In this week's Roundtable, the squad dives into the unexpected early leak and subsequent official release of the GTA VI trailer, which has taken the internet by storm. We then shift gears to discuss the burgeoning success of hybridcasual games, which surpassed $2B in revenue in 2023, and how Voodoo's bold claim of "hypercasual is dead" is playing out in the market. The conversation heats up as we explore the upcoming Fortnite and Lego collaboration, questioning the fit of audience and moderation...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min
UEFN is gunning to be the next major Roblox competitor, but just how competitive is it? Today, your host, Alexandra Takei , Director at Ruckus Games , sits down with the founder of Bungie, Alex Seropian , now the current CEO of Look North World, and Amy Wu , the partner heading up the games and consumer practice at Menlo Ventures. Fortnite Creative 2.0 has drawn in a lot of committed creators: Snoop Dog and his son , 100 Thieves , and many more. In this episode, we talk about building in the UEF...
Dec 03, 2023•1 hr 1 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad unpacks ByteDance's decision to wind down its gaming arm, Nuverse, and divest popular titles like Marvel Snap. The conversation then pivots to the legal drama at Neon Machine, where the directors of Shrapnel are suing its controlling shareholder in a contentious battle for control over the web3 FPS developer. We also highlight a recent study on League of Legends, revealing surprising insights about player motivation, especially the urge to play more after los...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Welcome to the third and final part in our series covering all things Savvy Games Group , the Saudi-backed gaming giant in the making. In this episode, Aaron Bush sits down with Brian Ward , the CEO of Savvy Games Group, to discuss the company’s ambitions, including its goal of becoming the world’s largest gaming company and its plans to turn Saudi Arabia into a more prominent gaming hub. We also dive into how Savvy makes investment decisions, manages a decentralized culture, works with the Saud...
Nov 26, 2023•54 min
In this week's Roundtable, we welcome Taylor Hurst from Konvoy Ventures, bringing a fresh investment perspective to our discussions. We kick off by dissecting the startling 68% YoY decrease in games VC funding reported by PitchBook for Q3, pondering the implications and where the funding might be redirected. The conversation then shifts to Epic Games' intensified focus on child safety in Fortnite, following the spinoff of SuperAwesome and a significant FTC lawsuit settlement, as we explore the c...
Nov 24, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Game7, a community formed to accelerate the adoption of Web3 gaming, recognized that there had to date not been a comprehensive overview of the entire Web3 ecosystem, and decided to do something about. On November 13th, they released the very first truly comprehensive study that covers the past 6 years of Web3 gaming, using objective and neutral primary research methods. The report captured and examined data from almost two thousand Web3 games, over one thousand funding rounds, and almost two hu...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 6 min
Neil Long used to be responsible for app rankings on the Apple iOS Store before founding Mobilegamer.biz , a site aimed at increasing mobile games coverage. Jason Schreier is a long-standing games journalist with a career spanning Wired, Kotaku, and now Bloomberg News; he's famous for exposing industry crunch, lobbying on behalf of the developer, and depending on who you ask, exposing unofficially announced games. Your host, Alexandra Takei Director at Ruckus Games , and her guests debate the ro...
Nov 19, 2023•1 hr
In this week's Roundtable, the squad tackles the contentious release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, scrutinizing Activision's bold pricing strategy for what many see as DLC-sized content. We then shift gears to the evolving stances of various companies regarding live service games, including noting where we are in the trend's hype cycle. The conversation pivots to Valve's unveiling of the Steam Deck OLED and what kind of platform the resurgence of handhelds could morph into. We next cover Ro...
Nov 17, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Together with Windwalk , one of our Open Gaming Research Initiative partners, we’re diving into the topic of community building within game building. The reason for talking about all things community is simple: not only has community building always been important, but it has never been more important, especially when thinking about where the industry is moving from a discoverability, distribution, product roadmapping, UGC, Web3, or AI perspective. There are so many interesting angles to this to...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 16 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad unpacks Bungie's recent layoffs and the implications for Destiny 2 and Marathon’s future. We then shift gears to Azur Games' acquisition of Good Job Games' entire portfolio, sparking an exploration of the merits of portfolio vs. talent acquisition strategies in the gaming industry. Next, the announcement of a Legend of Zelda movie sparks a discussion comparing its potential as a live action film against the CG-animated Mario movie. We also touch on the breaki...
