what do you think should be the step one if someone says I want to make a game it’s important to understand what your audience don’t want and also what they

truly want if I were to create a game today I wouldn’t try to analyze different types of yan you’re the CEO

and founder of rank one over 1.5 million games analyzed so you’re redefining gaming analytics the biggest issue for

gamers today is not the cost of the game it’s rather so Johan you’re the CEO and

founder of rank one could you please tell us what is rank one I see a St here 1.5 million games analyzed so that will

tease the audience a little so yeah please tell us a little more about what rank one does yeah so so essentially

rank one is um we’re trying to create the number one platform for gamers and content creators to share their passion

for games everything they play growing up what they’re playing today and even what they want to play in the future

across all platforms across all time uh which gives us a very unique position to

help Gamers find more of what they love but also help game comp companies reduce risk and understand their audiences

better um it’s obviously a very challenging landscape out there today

it’s very competitive it’s crowded uh and understanding your players is essential today to to build a resonating

game that is successful yeah absolutely and we spoke a couple months ago and when you told me

the idea I found it very interesting because it was like player focused in the sense of players are the one inputting the data where when I was

thinking about like a data analytics service I was wasn’t initially thinking that it’ be proactive but this to me

seems like you can get a lot of Rich data which I find very interesting um from having a product for the players

but also a product for the cons like the companies as well yeah I mean essentially the the whole idea is to

help us Gamers get better games right uh find more Unforgettable experiences to

to to experience and uh I think that’s done by there’s some kind of dissonance

between the those creating the games and how the players play games today and

we’re essentially trying to bridge that Gap by bringing them closer together

around data and by helping people share everything they played across all platforms and also very manually input

the games that has truly left an impact we get a very unique data set that sort

of like highlights how different player segments separate themselves from others

uh rather than just scraping the entire internet for for different um data sets

uh we get the the very manually curated super player oriented data uh which is

not modified in any way it’s just essentially people expressing what they enjoy about games and what they don’t

enjoy about games and through that we can we can get some pretty cool insights amazing so with this interview I’d love

to get into like data in general a bit more about like rank run and like how we can use it and just in general cuz the

landscape of the game industry like you said it is difficult now and I feel like cuz we’ve seen some games come out and I

feel like from an outsid with no experience they’ve put hundreds of millions in the game you’re like of

course this would fail like if they just had a bit of data or just someone at top

maybe said something so I’d love to get your opinion on that as well so let’s just dive in so you mentioned on your

website the why and how we play that is very meaningful to you so I want you to

explain like why is it so important about the why and how we play games yes I think there’s um there kind

of just lackluster understanding of how people actually consume games today it’s it feels sometimes like we’re still

stuck in the era of a family being part of the Nintendo club and then all you do

you’re a Nintendo family so you’re only play Nintendo games and if you did that

would be good because then Nintendo would know everything about your gaming playing behavior and they could then

tailor their offers they could do all these things to understand who you are as a consumer family or whatever but

today people tend to move across different platforms like myself I think I have around 15 different users on

different platforms so I go wherever the best games are uh because the games that are that I feel are tailored for me

and built for for someone with my tasting games uh I I don’t want to miss

system so I go there and and people can generally afford a couple platforms to

have at home and only on PC there’s like 10 of them which are free to register everyone but everyone is building these

kind of walls around their platform or their community so that other platform

owners don’t understand what’s going on on their platform but we’re what we’re trying to do is just understand that on

a on a very holistic scale instead like looking at above that focusing on the

player and how they move across the different platforms or different games we get a very good understanding of how

you play games generally on the PS5 and how that same person who plays God of

War on PS5 what do they look for when they try when they play games on switch they probably play games with their

family there or something like that and we get that full perspective of how people actually consume consume games um

so that’s uh very unique in the sense that like Nintendo is a completely closed

ecosystem you can’t get data from that platform you can’t import games from the

switch onto any analytical toolkit so you rely on the people and the players to be able to to want to share that with

you and we we have reached that position where people share the games they play on switch because if they do that we can

then help them find more of games that are similar or built in a similar way that others like you tend to enjoy on

switch so that you can find more of what you love uh um because I would say like the the biggest issue for gamers today

is not the cost of the game generally it’s rather like there’s so much out there

that competes for your time playing games so it’s it’s more that you have too little time to play games so it’s

very important that you put your time into the games that are the best for you and we’re helping players with that

super cool like I just realized it’s a discoverability toour as well so not only am I kind of getting I don’t know

