0:00 Most creators think retention is the 0:01 main thing that decides if a map 0:03 succeeds. And most creators think play 0:05 time is what drives discovery. Slided 0:08 Sloth explains why both of those 0:09 assumptions can be wrong. 0:11 >> Thumbnail is the most important thing 0:13 and the name of the game is probably the 0:15 second most important. Cuz if you're not 0:17 getting people to click and play your 0:18 map, the play time doesn't matter. 0:20 >> And then he shares real examples that 0:22 might make you think differently about 0:24 launches. Swapped out the thumbnail. It 0:27 was on a Saturday or Friday at being 0:28 picks and our CCU doubled. That's all we 0:31 did is just change the thumbnail. We 0:32 didn't change anything. If you're 0:33 building in UEFN right now, this episode 0:36 might save you months of wasted effort. 0:39 Let's go. 0:41 This is Creative Juice. All right, I 0:44 think we're in. We're live. Sloth, how's 0:46 it going? Great, great. How are you 0:48 doing? I'm doing very well, brother. 0:49 Thanks for coming on, man. I know this 0:51 has been a long time coming. I'm super 0:53 excited to have you. Yeah, thanks for 0:55 having me. I'm excited to be here. Man, 0:57 you've been crushing it in UEFN. You do 0:59 have a lot of successful projects. I 1:01 can't wait to talk about. I know me and 1:03 you have met in person a few times at 1:05 the Unreal Fest and stuff, man. You're a 1:06 amazing creator and and a great guy as 1:09 well. So, super excited to have you, 1:11 man. 1:12 Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's 1:13 get started, man. So, right off the bat, 1:15 like one thing that always stood out to 1:17 me about your story is that you were 1:19 originally in finance and app 1:21 development. Like and now you're known 1:23 for building some of the biggest 1:24 tycoon-style experiences in Fortnite. 1:26 Like can you walk me through that 1:28 transition? Like what were you doing 1:29 before Fortnite? And what was that 1:31 moment where you realized it could be 1:32 more than just like a side experiment? 1:34 >> Yeah, so I've kind of been just doing my 1:37 own thing for the most part since like I 1:39 got out of college. Like I went to 1:41 school for egg business, surprisingly. 1:44 Egg? Did you yeah, like 1:45 agriculture. Sorry. 1:47 It's my Midwest accent. 1:50 And I was like, I don't want to do this. 1:52 I don't want to be have no body by the 1:54 time I'm 40. So, I started doing mobile 1:56 app development on the side, just 1:58 learning it. And I did some contract 2:00 work for the lady that one of the first 2:02 women to put an app on the App Store on 2:04 iOS. Well, that's cool. 2:05 >> And so, I really liked doing mobile 2:07 development. And then, for like the last 2:09 6 years up until 2024, when I started 2:13 doing mobile dev or started doing UEFN 2:15 stuff, I was working on credit card 2:16 apps. And it was just kind of not very 2:18 exciting. It's 2:20 you know, trying to build out the user 2:22 experiences and make it optimal. And 2:24 they're all kind of the same, you know? 2:26 So, we we had done that. And I had 2:28 always wanted to learn game development. 2:30 I played Fortnite since Save the World. 2:32 Oh, OG. So, yeah, yeah. I got the 2:34 founder's pack or whatever, like 2:36 >> Amazing. 2:37 >> [laughter] 2:37 >> You can sell your account for a lot of 2:38 money. Uh-huh. And uh so, yeah, I just 2:42 always wanted to learn game dev. And 2:43 then, like it always felt overwhelming. 2:45 And then, when UEFN came out, I kind of 2:47 was bummed because I missed out on 2:49 creative the first time, cuz I remember 2:50 when creative first came out. Like they 2:52 had a D-Day map, like all this cool 2:54 stuff. I was like, "Oh, this is going to 2:55 be really neat." And I never got hooked 2:57 into it. And I was like, "Well, I'm not 2:58 missing this time." And so, it's gone 3:01 really well. And um you know, it's it's 3:03 enabled me to do a lot of different 3:04 things that I never would have thought I 3:06 could imagine to do in my life with game 3:08 dev. Like I've 3:09 gotten to work with like the creator of 3:10 Halo. Like I've gotten to go to Denmark 3:13 for a LEGO game jam. That was wild this 3:16 last August. 3:17 >> So, it's just I'm just happy to be here. 3:19 And it's a lot of fun. And it's like 3:21 it's really, really small world. 3:22 >> Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's such a It's like 3:25 a 3:25 very small niche world. And it feels so 3:29 so massive. But if yeah, if you break it 3:30 down, it it really is a small world. 3:32 That That had to been, you know, like 3:34 how did that feel getting invited to 3:35 LEGO? You know what I mean? Like that is 3:37 huge. And and you know, we all probably 3:40 I'm sure you, just like me, we grew up 3:42 just loving LEGOs and building LEGOs. I 3:45 mean, that had to been amazing. 3:47 Yeah, it was really cool, actually. And 3:48 I think what helped me get invited to 3:50 that was that my one of my Tycoons that 3:52 I made was Island Tycoon on Lego. It was 3:55 like we released it when Lego first came 3:56 out and we drew a lot of inspiration 3:58 from the game Lego Island. Mhm. In the 4:01 90s um even had my like I had a music 4:03 guy write some similar soundtrack to the 4:05 actual like Lego Island soundtrack. Wow. 4:08 Lego liked it so much that it was like 4:10 one of the first maps in their Lego 4:12 picks and it was in there for like 6 4:13 months. Incredible. So I I think they 4:16 just kind of were excited then you know 4:18 they're just If you meet like you've 4:20 obviously met the Lego people probably. 4:22 They're all super nice. 4:23 >> And it was just kind of surreal. Little 4:25 nerve-wracking cuz of our child's only a 4:27 year old and I'm leaving to go to 4:28 Denmark for a week but it was so fun. It 4:31 was so fun. Yeah, I had to do for 4:33 business. I'm sure you got him some cool 4:34 toys, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, 4:36 yeah. He can play with them when he's 4:37 not going to put them in his mouth. 4:39 Yeah. 4:40 >> [laughter] 4:43 >> That never goes away, I swear. I find my 4:44 son, he's five, he's still got a Lego in 4:46 his mouth. But it was cool. I I also got 4:49 to go to Denmark as well. Not for that, 4:51 for something else and I'm going to go 4:52 to the Lego experience and check out 4:54 Billund and they have the their own Lego 4:56 store there where you can like create 4:58 custom have like Lego sets there you 5:00 can't get anywhere else. It was kind of 5:02 Mhm. cool. I didn't I didn't have enough 5:03 room in my luggage for all this stuff. I 5:05 might have brought some extra room to 5:07 make sure I could. 5:09 That was smart. I should have I should 5:10 have brought an extra duffel anyway. No 5:12 man, very very cool man, very cool. So 5:15 you're kind of known for taking a 5:16 traditional 5:18 um you know relaxing genre like Tycoons 5:20 in some sense and making them feel more 5:22 competitive inside of Fortnite. Like 5:24 when you started designing a Tycoon, 5:27 what's your core design goals and like 5:29 what are you trying to make players feel 5:31 in the first like 5 minutes? 5:33 I just I just want them to feel like 5:34 it's something different. I I don't want 5:36 to like create something that's just the 5:38 same as everything else, you know, a 5:39 copy paste rinse repeat. If I had my 5:41 real way I'd even make something 5:43 completely different and go full 5:44 simulator and make something like Animal 5:46 Crossing or Dreamlight Valley, but I 5:49 kind of feel like, you know, with our 5:50 audience where it's at in UEFN, you kind 5:52 of have to like meet in the middle 5:54 somewhere. Yeah. We kind of 5:56 like Farm Tycoon was one of the first 5:58 Tycoons that used verse persistence like 6:01 persistence with verse. And so we saved 6:03 like the rebirth and so what we do in a 6:05 lot of our maps is we try to make it 6:07 different, but also similar at the same 6:09 time. So like we have combat and relates 6:11 with our maps, you know, so like if 6:13 you're playing the Tycoon, there's not a 6:14 lot of Tycoons that do this, but ours 6:16 will have it so that if you eliminate 6:18 somebody else, you get a bunch chunk of 6:19 their money. Oh, that's cool. People 6:22 really like that on our Pizza Shop 6:24 Tycoon that Jenkin Tiger and I made that 6:27 you know, we you could fight other 6:28 people and take their money and 6:30 interrupt them while they're trying to 6:31 deliver pizza and you know, trying to 6:33 find those like PvP elements, but then 6:35 also having that chill side of things 6:38 because like it's kind of a good way for 6:40 kids to like play with their parents 6:42 actually I've learned. 6:42 >> Yeah. We have a a few bunch of moms that 6:45 are in our Discord and you know, that's 6:47 something they can play that's chill. 6:48 They can step away for 20 minutes, come 6:50 back and spend more money. It's just 6:52 fun. Number go up. 6:53 >> Oh, yeah. And dude, I really like that 6:56 you did that for TMNT, right? The the IP 6:59 that did that Tycoon and man, I I you 7:01 guys crushed it. I I actually loved that 7:03 TMNT game that Tycoon and like how you 7:06 used used the IP to make a really fun 7:09 game loop and you know, even at the 7:12 time, you know, I don't think there was 7:13 a very large pops from the TMNT like 7:16 we've seen on some of the other IPs, but 7:18 your game did. So yeah, that thing game 7:20 did really really well. Like 7:23 that kept things going for a while. In 7:24 fact, that was the one of the really 7:25 nice things while I was going full time. 7:27 It really popped off so much so that it 7:29 we even had it featured like at Epic at 7:31 Unreal Fest. They'd have Jenkin come up 7:33 and talk about it. And I think what did 7:35 really well about it it was it was it 7:37 was very connected to Turtles, right? 7:38 You had the pizza delivery, but then you 7:40 also had it connected to Fortnite. Like 7:41 you could have them delivering pizza and 7:43 then you could shoot the people 7:44 delivering pizza. 7:45 >> Yeah. 7:45 And so like there was a nice little like 7:47 tight combat loop there, but also um a 7:50 lot of like silly little like stupid 7:52 things. Like one of some of our upgrades 7:54 in the bases were like a pile of boxes, 7:56 you know, just a lot of sarcastic humor. 7:58 >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. I mean you it 8:00 was it I felt like I legit was felt like 8:02 I was a pizza delivery guy pizza store. 