In the latest weekly news and podcast after-show (sponsored by YouGov), we discuss E3 2022 being canceled, Sony's Jim Ryan saying the company plans on making more acquisitions, FTX considering an investment in India's MPL, Upper Deck launching Call of Duty League trading cards, A Halo cookbook coming out this summer, Epic launching Unreal Engine 5, Twitter sharing new data about gaming, EGDC buying a 96.18% stake in SNK, and so much more!

From the keyboard to the boardroom, this is the business of esports.

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learn more, from the keyboard to the boardroom. This is the business of esports weekly news show

slash post podcast live stream. I am Paul Dawalibi. I'm joined today by my friends and CO

hosts the Honorable Judge Jimmy burrata, Ben pero. Lindsey the boss POS. For those of you who are new

here, welcome. What we do is we cover the most pressing gaming and esports topics news of the

week, we look at all of it through a business and C suite lens. But best of all, we get to do it

live with you guys, you get to challenge us ask us questions, getting our faces. That's what makes it

so much fun. If it's your first time here, we encourage you to get involved. We appreciate you

if you lurk and don't want to ask questions. But it's a safe space. So feel free to get involved.

How is everyone doing tonight? Ben? We haven't seen you on the podcast in a while. So and I think

first appearance on the live stream. Yeah, it's been a minute. It's good to see you guys. I mean,

I talk to you regularly but even alive. It was gonna say we got Ben from YouGov on the show.

Lindsay is back from her vacation. There's no There's no juice tonight. Show. Yeah.

Where are you? Because it reminds me of like, it looks like I'm like, there's so many plants and

vines. I don't know. Well, you know, I tried to bring the outdoors in. I'm in my office slash

bedroom slash recording studio. Slash, like, where I spend all my time.

For one more week at least.

Spreading Yeah. So what you guys have to look forward to for those of you who are just tuning

in.

We have been on obviously, Ben's going to, you know, fill in for Jeff today, which is great. But

also, best part is everyone's favorite segment, which is our YouGov insights segment. We get to do

it with Ben, who gets to walk us through all of it, which I'm sure is going to create a whole

bunch of interesting conversation and questions from you guys. So really encourage you to stick

around for that it is coming up in the show. Tom says Wow, new cast of characters Tom Yeah, there

you go. Little mixing it up this week, doing things a little different.

And hopefully everybody enjoys. Guys. I wanted to just tease the podcast coming out this week, we

had Steve Aaron set, who's the owner and Co Co CEO of Team Liquid. So really interesting conversation

with him Team Liquid doing very, very, you know, I just think they're doing a lot really well. And we

talked a lot about the way they look at the world, how they sort of position themselves against other

esports teams, obviously, we talked about specifics like League of Legends and the

Activision Blizzard leagues, and you know why they chose to participate in one not the other and lots

of great conversation, lots of incredibly interesting initiatives that they are taking, both

from an esports perspective and also charitable perspective. They're doing lots of interesting

things there as well. So that's the episode. Jimmy, did I miss anything? I think I mean, I

think he covered it. I don't want to tease much more, because it's such a great discussion. You

guys know, we've covered every business with every entry point and perspective in the industry. And

it's always wonderful when we get the team's the CEOs involved because it's a unique perspective.

And it really is what drives I think audiences and viewership are how these teams are fielded, what

their core philosophies are. So yeah, just just check it out like you normally would and let us

know how you like it. You know, please tag us at us, share it with your friends, leave the ratings

and reviews and I'll be happy

He spent so much content I've been struggling to keep up. It's a good problem to have. It's a good

problem to have, and be hearing great things about office hours with the professor. Lots of great

feedback. A Jeff in the chat, Jeff says, had I known Ben Powell was going to be on I would have

canceled vacation.

To see Jeff.

Not not too late. It's not too late. Jeff, you can always cancel vacation and join us. But I have a

funny feeling. I mean, I'm not I don't want to. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. But Ben

may be the permanent replacement for Jeff. I mean, you've all you know, if all goes well.

Alright, guys, let's jump into some news. We have so much to talk about today. I want to start with

a story that I mean, I know people have read about and is industry news. And I think we have to cover

it. I don't know how much discussion there is here, guys, to be very honest. But I think we have

to cover it. That's our duty. And that's e three. And the headline here is E 320 22. is now

completely canceled. So it says the this article from DOD esports says, despite initial plans

seeming to point towards hosting a digital showcase for a second straight year, Entertainment

Software Association has now cancelled the three. It's a decision that's been rumored for several

months.

The company didn't confirm anything about the future v3. So nothing has been said about 2023.

Just the 2022 was canceled.

I'm curious, first of all, why you guys think this happened? Why they didn't decide to do online?

Only, which they did last year?

What are some of the thoughts here guys? Like? Lindsey? I know you're close, close to this a

little bit. And though some of the people there, I'm curious what you what you make of this? And if

you think this is a good decision, bad decision? Yes, I don't want to, you know, say too much when

it comes to the people that actually work there. But I don't, there was. There's there's kind of a

I don't know, that sentiment going on there too. I mean, they're not necessarily excited that this is

how things had to go down. I think that there's just been some, some safety concerns COVID. And I

know that's kind of a longer excuse, but it just, you know, just didn't really work out for them

this year. And I think that they're not excited about that. And I don't think that I'm excited

about that.

I think that the one good thing to come out of it is that there's there's a lot of cool new

showcases that have kind of popped up, which I think is really neat. I'm always a fan of seeing

more people into the marketplace. I think it forces innovation on their end. So I certainly

hope that they're able to come back next year in full force and do something really cool. But I'm

yeah, I'm sad for them. You know, Ben, I'm sure we probably could have done a YouGov study, figuring

out if people care about having a three right to gamers care. Do they care if it's online, or you

know, in real life? Like I'm sure we could have done a whole YouGov study around this. But you

know, you're you being a gamer and someone who works in the gaming industry. Do you think the

gaming industry needs e three? Like, do we need this kind of institution? Yeah, I mean, I think

there's always going to be these tentpole events. We need e three specifically.

I mean, there's there's others, you know, we have we have PACs and others out there that I wonder if

it needs kind of, I don't know, I just want answers. I don't think we know BMC yet kind of

gamers take your point and running a survey or something like that, we could definitely do that

with you guys.

But I will be curious to see if EA three makes the triumphant in person return. I do, in some ways

respect the decision to say, hey, the online format doesn't work for us. And so we're not going

to give it a shot again, if that's what it was the driving force. I mean, that's kind of insightful,

right? Because they could have done an online events where there's no security concerns around

online. It seems like this was very purposeful in like in the decision to do nothing. Could we

conclude and Benatar if you want to comment on this? Or maybe Jimmy, you want to chime in here?

But can we conclude that maybe online didn't work that? Well? I definitely think that's the case,

right? They're looking at how they're engaging with their audience, how they're showcasing their

brand, and what they're bringing to the table and comparing it to the other options or other

abilities and clearly making a decision that it wasn't worth it. But to Ben's point about you

know, there's others. I think that's exactly why even if it's not as successful or not what you

hope it to be. You gotta keep at it, because you will get lost. I mean, we we were just at GDC a

week ago. GDC is live again. It was awesome. Yes. So the attendance was was down in a big way. You

unless you were a regular GDC goer. You wouldn't have you couldn't have told like, it just wasn't

that apparent. It was so busy was so lively. Everyone loved being in person. I'm expecting big

and similar things out of packs in Boston at the end of this

Last month, and again, there's so many of these that, obviously three is not going to lose brand

value or recognition. But I just don't know why you want to try to put out a product, try to

monetize or engage with your audience. It's really it's not about being perfect at it. I think it's

about just putting out content and doing things and keeping yourself relevant. And so you guys

make great points. I do think there were some learnings there. But I don't think that pulling

out completely was the answer.

