Data nerds, unite! This week I'm excited to bring on Nicole Pike from YouGov. Nicole has worked in consumer data analysis for a large part of her career, and explores one of the latest reports from YouGov in this episode. We learn the power of influencers, discuss how women can be more involved in gaming, and of course go through some of the latest research.

Episode Resources:

https://business.yougov.com/content/38826-international-gaming-report-2021?marketo=download

Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

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Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast part

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the deal for new listeners welcome, and I hope you enjoy

the show. We have a great guest this week, she's been so

involved with the business of esports and holodeck media, it's

been so great having her to just be on the team and nerd out

about data stuff. One of my favorite things to do. I'm so

happy to introduce Nicole Pike, who is the global sector head of

esports and gaming at YouGov. Nicole, welcome to the show. To

start, if you could just introduce yourself, give us a

couple sentences, your background, tell us about YouGov

all that good stuff.

Definitely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm

excited to join the conversation. So I have been in

all things data and gaming for gosh, about 15 years now. My

background is in consumer research and understanding the

voice of the consumer. And I've been able to kind of take that

from the the broader gaming side of things through to the growth

of esports. And trying to help companies understand who esports

fans are, what they want, how to make their experience better.

And now I'm in a pretty cool position here at UGA, of

building out all of our data in the gaming and esports space and

really just trying to make it a lot more robust for everyone.

Knowing how important understanding the gaming

universe is for people in the industry, but also all of the

other clients that that we work with, and all the other

companies around the world who are starting to get more

involved in integrated with all things gaming.

Yeah, for those of you who are into data or data

science people, Nicole was previously at Nielsen two, which

is another huge, huge data organization. So you've been

working with working with us for a bit now?

Yeah, for sure. For better or worse mean, data are

stuck together. It's fun, I love it. That's

okay. There's always something new, which is

fun. To start. I know speaking of new things, you all you guys

just released a big three part report a couple months ago on

influencers in gaming. I know they do a ton of work in the

gaming industry in general. This one was this big report all for

free. So we'll definitely link to it in the show notes. I want

to highlight some of the key points just to help us frame our

discussion. Particularly where diversity equity inclusion are

concerned. Like I said, this is a three part report. So I have a

couple points from each of them. But some of the key ones are 12%

of men and 5% of women follow gaming influencers globally,

which isn't a huge gap. When you think about it. If you think

about the whole world, and 12% of men and 5% of women, those

are both massive numbers. And granted, the male audience is

bigger, but the female audience is is quite large to

advertisers, to content producers, to game companies to

all of that that's a huge, it's a big deal. When it comes to

influencers in general, it's about split and who follows

influencers. The gender breakdown of people who follow

gaming influencers is 53% of men and 47% of women for any type or

I'm sorry, I have that backwards. This is for anyone

who follows an influencer in general. Okay, so bear with me.

the minutiae of this is confusing, but you got it all in

nice graphs. So of all of the people who follow influencers,

the gender breakdown is 53% of women and 47% of men. So I flip

those around. But the point there is that of people who

follow influencers, there's a slight, slight hedge towards

women who are more likely to follow an influencer. But it's

again, very close to a 5050 breakdown and who is actually

following influencers. So I think there's also a perception,

you know, women follow celebrities and all of this

stuff. But when you think about 47% of men are also of people

who follow influencers. 47% are men, that's also a big deal.

When it comes specifically to gaming influencers, people who

follow gaming influencers are 69% men and 31% women, so of

people who follow gaming influencers. That one is

actually more skewed, much more skewed towards men, which about

a 2/3 1/3 breakdown. And then when it comes to streamers of

the top 100 streamers five were women And they accounted for

3.3% of hours watched, which, that when I read that statistic,

I was just so sad that we have kind of an even even playing

field when it comes to kind of following influencers, although

men are more likely to follow gaming influencers, but then you

get to actually the people who are producing gaming content,

there's such a drastic drop off. So indicates such a pipeline

problem to me. Um, I don't know if you have any thoughts or more

insights about that, but I'd love to hear what you think.

Yeah, totally problem opportunity. You know,

depending on the way you look at it is pretty amazing. It's,

it's, there's clearly a demand and interest for gaming

influencers and gaming content among women. Right now, and

certainly, you know, both genders, men who watch gaming

influencers, follow women influencers, and vice versa. But

the just the split of content from a gender perspective is

massively skewed toward men. And, you know, probably not not

dissimilar from a lot of other folks in the industry. And in

general, I mean, I know you talk on this podcast a lot about all

things gaming, whether it's, you know, who makes the game, some

markets, the games, who, you know, distribute the content.

