You said two television channels 24/7 esports content in the early 2000. It was 20 years ago and it was hugely

popular. There’s a famous picture of Busousan Beach in Korea where they have over 100,000 people at the beach

watching a pro league game. Today I’m joined by an esports veteran who spent over 15 years turning competitive gaming

from passion projects into a global business. He scaled teams from 10 to 120 people, helped raise more than $90

million for Julu, and now runs Clutch Group, a leader in esports operations.

It seems very flashy esports. Like, from an outside look at it, I don’t know how the numbers make sense. You’re expecting it to be hugely costly,

a lot of money, a lot of live audience as well. But at the same time, it could be something small like a weekly or

monthly cup that is broadcasted online. What would you say makes like a really good esports game? Can someone change

their game to make it more esports friendly? It needs to be so fun that the cap for

the skill is not too low at the level where the top players can show off their

skills that they can show that they’re better than the others. We talk about why so many organizations chase hype

instead of healthy margins. How to build competition formats that can actually grow your game. And what developers get

wrong when trying to add esports to their titles. I wouldn’t start with making this an esports if it’s possible.

You don’t want to be branded as a hardcore esport. Make it fun. This is a fun fun fun game and you need want to

have a fun competitions. Esports is not the solution to everything. From the mind behind some of Europe’s biggest

online tournaments, this episode guest, CEO of Cut Group, Simon Sundon.

Simon, hello. Hey, how’s it going? Very, very good. very excited for today’s conversation. You’re a very busy

man as well. Back to back. We got Gamescom coming up and also you just come back from a few weeks of holiday

you were telling me before we started recording. Yes, correct. I’ve been having the July

month is pretty much the vacation month in Sweden overall. So, I’ve been uh in Greece. I’ve also been to some places in

Stockholm visiting family and friends and everything. So, today is the day I’m officially back from vacation and

started working 100% again. So, I’m your first thing back from vacation. Nice.

You’re the first meeting, actually, to be honest. Yes, you are. Nice. I got you fresh. Lovely. So, for people at home, Simon’s a veteran in the

competitive gaming scene and esports, so over 15 years in esports. And he’s also helped scale companies from 10 to 120

people. He also helped fund raise over 90 million for Giloot. And he was VP of

Giloot. And now he’s built Clutch Group, which is a very profitable esports operations company. So, what we’re

getting into today is a couple topics actually. So, we’ve got why investment capital is often more dangerous than

helpful and how to kind of launch in a game is harder than ever and why and where competitive gaming fits in there.

And then essentially talking about kind of what it takes to build a profitable company, scale teams, and learn to build

a game that last. So, I want to open with esports because it’s got a

different perception based on who you ask. found like if someone’s in eports, they’ll give me one answer. And if someone’s

used to be in eports and they got burnt in the past, they’ll give me a very different answer. So I want to ask you like when did esports kind of become a

thing and like how did it boom? Could you tell us that story? So when you’re looking at esports, you need to look at it from a wide range of

history when it comes to this. So if you look at competitive gaming, it has always existed since the beginning of

games. uh it existed when it comes to the 80s and ‘9s. People were competing in arcade games, Missile Command, Donkey

Kong, you competed in Nintendo games as well. So if you look at from the western

part of the world, you always competed in these games overall. But what makes it interesting when it comes to esports

is that you also have the viewership component. uh it’s not only the

participation, it’s the viewership and fan part of it and also sponsors and everything else. And I think that where

that got popularized uh to a wide audience was in South Korea and this was

during the late ‘9s and beginning of the millennia. uh the country had a bad economy overall

and a lot of unemployment and a game called Starcraft uh was launched and for

Korea especially Starcraft Brood War which was the expansion of the game and it became a smash smash hit back then

Korea also had what’s called or still has PC banks people went to a PC bank to

play the games and Starcraft became hugely successful that people started

watching each other play against each other. It became so big that it was started to become broadcasted on TV. Uh

in early pictures you can see these pro players in like weird space suits

because they were trying to make them look like spacey Star Treky. Um but it

became a smash success with a lot of fans. Uh people were playing it. So during the beginning of the millennia

and we’re talking about over 20 years ago or something, Starcraft was such a

big hit and also from esports side of things in South Korea that it got broadcasted on two separate uh 24/7 live

channels. Wow. So it was amazingly big here and we’re

talking about pro matches all the time. It was talk shows, it was reality shows,

there was teams, you had um you had like game shows, you everyone was living

together. You were competing in a pro league. Even the Korean military had a

team in this league because you had two-year mandatory service in Korea and

people were playing computer games. So, they were a part of it as well. So, it

was massively successful. If you look at esports pictures today of live audience

in arenas like League of Legends Worlds, Dota 2 or Esports World Cup, you will

see a lot of people in the audience and fans cheering. You had that in Korea over 20 years ago as well. And

similar numbers of people you would say like the esports World Cup is coming up, right? Like how do we compare? No, it’s ongoing right now. and they

have like tens of thousands of people across the eight weeks that they’re running. Uh but if you look at way back

in 20 years ago, Korea already had this. I think there’s a famous picture of when

they had a pro league match in Busan, Korea during midsummer was over 100,000

people in the audience watching the game at the beach.