why I didn’t think of it like that like when I was thinking about the tool I was like ah I could add my games and it would tell me some cool things about me

but no like I have this problem where I have a limited amount of time and I just return to hearstone an hour a day and I

know there’s probably a better mobile game out there or what have you but I ain’t got time to go fishing play the game start it realize it [ __ ] I was just

like no I ain’t doing that but this solves that problem which is awesome it’s a full-time job just finding games

today like it’s so hard and you don’t want to risk your time playing games because you have so little limited time

of it so it’s easier just to go back to the games that you know will deliver what you what you

want yeah and I think as game developers that’s a super important

thing to remember because if your game doesn’t like look like it’s going to be

a piece of value it’s like it’s a lot more frontend marketing that needs to be considered like will the game look like

something that players of God of War would enjoy even if we know they would but would it look like it I think that’s

an important thing to remember as well because that’s pretty much you can actually get that data from rank one

like if you had those games you can see who actually goes and then plays it that’s really interesting yeah yeah and

I think I think you’re on to something there like if if if someone is trying to build a game for the Hearthstone

audience it’ be very valuable to know what other games they tend to be drawn to so that you

can understand how they move across the landscape and also design your store pages in a way that truly resonates with

you like you there’s probably a theme within the games that you tend to play like it’s probably pretty strategic it’s

short sessions it’s these kind of different things and you can probably see that Trend recurring if you analyze

your specific player segment like if we try to understand your playing Behavior we can see that there’s these key things

that are very important to you it’s not it’s not genre it’s not geographically

oriented games it’s it’s like it’s it’s deep design philosophy things

that truly matters to you when you pick your game and that a game that truly sticks on you so it’s we try to unravel

those things that are fairly deep down you have to dig pretty deep to find them but by by taking the approach that we

have done we we we start to see glimmers of it at least really interesting I had

a podcast I recorded recently with Callum Godfrey and we talked about the publishing side and when they pitched to

Publishers having that data is super important I’m just going to ask you a question if I was in that situation I

haven’t developed the game yet I’ll mount a pitch for it maybe I have a prototype right how can I use data

whether it be rank one or in general to kind of improve my pitch to VCS because I feel like this would be very useful if

I can be like ah we’re making this game because of this data but like what should be my step one because I feel like this can be quite

overwhelming absolutely and we get a lot of we have a lot of companies that help with just just that just understanding

how to build a proper pitch and how to pitch your project in a in a good way because ultimate what it comes down to

is attracting players right and uh what type of players that you’re trying to attract and working a bit Market

oriented in this landscape is something that you need to do and you need to prove to your VCS or your Publishers

that you’re able to do that work as well because otherwise they will likely not get give you their

money um so what we do is tend to help them understand their Market potential so if you’re trying to build a game for

let’s say again the Hearthstone audience we can see the overlap between Hearthstone and all the other games so

if we take the top five games that Hearthstone players tend to overlap to and you’re creating a game that is meant

to resonate to the Hearthstone audience we can then understand how many players

from other games out there you are likely to also attract to your game and by looking at sales numbers and how much

they have sold you can then understand your realistic Market potential if you’re develop if you’re delivering on

what you promised your players that you will deliver uh so we can understand Market potential um understand what kind

of features you need to build and focus on what will be important in your game to to to be

successful uh we can show case what you shouldn’t do uh which is equally as

important which a lot of people don’t tend to focus a lot about on because if you combined a super good feature and a

pretty bad feature for the same audience they will just equalize themselves and and it’s it’s essentially you end up on

on zero again so it’s it’s important to understand what your audience don’t want and also what they truly want and if you

can Pro if you can showcase that to a VC or a publisher that you have a very good

understanding of that they are also very likely to listen a bit more I don’t know

carefully with what you’re saying and put their time into into your project if you showcase that you understand that

you’re doing something that people actually want out there and that the potential is Big yeah for sure like I

feel we can make these correlations with kind of common sense like Hearthstone has this strategic feature maybe people

who like that feature will like Hearthstone but it’s a completely different story if you come here’s the data 100 thousand people who like that

feature on rank one have played this type of game and our game is like this like there a completely different uh

story um yeah I have yeah tell me youran yeah just one quick thing as well there like

we we can also look into the future where this audience is heading is there still a demand for this type of game

moving forward if we’re looking at the Heartstone audience are they looking for more card games to play or already they fed up with them are they going

somewhere else in the landscape maybe maybe that’s was just a trend that happened back then like everyone created

card games when Hearthstone first arrived uh but is that still something that people want or are they fed up with

it do they do they want something else and we can see that and validate that ahead of you building a game if you’re

trying to build to a specific audience as well yeah it’s very interesting because when Battlegrounds came up in