8:04 It was it was incredible. You guys 8:05 crushed that map and so many others 8:07 you've you've been involved in the 8:08 Tycoon genre. You really are like top 8:10 level. If you guys haven't anyone 8:12 listening, you haven't checked out some 8:13 of these maps, definitely go check them 8:14 out. We'll We'll definitely talk a 8:16 little bit more about some of some of 8:17 those things. Um Fortnite has a very 8:20 specific type of player compared to 8:21 people who play traditional Tycoon games 8:23 like Roblox and mobile. Um 8:26 lot of similarities sure, but like it's 8:28 definitely different, right? You We We 8:29 We have different rules. We have the 8:31 characters we have to work with and the 8:32 weapons we have to work with. Um when 8:34 you design for Fortnite players like 8:36 Um what do they tolerate less? Or Or and 8:39 also like is there things that they 8:41 surprisingly love? Yeah. Um I'll tell 8:44 you one thing that was a little 8:44 surprising was when we had in island 8:47 tracks at transactions come out, I would 8:49 have thought that players wouldn't have 8:51 tolerated that because, you know, 8:52 they've been in We haven't had them in 8:54 Fortnite, right? Like they've never been 8:56 here. 8:56 Um but actually we had 8:59 more when we had Grow Farm in Picks, 9:01 right? We had more sick We had more I 9:04 mean I don't know the full numbers yet, 9:06 right? Cuz it's at the end of the month 9:07 is when we get our payout, but our like 9:10 result from the in island transactions 9:12 was more than the engagement pay. Like 9:14 that's really shocking that like, you 9:16 know, they have no problem spending 9:18 V-bucks in maps. Like we had over 2 9:20 million V-bucks spent while it was in 9:22 Picks. People also do it cuz they want 9:24 to support you. So I think it's really 9:25 cool cuz that's going to like open up a 9:27 lot of alternative avenues for people to 9:29 be able to like do this and make money. 9:31 And you know, maybe you said like we're 9:33 talking earlier, you don't need 5,000 9:35 CCU. You could have a couple hundred 9:36 CCU. And 9:38 >> Yeah. 9:39 all these things add into the experience 9:41 and make us be able to create different 9:42 opportunities to 9:44 you know, bring in revenue. Yeah. No, 9:46 and look, thank you for bringing that 9:47 up. A lot of creators I think are 9:49 keeping a lot of 9:50 of that information and data right now. 9:53 It's also very new, right? It's like a 9:54 month old. But like I haven't been able 9:56 to talk to many people or or I talked to 9:59 people behind the scenes and I I've I've 10:01 heard stats. I'll keep I can't say those 10:03 out loud, but like 10:05 um you know, you're the first creator to 10:06 even 10:07 talk about it. So thank you for sharing 10:08 that and I I want to actually dive more 10:10 into that here in in uh next coming 10:12 questions cuz um that is fascinating. I 10:15 think a lot of creators are kind of on 10:18 that fence. I've heard both sides of the 10:20 coin and so um you know, I when when it 10:24 comes to me 10:25 I I think 10:27 I IAP we it is a path that we need in 10:29 this space. It's on every other platform 10:33 and 10:34 we need more ways to generate revenue 10:36 for not only our developers, but also 10:38 we're starting even thinking on the 10:39 brand side of things. This is going to 10:40 be interesting another lever they can 10:42 pull to also generate revenue. So I 10:44 think overall in the ecosystem is great. 10:46 And not to mention all the money spent 10:48 is put back into the for this first 10:51 year, put back into the the pot for the 10:53 engagement pay. So I mean I again, I 10:54 think I think Epic's doing it right and 10:58 and I honestly never thought I would see 10:59 IAP in Fortnite or or at least this 11:02 early. 11:03 Yeah, it kind of came out of nowhere. It 11:05 was a surprising. I had no idea that 11:06 like, oh yeah, we're doing this next 11:07 month. And then it was just a month, but 11:09 that's still like nothing. Yeah, it was 11:11 crazy. Is is building is the I know they 11:14 have the tutorial inside of UEFN to 11:17 create the shops and things and they 11:19 have a nice little tutorial. Like is 11:21 building these shops, I think you have 11:23 to has to be in verse, right? 11:24 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all in verse. But 11:26 it's actually in my opinion, of course 11:28 I'm a programmer, so it's easy to me. 11:30 But if you don't, I'll shout out my 11:32 buddy Trick Tiger's got a tutorial for 11:34 it on 11:35 Twitter like Keys Eating or X that uh 11:38 shows how people how to set up in all 11:40 transactions. So, it's really not too 11:42 scary, not too intimidating. 11:43 >> Amazing. Definitely check that out. If 11:45 you are following Tricky as well, you go 11:46 go follow go follow him. He's amazing. 11:48 He's been posting really cool tutorials. 11:50 Um and and also good another good 11:52 fellow. Mhm. Um 11:55 Well, that like I said, we'll dive a 11:56 little we'll go a little more in depth 11:57 in that in in a minute. A lot of 11:59 creators say they are building for 12:01 retention, like but everyone seems to 12:03 mean something different when they say 12:04 that. Like what retention loops do you 12:06 personally trust the most right now? And 12:08 which ones do you think creators 12:10 overused because they feel safe? Yeah, I 12:13 would say I think the ones that I really 12:15 we really rely on like we just want to 12:16 make sure like, you know, you can keep 12:18 playing the Tycoon and keep like 12:20 progressing. The rebirth system is like 12:22 something every Tycoon should have 12:24 because it's just even especially in our 12:25 current ecosystem, right? You can only 12:27 make it so expensive extensive of a 12:29 Tycoon. So, like allowing them to 12:31 rebirth and start over is really an easy 12:33 feature to implement and then you can 12:35 add benefits to that like we let people 12:37 make more money in the game. And so, 12:38 it's just like number go up faster and 12:40 faster and faster. And I think that's 12:42 one of the most you know, every Tycoon 12:44 does typically use and should use. Other 12:46 than that, I think we try to make it 12:48 cooperative play whether that's like PvP 12:50 or like you can help other people. Just 12:52 something to get people to interact cuz 12:54 if you have other people to interact 12:55 with, it's they're more likely to play, 12:57 right? Like nobody wants to play a dead 12:59 game. Nobody wants Yeah. to sit there by 13:00 themselves. They just like to mess 13:02 around with friends and make friends. 13:04 That's you know, some of that's why we 13:06 game is to make friends and meet people. 13:08 And we've had a lot of people that have 13:09 made become friend met met each other 13:11 through our Pizza Shop Tycoon. There's a 13:12 nice little group there. And I think 13:14 like for retention that maybe is 13:16 overused, I don't know. We don't really 13:18 do the daily rewards as much. 13:20 >> hard one. 13:21 >> Yeah. Yeah. But I I don't know if those 13:23 really add enough yet to really be a 13:25 huge benefit. And maybe they do. Yeah. 13:28 I've I want to try it sometime, but I 13:30 think in our current ecosystem, like 13:32 this isn't like Clash of Clans where you 13:34 you know, you have a million different 13:36 upgrades. Yeah. 13:38 So, I I think there's there's more to 13:40 come. Now, I think just trying to make a 13:42 tight addictive game loop is more 13:44 important than anything. I think just 13:46 making it fun. That's what's your 13:49 retention, right? If people enjoy it, 13:51 and they don't feel like it's grueling, 13:53 like we pace everything out. We make 13:55 sure like that everything scales 13:56 appropriately, so they're not waiting 2 13:58 hours or 50 minutes for an upgrade, you 14:01 know, to unlock. Like there's always 14:02 something to do, and whether that's in 14:04 your base or with other people, like we 14:06 try to make it so that you can kind of 14:08 play it different ways. Yeah, no, that 14:10 that's that's perfect. And and and yeah, 14:12 just just it's it it is hard 14:14 with our memory limits we have, and I'm 14:16 sure scene graph will maybe help what's 14:19 going to help with a lot of that that 14:20 stuff. But yeah, like compared to 14:23 Roblox, you can they can just build a 14:25 just a really vast tycoon system, and 14:28 and have PvP in it. Like I think 14:30 military tycoon is a really big one on 14:32 Roblox, and it's straight-up you build 14:35 your base, you build your your your your 14:37 weapons, your arsenal, your you build 14:39 your jets, and then there's a PvP area 14:42 of it area, and you go fight, you know, 14:44 what I mean? And really hard 14:47 I mean, I I I at a large scale of 14:50 players, you know, probably to build 14:52 current in our current current, you 14:54 know, engine we have. Yeah, that's 14:56 definitely a challenge. Oh, yeah, I I 14:58 can imagine. But yeah, definitely 14:59 rebirth, you know, I mean, I you see a 15:01 lot of that in I mean, that's a main 15:03 focus on on like Steel the Brain Rot, 15:05 for instance, that that's a huge that's 15:07 a huge driver there. 15:08 Um, and yeah, I don't know. All All 15:11 those things are pretty interesting, and 15:12 I don't know. I love I love talking 15:13 about retention. How do we keep players 15:15 coming back, and and tycoons definitely 15:18 hold a lot a lot more average play time, 15:20 and seem to have a lot higher retention 15:22 than a lot of other games. Um but also, 15:25 there's very few tycoons that we've seen 15:27 that last a year in this ecosystem. 15:30 Yeah, and it's 15:31 it's challenging right now. I know like, 15:33 you know, when we had Farm Tycoon, that 15:35 actually did really well and made it a 15:36 like a some decent money monthly with 15:38 even just a browse row. But they took 15:40 that out, so we don't have the farming 15:41 browse row, and I think think tycoons 15:43 especially in general, I think that I 15:45 wish we had more browse rows because 15:47 there's a lot of smaller creators that 15:49 benefited those. You could get 50 to 100 15:51 CCU just from browse, and like that 15:54 really did well to surface new maps. 15:56 It's like I kind of miss that. Some of 15:57 those rows are really nice. I'm glad you 15:59 brought that up, you know what I mean? 16:00 Cuz yeah, I I I didn't I didn't think 16:02 about that impact. I know the new 16:04 discovery is 16:07 it changed a lot. It definitely changed 16:09 a lot in how players find maps. You 16:12 know, it's that it's now it's just 16:13 categories, and those categories yeah, I 16:16 don't know. I don't I don't know how far 16:17 we want to get into this. Let Let's talk 16:18 about discovery. Let's Let's get into 16:20 it. 16:20 >> Okay. Sounds good. Okay, so what do you 16:22 think creators misunderstand most about 16:25 how maps actually get momentum, 16:27 especially in that first wave after 16:29 launch? Yeah, I think and I've even felt 16:32 fallen guilty to this, too, but I think 16:33 the biggest thing especially in the 16:35 current ecosystem that is missed is 16:38 click-through rate. Yeah. You know, 16:40 thumbnail is the most important thing, 16:42 and the the name of the game is probably 16:44 the second most important. Cuz if you're 16:45 not getting people to click and play 16:47 your map, the play time doesn't matter. 