And I think, you know, that's, that's something that the gaming

industry as a whole has historically a bet with. But I

think, you know, as we look at a lot of the big gaming influencer

orgs, you you see a similar skew. So I think, just generally

the way things have evolved so far, and the good news is, I

feel like in the grand scheme of the gaming influencer economy,

we're still pretty early, because I see only growing

further, but I do think that it's, it's been a bit of a self

perpetuating, you know, dominated by males early, and

then that's kind of just continued to be how it grows,

how gaming houses and content houses have been forming, and

kind of evolving. So I think, you know, when if done, right,

whether that's, you know, female specific content, houses, or

just creating more equity within those, I think, you know,

that's, that's an excellent start. And there's clearly the

female demand for especially as more gaming influencers go into

non gaming content, right, a lot. What we see in a lot of our

data is people are following giving influencers sure because

they play games they like, but also just because they're

entertaining and funny, and so it doesn't necessarily have to

all be about gaming. So whether a female is a super hardcore

gamer, or just into gaming a little bit, but like other

things, like I think just kind of everyone recognizing that

there's the demand there, will will help to kind of break that

supply gap above.

This is kind of an aside as well. But I recently

saw a Twitch streamer who was a makeup artist too. So there's

obviously a lot of potential within streaming to not just

stream games or to just stream things that are sort of gaming.

Jason still within the realm of the gaming industry, I

definitely think makeup and cosplay is a huge part of

gaming. So there's no reason to not have that as part of the

content creation process. But what do you think it's going to

mean? You mentioned a little bit about its shifting focuses and

sort of rebuilding an industry where men have dominated from

early on. But what do you think, will encourage more female

streamers? I definitely think there's obvious answers there.

But just wondering if there's anything that you've seen from

all your time spending spent looking at this data that you

can say, oh, improving toxicity will really make a difference or

paying people or I don't know exactly what it is, but I would

love to hear what you think are some of the things that could

change and encourage more women to get out there and produce

content?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's, again,

you can see it as problem or opportunity. But I think there's

a lot of different things that could contribute to turning that

around. I mean, I think at the most basic level, we've we've

done research last year about this time actually put out a

report by evil geniuses who is obviously very diversity driven

and focused and really is, I think, one of the few orgs that

kind of lives that in their blood and it really comes

through in everything they do. And the degree to which female

gamers have experienced toxicity the percent of them who have it,

it's pretty overwhelming. So I think at a very core kind of,

you know, if people are following gaming influencers for

gaming related content, and if just you know, playing games

themselves, females face toxicity, especially for you

know, more games that are competitive and you know, kind

of more esports appropriate games like that's going to to

impact things all the way down the funnel to who they're

following, and who they interact with, and all that. So I think

there's still very much a core kind of industry problem that

needs to be addressed and solved. But I think beyond that,

I mean, one of the interesting things we've seen with with

gaming influencers as of late is we're seeing more and more

brands and sponsors really getting behind and engage with

them. And as much as I'd like to say, Oh, it's just about kind of

the industry from within figuring things out. Also Money

talks. And so one of the things that I'm really passionate about

is also helping advertisers and brands who are interested in

reaching consumers through gaming, understand that it's not

just a bunch of dudes sitting around a computer screen who are

watching gaming content, but it really, you know, I think the

headline is always all if you want to reach 18 to 34 year old

males go to twitch. And that's totally true. But there are also

a lot of non males on Twitch and YouTube Gaming, and just

watching that type of content. So I think just just also kind

of socializing and helping brands to understand that there

are really great opportunities to support females in the

content creation space will allow them a platform and give

them the ability to take the risk to do that more, more in a

more dedicated way. So I'm hoping that we see a lot more of

that online. So like the Tampax gaming festival, you know, some

of the cool activations that we've seen over the last couple

of years, being more female creator focused,

that's been a big point of emphasis for me,

because this isn't, this isn't a ploy to get companies to spend

less money on whatever they're spending advertising to 18 to 34

year old men, it's more to say, hey, you can also make money

advertising to other people, there is an economic reason to

try to reach other audiences here. It's been a dream paper of

mine for a while to write about the size and the purchasing

power of women in gaming. Because this isn't to say that

you have to pick one or the other that you have to give up

one for the other. This is to say, hey, you could do even more

and make even more even clearer.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's almost, you know, I've,

I've worked like, like you mentioned, Nelson for a while,

and we did a lot on our sports side of the business on female

and women in sport. And it's almost kind of that same wave or

movement, but possibly a bit behind that, right? Or is all of

a sudden, like, oh, my gosh, the women's national soccer team,

like girls and females, like they are amazing role models.

