Speaker 1: M. Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast
Speaker 1: where we speak with key leaders across the media business. Today.
Speaker 1: I'm Corey Errickson with Variety Intelligence platform. The video game
Speaker 1: industry has for years undergone consistent growth and experienced a
Speaker 1: considerable boost and attention during the pandemic, with the entire
Speaker 1: market reaching nearly one eight billion dollars globally in One
Speaker 1: executive involved in several sectors of this market and Sophia Lupo,
Speaker 1: a partner and the head of video Games at United
Speaker 1: Talent Agency, whereas division represents top global developers, professional E
Speaker 1: sports athletes, content creators and live streamers. He's also been
Speaker 1: involved in negotiating several high profile M and A deals
Speaker 1: through ut A, So now is as good a time
Speaker 1: as ever to hear from him about what's continuing to
Speaker 1: steer the game's market forward. Welcome back to strict Leap Business.
Speaker 1: We're here with a fair LOOPU, the head of video
Speaker 1: games at U t A. I would take at things
Speaker 1: started off with, you know the development side of things
Speaker 1: at U t A, and you know all these different
Speaker 1: game creators and studios you've been able to sign. Has
Speaker 1: there been anything recent going on there. Well, hey, thanks
Speaker 1: Corey and thanks for having me UM. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the time. Uh. Yeah, Look, we are you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're we're We're an active group of folks here at
Speaker 1: U t a UM who oversee our gaming business and
Speaker 1: we're always on the lookout for developers to represent. We
Speaker 1: really want to represent the best and most talented group
Speaker 1: of developers we can on a global basis. You know,
Speaker 1: our business is and our client base is really diverse, uh,
Speaker 1: in global in nature, I can tell you. I think
Speaker 1: we have almost exactly one client in southern California. UM.
Speaker 1: Our clients spanned the globe from Boston, Montreal, Tokyo, Copenhagen,
Speaker 1: and even even South Africa. And so we're always on
Speaker 1: the lookout to represent really great developers. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the areas that we're always focused on is
Speaker 1: representing really incredibly young and talented new studios UH. And
Speaker 1: I'm really happy that we've signed two new studios in
Speaker 1: that regard in the last few months here UM. One
Speaker 1: of them is incredibly talented based in Copenhagen. They're called
Speaker 1: De Guta Fabrick UH, and they made an incredibly wonderful
Speaker 1: title called Mutatsi one, which was nominated for all the
Speaker 1: awards in the in the last year or so, and
Speaker 1: we're really excited to work with them. So we we
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to represent a studio called Diama cop
Speaker 1: based in South Africa, our first studio in that region,
Speaker 1: who made a wonderful first title called semblance Um, which
Speaker 1: also is recognized for a ton of awards. So we're
Speaker 1: really interested, Corey in not just representing sort of the
Speaker 1: biggest and best names that are sort of household names
Speaker 1: in the gaming business today. And we do that. We
Speaker 1: love doing it, obviously, and it's an honor to represent
Speaker 1: those folks. It's equally as important to us to make
Speaker 1: sure that we represent the next wave of creators in space.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. I mean, the gaming industry
Speaker 1: is it's become, you know, an incredibly vast global market.
Speaker 1: Um new Zoo has it at seventy billion globally as
Speaker 1: of November of last year. UM So yeah, in terms
Speaker 1: of signing development studios and creators, what specifically draws you
Speaker 1: to them? In terms of the sort of games you're
Speaker 1: seeing coming from you know, all these different places in
Speaker 1: the world. What is ut A really looking for? In
Speaker 1: that regard, well, I think we always look for folks
Speaker 1: that have unique voices. I mean, I think that's the
Speaker 1: you know, that's sort of a through line across all
Speaker 1: of our various divisions and clients that we represent, right,
Speaker 1: we want to represent people who have unique creative vision
Speaker 1: and voices that are going to stand out from from
Speaker 1: the rest, you know. Um, it's the thing that gets
Speaker 1: us most passionate about representing these people. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about game in my groups. We talked about
Speaker 1: games all the time, we play games all the time.