16:49 It's like what is a 1,000 CCU to get 16:51 into certain rows, and then you have 16:52 like 2,000 or and then the lower 16:54 requirements, couple hundred, right? To 16:56 get into the next rows. Like all of 16:57 that, if you don't have click-through 16:59 rate, like you could have a 90-minute 17:01 play time, and um if you don't have the 17:03 click-through rate, it's not going to 17:04 go. So I think, you know, missing on the 17:06 importance of getting a really good 17:07 thumbnail, and there's a lot of 17:09 different thumbnail artists out there, 17:10 but focusing on something that's going 17:12 to get your target audience to click is 17:15 like the number one thing. And then 17:17 after that of course you go you go into 17:18 stats like is it going to you know you 17:21 are you keeping people in those first 17:22 couple minutes? What's your average play 17:24 time that that keeps that metric keeps 17:26 moving, right? Like there's a lot of 17:28 like 17:29 uh Ghost Gaming I think it is they have 17:31 that Super Pet World like they got like 17:33 a 90 plus minute play time average like 17:35 those metrics are going to keep going up 17:37 so we have to make sure we're building 17:38 games that are addictive and like fun 17:41 and they keep pushing that boundary, 17:43 right? 17:44 >> Yeah. Yeah, actually surprisingly enough 17:46 I think the next episode if you're 17:47 listening will actually be about uh I 17:49 have Brian coming out from Ghost Gaming 17:51 and we talk about that 17:52 that game. But yeah, I think what you 17:54 said is is very important for creators 17:56 listening and even Kevin from Foad came 17:59 on here and and and he's like when we 18:00 were in Epic Picks we had like four 18:02 thumbnails ready and we tested them and 18:05 they got a lot of good data out of that 18:06 and and really found out like what their 18:08 best thumbnail was and I think a lot of 18:10 creators they just stop at one thumbnail 18:13 and it hurts them. Um and definitely 18:15 definitely test. Definitely we have AB 18:17 testing now too, right? So those were 18:20 easily that's just like easy stuff and 18:22 and again you're right the title. That's 18:24 it. That's a huge thing. John came on 18:26 talked about the your description like I 18:28 think it was like 400 something 18:29 characters had like night like 90 more 18:33 percent success rate or something than 18:34 just a short short characters things 18:36 like that. So there's definitely little 18:38 things you have to make sure you're 18:40 doing. You can have the best game in the 18:41 world, right? But you have those are the 18:43 things you have to hit on top of it to 18:45 to get to get that momentum to get it 18:47 you know where it's going. 18:49 >> It's huge it makes a big difference. 18:50 Yeah. Yeah, is is there anything you can 18:53 remember on some of your games like like 18:55 a small change you made on on one of 18:57 your games that kind of like helped it 18:59 get in discovery or boost anything in 19:00 metrics? 19:02 Yeah, I mean we even just had this with 19:03 Grow Farm is the thumbnail. We had a not 19:06 very good thumbnail and we didn't 19:07 unfortunately we didn't have we tried to 19:09 reach out to through a a people ahead of 19:11 time but we didn't get it ready in time. 19:12 But we we swapped out the thumbnail. It 19:15 was on a Saturday or Friday of being in 19:17 pics, and our CCU doubled. It's crazy. 19:19 That's all we did is just change the 19:21 thumbnail. We didn't change anything, 19:22 you know, and our CCU average doubled, 19:24 and it was higher the rest of the pics 19:26 run than it was before that. So, that's 19:29 why I think like CCU-wise like getting 19:31 people play your game, the thumbnail is 19:33 the literally the most important thing. 19:35 Hey, listen, that's crazy. And and that 19:37 yeah, I mean that that just could be 19:38 your problem. Anyone listening, that 19:39 could just be it. That could be that 19:41 simple. Um and and just that there's a 19:43 there is a lot of thumbnail artists out 19:45 there. I think the the thumbnail artists 19:47 that are working with the top games, you 19:50 know, they're probably a little more 19:51 expensive and probably you know, they 19:53 have a longer time to get get those 19:55 back. But there's definitely, you know, 19:57 early on when I was making games, too, I 19:59 I would I had not this a problem, but I 20:02 had the same problem as well. It's just 20:04 like trying to find 20:07 I found like a an awesome artist who 20:09 wasn't like widely known, but just super 20:11 talented. And she no longer makes 20:13 thumbnails, but she was incredible. And 20:15 some of the top thumbnails are still her 20:17 thumbnail she made. I got her in touch 20:19 with, you know, that's the other thing 20:20 that happens. Once you get one good 20:22 thumbnail artist, and people see it, 20:23 they're 20:24 >> Yeah, and they're they're taken. And I 20:27 love what Graham said one of the 20:28 episodes was just like once you get 20:29 somebody that's doing a great job for 20:31 you, tip them well, do well. So, when 20:33 you're when you talk to them, they're 20:35 going to be the first person to talk to 20:36 you. But no, that's that's that that 20:38 that's great advice. And I I think 20:40 people listening should take that to 20:42 heart. But what do you think creators 20:43 misunderstand most about a map actually 20:46 getting momentum, especially in like the 20:48 first wave after launch? I think 20:50 probably the thing people don't see is 20:53 that those maps usually have a lot of 20:55 promo off platform, right? Like a lot of 20:57 it on TikTok, YouTube. And actually 21:00 that's something that I want to try to 21:01 focus on over the next year is be better 21:03 at that because like we've been 21:04 thankfully successful without any of 21:06 that, but I I think that's what we're 21:07 seeing change as there's so many more 21:09 creators in the system now that like you 21:12 have to be promoting your game and get 21:13 people from, you know, social media to 21:15 be like, "Oh, I want to come check that 21:16 out." Like, there are a lot of maps and 21:19 people will other creators will show it. 21:21 Like, they'll say like, "Oh, I can show 21:22 you this spike and CCU is when we had 21:24 this video on Tik Tok blow up." Like, 21:26 Yeah. I think that's something everybody 21:28 should be focusing on is is how can you, 21:30 you know, get people to play your game 21:32 not necessarily just discover because 21:34 sure I I think that's hard. That's the 21:36 biggest challenge of all time, right? 21:38 Cuz if you're not in discovery, you're 21:39 not you're not necessarily having crazy 21:42 CCU, but there's plenty of people that 21:43 do. Like, you know, there's always other 21:45 options that help. 21:47 >> Yeah. That That That's a great point. 21:48 And anyone listening knows I'm always 21:50 harping on that on the social media side 21:52 of things. Um and it is tough. I mean, 21:55 even, you know, things have changed 21:57 since I was, you know, I've I've gotten 21:58 millions of views on a lot of some of my 22:00 trailers for my games and it definitely 22:01 helps. It definitely hits the spikes. I 22:03 mean, earlier creative we didn't have a 22:05 discovery, so that was discovery. You 22:06 had to have social media or no one was 22:08 playing your game, right? Um 22:10 So, and it's also just it's we don't 22:13 have the tools necessarily to for people 22:15 to bring people off platform. We got the 22:17 direct linking. We do have a few tools, 22:19 but still it's it's still hard to get 22:21 someone, you know, Roblox I could not 22:23 have a Roblox download at all. Like, in 22:25 five in less than five minutes I could 22:27 be playing a Roblox experience. Yeah, 22:29 and and they're working it on that with 22:30 Fortnite have the lighter lighter 22:32 download and they'll get there, but I 22:34 cuz that is huge. Like, it's crazy. You 22:37 go to Roblox and it like takes two 22:39 minutes to download 22:41 be in a game. Oh, yeah. Yeah, apparently 22:42 they did decline on mobile or there's 22:45 some somewhat on mobile, which is very 22:47 awesome, right? You don't have to 22:48 download 100 GB or whatever it is to 22:50 download Fortnite and then on top of the 22:52 game and clear off your half your phone 22:55 first before you do that. But definitely 22:58 that I think that's going to really help 23:00 us though from the social media side 23:02 because there's just there's so many 23:04 blocks or or reasons for people to just 23:07 to not play your game just from from 23:09 your social media posts. So, that's 23:11 going to be nice when we actually do 23:12 have a a legitimate way to direct link 23:14 games and within a few minutes they can 23:16 play. That that's going to help so much. 23:18 But yeah, social media is hard and you 23:21 you look you it's we all can make a cool 23:24 trailer for a game, but that even that 23:26 really hard to pull players to your 23:28 game. You have to have, you know, a lot 23:31 of you will have incentives like some 23:33 cool new weapons or events or, you know, 23:37 >> Yeah. something new or different than 23:39 they haven't seen that looks fun with 23:40 their friends. But but that's just it. I 23:42 get that's the best feeling is when you 23:44 post make those posts and you see that 23:46 folder, people are saving it and they're 23:48 tagging their friends, let's play this. 23:50 Like that that's awesome. And Epic is 23:52 doing things on the community side of 23:54 things and trying to keep give us more 23:56 tools for internally to talk to our 23:58 players. I know that's a huge driver 23:59 right now 24:00 for a lot of it. 24:02 It it help it helps everyone out, but 24:03 it's definitely help helping a lot the 24:05 top creators probably more just because 24:07 they have the larger followings and 24:08 things like that. But for sure those let 24:10 and that the games you follow now you 24:12 get a little message about the new 24:14 updates to play. 24:15 >> People will ask me like, "Oh, what did 24:16 you guys update?" I I'm excited about 24:18 the community feature. I think if people 24:20 use that more, that'll be nice. You 24:21 know, the other thing is I'm guilty of 24:23 it. I'm always trying to add more to my 24:24 maps. I think the biggest thing that I'm 24:26 excited for this next year is I think 24:28 with all of what's on the road map, you 24:30 know, with the new virtual machine for 24:31 Burst, all of the scene graph 24:33 improvements, I really think that we're 24:35 going to get to a point where like 24:36 obviously right now the current success 24:39 is make something similar to what's in 24:40 Roblox, right? But like 24:42 this is the AAA of UGC. Like this isn't 24:45 this isn't Roblox. And so I'm really 24:46 excited to see like, you know, what 24:48 people do over the next year because I 24:50 think that we all can make better 24:52 things. Game dev is obviously really 24:54 hard and like I'm still really bullish 24:56 on it because like in what other world 24:58 can you, you know, create a game and 25:00 have thousands of people playing it? 25:01 Like even AAA games with multi-million 25:04 dollar budgets don't see the CCU that 25:06 some of the maps that are in Fortnite. 