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Join us for an in-depth discussion on the Game Developers Conference 2025 with industry veterans as they share their perspectives and what was learned during GDC on the current state of the gaming industry. This candid conversation explores attendance trends, market challenges, investment landscapes, and what's next for game developers in a changing economy.Our panel discusses:⭐ GDC attendance trends and the shift to more exclusive, executive-focused events⭐ The "age of efficiency" and austerity measures affecting game studios⭐ Investment challenges and the evolving VC landscape for gaming⭐ Platform dynamics between developers and companies like Apple and Google⭐ AI's current and potential impact on game development⭐ Unity's latest developments and challenges⭐ The changing nature of GDC itself and its future prospectsFeatured Speakers:
Join gaming industry veterans as they break down the unprecedented transformation of mobile 4X games. Featuring insights from Joseph Kim (Lila Games), Justin Yau (Wharton MBA), UA specialist Matej Lancaric (2.5 Gamers) and game design specialist Jakub Remiar (2.5 Gamers) on how Chinese gaming companies are achieving $8M+ daily revenue through innovative UA strategies and product design.Key Topics:
Our conversation dives into the evolving landscape of game marketing, particularly focusing on the 4X genre and the dynamics between successful game studios like First Fun and River Game. The discussion highlights the importance of user acquisition strategies, server management, and the integration of gameplay with marketing efforts. We also explore the future of 4X games, the impact of themes and reskins, and the innovative use of AI ingame mechanics. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the intricacies of 4X game design, exploring its economic foundations, innovative mechanics, and the role of AI in shaping user acquisition strategies. We discuss the sustainability of the 4X model, future trends in user acquisition, and the evolution of game genres, culminating in predictions for the 4X market's trajectory.---------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Matej Lancaric, Joseph Kim, Justin YauYoutube:https://youtu.be/t28sVVnYWKwJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipgChapters00:00 The Evolution of Game Marketing Strategies02:54 Understanding First Fun and River Game Dynamics06:02 The 4X Game Landscape: Trends and Innovations09:07 The Role of User Acquisition in Game Success11:52 Server Management and Player Dynamics in 4X Games15:09 Integrating Gameplay and User Acquisition17:58 The Future of 4X Games: Multiple Core Strategies20:59 The Impact of Themes and Reskins in Game Development24:06 The Rise of AI in Game Mechanics33:51 The Economics of Game Design36:24 Innovations in Game Mechanics39:12 Creative Strategies in User Acquisition42:58 The Role of AI in Game Development48:30 Future Trends in User Acquisition54:01 Predictions for the 4X Market---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiarJoseph KimCEO, Lila Gameshttps://lilagames.com/ & GameMakersJustin Yauhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/justinhbyau/---------------------------------------TakeawaysFirst Fun & River Game share a complex relationship.The 4X genre is evolving with new strategies and themes.Server management is key to maintaining player engagement.The future of 4X games may involve multiple core strategies.AI is transforming user acquisition strategies in gaming.The 4X model's sustainability is under scrutiny due to high CPIs.Future trends in user acquisition will lean heavily on AI.The integration of AI in game development is becoming essential.4X games are setting the standard for creative strategies.The evolution of game genres will incorporate 4X elements.Understanding 4X is vital for anyone in the gaming industry.Predictions suggest a shift towards more innovative gameplay in 4X games.---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
Leading mobile gaming experts break down everything you need to know about Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) in 2025. Get insider perspectives from AppsFlyer, Wildcard Games, and industry veterans on when to use MMPs, how much they really cost, and where the industry is heading. Perfect for mobile game developers, UA managers, and studio executives looking to optimize their marketing strategy and understand the evolving role of MMPs in today's privacy-first environment. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction & Overview 03:43 - What is an MMP? Core Functions Explained 05:28 - SDK Integration Benefits 08:02 - Attribution & Performance Tracking 12:24 - Impact of IDFA Deprecation 16:32 - When Do Studios Need an MMP? 24:42 - Cost Breakdown for Studios 27:54 - Self-Attributing Networks (SANs) 32:45 - Working with Multiple Ad Networks 38:59 - Creative Optimization & AI Tools 43:08 - Data Clean Rooms & Privacy 51:09 - Open Source MMP Projects 53:52 - Future Trends in Mobile Marketing 57:47 - Industry Changes & Consolidation 1:01:02 - Final Thoughts & Recommendations SPEAKERS: ✅ Josh Chandley. Co-founder and COO at WildCard Games. ✅ Joseph Kim. CEO at Lila Games. ✅ Brian Murphy. Head of Gaming and New Product Strategy at AppsFlyer. ✅ James O'Claire. Former COO at Bubbleye. Founder Open Attribution. For links and additional info go to Gamemakers.com
The Game Makers are here, friends. We do not abide by previous paradigm rules. There's a reason that we're here And that reason is to architect the game from the inside out, to change the game. You're here to play a bigger game. You know it, I know it. This is your activation point. LINKS MENTIONED: Soul Purpose Incubator The Game Plan: Soul Purpose Mastermind Book a complimentary clarity call Magic Awakening: Live Group Journey Free Weekly Energy Reports
This week @BriceIzyah teams up with Survivor 46's @davidcjelinsky for a slam dunk on this month's Play by Play! They're diving into the WNBA Championship controversy, dishing updates on the Ball Brothers, and breaking down LeBron and Bronny's legacy game. Plus, a courtside look at the NBA's probe into Joel Embiid and a hot take on Angel Reese's major Reebok deal. Tune in for the ultimate playbook!
This week @BriceIzyah teams up with Survivor 46's @davidcjelinsky for a slam dunk on this month's Play by Play! They're diving into the WNBA Championship controversy, dishing updates on the Ball Brothers, and breaking down LeBron and Bronny's legacy game. Plus, a courtside look at the NBA's probe into Joel Embiid and a hot take on Angel Reese's major Reebok deal. Tune in for the ultimate playbook!
Looking for key, actionable takeaways on data modeling and optimization, the latest user acquisition channels and tactics, how to build a growth team, shifting marketing towards efficiency, and what UA trends to watch out for in 2025? Then watch this NOW! Many thanks to Joseph Kim of the GameMakers podcast for having Upptic CGO Warren Woodward on the show and allowing us to republish this episode on our own channels! CHAPTERS 00:00 – Opening segment 00:42 – Episode summary 02:18 – State of performance marketing 12:49 – Impact of IDFA deprecation 14:35 – The future of fingerprinting 17:20 – Data modeling & optimization 25:21 – Channels & tactics for 2025 31:50 – How to build a growth team 40:50 – How to align different teams 45:37 – Blockbuster scaling & organic uplift 52:36 – What to watch out for in 2025 57:14 – Closing segment #UserAcquisition #MobileGaming #Marketing
Craig Chapple, Paige Cook and Aaron Astle from the PocketGamer.biz team discuss the latest mobile games industry news from the past week. On this week's episode the team discuss the Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2024 list and what it tells us about industry trends, takeaways from Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki and Finnish Games Week, Epic's new fees for Unreal Engine and the Epic Games Store, and more! ** Let's Connect **
We partnered with Liquid & Grit to discuss the Brawl Stars Godzilla event, which had a massive impact on Brawl Stars' revenue and downloads. - Highest weekly revenue ever - 59% revenue increase and 107% downloads increase 3Wo3W We review the event and discuss the implications and lessons learned. Discussion Outline: 00:00 - Introduction of the roundtable, Joseph Kim, and the participants. 00:12 - Introduction of Joseph Kim and his work. 01:18 - Overview of Brawl Stars and its game modes. 02:07 - Discussion on the popularity of Brawl Stars among kids. 03:08 - Joseph Kim discusses game design and the success of isometric games. 03:50 - Comparison between Brawl Stars and Wild Rift in terms of game depth and modes. 04:42 - Observations on the female player base in Brawl Stars. 05:50 - Insights on why kids prefer Brawl Stars, focusing on game modes .06:37 - Discussion on the decline of Fortnite and its impact on Brawl Stars. 07:33 - Introduction to the Godzilla event, its content, and game modes. 09:38 - Analysis of the event's impact on revenue and downloads. 11:18 - Explanation of event mechanics, including Monster Eggs and mutations. 13:02 - Discussion on player reactions to the temporary nature of mutations. 14:52 - Community reactions to pay-to-win elements and their temporary nature. 16:26 - Speculation on the potential return of the Godzilla event in the future. 17:18 - Discussion on the game mode experience and its balance. 18:40 - Participant's experience with the event and mutations. 20:53 - Discussion on club engagement and the club event mechanics. 21:46 - Description of the Godzilla City Smash game mode. 23:36 - Thoughts on the choice of the Godzilla IP for the event. 25:55 - In-depth discussion on the temporary nature of mutations and player perceptions. 27:04 - Considerations on event mechanics and their impact on player engagement and revenue. 28:30 - Speculations on legal implications of temporary in-game purchases. 30:17 - Discussion on the complexity of the event and its execution. 32:14 - Participant's views on the event's entertainment value and economic impact. 52:05 - Final thoughts on the event's design, economy, and player engagement. 53:41 - Closing remarks and thanks to participants.
Joseph Kim, the CEO of Lila Games, takes listeners on a journey through his remarkable career in the gaming industry, spanning over two decades of experience at major companies and entrepreneurial ventures. Kim begins by sharing his background in electrical engineering and computer science, followed by his early forays into startups and management consulting. He then delves into his transition to the gaming world, including his involvement in the early days of social and mobile gaming, as well as his role in the successful launch of King of Avalon at FunPlus. As the conversation progresses, Kim provides a candid account of the challenges he faced in establishing Lila Games, his latest venture focused on developing shooter games in India. He emphasizes the importance of a relentless work ethic, brutal honesty, and a strong company culture, sharing his company's values and the significance of aligning employees with the organization's operating principles. Kim also offers valuable insights into the current state of the gaming industry, addressing the impact of Apple's deprecation of IDFA on user acquisition strategies and the potential implications for various game genres. He shares his perspectives on the rise of Web3 gaming and the viability of emerging platforms like UEFN and Unreal Engine for game development. Furthermore, Kim delves into the competitive landscape and strategic considerations for companies in the ever-evolving gaming market, drawing parallels to industry giants like Ubisoft and Embracer Group. He explores the question of synergies and the ideal size for companies, as well as the challenges of operational efficiency in an increasingly competitive global market. Throughout the conversation, Kim's passion for the gaming industry and his commitment to creating meaningful experiences shine through. He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, curiosity, and staying on top of industry trends, which he achieves through his prolific content creation, including his popular GameMakers podcast and newsletter.Have any comments or questions? Email the show Feedback@Buildingtheopenmetaverse.org Want more information? Visit our website www.buildingtheopenmetaverse.org And make sure you follow us on Linkedin for all of our show updates https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildingtheopenmetaverse Building the Open Metaverse is a podcast hosted by Patrick Cozzi (Cesium) and Marc Petit that invites a broad range of technical experts to share their insights on how the community is building the metaverse together. #BuildingTheOpenMetaversePodcast #MetaversePodcast #Metaverse
Learn more about the new below-the-line training and professional development initiative Screen Careers.
