GamesIndustry.biz Awards Survios Best Places to Work
The GamesIndustry.biz Best Places To Work Awards is all about making the games industry a better place to work. We are honored to be recognized in the top 5 best mid-sized companies for 2021. We are even more grateful for the special recognition of the Health and Wellbeing award as our employees’ mental health and work life balance is a top priority.
STRENGTH OF SURVIOS
Seth Gerson, CEO of Survios, sat down with Sofia Hou, formerly of Softbank, who invests in media, transportation, and logistics, to take a deeper dive into the current market trends in the video game industry.
We honed in on IP and platforms as the powerful forces underlying gaming and the characteristics that drive its growth and sustainability:
- IP Development, Extensibility, Monetization: The Holy Trinity of the Creative Industry
- Why Console Cycles and Platform Shifts are Misunderstood: A Deep Dive into Attach Rates and Installed Bases
- Architecting for a Technical Debt-free Future: The Importance of Development with Focus on Sustainability
Below is the continuation of Part 1 from the last newsletter.
Seth: Even prior to COVID, we saw a trend where gaming was stealing market share and screen-time from the rest of the entertainment ecosystem, but now that pace seems to be accelerating. I think the most interesting part of that macro shift is how the development of a game can transform over time. Any thoughts on that?
Sofia: Yes, exactly, there’s a huge macro shift with extensibility, which is what is allowing an IP to be evergreen. It centers on how gamers can be forever engaged, employing tactics ranging from the more traditional serialization and adaptation to democratization of accessibility.
Take serialization for example: serialization is not a new concept. In literature, serialized fiction became increasingly popular during the 19th and early 20th century. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Three Musketeers, and Great Expectations all began as serials. In television, serialization is even more evident: there have been 26 seasons of Doctor Who in the original BBC run and 13 in the reboot; 32 seasons of The Simpsons; and 20 seasons of Law & Order, to name a few. In gaming, the same concept has been employed by some of the most successful franchises.
Seth: This reminds me of the work Kathlene Hall Jamieson did at UPenn — showing how people changed vernacular as the media changed. For instance, when describing orators, people went from fiery speakers to electrifying speakers. If I think about game cost, I think it is probably the least expensive form of entertainment, unless someone is a slow reader. To that end, as a game publisher in an ideal world, I want to be able to launch my franchise game every year, with enough new content to generate a premium, full game sale, right? I also need to have enough new features so that the franchise continues to grow as well.
Sofia: Exactly. For example, in the chart above you can see that Take Two consistently releases one NBA 2K game per year without fail. Fans expect it and Take Two delivers like clockwork to the point where it becomes recurring in nature.
Another example is Riot’s popular MOBA title, League of Legends. Instead of doing yearly releases, Riot has grown its MAU base over time by keeping players engaged through a series of new character releases, regular updates, and competitive modes while increasing mindshare via e-sports. Serialization doesn’t have to come solely from the original developers either. Currently user-generated content (UGC) is in vogue. Unlike traditional models, UGC allows users to contribute to a game’s serialization, thereby simultaneously extending the life of a franchise while doing so at lower costs to the original developer. Roblox, a sandbox gaming company with over $50B in market capitalization, has nearly 7 million active developers on its platform creating worlds for its gamers to play. Ten years post launch, Minecraft is also still going strong.
Seth: I guess the fact that Roblox is also a primary communication form for children that don’t have cell phones yet also drives this user behavior further?
Sofia: Right, Roblox has become a social platform as well, and this also plays into extensibility. Because you see, extensibility is not limited to new game refreshes of the same title. It’s everything encompassing how to keep players engaged. Pokémon is worth over $90B not only from game sales, but also from books, films, television series, merchandise, card games, and the like. The Final Fantasy movies have collectively grossed over $400M in box office sales; that’s more than the cult classic Blade Runner franchise. Adapting the same IP to a wide array of media essentially expands the audience by allowing each fan to access the IP in their preferred manner. Instead of only being able to read about Hogwarts, we can now watch Harry on the big screens; role-play as a witch or a wizard in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery; or buy a costume and dress up as Dumbledore for Halloween. New styles of gameplay can also increase levels of engagement.
Seth: I am glad there are other options, but I would encourage everyone to read all 1,084,170 words of the Harry Potter series. If we look at H1Z1 or PUBG, why did H1Z1 effectively die and PUBG also paled when Fortnite came out? Was it just the speed at which Fortnite was able to pivot due to a superior knowledge of the engine?
Sofia: That is a big part of the story, but we can’t discount the rest of Fortnite’s execution. If I recall, when PUBG launched, it took the gaming community by storm. However, its thunder was soon stolen by Fortnite, originally launched as a cooperative game where players worked together to fight off zombies. Despite Epic Games not being first to Battle Royale, it was the first to successfully pivot Fortnite into the new genre, and subsequently serialize it, ensuring that players stay constantly engaged with new content refreshes – or to use a serial term, “seasons.” Its engine and years of experience allowed the company to move at shocking speeds but executing on extensibility was critical. Epic wasn’t shy about what it wanted to do. The company even hired Jason West, co-founder of Infinity Ward, one of the key studios behind Call of Duty, to head game development. Activision, of course, didn’t stay ignorant for long; it was quick to follow with the release of Warzone, the Battle Royale edition of its Call of Duty franchise.
But Epic Game’s true ingenuity did not lie in any of the traditional methods of IP extensibility: it was in its ability to become the Third Place, bridging virtual and real, not just for gamers but for everyone. Fortnite is a place to socialize, attend Travis Scott and Marshmello concerts, watch as live events unfold, and even engage with the NBA and Star Wars. Its IP has extended well beyond conventional means while leveling any barriers to its access.
