Jonathan Hales

🚨 Can Nostalgia create a path back to games industry growth? 🚨 💡 ⤵ I went to watch Inside Out 2 with my daughter on Saturday (well worth a watch!) and one of the new emotions was Nostalgia. Whilst only playing a minor role for 13 year old Riley in the film, it is an emotion increasingly being felt by publishers and gamers. Whether it be big scale returns of old PC classics or emulator apps cropping up on mobile, it is clear that many players are looking for a Nostalgia hit! But Why? Well for me retro gaming scratches a number of intrinsic needs; 1. Familiarity - An old pair of slippers, moulded to you, is just more comfortable than a shiny pair of Air 1s. 2. Mastery - No one likes being a noob. If players can skip learning and get straight to the fun, they will. 3. Community - Who doesn't love getting the old gang back together... Reminiscing. Laughing. Smiling. From a publisher perspective it makes a lot of sense too. Large amounts of the initial development costs have been sunk already, you have a clear target audience to go after and you have the opportunity to turn back the clock and learn from last time. Nostalgia doesn't have to stunt innovation. In Old School RuneScape we have worked with our community to create entirely new quests, game modes and map expansions whilst staying true to the retro vibe players are looking for. And there are more games coming.... I saw today a 2005 server save of Habbo Hotel is being dusted off and relaunched tomorrow with a community-led voting approach.... sounds familiar 🤔 Good luck Sulake. Hope the launch goes well. So we have Old School RuneScape and now Old School Habbo... Come on Lance Priebe lets get the band back together with some Old School Club Penguin! 🐧 🐧 🐧 What other retro games do we need next? #nostalgia #gaming #mmo #gamesindustry #insight

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Suno and plugin manufacturers need to team up. From occasional users up to full time producers, the ability to swap sounds (in stems) based on the best available #VSTs out there would be a game changer. A sort of Splice for #collaborative, #social, occasional and pro #musicmakers alike. Add to this something like Supertone's killer AI voice stuff and you can see where I am going. 👉🏻 On-cloud collaborative music platform (social component) 👉🏻 Full songs or Stem generations with plugin instrument swap. 👉🏻 MIDI, Stem and Single tracks Export up to 96kHz 👉🏻 ... no wait. I am not going to give this idea away for free ha. 😬 🔥 Immersive audio mixes possibility? à la https://mixcubed.com/ and more... Got 15 more points on my list that I'd like to see implemented, but I will resist the urge to share them here.

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Why is it important to understand games? Because they explain how a party turns 35% of the vote in an election into over 400 seats in Parliament. Labour’s win in the UK general election is many things. A sign that voters could not do anything other than boot out a tired and incompetent Conservative Party; a relatively unenthusiastic trade off of steady competence over wider vision; a least worst option that has opened the doors to smaller parties. It’s also a victory for ruthless campaigning. It’s an operational masterclass in which financial and personal resource was directed with strategic precision to get as many Labour MPs over the top as possible. And it is derived from a fundamental truth: elections are games with clear rules. Labour’s strategy - and, to be fair, The Liberal Democrat’s approach - rejected the idealism of “the best vision wins out” to say “how do we win this game within the set rules” to avoid another 2019 style disappointment. It’s an approach that is central to great campaigning. It is also, as Kelly Clancy posits indirectly in her great book Playing With Reality, a perfect example of minmaxing a game: controlling and risking as little as possible from your side while maximising opportunities within the rules (and errors from your opponents). Clancy argues that our failure to understand play and to take it seriously within society means we can’t understand fully the social, cultural and biological drivers that lead us to create the rules based systems that we play within. Elections are therefore one of those rare times where the dynamic of play is surfaced in a way that we can truly see, that we can understand explicitly and that we can talk about easily - demonstrating its immense value in a way little else can. P.S. If you like reading about the surprising ways games reshape society, think about subscribing to my newsletter Video Games Industry Memo. There will be plenty more where this has come from in the year ahead.