Nederlandse gamemakers willen graag meer erkenning vanuit de overheid, om zo ook meer aanspraak te maken op beter regelingen. In dit gesprek is Rami Ismaïl, onafhankelijk game-maker en bestuurder van de Dutch Game Association, te gast bij Joe van Burik en Ben van der Burg. Dit gesprek over Nederlandse gamemakers werd gevoerd in BNR Digitaal en is hierbij ook te luisteren in de feed van All in the Game. Want: het gaat niet goed met de internationale gamesindustrie, ondanks miljardenomzetten worden veel makers bij bedrijven ontslagen, juist de laatste anderhalf jaar. Hoe staat het er nu voor in de Nederlandse game-industrie? Dat hoor je in dit gesprek.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week we are gonna talk about an Event in Helldivers 2 that seems to be designed for people to lose. And why that might be the great! Also, we are gonna to look at something to watch and not to listen to, Followed by a break down of the possible Streaming Bubble bursting
Today is Monday, March 4, and we're looking at EA vs. Sony.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Welcome to today's lecture! Today we are talking about one of the biggest bug bears in gaming, analysis paralysis. Why does it happen? What kinds of games or features of games tend to invoke this kind of reaction? And what can games do to avoid it? We cover important topics like decision fatigues, choice overload, and what game designers can do to limit AP in games. Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/4pVkZUPhJm Check out our Youtube: www.youtube.com/@TheBoardGameDojo Support us Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BoardGameDojo Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theboardgamedojo Follow us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheBGDojo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boardgamedojo/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@boardgamedojo Bibliography for today's Episode: Al Smadi, S. (2009). Kaizen strategy and the drive for competitiveness: Challenges and opportunities. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal, 19(3), 203–211. https://doi.org/10.1108/10595420910962070 Chernev, A. (2003). When More Is Less and Less Is More: The Role of Ideal Point Availability and Assortment in Consumer Choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(2), 170–183. https://doi.org/10.1086/376808 Chernev, A. (2005). Feature Complementarity and Assortment in Choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), 748–759. https://doi.org/10.1086/426608 Chernev, A., Böckenholt, U., & Goodman, J. (2015). Choice overload: A conceptual review and meta‐analysis. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 333–358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.002 Choice Overload Bias. (n.d.). The Decision Lab. Retrieved February 28, 2024, from https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/choice-overload-bias “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance—PMC. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2024, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9432722/ Iyengar, S., Jiang, W., & Huberman, G. (2004). How Much Choice Is Too Much? Contributions to 401(K) Retirement Plans. Pension Design and Structure: New Lessons from Behavioral Finance. https://doi.org/10.1093/0199273391.003.0005 Kurien, R., Paila, A. R., & Nagendra, A. (2014). Application of Paralysis Analysis Syndrome in Customer Decision Making. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11, 323–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(14)00200-7 Laurie, L. (2014, February 10). DESIGNING GAMES TO PREVENT ANALYSIS PARALYSIS – PART 2. League of Gamemakers. https://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/designing-games-to-prevent-analysis-paralysis-part-2/ Libido. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2023, from https://www.victorianweb.org/science/freud/libido.html Library of Congress Aesop Fables. (n.d.). Retrieved February 28, 2024, from https://read.gov/aesop/120.html Markman, A. B., & Medin, D. L. (1995). Similarity and Alignment in Choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 63(2), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1995.1067 Overchoice and Assortment Type: When and Why Variety Backfires | Marketing Science. (n.d.). Retrieved February 29, 2024, from https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mksc.1040.0109 Scheibehenne, B., Greifeneder, R., & Todd, P. M. (2009). What moderates the too-much-choice effect? Psychology & Marketing, 26(3), 229–253. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20271 Scheibehenne, B., Greifeneder, R., & Todd, P. M. (2010). Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 409–425. https://doi.org/10.1086/651235 Singh, J., & Singh, H. (2009). Kaize n Philosophy: A Revie w of Lite rature. 2. Swar, B., Hameed, T., & Reychav, I. (2017). Information overload, psychological ill-being, and behavioral intention to continue online healthcare information search. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 416–425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.068 Why Analysis Paralysis Kills Productivity & What To Do About It. (n.d.). Todoist Inspiration Hub. Retrieved February 29, 2024, from https://todoist.com/inspiration/analysis-paralysis-productivity Why do successful people wear the same outfits every day? (n.d.). Today Well Spent. Retrieved October 25, 2023, from https://www.todaywellspent.com/en-fr/blogs/articles/why-do-successful-people-wear-the-same-outfits-every-day
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers x Gamemakers crossover session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously. Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Matej Lancaric, Joseph Kim, Ken Landen Youtube: https://youtu.be/NIPb2gKeFiw Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-29stniv6f-oLJzhx2U_mRB_ppXnJ9hvQ Agenda 00:00 Epic intro03:00 Performance of Brawl Stars06:00 Product Overview and Gameplay12:00 Monetization and Economy Management19:00 Brawl Pass and Revenue Verticals25:00 Hypercharges and Progression31:53 Monetization and Economy37:11 Social Features and Game Modes41:26 Ad Tech and Rewarded Videos45:17 Optimizing Offers and Personalization50:09 Event Structure and Season Quest Cadence52:32 Additional Power Layers and Hypercharges55:30 User Acquisition and Marketing Channels01:03:25 Recent Spike and Structural Changes01:05:04 Live Ops Changes and Team Expansion01:06:40 Long-Term Outlook and Baseline Expectations --------------------------------------- Matej Lancaric User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant https://lancaric.me Felix Braberg Ad monetization consultant https://www.felixbraberg.com Jakub Remiar Game design consultant https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar --------------------------------------- Takeaways Some games on the radar are experiencing steady growth and stable revenue, while others are declining or struggling to gain traction. The success of a game often depends on factors such as gameplay mechanics, updates, and the target audience. Developers should consider diversifying their portfolio and exploring new genres to avoid cannibalizing their own games. The performance of games can vary greatly, even within the same company or genre. --------------------------------------- Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it! Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple! Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me --------------------------------------- If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric Latest article - https://open.substack.com/pub/lancaric/p/ai-winning-creatives-real-data-inside?r=7qqaf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/two-half-gamers/message
This illustration of Katniss bowing to the Gamemakers is by Ninidu and you can see it here: https://www.deviantart.com/ninidu/art/Seneca-Crane-461750660These chapters are the ones in which Katniss and Peeta are interviewed and Peeta drops a bomb on the audience, and Katniss gets an unpleasant surprise just as she's being sent into the arena.Thanks so much to you all for listening, and I will see you soon with a new episode!If you'd like to talk spoilers, come join the Discord! https://discord.gg/rEF2KfZxfVIf you'd like to support the show, please go to https://www.patreon.com/unspoiled and become a patron or just follow us for updates!This version of The Hanging Tree is done by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and is sung by Andrea Lykke Oehlenschlæger & Diluckshan Jeyaratnam. You can watch the video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrxwS3jukf8
Another GameMakers x 2.5 gamers crossover episode! Tune in now. In this podcast episode, Joseph Kim, Matej Lancaric, and Summer Liu discuss the profitability of the game Monopoly Go. They explore the controversy surrounding the game and the lack of a widely accepted definition of profitability in the industry. The conversation covers data analysis, marketing strategies, and the use of different creatives. The hosts also discuss the importance of understanding CPIs and the impact of scaling up advertising spend. The conversation delves into the topic of profitability in the mobile games business, exploring the nuances and challenges of defining and achieving profitability. Discussing the importance of maintaining scale and KPIs in order to sustain profitability. The conversation also highlights the differences between operational profitability and UA modeled payback profitability. Additionally, they touch on the LTV curves and payback periods in different game genres. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the profitability of Monopoly Go and the need for a clear definition of profitability. Takeaways The games industry lacks a widely accepted definition of profitability, leading to confusion and conflation of different issues. Monopoly Go has achieved significant success, with high revenue and a large number of downloads. The game utilizes various marketing strategies, including video and playable ads, to attract and engage players. Understanding CPIs and the impact of scaling up advertising spend is crucial for evaluating the profitability of a game. Maintaining scale and KPIs is crucial for sustaining profitability in the mobile games business. Profitability in the mobile games industry can be defined differently, including operational profitability and UA modeled payback profitability. LTV curves and payback periods vary across different game genres and can impact profitability. There are nuances and tricks in-game profitability, including accounting practices and adjusting costs. Agenda 00:00 Introduction and Background03:00 Defining Profitability in the Games Industry09:00 Data Analysis and Revenue23:00 Marketing Analysis32:00 Creative Strategies and CPIs43:04 Maintaining Scale and KPIs44:03 Defining Profitability in the Mobile Games Business45:57 Operational Profitability vs. UA Modeled Payback Profitability49:46 LTV Curves and Payback Periods53:56 Nuances and Tricks in Game Profitability59:46 Is Monopoly Go Profitable? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/two-half-gamers/message
Today is Thursday, October 26, and we're looking at Activision Blizzard vs. Electronic Arts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This awesome illustration of Katniss is by friedChicken365 and you can see it here! https://www.deviantart.com/friedchicken365/art/Katniss-Everdeen-200994040These chapters are the ones in which Katniss, Peeta, and the other tributes all have to preform privately for the Gamemakers in order to get scores that will influence potential sponsors. Then there's a big public interview with Caesar Flickerman, which Katniss just barely scrapes by before Peeta drops a surprise.This version of The Hanging Tree is done by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and is sung by Andrea Lykke Oehlenschlæger & Diluckshan Jeyaratnam. You can watch the video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrxwS3jukf8If you'd like to join our Discord and get in on some of the convo, check it out here! Non-patrons welcome! https://discord.gg/rEF2KfZxfVWe'll see you soon with a new episode!
AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on Hollywood Strikes-Video Game Actors.
