Joakim Achrén: Investing in Games

Joakim Achrén, “the gaming startup guy”, is a games investor, and founder of Elite Game Developers, which provides advice for game founders. He co-founded Next Games (which was acquired by Netflix), and worked as Director of Analytics at Supercell.

Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/VEd3uedgY7g

Transcript

Amy: [00:00:20.6] Joakim Achrén is a games investor and the founder of Elite Game Developers, a popular newsletter for game studio founders. As a studio founder himself, Joakim is uniquely positioned to understand what it takes to make a game studio successful.

Joakim: I do look at people who are exceptional in one way or another. And I think the exceptionality usually is not thinking about the game but thinking about the market and then figuring out what game works for the market. I love that approach and I've seen success in that approach a lot more than, oh yeah, I love this game. Let's make this game.

Amy: Join us as we [00:01:00] explore the business of gaming and the challenges and opportunities of being a games investor.

Today we have Joakim Achrén here with us. Did I pronounce that right? Joakim? 

Joakim: Yeah, it’s, it’s good.

Like I, I love all the different versions. 

Amy: Okay. 

Joakim: Oh, I love that. Yeah. the finished version is, uh, Joakim. 

Amy: Joakim and last name 

Joakim: Achrén. You got that? Really like that one. Well, that was superb. 

Amy: Awesome. Anyway, welcome to Game Thinking TV.

Joakim: Thanks. Thanks, Amy. It's great to be here. 

Amy: So excited to get to talk to you and find out more about your fascinating background, what you're doing now, what you're excited about in the future. So, let's start with a glimpse into your work life. So sure, you worked in games for many years, now you're a gaming investor.

What does your day look like? Who are you talking [00:02:00] to? Who, what kind of decisions do you make? 

Joakim: Yeah, it's a really good question. if I just peek into my calendar, it's probably full of, different investors, across the board that I'm collaborating with, talking with, some portfolio companies.

There's a bunch of new companies as well that I'm looking at. Usually my mornings are dedicated to content creation for elite game developers, which is my newsletter and podcast. So like I, I do spend a couple of hours every day. Working on content. and I think it's, it's an area where I really don't want to drop the ball at all.

So it's just a lot of focus on putting in an effort there and then taking care of the calls in the afternoon. So that's my typical day. 

Amy: Tell us more about elite game developers. What motivated you to start that? 

Joakim: Well, I was a founder for several years. I had an itch to create content already between.

Starting my last company, next games and the time as I was at Supercell for a few years. Like I had the feeling that I wanna start sharing [00:03:00] content online, like podcasting was picking up in the early 2000 tens and blogging already was a big thing, so, Newsletters as a format yet wasn't like the big thing.

Then I was like jumping off the operational side of next games in 2019 and I was really obsessed with bringing in a new format, like newsletters and, creating a newsletter that people would recognize as,as the go-to source for gaming startup founders. so that was the premise. I didn't really know how it's gonna go.

It felt okay, it might be that. It's not big enough that there's not big enough audience. although now four years later it's grown to, to close to 10,000 subscribers. So I think I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out. Then. Like I don't really know any, a lot of founders who don't know the newsletter, so I think that's already a sort of like a criteria that I'm happy with.

Amy: Awesome. So tell us about your syndicate that you've created that's associated with the elite game developers, cuz that's pretty fascinating. 

Joakim: Yeah, [00:04:00] it was a, it was an idea like, you know, Jason Calacanis, who's, who's the host of All-In Podcast, and he's been around for a long time creating content and talking about his angel investing stuff.

So he, he wrote a book, five years ago, came out, I was reading the book, and he talks about his syndicate model that he, brings in a group of PE people, sort of like a, like you can join and we're gonna invest together. Jason creates leads the deal. He also takes a carry interest from basically a profit share of the total sum invested by the group.

So, I didn't know if I could do it in Europe because it felt like Angel list and all those facilities were pretty much a US and, bay area focused endeavor. So I started studying that for a few years. did personal angel investing, tried to set up something in Finland, as these kind of like special purpose vehicles where the syndicate could invest.