Sorry, go ahead, Ben. I agree with his point that we have taxis coming up in what a week or two

weeks? The COVID excuse doesn't really, really flush out anymore. Yeah, it seems like everyone

has sort of moved on from that. Maybe maybe interesting to sort of discuss Tom's question.

You're which is I thought they were creating a mixed message. Are they consumer or industry

focused? didn't do that well satisfied? Neither world? I mean, what is everyone's perception on

this? And I'm curious, because Lindsey, I don't know, I haven't seen the latest messaging from you

three outside of canceling this years. But like, do you should they be consumer focus? Should they

be Industry Focus? And the reality is in the gaming world, does that mean does that distinction

really matter?

I Pax manages both, right? We just talked about Pax. Yeah, I think that they're kind of revamping

their identity at the moment, they had a lot of troubles not too long ago and got a new CEO who

has a completely different mission and completely different values. And then COVID happened and kind

of set them back a little bit. So I certainly hope that they're taking this time to kind of rethink

their strategy, come back and and to Tom's point, pick a lane or pick both lanes and figure out what

that balance looks like for them. But I, I hope that they can come back with a more coherent

thought out plan than what has been in play.

Question for you guys and for chat. And then I want to move on. In a perfect world. What does the

return of E three look like in 2023? If there's any return at all? Is it online? Is it offline? Is

it consumer? Is it industry? Is it both? Like in a perfect world? What do you guys think pack? E

three should be good packs. What do you think e three should be? Ben, I think it has to be in

person. I think it's summer would have been a great time to have it in person, personally. And

if they're going to come back, they have to come back with a roar. And the only way to do that is

to get people there. I mean, Ben, you had a New York event. Unfortunately, you did it at the same

time this livestream happened. So I couldn't be there. But it will never happen again.

But no, but I heard it was it was packed, right, like tons of people just from New York City. I

mean, your personal view must be that like Pete There's a desire for in person events, right? Oh,

definitely. And I was I was yesterday I was at the inaugural play France hosted by the IAB. And yeah,

I mean, they they did testing for everyone mandatory on the way and they made sure everyone

knew weeks in advance and people you know, are compliant and we had a really good time. So yeah,

I mean, every one is different. If you're not comfortable, don't go but there there definitely

seems to be

a lot of people I talk to you in the industry, they're ready to go. Kevin, Kevin here asks, How

do you think a three can recover the relevance at once had back in the day ie three seemed like a

huge deal. But now it seems to have just disappeared? Does anyone have thoughts on what

they can actually do? Other than in person which I think everyone agrees is probably necessary. How

can you three have sort of the big because it was kind of the most relevant show in gaming right

like that was the one where every new game was announced that was the one place where everything

happened. Those relationships are still there though Paul like they're not going anywhere just

because they haven't been around in a while they can still easily announce new games they have the

same contacts and relationships with the Microsoft's and the Sony's and smaller Of course,

I don't I just think it's more of a building they will come kind of situation where they again just

need to get back out there. And it will quickly you know people know the brand this this is a so

you don't have anything to it to answer Kevin's question here. You think they just need to come

back? If anything what I like and what I saw in music person you guys know I love music anecdotes,

because the industry is in the communities are often similarly situated. You know, Coachella and

some of those festivals do online versions where you can go on YouTube, watch a certain limited

experience, and that way you kind of had the best we're not really the best of both, but you they

call it couch Chela. For people that are at home watching it on their couch. And and I think if E

three and these other conferences and events had some type of similar online component that could

bridge the gap. You know, there's ton

As of online conferences and conventions

going on every year, and that were very successful throughout COVID. So I don't know why they

couldn't include that. But you have to go back live, you have to have that in person. There's no

substitute for shaking someone's hand. There's no substitute. I think for an in person business

deal. No matter how easy or streamlined the online process becomes. People want to do business with

people, you know, they don't want to do business with screens. So that's kind of what it comes down

to. I'm waiting for someone else to say e three in the metaverse.

Someone I was waiting for this I was waiting for by the way, you guys should tune into the metal

business podcasts all about the business of the metaverse.

But yeah, like why why is this not why are they not leading that charge? You would think right?

Any thoughts on me? Is that too far out there? I mean, if it isn't event, to Tom's point, it might

be an event for people in the industry or people for players and gamers. It's for players and

gamers. That's where the medium where they are, you know, and show leadership right in some ways

because the E three has always in some ways is the again the the the show, that is the showcase for

the gaming industry, you would think that would show kind of leadership. I just want to get caught

up guys on these comments. Alvin Allen says, Ben Taro, just kidding just kidding love Ben. Allen.

Thanks for callin like Holly get you guys.

Tom says in person is key leaves a hole in SoCal not filled by SDCC or WonderCon. That San Diego

San Diego Comic Con or WonderCon may be an opportunity for someone.

I mean, I think this is an interesting comment, Tom, I'm not sure Southern California is lacking

in Gaming Show Content, right. Like I don't know, if not having a three means there's a hole there.

I think there are other geographies that could use a big E three style industry and consumer show,

right? Like a Pax because I think Pax is so eye opening for anyone who goes there, whether you're

inside the industry outside the industry, it's one of those shows that really go you go, wow, this is

big, right? Like, this is something exciting to get excited about.

I really feel like maybe for II three to come back. Like we're going to talk about this in a

second. But do it in the Middle East somewhere or do it in India or, you know, bring it to a

geography where there's a huge booming population of gamers that this will be novel and new and you

can bring that brand to them. Just the thought other than the metaverse.

Adam says Lindsay's back it's a good week. Yeah, we you know, Lindsey leaves and our viewership

does this.

Week speaking of Adam hooking up with an awesome opportunity that actually happened while I was

gone, and I participated with Jim Jim's bring some extreme to raise money for Children's National

Hospital super fund. So everyone go follow me on Twitter to see what that was like. Very, very

cool. All right, guys, I want to I want to move on here. I want to get to our next story.

And we have in the news, you know, we touched on this a little bit

last week, because we it was it was one of the topics we sort of touched on. But I think this is

interesting, because now we have a statement from Sony. And and this is Jim Ryan, who's an executive

at who's the basically the boss of PlayStation at Sony, the boss of their gaming division. So the

headline is Jim Ryan confirms Sony has more studio acquisitions, planned, exec argues not adopting

gamepass style strategy as allowing it to invest in m&a activity. So what they're saying here is,

Sony has more acquisitions planned beyond its recent buyouts of the Bungie and Haven.

And they're saying that they absolutely I'll read his quote, directly here, he says, we're in a

really good place with PlayStation studios and have been for the past few years, the critical

success and the commercial success of the games that they've been making, that has given us

permission to invest heavily in content creation. He added, we're growing our studios organically,

and we're growing through acquisition. We acquired five studios during the course of 2021. We're in

discussions with Bungie and we have more planned, this is getting us into a virtuous cycle, where

success begets success.