ICYMI: Later, with Mo'Kelly Presents – A look at the latest developments in the Hollywood strike, including; the battle between Charter Communications/Spectrum and Disney, Bill Maher's criticism of the WGA strike AND a potential SAG-AFTRA vote to go on strike against video game makers - on KFI AM 640 – Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
There are more than 3 billion gamers in the world, but the number of gaming professionals interested in business and development content pales in comparison, with approximately 300,000 people employed in the U.S. games business, according to IBIS World. Niche content curation and content creation companies like Deconstructor of Fun, Gamemakers, Elite Game Developers, Naavik, and more cover the space and, importantly, compete with each other for mindshare across this small pool of professional game developers. Is it possible to build a profitable enterprise off this type of organization, and if so, how and through what revenue streams? We bring together a super team of games podcasting and blogging: Joakim Achren, Joseph Kim, and our very own Aaron Bush to discuss.This episode is brought to you by Pragma. Pragma is a Backend Game Engine that powers services like accounts, matchmaking, and player data for the world's most ambitious live service games. To learn more, head here. And as always, if you like the episode, you can help others find us by leaving a rating or review!TLDListen?: Episode summaryWatch the episode: YouTube video Join the discussion: Naavik DiscordRead more: Naavik DigestWatch more: YouTube channelGo premium: Naavik ProFollow us: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | WebsiteSound design by Gavin Mc Gabe.
Are Indie games changing the gaming landscape today? From immersive graphics to above-and-beyond storyline arcs, many of these smaller-budget titles are knocking Triple-A games out of the park. Find out why in this exciting video: we explore how indie games are creating more enjoyable player experiences - and why they're winning against major studios who may be more focused on revenue over quality. Get ready to find out why indie games are ruling the gaming world!► Support this showPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/osnmedia/memb...Be a GZ Chop Shop member at https://plus.acast.com/s/gzchopshopVisit our website: https://osn-media.com/Continue the conversation at: https://discord.com/servers/osn-gamin...►Affiliate LinksWe use Riverside: https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=ca...Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/gzchopshop. Support us by becoming a GZ Chop Shop member at https://plus.acast.com/s/gzchopshop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Remember when we said “if they can do it to Trump they can do it to anyone?” Yeah, about that . . . Are we not entertained? Certainly you recall the great theater season of election 2016 when Liberal activists like Mark Ruffalo, Rosie O'Donnell, Neera Tanden, and Pink urged electors to flip their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Who can forget the tears, the laughter, the drama and the songs? Those dramatics came straight from the pages of America! Hollywood had taken their inspiration from D.CDemocrats have objected to certifying Electoral College wins for the presidential contests of 2000, 2004, and 2016. Ever raising the stakes of the reality show called “OuR DeMoCRacY”, The Game-Makers of The Capitol have delivered a wrinkle in the script: BREAKING: Michigan's AG is charging 16 Trump supporters with felonies for providing alternative electors in the 2020 election. What does God's Word say? 2 Timothy 3:1-17 3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.A Final Charge to Timothy10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.Episode 978 Links:BREAKING: Michigan's AG is charging 16 Trump supporters with felonies for providing alternative electors in the 2020 election. They're criminalizing being pro Trump now.Just in: Plot twist in Michigan case where Whitmer is trying to imprison 16 Trump-supporting “grandparents”…There was an insurrection while Trump was President… It just wasn't committed by who the media tells you it was.Democrats have objected to certifying Electoral College wins for the presidential contests of 2000, 2004, and 2016.Liberal activists like Mark Ruffalo, Rosie O'Donnell, Neera Tanden, and Pink urged electors to flip their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton in 2016."Investigators were not allowed to follow up on WhatsApp messages from Hunter Biden...where he suggested he was sitting next to his father." - IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.If the IRS whistleblowers are telling the truth, Merrick Garland has committed multiple felonies. We need a special prosecutor, and the House should start holding impeachment inquiries.Congressman Byron Donalds @RepDonaldsPress. The Supreme Court blocked Biden's original student loan bailout. Biden knows it's unconstitutional & violates sep of powers but they're pushing it through again. It's not fair to force those who didn't go to college to pay for the tuition of others. We're working to stop thisThe “Bullhorn Lady” who helped break into the Capitol has just been found guilty on NINE federal charges and now faces 47 years in prison. Rachel Powell was found guilty on a variety of charges, including felony charges of interfering with officers performing their duties and obstruction of an official proceeding. Powell's bench trial was held in May, and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth just delivered the verdict today. FBI whistleblower testifies under oath that FBI won't allow 11,000+ hours of J6 footage to be released b/c it would expose undercover agents committing crimes inside Capitol. This is why they're indicting President Trump - to cover up their J6 setup4Patriots https://4patriots.com Protect your family with Food kits, solar generators and more at 4Patriots. Use code TODD for 10% off your first purchase. Alan's Soaps https://alanssoaps.com/TODD Use coupon code ‘TODD' to save an additional 10% off the bundle price. BiOptimizers https://magbreakthrough.com/todd Use promo code TODD for 10% off your order. Bonefrog https://bonefrog.us Enter promo code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your subscription. Bulwark Capital http://KnowYourRiskRadio.com Find out how Bulwark Capital Actively Manages risk. Call 866-779-RISK or visit KnowYourRiskRadio.com Patriot Mobile https://patriotmobile.com/herman Get free activation today with offer code HERMAN. Visit or call 878-PATRIOT. RuffGreens https://ruffgreens.com/todd Get your FREE Jumpstart Trial Bag of Ruff Greens, simply cover shipping. Visit or call 877-MYDOG-64. 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Is there a better way for Mishka Katkoff to return to the podcast than a no bull talk with the one and only, Joseph Kim? In this episode, the current and former founders talk about the hard knocks and the greatest highlight of a startup life. They also discuss dealing with haters, lessons learned, work-life balance, and of course love of JK's life, Elon Musk. Shoutout to our fantastic partners: Heroic Labs, Xsolla, AppsFlyer, and Data.ai --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deconstructoroffun/support
(Some of) your nice hosts went to Origins Game Fair last week to check out the launch of their card game Glom. But before they went, they talked about the state of the next card game they're working on (and working on pitching to publishers), Dogpile!The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth - Smithsonian InstitutionW. E. B. Du Bois: A Resource Guide - Angela McMillian, Library of Congress The State of "Dogpile!" Mark LaCroixStephen McGregorEllen Burns-JohnsonIRLTabletopSell sheet for "Dogpile!"Rules document for "Dogpile!"Sell Sheets for Game Designers 101 - Luke Laurie, League of GamemakersCooper Black - Wikipedia Listen to us come up with the game in: Dogpile! We developed it further in: Dogpile! (part 2)‘Heroin for middle-class nerds': how Warhammer conquered gaming - Alex Hern, The Guardian
two & a half gamers, Matej teams up with Joseph Kim from GameMakers & discuss last year's Top 5 mobile gaming global launches. This is a live episode recorded in Los Angeles. Youtube: https://youtu.be/_hY8nU6QGMo Agenda: Honkai Starrail Monopoly GO! Survivor!.io Marvel Snap Frozen City GameMakers: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNjY2wtI5-F9ECeSA9KhEQ https://gamemakers.com/ https://gamemakers.substack.com/ Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it! Hit the Subscribe button on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple! Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric Floodrush article: https://lancaric.me/supercell-floodrush-user-acquistion-game-design
Excerpt from GameMakers full interview: Pixels & Profits #2. Watch the full discussion here: https://youtu.be/fi0RCUiCnfE SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gamemakers/message
Excerpt from GameMakers full interview: Pixels & Profits #1. Watch the full discussion here: https://youtu.be/2G539NGHfVI SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/
Excerpt from GameMakers full interview: Pixels & Profits #1. Watch the full discussion here: • Where is the Game... SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/
Excerpt from GameMakers full interview: Pixels & Profits #1. Watch the full discussion here: https://youtu.be/2G539NGHfVI SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/
The Nintendo Entertainment Podcast is here just days before the Christmas season! And the guys have much to discuss! First, the guys discuss their gaming exploits. Todd discusses his lack of playing Persona 5 Royal and his "addiction" to Fire Emblem Heroes! Scott talks about Samurai Maiden and other indie games he's played. Finally, Will also has played FEH, Splatoon 3, and Mass Effect Legendary Edition! Then, in the news! Splatoon 3 gets a new Splatfest topic and changes to the formula! Triangle Strategy reaches one million units sold, the Joy-Cons could get you a refund from Nintendo, and Ash is leaving the Pokemon anime! Tears are guaranteed! Finally, in the main event, the guys become "Game Makers" to discuss Nintendo franchises that deserve a spinoff or an origin story! What series will they pick? You might be surprised by the choices! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the Nintendo Entertainment Podcast!
Technology correspondent Peter Griffin looks at how the country's video games industry has become a creative powerhouse, generating $407m in the last financial year, and is now under threat from tax breaks across the Tasman. Why hasn't the games industry here enjoyed the same concessions the film industry enjoys? And 2022 hasn't been the best year for Big Tech. Peter looks at the five big themes that have shaped the world of tech here and abroad this year.
Come get to know Jo Kim, founder of Lila Games and host of Game Makers. Jo shares his career story, passion for company culture and hiring "right." Learn why you should consider founding your next studio in India. Jo also shares his thoughts on what a "company" is and how that might change - sooner than you think!
