it’ll be different every time. So that’s where you get the advantage – it’s pretty difficult as a small team or an individual to come up with constant new sources of ideas. So this gives you a great tool, it turbocharges your creativity for what we call the whole ‘game-storming’ process.”

Ludo’s enormous library of titles to pull ideas from is certainly impressive, but putting all that together was far from the most difficult part of creating the platform, as Pigott explains.

“The actual building of the game database is not is not the difficult part. The challenge is, once you have the data – it doesn’t matter if it’s 100,000, 500,000 or a million games – it’s what you do with those games. So what we have spent the past year on, is training that data. And that’s where the machine learning comes in.

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So you’re weeding out the non-relevant terms or descriptions, so that you’re ideally getting more and more relevant types of output.”

JOB ENHANCER Any sort of AI automation, in any business, often comes with the expectation that it’s going to be a ‘job killer.’ How often these technological advancements actually impact jobs can vary from sector to sector, but Pigott is keen to stress that this is not the case here.

Ludo’s main selling point is not that it seeks to replace anyone, but that it’s a tool intended to make the game development cycle easier.

“This is absolutely not a job killer,” says Pigott.

“This is honestly what we consider a job enhancer.

Whether you’re an individual developer, or working for small studios as a game creator, you’ve got this great resource that you can go to from the beginning and come up with a new concept.

“What this doesn’t do, to be clear, is build the game for you – you still have to develop the game, but it jumpstarts your whole creative gamestorming process. And that’s what we feel is a huge value add, because we have lots and lots of studios testing Ludo now. And the constant issue that we face is ‘okay, we have to come up with a game idea.’

“It’s a hits driven business, particularly in the hyper casual side of things. So even if you have a successful game that gets to the top of the charts, typically it won’t last there that long. And so you

have to come up with the next concept and the next concept. We feel that Ludo really meets that type of demand in terms of helping creators create better concepts, and certainly more concepts at scale.”

Still, with a machine learning platform searching through a library of existing games, is there not a risk of it delivering derivative ideas, games that chase a trend rather than create a new one?

“That’s very possible,” admits Pigott, “but that’s where you keep iterating, so that you can ultimately create something that is unique. There’s another feature that we have and we call it the ‘game blender,’ and effectively it allows you to take existing games and blend them together.

“For instance, you could take something like Among Us, which is super popular, and then you could add two totally different titles from the trending charts, and have Ludo blend all those concepts together. And maybe you’ll get a mechanic from one, a description of the other and images of the third. And that’s a way where it becomes non-derivative that you can create something kind of interesting. You can take all that and put it into the concept that you’ve already been working on. There’s a lot of ways you can make it unique.

“But needless to say, with the millions of games out there, it’s pretty difficult to have a completely original new concept. Someone, somewhere out there, has already thought of something similar to your idea. And that’s alright.”

He’s not wrong there – after all, game journalists are often notorious for likening new titles to familiar touchstones. ‘It’s the Dark Souls of dating sims! It’s the Super Mario of simulator games!’

Hell, this month’s When We Made (see page 62) deals with a game that could definitely have been born out of a game blender process – a mashup of Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing, and the game feels no less unique because of that.

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All games, no matter how unique, pull ideas from somewhere. Developers are always inspiring one another to find new ways of expressing their creativity. Ludo, Pigott argues, just provides a helping hand – reminding developers of titles they might well have forgotten about.

“People have been in the industry for decades, and it’s tough to have all of that in your head. I think what’s been interesting about so many games that are in there, there’s games from the 90s and the early 2000s, games you forgot about. And that’s what a lot of it is about, it’s being inspired by the past hits and making a modern version of it.”

THE AI FUTURE Of course, machine learning is being used across the industry already. And Pigott believes that these AI development tools are only going to become a larger force in not just our industry, but across the creative industries.

“We just fundamentally believe that AI development tools are going to become part of the industry. I mean, there’s already some here, there’s a lot of AI tools in the back end in terms of monetisation, optimisation, things like that.

“But I think that creative tools that use machine learning are going to come to many, many industries.

I mean, look at the music industry – just think of how many songs you have to think of and create. Or it could be in advertising, or movies – you’re just taking the particular database from that industry, and you’re applying it to the AI platform. And so I’m sure that’ll be the case down the road.”

the feedback we’re getting from a lot of users is that for artists, it’s this huge resource to get inspired by if you’re looking for a type of game. People have said, ‘this is like Pinterest for game designers,’ because it’s such a massive resource. You can just keep picking your favourites and building mood boards from that.”

“One thing that’s actually become a really well used feature, that we maybe didn’t expect, is that we have an image database of close to two million game images.”

The JetPlay team is currently at work on feature requests from their users – such as integrating the platform with other creative tools. Those interested in finding out more can sign up to the beta at askludo.ai.

“We’re still very much in beta,” says Pigott. “So there’s going to be a lot of great improvements and changes by the time we release commercially. And we hope this becomes a real game-storming tool for small studios, and helps them to create better game concepts. That’s really all it is – it’s helping turbocharge that creative process. So we’re very excited about it, and look forward to getting it released commercially.”

PINNING IT UP Ludo launched in open beta in January, with developers already getting to grips with the platform. So how has the feedback been so far?

“It’s been great,” says Pigott. “We’ve been very, very happy, both in how many individuals and studios have signed up, and in the feedback we’ve been getting.

“People are finding that they can use it in a collaborative sense. Because when you’re game-storming, it’s not always an individual effort, it’s a collaborative effort. And this lets you do that within the Ludo environment.

“One thing that’s actually become a really well used feature, that we maybe didn’t expect, is that we have an image database of close to two million game images. And

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PROTECTING THE GAMES INDUSTRY

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EXTRA LIFE?

Insure your games business with someone who understands it After what has been one of the most uncertain 12 months ever, you might be thinking about upping your cover against such events. We talk to Phil Wildman (left) from GG Insurance Services, who answers our questions on insurance for the games industry.

Why did you start GG Insurance?

I noticed a lack of insurance support for the games industry, and as both an insurance professional and huge gamer I thought we would be able to add some real value to the industry, plus have some fun along the way…

What is different about games industry specific insurance?

Insurance changes hugely depending on the insurer and type of cover. Professional Indemnity (which covers contract disputes) from one provider can be totally different from another. It can make it difficult to compare products unless you are an expert.

So it is really important that your broker and/or insurer not only understand your business, but the cover is ready to respond when things go wrong. We see so many devs and publishers with insurance that was not designed around the work they do that it is honestly scary.

What are the most common insurance claims you see?

It depends on the type of business. Publishers are usually frontline for disputes and will need to firefight Intellectual Property claims, cyber attacks, ransomware, media liabilities. Developers will mostly see contract disputes with publishers where they have missed deliverables, but also could be exposed to the aforementioned cyber and IP risks. Senior management on either side may be exposed to lawsuits directly (Directors & Officers insurance can help with this). Esports teams and brands have a different risk profile that covers streaming and their media liabilities, plus disgrace and libel.

What advice can you give to anyone who is considering getting covered?

I’d try and get a breakdown of the full extent of the cover and get this explained to you in context. Make sure you are happy that you have a comprehensive cover at a price that you are comfortable with. Also, if working with a broker, it really helps if they have experience in the games industry and understand the nuances of the games industry.

Why should publishers care about the cover their developers have?