And that happened way back then. So that I would say is the beginning of the

popularization of esports. Um and the second thing that happened when

it comes to the western hemisphere was during the uh like roughly 2010 or

something like that and it was hugely successful when it comes to live

streaming. Uh you see the picture there? Yes. Busan Beach. That’s the one. That’s correct. That’s Starcraft Brew. This is over 20

years ago or roughly 20 years ago. This is massive impact as you can see. Uh you

don’t often see this nowadays in in esports. You can see some pictures. We’re going to get into why as well cuz

I’m curious cuz it’s it seems very flashy esports like from an outside look at it. Like I don’t know how the numbers

make sense. Like I see the whole like my introduction to esports which I’d love to get your thoughts on later. It’s like

I see FaZe Clan and then I just find all those headlines like ah they just make zero money and they keep raising money

forever and ever and ever. I’m like what is happening? Like why is why are people doing this? That’s why that’s like I get

really confused like okay what’s real? What’s flashy? I don’t get it. No, but if if you look at that beginning

time of Starcraft when it comes to in Korea, they were not you didn’t have these kind of investment money or face

clients or anything you’re talking about. Was other teams involved here. But the

thing here is that what made it different was that it broke through the cultural mainstream in that country.

It became a thing. So the pro matches were half of the people in the audience

were at least gods. Uh they were fan girls of these players overall. Um

reality shows and everything else. I hate to break it to you, but esports generally is a male-dominated

area. That’s the same thing with computer games. That’s who’s playing computer games. you will see sure you

see more 80 20%. I I keep seeing that. I did my podcast demographics today and it’s also

80 20%. It’s like that’s just how it is. Especially if you go into PC and console. If you go on

mobile, it’s a little bit of a different story, but on PC and console it it’s that way. And and that made it so it became a

cultural thing when it comes to Korea and Starcraft War overall and it still exists there as well. And PC banks

helped as well. Like in in soul in every single you can just walk a couple of

hundred meters and you found a PC bank where you could play these games. It’s like an internet cafe. Is that what a PC

internet cafe it was? Yes. PC bankang. Internet cafe. You played it overall in this big city. So it became this big

overall. What happened in the west in the meantime is there was a lot of games that were popular and competitive and

had a couple of viewers. It was like World of Warcraft. You had Counter Strike was hugely popular. But the thing

about it as well in the West is that the Western Hemisphere is so many

countries. It’s the same culture, but it was hard to broadcast. There was some TV

networks that tried it and failed. You had a technology like Octoape and

everything else. It was very very iffy overall. But during like roughly 2010,

2019, oh no. Um, yeah, 2010, it was the same time as Starcraft 2 came to launch.

Um, live stream became better. You had owner 3D, you had service like Ustream,

you had Justin TV gaming, and Justin TV gaming was the predecessor to Twitch TV.

And the streams here made it possible so people could view it um worldwide

overall and some of these streams started to get a lot of viewers and that’s when esports became a popular

thing in the west during this time. Um Twitch I would say is a major factor

here because they were leader together with some others as well. Uh YouTube didn’t do live gaming or live that that

time, but it was Twitch and some others as well. Um at the same time, a couple years later, two or three years later,

um League of Legends became popular. Uh Dota 2 also became popular and all of

these games just made it so it boomed when it comes to popularity. And this and the last thing in was also

that people could start live streaming themselves. Internet connection was good enough.

your computers were good enough, you could start live streaming. So you immediately got this live streaming boom

as well. So what was pos if you’re a fan of a game

and a community, you can suddenly start watching content all the time.

The same thing as what uh South Koreans could do 10 years before that, but

during that time it was during their 247 live TV channels that they had. Um, and

we in the west didn’t really have that. So live streaming were the biggest boom

I would say to esports becoming successful. That’s interesting. So I actually

imagine 20 years ago like they probably didn’t have well they didn’t right like loads of YouTube content of Starcraft

like if you wanted to watch prolevel gameplay it’d be on whatever is on those

channels or that kind of things, right? You have to remember like YouTube was launched like in the mid 2000s. Um, it’s

not that old if you think about it. Um, it’s I don’t I don’t know if YouTube is 20 years old yet or not, but it’s what

we’re talking about. It’s not it’s not been that long to be honest.

So, esports boom was before that over. Yes. So, we’re talking about roughly the

same time and a couple years later live streaming came. So, sure, you had some guides and everything, but if you add

all of these different things together, you’re starting to realize, okay, that’s

what I would say that when competitive gaming became esports overall. Um, okay. So, so I want to take this to the

commercial side now. So, these are for people either listening at home, want to understand how esports fits in from a

commercial point of view, like how does this help us make more money from our games or from a marketing perspective?

And I’d love for you to take us through your journey here. So with

Giloop and then MLG, like what were you spending your time doing? Why were how did the company make money? I’m guessing

it’s marketing related, right? We’re helping have more people play the game and maybe retain players more through

esports, but what did that actually end up being? And I would love to contrast that with today. That’s what I’d love to

get into like what was happening kind of like when you starting and now like what’s the matter with trying to get

esports to help your game be more successful. Yeah. So when I started to uh when I

joined Yeoot I was first I was um a couple of years at Modern Times Group

where we acquired um ESL which was in the biggest esports company in the world right now. I joined a startup called uh

Yeoot. Back then it was like seven or eight people and I joined there and we started

to get in a lot of investment money. Uh the idea that we had there was that we

were to build an app and a site where people could compete and win money in

esports. That was the basic principle. It started on mobile games actually but

then went into PC as well. And the idea here is that the company itself that

we’re doing would take a little bit of cut of what all of the subscriptions uh the entry fees from the players and

everything else. In this regard overall, the benefit from the game publishers were that you would see increased

amount of engagement uh when it comes to your game. Why is that important? So

because if you have a gameplay loop and you can continue attracting continue keeping your players, you would earn

more money overall. I think that’s the back then we’re talking about esports.