THE THESIS: The chaos economy is irrational and the Game Makers play us with fears. If we choose to remember who God is, we will not fall prey to their tactics. THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES: The Lord is the God of abundance through faith1 Kings 17:8-168 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”12 “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”13 Elijah said to her, “Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.'”15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.THE NEWS & COMMENT:Despite legal challenges, White House unveils 'simple' student loan forgiveness application formThe White House says the application for up to $20,000 of student loan debt forgiveness won't require "supporting documents" or Federal Student Aid identification.It's Official: The Fed's in the RedBloomberg energy columnist: “OIL MARKET: Another **huge** weekly release from the SPR, injecting ~7.7m barrels into the market last week (or ~1.1m b/d), according to DoE. If my data is correct, last week saw the 3rd largest SPR oil weekly release ever, only behind two individual weeks in Aug and Sep”
THE THESIS: From the share price of Tesla, to the real cost of inflation, to our bank accounts, The Party is operating in the economy of deception. THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES: Matthew 6:26-27 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Why Jesus Opposed the Moneychangers in the Temple THE NEWS & COMMENT: The white house spokes-liar reading from her binder pretends to be celebrating [embed the tweet, please] Karine Jean-Pierre: President Biden will be joined by thousands of Americans in celebrating the historic Inflation Reduction Act https://t.co/wHDoWHSS59 https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1569751826827808769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The Figuread's current spokes-liar said what? [AUDIO] - "Prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months." CNN says math is “harshing their buzz.” [AUDIO] - CNN: "There is this unfortunate split screen right now with the Dow taking a total beating...it feels like it's hard to be celebratory for some people." The Mockingbirds were trying their best to create a distortion field with their Illusion of Respectability (thank you to Podcast Family member, James McIntsoh for telling me about the stock market hyping by the AP days before the 1,200 drop during the Figureheads's speech) But, that stupid, racist math tends to catch-up with them At least the figurehead has Nancy! [AUDIO] - NOW - Pelosi: "Mr. President ... your extraordinary leadership has made this glorious day possible. I — That's an applause line." Katie Pavlich with fun tweet . . . Biden forgot to vote absentee…so after he held a party at the White House to celebrate inflation and in the wake of American 401k plans/other retirement investments getting wiped out today, he decided to make a quick, emission filled, $177k+ trip to Delaware and back tonight.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
THE THESIS: Our financial game-makers, Blackrock, Vanguard, the “Federal” Reserve and the U.S. Treasury bosses can only fend off the ultimate financial reckoning their game-making has welcomed. Had they heeded God's advice on dealing with money, we wouldn't be facing the financial reset--the real, organic one, not the invented, manipulated Great Reset--that we do face. In our spheres of influence--church, home, work--we can choose to obey God's words about money. Afterall, the Lord Jesus spoke often about it, both in his own teaching and in quoting the scriptures of which he was raised (and, as part of the Godhead, he wrote), the Old Testament THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES: Matthew 6:19–21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What Did Jesus Actually Have to Say about Money? Bible Verses About Money: What Does The Bible Have To Say About Our Financial Lives? THE NEWS & COMMENT: Jerome Powell, Boss of the private group we choose to call the Federal Reserve argues that a “strong labor market” means we are not in two straight quarters of negative growth? Fed's Powell says he does not think US economy is in a recession; Jerome Powell: Strong labor market likely means US not in a recession . . . no, Powell might choose to ignore the fact that The Party destroyed jobs and businesses for two years and only now are people coming back. His fellow financial game-makers just raked in about $360 billion in transferred wealth on the backs of small business owners who had their livelihoods decimated by the medically useless, politically targeted, deadly lockdowns of small business, churches and school. The charade continues . . . [AUDIO] - Biden economic advisor: "Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession." [AUDIO] - The Figurehead, no doubt speaking from a sound stage, agrees: no recession, here! Truth and consistency are tied together. There is no truth from The Party, but the truth of their greed for power. Look at what they have done to our “strategic” petroleum reserves: Biden admin today making repurchase deals for our depleted oil reserves at mid-$90 a barrel. Phil Flynn reminds us that 2 years ago Dems refused to let Trump restock SPR reserves at $18.84 a barrel; they said it would be bailing out big oil...at $18.84!! Even Democrats have noticed what The Party's policies are doing to people: Rep. Tim Ryan: 'Big mistake' to deny people are getting hammered by inflation; Ohio Democrat Senate candidate warns against his party denying how 'bad' inflation is for working Americans CNN Poll: 75% of Democratic Voters Don't Want Biden as the 2024 Candidate; No matter how much Biden and his minions sugarcoat it, he is in big trouble in 2024 if he runs. And, the people who run Joe Biden are keenly aware of that. So, like good financial game-makers, they will reach into your pocket to bribe people: Biden Considering Another Months-Long Pause on Student Loan Repayments and $10K in Loan Forgiveness; “At least we are all being open about the fact that this is a shameless vote-buying scheme.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://maryrose.org/https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/https://twitter.com/DominicJonesUKhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicejones/ https://www.nmrn.org.uk/https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/news/item/1152-buoyant-bounce-back-bodes-well-for-portsmouth-historic-dockyard Dominic Jones was recruited to the Mary Rose in 2019 ago as Chief Operating Officer, and became CEO in 2021. He brings an excellent background in commercial visitor attractions (Disney, Merlin) and creative visitor experience development.During his time at the Mary Rose, he has already driven an excellent commercial and operational performance and worked closely with previous Chief Executive to create the new Portsmouth Historic Dockyard joint venture with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which launched successfully in August 2020. Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Dominic Jones, CEO of the Mary Rose Museum and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Dominic shares the amazing impact of the joint venture between the Mary Rose Museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy and his advice for any attractions looking to start and improve their partnership arrangements. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Dominic. Welcome to Skip the Queue. Thanks for coming on.Dominic Jones: Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it, I think.Kelly Molson: You are looking forward to it. You don't need to think about it. Can we just point out, I know, listeners, you can't see this, but if you're watching this on YouTube, can we just see, you've got a lovely little, "I love Skip the Queue" graphic in the background there. Look at that.Dominic Jones: Yeah, I think it's important to get across that I do love Skip the Queue and it's important to get that across before the icebreaker questions, I think, just in case you had a couple and you were thinking, "Oh, I'm going to be a bit tough." And then, so I did that and I tweeted this morning how excited I am about your forthcoming website attraction questionnaire, so that's a double. That's a double positive, right?Kelly Molson: Thank you. Thank you. Don't worry, listeners. I've got a special little recording so you understand what we're talking about that will be coming out in the next week or so, so you'll find out more about that soon.Dominic Jones: And I bought you a rubber for your rubber collection. Can you see that? Mary Rose rubber?Kelly Molson: Wow. Look at that.Dominic Jones: You may or may not get that depending on how the icebreakers go, so that's my third attempt.Kelly Molson: Gosh, I've never been bribed for a good icebreaker question.Dominic Jones: It's not bribery. It's a nice gift. It's a nice gift.Kelly Molson: Right, well, let's get cracking on the icebreaker questions, shall we? I think I've been quite kind to you. Tell us something that you are really great at cooking.Dominic Jones: I really like cooking. I actually find cooking really relaxing, so on a Friday or Saturday, I often cook at home, so it depends, really. I quite like making my own recipes, so just using what we've got in the house. So for example, scallops with chorizo, or if you're doing a steak, might do it with some sort of watercress and various cheese, or just sort of experimenting. I really like sort of seeing what we've got, putting it together and making it work. I think it's important, when you're cooking, to drink some wine as well.Kelly Molson: Oh, I agree.Dominic Jones: So cooking with wine is something I enjoy doing.Kelly Molson: We can be friends, Dominic.Dominic Jones: There we go.Kelly Molson: Absolutely, we can be friends. Also, really great choices of food there. I would definitely eat both of those. You'd be really good on Ready Steady Cook, then. That would've been your show.Dominic Jones: Yeah. Do you know what? I used to... So I once applied for a game show, which I didn't get on, I was very disappointed, but Ready Steady Cook was one I think I could have done. Because it's not hard, is it? Most things go with things, and it's also about having the confidence to carry it off and knowing... The only time it went wrong was I wanted to cook for my girlfriend, who's now my wife, a lemon pasta dish and it tasted awful and it had lemon rind in it and stuff, so... But apart from that, it's always worked out.Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, you must have done all right. She married you.Dominic Jones: Yeah.Kelly Molson: She married you in the end.Dominic Jones: True.Kelly Molson: All right. Well, our next one, I've gone topical for this. If you were the captain of a pirate ship...Dominic Jones: Yeah?Kelly Molson: What would be the name of your ship?Dominic Jones: That's a good one. Oh. I do like pirates. I think, because I'm Welsh and because I'd want to be a pirate who... A bit like sort of the Warrior in the Dockyard, which isn't a pirate ship, by the way, but when it came in, people normally surrendered, I want to be a scary pirate that people would think, "Oh, don't..." Maybe, like, Smoking Dragon or something like that. And then we'd light smoke as we came in so people are like, "Oh, here's the Smoking Dragon."Kelly Molson: Yeah, I like that. And there'd be a big dragon's head on the front with flame and smoke coming out of it.Dominic Jones: And people... Because a lot of pirates were Welsh. I don't know whether you know this, but a lot of pirates were Welsh.Kelly Molson: I didn't know that.Dominic Jones: Yeah, it's massive.Kelly Molson: Wow.Dominic Jones: Massive.Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. This is great. That's an excellent answer.Dominic Jones: I have to say, these are slightly biased questions because I was listening to a few of your podcasts recently and, like, you had someone from the zoo, "Oh, what's your favourite animal?" Or you had someone from IAAPA, "What's your favourite ride?" And I'm getting a "name a pirate ship"? Know what I mean?Kelly Molson: All right, what's your favourite boat?Dominic Jones: No, only joking. I'm not going to answer that. I'm not going to answer that.Kelly Molson: All right, but what is your favourite smell? That's my last question.Dominic Jones: Genuinely, we're looking at smell now for the museum, because smell is so important, it's something that can make a difference. When I was at Madame Tussauds Amsterdam, we used smell, as well, as part of the experience, because it just creates that emotive moment. I do like cookie dough and cookies and the smell of that sort of baking which you get pumped in in Disney parks. I quite like the smell of red wine.