Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcasts for conversations focusing on the business side of media and entertainment. I'm Corey Erickson, media analyst for a variety intelligence platform. Delphi Interactive is a new company licensing some of the biggest franchises in entertainment and partnering them with independent gaming studios to bring those properties to life as new Triple A Video Games CEO Casper Dugarde and president Andy Kleinman joined me to discuss what they refer to as the publishing industrial complex and their plans to circumvent gaming's biggest entities to deliver new experiences for the unpredictable console and PC gaming market. Having hired former Nordis Game CEO Michael Wider as Delphi's managing partner in Europe, who joins a small staff of talent from leading publishers like Rockstar, EA and Activision, Douguarde and Climate discuss their current issues with Triple A Gaming and how they aim to follow Io Interactive's Project Double seven with more games based on some of traditional media's biggest franchises. Welcome back to Strictly Business. I'm Corey Erickson, media analyst with Wariety Intelligence Platform, and I'm joined today by the founder and CEO of Delphi Interactive and its president. Why don't you to introduce yourselves.

Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcasts for conversations focusing on the business side of media and entertainment. I'm Corey Erickson, media analyst for a variety intelligence platform. Delphi Interactive is a new company licensing some of the biggest franchises in entertainment and partnering them with independent gaming studios to bring those properties to life as new Triple A Video Games CEO Casper Dugarde and president Andy Kleinman joined me to discuss what they refer to as the publishing industrial complex and their plans to circumvent gaming's biggest entities to deliver new experiences for the unpredictable console and PC gaming market. Having hired former Nordis Game CEO Michael Wider as Delphi's managing partner in Europe, who joins a small staff of talent from leading publishers like Rockstar, EA and Activision, Douguarde and Climate discuss their current issues with Triple A Gaming and how they aim to follow Io Interactive's Project Double seven with more games based on some of traditional media's biggest franchises. Welcome back to Strictly Business. I'm Corey Erickson, media analyst with Wariety Intelligence Platform, and I'm joined today by the founder and CEO of Delphi Interactive and its president. Why don't you to introduce yourselves.

Thanks for having his own Corey. My name is Casper Dougard and I'm the founder and CEO of Delphi.

Thanks for having his own Corey. My name is Casper Dougard and I'm the founder and CEO of Delphi.

And I'm Andy Kleinman, President of Delphi.

And I'm Andy Kleinman, President of Delphi.

So how did Delphi get launched and how did the two of you come together?

So how did Delphi get launched and how did the two of you come together?

I think the impetus for forming Delphi was when I was working in Los Angeles in the film and TV space with underutilized intellectual properties training, you know, into film and TV projects, and one of the types of IP that I was most interested in was gaming IP. I'd always been a big gamer myself, and so I had a chance to meet with a lot of Triple A gaming studios and talk to them about adapting their games and their IP into film or TV projects. But I also learned a lot about the business of Triple A Games, which is sort of this mysterious business that was huge but also sort of hiding in plain sight, and I didn't know much about it, and based on everything I learned, I developed this sort of secret thesis about Triple A games that became the genesis of Delphi. And the thesis is that most people believe that if you want to make a big Triple A game, you can only do it if you involve one of the big traditional global gaming publishers like EA or Ubisoft, one of these huge corporations. But the truth is that nowadays, in the era of digital game just tribution, we believe that if you have access to a beloved global intellectual property, and you have access to capital to develop and market a game, and you have access to the best independent development talent, you can actually make a successful triple A game outside of what we now lovingly refer to as the publisher industrial complex that sort of traditionally oligopolized the Triple A space. So instead of turning games into film and TV, I had this epiphany that I wanted to do the opposite in reverse and turn the best film and TV into games and use this new thesis. So long story short, one of the studios that I met with was in my hometown of Copenhagen, where I met Io Interactive. I owe the creators of Hitman, which is one of the most beloved stealth and espionage franchises and I'd been a huge fan of Io since I was a teenager, and they had recently done this really fearless management buyout to become an independent Triple A studio, and we just really hit it off and we were philosophically aligned and that we wanted to work on something together. And so long story boring. In twenty twenty, Delphi intered into an agreement to license the rights from Dan Jack and MGM to do a Triple A PC console James Bond Double seven game, to be developed and published by Iro Interactive in association with Delphi. And that's about all we can say right now about Project Double oh seven other than what you can read in the news. It's a stealthy project.

I think the impetus for forming Delphi was when I was working in Los Angeles in the film and TV space with underutilized intellectual properties training, you know, into film and TV projects, and one of the types of IP that I was most interested in was gaming IP. I'd always been a big gamer myself, and so I had a chance to meet with a lot of Triple A gaming studios and talk to them about adapting their games and their IP into film or TV projects. But I also learned a lot about the business of Triple A Games, which is sort of this mysterious business that was huge but also sort of hiding in plain sight, and I didn't know much about it, and based on everything I learned, I developed this sort of secret thesis about Triple A games that became the genesis of Delphi. And the thesis is that most people believe that if you want to make a big Triple A game, you can only do it if you involve one of the big traditional global gaming publishers like EA or Ubisoft, one of these huge corporations. But the truth is that nowadays, in the era of digital game just tribution, we believe that if you have access to a beloved global intellectual property, and you have access to capital to develop and market a game, and you have access to the best independent development talent, you can actually make a successful triple A game outside of what we now lovingly refer to as the publisher industrial complex that sort of traditionally oligopolized the Triple A space. So instead of turning games into film and TV, I had this epiphany that I wanted to do the opposite in reverse and turn the best film and TV into games and use this new thesis. So long story short, one of the studios that I met with was in my hometown of Copenhagen, where I met Io Interactive. I owe the creators of Hitman, which is one of the most beloved stealth and espionage franchises and I'd been a huge fan of Io since I was a teenager, and they had recently done this really fearless management buyout to become an independent Triple A studio, and we just really hit it off and we were philosophically aligned and that we wanted to work on something together. And so long story boring. In twenty twenty, Delphi intered into an agreement to license the rights from Dan Jack and MGM to do a Triple A PC console James Bond Double seven game, to be developed and published by Iro Interactive in association with Delphi. And that's about all we can say right now about Project Double oh seven other than what you can read in the news. It's a stealthy project.

And to answer the question about how we met, Corey Casper and I met years ago in la and we became friends and we were interested in a lot of the same things, especially around entertainment and the evolution of games and entertainment, and when he started putting the Chains Bond project together, I became an advisor to the company. I've been working with license ip and games over the years, particularly at places like Scope, Lee, Disney, and Zinga, and so as Project Double seven came together. We saw a very clear opportunity to replicate the model with more games, expand the Delphi team, and that's when I became fully involved in the company.

And to answer the question about how we met, Corey Casper and I met years ago in la and we became friends and we were interested in a lot of the same things, especially around entertainment and the evolution of games and entertainment, and when he started putting the Chains Bond project together, I became an advisor to the company. I've been working with license ip and games over the years, particularly at places like Scope, Lee, Disney, and Zinga, and so as Project Double seven came together. We saw a very clear opportunity to replicate the model with more games, expand the Delphi team, and that's when I became fully involved in the company.