It’s the same thing as you’re talking about the live service game formula right now that has been talked about in

the industry as well is if you can keep your players engaged and continue playing everything else,

you can earn more money. That was our main principle and goal when we did it.

What’s other thing that is also important when it comes to esports is and for a lot of companies as well is

it’s a marketing game as well. It’s you will get yourself from a PR marketing

perspective and everything else you will get this engagement overall. It’s community building, it’s PR, it’s

marketing. Um you will keeping attracting everything else there. So there’s a lot of different things when

it comes to this. When it comes to esports, this is also the reason why esports has

been a little bit tricky to fit into which department should this be into

when it comes to game. I want to highlight something. I found it interesting because I only really thought about it from a marketing

perspective and it kind of helps with retention. But now that I think about it like if you have a live service game and you’re producing content and that’s the

reason people come back. But like what if you just had an awesome competitive scene and like every quarter everyone

can get used to it. It’s accessible for everyone and then let’s say you never make content again and you just keep

riffing on the way you compete. That is effectively live service content without

having to like make content all the over time. It can just be and that could in theory be cheaper,

right? Like than making new content as the reason to keep people playing. I didn’t realize it as a quick like that

seems really interesting to me and I think it’s when it comes to this as well is that if you look at some of

the big games it’s what you’re saying it’s very hard to succeed here but it’s

something that is happening. So League of Legends they’re running the multiple competitions worldwide. So there’s

always content for people to take a look at and be engaged in your community and game. Counterstrike. There’s a gazillion

tournaments and happenings all the time. There’s extra services where you can

play. You can play on face it. You can spin on esport hall or other services as well. So, it already exists. So, and in

Dota 2, you have this amazing battle passes as well. So, in some of these games, it already exists. what you’re

mentioning uh when it comes to esports is that you always have it deeply connected to your games all the time.

Nice. And that is becoming part of your game structure. It becoming it’s even more

important the more competitively and multiplayer the game is overall

and that esports is a core part of the strategy overall. Um, that’s also why I

think you’ve seen it quite a lot of esports when it comes to FPS shooters overall.

Yeah. What do you say to most people who think esports equals FPS shooter? Is that a statement? Is that like 80% of

esports is now FPS or is there No, not not at all. But it’s become it’s one of the most popular genres for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. I guess that’s with games as well. No. Yes, of course. like and it’s same thing

with sports as well like ball games is naturally the most popular form of

sports in the world if American football you got like soccer you got uh

volleyball handball everything is connected to a ball overall um so in the

same way as it is in esports which has multiple different areas of competing

it’s going to be the same thing so naturally you get All righty.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, which we definitely should. You are one of the most important people behind the

Geogesser World Cup, right? Yes. Correct. That’s very interesting to me cuz I think you’re probably the reason I

discovered Geogesser because I watched a YouTube video of someone

playing it competitively. I was like, “Ah, hilarious. What is this game?” And then I went down that rabbit hole for

like a month or two just watching like VODs and stuff, people trying to get like the best score and it was just from

a clip on YouTube about competing on Geogesser. So that’s been a long journey I’d imagine. And that’s also an

interesting example where it’s not an FPS. No, the only time I hear about Geogesser, at least on my social feeds, is a

competition or like a YouTuber makes another video, but it’s usually like the competition that’s coming up. Could I

don’t want you to share anything you’re not allowed to share, but essentially I’m looking for the secret source here. Like how does that happen? Like why did

they start esports? Is it working? I’m guessing it is, but like for people looking to kind of activate esports for

their game, could you walk us through like the Geogesser example like from a commercial point of view, like why are they doing it? So I can I can only

explain for from and and the the big credit here goes to the whole Gesser team because they’re the ones who

created the game and what we’re doing here at Clutch Group. We’re running things operationally when it comes to

the uh Geogesser World League and also the World Championship, but the big credit goes to the creators of Geogesser

and the team and the company behind this game and it was actually them that came up

with this idea when it comes to the world championship. So uh they they started this hugely successful game

where you guess a location uh on a map. That story is quite fascinating and

becomes super big and the community started to have some competitions in this one as well.

So the community started the first Jurgessa competition. Yeah, you could compete online in that

game of course because that’s the principle of that game. But the community started to have some competitions and then you also had some

some popular figures like Rainbolt uh in that game. Uh and then Gear Guest

themselves said that hey we want to launch a world championship. Let’s do the Gear Guest World Cup uh and they

talked to some people and I got involved afterwards um and it was

quite a lot of rock and roll overall like okay how are we going to do a world championship with this one? and they came with a prospective idea here and we

helped operate it and it immediately became a success overall. Uh I think this was back in 2023 over two years ago

and it started to become and get a lot of attention especially in mainstream as

well. Um and it just continued to grow there and I think that the the key thing

about Geogesser is that it’s probably one of the most easiest to understand esports titles that you can ever find.

Um, compared to a game like Starcraft or Counterstrike where you need to understand the game a little bit on how

it works, Gear Guesser is something I can explain to my mother. Oh, here’s a

map picture and they’re going to guess where this location is. The learning curve is low. Actually,

that’s interesting cuz if I think about all the game shows we used to watch on television, there’s also a very low

learning curve. It’s either a physical competition and you can see who’s winning or it’s like trivia, I guess.