Speaker 1: We talked about the things that inspire us. And that's
Speaker 1: really sort of been the guiding light. It's as simple
Speaker 1: as I can put it. Um. You know, we want
Speaker 1: to represent people that inspire us and that we are
Speaker 1: passionate about. Certainly, you know, one of my favorite games
Speaker 1: of all time is limbo Um made by play Dead
Speaker 1: based in Copenhagen, and it's it's an honor to represent them, right,
Speaker 1: It's it's exactly the kind of studio that we're we
Speaker 1: dream of representing. It's great. Um, you've also signed people
Speaker 1: from within Hollywood before too. Um. I believe justin Royland
Speaker 1: some time ago came to you wanting to collaborate on games. Correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Justin is a longtime client. The agency on the the
Speaker 1: more traditional television side obviously is the co creator Rick
Speaker 1: and Mortium and now Solar Opposites, which is incredibly funny.
Speaker 1: Um And you know, I got a call from Hit
Speaker 1: from my colleague Matt Rice, who one of our board
Speaker 1: members met TV Group who who asked me to meet Justin.
Speaker 1: Uh and I did, and Justin came into my office
Speaker 1: and was so passionate about games and set down and
Speaker 1: basically said I want to start my own game development studio.
Speaker 1: And after I tried to talk him out of that, um,
Speaker 1: I realized that he was serious about it, and we
Speaker 1: put a real plan together and put a plan in
Speaker 1: place for him to you know, really understand because he's
Speaker 1: a huge gamer, right and really just deep, deep understanding
Speaker 1: of games and you know, going all the way back
Speaker 1: to you know, generations ago in terms of consoles, you know,
Speaker 1: really plays board games and and understands game design actually
Speaker 1: like on a crazy level. Um But above and b
Speaker 1: on that, it was really how do we get him
Speaker 1: to understand how to build a development studio, how to
Speaker 1: get financing around it, and then how to strike relevant
Speaker 1: partnerships that can help take them to the next level
Speaker 1: of Trover Saves the Universe was sort of the first
Speaker 1: game that came out of that studio. Squaunch Games is
Speaker 1: the studio UM and they're working on a unannounced, super
Speaker 1: cool new one right now and I can't wait for
Speaker 1: everyone to see it. So, in addition to signing various
Speaker 1: development studios and game creators, U t A is also
Speaker 1: heavily involved in raising capital for a lot of these companies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. You know, we recognize about five or
Speaker 1: six years ago that in addition to the primary function
Speaker 1: and services that we provide, our clients, which predominantly in
Speaker 1: the game space, had been doing deals with publishers for
Speaker 1: publishing services and in many cases with you know, some
Speaker 1: of the first parties and first party platforms for distribution deals.
Speaker 1: That we were starting to see this influx of investment
Speaker 1: coming into the space, equity investment coming into the space,
Speaker 1: whether that was from a handful of strategics mostly out
Speaker 1: of Asia, whether it was from private equity adventure, some
Speaker 1: institutional investors. Um that we're really starting to see gaming
Speaker 1: as a viable investment strategy for them. That we wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that we also had that ability on
Speaker 1: behalf of our clients to broker those types of transactions,
Speaker 1: and so myself and a number of colleagues went out,
Speaker 1: UH took our series seven, did our studying, got licensed
Speaker 1: by Finra in the SEC to do those types of deals,
Speaker 1: and it's been really successful UM, and it's been an
Speaker 1: incredible expansion of our of what we do for our clients. UM,
Speaker 1: both on the capitol ray side, I think we've done
Speaker 1: a twenty or so of those on the gaming side
Speaker 1: and the better part of the past five years, but
Speaker 1: also on the M and A side. UM. We've advised
Speaker 1: numerous clients of ours in the sale of their STUDIOSUM,
Speaker 1: most recently representing Clay Entertainment in their sale to ten
Speaker 1: CENTUM which capped off I think the third sale we've
Speaker 1: done in the past eighteen months across a number of
Speaker 1: different categories. So we're UM, yeah, we're super excited to
Speaker 1: continue that line of business for our clients. It's an
Speaker 1: incredible UH time and opportunity for game developers, both on
Speaker 1: the publishing and distribution side, certainly also on the Capital
Speaker 1: rays and M and A side. Shifting gears a bit
Speaker 1: um U t A ended up acquiring two different companies
Speaker 1: that were pretty invested in the e sports world, press
Speaker 1: X and everyday influencers. What spurred U t A to
Speaker 1: really sort of, you know, dive head first into with
Speaker 1: the e sports and live streaming space. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great Uh, it's a great question. Glad you brought it up.