He says he goes on to say that I he says I'm quoting you indirectly, I have to say putting

these games into a subscription service immediately upon their release would break this

virtuous cycle. And we wouldn't be able to invest in the way that we're currently able to. So we're

not doing it. We're going to stick to the approach that we have and has served us well, under many

years now. So let me just paraphrase here and explain the key difference. Game paths and

Microsoft what they're doing is they're buying studios, but they've committed to putting the

games from those studios onto game past day one. What Playstations boss has said is that you

We're buying studios, but we're absolutely not going to put them on our subscription service day

one.

Thoughts on the difference in strategy and who, who you guys think will be the winner, like when

we look back on this five years from now, if you think there's one winner here,

that clarification definitely helps. Because my first thought before we got further into this was,

well, they are adopting a Game Pass model, because they just announced one, but under understanding

now that there's a time period, but eventually I think those titles will make it to Sony's

subscription service, right. So in my mind, all that does is delay unit sales, because I'm just

going to wait for it to be cheaper, because I'm not in a rush.

If your friends buy it, and they're playing it, and everyone else entering, everyone's playing out

and ringing, I'm waiting for my Steam deck, you know, I'm not in a rush to get it. So I, you know,

maybe I'm more patient than others, I have just, it could bite them, you know, I'm back to bite

them. If people are like, cool, then I'll just play other games that are readily available that

are free to play, or that are playing iron or what have you. And then once this becomes, you know,

once this goes on sale, I have a ton of friends that wait for Assassin's Creed games to go on sale

before they play. So I get wanting to keep games exclusive and wanting to keep that that value up.

But I just think that the community at large is pushing back saying we want a lower barrier, we

want greater accessibility. And it's kind of tone deaf to not listen and lean into that.

Does Does anyone think that?

This will, because what Sony has said and not in this interview, but what they've said in the past

is these subscription services where you take a game and you put it on the subscription service,

the day it comes out, long term is gonna hurt the quality of the games. Do you guys buy that

argument? Ben, I don't know if to do like, Do you believe that? I mean, I think it can increase the

volume of games. And so you can have more titles that are not quality games, but you're still going

to have quality games that exist within the inventory. But you might just have more inventory.

I mean, I think part of their their rationale is that if they put them on the subscription service,

the games will make less money. And if they make less money, there's less budget to make them. And

so we're gonna end up with a world with just, you know, sort of garbage games.

Now, Microsoft's view is more the more games they put on the subscription service day one, the more

subscribers they'll get, and the pie gets bigger, which, you know, today, that's not the case,

because there's still only 15 or 20 million, you know, Game Pass subscribers, but I think we could

all see a world where there's 50 or 100 million, I think, well, I feel like Game Pass was a really

good land grab for X Box, because it did attract a lot of people to the x box.

And we're kind of now in the next generation where Sony has kind of their launch throne Game Pass

style thing. And just with this particular studio there, they seem to be kind of holding the reins.

And

so it'd be interesting to kind of see how it plays out. I also I do understand them kind of not

wanting to devalue titles, the quality of titles that are coming out of these really premier

studios.

I'm with Jimmy now, I don't have enough time when the game comes out, really I find to dig in. I

mean, I did bite the bullet on algebra and get it full price. And I'm getting marked in it left and

right.

But that was an exception to the rule as it played out. Let me just read these comments here. Remy

says hi. Hello, welcome. Matt says My first thought is you have greater than the juice. That's

I mean, hard to disagree. That says My second thought is the same as my thought from last week

PlayStation won't succeed unless they're doing exclusive on their subscription service.

Yep, I mean, do you guys I mean, that's a strong thought here right? I mean, basically Matt, what

you're saying is if they don't bring the games day one to their subscription service, the

subscription service won't work. Do you guys think there's no value in the subscription service if

they don't bring games there day one probably still have some subscribers just not game past

scale right? Yeah.

But then the point there is that the exclusivity

so games are exclusive you can only getting a few hours subscribed service that I'm sorry yeah.

Yeah, but then that's kind of that's a drag.

As someone who doesn't you know, play all the time or only wants one title that's like

Kevin says ps4 dominate a content battle with Xbox now I can get most games on any system, God of War

horizon, etc. Why does Sony think the same method would work under different circumstances?

I mean,

this is the problem with game paths, right? Like if, if if Microsoft? Well, I think that the, the

assumption we're making with all of these is that eventually, the more studios that each side

acquires, the more that these games will be exclusive, right? Like, in some ways, this has

been a little bit of a golden age where a lot of most games come out on both systems. But, you

know, we've talked about this before, where there is a nuclear sort of war type of thing where both

decide to go totally exclusive with all the studios that they control.

That changes the game, right? That if all of a sudden games aren't coming out consistently on

both,

Matt says that argument is BS. The Li would be no Smash, Halo, Ratchet and Clank, Spider Man, etc.

The PlayStation

without exclusives, exclusives have driven a lot of it up until now up until the subscription

services. Devon says maybe there's different business model argument when you have a console

only Sony versus console and PC, we can't overlook the two v one.

Yeah, and throw in you know, Xboxes cloud gaming thing right on phones. So probably more like a

three v one.

PC, though, is relatively small from an install base perspective compared to console still.

But you're right. I mean, that's a good point, guys. So do you think the three platforms

essentially that Xbox and Microsoft are on gives them a distinct advantage? advantage over just

PlayStation from a subscription service perspective? Jimmy increasingly recommended?

I mean, do we think this gets more amplified over time, right like that, that Microsoft will feed

these three different ecosystems?

Or do you think, five years down the line, it's really about their hardware and their subscription

service, and everything else will be an afterthought? Because part of the value of the

subscription service and owning that customer is selling them hardware? Right? Yeah.

On the one hand, it's really feasible to say that having multiple modes of business obviously

increases your subscriber base and the people that you can sell things to. On the other hand, the

throat, all the wall strategy could potentially be not as dominant as Sony's, we have one audience,

and we're sticking to it, and we're catering to them type of strategy. I really feel like what's

going like, I don't know, I personally feel like what's going on here is there's two, two different

methods here. And we're gonna see in five or 10 years down the road if the Game Pass model that

works, and if so many ways of just putting everything on that. Or if it's the, you know,

selling exclusives and selling box copies works, I think we're at a pretty interesting fulcrum for

seeing what happens next.

It's also places you left the door open for them to pivot really quickly, if they need to make a

change.

Right? Absolutely. They're sticking by their strategy today, to not rattling the cages or just

to carry on so they can forecast the same way they happen. But if they decide a year down the line,

or more that

they could do better. That seems easy enough for him.

I think also Microsoft acquisition, Activision Blizzard, puts them in a stronger position as

well, because even though they're going heavy on game paths, they're also acquiring studios, bigger

studios, more recognizable with more titles. I mean, okay, cool. Sony acquired Bungie, we know on

the show, and that's still up for debate. I think they overpaid. But so there's more coming. Cool.

But what is that, again, when we're comparing them side by side, like we're doing right now, I love

that point, Ben, that, that there's opportunity for both sides, I think to pivot depending on what

what is working and what isn't. But I still think on both ends of that spectrum, or rather than

both.

Both areas, both paths that they can potentially go down that Microsoft is still prime, or at least

still better equipped to handle any variation there. Because I want to I want to move on I want

to cover this is sort of a great lead into our YouGov insights segment. Because I think it's an

interesting story around gaming and crypto which is maybe a hinting What what are you gonna have

insights segments going to be about here, but this is a story about FTX FTX in the news. And and the

headline here is crypto giant FTX in talks to invest in Indian Gaming startup NPL. For those who

don't know MPL is India's mobile Premier League. They're in talks to raise capital from a number of

investors including EPA FTX, which is a crypto exchange and

NPL operates more than 60 mobile games, card based games, sports, space games, fantasy games, they

plan to launch play to earn an NFT base games later this year. And, you know, FTX has been

incredibly active at investing in gaming companies, they've, you know, they've made one big

investment very recently, a couple of weeks ago, they acquired a company, good luck games two weeks

ago now, and NPL has like Sequoia India in their, in their as an as an investor. So, you know, FTX,

not surprisingly, would be interested here. And, you know, India, obviously, a very interesting

geography from a growth of gaming standpoint.