Hearthstone like I remember autochess was a big thing and I tried to play like team fight tactics and stuff but that’s

still a hearstone player but they’re completely different players right there’s basically two completely different games

interesting yeah I’ve been in the same boat I play I play a lot of Battlegrounds as well when when I get

the get a couple minutes over yeah we should do Duos cuz my brother doesn’t

know Duos but like every time I’ll qu into Duos man it’s just like please buy that card I try to mark it and they

don’t do it I’m like God damn it but then it’d be cool to have someone who actually knows how to play nice um yo I

want to backtrack a sorry go on yeah I don’t know about being very good but uh

I try at least hey that I take it I’ll take it I want to backtrack a bit Gohan

so it’d be good to hear a bit about your story like how did this actually start like why did you start a whole company

about data like did something happen I was about to say did something happen to you personally you had to like could you

tell me what happened before rank one it would be interesting to know yeah so before in the r rank one I would say

that I had a I don’t know I always enjoyed working I always enjoyed leadership always enjy developing

businesses so i’ I’ve pretty much done that since I left uh since I grad ated from I don’t know what it’s called in

English but in Swedish it’s uh uh gymnasia like the the high school I would say probably something like that

same in Cyprus yeah so so I’ve been essentially

working in Telecom and ID and Tech since then in different various various leadership positions uh for the last 15

years before I started rank one um when I was 24 I got to be the CEO of a um it

consultant company because it’s of like 30 people so that I was fairly Young when I when I got to to play around with

a lot of responsibility uh but it taught me a lot about how to run a business and

how to how to develop businesses and uh that was a very successful Journey as well um

I made an exit from there because I felt like I had built this toolbox that I could then use to something that I was

truly passionate about and that’s the games industry uh I’ve been aside from

doing sports and working a lot and being very I don’t know very interested in

different business related things right uh I’ve I’ve always been gaming which

people have found a bit odd because like there’s this kind of stigma around

playing games like you can’t be serious in your professional career and make money if you if you play games every

every evening right uh which I strongly disagree with of course um I I’ve play

since I was five and I’ve been a very avid player U ever since I would say that gaming has taught

me a more than probably my best teacher ever did uh about myself and about how to manage people and how to try to work

towards combined goals I played a lot of World of Warcraft um but I always felt like to go

back to why why I started rank one is I’ve always felt like there’s no good platform to Showcase this part of my

identity like this this is obviously a huge part of who I am being a gamer and and playing games like I do it for for

various reasons but it’s all been locked up in my head um and whenever I sit down

and ask someone what they play if I meet the fellow gamer somewhere it’s always also locked up in their head it’s it’s

like they have to remind themselves of what they played and what we might have in common and we start talking and we see understand like okay so you also

played Diablo when you grew up and you also played Warcraft 3 and stuff like that so I felt like there’s there’s this

these platforms for every other aspect of your life you have your Facebooks you have your link LinkedIn for for your

professional career you have your Twitter and Instagrams but there’s no good platform to Showcase who you are in

the world of games like a LinkedIn for gamers essentially and we’re three billion Gamers now more uh and and still

there’s no good platform there to to share everything you enjoy in the world of games and your gaming Journey there

so I felt like why not try to create that right I think it’s it’s a big part

of my identity and I would imagine that a lot of other people feel like it’s a very big part of their their life as

well um I have a bit of a business question here like how did you encourage

that many people to kind of go in and do some manual labor like that sounds like a hard thing to do yes so so we don’t

have 1.5 million Gamers on the platform uh we to backtrack a little bit about how

we’ve gone about this project we um we started off with trying to understand who would have the the most incentive of

sharing who they are in this world of games and we immediately thought of influencers right because they they make

a living sharing their gaming Journey so we we designed rank one very much to be

be a influencer tool to help them Express who they are to Their audience what they’ve played what they have in

common with with with you maybe as a what as a viewer what you’re what you’re cycling through today currently on your

stream and what you’re looking forward to play next on your stream and we created a twitch extension as well which

has been super super popular it’s one of the top 10 most used twitch tools on all streaming tools on all of twitch

actually uh so we we’re pretty proud of that uh but we have 70,000 content creators using the tool

right now and they combined reach 47 million people uh with their combined

reach uh so we we still have a very hard focus on influencers but as we’re moving

towards creating recommendations for people and implementing all these features like helping you find more