I kicked it off, did about 10 deals in Finland. With this finish setup and then started expanding it. And now I'm working with a UK based [00:05:00] provider that helps me with the administration stuff for that. so it's a group of, gaming executives on a Slack group, slack channel or workspace.

So I have probably 230 people now on the Slack group, and I present a deal that, hey, there's this startup that is raising. This is the terms, this is why I think it's a good deal. Here's the pitch deck. Here's an interview I recorded with the founder. What do you say? Are we doing this? And then I post it on the slack, and then I start co collecting commitments from people like 5k, 10k, and then we usually go up to 200k and then we close it down, and then I start the process with that.

I mean, and then we invest. So, it felt like this is something that we should have because it's involving a big bunch of people who not necessarily are investors, but they can get into that realm through my syndicate. So I think I've introduced Angel investing to at least a hundred people in gaming throughout the last two years.

Amy: That's impressive. So they, so they don't have to be accredited investors? 

Joakim: Well, most of them [00:06:00] are European and we don't have those accreditation laws here, so I think it, we've sort of like bypassed that, hurdle. But like I do have some US based investors who are accredited, so it's a good bunch of people.

Amy: Interesting. Do you feel like over the years that you've been, developing that and investing with that syndicate, looking back, do you feel like that group makes smarter decisions than any one individual? 

Joakim: It's a good question. I was observing this a while ago on my newsletter where I wrote the 10 lessons that I've learned from two years of running the syndicate.

And one of the things was like 2021 when things were so frothy all over the place,money was so cheap. And like it, like now looking at that period, I could basically come up with any kind of deal and people would follow, like it would be. You know, filled up in, in a matter of like hours.

And now this year I've done deals that can't really reach like even a quarter of the allocation that we have. Because people are just pulling back a lot. So I think it, it really reflects on [00:07:00] decision making. Sure there might be things that can be identified better with a group, but, I do like to bet on a lot more earlier deals than what I've seen.

the general sort of group of people who are coming in through this group who might be very much scared about backing a founder that they don't know. They haven't met them, they haven't had a call with them too. Maybe it's too early, but I could have conviction over a deal that the group doesn't have.

So it's, it depends. 

Amy: And it sounds like the macro environment is the biggest influencer. 

Joakim: Yeah, for sure. it's a big deal. People did lose a lot of money in the last two years and, There’s not that much to go around with right now for startup investing for sure. 

Amy: Interesting. So let's wind it way back and talk about how you first got into tech and gaming.

You know, the field of gaming has people from so many different backgrounds. One of the things I love about it, and everyone finds their own way. So how did you find your way? 

Joakim: Yeah, I was like a [00:08:00] hobbyist as a kid, coding stuff. so. I had an Amiga 500, which is like, uh, the most coolest computer ever.

Unfortunately it didn't last for long, but that machine was really where I learned to code. built a lot of like hobbyist games. then in the PC I started making more proper games. So, I was a coder always. and then during university, I was doing, an internship at a company, which was doing early mobile games, text-based , or WAP protocol-based games, like black and white mobile games.

This is like 2000, 2001. nobody was playing those games, but still, felt like, oh yeah, this is so. convenient when you have a gaming device with you in your pocket. like it felt like the obvious thing. Of course, it took another 10 years to realize that possibility there. But yeah, that, that was kind of like what sparked me into gaming was the understanding of mobile and the possibilities there.

Amy: Wow. So I noticed, you had a job as a metal worker. Yeah, one of your first jobs just, I can't resist. what was [00:09:00] that? 

Joakim: Yeah, long story short like version, it was really hard, where I was growing up in the city, just after graduating high school, I, in Finland you have a, like a, the army, conscription, sort of like you need to go to the army. So I did that for stint and then they threw me out because I had a dislocating shoulder, which you can't have if you go to the Army. So they gave me the free pass. So I didn't know what to do.

Like I didn't have a, like a, a spot at any college or university yet. So I decided to pick up any kind of job I could. So I went to this metal factory. To do a lot of black factory work, which is really like a life changing experience to, to understand what it's like to be a, like a real, like somebody who has their hands full of work.

