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Tom Hammond from UserWise hosts a discussion with Anton Gorodesky and Dmitriy Byshonkov, from MyGames. They chat about the challenges and nuances of starting a game studio, raising funds, and navigating the gaming industry.
- Tom emphasizes the challenges aspiring entrepreneurs face in starting their own game studio, such as raising money and choosing the right game genre or platform.
- Anton and Dmitriy share their experiences in the gaming industry. Anton, the head of industry relations at MyGames, talks about his roles and the co-founding of Invest Game. Dmitriy, on the other hand, shares his journey from being a journalist to a game designer and then to business development at MyGames.
- The discussion touches upon the current state of the gaming market, noting a decline in investments compared to the boom in 2020 and 2021. They attribute this to market correction and the challenges of making hit games.
- Tom brings up the topic of choosing the right platform for game development, considering the various options available like mobile, PC, console, and user-generated content platforms. The importance of understanding the nuances of each platform and the team's expertise is emphasized.
- When discussing the ideal co-founding team for a game studio, the need for a tech person, a marketing person, a product person, and an administrative person is highlighted.
Creators & Guests
What is Mastering Retention?
Welcome to the ultimate gaming breakdown with Tom Hammond and Neil Edwards! Tune in every week as we deconstruct today's top games and reveal the secrets behind their success.
[00:00:43] Tom Hammond: Hi everyone, welcome to today's episode of the Mastering Retention podcast. Today we have a really special episode. Um, so I know many of you, um, are aspiring entrepreneurs and in fact I think pretty much everyone that works in games has always had this dream of kind of starting their own studio and you know having that full creative vision over whatever they're making.
[00:01:06] Um, but a lot of people are very intimidated when it comes to How do I raise money? How do I get started? How do I figure out what to actually work on? Um, and even folks that are in the trenches actually doing those things. I think sometimes it's very easy to pick the wrong game, pick the wrong genre, pick the wrong platform.
[00:01:25] There's, you know, just so many things that can, you know, go wrong. Um, so today we actually have a few of the, my game guys. Um, on podcast with us, and we're going to just be going into all those different types of questions of how do you actually raise money in today's world where it seems like [00:01:43] nobody's able to raise money.
[00:01:43] So it's going to be a lot of fun. Um, so we have Dimitri Bushonkov and Anton Gorodetsky, um, which hopefully I got close. Um, but Anton, uh, would you like to just kind of tell us your story? Like how'd you get into gaming? How'd you get to where you are? What are you working on today?
[00:02:05] Anton Gorodetsky: Sure. Sure. Absolutely.
[00:02:06] First of all, Tom, thank you so much for having us. Me and Dima, a huge honor. I've been hearing about your podcast for quite a while. And, um, yeah, uh, super excited to be here and really, uh, as with any other podcast that, um, you know, invited to and asked to, to, to, to be in, um, always feeling super nervous and not really worthy because all the other guests that I'm listening to constantly on these podcasts, like a, so way smarter than me.
[00:02:35] And I'm like, yeah, this will be the worst episode. And this is why I have Dima today because he's way smarter than I am. Yeah. [00:02:43] So, um, uh, I'm the head of industry relations at MyGames and, uh, I've been doing this for pretty much a year now, which means that I do a little bit of biz dev, a little bit of communications, uh, a little bit of events and a little bit of, you know, investment, uh, thing as well, like helping out the investment, uh, arm of MyGames.
[00:03:06] And, uh, apart from that, uh, I'm the co founder of invest game. And this is no secret, like no one's going to hopefully fire for saying that. But yeah. And what we do is we do basically two things. The one being we have weekly digests, uh, dissecting all the deals that happened on the week before. And the second thing is the quarterly reports dedicated to, um, global gaming deals.
[00:03:33] Like we analyze the private investments, the MNAs, public offerings, uh, which are none this year, pretty much. [00:03:43] And, um, yeah, we've recently done the half of the year report and, uh, Dima knows about it as well, and he's gonna tell a little bit about that later, and uh, it's high time we've done the third quarter report, actually, because the third quarter is done.
[00:04:00] But we're super, uh, we have no time always, and super lazy, so it's gonna be later. Thank you.
