0:00 All right, I have been waiting for this 0:01 one because if you have ever felt like 0:03 you are doing everything right in UEFN, 0:06 but your map still is not hitting, this 0:08 episode is going to change how you think 0:10 about building. Brian Grayson, also 0:12 known as Lionheart, is one of the few 0:14 people in our space who has actually 0:15 lived the studio world, publishing 0:17 world, and now he is applying that 0:19 structure to Fortnite UEFN. And he says 0:22 a few things in this conversation that 0:24 every creator needs to hear. 0:25 >> A mix of intuition and data is healthy. 0:28 Emotion is not. And so when you're 0:29 working on a game, you really need to be 0:32 honest with yourself. If it didn't work 0:34 out the way you want, it's very easy to 0:36 just be like, "Well, it didn't work out 0:38 because of something else." But but the 0:39 data is telling you the story. 0:41 >> That is the mindset shift right there. 0:44 And then he drops the next part about 0:46 analytics that I think is going to 0:47 reframe how a lot of you look at 0:49 launches. 0:50 >> We did Paladins Strike, and the day we 0:52 launched it, shattered every record at 0:53 Hi-Rez. It had the highest DAU we'd ever 0:55 have. The retention was incredible. It 0:57 looked like it was going to be a winner. 0:58 The monetization was not strong, so we 1:00 knew we needed to improve, but like it 1:02 looked really good. A week later, it 1:03 didn't look anything like that. And it's 1:05 because your most qualified players, the 1:07 people who are your biggest fans, what I 1:08 call brand ambassadors, are going to 1:10 come in that first day, and they're 1:12 going to artificially inflate your 1:13 metrics, and that's not your true base. 1:15 >> If you care about building maps that 1:17 actually last, not just spikes for a 1:18 day, you are going to love this episode. 1:22 Let's get into it. 1:24 >> This is Creative Juice. 1:26 >> All right, I think we're live. We're in. 1:28 Brian, how's it going? 1:30 >> Hey man, it's good. How are you? 1:31 >> happy to have you, man. This is a treat 1:33 for anyone watching, man. Brian is like 1:35 one of those few people in Fortnite UEFN 1:38 who's like actually run major studio 1:40 big games, and now he's like 1:42 applying that level of structure and 1:44 publishing thinking to UGC. So like 1:46 super happy to have you, super to like 1:48 pick your brain today. 1:50 >> Well, thanks for having me. I'm very 1:51 excited to be on the show. I am a 1:52 long-time fan. I have watched all your 1:54 episodes. So I I I remember like maybe 1:58 like the third episode I was like, "I'd 1:59 love to get on this someday." 2:01 >> Yeah. 2:02 >> Finally living my own dream by being on 2:04 here, which is really exciting. 2:05 >> Bro, dude, thank you so much for the 2:06 support. And yeah, I think you even gave 2:08 feedback that like I used. It was It was 2:10 helpful. And that goes for even 2:11 listening, man. That feedback A lot of 2:13 people are scared and nervous. Please 2:14 send send those things like like you 2:16 did. And And just that, man. We I think 2:18 we're This month 10. We're almost to 1 2:21 year in. 2:22 >> Crazy, dude. 2:22 >> Um at 2:23 >> Where's the time, though? 2:24 >> I don't know, man. It's It's been nuts. 2:26 Um and I don't know, it's been a fun 2:27 ride. And being able to talk to just 2:29 people that have been innovating in this 2:30 space is is a dream. So, it's fortunate, 2:32 man. Thanks. Thanks again. 2:34 >> Yeah. Yeah, you've had some great 2:35 guests. Thank you for doing it. 2:37 Seriously, it's a it's a huge service to 2:38 the community of for us to be able to 2:40 learn about people's different 2:41 perspectives and and level up 2:43 collectively. It's just like a really 2:44 awesome place. And there's no one else 2:46 doing it. I mean, you are You are the 2:48 man. Like truly, you are the man. 2:50 >> My ego can't handle this. But no, it You 2:52 know what? It's just like we have these 2:54 conversations on the side sometimes, you 2:56 know what I mean? Like when we go to 2:57 vents or you know, whatever calls or 2:59 stuff. And so, I love I love being able 3:01 to like just make this public. And like, 3:02 "Hey, this is These are the things that 3:04 are going on or behind the scenes like 3:05 Unreal Fest Those Those events These 3:07 This is kind of those talks you can you 3:09 can have." So, anyway, man. Again, thank 3:11 you. So, I want to start off with your 3:13 story a little bit because you've had a 3:15 really interesting arc into this world. 3:17 You have a pretty unusual career path. 3:20 You started as a lawyer, then jumping 3:22 into video games, and eventually leading 3:23 a Fortnite Creative program. Can you 3:25 take us through that journey a little 3:27 bit? Like how does one go from 3:28 practicing law to making games for a 3:30 living? 3:30 >> It's crazy, dude. I've I've I've been a 3:32 lifelong gamer. And I think you hear 3:34 that a lot, actually. Even people who 3:36 come from diverse backgrounds, it's 3:38 like, "Well, what what is What unites us 3:39 all?" We We love video games, right? 3:41 Which is It's the way we bond. It's It's 3:43 our social activity. It's really 3:45 enjoyable. And so, when I was in law 3:46 school, and I won't say what year that 3:48 was. 3:49 >> Yeah, we don't don't age us. 3:51 >> When I When I was in law school 3:53 you start Well, you're going to be able 3:54 to figure it out now. But StarCraft II 3:56 came out and and I actually worked with 3:57 a team and we released the top 4:01 user-generated content game in StarCraft 4:03 II all the way back in the day for the 4:04 first year. It was called Storm of the 4:05 Imperial Sanctum. And it was a MOBA. It 4:08 was riding the rave when like League of 4:10 Legends was starting to catch momentum, 4:11 but still in the early days. Heroes of 4:13 Newerth was still out there. Dota II 4:15 hadn't even been made yet. And we we 4:17 made this MOBA and I didn't actually do 4:18 any technical work on the project. I did 4:20 a little bit of design work and mostly 4:22 community building esports. And and I 4:24 just I really fell in love with it. I I 4:26 just had such a great time working on 4:28 this game and and I had never really 4:30 considered a career path. You know, I 4:31 was like, this is just something I'm 4:32 going to do with my free time. And so 4:34 when I graduated law school, I worked at 4:36 Foley & Lardner, which is a a mega law 4:38 firm. It's like over 2,000 attorneys all 4:40 over the world. Yeah, it's huge. It's 4:42 called big law. So really really like a 4:44 great job to get out of law school. 4:46 Well, and and but they hire everybody at 4:48 the same time. And I went to law school 4:50 in Wisconsin. So you have something 4:51 called the state bar privilege, which 4:53 means I didn't have to take the state 4:55 bar. But they all hire at the same time. 4:57 So I had the whole summer off after 4:58 graduation. And 5:00 a billion things I could have done, you 5:01 know, learn a martial art or get in 5:02 shape. And instead what I did is I built 5:04 a PC and I started streaming on this 5:05 weird website called justin.tv. 5:08 >> Oh, wow. The original Twitch. Let's go. 5:10 Wow, that's OG. 5:13 >> I think the Twitch website actually 5:14 still worked then, but 5:15 >> Yeah. 5:16 >> I was streaming and I played CS when I 5:18 was young and I was looking for a CS:GO 5:19 key in my email and it had not released 5:22 yet. Instead I found this key for this 5:23 game called Smite that was in alpha. And 5:25 I remember I looked at this game and I 5:27 said, "Dude, this is the ugliest game I 5:29 have ever seen. Who's going to play 5:31 this?" And my friend Francis Ngan who 5:34 works He's actually a VP over at 100 5:36 Thieves. 5:38 At the time we were just, you know, just 5:39 two kids doing whatever. And and he told 5:42 me he said, "I think that game is pretty 5:43 good actually. You should try it." I 5:44 said, "Okay. I trust my friends. I'm 5:45 going to try it." And I played it, and 5:47 it was awesome. Like it was ugly, but it 5:50 was awesome. And I was like, this is 5:51 going to be the game I stream. So I 5:53 streaming it, and I got reached out to 5:56 by various people who worked in Hi-Rez. 5:58 I was like, okay, this is a cool 5:58 opportunity. And back then you couldn't 6:00 really make money well off Twitch unless 6:01 you were super big, so it was just 6:03 something you did for fun. And um and I 6:05 got this email from a community manager 6:07 who basically said, "Hey, um you know, 6:08 tell me how you think you can you know, 6:10 what you think of the game." And and I 6:11 was a you know, in my early 20s and 6:13 pretty overconfident. And I I wrote this 6:15 crazy email. It was like three pages 6:17 long that was like, "Here's why your 6:18 game's gone in a circle in the last 6 6:20 months, and here's how you break the 6:21 cycle and grow it." And I closed it with 6:23 something stupid like, "Hey, people pay 6:24 me like $250 an hour for my time, so you 6:27 should really listen to me, you know." 6:29 They paid me that. They paid the firm 6:30 that. I didn't make anything like that. 6:32 Um but but that's what I wrote, and I 6:33 got an email back from Erez Goren, who 6:36 was the uh CEO at the time and the 6:38 founder of Hi-Rez Studios, actually 6:40 co-founder with Todd Harris. And he um 6:43 he said, "Hey, you seem pretty 6:43 knowledgeable. Do you work in games?" 6:45 And I um no, you know, I'm just a some 6:46 lawyer dude, and I stream your game. And 6:49 he's like, "Well, how about you uh you 6:50 join Hi-Rez, and you can be the lead 6:52 designer on Smite. And I'll pay you 6:53 this, and you can come on board, and 6:55 we're taking in this investment from 6:57 this company that's really big from 6:59 China that's also invested behind League 7:01 of Legends, Tencent, which everybody 7:02 knows. And there was like this just 7:04 really cool opportunity there." And I 7:07 I wrote him back and was like, "Nah, I 7:08 make more as a lawyer." 7:12 I can't believe this was my answer. 7:13 >> You're that confident, Ali? That's 7:14 crazy. That's amazing. 7:16 >> I mean, my thought was as I had just got 7:18 to law school. I had law school debt, 7:19 right? I had to earn my own way. And so 7:21 I um 7:22 I was like, I you know, it just doesn't 7:23 make sense. But here's what I'll do. 7:25 This is what I told him. I said, "This 7:26 I'll do some esports commentary. I can't 7:28 do professional gaming anymore. I don't 7:30 have the time. But I'm kind of enjoying 7:32 streaming. I'd love to try esports 7:34 commentary and help you build up that 7:36 scene. And also, I'll help you design 7:38 Smite for free. We can just do it by 7:40 email, because if you make a better 7:41 game, I have a better game to play. You 7:43 don't need to pay me for that. And he 7:45 tried one more time and then realized it 7:47 wasn't going to work. He said, "Okay, 7:48 fine. Let's do that." So, for a year, 7:49 dude, while I worked at Foley, on nights 7:51 and weekends, I would commentate Smite. 7:54 I traveled all over the world to do like 7:56 e-sports competitions and help them 7:58 figure it out. And then I would design 7:59 Smite through emails with Eros. And some 8:01 days we would have only one email, some 8:03 days we would have 20 emails. I mean, we 8:04 really traded a lot. And and after a 8:06 year, this partner comes into my office 8:09 and he drops this massive binder on my 8:11 desk. And he goes, "Dude, you are the 8:13 new expert on the Affordable Care Act." 8:16 I said, "What? 8:17 I don't know anything about the 8:18 Affordable Care Act. What are you 8:19 talking about?" He's like, "You're the 8:20 You're the new what? The person who was 8:21 the expert left. It's going to be you. 8:23 You're going to be the new associate who 8:24 does this." And I wrote to Eros. I said, 8:26 "Okay, the fun is over, you know. I've 8:27 really enjoyed this. I've loved it. Like 8:29 truly loved it. But I'm I got to be out, 8:32 dude. I got to take care of my career. I 8:33 didn't hit my my minimum billable hours 8:35 for the year. I'm not going to get a 8:36 raise. Like I need to be working harder 8:38 at the law firm than I have been." And 8:41 Eros wrote back to me and said, "What if 8:42 you were our lawyer?" And and I said I 8:44 looked into it. I said, "Okay. I could 8:46 do this." And he's like he's like, 8:48 "Here's what I'll get you." And it's 8:49 still less than I was making, but it 8:51 wasn't as much less. And I I was already 8:54 hooked. 8:55 >> Yeah. 8:55 >> it. I I think everyone thought I was 8:57 crazy. My mom told me, "What are you 8:58 doing?" 8:58 >> Yeah. 8:59 >> And I I quit my job in Wisconsin. I 9:02 moved to Atlanta and I started working 9:05 in games. And my first week on the job, 9:06 Eros goes, "Okay, help me design this 9:08 game." So, I thought I was the lawyer. 9:09 >> You ended up winning anyways, right? I 9:11 mean, yeah. 9:12 >> Three jobs I was doing law, business 9:14 development, and game design. And when I 9:16 came in full time the company, I mean, 9:18 when I was consulting with them it was 9:19 maybe 40. But when I came in full time 9:21 it was around 60 people. And the first 9:23 two and a half years we grew to over 250 9:24 people. It was crazy. And I was part of 9:27 the executive leadership team. So, I got 9:30 to have this great visibility into all 9:32 the problems that game studios have when 9:34 they're growing, the problems you have 9:36 with live service games. Um I also got 9:38 to be the lead designer on the minimum 9:40 viable for Paladins. We were working on 9:43 that actually before Overwatch was 9:44 announced. I remember that one. We went 9:46 to Whole Foods, ate chocolate, and 9:47 debated whether we'd kill the game. We 9:49 agreed to kill it, and then the next day 9:51 Erez came in and was like, "Nah, screw 9:52 that. We're going to do it." And I was 9:53 like, 9:55 >> That's wild. 9:57 >> So, and I remember because the the 9:59 reason Paladins has cards is I was 10:01 talking with Erez, and he was like, "We 10:03 should figure out a way to sell guns." 10:04 And nobody would let you do that, but I 10:05 was in a Hearthstone at the time. I was 10:07 like, "But you know what people will let 10:08 you sell? They'll let you sell cards." 10:09 And he's like, "No way." And I was like, 10:10 "Yeah." And that day he spent the whole 10:12 day walking around the studio asking 10:13 people, "Would you buy a gun?" They're 10:14 like, "No." And they're like, "Would you 10:15 buy a card?" "Yeah." And that's how 10:16 Paladins got cards. Little insider info. 10:18 >> Dude, oh my god. Dude, your nuggets are 10:20 great, man. That's wild. 10:23 >> So, um so I I was with Hi-Rez for a 10:25 little over 7 years full-time, and I 10:28 left in 2019. Yeah, 2019. The company 10:31 had gotten really big. It was 450 10:33 people. I had hired an ex-colleague at 10:35 Fully to take over law, and I moved into 10:37 publishing and R&D. And so, I got the 10:38 opportunity to work across our 10:40 publishing. At my peak responsibility, I 10:43 had three teams in Shenzhen, China, that 10:45 reported into me that were external. 10:47 They were doing R&D research for us in 10:48 mobile. I had a team in Salt Lake City, 10:50 and then I had internal teams that I was 10:51 collaborating with. And so, I got to 10:53 really learn a lot about operating on a 10:55 global scale and working with 10:57 individuals all over the world and and 10:59 on all kinds of different projects. And 11:01 it was very, very rewarding work. The 11:03 reason I left is because I wanted to try 11:06 and make an anime game studio. And so, I 11:08 did that. I I left. I raised money from 11:10 Erez. I ran an anime game studio for 4 11:13 years. And then after that, I 11:15 transitioned into UE4. 11:16 >> Geez, dude. That is a crazy story, man. 11:19 Wow, dude. I got so much so much to 11:21 unpack on that one. Wow. So, G like do 11:24 you think how much do you think law 11:27 helps out in in in gaming? Like 11:29 >> I actually like a lot. Like I actually 11:32 think more than people realize because 11:34 what is law? At the end of the day, it's 11:36 logic reasoning. What is programming? 