So yeah. 

Amy: What did you take from that?

Joakim: Yeah, so you know, going to work, doing stuff that probably isn't the most aspirational work, but still getting to work with an awesome team of people. I think the camaraderie and like the things I still think about today now that I'm working on elite game [00:10:00] developers doing in this investment work as a solo project, pretty much.

I still want to collaborate with other investors because I think the camaraderie of doing things together, even though you're not in the same company, like it's so beneficial. So that's what I picked up from that job. 

Amy: That's fascinating. I can totally relate. I always feel like relationships are forever, but companies and jobs come and go.

Joakim: Yep. Yeah, you can build those onwards forever. Yeah, 

Amy: exactly. And then interestingly, you formed a company called Iron Forge and you were making a mobile virtual world long ago, and then you pivoted. But what possessed you to wanna build a mobile virtual world? you know, decades ago when you were doing that?

Joakim: Yeah, it's kind of like Metaverse 1.0 if we're now in the Metaverse 2.0. Mm-hmm. The, so I think Amy, we talked about this, like you were also involved in that sort of way with Second Life and all those like companies.

Amy: Right. Theyr.com Yeah. I was actually a [00:11:00] vp at Theyr.com, so yeah, I wrote that way. Yeah.

Joakim: It was a good way.

It was like a fun, like it was also at probably a problematic way because there was no revenues, in that era. or very limited. and also the data driven aspect of making these services was still so, such a like in its infancy. but yeah, the inspiration came from looking at companies likes in Finland who was doing HaBO Hotel and Oh yeah.

And yeah. So okay, I want to try something like this with a, like a sims, tamagotchi kind of approach on your phone. So we, we started making Java handset based, virtual world. So it was like, there was too many buzzword and too little concrete things that really worked.

So I think. We have always been in gaming real. I'm fascinated about the next thing that can happen, but I think the lesson there is that do you really know what your users want? Or is this something that they want to spend time with? Is it entertaining? Is it fun? so I, I definitely learned that the hard way there with the first company.

[00:12:00]

Amy: I can relate. And then how did you find your way to super sell? 

Joakim: Yeah, that was, like we tried to get that virtual world working for a while and then we pivoted to Facebook games. Just a few years before Facebook basically just killed the whole business. So, we did quite well there until it became impossible to operate on Facebook, cannabis and then close down the company when we couldn't raise another round.

And I went to Supercell, actually who was starting, at that point in 2011, joined to, to help with the analytics side. And it was amazing to see the team. Being built, like basically like the team getting hired, people were coming in who was like, who were amazing game makers. And, it was really difficult first off, like they were still on Facebook canvas, impossible to, to scale really there.

And then the mobile, sort of like window opened and the teams pivoted to mobile games. So I think it's one of those moments like you're at the right place at the right time with the right team. So that's Supercell. 

Amy: So you were, so [00:13:00] you joined them fairly early? 

Joakim: Yeah, I was the 20th like employee or something when they were like in a small, like very small office.

Amy: Yeah. That must have been amazing. So, Supercell is famously the creator of some astonishing mega hits on mobile, but I've also heard repeatedly that Super Cell does something.

That I've seen the very best game studios do, which is they do tons of early prototyping, tons of early testing. Yeah. And then only the very best games make it through a lot of projects. Don't make it through to ship because they're always testing and refining. Can you speak a little bit to what you saw at Supercell about how projects actually get shipped versus experiments that get shelved?

Joakim: Yeah, like the good thing, like at that stage was that like there was, there's five projects going on for mobile actually when I was there. [00:14:00] And two of those we know very well. So heyday and clash of clients and,the other projects like, I, I think the learnings there are like, you really need to know what is proven on like free to play.

This kind of realm that they were doing operating in. I think the other projects were too innovative. to be honest, like there, there was a lot of mechanics that weren't proven versus, this kind of like base builder battler game already had proof on, on Facebook, cannabis also farming games were working really well.

So I think that was something that was really helping the company in those early days. I think with these kind of like shelving projects, it. I think there's nuances in mobile that have been discovered over the years, like things like, oh, you really don't know un unless you bring in a scale of you know, critical mass of users into a game and then it starts working.

