don’t get 10 or 15 or 50 mentors if you get too many mentors they will all have
0:05
an opinion so the only thing you actually achieve here is that you get more confused do you have an idea and then you have 15 different opinions how
0:13
is that helpful today we’re going to be diving deep into the state of gaming in 2025 today’s guest is Hendrick leser
0:19
he’s the president of the European gam developer Federation and CEO of remote control Productions which currently
0:25
consists of 16 different studios around Europe Asia and North America I’m very glad that the games industry overall
0:31
seems to keep it real if you want to start now in the games industry as a junior or form your new studio it’s
0:38
going to be a tough ride so I think one of the key things is to build that trust to have some Vision some exaggeration of
0:45
that you have to ideally stay positive you know the captain of the ship right if you’re there Doom and Gloom and you always think about oh you know we could
0:52
die in a minute and then you tell everybody we could die in a minute you know you’re not going to run a successful business right now the
0:58
relationship level is level two how do we reach level five and maybe we reach level 10 but you know dude you want to
1:04
behave like level 10 we’re not there yet because we just met yesterday why not have that conversation everybody will
1:10
get it take more risks if it’s you and your two friends in the company what is
1:15
really there to lose could you explain the old games problem for the developer here a lot of players out
1:22
there welcome everyone to the gaming Playbook today we’re going to be diving deep into the state of gaming in 2025
1:29
today’s guest is is Hendrick leser he’s been the Forefront of European gaming for decades now he’s the president of
1:35
the European games developer Federation and CEO of remote control Productions which currently consists of 16 different
1:41
studios around Europe Asia and North America and he’s helped shape house games are made funded sustained and
1:47
doesn’t shy away from the truth Henrik welcome to the show hey hi Harry uh nice to be here excited to have that
1:54
conversation me too right so for everyone at home in this episode we’re going to explore the biggest challenges facing the game industry today
2:00
leadership strategies to stay resilient and adaptable and what hendrik has learned from decades in the industry if
2:06
you’re a game developer leader or someone passionate about the games industry this episode will be good for
2:12
you all righty so you recently did a kind of State of
The Reality of the Gaming Industry in 2025
2:18
the Union style talk and I wanted to open up with bit of a kind of serious
2:23
question so 2024 I feel like was a bit of a blood bath for gaming in a sense the numbers
2:29
were going down and you mentioned recently like sales per Dame were down and the sentiment was
2:34
also down so I wanted to ask you like what’s the harsh reality no one’s admitting right now when it comes to the
2:40
games industry I’m not so sure that there is a no one admitting uh towards it um you
2:47
know I’m very glad that the games industry overall seems to keep it real again and again not all the time and of
2:53
course we also have hype trains we jump on board and then everything’s super YOLO um but overall uh I think people
2:59
people are seeing the challenges and uh maybe the one thing uh which I regularly
3:06
encounter and and want to share again uh if you want to start now in the games industry as a junior or form your new
3:12
studio it’s going to be a tough ride um that’s probably the main thing right you know for let’s say the last 15 nearly 20
3:20
years everything was growing people were quite excited educational facilities uh
3:25
politicians everybody was like Yay let’s go into this let’s even educate more people how to make it
3:30
and at the moment I have to say that’s not necessarily what we need um as in
3:36
more development Studios and more individual people um and again I totally
3:41
value their passion and I’m not saying that you know I I’m for this but at the
3:47
moment it’s going to be even more difficult than under normal circumstances that’s probably one of the
3:52
elephants in the room okay so for people at home we’re obviously going to cover what entry
3:58
Talent can do regardless of the situation but I wanted to start with more about the studio leader perspective
4:05
so if there’s a struggling Studio leader now business-wise like what is their
Biggest Risks for Studio Leaders This Year
4:11
biggest risk when it comes to 2025 cash and know this is Cash managing cash flow um and very importantly being
4:19
aware of it you know one of the reason my company exists is that we help Studios create Financial visibility and
4:27
so for awareness and then be able to talk about these kind of Junction points early enough I’ve seen too many you know
4:35
companies not only in gaming but let’s say um in domains where we are driven by Passion you know some of us don’t even
4:42
care about profits some of us even anti capitalist blah blah blah right but we are still living most of us in a
4:49
capitalistic Society um so we have to acknowledge that fact so that kind of financial awareness and then making the
4:56
decision how I always call it protect the ship first um and that includes right it it needs
5:02
to stay afloat right if it’s gone it’s gone um so basically for the struggling
5:08
uh entrepreneur in that field yes dive into the numbers even if it’s painful even if it’s to a degree boring you know
5:15
at the moment I think it’s boring it’s probably rather frightening um and go in get mentors get people you trust get uh
5:23
you know call us call other entrepreneurs in gaming and ask them about best practice methods right and
5:30
I know it sounds tough but it that includes probably firing I always say
5:36
firing and not laate off late off sounds so nice and you know something I not involved in so this is why I
5:42
particularly say you know firing and to be staying to the truth right um that
5:47
you rather fire some of them sooner reduce cost if you have other big cost
5:52
factors you be my guess reduce those but ultimately buy yourself time even to the
5:57
degree that you cut so low that you are at least Break Even again we need time now right sure some of you
6:06
maybe early maybe you have stole cash in the bank uh it’s also crisis Greek work
6:12
right um it also is not just a bad thing but it is an opportunity too and I’m not
6:17
talking about those guys trying to exploit crisises and you know sell uh stuff of overprice that’s what I’m
6:23
talking about don’t take advantage of it right to exploit other people but I’m saying this is also a moment to reflect
6:29
to look and maybe even take more risks especially if you look at what you could
6:35
potentially lose if it’s you and your two friends in the company what is
6:40
really there to lose right depending a bit in which country you live what the Social Security setup and so on um but
6:46
assess what is there to lose what is there to gain um and obviously the bigger you are the more responsibility
6:53
you have and I feel you do as an entrepreneur for also your people um to not just be like hey by the way you
7:00
fired in a week Cheerio right you know that to me is an [ __ ] sorry to say um
7:05
but um kind of manage that uh responsibility
7:10
um which by the way also includes talking to your people right you should never be in a moment where you fire your
7:16
people and they are kind of completely surprised because they thought everything so great uh we also uh pride
7:23
ourselves to treat our people as adults that’s how we call it meaning that we
7:28
involve the them in updates not all the details but in the overall Financial Outlook I don’t want people to be
7:35
surprised sure sometimes they get afraid a bit of this but I rather want them to
7:40
act on their own um and I don’t know about you uh family setup but some
7:45
people have children I get it they maybe need to play it safe so rather leave on
7:52
their own accord find something else um and so on but they should be able to make that decision uh go through the top
7:58
process and I’m sry to yeah I mean it’s tough but it’s reminds me of someone who
8:04
told me like we’re building Studios not games so if you’re going to build a studio that needs to be self- sustaining
8:11
but if you’re only gambling everything on the game then that puts lives at risk like especially when you got kids
8:17
involved there so is that real yeah
8:23
I I totally agree right I always tell everybody RCP helps building Studios and
8:28
games at the same time right there there’s other people out there who do one or the other or focus on we kind of
8:35
try to do both at the same time because in in in game development which we primarily active in um I think that’s
8:42
what you need to do and you also need to acknowledge and tackle it in a professional manner right so sure you
8:49
know in game development people take pride of getting better finding shortcuts use better tools blah blah
8:54
blah um the same should be true for entrepreneurship right there is no reason why out of a bunch of friends I
9:01
exaggerate go into stereotypes here A bunch of friends from a studio the one who um can deal a little bit with
9:08
finance and and numbers oh you’re you’re the CEO you take care of the business right meaning they’re not necessarily
9:14
trained for it I’m not saying that everybody needs to be trained for it right you know economics and all this in
9:19
most countries I wouldn’t call it very intellectual and sophisticated to be very blunt right again don’t want to
9:25
diminish anybody who who did that and there’s great careers coming out of it but in general is is not rocket science right um but
9:32
someone needs to then try to focus on it because it’s not just understanding business it’s about leadership it’s
9:38
about legal how to deal with people how to kind of stay in the moment also in regards to side guides a couple of years
9:44
ago um it was very much the industry also driven by its workers right you know this is there was such a high
9:50
demand in people that of course incentives how we de dealt with people changed a bit now this changes again not
9:58
because you know I don’t want to treat my people the best but you know tougher times I have less money available so
10:04
stuff changes and um for you as a leader as an entrepreneur it’s important that you kind of stay on top of things uh for
10:12
your own skills soft skills and hard skills ultimately right right so some
10:17
people at home might have not heard of RCP or maybe have heard of it but not understand the scale I think
What Is Remote Control Productions (RCP)?