We work with many developers who are signing with a publisher, and have been asked to get Professional Indemnity insurance.

Publishers ask for this as they want comfort that should something go wrong, they can sue the developer and hopefully the insurance can pick up the claim. However, unless the developer has a decent policy in hand, this may not be worth the paper it is written on. We often work hand in hand with publishers and legal counsel, who recommend their developers buy from us as a trusted source.

Will insurance cover the impact of future pandemics and/ or will premiums be going up post-covid?

The insurance industry as a whole has been hit hard by Covid, and insurers are trying to recoup losses where they can – which usually means increased premiums across the board. Many insurers have added additional caveats to new policies to exclude pandemics to protect themselves from future losses.

We work with lots of different insurers, but for our in-house product we actually increased cover for Covid related risks, most notably extending contents and equipment cover to automatically cover anything kept at people’s homes which would normally only be covered while at the office. The games industry has also been notably robust throughout the pandemic and we have been able to keep our premiums consistent across the board.

Is insurance able to cover cyberattacks such as at CDPR? Yes, cyber insurance is a very real thing. CDPR is a classic example of a ransomware attack, and (depending on the insurer and product) could potentially be available to pay ransom demands. Often these hackers would prefer to be paid and it is rare that they would still release the files to the public. Cyber attacks are treated by our insurers as a time-sensitive crisis, and response teams are able to swoop in and consult with your team to determine an appropriate response.

Philip Wildman is managing director of GG Insurance, which prides itself on passion for and understanding of this industry.

GG takes a proactive approach to learning and understanding as the industry constantly changes, on the belief that it is crucial to not only understand insurance inside out, but the games industry itself. For more information: info@gginsurance.net.

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The power of audio in gaming At a recent virtual event hosted by EPOS, a panel of audio experts looked to the future of their sector. Chris Wallace reports.

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T

he new generation of consoles is well underway (for those of us who can get a hold of one, anyway), with a host of possibilities for the future of our industry.

One area of the games industry that is arguably getting more respect than ever before (at long last) is the audio sector.

While the industry has often been hyperfocused on graphical fidelity, game designers are fully focused on exploring how to use audio in creative and exciting ways.

So what does the next generation of audio in games look like? What challenges does the audio sector face? Those are the questions EPOS looked to answer, at its recent virtual event ‘The Power of Audio in Gaming,’ where it reached out to a panel of audio experts to get their view on this rapidly growing sector.

THE PRESENT “The whole process of how to be a sound designer, over the past 20 or 30 years, has changed a lot,” says Bjørn Jacobsen, sound designer at Cujo Sound. “Whereas you would previously be the guy who was only creating content, and then someone else with more experience of the engine or setups like an audio programmer would implement your stuff.

“The job of being a sound designer is now more and more containing the need for sound designers to do their own implementation, which means that implementation and the way the sound actually behaves is becoming part of the design process.”

“Certainly with the development of middleware, that has certainly given us more creative freedom,” says Andy Gibson, audio director at Rev Rooms. “Without relying on other members of the team so much, we can now use parameters and make the sound react in ways that we want. The constraints are becoming fewer and fewer, with faster CPUs and more hardware space, we’re able to add more variety and certainly more quality to the audio nowadays.”

As the panel points out, games are beginning to understand that the way audio behaves needs to be tailored specifically to the game in question.

“Context is everything,” says Dominic Vega, lead sound designer at Avalanche Studios Group. “So something like in Counter-Strike where it’s more competitive in nature, those decisions are a little bit more focused on sending information to the player – whereas in open world games we might be doing something completely different, like driving context.”

That context can have vital uses in gameplay – for instance in games like Counter-Strike, or more recently Call of Duty Warzone, listening out to enemy footsteps can be crucial to survival. And being able to dictate when the player is able to hear those footsteps is easier than ever.

“So do those footsteps matter?” Vega continues. “If the player is driving past in a car, probably not. And making those decisions on the fly is a relatively new feature that we can use, both within our middlewares and then also within our custom engines that let us pick and choose when that stuff is important.”

THE CHALLENGES Audio may have gained traction over the past few years, but the panel of experts noted that it is still often the last consideration in post-production, with graphics often still taking priority.

“I think that sound has always been the very last piece of the puzzle when it comes to post production” says Jacobsen. “It’s always been like that, even when video games were not a thing. And I think that even though we’re gaining traction and we’re gaining respect in terms of how production actually works, I doubt that it will ever change.

“We probably all know people who say sound is super important, we’ve all worked on productions where that sentence was uttered.

But in the end, it turned out that graphics were more important. I think that human aspect will mean that hearing will always be considered less important than vision for some reason. Even though without sound vision isn’t the same. And without vision sound isn’t the same. They both support each other.”

Bjorn Jacobsen, Sound Designer at Cujo Sound

Dominic Vega, Lead Sound Designer at Avalanche Studios Group

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Andy Gibson, Audio Director at Rev Rooms

Martin Kvale, Sound Engineer at NokNok Audio

“I totally agree,” adds Gibson. “It’s always been the last in line for post production. But in the last few years especially, we’ve got more storage space on hard disks. Space and processing was always a problem, but they can’t use that excuse against us anymore, because there’s plenty of space and there’s plenty of processing.

“I also think, as the industry grows, the audio teams are getting bigger. There’s more audio people with passion that will fight harder and push the importance of audio forward in games.

And I think now games are on a level pegging with Hollywood. So the expectation as a final product, if people value audio or not, it has to be there. It’s slowly but surely getting there but it’s kind of an uphill fight. But we’ll keep going.”

One problem with audio is that it’s harder to showcase in bite-sized, social media friendly snippets.

“I think it’s also something in the medium, that it’s hard to showcase sound,” says Martin Kvale, sound designer at NokNokAudio. “When you have people writing about games, you can’t really show audio snippets in a magazine. When you have people reviewing it on social media or YouTube, that is also kind of hard because they’re talking over it all the time. It’s a bit harder to showcase versus a picture.”

Though it does need to be pointed out that, while audio is becoming more recognised in PC and console games, it’s a very different story in the mobile space.

“I guess with triple-A games that are scaled down to mobile, I think it’s easier to get people to put on their headphones” says Kvale. “But I think with small games, we’re kind of assuming that a lot of people will never hear the sounds.

At least my work will be there, so once they put it on hopefully they will want to keep it on.

I make it quite entertaining and pleasurable and just make it like a nice little space, with the option of putting music on and off because I think a lot of people want to have music on in the background.”

Players muting a game’s audio is a challenge that can be overcome, however, with some creative thinking.

“I worked EVE Online, and we had statistics that 70 per cent of the players weren’t even playing with sound on,” says Jacobsen. “Which means that when you try to ask for more

funding, you realise that you are talking to only, like 20 or 30 per cent of all the players. So sound is not important at all.

“So what we did was that we tried to make [audio] a tactical advantage, make it part of the game design. You could hear what guns the opponent was firing, what armour they’re wearing, what you’re wearing, what type of damage you’re taking yourself. Of course, not overdoing it so that deaf people couldn’t play the game – But we tried to add these tactical elements to the game.

“And suddenly, it was really important for a lot of players to have sound on because then they found out that it was really important.

Game designers started to come to us in the sound design department and ask, ‘how can we put focus on this specific element without adding something graphical in the corner?’ It was like they realised all of a sudden that sound can actually inform people quite subtly, without having some giant fireworks in the corner saying ‘click here.’ It was really nice.”