Speaker 1: You know, E sports for US is a really important
Speaker 1: important growth area. UM. You know, gaming has been a
Speaker 1: big part of the growth of U t A on
Speaker 1: the digital side, and we think that the sports UH
Speaker 1: is in incredibly important and complementary. UM. You know, what
Speaker 1: spurred it was I'm fortunate enough to sit on UTA's
Speaker 1: investment committee, but we've been investing in companies UM for
Speaker 1: quite some time, early stage all the way to late
Speaker 1: stage companies across you know, media technology in various entertainment
Speaker 1: sectors and consumer products as well. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: companies like Lift or pocket Watch or Patreon or Masterclass UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the companies that we invested in that
Speaker 1: I was really an advocate for investing in along with
Speaker 1: my colleague Sam Wick, who runs our adventures practice, was
Speaker 1: Cloud nine, which is a leading e sports organization and
Speaker 1: they're very well known. Obviously, they're they're dominant in in
Speaker 1: League of Legends and a number of other games in
Speaker 1: the sports sector. And that investment, which you know was
Speaker 1: our first investment into the sports, our first investment in gaming. Frankly, really,
Speaker 1: I think gave us this incredible front row seat to
Speaker 1: what was going on in the sports world right whether
Speaker 1: it was on the pro player side or the content
Speaker 1: creation side. I think it really helped give us even
Speaker 1: more UM certainty that we needed to be in a
Speaker 1: deeper way. And so Sam and I together UM really
Speaker 1: went out and developed this thesis that we should be
Speaker 1: in that space. UM. You know, on Uta, being the
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial company that it is, really gave us UM, you know,
Speaker 1: all the rope we needed to go out there and
Speaker 1: you know, look at companies, look at the sector, come
Speaker 1: back make a recommendation. We had met Damon Law who's
Speaker 1: the CEO of of both those sister companies and his
Speaker 1: team and really felt like they would be an incredible
Speaker 1: fitt a U t A. And we're so lucky to
Speaker 1: get them. And you know, since then, I'm really happy
Speaker 1: to say that the thesis proved itself out cool. UM
Speaker 1: So with a lot of E sports athletes. You know,
Speaker 1: they're competing in a lot of virtual tournaments sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: live tournaments and stadiums to you know, obviously before the
Speaker 1: pandemic change a lot of that, but content creation is
Speaker 1: also such a key component for many, um many sports
Speaker 1: athletes active in that space. When you're looking for teams
Speaker 1: or players to sign. How much is um their attitude
Speaker 1: and you know, sort of quantity of live streaming sort
Speaker 1: of affecting these decisions. Well, that's a good question. I
Speaker 1: think it's also important to say, you know, E sports
Speaker 1: for us is sort of abroad umbrella under which we
Speaker 1: really operate three sub businesses. Right. There's the business of
Speaker 1: representing pro players, and those are players who primarily play
Speaker 1: in the franchise leagues, so that would be mostly in
Speaker 1: League of Legends. And we represent a handful of really
Speaker 1: incredible players in the Call of Duty League. UM, so
Speaker 1: that is sort of its own separate business unit, right. Um.