In terms of expanding the team. Who else of note has been drawn into Delphi's orbit.

In terms of expanding the team. Who else of note has been drawn into Delphi's orbit.

Well, we're you know, we've been as we've been refining and now also replicating the thesis that we developed for Project Double seven. We've you know, we've we've encountered some really great minds in the Triple A industry who've become interested in what it is that we're doing. And we're actually pretty excited to announce that Michael Weider has joined Delphi. Mikael was the founder and CEO of Nordist Games, which is one of the biggest gaming companies in Scandinavia. He essentially blit scaled Nordis Games from one employee to thirteen hundred in just a few years, and he acquired several Triple A studios, including Avalanche in Sweden and Supermassive in the UK. And he did all of that outside of the traditional publisher system.

Well, we're you know, we've been as we've been refining and now also replicating the thesis that we developed for Project Double seven. We've you know, we've we've encountered some really great minds in the Triple A industry who've become interested in what it is that we're doing. And we're actually pretty excited to announce that Michael Weider has joined Delphi. Mikael was the founder and CEO of Nordist Games, which is one of the biggest gaming companies in Scandinavia. He essentially blit scaled Nordis Games from one employee to thirteen hundred in just a few years, and he acquired several Triple A studios, including Avalanche in Sweden and Supermassive in the UK. And he did all of that outside of the traditional publisher system.

Our team is about we're about a dozen people. We believe in this idea of being very lean and hired the best people for sort of the central Delphi team, and then we worked with all these external partners. So there's about two hundred and fifty people working on Delphi games across our partners. And it's interesting, like when we started talking to people and just getting validation on the thesis and thinking about how do we scale this model, we were talking to some of the most accomplished people, talented people that we need you in Triple A games just to get their opinions, just to get advice, and we were quickly learning that those people were excited or were doing to the point that they wanted to join. And what we realized was that if you're an accomplished person in triple A games like you don't have that many options to do what you love. You either have to have a long career inside one of these big publishers, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, there's not that many options. And so Delphi became the sort of clear alternative to doing this independently. And so we've attracted some great people into this core team. You know, people that we were big fans of that came from Rockstar games, from electronic cards, from Activision, who are now part of Delphi.

Our team is about we're about a dozen people. We believe in this idea of being very lean and hired the best people for sort of the central Delphi team, and then we worked with all these external partners. So there's about two hundred and fifty people working on Delphi games across our partners. And it's interesting, like when we started talking to people and just getting validation on the thesis and thinking about how do we scale this model, we were talking to some of the most accomplished people, talented people that we need you in Triple A games just to get their opinions, just to get advice, and we were quickly learning that those people were excited or were doing to the point that they wanted to join. And what we realized was that if you're an accomplished person in triple A games like you don't have that many options to do what you love. You either have to have a long career inside one of these big publishers, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, there's not that many options. And so Delphi became the sort of clear alternative to doing this independently. And so we've attracted some great people into this core team. You know, people that we were big fans of that came from Rockstar games, from electronic cards, from Activision, who are now part of Delphi.

Let's talk more about what you consider this publishing industrial complex. What is it about triple A games that Delphi loves and where are the major publishers in gaming going wrong when it comes to triple A games today.

Let's talk more about what you consider this publishing industrial complex. What is it about triple A games that Delphi loves and where are the major publishers in gaming going wrong when it comes to triple A games today.

Well, first we have to take a little bit of step back to the past twenty or thirty years of triple A gaming because they're really used to be significant barriers to entry to make a triple A game, and one of the biggest ones was physical distribution, which is the primary mode of how to get your game out to distribute to consumers. As if you wanted to make a triple A game, you needed to have this complex infrastructure to print the games on physical discs and create manuals that to be translated into different languages and localized, and had to drive the games around on trucks in different countries and employ huge sales forces, and so it required very complex and expensive infrastructure and economies of scale that only this sort of oligopoly of large corporations like EA could handle. So nowadays physical copies of games are still thing. They're important for gift giving and collectors, editions and stuff, but the vast majority of game sales are now digital. So if you've developed a game and you're ready to put it in the hands of consumers, you essentially press upload to one of the platforms where people can buy and download your game, and so that has democratized the process somewhat. That's a very important thing that's changed that's enabled a company like Delfi to come into existence. But the other super important thing about our thesis on the publisher industrial complex is that they've of course adapted to this digital era and they're operating at an unprecedented profitability and scale. But at the same time, something else has happened. And then we believe that on average, the legacy publishers have become fundamentally misaligned with the owners of the world's biggest IP, and they've also become fundamentally misaligned more and more with dependent Triple A developers. And that's where Delphi saw an opportunity, a significant opportunity to step in and offer an sort of very attractive alternative two owners of IP and to Triple A developers. Very sort of rationally, we believe the large gaming publishers have prioritized their own internal fully owned IPS over third party ipis, and some of them who even publicly acknowledged that by now, and that means that they're no longer ideal partners for the owners of the most iconic licensed I piece, and everyone is slowly starting to realize that.

Well, first we have to take a little bit of step back to the past twenty or thirty years of triple A gaming because they're really used to be significant barriers to entry to make a triple A game, and one of the biggest ones was physical distribution, which is the primary mode of how to get your game out to distribute to consumers. As if you wanted to make a triple A game, you needed to have this complex infrastructure to print the games on physical discs and create manuals that to be translated into different languages and localized, and had to drive the games around on trucks in different countries and employ huge sales forces, and so it required very complex and expensive infrastructure and economies of scale that only this sort of oligopoly of large corporations like EA could handle. So nowadays physical copies of games are still thing. They're important for gift giving and collectors, editions and stuff, but the vast majority of game sales are now digital. So if you've developed a game and you're ready to put it in the hands of consumers, you essentially press upload to one of the platforms where people can buy and download your game, and so that has democratized the process somewhat. That's a very important thing that's changed that's enabled a company like Delfi to come into existence. But the other super important thing about our thesis on the publisher industrial complex is that they've of course adapted to this digital era and they're operating at an unprecedented profitability and scale. But at the same time, something else has happened. And then we believe that on average, the legacy publishers have become fundamentally misaligned with the owners of the world's biggest IP, and they've also become fundamentally misaligned more and more with dependent Triple A developers. And that's where Delphi saw an opportunity, a significant opportunity to step in and offer an sort of very attractive alternative two owners of IP and to Triple A developers. Very sort of rationally, we believe the large gaming publishers have prioritized their own internal fully owned IPS over third party ipis, and some of them who even publicly acknowledged that by now, and that means that they're no longer ideal partners for the owners of the most iconic licensed I piece, and everyone is slowly starting to realize that.

Do you think some folks in the gaming community might sometimes prefer that IP that's local to gaming be prioritized over major third party IP from Hollywood or elsewhere.

Do you think some folks in the gaming community might sometimes prefer that IP that's local to gaming be prioritized over major third party IP from Hollywood or elsewhere.

