 Are you guys and girls? Yeah. Anybody alive today? All right. Remember to ask questions, but we'll get down to it. I'm really happy to be here with my good friend, Christian. And I remember back to this one day in Helsinki. It was a summer in 2007. And we, by accident, ran to each other on the street. I was like, hey, Christian, what are you up to? What did you say? I said I was about to set up a new company creating games for social networks. And I was like, I was in racing games for consoles, social networks, like 2007. Facebook's API was just open. And my space was still king of the hill. And I'm like, OK, that sounds interesting. Let's see what happens. And fast forward a few years, it's a multi-hundred million dollar company. What's really interesting is how did you came about with the idea? What were the trends? What were the things that made you identify this market wave that led to the founding of Playfish? Yeah, so I had been, I guess, an entrepreneur previously building a company then called Macrospace. And we went public as Glue Mobile. And in general, I love computer games. And as usual, whenever you set up a new company, it tends to be a mix of frustration on the one hand and identifying an opportunity. And I was incredibly frustrated with the state of mobile games in 2007. This was, remember, pre-iPhone, when the network operators controlled most of the game distribution. And frankly, I felt like it was a race to the bottom when it came to quality. No one cared about players. I was a passionate player myself. And I felt like this cannot be right. Someone needs to fix mobile. But we couldn't do it. So what I wanted to do was try to figure out how to do something else, something else that's really cool in games. And there were really two big areas of inspiration for me. One was the Nintendo Wii, which had launched about a year previously where you could go and play super fun games with your family in front of a screen. And what was interesting to me was how they marketed it. They marketed the Nintendo Wii not by showing what was on the screen, but showing the faces of the players. Because it's fundamentally more fun to play together than to play by yourself. And that was really kind of really profound. And then on the other hand, I had been a Facebook user for about a year, back when Facebook was young and fresh and new and interesting. And that sense of connectivity with friends was really fun. So really what was the dream back then was, hey, what if you were able to create an entertainment experience like the Nintendo Wii but online, a little bit like Facebook? And hence Playfish. It's really interesting how you draw so much on your personal experience. Like, I'm a Facebook user. I like playing on the Nintendo Wii. So it's not really an adult approach. It was a very personal approach. But it's really interesting to say that Nintendo was one of the inspirations. We met playing some of the very first Playfish games and they filled very Nintendo-ish. Was that intentional? Yeah, absolutely it was intentional. We wanted to create very universally appealing games that we ourselves would love, that would have an art style that is incredibly approachable so that everyone can play together. And for us again, it's a really deep sense of personal satisfaction from play. So Facebook gaming absolutely exploded. And you guys, there were three leaders. We had Xenia, Playdom, and Playfish. And EA, a smartly acquired Playfish for 400 million. And you work at EA for three years. It's probably a very different experience for your next executive. And then it took a little bit of break. But knowing you, you were probably looking for the next big thing pretty much today. You came out. So if the last time it was very personal, it was your experience with Nintendo Wii, your experience of Facebook, what turned you to mobile eSports to join the founding team of Super Evil Maker Sport and MegaCorp? What were the trends that you then? Was it also personal? Or was it something bigger? Yeah, you know what it is. It's always personal for me. I don't think you can be in computer games. I don't think you can have a thesis about play without playing yourself a lot, right? Because otherwise it gets pretty abstract and pretty difficult. For me, I actually grew up predominantly as a PC gamer. I love playing and in fact, I remember carrying my own PC to a friend's house to set up a LAN party, trying to get the network protocols working. In fact, I was envious in looking at assembly, going, one day I will be there and playing with everybody else, right? And that sense of LAN party play, competitive LAN party play was for me one of the really foundational experiences for me as a player, like remembering those nights playing together. And that was the thing that was possible on PC. But it was pretty clear that the computing power of mobile devices had come to a point where, like in my mind, like, hey, five, 10, 15 years ahead, everyone will be playing like this because multiplayer gaming together is the most fun way that you can play computer games. It just hadn't happened on mobile yet. So that felt like a really big growth wave opportunity. And so that's why I wanted to get involved. It's clear that if you look at some of the original advertising done for Wayne Glory, either by you or for Apple, you would have people side by side replicating that experience of playing against other people as a team on the side and having the feeling. That's really interesting because you look at, again, it was a personal take on that. You found a team that you wanted to join. And now you just yesterday announced that you're pursuing that dream of playing together further, not just being on mobile but going cross-platform. What's motivating you to say now that the future is post-platform? It's any platform can play together. What's that there? Is it also drawing for your personal experience or is it something that you see that is an industry shift? Well, I think it's both in this case. I think playing together is fundamentally more fun. I play Fortnite with my kids every weekend. And the only thing that isn't great in my mind about that experience is that it feels like you're handicapped if you play on mobile. You're not