Speaker 1: Then we represent streamers of course, UM and those are
Speaker 1: some of the biggest names in streaming, whether it's Nick
Speaker 1: Merks or Pokemon or Valki Ray, um, this guy's Toast
Speaker 1: and many many more. UM. And then we also have
Speaker 1: you know, a a brand business where we've represented a
Speaker 1: handful of whether they're consumer facing brands or gaming companies
Speaker 1: who are looking to really activate in that space, and
Speaker 1: we help advise them on a number of different ways.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of e sports. More broadly, I think
Speaker 1: it's important to just make sure that we touch on
Speaker 1: UM with respect to signing new clients. Look, I mean,
Speaker 1: going back to what I spoke about earlier with respect
Speaker 1: to our development studios, I think the number one thing
Speaker 1: that's important in representing and signing somebody is passion. Right
Speaker 1: Having that passion for them, you're going to be establishing
Speaker 1: a relationship, working with them daily, weekly, monthly, you know,
Speaker 1: seven days a week three. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: real it's in many ways, being an agent isn't the job.
Speaker 1: That's really a lifestyle, And if you're gonna do that,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to be really passionate about the people
Speaker 1: that you represent, right. UM. Coming down to it with
Speaker 1: respect to live streamers, you know, I think in many
Speaker 1: ways what they do is this incredible blend of art
Speaker 1: and science. Um, the science part is the technical aspect.
Speaker 1: Are you really good at playing these games? Because some
Speaker 1: of the most amazing gameplay sessions I see are from
Speaker 1: our clients on Twitter, which I mean, it's incredibly skillful
Speaker 1: what they do. Um. Just in and of itself, the
Speaker 1: art of it is can you be compelling to an audience?
Speaker 1: For I mean, you know, Corey, these streams sometimes last five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight hours. It's really it's it's it's really incredible, um
Speaker 1: what they do. Can you be compelling to an audience? Right?
Speaker 1: In many ways, you know, I view Twitch and our
Speaker 1: live streamers as it's sort of the new late night
Speaker 1: couch right. Um. This incredible back and forth with guests
Speaker 1: that they bring on that they co stream, with the
Speaker 1: interactivity with the audience, you know, So it's got to
Speaker 1: be really compelling. So I think number one, you've got
Speaker 1: to be passionate about the people you're working with. Uh.
Speaker 1: In second, there's this incredible blend of art and science
Speaker 1: that I think goes into being really great at it. One.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most interesting things about sort
Speaker 1: of you know, the live streaming universe and all of
Speaker 1: the different people uh sort of making a living doing
Speaker 1: this is the fact that their medium of choice is
Speaker 1: something that often has them on stream interacting with fans
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours and hours at a time. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of studies that often look at sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, the most popular streamed games on Twitch often
Speaker 1: find that, you know, just the streamers chatting with their
Speaker 1: fans ranks as high as you know, some of the
Speaker 1: most popular titles. Uh So, in that case, is there
Speaker 1: sort of you know, given that Twitch in recent months
Speaker 1: has really sort of been you know, cracking down on
Speaker 1: its terms of service and making sure you know, it
Speaker 1: develops very strict protocols for player behavior and addressing misconduct
Speaker 1: and you know, potentially offensive things that can be said
Speaker 1: on air. Uh is there sometimes a bit of a
Speaker 1: concern with signing on players, especially from a crowd that
Speaker 1: often exkews pretty young, that you know, they need to
Speaker 1: understand that things like professional conduct and behavior are still
Speaker 1: sort of you know, expected if you're going to be
Speaker 1: wrapping brands for hours and hours and hours at a
Speaker 1: time on stream. Yeah. Look, I mean I think it's
Speaker 1: it's a timely question. And you know, as a parent
Speaker 1: of two young kids, UM, I'm really supportive of what
Speaker 1: Twitch is doing to try and ensure that the platform
Speaker 1: is really safe for not just the consumers and the participants,
Speaker 1: and but certainly. Also, you know the streamers themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of back and
Speaker 1: forth there, right, Um, the questions are we concerned about it?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you know, to my point earlier, we
Speaker 1: tend to get a really good feel for who our
Speaker 1: clients are early in the process, even in the signing
Speaker 1: you know, when we're signing them, right, the profile of
Speaker 1: our clients is pretty consistent. Right, We really want to
Speaker 1: represent folks that were again not a passion is going
Speaker 1: to keep coming up here, not only that we're passionate about,
Speaker 1: but that we feel, you know, really confident in taking
Speaker 1: to the market. Um. Not everything is perfect, Not everything
Speaker 1: is always gonna work out, and it's our job in
Speaker 1: those thankfully very rare. I can't even think of one
Speaker 1: instances that we've that we at least have the tools
Speaker 1: accessible to our clients to ensure that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: if they need it, that it's there. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how the pandemic disrupted the e sports world
Speaker 1: and what companies heavily invested in this space, like U
Speaker 1: t A, had to do to adjust to the new reality.