What do you guys think of, in general FTX is sort of buying spree around gaming startups and here

buying what is essentially like a mobile esports League, which in North America, we don't see a lot

of, but in India, when you have, you know, 100 million players, you know, just on like a pub G or

something like that. This is an interesting market for mobile leagues.

Then I don't know if you have thoughts on this. Yeah, I mean, FTX is they're going ham, right? I

mean, they, they're, we have TSM FTX. Now that huge partnership with Solomon and yeah, now the

MPL, I mean, they're really making a land grab here, I think it's still, like we know, and it is

a good transition to some data we'll look at in a moment of crypto interest among esports fans and

gamers is, I wouldn't say through the roof. But if they really highly over index for being interested

in Kryptos, compared to their peers,

and FTX. Really, they found that insight on their own, and then leaning all the way in that said,

you know, I was just looking in the background here at some of our tools. We track FTX, in our in

our, you got brand tracker, and among gamers and esports fans, their awareness is way higher, but

it's not growing like over the last and I only have four months of data. But it's enough time to

start to see a trend. And this is around the time that we're making these big announcements. It's

it's flat, and maybe even declined a little bit over the past month. So you know, again, this can

bounce back. That's only in the US. So can't speak for globally. Crypto and India and other parts of

eastern hemisphere have. It's been around longer. It's got much more adoption.

And so I think this makes sense for them. For for India, if that's the next market, they're really

looking to

grow. I mean, it's interesting, but I'm curious, if you look at the other crypto companies in your

brand tracker,

are they all following similar curves? Because the crypto companies realize the gaming opportunities

massive right, I think they all know this. Reaching gamers effectively is a whole different

ballgame and a whole different challenge. And you know, probably some will succeed more than others.

But maybe this is part of why there's a bit of a wall right? Where some of them have hit a wall and

you need, you need something to take you to that next level to reach those audiences. I'd be

curious if you know they've consistently across the board, whether it's Coinbase, or finance, or

where you know any of these, any of these crypto companies have all hit similar walls.

Lindsay or Jimmy. But before we get into that, Ben Linzer. Jimmy, do you have any comments on this

specifically?

I've been bullish on India, in particular for a while now. I think mobile is the way to go there.

And we've seen also how mobile leads into PC gaming and console gaming as a gateway drug, so to

speak.

We've talked I think a lot about the Indian region, pub g, in particular, think I can't

remember we had some green of free Fire stories coming out of there as well. But it's definitely a

region where you see a lot of innovation, you see a lot of engineering, and in a lot I think of new

companies coming up approaching the gaming industry with a mobile first perspective, which

again, is probably the largest and fastest and cheapest way to reach new users to reach new,

young, younger gamers. And so when you see a name like FTX jump into India, that just makes me super

happy, as I've been wanting to do stuff there for for about three years now. And and to Ben's point

about, I mean, just the great things that FTX is doing not just with TSM or in gaming, but even

outside of gaming and traditional sports, you know, investing in some of the greatest sports

properties, like the heat, like Mercedes f1 Shout out to Lindsey on that. You know, I think here at

least, or at least my personal opinion, I'm a big fan of FTX in general. I love that they're getting

deeper into gaming, and now

excuse me deeper into gaming and I love that now they're getting

or rather, they're increasing their global presence in perspective, because gaming is not a

regional thing limited to North America or the EU or Latin up, right? It's all these different

places, they have different communities.

There's just so much value to look into other regions to get there early and to really dominate

from a brand perspective. So I have nothing but great things to say about this. Yeah. And I think

this is a great segue guys to talk about this intersection between gaming and crypto, because I

think everyone's fascinated by this. We're seeing so much money flowing, you know, in this sort of

intersection. Obviously, one of the reasons Ben's on the show today, everyone knows you've heard it

from me before, you know, the business of esports. Here is supported by YouGov, who is, you know,

Global Research Leader, you'll see the kind of data Ben's going to talk to us about here. But

this is the perfect example of the kind of accurate insights on gaming and esports, and

crypto and all these kinds of things that you can only get it You Gov. So I'm gonna put a link in

the chat, guys, I want everyone to go check it out. yougov.com/boe. But let me bring up some

some data here, Ben, and I'll let you introduce the slide or the image. And then and then we can

discuss it. But the first one here, I don't know if this is big enough. Let me see if I can make

you do that I have to cut on my data cap.

There you go. So talk us through talk us through this first one here, Ben. Yeah, so this is looking

at February of this year versus last year,

a portion of esports fans versus the general us 18 to 34 year old population versus all US adults who

say that they are likely or very likely to use cryptocurrency in the next 12 months. So this is

point in time data.

And we're looking at February from 2021. And this was like the I did it the exact same week. So it's

like the last weekend of February. And each data point represents a rolling 52 week period up to

that date. So let's start with like all Americans, 11% of all Americans, this time last year, about a

month ago last year, said that they were likely or very likely to use crypto in the neck in the

coming year. And that has improved to 19%. So now, so it's that's a pretty big increase in and of

itself, and a very insightful for all Americans. But then look just at the scale of adoption among

esports fans, it was 3x a year ago. And now it's like it's it's not quite 3x anymore, but it's

almost half of us esports fans are likely to use cryptocurrencies. And I think that's,

you know, it's it says it all right there. I mean, even compared to like, young people, people think

that crypto is just a young person's thing? Well, yes, it is that data shows that as well. You can

have 34 year olds really over index compared to 18 Plus, but esports fans still are much better. I

mean, that's super interesting, right? Especially for the crypto companies, because what it says is,

like the average 25 year old, who's not an esports fan, like just the picked at random, is less

likely to be an adopter of your technology of your product than if you picked an esports fan of any

age. Right.

And I think what's interesting here is that the curves also like the proportion of esports fans

who are likely to use cryptocurrency, not only is that almost double, you know, the are more than

double two and a half, almost two and a half times the US total. But it's growing faster, right? Like

the this adoption rate, the curve is steeper, which I think is interesting. Kevin has a question

here. He says,

Oops, sorry, what is your definition of use cryptocurrency? Ben, there's still not a lot of

options for using it in the market, besides as an investment tool from what I've seen. Yeah, it's

your question. The way that the question is asked, and is to make investments or to make an online

purchase is the specific language of the question. So we do have as like, a way to invest your money

included in the statement. And Tom says is likely to use the same as has used is that number a lot

lower? It is not the same. And that number would be a lot lower. And I think something that I

shared with you that we might be getting to in a little bit was people who have ever no sorry, that

specifically NF T's. So now it's not that I don't have a question of the day to hear that, that

people don't actually use crypto to make a purchase of good.

The good news is if that's a study that you're interested in, if you're listening, you're you

know, you work in a crypto company.

That's the kind of study that Ben and the folks at YouGov can absolutely put together and the kind of

data they can put together. So

very cool. Let's let's move on to the second

Um, second slide here. Let me make this a bit bigger.