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yep.Dominic Jones: Yeah, so I think it's food or drink smells I like, but yeah. Good question.Kelly Molson: Good answer. We are at Unpopular Opinion Point. What have you got to share with us?Dominic Jones: This is a hard one because I've decided to go work on this and I did have some really cool ones about lager and N-Dubz and stuff, but I decided to go with work because one of the things that through my whole career, anyone who knows me will know is I get really frustrated when people blame the weather, so I think you shouldn't blame the weather for anything because what happens is when someone blames the weather, when the weather's... So I've worked in theme parks and in museums and aquariums, indoor and outdoor attractions, and you probably know that when it's bad weather, it's great for indoor attractions, when it's good weather, it's good for the theme parks, right?Dominic Jones: So you get people that, when it's good weather in theme parks or bad weather in museums, they say, "Oh, our marketing and our everything we're doing is brilliant because the visitors are coming." And as soon as it's the bad weather or the good weather, depending on what you are, then it's all about the weather. So, "Our visitors are down because the weather was good." If you're in an indoor attraction and it really, really irritates me, and it's one of those things, they're mutually exclusive, you can only blame the weather if you give the weather credit when it's good, and it's one of those things, if things are good, I always think you should look outside the window and think, "Right, what's the reason for that?" And then if things are bad, you should look inside your organisation. It's one of my pet hates, but probably doesn't work for the podcast, so I should probably go with the lager or N-Dubz one, but anyway, there we go. But it is important, right? I think it's a good one.Kelly Molson: It is important. No, I think, yeah, that is important. It's really interesting. I've never really thought about that before. We need to give the weather more credit.Dominic Jones: Well, you need to give the weather credit if you're going to use it to blame. For me, it's a constant. It's something... And these days, weather forecasts are 10, 14 days out, so you should be able to plan.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay. Good. All right.Dominic Jones: I'll get off my high horse now. Yeah.Kelly Molson: Listeners, let us know how you feel, so let us know if you want to know about that N-Dubz one as well. I'm intrigued. Right, Dominic, I want you to tell us about your background because we met up recently, didn't we, at the M+H exhibition? And you were very humble about coming on the podcast and you said, "Oh, I'm not going to have anything... You've had really interesting people on and I'm not that interesting." You are really interesting and you've had such an incredible background. Tell us a little bit about it and how you got to where you are now.Dominic Jones: Well, I'm not sure about that. I do like listening to your podcast and you have some amazing guests and 9 times out of 10, I normally think, after listening to them, "Right, I'm going to either do something that they've suggested." Or I follow them on LinkedIn or Twitter and think, "Right, let's learn from them." Because I think you should always learn from other people, but so my career is a lot of luck, a lot of opportunity and a lot of chats.Dominic Jones: When I was growing up, I wanted to be a leisure centre manager. You know? Like you probably won't remember The Brittas Empire, but that was my dream. That was my dream, much to my mum's disappointment. And so that was all I ever wanted, so I went to college and did a leisure studies course, a HND, and there was a placement in PGL Adventure, which is like an adventure park, and I was a Multi Activity Instructor. Absolutely loved it.Dominic Jones: But then I sort of realised, actually, there's a whole world out there and decided I wanted to work in theme parks, so I applied to work at Disney and didn't get it the first time. I was very cocky, I was the wrong sort of person for Disney, but I went back three times and eventually got it and I did a placement in Disney and it was the best thing I ever did and it changed my life. It's one of the few jobs that I've left and thought, "My life will never be the same again." So good. So I did that and I got my master's degree. I didn't get the doctorate because I went on spring break, but hey, I was young...Kelly Molson: Well, spring break, though.Dominic Jones: Exactly. I was young. And then sort of went to Thorpe Park and was a Ride Operator. I remember my friends and some of their family were saying, "That's a real waste of..." Because I went to, in between Disney, went to university in Swansea, and they said, "It's a real waste of university, operating a teacup for £3.50 an hour." Or whatever it was at the time. But I loved it and for me, it was... I thought, "If you want to become a manager or you want to become, eventually, a General Manager or a Director of a theme park, it's really important to know how these things work."Dominic Jones: So I loved it, and just in case you ever get to operate the teacups, it's not too complicated, there's a red and green button, the red is to stop and the green is to start. I mean, it was five hours of training, but I finally mastered it and you can't actually make it go faster, so when you're there on the microphone and say, "Do you want to go faster?" You can't, it goes faster anyway, but I loved it and then very quickly rose through the ranks, so I became a Ride Supervisor, Team Leader, Area Team Leader, Coordinator, went to Chessington, worked there just at the time when Tussauds had bought Thorpe Park, so it was a real great time for career opportunities.Dominic Jones: Then I went to Madame Tussauds, was the Customer Service Manager there and helped create the first contact centre, if you like, call centre, where we sold tickets for things like Rock Circus, which is no longer in existence, but Rock Circus, the London Eye, Madam Tussauds, the Planetarium and that became the Merlin Contact Centre in the future, and then I started applying for loads of jobs, more General Manager jobs, and didn't get them and realised that I needed to get some marketing and sales experience.Dominic Jones: So I left and went to work for Virgin and then I was there for nearly 10 years and absolutely loved it and instead of getting the sales and marketing, well, I got the sales experience, I ended up becoming Vice President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for the logistics side of the business, and then also, so we opened up Kenya, had some amazing life experiences, we saw the whole world and then was Regional Vice President Sales in Hong Kong for Asia Pacific, so great time.Dominic Jones: And then my wife became pregnant, obviously, I was involved in that, and it made me realise that I probably couldn't do a job where I was traveling 24/7. I mean, for a while, I did literally consider, which makes me sound like a bad person, "I could call in from Skype and things like that." And my wife was like, "Come on." So we went back to Wales and it was really hard to find a job that would allow me to be at home and be around so I actually thought, "Well, originally, when I went to Virgin, I wanted to have marketing experience."Dominic Jones: So I actually went to Thorpe Park and the marketing team and looked after the partnerships and promotions, did some really cool things, the Ministry of Sound nightclub deal was there, did some stuff with Lionsgate. A really good time doing the "buy one, get one free" things, the partnerships and events, got some good bands together on the stage that hadn't been on stage with the Wideboys and the [inaudible 00:11:55] boys if you know your dance music, it was massive.Dominic Jones: Anyway, so I did that for a bit and then got an opportunity to go back to Wales, which is where my wife's family is from. I'm from North Wales, she's from South Wales, so I got a chance to run Oakwood Theme Park, which I absolutely loved and probably would've been there forever if an opportunity hadn't come up with Merlin and Merlin, it was to look after the rest of Europe and the rest of Europe was basically anything in their midway, so Madam Tussauds, Dungeons, Lego Discovery Centre, Sea Life, that wasn't in the UK or Germany, so it was like Istanbul, Helsinki, Paris Blankenberge in Belgium, Spain. I mean, it was brilliant and I did that for a few years.Dominic Jones: Then I went and ran Thorpe Park for a few years, which absolutely loved because that was where I started as a teacup operator and I remember, there was a guy there, good friend of mine, he said, "I remember, when you were on the teacups, you said, 'One day, I'm going to come back and run the place.'" And I did, so amazing. And then, in that time, I had three kids and really was commuting from Christchurch, so decided to change careers again and come into the heritage world and came as the COO of the Mary Rose, which I did for two years, and then, during the pandemic, became the CEO, so quick sort of... Yeah. But lots of luck and right place, right time, all those sort of things, but that's good, right? That's most people's career.Kelly Molson: Whoa. That is amazing. I mean, you've been to so many different places. I love that you went full-circle at Thorpe Park as well. What an incredible story, to have gone in there as an operator and then end up running the place. That is amazing.Dominic Jones: Yeah, I loved that. And actually, all the jobs I've had have really become part of our story. I was talking to someone yesterday about the Mary Rose and they were talking about what they were going to do next but how the Mary Rose had been a massive part of their story and I said, "That's the beautiful thing about work and careers and life. Whatever you do, it becomes part of your story and you're part of their story." So whether it's Thorpe Park, whether it's when I opened up, for Virgin Atlantic, the Nairobi route for logistics and the Hamlin, it was amazing and I've been to Kenya probably more times than I've been to Birmingham, you know? So that's part of my story, and when I leave the Mary Rose, I hope isn't any time soon, this will always be... It'll be my favourite Tudor warship. I mean, it's probably the only Tudor warship, but also my favourite one, so yeah.Kelly Molson: That was the answer to my question, as well. "What's your favourite ship?"Dominic Jones: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Wow. I'm blown away by your career. I just think you've had such a phenomenal journey to get to where you are now. There's something that I want to talk to you about today and that's about your joint venture that you have with the Mary Rose and the National Museum of the Royal Navy. I just want to read out a tweet that I saw because this is what sparked this conversation, so this is a tweet that went out on the Mary Rose Twitter account.Kelly Molson: It says, "We are very pleased to share that Portsmouth Historic Dockyard saw a 150% rise in visitor numbers in 2021, reported by ALVA today. The significant rise in visitors demonstrates the effectiveness of the joint venture between Mary Rose and the National Museum of the Royal Navy in our first year."Kelly Molson: I am very intrigued by this because this has been kind of a constant throughout most of the podcast conversations that we have is about how collaborative the sector is, but this is really specific about two attractions collaborating together to bring more visitors in. I would love you to tell us about this.Dominic Jones: Well, yeah, the end result's fantastic. 150% increase in visitors. It really feels joined up. My son's school is coming in today so I was in the visitor centre and I was waiting to see what time he was coming in because he obviously wouldn't tell me the time he's actually in, so I was looking around the visitor centre and I couldn't be prouder, when you see the mixture of Victory and Warrior and Mary Rose, and how far we've come since we started, but if you go back in history, the Mary Rose used to be part of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and there was one ticket and there was a separate company called Portsmouth Historic Dockyard that ran it, and lots of trusts, at that time, there were lots of trusts that fed into it, and then, for whatever reason, some of these trusts went independent.Dominic Jones: And so when I joined the Mary Rose, we were separate. We had a separate ticket, visitor centre, if you like, so imagine, I guess, like a... You know when you're on holiday and there's people trying to get you to go on boat rides or they're trying to get you to come into their restaurant? And literally, we were competing, so when a visitor was outside, there'd be the Mary Rose saying, "Hey, come and see Henry VIII's warship, the biggest Tudor collection in the world." I mean, it's amazing. And then the people next door, "Hey, come and see the Victory and the Warrior." And it just was really difficult for the customers, and for whatever reason, we weren't together and we had these two separate companies, so for quite a while, when I started, along with Helen, who was the CEO and Dominic and a gentleman called John in NMRN, we had meetings to see if we could get closer and to get a deal, and then I think Matthew joined, as well, from NMRN, and eventually we kind of got to an agreement.Dominic Jones: It was about, "What can we do together? What, collaboratively, can we do?" We came up with three things. We can sell tickets together, we could run a visitor centre together, so that's #1, the visitor side. We could market the destination together, and we could do strategic operations like events. So we then looked away and came across a deal, and for us, it