 start with we've already had some introductions but just so we go through maybe Marcia I'll quickly just give you introduction and so on sure so I'm Marcia Ulka founder of OBB we're a mobile gaming studio funded in Paris our most recent game is called SOP it's a racing racing game and we're working on a first shooter on mobile that is called frag pro shooter and it's gonna be released in March of next year perfect Roberta so I'm co-founder of Bossa Studios a BAFTA winning games company we're known for Surgeon Simulator I am Brad and Walter Drift and we're all about creativity first and so I'm Cathy I'm CEO and co-founder of Wafa games so in Wafa games we believe in fundamental innovations by using technology to create games that haven't been created before and to empower the in-game user-generated data and so last year we were featured by MIT for the radical different past fighting algorithms and also the cloud-based battle and map level editor which can be both used by designers as a tool and also gamers as platforms perfect thank you so much so today at this panel we're gonna be talking about creativity against science the right balance for building successful games and Marcia I know you guys are extremely data-driven in terms of how you build your games and it would be nice to sort of hear the details of how do you use data and how do you use testing and you know what it takes to really build your successful games sure for us that that science and data is very important but I think at first we we don't want to take that up much into account and for example we were working on a first person shooter these days but we started working on that like one year ago and if we had been looking at data points at the time you know making a first person shooter on mobile would have been like the most stupidest idea you could you could find and now we fortnight you see you have this huge success and the audience is kind of ready for it so when building designing your game in the very first stage I think it's wrong to be too data-focused but for us it also helps to use data as a support tool because we know we're gonna we're gonna be able to take very creative bets and do very creative and unique games and then as data as a support tool so that we can test very quickly we ship games in six months we go to market very quickly because we know mobile is a risky market and then we're gonna we're gonna test everything from consumer appeal with marketing campaigns and for us you know having a decent cost of marketing is very important because it's what's gonna help you to scale and then see the basic basic numbers with retention and monetization around these users and build also neural networks to help us with some for example matchmaking in the game so everything we do everything to create super unique games and ship them and get data as fast as possible Wow so data is important but obviously creativity gives you that little edge yeah so to Roberta you know Bossa is well known for its creativity your game jams your influencers using you on YouTube and on top of that you collaborate deeply with your community with your users to build your games it'd be lovely just to hear a little bit more about how you use creativity to build your games at Bossa we believe that you can only create revolutionary games as opposed to evolutionary games if you explore as many ideas as possible in the very stages so what we do on a monthly basis is a two-day game jam every single month we stop the whole company they organize themselves however they want and they create new games and there's only one rule then the game is to be playable at the end of the two days and through these we kind of created a pipeline of over 300 games that we can always explore further and add to the road map but also it allows us to start engaging very early on with the creators there's a there's a massive thing as you guys know about you know the streamers the youtubers everyone was actually playing games nowadays and we have a dedicated team connected to the creators on an ongoing basis to create this iteration just like a startup does for for for products for tech products we are playing these two games and it's been very successful how many games do you create in the game jam usually between five to ten games it's impressive yeah impressive so Kathy where are you we're to use down science or creativity what it what is important so our welfare games were actually a very technology-driven company but but we see technology is it's a mean to make new gameplays new game designs possible so so we don't really see science and creativity as two separate things rather than coexisting ingredients blended together to unleash a magical power and really neither is stronger than the other and but if we ask ourselves on one hand why game is viewed as science whereas a business is highly data-driven in which continuous A-B testing constant performance monitoring are ensuring the best game experience but why but at the same time the in-game virtual world and storytelling need to be even seducive and and that mental effects is no data-driven at all but for ourselves what is really creativity what is really science is mathematics a creative end over or science I'm sure mathematician will not think mathematics the science but what about chess right what about business any business at all myself I'm a professional chess player I was the youngest national champion of chess so at the chess board yes strong logic execution and strategy and say calculation the science perspective make a great chess player but at the same time the creativity imagination curiosity make a master so it's like entrepreneurship it's both logic as a science and also in a way it's poetry it's romantic like poetry so you can't really separate them now it's super interesting because that's what I love about gaming right and the people in gaming because I think you have to have these two qualities yes that in some ways are a little bit the yin and the yang and extremely different qualities and and I think you're