[00:04:06] Tom Hammond: I can't believe how fast, like, the third quarter went, like, it's October already. Yeah,
[00:04:09] Anton Gorodetsky: yeah. Well, it's up into
[00:04:11] Tom Hammond: September and stuff, so I'm getting caught up. Uh, Mitri, what's your, what's your story? How'd you get into gaming?
[00:04:16] How'd you get into where you are today? Yeah. Hey,
[00:04:19] Dmitriy Byshonkov: everyone. First of all, I want to thank you for having us here and for the invitation. And for me, I've been a gamer for the whole of my life, actually. And I started as a journalist. I was writing about PlayStation games. And then I moved to the game development.
[00:04:39] I've been a game designer. I've been a producer in small indie [00:04:43] companies. Uh, and after maybe, uh, you know, 20 or 30 spreadsheets, uh, when I was creating a balance and it says, okay, probably I'm not, I'm not a game designer. It's pretty hard to make a balance in games. It's pretty hard to make, you know, to make games.
[00:04:57] Uh, but I always liked the business side and, uh, I worked, um, as conference side of things. So I've been, uh, on the business development side for a conference for video games and, uh, then I moved to the business development, uh, at my games actually. And, uh, I'm responsible for pretty much all business development activities.
[00:05:17] Uh, so working with our in house studios, work with strategic partnerships and working with our investment department as well. Also, as for a side hustle for interesting things, uh, I'm an author of a Game Dev Reports newsletter. So basically I'm covering, on a daily basis, uh, interesting numbers, reports, and everything from, from the game industry.
[00:05:41] So, started to do it by myself, [00:05:43] and then was thinking, so, okay, maybe, maybe someone need it. And, uh, started to share it. So yeah, that's
[00:05:50] Tom Hammond: me. That's great. So you still get to exercise those journalists writing skills a little
[00:05:55] Dmitriy Byshonkov: bit. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:58] Tom Hammond: Cool. So I'm going to dive right in. I mean, at the end of the day, I think what everyone is kind of wondering is like, you know, what is DC is looking for today for, you know, in founders when they're, you know, actually making investments, but, um, maybe Anton, we can start with just like the most recent invest game report I realized maybe we're not quite at the, the Q3 report, but like looking at the Q3 one, um, You know, a lot of the metrics that I'm looking at pretty scary.
[00:06:24] Like I look at all this investment that was going in and like 2021 into 2022. And now it's just like tanked. Um, so, you know, looking at these metrics, like how should we be interpreting these in terms of like, you know, can I go and raise money today? Sure,
[00:06:41] Anton Gorodetsky: sure. [00:06:43] Absolutely. I just wanted to say that I'm a big fan of what Dima does with the game dev reports, because, um, while you are.
[00:06:51] very much deep into making this global gaming deals report every quarter and you're absolutely right that time runs so fast because we've just done the half of the year report and it's already time to do the Third quarter and it's always a pain in the a And anyway, uh, I'm super, uh, thankful to Dima because he does the best reviews of what we do afterwards, so I don't have to.
[00:07:19] But anyway, yeah, you're kind of right. Like, uh, this whole year has been not so great for the, it definitely has not been as great as 2021 when the whole industry was like booming and everybody was giving money, uh, right away, literally. And, um, Yeah, so the pretty much every kind of, uh, every section of the deal, [00:07:43] uh, of the possible deals that down like the private investments, uh, you may check out it on the invest game website, the first half of the year report, and so they decreased by 81%.
[00:07:55] I mean, the volume of the private investments compared to the previous to the same period of the previous year. So, the whole deal count was, uh, just 1. 5 billion dollars compared to 7. 6 billion dollars. And then the number of the deals decreased from, uh, 316 in the first half of 2022 to 239. So, you can imagine not only the deal count has dropped.
[00:08:21] Not only the number of the deals has dropped, but also the, you know, the median point of the deal has also got down. And then, uh, as I've said earlier, there were pretty much no public offerings at all because, you know, it was pretty much dead. The whole market was dead. And, um, yeah, M& A's like M& A's [00:08:43] happen because, uh, strategic, strategic investors, uh, still have lots and lots of dry powder and, uh, you know, the company valuations are down.
[00:08:53] And so, you know, we've seen the Scopely deal. Uh, we've seen the Rovio deal. We're still looking at the Activision Blizzard King deal, which is apparently happening after all. But anyway, uh, the whole thing, the whole idea is that, um. This is, we're seeing it's some kind of correction on the market. I would not say that it's like all super green and everything is down.