Speaker 1: There welcome back to strictly business. We're here with Fear Loop,
Speaker 1: who the head of video games at U t A.
Speaker 1: Now Fear When the pandemic happened, obviously, it's something that
Speaker 1: affected you know, virtually every sector that requires people to
Speaker 1: be physically present for anything, but especially in games and
Speaker 1: with the sports you know developing into you know, this
Speaker 1: gigantic universe of global events, you know, crowd filling stadiums
Speaker 1: and all that. What was sort of you know, the
Speaker 1: initial impact when all these different shutdowns occurred. Gaming events
Speaker 1: got canceled. Obviously, e sports can you know, exist and
Speaker 1: thrive virtually. But nevertheless, you know, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of developments in you know, continuing this to be your
Speaker 1: world Blood operation. Call of Duty League in particular, I
Speaker 1: think was really you know starting to ramp up things
Speaker 1: following um the release of their Modern Warfare game as
Speaker 1: well as you know, prepping for the release of war
Speaker 1: Zone coming out not long after that. How did U
Speaker 1: t A you know, respond to you know, all the
Speaker 1: chaos of COVID. Well, the first thing and the most
Speaker 1: important thing always was ensuring that all of our clients
Speaker 1: were you know, we're safe and healthy and take care
Speaker 1: of so that's that that's sort of standard across the
Speaker 1: board stuff. And look what we did was we worked
Speaker 1: with our our partners right to ensure that our clients
Speaker 1: were going to be well taken care of, UM, whether
Speaker 1: that's our partners on the league side, on the team side,
Speaker 1: the organizational side, UM, and on their brand partners side UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, those discussions happened early and often, and
Speaker 1: I think the results were pretty good. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think what's incredible about, you know, this pandemic generally is
Speaker 1: seeing the innovations and ingenuity of businesses across the board, UM,
Speaker 1: and how they managed to sort of make it through.
Speaker 1: And the same can you know, can be said about
Speaker 1: the gaming business, certainly the sports business. I think the
Speaker 1: quality of the production level was really high, the quality
Speaker 1: of the gameplay and the competition was really high ultimately,
Speaker 1: and UM, we're really proud of our clients for getting
Speaker 1: through all of it obviously, UM. And we're really you know,
Speaker 1: happy of the relationship and the working relationship we've got
Speaker 1: with with our partners across the board there. And I
Speaker 1: think net Net, you know, we're glad at all it
Speaker 1: all turned out well and the fans were able to
Speaker 1: watch and participate. And you know, obviously I I personally
Speaker 1: can't wait to get back into a stadium full of
Speaker 1: people and see UM and see matches live. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure our clients can't either. I mean, that's that's there's
Speaker 1: certainly a connection there that you can't you can't replicate. Yeah, absolutely. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, as chaotic as everything has been with the pandemic,
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things to sort of witness
Speaker 1: in the video game space was how, you know, massively
Speaker 1: popular games like Fortnite really sort of turned themselves into
Speaker 1: multimedia platforms beyond you know, just characters, you know, battling
Speaker 1: each other for the top prize. Um. You were actually
Speaker 1: this had already been going on before the pandemic, um,
Speaker 1: as far back as when they sort of had their
Speaker 1: first concert with the electronic musician Marshmallow, which arranging that
Speaker 1: was something you were actually involved at the time. Correct, Yes, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's a look. I think what Fortnite has done, generally speaking, UM,
Speaker 1: in terms of creating this shared social space um is
Speaker 1: has obviously been incredible. UM. The yeah, the Marshmallow concert
Speaker 1: and uh and and all that that went into it
Speaker 1: was just an incredible experience to be a part of
Speaker 1: and I'm always be I'll always remember that one for sure, UM.