Seth: It comes back to the fact that gaming and interactive software are eating other forms of entertainment, just as Marc Andreesen predicted 10 years ago in his now famous op-ed. As CEO of Survios, I am constantly thinking through how these changes to gaming equate to revenue. Generally, this occurs when the game is literally a one sentence high concept. How do you see these changes affect monetization?
Sofia: It’s important here to differentiate the creation and maintenance of IP from its actual monetization model. The first two tackle the issue of bringing in new users and keeping them engaged, while monetization deals with how creators can profit from the engagement. There are several tried and true ways to monetize, and many games employ more than one. To name a few:
- Traditional Box Model: This is the business model most imagine when discussing the games industry, but we’ve seen this model lose its dominance as technology has allowed for more scale and creativity when charging customers. Physical or digital copies of the game are sold for a fixed price and the majority of the sales happen during the first year, after which there’s a cliff. The majority of AAA PC and console games are sold this way.
- Subscription: Gamers typically pay a certain price per month to play a game, such as World of Warcraft or Dominion. This model only applies to open-ended games that are persistent and always accessible.
- Free-to-Play (F2P): Games are free to play but can purchase features or content via microtransactions. This is the newest form of monetization in the gaming space and requires a massive user base and the ability to consistently produce new content. League of Legends pioneered this business model in the core, non-mobile gaming space.
Because gamers are oftentimes reluctant to spend money upfront or at all, there’s always been a natural tension between adoption or engagement and monetization. Balancing the tradeoffs is the key to lengthening the life of a game and its ability to generate cash. Clash of Clans and Candy Crush are fantastic franchises where their IP management is underappreciated. Despite respective MAUs peaking two to four years post launch, Supercell and King have actually been able to maintain relatively steady revenues for over eight years.
Changing monetization models, especially when going from buy-to-play to free-to-play, can theoretically boost user acquisition and increase revenue given lower barriers to adoption. During Ubisoft’s last quarterly earnings, it announced a shift in strategy prioritizing high-end F2P development over premium, buy-to-play AAA games. Unsurprisingly, after Fortnite’s raking in over $9B in revenue over its first two years, the industry has taken note.
Currently, parts of the industry are going through “SaaSification” where there’s a huge movement in trying to get gamers to pay less upfront but more over time in a SaaS-like manner, whether that’s via recurring monthly payments or via microtransactions. By removing that high frictional one-time cost, companies hope to attract new adopters at the onset and to recoup better economics over the duration in which the gamer stays engaged. Whether this ultimately results in the desired result, however, is not guaranteed.
Seth: Sofia, that data that you have shown is excellent. How do you feel these co-exist? Which is the most important?
- Sofia: An IP’s development, extensibility, and eventual monetization is the lifeblood and Holy Trinity of the creative industry at large. All three are equally important; one can’t exist without the others. To summarize:
- Development of IP captures the creative process’ entirety. It’s the whole suite of characters, music, storytelling, and interactivity that makes a game unforgettable and players come back time and time again. The best IPs can stand the test of time and stay with generations to come.
- Extensibility of IP ensures that existing players remain engaged and in love with the IP – whether that’s serialization, consistent content refreshes or branching into alternative media forms such as social, movies, merchandise, and the like.
- Monetization of IP is the business decision that tries to find the highest potential for creators to be paid and involves not only finding users’ willingness to pay relative to play, but also making paying as frictionless as possible. Monetization models change with changes in media through which game is delivered, technology available, and consumer habits of the day. It not only allows the creative team to be paid, but also gives them resources to reinvest back into the IP and invent new ones.
Seth: This is interesting. I was recently talking to a PE fund. After they told me all of the criteria they needed to invest in a game company, I realized that even if Activision or Take 2 were private, they could NEVER invest in them. Then I was wondering why they were paying these investment professionals, because all they could ever do is say no. So how do investors get to a place where they can predict cash flow? On the flip side, I know of investors — mostly known for their structured finance side — viewing gaming companies like pharma, because there are libraries that throw off cash, and they can purchase strips of the forward earnings of big IP. I know the PE example is extreme, but what are your thoughts here?
Sofia: It’s really funny to compare gaming with pharma, because there are a lot of similar characteristics between the two industries. Drugs in general either work (i.e., they have good IP) or they don’t. Single-molecule drugs all cliff but companies have been able to extend their life cycles by extensibility methods such as patenting combinations. Gilead’s HIV franchise is still going strong today. Then a drug needs to be effectively priced for monetization. The same holds true for gaming; an investor should think about whether a game has good IP, extensibility, and monetization. While success may not necessarily come from managing the holy trinity, every successful creative team has done so. Activision’s Call of Duty, Electronic Arts’ FIFA, and Take Two’s NBA 2K are paragons of best-in-class IP development and/or management. As a result, these companies are able to grow their franchises every year sustainably, generate predictable cash flows, and grow in scale. By managing multiple IPs, they’re also able to create a portfolio of franchises with varying lifecycles to reduce idiosyncratic risks – analogous to LVMH not being dependent on one single fashion brand or Pfizer not dependent on a single drug or therapeutic class.
A strong IP may be developed but the degree to which extensibility and monetization are executed upon can ultimately make or break a company. Similarly, there are companies out there who are trying to build games through AI or machine learning. Despite perhaps better optimization around serialization and monetization, neglecting the creative process altogether may also lead to dead ends. Many trends have come and gone, and will continue to fluctuate with technological progress, but IP has been and will always be the key engine powering the creative industry.
Now that we have a deep understanding of IP, we will next explore another important force within gaming – console or platform cycles. Software is incredibly important, but so is hardware. Without the changes in the underlying chips and form factors, gaming would not be where it is today.
Stay tuned for Part 2: Why Console Cycles and Platform Shifts are Misunderstood: A Deep Dive into Attach Rates and Installed Bases.