Like I, I believe the roll stars actually finally started working after they decided to open more countries to bring in [00:15:00] like tens of thousands of. Daily actives versus like just running a Canadian or a Australian soft launch where you're running in cohorts and seeing what happens. I think that's something that doesn't really work when you're trying to build this kind of a massive gaming sort of like world, which is a super sell game.

So I don't know what happened with ever Dale. I really haven't heard how far they took that experiment. but yeah, it's, I think the dynamics of mobile have changed a lot in the years from like 2012. It's totally different now. 

Amy: It's really interesting. So you're talking about the importance of proven mechanics, of understanding that a certain thing is proven and not going too far ahead.

However, lots and lots of companies do the fast follow thing. They look at proven mechanics, proven games, do a clone with a few twists, and often that doesn't work, but somehow super cell. Has managed to do these massive hits. Do you have any sense about what's the difference between all the fast copy [00:16:00] studios and Super Cell?

Joakim: I think Super Cell was there first. Like with a real quality product early on. It's super hard to follow, when somebody's already set the bar super high. I think that's what Super Cell does really well. It's done the same with Pro Stars Clash Royal, Where you already have such a quality title, not like somebody else trying it out.

oh yeah, we're gonna, you know, use the same mechanics. You end up with the same audience who's already picked the game they want to play. If they're playing that game, that kind of a game, like why would you like the Fast follow didn't, doesn't work really. although like the proven mechanics that Super Cell utilized, they were the first people there on the platform.

So, yeah. 

Amy: Right. So that's interesting.

So games investing is really tricky as you know, better than probably anybody. So you've had some years and some investments under your belt now. Yeah. When you're meeting with a team who wants your investment, what are some of the [00:17:00] signals you see that make you lean forward, wanna know more and think, ah, this might be it.

Joakim: Yeah. That's a good question. I've been thinking about it a lot. I, cuz like I've been, so in the last four years, I've also been a part of Play Ventures as a part-time vc. I've been looking and helping with the portfolio companies. I think that's helped me a lot in creating more of a, like a side and sense for what kind of founders to back.

So I'm always trying to understand what the founder is thinking versus about the market. Because usually whatever they're doing, what, whatever idea they have, it reflects on what the founder is thinking. if they're doing like a match tree game, it's okay, what is this founder thinking? I need to understand why they picked that.

Do they understand what they're doing? so like I do look at people who are exceptional in one way or another. And I think the exceptionality usually is like in the business sense, are they thinking about go to market, like in an obsessive way? [00:18:00] Or Oh yeah, we just wanna make a, this kind of game. Versus okay, we want to go here into this market because this is the opportunity.

I think that's more, much, much more interesting as a mindset for a founder. Cause that really like shifts towards something I. Interesting as they're keeping to learn, like they're learning more and more as they go forward with their startups, so, yeah. Yeah. 

Amy: So market first versus product first, it sounds Always. 

Joakim: Yeah. Interesting. That's what I've learned, really. Yeah. 

Amy: Yeah. Obviously you've learned it through pattern matching. Yeah. But have there been experiences where you saw that work, where you were kind of surprised, wow, look at that, that worked, but who would've thought it?

Joakim: Yeah, to be honest, not really. there were some like moments in mobile games in the last 10 years where somebody could discover a genre where it required that somebody had the insight in the team. Like one of those companies is small, giant games with empires and puzzles. I think the company was with the founding team.

They were [00:19:00] sort of like experimenting with different kind of sides, growing runner games and really simple casual products. And then they hired one creative from the outside who came in. And that person came up with the idea of empires and puzzles and the whole company shifted, into an RPG studio from making casual games.

And a few years later think bought them for almost a billion, billion dollars. So I think the. The lesson there is that the founders will, were malleable to shift when there was insights that they didn't know about. Like they had a hire that knew what needed to be done, and the founders were ready to embrace that kind of knowledge.