Speaker 1: And look, we're always trying to find ways to put
Speaker 1: our clients at the center of gaming. We think it's
Speaker 1: obviously really important UM to have our clients who are
Speaker 1: authentic gamers and who are really interested in the space.
Speaker 1: Authenticity matters, as you know, UM find the right ways
Speaker 1: of participating in in the ecosystem of gaming. So whether
Speaker 1: it was the Marshmallow concert, whether it was you know,
Speaker 1: someone like Dominic Fike, who's an up and coming artist
Speaker 1: that you know on the music side that we're thrilled
Speaker 1: to represent. He had credible debut and Fortnite during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: Or whether it's someone like post Malone who has a
Speaker 1: really deep love of Call of Duty and we were
Speaker 1: able to partner him with Team Envy for him to
Speaker 1: come in as an owner. UM. We're always looking for
Speaker 1: those opportunities across all of our respective areas. Now, the pandemic,
Speaker 1: for sure, UM created a heavy amount of interest from
Speaker 1: our clients who some you know, a lot of whom
Speaker 1: were couldn't tour UM to get into the space. And
Speaker 1: you know, we think given all the work we've done
Speaker 1: in the past on that that there is a huge
Speaker 1: business opportunity there for our clients. UM. And so to
Speaker 1: that end, I went out and we hired somebody great
Speaker 1: again named Jeff Sawyer, who announced a few months ago
Speaker 1: is come in. We hired him from Red Bull to
Speaker 1: come in and oversee all the specifically all of our
Speaker 1: music and gaming partnerships. UM. Given the success of Fortnite
Speaker 1: and all the work we done with them, of course,
Speaker 1: the success of Roadblocks, and you know, a ton of
Speaker 1: other opportunities in the space when you see music immigrations
Speaker 1: and games like two K t A UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we see that that intersection of gaming and music really
Speaker 1: happening and coming into a really fast velocity, and we
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we're you know, we're the
Speaker 1: best in the business of doing that for our clients.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you brought you brought him up a post.
Speaker 1: Malone has also been active on sort of these music
Speaker 1: collaboration front to UM. In February, he headlines Pokemons twenty
Speaker 1: five Anniversary Virtual Concert. UM. After this, Jeff Sawyer higher
Speaker 1: coming from Red Bull, what what do you see as
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the future of these collaborations and
Speaker 1: finding all these different opportunities for gaming to come together
Speaker 1: with U T as other departments and clients, and not
Speaker 1: even in terms of just music, but you know what's
Speaker 1: going on with looking at opportunities in the film and
Speaker 1: television spaces. Look, there's a lot of ground to cover,
Speaker 1: and the opportunities, frankly are are really endless. And I
Speaker 1: don't just mean, you know, I'm just saying that to
Speaker 1: say that, I think that I think we're just beginning
Speaker 1: to scratch the surface of what music and gaming integrations
Speaker 1: look like. Um, we're not too far away from the
Speaker 1: moment where you're going to see original music by big
Speaker 1: name artists being title tracks for games in the same
Speaker 1: way they have been for film and television. Um, for sure,
Speaker 1: I think someone you know, what you're coming to see
Speaker 1: is someone like post Malone, you know, doing this Pokemon collaboration.