So I've been wanting to introduce this one. Yeah. So the next few we you know, we're we're sticking

on the blockchain theme. So we did some some crypto, we're looking at some Metaverse,

statements here. And these were new statements added to you guys. And just to be clear, Paul's

attack, right, we can run custom research and things like, you know, Tom's question of has used

being something we'd have to kind of go back and dig into with a custom survey and some sort of

simple one. All this data is that we're sharing here and in these charts are things that we are

continuously collecting. So every week, we're getting fresh data on what percentage of the

people in our dataset have agreed to these statements. So I've defined here, the first four

bars left there are Deemer identities. So someone who's not a gamer versus so all the way up to

someone who identifies as a hardcore gamer. When we see that, you know, the percentage of people

who say they're confident they understand what the metaverse is, is, you know, fourfold. If they're a

hardcore gamer, you know, over 80% of hardcore gamers feel confident they understand what the men

have versus, versus 27% of non gamers and a third of people who are identify as casual gamers. And

as we move along to the right, we see esports fans, no surprises, esports fans, and you'll see

through this charts, they line up very closely with that core, mid core hardcore gamer identity

bucket.

And no category for ready for firewall. It's a good question.

And then I just think like other things that would be interesting to call out. So Gamestream viewers,

and that's a gaming behavior. But we know that there's a spectrum of like, casual play, to

hardcore play to being an esports fan to watching someone else play online. And there are different

behaviors or different audiences. And in general, we see with the the metaverse and Kryptos, to the

game stream, your audience is quite big. I think it's bigger than the hardcore gamer group as like

a population size. But they're, they kind of run the spectrum of being casual gamers or non esports

fans, and so on. So about, you know, they're pretty in line with the general populace or

general 18 to 34 year olds, because so many 34 year olds are getting streamed viewers.

So just over half of those two groups, say they feel confident understanding the meta versus, and

we look at all American adults, which is the last bar on the right, about four and 10. Feel

confident we'll be keeping a pulse on this every week moving for so.

Yeah, I think I have there's a couple of things that stand out to me. I also want to point out

what Tom noticed here. But before I get to those two things, I think what would it would be

fascinating is coming back to this exact same question like six months from now 12 months from

now, to see how well the things that we consider massively hyped, become understood by the sort of

the general population and the gaming population. Tom year says that's amazing that 27% of non

gamers say they are confident that they understand what the metaverse is. I mean, that I mean, that

is a relatively high number. I think it speaks to just how like you can't turn anything on not not

TV or any social media and not hear about Metaverse in some capacity. Right. Do you guys not

think that's probably why just how much it's out there lensing? Oh, yeah. I feel like that's super

accurate. I mean, it's so hard because I think about the different social medias I interact with.

And certainly it's huge in the Twittersphere. Like every single Twitter space I've ever seen. It's

about the metaverse, I swear. And that was huge on LinkedIn. You know, every person who who talks

about crypto as crypto is is talking about web three and development on the metaverse is, it's on

there. So it's like there's huge subsections of the population that are just interacting with the

content. I mean, Facebook changing its name.

That was a huge lead in as well. So I'm not surprised that that number is basically a quarter

of people.

The shocking number for me was the 42% that I think was even more surprising than the 27% of non

gamers was the 42% of basically all adults like that means if you if you ask every adult like half

of them are going to pretty much things think they know what the metaverse is, I think that's really

high penetration for a word. Let's be honest with each other outside of like hardcore kind of sci

fi, crypto tech gaming kind of circles, was not like was not something that people talked about

openly. Like

let me put a little context behind that everyone I know who says I know as a matter versus follows up

with it's just like Second Life.

They're not wrong. They're not wrong.

You

mentioned smart contracts and web three development and digital asset ownership.

And all of that. It's just like add Second Life, we're all gonna live online even more. But again,

if you're a decentraland, your sandbox, your any of call it, the meta verses that we talked about

today on a daily basis, right? Pretty obvious from this chart who your ideal target audience is

right? If you're trying to market to,

to them this this becomes pretty, pretty obvious. Tom has a question for you. Then he says, Is this

the first set of data? Is there something from six months ago? I was?

I wish no, we are. One of the nice things about you. gov is we can adapt quickly to to starting to

get a pulse on these trends as they, you know, kind of rise above the fold and into the,

you know, basically we're trying to capture what marketers are gonna care about. So once marketers

start to think about where they can invest in the metaverse became an option was like, Okay, we need

to get this in here.

You know, so I don't have six months ago, I wish I had my crystal ball. I can look back and see where

it is six months from now. I think you know, Metaverse, though. I also wish I could see it

before Facebook changed their name to meta like

is that, you know, that raises so many headlines, and I think awareness in general. But maybe it's

because I'm a sci fi nerd. But I was familiar with what Metaverse conceptually, was 10 years ago.

And so I think as a concept that's been around since the 90s. And

yeah, again, it would also be interesting to drill into a lot of people who say they're confident

they know what it is and ask them what they what it is and find that half there. But like,

Ben, you don't have a crystal ball, but you do have a data cap. And that's I mean, that is that

that's just as good I think.

Let's let's move on to the next one here. This is the metaverse is the future of online interaction.

I'll let you talk about this slide, Ben. Yeah, I mean, it's similar. There's like four or five of

these about the metaverse. These are only statements we added

over a month ago or a little more two months ago. What sets me here was the casual gamers, non

gamers actually are a bit more bullish on the metaverse being the future of online interaction

than in casual gamers. Now, I think the casual gamer group that can include people who are, you

know, mobile casual gamers, we look at like the demographics of each of those groups, it skews a

lot older, more female.

And so I think there is, you know, maybe a big portion of the non gamers who are still techies,

even though they're not gamers. And so they do see still that the metaverse is kind of the way the

internet is headed. And so there's not necessarily a direct correlation, the very strong one.

But then similar trend here is you get to that kind of core mid core and hardcore gamer bucket,

there are a lot more just bullish on this is what we're all gonna be doing in a matter of time.

And I think, you know, the 18 to 40, eating the 34 group, obviously, they're always gonna stand out.

And I was able to get some 18 to 24 numbers as well. And it's, you know, it's I got like a team

data to I think we have a question to 37 year old men, there's, it seems that there's no turning

back now people are are waiting for that to kind of take on the ones.

I mean, what stands out here from you? And is there's really a pretty significant difference

between someone who's a casual or mid core gamer and a hardcore gamer just in terms of your

interests or knowledge, your sort of your, you know, what do you agree or disagree with, like,

these are very distinct groups in terms of what they like what they know. And I think that's

fascinate, because sometimes gamers just get lumped all together. And in reality, there are

some clear distinctions.

Jimmy, I don't know if anything stands out, in particular for you here anything that honestly my

only and this is not a criticism of,

of the questioning, it's kind of it's just funny that the adaptation or the affirmation of the

statement. I mean, it's across the board. But to me, it's not something that you agree or disagree

with, it's kind of just the fact that the meta versus the future of online, your interaction.

That's my personal take my opinion. So I guess I'm part of that 81% Hardcore. But similar to the Tom,

I think asking you about the previous graph, I would imagine, you know, as Ben and as you go,

keeps putting out great data like this and comparing across time that we'll see this rise

sharply across the board. So because again, I just don't think that there's there's a question here.

So other than that, the it's a really interesting distinction that you pointed out between non

gamers and casual gamers.

And I wonder why that is? I wonder if that's because non gamers also get the trend and get the,

you know, they kind of hear from their friends, they hear from culture, and kind of just seeing

what's going on and feel that way. Versus casual gamers that know that there's a lot of building

out that needs to be done. Maybe they haven't, you know, they know that VR isn't really 100% there

yet, or that these Metaverse, rooms and showcases are, again, there's just so much to be done.