games that you enjoy we’re moving towards trying to appeal to the masses a bit more like helping the average gamer

get more good games to play or even a like a parent to a

gaming kid like just understand what they might buy for Christmas or stuff

like that like we we’re using this this data that we’ve collected through these 70,000 creators and they are also for

the most part gaming Enthusiast a very small portion of them are actually making a living like streaming right we

have we have all sizes of them um but they have added over 1.6 million games

to their profiles these 70,000 and that’s manual labor manual labor um so I

think there’s something in to to why why why they’re doing that is

because it’s it helps them connect Better With Their audience right it helps them Express who they are and it’s not every game that they ever touch ends

up on their profile it’s just the games that truly matters to them and I think that’s a a big part of why rank one

works so well that it does and that the data is so high quality it’s it’s like super quality oriented it’s not very

quantity oriented uh but every bit of data entry is manually curated by the

player themselves which is a is a very unique approach when it comes to um analyzing data this yeah at least in

this landscape yeah for sure the discoverability piece seems super cool um the thing you just mentioned about a

parent not knowing what to buy their kid like super useful I’m thinking now tell me now I

mean this these 70,000 content creators also gives us a very

strategic like it’s it gives a lot of exposure to to then appeal to the masses

once we feel like the platform has reached that stage that it starts converting the average player uh we have

this influencers are the best window for any game related product out there so

it’s also in that aspect we also felt like it’s good to probably start with influencers if we can get them on board

we have a window to watch the masses and if the influencers use a social platform

you tend to get their followers on board as well it’s the same on Twitter it’s the same on every other platform but if

we can get them organically as should mentioned that we’ve always grown 100% organically as well so

it’s uh we’re a small team as I mentioned we have very limited funding and resources so we have had to be very

creative and very prioritize what we do very uh very

detailed yeah but I mean the business man in means like you have access to 70,000 influencers direct yeah ex pretty

powerful there’s whole businesses around that you know like influencer marketing like it’s a content creator economy for

for the most part in this industry today so it’s uh we don’t regret starting with that definitely not I can imagine yeah I

think like loads of things you can get into there very cool so we have the discoverability pleas this is me being

very nosy here Yohan so the value of a company coming to rank one is like all

right I want to use your data yeah practically what does it actually look like is it super expensive like is there

Tears like what does that actually look like no I mean so we’re we’re we’re not

initially doing this for the game companies right we’re we’re opening this data to help players find get better

games essentially because there’s so much shovel wear out there there’s so much so many games that could have been

great if they would just have tweaked it a little bit more towards Their audience and understand a little bit better what

Their audience might want so it’s we want this to be very accessible for game companies we don’t we don’t feel like

this is a product that should be only eligible to the biggest ones only the

ones that have a lot of money because in the lower tiers like the the industry Studios money

is very scarce for the most part and but we still that’s that’s also where the most creativity usually happens so we

want this to be accessible for them so if you’re a if you’re a super small company um like just a single team

somewhere uh you can you can use this for free actually you can you can log in to insights. rank. Global and you can

just register a account today and start analyzing the target audience that

you’re building a game for and and understand it a lot better just in a couple minutes so if you’re a bigger

little bit bigger company like a publisher and you want a lots of seats and you want to have this um distributed

across multiple teams in your company and maybe you want some onboarding you want some help understanding the data

because we we offer that too since we’re so used to working with this tool set um

it’s usually just $1,000 a month or something like that it starts off very

uh just to to help people get on board with it it’s because it’s a fairly new

way of looking at data as well so it’s it will take a little bit of time to to get into but once you understand it and

how it’s actually designed it’ll be super helpful and then we have theprice

tier so if you’re a very big company and you want a tail tailored the insights you want to combine this data with other

data sets out there and you want to have this this is more of a core part of your business business and understanding

getting an edge when you’re looking at the industry we have some we do tailored pricing there depending on what what you

might want I like I like the ladder there it’s super because you have it very accessible but then you have more of a

like done with you and then done for you option which is super nice so yeah very

cool because on that previous podcast we talked about using data and it can be

very expensive like permission like data research it’s in a so this is an option

where you can actually get the data straight away as well because you don’t have to go looking for it and have to like make it which is super interesting

yeah sweet so I’m curious you have access to all this data what did you find out is there

anything that changed your perspective that you thought wasn’t kind of clear before and now you’re like oh wow that’s

a big difference I didn’t Noti yeah I mean when we first time we realized that

we’re truly onto something that puts a new perspective on the industry is when we actually analyzed you know Arc