THE FUTURE So that’s the journey audio has taken in our industry up to this point. But what of the future?

How do the panel expect their jobs to change in the coming years?

“I certainly think it’s gonna change,” says Vega.

“I think we’re already seeing this happen in the industry. But I think with the democratisation of tools and technology, the size, scale, and the cinematic quality of games is going to continue to grow. I also think because that bar of entry is lowering on the tools and technology side, there’s gonna be a lot of talented sound artists who are able to enter into games.

“People are going to start actively paying more attention to audio. And that demand for high quality audio is going to stretch just not just from the top tier, triple-A console games, but all the way down into indie, one person audio teams. And I’m really excited about that.”

“I think we’ve sort of transcended the comparisons with films now,” says Gibson.

“The games audio space certainly seems to be more exciting, We have more options to do more with it. It’s not just a linear thing anymore, we can totally go off-piste with creativity.”

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25/02/2021 10:16

A Modern Approach From Scandinavia’s first commercial TV channel to a not so common blend of games publishing and esports. MTG (Modern Times Group) is today the home of InnoGames, ESL, Hutch, Dreamhack and more. Seth Barton talks to CEO Maria Redin about taking the modern into the future

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I

magine if ITV had diversified into cutting edge entertainment formats, to the extent that it spun off its legacy TV business and pushed forward as a multi-faceted games company. That sounds improbable right? Well that’s exactly what happened with Swedishbased MTG (Modern Times Group).

Now the company consists of a mixture of mobile gaming development and publishing, alongside some of the best-known eSports brands in the world. Which is actually an unusual blend when you try and think of other examples. And being a Scandinavian-based gaming company (alongside Embracer, EG7 and Stillfront) it comes as no surprise that it has big plans to grow too.

So off the back of its recent acquisition of mobileracing specialist Hutch, and with more such acquisitions bound to come soon, we talked to new CEO Maria Redin, who stepped up from CFO in September 2020, about the company’s outlook and strategy.

SEASONS PASS First though we wanted to get some sense of that incredible transformation for MTG, which culminated in 2019 with the split of the company. Redin has been at MTG for 16 years, so we asked her just how much it has changed in that time?

“The short answer is that everything has changed since I first started at the company,” she replies. “We’ve gone from being a large, traditional media company owning television channels, pay-TV platforms and content production companies, to being an international digital entertainment investment company group specialising in leading esports and gaming companies.”

“It has been amazing to be part of a company’s transformation to stay relevant, it is the same company and culture, but still feels like several different growth phases, she continues. “The most important driver for us within the company has always been relevance and to stay ahead of the curve on what the future of entertainment entails.

“That’s why we initially set up an innovation division, called MTGx, to invest in future-facing entertainment like gaming and esports... we acquired ESL Gaming and DreamHack in 2015, made our first investment in gaming through the German publisher and developer InnoGames in 2016, and acquired Kongregate in 2017.

In 2019, MTG split its current operations, spinning off the legacy media business to focus fully on gaming and esports, and MTGx became MTG. THE ODD COUPLE? Games publishing, be it mobile, console or PC, and esports obviously have a lot of connections. But outside

of owned-and-operated leagues, such as Riot Games with League of Legends or Blizzard with Overwatch, there are few companies that operate in both spheres.

“That’s a good observation. For us, it’s clear that there are synergies between esports and games development and publishing; we believe that these two industries will be central to the future of entertainment. As both industries continue to grow and mature, we will continue to see more and more convergence over time,” Redin replies.

“For instance, twenty years ago game developers adopted a very clear single player first-approach when designing a new game – the opportunity for multiplayer, and by extension esports, was often an afterthought.

But today, most publishers realize that any modern blockbuster gaming IP has to have a strong multiplayer or esports component.”

And the company hasn’t blindly pursued the combination. “We did do a strategic review to look into whether it would be value creating to split MTG’s gaming and esports portfolio, to enable them to fully pursue their own financial agendas. However, our view is that we can build further value creation in each vertical while still keeping the company combined. Here and now, we’re committed to further developing both together, while also pursuing new M&A opportunities in each industry.

Above: Glory in Katowice! In ESL and Dreamhack MTG has two of the best-known names in esports

ACQUISITION IS THE NEW NORMAL Ahh… of course it didn’t take long to come around to the industry’s current buzz – buying stuff. And acquisition is a key part of MTG’s strategy today, Redin explains.

“It’s no secret that I’m committed to delivering MTG’s vision: an ambitious buy and build strategy for both gaming and esports. We have fantastic portfolio companies spanning both industries already, but we’ve

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Above: Hutch’s F1 Manager title launched in 2019 and has seen over 5m installs on Google Play alone

Below: Hutch’s Rebel Racing has also hit some big numbers

set out to be a company that will create value through acquisitions combined with organic growth. We’re setting a bold agenda for the business, and delivering on this promise for both our investors and entrepreneurs is what I’m most passionate about.”

And while it works across two segments of the gaming whole, it does have a different outlook for both when it comes to what it’s looking for in a target.

“Each sector has its own specific conditions and circumstances, so what we look for does depend on whether we’re talking about an esports or gaming company… On the gaming side, we actively look for high-quality companies that have strong IPs, exceptional management teams with relevant experience, and a company culture which we believe will resonate with our own.”

So how does that apply to say Hutch, the Londonbased racing specialist that MTG acquired in late 2020 for $275m (plus another $100m in potential earn-out)?

“Hutch is a great example of how we’re not looking to partner with just any gaming company,” points out Redin. “Despite the fact that the past few years have been M&A-intensive in gaming.

“We have been actively looking at a lot of companies over the past few years, and that process has taught us a lot – we know what we look for in a company today.

In Hutch’s case we saw an exceptional, energetic and creative team with strong growth potential, a roster of highly-successful titles which also diversified our existing portfolio, and previous triple-A experience at the helm of beloved IPs. “We take pride in setting the bar high, in large part because we want to build strong, active relationships with the companies in which we invest. We don’t just provide them with funding, we offer them the chance to be part of a family of companies, with opportunities for fantastic cross-collaboration between companies on

topics like user acquisition, live ops, marketing and game development, while also allowing them to operate in a decentralized way true to their entrepreneurial roots and backgrounds.”

MTG then is keen not to get in the way of the company’s recent success: “We were hugely impressed

by Hutch’s achievements, including their three hit games in the mobile racing category, impressive engagement from legions of fans and 300m downloads to-date. This feat is extra impressive if you consider that their three hit titles – F1 Manager, Top Drives, and Rebel Racing – are all early in their respective growth stage.

“While Hutch has already experienced extremely impressive growth in its sector, with the support of MTG and synergies from our portfolio companies, we’re convinced that they will continue to fly.”

The other outfits in MTG’s games lineup are InnoGames and Kongregate. InnoGames has an impressive portfolio of city-builders and strategy titles, including Forge of Empires, Elvenar and Tribal Wars, with “a vast, loyal and highly-engaged community,” Redin adds. In 2019 we reported that the company had hit over $1bn in lifetime revenue.

Then there’s San Francisco-based Kongregate, the web games success story, which struggled with the move to mobile and the end of Flash. MTG took control in 2017, since which it “has successfully turned around its operation to become profitable in recent years.”