Right. It's an idea we're building towards it. But it's very early days. So maybe that's why casual

gamers feel that way. I don't know.

Just the living, breathing proof.

I love I love hearing other in real time other people's perspective on these things, because it

also, you know, you're asking all the right questions, you guys, everyone in the comments. And

you Jimmy and in Lindsey Paul, there's other ways we could dig into the data like this is a five

point scale, and I've rolled that. So it's a five point scale from strongly disagree to strongly

agree. And if we just isolated this strongly agree to this statement. Interesting. Tell a slightly

different story. Yeah. So I love it. Anyway, I want to be up all night thing that

Adam says, I wonder if the non gamer sees a FaceTime type Metaverse as a future path, not

necessarily gaming. Very interesting, though, that they are higher than casual gamers. Yeah, you

know, that's an interesting thought. I suspect also, the non gamer category may be more

influenced by the meta kind of announcement, right? Like people who spend a lot of time on

Facebook. And that's their online interaction. So Facebook tells them that this is the future. You

know, maybe that hits home more.

But it's a good good thought. Kevin says Ben, did you touch on the differentiation between the gamer

segments? Is it self reported as a casual mid core hardcore? I may have missed that. But I'm curious.

Great question. I didn't touch on it, but I can't. So this is a self identification question. It's

one of a few scales, ways that we can define gamers. But you know, another option could have

been isolated by time spent playing on certain devices. But this one is simpler. So it's a four

point scale. The non gamer says they're not interested in video games, casual is likely to

games aren't one of my top interest, or mid core is video games, one of my top interests, but I'm

taking too seriously. And then Hardcore is taking the game seriously or playing additively that's

a CEO says what are what did I miss SEO You're right on time for

for the best segment of the show here. So

you can always go watch it after the fact guys, as you know, all this goes online.

So you can watch the recording if you miss some of it and the YouGov inside segments we do post

separately. So if you really love the data stuff, which we all do, you can tune in just to that. So

let's move on to the next one here. Guys. There's a we've had a couple more here. Ben, why don't you

go talk about this slide.

So this was someone asked, I think it was Kevin or Tom maybe about actually buying something with

cryptocurrencies or using them. This isn't quite that but similar. So this is ownership of digital

assets.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm actually getting ahead of the next one. This is another statement about you

know, being bullish on digital assets and FTEs blockchain. similar trend here. The question is

being able to own digital assets like NF T's cryptocurrencies, Virtual Property and land in the

metaverse is a huge opportunity.

Just kind of a different state.

This one's telling to me because we've seen a lot of like the Ubisoft courts announcement was kind

of the perfect example where they announced you know that they were going to make a bunch of the

items in one of the Rainbow Six games available as NF T's essentially right, you could buy them and

own them as NF T's. And there was this huge backlash from gamers right there was a lot of

complaints from gamers. This study seems to set like what I conclude from this is that it's kind

of more of a vocal minority, especially among the hardcore gamers right lately. The backlash is not

as widespread as it may seem, it's not like 90% of gamers all think being able to own digital assets

is a is you know, nonsense.

And so like I think some of the, the perception we have is tainted by the fact that some people are

just make more noise than others. And it doesn't really pan out in the data here. Jimmy or Lindsey?

I don't know if you have any thoughts on this one. You know, I'm a big fan of NF T's I got into them

because I wanted to learn more and I felt the best way was to get my hands dirty.

And so being able to own these digital assets to me, it wasn't just I think a huge opportunity. It

was an educational type of

experience because you see a lot going on. You don't want to be late or you know, there's that

element of FOMO. And I think the best way to learn is by doing. So that was kind of how it's applied

to me when you look at these communities and how they agree or not, I think these trends are pretty

consistent with some of the other graphs that we looked at with with regard to overall crypto

spending, as well as with regard to an understanding of the metaverse and kind of what

that shares are says is really just how intertwined all of these concepts in communities

and technologies are. And we've been saying it here on the show for a while now. And I love that

we have the data to support it. So big shout out to you, Ben, for putting this together. And thank

you for YouGov for these tools. But honestly, you know, gaming is the nexus of popular culture,

gaming is the common thread that is launching forth, I think the future of connectivity and

social interaction, and what the metaverse will become. So when you see people that are willing to

have digital currencies, have digital assets, engage socially online and digital environments.

You know, all these trends, I think are going up, you expect that the hardcore guys and the ones

that are spending already a lot of their time there for it to be more strongly correlated among

that demographic. But I again, I think this is another one where I would hope Ben would keep

this, you know, in your, hey, look at this folder, and run this again in a couple of months, or every

couple of months. And it'll be there ongoing? Yeah. Every every week. Yeah. Well, I'll be

checking in for sure. And we'll see that up into the right kind of trend. That's my that's my take.

Guys. I want to get to this last one here. Because I think it's also interesting. And we'll we'll

wrap on this one. Ben, maybe you want to talk about this last one? Yeah, well, sorry, if I can

say one last thing on the last one as you don't have to go back. But I will just point out the

esports fans were they were pretty high on feeling that NF T's were a value add. So as esports teams

are looking at other ways to monetize, and they're a great outlet to create collectibles, and to kind

of bolster the value of the school with it team's name. So that was just one of the things that

stood out. But yeah, go ahead. So this one was, is I ever purchased a digital collectible as an

investment or plan to as an investment. So this is now getting real direct? It was Tom's question. So

you'll notice, first off, the scale of our graphs looks similar, but the numbers are a lot lower,

right? So casual gamers, non gamers about 4%. Even sick, if you look at total, US 6% have ever

purchased any kind of digital collectible. So you got to like keep in consideration, this is still a

pretty small population, even if they do feel it's going to grow and become more relevant. It's not

you know, it's not a 25 percentage percent of America, but it is 25% of hardcore gamers. So that

like really sticks out, you know, this is their passion. They're there. They're already putting

their money into gaming, it's part of their lifestyle. And this is another way for them to

show that off and just feel good about, you know, take pride, I guess in ownership of their items,

they're doing things.

And then the plan the purchase statement. This was interesting, because here we see a different trend

with the hardcore gamers, and I'm not really sure how to explain this one. It was they've bought,

and like they bought six months ago, and they're not seeing return and they're like, You know what,

I've been a little bit burned. And I'm gonna I'm gonna cool it for the next little while.

I don't know, I don't want to be inflation and they're thinking over the next year. I don't know.

But that that really stood out. But then esports fans pops here. And I threw up NBA fans comparison

here esports fans group just thinking about, you know, traditional sports that kind of has the

youngest median age among official sports. And so we see esports fans in the next 12 months about a

fifth plan on buying some kind of digital collectible. And it's similar not too far off. 15%

of NBA fans are interested in next year as well.

So what do you guys think that is some interesting pics? You Yeah, Lindsey? Man, I don't know if you

if you want to start here. Yeah, I am super intrigued by the hardcore gamer. And I was

wondering in the last slide, you know, we know that gamers can be quite a fickle audience. So I

wondered if that also had to do with it. There's been just so much negative press between the

crypto markets falling and just NF T's in general and bad activations, which is super unfortunate

because there's a lot of really great activations out there, Jimmy

He's earlier point, but I don't think a lot of those get the same news coverage as, hey, look at

this cool artist that built the nice community is this gummy stuff? That could be a potential reason

what I, what sticks out to me more so is actually the four to mid core gamer. That slight bump up

there

from the ever purchase in the plan to purchase and just those numbers kind of consistent. Um, one

question I do have is in the in the plan to purchase, does that include people who also

already purchase?