And I noticed like League of Legends, I tried playing it, but I can’t watch it

because I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand why he’s in the shop for like 5 minutes buying all that stuff. I don’t want to learn to

understand it, so I’m not going to watch it. But you get the learning curve is so short, right? No. And everyone has used this kind of

Google maps as well. Find the locations. So you’re accustomed to it or everyone

that has actually used the street view or understands it can see oh this looks like Asia, this looks like this and they

can also understand the skill level from a player to understand exact correct

location overall. So it’s a very very attractive game in that sense that it

can attract quite a lot of audience overall. uh and it’s deeply integrated to the game as well and I think that the

the team behind gear has done a tremendous job on keeping this a success. It was a success during 2023

and it continued as well in 2024. we were a part of the whole majors as well.

And then the new thing that we did for this season was also world league uh which we were helping operate which is

every single week you had pro matches going on at the same time overall that

we’re running all online as well. No one at the studio, none of the players but with webcams just as this and playing

online all the time to keeping the community engaged and keeping the players and everyone engaged and it’s

become a huge success. Um, and I think it this is a testament of a game that is

not FPS that we’re talking about, not League of Legends that we talked about, but a game that can become a good

esports and a great success. And I think there’s a lot of these different games out there. Um, but they don’t really

realize it themselves that they could be like hugely successful and popular when

it comes to this. Uh, but everything can be that way. And I think the Gear Guesser is a proof of it.

Beautiful. Let’s talk to those people. So, let’s say I have a game and it’s on FPS, it’s multiplayer.

How do I check if my game is kind of ready for esports? Like, when does that come in the life cycle of a game?

So, I think that when it comes to can you compete in that game, that’s a yes or no question. Um, that’s the first

thing. Can you compete in the game? If the answer is yes, can you compete against others in a community? If that

answer is also yes, then you you have the basic concepts of a competitive

game. The third thing you have to have is is it fun to compete against others

as well? Because if it’s not fun to compete, it will never be fun to watch either in my experience because it’s

it’s you need to have this kind of community engagement and everyone involved in it. And as long

as you have these and then you also need to have some kind of details on you need to be able to view who’s winning and

losing some stats and other stuff like that to to make it if you want to broadcast it. But from a competitive

standpoint, it’s quite easy to have a game. You could pretty much have if I have a mobile game which is race

against the time, I can pretty much have two different screens next to each other

and you can do it. It’s not super hard. Um, we’ve run tournaments for mobile

games where you’re playing a motocross game on a 2D setting and it’s super fun

to watch. So there’s a lot of these different things you can do and it’s easier than you can expect to make it

popular. The main thing is how much resources and how much expectations do

you get into it. I think that a lot of people expect esports to be this flashy

live big things that are happening. You see the esports world cup. You see the League of Legends World Championship.

Hey, you even see the Gear Guess World Championship that is live in an arena. you’re expecting it to be usually

costly, a lot of money, a lot of live audience as well, but at the same time

it could be something small like a weekly or monthly cup that is broadcasted online. Um, so I think that

you need to look at it from a perspective of what’s your expectations on what is a good esports, what is not a

good esports and how you do it. So, let’s say I run the check and yes, I

have a good I have a game that is I have a game that qualifies for esports.

When you look at the games that are kind of doing well, what do they have in common? Like what does a good esports

game have in common? You touched on it a little bit when it comes to being able to see what wins, who’s winning rather,

but what would you say makes like a really good esports game? What can someone as a developer maybe like they

can obviously change their game to make it more esports friendly. Is that something you would recommend someone to do?

Yes. I think that one of the main thing that is making if you want to have now we’re going to detail what’s a great

esports game. Um and what can make it good? Um so first of all this is skill

ceiling. Overall it needs to be so fun that there’s the cap for the skill is

not too low. Um, and what I mean there is that I’m going to take two games as

an example. Chess and tennis. Overall, in chess, there is no skill ceiling. You

can just be like there there’s if you are the best in the world, you are the best in the world. And there’s maybe

like a handful of people that can actually even touch you. Overall, um, tennis, if you’re the best in the

world, um, there’s also the same thing. The skill ceiling is so high, it’s ridiculous overall. Um, I’m not saying

that you need to be those kind of games overall, but it needs to be something where if you want to be a successful

esports where the skill is at the level where the top players can show off their

skills, that they can show that they’re better than the others

overall. Um, it doesn’t need to be like because if it’s low cap, it just becomes

random. If you reach to a certain point of skill, it becomes random who’s winning.

Yeah. But games become enjoyable to watch when there’s that element of randomness.

It becomes enjoyable to watch if there’s random um randomness. Yes. But that’s um

when it comes to random elements, not random in itself. So like, do you get what I mean? You don’t want the player winning to be

due to a random event, at least most of the time, cuz it does happen. I’m thinking of Hearthstone here because

there was a massive controversy when I was used to watch Hearthstone where everyone was like because of the latest

expansion had so many random generating effects. It’s like, oh yeah, this guy won the game because he generated this random thing, not because he’s a better

player and he just got lucky on the day. And that’s where you got to be like

and and when it comes to that, yes, Hearthstone is a random game and it it’s something to keep in mind here. Uh if

there’s too much randomness, you need to start working with the formats for the game. Overall, it needs to be best of

sevens. You need to have everything of this to mitigate the randomness overall

like pick and ban phase. Uh banning certain decks. There’s a lot of different things you need to do there to

keep it in mind. But that’s the one thing. But the second thing for esports as well, it needs to be um if you want

to have a great one, fun. It needs to be fun. Fun to watch. You need to have these fun moments. Uh the

amazing happenings that are happening. You can showcase the skill like a clutch

moment in Counterstrike where someone can clutch the end of the game. That’s fun to watch. That’s that’s super fun.