right there has to be something that that catches the attention of the user and I think that's something I mean I don't know Marcel when when you guys the seductiveness is something that's also so important to you you know how do you when you work with with data and looking at things like do you think you can lose that seductiveness if you become too data-oriented I think at some point if you're if you're creating games by the numbers and if you're only looking at the the competition where it is right now it's you will make some things that is a copycat or follow-up to to a trend that is already existing right now so you have to look at the future and try to to guess what the future is going to be and I think you know designing games with too much data in mind or trying to I know some people that are trying to to come up with you know a product page and test that with marketing before starting a game and I I've never heard any good results about that because I think at the end of the day you're just designing your game for for one year ago when you should design your game for the two to ten years that's gonna come yeah totally agree with that now talking about game development there's you know the the issue of creating a universally appealing game across nationalities cultures and and gender you know do you think that we should be focusing on making games that are universal because if you look at it obviously gender you can see quite different behaviors on top of that also you know we know what works in in China or even Japan might not work in the West right so it would be great to hear your views I don't know Kathy if you have something to shed light on this and well I think before diving in let's take a look at the global gaming markets and to find how a universal global successful appealing game look like today right so today the gaming industry is a yearly more than hundreds I think this year breaking 120 billion US dollar industry and there are more than 2.3 billion active players among them what more than 1 billion are paying yeah this number is growing very fast as well of course it's a very very brutally competitive every day I think it's around 1500 new mobile games launch hours and Google play but only 20 top 20 generating most of the revenues so if we talk about a universal successful peeling game that game at least generates more than 1 billion US dollar a year then that's how it looks like so now looking at the vertical breakdowns in terms of game genres and target audience at different markets I think retention and monetization are two good tools to help us and also to understand to the story we are looking at taking localization for example our game right now has been tested in Middle East a region partly localization is very important however the balance we have in mind is actually to keep a very subtle even minimal localization to ensure a later global potential and after all I think game besides reflect our values and values should be fair and neutral cross borders genders cultures and it should not take sides if we expand this topic even beyond games it's inside genders and cultures even religions can be very local but but humanity is universal so I think that philosophy should apply on games yeah I agree with that I have a point on that but before I get there Robert that you have any views on this yeah I think the the output output is the quality of input so what we what we do is to make sure that we have a very diverse team in terms of gender in terms of colors in terms of age nationalities so we now almost 100 people in the company and we have 20 nationalities nice it helps that we in London so we attract until Brexit we attract a lot of people from the world and and I think that on itself yeah creates a high density of different inputs as we create in games and so the our games have a much wider appeal globally great wonderful much y'all what about at OBB well I think there is something about sincerity if you try to design a game that is for everyone every market every gender you gonna it's gonna fall flat and you know science is universal it's applied everywhere in every hospital in every university all around the world but creativity something very personal that comes from you your history your background and you have to this is really a mix of both because of course there are tricks and there are recipes to create a global game but if you try to appeal to everyone at the end of the day you're gonna appeal to no one so it really comes from your past your background your team and your personality and do something that is really sincere and and that's gonna be really fun for players and eventually if the game is good enough it's gonna be a global success but trying to be too global I think will will not fly in the long term now I agree with that and on your point in terms of bringing people together you know I think it's really amazing that we're seeing people play against each other when you know in war zones where they're actually on both sides of the conflict children from both sides and they don't necessarily know who's on the other side and when they do they realize they've been playing with let's say the enemy for a very long time so it could be a very uniting factor and I think there's some wonderful games coming out to that are you know creating empathy as well across people are in difficult situations and you can through the game understand what people are going through there's a wonderful game about bringing your wife home from or bring your wife to Europe from Syria and the travel that they have to do to sort of travel from Syria and I think it's really inspiring so yeah I mean games games for good really I don't know compassion yeah it's it's really interesting because there's this whole debate that you actually going spending longer time on the front of screens but when you when you're playing a game different to when you are in a social network you actually connecting much more you are the connecting because you're gonna battle against each other or collaborate to do