“So our foothold on the gaming scene has been freeto-play mobile games titles in the casual space,” surmises Redin. “And we’re further establishing our position through the acquisition of Hutch, which bolsters our presence in the midcore space.

“And we’re not stopping here – as a core part of our growth strategy, we will continue to hand-select the best and brightest in gaming and esports and bring them under one roof.”

DOUBLES MATCH Turning to esports, MTG has a pair of brands, which now operate together since September 2020.

“ESL and Dreamhack are the world’s two strongest and most iconic esports and gaming lifestyle brands,” Redin points out. “They are the preferred competitive gaming partners for leading publishers like Epic Games’ Fortnite, Tencent Games’ PUBG Mobile, and Valve’s CounterStrike: Global Offensive.” Which is a most impressive list of partners indeed.

But ESL isn’t sitting on its laurels: “I would argue that going forward, the definition of esports is broadening due to growth of primarily mobile gaming, and how advanced games on mobile platforms have become.

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In response to this we’ve launched the ‘Mobile Open’ competition format with ESL Gaming and we believe that it can create fantastic growth opportunities and synergies over time.”

And again, those synergies may very well be boosted by taking on yet more companies: “With that said – we’re looking for the right companies to complement these esports businesses within the ecosystem – it could be either to add capabilities to our existing platform or in order to invest in companies that improve our competitive position.

While esports can be played safely socially distanced, the sector has long-been known for grand events with huge crowds, but MTG’s companies were quick to react and adjust, Redin tells us.

“When the pandemic hit in early 2020, we immediately took action. Even as early as February, some of our largest esports live audience events, like Katowice 2020, had to become audience-free.

“Once we had had a chance to regroup and put our contingency plans in place, we moved quickly to rearrange our esports tournament structure, postponing some competitions and events while converting some to be delivered as fully digitally-produced and broadcasted competitions, with no live audience attending.

“And while there’s always room for improvement, I have to say that I’m very proud of how the teams within MTG have adapted together with ESL Gaming and DreamHack. We kept the show going despite the challenges, and we can continue to do so successfully if the pandemic circumstances linger longer than we hope.

“While we all wish for the pandemic to be over soon, we’ve learned a lot and believe that we stand stronger today as an organisation than we did going into the situation. While we will continue to innovate in this area, we’ve taken significant steps forward in how we produce and broadcast our esports tournaments and competitions to be as entertaining and compelling as possible for viewers, but also for commercial partners like advertisers - and these learnings will be valuable to us moving forward, well after the pandemic is behind us.”

TIME TO MODERNISE? Only time will tell if MTG’s synergies of games and esports will prove sufficient enough to justify the combination under one brand. To date the company has been relatively cautious, compared to some, in its M&A business, and hopefully that’s a good sign for all involved.

But with gaming taking another turbo-charged boost due to pandemic, MTG is looking to grow and grow.

“MTG is very well positioned to take advantage of gaming’s growth. We are committed to an ambitious buy

and build strategy that we will continue to execute. The acquisition of Hutch was just my first as CEO, and we will be seeking out more high-growth businesses producing highly engaging entertainment that will diversify our portfolio even further.

And it’s looking to make its various parts work more closely together: “In December 2020, following our follow-up investment in InnoGames,” through which MTG acquired another 17 per cent of the company, bringing its ownership in the company up to 68 per cent in total, “we announced the formation of our group GamingCo, which has been created to more closely tie our gaming companies to each other, creating better opportunities for cross-company learning and knowledgesharing. InnoGames, for instance, has built a worldclass live ops division, which will benefit not only current gaming companies within our portfolio, but also ones that join MTG in future.

“I think that the way we’ve deepened our relationship with InnoGames founders is a good example that our way of working is successful,” says Redin.

“Ultimately, we want to work with both founders and companies with whom we can partner in a way that benefits both parties in the long term; supporting and respecting the entrepreneurial journey as well as also providing both creative and commercial freedom.”

Above and below: Innogames Warlords of Aternum provides epic strategy action on mobile

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Brought to you by

Connecting the dots: The data behind women in gaming

In the last 12 months, how and why we play games has shifted drastically. As our recent report Games Marketing Insights for 2021 has shown, there were more gamers in 2020 than ever before, with huge numbers of women among those discovering and rediscovering a love of games.

Newzoo’s Consumer Insights, Games and Esports report (which can be found at Tinyurl.com/5dvns9xd) paints an interesting picture about how many women are playing games and why they play. They looked at 32 markets to get a better understanding of women’s gaming habits.

We’ve broken down some of the key learnings from this.

65% OF WOMEN GLOBALLY PLAY GAMES As of 2020, 47% of the world’s total gamers, and 48% of mobile gamers specifically are female. The main reasons women play games are: to fill time, for escapism, and to complete objectives, but their interest in gaming doesn’t start and end with games themselves. 42% of the women (of the total internet population) watch content about video games as well.

THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY IS GROWING Community has become an important factor in gaming over the last year, with more people than ever looking to games as a way to stay connected and entertained. Since 2018, Newzoo has witnessed a 10% increase in female gamers visiting gaming community websites weekly.

THE NUMBER OF FEMALE MOBILE GAMERS IS GROWING As female gaming audiences tend to enjoy casual games, and use gaming to fill time, it’s no surprise that the number of female mobile gamers has grown every year since 2016. In 2016 53% of women globally played mobile games, this increased to 61% in 2020, Newzoo reported.

JOIN US THROUGHOUT WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH To celebrate the women who are breaking new ground in the gaming industry, we’ve planned a series of digital events throughout March. We want to share their amazing stories, and help to inspire a new generation of women to take their seat at the table.

There’s plenty to be excited about whether you’re a gamer, working in the industry, or hoping to get started, there’s something for everyone. We hope to see you there.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, we’ll be releasing a very special sizzle video which brings together and introduces some of our amazing female creators.

We also invite you to join our virtual meet up with female industry leaders – Tammy Tang chief executive of FSL and Cherry Xia, VP of Moonton, along with other APAC female creators like Alodia Gosiengfiao, MissRose Gaming, Chopstix, Tran Khai My, ViruSs, Deerlong and Cantika Gaming as they discuss their road to success in the gaming industry.

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“As of 2020, 47% of the world’s total gamers, and 48% of mobile gamers specifically are female.”

EMPOWERING CONNECTIONS: SPOTLIGHT STORIES Follow Facebook Gaming on Instagram to access weekly Stories content featuring women in the games industry.

March 4, Jay-Ann Lopez: Jay-Ann (pictured left) is a Leadership Sourcer at Facebook, and the founder of Black Girl Gamers, which began as a Facebook group, and now has a community of around 50,000 followers over Twitch, Twitter and Instagram.

March 11, Rebecca Harwick: Rebecca is a writer and narrative designer in the AAA and mobile game space. She is head of writing at Wooga, and leads writing teams to create compelling character- and story-driven casual mobile games.

March 18, Verta Moloney: Verta is the manager of The GameHERs Awards, and runs a business helping individuals and organizations share their racial autobiographies and stories in order to act on and undo racism.

March 25, Gwen Guo: Gwen is the Chair of the Singapore Gaming Association, and one of 3 co-founders of Imba Interactive, a Singapore-based studio that provides end-toend audio solutions for video games and other media.

ARTICLES THROUGHOUT MARCH • Visit fb.gg/marketers on March 3rd for an interview blog focusing on the amazing women from our Empowering Connections Stories.