as good as if you play on PC. And to me, that ruins the togetherness a little bit. It is amazing that you can play together, but if you're not equal between platforms, it's not quite as awesome. And clearly technology has taken us to a place where it is possible to deliver equally compelling, competitively fair experiences between different platforms. And wouldn't it be amazing if you could truly play together regardless of what your native device is? In some ways, gaming has been weirdly divided into PC gamers, console gamers, and mobile gamers, almost as completely different tribes that almost never get to play together. And here's an actual opportunity to do that with both the competitive elements that come with that, but also just the collaborative that I can think of what I want to play with my friends first and then only then really not even think about what platform they're on. It is really incredible that, I would say, the sensation of Fortnite has forced platform manufacturers to relax their rules and allow this. But how do you see us getting over the input mechanisms differences? Because touch is very different from keyboard, which is very different from a VU mode. How do you plan on tackling that? Yeah, so input mechanism is a really good question. It's something we've thought a lot about. In fact, we've worked a lot on over the past year. And I think a lot of it just comes down to respecting platforms and respecting input mechanisms, not relegating one over the others, and just spending enough time to figure it out. And that's frankly the truth of it. It's like everyone said you can't make a first-person shooter on console, and then Halo came along, right? And then you have first-person shooters and they're in fact larger on consoles these days than on any other platform. So it absolutely is possible. You simply have to spend enough time on the game design side and on the input design side to make them good. So if we take a little bit of a step back and zoom out, we think about use being involved in a pioneering gaming company in mobile, then a pioneering gaming company on social games, and then I would definitely, definitely on the category leading, defining company in mobile esports, which is still to be played out, but that wave is still ongoing. But I'm a little surprised that it all comes down to your personal experience. What kind of other people do, because they kind of copy your experience, they kind of clone your genes. There are aspiring entrepreneurs here. What kind of heuristics can you give them to think about market opportunity? Yeah, so for me, it's always been the intersection of two things in some ways. It's on the one hand, and first and foremost, what is awesome? Like, what do you want to play? What's the thing that you yourself personally would want to spend hours and hours and hours on? What is so good that it's worth doing? And there's a lot of stuff that obviously is that. You know, whether it's thinking of putting on an amazing AR headset that could have you chasing around Pokemon in the world, or whether it's fighting with your virtual lightsaber, or maybe it's playing an audio game while you're driving to work, or any of those things. It's like a hundred cool things that you could be doing. So the important thing is then to think about another set of what is feasible and where is the industry at and where are the existing incentives of different players and what are they likely to do? What is likely to be happening, which is more the analytical base of where the industry is likely to go in the next five to 10 years. That's maybe the analytical, if you like, the left brain side of it, and then the right brain side of it, and what's awesome. And then try and find the intersection, and then work on that. Like that's been, I guess that's been my approach. So what I love about that, I think, it speaks to the nature of gaming startups that you really need to breed. If you want to make a gaming startup that makes games, you have to be passionate about games, not just one game, but broadly. You have to really ingest it and leave it, and then figure out where it's gonna go. What's your passion? And secondly, I think that being passionate about games and playing a lot of games will also tell you, maybe, some insights on how the market will change, even if you're not yet on a strategic level. I think that's really cool. Let's talk a little bit about markets, but let's talk a little about investing because you've always done a lot of investing. After PlayFish exited, together with your colleagues at PlayFish, you started Initial Capital. So you're an early set investor. You look at these creative risks. You look at exactly these things, but now you go and say, should I put money on the table and back these guys? What are some of those key characteristics that you look for in those companies that you want to back that could become a category defining company? Yeah, I think so, the things that I look for are actually really similar to the things that I think about every day as a builder of a company, which is first and foremost. You have an incredibly passionate team that has a really clear vision of what they want to make for the player. And this is really important for the player, not for themselves. Everyone can have a great vision about making a lot of money, but that ultimately doesn't, like it's a really dangerous way to approach making any product, and in particular, a computer game. You have to figure out how do you make something amazing for the player? Yeah, it needs to have a viable business model somewhere behind the scenes, but the first and foremost, is it amazing for the player? The biggest car crashes that we've seen in the industry, and frankly, even the biggest mistakes that I've ever been involved in has been whenever a product owner or a driver of a project ends up thinking about, hey, what would be awesome for us as a company, not what would be awesome for the player? So first and foremost, are they passionately, passionately clear about what they're wanting to create for the player? And then secondly, do I believe that there's some level of an opportunity in the industry to go after a thing? Like if you are today pitching a VR gaming