survival evolved you know that game y dinosaur survival yeah you build bases

you you tame tame dinosaurs essentially and then you have rust which came out in

the same era it’s also Survival game it’s also FPS it’s also like you build your base craft stuff and stuff like

that and wherever we looked these two games um are recommended if you like one

of them you are probably very likely to enjoy the other one as well um and as a gamer I feel like I

enjoy rust a fair bit because it’s pretty competitive it’s pretty high Pace it’s it’s high stakes if you if you take

a base you you get a lot of reward but if you lose you get pretty punished as

well and playing Arc is a completely different experience it’s very pretty

slow pace you you play on your own own terms for the most part and it’s

gradually increase your base and it’s not a lot of stakes involved right but

still all like steam Google whatever recommendation tool you you

would use to under find your next Survival game you would always be always be recommended one or the other but when

we’re looking at our data we can see that even though they share the same demography same genre same themes for

the most part there’s still two complete separate audiences within the same genre

and demographic uh even though steam which should know this better than most I

would say still thinks that they are the same type of players like but you’re are likely to be disappointed as a gamer if

you enjoyed Arc very much and then you go over to rust and you will get some elitist just I don’t know making your

base a mess uh so that’s that’s when we realized that we have something very very interesting uh like looking at it

from the players perspective we can see that the data doesn’t add up on these other tools like we can see that if you

enjoy rust you tend to enjoy Counterstrike Apex uh you tend to enjoy

Call of Duty uh pubg maybe um like other competitive games together with your

friends but when you play Arc you are very drawn towards Witcher adventure

games very much other type of types of games out there so that’s that’s

something that sort of like became the start of everything understand that if you’re looking at from the players

perspective you get something completely different than what what the other sources out there tell you are correct

today really like that example cuz when you were describing rust and aric I’m like oh yeah they look the same from the

outside I’ve seen videos of both I’ve never played them both but now that you explained that yeah completely different

experience and you wouldn’t know that unless you had this like manual data also to your point when you say like

steam should know that they should right like they should see like playtime of these players versus play time of these

players is there much correlation I guess that’s maybe not happening as sophisticated no I think steam I

mean they’re in a very good position so I don’t think they do too much work on that end but I think they just recommend

based on genres types of games different keywords and stuff like that but when you actually look at if people get the

chance to add one or the other to their profile and what has left an impression they tend to add one or the other on on

rank one not both maybe they play both on Steam but if if it truly comes down

to who like trying to identify who you are as a gamer and if you showcase that on your profile or not they tend to be

drawn to one or the other and then to watchs other games that have a similar design philosophy as that game uh it

doesn’t have to be within the same genre or stuff like that but it’s tend to go come down to some kind of design

philosophy that attracts people rather than genres or themes yeah could you

share an example cuz I feel like if someone got this data they would potentially completely change their

strategy and you’ve obviously done this with a few studio so could you share an example where the data like pivoted a

game strategy and what happened there um yeah for sure let’s let’s think

here um so we’ve been working with a lot of big companies but also a lot of small

companies but if we’re looking at a a big company I don’t know if I should just should tell them by name uh I’ll

stay away from that for for now at least uh but they’re creating essentially a FPS Rog like um and the the point with

roog leges is that you you get to play them all over again and you get to do like short sessions for the most part

but you I would say Rogue light and you tend to progress as well um over the

course of a some playthroughs and they’re creating the next iteration of that game now um and um their first game

was pretty successful but I could see in their data that a lot of people didn’t play it for as long as they should have

played uh and when we look at the data we can see that the other games that

they tend to play are a bit more casual friendly they’re a bit they have

um you can vary the difficulty level so that you can actually progress all the time but their game was very punishing

in today’s landscape which a lot of other games have tend to stay away from like looking at Dark Soul and Elden ring

a lot of my friends and a lot of people that I know have actually finished Elden ring but they’ve never dared of trying

to finish a Dark Souls games because it’s it’s open world it’s more accessible you can do it at your own

pace it’s not the set difficulty level all the way through and that makes the game more accessible and that comes back

to respecting people’s Play Time a lot more and understanding like if you if you if if the company that creates a

game doesn’t respect your play time they are very not likely to en enjoy your game ultimately and then end at the end

of the day and definitely not finish that game so we we for what we did for

them is to to try to understand what they can do in their next iteration of

the game to to stick through their original formula which was successful for the most part but then change these

different things by looking at their specific player base analyzing that we could see that they should tweak these

the these like three takeaways for the next game to make the game a lot more

sticky um like remove a lot of these challenges that they had in their first

game so that’s something that we done and we did a full on report for them uh in that sense um so that’s one example