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The latest Consumer Market Valuation Report published by Ukie was published a few days ago, and I only just managed to go through it. The report shows that 📈 The UK games market was worth £7.8 billion in 2023, a 4.4% increase compared to 2022's revised total of £7.5 billion 📈 Software sales were up 4.1% year-on-year, while hardware also grew 2.1% compared to 2022 However: 📈 Consoles led growth for hardware with a 12% increase 📉 PC showed an 11% decrease 📈 VR hardware sales also increased by 11% to £194 million 💴 Revenue from the “Broader Game Culture Sector”, a new vertical the UKIE created to encompass revenue from TV, film, soundtracks, books, and merchandise reached £418 million Source: https://lnkd.in/ggxPsdpe

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Lets talk about Sidus fundamentals and discuss reasons, as to why you should keep an eye on us in the next 6 months... There will be a series of posts over the next days, highlighting some major points about our project for those who joined us recently. 🥇 Sidus Team At its core, Sidus Heroes strength lies in our talented team members , amazing community and a culture grounded in innovation mindset. At Sidus, we try to ensure that work environments and workplace services reflect a culture that fosters collaboration, creativity and inspiration. As a 3 years old team, we survived the longest bearish market in crypto history and became stronger like never before. We were able to build an amazing infrastructure, optimise our spendings, establish efficient KPI targets for employees, create a clear list of development priorities which users can check at any point of time, collect and work with a valuable feedback from our precious community, learn from the mistakes and be transparent! We are a team of professionals supported by the giants like Mr Beast, Animoca, Hashkey, Alex Becker and we strive to deliver the best for our community. Our team works hard to deliver amazing updates in the next 6 months for all of our products including Battler 2.0 for Telegram, Xenna RTS, Tembazar on UE5, Mazes, Module economy and much more. We will cover it all in our next posts. You can find a lot of information about us via sidusheroes.com Sidus team welcomes all of you to join this amazing journey and become a part of the #Sidus #Metaverse 🔥

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We take a closer look at all the streams during the not-E3 period and slice it with feedback from over 1,300 gamers! Surely a first for the games industry! Head over to #gamesindustry to have a read https://lnkd.in/eTWq86dz? #fancensus #videogameinsights

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A colleague shared this video with me recently, a focus on the Business side of the games industry - A very useful and interesting interview with Mat Piscatella of Circana https://lnkd.in/eqzszimj I feel the recent challenges the industry has had to navigate means more focus on some of the points raised in the video need to be prioritised. The business landscape of games has changed, margins are tighter and competition is more fierce, let alone meeting the increasing expectation of players in terms of quality and value. Use of data and understanding the relationship between how players consume games and their purchase behaviour has never been more important. The games industry is relatively young, and perhaps the next few years will see some maturity in this area

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Today's update from my ongoing process of engagement and learning about the UK video games and interactive entertainment industry is about the value of talking to people, particularly face-to-face. This might be an early candidate for the 'this is not an insight' awards, but bear with me.... So, my 'first 100 days' plan, such as it is, is essentially about building relationships, learning about the industry, engaging with members and shaping an overall picture of what the industry needs and how my organisation can help. In this process, there is nothing better than getting out and speaking to the broadest range of stakeholders to start to build up an overall picture of where the organisation needs to go. I've learnt over the years to approach these conversations with an entirely open mind and to ask questions rather than trying to advance a view. The honest truth, coming into an industry as an outsider, is that there are layers, connections, meanings and ideas which you won't begin to understand at the beginning which can have a profound impact on your overall direction and priorities. Take, for example, a concept which is becoming increasingly central in my thinking about our future strategy - that the industry sits in its own unique category at the intersection of creativity, technology and community. Each of those words, and the concept of the exciting boundary intersection between them, comes from a conversation. 'Creativity' came from speaking with a group of Trustees about the art of making video games - the sheer creative vision and energy it takes to release a game which captures the hearts and minds of players. 'Technology' came from speaking with a stakeholder in Scotland who reminded me that video games have always pushed boundaries - asking 'why not?' and testing the limits of new technologies to deliver amazing player experiences. But it was only yesterday that Luke Hebblethwaite, Head of Games at BAFTA slotted in 'community' as the missing piece - yes, games occupy an exciting space at the meeting point of code and creativity, but the magic ingredient that breathes life into them is the communities they inspire. Both in-game and in people's daily lives, games bring people together, create shared experiences and connect people in a way that crosses all boundaries. In all of these conversations, I take lots of notes. What you end up with is a bit of a 'stream of consciousness', but over a period of weeks, concepts begin to emerge, structures take shape and a sense of direction and purpose starts to come together. The point is fast approaching whereby I need to consolidate all of this into a simple, compelling strategy and action plan. But the sense of 'discovery through conversation' won't stop there - once the plan is live, I will continue to get out and meet as many people as possible both to hear their critiques and their ambitions and to build a coalition towards bringing the vision and strategy to reality.