11:38 It's logic reasoning. What is good 11:40 design? It's logical design. Not not 11:43 always. Sometimes actually I tell people 11:45 a fun fun nugget of knowledge is the 11:46 worst Smite ever rated from our players 11:49 was when it was perfectly balanced and 11:51 like every character had like a 50% win 11:53 rate and people were the most upset. 11:55 People actually don't like perfect 11:56 balance. It's better to have some things 11:58 that are strong and some things are 12:00 weak. Little tidbit for everyone. 12:01 >> Well, Fortnite does that a lot, so yeah. 12:04 Yeah. 12:04 >> It's important. It's important. People 12:06 say they want perfect balance, but they 12:08 mean something else. 12:09 >> Yeah. 12:10 >> So I actually think it's very helpful 12:12 and it also helps me navigate 12:13 conversations on the business side, 12:16 right? I'm not uncomfortable around 12:18 lawyers. I speak the same language, 12:19 right? I'm not uncomfortable around 12:21 business executives. I'm not 12:22 uncomfortable around clients. And so I 12:24 can put things together and view it from 12:26 both a business perspective, a game 12:28 developer perspective, a game publishing 12:30 perspective, and a legal perspective. 12:31 And I think having that 360 view of how 12:34 things work and what issues could appear 12:36 on each side is very 12:37 >> Yeah. So I'm actually curious where like 12:39 this is it moment actually happens for 12:42 people. So I always kind of ask some 12:44 this question. Like what was that moment 12:45 you knew you wanted to be in game 12:47 development? Were there like particular 12:48 games or experiences at Hi-Rez that made 12:50 you say, "All right, this is my calling 12:52 now." I guess you kind of talked about 12:54 this though already. So I don't know if 12:55 you 12:56 >> Yeah, I think it was less the game. I 12:59 think it was more that I realized I 13:02 could do it, right? Like it was just 13:03 like, "Oh my god, this is actually a 13:05 career I can do." I never once in all 13:09 the years that I was growing up 13:10 considered it. I went to law school to 13:11 join the FBI. 13:13 >> Yeah. 13:13 >> I thought I was 13:14 I thought I was going to join the FBI. I 13:16 went worked in big law and then I went 13:17 to games. Like I think you just have to 13:19 be open and honest with yourself about 13:21 what is that what is it that you love 13:23 and you're passionate about and chase 13:25 that because people get too caught up in 13:27 money and the reality is if you're good 13:29 at something, you'll make money doing 13:31 it. You really need to find something 13:32 that brings you joy. I tell people, I 13:34 make this joke, I haven't worked since 13:36 January of 2014. That's when I went 13:39 full-time at Hi-Rez because I love what 13:41 I do. I don't wake up and feel like, "I 13:43 got to go to work today." Like I love 13:45 making games and I think having that 13:47 your sample, that was the most 13:48 >> Yeah. No, and that and that makes 13:50 perfect sense, man. I I I I 13:51 I feel the same same way. It is just 13:54 once once you're when I was in gaming, I 13:56 just felt like this is where I needed to 13:57 be, what I wanted to do and it didn't 13:59 feel like work. Some days feel like 14:00 work, I will say, but majority of them 14:03 you know, if you remind yourself you're 14:04 like, "Dude, I'm not in the oil field. 14:06 I'm not doing these crappy jobs, dude." 14:09 Like this is this is amazing. You get to 14:10 wake up and and do this and make and 14:12 make games for people that love to play 14:14 them. It's the best. 14:16 >> Yeah. I agree, totally. There's nothing 14:18 like it. I mean, the reality is 14:19 >> Yeah, there there really isn't. So, 14:21 you've seen the industry from obviously 14:23 so many different angles. Like you 14:24 helped grow Hi-Rez studio when it was 14:27 exploding with games with Smite and 14:28 Paladins. Now you're at Ghost Gaming 14:31 doing something totally new with 14:33 Fortnite. Like what lessons from Hi-Rez 14:35 days are you bringing into Fortnite? 14:37 >> I will I there there's so many. It would 14:39 take me forever to list them, but I'll 14:41 give you like like a sampling. So, first 14:43 of all, um um one of the things that I I 14:46 I typically bring early is is a mix of 14:49 intuition and data is healthy. 14:50 Emotion is not. And so, when you're 14:52 working on a game, you really need to be 14:55 honest with yourself. You know, you you 14:57 may have a strong intuition on you need 14:59 to do this or that, but you need to 15:00 measure it. You need to set clear goals. 15:02 And and when you measure it, if it 15:04 didn't work out the way you want, it's 15:05 very easy to just be like, "Well, it 15:07 didn't work out cuz of something else." 15:09 But like 15:09 >> Yeah. 15:10 >> the data is telling you the story, 15:11 right? Players act through their right 15:14 they they they act and then you need to 15:15 read that and and adapt. So, so I think 15:18 that's one thing. Another thing is that 15:19 related to data, retention is your most 15:21 important metric. If your game doesn't 15:23 retain, it's it's not going to work. And 15:26 retention is different by genre, it's 15:28 different by platform, and so you need 15:30 to look at benchmarks and relative to 15:32 what you're trying to build. But at the 15:34 end of the day, if you can't retain 15:36 players, that says that your game is not 15:38 fun. And there's another lesson there, 15:40 which is if your day one retention 15:42 specifically is not good, it's very hard 15:44 to improve that. 15:45 >> Oh, yeah. 15:45 >> It's very, very hard to improve that. 15:47 And I see people war against this all 15:49 the time. I'll make it better. I see the 15:51 >> Yeah. 15:52 >> marketing. No, no, no, no, there's 15:53 something fundamentally wrong with what 15:55 you built. 15:56 >> Yeah. 15:56 >> And you have such a strong vision for it 15:57 that it is going to be hard for you to 15:59 detach from that and do something else. 16:01 There's a phrase we learn in creative 16:03 writing. I went to the University of 16:04 Iowa and studied that, which is kill 16:06 your darlings. 16:07 >> Yeah. Yeah. 16:08 >> You can fall in love with something and 16:10 that's fine, but you you really need to 16:11 let go if the data doesn't look good. 16:14 >> Yeah. 16:15 >> Three other things I'll give. I'll just 16:17 >> Oh. Yeah. 16:18 >> I just the the love out there for 16:19 people. If you're not uncomfortable with 16:21 the first doubt, you worked on it too 16:22 long. 16:23 >> Yeah. 16:23 >> It's just that simple. There's nothing 16:24 else to say. You should be a little 16:26 uncomfortable with your first doubt, 16:27 otherwise you were working on it for too 16:29 long. 16:29 >> Yeah. 16:30 >> Players in your community are going to 16:32 be great at telling you that there's a 16:34 problem, but they are horrible at 16:37 telling you what the problem is 16:38 >> Yeah. 16:38 >> and how to solve it. So, do not listen 16:41 to that stuff. 16:42 And and I'll give you an example. We we 16:44 recently shipped Super Pet World, and in 16:46 our early playtest um for Super Pet 16:48 World, we had players telling us combat 16:50 takes too long. And and I remember um 16:52 several folks in the room giving me 16:53 suggestions on how we can speed up 16:55 combat, and I paused them and I said, 16:56 "The problem is not that combat takes 16:58 too long. The problem is that combat is 17:00 not fun. 17:01 >> Yeah. 17:01 >> We haven't made it fun yet. And so, 17:03 people are telling us it takes too long 17:05 because they're not having fun. If we 17:07 shorten it, it will not solve the 17:08 problem. 17:09 >> Yeah. 17:09 >> We need to figure out how to make it 17:11 fun. And we iterated on it, and we did, 17:13 I think, end up solving it. I'm biased, 17:15 of course. But like, that's an example, 17:17 right? Where like, what the player the 17:18 players were telling us there was a 17:19 problem, but they were wrong about what 17:21 the problem was and they were going and 17:23 the solution would have been wrong. And 17:25 there are the the last thing I'll say 17:27 from Hi-Rez is watch out for sunk cost 17:29 fallacy. 17:29 >> Yeah, 17:31 uh well we we maybe did it too fast at 17:33 Hi-Rez. Kind of had a reputation for ah 17:35 they're going to kill this game again. 17:36 Hi-Rez, they got a good game and they 17:38 always kill it. 17:38 >> Yeah, of course. You thought it was a 17:40 good game cuz you were playing it, but 17:41 the reality is the data says it's not a 17:43 good game. No one else wants to play it 17:44 and like that's okay. There can be 17:46 things for you that are not for 17:47 everyone, but like it's very easy to be 17:49 like we worked on this for 6 months, a 17:51 year, 2 years, whatever it is and and to 17:54 feel an obligation to keep going. And if 17:56 you have signal that tells you this 17:58 thing doesn't work, you are only 18:00 self-harming by continuing to try and 18:04 work on it. And again, I mean, it's a 18:06 choice, right? If your goal is not 18:07 financial outcome, it's just you have 18:09 something you want to build, fine, keep 18:11 working on it. But if your goal is 18:12 financial outcome, if you're running a 18:13 business 18:14 >> Yeah. 18:15 >> um and the signal is weak, you need to 18:17 get off of it. You need to get off of 18:18 it. 18:18 >> Yeah. Straight up. 18:20 No, those are great. That's that's 18:22 amazing. Like there's so much to learn 18:23 here. So like first off, the retention, 18:26 you know, we we 18:27 I think it's a few months ago now we got 18:29 actual retention. Like we haven't even 18:30 really had real retention metrics. Like 18:33 we we could we did, but we had to kind 18:34 of like, you know, now they give us 18:36 straight up D1, D7. 18:38 >> You can compare. 18:39 >> And you can see and I love that you said 18:41 this. You're you need to not just look 18:43 at like the top game. And okay, we're 18:45 still LeBron at 50% retention, right? 18:47 Like that's freaking crazy. It's crazy, 18:49 right? But if you're building a practice 18:51 map, you need to be looking at the top 18:52 practice maps who are around 25, 30% 18:56 retention. So 100% I I love that. What 18:59 what I want to piggyback on that and 19:01 maybe so let's and again, kill your 19:04 darlings. I love that saying it and and 19:05 agree. There is a time where you're like 19:07 your game like first to market or time 19:09 to market, too. Do not spend 6 months, a 19:12 year on these games. You got to get them 19:14 out in a few months, get it out there, 19:16 see if players are interested, and then 19:18 if they are, then then go all in on that 19:20 game and continue. 19:21 >> And by the way, it's not always that you 19:23 need to ship it. You know, and I'll give 19:25 you I'll use Super Pet World again as 19:27 the example. We worked on that game for 19:29 a year, but we started testing it 19:31 >> massive game though, too, by the way. 19:33 That that you have a lot of content in 19:35 that game. Yeah. 19:36 >> It is big and and we really tried to 19:38 push the limits of what the tool can do. 19:40 But but the point I want to emphasize is 19:41 that by the second month, we were 19:44 bringing in local Fortnite players and 19:47 testing it with them and getting their 19:48 feedback. And the first version actually 19:50 didn't look anything like the version we 19:51 shipped. It was 19:52 >> That's super smart. 19:53 >> of like Yeah, it was more of like an AFK 19:54 auto battler. Like the combat would just 19:57 resolve itself. You didn't have to do 19:58 anything. It sucked. Nobody liked it. 20:00 And we would have If we had worked on 20:02 that for a year, we would have totally 20:03 missed. But because we found out it 20:05 sucked, we were able to adjust, pivot, 20:08 and by month three, we had a pretty good 20:10 formula that we were improving on. And 20:12 so, you can work on like a long duration 20:14 project, but you cannot work on it in 20:16 isolation privately 20:18 >> Yeah. 20:18 >> And and spoiler, your friends, your your 20:21 family, they're all going to tell you 20:23 it's great cuz they don't want to hurt 20:24 your feelings. Do not get those people 20:26 to give you the feedback. Like that's 20:27 self-biased. 20:28 >> No, that's a great like while you're 20:30 building again, he's a lawyer, he knows, 20:32 make sure you get your NDAs before you 20:33 do some testing or whatever, you know 20:35 what I mean? But But that's a great 20:37 advice with a month or two to see what 20:39 how what people are saying and I I 20:40 there's a few friends that I've had from 20:42 day one in this ecosystem and I think a 20:45 big reason we're friends is cuz they are 20:46 not afraid to tell me it sucks or to 20:49 speak their mind, and that is so 20:50 valuable having in your corner. And 20:53 people with you work with as well. And 20:54 and obviously there are ways to nicely 20:56 say feedback. You don't have to be mean. 20:58 Even though with when it's with your 21:00 friends, it's it's fun. 21:01 Um 21:02 >> Don't tell somebody, "Hey, I mean, 21:03 unless you're it's endearing to say this 21:05 sucks." Maybe maybe, you know, I I think 21:07 a good rule of thumb is like say why you 21:09 don't like it and even if your 21:11 suggestion may not be the thing they 21:13 take, maybe what you would be looking 21:14 for so they have the information to 21:16 process. 21:16 >> For sure. It never feels good when 21:17 somebody's like, I can't believe you 21:18 made this. 21:19 >> Yeah. 21:20 Thanks. What do I do with that? Like I I 21:22 get you don't 21:23 like it. What don't you like about it? 21:24 >> What actionable feedback do I have from 21:26 this? Yeah. That That's just it. It's 21:28 It's, you know, no trying to filter out 21:31 those comments and it's one person's 21:33 saying too and I love that you said 21:34 that. You kind of got to like kind of 21:37 read through it. You're the game 21:38 developer, you know your limitations in 21:40 the engine. You got to kind of got to 21:42 read the feedback and and, you know, 21:44 they might they might be telling you 21:46 something different than what they're 21:47 actually saying. Um and it's going to 21:49 your metrics and and and and continue to 21:52 hear other people's uh voices. What I 21:54 wanted to ask on top of that though is 21:56 so say a a creator, they are getting a 21:59 decent average play time retention, but 22:02 it's not like hitting discovery. So 22:04 talked about like killing your game. 22:06 What would you maybe do or any any tips 22:08 for creators like if they're kind of 22:10 like on that play. We see that all the 22:11 time like, "Hey, look my game's getting 22:13 this or that." And obviously when you 22:14 have such a small pool of players, 22:16 you're going to have inflated numbers. 22:18 But But you know, still like maybe if 22:20 you have I don't know if you have any 22:21 tips or advice on this. It's a kind of a 22:23 curveball question for you. 22:24 >> No, no, no. It's a It's a great 22:26 question. And also by the way, a great 22:27 lesson that you just shared that I want 22:29 to make sure people don't accidentally 22:32 gloss over, which is that your metrics, 22:35 whatever you're achieving at low volume, 22:37 it's only going to go down as you scale. 22:39 It does not go up. And also your early 22:41 day launch metrics, like I remember we 22:43 did I did this game called Paladins 22:45 Strike at 22:47 at Hi-Rez. It's a mobile version of 22:48 Paladins that was very similar to Brawl 22:49 Stars. At the time when Brawl Stars was 22:51 not doing well. We were actually 22:52 competing head-to-head. Obviously they 22:55 makes me sad, but 22:56 >> My god, yeah. If you take over Brawl 22:57 Stars. 