[00:09:19] It's just what you kind of should have expected after the crazy growth and the crazy numbers of 2022, sorry, 2020 and 2021. So it's a little bit of correction, a little bit of both, a little bit of correction, a little bit of, you know, the macroeconomic things happening all around and challenges. And, uh, as Dima has mentioned earlier, all these, [00:09:43] uh, you know, letting go of, uh, lots and lots of stuff in the gaming company is this whole, um, a complex thing?
[00:09:53] Yeah, basically. Yeah, and I
[00:09:56] Dmitriy Byshonkov: also want to add that, uh, from my perspective, what's happened when there was, you know, a hype, uh, On the gaming market in 2020 2021, we've seen a lot of non institutional investors to go into the market You know throwing money away and they were thinking that creating games You know is an easy thing so you can easily just pour money in there and get you know financial results, but It's not happening.
[00:10:22] It's a hard and tough job to do. You need to have a great team You need to have a great game. You need to have a great market positioning. So there are a lot of stuff where you can So, I think that's also one of the reasons why the market is actually getting back to normal. I wouldn't say that it's, uh, you know, going down somewhere.
[00:10:42] If [00:10:43] you will compare it to 2019, maybe 2018, I think it's more or less the same numbers. So, it went from the... Through the hype, actually, and now getting back to normal. So I think that's, that should be the approach.
[00:10:58] Anton Gorodetsky: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, one more thing would be that, um, there's lots and lots of dry powder, uh, of, uh, you know, From venture capital guys.
[00:11:10] Right? But the thing is gaming is not venture kind of business per se, because you see all these huge numbers. And as Dima has said, all the, um, institutional investors are like, we're seeing huge growth, huge growth, uh, numbers, uh, at the market. Like, the revenues, the downloads, the MAUs, the DAUs, everything has been on the rise.
[00:11:37] And they were like, we should get in there, like, and get some access. And then you, when you [00:11:43] start digging in, you see that when you start dissecting the sub genres and platforms and lots and lots of nuances and understanding that making a hit game is increasingly hard for the last couple of years, especially.
[00:11:59] Even longer, really. And then to make sure that your game can engage people and, you know, great retention numbers. This is very hard. And as soon as lots and lots of new people, newcomers started getting into making games, people started understanding that it's not that big of a...
[00:12:24] Yeah, and
[00:12:24] Dmitriy Byshonkov: also I think we've seen much less follow up investments because when you was investing in 2020 and 2021, valuation was, I would say overpriced. Everyone was going in there, pouring money, increasing valuations. But, uh, what you [00:12:43] should always think about when you're, you know, getting money, when you're getting around that you either will have.
[00:12:49] And next one. So you need to keep a balance between your valuation and, uh, and, you know, you should have thoughts about how will the next round look like, or you should get with this round to the moment where you start earning money and where you can feed your team where you can be, you know, in, in operation zero at least.
[00:13:12] So, it's a break even point. And that's what many, I think, many companies and many game developers, um, maybe they do think about it, but, uh, when, you know, everyone is on hype, it's pretty easy to forget about it.
[00:13:29] Tom Hammond: So, um, You talked about platforms and some of those other nuances that are, you know, important to go into.
[00:13:36] Um, so let's talk a little hypothetical. Like let's say I've decided to start a studio [00:13:43] today and I've convinced you to, to join me for whatever reason, we're going to be co founders. Um, you know, what are your thoughts on the platforms that we should be looking at? I mean, there's so many to choose from. Um, some of them, like we've heard, You know, the massive success stories, but, you know, anytime you have that, there's always that, you know, survivorship, uh, going on in there.
[00:14:08] I mean, we've got the more user generated content platforms like. You know, you, UE, FN, I don't really like that acronym, but you know, um, Fortnite creator, Roblox, then of course we've got mobile, which has been, you know, the dominant thing up until IDFA, um, you know, we still have PC, we still have console, there's still some, you know, bold, uh, people going after VR, um, you know, even there's web and other things that are out there, but, you know, how would you approach, um, You know, choosing a platform for our new studio [00:14:43] coming from the investor side of like what you guys are looking at, what you've seen work, what you've seen that work.