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🚀 Explosive Growth Meets Tough Challenges! UK's Video Game Market Hits £7.82 Billion Despite Industry Shake-ups! 🎮 https://lnkd.in/esDWBExG The UK's video game industry is booming like never before, soaring to a staggering £7.82 billion in 2023! But it's not all smooth sailing Financial Pressure Despite Revenue Growth: Revenue growth does not always equate to profitability. The costs of developing games, marketing, and maintaining infrastructure can be extremely high. If the costs outpace revenue gains, companies might reduce their workforce to preserve profit margins. 💥 Key Figures from UKIE, click the link for the full article: - Overall Market Growth: 4.4% increase to £7.82 billion in 2023. - Software Sales on the Rise: Digital sales surge 5.6% increase in console software to £2.48 billion and a 4.5% rise in mobile games reaching £1.52 billion. - Hardware Sales Mixed: Console sales jump by 12% while PC hardware takes an 11% hit. - Shift in Consumer Habits: Despite a dip in boxed software sales by 5%, the industry sees a digital uptick. Plus, a massive 140% boost in events revenue. - Streaming Struggles: A 5% decline in streaming revenue. Is this a post-pandemic correction or a sign of a deeper issue? 👀 What do these figures mean for gamers and professionals alike. Is the UK gaming industry on a rollercoaster ride of growth and cutbacks? Comment below if you have a view, been affected by this, join the discussion. 🎮📈

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Hi everybody, I'm very sorry to have heard that Traega Entertainment had to downsize most of its staff today, as reported in a post by its Game Director Tony Mann. https://lnkd.in/edhWamQ5 To those 19 gamers affected at Traega: 🔗 Please visit AMIRSATVAT.COM, our community's games jobs resources hub with 14 resources that will help you find work. These resources are free and updated regularly. 🔗 Resource 10 is our games org support posts. There you will find a template. If someone on your team can own populating that with information from individuals on your team, with their consent, I will get the finished product edited and out to the community, hitting 100,000 eyeballs. I have done 94 of these, working directly with games teams, and they are highly effective in increasing visibility. To our community: please do your part in making a difference. Some options include: -Spreading the word. Every reshare of this post is appreciated to raise visibility as to these situations. - Offer Support: While you certainly can do it through our community's resources (at amirsatvat.com we present 13 ways you can help), any advice lent, listening ear provided, or other support given is appreciated for those navigating these changes. - Join Our Movement: Become part of our network of volunteers at AMIRSATVAT.COM, providing support to our colleagues in the games industry. Together, our collective of over 84,000 people has enabled 1,700+ jobs and 29,000 community coaching conversations, and we're just getting started. More importantly, this network and its content seeks to provide a daily source of encouragement in this tough time. Thanks for stepping up for our friends at Traega, as outlined below: Character Art: Mike Waver Daniel Gallagher Concept: Dan Carpenter Environment Art: Andrew Baker Cutlar Nordyke Animation: Derek Zivolich Tech: William Harvey Brian Gordon Design: Ken Eland Alexander Loughran UI: Michael Scala Engineering: David Ollman Simon Barker Benjamin Miles Kirk Sexton Production: Karrah Yanta Business Operations: Mike Dixon QA: Chad Finley Troy Way

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I recently created a section on my site, called One Pagers – https://lnkd.in/eR9EbsKB The idea is to capture big and important areas of my life into one page. I’ve kicked things off with a one pager on How to Invest – https://lnkd.in/eKjpCa-v This has been a ten + year journey for me, with many twists and turns. I’ve finally settled on something straight forward, which will help me achieve my long term financial goals. And importantly, is right for me. I’m not saying this is the only way to invest, or that it will work for you. But, I do think it’s a pretty solid medium risk strategy for how most people might want to think about investing for the future. And in any case, it’s not a bad place to start thinking from. P.S. A gigantic thanks to my friend Paraskevas Avraam. He has been a HUGE help in evolving my own thinking on investing, and helped me become more self aware of my tolerance for risk over the last ten years or so. P.P.S The next one pager I will write will be bringing together my stance for how to train and exercise. Watch this space.