Well, we actually have given quite a bit of thought to that as well. They this idea of licensed IP means a lot of things. You know, it can be from the world of Hollywood, it can be from the world of sports, which is huge, but it also exists across a spectrum of sort of different license experiences. One is, you know, you have integrations of licensed IP and platforms like Roadblocks or Fortnite, where the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles show up in Fortnite and things go fucking crazy. And then you have these licensed games that are sort of like merchandising tie in experiences where if you have a Star Wars or Harry Potter movie coming out, then there's also this game that's made to coincide with the release and the same thing that happens in the movie happens in the game if it's a little different. And those are not always critical hits, but historically have been sort of very commercially successful. But then there's also a third category of licensed game and that's the one that really inspires us here at Delphi, and that's a rarer type and we haven't really found a perfect term for it, but we call them asynchronous licensed franchises. And some examples of that are Knights of the Old Republic that byowhere are made, or the Batman Arkham series from rock Steady, or Marvel Spider Man from Insomniac and more recently Boulder Skate three from Larian. These weren't based on any particular movie actor, or movie or novel or anything. They were they were carefully crafted, very patiently developed franchises that were completely their own thing, and so we call those asynchronous franchises, and those are the ones that the Delphi want to make more of. And so it's also interesting to note that all of the examples I mentioned were created by Triple A studios that were at least of the time completely independent. Triple A studios like I are interactive and so as you can read in the news, project Double O seven fits this model. It's the first ever Triple A origin story of the James Bond character. It's a completely original story, and it's not based on any particular Bond film or actor. And we think fans will always love those types of experiences.

Well, we actually have given quite a bit of thought to that as well. They this idea of licensed IP means a lot of things. You know, it can be from the world of Hollywood, it can be from the world of sports, which is huge, but it also exists across a spectrum of sort of different license experiences. One is, you know, you have integrations of licensed IP and platforms like Roadblocks or Fortnite, where the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles show up in Fortnite and things go fucking crazy. And then you have these licensed games that are sort of like merchandising tie in experiences where if you have a Star Wars or Harry Potter movie coming out, then there's also this game that's made to coincide with the release and the same thing that happens in the movie happens in the game if it's a little different. And those are not always critical hits, but historically have been sort of very commercially successful. But then there's also a third category of licensed game and that's the one that really inspires us here at Delphi, and that's a rarer type and we haven't really found a perfect term for it, but we call them asynchronous licensed franchises. And some examples of that are Knights of the Old Republic that byowhere are made, or the Batman Arkham series from rock Steady, or Marvel Spider Man from Insomniac and more recently Boulder Skate three from Larian. These weren't based on any particular movie actor, or movie or novel or anything. They were they were carefully crafted, very patiently developed franchises that were completely their own thing, and so we call those asynchronous franchises, and those are the ones that the Delphi want to make more of. And so it's also interesting to note that all of the examples I mentioned were created by Triple A studios that were at least of the time completely independent. Triple A studios like I are interactive and so as you can read in the news, project Double O seven fits this model. It's the first ever Triple A origin story of the James Bond character. It's a completely original story, and it's not based on any particular Bond film or actor. And we think fans will always love those types of experiences.

Speaking to this notion of you know, high quality Triple A games license from third party ip that really resonate with the market, it wasn't just Balder's Gage three in twenty twenty three that fit those terms. It was also Howkwarts Legacy coming from Warner Brothers in their own internal studio. However, a year later, Suicide Squad Killed the Justice League comes out and sort of has the opposite outcome with you know, fans and critics alike than Hawkwarts Legacy did. And more recently, we saw Ubisoft own up to Star Wars Outlaws, missing their expectations, and now Tencent is reportedly circling Ubisoft as an acquisition target. What do you think is defining such missteps this year after we've seen other projects be it Sony Spider Man or Howkwarts Legacy or Bouder's Gate three really hit their marks.

Speaking to this notion of you know, high quality Triple A games license from third party ip that really resonate with the market, it wasn't just Balder's Gage three in twenty twenty three that fit those terms. It was also Howkwarts Legacy coming from Warner Brothers in their own internal studio. However, a year later, Suicide Squad Killed the Justice League comes out and sort of has the opposite outcome with you know, fans and critics alike than Hawkwarts Legacy did. And more recently, we saw Ubisoft own up to Star Wars Outlaws, missing their expectations, and now Tencent is reportedly circling Ubisoft as an acquisition target. What do you think is defining such missteps this year after we've seen other projects be it Sony Spider Man or Howkwarts Legacy or Bouder's Gate three really hit their marks.

I'm very interested in two of the companies you mentioned just there. You know, everybody's talking about Ubisoft and Rumors, and you know what, I think that company maybe has some specific problems to That company employs a lot of people, The most successful IP franchises they have are starting to show their age, and there may be some other endemic problems that they're dealing with with their stock price and ownership that we just simply don't know about. So I'm cautious to derive specific conclusions about the industry based on Ubisoft. Warner Brothers super interesting. They are one of the I think only two traditional Hollywood Industrial complex members that have their own internal gaming businesses. The other Hollywood studios that had that have shut those down and transitioned to essentially risk free and very lucrative licensing businesses. So Disney licenses out there valuable IP to games developers and publishers instead of making their own. Warner Brothers is different. They have Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, and as you said, there is a long cadence between the games they release, and you can have a billion dollar success asynchronous success like Parkwards Legacy, and then you can have something like Suicide Squad that leads to a reported to our million or even dow right off. And I think on a reason Earnings call David Saslav, he said very wisely that given that Warner Brothers own such shockun al Ip and you know, only has as much bandwidth as they do inside of their own game studio, and given that it takes four to five years to make a triple A game, or nine years in the case of Suicide Squad, it makes so much sense for Warner Brothers Discovery to balance out that cadence and risk profile by complementing their portfolio of games with some licensed titles as well to external partners, where Warner Brothers Discovery doesn't take the financial execution risk as much, and that can solve a problem like the fact that there literally hasn't been a triple A PC console Batman game since twenty fifteen. It's almost ten years ago, and that's not right. And I think brother Discoveries is discovering the solution to that.

I'm very interested in two of the companies you mentioned just there. You know, everybody's talking about Ubisoft and Rumors, and you know what, I think that company maybe has some specific problems to That company employs a lot of people, The most successful IP franchises they have are starting to show their age, and there may be some other endemic problems that they're dealing with with their stock price and ownership that we just simply don't know about. So I'm cautious to derive specific conclusions about the industry based on Ubisoft. Warner Brothers super interesting. They are one of the I think only two traditional Hollywood Industrial complex members that have their own internal gaming businesses. The other Hollywood studios that had that have shut those down and transitioned to essentially risk free and very lucrative licensing businesses. So Disney licenses out there valuable IP to games developers and publishers instead of making their own. Warner Brothers is different. They have Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, and as you said, there is a long cadence between the games they release, and you can have a billion dollar success asynchronous success like Parkwards Legacy, and then you can have something like Suicide Squad that leads to a reported to our million or even dow right off. And I think on a reason Earnings call David Saslav, he said very wisely that given that Warner Brothers own such shockun al Ip and you know, only has as much bandwidth as they do inside of their own game studio, and given that it takes four to five years to make a triple A game, or nine years in the case of Suicide Squad, it makes so much sense for Warner Brothers Discovery to balance out that cadence and risk profile by complementing their portfolio of games with some licensed titles as well to external partners, where Warner Brothers Discovery doesn't take the financial execution risk as much, and that can solve a problem like the fact that there literally hasn't been a triple A PC console Batman game since twenty fifteen. It's almost ten years ago, and that's not right. And I think brother Discoveries is discovering the solution to that.

