- 6 hours ago
In esports, the player is the heartbeat of the entire ecosystem. But as the industry matures, tension grows between player welfare, community expectations, and the commercial realities that keep organisations alive. How do we design systems, cultures, and governance models that genuinely centre the player, without sacrificing the financial foundations that allow the scene to exist at all?
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TechTranscript
00:20Good afternoon everyone, so my name is Nicolas Besombe and I will be your host for this new
00:27panel dedicated to a question that sits at the heart of today's gaming and esports industries.
00:34How do we keep the player truly at the center of the business while balancing player expectations
00:42with the economic health of the industry? So at first glance, of course, the question seems very
00:48simple, but as we all know, it opens up a series of complex tensions between players' experience
00:55and monetization strategies between personalization and data ethics and between healthy engagement
01:02and business models built on retention. Players today are not just users, they are customers,
01:10they are community members, ambassadors and sometimes co-creators. Yet they can also feel
01:17sidelined when business decisions overshadow their experience and when monetization becomes
01:23too intrusive. Our goal today is to explore how studios, publishers and the broader ecosystem
01:31can reconcile two essential logics, a player-centric approach and a sustainable business approach.
01:40So together with our three panelists, we'll examine the levers, the trade-offs and the opportunities
01:47that emerge when we try to build games that are not only profitable, but also respectful,
01:54engaging and genuinely centered on the player. So our panel today will bring together three
02:02complementary perspectives, all united by one conviction, the player experience matters.
02:09So first of all, let me introduce you Catherine Martel, who is Executive Director and Partner
02:15at House of Park, a play-based marketing agency specialized in fun engagement, interactive experiences
02:22and brand innovations. Welcome, Catherine.
02:25Merci, thank you.
02:27Then Julie, Julie Janio, Senior Brand Manager for the League of Legends IP at Riot Games for France
02:33and Benelux. She's overseeing brand strategy, marketing, partnerships and community-driven
02:40events. Welcome, Julie.
02:43And last, Jeremy Somville, Marketing Director for Rainbow Six Siege at Ubisoft, where he leads
02:50global strategy across acquisition, engagement and retention for one of the world's most long-running
02:55live games.
02:57Hello, Nicolas. Hello, Ruan.
02:58Thank you to the three of you to join me on this stage. And so we will spend something
03:04like 40 minutes together to address this topic. And so just to set the stake a little bit,
03:11the industry is shifting fast, as you all know. It's a live service model who is dominating
03:16the industry. The communities are more vocal and fragmented. The marketing is increasingly
03:21experiential and players expect transparency, fairness and meaningful engagement.
03:26So the central tension becomes how do we build games and ecosystems that players love while ensuring
03:34the business remains healthy and resilient. So just to start us off, I just want to go back to the
03:41foundation of our topic when we discussed a little bit earlier about it. We all talk about being
03:47player-centric, but the term can mean very different things depending on your role, depending on your
03:53team, depending on the ecosystem you are trying to address. So when you think about player-centric
03:59design or player-centric marketing, what does it actually mean?
04:03So first of all, Julie, so League of Legends, which is, I think, was of the major esports game, I
04:10think the
04:10major esports game in the world, is as a massive and expressive and sometimes a very demanding
04:16community. So from a brand strategy perspective, what does being a player-centric mean when you are
04:23responsible for maintaining this coherence across such a powerful global IP?
04:29So, yeah, so player-centric, it's a very easy thing to say, but it's not very easy to do, actually.
04:37It's not about giving everything players are asking for. It's really knowing them, understanding them.
04:43And, for instance, for League of Legends, we have different kind of communities. We have the ones that are
04:49actually playing competitively, watching pro plays, the ones that are chilling on the game, playing ARAM.
04:56They are very different kind of community, and they don't want the same, they don't have the same needs,
05:01they don't also receive the communication the same way. So our role as a brand manager is to really
05:09understanding them, understanding their needs, and being able to communicate well to them.
05:17And on my side, as a local brand manager, I have to also take the global strategy. So the global
05:25team,
05:25they are talking to global players, but I have to be sure that this lands well to our local players,
05:31because they have different needs, they have different cultures, they just don't act the same way.