Nov 10, 2023•1 hr 9 min
How do you build a dedicated Roblox studio? The answer: “hire your customer” according to the Co-Founders of Tiny Comet Emily Tierney and Anca Agapi . Your host, Alexandra Takei , Director at Ruckus Games , alongside the Tiny Comet team discusses building and running a studio where the average employee is under twenty years old, acquiring users on a platform that has 40M games and a notorious algorithm that’s largely responsible for surfacing your game, and the mission Tiny Comet has to build ga...
Nov 05, 2023•1 hr
In this week's Roundtable, the squad delves into the fresh UK sales numbers, highlighting top hits like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Spider-Man 2. Then we discuss why YTD video game spend in the US is actually down compared to last year (when accounting for inflation) despite it being a notable year of great hits. We pair that discussion with insights from the latest Drake Star and Konvoy Q3 reports, which cover funding and M&A data, and discuss why we're hesitant to project a strong rebound...
Nov 03, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Together with Gamesight, one of our Open Gaming Research Initiative partners, we’re exploring various go-to-market (GTM) strategies and insights, specifically for PC games. Currently, there is a growing curiosity surrounding the topic, particularly as observed in the development of new mobile games designed for cross-platform compatibility and the introduction of PC versions of existing mobile games. For example, Supercell recently released PC versions of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. In shor...
Oct 31, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Welcome to part two in our series covering all things Savvy Games Group . In this episode Aaron Bush chats with Javier Ferreira , the co-CEO of Scopely , which was acquired by Savvy earlier this year for $4.9 billion – the sixth largest gaming acquisition of all time. Scopely is now the #2 largest North American mobile games company (as measured by global IAPs), and it serves over 100 million players across its portfolio of games. In this episode, Javier walks us through how the company has grow...
Oct 29, 2023•1 hr 3 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad kicks off by discussing what to make of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's pay no longer being driven by Xbox Game Pass growth targets. We then navigate the waters of FaZe Clan's acquisition by Gamesquare for a largely deflated $17M, especially in the wake of its previous SPAC and esports as a struggling industry. Pivoting to streaming giant Netflix, we dissect its Q3 investor call, where the company outlined its 'crawl, walk, run' approach to gaming, and chat abo...
Oct 27, 2023•57 min
As "metaverses" gain in prominence, and more and more gameplay happens inside these digital worlds, brands, advertisers, and IP owners are naturally going to want to be there. Wherever there is consumer attention and engagement, there will always be brands wanting to get in front of these engaged audiences. But how should brands, which typically know nothing about gaming, engage with consumers in these spaces that are still fairly alien to them? What does a successful transmedia IP strategy look...
Oct 24, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Hybridcasual is a buzzword of late, but what exactly does it mean, and where is it going? As hypercasual continues declining, many games teams are experimenting with either converting their existing hypercasual games to hybridcasual (by adding more casual features) or are building hybridcasual games from the ground up. It’s a rapidly shifting environment with many moving pieces. To help make sense of the evolution, Niek Tuerlings , lead game designer at Moonlit Games and long-time Naavik contrib...
Oct 22, 2023•53 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad delves into Microsoft's completed acquisition of Activision Blizzard and speculates on the future landscape of gaming acquisitions. We then touch upon the continued trend of layoffs, this time spotlighting Frontier, and discuss when the tide may shift the other way. Lastly, as the holiday season approaches, we share our predictions on which games are likely to dominate the charts and become festive favorites. Join us for all the latest games business news wit...
Oct 20, 2023•52 min
In 2022, ESL Gaming and FACEIT merged to create one of esports’ most important companies: ESL FACEIT Group (EFG). This operating group, fully owned by Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, manages esports tournaments (via ESL), gaming festivals (via Dreamhack), a platform for superior PvP play (via FACEIT), and gaming audience management tools (via Vindex, acquired this year). In this episode, we chat with EFG’s co-CEOs, Craig Levine and Niccolo Maisto , about how this company came together, how esp...
Oct 15, 2023•1 hr 2 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad kicks things off by discussing the resignation of Unity's CEO John Riccitiello and the introduction of the company's new interim CEO. We then delve into the latest on our favorite Swedish aggregators, including Embracer's ongoing setbacks and MTG's acquisition of Warhammer Tacticus developer, Snowprint Studios. Next, we explore the strategy behind Diablo IV announcing its Season 2 launch on Steam and the revelation that Activision Blizzard titles will hit Xbo...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Together with Dive , one of our Open Gaming Research Initiative partners, we’re exploring the topic of data and games through a limited podcast series called the “Data Corner”. Today’s episode is Part 2 of Driving ROI with Data Analysis. It’s a broad topic that many understand has a lot of value, but not so many know how to engineer it in their gaming studios. In Part 1 , we talked about how game teams should think about setting up their data pipelines, data teams, processes and relationships wi...