• Check out fb.gg/creators throughout March for a series of blogs dedicated to Women’s History Month creator video spotlights, focusing on our creators empowering stories, in addition to hearing first hand, advice on how to become a successful streamer.

• Visit facebook.com/audiencenetwork on March 24th for a Q&A with female publishers discussing how they find connections through community in gaming and working in the industry.

CREATOR STORIES VIDEO SERIES To celebrate Women’s Heritage Month we are launching a global video series that celebrates female gaming creators on Facebook Gaming. This series will dive into empowering stories from female gamers who have transformed their love for gaming into a successful career.

March 8, Malena0202: Malena is one of the first and largest female video creators from Brazil. To empower women and show that support exists, she joined a project called “My Game My Name” as an ambassador and aims to tackle the stigma around females using gender neutral or male usernames to avoid harassment.

March 15, Patty Meza: At a young age, Patty Meza was constantly reminded that video games are for boys. Despite the discouragements, Patty followed her passion and over the years, built a large community and successful career on Facebook Gaming.

March 22, Luure: Luure is a popular female gaming video creator in Poland who started streaming at a young age with a 9 month old baby. Since joining Facebook Gaming, she’s built a large community of supporters and a successful streaming career.

INTERSECTIONAL ALLY SERIES – MARCH 11TH Join us for a panel discussion on the impact and importance of community for women in the games industry. This will be a live conversation between creators and female leaders in APAC and EMEA, moderated by Sandhya Devanathan, Director of Gaming, APAC at Facebook.

Find out more at fb.gg/marketers

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unsigned

Bringing you the most promising unsigned indie games in development today. This month we look at Unity titles created as part of Falmouth’s university’s Launchpad initiative

INN TROUBLE

Overcooked meets Sea of Thieves! A blend of competitive customer service with slapstick sabotage! Team up to run your tavern and trash your rivals’!

Tell us about your game!

Inn Trouble is a romping, messy, chaotic game about trolling your friends as they try to run a tavern. In each 20 minute match, two rival teams compete to make their pub the happiest on the street. Now sure, promptly served customers give better tips, but what if the other team is just as quick as you? No, no, you need a different plan. A crafty, cruel and cunning plan! Sneak into the rival tavern, steal everything that isn’t nailed down, poison anything that is! Break, bother and bonk your way to victory! But did you forget? They’re doing the same to you! Defend and defenestrate! Upgrade your own tavern to keep your customers safe!

Who do you think it will appeal to?

People who want to play something chunky with their friends but only have a limited time to do it in. The 20 minute matches are designed to have the full arc of experience: a ‘warm-up’ beginning, a ‘build up’ middle and a ‘finale’ ending, leaving the player satisfied after each match! People who enjoy managing chaos and those who just want to watch the world burn!

What experience does the team have?

The team has a total of eight years’ experience in games and software development between them. Formed in the Falmouth Launchpad tech start-up incubator in 2018, the team that would become Burnthouse Games set to work researching and prototyping scalable, market led products. With the support of the industry experts working with Launchpad, they’re confident they can deliver a great game!

How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete?

Inn Trouble has been prototyped, shopped, focus tested and pivoted over the last two years into the design that we have now. With another seven months runway, we can complete this final design.

What level of support are you looking for from a potential partner?

We need £144,000 in development funding to create the game itself We would appreciate help with: Community Management, Publicity and Localisation.

Developer: Burnthouse Games Location: Cornwall Team size: Two currently. Will expand to seven with contractors upon funding.

Progress: Demo Contact details: Thomas Phillips thomas@burnthouse.games Thomas Phillips – Consultant (Previously CTO)

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PROJECT TOME

Adventure through a unique gothic world full of mysteries and puzzles as you discover the secrets of your magical tome.

Tell us about your game!

Project Tome is a non-linear atmospheric 2D Puzzle Platformer with cryptic puzzles and potion crafting set in a fictional world inspired by Cornish and Celtic mythology.

You are washed up on the beach after your ship is wrecked by a magical storm conjured up by witches.

After stumbling upon a magical tome in the witches’ lair you manage to escape to the nearby town. You must learn all you can from the tome to stand a chance of surviving. However, the witches are not going to let you get away with stealing something so precious...

Who do you think it will appeal to?

We believe there is an audience of gamers who enjoy those games with deep worlds full of mysteries, such as Hollow Knight and Dark Souls for example, but don’t enjoy getting stuck on difficult bosses because they don’t have the reflexes for it. We want to create an interesting world that makes the most of its worldbuilding and weaves unique puzzles throughout each location. Players will need to pay attention and think carefully to progress rather than just using brute force.

What experience does the team have?

We have education in games design, art, and programming, and we are looking to bring a fresh and artistic approach to our games. We have just finished a year of business incubation at Falmouth Launchpad where we formed as a studio whilst simultaneously studying for a Master’s in Entrepreneurship.

How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete?

The game has been in development since June 2020 and we are estimating an 18–24 month development timeline for the core team working full time after signing on with a publisher or investor.

What level of support are you looking for from a potential partner?

We are looking for a publisher with experience releasing similar indie games to cover development costs and help with marketing. We would be excited to release on a console platform as well.

Developer: Studio Lamprey Location: Distributed – Portsmouth, Ipswich Team size: Three people working full time.

Progress: Pre-Alpha/Pitching Demo-Build Contact details: studiolamprey@gmail.com Website: https://www.studiolamprey.com Social Media: @StudioLamprey Emily Clay, Creative Director and Game Designer

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unsigned BONITO DAYS

Bonito Days is a multiplayer game with a City Pop inspired art style and soundtrack that transports you back to lazy summer days.

Tell us about your game!

Bonito Days first and foremost is a multiplayer game with a chill vibe, most multiplayer games are super competitive but Bonito Days is different. While players can mess with each other and compete the main focus of the game is to create a relaxing mood where a group of friends can get together and hangout. It creates this atmosphere with its City Pop soundtrack and accompanying art style that will blast players back to chill vibes of 80’s Japan. Helping in this is the free flowing momentum based gliding system with a nice gentle learning curve that anyone can understand and go on to master. The goal of Bonito Days is simple: control one of the fishy-boys as they roll around, glide through the air and try to land on targets to get the highest score, all taking place across 20+ states and 3 gameplay modes.

Who do you think it will appeal to?

Young adults who have just entered the harsh and stressful working world and are nostalgic for the old days where life was less intense and the summers were long.

What experience does the team have?

The team first met via Falmouth university’s LaunchPad program just over a year ago, but before that one of the team worked in a variety of roles across many projects for over seven years, while the other worked in the games industry on titles like Disney Infinity 3.0 and Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice.

How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete?

We started full-time production at the end of September 2020 and our aim to have the game completed and released on the Nintendo Switch by July 2021.

What level of support are you looking for from a potential partner?

We would love someone to help with the marketing so Bonito Days can reach the most number of people and spread its chill vibes everywhere.

Developer: Studio Somewhere Location: United Kingdom Cornwall Team size: 2 Full time, 1 Part time Progress: About to enter Alpha Contact details: info@studiosomewhere.uk Cameron Shackleton Games Designer and Producer

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STUFFED

Stuffed is a first-person shooter where you play as a teddy bear fighting waves of nightmares while defending your owner.

Tell us about your game!