And I think similarly to how they think about movies. Right, we've been inspired a lot by companies like Legendary Entertainment, which started back in the day producing Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers ip into blockbuster films and their whole thesis was that they could you know, come in initially with financing, but their plan was to try to make these big blockbuster films outside of the legacy Hollywood studios. They were one of the first to do. Its Guidance came later and build a similar thesis which has now become really big, and another taking over a legacy studio to try to modernize it with their way of doing things. But that doesn't exist in gaming, and especially in Triple A gaming. And so that model of financing this big blockbuster Triple A games outside of the system and creating a Triple A slate of games work based on the biggest brands in the world, it's something that doesn't exist and that del Via is firing to create and be inspired by legendary and Skidance.

And I think similarly to how they think about movies. Right, we've been inspired a lot by companies like Legendary Entertainment, which started back in the day producing Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers ip into blockbuster films and their whole thesis was that they could you know, come in initially with financing, but their plan was to try to make these big blockbuster films outside of the legacy Hollywood studios. They were one of the first to do. Its Guidance came later and build a similar thesis which has now become really big, and another taking over a legacy studio to try to modernize it with their way of doing things. But that doesn't exist in gaming, and especially in Triple A gaming. And so that model of financing this big blockbuster Triple A games outside of the system and creating a Triple A slate of games work based on the biggest brands in the world, it's something that doesn't exist and that del Via is firing to create and be inspired by legendary and Skidance.

I want to expand a bit on how you make that pitch to you know, a legacy Hollywood studio. As we know, Skydance is trying to complete an acquisition of Paramount. If that goes through, that's a third legacy major Hollywood studio that is going to have you know, a full fledged gaming division at its disposable if that completes, how do you make the pitch to an entity like Paramount or you know, the new iteration of sky Dance and Paramount that they should be you know, licensing some of the IP out as well, alongside whatever they're working on with sky Dance Interactive or Skydance New Media.

I want to expand a bit on how you make that pitch to you know, a legacy Hollywood studio. As we know, Skydance is trying to complete an acquisition of Paramount. If that goes through, that's a third legacy major Hollywood studio that is going to have you know, a full fledged gaming division at its disposable if that completes, how do you make the pitch to an entity like Paramount or you know, the new iteration of sky Dance and Paramount that they should be you know, licensing some of the IP out as well, alongside whatever they're working on with sky Dance Interactive or Skydance New Media.

Yeah, I love talking about that stuff. It's I think, first of all, bandwidth is always an issue, as we see from Warner Brothers. They have a huge studio with twenty two hundred employees, and there's still hasn't been a Batman game, and at least not for PC and console in Triple A for for nearly a decade. The other thing way we look at that problem you're describing there is that, you know, I think it's about having a proposition, an opportunity for a licensed project that's just so good that it doesn't matter what else the license or which is what we call the Hollywood studio or sports franchise or that that's giving you the license, no matter what else they're working on with the IP. And I'm not joking about that. When when Project Double O seven was unveiled a few years ago, pc Gamer described it as a match made in heaven between an IP and development talent, and so we were obviously very proud of that reaction, and since then we've tried to codify what it means and why people would say that. And so one of the Triple A developers were working with on one of our upcoming projects that has not been announced yet, he taught us this fascinating idea that if you're working on adapting and established IP, you have.

Yeah, I love talking about that stuff. It's I think, first of all, bandwidth is always an issue, as we see from Warner Brothers. They have a huge studio with twenty two hundred employees, and there's still hasn't been a Batman game, and at least not for PC and console in Triple A for for nearly a decade. The other thing way we look at that problem you're describing there is that, you know, I think it's about having a proposition, an opportunity for a licensed project that's just so good that it doesn't matter what else the license or which is what we call the Hollywood studio or sports franchise or that that's giving you the license, no matter what else they're working on with the IP. And I'm not joking about that. When when Project Double O seven was unveiled a few years ago, pc Gamer described it as a match made in heaven between an IP and development talent, and so we were obviously very proud of that reaction, and since then we've tried to codify what it means and why people would say that. And so one of the Triple A developers were working with on one of our upcoming projects that has not been announced yet, he taught us this fascinating idea that if you're working on adapting and established IP, you have.

To be able to.

To be able to.

Deconstruct the sort of wishful film and fantasy of that particular IP, whether it's whether a film series or a novel or a comic book, you have to sort of deconstruct the wishful film and fantasy into its constituent parts, and then you have to be skilled enough to organically reassemble those elements in a different way, completely different way that's suitable for the Triple A interactive medium, and of course ideally in a sort of shock and all fashion that will delight the fans. This is really no easy feat. There is a real art to that kind of adaptation and it requires patients and resources and the luxury of time. And from what we've seen, when you have something like that the license source or eager to do business.

Deconstruct the sort of wishful film and fantasy of that particular IP, whether it's whether a film series or a novel or a comic book, you have to sort of deconstruct the wishful film and fantasy into its constituent parts, and then you have to be skilled enough to organically reassemble those elements in a different way, completely different way that's suitable for the Triple A interactive medium, and of course ideally in a sort of shock and all fashion that will delight the fans. This is really no easy feat. There is a real art to that kind of adaptation and it requires patients and resources and the luxury of time. And from what we've seen, when you have something like that the license source or eager to do business.

So this is maybe a little bit of a tough but necessary question. Along those lines, we have live services at play that you know, at sort of the top level, whether it's Roadblocks, Fortnite, Minecraft, and then Grand Theft, Auto and Call of Duty appealing to you know, more adult gamers. Hollywood is very very friendly with a lot of these live services, Fortnite and Roadblocks in particular. As we know, Disney invested one point five billion into Epic Games, specifically for many different IP partnerships spread throughout Fortnite. Let's say Delphi knows a studio that can pull off a really high quality Alien game that's IP you would have to get from Disney. How do you convince an entity like that that a game that could theoretically take four or five years even more, if this, you know, wish fulfillment deconstruction process takes a while, how do you sell Disney on betting on the high quality Triple A game instead of a Fortnite experience.

So this is maybe a little bit of a tough but necessary question. Along those lines, we have live services at play that you know, at sort of the top level, whether it's Roadblocks, Fortnite, Minecraft, and then Grand Theft, Auto and Call of Duty appealing to you know, more adult gamers. Hollywood is very very friendly with a lot of these live services, Fortnite and Roadblocks in particular. As we know, Disney invested one point five billion into Epic Games, specifically for many different IP partnerships spread throughout Fortnite. Let's say Delphi knows a studio that can pull off a really high quality Alien game that's IP you would have to get from Disney. How do you convince an entity like that that a game that could theoretically take four or five years even more, if this, you know, wish fulfillment deconstruction process takes a while, how do you sell Disney on betting on the high quality Triple A game instead of a Fortnite experience.