Speaker 1: He's an authentic Pokemon fan, right, that really meant a
Speaker 1: lot to him. And I think we're starting to really
Speaker 1: mind our clients across the board in terms of what
Speaker 1: are they interested in, Because, as I said, gaming is
Speaker 1: a global business, right there are games that are not
Speaker 1: popular necessarily in the US, that are hugely popular in
Speaker 1: other territories. UM. And so it's really important for us
Speaker 1: to know what our clients play, what they love, UH.
Speaker 1: And we're going to be able to sort of make
Speaker 1: those matches organically and ensure that they're authentic for sure. UM.
Speaker 1: On the film and TV side, you know, that's another
Speaker 1: area that we're really excited about. UM. You know, i'd
Speaker 1: say gaming I P. Has always been attractive to film
Speaker 1: and television, UM, mostly films sort of historically. UM. I
Speaker 1: think what you're starting to see now is as new
Speaker 1: creators emerge in both mediums, right, as they as they
Speaker 1: mature and grow up, right, Um, they're coming from a
Speaker 1: place where gaming became sort of a steady part of
Speaker 1: their media consumption diet. Right Like you know, growing up,
Speaker 1: I grew up playing games UM. And I think as
Speaker 1: generations mature upward, it becomes less and less of a
Speaker 1: stigma about what games are relative to other medium right.
Speaker 1: I think it's just a natural part of your media intake. UM.
Speaker 1: And so with that, I think has come this mutual
Speaker 1: respect and admiration across both you know, both film, television
Speaker 1: and gaming collectively. UM. And you're starting to see these
Speaker 1: really incredible collaborations happen um. You know, the first that
Speaker 1: comes to mind is the game that I love, The
Speaker 1: Last of Us. You think of someone like Neil Druckman
Speaker 1: pairing up with someone like Craig Mason, UM, and what
Speaker 1: that's going to be? Right? I think there's this like
Speaker 1: mutual respect across both that is going to allow for
Speaker 1: this incredible collaboration to happen. And by the way, just
Speaker 1: last week, I think you saw or a few weeks
Speaker 1: ago you saw Chris Mellowdandry get named to the board
Speaker 1: of Nintendo UM. Right, Chris Meldountry of course runs Illumination UM.
Speaker 1: And so I think you're going to start to see
Speaker 1: a lot of cross polemization from from creators on across
Speaker 1: multiple different vectors who are going to come together and create,
Speaker 1: you know, either new experiences or find ways of adapting
Speaker 1: gaming i P and bringing them to you know, linear
Speaker 1: audiences in a much more authentic way. True. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you brought up The Last of Us. UM. That's a
Speaker 1: particularly huge project coming from HBO and Sony Interactive Entertainment, which,
Speaker 1: through its PlayStation productions banner, has been you know, making
Speaker 1: a really big push to bring a lot of its
Speaker 1: original I P two various film and TV outlets. I
Speaker 1: think another very sort of chaotic development to come from
Speaker 1: this past year was the launch of all these different
Speaker 1: streaming services, you know, before the pandemic and now after it,
Speaker 1: we see NBCUniversal, Warner Media, UH, and more recently Visicom,
Speaker 1: CBS all active in the streaming space with new services. So,
Speaker 1: given that there is such a high demand for content
Speaker 1: right now, has you know, anyone been coming to your
Speaker 1: division looking to see if the gaming i P um
Speaker 1: across your various clients is stuff that could present you know,
Speaker 1: lucrative story opportunities for on visual projects. Yeah. Look, I
Speaker 1: mean the short answer is yes. Um. And as I
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier, I think the thing that's going to
Speaker 1: be most exciting to our clients, UM and certainly two
Speaker 1: i P holders generally, certainly on the gaming side, is
Speaker 1: how how are we going to put together a package
Speaker 1: that's going to be reflective of and be authentic to
Speaker 1: the source material itself? Right? Um, there has been no
Speaker 1: shortage of interest in in gaming i P for years, right.