05:38And there is also one important thing. So as you all know, the League of Legends community can be
05:43sometimes very loud on social media, which is actually a good thing. But we have to be very careful
05:49about knowing that the loudest voices are not the whole community. And there is actually a majority
05:57that is very silent. And it's important to do social listening and listen to those players. But
06:03it's also very important to cross this information with other data, like for instance, data client
06:08behavior in game, or other data research or amazing insights team are doing. So it's really taking
06:15in account all those data, to be sure that we know our audience, and every decision we take
06:22is based on how they are going to receive it.
06:26Okay, thank you very much, Julie. So this is how player centric is addressed for League of Legends.
06:33For you, Catherine, so as I said, House of Park is an experiential marketing and communication and consulting agency.
06:46So when you are thinking about this idea of being player centric, what does it mean? How do you translate
06:55this player centricity to concrete creative choices when you are building activation, for example?
07:03That is such a fundamental question that every marketer needs to ask themselves when they start
07:07working on a brand or an IP. What is a job to be done? What is my IP? What is
07:12my brand trying to achieve
07:13for people? And I'm going to draw on a very interesting parallel here, because I just read
07:17the Taylor Swift HBR paper. And Taylor Swift has such a huge fandom, because she's doing the job
07:25of helping younger generations identify and understand deep emotions. So I love what you said,
07:31Julie, because it's really the first starting point is understanding that the fans around your IP
07:36are not homogenous. They're going to come from different backgrounds, they're going to come in for
07:40different reasons. And you need to understand their deep motivation. And it goes beyond social
07:46demographic numbers. It's really psychographics. And the first question you can ask yourself as a brand
07:51is, what is the thing that I'm solving? And what is maybe the part of the player DNA that I'm
07:58tapping
07:58into? And I think the player gene model from Bartle that we love using at House of Park has been
08:03very
08:03helpful, because it situates us in the shoes of the player and the consumer. And we ask yourself,
08:09are they seeking mastery? Are they seeking belonging, socialization, a new sense of identity?
08:16And so from there, we can imagine a brand world and a campaign that is really serving these needs.
08:22And then you then ask yourself, what is the place where we can go to create that belonging?
08:27And Twitch discord on incredible places where you can create that dialogue, and where people are expected
08:32to play these brand worlds. And I think, again, League of Legend has been doing a really good job at
08:38evolving the franchise through time as well. And you can see with transmedia and film and TV, and now,
08:44maybe not all players have the time to play several hours of League of Legend, but they can watch
08:48Arcade, and they can have a great time with a beautiful new experience around the brand and the IP.
08:55And so it's also about thinking the progression within the brand world. So I think that's really where
09:01we need to think. Motivation, what's the job to be done, and how can we be respectful over fans' time
09:08to create these valuable worlds that they can explore on their own terms.
09:13Thank you very much. Talking about creating value, so for you, Jeremy, so you are running a game
09:20called Rainbow Six Siege, which is also a massive game in the eSports world, but also in the video game
09:27industry.
09:28So, from your perspective, what does player-centric marketing look like when your community knows this game as deeply,
09:38of course, as you do, and expects constant evolution regarding the game?
09:44I would say that I think you need to start by accepting it. I even say sometimes we can say
09:50the players know the game even more than us. We have thousands of hours on it. And obviously,
09:55when you have some kind of audiences like this, it comes also with high expectations and also strong
10:01opinion on pretty much everything. So this is something you have to adapt. And I would like to echo
10:06what Julie said earlier. A common mistake about player-centricity would be to think that it's saying
10:11yes to absolutely everything. Actually, players are really good at identifying where there are
10:17opportunities, issues, etc. But often, they come really with a solution in their hands. They may not be
10:25the right ones to find the solution because they can miss some context, some development realities of
10:30business impact. So I think that the right model is when you can combine the feedback and the
10:37conversation with the player with the internal knowledge from the development teams. And to go
10:42back on your question, I think it's also where marketing starts. It's first and foremost about
10:47listening. So we have lots of different ways to listen. We have obviously the social conversation.
10:52We have surveys, global surveys every time we have a content drop. We have workshops, lots of things like
10:58that. And then you open the discussion. So you start the conversation every time you have even bad
11:04things happening like technical issues or you release a balancing change that is very polarizing.
11:11It's your job to start this conversation with speed and transparency. And then the player will open it.
11:18I'd like to take one really quick example of something, a good example about that we've done a few years
11:23ago.