25:08 Like it's a really cool opportunity that 25:10 we're that we have here that we can just 25:12 do this and like this is my job. I made 25:15 this my career. Like Yeah. It's it's 25:18 challenging and it there's peaks and 25:20 valleys, but it 25:21 it's the most rewarding thing ever to 25:23 have somebody tell you how much fun they 25:25 had. You know what your game you made 25:27 made a difference for them. Um and 25:28 that's I think what we just have to keep 25:30 focusing on is what's fun and like find 25:33 that person that we want to have fun 25:35 make fun for. Yeah, it it's definitely 25:36 good to stay grounded like that and have 25:38 have those thoughts. It's it's 25:40 a lot of us started we could when you 25:42 didn't think about you could make money 25:43 in this space it was just for fun and 25:45 and we loved doing it. And now obviously 25:47 they published the numbers of how much 25:48 money you can make and they're trying to 25:49 get AAA devs, they're trying to get 25:51 bigger team in these trying to get 25:53 anybody come over here and create games 25:55 in here, which is understandable. You 25:57 understand that from the business side, 25:58 but it's just I don't know it it it's 26:01 hard, right? It's it's a hard ecosystem 26:04 because on one hand you're right. Like 26:06 we can build AAA games at some capacity 26:09 and a lot of us that's the games we want 26:10 to build or want to even play on this 26:13 platform, but 26:14 >> Mhm. but also it's just not, you know, 26:17 those games also take a long have a long 26:19 dev cycle, right? 26:21 And when you're needing to provide for 26:23 your family, sometimes you have to make 26:25 different decisions, but at the end of 26:27 the day I love what you said and and and 26:30 and we forget it and I I remember when I 26:32 first my first few comments on this game 26:35 dude, I love this game. I play with my 26:37 friends. Thank you, you know, all or I 26:39 met so many people here and made new 26:42 friends and I've gotten better at 26:43 Fortnite cuz of your game whatever. Like 26:45 all those comments and you're just like 26:46 oh, this is crazy. And then you get 26:48 people, you know, once your game's in 26:49 this ecosystem, you know, I made games 26:51 eight years ago and they're like, "Man, 26:54 that was my childhood." Like I had I've 26:55 had old comments on my original 1v1 26:57 YouTube video, you know, it has a 26:58 million views and they're like, "Dude, 27:00 this was my childhood." You know, or 27:01 whatever. And that's insane to think 27:03 about, right? Cuz like, what games was 27:05 your childhood? You know, what what 27:06 what's that game for you when you think 27:07 about it? 27:08 Probably my biggest game in my life was 27:10 like Ocarina of Time or like Majora's 27:13 Mask or something. Some classics. 27:15 >> I 100% agree with you. 27:17 >> when I got uh Majora's Mask, my younger 27:19 brother and I couldn't complete it for 27:20 like a year cuz we get so scared of the 27:22 moon resetting. Like end of the world. 27:25 We'd have nightmares. 27:26 But uh you know, like it was so much 27:28 fun. 27:29 Yeah. 27:29 >> like that was such a huge time in like 27:32 gaming when we went from like to 3D 27:34 worlds. You know, it was crazy. Makes me 27:37 feel like a dinosaur in the gaming 27:38 world. 27:39 >> No, I know. I mean, we got I got people 27:40 coming talking about Ataris on here. So, 27:42 we're we're not that old yet. Hey, hey, 27:44 we're still young. 27:45 Like that and then the GameCube and 27:47 NightFire and GoldenEye, Sapphire's 27:50 only. 27:50 >> Dude, 27:51 it's classics for sure, 100%. I mean, 27:53 that that's my childhood and then Halo. 27:55 Woo. Mhm. 27:57 >> Man. 27:57 >> Yep, yep. I still remember the day my 27:58 friend brought Halo 2 over in his Xbox. 28:01 Like that 28:02 that game blew my mind as a kid and then 28:04 like my younger brother and I spent all 28:06 this time like learning all the 28:08 different ins and outs and how to break 28:09 out of the map. Like there were so many 28:11 maps you could get out of the edge from 28:12 and that would be my dream is to create 28:14 something that's iconic, you know, and 28:16 like those games really shaped a lot of 28:18 people's experiences and got people 28:20 interested in gaming and I think I think 28:22 sometimes people get lost in like trying 28:24 to make something that makes money and 28:26 Yeah. 28:26 >> instead of trying to make something 28:27 that's fun and cool and new. Like that 28:29 would be the dream to make something 28:30 that like, you know, eventually 28:32 transcends just the platform you're on, 28:35 right? And then Yeah. 28:36 >> maybe you go into books or movies. Like 28:38 that would be the coolest thing ever to 28:39 make something like 28:40 >> toy, whatever, whatever. For sure. And 28:42 and they're doing that on Roblox. They 28:44 are 100% doing that already. It's it's a 28:45 possibility and it's a matter of time. 28:48 It'll It'll happen. And I think, you 28:50 know, Epic's also preparing for the 28:52 future with verse. And, you know, what 28:55 whatever the metaverse definition you 28:57 want to insert, but man, that I think 28:59 they're definitely leading that that 29:01 pack right now. I mean, maybe not in 29:02 CCUs, but I think in engine capability 29:05 and cross play, I mean, Fortnite's the 29:08 first game that allowed us to play with 29:10 PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox. 29:13 >> to think about? Like, people think 29:15 that's just normal now, but like, I 29:17 remember that being a huge stink when 29:19 they like wanted to make it work between 29:20 PC or Xbox and PlayStation. 29:23 >> Yeah. And the Switch. Like, that was 29:24 never been done before. Like, no. Then 29:27 there was never a game until like 29:28 Fortnite that where you could play it on 29:30 every platform and actually play like 29:32 that was so cool. Like, you know, I only 29:34 had a Switch at the time and that I 29:36 could play it on a Switch and my brother 29:37 could play on his Xbox. Like, we could 29:38 play together and talk to each other 29:40 across platforms. Like, that's huge. 29:43 Crazy. 29:44 >> your friend group, it was like, "Do you 29:46 I got an Xbox. I got a Nintendo. I got a 29:48 PlayStation. We can't play together, you 29:50 know what I mean? I got to go over to my 29:51 friend to play Sega, you know what I 29:52 mean? Like, I have a Nintendo." And it's 29:54 common now. 29:56 >> Yeah. Yeah, we didn't have Discord, 29:57 either. So, we couldn't, you know, 29:59 >> No, yeah, TeamSpeak. Do you remember 30:00 TeamSpeak? 30:01 >> Yeah, TeamSpeak. Yeah. 30:02 >> [laughter] 30:03 >> Oh my gosh, I haven't thought about that 30:04 in a long time. 30:05 >> Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in like 30:07 a clan in like high school playing games 30:10 online and 30:11 we used TeamSpeak all the time. And 30:13 it's, you know, it's so nice now how 30:14 connected we can be with stuff like you 30:16 can have Discord and chat with your 30:17 friends. 30:18 >> on PlayStation, I think, and and Xbox. 30:20 You can just get on and talk. It's It's 30:22 It's amazing, man. We We definitely have 30:24 gone to the the future that we couldn't 30:26 even imagine that now is just what we 30:28 all take for granted every day. Wild to 30:30 think about. Like, I can't even imagine 30:32 like some games like, you know, like our 30:33 graders is huge because of cross 30:35 platform. Like, you can play with people 30:36 on PC, Xbox, like Yeah. That's just 30:39 common now on games. Like, in 30:41 I'm super glad it is and I'm glad 30:43 Fortnite paved the way for that because 30:44 it's it's kind of it's a big deal, you 30:47 know, especially like during COVID when 30:49 people couldn't see each other. Like 30:50 gaming is a way to connect. It always 30:52 will be. It's huge, and and COVID I 30:54 think really pushed our industry 30:58 uh not just Fortnite, a lot a lot of 31:00 games, but more on the social It's 31:02 always been a social aspect, but like 31:04 tenfold, you know what I mean? And And I 31:06 think that helped out I can't imagine 31:08 COVID without gaming and being able to 31:09 talk to your friends, you know what I 31:11 mean? 31:12 >> Yeah. And it was a big part for me like 31:13 when I I worked remote for 17 years, and 31:17 I I had very bad internet, but I'd still 31:18 get on my a game, and I could hang out 31:20 with my friends and play games and chat, 31:22 you know? It was Yeah, it it helps out 31:24 more than more than anything, but let's 31:25 get back on 31:26 um talking about Fortnite creative. 31:28 [laughter] 31:29 I Look, I love this stuff, too, man. I 31:30 know Uh-huh. Uh but like when you look 31:33 at your own launches now, you clearly 31:35 approach them very differently than most 31:37 creators. What are the non-negotiables 31:40 for the first week? Like both inside the 31:42 game and outside the game? Yeah, so I've 31:44 seen this with some creators they don't 31:46 test thoroughly before they launch. They 31:48 They look at that first launch as the 31:50 test. And honestly, that first launch is 31:52 not the test. Like you should have 31:53 tested the way before that. Oh, yeah. So 31:56 like that's a non-negotiable is making 31:57 sure everything works. 31:59 >> algorithm, I I believe as well if it's 32:01 been tested. 