Oct 12, 2023•49 min
On September 13th, Zynga minted its first NFT collection, the Oras, and announced its entry into the Web3 gaming space with Sugartown. There have not been many large, established developers who have taken the plunge into the Web3 waters, especially in the Western markets, and those that have tried to incorporate NFTs or other Web3 elements into their existing games (looking at you, Ubisoft and Ghost Recon Breakpoint) have met with significant player backlash. So to have a big player like Zynga “...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min
How red is the ocean of shooters and is there room for innovation in what most consider a wildly competitive and oversaturated space? Roby John , CEO and Co-Founder at Supergaming (a studio building an indo-futurism mobile battle royale called Indus, check out their beta here ) and Nikolaj Nyholm , CEO and Co-Founder at Scattershot (a studio building a competitive PvP battle royale shooter called Project Athena) both believe there’s disruption yet to come. Your host Alexandra Takei , Director of...
Oct 08, 2023•1 hr 17 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad starts with covering the successful mobile launch of Monster Hunter Now , giving Niantic another win in location-based gaming. Then we touch on Luda's recent $7M funding for its AI training sim, spotlighting real-time reinforcement training and UGC elements. That's followed up with a conversation around Activision/Blizzard's decision to shut down and revamp the Overwatch League. We also dive deep into the launch of CS:GO 2, its impressive crate opening number...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 17 min
We’ve all played match 3 games, but the genre itself has seen limited innovation in recent years. However, Candivore and its hit game Match Masters – which features PvP and new monetization mechanics – are changing the narrative. In this episode, we talk to Candivore ’s co-founder and CEO Gal Goldstein about the multi-year journey in developing Match Masters, scaling up its success, and raising money (most recently in a ~$100M round led by Haveli). Gal also holds unique perspectives on keeping t...
Oct 01, 2023•58 min
In this week's Roundtable, the squad starts off by reflecting on Unity’s business model changes and Jim Ryan’s retirement after a strong 30 year run at PlayStation. Then we discuss comments from both Xbox’s Phil Spencer and Capcom’s Haruhiro Tsujimoto that put into question AAA games’ pricing and the evolving role of publishers. We also touch on the breaking news of Epic Games’ major layoffs and divestments before digging into 2023’s biggest winners and losers so far. Lastly, we close with a qui...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 14 min
Amitt Mahajan, co-creator of cultural icon and Internet treasure Farmville, has been working at the intersection of gaming and technology for his entire career. Now, Amitt has set his sights on web3, and more specifically, building true fully on-chain “forever games” and the technical tools to power them, in order to facilitate autonomous worlds, ensure game longevity, and create a more immersive player experience. His company, Proof of Play, recently announced a $33 million seed round led by a1...
Sep 26, 2023•58 min
India’s gaming market is well known for its betting and gambling companies, including unicorns like Dream11 and Mobile Premier League, but what does the next decade of gaming behavior in India look like? Salone Sehgal , founder and GP of Lumikai , one of India’s first dedicated games and interactive media funds, and Abhaas Shah , co-founder of Studio Sirah , join us to talk about the size of India’s gaming market, their conviction in the untapped potential of Hindu and Indian lore and mythology,...
Sep 24, 2023•1 hr
In this week's Roundtable, the squad shares some personal updates including a recap of Korea Blockchain Week, streetball with Fat Joe, and two new Naavik deep dives. Then we cover the latest in Unity's evolving monetization saga, including why the company got itself into this situation in the first place and why it’s (perhaps partially) backpedaling on its monetization policy announcements. We also cover Playtika’s acquisition of Innplay Labs, and dig into the court document leaks that highlight...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Together with Dive , one of Naavik's Open Gaming Research Initiative partners, we’re exploring the topic of data and games through a limited podcast series called the “Data Corner”. Today’s episode is about “Driving ROI with Data Analysis” — a broad topic that everyone understands is valuable but most don't know how to effectively engineer into their game studios. After all, ROI from data analysis goes beyond simply analyzing the data and also covers the entire activity funnel. For example, it's...
Sep 19, 2023•1 hr