11:23Because something that I learned over the years is that sometimes we are not the right ones to,
11:29we are not the right messenger for something. The community itself can actually be the best messenger.
11:34We can have a content creator or a community leader taking the lead on a communication. So
11:39my example was a couple of years ago, we changed our core mechanism in the game, the reload system.
11:44We knew before even releasing it that it would be polarizing. So we organize a workshop with community
11:50leaders, content creators, e-sports players and casual players. We took their feedback, we impacted some
11:56of them in the game. And in the end, we let them announce the change to their communities and to
12:02the
12:02global communities. So it's a win-win situation because they feel listened. And on our side,
12:08we know that we make the right decision.
12:11Okay. So if I listen to you, so large diversity of communities, the idea is to put the player at
12:17the
12:17center of some of the decision of sometimes giving them the right to talk to the communities, to
12:24participate to the elaboration of the changing models or to the balancing of the game. So I got you.
12:31So just before we continue, I would like to address this topic that's often
12:37crystallized the tension between the player expectation and the business realities is about
12:41monetization. Of course, you are trying to put the player at the center. I get it. But at the end,
12:48the industry has to monetize what you are doing, what you are creating. So when we are speaking about
12:55the gaming industry, there are studios that must ensure sustainability. And when that balance between
13:04players that expect fairness and transparency and sustainability, sometimes the trust can erode
13:12quickly between the players and the studios. So for example, maybe to you, Julie, to start with that,
13:20how do you rebuild trust when the community feels that monetization has gone maybe a little bit too
13:26far in League of Legends? Yes, spoiler alert, it's hard. It's really not easy. Trust doesn't come back
13:35with one single action, single action. It's, it's a real work that takes time. And I actually, I have a
13:43very good example. At the moment we fade at Riot. So to give you a bit of context, we had,
13:51we have something
13:52called the XTechChest, which is something I'm going to struggle to pronounce because I'm not an English
13:56native speaker. So the XTechChest was the main way for players to get skins for free. The issue was that
14:07it was actually damaging the revenue a lot. And we decided to remove them in last year, I think it
14:17was
14:17last year. I'm still traumatized. So we removed them. And the issue that we removed them silently
14:24without saying anything to the players. No, not good. And they were very, very mad. Because for them,
14:34it was not only getting skins for free. It was a whole culture about opening the XTechChest. Creators
14:41were doing that a lot. And not only they were unhappy by the fact that we removed them, but they
14:47were
14:47they were super mad by the fact that we removed them silently without telling them. So they really
14:54felt like they were betrayed by us. And that Riot was not the company they used to know. So it
15:02was,
15:02it was a hard moment. So the first step we did was to launch a dev video explaining, being very
15:09transparent
15:10about why we removed them. It didn't work neither. Because we said, Hey, it's damaging our revenue.
15:17We are that's why we are removing them. We are being transparent with you. But they were still mad.
15:23And they were like, Okay, but is that the only solution? Don't you have any other solution to tackle this
15:29issue?
15:31And they were right. Because removing the XTechChest was the easiest way to answer the problem. But it was
15:38not the best one. And it was not the player centric one either. So we put them back with a
15:45new strategy.
15:47It's not exactly the same as before, but they are back.
15:50And the solution, I don't remember exactly the new strategy around the XTechChest because I'm not part of the
15:57motivation team. Sorry. But it was hard to find this alternative solution. And the trust was
16:07so damaged that we are actually still working on it. And that's why I'm saying that
16:13trust is not an easy thing to get back. And you don't get back only by putting the XTechChest
16:19back in the game. You get the trust back by being consistent in your words, in your action,
16:27proving the players that you really care about them and that you learn from your mistake.
16:32And that's very important to understand that trust is really an ongoing work with the players.
16:43If I may add to this, because I have a different example from another spectrum,
16:48thinking about Sonic the Hedgehog. So we're working with Sega and they also had interesting
16:54tensions as they were reviving the franchise. There you go. And when they first announced
17:02the first movie and revealed Sonic, people thought he was so ugly. He was the ugly Sonic.
17:09And so as an executive, what do you do? Do you listen to what the people are saying on Twitter
17:12and go to the drawing board and redo the whole movie? Or do you say, we have to stick to
17:19our guns
17:19and this is how it's going to operate? It took a decision consciously to lean into the,
17:25let's not take ourselves too seriously. Let's work with the fans. We're doing this for the fans.