32:02 >> Yeah, they they do look how much time 32:03 you spend on it. That's That's something 32:05 that we focus on big time. We play it 32:07 and make sure it's balanced before we 32:09 launch. Thumbnail I'm not a thumbnail 32:11 artist, so I just accept that I can 32:12 never make a good thumbnail. And so 32:14 that's something that in our experience, 32:16 like that first launch is the most 32:19 critical launch and sets the stage of 32:21 how much you're going to make for that 32:22 game. Mhm. If you're not ready for that 32:24 first launch, that can break it can 32:26 entirely. You'll might not ever see a 32:28 huge discover run again, and it's 32:30 discover has gotten a little bit better 32:31 where it where you can get in that 32:33 updated row again, but that first launch 32:35 is the best time to get pushed like 32:38 Yeah. You can even look at dot GG and 32:40 see like that's when they get the most 32:42 promos that first push like that's 32:44 really going to be the make or break for 32:46 your game. So, I think the stability and 32:49 making sure everything's ready to go and 32:50 having like you said the description 32:52 everything up to date like you have to 32:54 consider that first launch very very 32:56 seriously and not just casually launch 32:58 it in my opinion. Yeah, no that that 33:00 that's a great answer. And yeah, I think 33:02 it's it's hard they're finally giving us 33:04 a little bit of tools to test with, 33:06 right? 33:08 I haven't used them very much. I don't 33:09 know have you have you used their 33:10 internal tools now the testing that they 33:12 give have given us? Some of it's okay, 33:15 but really the best thing to test is 33:16 with other people and other devices like 33:18 even the test player feature it's not 33:21 the same like in verse it's not the 33:22 right like it's not like a regular 33:24 player agent. So, you can kind of test 33:26 some stuff with that, but it's just not 33:28 quite the same. But you know, the nice 33:30 thing is is we have a private you can 33:32 build private builds and you can even 33:34 launch unlisted now which you know, we 33:35 didn't have right away. Yeah. And that 33:38 all that really helps a lot cuz each 33:40 environment functions a little 33:41 differently and so you could have a 33:44 feature that you think works fine in 33:46 your session or in private build, but 33:48 then when you get to actually launch it 33:50 and be in public build it doesn't work. 33:53 Um Wow. 33:54 So, you know, that testing is just the 33:56 biggest thing. So, it's really huge and 33:58 that's like I think that's what's helped 33:59 me in my career is like I've come from 34:01 programming and I know, you know, you 34:03 got to make sure everything works 34:04 especially in the credit card industry 34:05 you you can't Oh, yeah. have issues, 34:08 right? Like people need to make their 34:09 credit card payments. There's a lot of 34:11 there's a lot of legalities around 34:13 finance. And so, you know, having that 34:15 as my background I think it's really 34:16 helped me make sure that like stuff that 34:18 I produce works well from the start. And 34:21 we still have issues, you know, like 34:22 everybody, but I think that making sure 34:25 everything works is just really really 34:27 really crucial. Yeah, and I think a lot 34:30 of creators too and they they find this 34:31 out too late, but like your game works 34:34 in private a lot, but then when it goes 34:36 live and published, it acts differently. 34:39 Like the join progress, all these things 34:41 like it's it's a like a whole new 34:43 learning it's so hard to test that as 34:45 well, right? I mean you can it's good to 34:48 test in in private and then give people 34:50 add people to your test server or 34:52 whatever or test group and then 34:55 and then try you can probably minimize a 34:57 lot of those but yeah, have you you 34:59 know, how was your experience with like 35:01 lot that you know what I mean like 35:03 testing a published game a game now 35:05 after it was working just fine in the 35:06 editor? Yeah, I mean that's I'm used to 35:08 that, right? From working on apps like 35:11 that you have a production pipe dev to 35:13 production pipeline and so that you have 35:16 to test everything repeatedly and you 35:18 know, I think that a lot of bigger 35:20 groups should if they're not doing this 35:22 use test cases and build out testing 35:24 plans because 35:26 even in general like you know, keeping 35:28 track of like what issues you've had 35:29 with prior updates and testing I think 35:32 another like after release that's 35:33 important is that you need to test every 35:35 time there's a big Fortnite update 35:37 because Yes. like we're not there yet 35:40 with getting better but like it's still 35:41 so tightly connected to Fortnite that 35:43 like they change something in BR it can 35:45 break your game and they don't need to 35:47 and I and they're creating groups to 35:48 help with that. They're creating stuff 35:49 to help with that, right? 35:51 But like you just have to test 35:53 occasionally like with every update 35:55 because you could be just fine and then 35:57 the update comes out and it breaks. We 35:58 had that with Grow Farm where they right 36:01 before break they had a bug come out on 36:03 scene graph and so we had to delay we 36:05 had to get them thankfully they were 36:06 able to delay our epic picks cuz it like 36:08 we have a garden it's a growing game, 36:10 right? So like you still harvest plants 36:12 and the interaction wasn't working. It 36:14 was broken. 36:15 And so it's like well we can't you can't 36:17 play the game if that doesn't work. So 36:19 you know, making sure you test that 36:21 stuff because if we didn't test it we 36:22 wouldn't have known that that was an 36:24 issue and could have potentially lost an 36:26 entire picks run, you know, because we 36:28 had a bug we didn't know about. 36:29 >> No, and and that is that is definitely 36:31 great advice and it and and that that 36:33 has happened from early Fortnite 36:35 creative. Every every update and I 36:37 shouldn't say every update, there's 36:38 updates that don't don't mess with it, 36:40 but 36:41 doesn't matter after every update, you 36:43 got to test your map as soon as you can. 36:45 And not only that, usually the update 36:47 pro- provides it depends on your game, 36:49 but like new weapons or new items then 36:51 you want to have those in your game as 36:52 well. 36:53 Um it's definitely something you you 36:55 should be doing and I and I and I hear a 36:56 lot of people and I and I've heard I've 36:58 heard this so much and it and actually I 37:00 can't it drives me nuts, but like when 37:03 you know, "Oh, Epic broke my game. I'm 37:05 going to wait till they fix it." You 37:07 know what I mean? That and that that 37:08 that mentality and and I and I get it. I 37:10 understand, but like Epic they care, 37:13 they'll fix it, but they got uh their 37:15 that's that's not their focus usually at 37:17 that time. It's their new Fortnite 37:19 update. They're that's that's what they 37:21 care about at that time. And they might 37:23 get to it and if it's a huge issue 37:25 across all maps, then they might revert 37:26 or whatever it is, but you cannot have 37:29 that mindset. You have to have good 37:31 people like Floth here that understand 37:33 the ecosystem and understand how to make 37:35 a button again and maybe they fix it or 37:37 whatever, but this is just the example 37:38 I'm using. How to go make a different 37:40 type of button. 37:41 >> on that, you know, you have to be able 37:42 to pivot and find some even if it's 37:44 super janky, you know, you you have to 37:47 make it work. And sometimes that's what 37:48 we do. Sometimes my code is really ugly, 37:51 but it works. So 37:52 >> Yes. you know, I think trying to find a 37:55 solution is like you said is way more 37:57 important than just being quick to blame 37:59 Epic because in that week or two, 38:02 whenever that time period is that you're 38:03 waiting for them to fix it, somebody 38:05 else can take your spot. So, you know, 38:07 it's very competitive. It kill your kill 38:09 your game and and somebody's going to 38:11 figure it out or find a way around it 38:14 generally, right? No, it's it's very 38:16 very important to think about. It's it 38:18 sucks and I'm I'm excited for the day 38:20 where we get to, you know, opt-in 38:21 updates for your games and stuff. So, or 38:24 version versioning, right? Yeah, yeah, 38:26 yeah. 38:27 Maybe that'll limit some of that stuff. 38:29 Make our update days a lot less hectic. 38:30 Because right now, if you have a game 38:32 that's 38:33 Well, one, if you have a game that 38:34 you're trying to get successful, or you 38:35 have a successful game, you're getting 38:37 up very early on update day to make sure 38:40 your game is working. All right. Let's 38:43 um I want to talk about designing for 38:45 spiky platform. So, you have said before 38:48 that you basically get one shot I you 38:50 already said it earlier, right? And 38:51 sometimes a second spike with pics, 38:53 right? How do you design your game and 38:56 your update plan knowing the platform 38:57 behaves this way? Yeah. I think honestly 39:00 that we kind of use that first launch to 39:02 decide whether or not we want to keep 39:04 adding more to a map or not. Like, you 39:06 know, I I've sometimes felt guilty of 39:09 wanting to keep updating my stuff, but 39:11 if it doesn't connect with players or 39:12 doesn't do well, sometimes the answer is 39:15 you don't update it. Sometimes you just 39:17 walk away from it. And I think as 39:19 creators, I'm guilty of it. We all need 39:21 to be better about knowing when that 39:23 time is. And it's just Kill your 39:24 darling. going to answer, but you know, 39:26 like sometimes you have to walk away 39:28 from it and try something else. There's 39:30 always something you can take away from 39:31 that game and do better for the next 39:33 one. Yeah. 39:35 So, for us, it's really just that first 39:37 launch. If it does well, then, you know, 39:39 that tells us what more we can do, but 39:41 Yeah. 39:43 it's other than that, it's like there's 39:44 not much else you can do unless you can 39:46 promote it and get people off off the 39:47 platform, but I think that that discover 39:50 launch tells you too what if people 39:52 would play it. If you you know, you 39:54 don't want to sink into a game that's 39:55 got you have to have like good retention 39:58 or good play time. 40:00 Um you know, good click-through rate. 40:02 You have to have one of those things to 40:03 be able to prop it up. Because it's You 40:04 look at discover, there are some maps 40:06 that have 20-minute play time averages, 40:08 but they have really high retention, 40:10 right? 