So I think that's also an interesting thing when I'm looking at founders who might be making, a game that I,I don't like at all, it's still okay, who's, who are these people underneath? Like, how good are they? They might just be, you know, not the best makers of game ideas. So they're missing that component in the team.

Amy: Interesting. What are your experiences with founders who've [00:20:00] made games before and are now doing another game versus founder who might be technical but it's their first game? 

Joakim: The repeat people have seen problems. they've gone through a lot of, you know, hardship usually. So that's always a big plus.

so somebody who's going after it, maybe like the problem with the repeat person could be that they're not going into the same area where they. They were challenged before, like if they try to tackle a totally different kind of field, let's say somebody's been doing games and all of a sudden they start building services for games, it's not always something you can transfer those challenges.

so it depends, like I've seen really good pivots from B2C to B2B as well. so then it also goes down to, okay, is this founder somebody who can do anything? Like they could build any kind of. Product because they're so good at the go to market and thinking about the business side of things.

Amy: So that's interesting. So we talked a little bit [00:21:00] about the, you know, let's go signals that make you lean forward and get more interested. And it sounds like a lot of it's about the team and the people and the way they're thinking, particularly the founder. Yep. So on that same note, This is super useful for our audience.

What are some of the lean back signals? The red flags? Like you're listening to a pitch, getting to know someone. Yeah. You see or hear something that makes you go, maybe not, yeah. What are those red flags for you? 

Joakim: Yeah. if the founders aren't really seeing where the puck is going, let's say that you have a.

A group now who would be starting a mobile free to play studio. It's okay, is this the best you could do? it's like very harsh, but like I think you wanna be researching what you're going into and what are the challenges and can you even build something that is venture backable.

Again, that's aa big question that people don't really think about. what is something where you can win in this race of doing staged financing. [00:22:00] Where you're going to pre precede seed series A, like that route, it's pretty, pretty easy to actually think about, okay, like I need to grow this business in a certain way to actually have that stage financing, like path work for me.

And if they're not thinking about that way, I think I can spot them quite easily nowadays. It does create a lot of issues for me that I'm seeing like a. A thousand companies a year, and then I can only bet in a few of them because like it's so rare that people are doing that. So then I do want to sometimes take the founders on this kind of journey to think about oh, should you actually be thinking about these kind of things?

And then, I wanna see what they come up with like in a week or so. And then like when they get back to me, I'll see what they thought about. So. 

Amy: Interesting. Very interesting. So let's dig in on what you mentioned about mobile free to play gaming studio. Is that the best you can do? I think you're talking about this larger trend that's going on in gaming.

So let me prime [00:23:00] the pump. Yeah. And then get your thoughts. so we were chatting before the stream started about the Game Developer's Conference, G D C, which is the big conference that happens every year. Yes. I was able to go to some of that and there were a few really big themes this year, one of which was the, perhaps overstated mobile is dead.

Every person I met up with for coffee or drinks or dinner, Hey, what are you, getting out of the show this year? First thing out of their mouth. Oh, have you heard mobile's dead? Yeah. And of course mobile's not dead, but things are radically changing in that market. Crypto is certainly not as exciting as it used to be.

And AI is everywhere and on everyone's tongue. So what are you seeing from your perspective about what's changing in the gaming landscape and what the smartest founders are thinking? 

Joakim: Yeah, I think there's a bunch of companies who raised in the last [00:24:00] two to three years for mobile free to play, and the challenge for them is like, how do they actually go to the next stage?

Do they ra, can they even raise another round? they might need to go to their existing investors to. Convince them to continue backing them. But it's more about, okay, they need to ship games. They need to get to revenues quite quickly, like show growth, on the runway that they're, they right now have.

So I think that's a good pressure since there's gonna be like the companies that don't really survive this kind of pressure, like likelihood, they would all eventually anyways fault. Like in, in the previous model, the pre I DFA world where UA was still targeting was easier, but the, I think the depth of mobile is quite premature, I would say.

I think there's changes that will happen in the platform. We still have over 3 billion. People who are playing games on phones. So I think it's more about yeah, distribution doesn't work at all like it used to, so let's figure out new things. Right. 