A an instant guess in gay guess which is a 5k that’s super fun to watch. Like

um you say like 5second clip fun because I’ve noticed like if a game feels

satisfying to watch it’s okay. But I feel like a game does need that like instant like wow like a clutch like you

said. Yeah. No, no, but it needs to have that kind of gratification from the from the viewer and also the player that you made

something so amazing um that you feel successful. Oh yeah, I made it. You’re

you’re sitting on your seat. You’re excited. I made it. I clutched it. I clutched it. Like for anyone that has

played Counter Strike, if you’re if you’re doing a clutch moment at the end of a round or something, that’s an

amazing feeling you have. Same in normal sports, right? Like it’s some of the most watched things ever

when someone either becomes an underdog and they do something or just something technically performs beautiful. It’s

always nice. Yes. So, if you have those kind of moments in a game as well or it’s hard

to design, but if you can make that, that’s amazing as well. like if you can um and exist in like oh the perfect save

in football or the perfect hoop when it comes to basketball anything that makes

it exciting and fun to play and watch. Um those are the main things I see when

it comes to like an a successful or I want to say like a big esports overall.

Uh and the third thing I would say as well is that it’s

easy to enter as well. The barrier to entry is is low from the player or the watcher

from the player as well. From the player um um and also how you make a game more

accessible especially when it has a high ski ceiling. I feel like that’s the catch 22. If it has a high skill ceiling, can it be easier to start

playing? Is it fun to play with your friend? That’s that’s the main thing. I think

that’s um a lot of games right now is playing with your friends. Overall, I think that um uh if it if you can if

it’s fun to compete together with your friend, that’s a low skill ceiling because then you can play like if you

and I are going to hit a game of play and we can find equal opponents in our

game same same skill set, we’re going to have fun. Yeah. Um most definitely. That’s a one thing

to keep in mind there that I would say that is the the crucial thing. Uh and

then the other thing is like barrier to entry easy I do think there is a barrier to entry

when it comes to watchability as well to understand it. Um there’s there’s a

there’s a a couple of games that have succeeded uh in a con in terms of

viewership without that, but that’s mainly because the player base is so

huge in those games. Honestly, I would say League of Legends is the prime example. Um

yeah, if you’re watching a team fight in League of Legends and haven’t played the game, you don’t understand a thing.

you you you don’t get what kind of spells is there. You can kind of get the excitement and how the how the pieces on

the map is moving and the heroes and characters, but you don’t understand like

what’s what’s the what’s a good thing here. I think the important thing is I can’t see when someone clutches something like

it’s just too small or it’s like I don’t know what that ability effects was or whether it’s hard to land. In some cases

you can see it but in in some areas it becomes too cloggy. I would say overall

yeah one thing I want to stress on this Simon cuz I’m going to Gamescom what I do is a few hours I just go and play

games and my main feedback when I’m giving feedback is the watchab sorry yeah the YouTube watchability like if I

can imagine someone streaming this or doing a commentary video and I’m like I can’t because it’s just too hard to

understand what’s happening who’s winning and this is even for a single player game I think it’s super important

and I really like Batro for this reason. For me anyway,

it’s just like the way it’s set up. It’s just so much space where so a streamer can put their camera there. You can always see what’s happening and

everything’s quote unquote iconic. Like there’s no clutter, at least for me. And I found a lot of new games when they’re

making them, I don’t know why, like the watchability seems quite low compared to what I’m used to. Like I just don’t get

what’s happening right now. And I’m like, I’ve played rogike card games before, but like why is that number green? What’s that supposed to be? like

it’s just like it’s just not intuitive for me. No, and I I I get it as well. And I

think that it’s this is the same thing when it comes to stream games or YouTube commentated game as well as esports

game. And I’m going to give another example of this one where it’s is possible. We mentioned League of Legends

and Counterstrike is easier to follow as well. But another genre that popped up

then became super popular is the battle royale, PUBG, Fortnite, these kind of

games. One of the reason why they became popular was it was super fun to watch

these streamers being at the end end circle and doing

these kind of survival things cuz it’s guaranteed every game because if someone wins they’re one out of 100.

That’s really interesting to me. And it was like the the beginning of PUBG was super fun to watch. Same thing with

Fortnite. All of these like we got big influencers and stars out of this period. And both PUBG and Fortnite are

hugely successful esports titles uh right now uh with massive amount of following. So that’s one point where you

can see like yes the fun moment, the excitement overall. And if you ever play

battle royale and you’re sitting there at the last second, you’re like headto-head against another and your

heart race is pumping up overall, that’s that’s um amazing time to to watch and

and be a part of. Beautiful. And those are the things that makes a that can make a makes something a game

and not only an esport, make it a great esports if you can have those.

Sweet. Simon, this might not go well or this might go well, but I have a challenge for you. So, while you’re on

holiday, a game um No, actually, you released 16th of June. Have you heard of Peak by Landfall Game?

Yes, I’ve heard about it. Yes, I have. What I want to do is I was thinking about this podcast. I was like, could

Peak be an esports? I’m pretty sure it can. and I’m wondering if you could walk us through what you think if this game

could be an esports game. Um, could we do that? Sure. I think it’s it’s so I have to be

completely honest. I haven’t played this game yet because I haven’t been able to to look at it too much overall.