10:24
it would be interesting to hear kind of like how do you summarize RCP cuz it’s an interesting business yes um thanks
10:32
for for noticing um funny enough this year we’re going to be 20 years old so it’s also not a new business right and
10:38
um the intention when we set it up was basically that we work with developers
10:45
to make them especially on the long term successful that’s very abstract right uh
10:51
and then I have a personal background in political science and philosophy so I’m neither a techician or a business guy by
10:58
uh un uh kind of teachings but um through stuff like Philosophy for me game making
11:05
is also a personal expression right you know it’s an artistic messaging cultural
11:11
and so on so on the one hand side for me it was always clear that we cannot just build a corporate structure and because
11:18
my finance people like it that they consolidate Studios and on my balance sheet and then do Financial engineering
11:24
and then exaggerate and do stuff which maybe some people in the north of Europe did a bit too much in the last years if
11:30
you know what I’m talking about so for us to basically have that idea we help
11:35
development Studios to create in a sustainable manner me we have to find ways how to do it how are we doing it we
11:43
nor become minority shareholding Partners in those Studios as a partner not as a financial investor so we don’t
11:49
bring big checks because what we invest uh is called sweat for Equity we invest our brain and our work that normally to
11:56
give you an example means you know whatever five to 10 15 people that’s roughly the average when people uh
12:03
contact us you’re already doing something in the games industry you know some of them might still be at
12:09
University but they started doing the Prototype and and they want to build this out and so on and you know the
12:14
maximum was 35 people already making millions in Revenue right but they come to this point in realization where they
12:21
understand if it’s just me it might as a company it might be too tough so let’s go to someone like us where we become
12:28
partner normally we do um 25 plus% of the shares because I want to be a
12:33
significant partner uh think of us as multiple people but ultimately similar if you
12:41
would just co-fund with a couple of friends right and um we then take over
12:46
um a lot of the corporate side you know how do you set up the company uh how you do do this over time that’s the part
12:53
which we call basically that no one goes to prison right nobody forgets to pay taxes you know we not violating labor
12:59
law um you know and so on then what I already mentioned before helping to
13:05
create these Financial tools uh and so on and these habits to look at it right
13:11
and to be honest that that takes years to get used to it right um and really you know at one point in time even
13:17
embrace it then obviously show us the money is we have um a BF team um six
13:23
people now who um ring up uh the Publishers uh the the the the platform
13:29
forms um gets more and more broad um to basically check you know are is there
13:34
any requests for polls out there where we can pitch on um is there stuff where our ideas actually make sense to that
13:41
publisher we could use an an existing IP from them or are we using a third party
13:46
IP uh a publisher a developer let’s get it make it even more complicated and then some Financial party um and by the
13:54
way this is something which will get more and more normal right we can’t just go publisher develop or developer just
14:00
makes Minecraft gets Rich done right you know this is kind of Survivor bias um and we help
14:07
on that and then uh what else we do is we help on production so this is not that we teach them this one winning
14:15
formula the Silver Bullet right how you do production that’s nonsense in my opinion but assess where they are today
14:20
and then help them through iterative process to get better and better and better um and last but not least uh we
14:27
have a a business analytics intelligence team uh which also partly helps what we call Shadow
14:34
publishing ultimately so we have more and more of our teams to try to either
14:39
fully self-publish or do kind of co-publishing and so take over more uh responsibility in that regard um and
14:46
we’ve been building and doing stuff like that already for years so ultimately no we are not a publisher we are not a
14:53
finance here we are what we already decided 20 years ago a production company and that was inspired by the
15:00
movies right we bring the partners together we help them we guide them and we do it long term uh what you would say
15:08
in kind of um the overall business uh Community is um that we are a
15:14
shareholding company consulting company or how some VCS would call themselves now a management
15:20
company really really cool so you got this economies of scales and this like I
15:26
guess bird’s eye view which is what I want to dig into cuz you mentioned a few categories there and I’m sure we can tease some lessons um it’s funny I want
15:33
to do this but on the service side so with my businesses ghost writing for Ser
15:39
CEOs of service side businesses and I noticed a lot of them are good at one or two things they might be great at
15:44
conferences they don’t post on LinkedIn might be great at Cold email but they just can’t sell or they offer need some
15:51
help and I feel like that’s where I want to go in the future so this is an interesting conversation for me and I
15:56
really want to dig in CU you’ve got all these lessons I’m sure you bring them to other Studios so I want
16:03
to section this into two parts actually so I want to dig a little deeper into
16:09
just why we are at this stage just for a bit of context for people because you’ve mentioned some things in a previous talk I want to go deeper on and then i’ would
16:15
love to go deeper on those parts if you will allow it sure all righty so you
16:23
mentioned the old games problem could you explain the old games problem for
The Old Games Problem: Why It’s Harder to Compete
16:28
the developer here like if you’re speaking to them yes so what we normally refer to and there there’s different
16:35
ways to call it um is that a lot of players out there are still playing
16:41
games which came out five years ago six years ago eight years ago 10 years ago Skyrim right people still play Skyrim I
16:47
finished it I don’t know when I was young um if you know what I mean and not
16:53
only do players stick with those games sometimes for a very long time
16:59
um but even players who are let’s say the next wave young go buy Skyrim you
17:05
know I get it right they also want to dive into an experience masterpieces you know as a hardcore gamer myself having I
17:13
played thousands of games in my life and I still play more than 100 games per year right so I get it right you know I
17:19
I get it that you also want to go in there but it’s a problem for all the New Kids on the Block and of course if you
17:26
do new games because you know I think uh at the moment it’s between six and s% on
17:31
the revenue on Steam is put into new games that’s crazy you say six to s or
17:38
60 6 to 7% oh that’s bad that’s not kind of new
17:45
games and uh uh I think sorry you have to exclude um that’s not true sorry I have to correct myself um obviously a
17:51
black wub Kong was big but so there’s a few of those then there’s the old and
17:57
then there kind of you know if you are an IND developer and you do your thing that’s the share you are fighting uh
18:05
kind of against right uh because unfortunately for the longest time when the market was growing every developer
18:11
was like you know the other developer is not my competition they’re my friends right you know they’re crazy as as I am
18:17
to main games now now with this kind of stagnant Market we are getting more and more
18:24
competition which is not something I like emotionally but it’s unfortunately also one of those truth
18:30
right so with this old games problem what mistakes are people
18:36
making and they’re not taking into account the fact that this problems exist like what can we practically do about the fact that this is the state uh
18:44
one of the the most obvious uh mistakes people do is and they see this nearly every day is that they do pitches for
18:51
new games and they Benchmark it with those beo and then they they kind of say you