Amy: Yeah. And for folks who don't understand those [00:25:00] major drivers, let's just spell it out, why distribution changed so radically.

Joakim: Yeah, so there was, apple's privacy changes where they decided that it's not okay for developers to actually share private information about users, how they're spending in these games, and share that with the ad networks so that the ad networks could you monetize these users by sending them to another game, like at a very high price tag.

So I think that movement. Made it so that we're not gonna see these billion dollar mobile exits for the foreseeable future unless there's something radically changing, some other way to continue targeting these big spenders and creating like these super games that are top grossing so yeah.

I don't know, like what does it look like though? 

Amy: Yeah, so what you're talking about is changes in UA user acquisition. Yeah, exactly that. And that's really what's on everybody's minds who's been working in mobile free to [00:26:00] play, and a lot of folks are really feeling that pinch now. Let's talk about what's replacing it.

yeah. That's a good question. The big thing that I see is early community building. You know, partly because that's my wheelhouse, you know, understanding how to do that, et cetera. But I've gotten a flood of calls with people saying, oops, can't do this anymore. How exactly is it that you like build that launch community so you can, you know, leverage them, but there's probably other ways as well.

What are you seeing? What kind of shift are you seeing? 

Joakim: I think it's slow. People are still sort of recovering from. Under trying to understand that there is no performance marketing for gaming as it used to be, like, at the same scale. so I think that's a shift that's gradually happening towards everybody embracing an early community.

since it's if you can get like thousands of fans for your game before you ship a game, I think it's okay, it's not like. the big success that you might have thought that, you know, your game will have, [00:27:00] but it's something that you could take your company to break even, like quite quickly.

And if you sort of double down on those early community aspects, you create a, like a email list where you can directly target your users. a discord where you keep like a live ops mentality of the discord going, that people are, anticipating coming back to the discord every day to see what's going on.

I think all those activities are things that people shouldn't leave out in, in, as they're approaching the growth of a game title nowadays. 

Amy: Right. And it's cha the importance of that I think has changed with these, shifts in apple's policies. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 

Joakim: At least that time. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. 

Amy: So you've worked with both first time gaming entrepreneurs and serial gaming entrepreneurs now in your investing career. What are some of the common mistakes that you see folks make that you know, we all have to make mistakes to learn, but you really wish people could like [00:28:00] leverage the learning and not make those mistakes?

What are some of the cul-de-sacs people make or. Just things that you would advise, other startup entrepreneurs to learn from? 

Joakim: Yeah, I think it's, it is the things we've been talking about here, like not thinking about the game, but thinking about the market. And then figuring out what game works for the market.

Like I think it's a, it's an interesting way to come up with ideas as well. if you're brainstorming for ideas, like not just, oh yeah, like those games are really cool, but rather okay, that audience is actually super interesting. They're not being catered to at all. what could be a good game for that audience and just focus on finding that game for the audience.

I, I think I love that approach a lot more and I've seen success in that approach a lot more than, oh yeah, I love this game. Let's make this game. So 

Amy: could you give an example where you've seen success there? 

Joakim: I think on the casual side it's been,Pretty, pretty common place like Word puzzle Games have actually, like somebody's wanted to actually go after people who love, evergreen games.

So they've started trying out different kind of [00:29:00] games, so like puzzle games, card games, things like that. And there's a lot of this under the radar gaming companies out there that are making big casual titles that they could have a portfolio of 20 casual titles, combined like run rate of 20, 30 million a year.

I think that's an awesome business. versus okay, doubling down on one big game that you may be soft in two to three years and you never know if it's gonna work or not. So, 

Amy: Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a real challenge with games to make something interesting often takes a while. Yeah. Yeah. And so how do you get something out there quicker, but.

I wanna circle back to the underserved markets, cuz that's really what you're talking about is identifying and understanding the desires of an underserved market. Yeah, so interestingly, that's literally our approach is figuring that out. And so we do that a particular way. How do you do that? How do, how have you seen smart companies do that?

If someone says, [00:30:00] I love that advice, how do I do it? What would you advise them to do? 