[00:14:49] Anton Gorodetsky: Um, yeah, thank you. Since this is a hypothetical situation, I would probably have to say that. You know, it's a, it's a shitty thing to do to answer a question with a question, but, uh, I'd rather look at what expertise and what experience you as a team and you as a founder or a co founder have, uh, beforehand, right?
[00:15:13] Like, uh, every platform and every niche and every sub genre have their own nuances and have their own, um, Pros and cons, like, as you've said, mobile is super red market. Of course, it's the biggest share of the market, right? But still, uh, the, the more popular it is and the more, the bigger it is, the more players it has, right?
[00:15:35] So you definitely going to have way more competition on mobile. Especially on, I don't know, match games, [00:15:43] right? Um, or, you know, shooters, mobile shooters, for example. Then, say, on Roblox, maybe, or the Fortnite. Uh, platform, like that acronym that you used earlier, but do you have, uh, the relevant experience to make a game not on mobile, but on the platform, on the UGC platform, right?
[00:16:07] And then you have to take into account the 70 something percent commission. Don't quote me on that, but the 70 something commission on Roblox, right? Are you ready for that instead of the 30 percent commission on, uh, mobile stores, but then, uh. You're thinking, uh, so I'm going to go mobile because mobile is the biggest platform, right?
[00:16:29] And the biggest has the biggest reach out there. But then do you know, and do you have what it takes to make a proper marketing, uh, for your mobile game? Because if you, if you rely on just organics, you're probably not going to get there [00:16:43] at all. Like, as the, you know, the, the survival bias, uh, goes, you, we never hear about, we always hear about the.
[00:16:52] Royal match success, right? Like about the dream games thing, but then nobody really tells you about all those match three studios who have perished trying to create a heat game. And that's incredibly hard. And then no
[00:17:08] Dmitriy Byshonkov: runtime fees, something that you should to pay.
[00:17:13] Anton Gorodetsky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. The unity thing.
[00:17:16] And, uh, then you have PC and console and they're all, you may think that making a PC slash console game is, uh, A little bit easier on one hand, right? Like you just have two or three platforms, um, to market your game. And then you gotta know, and you gotta learn how to work with the influencers, with streamers, if you're going with the PC game, and then you gotta know how to work with PlayStation and Microsoft when you're [00:17:43] making a console game.
[00:17:43] And then do you really want to concentrate on, uh, making a console only game? So there's a lot of nuances. So I'd rather,
[00:17:52] Tom Hammond: yeah, here's a question. You're talking about like strengths and things of like the background. Let's say I come from mobile and I have a strong background in mobile, you know, got in 2014, 2015, we had a few, few games that, you know, shot up because that was pre IDFA and we were able to just like get that niche audience, whatnot.
[00:18:13] Um, I'm struggling now because I can't do that IDFA stuff, but I still understand that performance marketing type thing, you know, do you think there's an opportunity for like a team like that to be like, okay, well, we know how to make a great free to play game. We know how to monetize it. We just can't get people in on mobile.
[00:18:29] Could we? Replicate a game on PC. We realize there's probably some things that we have to learn with Steam, but there's like not that strict IDFA type thing. So, you know, could we take that performance marketing skill set and utilize [00:18:43] that over on like a Steam marketplace to try to, you know, drive users in or something like that?
[00:18:47] Anton Gorodetsky: That partially depends upon the subgenre that you've been working on before. Like, um, um, yeah, I mean, you can do this, uh, theoretically. And then you got to think of all the nuances again. Like if, what, what type of game have you been making before? How did you, uh, get to success back in 2015, for example, like, was it a Forex strategy or was it a match three title?
[00:19:13] And then you've got to think about how you're going to adapt this one. And then how do those, uh, sub genres feel on Steam or, I don't know, EGS maybe. So, maybe Dima, yeah. Yeah, maybe we
[00:19:29] Dmitriy Byshonkov: can, uh, do a little bit of step back and, uh, answer ourselves why we are creating a company and why we're creating a game actually.
[00:19:37] So what we do want to achieve? Do we want to achieve a financial success? Do we want to create a game of... [00:19:43] Our dreams. So what? What? What's the reason behind this? And, uh, it helps to answer where to go. Well, and
[00:19:50] Tom Hammond: actually, as we're taking a step back here, um, what about co founders? So you talked about, like, the experience and stuff that you want.