And then people are, you know, that fan group is so passionate

about and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, that audience is ripe

for you know, reaching them through that. Whereas usually,

when people think of sports and sponsorship, you think of, you

know, kind of, on average advertising to males. So I think

it's almost a similar thing, where it's like, just because it

may not be the biggest cohort still doesn't mean that it's not

a super engaged group of people who are really loyal and

committed to and trust the influencers they follow, because

I absolutely think that's the case with female gamers.

Oh, yeah. And there's, there's different

spending habits in both of those populations, too. And you can

certainly, you can certainly make more off of a smaller

cohort that's more willing to spend as well. And when things

when things are done, well, I mean, that can happen. So it's

just, it's such a point of frustration to me, because it,

there's this sense of taking away from other things to

advertise to women as if you have to spend less dollars on

other things to advertise to women. It's like, no, no, no,

there's a direct return on investment with that as well.

There's right. You won't be able to make that up.

Exactly. And it doesn't just need to be makeup

and tampons and things too. Right. Yeah, that those are I

mean, obviously, there's been really successful activations in

our space with that, but females are buying a lot of other

products too. So if you can talk to them in a way that's true to

the platform, wherever that platform may be, that can still

be a win.

Yeah, absolutely. One One thing about this whole

discussion that bugs me when, when I know I've had this, this

sort of experience previously working in tech, and just seeing

some of the circular logic that's applied here. And it's

very similar across tech. We're using streaming as an example

here. But this kind of logic where there's not enough women

streamers, because not enough women watch streaming. But if

there are more women streamers, probably more women would watch

streaming, but nobody wants to put in the money to actually get

into the more part. So you just constantly wind up with well,

we're not investing because there's no women streamers to

invest in. But there's no women streamers to invest in because

nobody's investing. It's like everything just compounds and

there's always kind of an excuse not to do it. So how do we

address that gap and got not only women more comfortable with

things like content production and streaming but companies more

comfortable with actually investing in that seeing the

value in it, what kinds of data points are you looking to

provide to show? Hey, this is a good idea?

Yeah, so I think I mean, one of the biggest kind of

things that when we're working with gaming and esports orgs,

whether it's teams or rights holders or you know, influencer,

agencies, like being able to prove that gaming is the right

spot to reach people in terms of like, really connecting with

them and influencing their opinion in a meaningful way, I

think is kind of the biggest talking point that we are asked

to prove with the data. So you know, if you think about, it's

like, yeah, there, people are consuming more content and media

than ever before today. So why gaming, and why for females, and

I think, you know, the point again, to think about is, female

female gamers, you know, we just talked about, they may be a

minority, but in a way that actually makes them more

committed to gaming closer to the community they have, because

they've had to kind of find a way to personally connect to and

a squat, if you will, to be part of within the gaming industry,

and within just their interactions with it. So they

kind of have those that are really engaged in have gone to

the point of streaming content, or watching string content, like

they, they are really passionate about it. And they have these

deep relationships and connections. And that is the

lifeblood of a great sponsorship right is being able to work with

someone who has a really strong connection with their audience.

And we see it with gaming in general. But I really do believe

even more so with female gamers that there there really is that

connection to each other and to the games they play and that

passion and trust. And that's what should ultimately be

driving decisions to invest just as much as the size of audience,

if not more, in some cases.

On the word of the day. The gaming industry is

authenticity, for sure. So it certainly sounds like especially

if you are a woman. And this was actually a debate we had on the

business of esports live stream, which is every Wednesday night,

we recently had this debate about amaranth came out and said

she makes it something like $1.5 million a month. And there was

this whole article about how she basically said, you know, it's

hard, it's hard, and I'm tired. And I have to run all these

things. And it's not the easiest. And all my co hosts

kind of jumped on her for that and said, Oh, we feel so bad for

you making all this money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I

was the one who's like, Okay, everybody relaxed. But I think

one of the things that happens there too is when you have a

woman or someone who's representing another underserved

population become that powerful and that successful. There's

also a sense of, Well, all she does is put on makeup and

stream, it's easy, she could be replaced, She doesn't deserve

it. And that's definitely I think something that's persisted

throughout the industry. And this is more this is less data

driven. This is more anecdotal, this is more of an emotional

reaction to what I see in the industry. But I will say that

the people who actually start with an audience and build and

build and build and become the successful are incredibly

talented and smart people. It's not overnight that the success

happens. And it often starts with a small group of very

dedicated watchers who appreciate the authenticity that

that person is bringing and the community that they're serving.