was important that the two parties, so Mary Rose and the National Museum of the Royal Navy had a 50/50 parity of decision so it wasn't a one-sided joint venture and it was really... There's lots of talent in both organisations, so I've always admired what the National Museum of the Royal Navy have done over the years and how they've told history and how they bring it to life, and obviously, I love the Mary Rose.Dominic Jones: And so when we put us together, it was just a real opportunity, that synergy. You know when people say "one and one and you get three", but it was exactly like that and it worked really well, so we share marketing, so marketing costs, we share, we share marketing resource, so Mary Rose marketing people work along with NMRN marketing people. We do some things independently so our trusts are independent, our conservation, our research and all that sort of stuff, that's just Mary Rose and NMRN is just that, although we are working on some projects together, but in terms of the visitor, we have one visitor centre, we have one ticket you can buy, lots of options, we could talk about that, some amazing pricing we did which allowed us to do that.Dominic Jones: Because when you're competing against each other, you almost are encouraged to discount more, so we had, at times, the National Museum of the Royal Navy who were saying Portsmouth Historic Dockyard then might have a deal on Groupon, we might have a deal on Wowcher and you'd just be discounting, discounting, discounting, and you wouldn't be really getting across the real value for the customer, so yeah, it was really hard, and I remember, we would really fight for every single visitor because, for us, 84% of our money comes from tickets, so I remember, we'd get Henry VIII down the front, out the front, we'd have him talking to the visitors, saying, "Oh", you know, and with people talking in French and he'd go up in French and say, "Well, I was the king of France. Why are you going to Victory? Come to Mary Rose." But he wouldn't be taking them away from Victory, because that would be bad, but he would be saying, "Go to both." And we'd always be positive about NMRN, but we'd also want people to come to Mary Rose because that was how we were going to survive.Kelly Molson: Just going back to those times, then, was it more like a rivalry than anything?Dominic Jones: Yeah, it was really hard.Kelly Molson: So it was really difficult?Dominic Jones: It was really hard. I mean, we all respected each other, but it was really hard. It was like one of those ferry terminals or restaurants on holiday. I mean, I remember, we would flyer, like circus marketing, bumping into the brand, resort domination, we called it. We would be literally, when it was sunny because you can't blame the weather, when it was sunny, we'd be on the beach with Mary Rose leaflets saying, "Hey, get out the cool, we're air-conditioned, come to the Mary Rose." We were literally in all the restaurants, we had colour-in sheets, "Come to...", it was all about getting everyone to come and actually, we quickly realized that the NMRN was spending so much money on getting people to Portsmouth that we needed to make sure when they're in Portsmouth, they came to the Mary Rose and we did.Dominic Jones: I mean, I look back on it now, we had adverts that had, because we'd been very lucky with Tripadvisor, five stars, I mean I would've dreamed of that at Thorpe Park, but five stars constantly so we'd have posters that say, "You've just missed the best thing to do in Portsmouth." And then another one. "Turn around." You know, like when you go to Camden Town and there's a McDonald's, a Burger King and then outside the Burger King, there's a sign. "Why are you going to Burger King? Go to McDonald's." It was like that, so it wasn't great.Kelly Molson: It's quite intense, as well, isn't it, for the visitor?Dominic Jones: Yeah.Kelly Molson: That's a lot of pressure.Dominic Jones: Well, it is and I would do it and I would literally go down and leave, because you've got to leave from the front, and I would put my Mary Rose coat, which I've still got here, and I'd be down the scenic and we'd be... And I remember coaches would turn up and one of the ladies who was fantastic with us, Sandra, she's now one of our Visitor Experience Managers, but she'd jump on the couch and say, "Have you booked your tickets? Where are you going? Can I tell you about the Mary Rose?" And she'd bring whole coaches in. It was hard and it was really... I went to sleep every night easy, because it was so tiring and it wasn't sustainable and we did need to get a deal, and actually, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Mary Rose always treated each other with respect, but it was like the Battle of Victory Gate and that's not the way to behave and that's not the long-term way to run a business.Dominic Jones: So what was really great was we've got a deal, we got the ability to sell tickets together and we got the ability to work together and there's some really super talented people in the National Museum of the Royal Navy and in Mary Rose and we did some great things, so when we reopened after COVID, we did this really cool video where we had Henry VIII and we had some of their characters from Warrior and some of their actors all visiting each other's attractions in the lift, wearing face masks, getting hand sanitiser, and it just feels joined up.Dominic Jones: I mean, I've done lots of partnerships in my career. At Merlin, we had a Sea Life in Helsinki, which was a joint venture with a theme park called Linnanmaki. If you ever get to interview this lady who ran Linnanmaki, or she might the CEO there, she was amazing, but we had this joint venture. See, it's really hard in a joint venture because, especially if it's a 50/50 parity decision one, you've got to get agreement and that means that you work really hard on doing the right thing, so what's quite nice is if we were on our own, we probably would've done marketing campaigns and other things which were okay, but because we end up working together and we've got to make sure we get that joint agreement, the results is always way better. It's brilliant. And the customers benefit, because it's one entrance, it's one ticket, there's a lot more value in it, so yeah, it's been really successful.Kelly Molson: I hadn't realised quite how intertwined the organisations were in terms of decision-making and marketing, like you say, and sharing all of those resources. You talked a little bit about the visitor centre. Did you have to change the infrastructure and stuff? Did you have to build new buildings and all of that and agree on that?Dominic Jones: Well, no, they had a big visitor centre because, I mean, they've got a lot more footprint, more attractions, they've got the Warrior, they've got M.33, they've got a Submarine Museum over in Victory and we've got the Mary Rose, which is amazing. And so we had a building called Porter's Lodge, which was here and then there's the gate, and then they had their visitor center and their visitor center was perfect, so we moved in there, but we agreed to make it look and feel like it was Mary Rose and National Museum of the Royal Navy, so we spent a bit of money on the look and feel of it, so that was good and same with the brand and the marketing and making it feel like it was something new, but yeah, so there was a bit of that.Dominic Jones: I mean, in terms of infrastructure, we went with their ticketing system because it made more sense because it would be a bigger cost for them to change. We went with some of the Mary Rose's media buying because, at the time, we were buying media cheaper and better. And actually, now, we're in the process of going to tenders together, so the digital agency, we've done together, the PR agency, we've done together and it's great because it's a bigger portfolio and you get different views, and I always think the best way to run any business, so, for example, the Mary Rose or Thorpe Park or wherever it is, to talk to your customers, to talk to your staff and then, obviously, to talk to the manage experts. And we get that in spades, because we've also got our staff and our customers and our volunteers, but we've got NMRN staff and customers and volunteers and together, we are getting some really cool ideas and things we can do, so it's working well. As you can see, 150% increase in the first year.Kelly Molson: I mean, I've read it with my own eyes.Dominic Jones: And I hope you saw, NMRN, they did a little nice fist bump reply, and it just is in the spirit of it. We are working together and I think that's so important.Kelly Molson: It is massively important. You mentioned something about pricing earlier, and we've spoken about this before, but you said that you did something interesting that you'd implemented that allowed you to grow the yield and the revenue as well. Was this something that you did jointly too?Dominic Jones: Yeah, it was. So we had to come up with a new pricing structure because we were doing something new, so they had, what was it called? Full Navy Ticket, which was for all of their attractions and we had an annual ticket, so when we merged, we had to come up with a new pricing structure and it's a good opportunity to change, and 84% of our business, our revenue comes from tickets, theirs is about, I think, 80% or so, I can't remember, so it's still important to them as well. So we had to get the pricing right and it allowed us to really think about what's the best value for the customer and what's the best thing to do that stops us having to discount heavily?Dominic Jones: So we created a... It's like a decoy pricing model, like supermarkets have been doing it for years, so if you buy one attraction, it's a really bad ticket. I mean, still, a few people buy them, it's a really bad ticket, so it was... I mean, it used to be £18. We put the price up to £24. It used to be, if you bought one ticket, you could visit that attraction all year. You can only visit it once. So we made it a really unattractive ticket, so that's your lower decoy, so the idea of that is you only buy that if all you really want to do is go to the Mary Rose or all you want to go is go to the Victory and if you've just come to see one of those things, that's the sort of money you would pay, it's very competitively priced with other things on the South Coast, so that's what we did.Dominic Jones: And then we created a Three-Attraction Ticket or Three-Ship Ticket, which was slightly more money, so that went up to £39, which was the biggest sort of sting, about a £15 increase, big, big jump. And that was an annual ticket. That was, you could pick your three attractions and visit them all year. And then we did, "But for £5 more, you could have an Ultimate Explorer and have everything including the..." And that sort of, so you've got the lower decoy, which is the single attraction, then you've got the medium decoy, which is three ships, but then you go, "Well, for £5 more, you could do everything."Dominic Jones: And 80% of people do the Ultimate Explorer and they do everything, and it's so good value. I mean, it's less than the price of a football game and football game, 50% of the time, you're disappointed, and you don't get long, do you? It is incredible value and you get to go to all the attractions, you get out on the water, it's brilliant. So we've got that. And then we were going to put in an upper decoy, now, an upper decoy is a premium, really expensive ticket, so for example, we might, "We have, at Mary Rose, you can go into the ship for £300 and have a private experience." And we were going to put that in, but actually, because the decoy system worked so well, we didn't need that so we've just kept it as Single Attraction Ticket, Three-Attraction Ticket and Ultimate Explorer and it's working really, really well.Dominic Jones: So yeah, that's our pricing. And because of that, we don't have to discount because we put all the value and loaded the value in, actually, we don't have to discount. And then, when we do discount, we want to reach the right people, so, for example, we do, between the months of November and February, we do a Loyal and Local campaign where we go out to Portsmouth and Southampton regions and we say, "Bring a bill in and you can get a considerable discount." All year round, we do a discount for people who've got a Portsmouth leisure card, so anyone who's on Universal Credit, so they get 50% off.Dominic Jones: And we do some other really cool community engagement stuff between us with schools and stuff like that, and then if we do do a discount, so discounts are still important, so there's some amazing partners out there, GetYourGuide, Picnic, lots of the providers that really support businesses, Virgin, Ticketdays, all that sort of stuff. But we do it at the right level, so we've got like a playground, so whereas before, we might have been competing against each other, thinking, "Oh, we need to discount by 40% or 50% and then give them extra commission so they push it." We now do it at a really fair level, so there is a bit of a discount, but it's not much.Dominic Jones: And then for the consumer, we want the cheapest, best-value ticket to always be on our website. And we used a couple companies, so we used a company called, they were called Brand Incrementum, they're now called Magic Little