40:10 >> Yeah. Or really high click-through to 40:12 where is the second they hit discover, 40:14 bang, it shots up shoots up to 2,000 40:16 CCU. 40:17 Yeah. 40:18 You know, so sometimes you can tweak 40:19 some of that, but that first run tells 40:22 you whether that's worth the time to 40:23 invest into, you know, promoting it or 40:26 maybe pivoting. Yeah. Yeah, it's and 40:29 that that that is hard. That is really 40:31 hard, especially if you invest a lot of 40:32 time and energy into a game. And we if 40:34 you're really new to and you don't have 40:36 set the proper hooks in your game, use 40:38 your analytic devices, know how to read 40:40 some of your data early on too that 40:43 those things can kind of help you to try 40:44 to find maybe maybe it's something 40:46 simple like I think Pixelated was on the 40:48 the previous episode and he was saying 40:50 like the flashlight on the horror game 40:53 like when he crouched and it got off the 40:55 screen it it dropped, you know, it 40:56 looked his FPS went way down. Like it 40:58 was tanking his FPS. Mhm. And so there's 41:01 just like sometimes it can just be a 41:03 little things that you might not know 41:04 and it might it might be worth but 41:06 again, if you were testing beforehand, 41:08 maybe you can get ahead of these sort of 41:09 things, but yeah, I 41:12 You bring up a good point. Yeah, cuz 41:14 that actually reminds me of when I first 41:16 started, I made a moon gun game and I 41:19 did like custom lighting and stuff in 41:21 UEFN and had a really cool like you're 41:22 in the shadow of a cave in a in a like 41:25 you're in the moon and I did not test it 41:28 on switch and cut my play time in half 41:30 because only on the Nintendo switch was 41:32 there a lighting bug where it was just 41:34 pitch black. So that's something I think 41:36 people miss too is that like when I soon 41:38 as I fixed that, my play time doubled. I 41:40 test it on lower end devices. Yeah, so 41:42 this is huge. And you don't think about 41:44 that. The lighting is like 41:46 kind of be a curse and a blessing like 41:48 it makes things look really cool but 41:49 also like sometimes if you don't test 41:52 them lower end devices or test 41:53 performance mode. I forget to do that 41:55 sometimes but sometimes the issue could 41:58 not be your map. It could be a bug that 42:00 you have because it's not working on 42:02 switch or it's not working in 42:03 performance mode. Like you know, maybe 42:05 you have something on in your onboarding 42:06 that's broken because of performance 42:08 mode because unfortunately whether you 42:10 want performance mode or not like people 42:12 have it, right? This is a competitive 42:14 ecosystem and so many people use 42:16 performance mode cuz they want peak FPS. 42:19 So like you got to test in that. 100% 42:21 that's that's been a problem from day 42:23 one and it it it sucks cuz you make 42:25 really cool looking maps or games and 42:28 they put on performance mode and you're 42:29 like, "What does this look?" 42:31 And you know what would be really cool 42:33 and I don't and maybe you know maybe 42:34 this is possible maybe I I don't know 42:36 but if you could actually get signals 42:38 from what what performance mode that if 42:40 they're on performance mode in game. 42:43 It'd be kind of cool. 42:44 I don't know if we can yet but I know 42:46 that will I've I've heard that that's 42:48 coming to where like you can check which 42:50 I mean that would be awesome, right? 42:51 Like if we could have certain things in 42:52 verse where we could say like 42:54 um you know whether it's a performance 42:56 mode performance mode also will affect 42:57 like the number of LODs on a model. So 42:59 some of that you can tweak. Um 43:02 you know, some of 43:03 some people um don't realize like if you 43:05 import custom models like some 43:07 performance mode stuff like just cuts it 43:09 off after a certain amount of triangles 43:11 but like you can go in there and 43:12 actually like 43:13 in UEFN you can reduce triangles on 43:16 models and like sometimes you can reduce 43:19 80% of the triangles and it looks just 43:20 fine. And then it will show up and work 43:22 well in performance mode, you know? So 43:24 like 43:25 there are some optimizations you can do 43:27 to you know, save space and make your 43:29 game more performant and then make it 43:31 look the same for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. 43:34 And this full circle it really is tough 43:36 to know when to you know, shelf your 43:38 game if if it's a but 43:41 saying all saying all that and 43:43 I I do think if your game's not doing 43:45 what you thought it should do off launch 43:47 and you tested it it's not nothing 43:49 obvious or broken, you know, try to look 43:51 at your metrics, try to look at 43:53 Fortnite.gg see what their metrics are. 43:56 See if you can kind of like okay, I'm 43:58 not hitting the retention I'm not 44:00 hitting them some of these metrics and 44:01 that's also hard a little bit too as 44:03 well cuz you got to remember at the 44:04 start of your game when there's not a 44:06 lot of players you're going to have a 44:07 higher average play time, right? But 44:09 then when more people come in, it's 44:11 going to take lower that much more. Mhm. 44:14 And so it's just it's really And that's 44:15 why you see a lot of these posts, I have 44:17 this average play time and I'm nowhere 44:19 in discovery. Well, it means Cuz you had 44:21 50 players or something, you know, you 44:22 had a small amount of players. 44:23 >> game for 3 hours. Now you got Yeah. 44:25 [laughter] 44:26 A bad joke. But But yeah, it just it 44:29 again, it's just kind of paying 44:30 attention to those things and And again, 44:32 if you're brand new and you're just I 44:34 think and you can you know, you can 44:37 whatever try to chime into this, but 44:38 it's just like it's more important I 44:39 think just to do your best, get it out 44:41 there, learn as much as you can from 44:43 that experience, and try again. Like how 44:45 many maps did you make in UEFN before 44:48 you kind of got your first pop of CCUs? 44:50 Well, luckily, not a lot. 44:53 No, oh, that's great. I did two gun 44:56 games, and then after that I did like 44:58 there's infinite ramps, had terrible 45:00 play time, like 15 minutes, but it looks 45:02 like a Hot Wheels track thing where you 45:03 like took the 45:05 the octane? Yeah, you took the octane 45:06 and you like could run upside down and 45:08 do loops and stuff. And that actually 45:10 had a crazy good quick through rate that 45:11 had a couple thousand CCU. And then like 45:14 Farm Tycoon was my first big one, and 45:16 that was only gosh, when I say we 45:18 launched that, I went to Unreal Fest in 45:20 New Orleans and had a really good talk. 45:22 I think it was at Jay that talked about, 45:24 you know, spicing up your game and 45:26 making it better. 45:27 >> Yeah. 45:27 And we did a few things from that for 45:29 Farm Tycoon, like you could pet your 45:30 animals and stuff, and just little 45:32 things like the plants would bounce and 45:33 they'd animate in. And um that map had 45:36 like five plus thousand CCU. So that was 45:38 our first big map, and within like 6 45:40 months I had that, was really cool. So 45:43 I think I think that's also something 45:45 that should be highlighted is that 45:46 people that are new to the platform, 45:48 even if you're coming from AAA game dev, 45:50 like you have to look at like the 45:52 platform and what works, and make 45:53 something that's a mix of what works and 45:55 like what you want to do, right? Like 45:57 cuz I think sometimes we feel guilty of 45:59 just making what we want instead of 46:01 trying to make something that we want 46:04 but also works because Yeah. We have We 46:06 do have an a certain type of audience in 46:08 Fortnite. Like I think that'll change as 46:09 we get more features and get more 46:11 benefits like that different things that 46:13 people can do. But for now like it's 46:15 very heavy on PvP like There's it's got 46:17 to be combat adjacent and that's what I 46:19 was kind of proud on Farm Tycoon is we 46:21 had a lot of that. You had people 46:22 fighting each other in their farms and 46:24 and like launching around the map and 46:25 shooting each other and I think that's 46:27 important. Like you have to make sure 46:29 that you're you're doing something that 46:31 kind of blends it. 46:32 >> Yeah. Well also and I know a lot of 46:35 people are playing this game and not and 46:37 a lot of people 46:38 it's it's controversial. But you once 46:41 you like a tycoon generally don't have 46:42 weapons. So if you put PvP in your game, 46:46 you that now opens you up for other tabs 46:49 as well. You know what I mean? Cuz like 46:52 I I remember Oh, I got to remember what 46:54 what the tabs. So we had a zombie 46:56 There's kind of like a zombie rogue like 46:57 game. 46:58 And we Oh, what what happened was we had 47:02 it like a PvP You could start You could 47:04 eliminate your team. It was a PvE game 47:07 but a bug happened and we could start 47:09 eliminating each other and it like 47:11 changed in the algorithm like it flagged 47:14 it as like a Mhm. Not a PvE a PvP and it 47:17 like put us in a different tab. It was 47:19 It was very strange at the time but it 47:20 kind of opened my eyes like they are 47:22 watching these things. Well, that mean 47:24 that that happens a lot. I mean 47:25 obviously with when we did when I made 47:28 Clicks Tycoon with Trick Tiger that was 47:30 a little different. We made that one a 47:31 little more PvP focused but like even 47:33 when Farm Tycoon was in picks it got 47:35 into the combat discover over a bit 47:37 which you know it's it's just a chill 47:38 tycoon and it's in combat. But but then 47:41 in combat can't compete with the tycoons 47:43 average play time. No. 47:47 So I anyway we're talking about gaming a 47:49 system now that we already I know we it 47:51 does drive a lot of people nuts and I 47:53 drives me nuts too when I go into a row. 47:55 >> true, right? Like if it's got combat No, 47:58 for your game that works. I think that 48:00 works for sure. But, you know, look like 48:02 the racing genre is it's all open world 48:05 art you know, GTA 48:07 >> Yeah, yeah. 48:08 Uh-huh. kind of copy games and that's in 48:10 the race those are the top racing games 48:12 and and and you can't compete with that 48:15 style of tycoonish open world RPG racing 48:20 then with an actual racing game, right? 48:22 So, it's it's it's it's tough. Anyway, 48:25 I'm I'm glad we talked had that was a 48:26 great great talk on that and I hope some 48:28 people can take some things from that. I 48:30 want to get talking about IP again. 48:32 Yeah. If we did that you had some 48:33 success with in-app purchasing during 48:35 picks, like what was the context around 48:37 that? What did success actually mean in 48:39 practice? Like what did you learn about 48:41 player spending when you got the extra 48:43 exposure? Yeah, so the cool thing is 48:45 like with that we can also see like 48:47 reporting on like if players think it's 48:49 a good purchase or not, right? Like they 48:51 can if you're a player and you're 48:53 playing Fortnite and you feel like the 48:54 map kind of you off cuz you spent 500 48:56 V-bucks or something you can report that 48:58 and like that shows up in our analytics. 