startup, no matter how awesome and passionate you might be about it, there are certain industry kind of constraints around how many heads that might be around and so on. So that's the second part. But then there's an important third part around is the passionate team that is pursuing this opportunity that is analytical, like that is likely to be feasible, are they focused or do they have the ability to build out the capabilities in that area, which are world-class? Because gaming like anything is about the 0.1%. It's about the absolute best experiences in an area and making sure that if it, let's say, it's a cross-platform game that you want to make, do you have the engine technology to do it? Do you have the technical expertise? Do you have the design chops to be able to do it? And that comes down to talent and culture. So is the talent that you have on board and the culture that you're building consistent with the opportunity that you are chasing? So ultimately that really is what it comes down to. So you got passion for your player, the ultimate experience they want to have and market opportunity, something that is first chasing, it's not blocked off by constraints and finally talent and culture. I think that's a good checklist for early stage. And it's just really interesting when we think about this because you've lived it, you can extrapolate from what you have and you can look at a company and tell that it could do well. And at the same time, we look at gaming as a business. It's 10 years ago, I was trying to raise funding for my gaming company, it was impossible. Like gaming company was not fundable and it's really extraordinary because in that 10 years we've seen Nordic heroes like Supercell, King and Mojang all go into multiple billion dollar exits. And it's pretty clear that the Vs is no better now. But are there things that they still don't quite get about gaming? Oh, I think gaming is an incredibly difficult thing to invest into. In particular, if you haven't been operating in the game industry, I don't think it's an accident that the most prolific game investors are typically run by people who use to run game companies. Whether you think of London LVP, whether you think of almost any of the initial capital on others. Because it is hard and most VCs are not gamers for one. So they have a very hard time connecting with is this team really connected to their player or not? Does this team feel like they know exactly what they're making and who for? Or is this a business plan that makes business sense but doesn't actually have a creative soul? And I think that's probably the single hardest thing for investors. And I think they are very good at looking at the analytical models and the asking questions like, how are you going to distribute this thing and all of that stuff. There's a lot of good questions that they will ask. And I think they add a lot of value that way. They ask uncomfortable questions. But fundamentally, they have the hardest time, I think, traditional investors do to figure out, does your team's soul is it connected to their player in a way that ultimately is likely to result in a good product? I want to remind the audience, you can still ask questions. We're going to take them in a moment. So please ask or vote. And coming back to this, if you think about a few things in this industry, there are a lot of technical innovation vectors happening. We have crypto gaming. We have cloud gaming. AAA like Fortnite or mobile voice augmented reality. What kind of things excite you now about innovation vectors in gaming and why? Yeah, so I think about this a lot. I think it's actually the most exciting time ever to be a game entrepreneur right now because to your point, there are so many innovation vectors right now. And I actually have a pretty strong opinion on all of them because I don't know. Clearly, I don't know about the future, really. But to me, it really comes down to the thing of like, is it awesome for the player? And what's likely to happen? And there are some very clear corner cases there. Take something like crypto. Is crypto awesome for the player? I have yet to find a thing outside of crypto kitties where somebody can tell me a great example of a game that is better because of blockchain, which is better because of crypto. I see how it's better to raise money when you have crypto in your company title. But how is it really better for the gamer? And I also get that, yes, you own the entitlement to your virtual good. But is it really better? Is it really awesome? And I think crypto could be amazing if someone comes up with a concept that shows that with crypto, this thing is incredible and it can't be done without it. And that, to me, there's lots of supply side things why crypto could be very cool. But is it awesome, for example? And in a similar way, say, VR and AR are both areas which very clearly fulfilled that this is awesome as shit. Like, hey, you could be a Jedi fighting the dark forces or you could have the world augmented with things that you could look for. Lots of super cool things. But then on the supply side, the hardware and ecosystems are so nascent. They're so young that it takes at least five to 10 years from here before we start seeing the kind of install base where you as a company can probably be able to have enough impact to be able to make enough revenue to make it sustainable. So those are examples of things which probably aren't so exciting for me right now. So hence, for me, the things which are really interesting are stuff like, obviously, cross-platform is a really big deal. I think it's a bigger platform transition than any platform transition previously in computer games, because not only is it technically hard, it requires a different approach to technology, it requires a different approach to design a new thinking about business models, but a market that's larger than any other market in computer games ever before, by definition, because it combines all platforms. So that's exciting. But then there's some stuff at the other end, like stuff like voice gaming. Voice gaming, you could, one, it's pretty cheap to get into as a new startup. And there are lots of interesting use cases, like when you're commuting in your