22:58 >> I remember going to the Brawl Stars 23:00 Reddit and seeing like they switched 23:01 from portrait to landscape and their 23:03 community hated them. And they turned 23:05 that around. Like, still one of the most 23:06 impressive turnarounds of all time. 23:08 Frank is a god. But anyways, when we 23:11 were doing Paladins Strike, we launched 23:12 it and and the day we launched it, 23:14 shattered every record at Hi-Rez. It had 23:15 the highest DAU it ever had. The 23:17 retention was incredible. It looked like 23:19 it was going to be a winner. The 23:20 monetization was not strong. So, we knew 23:22 we needed to improve. But like, it 23:23 looked really good. A week later, it 23:25 didn't look anything like that. And it's 23:27 because your most qualified players, the 23:28 people who are your biggest fans, what I 23:30 call brand ambassadors, are going to 23:32 come in that first day and they're going 23:34 to artificially inflate your metrics. 23:35 And that's not your true base. And so, 23:37 you you need to have a level head about 23:39 it and realize like, "Hey, if your goal 23:41 is 30% day one retention and that's what 23:44 you have when you launch, that's not 23:45 really what you have and there's work to 23:47 be done if that's what you want to have 23:49 long-term." I think for the um to to go 23:51 back to your question, I think for the 23:52 creators who are trying to figure out, 23:55 "How do I win in discover?" There are so 23:57 many variables that matter, 23:59 unfortunately for you. It's it's a very 24:01 complex thing, and also a beautiful 24:03 thing, which we'll talk about more 24:04 later. But like, 24:06 it could be your thumbnail. It could be 24:07 the name of your game. It could be the 24:09 other metadata related to your game. It 24:12 also could be that, you know, while you 24:14 may have high session length, you're 24:16 actually losing a lot of players, right? 24:18 Are you looking at your session length 24:19 graph and is it It's always going to be 24:21 high at the at the start cuz people 24:23 install, "Oh, this game isn't for me." 24:24 and they leave, right? You're never 24:25 going to have flatten that completely. 24:26 But like, does the curve look healthy on 24:29 the longer tail out, right? 5 minutes, 24:31 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. 24:33 Or is it pretty pretty low there and and 24:36 pretty high at like pre-5 minute like 5 24:39 4 3, you're just losing players, right? 24:41 It may be that like, the onboarding is 24:43 too difficult. And so, I think rather 24:45 than like, I see this all the time, a 24:46 developer gets angry, they go to social 24:49 media, they scream at Epic. 24:51 >> Yeah. 24:51 >> I don't know if even that is worth the 24:52 advice, to be honest. We're human, 24:54 right? But like, but like, the reality 24:56 is um that won't solve your problem. The 24:59 problem is that either the the 25:01 publishing information you're putting 25:02 out there, how you package your game, is 25:04 not good, or the game itself has 25:06 problems. And so, you need to improve. 25:08 And I really think, you know, they've 25:09 given us analytic device thing, you can 25:11 have like 200 in your in your game. 25:13 Like, track and see where you're losing 25:14 players. See where they're dropping off, 25:17 and try to figure out why are they 25:18 leaving here. Maybe you have a really 25:20 great game, but there's like some kind 25:22 of like NPC or boss they have to fight 25:24 that's too hard. Maybe you built this 25:26 beautiful weapon wall with like all 25:28 these things that no one's discovering. 25:30 >> Yeah. 25:30 >> And you know, it's also possible that 25:32 like, and I mean this in the most 25:33 endearing way, but your game is too 25:35 close to another game that's popular. 25:36 And why are they going to play that? 25:38 They have the other game. 25:39 >> Yeah. No, that though that's all all 25:41 great. And again, analytics, we have 200 25:43 analytic tools. We You can connect it to 25:45 a mutator and a switch. You can create 25:47 your own heat map, essentially, right? 25:49 Like, we we don't have 25:51 I know some people are like, you don't 25:52 have heat maps. Maybe if you're not in 25:53 new FN. Yeah. But, you can create your 25:56 own. And And just that, when I was 25:58 making games and and releasing new games 26:00 and something in the deathrun genre, it 26:02 was we would get, you know, that would 26:05 see 5 10-minute falloff, and be like, 26:08 "Okay, well, what's going on here?" And 26:09 then you start realizing, "Well, maybe 26:11 this level was just way too hard." 26:13 >> Yeah. 26:13 >> This is way too hard at the start. You 26:16 make it easier, and then 26:17 boom, then my then you just saw the 26:19 graph change. You know what I mean? 26:20 Like, little There are all these little 26:21 things, and and I love what you said, 26:23 like, the the lobbies and onboarding. 26:26 Your big games, you do have to have some 26:28 sort of onboarding, but you have to be 26:30 very smart about that, because a lot of 26:32 players, if you can't show them within a 26:35 few minutes of how to play your game, or 26:37 or at least don't even do that, just 26:38 force them like, this is one thing I've 26:40 noticed, like, if I have a hotel, right? 26:42 Or the the roguelike genres, right? 26:44 >> Yeah. 26:45 >> I always I always wanted to know this, 26:47 cuz they always throw you in this big 26:48 lobby at the start. You You run around, 26:50 you got to find a door. Always wonder if 26:52 the first player experience is they just 26:54 give you a gun and make you start. I 26:56 always wondered what what that would, 26:58 you know, how would that would change 27:00 the game or the metrics. You think Let 27:01 Let That's how we think, you know, we 27:03 think about these little things all the 27:04 time and just just just inside our 27:05 baseball, but like those little things I 27:07 always love to mess with in my game. So, 27:09 whatever, take that, you know, for what 27:12 if if you can learn something there from 27:13 your game and apply it, but I think 27:14 that's that's the biggest thing we 27:15 haven't really gotten into that is just 27:17 the the data, using the the tools we 27:20 have to to understand your game or 27:23 figure out, you know, what your player 27:25 psychology is in your game and use that 27:27 informed data that we do have. Look, we 27:29 all know it could be better and and they 27:31 are we I we they're working very we have 27:33 we've gotten a lot of analytics over the 27:35 past few 27:36 years. Before Before it was very 27:38 limited. 27:40 >> I I also think, you know, people they 27:42 get they get distracted by what the 27:44 problem is and they end up focusing on 27:46 the wrong thing. And I just think like 27:48 it's very easy to war against the 27:50 system, but the reality is like every 27:53 year since I've been in this space, 27:55 there have been brand new people who 27:56 have breakout success who were nobody 27:59 beforehand. Every year without fail. 28:01 They have some magic that you're 28:02 missing. They're just They're just 28:03 focused on how do I win with the tools I 28:06 have? There's this like this great 28:07 saying out there, right? 28:08 >> Yeah. 28:08 >> Maybe it's What What's the What's the 28:10 coach or Bill Belichick? I think he said 28:12 this dude. Everybody loves this guy, 28:13 right? 28:13 >> Oh, yeah. 28:13 >> Like with the team you have, not the 28:15 team you wish you had, right? 28:16 >> Yeah. 28:17 >> You need that. You need to You need to 28:18 understand that like yes, you can ask 28:20 for the ecosystem to change, but the 28:22 reality is how it is is how it is. And 28:25 so, you need to be able to play in the 28:27 game that you're in, right? I can go, 28:30 you know, download any any I can play 28:33 Fortnite, right? And wish the Battle 28:34 Royale played differently, right? But it 28:36 plays how it plays. And it's going to 28:38 play how it plays. And I'm either going 28:39 to learn it or I'm going to have a not 28:40 good time. And it's the same way 28:42 developing games. And also, people 28:44 underestimate how casual players are. 28:47 Like like like you play 28:50 like 10 hours a week, you're hardcore. 28:53 >> Yeah. 28:53 >> You may not think you're hardcore, but 28:55 you are extremely hardcore. And that's 28:56 another lesson from Hi-Rez, right? 28:58 >> Yeah. 28:59 >> Casual player plays very little. They 29:02 are not very good. It needs to be 29:04 simple. And and your view of casual, if 29:07 you're a game developer, is probably 29:09 wrong, unless you've learned this lesson 29:10 before. What you think is casual is 29:12 probably like the bottom end of 29:14 hardcore. 29:14 >> No, that that is so true. That is so 29:16 true. I think people think uh you you 29:18 look at Steel the Brain Rod or some of 29:20 these games. Like I think that really 29:21 goes to show how young our audience is 29:24 or how 29:25 and we don't get a lot of these numbers, 29:26 but or just like 29:28 some of the games that do pop off that 29:30 are very 29:31 not like the 1v1 Forever Gun's a great 29:33 example. They were it was a great 29:35 practice map, but it's kind of turned 29:37 into this like playground map with 29:38 custom weapons. And kids just love that 29:41 stuff. They just want to go in and have 29:42 fun. And they don't have a lot of time 29:44 to do that. So they just just hop in. I 29:46 think I think that was a great point. 29:49 >> Yeah, I love that game, by the way. They 29:50 did such a great job, right? Everyone's 29:52 sitting there copying red versus blue 29:54 for like the 30th time or the pit or 29:55 whatever. And it's like, you know, 29:57 actually like copying it's not going to 29:59 do anything. They already have this. But 30:01 actually what would be really cool is if 30:02 they could collect these like secret 30:03 like weapons and you and you proliferate 30:06 that through social media. I mean, they 30:07 did just such a great job there. It's 30:09 really really impressive. 30:10 >> guys at Hi-Rez, they're smart. They've 30:12 been around. They've made maps from day 30:13 one. And they've had a lot of success 30:15 and and they they learned the social 30:17 media side of things and just that the 30:19 retention How how do I keep players 30:21 interested in wanting to come back and 30:22 try new things? And and they're they're 30:23 crushing it. And it's hard. When you're 30:25 copying, you're always trying to catch 30:27 up. You're just always trying to catch 30:29 up. Um 30:30 >> It just doesn't work. I mean, it it can 30:31 work like cross-platform and I don't 30:34 know I don't know what open that can't 30:35 work. 30:35 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have to. 30:37 >> But like short of like cross like short 30:38 of like delivering somebody something 30:40 that they they can't otherwise easily 30:42 get or won't get. Like it just doesn't 30:44 work. And so if you're going to copy 30:45 inside the same ecosystem where somebody 30:47 already is, the results are most often 30:49 going to be disappointing. And there 30:50 will always be exceptions to the rule, 30:52 you know, a content creator makes their 30:54 own version, they have a big audience 30:55 that wants to support them. But they're 30:57 playing it because they like the 30:58 creator, not because they they couldn't 31:00 get this somewhere else. 31:01 >> Yeah. And so you just have to be 31:02 careful. 31:02 >> No, for sure. For sure. Last point I 31:04 want to say on this, 31:06 it's about I think what I was going to 31:08 say is like the 31:09 Oh, it So a and creators when when you 31:12 are making these when you like your 31:14 first games too, like we're talking 31:16 we're talking kind of the people who 31:18 have been in the space a little bit and 31:19 and tried and and know but like it takes 31:22 your first few games to fail to learn 31:24 those little things we're talking about 31:26 too. So 31:27 you just got to go into this If you're 31:29 if you're just coming in trying to make 31:30 money, your first game it's like I don't 31:33 really know anybody I would love to talk 31:34 to you if you've come in and made one 31:36 game and it took off and great. I would 31:38 love without having other influences 31:40 obviously in another markets. Even then 31:42 though, I would love to know that but 31:44 just that I think a lot of this stuff we 31:46 learned because we've failed so many 31:48 times. You know what I mean? 31:50 >> Failure's okay. There's nothing wrong 31:52 with failing. 31:53 How do we learn? Like at some point we 31:55 just get too old and we like stop trying 31:57 to do new things. I don't know what's 31:58 wrong with us but like when we're young, 31:59 dude, we we we're bad at everything. We 32:01 were 32:02 failing a long time. And like that's how 32:04 we become better. Like failure is part 32:06 of growth, right? Is it We can make up 32:08 this myth that like a baby like, you 32:10 know, that learn to crawl before you 32:12 walk. Have you ever watched a baby try 32:14 to walk? Dude, they don't do that. They 32:16 stand up and they fall on their face. 32:17 >> Yeah. 32:18 >> They cry, right? 32:19 >> It hurts. 32:20 >> You have to try and you have to fail and 32:22 that's how you learn. 32:23 >> Exactly. Exactly. No, this these are 32:24 some great gems man. I'm I'm sure 32:26 creators are Hopefully you guys get your 32:27 notepads out. All right, let's talk 32:29 Fortnite for a second. Because I 32:30 remember when people were still trying 32:32 to kind of figure out what UEFN actually 32:34 even meant at the time. So like tell us 32:36 about the first time you realized 32:37 Fortnite Unreal Editor could be a game 32:40 changer for making games. Was there like 32:42 a particular creative map or early 32:44 experience that convinced you, "Hey, you 32:45 know, we could build real games inside 32:47 of Fortnite?" 32:48 >> Yeah, there were there were two 32:49 experiences that really helped and and 32:52 I'll keep them brief. The first was a 32:54 ex-colleague of mine from Hi-Rez. 32:57 We paired up to do something in Fortnite 32:59 as an experiment using UEFN and I really 33:01 loved this browser game called 33:04 Survivorio, or Survivio, excuse me. Not 33:06 Survivorio. That's a different game. 33:07 Okay. 33:08 >> Okay. 33:09 >> It was also great, but 33:10 >> Yeah. 33:10 >> Survivio, which was like a top-down 33:12 browser Battle Royale shooter with like 33:14 little circles. And I I had loved this 33:16 game when Battle Royale was like brand 33:18 new and hot, I used to play it all the 33:19 time. So, let's try and make that in 33:20 Fortnite. Let's see how long it takes 33:21 us. And we completed it in two weeks. 33:24 And most of it was us learning the 33:25 tools. But in the time we were seeing 33:27 all these parallels between Unreal 33:28 Engine, which is where I've spent my 33:30 career prior to this, and and just how 33:33 fast we could move. And I thought, 33:34 "Okay, this is really exciting." And so, 33:36 I connected with Todd and we ran a 33:38 little experiment over at Echo Gaming. 33:40 And then we made another game called 33:42 Lane Wars, which was 33:44 it's a TPS MOBA, right? Very similar to 33:47 like 33:48 the one Valve has coming out. 33:50 Evading me now. Deadlock. 33:51 >> Yeah, yeah. 33:52 >> Okay. It's very very similar to that, 33:53 but we we redid it for Fortnite players. 33:55 We set up loadouts as classes. We didn't 33:57 have the ability to do classes. And we 33:59 were able to build this whole game in 3 34:02 months. And let me tell you, when we 34:03 shipped it, it was a buggy mess. 34:05 >> Yeah. 34:06 >> It was wonderful. And then at our shows 34:07 where we showed it, it was wonderful. We 34:09 learned the hard lessons of of what 34:11 things break 34:12 >> Oh, yeah. 34:13 The Fortnite jank. 34:15 >> It's 34:15 >> It gets everybody. 34:17 It gets everybody. 