17:29That's where ultimately the money will be. And so they redesigned the character, they relaunched it.
17:36And I think now that not taking themselves too seriously is really part of the core DNA and what
17:40people love about Sonic. And recently they had Sanic, which is like a crazy ugly meme about Sonic. And
17:48instead of like pushing it away, they didn't put it into the canon of the lore, but they decided to
17:54create
17:55merch collection and have like Easter eggs and embrace that fan co-creation. And I think
18:00that balance is really in demonstrating the trust and the two-way relationship and finding the right
18:09places where fan fiction, where co-creation can live and bring value to the community as opposed to what
18:15needs to stay canon and what will drive real long-term business.
18:19That's a good example. That's great. Jeremy, like League of Legends, Rainbow Six is a game as a
18:26service. This is how we can define your games right now in the sports industry. This is, I think,
18:32the main model right now. So this game as a service are relying on the long-term engagement of the
18:40communities of players, of course, and of course you are recurring monetization with these games.
18:45How do you balance you at Ubisoft for Rainbow Six revenue needs with this transparency and this
18:54respect for the players' experience that they are looking for? I think monetization and player
19:00centricity cannot be incompatible. Actually, we know in mobile games mostly there are a lot of what we
19:06call pay to win. On the contrary, for us, when we released in 2015, so more than 10 years ago,
19:14one of the core principles was to make sure that your skill would be representative of your progression,
19:20not the amount of money you put in. So at this time in the FPS industry, the model, the standard
19:26was
19:26for DLC and monetization to release map packs every three months or so. So it comes also with an issue
19:33because it's great, it's new content and people like it, but the thing is you start splitting your
19:38community into people who booked the map and can play together on it and on the other side player
19:43who didn't book the map and couldn't play it. And every time you introduce a new map pack, you increase
19:49the issue. So on the contrary, when we arrived with our DLC model, we wanted to have free content every
19:55three, three months. So seasons with sometimes and lots of time free maps. And the monetization was
20:02on another side. So it was mostly on personalization of character and also character to unlock. And even
20:09then for the character that we call the operators in the game, you have two ways to unlock them. Either
20:14you pay for it and you get them instantly, or you can grind them by playing. So if you play
20:20approximately
20:2015, 20 hours, which is very small for a player base like this, you have it day one basically. So
20:27it's in the end, it's your choice. And we're really proud of that actually, because it has become in
20:33the FPS industry a standard over the years. So I think it's a great answer to how monetization can
20:39be compatible with player-centricity. Indeed, that's a great tool to be honest. Catherine, so
20:44the idea is to make the players feel that they are valued and not targeted from a brand, branding
20:53and marketing and experiential point of view. How do you make this possibility to help the players to
21:02not feel targeted, but valued when you are trying to make activations for them and stuff like that?
21:08I think we're really living in a shift in marketing where we're moving away from push marketing,
21:14pushing messages down people's throat and trying to earn their attention through screaming louder.
21:19We're really entering a phase of let's pull people in. What is worth their time? What is worth their
21:24money? What is worth their belonging? And I think that game design can also help us as marketers to
21:32think of how do we bring these engagement loops in the way we design our marketing ecosystems.
21:38So what's that kind of interesting hook? What's that rabbit hole that people will want to fall into?
21:44Then how do we reward them? What's that merge, that memento, that unique moment that they can live
21:49and share? How can they access something unique? And then how do you get them to complete an action
21:54to earn it and then keep moving into the ecosystem? And I think we're moving away from touch points to
22:00trust points. I think people are wanting to engage with brands in places where they feel like
22:05they're really getting value and they're really being entertained and they feel heard. That's why
22:10Discord and Twitch are such interesting places for of course gaming IP but also other brands. And that's
22:16how we really start our design principle at House of Park is really looking into the lore. What could be
22:23interesting entry points into the world so that new people can be interested and we can deepen but also
22:30extend fandom as we recruit new fans and new players and we'll make them the hero of our campaign and
22:38we'll give
22:38them a sense of progression. That's why we love doing alternate reality games, community quests,
22:43co-create with creators and really also lean into co-created canon. So they really feel like this is
22:53not just marketing trying to get their attention through interruption but it's creating a place where
22:59they can really belong and they really can build a bond and an identity that will last for a long
23:04time
23:04and that's how they're going to stay in the ecosystem and build that trust long term.