We believe that the ips that we're going after, right are some of the biggest brands in the world, right, and so when Disney or orner Brothers or any of these studios are thinking about the strategy for some of the biggest IPS. It's not just one thing that they do, right, They explore different ways to attract the different types of fans that are engaged with that IP and who love the IP. And so some of those fans are the audiences that are within roadblocks on Fortnite and who want to have those games. They're they engage with those games and they love already the experience that they have and the characters within Fortnite, and so integrating those IPS makes a lot of sense, and those are huge businesses on their own. There's also a lot of people, a lot of those fans that want single player experiences, and you know, many gamers, like us, they get overwhelmed, you know, when when they have to go into an existing game to play mode whe their favorite IP, or when a new game is coming out and it's a you know, eighty tow one hundred hour game that you know, feels intimidating. And so we think both things can coexist, not perhaps for every AP, but definitely for the things that are you know, some of the biggest brands that have a huge global fan base and that are sort of evergreen franchises that you know, they're constantly thinking about what comes next, right, and so our our philosophy in those cases is to do something different. They may already be working with Fortnite, or they may be working with other existing platforms, but we think about the single player story driven experience, and usually it starts with something that you know can be played in twelve to sixteen hours as opposed to eighty two hundred hours, and you feel a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when you're playing it. It's almost like you're bench watching your face or a new TV series or movie franchise that you love, or you know, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it has a beginning in an it's very fulfilling and and they're highly replayable, and then you know, you can have DLC content, and you can have you know, new iterations and sequels that come out after that continue that story.

We believe that the ips that we're going after, right are some of the biggest brands in the world, right, and so when Disney or orner Brothers or any of these studios are thinking about the strategy for some of the biggest IPS. It's not just one thing that they do, right, They explore different ways to attract the different types of fans that are engaged with that IP and who love the IP. And so some of those fans are the audiences that are within roadblocks on Fortnite and who want to have those games. They're they engage with those games and they love already the experience that they have and the characters within Fortnite, and so integrating those IPS makes a lot of sense, and those are huge businesses on their own. There's also a lot of people, a lot of those fans that want single player experiences, and you know, many gamers, like us, they get overwhelmed, you know, when when they have to go into an existing game to play mode whe their favorite IP, or when a new game is coming out and it's a you know, eighty tow one hundred hour game that you know, feels intimidating. And so we think both things can coexist, not perhaps for every AP, but definitely for the things that are you know, some of the biggest brands that have a huge global fan base and that are sort of evergreen franchises that you know, they're constantly thinking about what comes next, right, and so our our philosophy in those cases is to do something different. They may already be working with Fortnite, or they may be working with other existing platforms, but we think about the single player story driven experience, and usually it starts with something that you know can be played in twelve to sixteen hours as opposed to eighty two hundred hours, and you feel a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when you're playing it. It's almost like you're bench watching your face or a new TV series or movie franchise that you love, or you know, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it has a beginning in an it's very fulfilling and and they're highly replayable, and then you know, you can have DLC content, and you can have you know, new iterations and sequels that come out after that continue that story.

And so yeah, and and Corey, I think also that there is a very interesting general debate happening at the moment about live services games, which you mentioned. You know, it's it's natural that everybody wants a fortnight. There is there's an eleven or maybe even twelve figure upside to that if you can pull that out as a company, But it's also a very volatile proposition with a massive downside and massive risk. You know, as we've seen, even high quality life services games that are based on beloved ip which you believe so much in, like Avengers or Suicide Squad which we talk about earlier, can can be born as live services experiences, but can really struggle to pull away habitual users from the sort of the big five titans that you have there and the network effects they have. You know, you mentioned Roadblocks and Fortnite or Minecraft or GTA Online or or or even FIFA, and it's a it's very hard to take consumption time away from those grain franchises and and and uh and inject new life into a completely new ecosystem. And so we thought about how you can get the best of both worlds, and that a wiser and more risk managed approach to live services is to to start with a hardcore, premium, story driven, character driven single player experiences, and like io Interactive has done with transforming Hitman into it's very successful and durable world of assassination platform, or even how GGA Online was created after GGA five. And what you do is you sort of you have this strong core single play experience, and then you carefully layer on live services elements around this core, and then you expand in almost concent these concentric circles from there and create a single player as a service that can be a very very good business and very durable. We think that is a more organic approach than launching a super expensive, mega live services game and hope that people will show up.

And so yeah, and and Corey, I think also that there is a very interesting general debate happening at the moment about live services games, which you mentioned. You know, it's it's natural that everybody wants a fortnight. There is there's an eleven or maybe even twelve figure upside to that if you can pull that out as a company, But it's also a very volatile proposition with a massive downside and massive risk. You know, as we've seen, even high quality life services games that are based on beloved ip which you believe so much in, like Avengers or Suicide Squad which we talk about earlier, can can be born as live services experiences, but can really struggle to pull away habitual users from the sort of the big five titans that you have there and the network effects they have. You know, you mentioned Roadblocks and Fortnite or Minecraft or GTA Online or or or even FIFA, and it's a it's very hard to take consumption time away from those grain franchises and and and uh and inject new life into a completely new ecosystem. And so we thought about how you can get the best of both worlds, and that a wiser and more risk managed approach to live services is to to start with a hardcore, premium, story driven, character driven single player experiences, and like io Interactive has done with transforming Hitman into it's very successful and durable world of assassination platform, or even how GGA Online was created after GGA five. And what you do is you sort of you have this strong core single play experience, and then you carefully layer on live services elements around this core, and then you expand in almost concent these concentric circles from there and create a single player as a service that can be a very very good business and very durable. We think that is a more organic approach than launching a super expensive, mega live services game and hope that people will show up.

Speaking of the single player experience, I do need to clarify if any listeners were terrified by that alien hypothetical creative assembly. And Sega did just confirm a sequel to twenty fourteen's Alien Isolation is in the works, so you know that is one win on the single player front, now, I mean.

Speaking of the single player experience, I do need to clarify if any listeners were terrified by that alien hypothetical creative assembly. And Sega did just confirm a sequel to twenty fourteen's Alien Isolation is in the works, so you know that is one win on the single player front, now, I mean.

Yeah, clarifying. We were worried for a second that Fortnite would have you know, but I think I think such ips is so iconic and beloved that they can absolutely tolerate multiple incarnations to co exist at the same time. I don't know about Aliens our rated franchise, but you know where this the kids version or the Fortnite version that stylized and fun and then there's the hardcore, story driven R rated version. These can all co exist at the same time. That's one of the one of the beautiful things about Iconic IP that's lasted for a half century or longer. Sometimes.

Yeah, clarifying. We were worried for a second that Fortnite would have you know, but I think I think such ips is so iconic and beloved that they can absolutely tolerate multiple incarnations to co exist at the same time. I don't know about Aliens our rated franchise, but you know where this the kids version or the Fortnite version that stylized and fun and then there's the hardcore, story driven R rated version. These can all co exist at the same time. That's one of the one of the beautiful things about Iconic IP that's lasted for a half century or longer. Sometimes.