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💸 Tackling Cost Pressures in the Gaming Industry As gaming industry leaders, managing costs efficiently is crucial for survival. I recently sat down with our partners at Servers.com to discuss these very challenges and our unique approach at Nitrado. In this interview with the wonderful Gillian, we delve into the escalating cost pressures and how we can tackle them head-on. At Nitrado, we’ve pioneered a robust hybrid server model that not only meets the fluctuating demands of today’s gaming landscape but also optimizes operational costs. By integrating our own high-performance servers with strategic resources from Servers.com, alongside on-demand capabilities from cloud services like Google and AWS, we ensure an unlimited scalable but highly cost-effective solution tailored for game developers. 🎬 Discover this hybrid approach by watching the interview. Let’s drive success together! #multiplayer #gamedev #server

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No squatch sightings last weekend...but wow...what a week since. A massively productive one for The Glitch (on all fronts), and apparently some other things happened around the industry as well...huh. Alright...let's-a-go: OMY@C 🤘 ⛏ - Metallica will be in Fortnite soon. The event is called "Metallica: Fuel Fire Fury," and it will kick off on June 22nd. The San Francisco band got on the Fortnite Festival stage yesterday - so if you're curious...hop on in there. RIP Cliff. RIP Eddie. 🍎 - Apple's WWDC was this week...and their formal entry into Ai was the big takeaway. "Apple Intelligence," was the name they landed on. Essentially, it's Ai integrated through every aspect of their various OS's...adding personal context to everything. My first reaction was...do I want that though? On one hand, this feels like the first real indication of where consumer Ai is headed...on the other: privacy? A big part of Apple's presentation of their Ai is "setting a brand-new standard for privacy in Ai." So...they're well aware of the line that's being crossed. Apple's 5-minute video overview (on their site) shows you how "Ai for the rest of us" will work...and it's easy to be cynical about it. A squirrel DJ...cool. Custom emoji's...neat. Still...you should watch it. When app devs finally start building for this though...look out. PREDICTION: iPhone 16 will be the best selling iPhone yet. The 6 sold 222M units total...71.5MM units in it's first 3 months...so we'll know by year's end how this crazy statement is trending. 📺 🎮 - Mike Verdu will soon be leaving his role as VP of Netflix Games (and starting a new role with the company). Speculation is rampant about what this means for the games unit. It's possible that it means...nothing at all. I'm still massively bullish on the gaming opportunity for Netflix. My personal opinion is that transmedia is the biggest, most exciting play here...but I've also heard there are internal headwinds on that. 🤷‍♂️ 🍷 ⛵ - I'm not going to Cannes...again. Maybe some day. I'll drink rosé and look important at home...again. I'm not bitter. 📺 🎮 - Follow Friday: Two nerds with a webcam...that you absolutely should be following if you're in the games business: 1) Chris Melissinos (Principal Evangelist for Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Video interviews with games industry legends, deep retro dives, and discussions on the top news. 2) Alexander Seropian (Founder/CEO of Look North World) - Host of "The Fourth Curtain," is always a headliner event. 📺 - Palm Royale (Apple+). Kristen Wiig as a social climber in 1960's south Florida. So good. Save a grasshopper for me. 🎵 - Spotify's "Daylist" - pull the throttle back a bit with your list names though. "90's Indie Twee Friday Afternoon," might be accurate...but it's embarrassing. 🎮 - It's been 2 weeks since I picked up Hogwarts Legacy and Vampire Survivors...haven't started either yet. THAT's how busy it's been.