So I think that what you're what you're saying, and that these

people who maybe begin with attracting a specific type of

audience can really focus on community building within their

own content that they create. I think that that's a really

powerful tool for becoming successful. And not everyone who

does it is going to be so the ones that are really good at it

become really successful, and they deserve it. I'm wondering

if you do see this kind of thing, though, with if you can

extrapolate maybe to other underserved populations. And if

you could talk about some of the things that you're able to see

some of the data you're able to provide with people when you're

looking at not only just women streamers, but LGBTQ plus

streamers or minority streamers who are representing a specific

population for them, or are you kind of seeing this across the

industry? Because authenticity really has been the word of the

minute or the word of the day here. But are you seeing that

and being able to provide that data to say look at these people

who have a specific audience in mind a specific niche, and how

they're able to draw them in and kind of does a good opportunity

for sponsorship or for advertisement because of that,

are you seeing that not just with women but with other

underserved populations?

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, that can

be a demographic population. It can be a game title that may not

be the biggest on twitch or or YouTube by kind of has its

little community that follows it and is slowly growing. So, yes,

and I think the biggest thing there is really kind of from a

brand or sponsors perspective is making sure that they aren't

just taking advantage of that, because it seems like someone

who is growing or on the app or you know, has a good percentage

or something like that, but that it really, you know, especially

with kind of underserved communities or minority is, you

have to make sure that the the product message and just kind of

ethos actually aligns with that community as well. And I think

generally speaking, you know, gamers are very, especially

people who are watching gaming content, really frequently are

very sensitive to and can sniff out when someone is trying to

jump on the gaming bandwagon versus when they, you know, when

there's, there's actually a message that is worth delivering

to them and connecting to them. So yes, I think we see it

happen. And I think gaming is a great place for that. But I do

think, you know, especially when when you get to those more niche

audiences, that there has to be a really clear kind of selling

and message proposition. And you have to have the buy in from the

influencer as well, to really kind of, you know, take, take

that on and understand that their their game is find it and

to only take things that are, you know, that are believable to

their audience, and in terms of support, and that sort of thing.

And that's why I you know, really like the more deals we

see that are going direct with influencers or agents and

things, as opposed. I think that just gives more control to the

creator in terms of making selections for themselves, and

just just kind of making that a better experience for their

audience. I think that's, you know, I'm not a content creator.

I'm, you know, speaking podcast is basically the extent of

anything I do there. But I can imagine what a struggle that is,

right? Where you're trying to grow and get a high profile and

be able to support yourself and make that your full time job.

And so getting that income is important, but at the same time,

you don't want to be seen as a sellout for it. It's a really

dead air delicate balancing act that they have to navigate. So

the at the end of the day, you want the audiences to win and

and making sure on both the brand and influencer side of

that happens is really important.

Sounds like there's kind of a dual

matchmaking process as then the company has to choose the

influencer and the influencers choose the company back.

Yeah, exactly. And they have to evolve with it over

time, too, right? If it's a long term relationship, it's not just

about like, oh, there's this new product coming out. And it's

sitting on my desk while I'm streaming this week, and then it

goes away. Right? I mean, there are kind of times and

opportunities for that. And you've seen more and more

activations, where it may be kind of like a bunch of

different influencers are doing something, but I think the the

ones that kind of resonate best with audiences is when there's a

consistent conversation, and when the kind of angle and the

tone of things evolves, as the influencer evolves, because we

know they have to keep things fresh and new themselves, right.

Yeah, I definitely think that's true, I want to

race on that I kind of want to shift focus and ask you, if

you've seen any overall changing trends, because you've been

looking at this kind of data for a bit now. And the overall

changing trends from the past, I don't know, maybe five or 10

years, as it relates to gender or other minority populations.

