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This is Episode 27 of Game Consultant. It is amazing to see how many people are listening by now. The gaming podcast is growing every week in terms of listeners, but also people visit the website more and more. Sometimes I dont have a clear overview (yet), cause people are listening via spotify, apple podcasts, google podcasts, breaker, anchor, my website etc.  I didn’t expect that so many would care, be responsive and actualy would listen. Some people are helping me with editorial things, ideas and introductions. Thanks so much and I will continue learning to make this THE Gaming Podcast of 2020 and beyond. Top 40 Gaming Podcasts I got an email from Anuj Agarwal, he the Founder of Feedspot. I had been submitting my gaming podcast & website Podcast Game Consultant on Feedspot. He personally congratulated me as the gaming podcast and website Podcast Game Consultant had been selected by their panelist as one of the Top 40 Gaming Podcasts on the web; https://blog.feedspot.com/gaming_podcasts/ As I am doing this since mid-jan 2020, this is such a rewarding message to receive. So, thank you! Esports And Legal My interview today is about Esports and how important legal is. Not only the contracting part but also having a legal expert advising you on things like for example; the name of the esports team and/or organization. Once you'll find out the name was already taken as a brand, it is TOO late.  Who better as Justin Jacobson could update me! He is an entertainment and esports attorney, author and media personality. He represents professional athletes, musicians, producers, songwriters, DJs, fashion designers as well as professional gamers, esports organizations and teams. Named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers for the last five years, Justin is a legal contributor to TuneCore, HypeBot, The Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and the Touro Law Review. Justin has served as an Instructor of Music Business at the Institute of Audio Research in New York City, guest speaker at Cardozo Law School, Bergen County Community College and ICON Collective in Los Angeles, California. He has also been featured by a range of industry publications including: YourEDM, Mental Floss, The Esports Observer, Esports Insider, SportTechie, Break The Game, The Ballgamer, and Operation Sports. You want/need more info about legal and Esports? Contract Justin over at The Jacobson Firm, P.C. Website - www.jacobsonfirm.com Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/justinmjacobson Twitter - https://twitter.com/justinjesq Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/justinjesq/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmjacobson/ Nordic Games Online 2020 NG20 online this 27-29 May features an exciting three-day live streamed program including a string of great speakers and our popular Nordic Game Awards show, exclusive activities and giveaways on our Discord server as well as MeetToMatch Unlimited online meeting manager with integrated video conferencing.

As businesses fight "tooth and nail" to survive these turbulent Covid-19 times, it seems gaming companies are finding themselves on the right side of history right now. And EVOS Esports happens to be one of them. I have a talk with Ivan Yeo, co-founder and CEO of Evos Esports. He's recently been chosen as Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2020 and also has an inspiring story to share (Sadly to mention he's been diagnosed with Kennedy's Disease; an incurable genetic disease) and would like to build up the esports eco-system in Southeast Asia while he can still walk, eat and talk normally. “Viewership and engagement has more than doubled in terms of people watching and engaging in livestreams and online tournaments, peaking at 1.2 million concurrent viewers as of a few days ago, up from around 600,000 last year,” said Ivan and contintues “Our top athlete makes around US$100,000 a month,” he disclosed. Welcome to the world of Esports. A millennial-dominated domain where 20-year-olds can bag US$250,000 (S$354,000) in tournament prize money playing a game you’ve never heard of. But that’s nothing compared to what they can rake in through regular sponsorship deals. Introducing Evos Esports EVOS Esports is the leading esports organization in Southeast Asia, and has won numerous world championship titles; Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship (M1) 2019 and Free Fire World Cup 2019. EVOS Esports' co-founders are young, diverse and dynamic, with three co-founders being listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020. - Ivan Yeo, co-founder and CEO - Profile on Forbes.com *I was diagnosed with Kennedy Disease, an incurable genetic disease. I will never forget the doctor's words to me - "You only have 5 years left to walk, eat or talk normally." - Read more here - Hartman Harris, co-founder and Chief Business Officer - Forbes Indonesia - YouTube - Wesley Yiu, co-founder, COO - Forbes Indonesia - YouTube - Michael Wijaya, co-founder and CMO EVOS Esports manages 12 esports teams and over 300 influencers across the region with a total following of over 65M YouTube subscribers and 50M Instagram followers, with over 350M views per month, with a strong presence across 5 countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam). Back in November 2019, EVOS Esports raised a total of US$4.4M in Series A investment in preparation to seize the market of gaming influencer management in Southeast Asia EVOS Esports closed US$3M in Series A funding earlier in 2019 with Insignia Ventures Partners. Subsequently, EVOS Esports raised an additional US$1.4M to its Series A, from a group of angel investors from Indonesian conglomerates; and the top-level management of a leading e-commerce player in China. The new funding will be used to grow the startup’s esports entertainment arm, which currently manages 50 gaming influencers exclusively and partners with 300 esports talents.