[00:19:57] So, um, Let's pretend that I've fired you too. And I'm back to myself and I've decided that I want to go after, I don't know, unity, uh, creative experience with UEFN. Um, what do you think I need to look for in a co founding team to be able to do those? Like, what should I look for in a co founder from an investor perspective?
[00:20:25] Like, what do you want to see in a set of co founders? What skills do you want to see, you know, what backgrounds, et cetera?
[00:20:33] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Ideal world. Uh, you need a tech person. You need a marketing person. You need a product person. You need um Administrative person, [00:20:43] uh that will be able to run, you know, all the business things and stuff Um anton have I forgot about uh anyone?
[00:20:50] Anton Gorodetsky: No, no. No, absolutely I mean you have to have a proper cto who will take care of all the backgrounds and uh Uh, who make sure that, uh, your game can stand scaling and, uh, new audience. And then, um...
[00:21:05] Tom Hammond: For people that maybe haven't worked with, you know, a person like that, like, what does a proper CTO mean? Like, what sort of skill set would you expect them to have, or, you know, things that they've done in the past?
[00:21:17] Right.
[00:21:19] Dmitriy Byshonkov: I think I can answer this. So if, uh, if you are developing a single player game, for example, so this should be a person that you haven't some released games before that was created that, uh, infrastructure for the game. If we're speaking about the multiplayer game. Definitely should be a person who worked with the servers who set it up the infrastructure.
[00:21:41] It might have been, you know, a live [00:21:43] project or something in development. So the person should understand how, uh, people will be able to play the game in a multiplayer, how, how it might be scaled, uh, what kind of backend solutions is there and so on and so forth. So basically, I think. If we will generalize everything, experience of leaving or release titles for each category, either it's a single player or
[00:22:09] Anton Gorodetsky: a multiplayer.
[00:22:12] Yeah, absolutely. And then the marketing, like I, I'll, I'm pretty sure that, uh, it's very rare for a team to have an ideal set of co founders. The one Dima has mentioned beforehand. Never seen. I think never seen one. Yeah. Well, um, And then, uh, yeah, you, if you don't, don't have that, then I would say, uh, the tech guy, uh, definitely one of the co founders should be the CDO, uh, and, uh, It's well, [00:22:43] for example, invest game is not a game really.
[00:22:45] It's not a game product, but a CDO is the person who's been helping us out all the way, like all these two years, he's been saving sometimes our lives. I mean, the life, the life of the project really, um, taking care of, you know, email service and whatever, and then, um, hostings, um, and then, um, the marketing slash product guy, maybe combining the skillset.
[00:23:12] Uh, definitely going to miss out on something. Absolutely. But if you don't have a perfect set, then I would say you should combine the. Marketing and administrative guy and then the product or slash slash marketing or product slash cto guy Something like that like a combination of two or three people
[00:23:31] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Yeah, and also, you know one one thing.
[00:23:35] Yeah, so probably you need You know three or five or seven even people, you know, so You shouldn't have a [00:23:43] situation where there will be, you know, 50 50 uh division in opinions actually because it will it will Probably probably there might be a situation where all the conversation really important ones will be in a limbo where two people, for example, will be, you know, for one solution to people for another one and the founding team won't be able to do a solution.
[00:24:06] So that's a big problem. So founders. They should have uneven, um, kind of votes, uh, or there should be uneven, uh, amount of, uh, founders. So, from my perspective, it just makes life easier. So, democracy
[00:24:24] Anton Gorodetsky: stuff. And also, absolutely, and also one more thing. Please never, ever. Uh, mention the, the combined number of years in the industry on your peach decks, saying things like we have a combined of 100 plus years, uh, making games [00:24:43] is, you know, just doesn't cut it really.
[00:24:45] Like that's, that's, that's not a proper mathematics. Love it.
[00:24:52] Tom Hammond: Um, okay. Uh, so let's say I found the perfect founding team. Um, and we've, you know, made a game. And we now want to start going out and raising like, um, can you talk to me about the different KPIs that you are look for from a VC standpoint for precede to seed to series a like, where would I need to be in order to be able to actually raise those rounds?