23:08That's a perfect transition because I wanted to speak about communities and how the players are
23:14active participants when we are speaking about shaping games, shaping narratives, shaping business
23:20decisions as we already said. So we're speaking a lot about these terms of community. Of course how the
23:27players influence I don't know the road maps of the studios for example but also that how they are
23:33expecting to be part of the creative loop of the games. I stay with you Katrin. Right now we have
23:42entered I think in an era where players don't just react as we say they are steering right now. They
23:49influence updates content priorities of course but they create this new balance of power between the
23:57companies and the communities and how do you manage with House of Park that shift without losing the
24:04strategic direction of the creative identity of the studios, the publisher, the sponsors, the brands
24:12that are your clients right now. Well I think you both mentioned something really powerful. You mentioned
24:19community heroes and I think we have this big vision of we need to have big influencers to run the
24:24show
24:25and get impressions and big eyeballs. I think there's a lot of power in identifying your community
24:30Sherpa and the people that will drive a lot of organic momentum because they really understand your
24:37brand and you have to fuel these heroes that can play a very special role in your marketing. I think
24:44places like Discord are interesting because you can even gamify the way that people engage with you and
24:49I think Eldiver too has been a really good example of how they've been leaning into community engagement to
24:54find the next phase of you know their next update and they really create that design flow in between
25:01well what the community wants and what it acts upon and then how it influence the product.
25:07So I think it's really about looking into these spaces and identifying who are your community hero
25:12elevating them and then creating as well new Sherpa through influencer and giving them a voice and
25:19something to act upon a mission to do and let them reveal let them unlock what you have to show
25:25instead of just pushing a message.
25:27That's great sometimes it's difficult to let the players actually push for that and give them so much
25:33freedom with this game but Julie with League of Legends as we know the league has a very passionate
25:43fandom, fandom, community of course in a positive way but sometimes as you said maybe it can be a little
25:49bit negative of course they are very vocal mostly on social media as you said they are very connected of
25:57course this is for all the games of course all the communities are very connected but they are celebrating
26:03your game but sometimes they are criticizing your game your choices what you are doing and they are
26:09trying I imagine to push Riot to evolve in a better way more player-centered as we said. From your
26:17perspective
26:18as a brand manager what makes this relationship so unique and how do you navigate between a community that
26:26is both your biggest strength I think but also your third critic and yeah how do you manage this?
26:37First I think that the league community to be honest is amazing because they are so passionate like
26:44they are reading patch notes watching pro plays they are writing essays on on reddit like real essays about
26:53champion design that that's that's that's crazy and they are notice they notice everything every change
27:00every communication we do just everything and and as a brand manager I think that's actually the
27:08best thing to have but also the hardest one because when something lands well like a good campaign a good
27:16cinematic those players are going to amplify it like no paid media could do like they are going to
27:23be our voices basically when something lands not that well the reaction is as loud and as fast
27:31and how an IV gets through that is mostly by staying close to the signal to be honest listening to
27:39them
27:40and understanding them knowing how they are and actually the fact that sometimes they are being super
27:47vocal and negative and negative and they push back a lot for me it's a good thing because they are
27:54saying
27:55something and they are basically making our job easier because they are telling us what's what's wrong
28:02and so we can do changes based on that or at least we can take them in account and I
28:08think that the moment you
28:09should really worry is when they are actually being silent because that means that there is no more passion
28:16and they don't care anymore about the game so I'm very happy we have negative feedback it's very good
28:24that's that's a good point I never thought about that of course yeah to be isolated is something worse
28:29that being criticized so of course when the community is totally silent that's not a good oh yeah you
28:36you can worry when they're yeah okay that's a good not a good sign uh Jeremy I hope that your
28:40community
28:41is not silent of course okay so Rainbow Six of course has been running for nearly a decade you said
28:47it
28:47but more than a decade so 11 years right now uh with a deeply as we say competitive highly skilled
28:54uh community uh and player base um you are one of the major esports games as we say um how
29:03do you
29:03maintain this long-term dialogue uh with this kind of audience um which is uh split between high skilled
29:13and high level players that are pushing for of course uh I don't know uh very specific uh um new
29:22uh rules in the
29:23games and trying to have uh very uh nuanced and uh accurate balancing and of course uh a more um