34:20 >> But like 34:22 so so we launched this, but the thing 34:24 that was magical for me wasn't like 34:25 whether it succeeded or failed. It did 34:27 get an Epic's picks and had like 120 34:29 million 34:29 >> money back. Yeah. 34:30 >> It did well um, relative our early 34:33 games. But the um, the thing that was so 34:36 exciting about it was that if I was to 34:39 build that game in high res, it would 34:41 have taken a team of 30 18 months. It 34:44 took us five and a half people three 34:46 months. And that's when I became a 34:47 believer. 34:48 >> Yeah. 34:49 >> You can do more with less faster and how 34:52 valuable that is. And from that point on 34:54 I was so And I will tell you I'm a big 34:56 believer in Tim Sweeney. I think his 34:58 vision for Unreal Engine 6 is very 35:00 strong. And I felt like if I was going 35:02 to invest in a UGC space, I wanted to 35:04 know that if we failed at everything, if 35:07 nothing worked out, that the people who 35:09 graduated from our program did something 35:11 else, right? They moved on to do 35:12 something else, that they would have 35:14 built skills that will help them make 35:15 games professionally for the rest of 35:17 their life. 35:18 >> Yeah. 35:18 >> And UEFN is so similar to UE. And if you 35:22 believe his vision for Verse, it will be 35:24 part of UE, that everything they're 35:26 learning, even if you can't make it 35:28 inside of Fortnite, should apply to 35:30 professional game development later. And 35:31 there's going to be a moment, a 35:33 beautiful beautiful moment, where Verse 35:35 goes to UE and all these professional 35:37 game studios do not know anything about 35:39 Verse or how to use it, and you are 35:41 going to have an edge. And it won't last 35:43 long, couple years, they're going to 35:45 learn, they're going to learn fast. 35:46 Software engineers are learning new 35:47 languages all the time, part of 35:48 >> Oh, yeah. 35:49 >> being a programmer. But like, you will 35:51 have an edge, you will know how it 35:52 works, and it will be a great 35:54 opportunity for you. And that that 35:55 really made me a believer. 35:56 >> Yeah. No, that that's a great point and 35:58 and and because not only Verse, but even 36:01 Scene Graph 2 is going to be a new 36:02 feature that they're going to be 36:03 bringing into UE 6 as well that I think 36:06 that's even a bigger component if you 36:08 understand that and how to work because 36:09 you're going to be able to make more 36:10 performant a larger games as well. So, 36:13 yeah, that that is a great point. I feel 36:15 the same. I mean I I mean I've been here 36:17 from 1.0, but I mean we we've been 36:19 asking Yeah. 36:21 That was a that that's even rougher 36:22 start for a lot of people if you started 36:24 in the 1.0 days. But it's a just that, 36:27 like I never thought I was I said this 36:29 on the podcast already, but basically, I 36:31 never thought it was so hard when I 36:33 first Unreal Engine when I opened it up, 36:35 and I was like, "Let me, you know, let 36:36 me just take a stab at it." It was like, 36:37 "I don't I didn't know anything about 36:39 game development. I don't know what I'm 36:40 doing. This is This is This is a big 36:42 undertaking." But, Fortnite 1.0 just put 36:45 a player immediately inside, and I could 36:47 understand space, um and then it was 36:49 pretty the limited tools, so it was like 36:52 we didn't have that much to go It kind 36:54 of like my the HD, it kind of made me 36:56 focus. So, then it and then then I could 36:58 like cro- you know, start branching out 37:00 and and um you know, making larger games 37:03 and understanding them, like, "Oh, 37:03 okay." Then it kind of like made it 37:05 click, and then you know, it wasn't as 37:06 scary anymore. I don't know, but UEFN is 37:08 definitely 37:10 a little mix of both. It definitely 37:11 could be scary, but, you know, I think 37:13 if you just understand your niche, um or 37:15 understand what you're really interested 37:17 in making, if you're in art or program, 37:19 whatever it is, just go full head-on on 37:21 that first, and then then you'll pick up 37:23 the stuff on the way, or you'll learn 37:24 people that that know it. 37:26 >> I will also tell you, people 37:28 underestimate how much we get with UEFN. 37:31 It is so hard if you want to build 37:33 multiplayer games to build a good 37:36 back-end stack that does not have 37:38 problems with, like, replication, 37:40 desync, right? Like, people don't 37:41 understand how much Epic is really doing 37:44 for us with UEFN. 37:45 >> UEFN's characters are all taken care of, 37:46 cross-platform's taken care of. 37:48 >> Mhm. Yeah, dude. Yeah, you need a team 37:50 of five people just to deal You think 37:52 You think you don't like moderation in 37:53 UEFN? Let me tell you what it's like to 37:55 deal with Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, 37:58 Apple, Google, right? Steam's Valve's 38:00 pretty easy, but 38:01 >> That's a year. Yeah, that's a year right 38:02 there just dealing with that them, yeah. 38:04 >> Teams work, dude. And like, some of 38:06 those things they have pretty strict 38:07 requirements. Like, Nintendo, you used 38:09 to have to have builds approved like 38:11 more than 7 days in advance because like 38:14 it was the process was just long, and if 38:16 you had a miss, you can't ship on one 38:17 platform and update that for your 38:19 players in a live service game and not 38:21 update on the other. Like that's not 38:22 going to work and a delay can be 38:24 catastrophic, right? Players don't care 38:26 about your problems. They know that what 38:28 they want when they want it and they 38:30 want it yesterday, always. 38:32 >> Yeah, dude. So another a question I want 38:34 to ask you because you've been been in 38:36 this scene is on the triple So you come 38:38 from triple A 38:39 >> Mhm. 38:40 >> and then you were like, oh, let's check 38:41 out UEFN. You and a buddy made it a game 38:44 in 2 weeks. You know what I mean? You 38:45 you realize like everything triple A 38:47 right now is this industry right now in 38:49 the games is very rough on the triple A 38:52 side of things. Like I guess which which 38:54 kind of your take on that and maybe even 38:56 like in in the future of with how UGC 38:59 has just exploded, you know, and and I 39:01 don't know if you have have a take. I 39:03 don't I don't want to put you in the hot 39:04 seat or you know. 39:04 >> I got to take. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I 39:06 think everything's a little cyclical and 39:08 I think people we only exist for so long 39:11 and we're only paying attention for so 39:12 long that for a lot of people they've 39:13 not been around long enough to realize 39:15 this. So for me when I look at 39:17 user-generated content I see the 39:19 parallels to mobile right away, right? 39:21 When mobile started getting popular, I 39:23 remember all these PC and console 39:26 developers those aren't real games. 39:28 What a waste, dude. Like who's going to 39:30 play this pay-to-win garbage, blah, 39:32 blah, blah. The mobile is a bigger 39:33 industry than than most of these 39:35 industries right now. 39:36 >> The biggest, yeah. 39:37 >> Yeah, yeah. So so I I see a lot of the 39:39 parallels and I also see a lot of the 39:40 same challenges, right? Like early 39:41 mobile had a lot of copying. It had a 39:43 lot of fast follows. It had a lot of bad 39:45 actors, right? They had to figure out 39:46 how to solve these problems, right? 39:47 Discoverability was difficult. And so 39:50 still is, right? But it's become more 39:52 sophisticated where you can run, you 39:53 know, paid UA campaigns around it and 39:55 measure performance and I have a lot of 39:57 thoughts on that that we won't go into 39:58 today, but the idea is is that like the 40:00 the platform grew up, right? And 40:02 developers who were there early and some 40:04 who came later figured it out. And there 40:05 was a time where like EA had the biggest 40:08 games on mobile and then they didn't. 40:10 Because right? Like console was 40:11 dominating and then they weren't because 40:13 people were trying to design for what 40:15 mobile players wanted versus what PC 40:17 console players wanted. And I think 40:19 you're seeing a lot of that in UGC also, 40:21 right? It's like, okay, like a year ago, 40:23 if you had said the number one game in 40:25 Fortnite was going to be a game that was 40:27 a non-combat game, 40:29 people would have been like, "You're 40:29 crazy. No chance, dude." The number one 40:31 game in Fortnite is a game where the 40:33 only combat you can do is slap somebody. 40:34 >> It would last a week. Yeah, there's no 40:36 way it lasts more than a week. Yeah, 40:37 that's what I would have said. Yeah. 40:39 >> Like so so I think like what you know 40:41 and what you don't know is changing. And 40:43 and we have this great opportunity in 40:45 UGC to learn about what players want and 40:48 what they need and what their 40:49 preferences are. And there and it's 40:50 going to evolve and it's going to be 40:52 different than what it is today and it 40:53 will continue to change over time. For 40:56 for AAA folks, um so if you want a 40:58 growth industry, you are well equipped, 41:01 especially for Fortnite if you've 41:02 developed with Unreal Engine, to enter 41:04 this space and do some really impressive 41:05 stuff. 41:06 >> Yeah. 41:06 >> And and I would encourage you to do so 41:08 if you're if you're an entrepreneur or 41:10 have that that spirit to go out and try 41:13 and build from from scratch or from 41:15 cloth or however you want to phrase it, 41:16 right? From from nothing. 41:19 For the folks who want to stay in AAA, I 41:22 think you're just witnessing that 41:23 there's sort of this interesting 41:25 evolution that's happening. Live service 41:27 games are relatively young. Like I'm old 41:30 enough to remember when live service 41:32 games did not exist. 41:33 >> Yeah. 41:33 >> And I'm not that old. I look old. I'm 41:35 not that old. You know, like like live 41:38 service games are new. They are not 41:40 churning like the old skew used to where 41:42 it's like, okay, I play this, ship and 41:43 forget, right? And there'll be a sequel. 41:45 And some people get away with that, 41:46 right? Call of Duty can do that. But 41:48 there are other games like Fortnite that 41:50 are going to exist maybe forever. And so 41:53 that changes the game, right? Because at 41:55 some point, you're like, okay, I want to 41:57 make a competitor Fortnite. Well, 41:58 Fortnite's been improved for for for a 42:00 decade. How How are you going to How are 42:02 you going to catch up? 42:03 >> Yeah. 42:03 >> How are you going to catch them because 42:05 you don't have the time to develop in 42:07 isolation for 10 years. It's not going 42:08 to work. And so 42:10 >> at the update cadence and they own all 42:11 these people who owns thousands of 42:13 dollars of skins in that game. 42:14 >> Yeah. 42:15 >> Yeah. 42:15 >> Yeah, well, because here let's talk 42:17 about what gaming really is. It's gone 42:18 from a past time to being the mall, 42:21 right? Like this is a mall. 42:22 >> Yeah. It's going older, right? 42:23 >> Hang out. 42:24 >> Yeah. 42:25 >> Yeah, like you used to hang out in 42:26 person at these different locations, the 42:28 theater, whatever. And and now you hang 42:30 out in your favorite game. And it's a 42:32 social hub. And so if you are in a 42:34 social hub, well, well, to try move 42:36 someone out of that is very hard. You 42:37 have sunk cost fallacy on money spent. 42:39 You have people who are good at the game 42:40 who don't want to learn how to get good 42:42 at another game. You have people who 42:44 have all their friends in that area and 42:45 they don't want to go without their 42:46 friends. And then you have like the 42:48 leaders and the followers, right? Some 42:49 people are willing to go. Some people 42:51 are just like they they only follow if 42:53 somebody goes. 42:54 >> Yeah. 42:54 >> And there's even more ways to break this 42:56 down, but the point is is it's extremely 42:57 hard to move somebody from their home, 43:00 from where they want to be. And so how 43:02 do you do it if you're in triple A? 43:03 Well, you got to innovate. You got to 43:05 come up with something that has never 43:06 been seen before. But that's hard in 43:08 triple A because executives of big 43:11 publicly traded companies, they got to 43:13 deliver quarterly, they got to deliver 43:14 good quarterly earnings and reports, 43:16 right? And so they can't take on like 43:18 these huge monumental risks. You really 43:20 need private companies to do this. And 43:22 even private companies, they're scared 43:24 because like, okay, am I really going to 43:26 bet a hundred million dollars, two 43:28 hundred, three hundred million dollars 43:29 on this game? Like like the amount of 43:31 money you have does not correlate to the 43:33 likelihood of success. 43:34 >> Yeah. 43:34 >> I have a lot of friends who raised 43:35 during like the heyday where you could 43:37 like write post COVID, right? Where you 43:38 could get money pretty easily on a 43:40 startup. Most of those studios have 43:41 failed. 43:42 >> Yeah. 43:42 >> And and the people are very capable, but 43:44 like it's just hard. Innovation is hard 43:47 and also taking risk is hard. And when 43:50 we we are naturally incentivized as 43:52 human beings through our own psychology, 43:54 probably how we survived and ended up 43:56 dominating this planet, 43:57 >> Yeah. 43:57 >> to do things that are safer, right? 43:59 >> Yeah. 43:59 >> I know this I know this formula works. 44:02 I'm going to do this formula with a few 44:04 little things added in. But gamers have 44:06 become more sophisticated as consumers, 44:08 and they're not necessarily willing to 44:10 wait and do that. 44:10 >> Yeah. Dude, holy cow. That was a great 44:13 breakdown, man. That was off the top. 44:15 Man. Dude, 44:17 >> AAA isn't going away. Like, I think it 44:18 will be here, and you'll still get big 44:20 budget games. But, I think like, you 44:22 know, it's going to be challenging. And 44:26 I think you also have to ask yourself, 44:27 if you're a young game developer, is 44:29 that where you really want to go? You 44:30 know, I have friends who, for 20 years, 44:33 have done nothing but model weapons. 44:34 They're the best at modeling weapons. 44:36 That's cool. They love that. 44:37 >> Yeah. 44:38 >> sounds like death to me. I don't want to 44:39 sit there and model a weapon for 20 44:41 years, 44:42 right? I like that like on one project, 44:44 I'm doing product management. On 44:45 another, I'm designing game systems. On 44:47 another, I'm doing audio work. Like, I 44:49 like that I get to touch a lot of 44:51 pieces, and you see that reflected in my 44:53 work history. But, like, to me, the like 44:56 factory line assembly worker is like a 44:58 death march to boredom. 45:00 >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but in burnout. No, 45:03 for sure, man. That that's 45:05 That that's perfect. 45:06 >> They are the best at what they do. 45:08 >> Oh, no. 45:10 >> For their role, you will not find 45:11 anybody better, and it's very satisfying 45:13 to work in AAA, and surround yourself 45:15 with people who are all experts at what 45:17 they do. You you will It is a euphoric 45:19 feeling to be surrounded by really 45:21 intelligent and skilled people. And and 45:24 AAA has some of the best. 45:24 >> No, for sure. There There's definitely I 45:26 love working with, you know, I've worked 45:28 with a lot of people from the AAA 45:29 industry that have come over into the 45:31 UGC and stuff. And it's it's really fun 45:33 to work with people at that high level. 45:35 Um it it and it it it shows. You you 45:38 It's just a different like 45:40 They have just like a different outlook, 45:42 or a different like they have this 45:43 different energy, you know? 45:45 What I want to say on trip like the AAA 45:47 Last thing I want to mention and and I 45:49 have this really cool mentor. He 45:51 and he he's worked in some of the 45:54 biggest company gaming companies in the 45:55 world, and he 45:57 I remember us telling him like, "Man, I 45:58 think like, why isn't EA? Why isn't, um, 46:01 you know, Supercell? Why aren't these 46:02 guys coming in to UGC? 46:05 >> Good question. 