Yeah, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk more about some of the financial headwinds the industry has been facing this year through layoffs, as well as the mobile gaming element of the industry and why that continues to remain relevant despite the need for more high quality triple A gaming experiences. Welcome back to strictly business. I'm here with Casper Delgard from Delphi Interactive and Andy Cleman, also from Delphi. Now I want to address, you know, what's sort of the biggest elephant in the room for the year in gaming. You know, as much as we want to talk about positive developments in the industry and things people are really excited over, this has simply been a devastating year for the gaming workforce. There's one developer who goes by at DECAF who dutifully tracks all of these gaming industry layoffs across the globe. So far, it surpassed thirteen thousand in twenty twenty four, which is, you know, pretty staggering. A lot of that's come from the biggest publishers. We've seen Microsoft Gaming, you know, layoff close to two thousand this year, many from Activision Blizzard after that acquisition. When Delphi and its business model is going to rely heavily on seeking out independent studios, do you feel concerned over the degree to which really capable independent studios are seeking new parents. As you mentioned earlier with Nordis Games, we saw super Massive go to them. Super Massive is responsible for Until Dawn, which just got a remake through a different studio for Sony. They also make the Dark Pictures games for Bandai Namco. Another studio, tech Lund, which is known for Dying Light and had recently moved into self publishing, ended up being acquired by ten Cent. You know, do you still feel there are plenty of studios for you to find and work with and time is really of the essence and getting them set up with good projects.

Yeah, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk more about some of the financial headwinds the industry has been facing this year through layoffs, as well as the mobile gaming element of the industry and why that continues to remain relevant despite the need for more high quality triple A gaming experiences. Welcome back to strictly business. I'm here with Casper Delgard from Delphi Interactive and Andy Cleman, also from Delphi. Now I want to address, you know, what's sort of the biggest elephant in the room for the year in gaming. You know, as much as we want to talk about positive developments in the industry and things people are really excited over, this has simply been a devastating year for the gaming workforce. There's one developer who goes by at DECAF who dutifully tracks all of these gaming industry layoffs across the globe. So far, it surpassed thirteen thousand in twenty twenty four, which is, you know, pretty staggering. A lot of that's come from the biggest publishers. We've seen Microsoft Gaming, you know, layoff close to two thousand this year, many from Activision Blizzard after that acquisition. When Delphi and its business model is going to rely heavily on seeking out independent studios, do you feel concerned over the degree to which really capable independent studios are seeking new parents. As you mentioned earlier with Nordis Games, we saw super Massive go to them. Super Massive is responsible for Until Dawn, which just got a remake through a different studio for Sony. They also make the Dark Pictures games for Bandai Namco. Another studio, tech Lund, which is known for Dying Light and had recently moved into self publishing, ended up being acquired by ten Cent. You know, do you still feel there are plenty of studios for you to find and work with and time is really of the essence and getting them set up with good projects.

Yeah. We thankfully we have partners already set up for most of the Delphi projects we're working on. And it's a it's an interesting debate right on one end, obviously, it's it's devastating to see these layoffs and and you know, this this sort of feeling of you know, what's happening with the industry, and you know, it's a little bit of a double ed sort because there's been incredible grow over the past decade. Right, So there's all these jobs in gaming that didn't really exist five years ago, ten years ago, even you know, right before the pandemic, and so a lot of these companies grew a lot, and you know, budgets became really big, and you know, there's a number of factors that sort of got us to the situation through too many games, and so I think it opens an opportunity for companies and studios and talent that are trying to be more entrepreneurial. We are seeing a lot of great independent talent that we want to partner with, that want to partner with us, some because they're looking for an alternative to these traditional publishers. Maybe they're not as aligned with them economically or or creatively. And our model is not just alignment around the economics, but it's it's this idea of full transparency and collaboration and working on something together from day one all the way to you know, eventually becoming something that you know, there's multiple sequels or you know, very long term project, and so there's a more entrepreneurial alignment with them. And also some of these studios, you know, they maybe left the big publishers because they wanted to work on original IP and some of those projects got you know, limited capital or got you know cut because it's risky and because the cost capital is higher. And so we're seeing some of those studios and some of that talent now interested in saying we have a great team that has X skill sets and X experience for these genre of games, or we have an idea for an original AP that's very similar to the other i P that's an established i P, and we want to partner with somebody that can help us do that right. And that's our sweets up spot in terms of the kinds of things we want to do and find the right matches Made in Heaven, as we mentioned, and so yes, there's there's challenges in the industry and there's a lot of changes happening, but we do think it's a really good opportunity for companies that can be more entrepreneurial and try to sort of bet on big things, but with the right risk profile where you already know that there's an audience that's already interested in this and this this game doesn't exist, and if you can put the right pieces together of this puzzle and make it, and you have the right DNA to make it, then you know there's a big audience for it at the other end.

Yeah. We thankfully we have partners already set up for most of the Delphi projects we're working on. And it's a it's an interesting debate right on one end, obviously, it's it's devastating to see these layoffs and and you know, this this sort of feeling of you know, what's happening with the industry, and you know, it's a little bit of a double ed sort because there's been incredible grow over the past decade. Right, So there's all these jobs in gaming that didn't really exist five years ago, ten years ago, even you know, right before the pandemic, and so a lot of these companies grew a lot, and you know, budgets became really big, and you know, there's a number of factors that sort of got us to the situation through too many games, and so I think it opens an opportunity for companies and studios and talent that are trying to be more entrepreneurial. We are seeing a lot of great independent talent that we want to partner with, that want to partner with us, some because they're looking for an alternative to these traditional publishers. Maybe they're not as aligned with them economically or or creatively. And our model is not just alignment around the economics, but it's it's this idea of full transparency and collaboration and working on something together from day one all the way to you know, eventually becoming something that you know, there's multiple sequels or you know, very long term project, and so there's a more entrepreneurial alignment with them. And also some of these studios, you know, they maybe left the big publishers because they wanted to work on original IP and some of those projects got you know, limited capital or got you know cut because it's risky and because the cost capital is higher. And so we're seeing some of those studios and some of that talent now interested in saying we have a great team that has X skill sets and X experience for these genre of games, or we have an idea for an original AP that's very similar to the other i P that's an established i P, and we want to partner with somebody that can help us do that right. And that's our sweets up spot in terms of the kinds of things we want to do and find the right matches Made in Heaven, as we mentioned, and so yes, there's there's challenges in the industry and there's a lot of changes happening, but we do think it's a really good opportunity for companies that can be more entrepreneurial and try to sort of bet on big things, but with the right risk profile where you already know that there's an audience that's already interested in this and this this game doesn't exist, and if you can put the right pieces together of this puzzle and make it, and you have the right DNA to make it, then you know there's a big audience for it at the other end.