18:57
know this budget for this game makes sense and and so on where I’m like dude you take the most successful games in
19:03
the dra and that’s your benchmark um if I’m a responsible
19:09
Finance year I will never give you money uh you can’t take the outliers right we
19:14
can’t all become the big boys and the big girls in the market that’s impossible so that’s the first thing I
19:21
think people need to understand so either if you only have that data because you know other uh data is not
19:28
available to you then you know discount it deduct 50% whatever right but ideally you go
19:34
through the process of doing the market research and there’s tons of tools out there most of them free or you know maximum you have to subscribe couple of
19:41
them you pay 10 bucks per month whatever everybody should be able to afford this right um and then you not go only to the
19:48
outliers but you go to the average in the market um I think that’s one thing um the other one is uh be very careful
19:56
with these uh kind of hype things right you know this a couple years ago uh oh yeah even on PC on Steam we have to do
20:02
free-to-play games and all this but how many big freet to-play games will a
20:07
player play are you playing Five you know free to-play multiplayer Shooters
20:14
probably not right yeah you will check them out all of them right you know because four more
20:20
right um and um if we think back of MMO RPGs when we played all you know I played I started with ultim online but
20:26
when everybody kind of was playing World Warcraft sure we checked out new MMOs
20:32
for a months right back in the day the first month we come back right um there’s a saying for RuneScape where
20:40
you never quit RuneScape you only take a break and that has been the case for me like I’ve probably played that game in
20:47
yeah over like 10 years now but like I’ve probably had a two-ear Sprint three years later again but if I think back
20:52
how many MMOs have I played think I tried Warframe for 3 days and then I just get the guilt like yeah but I could
20:58
play the game I’ve invested hundreds of hours in yeah your friends right you know people might recognize your
21:03
character whatever right you know this is this is uh to a degree you could say it’s kind of sunk cost fallacy right and
21:09
you put so much in in there already so you stay um but obviously with games is also a very big emotional Factor as you
21:15
just said right you know if you grew up with RuneScape that’s the thing right you know just I I didn’t so why would I
21:20
check out R you know I played it I don’t know I don’t even remember um for half an hour and it was like I’m out right
21:28
you know have a better idea what it is but I already had other uh fascinating
21:34
to not call addictive games um uh where I wanted to dive in so I think that
21:40
that’s another one right you know this is you also mentioned uh what What’s with us at RCP and something I uh forgot
The Power of Community: RCP’s Approach
21:46
to mention but I think is also very important is that exchange um ideas with
21:51
other people so what we do for example is you know all of our studios are on the same slack we have tons of slack
21:57
channels where you know we share uh Market data where we you know exchange
22:03
what cool game we played on the weekend uh what’s going on with unreal um and very often it’s like I have this problem
22:10
and ideally 10 minutes later someone else yeah I had this one too I solved it like this done right and sure you can do
22:17
the same thing on all kinds of other platforms but here you even know the people in many cases right you know that
22:24
you kind of all belong to this sometimes we even call it a collective we know call it the RTP family but you could
22:30
call it somehow or a collective if you want to describe it um and then we even meet two times a year not all of us but
22:36
um normally at least the heads and uh the leaders and have like a mini conference right two three days uh what
22:43
I call it RCP mini GDC uh top what we ever were able to do was like 55 talks
22:50
during these days to each other right um and um sure everybody knows that we are
22:56
connected so it’s tons of trust in the room right it’s not one of those you know I failed but ultimately it’s an
23:02
advertisement to you how cool you are we all know those stories right that’s I’m Noto sure if that’s really
23:09
helpful exactly and for us it’s we take pride in being direct right and even if
23:14
we [ __ ] up a lot people are actually sharing that right and that kind of um
23:20
exchange of infos uh feelings uh ideas of the future I think it’s very important yeah for sure um if
23:29
people can’t all join RCP um if I’m talking to those people how do they get
23:35
that I have an idea but how do they get that part where they can either join the community and get that support like I
23:41
feel like to reframe this question people know they need a mentor but then
23:47
sometimes hope it just happens or maybe settle potentially like what could people do practically to kind of build
Finding Mentors, Building Community, and the Value of Events
23:53
those relationships there’s multiple things um first of all of course you know
23:59
with us you can just write us an email right um pretty easy then we dive in we will look who you are what your team is
24:05
and and for us the team is even more important besides whatever build or demo you have right because we are long-term
24:12
right I look at it with my colleagues where do we think this team can be in five years 10 years 15 years not
24:18
tomorrow right um other ways of doing it you can go to conferences right you know there GDC is around the corner in the US
24:25
it’s not you know it’s getting more difficult to go there thanks to Trump um but uh for some people and it’s getting
24:31
more expensive so that’s not accessible for everybody right but there’s all kinds of other shows either you know in
24:37
whatever country you’re in there’s new shows popping up all the time I you know really really recommend going there for
24:43
me going to my first GDC 2001 right been a while um has been a life and career
24:49
changing experience right um I can only recommend it how come how come uh first
24:56
of all of course my first couple of gdc’s I inhaled the content right I went to all the sessions and it was awesome
25:03
right I love this right you know being in the room listen to people in some cases uh were kind of Role Models um or
25:10
I knew their games right you know again I play all the games right so it’s like I could really decide where I wanted to
25:16
go um and then a lot of the stuff I took from either best practice advice or even
25:22
stuff uh which was new to me was great but a lot of stuff where I already had assumptions and then I have these
25:28
experienced people kind of confirming my assumptions gave me great confidence and great kind of also approval in some
25:35
cases to even go beyond you know my first GDC I was still with tech to interactive even go against my own
25:41
company and colleagues not in a an aggressive way but saying no I don’t believe that I think that’s more true um
25:48
and in some cases it was uh how I felt it in some case of course it didn’t because I’m not a genius um and um on
25:56
the other hand and it’s D side I met so many people right um the the first GDC I
26:03
went was still in San Jose um and back in those days basically everybody did
26:08
hang around in the same lobby of the same hotel right um so I met so many people um just hanging around there and
26:17
to a degree that’s still possible one big advice though don’t get 10 or 15 or
26:23
50 mentors because the more the Maria is
26:28
not true here right if you get too many mentors they will all have an opinion so
26:34
the only thing you actually achieve here is that you get more confused do you have an idea and then
26:40
you have 15 different opinions how’s that helpful uh so I advise you guys
26:46
find a couple of people where you really resonate um maybe it’s three maybe it’s five also think about you know not only
26:54
getting people where in every conversation they agree with you with everything that’s not helpful either
26:59
right this is then call your mom right she will always ideally be supportive but you need to have people who have the
27:05
guts to you apply what’s called radical cander maybe some of you are familiar with the book great book which is you