Giants, we use them, we use some insight into what previous businesses have done before, but we copied the American Six Flags website model. If you ever want a quick lesson in pricing, just go to Six Flags. Their website is that... I mean, you're into websites, right?Kelly Molson: I am.Dominic Jones: It's the best website for pricing. I love it and I check it nearly every month. It makes me laugh, how focused they are on decoy pricing and how in-your-face they are, but how you don't know it as a consumer unless you know. It's amazing. It drives my family mad. I love it. Anyway. Yeah.Kelly Molson: This decoy pricing, I've never heard that phrase, I've never heard that used in pricing before. This is all new to me.Dominic Jones: It's like supermarkets when you get... And I remember, we've got a local supermarket near us and the guy did, "buy one bottle of wine, get one wine free". And then he had, "or buy one wine for £7 or buy two for £7". We were always going to buy two for £7 or two for £8. It's all that sort of trying to encourage behaviour, but he didn't quite get it because recently, I went in, it was like, "buy one, pay for one" and I was like, "Isn't that... That's the same as normal, yeah?" "Yeah." But he's a nice guy so I bought one. Well, that's my problem.Dominic Jones: But no, it's the same way supermarkets have been doing, where they try with the club card to get you to purchase things, or they're trying to do that, and all we're trying to do is encourage everyone to go for that Ultimate Explorer, which is the best value. It's almost like you can imagine it on the website, it's got a sign saying, "Pick me." So even to the extent we still don't, this day, discount our Single Attraction Ticket on our website. We don't give any discount for it and then we give a £5 discount on the three attractions and £5 on Ultimate Explorer. But yeah, loving the pricing.Kelly Molson: Love this. This is such great insight. Thank you for sharing. This partnership is really intriguing to me because I think it seems like the perfect setup, right? Because you're literally neighbors in the same area, you could make this work really well. What advice would you give to other attractions that are thinking about partnering with other attractions? Like what would be your top tips for people to make this work well?Dominic Jones: I mean, it's really hard. You've got to think about, because often people see it as competitors, but you've got to think in terms of getting the customers or the guests or the consumers, whatever you call them, giving them the best value, and during lockdown, when we were being interviewed and stuff, we'd always say, "Come visit the Mary Rose or come visit..." Once we did the joint venture, "Come visit the Historic Dockyard. But also, if you can't come visit, go visit your local museum, go visit anyone." It's important to share that, and I think there are always benefits of working together, you're always stronger together.Dominic Jones: When I was at Oakwood Theme Park in Wales, amazing theme park, you're in West Wales and we were thinking, "Well, how do we reach further and advertise more?" And actually, we ended up working with a farm, which was a stunning farm that had rides and animals called Folly Farm down the road and we worked, then, with Manor House Wildlife Park and Heatherton, and you actually work together and you can work together and I'd always say, "Try it on something." So try it whether it's an event or try it whether it's a destination marketing campaign. I mean, we're working with the people of Portsmouth, so with... "The people of Portsmouth", that sounds a bit grand. We're working with attractions in Portsmouth on trying to get people into Portsmouth, so we do something with Portsmouth Council where the Spinnaker Tower and D-Day Museum and Mary Rose and National Museum of the Royal Navy and now Portsmouth Historical Dockyard, together, we advertise in London because actually, advertising in London individually is really expensive, but if you do it collaboratively.Dominic Jones: There's lots of ways to do stuff collaboratively and find another angle. So we've got other people on our site that we're not partners with at the moment, so the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust, amazing people who run some of the small boats that we did the Gunboat Race with the D-Day veterans on the weekend. Fantastic. So yesterday, we had a really great Volunteers' Tea Party to celebrate the end of volunteer and we had the volunteers from the Property Trust, we had the volunteers from the NMRN, the volunteers from the Mary Rose, there's always some synergy and I would say, in any way, find it.Dominic Jones: Everywhere I've worked, I've tried to get partnerships with local businesses, with other theme parks, with other attractions, because, actually, it's your stronger together, and if you're going, especially, after a local market, because you've always got to love your locals, that's the most important thing. If they see that you actually are the sort of people that work with each other, it makes them almost more proud of you. You remember the Game Makers in the London Olympics in 2012 and how amazing they were and how they did that sort of course where everyone was recommending all this stuff to you, that's kind of what you want, but I would find some common ground, whatever it is.Dominic Jones: Whether it's lobbying, we found common ground at Thorpe Park with other attractions to lobby the government for things, for VAT to level... Or whether it's in Oakwood, trying to get some advertising to get people from Bristol to cross the bridge to come into Wales or whether it's, I'm trying to think, in Amsterdam, we worked, so Madame Tussauds Amsterdam and Dungeons, which I was responsible for, we worked with Heineken because they had this amazing experience and with Tours & Tickets, so we'd make sure that if anyone came to Amsterdam, they came to our attractions. It's those sort of partnerships, finding the common ground and making it work.Dominic Jones: And don't be scared of it, because you are always bigger and better together and customers have so much choice, so working together delivers amazing results. I would never want to go back to not being part of a partnership with the National Museum of the Royal Navy and I would love it if we could do more. We are keen to do more with other attractions in the South to get people to come to the South Coast, to come to Hampshire. But yeah, I would definitely do...Dominic Jones: And also, you get bigger buying power, so say, for example, Merlin are really strong, so they don't necessarily need those with other partners because they can do a campaign in the press, Sun, Days Go Out and you've got all the Merlin attractions, but if you're individual attractions, you can't, so if you do a partnership with your competitors, you can then suddenly say, "Right, well, we want to do a Days Out campaign in the press between all these independent attractions."Dominic Jones: I mean, it's brilliant. I love it and I love, also, this industry, how collaborative especially the heritage side is. You can say, "Oh, I was thinking about doing this. What do you think?" Or, "What do you think about that?" And everyone will share and everyone is almost willing you to be successful. It's crazy, right? It's one of the best industries in the world. If you were in, I don't know, the restaurant business, you wouldn't be doing that, would you? Or another... It's so good. Anyway, hopefully, that answers your question.Kelly Molson: Oh, absolutely.Dominic Jones: I get very passionate about it. I'm so sorry. I love it.Kelly Molson: I'm so glad that you do because it answered my question perfectly and I think you've given so much value to listeners today in terms of all of the things that you've done, I couldn't have asked for a better response. Thank you. It's a big year for the Mary Rose, isn't it? And I think it would be very right that we talk about that. So it's your 40th year celebration this year, isn't it?Dominic Jones: Yeah, 40 years since the raising, so 1982, October. I am obviously older than you so I remember watching it on Blue Peter as a child and it was the world's first underwater live broadcast. It was watched by over 60 million people worldwide. I mean, it was amazing of its time and so yeah, 40 years, and because of that, we've now got the world's biggest Tudor collection of everyday life, there's nowhere else in the world you can get closer to Tudor and we've got the biggest maritime salvation, so we've got a lot of plans to celebrate. Unfortunately, the pandemic got in the way. During the pandemic, I'm not going to lie, it was horrific. There were times when we were drawing a list of who we were going to give the keys to, got really, really bad and it got dark for everyone and every museum, every attraction, every business, I'm not trying to say, "Oh, poor us." Everyone had that tough time.Dominic Jones: But it meant that actually investing, we were going to do another building, we were going to do a whole museum dedicated to the raising and actually, probably one of the best things that came out of it is we didn't because we got the joint venture, which is brilliant, our trading improved, we had a fantastic summer and then we were like, "Right, we should really do something for the 40th anniversary, but we can't afford taking another lease of another building or building another building, so what can we do?" And we managed to come up with a few plans, so the first thing we're doing is we're doing a TV documentary, which is going to be brilliant, coming out in October. Honestly, I've seen, they started some of the filming and the pre [inaudible 00:37:39], it's going to be brilliant.Kelly Molson: Oh, that's so exciting.Dominic Jones: I can't give too much away because we've had to sign something, but it's going to be great. And actually, we even had, because we're responsible for the wreck site, so we had Chris and Alex who helped raise the Mary Rose, our Head of Interpretation, Head of Research, amazing people, they were out diving the other day because we're still responsible for the wreck site and it just gives you goosebumps. I saw the footage and oh, it's amazing. So we got that. We're also building a 4D experience.Dominic Jones: So when we reopened last summer, we opened with this thing called 1545, which was an immersive experience and we wanted to get across the Mary Rose didn't sink on its maiden voyage, it was Henry VIII's ship that he, when he came to the throne, he commissioned two ships, the Mary Rose was one of them, it fought in lots of battles, it had a long life and then sank defending Britain in a battle, by the way, the French who were invading was twice the size of the Spanish Armada, but because history's written by the winners, we don't hear that.Dominic Jones: But amazing, so we did this amazing, immersive experience. We got Dame Judi Dench to do the voice and you feel like you're going to get sunk. Well, the ship does sink and you go under and then you go into the museum and it's so good and we were like, "We want to do something for the end. We want to have a finale that says..." Because the thing about our museum, it's authentic. There's 19,700 artifacts. You can't get that anywhere else. I mean, it's just brilliant. Anyway, so we thought, "How are we going to end this?" And the thing we don't do justice to is the finding, the raising, the excavation, all the divers, there was 500 volunteer divers. From the 1960s, people were looking for it.Dominic Jones: I mean, Alexander McKee, who found it, was on the news and people would say... It was like an Indiana Jones movie, they were saying, "Oh, he's never going to find it." And other people were looking, the Navy were looking and there was a bit in Indiana Jones where they got the map the wrong way around and all of that. Brilliant. So they found the Mary Rose and then they got Margaret Rule who was this amazing lady who had, when she went to university, I think she didn't get a place at university at first because she was a woman and this is amazing, today's day story, and she didn't dive, she was an archeologist. And then she said, "I'm going to dive." Taught herself to dive and without her, this museum, the Mary Rose wouldn't be here, so Alexander McKee, Margaret Rule, two amazing people, both of them...Kelly Molson: What a woman.Dominic Jones: Yeah, what a woman, but both of them, both of them, without them, we wouldn't be here. So we want to tell their story, but also, we want to put the guests and the visitors to what it's like to dive, so with a mixture of real-life filming, footage from these 500 volunteer divers, outtakes from the Chronicle programs that are on the BBC, including, if we can get it to look right, even His Royal Highness, Prince Charles diving. It is stunning.Dominic Jones: So we're going to take the guests on a bit of a pre-show with the history, then they're going to get into the 4D theater and it'd be like you were boarding a red, going out to the wreck site, there'll be a dive briefing, you'll have the wind in your hair, the seats will be buzzing, but I'm hoping it's this good. I better ring the people after this [inaudible 00:40:38].Kelly Molson: You're really building it up, Dominic.Dominic Jones: Yeah. Well, it better deliver. No, they're brilliant. Figment