And I'll just add to that Corey that you know Andy mentioned, it's like radical transparency that we try to enforce with our with our partners, whether it's IP owners or or Independent Triple A Talent, about the fire financying about the revenue models, about everything. And we do that because we are not a gig up publisher like Ubisoft, which has twenty two thousand employees and such huge overhead costs and diversification that they just have to capture a massive share of the economic upside that's created by a game. I'd dare say it's literally ninety or ninety five percent of the upside after counting, and which can really misalign them with Independent Triple A Talent, who simply, with very few exceptions, don't receive a significant share of that upside, and maybe the incentives are so misaligned sometimes that the talent charges a man month rate with a cost plus premium and that essentially paid more the longer they take to make the game. It is creating real misalignment. So we build our models because we don't have all that overhead and baggage to create transformative outcomes for our independent Triple A partners in success so where they will probably never need a publisher again if we create something successful together, and that's something we really believed in. We're transparent about it and that I think significantly differentiates us from the legacy system and try to create some positive I mean, it's all this really sad stuff that we're seeing with the layoffs in the industry.

And I'll just add to that Corey that you know Andy mentioned, it's like radical transparency that we try to enforce with our with our partners, whether it's IP owners or or Independent Triple A Talent, about the fire financying about the revenue models, about everything. And we do that because we are not a gig up publisher like Ubisoft, which has twenty two thousand employees and such huge overhead costs and diversification that they just have to capture a massive share of the economic upside that's created by a game. I'd dare say it's literally ninety or ninety five percent of the upside after counting, and which can really misalign them with Independent Triple A Talent, who simply, with very few exceptions, don't receive a significant share of that upside, and maybe the incentives are so misaligned sometimes that the talent charges a man month rate with a cost plus premium and that essentially paid more the longer they take to make the game. It is creating real misalignment. So we build our models because we don't have all that overhead and baggage to create transformative outcomes for our independent Triple A partners in success so where they will probably never need a publisher again if we create something successful together, and that's something we really believed in. We're transparent about it and that I think significantly differentiates us from the legacy system and try to create some positive I mean, it's all this really sad stuff that we're seeing with the layoffs in the industry.

Speaking to the transparency and you know, the extent of the costs of Triple A game development, is the current sag after strike weighing on Delphi at all in terms of evaluating how you want to approach major IP at the independent studio level.

Speaking to the transparency and you know, the extent of the costs of Triple A game development, is the current sag after strike weighing on Delphi at all in terms of evaluating how you want to approach major IP at the independent studio level.

Not really. You know, being an entrepreneur, you have to understand all the challenges that an industry is going through and you know all the strikes multiple stripes we've seen in related to Hollywood and entertainment over the past few years. Are a result of all these changes, right, a lot of them, you know, because of the evolution of technology. And my whole career, I started in early days of digital music and went into film and TV and then gaming, and so evolution of technology has always been something that I've seen play a huge role on how these industries change. And you know, you have to adapt and you have to evolve. And so for us, you know, we we believe creative talent is always hugely important, probably the most important if you want to have great products that people want to consume, great games, great movies, great TV shows, great books, and so we're always aligned with the talent. But at the same time, you have to think about what's you know, how to create the best business model and evolve the business model to something that's affordable and that you can reach as many fans of the IP or the or the talent as possible. Right. And so sometimes that's the issue with big legacy companies that are not able to move as quickly or adapt to changes or change their business molle because they're not prepared and they're big, and they have all these different departments, and these departments may not even talk to each other, right, and so it's hard for them to do those things. But for us, we're very aligned with, you know, how do we bring the best possible experiences to the fans, And so we're watching what happens in the industry closely and trying to evolve the models and be prepared for whatever happens.

Not really. You know, being an entrepreneur, you have to understand all the challenges that an industry is going through and you know all the strikes multiple stripes we've seen in related to Hollywood and entertainment over the past few years. Are a result of all these changes, right, a lot of them, you know, because of the evolution of technology. And my whole career, I started in early days of digital music and went into film and TV and then gaming, and so evolution of technology has always been something that I've seen play a huge role on how these industries change. And you know, you have to adapt and you have to evolve. And so for us, you know, we we believe creative talent is always hugely important, probably the most important if you want to have great products that people want to consume, great games, great movies, great TV shows, great books, and so we're always aligned with the talent. But at the same time, you have to think about what's you know, how to create the best business model and evolve the business model to something that's affordable and that you can reach as many fans of the IP or the or the talent as possible. Right. And so sometimes that's the issue with big legacy companies that are not able to move as quickly or adapt to changes or change their business molle because they're not prepared and they're big, and they have all these different departments, and these departments may not even talk to each other, right, and so it's hard for them to do those things. But for us, we're very aligned with, you know, how do we bring the best possible experiences to the fans, And so we're watching what happens in the industry closely and trying to evolve the models and be prepared for whatever happens.

So something like user generated content, and it's growing appeal to publishers like EA, who have really come out in favor of it. Is that something that similar to sort of the heavy push to live services, you know, is that something you think is getting in the way of Delfi's you know, stated initiative to make really high quality single player games.

So something like user generated content, and it's growing appeal to publishers like EA, who have really come out in favor of it. Is that something that similar to sort of the heavy push to live services, you know, is that something you think is getting in the way of Delfi's you know, stated initiative to make really high quality single player games.

I wouldn't say it's getting in the way, because you know, there's a huge audience and market for something that's much more careful scripted. You know, it's early days, I think for a lot of these UGC Continent games or you know, chen Ai evolution of games, and again we're very interested in that stuff as a as a big geek into all these new emerging technologies. It's fascinating to see what these things can do. I think when you're trying to craft something for you know, finicky fans that love a certain i P and that one a certain story told, and that one really really high quality on everything that they do. The technology is still somewhat limited and also maybe not us accessible, but it's definitely going there. Right So our model right now is very clear. We have a slate of projects that are set up that we're really excited about with great partners with RAYP, and we believe fans will be super excited about the next generation of games we make beyond that may be a little different based on these changes, right. So it's it's something that again when you're a startup and you're a a lean company like we always aspired to be, right even after we hopefully have many successes, like we always aspired to be a very lean core of our team and be able to work with the best partners. And so if that means that some of our partners and some of the both development parts of the technology partners have you know, great emerging technologies that take great use cases of AI or UGC content, like we will help you, you know. That's that's that's part of how we are. But it's not something that is a huge priority for us in the stuff that we're already doing.

I wouldn't say it's getting in the way, because you know, there's a huge audience and market for something that's much more careful scripted. You know, it's early days, I think for a lot of these UGC Continent games or you know, chen Ai evolution of games, and again we're very interested in that stuff as a as a big geek into all these new emerging technologies. It's fascinating to see what these things can do. I think when you're trying to craft something for you know, finicky fans that love a certain i P and that one a certain story told, and that one really really high quality on everything that they do. The technology is still somewhat limited and also maybe not us accessible, but it's definitely going there. Right So our model right now is very clear. We have a slate of projects that are set up that we're really excited about with great partners with RAYP, and we believe fans will be super excited about the next generation of games we make beyond that may be a little different based on these changes, right. So it's it's something that again when you're a startup and you're a a lean company like we always aspired to be, right even after we hopefully have many successes, like we always aspired to be a very lean core of our team and be able to work with the best partners. And so if that means that some of our partners and some of the both development parts of the technology partners have you know, great emerging technologies that take great use cases of AI or UGC content, like we will help you, you know. That's that's that's part of how we are. But it's not something that is a huge priority for us in the stuff that we're already doing.