Stuffed is a fast-paced first-person shooter that takes place in the dreams of a little girl. Play as a teddy bear and fight waves of nightmares as you defend your owner. The maps in game are procedural that rebuild every ten rounds meaning no two maps will be the same. Join your friends online or in two player split-screen co-op mode.

Who do you think it will appeal to?

We developed the game with a more casual/ wider audience in mind, people who want to dip their toes into the gaming world. It is also aimed at ‘gamer’ families where the parents have grown up playing games and are now looking to share the experience with their kids.

What experience does the team have?

The team originally met at Portsmouth University a few years ago and had been working on various projects (Including the Stuffed prototype) individually and as a team.

We eventually bit the bullet and moved to Falmouth to join an incubator which allowed us to work on Stuffed full time.

How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete?

Stuffed has been in development full time for two and a half years with a planned launch in late 2021.

What level of support are you looking for from a potential partner?

The team has just closed a funding round to cover development and self-publishing costs for Stuffed. While we already have conversations in place for marketing/PR, we would be open to discussions around brand partnerships – whether this was a marketing campaign, ingame cosmetics or a limited-time event.

Developer: Waving Bear Studio Location: Falmouth, Cornwall, UK Team size: 4 co-founders/developers, 1 outsourced programmer, 2 outsourced sound engineers Progress: Beta Contact details: Matt Busuttil matt@wavingbearstudio.com Matt Busuttil, CEO/Animator

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The Art of...

Disco Elysium

actually look at you. And even with that little bit of work, with the help of the animation and really smart designers and engineers, with everybody working Seth Barton looks into the together, you could tell from the very beginning that inspirations, evolution production she was a character and that people would really gravitate of the art toward.” of Disco Elysium, with lead Quill really becomes a fully fland eshed artist out character with artist Aleksander Rostov help of the game’s strong world-building.

KaspartheTamsalu.

Among the most As an interloper in Quill’s world, the player experiences it not distinctive-looking titles of recent through her eyes, but as an observer watching as she years, ZA/UM’s role-playing game is a lives her life in her familiar setting. It’s a strangely intimate genuine masterpiece feeling, and modern one which gives way to joint apprehension as both the player and Quill enter new, unfamiliar areas.

“When you go through Mousetown and you see Quill run through there and you see that she has a hometown, the feeling of her leaving it, of that town maybe being in danger, gives you more of a bond,” Alderson says. “If that part was left out, you wouldn’t feel like there was much to fight for. Everything that we’ve done, the mood settings, taking Quill from one area to the next and letting you rest and take in this environment… It’s all supposed to exaggerate and accentuate that mood that you’re feeling. It all ties back into how you are connecting with Quill and her world.”

SAME QUESTION EIGHT WAYS Collaboration was key during the development of Moss, not just within the team itself, but with the help of external playtesters. People were often brought in to feedback on

Disco Elysium lead artist Aleksander Rostov

ZA/UM artist Kaspar Tamsalu (answers)

the game and asked questions about their experience – even if most of these questions were actually very similar.

“External playtests were mostly about ‘Okay, how do people feel when they play? Do they like it or not like it?’,” Alderson explains. “At the end of playtest we would ask the same question eight different ways. The question is really ‘What didn’t you like?’, but we would ask it differently: ‘What pulled you out of the experience? What took you out of the headset? If there’s one thing you could change what would it be? If you had two weeks to finish the game, what would be the thing that you’d fix?’

“Those help bring a playtester into their comfort zone, because no one wants to play something that people put a lot of care and love into and then turn around and say ZA/UM’s ‘This is what Disco I didn’t Elysium like about needs it’. So littleit introduction. takes a little while Among to get the many, playtester many comfortable, others, the title andpicked we found up that our MCV/DEVELOP finding different ways award to for askVisual the same Innovation question of means the Year in you 2020 eventually for its standout get the really art style. good stuff Nowafter being thereleased fourth or in fifth a Final time you Cut ask form, it. we thought it was a good time to investigate “I don’t think the process anyone inbehind our studio its creation has everinmade this, aour second game like The this, ArtsoOf… I think article. it’s important that you trust the process. You trust playtesting and you make sure that you WAS allow THE yourself APPEARANCE some time andOF freedom THE GAME to try something CORE TO ITS and INITIAL then keepCONCEPT? going. Try something new and branch out, Oh, but also we knew use your immediately experience that from wegames needed that toyou’ve make a game made with before a striking and you’ll and beunique fine. Aslook longto asaccompany you’re having the writing; fun too! aWe look enjoyed that would playingbalance Moss throughout the mundane the entire with the process unfamiliar and I think and strange. that reallyWe helps.” had no video game designers on the team when we started out – only fine art painters and draftsmen, ad men, novelists, rock musicians… The aesthetic considerations were always front and centre.

WHAT INFLUENCES (WITHIN OR BEYOND GAMES) DID YOU DRAW FROM? Fine art painters for one. Think Jenny Saville, Alex Kanevsky, Sangram Majumdar, Iliya Repin, or Mikhail

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Vrubel. We looked beyond games to bring the strange and the different. We looked at great games with a critical eye to try and improve on the well-established design solutions. I’d like to think we’ve been successful with some of these ‘improvements’. The failed experiments brought growth in other ways.

Friendship and camaraderie are the best influences anyone could have. Most people on the team got to try on multiple hats and sometimes that led us down a path either toward absolute disaster or an unexpected minor triumph.

met a number of video game artists from all over the world from studios both big and small I can say that compared to standard industry practices at times we had almost unprecedented artistic freedom.

CAN YOU TELL US HOW THE ART WAS CREATED AND BY WHOM? The core art team at ZA/UM consists of just a few hardcore art nerds who did the heavy lifting for Disco Elysium. We’ve also been able to commission art from some really great artists. During development, it was a friendly game of tug of war between us in the art corner and the writers in theirs. There were times when we took cues from them and sometimes art would precede the writing – this allowed for great freedom in exploring our own ideas. Having now

IN WHAT WAYS DID THE ART EVOLVE WITH THE PROJECT? I believe that the pipeline for character creation changed at least three or four times over the years.

Rendering and painting the backgrounds went through a similar number of changes. The exact level of detail to go for when painting inventory icons took a year or so of trying before we eventually settled on something.

In the end, the secret ingredient holding everything together stylistically is Aleksander Rostov’s beautiful bold brushwork.

CAN YOU PUT ANY NUMBERS ON THE SCALE OF THE PROJECT? I counted 193 squares of 4K resolution environment textures in the game. Quadruple that to account for all the height maps, normal maps, and shadow maps for each painted one.

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The Art of...

The Art of...

INSPIRATION:

The Art of...

Left: The way Sangram Majumdar teases the picture plane in his perceptual abstractions!

Below: The mastery of composition and symbolism in the work of Russian artist Mikhail Vrubel takes your breath away. One must see his work in their lifetime or their entire life is a wasted one.

Above: Alex Kanevsky’s juicy and brash brushstrokes in his portrait paintings are pure delight.

CHARACTERS:

Above: This normal map texture for Kim Kitsuragi’s character model demonstrates our initial plan to paint all the characters’ normal maps by hand.

Above: We considered multiple stylistic approaches for our character designs. Some of these we discarded only after having modeled, textured and rigged, and animated the characters...

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The Art of...

The Art of...

The Art of...

Right: Early roughs for the longshoremen costumes.

Some character exploration sketches for the clerk at the Frittte (sic) kiosk.