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Friends, as interest in our community grows, so have questions about how to use all the game support pieces we provide across our three homes. Let me make things simple for you: * amirsatvat.com is your central hub for everything if in doubt—this includes our 18 game resources and a link back to our community on LinkedIn. It also now includes an open public invite link to join our Discord community. * Think of our three homes this way: HOME #1 - amirsatvat.com - The most impactful game resource site on Earth. Come here for all our permanent resources and references. If you are a job seeker, just take 5 minutes and go through a full cycle of our 6 categories of resources. Make sure you are signed up for everything of interest. HOME #2 - Discord - 4,579 members as of 7/13/2024 Join here: discord.gg/amirsatvat Discord is our real-time support service, complementing our other two homes. Come here for edifying and fun games chats, industry chat across functions, and the live versions of things like mentorships, CV and portfolio reviews, and more that you can also sign up for, alongside broader networks and more resources, at HOME #1. HOME #3 - LinkedIn - The largest Top Voice Games community on the platform - 91,766 members as of 7/13/2024 Follow here and become a member: linkedin.com/in/amirsatvat LinkedIn is where you will find my regular daily content, key updates, and more. I will also link my LinkedIn posts in the New LinkedIn post channel on Discord. Together, these three homes interact to provide you with a blanket of comprehensive game support, objectively unmatched anywhere in terms of provable statistical impact on: * Jobs enabled (2,300+) * Game community coaching provided (43,000 sessions and counting) * Number of free game community coaches (2,252) * Consolidated public listing of game job seekers (7,709) * Game jobs listed (13,789 across 3,551 game companies) * Game org support posts provided (99 layoff situations aided) * Comprehensive game career resources (general planning and early career packs) * Free LinkedIn Premium 2-month trials provided (447) * Free game event tickets given (400 across 6 events) * Eva Tucker's Support Your Indies, Hailey Rojas's #opentonetwork, Alexander Rehm's MVP resources, and Jordan Mazer's Games Jobs Did I mention everything across all three homes is free forever and delivered without any motive other than wanting to see gamers happy? Why should you have to pay for any of this stuff, especially if you are unemployed? You shouldn't. Gamers, welcome home!

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The Sumo Group closures really have broken me a bit, and I need to rant about the state of things. I'm sorry if it seems I'm glossing over all the closures before this one, but so many ex-students went there, so many ex-colleagues passed through there, and so my timeline is just filled with people looking for work. We keep talking and talking about the economic factors involved, Brexit and Covid and this and that ... the thing I can't stop thinking of is that in my life I've watched the world slowly pitch into a place of despondent capitalism. Art has become more about making stars and fame than helping people escape and reflect. A drive for "truth" and objectivity has resulted, paradoxically, in people putting more stock in spreadsheets and numbers than people. I can't help but feel that if you're bleating about finance and trade deals and business decisions, you're ignoring the fact that general support for artistic and creative endeavours has declined sharply and is still declining, even in the so-called "art world". Games are ultimately always going to be the first to fall in a culture war against creativity, because games are ultimately and profoundly pointless things. That's the whole majesty of the medium: they make us feel profound feelings, they help us explore our existence by being separate from reality, but to do so they MUST bring us nothing tangible in return. The truth is that our industry will probably bounce back to some degree, but it's not any financial structures or cost systems that will save game development as a medium and an art form - it's a cultural shift to recognise the importance of expressive and explorative subjective art in the world today, and the need to support creative endeavours without the pressure of financial recompense.

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At Mettlestate, we understand that every brand has unique objectives and goals. Whether you're aiming to increase visibility, engage a specific audience, or drive sales, our expertise in the esports and gaming industry will help you get there. We have the knowledge to create your gamified campaigns, all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the results. You don't need to have all the answers – that's what we're here for. Our dedicated team of professionals will tailor strategies that align with your brand's vision and deliver impactful results. From innovative marketing campaigns to immersive content creation, we handle it all, so you can focus on what you do best. Are you interested in seeing more about what we can do for your brand? Reach out and let's chat! business.mettlestate.co.za #Strategy #Mettlestate #Esports #Gaming #Gamification #Business

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