[00:25:19] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Um, I think for a precede. All that matters is the team, uh, and that's core component, uh, and I think second priority will be an idea and overall concept, uh, for the game you're creating. Speaking about the seed stage, uh, obviously you should have, like, obviously, from our perspective, not obviously, from our perspective, [00:25:43] um, you should have something to show already, a prototype, MVP, so something we, we can play actually.
[00:25:50] Um, If we're speaking about later stages, uh, definitely there should be first metrics if we're speaking about free to play or we're speaking about mobile, or it should be a vertical slice with a sufficient amount of content if we're speaking about a premium game actually.
[00:26:08] Tom Hammond: Yeah. Are there like, you know, for obviously pre seeds usually before the game, but seed usually there's at least something there.
[00:26:14] Like, are there early signs that you guys are seeing that there's successful startup execution for that kind of seed stage, you know, startup?
[00:26:30] What do you think? That's a great question, actually.
[00:26:35] Anton Gorodetsky: Um, so once again, what would be the, the green flag to make a, [00:26:43] uh, a seed round for the team? Right. Do I get it? Do I get, I think Alright. Yeah. If, if, if this
[00:26:52] Dmitriy Byshonkov: is a question, uh, what will be, what, what will be a green flag? So green flag will be a game that is interesting to play and that's first and foremost.
[00:27:03] Uh, probably the developer will, will be able to have some preliminary metric metrics. So if we're speaking about mobile, so retention day one, day three, day seven, uh, maybe some monetization numbers. So we will be able to check early at us already. We will be able to do some tests, um, you know, for a game.
[00:27:26] Uh, it. It doesn't work in the same way for a for a premium games because basically you you have only one shot there Okay, maybe two with the early access, but I haven't seen any cases when you know early case Early access game failed and then It [00:27:43] went as a phoenix at the global release. They were like maybe no man's sky actually Which was quite bad at the release and then you know Kind of boomed after with the great live ops.
[00:27:55] Um Yeah, returning back to you to the seat for mobile, uh, product, uh, preliminary metrics, um, know how actually, and, uh, an understanding of how to disrupt the market. I think that, that also makes, uh, makes sense. So, if the founder will be able to explain how, uh, the team will enter the market, and how the team will, uh, will conquer it, actually, it will be a great advantage.
[00:28:23] Uh, so, it shouldn't be, you know, we're creating a clone of some popular game. Like, we, we've seen so many Vampire Survivors clones and all kind of variations right now. And, uh, That's, that's, that's not working from my perspective, like, you can go to Steam and see how many Vampire Survivors clones are there, [00:28:43] and there are very few of them that are earning money.
[00:28:46] So yeah, the idea should be, if not unique, at least
[00:28:51] Anton Gorodetsky: unique executed. The very fact that we are speaking hypothetically here is probably one of the reasons that we've recently... Um, shifted the focus of investments on our own and not doing like a lot of precedence seeds because, um, DMA is absolutely right.
[00:29:13] And I also want to add that sometimes you just get the feeling like we're on a call, whatever you want to call. And, um, look, there's been, there've been cases of both free to play and premium games when you just know that. A person would deliver on the promises. There is no, there's never a hundred percent guarantee that the game will become a hit, right?
[00:29:38] But then you just know that sometimes a person knows what he's doing, [00:29:43] or the team knows what they're doing. And then on the other hand, you just some, you sometimes look at the, and the, uh, the team, uh, may have a build, a playable build, and then they have some kind of a vision and it's not easy already, but then you just know that they have.
[00:30:00] No proper idea of what they're doing. They have no idea of the subgenre niche and what are the hits and how they're gonna handle them Right, so and they may say things like I don't want to be specific Just you know, not to offend anyone But they may say things like we're gonna take on pub G or I don't know Garena or whatever mobile battle battle royale, right and they just there's a team of two Or three people and they're like, we, we, we can do this because of whatever, really like one USP.
[00:30:42] And it's not gonna [00:30:43] work. It's never gonna work. It's gonna, it's, it may work like one in a hundred. Cases so you just you just know this thing. Sometimes there is no nothing. Um, it may have nothing to do have may have not anything to do with metrics or, you know, keep your eyes. It's just the vision. Really?
[00:31:05] So. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough out there these days. And, uh, as we often, um, joke around, like, actually, was it your joke? I don't know, Dima. But anyway, I'm gonna tell it. Sorry. Like, the best time to make an investment, to get an investment, was, like, a couple of years ago, really. You still can do this. You still can do this.