It can Yeah, they're not exclusive.

Yeah, I was think about that, too. I think I can order these statements and kind of look at the

total slice.

Yeah, it's a well, and I thought I've been and I thought your insight there was spot on in terms of

people that probably had purchased. But we're cooling down because of a dip in, you know, there.

We notice on Google, right, the search for NFPs, over the last few months also significantly lower.

A lot of rugs and communities that, you know, we're kind of scammy in nature. So maybe people

are also pulling back being a little more tailored with their investments, and a lot of people

writing out because obviously the war in Ukraine affecting this as well. So, so I think there's a

lot of factors here. And I thought that when I saw this, I read that same insight that these are

probably people that already owned, but maybe we're going to hold for a while. Yeah. Yeah, I

mean, the interesting takeaway for me as and obviously, because we talked to a team, you know,

Steve, from Team Liquid today. Like if you're an esports team, and you're not doing something

around digital collectibles, you really are probably missing a really easy monetization

opportunity.

Because how, how well esports fans like index against even the hardcore and mid core gamer

crowd, and definitely against the general population. I mean, this, this is extremely

telling if you ask me. And, you know, these esports teams are always looking for ways to

monetize this. Hard to hard to argue with real real data here.

Tom says same here, trying things out just to see how it works. And Bill says hello, everyone.

Hello, Bill. Welcome,

guys that, Ben, thank you so much for for the slides, that wraps up the YouGov insights segment

here. I just want to remind everybody and guys, this is like kind of the proof of the quality of

data you get from YouGov. And it's really living data. I think that's, you know, we touched on this

a little bit. It's data that's being continuously collected. And and I think from a business

standpoint, What's always interesting to me is how actionable it is. So if you're a team, a brand and

agency, a rights holder, right, like any of these groups, that is looking to reach the gaming

audience, the crypto audience, these very valuable audiences, and trying to understand what they want

and what they respond to. You got to be talking with Ben, you got to be talking with YouGov. So

definitely go check out yougov.com/boe. And,

and, you know, definitely don't hesitate to reach out. Thanks so much, Bob. We love you guys.

All right. I mean, Tom says more data and lightning so I mean, people clearly have their

favorites. In terms of content here, Tom, I promise we will do a short lightning round, just

for you here. And I have I have actually five stories. So we're going to lightning round this

guy's so if you don't know if you've never been here before, the way the lightning round works is

everyone gets 30 seconds, I try and go in order and then reverse order. So whoever started goes

last the next time and you have 30 seconds. Give us your take. Keep it short and sweet. And we're

going to touch on a few stories here. So we're going to start the lightning round right now.

Alright guys, let's kick this off here. We've got a great story to start. By the way when you've

reached your time, you're going to hear this noise. Okay, and that means you are at a time.

All right, let's start with this first story. This is upper deck in the news so makers of trading

cards, Upper Deck launches official Call of Duty league trading cards not much more than that. It's

a line of esports trading cards. Jimmy What do you think of this? Love it trading cards are so hot

right now. Why not monetize or find another thing to sell? I love people buying things. This is the

foundation of our economy. sell as much as you can buy as much as you can. And again trading cards so

hot right now. So do thumbs up. Lindsey do not love it.

Like it should be

ENFP said, but that could just be because I'm not a huge Trading Card enthusiast

neutral feelings I've seen it come with an associated NFT if not, where do I put it after a

while? And is this for the player for the players in the league is it seems

my simple view on this I don't understand why we're still doing paper trading cards. It makes no

sense to me. Unless you're going to wear it and diamond and crusted around your neck. I just I

don't get it. I'm gonna take some of my time. I'm just gonna read these comments. Kevin says love

the data had been so there you go. And Bill. Excited about the lightning round. There you go.

All right, guys. Let's move to the next story here. This is Halo in the news, but not what you

might think Halo the official cookbook coming in off in August. It says even sci fi super soldiers

need to eat. It's going to that. This is after CD Projekt unveiled the official Witcher cookbook. So

now Halo is getting their own cookbook. I guess they felt a little bit of FOMO. Ben, what do you

think of the Halo? Official cookbook? Yet? super confused?

What do they even eat?

I just don't get it all.

These characters are gonna have mouths like they're always wearing their hell, I don't get it.

I love it.

Okay, exact opposite.

I am about 50 times more likely to buy and cook out of the Halo book than I am to play the Halo

game. So and as someone who owns a massive amount of novelty cookbooks I'm super happy to see gaming

get into that space, just another form of gaming and entertainment media and I'm here for it.

So we actually have a really cool piece on this coming out on meta TV. So if you follow us on Tik

Tok on YouTube on Instagram, we're gonna have a fun coverage piece of this.

There's a seven layer like cheeseburger like a seven Patty cheeseburger in this cookbook. How do

you eat something that big? No idea. You have a Master Chief. But again, I love the idea of

selling things. And so Hallo. So

I didn't write the book.

This makes no sense. And I agree with that. And when I saw this cookbook, I thought it was a joke.

I just do not understand. This makes no sense to me if you're World of Warcraft. If you're the

Witcher

you guys all know that you're wrong. Awesome. It'll be April Fool's by a couple

more like Master Chef on my right. There you go.

That that deserves one of these. There you go. Right.

All right, guys, let's let's move on to the next one here. It's so silly. Epic Games launches

Unreal Engine five latest version of development toolset promises even more photorealistic scenery

and worlds. So this is a new version of Unreal Engine. They did this whole fancy demo. It looks

incredibly realistic. I'm curious what you guys think of this. Jimmy, go ahead. This is great.

Unreal five is going to be a big thing. I particularly like how I have already seen

companies that are building NF TS on the Unreal engine so that any game that supports unreal five,

you will be able to have access to those NF T's in game finally have an application and a use case

for some of these otherwise digital artworks and expensive JPEGs so love this. This is one thing

that epic does very right very consistently. Lindsey I

totally agree with Jimmy I Unreal Engine has just always been so cool. Such a great tool for indie

developers and small developers and just to learn game development, and as well as supporting a lot

of major titles, games. So the versatility there's just a map and I'm excited to see what people do

with it super cool.

What's not to love? Absolutely love it gonna be super cool. Also, as they expand into other

applications for Unreal Engine into movies and cinematography, and more photorealistic we can get

the more applications of ambience. Very cool. Yeah, I think that's super insightful. Like it's

all the stuff that's not gaming even that I get really excited about and some of the some of the

photorealistic stuff that was being rendered like in real time with a GPU that any of us can buy is

just

it's insane. And I would love Tim Sweeney to lean into Unreal Engine way, way, way more right. I

think we need one less concert in fortnight and we need Unreal Engine five, or Unreal Engine in

general to bring us the metaverse.

Hardware BBQ says I'm looking forward to how devs use Unreal Engine five I agree or to barbecue.

It'll be exciting to see what people come up with. Alright guys, this this one is Twitter. This

Twitter sharing new data on the evolving gaming conversation. And I just want to I want to

highlight the couple of most tweeted about things here. So most tweeted about games. Let me just

give you the top four or five here against an impact one world two ensemble stars three play

Apex for Final Fantasy number five most tweeted about esports teams globally. It was loud GG one

FaZe Clan fanatic,

pain gaming br and Carmine Corp. That's one to five and most tweeted about play esports players

go globally fallen CS no brew Rekkles 10s. Official and mix well.