46:06 >> And he was just like 46:07 they don't have to. You know what I 46:09 mean? Like what they they don't have to 46:10 do anything. You know what I mean? 46:12 They're they're making, you know, EA. 46:14 There's always the new Madden, NBA, 46:15 whatever. They they have that cornered 46:17 and I think they don't some of these 46:19 companies don't necessarily have to do 46:20 anything because they're just that big. 46:22 But I do think it's interesting. You 46:23 know, I I can't wait till the day where 46:25 I can play like NBA 2K on Fortnite or 46:27 whatever. You know what I mean? Like I 46:29 what I just one day I 46:31 I wonder if that's where what where 46:33 things will go or Call of Duty, 46:34 whatever. Like I mean, Call of Duty 7, I 46:35 think it was the worst performing Call 46:37 of Duty I just saw it read today. 46:39 >> Yeah. Yeah, they looped back to an art 46:41 style that just never performs well for 46:43 them. And that's my baby. It's a little 46:45 questionable why they why they did that, 46:46 but I'm sure they had a reason. I mean, 46:48 whatever. They didn't 46:48 >> Yeah. I go 46:49 >> I'm a great year next year. It's like 46:50 the main studio that's on it next year 46:52 and they go back to military and like 46:54 modern combat that always works really 46:56 well for them. 46:56 >> I know. They I hope they figure it out 46:57 cuz man, that's my Call of Duty is my 46:59 heart. 47:00 >> I will say related to what we were 47:02 talking about, it and it would and this 47:04 is directly helpful for Fortnite 47:06 creators. It is helpful to understand 47:09 how AAA works and how big companies 47:11 work. Cuz sometimes I think people get 47:14 really angry at someone on the internet. 47:16 Yeah. Right? Ah, this person running the 47:18 FN create account never listens to me, 47:20 dude. I'm going to tag them with every 47:21 all my grievances and it's like, okay. 47:24 First of all, they read the things you 47:25 say and so be nice cuz there's a person 47:27 behind that and Yeah. And they have 47:29 feelings and it never feels good when 47:30 somebody's rude to you. But second, 47:32 also consider that like they don't have 47:35 the power to fix your problem. And a big 47:37 company works on a big schedule. When we 47:39 were doing live service for Smite, we 47:41 would have locks 3 months in advance. So 47:43 sure, you could find an issue that you 47:44 wanted me to fix and I could agree that 47:46 it's an issue. I can't get to it for 3 47:47 months. Like that's the soonest I can 47:50 schedule it and then it's probably going 47:52 to take time to do and launch. And so I 47:54 think people it's easy to be critical of 47:56 big companies if you've never worked in 47:58 a big company. 47:58 >> Yeah, that's a great point. 48:00 >> Yeah, they're they're they're they're 48:01 mega yachts, dude. You cannot learn this 48:03 thing like a like it's a tugboat, dude. 48:05 These are mega yachts. And 48:07 there's process, the process matters, 48:10 there's a lot of moving parts, and you 48:12 have to have patience. And it's not that 48:14 you're not being listened to, it's that 48:15 the cadence in which you want someone to 48:18 respond is not possible. And the best 48:20 way I I I think players or developers, 48:22 excuse me, can relate to this is to just 48:24 think about how your players are to you, 48:26 right? 48:27 >> Yeah. 48:27 >> Your players are like, "Why didn't you 48:29 fix this bug like you like the day I 48:31 reported it?" Well, it takes time. I 48:33 have to 48:34 reproduce it. You didn't give me any of 48:35 those steps. I didn't have to solve the 48:37 problem. It might be deep systematic 48:38 problem, or it might be a simple config 48:40 issue. But like those things take time. 48:42 And and how that doesn't feel good when 48:44 players do that to you, you're doing 48:45 that to our platform partner. Don't do 48:48 that. 48:48 >> Yeah. Yeah, no, that's 48:50 that's a great point. I mean, it's 48:51 really hard to turn a a cruise ship 48:53 around. It really is. It takes a lot of 48:55 time. And and and and just that. And 48:57 they're listening, we have the proper 48:58 channels. I I I do you can go public 49:00 with with your problems. I've always 49:01 said that, but just, you know, I I was 49:03 when I do I would always try you try to 49:05 I try to give like some the feedback or 49:07 or an alternative of what I think make 49:09 improve it or like trying to give them 49:11 feedback. Always be nice. 49:12 >> You can be angry sometimes like like 49:14 like polite angry. 49:15 >> Yeah. 49:16 >> If you're angry all the time, then 49:17 that's your normal. So, when you have a 49:18 real issue, no one knows to pay 49:20 attention to you or not cuz you're just 49:21 always angry, right? 49:22 >> Yeah, that's true. That's you. 49:24 >> Your emotion is just a tool on your tool 49:26 belt, right? Like have a baseline, turn 49:28 up when it's actually a real problem, 49:29 turn down when it's not that big of a 49:31 deal. 49:31 >> Yeah. No, that that's a great point. And 49:33 and look, they're still UEFN is still 49:35 very new, especially if you're looking 49:37 at it compared to Roblox, all those 49:38 things, you know what I mean? It's it 49:39 takes time. And you know, I I think 49:42 they've tried to like port 1.0 into UEFN 49:45 and or port off of UE UE5 into you like 49:48 so 49:49 and I I know this This is I'm just, you 49:51 know, what I'm guessing here. But like I 49:53 I 49:54 I can't imagine when you when you've 49:55 done like a bastardized systems like 49:57 that to change things, you know what I 49:59 mean? Takes pro- it probably is way 50:02 harder than we think. Like today we got 50:03 the new Chapter 7 UI and people will 50:06 like I've one of my posts has taken off 50:08 because people are like, "Oh, that's all 50:09 it took, huh?" Where's Chapter 1, 2, 3? 50:12 Like, you know, you just press a button. 50:13 That's how easy it is. Why can't we have 50:15 the you know, they said I think it's 50:16 just it's it's just always something. 50:19 >> It's always something. And there's 50:20 always going to be people who just they 50:22 they either don't want to understand or 50:24 or they're not going to understand. But 50:26 like 50:26 >> That's the reason why 50:27 >> one of those people that you aspire to 50:29 be better, as I think many of us do, 50:32 especially if you're watching a podcast, 50:33 right? I feel like that's an indicator 50:35 that you aspire to be the best version 50:36 of yourself. You you really need to seek 50:39 empathy and understanding over anger and 50:42 frustration. Yeah. I mean, we're all 50:44 human. I get angry, do you? 50:45 >> Oh, yeah. 50:46 >> The other day I had the letter T turned 50:49 down by moderation, and they told me it 50:52 was a Lego head because they were 50:53 looking at T from the bottom and the T 50:54 was yellow. And they could not overturn 50:56 it. That is a very infuriating moment 50:58 for me. Okay? 51:00 >> Yeah, it happens. 51:01 >> I was very very angry. But the reality 51:03 is like like, you know, there's going to 51:05 be mistakes. Like you said, it's a 51:06 really platform. Like me getting angry 51:08 will not solve the problem. It will just 51:10 raise my blood pressure and 51:12 me. So there's so little patience, you 51:14 know, and and just remember like your 51:16 success or failure probably doesn't 51:18 actually tie to these specific issues. 51:19 >> No, there's also a false like people 51:22 love to watch drama. And so when you 51:26 like the people when they post these 51:27 negative things online, it they get the 51:30 way more engagement. And so now that you 51:32 know, they oh, well, this is what I need 51:33 to post. You know what I mean? 51:34 >> Yes. 51:35 >> Um there's a little bit of that going 51:37 on. But I don't know. 51:38 >> It's a gladiator moment, dude. If you 51:40 have If you have the power of the crowd, 51:41 you really have the power, you know? 51:43 >> Well, and and a lot of people that's 51:45 that's how a lot of big influencers, you 51:47 know, like or even musicians like look 51:49 like Taylor Swift, your ex. Like she 51:51 always sings about that, things like 51:52 that. And what it comes down to is 51:54 people like want to They might not be 51:57 outspoken, but they follow you and your 51:59 mission. I don't know. Like the Tate he 52:01 had one There's those kind of guys, you 52:03 know what I mean? And they get this 52:04 crazy following because this guy is 52:06 speaking what they wish they could say. 52:08 Like that That's how they get you those 52:09 cult followings, right? 52:11 >> Yeah. Controversial 52:13 >> Yes. Yes. 52:14 >> Foragers of extremism on the internet, 52:16 right? Like 52:17 >> And so there is there is a psychological 52:19 thing to that and where like 52:22 That's how some of the Whatever. We're 52:23 getting way off in the weeds right now. 52:25 I'm sorry. Let's get back on track. Your 52:26 current role is definitely very 52:28 interesting, rather. So like because the 52:30 model is different, I want to talk about 52:32 Ghost Launchpad. And I know it's not 52:34 like a typical game studio. It's an 52:36 accelerator inside of Fortnite. Like why 52:39 did you guys 52:40 choose to build a, you know, UEFN studio 52:43 like that versus making like a 52:45 standalone indie game, right? 52:48 You know, Can you tell us about that? 52:49 Like what's your advantages, 52:50 disadvantages, things like that? 52:52 >> It's a It's a great question. I think we 52:54 wanted to 52:56 challenge the traditional studio model a 52:59 little bit. Um I don't know if there's 53:01 anything wrong with it, by the way. But 53:02 but our feeling was uh can we 53:05 can we do something that's not quite the 53:08 standard norm of what other people have 53:10 already done before? Because the reality 53:13 is, you know, it's not easy to make 53:16 money in user-generated content. You 53:18 have to be very good, and it takes time 53:19 to learn those lessons. And if you're 53:21 doing a traditional studio model, well, 53:23 you're going to need to, you know, raise 53:24 a ton of capital, hire a big team, you 53:26 know, people who are good at what they 53:28 do are expensive. And you're going to 53:30 need to build things up methodically, 53:32 and it can take a very long time. And 53:33 the ecosystem is constantly shifting. 53:35 And also that model is going to attract 53:37 people who maybe aren't a great fit for 53:40 a fast-changing ecosystem, right? Like 53:43 Like Like like to say they like change. 53:46 But then when you put them in the 53:47 situation of like entrepreneurship, it's 53:48 very stressful, I think, for a lot of 53:50 folks. 53:51 Nothing wrong with that. So So when we 53:53 started thinking about how can we do a 53:55 studio that does well in user-generated 53:57 content, and what are the values we want 53:59 to instill, my thought The first word 54:01 that came to my mind was 54:02 entrepreneurship. And I I have talked to 54:04 so many game developers in my career who 54:06 do not understand the fundamentals of 54:08 product-market fit, how to identify a 54:10 target audience, how to interview 54:12 players, how to take that feedback and 54:14 process that feedback, and how to 54:16 ultimately be a craftsman rather than an 54:18 artist, right? First thing you'll hear 54:20 when you talk to indie developers a lot 54:22 of time is, "I made the game I love I 54:24 love that I always wanted to make." 54:25 Great. Is there anybody else who's 54:27 always wanted to play that game besides 54:29 you? Because otherwise, 7 years later, 54:31 you're not going to be very happy with 54:33 how this turns out, right? 54:35 And so the the thought is is like it can 54:37 we can we create an environment like 54:38 what kind of environments could attract 54:40 people who think more like craftsmen, 54:42 less like artistry, and and accelerator 54:44 just kind of stood out, right? It's 54:45 like, "Okay, these folks have a natural 54:47 interest in wanting to be entrepreneurs, 54:49 in wanting to learn at the business side 54:51 of things, and how to build a business, 54:52 and how to be successful." And so like 54:54 let's try that. And we ran a sample. We 54:56 didn't just do it blind. We went to 54:58 local game jams. I brought in people who 55:01 had never developed with UEFN before. 55:03 Some of them had limited UE experience. 55:05 Some of them had never even made games 55:07 before. And we ran a sample pilot 55:09 program with a team of four, team of 55:10 two, and a team of one. And at the end 55:12 of that program, 12 weeks in total, um 55:14 but by week 10, everybody had a minimum 55:16 viable that they built on a tool set 55:18 they had never used before. Um again, to 55:19 the power of UEFN, right? 55:20 >> That's crazy. That's amazing. 55:22 >> Yeah. And so I mean, none of these games 55:24 did anything. They actually all did 55:25 >> But just like we said, your first game's 55:27 going to suck, so yeah. 55:29 >> It's going to suck. But like But like 55:30 the fact that we could do that and that 55:32 we could see them like execute so well 55:34 and that they were excited by that sort 55:36 of gave us credence like, okay, this is 55:38 the right model to go with. And then and 55:40 then how do we scale this? And so, what 55:42 we decided was we need to hire developer 55:44 support because some people are good at 55:46 one thing but not good at another, 55:47 right? If I have somebody who's 55:49 let's say computer science grad from 55:51 Georgia Tech, right? Well, they're 55:52 probably going to be pretty good at 55:53 verse, but they're going to suck at art. 55:54 So, they're going to need help with art. 55:56 Yes, maybe there's another artist in the 55:58 program that they want to team up with, 56:00 but maybe also we can have an artist on 56:02 staff that helps them with the art side 56:04 of things. Right? UEFN has a lot of 56:06 built-in art. There's also Fab, which is 56:08 a great marketplace for purchasing art. 56:10 And those tools combined with somebody 56:12 who can also create art and understand 56:14 that pipeline and who wants to be more 56:15 of a generalist than somebody like in 56:17 the AAA pipeline where they're very 56:18 specialized, I think can really level up 56:20 these things. And so, we hired a team 56:22 for development support, and we also 56:25 hired a team for publishing support, 56:27 right? Thumbnails, metadata, stuff we 56:29 were talking about before that actually 56:30 really really matter. If your method for 56:32 a thumbnail is GPT, "Give me this 56:34 thumbnail." And that's probably not 56:36 Sometimes it works, but like it's 56:37 probably not going to work for you. 56:39 You're going to need to go a little 56:40 deeper into understanding why thumbnails 56:43 work. What is a good click-through rate? 56:45 What is a good click-through rate for 56:46 genre, for different discover categories 56:49 that you're featured in, right? It's not 56:50 the same everywhere. And so, you're 56:51 going to have to learn these things. And 56:52 so, our our thought was we we capture 56:55 those lessons at Ghost, we get some 56:57 support at Ghost, we bring in the 56:59 entrepreneurs, and we form this perfect 57:02 triangle of like the entrepreneurs get 57:03 what they need from development support, 57:05 from publishing support, and they're 57:06 also working together and pulling their 57:08 lessons, so they're all elevating, 57:10 right? Yeah. If I'm working by myself at 57:13 home in my basement or wherever, right? 57:15 Like I'm I'm only going to get the 57:17 lessons that I learn. If I'm working 57:19 alongside 10, 20, 30 other 57:21 entrepreneurs, I'm going to get the 57:22 lessons I learn and all the lessons they 57:24 learn, and I'm going to turbocharge my 57:27 way to being able to find a sustainable 57:29 business inside. 