I’m trying to think of something else that we’ve done no before you go to a second example like I really like this

one where cuz I see it in my style as well like I used to play runes lot so that’s like what 400 Days play time but

that happened before I was 21 now I have a job and I don’t have time so exactly I

now play vicariously by watching other people so in that example like as

audiences grow up I feel like we want it to be more accessible and I like this example because I feel like it shows like we want to be met where we’re at so

if I want to go hardcore I can but I want to be a Casual Gamer I don’t it’s not a bad word like I want to be able to

do that like otherwise I can’t play with my friend you know 100% And I think that’s kind of the

key takeaway that this industry moves so fast that if you don’t try to keep track

of your players and how their gaming Behavior changes over time because you will have your fan base but when you release your next game they’ll be four

years older and their life situation might be something completely different but if you can try to try to keep track

of how they are going about their gaming life today compared to what they did

four years ago you can probably design your game in a way that it still sticks with them it still

gives them that uh that same feeling of playing the game but on their own terms

on on their current terms so to speak uh so that’s definitely something that we

we our tool can do you can track your audience over time as well not just do a one-time analysis you can just go back

and anal analyze a segment every month to see how their gaming Behavior changes

over time and that can help you design marketing strategies your game to deep

more deeply resonate your messaging your I don’t know your your your for costs uh

your competitive sheets like you you understand all these things of how the industry looks through your players

perspective rather than you having to to guess how it looks yeah for sure like that play time

thing is really interesting because I’m guessing rank one tracks PR time in some way

yeah we we have that setting as well where you can showcase how how long you played a game for so I can imagine like

that is one of the hardest things to guess like would someone like my game it seems like an easier question to answer

than how long would they play the game because especially if it’s like a oneof premium product then maybe that’s less

important but I feel like it’s very important like the more time someone plays the game like the more time is in their mind the more times the chance

they could recommend and that seems like what that report did it could really help bring up the play

time yeah 100% yeah it’s um but it’s one of the hardest things as

we talked about previously it’s one of the hardest things to actually achieve today as well because there’s you always

compete competing with their existing backlog of games that they’ve already bought but haven’t gotten around to play

but they want to play you have all new releases and you have also these live service games and you have these mobile

games uh par in to everything else so it’s it’s it’s very I can see why it’s

so difficult for for game developers to to actually get some traction out there today because as a gamer I feel like I’m

I’m swamped with games there’s no no shortage of good games uh for me it’s more of a challenge to find the games

that are probably best designed for me uh because that’s uh like it’s a

full-time job as we as we mentioned like if if you’re not working in the industry or you’re

actively searching for for your next game it’s it can be very hard to to find a new game that that’s that you

enjoy yeah for sure the thing you mentioned there like every day there’s more games than before but then games

don’t usually disappear so literally will always get harder and we have Disney putting a few cheeky billion into

epic games so then live service are getting like humongous you know it’s just going to be ridiculous so L it

literally gets harder and harder so I’m going to ask you a very small question so like if I’m making a game

now with what you know let’s remove the data from a point like where do you

think someone should start CU I feel like a lot of people start making a game and then realize after two years oh that

didn’t that wasn’t a good idea but like they still commit to it so like what do you think should be the step one if someone says I want to make a

game I think the step one obviously I think if I were to create a game today

uh knowing what what I’ve learned this last couple years I would I would look around in rank one insights I would try

to analyze different types of player segments maybe my own type of player

segment right like trying to analyze who I am as a player and what what I tend to enjoy and and see are there many others

like me and where are they going next what are they looking for to play next um and by looking at those games and

trying to understand them a bit better maybe some are already like recently released some are doesn’t even have a

release date but if there’s some kind of recurring theme within those games I would probably look there because that’s

where the trend within my player segment is heading like trying to understand that Trend

and and design some kind of experience that builds on the things that has

obviously attracted that audience to their games to the point where they even added that game to their want to

playlist on rank one like that’s probably not the first step that they do like they they do wish list they do

follows they do follow their social medias and stuff like and then they also add it on rank one so that they’ve

obviously done something to to reach that specific audience uh and I would

try to understand what that might be um and then as you mentioned not to build on it for two years and then

showcase it to to that audience like uh coming from it and Tech where

you where you continuously validate that you’re building a tool for a specific

type of need uh like that’s something that you do in in it or Tech uh like

almost automatically because that’s so important that if you’re if you’re ordering a specific service for the