Deconstruction of Supercell — Five Items That Stood Out Joakim is telling about Supercell and his opinion why the company is still standing out. Deconstructor of Fun released an essay on Supercell this week. It's an insightful article written by Miska Katkoff. Joakim wanted to take a closer look and share his five important thoughts on what a gaming startup founder should take away from this essay? Free consult for you! Talk to Simon Usiskin of JWR Ventures Simon put up a new website and I thought to catch up on his consulting offer. Free hour consult for everyone that wants to talk about games! Simon is an advisor/consultant with 30 years of experience and I have held leadership roles in companies and founded B2B businesses with a focus on broadcast, digital media, software and adtech. He is passionate about helping companies scale up and maximise their potential, helping to grow wonderful and talented teams around me as well as steering digital businesses to maximise their potential. Check out the JWR Ventures. Nordic Game Event and Game Music Jacob is giving us an update about the online event end of May, still looking for extra sponsors and partners. He is telling about some speakers and panels. One panel is about composing music for games. Thor Mýrdal is telling us about his backgroup as a composer and the pannel The mission of the Nordic Game community website is to sustain and share the Nordic games industry’s success by providing the latest news about the games industry in the Nordic region and Nordic Game events, such as the annual industry conference and the Discovery Contest season tour plan, qualifiers and finals. https://nordicgame.com/about/ Reed think about Esports Every week Cris Reed is talking about esports and is giving his opinion on the lastest esports news. Cris has The Level Up Experience on Linkedin. Indie Game Developers can showcase their games on Utomik.com Doki Tops of Utomik.com is explaning how indie game developers can showcase their games on his platform for and during events. Event organizer INDIGO is the first to co-operate with Utomik where online visitors are getting the chance the play the games that indies want to showcase. PodcastGameConsultant.com; Reinout, the podcast host, is a games investor and strategic business consultant specializing in the games industry. Each week Reinout releases two new episodes of his games podcast show to his gaming industry audience from all over the world. More Episodes, check it out here.

Main guest interview of today is with Dmitry Burkovskiy of Xsolla. Their slogan is “Xsolla is the video game business engine!Our set of solutions helps you improve operations and sell more.” Dmitry is explaining more indepth. Als Xsolla is organizing an event called “Game Developers Carnival”, which is a completely virtual gaming industry event where attendees can interact and meet with representatives from over 70 exhibitors at their virtual booths while exploring the carnival and rides, all from the comfort of their own home or office. Check out the Exhibitors who will be participating in Game Developers Carnival below, and we look forward to seeing you there! Nordic Game is very pleased to announce the debut of our online conference format for NG20 on 27-29 May, as well as a new pass offer that includes both NG20 online this May and a big discount for NG20+ in November. Register here! “On top of the great price of 99 EUR, we’ve also thrown in a substantial 150 EUR discount on passes for our next Nordic Game at Slagthuset in Malmö, NG20+ on 25-27 November,”  Jacob is giving me a further update on what we can expect at the online event. Another game event is organized by the boss himself, Hendrik Lesser. The event is called European Games BizDev Gathering. European Games BizDev Gathering is a two days long online event focused on supporting European game developers during challenging times of the ongoing global crisis.  Ian Scarffe (iansoffice@gmail.com) is an Independent Expert at the European Commission -  Horizon 2020. Horizon 2020 is the biggest European Union Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available  – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.  The fund is for development and scaling up of innovations by projects, startups and small to medium size enterprise (SMEs). A free game industry Twitch event: as a result of the pandemic, all recruiting events for graduating game devs have been canceled so Edmar volunteered to help produce a Twitch show this Friday hosted by Nvidia's Julian Huguet to help these developers show & tell their final game projects and connect with industry professionals and recruiters. Julian will play 8 games, including 2 VR titles, and interview the teams (some teams are looking for a publisher, too). The games have been developed by groups of 12 for one year: 31 programmers; 25 artists; 39 designers; and 17 producers. Here is the RSVP (please feel free to share): Julian Huguet is the host of the PC Gaming YouTube channel NVIDIA GeForce from its launch to today. It now boasts over 500 thousand subscribers who tune in to watch in-depth discussions of cutting-edge computer hardware and graphic rendering technologies.  