27:12
challenge directly and you care personally so um if I would do this right now you know whatever I have
27:18
something where I object how you do the podcast right I would say hey har I think this could be better should be
27:24
better but by the way I still believe that you’re a great guy and you can do and I offer you your help too I’m not
27:30
just saying Harry you [ __ ] do better you know that’s not helpful still
27:35
challenging but it’s not helpful but if you combine both elements I I think you can do well look out for those people
27:41
who also say you tell you the truth and another thing don’t just show people randomly at shows your your game for
27:49
five minutes someone you recognize even a Legend um and ask them for your opinion do you think it’s likely that
27:56
they’re going to be like I think that’s bad and this is bad and they will be like yeah it looks awesome it’s great
28:01
you know follow your dream bye and then you go back to your team and say oh even the super legend said my
28:08
game is great dude the guy was just basically moderating you to not talk to
28:14
you anymore right so be very careful um with the concept of mentors but again applied
28:20
correctly I think it’s very powerful and otherwis there’s igda I hope you all of
28:26
you are aware what that is there’s a mentorship program it’s for free you know I’m on that in that
28:32
database too uh as many of my colleagues and friends um there is sometimes uh uh
28:38
even government supported uh um kind of mentorship programs and so on and so on
28:44
just do the or even do you social right go on social and say hey I would like to have a mentor and this a topic right
28:49
anybody out there yeah uh I know more than enough cases where that worked out
28:55
very well yeah for sure I’ve done this a lot myself and I resonate with what you
29:00
said I had at one point I did the math 13 different people I like paid for coaching and some of them were
29:06
communities which obviously had multiple ideas and then I had that very recently where I had three different people
29:13
recommend different styles of businesses to build and until I went to my OG
29:19
Mentor he’s okay what do you actually want then I was like ah yes but I was very very nearly building something
29:26
completely different which was going to like scale the team and whatnot and that only came about because I had too many
29:31
mentors in a sense so 100% resonate with what you were saying great in terms
29:38
of leadership now so you
Why Bad Business Kills Studios, Not Bad Games
29:44
mentioned Bad Business kills Studios not bad games so when it comes to Bad
29:50
Business like what’s actually killing the studio there when it comes to the Bad Business from a leadership perspective from a leadership
29:56
perspective I think one of the main things expectation management so uh leadership of course
30:03
involves other people if you tell them the next game is going to be the shizel we all get going to be rich and
30:09
everything spilled on top of that and then reality normally hits and it doesn’t work out you will have a lot of
30:15
people disappointed so to balance this yes sure a CEO one of the key jobs is we have to
30:24
have an idea of the future involving also being ideally Visionary great word
30:29
right but if you are too Visionary no offense you are living in what I call
30:35
pipe dream housing right housing is like a German word for little village and it
30:41
is just very unrealistic and at one point in time no one’s going to take you seriously anymore because whatever you
30:49
basically thought what would happen in the future and told everybody is not happening so why would I trust you
30:54
anymore so I think one of the key things is to build that trust to have uh some
31:01
Vision some exaggeration of that right you you have to ideally stay positive you know the captain of the ship right
31:07
if you’re there Doom and Gloom and you always think about oh you know we could die in a minute and then you tell everybody we could die in a minute you
31:13
know you’re not going to run a successful business right and um but again stay grounded in a certain reality
31:20
um I think that’s one of the key things in leadership another thing is you have to build that kind of psychological
31:26
safety because if again you people are seeing the next rock around the corner
31:33
you might bump into but they are afraid of you or disappointed or whatever and they’re not telling you you [ __ ] too
31:39
right so you have to build that psychological safety that it’s okay for people in your team to say hm did you
31:47
think about that risk or hey I don’t think you um thought about the you know
31:52
uh getting in touch with this person is a bad idea because blah blah blah right you know this is you need 18 sharing
32:00
their thoughts their feelings and so on that doesn’t mean on the other hand that you run a a democratic uh you know um
32:08
again don’t want to diminish anybody but to paint a picture kind of a tree hugger Club where everything’s decided by
32:15
consensus right you know that can be done in different form of associations and clubs and whatnot you know again
32:22
saving the environment is a great thing so again don’t want to diminish the C the cost but as a in a compan I think
32:28
it’s a very bad idea right this is um you should invite people to discuss
32:35
but as a leader you should not shy away even in the beginning of a meeting to say guys even if I ask your opinions now
32:42
I just want to make sure that I make the decisions in the end but I value your opinion so be also um don’t [ __ ]
32:51
your people right don’t go in the false sense of participation and so on and this happens again and again you know
32:58
gaming industry um I’ve seen so many teams where let’s do a game
33:04
jam and then there’s a couple of things about yeah you know one of you will build our next game and we’re going to
33:10
do it and so on so people think yes they games will be relevant they might be
33:15
produced and so on and there is so many teams where in the end they threw everything away from the game CH so
33:22
they’re basically telling all the people whatever you guys did is [ __ ] not NE necessarily outs spoke it
33:29
but that’s a message right so if you hand do stuff like that always think about your communication and what kind
33:35
of expectations you trigger right yeah there definitely a couple of things already um let me know if there’s
33:42
anything else you want me to dive in on that subject matter yeah for sure I
33:48
actually felt this firsthand so my background is in recruitment specifically Unity development in
33:54
Stockholm and a lot of the studios there had a consensus culture and I managed to fill this firstand
34:00
because I was on the monthly checking calls with our contractors and the biggest challenge that came up it tended
34:08
to be sometimes that consensus culture just meant things were just super slow
34:13
like if someone had an idea if someone disagreed then until everyone agreed in
34:19
some studios it just could have been a two-day fix from the contractor and me
34:25
perspective but ended up being like a one 3mon fix so you mentioned that is not ideal but like how
Consensus Culture vs. Strong Studio Leadership
34:33
do we avoid that from happening cuz you mentioned hey I’m the leader I’ll will be making the decisions but is there
34:38
something else that isn’t happening that is resulting in this consensus culture two things you know um and before that
34:46
you know of course Sweden is notoriously famous for that right so I think that’s a an extreme case and obviously if you
34:52
are in Sweden you can’t ignore that culture 100% impossible right it’s so ingrained in their Society so you have
34:58
to deal with it but um to answer your question uh culture right and is on the
35:05
one hand side how do you want to communicate in the studio for example at RCP itself we
35:12
not only have a purpose statement which everybody knows and I repeat on a regular basis but we also have four core
35:19
values which are very often communicated it’s a non-aggressive attitude it’s
35:25
Fellowship is a sustainable ction um and what we call Professional nerdism right
35:31
and then we have like 150 principles where we describe you know Small Things how we advise people to do
35:39
things and especially those principles are not only coming from me right you know the the values are mostly driven by