Joakim: Yeah, it's quite tricky actually to start building a knowledge base about an audience. One way to do that is, is actually to bring on your team people who worked with games that are, that the audience that you want to target.

there's a teammate that you have that has experience from working at games that are for that audience, and you can learn from them and then start thinking okay, what is that audience looking for right now? To actually have insights of what they had from previous work. yeah, I think defining like, what is your audience, it really boils down to going after what you want to do.

What,what are the opportunities that you're seeing? sort of like thinking outside of the box of, okay, this is like a, we wanna do a shooter. Like why would you want to do a shooter? I think it's also those questions that I wanna try to ask in those meetings. I have so many questions for the founders usually, and like all of them boil down to like, how do they approach picking something [00:31:00] that they want to tackle, the area where they want to go into.

so I think there's many ways, but I think one of the best ways is to just be obsessed about figuring things out on your own. 

Amy: Interesting. So, Right now as you look out at the market, and I notice because I follow you, and by the way, everybody should follow this brilliant person and we will share a link in the show notes and make sure that you can get links to elite game developers.

But I notice that you play a lot of games as many of the best people in gaming do just, you know, get in there and play. What games right now are doing a good job of delighting their audience? Where are you getting inspiration? What are you enjoying? Good question. 

Joakim: Yeah, there's so many,I do look up to Epic and Fortnite a lot.

I think they're setting up like the example for core gaming as this is the way you need to run a live operation for a big title. So I really [00:32:00] appreciate their work into the being as a role model for everybody who's doing a game that is cross-platform that operates anywhere.

like I think everybody can learn from them. on the mobile side, I think it's. It's still super sell. If you go and look at their titles, they're always pushing live operations of all the Clash clans, clash Royal really heavily. And there's always a delightful return when you come back to those games after a year of not playing.

so these games are just, they're not gonna go anywhere. Like Fortnite is gonna be here in probably in a hundred years, still you know, attracting people to play. So like those kind of inspirations are really amazing.

Amy: UX designer Celia Hoen on, a few weeks back. And, it was really interesting to hear about some of the heavy lifting that went into that amazing game, which of course, yeah. Iterated its way into battle royal's success, right? It wasn't, yeah. Initially a huge success. Another lesson, right? Sometimes, yeah.

Gotta keep iterating. But those are [00:33:00] fantastic examples. Now I can't resist. Digging a little bit into Brawl Stars. Speaking of Supercell Brawl Stars, you mentioned that's a very successful game, but Supercell recently pulled Loo boxes out of Brawl Stars. Yeah. Do you know about that? 

Joakim: No. Actually I have my own op options or my own opinions on these kind of moves.

I think it's when you have a game that is targeted, Or I don't know if by an intention or not, but like the player base is quite young. I think it's a good move for super cell to, to be preemptively thinking about monetization through Gotcha mechanics and things like that. So I really applaud their move, their, it's, I don't know if people need to follow that example, I think there's, there were exception in the crowd of a user base that's very young.

So I would say like for the mature audience games with that have loo boxes, it's, it doesn't really change the dynamics of if you're buying a pack of magic, the gathering cards, you're [00:34:00] still like getting, it's the loo box experience as well. I, it's an endless debate, but I personally feel like it's like a, it's for the mature audience.

I don't, wouldn't categorize it as gambling or anything like that. 

Amy: That's, let's put a pin in that cuz that's a rabbit hole. We could go way down. Yeah, exactly. But I'm really interested in your perspective. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And it's really interesting about Fortnite, et cetera. , so now let's look forward a bit.

So what are the current trends or edge trends that you personally are following and interested in right 

Joakim: now? Yeah. Well, like I mentioned Fortnite, so Fortnite,the creative mode, I think that's, super. Me too. Interesting. 

Amy: Yeah. Tell me more. What are your thoughts about that? I was blown away. I'm like, oh my God, this opens Pandora's box.

Joakim: Yeah. Like my, okay. I love it, like in any way possible. I'm hoping that there's gonna be a lot of winners that emerge as new businesses around this model. that it's not a, you know, that [00:35:00] Epic makes it possible to have a lot of winners. you might think that, okay, there's somebody who's gonna corner that market, but I don't know if there's an opportunity for studios.