Ben, I can bring any of these up for you if you want to if you want to comment on one specific one

or have general thoughts on this. I mean, this is global data, right? Yes. Yeah. I mean, just kind

of puts America in its place, right.

So much more conversation and things happening. You're paying attention to and I

haven't I haven't even heard of like half of these things. Exactly. This is some of these teams that

like was the number one team. I don't even think I'm familiar with that. Yeah, loud GG. I guess I

Yeah, I've heard about but I pretty surprising.

Great for the esports industry, just because I think it shows a scale and a kind of a roundabout

way. Yep. Lindsey.

These are always really fun. But I don't know how much weight I put into them. because Twitter is

just so much different than real life.

It's it is this is that's not to say that these are valueless. They are they are interesting, and

it's fun. It's fun to see trends change year to year. Um, but I also just always wonder, you know,

how this translates into dollars, ROI and all of that stuff. That being said, still fun love CDs

lists, super interesting trend trends and stuff. Jimmy? It's funny, actually, because if I think

there was a similar list, here with a focus on us and X that was on that list, so we were super

thrilled with it. We were circulating it all over our LinkedIn and everything. I think this honestly

highlights the importance of working with someone like Ben, a partner like YouGov, where you can get

data similar to this but with deeper insights and understanding and not just limited to Twitter, and

not just there's just fewer questions. And there's greater confidence, I think in what the product is

not to discredit this at all. It just paints a very narrow picture. And I want to know more.

Right? It honestly gives me more questions than it answers. But it's a great pat on the back for

everyone that made the list nonetheless.

Bill says Don't sleep on global presence. Bill. You're right. I mean, I think we often in North

America, you know, just don't realize is like everything that's going on in the rest of the

world. Tom says But Twitter doesn't include China, right? I mean, Tom, this is the all they say here

is its most tweeted about. So if someone got on Twitter in China, like using a VPN or something

and tweeted about one of these teams, it would be included. So it could include China, right? In

that sense, I just think this kind of study is a little bit worthless. Because it's not, there's

nothing you can do with this data, right? It's other than for us to talk about it on the show.

There's nothing you can really do with it. And Twitter is just such a, like a one slice of the

pie. And I don't think it's representative of the whole pie like a personal experience with Twitter

tells me that most of this data is not not that useful. From a business perspective. It's

interesting to talk about but not that useful from a business perspective. I mean, I want sorry, one

counter there are loud that DGG who is resilient based from what I can gather, huge market, and

it's definitely gonna help them sell more sponsorships. So true. True. Goods are good for

the good for the people at the top of the list for sure. Yeah. Our Roberto says these numbers look

good in a media kit, that's for sure. Yeah, there you go. Agreeing with agreeing with Ben 100% All

right, guys. Last story here. Saudi Arabian electronic gaming development company now holds

96.18% stake in SNK. So this is a company I don't think anyone has really heard of, they were buying

shares of SNK they wanted to become a majority shareholder. SNK makes fighting games so King of

Fighters 15 Their most recent game. So this is Saudi Arabia buying up more gaming companies. You

know, we talked recently about the god why am I drawing a blank here? Face it and ESL

acquisitions. And it's been rumored that they're on the hunt for other game developers clearly

putting their money where their mouth is here buying up game development studios. Ben, start

with you thoughts on Saudi Arabia, buying up game studios.

There's a lot of directions to it that are wanting to go with that.

Man non political because Bobby, just the business. It's pure business play. I mean, I think

they have a ton of capital and they just begin shows like you

Amiens being beamed in for all the reasons that you talk about this show all the time or a really

sound investment. And so it's not

doesn't come as a surprise. I'm not too familiar with

s and k. But that's on me. So

let's see.

Yeah, I mean,

has the word for that. I guess I'm wondering what the overall strategy is going to be and how these

companies are going to fit together. But that remains to be seen. That's just a curiosity.

Yeah, like you said, they are they made this a goal. They're putting their money where their

mouth is, but I really wonder what that's going to look like.

Jimmy,

not a lot to add. Unfortunately, since I'm going third here, I definitely wanted to save money

where their mouth is. So Lindsey stole that. Right, right at the end. I think we're also at a

disservice because it's like, what is SNK really doing? And that would allow us to speak whether

more towards whether or not this is a great thing.

But obviously, if they have what was it 96.18% stake? curious why it's not a 101st of all but but

also, you know, that's just kind of a random number. But clearly, they're very bullish on this

and everything else they're buying up. There's,

if you've worked with the Saudis, if you understand the region, if you see what they're

doing, you know that none of this is done willy nilly. There's a greater plan. There's a five to

10 year understanding and roadway here. And so this will all become very apparent quickly.

One more time. No, I echo your sentiment completely. Jimmy. So I'll try and finish your

thought. By the way, everyone should go listen to the episode we did do with the Saudi esports

Federation, because I think there's some insight there in terms of what they're, you know, what

they're looking to do in the space.

You know, hardware barbecue, brought it up, I'm gonna bring his comment up on the screen, but I

was thinking the same thing he was, how is this different than Tencent? Right? It's, they're,

they're acquiring a bunch of companies in the gaming space because they believe in it, which is

Tesla's Tencent strategy, right. Tencent was making like 1020 acquisitions a year at one point.

So it feels Tencent ish. Let me just read hardware barbecues come in here. To be fair, Tencent was

once a big company nobody heard of for a very long time. I'm surprised it took this long to make a

move from there, but better late than never, I suppose. I 100% agree. And I don't need I don't

think it's late. Yes, there's a lot of competition for game developers right now. But I don't think

they're late to the party.

Bill says I wonder how much impact the new owners will have on how things are actually run?

Good question, Bill. Impossible to know. SNK is a Japanese company that makes fighting games kind of

like a niche. I'd be surprised if the new owners had a major impact on how things are run. Japanese

companies tend to be unique in that in that business culture and the corporate culture.

So and hard to crack that I wouldn't be surprised if the new owners changed much. I don't know if

you guys have different thoughts or answers there. But

I just am the fighting the fighting game. niche is an awesome community to be in. And also with

acquisition, like ESL, you can kind of already again, understand where they're going with this.

Art of barbecue says if you think about it, Reliance Entertainment does the same in the

entertainment space, too. Yeah. Lots of like Holdco kind of companies that are trying to put

assets together that makes sense going together. And if you believe the, you know, Saudi Arabia's

ambition for gaming, and gaming is huge. It's part of the culture there. Every almost every Saudi

games, it's a young population like this, the vision starts to make more sense. Like I said, I

encourage everyone to listen to the episode we did with the Saudi esports Federation. guys, that

wraps up the everyone's favorite new segment, our lightning round.

And not only that, guys, that brings us to the end of this week's show. Very special. Thanks. I want

everyone in the chat. Say thank you to Ben, go check out yougov.com/boe I know we're going to be

putting more stuff there over time.

But you know, again, proof positive of the kind of data that they bring to bear. So if you're

operating in or around the industry, you really need to be reaching out to Ben or to any of the

fine people that you have artists who can connect you to them. So better. Thank you,

guys, it's yeah, love hanging out. Love your show. You guys are crushing it and it's just a joy to be

a small part. So thanks for having me. Bill says Thanks, Ben Thompson. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Jimmy Lindsey. Thank you guys. As always,

just a reminder, we do this every Wednesday night 8:30pm. Eastern time. Don't forget to tune in

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