35:46
me I’m the CEO I think you know purpose values that’s a top leadership thing
35:51
right it’s not a you should involve people to discuss but it’s definitely something you need to decide the
35:57
principles are different right more people are actually contributing to this so you ultimately build some kind of
36:06
framework even documented how you want your culture to be obviously the magic lies into are you
36:13
then also living it if I would violate those principles and values on a recurring basis you know that’s not
36:19
going to work so it is hard Daily Grind to stay in that lane as much as possible
36:26
and yes I do something times violate my own values if that happens and I realize it
36:31
first of all I want my people to call me out and second of all and I have to admit I normally know by on my own
36:38
already then I give context why I did it or in some cases if it happens after the
36:43
fact then I say okay that’s a special situation here’s the context here’s the rationale blah blah blah blah blah that
36:49
people basically can understand why this is happening um so you talk about
36:54
consensus another thing is that we are big fans of establishing our own our own
37:01
communication style I mentioned radical kander right you join RCP radical cander will be on your table the day you start
37:08
that’s so good you I hired my brother and I was advised to read radical cander
37:14
to ad to work with my brother so we read that book together while driving to the coffee shop to work and that’s helped a
37:20
lot basically anytime my brother was like I don’t like the way you’re saying this he’s like radical cander moment I’m
37:26
like oh okay it it worked like really well because this one it gives you permission I
37:33
weirdly to be honest when like why isn’t that not the default but the book is really good at giving you the context as
37:38
to why it’s important and you know this is in one of our teams at Peak we had 28 different
37:43
nationalities so how on planet Earth um would I think that all of those share
37:49
the same culture we just talked about Sweden right um that’s nonsense right um
37:55
and a book like this is Lish terminology everybody knows what you know
38:00
challenging means care personally it’s kind of establishing that so understanding a lot of triggers and
38:06
conflicts arise through kind of misunderstandings right people understand words differently semantics
38:12
all that I think that’s so avoidable right or at least it should be the goal for you to avoid it as much as possible
38:19
so the terminology and on the other hand there’s so many examples in there um where you know we did workshops where we
38:25
had um people do this in front of each other uh and so on yes sure for some of
38:31
them it was incredibly uncomfortable at first but when they you know psychological safety again when this
38:38
builds up and you know I’m also at times
38:43
uh kind of radical cerate myself in in the company in front of uh everybody
38:50
right so they see yeah I apply this to myself too or that um you know in the
38:55
very early days of my career I’m not not proud of it but a lot of people felt that I was intimidating I’m an active
39:02
listener you know I’m demanding la la la it was intimidating right um and so many
39:08
many years ago I started especially with the young Lings right uh what we call the Pavan Club where we read books where
39:14
we basically where I lead this group where I share tons of things also personal things so I was so funny at one
39:22
point in time one of those younglings in in a bit of setting is challenging me in front of the company right some of the
39:27
others are like getting pale and thinking now HRI is going to crucify that person right and the opposite
39:33
happened right um I actually thank them and said this is a great example of the
39:38
future of the company um and these sometimes are the the the smaller things the symbolic
39:44
things you know they might from a kind of objective rational perspective not be important but they are incredibly
39:51
important to buil of culture yeah I have that leading by example there where you yeah just got
39:57
rid of the Assumption by showing this is what you know I I obviously don’t really
40:02
have much hair um you know just I sometimes make jokes about it myself right and then everybody gets you know
40:09
this dude can be serious but he’s not always serious right yeah there you go sweet so in terms of partnership and
40:17
operations I really wanted to ask you about this CU well you’ve done it for too many years and I wonder if there’s
The Role of Partnerships in Game Development
40:26
any game studios who are missing out on this partnership feeling so we mentioned already about having that community of
40:32
like peers to talk to but from a business perspective now when it comes to
40:37
operations how can you stay alive through Partnerships if I’m looking at a developer in this
40:43
example there’s all kinds of Partnerships um on stuff you can do first of all of course um you know you
40:50
can regionally check out who are other uh development Studios get in touch with
40:55
those guys right you know this is there’s so many cases that one Studio does really well actually has a you know
41:01
shortage of people to do stuff if you know them well they’re going to call you I had that happen at PGC where there was
41:08
one Studio who surprisingly after I’m trying to pitch lead generation services to the founder like yeah I do all the
41:14
business development I’m like okay great and then he goes yeah we just have too much work but we just refer it to one or two partners but he yeah I got from an
41:21
idea like he wasn’t out looking for partners so unless you were on his short list you would never know exactly so um
41:28
first of all you get to know them right on this kind of uh PE level um then you
41:33
can also build relationships with someone uh who’s different than you let’s say you know you’re developer you
41:38
can build a relationship with a publisher where you try to not only do one project but multiple you could do
41:43
have a general agreement all that kind of stuff um you can build relationship to all those guy you know the razors and
41:52
all those Hardware guys uh in the world right you know maybe do something with them or they have you on the horizon
41:57
when you self-publishing you get more reach um etc etc you can go also explicitly um in other regions you know
42:04
I mentioned this in my in my talk about State of the Union on what to do to the Future because there will be more
42:09
development Talent also in lowcost countries so we can either try to see them as enemies which I despise you know
42:16
I’m heavily anti-racist and you know there’s so many oppressed and underprivileged people out there you
42:22
know now going against them just because it’s my own interest I think would be really a bad thing right um so what’s
42:29
the obvious uh answer here reach out to them become partner with them and don’t do it in a exploitative way um but in a
42:37
win-win way right you know it’s totally legit to go to a low cost country and say hey you guys are way lower cost than
42:43
me that’s awesome um so so that statement per se is not bad right and then say okay I’m going to pay you maybe
42:50
better than you would get in your region it’s still much lower what I have to pay
42:56
so it’s a win-win thing right um and I think this is also partly the the way to
43:01
the future is to have different people from all around the world with different talent but also with different kind of
43:08
cost attached how the flexibility is and all this um and I’m not saying that
43:13
anytime soon we are going to be like in the movies where for every movie you kind of you know for shooting you bring
43:18
in all those people and then they all leave and maybe you call them again two years right I don’t think that will ever
43:24
happen in gaming but thinking a little bit in those principles what’s behind that I think totally makes sense okay I
43:32
follow up here so in theory that would be a remote
Making Remote Collaboration Work
43:37
collaboration if you were to do that so if you were to work with a lowcost country cuz I had a question prepared
43:43
and the question is if you were looking to partner with a lowcost country like
43:48
partner is the key word there this wouldn’t be necessarily Outsourcing like hey do these assets because that doesn’t