Speaker 1: I think the advent of these streaming services, you know,
Speaker 1: so the need for content, but also the ability that
Speaker 1: we've seen from the streaming providers themselves to give a
Speaker 1: lot of creative flexibility to their partners is also super interesting,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I think the economics are always important,
Speaker 1: but I'd say as important to the economics of all
Speaker 1: this is the quality bar being set at a pretty
Speaker 1: high level um for these exploitations. It's really excited about it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: there's looking ahead at the universe of gaming. Like like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, Um, it's really it's almost approaching two
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars in worth for the overall market. Esports
Speaker 1: in particular is projected at just over a billion by
Speaker 1: new Zoo. There's just so much expansion that is really
Speaker 1: still on the way on. You know, as long as
Speaker 1: video games have been around for it, it really seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, we we just kind of we just went
Speaker 1: through the you know, the golden age of television from
Speaker 1: nineteen Basically, it seems like the equivalent of that is
Speaker 1: you know, fast approaching for video games in a way.
Speaker 1: But because video games have such an intrinsic virtual nature,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's something that does really feel endless. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean gaming has been growing at if I have
Speaker 1: my numbers right, it's been growing at eleven. I think
Speaker 1: computed annual growth rate for like over a decade at
Speaker 1: this point. Um, you know, mobile alone last year was
Speaker 1: like seventies six billion dollars. So mobile usually accounts for
Speaker 1: about half of the whole thing, about half of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, and you know that's a that's a
Speaker 1: market segment that didn't exist, you know, fourteen years ago.
Speaker 1: So I think as you look at you know, increased
Speaker 1: broadband globally, um, you know, mobile availability five G. You know,
Speaker 1: just an incredible amount of of gaming talent that has
Speaker 1: not just come from um, not just come from cities
Speaker 1: that are well known for for having a high degree
Speaker 1: of gaming companies, you know, cities like Montreal or Toronto
Speaker 1: for instance, or San Francisco, but also from universities, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't forget about two decades ago we started
Speaker 1: seeing the creation of university programs across the country, across
Speaker 1: the world that we're training you know, students who had
Speaker 1: a real interest in learning how to make games, UM,
Speaker 1: and they were putting out you know, highly skilled, highly
Speaker 1: talented folks who had a deep understanding of how to
Speaker 1: make games out into this ecosystem. And as a result
Speaker 1: of that, as a result of you know, Epic Games
Speaker 1: and Unity really coming to the forefront of the game
Speaker 1: engine sort of off the shelf technology solution side of things.
Speaker 1: You know, distribution opening up more broadly, whether it was Steam,
Speaker 1: whether it's the console manufacturers sort of opening up their
Speaker 1: distribution capabilities to indie developers. You know, you've just seen
Speaker 1: just this incredible output of games and creativity and innovation
Speaker 1: from you know, small teams. Right, look at the team
Speaker 1: that made among Us is I think four people, um, right,
Speaker 1: based in Seattle, and you know, so you're going to
Speaker 1: continue to see that kind of output. You know, you
Speaker 1: lay your in new platforms, whether it's mobile, as we discussed, um,
Speaker 1: you know, predating that was the social you know social
Speaker 1: social gaming on platforms like Facebook, and you know what's
Speaker 1: up next. I mean a R is gonna is certainly
Speaker 1: going to be relevant. VR continues to be you know,
Speaker 1: really really good, um and I think as those those
Speaker 1: platforms and new platforms emerge, um, you're going to continue
Speaker 1: to see hopefully, um, you know our business continue to
Speaker 1: to grow. Yeah. There, there's definitely so much to look
Speaker 1: forward to. It's yeah, it's really just you can go
Speaker 1: in so many different directions. Anyway, um, I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you for taking the time to stop and
Speaker 1: chat A fear Corey thinks it's been great. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. This has been another episode of Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: Come back next week for another helping of compelling conversation
Speaker 1: with media minds leading the industry, and don't forget to
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