57:30 >> Yeah. Dude, that No, that's amazing. And 57:32 I I mean I I I love what you guys are 57:34 doing. You guys actually have made some 57:35 really cool games. I I feel that came 57:37 out of that out of that camp. Like, if 57:39 people are maybe interested or listening 57:41 or about maybe even maybe joining that, 57:43 like is you know, is there a way to 57:45 reach out or like in anything on that? 57:47 >> Yeah, so you can go to ghostgaming.com. 57:49 That's our website. And at the top 57:51 toolbar, there's a a pull down for game 57:53 dev. And there's a contact us form at 57:55 the bottom. You fill that out and all 57:57 those get forwarded directly to me. So, 57:59 I do see them. 58:01 Don't worry me anything weird, please. 58:02 >> Yeah. 58:04 >> Why do I say these things? But 58:05 everyone's like 58:06 You can keep out of it. 58:07 >> not see it, maybe. 58:10 >> But like um you know, I mean I think 58:11 that's the best way, right? Reach out to 58:13 us at Ghost Gaming. Right now, I will 58:14 say that we are primarily local. And the 58:17 reason we're local is because this model 58:19 works even better when everybody's 58:21 together in the room. 58:22 >> Yeah. 58:23 >> And so we have a studio space that we've 58:24 invested in. It's attached to our live 58:27 production studio, where we have a whole 58:28 build out where we do like live 58:30 production shows, passion notes, etc. We 58:32 run our own conferences, right? Ghost 58:34 Gaming is more than just a launch pad, 58:36 right? We have a whole content creator 58:38 network of folks. And so we're actually 58:39 a much larger company than it seems. But 58:42 for the game development division, we 58:43 have our our individual studio space 58:45 that is committed to us. And right now, 58:47 we everyone we work with is in that 58:50 space at least a few days a week. I do 58:53 want to expand it even more broadly than 58:55 that, but I think for now, you really 58:57 have to be Atlanta based if you want to 58:59 work in Launch Pad. If you want to work 59:01 with the publishing side of Ghost Gaming 59:03 and Ghost Launch Pad, I am totally open 59:05 to that. You do not need to be in 59:06 Atlanta, but the level of support you're 59:08 going to get is slightly different. And 59:09 you can use that same contact us form to 59:11 reach out. 59:12 >> Very cool. I'll have that link to in the 59:13 in the description, so you guys can just 59:14 go check them out, man. Yeah, no, of 59:16 course, man. I 59:17 I love what you're doing. I love that 59:18 mission. And I've I've known Todd for a 59:20 long time as well. And man, you got 59:23 You guys have always not only been the 59:25 top players in this space, you've always 59:27 been giving back and helping out and fun 59:29 fun rate. You do all these things that 59:31 are that are incredible for the 59:32 community. So, thanks thanks again for 59:34 that. 59:35 >> Thank you. 59:35 >> let's let's move on. I have this one's 59:37 kind of around leadership changes. So, 59:39 like you founded studios and led big 59:41 teams. Now you're working with small 59:43 indie creators teams through launch pad. 59:45 What's your approach to leading and 59:46 creating teams um in this UEFN space? 59:49 Like how do you keep the small Fortnite 59:50 dev teams aligned and motivated? 59:53 >> Sometimes I think I'm like those mean 59:55 chefs of the kitchens in the movies. 59:58 Where I was just like 59:59 >> Just 1:00:00 >> Here's how you do this. 1:00:01 >> Yeah. Yeah. Just a big pot. Yeah. 1:00:04 Yeah. 1:00:05 >> That actually sounds so scary. Uh but 1:00:06 like No, no, no, but like like truly 1:00:08 like the the way we do this is we 1:00:11 instill core values of entrepreneurship 1:00:14 and we do it in the open. And it's the 1:00:16 reverse of every business book you've 1:00:17 ever read. They teach you to coach 1:00:20 privately, celebrate celebrate publicly. 1:00:23 We do everything publicly. If you make a 1:00:26 mistake, we talk about it in the room. 1:00:28 We literally stand up at our desk and we 1:00:30 talk about it and the room gets more 1:00:32 quiet and they all listen and everyone 1:00:35 soaks the lessons. And the reason we do 1:00:37 that is not to be cruel, it's it's a 1:00:40 training protocol, right? You need to be 1:00:43 able to handle what you would feel is 1:00:46 harsh and embarrassing feedback and you 1:00:48 need to be able to detach your emotion 1:00:50 from that and go through that process 1:00:52 unscathed because your players are going 1:00:54 to be mean. They just are. And I don't 1:00:56 know why they do it, but they just are 1:00:58 sometimes. 1:00:58 >> Yeah, they just keyboard warriors. 1:01:01 >> Yeah, right. Like anonymity on the 1:01:02 internet. But like, you know, you have 1:01:04 to be able to take harsh feedback. And 1:01:06 also, it doesn't do us any favors for me 1:01:09 to take somebody and coach them and then 1:01:11 have to go repeat that coaching five, 1:01:14 six, seven other times with different 1:01:15 people when everyone can get the lesson 1:01:17 together. That's one of the benefits of 1:01:18 the program is that we can grow 1:01:19 together. So, I think we instill core 1:01:21 values of entrepreneurship, we coach 1:01:23 open and honesty open and honestly. And 1:01:26 then I think also you need to have a lot 1:01:28 of patience but work with urgency. And 1:01:30 that's something else we we constantly 1:01:32 remind folks of. So, it's like be 1:01:33 patient with the results. The games are 1:01:35 going to fail. The outcomes are not 1:01:37 going to be what you want. But you also 1:01:38 need to work really hard as if they're 1:01:40 working and like every moment matters 1:01:42 because time is the great equalizer. And 1:01:45 if you are going slowly, your growth is 1:01:47 also going to be slow. 1:01:49 >> Yeah. 1:01:50 >> I think you also need to protect your 1:01:51 culture. 1:01:52 >> Yeah. 1:01:52 >> Super important. I have learned this 1:01:54 from company to company. If there's 1:01:55 somebody in your program who's not a 1:01:57 cultural fit and you're pretty sure of 1:02:00 that, they need to go even if they're 1:02:01 good. 1:02:02 >> Yeah, and that's a hard lesson to learn 1:02:04 and especially your first time letting 1:02:05 someone go. It's the worst. But yeah, 1:02:07 it's so true. 1:02:09 >> right? It's like I I see your potential 1:02:11 but you're just not right for us. 1:02:13 >> Yeah. 1:02:14 >> if you do that, you're really just 1:02:15 harming both parties, right? 1:02:17 >> You can put in a grenade in in your 1:02:19 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that person's 1:02:20 not going to succeed, they're not a fit. 1:02:22 And also everyone else on your team who 1:02:23 is a fit is going to see this person and 1:02:25 become frustrated by them. And so I 1:02:27 think you need to protect the culture 1:02:28 that you want. I also think you need to 1:02:29 write down and have a strong vision 1:02:31 about what the culture is and continue 1:02:32 to challenge it. 1:02:33 >> Yeah, it shouldn't be a guess either 1:02:35 though. Yeah, yeah. 1:02:36 >> And and don't do the bumper sticker 1:02:38 thing. 1:02:39 Our culture is work hard. Okay, who's 1:02:41 not trying to work hard? Like come on. 1:02:43 >> Yeah. 1:02:43 >> That's not a cultural moment. Like 1:02:45 there's not this like the side of the 1:02:47 wall then there's like the reality and 1:02:48 it's pretty easy to figure out. I mean 1:02:50 you can just sit there and think 1:02:51 critically about how do you work today? 1:02:53 What do you expect? And and that is your 1:02:55 culture. Like like like truly. And 1:02:58 everyone's working hard. So, that's not 1:02:59 it. And then the the last thing I'll say 1:03:01 for leadership is I read a lot of books. 1:03:03 I try to read at least a book a month. 1:03:06 And sometimes more on leadership, um 1:03:08 production, on design. I think there's 1:03:11 this thing for lawyers called CLE which 1:03:12 is continuing legal education. I think 1:03:15 not everyone uses the way it should be 1:03:17 used but I think what it stands for is 1:03:18 correct, which is you need to always be 1:03:20 learning and trying to improve. And and 1:03:22 one way to learn is through your own 1:03:23 experience, and I think that's the most 1:03:25 valuable way. But another way is to get 1:03:27 other people's perspective. And there's 1:03:29 this song I love. You guys can look it 1:03:30 up sometime. Baz Luhrmann, Everybody 1:03:32 Wear Sunscreen. It's like a speech 1:03:34 >> Yeah, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah, 1:03:36 it's amazing. 1:03:36 >> It's like a reporter who wrote this and 1:03:38 then and then he delivered it. But like 1:03:40 the point is is that you advice is a 1:03:42 form of nostalgia, right? It It is It is 1:03:45 uh fishing out pieces of the past, 1:03:47 wiping them off, cleaning them, and 1:03:48 recycling them for more than it's worth, 1:03:50 right? And so when you read a book, the 1:03:52 answer is not necessarily in that book. 1:03:54 It's somebody's advice. But that doesn't 1:03:56 mean it's not worth something. And so I 1:03:58 think challenging your own perspectives 1:04:00 and your own experiences by reading 1:04:02 other people's perspectives and 1:04:03 experiences in books is extremely 1:04:05 valuable and something I think anyone 1:04:07 who's in a leadership role needs to be 1:04:08 doing and needs to be doing it 1:04:09 >> Yeah, no, that's a great point. And even 1:04:11 in game development, if you go to school 1:04:13 for game development, like especially in 1:04:15 the past few years, like by the time you 1:04:17 graduated, your that whole the whole 1:04:20 scene outlook of game development that 1:04:22 you learn is changed is changed. 1:04:24 >> you learn like the GDD model, it's like 1:04:26 write up this 200-page GDD. Dude, I've 1:04:28 never written a 200-page GDD in my 1:04:30 career because the game is iterative. 1:04:32 It's changing. I don't have the time to 1:04:34 maintain a 200-page GDD. 1:04:36 >> And the tools have changed, programming 1:04:37 changed. So but but what it does teach 1:04:39 you just like you said, you continual 1:04:40 learning. And I think that's the the 1:04:43 that's what you should take from if you 1:04:44 are you know, and I wouldn't recommend 1:04:46 whatever about this. I don't know if I 1:04:48 would recommend even going to gaming 1:04:49 college right at this point, but you 1:04:51 know, you do you. There are probably 1:04:52 some benefits of meeting people, things 1:04:54 like that. But learning outside of that 1:04:56 in in game development especially, 1:04:57 there's this this ecosystem is 1:04:59 consistently changing, consistently 1:05:01 changing. And so we have to be on top of 1:05:03 new things and just also just always 1:05:05 kind of like if you just if you're not 1:05:07 learning new things, man, you're being 1:05:09 stationary. I don't know. I think my 1:05:10 brain just like dulls. It's just I'm not 1:05:12 as I'm not, you know, I don't I don't 1:05:15 know what that is. They're just like 1:05:16 >> way up there, right? I just started 1:05:17 doing the like creatine every 1:05:19 >> Yeah, I do my creatine. So, that there's 1:05:21 no excuse there. So, any books out there 1:05:24 you want to like recommend? 1:05:26 >> Mhm, that's a good question. There was a 1:05:28 great 1:05:29 >> know, actually. 1:05:29 >> Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. There there are 1:05:31 a few, actually. I wish I had my Kindle. 1:05:33 Hold on, let me let me pop it open cuz 1:05:34 there's One I will tell you just off of 1:05:37 memory that I recently read, which is a 1:05:38 strange book to recommend, but I'm going 1:05:40 to recommend it anyways, The Lego Story, 1:05:42 which actually will not teach you 1:05:44 necessarily direct like leadership 1:05:46 techniques, but it is a fascinating 1:05:48 story and it covers Most people don't 1:05:50 know this, but the Lego Group is 1:05:51 actually family-owned and private 1:05:54 >> Yes. 1:05:54 >> still to this day. The Kirk Kristiansen 1:05:56 family owns it. And so, you can read how 1:05:59 they have navigated handing it off and 1:06:01 how each individual generation that has 1:06:04 been in the leadership seat has thought 1:06:06 about leading and growing the company. I 1:06:07 actually think it is extremely 1:06:09 fascinating. But aside from that, the 1:06:11 game the books that I would recommend is 1:06:13 First of all, Game Analytics by Russell 1:06:16 Owens is phenomenal. It will teach you 1:06:18 uses a mobile-based, but it will teach 1:06:20 you how to read your data and read your 1:06:21 data better so you can understand the 1:06:23 health of your game. I liked Up Down Up, 1:06:25 which is Kim Nordstrom. It's just like a 1:06:27 collection of testimonials of people who 1:06:30 have gone through the entrepreneurial 1:06:31 journey in games. I thought it was a 1:06:33 great book. 1:06:34 >> Cool. I really really really liked, 1:06:36 which is going to sound a little maybe a 1:06:38 little strange, but it's a 1:06:39 >> book called Scaling Up, which is which 1:06:41 is a business process book. It has 1:06:43 nothing to do with games. But Scaling Up 1:06:45 by Verne Harnish was great and started 1:06:49 It It taught me to start doing again, 1:06:51 which I had not done in a while, 1:06:52 start-stop-keep exercises with my team 1:06:55 so that I can earlier identify things 1:06:58 we're doing well and areas where they 1:07:00 need help. And I think that's a good 1:07:01 one. I also enjoyed A Playful Production 1:07:04 Process by Richard Lamartina. And uh the 1:07:08 last one I'll recommend is the game 1:07:10 product management handbook by Sherry 1:07:12 Kumar. And I apologize if I 1:07:14 mispronounced anybody's names. Those are 1:07:16 those are the most recent books that 1:07:17 I've read that I found have been very 1:07:19 very good. And then there's The Art of 1:07:21 Game Design is out there. It's like a 1:07:22 academic book used in schools. 1:07:24 >> Yeah, that one's 1:07:25 that's my toilet book. I just I reread 1:07:27 it all the time. 1:07:29 >> If you're doing anything with game 1:07:30 design, it's a it's a great book um and 1:07:33 it and it's one that that everybody 1:07:34 should 1:07:35 >> Agree. Agree, that's a great one. Oh 1:07:36 man, great great recommendations. I got 1:07:38 some reading to do now. Thank you for 1:07:39 that. All right, I want to talk about 1:07:41 kind of a the creator economy. So, let's 1:07:43 talk about money. 1:07:45 >> Money. 1:07:45 >> Here we go. Fortnite UEFN um is pretty 1:07:48 new in how creators can earn engagement 1:07:51 payouts. We have now have in-app 1:07:52 purchases. Like, from your perspective, 1:07:55 what does it take for a creator to 1:07:56 actually turn this into a substantial 1:07:58 business? What changes do you think are 1:08:00 still needed to make this economy or 1:08:02 economics here work? 1:08:04 >> Yeah. First off, I would just start and 1:08:06 say that it's extremely hard. And I and 1:08:08 I I feel that that is glossed over on 1:08:11 social media. Sometimes you'll read 1:08:12 these stories like overnight success. 1:08:14 This guy is a multimillionaire. They're 1:08:16 cashing in bank off UGC. And then in a 1:08:18 very small tagline, it's like average 1:08:19 creator made nothing. Right? Like, I 1:08:21 mean, you just have to understand that 1:08:23 like nothing's probably too extreme. 1:08:24 This is somewhat out there. But like, 1:08:26 you know, like you you have to 1:08:27 understand that it's just very hard. I 1:08:29 think the number one thing I would say, 1:08:31 if your goal is to make money, is to 1:08:33 make sure that your game has product 1:08:36 market fit for Fortnite players. Not 1:08:39 product market fit for some dude on 1:08:41 Steam who's not in Fortnite. You know, 1:08:44 not product market fit for you 1:08:46 personally, unless you play a lot of 1:08:48 Fortnite yourself. Fortnite players. 