car, when you only really have a voice interface, what could you do with that? Now, again, I don't know if it's going to work out or not, but it's very clearly a space where I could imagine that I could have a lot of fun with it. And that tickles my sense of what's exciting. There's promise, and it hasn't been figured out. That's what a startup is about. There's promise, but there is uncertainty, and you don't know how it's going to play out. That's a great place to actually start a company. So looking at the questions we have from the audience, we've been talking about this, but I think it's a good question to ask you. So if you were starting a new company right now, what would you start? Voice. Horse? Voice, no. Horse. I would love to start a horse company, but unfortunately, me and horses have a complicated relationship overall. So yeah, not a horse company now. It's OK, boys. So there you go. That's a clear tip to explore. That's fair. And it's literally just because your competition is not going to come from the traditional gaming industry. Nobody knows what's going to work out. You need data very quickly and figure it out. And if you have a really cool voice game, send it to me because I want to play it. I think this is a timely question, because I think there will be an answer to this that that's going to be yes or a little bit later. But I'll ask you first, why are there no other successful mobile augmented reality games than Pokemon Go yet or location-based games? Because Pokemon Go is not quite AR. It's really location-based gaming. Yeah. Oh, so I'm really intrigued by it. I think what Pokemon Go, I think, did, which was so amazing, was to push a boundary in the mobile gaming industry. People had made location-based games many times before, but it hadn't quite broken through. With Pokemon Go, you finally reached the kind of critical mass where people start talking about it and they start sort of feeling like they're exploring this world together, which I think was a really big part of how it broke through. I think IP is a huge deal. If you're going to ask players to do something that they're not used to doing, you ask them to spend the extra calories doing a thing that they aren't doing. If you don't have an IP, it's much harder to convince them to do it. But with an IP, people give you the benefit of doubt. It's just like with an IP, it's easier to get somebody to decide to download something. In a similar way, it's easier to get someone to actually do something they haven't done before, like actually lift up their device and look around and do a thing with it and go like, whoa, this is kind of crazy and cool. There's the Pokemon that I recognize. So I think IP is a big part of it. Also, obviously, brilliant design. It was a team that knew their stuff, and this was their second iteration. So often, the first game you make doesn't work out, but you learn from it. And the second game is much simpler and better. And look at the original game from the antique. It's so much more complex, so much nerdy, so many layers to it that are kind of fun for a nerd, but for an ass market, absolutely too complicated. The answer why I say not yet is there's the Harry Potter game is coming out for a location-based game, and I have a feeling that's probably going to be the next breakthrough, because the Vishful women that say it is there, the brand is there. And again, you're going to the world of muggles, and only you know magic. So I think that's going to be really cool. So watch out for that. That's coming, I think, next year. There are some teasers out there. So let's talk about, I think, what I want to close the session with. We have two minutes, so we can dig into this a little bit. You've had some amazing runs as a startup entrepreneur. You've probably had a few very hard days. I know at least I had really hard days quite often. And the hindsight is 20-20. If you were to go back in time and look at Christian in the very early days of starting Playfish, and you want to say, hey, Christian, it's you. It's me from 15 years ago in the future. I want to tell you a couple of things. What were some things that you would give advice to that you think would be generally applicable to other people here in the room? So it's hard, because to some degree, the only way that you truly internalize stuff is by doing it. And in some ways, even by being here in a startup ecosystem like this, it's like 10 steps ahead of where I was when I started my entrepreneurship career. So I don't know how much I can provide advice there. But there are a couple of things. Firstly, again, everything just purely related to computer games. The very first and foremost, love what you do. Gaming is hard. If you're working on a thing that you don't love playing and you don't love working on, it's a terrible existence. Don't do it. Go out and build stuff that you love. Because at the end of the day, it's a journey. Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes the thing you thought would be great turns out to be bad. Sometimes the thing that you're really not sure about turns out to be great. But if you love it, it's a journey that is a much nicer journey to be. Totally agree. And the second thing I would just say is ruthless prioritization. At the end of the day, there's only 24 hours a day. There's only seven days a week. I think we only have one life. Making sure that you truly use your time in the way that is most effective. And usually, frankly, the single most important determinant, I believe of any startup, but certainly in games, is people. It's your own employees of who you have as part of the company. They understand why they're there, what you're trying to do. Do they talk to each other? Do you have the best people in the world? And also by extension, your player community who are effectively also helping build the game. They're like your most important stakeholders. Are you spending enough time listening? Are you spending enough time actioning those things? So literally prioritizing on where you spend your time and working on a thing that you love. There you go. There you have it. Some really practical advice. Give it up for Krishan. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming to the session.