So Andy, I want to focus a little bit on your background in gaming as we close up here. You you know, you're obviously passionate about the Triple A gaming space and you know the sorts of games that are you know, big enough to take years and years to make. But you spent some time in your career at scope Ly. Now scope Ly last year was acquired by Savvy Games Group in Saudi Arabia for close to five billion. You know, that's not quite as big as the sixty nine billion for Activision Blizzard over at Microsoft, but that's still quite a lot and sort of does reach the top of the pinnacle of gaming acquisitions and other mobile companies Zinga, which I also believe you worked with for some time, that was acquired by Take two Interactive for over twelve billion a couple of years ago. What caused this pivot on your end to you know, switch from the very scale driven mobile side of the industry, which for many years now has accounted for half of the you know, entire gaming market essentially over to a more traditional space like console PC. The Triple A games defined that when you know, there are as many fraud issues as we have covered in this space.

So Andy, I want to focus a little bit on your background in gaming as we close up here. You you know, you're obviously passionate about the Triple A gaming space and you know the sorts of games that are you know, big enough to take years and years to make. But you spent some time in your career at scope Ly. Now scope Ly last year was acquired by Savvy Games Group in Saudi Arabia for close to five billion. You know, that's not quite as big as the sixty nine billion for Activision Blizzard over at Microsoft, but that's still quite a lot and sort of does reach the top of the pinnacle of gaming acquisitions and other mobile companies Zinga, which I also believe you worked with for some time, that was acquired by Take two Interactive for over twelve billion a couple of years ago. What caused this pivot on your end to you know, switch from the very scale driven mobile side of the industry, which for many years now has accounted for half of the you know, entire gaming market essentially over to a more traditional space like console PC. The Triple A games defined that when you know, there are as many fraud issues as we have covered in this space.

Yeah, It's a great question. I been in the industry a long time, and one of the things I love about games and the games industry is that it's it's constantly growing and evolving, and every time there's been sort of a new platform or technology, it doesn't necessarily replace the older ones. It just keeps expanding and growing. So I started, when I started, I was making downloadable PC games, and then I went into online multiplayer games, and then social games. That was a big part of Zinga and UH and eventually mobile also with Zinga and Scope League. And even at the time I remember, you know, we were at Zinga and the E merging. Mobile platforms were growing, and everybody was like, who's going to be the singer of mobile? Right, and Zinga wanted to be the single of mobile, uh and and and it was always, you know, an opportunity for new companies like super Sell or Scope Lead to be born. And and so I agree that obviously most of the growth has come into mobile, and most of the venture capital money and talent has focused on on on mobile, which is now pretty crowded right the free to play market, There's there's a lot of games. There's probably a lot of games in general in the industry, but particularly mobile for you to play, which is which is hard because you know, it's it's not just about making a great game, it's about you know, long term retention and monetization and things that are harder to determine even if you have a fun game until after you you're done sort of building the core of the game. And so when he came to Triple A Games, when when when Casper started working on the Chickenspawn project, and and I was helping him again as a as a friend who knew a lot about games and IP, it reminded me a lot of the similarities between the early days of Scope League and what DELFI was aspiring to do. Right Scope Lee, we started earlier looking at mobile market that was getting quickly crowded and and harder to get you know, discovered and to get you know, efficient user requisition dollars spent. And that's when we say the opportunity to partner with some big IP some of the biggest brands at the time and make games. But our core team for for Scopey at the time, which was a small team as well, we didn't have the capability to do all these different types of games we wanted to make, and so we started partnering with third party developers that were established that were really good in a particular type of game and genre, and we would combine forces and we would bring our secret sauce around marketing and distribution and things that we did well. And and that's what you know, was sort of the origin of of what became a two pointed out a really successful company in Scopey.

Yeah, It's a great question. I been in the industry a long time, and one of the things I love about games and the games industry is that it's it's constantly growing and evolving, and every time there's been sort of a new platform or technology, it doesn't necessarily replace the older ones. It just keeps expanding and growing. So I started, when I started, I was making downloadable PC games, and then I went into online multiplayer games, and then social games. That was a big part of Zinga and UH and eventually mobile also with Zinga and Scope League. And even at the time I remember, you know, we were at Zinga and the E merging. Mobile platforms were growing, and everybody was like, who's going to be the singer of mobile? Right, and Zinga wanted to be the single of mobile, uh and and and it was always, you know, an opportunity for new companies like super Sell or Scope Lead to be born. And and so I agree that obviously most of the growth has come into mobile, and most of the venture capital money and talent has focused on on on mobile, which is now pretty crowded right the free to play market, There's there's a lot of games. There's probably a lot of games in general in the industry, but particularly mobile for you to play, which is which is hard because you know, it's it's not just about making a great game, it's about you know, long term retention and monetization and things that are harder to determine even if you have a fun game until after you you're done sort of building the core of the game. And so when he came to Triple A Games, when when when Casper started working on the Chickenspawn project, and and I was helping him again as a as a friend who knew a lot about games and IP, it reminded me a lot of the similarities between the early days of Scope League and what DELFI was aspiring to do. Right Scope Lee, we started earlier looking at mobile market that was getting quickly crowded and and harder to get you know, discovered and to get you know, efficient user requisition dollars spent. And that's when we say the opportunity to partner with some big IP some of the biggest brands at the time and make games. But our core team for for Scopey at the time, which was a small team as well, we didn't have the capability to do all these different types of games we wanted to make, and so we started partnering with third party developers that were established that were really good in a particular type of game and genre, and we would combine forces and we would bring our secret sauce around marketing and distribution and things that we did well. And and that's what you know, was sort of the origin of of what became a two pointed out a really successful company in Scopey.

Right.

Right.

So that's the similarity and the and the inspiration with del Fi. Right. We see that, yes, the Triple A is much more established and seems like more traditional, but not in the way that we're doing it. The way that we're doing it is it has never been done. Right, This this analogy that I gave earlier about legendary or you know, a company that's trying to do really big Triple A games and a slate of multiple Triple A games with the biggest ap outside of the traditional publisher infrastructure that doesn't exist, and so we we aspire to also do something new and innovative like that done before. In my career with Delpha as well.

So that's the similarity and the and the inspiration with del Fi. Right. We see that, yes, the Triple A is much more established and seems like more traditional, but not in the way that we're doing it. The way that we're doing it is it has never been done. Right, This this analogy that I gave earlier about legendary or you know, a company that's trying to do really big Triple A games and a slate of multiple Triple A games with the biggest ap outside of the traditional publisher infrastructure that doesn't exist, and so we we aspire to also do something new and innovative like that done before. In my career with Delpha as well.

Well, thank you so much Casper and Anti for you know, giving us the vision of what Delphi Interactive is aspiring to.

Well, thank you so much Casper and Anti for you know, giving us the vision of what Delphi Interactive is aspiring to.

Thank you so much for having us on, Corey.

Thank you so much for having us on, Corey.

It's great talking to you.

It's great talking to you.

Yeah, great talking to you too.

Yeah, great talking to you too.

Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business

Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business