something together and what we hear all the time from all sorts of people who play let's say Walter Drift which is a massive multiplayer online is that they start to create their own particular roles inside the game that it's not who they are in the real life but it's that second self that they are very happy to be there and to enjoy with others and the solvable connection I 100% agree I mean it comes comes to a question you know where where people you know there's there's a sort of the world is concerned there's lots of people concerned particular media is concerned with excessive use of games right and the use word of addiction which I'm not sure is appropriate because I think it's excessive I don't think people are really addicted but but there's also the violent content people are very concerned that you know whenever thing bad things happen people talk about it's the games it's causing people to react in a certain way I don't know Kathy if you have some views on this and what your thoughts are well I think first of all it's as a game makers is really first our responsibility to take pride in making games as a state of art intellectual quest a meaningful conversation interaction with players with respect rather than view game as a money making tool to scheme human nature to trap addiction and trust me there are companies like that operating like that out there so I think we need to make them feel shameful in doing so and at what for games we focus on making me core strategy games as a chess player of course I'm a strategy gamer at heart in my view I think good strategy games it's just like chess it's a practice of sought discipline it's a training of problem-solving skills at the same time is it's amazingly fun as well so it can be beneficial and I actually have a little bit personal story to this question which I haven't really shared with anyone including my mom it's one of my defining moments so that happened around like three four weeks ago as traveling the US my mom called me at one night telling me that my grandpa had a severe heart attack and was passing away I was there 30 hours away watching someone I love the most passing away yes I have I can't do anything so I remember I sit on the hotel floor for two hours in dark in tears in desperation until I reach out to my phone and starting to play games and chat with my lines members at that moment if it's like somehow a safe outlet escape happened to me and somehow feel better and that's how to think sometimes we often criticize people say who run away from the real world say they're weak or they are running away from the real problems but if we be compassionate and be honest with ourselves for a moment on we all sometimes need a little escape from a brutal moment found found a cruel situation you have no control so we can come back restore our vulnerability continue to believe in in dreaming in beauty magic only all need to be sometimes a little childlike in the magical world in games and to to away from sometimes it's just a little too real too cold grow up at downwards that's so that's how I feel about Wow that's really powerful thank thank you for sharing that yeah it's Roberto you know we're talking about I mean what you're talking about is is the community right that and the support that actually sometimes these games can provide to people so it becomes your your network and it is a very different world from our real world but maybe maybe just as maybe just as real I don't know what's your view yeah I think we underestimate the the the power the power of the internet and connection and games with the new generations right it's they are growing up in a in a totally different environment very different was and they are embedded into into the the art not the artificial but you know the the online world like ready player one and so for them I don't think there is a distinguished they don't distinguish anymore like who what is it online what is offline it's just you know I just I'm just fluid I'm going through the the world and through the connections and I mean human beings are all about growth and connection right and and games offer that to them and I don't think the you know young kids are kind of bothering as much as we are about the screen time they actually just being much more fluid than us they are much more evolved the world the world are colliding they're coming together the world in the real world which is very cool and if I knew now move to another question you know about Europe really and Europe's ability to create many great games so obviously you have Supercell and Rovio here but King and Mojang and all these companies and I've just Marcial I just wanted to ask you know you know why do you think Europe has been able to create these games and maybe tell us a little bit about you know the French yeah version of it I'm not going to try to explain the Finnish ecosystem to I know at least in France we have this this background of like being very scientific scientific all and it's numerous technological breakthrough over the years and at the same time being very interested in the arts and creativity and now the luxury industry for example is one of the biggest industry industry in France and even cinema and cinematography was in vain was invented in France and special effects were invented by George Mellis and even today something people usually don't know but the despicable despicable me movies they're all made in France so we have this huge artistic industry with some very great technological talents with top schools and and top engineers that actually are pretty cheap if you compare it to to the West Coast in the US so the mix of these two very strong industries can create great games get great studios we have Ubisoft we have amazing things depending on the mobile scene in France where we hope we can beat the fiends to it in a few years so I think this really comes down to this mix of these two strong pillars of artistic creativity and and technological excellence amazing cool Roberto you have any views on on European games yeah I'm Brazilian