29:35I would say casual community um player base and that of course is not as skilled as the pro players
29:46are
29:46how do you maintain this yeah as you say we don't have one community we have several communities composing
29:53the the player base so we have casual players we have competitive player but at an amateur level
29:58we have the content creator we have the pro the pros that you mentioned all of them have different
30:03expectations and I would even say that sometimes it conflicts uh one with another so that's the the
30:09issue and the the need that we have to uh to find basically I can take a few examples but
30:16um imagine for a
30:18casual player the game as you said is very demanding so it takes uh several dozen of hours to to
30:24master
30:24it a few years ago we introduced to help this new player a way to visualize when you will throw
30:31a grenade
30:31or projectile so you can literally see where it could launch the pro player hated it because you can
30:37imagine for a pro player they have spent maybe a dozen of hours just to see to master this very
30:44grenade on
30:45this specific map so this is this is very badly so in the end it's again all about listening and
30:52understanding the different uh the different communities so the casual player we have several
30:57ways to listen we have data we have the survey i mentioned etc for content creator we see them
31:03regularly in a fan event or in esports event so we can have one one discussion one one interaction with
31:09them better understand their needs and pro player it's uh another story because it's their job in
31:15the end so if you change the game you can affect their job so this is something we need to
31:20understand
31:20this is something we need to be protective but to balance because speaking about balancing actually
31:26the pro player in their mind the game we should find the the sweet spot in balancing and never change
31:33anything if you do that you cannot introduce any novelty to the game so it conflicts with the casual
31:38player who seek fresh content in the game so yeah you will need to find solution for that one example
31:45for instance in the maps in casual games you can on rainbow you can access to all the maps of
31:50the game
31:51including them that are some that are not very balanced then you have the wrong play so competitive
31:57inside the game where we start to have a curated selection of maps and for pros we only have
32:04eight or nine maps the most balanced for the game where you know you protect the competitive
32:09integrity so a content for a specific community of specific player base you wanted to jump in yeah
32:15because we were discussing this in preparation um there's an interesting data point that came out
32:21uh people now or players gamers will watch about 8.5 hours of gaming content every week as opposed to
32:29playing 7.4 hours every week so there's this interesting shift that's happening in i think
32:35the cultural operating system of gaming where people are really shifting in between spectator
32:41lurker mode to active player hardcore player different moments in their day their life and so i think
32:48designing for these different circles of engagement and really thinking about the goal of marketing to be
32:53a way for people to be drawn into the circle so how do you design your spectator experience you know
32:59what do you add as a layer on twitch for people to understand what's going on and feel included
33:03but still not create something too easy for the for the hardcore player group i think it's about
33:10really understanding how every people everyone plays a role because if there's no one watching
33:15then there's no entertainment but um i think that's how we like to design our marketing campaigns as
33:22well at house of park is how do we design for hardcore players that know everything they'll catch
33:26their you know the easter egg as opposed to newcomers that aren't you know completely new and they need
33:31to be guided by community leaders by streamers to complete a mission and unlock interesting content
33:36about a new game that they're interested in and i think it's really creating the sense of community as
33:42a whole and everybody plays a role and every touchpoint is leveraged to its best usage but i think
33:49considering the watch mode and how we can really turn spectators into also active participants is
33:56what will make brands you know stay for the long run that's a good point i see that the time
34:03is
34:03running very fast just before we end with the the last question i know that jeremy wanted to to have
34:09this specific topic about the the data and the personalization of the game jeremy as we know
34:16siege rainbow six siege is relying on understanding different players of course segments and behaviors
34:23we we we said it the pro players casual gamers and maybe more low gamers i i don't know uh
34:30in your
34:31work when you draw the line between using data to improve the experience and using it in a way that
34:37might feel intrusive or overly optimized to players so how do you do you draw this line how do you
34:43do you
34:43make this specific so first thank you for doing me yeah yeah because we always often see data as
34:50intrusive as you say but for me it's a core tool to improve the player experience for so for example
34:56so
34:56on our side on rainbow we use data to understand like to help onboarding to understand balancing a lot
35:03to understand also the player progression and the mechanism so it's really really a core tool but
35:08as in pretty much every industry or in every single way data is used it's only one component that you