I haven’t played it. I haven’t seen it. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, but I feel like we’re going to do it anyway. So, like the main present uh premise,

it’s co-op climbing game. And if you remember the game going up where they’re trying to hit the top but they can fall

down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No no no no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s that but you’re playing it with a friend and I’m guessing there’s time

limits. Like for me this feels like I mean isn’t this like a layup? We can

just have two teams and then whoever gets to the top like this surely could be an esports. But I don’t know yes if

I’m being too excited. Like is this esports ready? Like does the is there something that needs to change? Like

could you walk us through what you think about this game when it comes to esports? So, this game is I I would say

like this is a fantastic co-op game and I I’ I’ve looked at it before and I think it’s like sounds super fun and

it’s something that I could actually play with my friends. That’s the main thing. And I think that whenever you talk about

esports, let’s make a game fun. That’s the main thing first. Don’t think about other other things as well and trying to

make this Yes. super fun. It’s super popular as well. Damn, it’s super popular and

everything else. Could you make this an a esports or or a cool competitive game?

Sure you can. Like as long as you have two teams at the same map that are

battling it out on who’s going to get the first. That’s one thing. You can also mix fun things out of this. Like

you can have a random influencer together with another person doing this together. So there are a lot of things

in this game that I’m just at the glance of it. You could actually make it the fun competitions out of it overall. Um,

I think it’s a I think it’s this is a game where it’s co the cooperation and

playing with your friend is the main thing here overall and not really the

competition itself. So, I would say like this is a co-op game and that’s the main thing, but you can do competitions in it

as well. Yes, you can. So, should they I didn’t hear you say that. I know you’re biased because you

run an esports company, but like is this a thing where they should just do it? So, what I would say is I would do I I

wouldn’t start with making this an esports if it’s possible. Like make it hardcore. Why not? I’m surprised you’re saying

that. You’re surprised. No, because it’s you want to this is a super casual thing and

you don’t want to be branded as a a hardcore esport. Make it fun. This is a

fun fun fun game and you need want to have a fun competitions. You should you

should do it that way overall. If you want to go into esport for this game, you should make it like fun competitions

and start and see where it goes. That’s one thing. Secondly, try to is in

that case empower the others to try to run some competitions because the thing is as well when it

comes to esport, if you have a successful formula and a successful game overall when it comes to co-op that is

super good and everything else. I’m not going to go in and say like, hey, you

need to do esports for your game. They know what they’re doing. They know

what’s fun with their game and everything else. And esports is not the solution to everything. I’m going to be

completely honest with you. I think I thought every game who had like a speedrunning community that is

watchable. Why shouldn’t you have an esports? Like I see it just as like a

platform. Maybe I’m need to change the way I’m thinking. I just see it as like you have YouTube, you have Twitch. Oh

well, another channel for my game could be esports. I thought it would just be like at a certain point you just do it. But

how much of your focus on the company and the money you’re spending on it should be in these areas.

Okay. So it’s one thing to opening up to anyone in the community to do it, but

how much focus are you as a company going to do in it overall? Um you

depends on how much focus you have like Farmville or Farming Simulator that you

have. They run an esports competition as well. they’re doing it as a fun thing that they’re doing overall. Um, and I

think you can do it this one as well. So, it’s more a matter of fact how much of this is going to be a part of your

your core structure overall. Maybe we should speak on that, Simon. Like maybe people don’t know exactly

what it takes to run these levels of esports competitions. So, when you say

because I’ve seen Candy Crush run competitions like let’s find the best player at Candy Crush. They did like they saw I do they do it

once a year. Um but I can imagine that competition might take less time. Well,

it probably does take less time than a PUBG World Cup, right? So there’s probably levels to this. So maybe could

you paint a picture like what does it take to run these esports competition from like the developers perspective?

From a developer spe uh perspective, it doesn’t require much at all. um as soon

as long as you have the possibility for people to compete against each other. Usually when it comes to a custom game

or something like that um and then some way for a production to to get some

stats out of it. Those are the main things that you can take or show who’s leading, who’s winning, who’s not

winning, and so on. That’s the main thing. If you want to have like a broadcasted esports, what you need to

have is community so big people can play against each other. you need to have some kind of broadcast overall. Um, and

if you’re going a little bit bigger, something that your um prize money or

something for the people to to get involved in it. After that, you will get everything is

okay. How many viewers do you get? How do you get these people to to play the game? How are you doing everything else?

How much resources are you putting into it? And when you say resources, are you talking

prize money or something else? Who’s organizing the tournament? It needs to be a tournament needs to have some kind

of kind of set of rules. It’s a time when you’re going to have it. Who’s going to produce it? Is it um a

community cer influencer on who’s going to do it? Does the game need an observer? There’s a lot of these

different things that you comes into place when you’re if you want to have some kind of esports overall. And I

think that a lot of people are thinking that barrier is too steep in

some cases why they’re not going into it because there’s so many things you need to keep in mind. You said it wasn’t a lot but then you

said nine things. So maybe is it because once they’re done they’re done. Like is

it a lot? There are some things you need to be doing there, but it’s also that if you’re doing it yourself, it’s going to

be quite a lot of things that you need to do and suddenly your community manager is is turning into an esports

manager is handling everything. Uh that’s usually how it goes. So you need

to take it step by step is my my recommendation overall. Uh but if you

want to have successful, you need to to put some effort into it as well. You need to put effort in it and make it

broadcast it, promote it. needs to be promoted inside a game and do a like complete focus on it as well.