so I think it's it's important the the melting pot I love London because of the melting pot of creativity and science and everything together so when you align the the excellence in in designing graphic design with excellence in game design and everything in between in terms of you know coding I think you can create some pretty amazing magic so I yeah I no wonder Europe is kind of winning the games industry wonderful now I just want to say that and China hasn't been leading the innovation but I think it's changing because new generation is coming up so I hope and me and my fellow entrepreneurs I hope you guys watch us always do with you know China's obviously is a is an unbelievable story you know if you look at the fantastic games that are coming through there in fact you are the ones who are creating the biggest games at the moment so I thought that was a given I mean China is a wonderful place for games innovation is something that we are learning so much from this region and and I love while we better say it's it's about melting pies about you have the deep roots of culturally proud generation yet you have a global and perspective as a global citizen great so I'm gonna have one more question and then we're gonna get some questions from the crowds I hope when I open up the app there's gonna be some questions all right cool so looking forward to games the future of games you know what kind of games or platforms are you most excited about should I start let's go for it well I see I don't see I don't really think in terms of platform but I think in terms of social innovation and you know these days you know gaming jars they've been there for for 20 30 years and we don't see so many games are being created on a on a regular basis but I think social innovation you know trying to find a social recipe or a way to connect people that has never been done before or that can be even more meaningful to what we have and we were talking about you know excessive screen time and I think the main difference is between social networks and games is that our goal as a maker is to make people happy yeah and to enjoy our products and you know outside Facebook there is nothing like Facebook so and as game maker you know there are like thousands of games out there so if you game doesn't make people happy they will go to another game and so we have to to make to take this happiness to the extra level and I think on top of that you know adding a new layer of connection and today the best games the the best selling game the the most successful game they able to do that to achieve that so I'm really looking forward to everything we can do to connect the real world and the virtual world as Robert I was saying I really think that's the way of the future hey Robert that you have I think there is something about I'm very very excited about the the move from this gig economy to the hobby economy so when I look at streamers and people who became media right so we all now used to create media on on YouTube on Instagram on you know on our phones all the time and we're sharing with the world and what I see right now the holy consistent that that's being built around platforms like twitch they are actually impacting massively the way that we're thinking about games and the way that we actually monetize our games and interact with with their audiences right so we actually engaging with them also for them to engage with their audience because they are building their audience so so I I feel really excited about that because it's a it's a massive break on the traditional way of doing marketing from a cost of acquisition to PR and everything it's all about engaging with others so that engage with millions of people to play your games awesome yeah I think it's still mobile I didn't mobile was still provide the continuous growths but we see mobile I I think there's one big opportunity which we are right now taking you making this kind of PC total or like real-time full control on mobile always excessively used easy user experience which the opportunity is you see the the huge successful PC console games they haven't really had their success on mobile platform but I do think that a deep person more engaging game on mobile with very easy user experience is going to be exciting so that that's right cool well this is actually a little bit complicated the games come the questions come in they disappear they come back so look let me just see what we got here so I think the one that maybe will go for here is is about youth and how people get in the gaming so what advice would you have for young people trying to enter the games industry this is from anonymous all right so dear anonymous I see today the opportunity in the chance like people want to enter the game industry you have so many tools now to service in it and these tools are so easy to use that you should make a game no back when we were younger I look young but I'm a bit older than that it was difficult you need to be a good programmer and now these days you can make a game with almost nothing with a PC or even a phone or tablet so just just make a game just make a lot of games and and you'll see what you want to do if you want to be a designer an artist or programmer that's best thing I would recommend if you are called that there's nothing preventing you from from creating a game yeah unit is so accessible right so there's no excuse if you if you want to do something else I think that there are few rules traditionally has been QA so people go into QA to to get into a games company and therefore they they learn more about the games and go into the into new careers we hired a couple of youtubers over the years which again everything that I'm saying it's about engaging with them and creating this new economy we got 13 seconds left well I think it's you gotta love the game for for me I I'm a gamer but I was not from the industry by diving and if you love it nothing gonna prevent you wonderful so science or creativity I don't think we answered the question thank you so much everybody thank you