43:54
need I guess much nuance there’s probably a little but when you said partner in terms of maybe for projects
44:00
or multiple projects that seems quite difficult because I’ve spoken to a lot of Founders and I’ve met them they said
44:06
they’ve struggled with managing their team going from the pandemic time to now
44:12
like having a good remote Studio let alone doing that now with another Studio which has completely different culture
44:18
and their own built-in Studio culture so that sounds very difficult and I’m guessing you’ve seen this a few times so
44:24
very direct question here is like how do you make remote work work first of all again truth and what’s
44:31
really the reality of things right you know this is if you are in your company and you get remote workers who are part
44:38
of your company in some cases that’s not fully true because they’re not having the same social benefits because they’re
44:43
not employed because they only work on contract and so on so first of all be real what does it mean for the
44:49
individual right you know this is I know it sounds a bit weird but some of our Studios started to say okay that’s the
44:55
core of the studio where you know we have the core benefits the intention is that everybody can stay
45:01
forever and then we attach you know even Freelancers we we we use for all the time but we are open to them that no
45:08
they are not in the same group right that doesn’t mean that we treat them as
45:15
you know uh bad people or whatever but you know they have different benefits there’s different stuff going on you
45:21
know if if we invite them to our company um on site for work related things yes
45:27
sure we pay but if we do uh you know we are munic if we go to the October Fest which is more kind of a you know party
45:34
thing maybe they have to pay on their own um because it’s not necessarily something I take over again this is not
45:40
about creating uh the the the ruling class versus the worker class but to a
45:46
degree it is right it’s just that you are clear about it uh and so on if you
45:52
talk about partners and and you know even companies um it’s simar but different right you know this is
45:58
when Outsourcing started right again going into stereotypes um people thought you know I Outsource to wherever right I
46:05
just give them the work work package and then it comes back it’s all great they pay them done it’s never that easy right there’s
46:13
issues there’s communication you know how many times can I tell them to do something better so you have to build
46:18
that relationship anyway how do you do that you maybe go there once right even
46:23
the kind of you know old school physical raction having uh a drink even without
46:30
alcohol being California sober whatever right you know you prefer a um go into this and spend that time so start
46:36
building a true relationship because you’re looking for partner and not just for some uh Anonymous rocker drone R uh
46:43
especially in something like gaming um and then you know um there’s even variances here right you
46:50
know you can say it’s just Outsourcing you could say um it’s Coda codev is already very different right you can go
46:57
um and what’s normally called embedded so those guys even from a different company are working on the project like
47:03
they would be your team so they are all the daily standups and um so there’s already these degrees then you could say
47:10
hey the relationship after one to three years is actually great let me become a partner in your company so you either
47:16
invest or give them other benefits and so on so you take over some shares of the company and so now you know just
47:23
some shares maybe you’re just a cousin and uh kind of as a picture maybe then
47:28
at one point in time they become your brothers or if you want to take them fully over because someone wants to have
47:33
less accountability Etc they become a daughter company right um and but
47:39
discuss these path and always be again expectation management show a bit of
47:44
vision don’t overpromise don’t tell them they will all be the same U from one day to the other no it’s a journey it’s a
47:52
path stuff can happen and you have to understand that you need to invest in that relationship especially if you want
47:57
to build it long term there a few points there so when I
48:03
was recruiting fulltime contractors for Studios I actually used to advise the
Why Hierarchy Matters in Remote Teams
48:10
studio the best relationships are usually when they are treated as if they are the same as the team so you don’t
48:18
necessarily keep them from the core communication so they’re on the same slack channels they on the standups and
48:24
they I guess treated as a team member and the majority of Studios had that but from what you said that’s slightly
48:30
different so I just wanted to double click on that like what is the benefit of having that hierarchy like what does
48:36
that actually look like in practice why would it be beneficial for the studio and in my case I would use the word
48:42
contractor to be I guess really outlined like that is the case like these are
48:47
separate I give you an example right you know you you form a company in in a certain city um you have 20 50 whatever
48:54
people you build it over years BL it becomes a tight-knit group right um
49:00
then you work with someone remotely even a group you make them
49:05
equal no offense socially they aren’t because they are not going to a
49:11
beer with you in the evening so yes certain kind of you know understanding the other person how we deal with each
49:18
other is way more difficult to do I’m not saying that what you said is
49:24
not something you should aim for but it makes it way more difficult so in some
49:29
cases why not be a little bit more honest and and Direct in it right uh
49:35
I’ll give you another example I know tons of Studios which over time were 100% bought by either bigger Studio or
49:43
by publisher and so on then you know in that Spirit they go there and say hey you’re not one of us La we do this
49:49
together and so on and then it’s a decision on what game to make next do
49:56
you really think that that 100% own studio now is making that decision on
50:02
their own like they did before of course not so a lot of these
50:07
relationship become to a degree fake there is kind of a legal side of the
50:14
relationship you know that example you know the mother owns the daughter 100% they can tell them 100% what to do and
50:21
so on and then there is kind of the the relationship we try to live as we are
50:26
all equal we do this together then and so on and then of course there is ultimately the truth which is kind of a
50:33
mange and radical caner the mange is the worst if you know then your boss comes
50:40
in and tells you it’s all Democratic it’s all collaboration but in the in the
50:45
kind of you know specific moments it’s not it’s Hollow it’s fake um this is why I’m
50:53
saying relationships are very difficult even on a personal level if you go and
51:00
make games which is difficult lots of failures lots of you know dreams
51:06
shatter in some of those things my advice is to rather be a bit more G me
51:12
in a way you know now the relationship level is level two well how do we reach level five and maybe we reach level 10
51:19
but you know dude you want to behave like level 10 we’re not there yet because we just met yesterday um why not
51:25
have that comp a even if you use the gaming language everybody will get it and as long as you give them you know
51:34
benefits and uh ideally a path forward and are explicit on how they gain more
51:40
experience points to reach level 10 um I think this is much more real and makes more sense and ultimately will be
51:46
especially long term way more successful does that make sensey it does
51:51
it does and here when you say the last part like making it very explicit like we’re at level two because of course we
51:57
are we just met it’s remote there’s only logistically so much time we can spend together but then you can reach level
52:05
five and then ultimate level 10 if we maybe do four quarterly um a year where
52:11
in person and we been through a Sprint for example and then we can kind of level up socially like you said I like
52:19
that it’s it’s the same with trust right you know they this is I had so many conversation especially with more Junior people who were like don’t you trust me