And when I say general trends, I mean, either from the company

side isn't maybe companies being either more or less interested

in targeting specific populations? From the watching

side of who is joining these audiences are who is leaving

these audiences? From the content creation side? Are you

seeing more variety and creators or less or like can you I this

is a very broad but any general trends that have stuck out to

you that you've seen kind of change over the past five or 10

years?

Yeah, and I'll I'll kind of bring up a few in the

fun sounds particularly interesting. Feel free to chime

in yourself. I mean, I think look, starting with the content

creators, you know, the the stat you mentioned is of the top 100

content creators from last year are only five were female, I

will say that I think the the supply a kind of more than micro

influencer side of things is starting to grow on the female

side, which I think is super encouraging. And I think you

know, it's still not nearly where not even are not even kind

of that split of what we see people actually watch the

content are but but I do think we're starting to see that

becoming kind of more of an acceptable thing for males and

females alike. So I'm hopeful that with the pipe line, kind of

increasing, we may, you know, see that funnel up over time.

But I think the industry has to be really mindful of that.

Because, you know, you see that in the job market as well. But

that doesn't mean that females are all of a sudden

representative that, you know, the top spots in any particular

industry, especially gaming, so it's, you know, likely to face

the same kind of challenges over over time that we've seen

elsewhere. I think from an audience perspective, probably

the biggest thing we've seen from a gender kind of evolution

is certainly with younger audiences, you're starting to

see kind of more, more engagement with gaming beyond

just mobile. So I think, you know, 1010 years ago, we saw the

percent appeal to anyone who played video games, the percent

of males and females kind of starting to get near parity. And

that was almost entirely due to mobile gaming, mobile slash kind

of casual, you know, Facebook, anything, which is mostly on

mobile now, but at the time was more desktop driven. Right. So

we, we started to see that kind of equalizing the the male

female contribution to the gaming industry. But if you

looked at mobile versus non mobile, or the percent who were

playing a lot versus a little like, you still saw some really

clear skews. I think what we're starting to see now is with

things like Minecraft, and Roblox and kind of that, you

know, the the more of the emphasis on STEM in elementary

schools and gaming, becoming more of a social outlet

crossover with music and gaming, there's so many kind of micro

trends that I think are starting to bring females more into

different types of games. And in fact, if you take a look, we

actually, at younger ages, I don't see as much of a

distinction between, you know, in mobile gaming of like it

being a female driven thing versus a male driven thing. But

you do see kind of more females getting engaged in playing games

on switch or PC games and things like that, which is definitely a

newer trend and exciting to think about. And to see kind of

how that evolves, we do still see that the amount of time they

spend is less females tend to spend more time on social media

and less time, like actually in games, but just the percent

overall that are engaging with gaming and subway is definitely

higher. Would you think, then when you kind of extrapolate

that to the metaverse, which I know is something that you are,

you know, starting to explore more and more on the podcast.

Like, that becomes really interesting because it's, you

know, it's a matter of just kind of getting them in the door and

then them engaging with all different types of content in

kind of this virtual atmosphere. Like that's what females already

doing in games to a large extent. So um, so yeah, that's,

that's kind of a trend that I think that's going to continue

into some really cool things as the metaverse economy grows.

That's so cool. That's I mean, anecdotally I

feel like that's what we've been seeing but it's good to actually

have that backed up. As someone who is a hypercasual and mobile

gamer even I have gotten more interested in Gaelic the

pandemic has also helped that a little bit definitely changed

but I totally think for younger generations that that barriers

even more removed I think Roblox has, has really done a lot for

that I am Minecraft. I used to work in a children's summer camp

and all of the kids talk about Minecraft, like there was no

gender there was nothing because every kid was playing freaking

Minecraft. The time I didn't have a great grasp on what it

was like I have to learn what the heck is going on with

Minecraft. So I definitely, like I said, anecdotally, that feels

true, but it's good to know the data backs that up. So speaking

of the metaverse, you were just quoted recently during the Webby

Awards as saying too many gamers playing virtual world games may

not actually feel or seem like gaming. It's just an

entertaining extension of how their social lives have evolved.

And I like this approach because like we're talking about with

younger generations and kids. It nods to the fact that gaming has

already kind of seen a series of Metaverse experiences stretching

all the way back to Second Life, which nearly every person over

50 has told me is the metaverse and now with this with these

platform types of games like Roblox and fortnight, so I would

first like to ask you to expand on this point. And then I would

love to hear you talk about how you see entertainment,

entertainment and gaming, how you see those two kind of

changing in their definitions or changing in the way we interact

with them as it relates to the metaverse.