In episode 23 I am talking to Kate Edwards. Our talk is about people in gaming. Cause this is what makes Kate ‘tick’. She cares about the people that make the games industry (complete). Various Topics do pass in our fun conversation about gaming and the industry; · IGDA; how local communities can take over from this early institute; · Union; should there be an union for gaming people; · Culture (work ethics); how are gaming employers dealing with their staff; · Difference between US/europe; huge difference in terms of employment; · Labor laws Europe versus USA; tomorrow could be your last in the US, Europe more secure; · Gameworkers unite; How they can help, find paragraph below in this article; · Adwill employment; If you are employed at will, your employer does not need good cause to fire you. How to deal with that; · Negative cultural force; like Poor internal communication, Micromanagement, Bad habits, Poor management and leadership etc; · We need to help eachother; as an industry we should, shouldn’t we? Nordic Game 2020, May 27th-29th; REGISTER NOW! As a small side note, since we are there to support eachother, I had a quick interview with Jacob of Nordic Game. NG20 online passes for just 99 EUR, featuring three days of live streamed programming, unlimited MeetToMatch with video conferencing, loads of activities on Discord and a BIG discount for NG20+ this November – are on sale now! About Kate Edwards; Her absolute passion of this moment is; The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event (game creation) taking place around the world at physical locations. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games – it is very universal.  Kate is perhaps better known for her culturalization work in the video game industry, and her award-winning industry advocacy efforts - including her current role as Executive Director of the Global Game Jam and former role as Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association from 2012 to 2017. During her time at Microsoft and since, she's worked on many game franchises, including Halo, Fable, Age of Empires, Dragon Age, Modern Warfare, Mass Effect and many others. She's also the founder of the IGDA's Localization SIG and co-organizer of the former Localization Summit at GDC.  Find out more about Kate; Global Game Jam: http://www.globalgamejam.org Global Game Jam NEXT (for younger people): http://ggjnext.org Geogrify (Kate’s consulting work): http://www.geogrify.com Her Twitter:  https://twitter.com/geogrify IF your work in gaming is not fun any more, and need help, check out this organization; Gameworkers unite; Have you ever felt exploited by the game industry? Are you in a precarious situation? No job stability and in desperate need of support? Are you losing hope that you can work in a medium and industry you love at all? Can't stand how your fellow workers are treated? Check this site!

I am having a fun and insightful talk with Yvette Wohn. Her Biography is here and that explains a lot about her background.   Some questions she answered were "what she thinks about the virtual concerts in Fortnite, and why Epic Games is organizing these events? What does she think that the games industry could learn from those events? And, "How important is social interaction in live streaming and also where does she see problems right now and how are the current role of brands in the ecosystem and how it could be improved".  Dr. Wohn's research area is human-computer interaction in the context of social media, focusing on non-conscious use of technology, such as media habits, and their relation to psychological well-being and interpersonal relationships. She also studies how social media can help with social support and social identity. Wohn runs the Social Interaction Lab at NJIT where they develop novel technologies for positive social interaction and try to understand how people use social technologies, such as social media, mobile phones and multiplayer games. She’s been featured on Wired online, OprahMag.com, The Pew Research Center and has provided expertise on Esports and platforms such as Twitch. Yvette is available for consulting, but limited in time, so game developers, here is your chance to reach out; Yvette Wohn! And some gaming news; Publisher Scopely Buys Scrabble GO Maker PierPlay After Big Debut, Tencent partners up with Gameye for new digital conference and Google and EA partner to bring Star Wars, FIFA and Madden NFL to Stadia. As usual, check out my website for more information and other episodes!