LOCATIONS: Left: A side-by-side comparison of a render and a painted concept art piece of a game environment.

Right: Some industrial design for a slice of environment that you can barely see in the game.

Above: Oftentimes an environment’s concept sketch isn’t something we’d try to impress our artist friends with.

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When We Made...

A Short Hike

actually look at you. And even with that little bit of work, with the help of the animation and really smart designers and engineers, with everybody working together, you could tell from the very beginning that Chris Wallace takes a look thereally gravitate she was a character thatbehind people would scenes of Atoward.”

Short Hike, a game born really becomes fully fleshed from a creativeQuill burnout that ahas a lot out to character with the help of the game’s strong world-building. As an say about the artistic process interloper in Quill’s world, the player experiences it not through her eyes, but as an observer watching as she lives her life in her familiar setting. It’s a strangely intimate feeling, and one which gives way to joint apprehension as both the player and Quill enter new, unfamiliar areas.

“When you go through Mousetown and you see Quill run through thereHike and isyou see thatsolo she project has a hometown, Short a (mostly) from the feeling Canadian of her leaving it, of that townRobinson-Yu, maybe being in developer Adam danger, gives moreasofadamgryu. a bond,” Alderson says. “If alsoyou known that part out, you wouldn’t feel like there was The was gameleftfollows a remarkably simple premise. much fight isfor.

Everything we’ve done, theguessed, mood The to player tasked with, that as you might have settings, onecase areaup to to thethe next and letting taking ataking shortQuill hike.from In this summit of a you rest andintake in this environment…

It’s all supposed mountain order to get a phone signal. to exaggerate and accentuate thatto mood thatyou you’re There’s plenty of side quests distract along feeling.

It allwith ties aback how you are connecting with the way, hostinto of talking animals on the island Quill and her your world.” who need help, but it’s a distinctly low stakes Above: Adam Robinson-Yu experience. It’s a game perhaps best described

A

SAME QUESTION EIGHT as Animal Crossing meetsWAYS Breath of the Wild (two Collaboration key duringpoints the development of Moss, games that was Robinson-Yu to as inspirations) not– just a colourful, within the friendly team island itself, but thatwith rewards the help exploration of external playtesters. and experimentation.

People were often brought in to feedback on The game released back in July 2019, but it has all the same qualities that propelled Animal Crossing: New Horizons to success last year – a sense of wholesome escapism and peace needed during a pandemic.

Additionally, its ability to be meaningfully experienced even in short bursts feels perfectly timed for those of us suffering from COVID burnout, as lockdown takes its toll on attention spans and energy levels.

the game and asked questions about their experience – even if most of these questions were actually very similar.

“External playtests were mostly about ‘Okay, how do people feel when they play? Do they like it or not like it?’,” Alderson explains. “At the end of playtest we would ask the same question eight different ways. The question is really ‘What didn’t you like?’, but we would ask it differently: ‘What pulled you out of the experience? What took you out of the headset? If there’s one thing you could change what would it be? If you had two weeks to finish the game, what would be the thing that you’d fix?’

“Those help bring a playtester into their comfort zone, because no one wants to play something that people put a lot of care and love into and then turn around and say ‘This is whatappropriate, I didn’t like about it’. So takes a itself little while It seems then, that theit project was to getfrom the aplaytester and we found that born creative comfortable, burnout. finding different ways to ask the same question means you eventually PARK LIFE get the really good stuff after the fourth or time youspending ask it. a long time working on a different “Ififth had been “I don’t think anyone in our ever made a game,” says Robinson-Yu. “I’dstudio beenhas working on a game game like important trustones the inspired bythis, the so oldI think Paperit’sMario titles.that Theyou newer have process. beenYou kind trust of mixing playtesting up the andformula, you make andsure I was that you interested allow yourself in seeing some atime game andthat freedom was similar to try something to the older and then ones.” keep going. Try something new and branch out, but And alsoso, use like your all men experience of sophistication from gamesand thattaste, you’ve Robinson-Yu made before and got to you’ll work beon fine. theAsspiritual long assuccessor you’re having to funThe too!Thousand We enjoyed Year playing Door Moss that we throughout all need, the but entire do not process deserve. and I think that really helps.”

“I was working on that for about a year, I got the chance to show it at a bunch of events, and there was a decent reception. But I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with it, and was feeling the pressure of writing a tonne of dialogue.

“After a year, I was thinking: What am I really doing here? I was in a lot of doubt, it felt like something was missing from the game. I was starting to feel pretty burnt out.”

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Left: The game has some remarkably beautiful vistas, born of visual simplicity

Below: Early sketches of one of the game’s NPCs

In response, Robinson-Yu took a break from development, and had the opportunity to go on a road trip with some friends across the different national parks in Canada and the United States.

“I found that I really enjoyed hiking,” says RobinsonYu. “I kept thinking, what can I take about this experience and try to put it into a video game? What can I capture about this?”

The early concept for the game was remarkably different to what would later become A Short Hike – Robinson-Yu initially envisioned a simulation style game, inspired

by Rollercoaster Tycoon, with players managing their own national park.

“You had to like, sculpt pathways through the forest, put up trail marker signs and manage

wildlife and stuff. That was like a very loose idea, but when I had that in mind, I started it as a little break project. I was putting graphics together in Unity and just seeing how it looked, experimenting with this lowresolution style.”

A CABIN IN THE WOODS The national park simulator game never came to be, but the concept of a game centred around hiking stuck with Robinson-Yu. In 2018, he attended Stugan, a Swedish video game accelerator that takes game developers from around the world, and accommodates them in a cabin in the woods to develop games together for two months.

It’s either an amazing creative opportunity, or the setup to the video game horror film that I desperately want to see, but it was an incredibly rewarding experience for Robinson-Yu. “It was honestly amazing,” he says, “it was a really a really cool thing to be part of. While I was there I had these day-long game jams with the other developers.

I pitched a hiking game, I guess that idea was still at the back of my mind. You had to get to the top of this

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mountain, where you’d find a hang glider and you’d fly back down again.

“Even in this simple project, I thought there was something kind of interesting about the stamina mechanic that we used in it, which is similar to the one in A Short Hike. Looking back it was a good proof of concept, that this gameplay on its own was interesting, and that it didn’t need conflict or violence – because I wanted to make a relaxing game.”

Perhaps due to the exhaustion from the Paper Mario-style project, Robinson-Yu was driven to create a more relaxing game, one that reflected the experience of going on a hike.

But while the concept was appealing to him, he remained concerned that others may find such gameplay to be boring.

“There are a lot of other walking simulators out there that I find very inspiring, but a lot of them have a strong narrative core. And that wasn’t something that I felt like I was able to create. So I tried to rely more heavily on exploration itself being a satisfying thing. but I wasn’t sure if that could hold up a game on its own.”

SHORT BUT SWEET As it turns out, his worries here were very much misplaced, perhaps thanks to the game’s length – it doesn’t have time to outstay its welcome.

While your playtime will vary with how long you want to spend exploring the island, the game’s central narrative (such as it is) can be completed within an hour or two.

“That year, I’d played games like Minit and the Frog Detective Game,” says Robinson-Yu. “I really enjoyed them, they were well received and they’re both very short games. It made me think, do I need to be working on a game that will take three years to make? I was almost jealous!