[00:31:28] Absolutely. But it's way tougher. And this is one of the reasons.
[00:31:34] Tom Hammond: So, maybe, flipping out of hypothetical here, and you don't have to name names if you don't want to, but, you know, can you tell me a little bit about, like, a [00:31:43] recent investment that you made? Why did you guys choose to make that
[00:31:46] Dmitriy Byshonkov: investment? So I think we can uh, we can tell about the particular one, uh about the briniton um that we just recently this summer did um, so Why we did this investment?
[00:32:03] Because the overall niche is interesting. We have no experience there in a skill based gaming It's pretty hard to move in there because you need to set up, you know, a specific legal entity you need to Do all the payment ecosystem because that's a that kind of games where people to play for for the real money actually So they deposit their money Getting back their money.
[00:32:28] Uh, and it's pretty hard, you know, just to start as an R& D process because it requires a lot of, uh, and, uh, we spoke with the Leo and, uh, Leo is a fantastic guy. I would say that's, that's kind of founder you, you can dream about. [00:32:43] So he's a business focus. He didn't know a lot about, uh, the product. He didn't know about the niche and why he's going there.
[00:32:50] Uh, they already had the preliminary metrics. Uh, which were very promising and they had a beautiful team to, um, to develop the game, actually, and to release it. And, um, yeah, I think, I think that's, uh, that's the answer. So why, why would need this investor? So the first one, very interesting niche, uh, an interesting niche where hard to get, uh, second one, great founder.
[00:33:16] Beautiful team and preliminary metrics. So four points here. So I think that's, that's a great example of what kind of early investments we were right now, the ones that are disclosed.
[00:33:32] Tom Hammond: Yeah. No, bring it, bring it on is great. Um, and we actually started working with them recently too. And they kind of came to us and they're like, Hey, we've got these great metrics.
[00:33:40] This is where we're kind of going, you know, will you go on a journey with [00:33:43] us? Um, and here's all the stuff we want to do from like a live ops perspective. And it kind of blew me away. I was like, I hadn't really considered all the possibilities of what could be done from a live ops perspective, like in a skill based game, but like they wanted to do all these things that weren't even out there before.
[00:33:57] And it just kind of blew me away. So I totally get that of like. Hey, you know, a founder that knows how to execute and where they're going, they can just kind of start that story and kind of just draw you into it. So I
[00:34:09] Dmitriy Byshonkov: get it.
[00:34:09] Anton Gorodetsky: Nice.
[00:34:10] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Yeah. He sold us the idea actually, because before, before meeting with video, we've, uh, you know, We, we, we knew about the skill base, but, uh, we had no idea how much perspective lies in there.
[00:34:26] And, uh, after, you know, conversation with the deal, after this investment, where you really went to, to quite deep consideration about the niche, so that's
[00:34:37] Anton Gorodetsky: interesting. Yeah, sorry. We've never done, uh, [00:34:43] something like that before, have we? Yeah. Yeah,
[00:34:46] Dmitriy Byshonkov: absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's quite the unique, uh, investment for us.
[00:34:51] Anton Gorodetsky: But that's just another argument for being, uh, no tunnel vision, right? Cause, uh, one of the things that founders do, uh, is that they create games of their dream. And, uh, we've been doing some events this year, of course, uh, thank God finally, and, uh, we've often seen founders. who are pitching you a game that is the game they will, they always wanted to play since their childhood and whatever PC premium or mobile free to play or whatever.
[00:35:24] And they're just pitching you a game with like, they have a vision. Yeah, for sure. And you know, they, they love what they do, which is cool, which is good, but that's not enough. Once again, you have to, you have to also understand how the niche looks, how the sub genre looks, who are the leaders, [00:35:43] uh, what are the dynamics there, who's on the rise, who's on the fall, and then, uh, they just make games, uh, which may be consciously or subconsciously just clones of what's already, with no USPs whatsoever.
[00:35:59] And they may not even know about it, they just wanna, they just wanna play a game they like, they love. And they, you know, so yeah, you gotta be open minded and you gotta constantly, um, tracking what's happening in the industry.
[00:36:16] Dmitriy Byshonkov: And I think what might be a good advice for, for the founders, so if you're going to, to the competitive market, definitely you need to offer some kind of USPs.