Yeah, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, it makes sense to kind of market test the appetite for

esports by doing kind of more encouraging the community to do their own esports somehow to see what the vibe

is, the their own competitions or like just check in whether it’s working. If you have a huge pop up, yeah,

if you have a popular game, the community have already started to have competitions in your game whether you like it or not. Yeah, it’s

just going to be happening. Yes, it’s going to happen on Discord servers or something else. That is going to be everything that that’s just uh how

it how it is. That’s just uh people are going to have that. All right.

And then you can take a look at it. How are they doing it? And they can modify it. Nice. Could you

tell me how you do what you do? Because you just had a vacation and you have and you have a very young baby. So I have no

baby and I’m about to take a one week vacation before Gamescom and I’m [ __ ] myself. But you have a kid as

well. So bit of a personal aside here like just for anyone kind of leading the team

like how do you do what you do cuz I find it very impressive. I think that I speak for every anyone

who’s watching or listening to this one as well that has kids, they pretty much know what I’m talking about as well. Uh

it’s h you’re going to have it. It is quite a lot of things to keep in mind

and how you do it is having a little kid. My lovely daughter is one and a half years old. Um and of

course she’s my number one focus in everything that I’m doing. Uh at the same time I’m working. I love my my job

as well. Uh and to make this possible and when you’re doing it is that you need to plan quite a lot. Plan in

advance. Um it’s a lot of early mornings. I usually wake up early in the

morning to do a lot of the admin work when it comes to the company before and

before she wakes up. And if you know uh little babies, they wake up early

sometimes. So, you need to be up even earlier to make sure you’re doing everything, but also plan to structure

everything and and so on. The second thing is that you need to I would say

plan for the unexpected because your kid is going to get sick.

It needs to be an appointment with the doctor. There’s something coming up and so on.

So, you can’t really lock yourself in too much overall. Um, I’ve started to

learn when I’m doing everything that sometimes you have like, okay, this day I’m going to 100% focus everything on

work and it always fails because there’s something coming up. So, you want to plan to fail, I guess.

Yes, you have to plan to fail and to do everything accordingly. You need to be better at delegating. Uh, you need to

have people around you that can do stuff as well. Now, we live in a digital age.

You don’t need to do everything yourself. like you don’t need to have

anything that you’ve delegated in the last year that you’re like thank god I’ve done that. Oh the easy thing is all everything when

it comes to economy and bookkeeping that’s the easy thing that you’re just someone else taking care of it overall

um I think the one thing that I that we also decided to do is graphics

design for a company and so on. Uh there are so many people that are that love to

do it on a freelance basis that are great at it. That is no need for us to have it in house overall. Um then just

some of the things that we’re doing and then you can also automate quite a lot of other things as well. Um and focus

and the last thing as well when it comes to this is also focus is that cut away everything unnecessary.

Uh, I think I’ve become a better person at business when I became a father because uh you’re immediately starting

to think about all of the things you shouldn’t do. Any examples? Because because I’m not a father yet. I don’t

want to I want to level up. I want to become I want to get the lessons done. You you have your agency and I think

that what you’re having in your mind is I want to do this this this and this. Like you want to have everything, right?

You need you see yourself. Oh yeah. You have your podcast, you have everything. you have your LinkedIn

business, you have your uh you want to host your own gaming events and everything else. Is that you got it?

When you’re looking at it, when you’re coming farther, you’re thinking about yourself, hm, maybe we shouldn’t do

that. Yeah. Who knows? There’s been a couple of times. Yes. There’s been a couple of times where I’ve

there’s so many things you want to do myself. So one example is that way back when

we’re launching uh when I was part of Yeoot, there was a brand called ELLL. Um

I think two years ago, I bought back the the brand name of it, YLL. Uh and it’s

always been on my mind that I want to relaunch this brand. I really want to do it. You know,

everything else is that. But in my mind, I’ve also had the things that no, not right now.

that would take too much time. That’s not the focus. Let’s keep the brand. That’s good. There’s going to come a day

when it’s happening, but I’m not going to go ahead into doing it. That’s an example of where you need to take a step

back and just think about it as is this really what you should be doing right now as a company, as a person. take

over. I find it very hard, Simon, to do like one day because I have a lot of those ideas and right now instead of saying

one day, I’m like, okay, next year, next year I’m going to be doing like all out my gaming events. This year is more

collab and side events. I’ve said that as my like date. Uh but yeah, it’s just

interesting hearing I’m reflecting hearing you say that like I got the podcast, I got my LinkedIn business, I got a team, got my own content to write

and yeah, when you add everything together, it gets a bit silly. But I always think, yeah, but I’m going to do it at this time. But it’s interesting

that you’re saying someday, right? It’s always good to test things as well,

though. Maybe don’t get married to the idea, right? No, don’t get married to it. Um, that’s

a good way to put it. You’re testing quite a lot of stuff in your business, and that’s good overall. Uh, maybe it’s

going to be that way for you that in a year or two, you’re going to think about, hm, should I really continue with

this one? Can I refocus? Should I do something else or double down on some part of the

business? Um, and that’s the same thing I would say or similar at least uh that you need

to focus on it. Um, but it’s also my example with the brand was one thing but it’s also about the

smaller things. Cut away the meetings, you know, cut away these different things that you’re doing. Um, when

you’re a when you’re founder of a company, you also get a lot of different people that wants to have meetings with