52:27
me come on really do you want me to trust you with my wife all my money with
52:33
my life [ __ ] off right this is stupid right this is totally under complex
52:38
right so this is why for example again in our company we nearly every all the
52:43
time um I ask them how confident are you on a scale one to 10 right you just um
52:50
trust you know do I trust myself a 10 out of 10 sometimes I’m not so sure
52:58
and so on I think it’s pretty obvious right um and again if you’re explicit about it you don’t have these awkward
53:05
situations no I don’t trust you oh but you should right it it’s nonsense right
53:11
yeah I think it’s just being a bit more I guess practical with these things and literal rather than making it personal
53:17
it feels like we’re just making it very clear that also take the ideology out of it right you know this is I’m totally up
53:23
for peace and world and happiness in the world right who isn’t but I have to acknowledge that we are living in a
53:29
physical world we live in and we have to deal with certain things how they are right and you know I think you know if
53:36
I’m ultimately not successful I don’t want it to be mainly driven by naivity
53:42
um and again talking about entrepreneurs right um I think it’s our job to get
53:48
more real and deal that with that right yes I realized I haven’t asked a
53:55
light-hearted question we’ve been intense I like this is all good stuff
Hendrik’s Favorite Part of the Job
54:00
but I’m curious like what’s the favorite part of your job CU I’ve asked a few CEOs if this I guess um label of like
54:09
CEOs always firefighting is real and a lot of them say yes so I was wondering like in your day today like what’s the
54:15
favorite part of your job the favorite part is a couple of
54:20
favorite Parts um I love to especially work with more Junior people who have uh
54:25
the mindset to grow I love that right this is why I do this pan club and so on right then to to see the differences
54:32
guide them support them on how they drive their own path that’s one of the things I love then I love advocating
54:40
about our industry um I deal with lots of politicians if I wouldn’t have at
54:45
least partly fun of it uh why would I do it after 15 years uh so that’s something
54:51
I really like you know I love to have conversations I love to have and formulate and come to
54:57
opinions uh so diving into challenges and you know uh decisions to be made
55:04
many times are actually like it right um even if it’s difficult obviously I like the the the whole culture i i i play all
55:11
the games you know I’m a full-blown nerd right you know this I play the games the coming mons uh you know that that’s is
55:17
not an ideal question as in one I what game has taken the most brain space uh
55:25
in my life time I’m 48 soon right and it’s probably Civ the whole series I
55:32
played that a lot right ungodly amount of hours and you know how to beat it on on the
55:39
highest difficulty and you know uh playing it till late and then waking up in the morning kind of knowing what to
55:44
do next and uh all that stuff right that that that probably um I I spent the most mind share in
55:51
right um and uh but there’s so many other games right we talked about MML I freaking loved Ultima Online right you
55:58
know this is being able to you know I wasn’t like a player killer but um being
56:05
able to do that and also the thrill of going out and maybe I get killed and someone steals all my stuff and tell
56:10
that to one of those people um who already Knack if it the a queue in front of a dungeon takes one minute too long
56:17
right we lost all our stuff dude um that’s punishment right um but I loved it uh one of my other favorite games is
56:23
Alfa centuri which is of course a as if in in a different um manner still love
56:29
playing Shooters right I I pride myself um that I um can still shoot 14 year
56:35
olds in the Hat right um in a shooting multiplayer with a track Ball by the way uh which is even a bigger insult to them
56:42
um but yes um I’m not like high high-end but I’m still pretty good uh I like that
56:48
uh I love playing uh survival games um especially with friends right you know with my CEO CFO we regularly play some
56:55
of those have a good time um you know one of them of course valheim during Co was freaking awesome uh we had a a
57:03
server by the company uh on one of those kind of events we did we invited others from the company to come visit our place
57:11
right and we were two guides on the server stuff like that is awesome and um
57:17
ultimately uh I I have a thing for idle games um which for the moment I stopped
57:22
playing because I felt a little bit too addicted I played three or four at the same time um so that was a bit much I
57:29
guess um so I I’m getting uh off it and try to deal with my dopamine Management
57:37
in different ways um don’t play yeah I played the demo on one of
57:43
the next fests and it’s was like I’m not going to touch it again um but I think they obviously did a amazing job uh on
57:50
on doing that game and but there there’s so many right you know this is one of the most emotional ones uh experience I
57:57
ever had was gone home this is uh I mentioned how old I am playing gone home
58:04
felt like going back to my being a teenager 14 15 years old the grunge right you know I had long hair can you
58:10
imagine uh you know looked little like Cain love grunge and all that stuff playing gun home when I finished it I
58:17
think for like 20 30 minutes I was just confused right I didn’t know if I should cry or be happy or just so emotionally
58:25
uh taken by that experience W I just brought the game up and I remembered PewDiePie playing it and yeah wow throw
58:32
back yeah and it’s is um so especially when game can touch me in in in a
58:39
certain way or when it’s already 3:00 in the morning maybe I did a couple of substances or something right um you
58:47
know it’s awesome um so I still enjoy good gaming sessions so much right you
58:54
mentioned the Padawan club and you how many games you play I think you’re the most gamer gaming CEO I’ve spoken to so
Balancing Game Development and Gaming Habits
59:03
and I say that as a compliment but also there’s a bit of curiosity here is like number one how do you manage but number
59:11
two I’ve heard some criticism sometimes from I guess people who are building a studio and they may be playing too
59:19
much like isn’t there a fine line from what I hear from you I feel like there’s a balance but again one time you saying
59:27
you playing Civ too late at night and then you go in the morning and you played Four Idol games at a time there’s
59:32
either some magic I’m missing or like how do you have the balance and maybe any tips you can give to others yeah
59:38
sure um first of all how do I manage is um it’s also life circumstances right
59:43
I’m married but I don’t have kids um and I think in many many circumstances if
59:49
you get older this is one of the reasons why you spend less time playing games what I sometimes joke about though is
59:55
when people say I don’t have time I have exactly the same time as you right it’s just a matter how we spend it right so
1:00:01
it’s a matter of priorities and um next thing is I play a lot of games just to
1:00:07
check it them out right um and I also realize when a game becomes
1:00:14
work I’m not totally against grind right you know sometimes grind is soothing and
1:00:20
and all this but I became way better over the years to basically just uh uh
1:00:26
what I’m doing here right now I don’t want this I don’t need it out right I was comment on the 100 games a year but
1:00:33
now that explains it yeah exactly um and um you know also I was never into the
1:00:39
Esports side of things right you know this is I I totally respect all those guys who play counter strikes and 15
1:00:46
years and do the tournaments and all this but for me gaming was never a sport I’m a curious culturally
1:00:53
interested person I want to have the new experiences I want to see the new thing
1:00:59
from someone who thought I do something crazy now I want to dive into this that
1:01:05
is interesting to me um and um couple of other things you know of course uh my
1:01:11
pile of Shame is in absolute numbers quite high but I don’t know I have like 3,000 and a bit games on Steam my play
1:01:18
rate is more than 50% right um must be some record there