[00:36:27] But if you're going to the Uncharted territory, you can go with a pretty basic game, you know it shouldn't be something specific just because the market will grow your game will grow there and When you will be at the live operations, you will [00:36:43] be able to improve your game, you know by the flowing of time based on the metrics, so
[00:36:51] Searching for new niches is always good.
[00:36:54] Tom Hammond: Yeah, I'll leave with one, one final thought that I have, um, as a serial entrepreneur. Look for your unfair advantage. So, like, what does you and your team possess that nobody else out there really does? Or it'd be very, very difficult for them to replicate that or to get that.
[00:37:12] Like, I look at Marvel Snap. What was their unfair advantage? Well, they'd all worked together and they built Hearthstone, so they deeply understood that kind of CCG type audience. They knew how to replicate that. They'd done that on Overwatch. They're doing it again on like, you know, their next game is coming out.
[00:37:26] So they, they know how to deeply go in and do this process. So what's your unfair advantage? You know, and sometimes it's knowledge about marketing. It's knowledge about making a certain product. It's a certain tech advantage that you've done. Everyone has unfair advantages. So do you know yours and do you know how to apply [00:37:43] them in such a way that are going to like maximize the value that you get out of that?
[00:37:46] Anton Gorodetsky: Um, Oh, sorry. It's very interesting that you brought up, uh, Marvel snap. Cause we've been doing this, uh, thing called game drive, uh, during this year. I don't know whether we heard about it or not, which is a kind of, uh, uh, accelerator slash, uh, communication platform for founders and investors as well. Uh, we've been doing this with, you know, Uh, Amazon WS and, uh, game analytics and some other, and, you know, um, Oh, Jesus.
[00:38:17] I forgot. Maybe, uh, maybe we go mention that later, but anyway, uh, and, uh, some amazing speakers have been, um, helping us out with that. And one of them is Philip black. Uh, from Game Economist, right? You've all heard about him as well, of course. And he has this beautiful talk about, uh, uh, gaming hypothesis, like, uh, there's five questions you [00:38:43] gotta, uh, answer first before you start a game studio, before you start making a game.
[00:38:48] And so there was a beautiful example, like, One of the reasons, uh, if you're gonna deconstruct that, uh, that Marvel Snap, uh, succeeded, right? Apart from the execution and the vision and whatever, the quality of the game is that And the
[00:39:04] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Marvel IP.
[00:39:05] Anton Gorodetsky: Of course, of course, 100%. But again, you gotta deliver on the IP as well, don't you?
[00:39:11] And they did. And then, another reason was that there was no mobile first CCG on the market. Like that before, like Hearthstone and others, they were just ports or adaptations of PC titles. And then a team, of course, uh, skilled, experienced team with a beautiful AP, crazy AP really, makes a game which is the first mobile, uh, mobile first CCG, right?[00:39:43]
[00:39:43] So you gotta, what Dima has said is like a hundred, a hundred percent agree. You got to find, and what used Tom say as well, uh, you got to find that advantage and you got to find that beautiful USP of yours. And not just make another game look, looks like, uh, yeah, thank you so much. Uh, yeah, the game drive is, uh, we, we do that with Google and data AI and Amazon WS and lots and game analytics and deconstructor of fun, lots of beautiful people in the industry.
[00:40:15] So, yeah, here you go.
[00:40:19] Dmitriy Byshonkov: Just, just, just one addition. Uh, if you haven't seen it, please uh, have a look at the, um, Ben brought, uh, presentation at GDCI, I think it was 2022 I, that, that's one of the best speeches that I've seen. It's a one hour long about how we created Marvel Snap. That's, that's just. You know, superb.
[00:40:42] [00:40:43] I highly recommend
[00:40:43] Tom Hammond: it. All right. Everyone's homework, go listen to the Ben Brody speech if you haven't already. It's fantastic. But, uh, thank you all so much for joining us. Um, if, uh, folks do you have any questions, I'll probably just direct them to the MyGames website. And, uh, we'll take it from there. But thank you so much.
[00:41:01] Anton Gorodetsky: Tom, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Uh, if you guys have any questions, just reach out to Dima or me on LinkedIn or MyGames website and emails, whatever. Thank you so much.