economic team on a company then you need to validate towards that team that you’re actually getting that toolkit um

delivered the proper way and you get the right tool set that will actually help them every day uh with what they needed

help with and that’s the same way I think gaming has a lot to learn there where you’re building and building in

your basement or wherever and then four years later when you plow down a couple

Millions on your game or at least like a couple years of time which is also very valuable obviously uh then you showcase

it and you will get get to understand if it actually can be a commercial success make give you a substantial living help

you create your next game and stuff like that I think that’s something that we need to learn to to to go away from like

validate our our game earlier than uh when we feel like it’s ready I like get

a little bit uncomfortable and validate it along the way as well is the is the game Loop

fun is this aesthetic that we should go with uh continuously Analyze That

audience and see what they tend to be drawn towards and then rather than doing

a lot of guess work use that understanding of our audience to create a game that deeply resonates with that

specific audience and then build from there because if you can attract one audience we can then attract probably

half of the audiences around that audience as well and that’s something that we can help companies identify who

your primary target audience is and where your secondary target audience should be and how to use your resources

in a way that creates a game that sticks around for for longer than on release

day the thing I’m thinking now is if someone starts a game they use the

data yeah is the there a risk where they go too data driven and just like mash two

games together like is there a balance between the creative aspect and like going full data driven like I feel like

there’s a slider here and you could go too much either way yeah I think so too I think this is

obviously a sort like an art form like creating a game is is it’s not just

looking at data like the mobile side is almost at that point right it’s it’s very very data driven and that’s

I think I think it’s sometimes have gone too far uh I’d agree you feel like

you’re playing something that is meant to be addictive rather than fun right uh so I think the PC and

console um area of the industry I think there there’s usually higher stakes in

that as well it’s it’s more costly to develop a game for that that side of the market and it’s um it’s it’s probably

harder for the most part I would say too so but I I I think definitely it’s it should be a mix between creativity and

trying to find a a Twist on a specific data entry rather than just replicating

something that has already been done because people are allergic to that as well like doing some just a plain copy

and you’re you’re not very likely to do a better job than the original anyway so

put your unique twist like trying to combine some new element into that genre

uh and test it like just don’t just go full on trying just forcing it in just

test different approaches on your or on your game uh towards the specific

audience that you’re actually trying to convert to it we uh that’s that’s another cool thing about rank one I

think and that’s something that we’re fairly unique in is that we have both the data but we also have the players who makes out the data so we can

actually not just test your thesises in in in a data driven way but we can also

test it in reality on the players that we know are within your specific player segment if you’re looking to test your

game on 100 players that played Turtles Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles growing up

because you’re playing you’re trying to build a similar game but with a modern modern touch we can connect you with

that specific audience that you’re trying to attract to validate that you’re building something that they want

to spend money on on release so that that’s another aspect that I think is we

haven’t use that a whole lot but I think that will just grow with the platform growing as well like trying to implement

it on the platform give players the opportunity to involve themselves in games that should be tailored to them

and give their opinion on everything and help at the same time help game developers understand their audiences

even better also not just in data but also in like reality I want to double

click on that Johan because that seems very interesting because I speak to Studios and they want to do that

research part but that research part is expensive or even just hard to find the player so I want to ask you

so if I’m a game developer and I want to play I want to give my game to 100

people that played X like what does it actually look like do I just say hey Yan and then he sends them emails like and

then they play like what is that process yeah I mean naturally we have to respect

our players as well like we need to be involved in that uh that process to validate that the game is actually what

they say that it is like if they’re trying to create the next fortnite game which will be a very tough challenge

right we don’t just automatically send the message to everyone who has fortnite on their profiles and just hey here’s a

game that is probably right up your alley because you enjoyed fortnite um but rather we need to be

involved in that process then so it’s a it’s a partnership effort together with

that studio but we’re if if everything clicks and and we feel like oh you’re actually tra trying to create the the

next fortnite and you you’ve come a fairly long way to to make it actually

showcase as well in your demo that you want to send out to this audience and validate that it’s fun enough uh we’re

all for it like it it will help them understand their audience better it will help the players find a new game that

they are very likely to enjoy so we we deliver value to to both ends right and that’s super important for us in that

case so if someone interested in that just send me an email um reach out to us

through our websites um anyway like just reach out and we’ll we’ll take it from

there yeah honestly take up that offer because from the sound of it that’s not going to cost an arm and a leg either um

like it sounds like you yeah you’re going to be very collaborative on that awesome um before we close out I’m