1:01:24
then um and uh what else I also you know if it’s getting too much let let’s you know I
1:01:31
have to admit I fired people early on who play too much oh because you know yeah because they you know they came in
1:01:37
late every day they nearly fell asleep because they played you mentioned it World of Warcraft every day for 3:00 and
1:01:44
then you know slept four five hours and I told them dude I totally you respect
1:01:49
you digging into this but it’s not it’s then a second time third time fifth time
1:01:55
and then it went it’s like I think you don’t have your parties stra set straight right again I’m not just
1:02:01
laughing laughing laughing firing I’m telling them early on right you know I think you on a path which is not sustainable and then I tell them again
1:02:08
and then I give them advice I share stories of my own and and so on but at one point in time it becomes their
1:02:13
accountability to either change something or face the consequences and um so yes that that I think um kinds of
1:02:20
ss about also you know I during the week I it’s a very long time time ago that I
1:02:26
stayed up too late to still play the game very long time ago can I still do
1:02:31
this on the weekend on a Friday oh [ __ ] 4:00 yes I can and I do right um many
1:02:38
times you know whatever a big Triple A game uh action adventure comes out uh
1:02:44
last of us something I finish it on the first weekend right because I also have that ambition right you this I have a
1:02:50
bit this Obsession about it and I’m aware of it right um
1:02:56
that that’s that’s kind of where I am as a gamer yeah I feel like there’s that healthy balance but from the sound of it
1:03:03
it’s just you got to really I guess know your limits where and be very clear yeah
1:03:09
exactly and you know just one more turn C right you know it is obviously a meme
1:03:15
and uh was I always able to just quit the next turn no but not another 25
1:03:22
right there you go yeah small wins I’m having that with batro I did a comment
1:03:27
on someone’s post and I said batro is so good I uninstalled it and they said the
1:03:32
batro devs are screaming right now because like ah the game was too good but then I yeah or just recently I
1:03:39
played the Marvel Rivals right which is definitely touch that because I used to play too much OverWatch I was like I
1:03:45
ain’t touching Marvel Rivals yeah this is ID installed uh I like it but also I
1:03:50
have to admit that how the matchmaking is done and so on [ __ ] me up a lot right it doesn’t feel fair and I have
1:03:56
you know sessions where I’m is it like pup like old school cold Call of Duty
1:04:01
where it’s just random it’s not skill match making it’s not skill uh and it’s also so fast right I you know they want
1:04:09
the dopamine flowing right you know this is uh you very rarely wait uh really
1:04:15
long for the next game exactly and then uh even sometimes you if you don’t play
1:04:20
rank you put into the map um you know it already started right that you have this
1:04:26
constant kind of dopamine rush and what I also don’t like is you know some matches your team dominates you know
1:04:34
feels good once but if you dominate then again and again it’s kind of the flow Theory right if it’s too easy then it’s
1:04:39
boring and then the next one you get completely
1:04:45
owned this is frustrating to me right you know this is this is this is kind of that becomes kind of a luck thing um and
1:04:52
I want to feel I’m getting better at things right so I also play other Shooters and there’s definitely others
1:04:58
where this works way better for me so the installed mod Rivals will probably never revisit again ever Fair all righty
1:05:05
we’re coming to a close here we’ covered a lot of topics I wanted to I just ask you directly is there anything you’d
Advice for Gaming Industry Leaders
1:05:11
want to get off your chest that we haven’t covered if you want to become an
1:05:16
entrepreneur and I think we covered this a bit be there and open that this is
1:05:22
going to be an intense ride so this is more I you know awareness again cult Direction uh really understand that this
1:05:29
is a profession in itself being a leader being a CEO if that’s what you’re aiming
1:05:35
for um and take that seriously besides we also covered it again find allies
1:05:42
find support find mentors don’t do this alone um especially in times like this
1:05:48
feeling alone is really bad and it can lead down a dark path so do the work
1:05:56
stay vigilant don’t give up try to see positive things dive into habits read
1:06:03
books like Atomic habits understanding these things better about yourself about psychology and all this and one last
1:06:10
thing you said we were already going deep for my taste you could go way deeper and way more Punchy but maybe
1:06:17
that’s a thing for another time I like that um to go to do that because again
1:06:23
uh I think we need more opinions we need attitude and uh we also ideally have people in the world who also stick to
1:06:31
values and principles uh and not just uh change them on a daily basis love it
1:06:37
sweet I’ll ask one more question because I I should you mentioned is a hard time
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Game Developers
1:06:43
for a young person to join the industry but I have a god brother he’s been
1:06:48
trying to get into for a good year and a half I recently sponsored him to do a game design course um with a previous
1:06:54
guest called Alex brazy which is a bit more practical and he’s someone who I know he’s going to get it and he’s
1:07:00
working minimum wage so with that context in mind some people will ignore your advice potentially and just try to
1:07:06
get in the industry now like what would you tell them first of all if they really believe they have the will and
1:07:15
the right amount of talent then be my guest go go in go in
1:07:20
the pit right do it why do I say the right amount of talent you know you know this right it’s not about Peak Talent
1:07:28
what really makes you successful is doing it again doing it again not giving up right um the training how to become a
1:07:35
master is 10,000 hours right that’s the spirit if you have that
1:07:41
feeling go into the industry go you know to a degree at the moment sorry to say
1:07:48
but go exploit yourself do minimum wage um and so on start climbing the ladder
1:07:54
get that experience show your colleagues your company that you really want
1:08:00
this and there will be better times so now it’s a more hard environment uh
1:08:07
where you can prove yourself under Fire right to use the this kind of picture um
1:08:13
and as long as you also look out for yourself to not die Under Fire right um
1:08:20
then to a degree what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger so it’s not
1:08:26
a 100% bad idea to do uh that and go into the game industry now but you have
1:08:32
to be aware it’s not going to be easy love it and couldn’t agree more amazing
1:08:37
so hendrik thank you so much really enjoyed this podcast and for everyone at home we’ve covered a lot of ground here
How to Connect with Hendrik
1:08:44
but obviously there’s only so much to cover in an hour so I would say hendrik where can people find you and learn more
1:08:50
about you of course on uh the internet uh first of all you can check out our
1:08:56
website uh with us some information but please feel free everybody is invited to add me on LinkedIn uh don’t add me on X
1:09:04
unless you want me to see screaming at vatnik and all this right um that’s uh a
1:09:10
little bit more hardcore uh I’m also since recently on Blue Sky and um what
1:09:15
else is there and of course uh I’m regularly at shows uh one of the shows I
1:09:21
love the most is reboot in ctia uh I always there uh please do not shy away
1:09:26
from just approaching me say hi uh diving in and of course one of the most
1:09:32
easy things to do and more traditional just send me an email fantastic so that is RCP doam very cool website and that’s
1:09:41
Hendrick lesser on LinkedIn you can find those details in wherever you’re listening to this podcast and Shameless
1:09:46
plug if you enjoyed this podcast maybe share with your team you probably have a slack pop it in there that is the best
1:09:51
way this podcast will grow and hendrik again thank you so much thank you very much it has been a
1:09:57
tremendous pleasure and maybe to another time