are amazing. They're so good. So you get in there and then you dive and then you go down and you see what it's like to be under the water. The Royal Engineers were involved, the divers were involved and then you'll be there when the Mary Rose is raised, we're even going to recreate the moment where it... Oh, it'll be brilliant.Dominic Jones: So in answer to your question, we're doing a documentary and a 4D experience, and we've got anniversary lectures so if you're around in October, come and get involved. We've got a lot of people, from historians to divers to... Just talking about the relevance of the Mary Rose and the history of it, and also the diving, and we've got a new coffee table book coming out, so we've got lots and lots and lots going on.Kelly Molson: Oh, my goodness. It's all going on.Dominic Jones: And if we'd have done it the old way, if we'd have done it with a new museum and a new building, I don't think it would've been as good. I mean, I joined the Divers' Legacy group, so about 150 of the divers, on a Zoom call a few weeks ago and it's just, it takes you... These people, who, some of them are retired now or bear in mind this was 40, 50 years ago and hearing their stories and it's living history and it's so important that we tell these stories and capture them now, because in 50 years, they won't be here, and part of our responsibility, our charity objectives, if you like, is to tell the story and forever, and I think that bit of the story's missing, so if that's one thing that we do while I'm at the Mary Rose, I'll be really proud.Kelly Molson: Ah, that is wonderful. And it is [inaudible 00:42:12].Dominic Jones: You have to come, right? You're going to have to come.Kelly Molson: Well, this is the question. When do I need to come to experience everything that you've just sold to me? Because I am sold.Dominic Jones: Yeah. You probably want to come after our anniversary, because we're hoping to launch all this around that time, which is in October, which is, now, this is an interesting one because this was a good conversation with our trustees and our board. "Do you want to launch something in the off-peak period? Don't you want to launch it at Easter or the summer or..." And my view is we should launch it because it's the right thing to do and we're launching this in October because it's a legacy, we want the divers there, we want as many of them there as possible and it's going to be at the Mary Rose forever. This is the ending to the Mary Rose Museum. So it's not like we're launching something for Easter or summer, so we are going to launch it in October, so I'll let you know the details, come and get involved.Kelly Molson: All right, absolutely. I am there. If it's as good as what you've just described, then it's going to be one amazing day out.Dominic Jones: It'd be better. And then, and final thing, sorry, which we're not doing, but I wanted to do is we've still got some of the Mary Rose down in the ocean, so one day, I'd like to bring that back up. I don't think I'll be here to do that because it's probably be in 15 years' time or something because we need to raise a lot of money and do that, but we want to bring the rest of her back up or whatever's left down there back up, and that's quite exciting because our story continues. We still do research.Dominic Jones: We did this fantastic piece of research on skeletons, on human remains. It's a really cool diversity story. Out of the eight skeletons, one was Spanish, one was Venetian, two were North African, second generation, not slaves, a real diversity story in Tudor England. Amazing. Maybe the Victorians whitewashed history. Who knows? But what a great story. And we keep learning and we've got this amazing team of curatorial staff and all of our staff, from the maintenance to the visitor staff to the volunteers and every day, we learn something new, so [inaudible 00:44:03] we want to do. And then, at some point... Have you seen The Dig on Netflix?Kelly Molson: Yes. Yes.Dominic Jones: Great film.Kelly Molson: So good.Dominic Jones: Great film, but I want to write to Netflix to do The Dive. Can you imagine? This story about human endeavor with the Mary Rose? It'd be amazing, so we'd like to do that as well at some point, but we just don't have enough hours in the day, right?Kelly Molson: No. Just add it onto that long list of stuff.Dominic Jones: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Wow. Thank you.Dominic Jones: So if you know anyone in Netflix, let us know, or if anyone from Netflix is listening, get in touch, we want to do that. It'd be cool.Kelly Molson: I would love it.Dominic Jones: I've already casted.Kelly Molson: If someone from Netflix was listening, that would be incredible. Who have you casted?Dominic Jones: Well, so local, because you've got to get local, so for Margaret Rule, I reckon Kate Winslet, she'd do a good job. Great actress. I mean, we've already got Dame Judi Dench, so the same sort of caliber in our 1545 experience, and then also another local who could bring the Alexander McKee, Kenneth Branagh, but to be honest with you, Netflix can do all of that, because let's be honest, I'm not going to make movies, am I? I'm running a museum. But I just think it'd be really cool. It'd be really cool.Kelly Molson: I don't think there's anything that you couldn't do, Dominic, to be honest, after this podcast, so who knows?Dominic Jones: It'd be really cool. Yeah, who knows?Kelly Molson: All right, last question for you, a book that you love that you'd recommend to our listeners?Dominic Jones: I love this question and I really struggled, so I went back and thought about a work example, because I think that's probably more useful, so in all of my career, I've come across lots of people who talk about strategy and I have my own view on what strategy is, but there are lots of books you can read about strategy and there's only one book, in my opinion, that is worth reading and it's this, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Hopefully, it's still in print. It is the only book to read on strategy. It's the best book I've... And without this book, I don't think I would've been able to do half the stuff that I've done, because it's all about how you formulate your decisions, how you make your decisions, what the outcome is, it's about execution, it's about everything that, for me, you need to be successful, so I recommend this book. Really good book.Kelly Molson: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. I have not read that book, but I feel like that's going to go...Dominic Jones: You should read it.Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's going to go top of my pile. All right, listeners, if you want to win a copy of this book, as ever, if you just go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words, "I want Dominic's book." And then you will be in with a chance of winning it. Oh, my goodness. I have had such a good time listening to you today. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. It's been so valuable. Yeah, that's blown me away today. I'm very excited about coming to visit and thank you for sharing the insight into your partnerships.Dominic Jones: Yeah. Absolute pleasure. And thanks for being kind with the icebreakers, you're going to get the rubber, that's going to your collection.Kelly Molson: Oh, yay. A rubber rubber.Dominic Jones: Because I was really upset that you've got a rubber collection without the Mary Rose. That actually hurt my feelings. It hurt my feelings.Kelly Molson: Well, I'm sorry, I've never actually visited the Mary Rose.Dominic Jones: Well, we're going to put that right.Kelly Molson: We are going to change this, aren't we? So yeah, I'm sorry. I will come and get my rubber in-person, then. Don't post it to me. I'll come and get it in-person when I come and visit.Dominic Jones: Yeah, let's do that. Thank you. Keep it up.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The term "Technical Artist" is such a mysterious one. These people use the power of code to create beautiful solutions to visual problems. And it is *complicated.* This week we were joined by Alan Jones, a Technical Artist at Microsoft working on the Hololens project. We talked through what a Technical Artist does, how to get started in the space, and more.Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7
Some context: - IDFA deprecation has created a -30% margin compression for many game studios against their game revenue - With the deterioration of lookalike audiences CA submits that contextual and interest-based targeting will be more performant - Consumer Acquisition performed over 25,000 multivariate tests on Facebook, Google, Tiktok, and Snap and have learned that 85-95% of new creative concepts fail to outperform the best ad in an existing portfolio. Hence you may need 20-50 new concepts to find your next winning creative. To address the current market, Zynga's Creative Director Bradly Bifulco and Consumer Acquisition CEO Brian Bowman discuss how a structured process to creative development is absolutely critical to generating performant ad creatives. Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ EPISODE LINKS: - Malcolm Gladwell on "Choice, Happiness, and Spaghetti Sauce" --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
A deep discussion on how we think about employee motivation to work. How should we think about it? We cover topics such as key factors that contribute to higher motivation, the importance of desperation, how it's important to help some employees tie potential outcomes to the work they do, and the importance of creating the right incentive systems to align work motivation. Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
We discuss the best and worst of game dev in 2021. Our awards crew: Javier Barnes, Lead Game Designer at King Josh Burns, Founder at DigitalDevConnect Shannon Chang, Head of Operations at Trading.TV Niklas Herriger, Executive Coach at 8 Bit Coaching Matthew Kanterman, CFA, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bloomberg LP Eric Kress, Principal at Gossamer Consulting Group, LLC K en Landen, Lead Product Manager at Scopely Brian Peganoff, Ex. Senior Director, Corporate Development & Strategy at Glu Mobile AWARDS CATEGORIES: Biggest winner: Which games industry company was the biggest winner in 2021? Biggest loser: Which games industry company was the biggest loser in 2021? Best Game (HD or mobile) Worst Game (HD or mobile) Biggest Surprise Biggest Comeback Biggest Missed Opportunity Biggest News Game or Big Game Update You're Most Looking Forward To --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
We talk about some of the biggest trends and lessons of 2021: 1. Rise of Personal Brands (and everyone now jumping on) 2. Power and Importance of Relationships 3. The Duality of Existence and Human Nature 4. The New New Thing Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
Today we discuss one of the most important topics for the success of a games studio, especially for startups and those working on new game projects: RECRUITING! GUEST: - Tayber Voyer, VP of Product - A Thinking Ape HOSTS: - Joseph Kim, CEO at LILA Games - Brett Nowak, CEO at Liquid & Grit Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
Bill Walsh, the Hall of Fame NFL coach, had a number of incredibly insightful and effective leadership philosophies as discussed in his book "The Score Takes Care of Itself." One philosophy Walsh discusses is something he calls "Make Friends, Not Enemies." We discuss this concept and as always the nuance and specific application. Check it out! HOSTS: - Joseph Kim, CEO at LILA Games - Brett Nowak, CEO at Liquid & Grit Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
An in-depth discussion on how to technical leads at gaming companies can become great! Super far-ranging conversation from the scope of work, biggest problems, transitioning from individual contributor to manager, how to spend day to day, biggest lessons learned, and more! SPEAKERS: - Niklas Herriger, Executive Coach, Founder of 8 Bit Coaching - Tommy Krul, CTO Super Evil Megacorp - Avinash Pandey, CTO LILA Games HOST: - Joseph Kim, CEO, LILA Games. Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
Companies globally require new ways of managing as they grapple with new working conditions from the coronavirus pandemic. As companies adapt to greater work-from-home environments, new problems have arisen. Brett believes in a new world of remote work where those who don't adapt will not survive, JK believes that for "complex work" and for companies that are working in complex work environments especially those working on 0 to 1 products, in-office environments are best. Hear both sides including specific nuance, trends, themes, and analysis of remote vs. office work. What will be the future of work? HOSTS: - Joseph Kim, CEO at LILA Games - Brett Nowak, CEO at Liquid & Grit LINKS: Managing Remote Work: The Problem with “Outcomes Not Hours” (Part 1 of 3) Managing Remote Work: Outcomes Gone Wild (Part 2 of 3) Managing Remote Work: Trust Isn't Enough! (Part 3 of 3) Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ NEW VIDEOS EVERY WEEK! ***Click the notification bell so you don't miss any!*** --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamemakers/message
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