you, the services and everything. I’ve only started feeling that now up until Gamescom. I’m started to get it

myself. Now I know how it felt when I was the one spamming people a couple years ago. Um, and you said you said

cutaway meetings. I feel like I’ve been very low meetings and I need to get more and I’m finding it quite hard to

understand like how many meetings. I’m not saying um I’m not looking for like the gospel here on

meetings, but I’m just wondering like anything that’s worked for you that you cut away that you’re glad you cut or anything that you wouldn’t cut for

example. I think that when I look back at my my years when I was at Yut as well, we had

meetings and things about everything. It was all the time overall. And I just

think back at that time and I’m thinking that we’re doing some of the same things now

with a less um less amount of people and less amount of meetings and we’re better at it. Sometimes these kind of meetings

to sync everyone is just a waste of time overall. Um and I think that we had that

era overall when it comes to this scrum era and everyone was doing standups

weekly syncs three times a week. you need to talk through about everything.

Uh, and we took those offline and made them online during the pandemic which

actually made it worse. I feel like they take longer online. Is that me? Like they take

some Yes. Yeah, of course. Because everyone needs to speak and especially when you’re like 10 people. Um,

one-on-one meeting is another thing that’s easier to do. Much easier. Uh but if you have like 10 people, everyone

needs to speak and everything else, it can sometimes take longer. Who’s taking meeting notes? Who’s doing that? So all

of these things is things that you can actually cut a little bit. Um I I think it’s I

would say that the one me the one meetings you shouldn’t cut is the IRL meetings. the possibilities that you

have u the networks the events uh the lunches the um everything else

that’s the things that I’m not planning on on on cutting away because those are

important and I think that in a in a world of AI online and you’ll see quite

a lot of spam online and everything else these kind of live events will become even more important

oh yeah I’m I’m very doubling down on the live stuff And I think that you will see that overall in all industries. I

would say even in the esports live audience, you will see it in music. You will see it in everything else because

when everything is becoming easily AI generated, online spammed, uh

you can’t even put a work up now because you get like 2,000 job applications. You

don’t know what to do. the IRL things is becoming more important like

it’s almost like a filter right it’s like there’s a few things that instantly become true when it’s IRL this person

has invested time to be here there’s a level of check whether it’s an event enjoying music or it’s like finding a

job if someone’s come in person to find me it’s a much better I think that also people will like it

more to have like the kind of live events that you’re having it’s more enjoyable right it’s more memorable like those are the things I

remember right it’s a real person it’s nothing fake fake as a real person. Um you don’t have anything in between. So

those are the things I’m not cutting out overall. Um rather the opposite. So you

just need to shift and I think that um my learnings when it comes to business has been one part of it but also

becoming a father and a family has become another thing out of it. Beautiful. just wanted to close off like

based on this conversation today and anything that we’ve missed like is any advice that you’d give to devs you know

starting a new studio kind of this year next year what would you tell them?

Oh, I think that if you’re starting a new studio and you want to launch or like if you want to be um successful

game, couple of things I would recommend is first of all, there’s massive amount

of talent you can find online. Um you don’t need to have a big studio to

succeed. I think there’s a lot of different examples right now that have proven it. We talked about Peak, we

talked about there’s other games, Clare Obscure, everything else. You can run a studio with say five, four to 10 people

and have freelancers working with you and you can become a smash hit. That’s one thing to keep in mind. You don’t

need to be big. You don’t need that. Uh the second thing is that it’s harder

than ever to get through the noise when it comes to uh becoming a game. There’s

so many games launching on Steam and there’s so many games launching overall

um that you need to be creative when it comes to the marketing and promotion of the game.

Overall, I would look at alternative sources when it comes to this. Uh

usually the traditional formula that people are doing that they’re paying YouTube influencers and doing Twitch

live streams for your game and so on uh can be costly overall and might not fit

you as a game and try other things as well. And I think that you should take a

look at other areas of marketing and promotion

tools as well, services, Tik Tok, Discord, other things that can make you your game fly overall.

Anything specific you’d recommend them to look at? You mentioned Discord and I will look at Discord marketing and get

a community out of Discord. I think you can get a lot of different um I would say bang for the buck with that one. I

think a lot of devs might be listening to this and think hear the word community and think that sounds like a lot of work. I’m not here to manage a

community. I want to make good games. Like what would you tell them kind of number one thing to avoid when they are

kind of making their community for their game? So the community is there whether you

like it or not. Um that’s one thing it’s kind sounds kind of harsh to say but it’s if you have a dedicated community

for your game that is that are going to be fan of your game that’s something

amazing. Um and you need that for your game to succeed. Especially if you’re a small

game you need that kind of initial word of mouth and people to be a part of your game. That’s something you you need. So,

as soon as you have a core loop and a good game concept that you can try out and if you can have a community part of

it, that’s great. Uh, because they will be your ambassadors and be your people

that are going to talk with your game. Um, all of these kind of co-op games that

we’re talking about overall that you mentioned and we talked about peak horror games and so on, it’s a lot of

based around the community that are loving that game. Yeah. Overall, Hell Divers 2 became

super popular with people co-op playing it on Discord. That’s one thing. Surely it had a big marketing, but other games

as well. Like, you need the community to thrive. Sweet.

Simon, thanks so much. Everyone at home, big thank you for you to listening and yeah, find Simon on LinkedIn. Definitely

give him a follow. And if you’ve been watching for a while, share it in your Slack group. Send it to your boss.

Subscribe. Come back. Bit of call to action. Lovely.