Yeah. So I mean, I think on the first point, you

think about you know, when when I was a teenager when we wanted

to hang out, we would go to the mall and walk around and you

know, just kind of chat with each other and pop in stores.

And now you see whether it's just I mean, even just kids

sitting on their couches, texting with each other imagine

just putting, you know, translating that into a full

digital world where they're sitting next to each other,

quote, unquote, within the metaverse and doing that, but

you know, when you think about games like Minecraft, or even

fortnight a lot of kids are, you know, are using that as just a

place to hang out and talk you, you know, you, you look at a lot

of kids who may not actually be actively playing when they're in

the game, but more in there just to see what their friends are

talking about. And during the pandemic, that was, you know,

something that that definitely was a trend that accelerated was

just you know, being in a Minecraft or fortnight or

whatnot, just as a way to connect with people. So I think

that has become very natural for younger generations of just, you

know, we don't have to be physically together to be able

to interact with each other. So thinking about extending that

to, okay, let's, you know, go to this virtual store together,

let's watch a virtual concert together. And that all feels

very natural. And then as you think about, you know, creating

an avatar or someone who is virtually different than your

person, we've got all the Insta accounts. I mean, all of this is

very, like, you know, kind of things that they've dabbled in.

So to think that it's a stretch to kind of transfer transfer

that over to just being in a fully virtual world is, you

know, it's not that hard to imagine. So I think that that

part is really, really interesting, though. There are

still obviously lots of barriers and things to figure out like

giving a bunch of teenagers crypto wallets and things like

so. We've got a long way to go there. But the the just kind of

notion of trying to imagine what the metaverse might be like, and

getting them engaged, like feels very easy to transition them to.

I love that you brought up fence does as a point

of support for that. Um, when it comes to data and things that

you're looking at when it pertains to the metaverse, what

are you kind of already tracking or thinking about what questions

are you thinking about asking?

Yeah, so here you go. We've We've asked a handful

of kind of general Metaverse questions. And you'd be

surprised, you know, in our industry, and I'm, you know, on

LinkedIn all the time and in these virtual conferences and

things. And so NF T's and crypto and Metaverse is like all

anyone's talking about right now. But when you actually take

a step back and look at the general population, there is

still on, you know, the majority of people are not aware of the

metaverse and don't even those who are aware don't even really

understand what it is, like you said, it's like, oh, is it

Second Life? Oh, is that Roblox? You know, like, it's hard for

people to try to take kind of this big, this big idea. And

they're kind of trying to retrofit it into what they

already know. And it's not quite, you know, it's not quite

the same. Um, so I think there's still a lot of kind of, you

know, just a gap of understanding. And I think right

now, it's hard because there's not even necessarily a lot of

like, quote, unquote, education you can do in terms of, oh,

there's this thing, and you just have to jump in it and get like,

it's still as much kind of an idea, as, as you know, it is

something that that that will materialize. So I think that,

you know, at a high level, that's a struggle, but at the

same time, we can, I think, start to look at and talk to

people about the types of virtual experiences that they're

willing to make within Metaverse, so you know, we're

looking at things like a sports event versus a musical, you

know, a music concert versus a festival, things like that, like

what's going to be intriguing to people. I think a lot of the

kind of, you know, virtual shopping environment and trying

to understand what the best fit there is, is really interesting.

I think we're looking at a lot of questions around barriers.

Just just because, you know, certainly there will be and I

think two that I'm keeping an eye on are one kind of the idea

of crypto Wallet. So when you start to dig into things about

the metaverse and kind of how people accept the economy of the

metaverse to her the, you know, crypto wallet is kind of a big

part of that. So now you have to things people have to understand

and adopt and feel comfortable with, to really fully interact.

And so I think that's one and I think kind of the the idea of

lawlessness and this goes back to the beginning of our

conversation around toxicity and things like that. You know,

people just feel uncomfortable in it. And you know, the idea

that their avatars that could hurt Could not represent who

someone actually is and people feeling like, you know, that's a

place they want to interact, I think that can can be a really

big barrier as well. So kind of looking at all that. But we're

actually right now working on a report that'll come out in a

couple months on on the topic and exploring things like that.

So we're excited about it. And right now, I think the key is

trying to understand two things, one, for people who understand

it what they want to do, but two is not moving too fast and

trying to just understand like, how, how do we get people

comfortable with the idea? And how do we explain it to people

in a way that that will help them to understand it and get

them in the virtual door so to speak?