“With the game I’d been working on, it felt like development was just lasting forever and the end was nowhere in sight. The risk and stress of making a small game doesn’t seem as high. If you spend three years making a game, you kind of need it to be successful to make back that time.

“A Short Hike was four months of development before its initial Humble Original release, and four or five months again for the Steam launch.

If you’re only developing for that long, it doesn’t need to be a huge success to justify the time that you spent on it.”

A Short Hike doesn’t just owe its success to its length, of course. The joy of exploration is at the heart of what makes the game so charming.

The game’s world isn’t enormous, but there’s plenty of hidden secrets tucked away – from a secret fishing mechanic to a volleyball-inspired

‘beach stick ball’ competition, there’s plenty to keep coming back for once you’ve finished the game’s very brief story.

“I wanted to make a world that had lots of things to discover,” he says. “I wanted it to be a game that surprised the player with how much it had in it. It’s not a huge game, but if people spend the time in it, there’s more things to find.

“Things like the beach stick ball game and the boat, they’re on the other side of the island. I’ve seen playthroughs where people don’t even go to that part of the island, and they still come away having a good time with the game. I like the idea that there’s things in there that the player could have missed. I think that’s a cool part of exploration: not knowing what you could find out there.”

WRITER’S BLOCK A Short Hike may have spent a relatively short amount of time in development, but that’s not to say it was a painless project. Robinson-Yu found himself wrestling with the same issue that had held up the Paper Mario successor: trying to write dialogue.

“The writing was often hard,” he says. “For me, writing anything is difficult. There would be times where I’d placed an NPC somewhere, and they need to say something. So I’d try to write something and I’d think “Oh, this isn’t very good” and I’d procrastinate on it.

“When I was working on my RPG, one of the main things that I struggled with was writing, trying to come up with an interesting story and decent dialogue. And so for A Short Hike, I decided not to be too precious about the writing.

Because it makes it too difficult to do.

“I just wrote it like I was talking to a friend on chat or something, just to get stuff out of my brain. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and I think that writing style works for me.

Though eventually it got to the point where, once I started to really care about the story and the characters, it became difficult for me to write again.”

This came as a surprise to me. The game’s dialogue is exceptional, the right balance of conversational and hilarious that evokes some of the best writing from A Night in the Woods. Finding and talking to the various characters scattered throughout the island becomes a joy, as each interaction is usually enough to make you at least crack a smile.

That struggle of caring so much about your art that it becomes difficult to actually create is represented within the game itself. With enough exploring, the player will encounter a struggling artist, eager to paint something great but constantly convinced their work isn’t good enough.

“The painter, and their anxieties about their art and not being good enough, was me trying to project some of the feelings I had when working on my RPG, and other games.

And because it was something I cared about, I had a difficult time writing it.

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“But eventually, my partner helped me write an early draft of that character’s arc, which really helped me get over the writing block. So that’s one of the things that I came away with, that writing can be a collaborative process, which made it easier.”

People have, thankfully, since come to Robinson-Yu to heap praise on the game’s writing.

“I really appreciate that, because I was definitely very insecure about it. I remember watching people playtest it for the first time at public events. I brought it up to an event at the Toronto Public Library for a games event they were having, and the first time somebody was reading the dialogue, I had to leave the room. I was too embarrassed.”

With his worries about the game being boring, and his insecurities about its writing, it certainly came as a relief when A Short Hike was warmly received.

As a Humble Original game, feedback was relatively quiet at first, as the title launched as an exclusive to Humble Monthly for the first few months – but the early reactions were positive.

“When you’re making a game, you can’t ever experience it like a player. There’s nothing that I can surprise myself with. So I watched some early YouTube reviews for the Humble Monthly bundle, saying that the Humble Original that month was one of the highlights of it. And that was really nice to hear.

“It gave me the confidence to put another four months into the game before it came out on Steam.

I was able to add a lot of features, like the parkour

“When I was working on my RPG, one of the main things that I struggled with was writing... And so for A Short Hike, I decided not to be too precious about the writing.

Because it makes it too difficult to do.” minigames and the fishing, because at that point I knew that the game probably wasn’t going to be a failure.”

It certainly wasn’t. A Short Hike took home the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2020 Independent Games Festival, something that felt particularly significant to Robinson-Yu. “That was really big for me,” he says, “ it was kind of a dream come true. I went to GDC once as a student, and I was like ‘man, I really want to go back.’ I wanted to make a ‘real game’ or something bigger sometime. I wanted to get nominated for IGF so I had a reason to go back to GDC.” So with the IGF win, Robinson-Yu was ready to hit the GDC circuit with his award-winning game. Except there was one problem. “...and then GDC was cancelled!”

Oh well. There’s always next time.

Below: The player will encounter a wide range of characters while on their hike

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The Final Boss Every month an industry leader wraps up MCV/DEVELOP with their unique insight

Firesprite was born from the ashes of Sony’s Studio Liverpool, in terms of approach and mindset, what did you keep and what were you keen to change?

Studio Liverpool had built its reputation developing showcase games for the launch of new PlayStation consoles from PlayStation 1 in 1996 with games like Formula 1 through to the culturally significant and awesome Wipeout.

As Firesprite, we wanted the studio to bring an innovation to every game that we work on, whether that is a gameplay feature or a new technology, drawing from that heritage of showcasing creative and technical innovation. That mindset would be the cornerstone that set Firesprite apart, always striving to bring something new to a game or genre. We’re also big fans of horror & stealth so we felt it was time to move into new genres; that was a key change for us.

You’ve always been keen to work on new tech, where do you see technology taking the industry in the future?

Firesprite has always been at the frontline of new technologies and peripherals and it has been an incredible journey that we are privileged to be working on, from augmenting realities, immersing players in virtual realities, through to tactile feedback to the player through the controller. I think as developers we have only just begun to touch the surface of player immersion through haptic feedback and player presence and I can imagine huge changes coming in the future around how players will interact with our games, especially the more social, shared experiences What are some of the biggest challenges today for an independent studio?

I think the biggest challenge is knowing what makes your studio and games stand out from all others. Whether it’s our own game or working with a partner, you would choose to work with Firesprite if you wanted to reinvent a genre or showcase a new feature that hasn’t been done before. There are many challenges that you face when you are an independent studio but knowing why you’re different and the values that you stand for are the most important!

Graeme Ankers, MD, Firesprite

“There are many challenges that you face when you are an independent studio but knowing why you’re different and the values that you stand for are the most important!”

How is the north-west development scene? What more could be done to help it grow further?

The North West actually has a very diverse and healthy game development scene today with a mix of small and medium independents through to larger established studios and publishers such as Sony PlayStation, Travellers’ Tales and Cloud Imperium Games by way of examples.

There are many elements that would help support growth, continued partnerships with higher education, financial backing in training and infrastructure, and traditional investment that understands game development.

We hear you’re keen on boxing, and used to box yourself, does any of that competitiveness feed back into your work?

Haha, yes, I do love boxing and did box a long time ago. My own philosophy is that your only competition is yourself, you will always learn from other people, but I have never tried to compete with anyone else, I would rather spend time trying to improve myself.

Games development is a passion business, running a growing studio and creating amazing games is fully engaging and it is important to find time to switch off as well. Boxing training really helps me with breaking up long working days and can clear your mind. In today’s world it’s shadow boxing and skipping, I can’t wait to get back to the gym, only when it’s safe to do so!

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