48:59 Um the surprising thing is is like 49:02 all of the stuff that we put in had less 49:04 than a 1% report rate. The only stuff 49:06 that had close to a 1% report rate was 49:08 stuff that we added. Okay, so we did 49:10 some trolling which is in a farming game 49:12 where there's no combat it actually I 49:14 think it worked out well. Like we had it 49:16 where you could jail somebody for 100 49:18 V-bucks and you throw them in a jail and 49:20 then they have to pickaxe a rock for 40 49:23 times before they get back out. Okay. 49:25 >> And uh so even if you leave the game and 49:26 come back you still have to pickaxe that 49:28 rock and so this is kind of a fun thing 49:30 to like troll people and we had like 49:32 4,000 people buy that which is why we 49:35 were in picks which that was our second 49:36 most purchased item. It's kind of crazy. 49:39 I didn't expect that at all. 49:40 >> No, but that's fun. That creates fun 49:42 moments and also for social media side 49:44 of things. Thinking like that that could 49:46 be a really good social media post as 49:49 well of like oh I can't you know caging 49:51 somebody and you know, whatever emoting 49:53 on them. 49:53 >> a Trick Tiger's idea and he even had the 49:56 idea we added in as well a revenge 49:58 mechanic and that one didn't do as well, 50:00 but like essentially if somebody jailed 50:02 you, you could jail your friend back and 50:04 spend 100 V-bucks and then it would 50:06 double the amount of times they needed 50:07 to hit the pickaxe. So like 50:09 they could potentially have to be stuck 50:11 in a jail cell for like 10 minutes if 50:13 you were to get it back and forth 50:14 enough. No, that's very cool and and 50:16 like I said, there was there was not 50:17 much data or anyone much talking about 50:19 this right now. If anyone's like on the 50:21 fence right now about putting in-app 50:23 purchases in their game, what would you 50:25 say to them? I would say like try it. 50:27 Like it can't hurt, right? Like people 50:29 are going to spend money on what they 50:30 want to spend money on. It's this tale 50:32 as old as time, right? Like 50:33 >> Yeah. if I want to waste some money in a 50:35 video or you know, I I shouldn't say 50:37 waste cuz that's not fair. If I want to 50:39 spend my money on something, like you're 50:41 going to do it, right? Yeah. Like mobile 50:43 games have that, every game has that. So 50:45 I think the biggest thing is just make 50:46 something that helps remove some 50:48 friction from your game. Like but that's 50:50 part of the fun of gaming, right? Is the 50:52 friction and then the challenge of like, 50:53 oh, I want to complete this. I want to 50:55 do this thing. So like one of the big 50:57 our biggest in-app purchase in the game 50:59 was to get like 10,000 dollars or 51:01 whatever start out, you know, and so to 51:03 help you just start out your game and 51:04 boost it. And just little things like 51:06 that, like I think they're huge, right? 51:08 Like 51:09 >> Yeah. just things that can like give 51:10 somebody a leg up or like I think it 51:12 also is a I think a a hidden benefit of 51:15 in-app purchases that we're going to see 51:17 as we get bigger and better maps is 51:19 that's also investment, right? Like 51:21 Yeah. If players spent a ton of V-bucks 51:23 in your map, like they're going to want 51:24 to keep coming back cuz they've got that 51:25 investment. They've got more than just 51:27 like the time invested into it, right? 51:29 They've got money invested into it. So 51:31 trying to make things that 51:33 I you know, the more we talk about it, 51:35 it seems like it's another retention 51:36 mechanic is how can you get people more 51:38 invested in your games? Yeah. 51:40 >> That's a perfect way to say it and I saw 51:42 I'm blanking. I I did see a stat, I 51:44 think it was on mobile. It was Roblox, I 51:46 I don't know, basically a player that 51:48 spent money in your game, like their 51:51 chances of coming back or staying and 51:53 put it playing longer in your game were 51:56 exponential. Yeah. Um That's huge. And I 51:59 don't think a lot of people are thinking 52:01 as about it like that. So, I think that 52:03 that is very smart. And I think the only 52:05 thing I would add to what you said, 52:06 which is perfect, is if if you are on 52:08 the fence, you know, there's ways to do 52:11 this, like maybe whatever is the grindy 52:13 mechanic and you speed that up. Can they 52:16 get it for free if they grind it, right? 52:19 Can they obtain this without having to 52:20 spend money, you know? Then I think 52:22 that's fair game as well, you know? 52:24 Think things like that where it feels 52:27 I I don't want to say scummy, but like 52:29 it doesn't feel 52:30 >> though. It's not scummy. 52:31 >> predatory. You know, yeah. You're not 52:32 predatory. It's not like the 52:34 You know, you see the trolling videos. I 52:35 think I saw LaserBeam did one where he's 52:37 like you had to pay V-bucks to walk. 52:39 And then he yanked it to a troll post 52:42 about that on Twitter. 52:44 You know, that's a joke. But in reality, 52:46 like if you just do little things, like 52:48 >> one's Those people never have CC. 52:49 Nobody's going to do that, right? But 52:51 like you just do little things that make 52:53 it easier, like that's great. People 52:55 love that. Like they're going to spend 52:56 it. So, like if you're really passionate 52:58 about it and you love this platform and 53:00 you want to be on it, why would you not 53:02 introduce something like, you know, put 53:03 something in your map that can make you 53:05 more money so you can keep doing this, 53:06 like Yes. Cuz I think that the other 53:09 side of it that we forget is that like 53:11 we were talking about earlier, you know, 53:12 you're creating fun for somebody and 53:14 it's really important for them. We have 53:16 some fans that come and play every 53:17 tycoon we make, every game we make and 53:19 they keep, you know, we have the 53:20 followers now and that's huge. Yes. 53:23 I think that we miss out on that fact 53:25 that like even if the game's not 53:27 important to us anymore, like it was 53:28 important to somebody and so like if 53:30 they want to spend money in it, let 53:31 them. They want to support us, like 53:33 Yeah. It's it's it's only scummy if you 53:35 make it scummy, like it doesn't have to 53:37 be a Like you said, it just removes 53:39 friction and makes the game more fun for 53:41 somebody. Yeah. Yes. someone like me 53:43 that doesn't have a lot of time. 53:45 So you like speed things up. All right, 53:47 I want to zoom out a little bit. Like 53:49 what do you think smart brand safe 53:51 monetization looks like in Fortnite 53:53 right now? What feels fair to players 53:55 and what do you think will backfire even 53:57 if it makes money short term? This is a 53:59 hard one. Yeah, I think what works well 54:02 what's like safe for your brand? I think 54:04 pricing things lower on 30 bucks is the 54:06 big thing. 54:08 I don't think you have I don't think 54:09 we're at the point where you can sell 54:11 like a 54:12 And you saw backlash acted on this with 54:14 the Stealer Brain Rot. You know, you saw 54:15 like 5,000 V-bucks for 54:18 Yeah. 54:19 I think that might work long short term 54:21 for some of the bigger maps, but like I 54:22 think long term that's not going to 54:24 work. Like I don't I don't think that's 54:26 sustainable. I think you have to make 54:27 sure whatever you're pricing offers 54:29 value. Yeah. Like in like in relation to 54:32 that, right? Like you want it to 54:33 actually like save somebody you like 54:35 like you said like I'm a dad too. So 54:37 like I got 54:39 at certain time of the day I have to 54:40 quit working. And so like 54:42 Yeah, I can't play games after that 54:44 time. Like so if you make things that 54:46 make it easier for the person playing 54:48 your game, I think that's what's going 54:49 to be the the most successful brand safe 54:51 thing is like 54:53 something that like especially like for 54:55 me in Tycoons, you know, like that's a 54:57 lot of older audience than like your 54:59 combat maps. Both seeing somebody that 55:01 makes their time a little bit easier and 55:03 they can 55:04 have more fun in the game because it 55:05 makes it quicker is more important cuz I 55:07 don't think we're to the point where 55:08 like you can sell whole expansion in 55:10 your game yet, right? Like Yeah. 55:12 I think just little things that make it 55:14 more fun are the safer out right now. I 55:16 think that I think that like custom 55:18 weapons and stuff work. I think that I 55:21 bet those will get cheaper as time goes 55:22 on because people, you know, everybody 55:24 can do that. Everybody can add custom 55:26 weapons and stuff. 55:27 >> Yeah, well especially when they actually 55:28 give it to us natively in game engine. 55:31 Where's that at? 55:33 Actually let me see the road map. I 55:34 think that's in Q3. Yeah, it's been 55:37 pushed like a year I think at this 55:38 point, but um uh we I know Unreal Fest 55:41 they kind of even announced did a little 55:43 announcement around and it got pushed 55:44 again, but yeah, I it'll be nice to 55:46 have. And we're getting to the end. We 55:48 have a few Well, like one more last 55:49 question before we we get to that, you 55:51 know, I always ask this like I want to 55:53 give you a chance to plug your stuff. 