Yeah, well, in speaking of getting people into

the virtual door, I want to talk about how we can include women

in how we build the metaverse. There's been plenty of stories

from other tech industries in the Silicon Valley environment

where women weren't necessarily included at the beginning, you

can basically draw a straight line to some of the issues that

we have today as a result of women not being there for

building from the ground up. And that goes that the same point is

true for other minorities. I mean, look at all the issues

people with dark skin tones are having with AI. It's just

unbelievable. So as someone who looks at Entertainment trends,

and you can see some of the differences in how genders are

included in various industries, how can we make sure that we

don't have the same issues in building the metaverse, and I

think we're already even a little late on this. But how can

we make sure that we don't have maybe hopefully the depth of the

same issues we have in the metaverse, you know, 510 20

years down the line? Yeah, it's

I think such a good and important question,

especially when you think about, you know, people could argue,

and I think we would probably both agree wrongly, so that oh,

you know, the gaming industry is dominated by males. But that's

okay. Because it's mostly males that play game. It's like play

games. It's like, okay, is that chicken or the egg? But when

Yeah, yeah. But when you think about the metaverse, and if the

idea is to replicate everything that someone does in the real

world, and the virtual world, like that is a true 5050 split

from a gender perspective, when you think about, you know, who's

making purchases for our household, it's mostly females,

you know, anyone that does research and CPG is interviewing

80% Female 20% males. So if you think about it from just a pure

purchase power, and who's making decisions and who could

potentially, you know, be purchasing things in a digital

environment, it would, it would underserve everyone, including

the people who are set to make money on the metaverse to not if

the if females weren't included, as part of it. But to your

point, I mean, if the everything from Metaverse is rooted in

starting in Silicon Valley, then it's kind of going back to the

same, you know, the same issues and in terms of you know, how to

even engage people in the first place. But I do think that there

are going to be some cool opportunities with the metaverse

of almost kind of like small business types of like, I think

it that the idea that we're taking, we're creating a new

economy in a virtual space means we all have a chance to kind of

redo how people are contributing to the economy, and who gets

priority and help and support and things like that. And so I'm

hopeful that, you know, that all the trends we've seen about, you

know, small businesses, black women owned businesses, you

know, just things like that, that are starting to get more

voice and more attention that, that we can start to incorporate

that even if we're all pretty late in the regular world, the

physical world, we can start to incorporate that a bit more in

the virtual world.

Yeah, well, that. I mean, I'm hopeful that that's

true, too. I feel like I've been like beating the wall with you

should include women, because of the purchasing power thing.

There's a huge missed opportunity. It's like God, and

that's the exact discussion we had at the beginning of this

episode. So I don't want to rehash it too much. But it's

just like, Hello advertisers, people trying to sell things.

Who's making the purchases?

Right? Exactly. When especially if you think

about you know, if teens and you know, kind of younger consumers

are going to be part of the virtual world and the metaverse

economy, it's the parents that need to be you know, that need

to feel good about it and engaged and that sort of thing.

So you're now influencing moms to even be able to let this

entire generation in. So it's, yeah, I think just the dollars

and cents of it should help but there's more more cultural

factors at play than that. I think

there always is. And on that note, I'm gonna do

just to Quick summary before we wrap up with our last segment.

So some of the things we talked about, with younger generations,

women and girls aren't just playing mobile and casual games,

they're getting more into different types of games. So the

whole women are only playing Candy Crush thing is going by

the wayside a little bit, which also means that we definitely

need more content for women. Women represent a large portion

of the population, women follow influencers, they're only

spending more time on gaming and entertainment content. And

they're only getting more into games. So more content would be

great. When it comes to content partnerships, it's kind of a

dual matchmaking process where the company chooses the

influencer, the influencer chooses the company that's to

both provide the company with the appropriate audience to sell

its product. And to make sure that the influencer doesn't like

sell it, like look like a sellout. That relationship does

also evolve over time. So you have to make sure it's kind of a

harmonious partnership. So you can kind of keep placing ads and

keep having that symbiotic relationship going. The supply

of Twitch streamers isn't looking great as of right now,

but you did indicate that the supply of micro influencers is

starting to grow, which is cool. So it's hopefully encouraging.