curious um what is your rank one profile look like what play what games do you play uh so you can look up a Yan on rank

one um you got your gameer tag air Yan yeah exactly like air yordan but air

Yohan I know nice good it’s not super creative but one y you know you know uh so right

now actually and this is probably a recommendation for you as well if you play on PC uh anytime um if you have

that time so mechab Bellum is something that I’ve been stuck on these these last couple

weeks mechum is essentially like an auto battler um it’s very strategic you build

your army of robots and you’re facing someone else’s Army of robots and you have to counter each other with different types of robots and stuff like

that um so yeah if you scroll down there to playing yeah there you have it in the

middle mechab Bellum um top left looks nice yeah that’s it’s uh you can click

on the the title there so you can see what it’s actually like so can you tell

me a little bit about what what’s happening here I’ll try to include it on the podcast as well so we’re looking at your profile mechab Bellum and like what

does user score where does data come from yeah so this is just the general

data about the game what it’s all about what genres and themes it has it’s it’s shann different channels if you want to

learn more about it uh it’s not a it’s not a super uh I don’t think it’s very

well known this game yet I think it’s should be more well known that it is but

the streamer grubby Warcraft 3 player actually played it on stream a couple couple weeks ago and I discovered it

there so felt like I would wanted to check it out but what we’re looking at now is just information about the game

uh what people have thought of it there’s not a not a whole lot of reviews yet so we don’t showcase that just yet

but if you scroll down a bit you can see someone has reviewed it uh on rank one

as well and you have these screenshots and so you see there it’s it’s a very

fun Auto battler I agree on that uh and I think you should check it out it’s

it’s a lot of fun just short sessions it’s I don’t know it has a lot of depth

to it as well very cool and if you saw it there on on the filter side uh is

sorted by rating so these are your personal ratings yeah these are my personal

rating these are the games that I have finished playing and what I thought about them and I can rate different

aspects of the game game and I can tell tell everyone what they enjoy people can react to that and give their comments

and stuff like that um so if you want to see if you scroll down a little bit you can go to show all if you want to see

all the games that I’ve played previously and what I thought about them uh you have a very small window now I

realize this resolution is not optimal for rank one but still it’s I can maximize it I’m just it’s uh it’s uh so

you can actually just take a look here and see what I’m playing played in the past 300 hours on Rocket League poor you

yeah tend to enjoy rocket League a whole lot it’s it’s a perfect game to round out the gaming evening with together I

have a friend that I usually play with so we play DotA for a couple hours and then we round out the evening with a

couple games of Rocket league and then it’s off to bed yeah I love your review

of play that I’ve had the exact same experience smashed it for two months and I got addicted and then I realized I per

did playing with one deck I was like okay I can’t be off building another deck I tried to and then I played that

deck for two weeks I was like okay I’m going to just stop cuz I just had the urge to buy the battle pass every month

more it was the monetization that Ben bro did on that was so overpowered that

I just checked myself and I was like I have to uninstall exactly yeah I feel like they

did a good job with Marvel snap is was a good competitor to to hearstone the best in in ages it’s because he made it it’s

the guy who made behind it so they definitely have something

that was very appealing but yeah the the business B is bit bit a bit different I

would say yeah super cool amazing Johan we’ll close up here I’m want to ask you

so where can people find more about you and if anyone wants to like use the tool what should they

do yeah so we have these two different tools so rank one. Global is the consumer side where you’re you’re you as

a player are able to build your gaming profile and showcase what you love about games um and also find new games to to

discover and then we have the insights tool which is another site it’s insights. rank one. Global and there

it’s you can register for free try it out mess around with it um so you have

these two two two areas and then just follow us on LinkedIn um we have a lot

of exciting things coming up this fall we’re starting a lot of new projects implementing tons of new features to

both sides so it’s it’ll be a very exciting fall and we have so got some

some new key players on board as well like to mention someone by name Peter

Warman who who actually founded and was the CEO of newu is actually aboard now

as an official advisor and part owner owner of rank one as well so it’s um well congratulations it’s yeah it’s

super exciting so we have a very exciting fall to look for to very cool yeah interesting to follow

along as well amazing yeah Johan everyone can find Johan J on LinkedIn

and yeah all those links are should be in the show notes yeah y anything you want to leave the people with before we

close off no I mean just try it out uh it was super fun to talk to you as well

uh be part of this this podcast so I mean thanks oh thank you really enjoyed

this conversation and everyone check out rank one it actually is very very cool amazing goodbye everyone