1:08:51 That is essential if you want to make 1:08:53 something that is going to earn you 1:08:55 money. It needs to be something that 1:08:57 people who play Fortnite today want to 1:08:59 play. And if you don't know what product 1:09:01 market fit is, you can just look it up. 1:09:02 There's plenty of resources out there. 1:09:04 Uh that is the number one way to win. Um 1:09:06 apparently, it is also the number one 1:09:09 barrier to growing the ecosystem because 1:09:13 it is only Fortnite players. And I think 1:09:16 when you think about the long-term 1:09:18 vision of what Fortnite needs to become 1:09:21 to compete with Roblox at a higher 1:09:23 level, to surpass Roblox, to be the 1:09:26 metaverse that we've heard Tim Sweeney 1:09:28 speak a lot about, it really um and and 1:09:31 not getting into like the execution 1:09:32 layer of like does Fortnite need to 1:09:33 rebrand or not, right? But it really 1:09:35 needs to find a way to grow beyond 1:09:37 Battle Royale. And I think there's a lot 1:09:40 of experiments that have been done 1:09:41 there. Uh but I don't think we've been 1:09:43 successful collectively as as a 1:09:46 ecosystem, right? I don't think 1:09:48 third-party creators have been able to 1:09:50 drive meaningful traffic from outside 1:09:52 Fortnite. And similarly, I don't think 1:09:54 Epic has been able to figure out how to 1:09:55 grow Fortnite to be more than just 1:09:57 Fortnite. 1:09:58 >> Yeah. 1:09:58 >> Um so that is the number one thing that 1:10:00 needs to change from monetization. It's 1:10:01 not discovery. 1:10:03 >> Yeah, yeah. 1:10:05 >> Discovery is actually phenomenal, by the 1:10:07 way. 1:10:08 There's no other ecosystem that I have 1:10:10 been in and maybe Roblox and some of 1:10:11 these do this. There's no other 1:10:12 ecosystem that I've been in where you 1:10:14 literally get paid for the platform 1:10:16 advertising your game. Like 1:10:18 in discovery, you're getting 1:10:19 engagement-based payouts and they are 1:10:22 voluntarily You usually pay for that. 1:10:24 Like 1:10:25 >> Yeah. 1:10:25 >> we're getting paid for that. Like that's 1:10:28 crazy. So I just think like Like yes, 1:10:30 discovery is not perfect. There are 1:10:32 problems. I will be the first to admit 1:10:34 that. But 1:10:35 But like also like it's not it's not the 1:10:38 thing that's preventing you from 1:10:39 monetizing. The thing that is preventing 1:10:41 you from monetizing is is that. You need 1:10:43 to build a game for Fortnite players. 1:10:44 And and Epic needs to And we I think 1:10:47 it's more Epic than us, to be honest. I 1:10:48 I think it's hard for third-party 1:10:49 developers, but Epic needs to figure out 1:10:51 how to grow this audience. 1:10:53 >> No, that's that's a great answer. I 1:10:54 mean, it is tough. It is tough. And 1:10:58 I don't know it 1:11:00 There's been signals though. We're 1:11:01 seeing new games coming. I mean, some 1:11:03 will say they're coming from Roblox 1:11:04 clones that have already maybe had that 1:11:06 the IP success, right? Such as such as 1:11:08 Steel a Brain was so big. So, it is kind 1:11:10 of always has the press. But, go Oh, 1:11:12 yeah. Go ahead. Was that Let me 1:11:14 challenge that just a little 1:11:15 >> Go ahead. Yeah. For the viewers, a 1:11:16 little challenging. So, like like I 1:11:18 think you see such strong signal from 1:11:21 Roblox games coming into Fortnite 1:11:23 because of the lunchroom conversation. 1:11:25 >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. My kids five and seven 1:11:28 talk about it, man. Yeah. 100%. 100%. 1:11:31 >> you go to school and you're probably in 1:11:33 one of two three camps. You're either a 1:11:35 Roblox player, a Fortnite player, or a 1:11:36 Minecraft player. Or maybe Hytale soon. 1:11:38 >> Yeah. Yeah. 1:11:39 >> You're probably in one of those three 1:11:40 camps, right? And so so you want to be 1:11:43 able I mean, we we care less as we get 1:11:46 older, but as we're kids, you care very 1:11:47 much about social acceptance and being 1:11:49 included and being part of a group or a 1:11:52 tribe. 1:11:52 >> to own all the Pokémon. I want the 1:11:54 Charizard, man. 1:11:55 >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, like when 1:11:58 you care about that, if there's a game 1:12:01 that the lunch group is talking about 1:12:03 that's in Roblox and you're a Fortnite 1:12:05 player, that game doesn't exist there, 1:12:07 well, then you can't join the 1:12:08 conversation. You're excluded. That 1:12:10 doesn't feel good. So so of course 1:12:12 bringing that popular game over into 1:12:14 Fortnite so more kids at the lunch table 1:12:16 can talk about it is going to be a 1:12:18 successful strategy. 1:12:20 >> Yeah. 1:12:20 >> And and then you're going to have to 1:12:21 figure out licensing or get sued by Adam 1:12:22 Star or whatever. But, like 1:12:25 >> He was on the podcast. Great episode. 1:12:27 >> He was. He was. It was a good episode. 1:12:29 Hi, Adam, if you're watching. 1:12:30 >> Yeah, he probably is. Adam's the best. 1:12:32 >> Like you know like like 1:12:33 >> IP Yeah. 1:12:35 >> Yeah. You know, like that's why it's 1:12:36 successful. But, I don't know that it 1:12:38 grows the audience as much as it's just 1:12:40 helping those those kids participate at 1:12:43 the lunchroom conversation. And what I'd 1:12:45 really love to see is like, you know, 1:12:47 like okay, there's all these people who 1:12:50 who love Animal Crossing. Are they going 1:12:52 to come in, right? Like Like there's an 1:12:53 obviously we talk about Fall Guys, 1:12:54 right? Since it's hot it's a hot topic 1:12:56 right now, right? Like like okay, they 1:12:58 launched a new mode inside Fortnite for 1:13:00 Fall Guys. It looks awesome, right? But 1:13:02 Fall Guys still exists as a standalone 1:13:04 game. Why? 1:13:05 Why 1:13:05 is Fall Guys not in Fortnite? You own 1:13:08 some audience like I know why it's 1:13:09 probably technical reasons and more 1:13:11 complex than I'm going to make it sound, 1:13:12 but like the reality is like you have an 1:13:14 audience that exists that you could 1:13:16 merge, but you haven't merged them yet. 1:13:18 Like Epic needs go first, right? They 1:13:21 need they have several different 1:13:22 audiences that they need to merge into 1:13:24 one and and and and I and make that 1:13:26 successful, right? 1:13:27 >> No, for sure. And they did so they did 1:13:29 try for Fall Guys. Remember that there's 1:13:31 an IP for Fall Guys. They They gave us 1:13:33 the IP for Fall Guys and it never really 1:13:35 We didn't really get too much success. 1:13:36 >> Fall Guys game still existed, right? So 1:13:38 if I play Fall Guys, why would I ever 1:13:40 install Fortnite to play Fall Guys 1:13:41 instead of my game, right? If I right, 1:13:43 the same thing with Rocket Racing. Why 1:13:45 would I play Rocket Racing I've got 1:13:46 Rocket League. Like if the standalone 1:13:48 games are are part of Fortnite and 1:13:51 everything is one and this is 1:13:53 like they were built 1:13:54 they were built separate from Fortnite. 1:13:55 They have different back-end 1:13:56 infrastructures. They have different 1:13:58 tech, right? But like if these things 1:13:59 were just one game you installed and 1:14:02 there wasn't this other game you could 1:14:04 go to, I think you would see that growth 1:14:06 happen. But Epic has not done that yet. 1:14:09 And I think maybe that's the first step. 1:14:11 I mean it's a high-risk step if you get 1:14:12 it wrong. You could lose all these 1:14:14 communities, right? And so you know, 1:14:16 they probably want thin client all those 1:14:18 other pieces. 1:14:18 >> that was just to say with mobile thin 1:14:20 client, I think that will maybe they'll 1:14:22 take bigger swings and actually add Fall 1:14:24 Guys on our discovery. And and and 1:14:27 here's going to be a good good thing we 1:14:28 see is when Unity comes in this year. 1:14:30 There's some big games that could easily 1:14:32 be ported over. Well, I should I say 1:14:34 easily I don't know how this is all 1:14:36 going to work. But in my brain that that 1:14:38 are huge on Unity that can come right 1:14:41 into our ecosystem and a lot of them are 1:14:43 mobile mobile first. So I think I think 1:14:46 still how that's going to run on mobile 1:14:48 is is still going to be a big factor. 1:14:50 But yeah, I think that'll be interesting 1:14:51 when we see that if we see any big hits. 1:14:53 I think Let's Go Silk Road is one of 1:14:55 them. 1:14:56 Um Among Us, that's another one that is 1:14:59 on from Unity. So, if they put Among Us 1:15:02 and we have impostor, and we have some I 1:15:04 don't not knock up but we have some 1:15:05 whatever 1:15:06 >> Yeah, similar game, similar game. 1:15:08 >> Similar games of that that are doing 1:15:10 well on our platform. So, if that comes 1:15:12 in, that'd be really interesting. So, I 1:15:14 think we might be able to get some of 1:15:15 these answers hopefully this year if 1:15:17 and see how that goes. But yeah, I think 1:15:19 what I mean is we are starting to see 1:15:21 new genres, new games which we haven't 1:15:23 seen stick and stay. Like we've seen 1:15:26 some pops, but that were not VR-centric. 1:15:29 So, I I 1:15:30 those are some good signals and I and I 1:15:32 I hope for our ecosystem and again it's 1:15:35 what the players want to play. They want 1:15:36 to play Brain Out, that's what they want 1:15:37 to play. we can't we can't predict that, 1:15:39 but maybe maybe as they age up they're 1:15:41 going to want to play some very high 1:15:43 quality games, you know. Who knows? 1:15:46 >> I will argue 1:15:47 not that you're implying this, but I'll 1:15:49 just argue for the other people who I 1:15:50 know think this. Brain Out is a high 1:15:52 quality game, right? Like that's a great 1:15:53 game. Great game. It is it is the 1:15:56 epitome of like simple game design. Like 1:15:59 I hear this all the time, dude. That 1:16:00 game is so simple, I could make that. 1:16:02 Why did that work? Like what do you 1:16:04 mean, dude? It's beautifully like Clash 1:16:06 Royale I still say it was one of the 1:16:07 best games of all time, right? I don't 1:16:09 play it anymore, but I remember when it 1:16:11 came out I just play a lot of different 1:16:12 games. I say it's the best game of all 1:16:13 time but I don't play it. But like at 1:16:14 its time 1:16:16 right? When it came out like it was 1:16:17 perfectly simple and so many people 1:16:19 tried to follow them and failed because 1:16:21 it was just the perfect version of what 1:16:24 that game needed to be. And simple game 1:16:28 design like regardless of how you feel 1:16:29 about Brain Out or memes or whatever 1:16:31 like simple game design that is highly 1:16:33 accessible, highly social that drives 1:16:36 with an audience, right? Product market 1:16:38 fit is like the way to do things. And 1:16:41 and and I I made the shelf example 1:16:43 earlier. Reduce. Reduce. Reduce. Reduce 1:16:46 it. It's probably over scoped. Reduce 1:16:48 it. And I make this mistake still. Like 1:16:50 I'm looking at some of the games we've 1:16:51 launched. I'm like, "Why did I do that?" 1:16:53 Like reduce. 1:16:54 >> Yeah. 1:16:54 >> Remember your own lessons, you know? And 1:16:56 like yeah. 1:16:57 >> You know, 1:16:58 and for sure I mean people just look at 1:17:00 like overall people think UEFN was the 1:17:02 next AAA type games and they look at 1:17:05 Roblox. And I did this too early on too. 1:17:07 I was like, "Oh, I don't like how the 1:17:08 blocks. I don't like that look. I want 1:17:10 to play the new Call of Duty. I want to 1:17:11 play the high-end games. That's I want 1:17:13 the best I have the nice computer. I 1:17:14 want to you know, push its limits." So I 1:17:16 think we get that little mix-up. But I 1:17:19 agree. Still the brain rot. 1:17:21 >> mistake. These are real games. We need 1:17:23 to bring them real games. It's not what 1:17:25 they want. Like they they don't want 1:17:27 your AAA Call of Duty inside of the 1:17:29 user-generated content ecosystem. If 1:17:31 they want that, they'll go play Call of 1:17:32 Duty. Like they're looking for something 1:17:34 else. And it is our job as game 1:17:36 developers to figure out what that is 1:17:39 and deliver it. 1:17:40 >> if you do that, you will be successful 1:17:42 and you will make 1:17:43 >> 100%. And and I I remember this like so 1:17:44 red I mean I've I've been since day one. 1:17:46 So I I seen the red versus blue. Like 1:17:48 there was this game Pro 100 and it's 1:17:50 still around. A lot of people will know 1:17:52 what this what this game is. And it's 1:17:53 basically a red versus blue, but it's on 1:17:55 the prefab boat we can just throw down 1:17:57 and he kind of made 1:17:59 a very 1:18:01 simple version of red versus This was 1:18:02 the first one and this game started 1:18:04 taking off. And I remember somebody at 1:18:07 Epic hit me up and he's like, "Hey, what 1:18:08 do you think of this game?" And I 1:18:09 wouldn't play it. And I was like, "Like 1:18:11 this game is horrible. Who's playing 1:18:13 this game? This sucks." The game started 1:18:15 taking off, right? And then I was like, 1:18:17 "Oh man, what what's going on here?" So 1:18:18 then I went in and then I actually gave 1:18:21 it a play and I was in there for an hour 1:18:22 and a half. And I was like like, "Okay. 1:18:25 Now I I get it now. I I understand 1:18:27 this." And and same with the red versus 1:18:29 blue that just that had the same thing. 1:18:30 It just took like and same with the 1:18:32 brain steal the brain rot. And I didn't 1:18:33 really say I don't have I don't think 1:18:35 like that anymore, but that is early on. 1:18:38 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:18:38 >> Probably for a reason. I want it now I 1:18:40 want to go find out why. And what's 1:18:42 funny is now I have kids, young kids. I 1:18:44 play I played it and I'm like, "Oh, 1:18:46 okay, this is super sticky. This game is 1:18:48 crazy. It's easy to understand. I see 1:18:50 this you want to sneak up and steal 1:18:53 these things. This is super fun. But 1:18:54 again, maybe not my like game I want to 1:18:56 play every day. That ain't that ain't 1:18:57 what I what I choose. But like then I 1:18:59 watch my kids play it. And it was they 1:19:01 played it totally different. They 1:19:02 they're they just want to steal. They 1:19:04 don't care. They want to do the fun 1:19:06 little things inside of it. They like to 1:19:07 look at the brain rods. They like to 1:19:09 collect. They don't It gets pissed if 1:19:11 someone steals his brain rod. Like it 1:19:13 was just it was 1:19:14 so eye-opening and and get both sides or 1:19:17 I get both sides to see why some 1:19:18 creators think think like that. But like 1:19:20 it's it's we're just one perspective. 1:19:23 And and there's a reason that these 1:19:25 games do pop up and and stay. And I 1:19:28 think it's important for to not have 1:19:30 that mindset. Go in there and study and 1:19:32 understand why is this pop Why are 1:19:35 people liking this? What is the 1:19:36 motivations for players to keep coming 1:19:38 back? And how can I take that and put it 1:19:40 in my game or a new game idea that's 1:19:43 more Fortnite-centric or whatever like 1:19:45 we're different we're just talking about 1:19:46 UEFN whatever. But like like how do you 1:19:48 how do you turn that into something 1:19:50 else, right? And people already have. 1:19:52 We're seeing all these now brain rot 1:19:54 different genres coming with that always 1:19:56 happens. We've seen that with pillars. 1:19:57 We always that will always happen. But 1:19:59 that's kind of like your first sign. 1:20:01 It's really hard to be first movers on 1:20:03 these games. I mean you're competing 1:20:04 with two 16-year-olds in a basement like 1:20:06 you know, no no no overhead. They I'm 1:20:09 going to they're going to crush these 1:20:10 games and out and they're going to get 1:20:11 it out. And and they're going to beat 1:20:13 you. But how can you learn from that, be 1:20:15 ready for the next thing? And and I'm 1:20:17 sure there's a lot of creators right now 1:20:19 thinking about oh, I missed the brain 1:20:21 rod. I already I've heard this. I've 1:20:22 heard this from top teams. I mean they 1:20:24 missed the brain rod. 1:20:25 >> Missed the way 1:20:26 >> But they'll be it doesn't mean they'll 1:20:27 miss the next one. 1:20:29 >> most popular brain rod game right now is 1:20:30 it rod wave by the way? 1:20:32 >> is, the tsunami. And dude, again, and 1:20:34 but that's Roblox. 