If women can have smart growth in the industry, then this micro

influencer pipeline can lead to more women Twitch streamers, we

can hopefully see that five out of 100 number start to shoot up

much further. When it comes to kids. They're basically already

in the metaverse, they have the Roblox platforms, they have

their fence does they have their ways of communicating that is

much different than the ways that you and I grew up

communicating, which is a good thing. So the things that

they're going to come up with with the metaverse is going to

be probably a lot different than what we could imagine. And when

it comes to women and parents and people who have purchasing

power, women have a lot of it. So they should be included.

Because not only are they purchasing for themselves, but

they're purchasing for the household where said kids who

are already in the metaverse live. So having intelligent

advertising to and for women is one way of more quickly getting

to the metaverse and hopefully with some amount of equity in

there as well. So the last thing that I like to do is a moment of

reflection, this is just a chance for you to give some

advice to maybe people who are looking to get into similar

fields or who are thinking about getting into data or younger

listeners, older listeners, whoever it is looking to rethink

about their career a little bit. So what is one thing you would

like to tell your younger self about getting into the gaming

industry and being successful? Yeah, so

I think the biggest thing that I've kind of had dead

mentally overcome and I think if I had had the advice early on it

would have helped is recognizing that I did not have to be an

expert in every single thing related to gaming in order to

successfully contribute to the industry. So you know, for

example, I am the first to admit that I am not a hardcore PC

Gamer which she when people ask me you know, you know, esports

you you know, you help companies understand what to do and how to

play in the space you must be you know, like a super hardcore

fan and I mean, obviously I follow the industry as closely

as anyone and I'm super engaged but it's okay then I'm not

playing League of Legends 40 hours a week. So I would I think

you know, what was really important for me to learn and

become comfortable with over time as I have my expertise

which is taking data building data to fit the industry based

on how I understand it and what the needs are and then educating

people with that, that means that I don't need to know every

little nuance of every little game that means that I don't

have to know the best kill rate ratio of every team of every

title you know, there's there's so much the gaming industry is

so big and only getting bigger that I think and maybe it was

partially because I was kind of female and a minority in the

industry that you know, I kind of had this hang up that out if

I don't know everything about everything in the industry. I

you know, I can't serve and I think realizing that it's okay

for me to have blind spots because my job is to help other

people in the industry with their blind spots that I can

support like that that was a really important realization for

me to just kind of become comfortable and know that I know

my stuff when and stay in my lane with it. So I think that's

that's really important. It's good to be a specialist it's

okay to be a specialist and you have to educate yourself and you

know, know about the space and become comfortable with it all

but finding your niche and kind of doubling down on that is a

really successful way to get involved in the industry. So

don't let the breadth of it scare you.

Well, from one non core heart gamer to another

licensee really appreciate that advice, because one of the

reasons and one of the motivations for starting this

podcast was definitely the the imposter syndrome feeling of

needing to know everything that's going on and feeling

lesser because you don't play League of Legends for 40 hours a

week. So that is awesome advice, totally in line with some of the

things that I went through and getting into the industry. And I

certainly hope that more women, more people who might not think

that they have a place can learn that you don't have to be really

hardcore to be involved in that, in fact, having that diversity

of opinions and views and having people who aren't super

hardcore, can be extremely valuable to a team. Because not

all the population is hardcore gamers either. So it can be

really, really, really worth its weight when you have a sort of

different perspective than someone who is really into PC

gaming. So that is awesome advice. Nicole, thank you so

much for coming on. Where can people find you? Where can

people find you gifts work? What should they be looking out for?

Give them all the info?

Yeah, great. So you guvs website is today that you

got calm. And all sorts of insights and info whether you

just want to figure out what we've run research on and look

at what consumers like you were saying, or, you know, dig into

everything we do in gaming and esports. That's all there. I

personally am most active on LinkedIn. So I think it's you

know, linkedin.com, Nicole dash pike dot esports or desk

esports. But you can find me on there. That's where I like to

kind of, you know, put a voice out there with data on all the

cool things that we're doing at ugab and some data driven

opinions on some of the biggest news which there has been no

shortage of these days in the gaming space.

Nick Nicole does have some very, very good and

insightful reading or posts on LinkedIn. I will say I was

explaining your page last night in preparation for this. Wow.

She puts up a lot of stuff. For those of you who are looking at

things like the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger. She

you put up an insight almost immediately when I went through

and I found it to be very useful, so definitely a good

person to find in follow on there. For all of our listeners,

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