In episode 21 I am talking about branding. Not only for your game studio, but also for your games and in your games, like how is the story telling matching the visuals and therefore how you communicate with your gamer community. Jussi Solja of Superbeast is an exciting talker when it comes to all of this. Also the report of AZS Consulting about South East Asia. Akmal Soliev is taking us through his report. Next to that our weekly items of Chris Reed of Level Up Experience and Joakim Achren of Elite Game Developers. Next week it is about power women in gaming; Kate Edwards does not need any introduction. We discuss all issues around culture, geopolitics, games, world-building! But also Yvette Wohn, she holds a Ph.D. in Media and Information Studies. She specializes in human computer interactions in live streaming, Esports, gaming, and social media. She boasts a Ph.D. in New Media, Social Networks, Games. Want to listen to more episodes of Game Consultant, then visit my site PodcastGameConsultant.com.

This week is Gaming & Finance. Last episode 19 I was talking to Sergei of Mail.ru Games Ventures. Today I am talking to Richard Williamson of the Edison Group. He got a report out that is called; European video games: A safe haven in troubled times, click here to read it. We talk about insights in streaming, valuations, esports and so much more. It was very interesting to get his view on the state of gaming in Europe. Next to that I mentioned the initiative of "The Fast Forward Games". This initiative is brought to you by some of the leading angel investors and experienced executives in gaming, such as: Chris Lee, Ben Holmes, Akin Babayigit, Akira Ushioda, Matteo Vallone, Lior Shiff, Sekip Gokalp, Alvaro Alvarez del Rio among others. The group has excellent access to the VC community. As part this initiative we have engaged the support of Cherry Ventures, Makers Fund, Play Ventures, and others to ensure they will fast-track opportunities that the ffwd.games initiative identifies. Lastly, check out the message of Hendrik Lesser. He is doing an biz dev online event for developers to meet publishers and investors in times like these esp. important :) https://www.egbg.eu/  as you can see we already have good support by publishers. You can see the lastest updates on the website. And, listen to my other episodes of Game Consultant here!

In this episode I have Sergei Evdokimov, an investment associate at Mail.ru Games Ventures. We talk about Gaming acquisitions and investments Q1 2020. Interesting to hear that Investors and funds pumped more than $700 million game startups in the first quarter. The volume of game merger and acquisition deals was $1.6 billion in the first quarter, compared to only $1 billion for the full six months of the first half of 2019. That was driven by big deals such as Scopely’s acquisition of FoxNext. Meanwhile, the first quarter investment amount of $700 million was down about 2.7 times from $3.8 billion in the first half of 2019 — where we can assume the average was $1.9 billion per quarter. Sergei's Telegram channel: https://t.me/InvestGame/ Sergei's Blog at Medium: https://medium.com/@SEgames Furtheron Chris Reed with Reed Thinks about esports, Joakim Achren with high gaming highlights of this week. Also the latest interesting game news from Gamesbeat.com, GamesIndustry.biz and Pockgamer.biz. Special thanks to Justin Berenbaum of noticing that GamesCom2020 is not happening this year. Also thanks to Ekrem Shahin, who wrote a post about Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion, proactively reached out to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to offer Coronavirus safety advice within their titles - Rebellion is now displaying an on screen safety message before gameplay begins within its Strange Brigade and Sniper Elite titles. DCMS has now invited the UK's 2,000+ other games companies to join this national effort. Next week wednesday more financials when I discuss this report European video games: A safe haven in troubled times with Richard Williamson of the Edison Group. And of course, check out my website for more episodes; PodCastGameConsultant.com

In this episode esport item of Chris Reed, of The Level Up Experience, with "Reed Thinks", Joakim Achren, of Elite Game Developers, with his highlights of gaming industry and two companies to watch. Niklas send me a deck of GameBuddy and Kim of Aftermath. And I found this via Borja; HYPE Virtual Accelerator Focused on Fundraising & COVID19 new gameplan. HYPE Sports Innovation has built the largest global ecosystem in sports innovation. With over 40,000 members, including retail brands, athletic clubs, federations and academia together with over 11,000 startups, HYPE has an unrivalled capacity for outreach to global partners across all sectors in this highly diverse field. Next to that the game news. Links to the articles; https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/29/national/japan-expansion-esports-economy-2025/#.XpW46VMzbRa https://www.admonsters.com/esports-changing-advertising-game/ https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-09-sony-takes-USD400-million-stake-in-bilibili https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-14-esports-entertainment-platform-players-netwrk-launches-today https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/12/gaming-industry-tv-ad-spend-is-rising-blame-tom-nook/