1:20:37 It was popular That's how it happened. 1:20:38 It's popular in Roblox, came over, but 1:20:40 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a 1:20:41 launch room thing we talked about, 1:20:42 right? It's just in one area, then it's 1:20:44 in both areas. We saw this in early 1:20:45 mobile with iOS and Android all 1:20:47 >> And but but just like look at look how 1:20:49 that 1:20:51 evolves on Roblox, just like that, and 1:20:52 the games do that here. Same thing. So, 1:20:54 I don't know. I think that's like a big 1:20:55 takeaway for creators that are really 1:20:57 trying to get I think that's a good 1:20:58 focus. And and not go go copy. I'm not 1:21:00 saying any of that stuff, but like at 1:21:03 least learn. At least I think a lot of 1:21:05 people they just go make the games they 1:21:06 want. They don't actually go play the 1:21:07 popular games or or kind of understand. 1:21:10 It's so hard to do that if you're 1:21:11 especially if you don't know Fortnite. 1:21:13 Coming into Fortnite at early on in 1:21:14 UEFN, there a lot of teams all these AAA 1:21:17 teams did come into here, and they 1:21:19 didn't they did what they know, and they 1:21:22 it works other way at places. It just 1:21:24 didn't understand what skins people 1:21:26 like, what games people like, how people 1:21:28 interact with a teleporter or the rather 1:21:30 than a door, which that changed, but you 1:21:31 know what I mean? They're just like it's 1:21:33 a whole new way of creating. And and but 1:21:36 those people that have been around will 1:21:37 pick it up fast, too. So. 1:21:39 >> Yeah, totally. 1:21:40 >> All right, I want to look ahead a little 1:21:41 bit because it feels like this is still 1:21:44 like early innings for what we're, you 1:21:46 know, you're building. So, without us 1:21:48 going anything confidential, what's on 1:21:50 the horizon for Ghost Launchpad and your 1:21:51 team? Are there any new types of 1:21:53 Fortnite experience or partnerships 1:21:54 you're exploring that Fortnite creators 1:21:56 out there might get excited about? 1:21:57 >> Yeah, so we have a We have a motto at 1:22:00 Ghost Gaming, belong and thrive, right? 1:22:03 We want our developers to belong, and we 1:22:06 want them to thrive. And one of the ways 1:22:07 we do that on the game development side 1:22:10 is we pick genres that people are 1:22:12 interested in that we think have an 1:22:15 opportunity for growth inside of 1:22:16 Fortnite, and then we have several teams 1:22:18 invest in those genres. And the best 1:22:21 game wins. This is a model that Tencent 1:22:22 has deployed, NetEase has deployed, and 1:22:24 several other R&D departments that I've 1:22:26 personally worked in used, right? It's 1:22:28 just you're learning. You're all 1:22:29 learning together and and and growing 1:22:31 together. And so for us, we're really 1:22:33 excited about turn-based RPGs. Super Pet 1:22:35 World has had great signal for us. It is 1:22:38 niche, extremely niche, 1:22:40 but but there are people who really 1:22:41 really love it. It reached number two 1:22:43 most engaging in all of Fortnite. It's 1:22:45 number one on Tycoon. At one point, 1:22:47 dude, we had like an average play time 1:22:49 of almost 120 minutes per day. 1:22:51 >> Whoa. It was It was a crazy dedicated 1:22:54 >> I don't think I've I've ever heard of 1:22:55 that, dude. That's crazy. 1:22:57 >> They'll beat us. I mean, we couldn't get 1:22:58 the number one spot, but like yeah, it 1:23:00 was really good. So 1:23:02 So we want to do more there. We have 1:23:03 great technology. Again, we spent a year 1:23:05 building the technology behind it. I 1:23:07 think we want to continue to invest in 1:23:09 Super Pet World, but we also want to 1:23:10 take that technology and use it to make 1:23:12 other games. We're also exploring other 1:23:14 niche genres. We've done a little bit of 1:23:16 experimentation inside of horror. I 1:23:18 think there's room for growth there. 1:23:19 It's interesting. And then there's a few 1:23:21 I won't name because I don't want to I 1:23:23 don't want to tip our hand, but there's 1:23:24 things that we're trying that are like 1:23:25 really far out there. Like maybe 1:23:27 Fortnite players won't even like them, 1:23:28 but we just have some theories and 1:23:30 there's no existing audience and we want 1:23:32 to try it. 1:23:33 >> Yeah. 1:23:33 >> And like sometimes that's what you do 1:23:34 and we're just going in with eyes wide 1:23:36 open. I'm like, "Hey, this may be like a 1:23:37 horrible business case for us." But like 1:23:39 it also might be genius and like the 1:23:41 teams are passionate about it and 1:23:43 sometimes that's enough. So So we are we 1:23:45 are approaching that. 1:23:46 And we're also doing a couple of other 1:23:48 cool things. Next month, we have an 1:23:50 activation with a nonprofit to raise 1:23:51 awareness about children with heart 1:23:53 transplants. 1:23:54 >> Oh, incredible. 1:23:55 >> Yeah, really cool and excited to talk 1:23:58 more about that soon. And in May, we're 1:24:00 going to be hosting several events in 1:24:02 Atlanta, like Creator Summit in between 1:24:05 a DreamHack IM and Momocon, which are 1:24:08 all big gaming or gaming culture or 1:24:11 anime culture related events that happen 1:24:13 here. We're also going to have an event 1:24:15 where we're showcasing UEFN games 1:24:17 including those from our own portfolio 1:24:19 and And a big activation where people 1:24:21 can come and play and learn and interact 1:24:23 with developers. And last time we did 1:24:25 this, which was just a few months ago, 1:24:27 we also spoke to folks. We had a a 1:24:29 portion of the event was dedicated to 1:24:31 young girls who want to learn about game 1:24:33 development and collaboration. And so 1:24:35 Hannah Grace, who's on the publishing 1:24:36 team 1:24:37 >> Yeah, Hannah, the best. 1:24:38 >> She stood up and she gave a presentation 1:24:39 on like, "Hey, look, here's how I make 1:24:41 thumbnails. Like it's actually really 1:24:43 cool. You probably don't know this as a 1:24:44 job. Here's how I post things in 3D, 1:24:46 right? Here's how I augment them. Here's 1:24:48 a couple of we stuck it a little AB 1:24:49 testing also. Like, hey, which thumbnail 1:24:51 do you like the most?" Yeah. By the way, 1:24:52 very valuable. The one that we thought 1:24:54 was going to win was not the one that 1:24:55 won and it was overwhelming with the 1:24:58 audience. Just a a a reminder, you need 1:25:00 to always test with your actual audience 1:25:03 because your compass sometimes can be a 1:25:05 little bit off. And so, back your 1:25:07 intuition with data, right? That's how 1:25:09 we opened. And I'll just write you a bad 1:25:11 >> Yeah. 1:25:11 >> YouTube, you know, you need to measure 1:25:12 and you need to be honest with yourself 1:25:14 about those measurements and what 1:25:16 they're telling you. So so that's the 1:25:17 stuff that I that I can talk about and 1:25:19 there's a lot more of things that that 1:25:20 unfortunately I can't talk about, but I 1:25:22 think it will be a good year for us. I'm 1:25:23 very excited 1:25:24 >> That's that's incredible, man. I love 1:25:26 that. Like I said I already said, man, 1:25:27 you guys are always giving back and and 1:25:29 doing cool initiatives and charity work. 1:25:32 Incredible. And you know, I've had two, 1:25:35 three 1:25:36 >> I should also mention I should also 1:25:38 mention 1:25:39 we are sponsoring local universities for 1:25:41 Global Game Jam and we're trying to get 1:25:43 more people to do UEFN based stuff 1:25:45 inside of game jams. So a little bit of 1:25:46 a workforce development as well. Or it's 1:25:48 just raising the overall bar in the 1:25:50 ecosystem. More verse developers, 1:25:51 please. And more folks who are 1:25:53 comfortable working inside of the UEFN 1:25:55 tool set and investing in there, right? 1:25:57 We have these game jams. People are 1:25:58 working on Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, 1:26:01 right? 1:26:01 >> Yeah. 1:26:02 >> And they have to build everything from 1:26:03 scratch. You could go to UEFN and build 1:26:05 such a way more impressive game in that 1:26:07 same amount of time. And so we're we're 1:26:08 trying to advocate for that more here in 1:26:10 the southeast of the United States. 1:26:12 >> Amazing. So again, before we wrap up, 1:26:14 dude, like this is perfect. Like shout 1:26:16 out where people can follow you and your 1:26:18 work and you know, the creative 1:26:19 launchpad or ghost ghost launchpad 1:26:22 things like that way or if they're 1:26:23 interested in in reaching out for any of 1:26:24 those events like how do they reach you? 1:26:27 >> Um so you can find me on Twitter or X 1:26:29 depending on what you're calling it at 1:26:30 the handle Lionheart spelled how it 1:26:32 sounds. I actually have the original. 1:26:34 You can find me on LinkedIn. My name is 1:26:36 Brian Grayson. My short is BS Grayson 1:26:39 for the URL. You can also join our 1:26:41 Discord which is discord.gg/ghostgaming 1:26:44 and I'll be in the user list and of 1:26:46 course on our website ghostgaming.com or 1:26:49 in Fortnite at ghostgaming. 1:26:51 >> Yeah, all those links in the description 1:26:52 please go follow them. All right, last 1:26:55 one before you get out of here man. This 1:26:56 was a a longer one. I do I lost track of 1:26:58 time man. We've been having a great 1:26:59 time. This is a dude we we're going to 1:27:01 have to have you come back cuz uh you're 1:27:03 >> Oh I'd love to. I'd love to. 1:27:04 >> Yeah, wealth of knowledge. 1:27:05 >> topics. We should like talk about 1:27:07 something controversial in this space. 1:27:09 >> no for sure. We we can get the short 1:27:10 clips. We'll think of some good short 1:27:12 clips so yeah, yeah. Maybe that AAA one. 1:27:15 >> I love it. I love it. 1:27:16 >> Yeah, so you've successfully navigating 1:27:18 an evolving industry from traditional 1:27:19 development into new frontiers of UGC. 1:27:22 For all the young Fortnite creators and 1:27:24 aspiring game devs listening like what's 1:27:26 your message to them? Any advice on how 1:27:28 to seize this moment and build something 1:27:29 amazing in Fortnite creative or even or 1:27:31 whatever platform they're or interested 1:27:33 in. 1:27:34 >> Entrepreneurship is a decade long 1:27:36 journey and you need to be patient. You 1:27:38 need to work hard. You need to surround 1:27:40 yourself with people who have similar 1:27:43 goals and people aren't going to 1:27:45 understand what you're doing and that's 1:27:47 okay. 1:27:48 Some people are going to tell you you're 1:27:50 wasting your time or or why are you 1:27:52 doing this? You could go get a regular 1:27:54 job whatever. That's okay. If you're 1:27:56 having fun and you love what you're 1:27:59 doing, now is still early. It's still a 1:28:01 great time to get involved. Um there are 1:28:04 still as we talked about new games, new 1:28:07 studios breaking out every year at the 1:28:09 top area but also a lot more in the 1:28:11 middle area. 1:28:12 >> Yeah. 1:28:12 >> And all of that stuff is going to grow 1:28:14 over time. So, you know, I would just 1:28:16 say have patience with yourself. And 1:28:18 maybe one other thing is you don't need 1:28:19 to go all in to get started. You know 1:28:21 one of the cool things about Launchpad 1:28:23 is we have several people in our program 1:28:25 who are moonlighting, and I won't name 1:28:27 who they are, but they have a full-time 1:28:29 job that has nothing to do with game 1:28:31 development, and that's how they pay 1:28:32 their bills. And then they're doing game 1:28:34 development on the side. And you know, 1:28:36 if you're doing a full-time job and game 1:28:37 dev on the side, you probably don't have 1:28:39 time for anything else. 1:28:40 >> Yeah, that's right. 1:28:40 >> That's like your full week every week. 1:28:42 >> Oh, yeah. 1:28:43 >> Uh and so have realistic expectations, I 1:28:44 guess, for yourself also on the cost of 1:28:46 entrepreneurship. But like, it's a great 1:28:48 time to get involved. And and and just 1:28:51 believe in yourself. And remember, 1:28:53 a decade-long journey, 10 years. There 1:28:55 are people in Roblox celebrating their 1:28:57 successes, and you'll see it again and 1:28:58 again. I've been on this for 15 years. 1:29:00 Right. Fortnite UEFN's scene is a little 1:29:02 younger, but like, yeah, just be 1:29:05 patient. 1:29:05 >> Yeah. 1:29:06 >> And um and enjoy the ride. The journey 1:29:07 is where the most fun is. The end of it 1:29:09 is like, okay, cool. 1:29:10 >> Yeah. 1:29:10 >> Very You succeed, you have some money. 1:29:12 If you don't, you learned a lot of 1:29:13 lessons, but like, the process is really 1:29:15 where the joy comes in. 1:29:16 >> 100%, man. I couldn't say that better, 1:29:17 man. Great way to wrap this episode up. 1:29:19 Ryan, thank you so much, seriously, for 1:29:22 sharing all this. Keep 1:29:23 >> Yeah, yeah. 1:29:24 >> Keep crushing it, man. I love I love 1:29:25 your guys's games. You guys have been 1:29:27 making a lot of great games in the 1:29:28 ecosystem. Definitely go check them out. 1:29:30 I'll put their Fortnite link as as well 1:29:32 in the in the description. So, you guys 1:29:33 go check out their games. Like, they're 1:29:35 actually they're producing high-quality 1:29:37 games in this ecosystem. So, hats off to 1:29:40 you guys. You could have easily chased 1:29:42 the you know, the quick the quick dollar 1:29:44 games, but you guys are actually 1:29:45 innovating and pushing big games. So, 1:29:48 >> Yeah, it's 1:29:48 >> Amazing. 1:29:49 >> You really got to challenge the tool 1:29:50 set. It is more capable than you realize 1:29:52 if you have a little bit of patience, 1:29:54 and you learn all the moving pieces. And 1:29:56 again, just surrounding yourself with 1:29:57 great people, I mean, makes all the 1:29:58 difference. 1:29:59 >> That's just it. 1:29:59 >> so much for having me. This has been 1:30:01 This has been lovely. 1:30:02 >> We're going to do this again. This will 1:30:03 happen again, brother. Well, hey, 1:30:05 hopefully see you maybe at Unreal Fest 1:30:06 this year. Hopefully 1:30:08 everyone if you do see him go go go say 1:30:10 hi. If he if he shows up all 1:30:12 I hope I hope you come. 1:30:13 >> I will find a way to be there. 1:30:15 >> cool cool. I'm kind of pressuring you 1:30:17 right now. 1:30:18 Putting you on the spot. 1:30:19 >> I like it. It's good. It's good. It's 1:30:21 good. 1:30:22 >> All right bro, that's an episode man. 1:30:23 Thank you. Brian, this was a 1:30:25 masterclass. Seriously, thank you for 1:30:27 coming on and going deep on what 1:30:28 actually matters in UEFN, retention, 1:30:31 iteration and how real studios think 1:30:32 about shipping and scaling games. If you 1:30:34 are a creator trying to build something 1:30:36 that lasts, this episode is one you 1:30:37 should rewatch and take notes on. And 1:30:40 make sure you follow Lionheart Brian 1:30:41 Grayson because he is one of the few 1:30:43 people bringing real publishing 1:30:45 experiences into UGC in a way that 1:30:47 actually helps creators. And if you 1:30:49 enjoyed this episode, please do me a 1:30:51 favor, follow the podcast, subscribe on 1:30:53 YouTube, hit that like button. And if 1:30:56 you are listening on audio, leave a 1:30:57 positive review on your favorite podcast 1:31:00 app. It generally helps more than you 1:31:01 think. See you in a fortnight which is 1:31:03 in two weeks and remember, don't hate, 1:31:05 create.