55:55 So, like what are you building right now 55:57 and where should people follow you? 55:58 Yeah, so I I think we can talk about 56:00 this. We're making Pizza Shop 2 right 56:02 now. We're working on that. Nice. That's 56:04 going to be our next big tycoon. I think 56:06 that it'll have has a lot of 56:07 replayability. It's pretty exciting. My 56:09 socials are the same everywhere. It's 56:11 like It's Sloth on, you know, X, on 56:13 Discord. It's all the same handle. So, 56:15 if you see it on one thing, it's 56:16 everywhere else. Uh yeah, feel free to 56:18 reach out. I'm like I love connecting 56:19 with people. I'm always open to do more 56:22 work. I love collaborating. I've done 56:23 brand projects, so I'm happy to help 56:26 people with level design and environment 56:28 stuff, first work. Well, yeah, it's it's 56:30 really fun to collaborate with other 56:32 creators. Amazing. All his links will be 56:34 in the description. First, go follow 56:35 him. And yeah, if you're if you need a a 56:37 good developer that's been in the space 56:39 that can pull CCUs and know knows this 56:41 place in and out, definitely reach out 56:43 to Sloth. He's helped me personally 56:45 sometimes inside of UEFN as well. 56:47 He is the real deal. I get So, lastly, 56:50 let's look ahead, okay? Looking towards 56:52 2026, what do you think will matter most 56:54 for creators who actually want to last, 56:56 not just get a hit, but build something 56:58 like sustainable? That's a tough one. It 57:00 is. Actually, here's my prediction. I 57:03 could be totally wrong here, but I think 57:05 not making your game copied off of 57:07 something in from Roblox is going to be 57:09 a big thing. That's kind of meta right 57:11 now. It's a lot of people create 57:12 something that's already popular out 57:14 there and then hope they can get the 57:15 license before they get taken down. 57:18 Yeah. And I think that will probably be 57:20 to some degree of truth always a thing, 57:22 but like we were talking earlier, like 57:24 this is the this is a higher quality of 57:26 UGC, I think in the long term. So, I 57:29 think that if you can be if you can 57:31 focus on making yourself different and 57:33 stand out, that's going to be way more 57:35 important than just trying to copy 57:37 everybody else and do something the 57:38 same. Like Yeah. 57:40 >> you have We all We all know those 57:41 creators that like do things a little 57:43 bit differently and they've really 57:44 managed to stick out because of that. 57:47 So, 57:48 I think I think the biggest thing that 57:49 people can focus on is maybe don't look 57:51 at the big thing. Find something that's 57:53 maybe a little bit underserved or a 57:55 little bit not as popular. Like when I 57:56 started Tycoons, there weren't a lot of 57:58 Tycoons and I think that's what 57:59 >> helped me be successful is because I 58:01 found something that was a little bit 58:03 less competitive. It's more competitive 58:05 now, of course, but um 58:06 you know, maybe maybe there's something 58:08 that an audience is not being served. 58:11 So, I think the biggest thing that 58:13 that you can focus on is how can you 58:15 make yourself different? 58:16 >> Yeah. 58:17 That That That's That's a great answer 58:19 and and honestly, too, like if you're 58:21 trying to make those quick hit maps, 58:24 you're competing with thousands of other 58:26 creators. A lot of these creators have 58:28 have done it. They've already basically 58:30 set up a pipeline that already has most 58:32 of these things so they can crank these 58:33 things out fast and they're they're also 58:36 publishing multiple which that's another 58:37 topic we don't need to get into, but you 58:39 know, that that's a thing that we got to 58:40 get fixed with the multiple publishing 58:42 of the same same maps, but but again, 58:44 it's a even tougher road, I believe, to 58:46 hit. And then if you are trying to go 58:48 that licensing route where you're just 58:49 trying to be first out there and get the 58:51 CCUs and then hopefully you don't get 58:53 sued and they actually want to work with 58:54 you. You know, that that could go south, 58:57 It's a lot of risk. Yeah, a lot of risk. 58:59 So, again, it definitely good things to 59:01 think about and and I think creators 59:03 should have in the back of their mind 59:04 when they're thinking about build 59:05 building things. And again, doesn't mean 59:07 not Don't Don't Don't Don't avoid maybe 59:10 some of the popular maps, but how can 59:12 you make it your own or make it more 59:14 fun, less friction, how can you combine 59:16 multiple game modes into something 59:18 crazy, you know what I mean? Like I'm 59:20 always consistently thinking about the 59:22 top games that are popular and why. I 59:24 like Brain Rot, whatever you want to say 59:25 about it. Go in there and you're going 59:27 to understand all of the game loops in 59:30 there and how how how addicting they are 59:32 and how how it just just just like the 59:35 how how sticky it is and you don't even 59:37 realize until you've been in there and 59:38 now you're like, "Oh my gosh. Wow." 59:40 >> don't notice that, you know, you like 59:41 you get caught up in like hating on 59:43 something because you don't like it. But 59:45 if you actually like look at it, I can 59:47 see how they're so popular, you know, 59:49 like when you slap somebody and steal 59:51 brain rot, it's kind of satisfying and 59:52 you can like 59:53 >> Oh, yeah. you know, it's also kind of 59:55 fun cuz it's kind of like a tycoon, but 59:57 at the same time you can go in and steal 59:58 somebody's thing and you're immediately 1:00:00 like 10 times ahead of where you would 1:00:02 have been if you just played with 1:00:03 playtime. Like so I I I think there's 1:00:05 something to always You're right there. 1:00:07 You There's always something to take 1:00:08 away even if it's not something that 1:00:10 you're necessarily a fan of. There's 1:00:12 always something to learn from every 1:00:14 game that's in Discover even if you 1:00:16 don't 1:00:17 you know, it find that one fun. Yeah. 1:00:19 Yeah, I I would I My my kids do love the 1:00:21 game obviously the younger kids are it's 1:00:23 all over schools and all the sayings and 1:00:25 stuff. So they love love to play it. So 1:00:26 I'll I'll watch them play 1:00:28 also cuz I want to watch just cuz I'm 1:00:30 trying to learn too Mhm. about these 1:00:32 games and it's crazy the like this guy 1:00:35 stole my brain rot. I'm going to do 1:00:36 everything I can to steal his stuff. I'm 1:00:38 going to try to hit him and then 1:00:40 I don't have this super powerful 1:00:41 slapper. I don't have these certain 1:00:43 freezes. I don't have these these 1:00:44 certain things. Oh, I need to rebirth to 1:00:47 get it. I mean, it's I want these these 1:00:49 brain this my kids I want this brain 1:00:51 rot. You know what I mean? All the all 1:00:52 these things and it it's just, you know, 1:00:53 how how do you turn that into a 1:00:56 to something different and I'll I'll 1:00:57 just say it like my brain I've been 1:01:00 thinking there's a lot there's one side 1:01:02 of the coin where there is some of the 1:01:04 hate on the brain rot, but like how do 1:01:05 you use that to your advantage? And and 1:01:07 one thing I thought of and I don't I 1:01:09 haven't seen it yet. Doesn't mean it's 1:01:10 not out there. Maybe you've seen it. 1:01:11 >> Mhm. Like Havoc What if there was a 1:01:13 Havoc Hotel type roguelike you're 1:01:16 clearing out brain rots and saving the 1:01:19 world from brain rots and maybe there's 1:01:20 boss fight brain rots. You know what I 1:01:22 mean? Like think about that game. That 1:01:24 and maybe it doesn't do anything, but 1:01:26 again, those are two popular games that 1:01:28 you could infuse and maybe make 1:01:30 something that pops. I don't know. 1:01:32 Whatever. Yeah. And you get in that game 1:01:35 right away like and regardless of 1:01:36 knowing the mode or not, you immediately 1:01:38 realize what you're supposed to do. 1:01:40 Like that is one thing that I've had to 1:01:42 get better at in my tycoon's is 1:01:44 onboarding like it should just feel 1:01:46 naturally instinctive of what the player 1:01:48 needs to do and like that's something we 1:01:50 can learn to take away for our own games 1:01:52 is like focusing on 1:01:54 how can we make that easier in that 1:01:56 onboarding? Like the first couple 1:01:57 minutes are so critical to like your 1:01:59 CCU, your average play time, like all of 1:02:01 that. If you have it going to it's 1:02:03 confusing, it's not going to happen. But 1:02:05 like that's why I think Steel a Brain 1:02:06 Rot does so well cuz the second you're 1:02:08 in that, you know what you're supposed 1:02:09 to do. Yeah. And you see everything. No, 1:02:12 for sure. It's it's very quick 1:02:14 onboarding. It's it's it's very easy. If 1:02:16 you don't have money, you can steal. And 1:02:18 then you got that cage, right? You don't 1:02:19 want people to steal your stuff. So 1:02:20 every there's that timer going on. I 1:02:22 always constantly have to go back and 1:02:23 make sure it's locked and I'm trying 1:02:25 there it's it's a master class I think 1:02:27 in in retention and engagement. And I 1:02:30 think whatever you feel about it, you 1:02:32 should be studying it and try to 1:02:34 understand if there's any of those that 1:02:35 you can put into your game. And that's 1:02:38 that's that's all the that's what they 1:02:39 do on Roblox as well. They they're doing 1:02:40 that that that exact same thing. And 1:02:42 hopefully you can make the next big hit. 1:02:44 Look, this was a fun talk, man. I mean, 1:02:46 you could talk forever about this stuff. 1:02:47 We could talk shop. And like I said, 1:02:50 man, I always enjoy our conversations 1:02:51 and you're always open to share share 1:02:53 things and help out other creators and 1:02:55 really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. 1:02:57 Likewise, so you're one of the first 1:02:59 people that like I got to meet in the 1:03:00 ecosystem. Being so friendly is huge. 1:03:03 Like it's it's it is a small world. So 1:03:04 you want to 1:03:05 yeah, be good to everybody and spread 1:03:07 good vibes and rising tide lifts all 1:03:09 boats, right? Exactly. Exactly. And 1:03:12 that's just it. I I never understood 1:03:14 that that side of things. I'm always, 1:03:16 you know, that there I'm I'm not here 1:03:18 just because of me. You know, sure it's 1:03:20 my hard work I did put in and I I I did 1:03:22 a lot of things to get here, but it's 1:03:24 the people. It's the people I've met 1:03:25 that I've learned things from and vice 1:03:26 versa and we share and it comes back. It 1:03:29 comes back somehow. Whatever whatever it 1:03:31 is. It It really does. It really does. 1:03:33 So, man, I hope I hope to see you out in 1:03:35 real fast this year, you know what I 1:03:36 mean? That'd be awesome. And if you guys 1:03:38 do see him, go say hi. Definitely go say 1:03:40 hi to him. Absolutely. Thank you. Hey, 1:03:42 all right, brother. That was an episode, 1:03:43 man. Well, I may have maybe have to have 1:03:45 you come on again sometime. 1:03:46 >> Yeah, thank you. I'd love it. Take care. 1:03:48 Later. Huge thank you to Slide It Sloth 1:03:50 for coming on and being so open about 1:03:52 what is actually working in UEFN right 1:03:55 now. 1:03:56 From thumbnails and click-through 1:03:57 [music] rate to first launch strategies, 1:04:00 testing disciplines, retention loops, 1:04:01 and monetization, this episode is packed 1:04:04 with practical lessons you can apply 1:04:06 immediately. Make sure you are following 1:04:07 Slide It Sloth and check out the maps he 1:04:09 is shipping. And if you enjoyed this 1:04:11 episode, do me a favor. Follow the 1:04:13 podcast, subscribe on YouTube, hit that 1:04:15 like button, and if you're listening on 1:04:17 audio, leave a positive review on your 1:04:19 favorite podcast app. It generally helps 1:04:22 out more than you think. See you in a 1:04:24 fortnight, which is in 2 weeks, and 1:04:26 remember, don't hate, create.