If you look at Roblox, who has had this model, I think it's been lucrative, for some developers, but usually you can't really build a game studio that makes Roblox games as a venture backable studio. It's, I haven't seen a successful one emerge yet that really did that off the bat. I, there's a lot of attempts.

Let's see what happens in the near future. But I feel it's if you think about Facebook Canvas, which also was a. Was a gaming, like a creative sort of opening for developers to go and utilize the user base? I believe that the opportunity was there because the competition wasn't that high in the early days, but if you think about Roblox, there has been content built for the platform for 10 years or something.

So now building a gaming studio and Roblox, yeah, it's challenging. And I don't know if it's gonna be the same for Fortnite as well. We'll see what happens. 

Amy: Interesting. Yeah. [00:36:00] Well, one of the things that underlies this shift that ties back to the earlier changes in mobile gaming we're talking about is changing business models.

And I'd just like to know what runs through your mind there. You talked, you touched on the big spenders. You know, it's harder to monetize the big spenders and in free to play what we call whales, aka big spenders, a term that comes from gambling. that was a big part of the monetization, and there's a whole model built around that.

Joakim: Yeah. So with this shift and with platforms like Roblox and Fortnite emerging that perhaps have many medium winners rather than big winners, that also shifts. Possibly how we monetize. what are your thoughts about monetization frontiers and what's gonna be happening over the next year or two? Yeah, I think the area where I'm really keen on seeing things happening is like [00:37:00] pushing. Both ads and in our purchases to direction where, it's not so much about the, like the hunting of the whales, sort of aspect. it's a bit like built in into the performance marketing era of where you're, you know, Spending to get like bigger spenders in, and that's a like forever loop.

So if we're exiting that kind of approach, be great to actually get into more of these kind of like fan based games. Like we were just talking about the early communities that you could be building and then utilizing that community to actually put, strap your game and get it off the ground. So you're leaving and ejecting this whale model because you're not like, dependent on growing a big business through a whale monetization.

I think there's a lot to do in that fan base, audience building and then making that as a, as an interesting way to both for ads and for IAPs. 

Amy: That's really interesting. So shifting more toward a co pop culture fan model. 

Joakim: [00:38:00] Yeah. That would be amazing to see. 

Amy: Interesting. What, we'll keep our eyes open.

so I can't resist, what experience are you having and what's your perspective? On AI right now, there's obviously a flood of things happening. I know the investors in my circles are just getting flooded with various quality of pitches. Yes. So as a gaming investor, how do you digest this and kind of tune what you're doing?

Joakim: Yeah, I think it's, it's a lot of hype and also clutter when I'm looking at a pitch deck and it's sort of, I'm trying to understand what's in this deck because it's full of like different kind of GT four buzzword, mid journey stuff. so like it's been really hard for the last few months to actually see if there's something underlying that is really.

Like a gem,in a pitch that I'm seeing. usually those companies aren't really like pushing the bold font text of AI that much. so it's been difficult, but I'm really like keen [00:39:00] to see like how companies start using AI as a way for players to, to do this user generator content for other players.

I think that's a realm that, that I'm most excited about at the moment. 

Amy: Can you say a little bit more about what you're imagining that might look like? 

Joakim: Yeah, think about like gta, where you have,ai basically A user is using AI to curate like a GTA based, like a world where you have missions, characters, NPCs, like linear story contents.

chat is really good at like coming up with a short story, for instance, already now. Like how far are we actually from translating, like a crime story into a setting in gta. Through this kind of ai, curation. So I don't know, like that's what I'm fascinated about. 

Amy: So game assets. 

Joakim: Yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of where I'm going.

Amy: Interesting. 

Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. and I found this incredibly interesting and I know folks are also gonna be [00:40:00] helpful I mean, it's gonna be helpful to them and everyone.

Elite game developers.com, that's where you can subscribe. You can follow Joakim on LinkedIn and Twitter and other social media. He's awesome. You'll learn so much about gaming and investing and startups. Thank you. 

Joakim: Thanks, Amy.