35:15cannot use on its own data tell you a part of the story it often tells you when there is
35:21something to
35:21dig whether when there is an issue or something but you have to complement it with something else and with
35:26qualitative insight as well so one example as well here for balancing for example on rainbow so we have our
35:34character that i call operators it's super easy with data to identify that one operator has a very
35:40low peak rate nobody takes it in the game so there is an issue somewhere if you stop there the
35:45easy
35:46solution would be okay i will buff this operator and make it stronger but sometimes the issue is not there
35:51the issue can be this operator is actually too strong and the other teams ban it so you cannot play
35:58it or the
35:59counter of this operator is too strong which underpower the the first one so that's why we always combine
36:06it with as i said workshop survey etc to get to get closer to the full story and act after
36:12that okay so
36:13perfect so data is on what you rely when you are trying to make decision to take decision regarding
36:20changing the game balancing the game it's what is the evidence based in your work oh okay uh we still
36:28have
36:28four minutes i want to close a little bit our conversation with the future of course of what
36:33you are doing um the idea is what the three of you are trying to do is to build sustain
36:39sustainable
36:40models and long-term trust with the players of course so my question is for the three of you maybe
36:46we
36:46can start i don't know maybe with you julie it's okay if you're okay so if we are looking for
36:53the next
36:53five years i know it's really difficult to be honest but uh what do you see as the most important
36:59level for building a sustainable player-centric ecosystem and that can maintain trust and support
37:06long-term engagement so i think the most important thing is consistency uh in your action uh as you said
37:14we have data and they are very important we have everything we need to understand our players so now we
37:23have to use them and i think that the issue and the problem maybe we faced in the past is
37:29considering
37:30business kpis like revenue uh and mau uh retention and kpis like that like the main thing to check
37:40but those kpis are actually giving you the how else your business is right now but player satisfaction
37:47will tell you how i see your business will be in three years or in five years so yeah just
37:53take
37:54all those data in account be consistent in your action trust in not is not uh something you have
38:00from one single action and and yeah it's not that hard you just have to listen to them actually okay
38:06consistency what about you jeremy if you project yourself in five years what is your main take about that
38:12i would say and it actually even started but i think the the opportunity is more about moving from
38:19simple feedback to collaboration with the community again so we are speaking about games like live
38:24a legend life for rainbow six it's game lasting for more than a decade they have such an impact on
38:30players uh they play almost every day so at at some point as i said in the intro i think
38:36the game
38:37belongs to them as much as it belongs to us it has again an impact on their life and it
38:44means that
38:45every single change could matter to them so we have to respect that we have to integrate them in
38:51some way in the reflection in to lots of things that we do to the game so that's why collaboration
38:56for me means mostly co-design workshop so every time we identify something that would be a deep change
39:02for the game or something yeah really important i do think that it's it's our job to consult the
39:08community in various ways to make sure they feel heard and in the end again it's it's a win-win
39:13situation because if they love it they will play even more the game so everybody's happy okay co-creative
39:20workshop co-decision workshop i love the idea consistency co-creation workshops what about you catherine you
39:26have the the last word yeah i'll also use a c word i'll say cross world building i think people
39:33are
39:33really interested in finding new ways to enter the brand worlds that they love uh i think gamers are
39:40hungry to go back to reality also go to fan convention connect with these universe in real life
39:46investing in community moments where they can get together not just when you have something to say but
39:52also when you can create a space where they can belong and feel safe and i think it's also a
39:57role
39:57of brands and big ip to create these safe environments where people feel that they can be heard they can
40:02build our identity and so i think really thinking about cross world building new media and really
40:09relentless dedication to surprising and delighting fans community is such a big word and i think every
40:18brand would hope to have as many fans as you guys have uh so i think it's about really bringing
40:24that
40:24creative level and that consistency to expand these worlds and keep making the world a really fun place
40:31because this is all what this is about thank you very much i really appreciate your vision about the
40:38industry for the next five years so uh thanks to our panelists i think that they deserve a massive thank
40:44you
40:44of course um thank you for your honesty for your insights and thanks to the organizers for creating
40:51this space of course to have this kind of conversation and thank you to all of you for being here
40:58and
40:59contributing to this panel thank you very much bye thank you
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