In Episode 17, 2 days later then normal, I am cleaning up my inbox. And I had two companies in mind to should be on your companies to watch list; Javier Rayón of Dream of Darkness and Yuval Koren of Pikoya. Furtheron, Cris Reed is talking about esports and his thoughts. It is a funny episode today but also an eye opener. And a shout out to Oscar Clark, congrats on the funding; Fundamentally Games raises seed round to help developers create live ops games. And as of this sunday Joakim of Elite Game Developers will do a weekly item of his game topics and news. Update; 40 more game companies have joined the World Health Organization (WHO) #PlayApartTogether coronavirus awareness campaign. And more the campaign has gained more than 4.7 billion consumer media impressions worldwide. The promotional campaign, organized by the game industry on behalf of the WHO, encourages healthy physical distancing by bringing special events, exclusives, activities, rewards, and inspiration to some of the most popular games in the world.

In this episode I get to talk to Oliver Kern of Target Gamers. We talk about user acquisition in general, but also about how to adjust your user acquisition in games during this Covid-19 period and after the virus. Can and will consumer, read gamers, still be able to spend as much as before. How can you predict LTV, lifetime value? What can we expect today and later this year from other metrixs like retention, cost per install, CPM/advertising for your game and in your game. I belief this is extra interesting for indie game developers, who might struggle with the current situation, but also gaming companies in general. Hope you like this and please send this also to other people in gaming. Other episodes with Oscar Clark, Dean Takahashi, Doki Tops and others can be found on PodcastGameConsultant.com. 

People that worked with me on this episode; Doki Tops of Utomik.com and Cris Reed of The Level Up Experience. Quick word; The games industry is doing realy well during this lockdown. All good, but lets make sure that we, as an industry, will also look after people that are being hurt, financially, physically and emotionally. It is our audience(s) that is under pressure by COVID-19, the corona virus. Let's make sure we also do our part to make the world healty and secure again! Interview today was with Doki. He explains Utomik. Utomik is your unlimited play PC gaming subscription service with a weekly growing library. Their pitch is; Dive into 1000+ PC Games instantly. Your unlimited play subscription! Try the best pc-game subscription service 14-days free! New games added weekly. No Video Streaming. Family Fun. Don't Wait. Just Play. Cancel Anytime. One Subscription. Try For Free. Discover More. And of course the weekly item about esports; Reed Thinks. Cris is giving his perspective on esports. Tech, finance and investors today! If you want to listen to interviews I did before with Dean, Oscar, Jacob/Teddy, Odile and others, go check it out; https://podcastgameconsultant.com.

In this episode I am asking a few questions besides my take on what might happen in the games industry! I am inviting you to come and brainstorm. Let other people know, that I am trying to get something going here, where we, as a gaming industry, compare notes/thoughts/ideas. What can we expect from ourselves, the consumer and more. Check the question below and give me your input in the comments. 1. Are we going to see more revenues in second part of 2020; 2. Or will this decline when people have to get back at work; 3. Will the consumer get fincialy hit by the Corona Virus and will this have an effect on gaming revenues; 4. Big esports companies are seeing digital revenues going up, but event and merchandise revenues going down; 5. Were these esports companies more dependable on offline revenues then online revenues? 6. If we all think people will have less to spend then the following questions; 6.1; Are you launching massively all together in second half year 2020 6.2; Are the CPI's going to be too high then 6.3; Are the lifetime revenues being surpressed by financial difficulties of gaming audience 6.4; Will people stick to their old love instead of trying another game 7. Just a thoughts; end of 2020 entrance tickets for esports events will be too expensive!

A quick overview of the latest game-news. One interesting thing. Appsflyers is predicting increase for 2022 in user acquisition. My question is; In the light of the corona virus, can you seriously predict this? My usual sources are; https://www.pocketgamer.biz/, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ and https://venturebeat.com/category/games/.