Name: MPW Next Gen 2023 - Gaming's Next Frontier
Uploaded: 2023-05-19
Duration: 16 min 47 s
Description: Lydia Bottegoni, Executive Vice President, Story and Franchise Development, Blizzard Entertainment Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Chief Executive Officer, Evil Geniuses Moderator: Polina Pompliano, FORTUNE

Lydia Bottegoni, Executive Vice President, Story and Franchise Development, Blizzard Entertainment Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Chief Executive Officer, Evil Geniuses Moderator: Polina Pompliano, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2023 - Gaming's Next Frontier

Conferences

Lydia Bottegoni, Blizzard Entertainment 
Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Evil Geniuses 

Our next speakers are innovating and adapting to meet the ever changing needs of their consumers as technologies evolved. So has the gaming and e sports industry in the nineties PC gaming became increasingly more popular with the release of first person shooting games like Doom and Quake. In 1997 evil geniuses was founded by a clan of quake players who would compete against one another in cyber cafes. Wow. Remember cyber cafes as computers advanced throughout the two thousands. So did social and online gaming insider Intelligence reported that more than 532 million people watched sports in 2022 to talk about the future of E sports and gaming? Please welcome Lydia Bud Goni, senior vice president for story and franchise development at Blizzard Entertainment and Nicole Lapoint Jamison, chief executive officer at evil geniuses. Ok. Well, welcome. Thank you. So, Lydia uh big news, European regulators just cleared Microsoft 68.7 billion deal, billion dollar deal um to acquire Activision Blizzard. What does this mean for the company and the industry at large? Um Well, it means we just cleared a hurdle. That's because there's been a few that we haven't cleared yet either. So, um I'm not really sure where it goes next. I mean, it, it, you know, it hasn't finalized the deal. Um, we remain really hopeful that the deal closes. I'm personally really excited about the possibilities and what Microsoft will bring to our ability to scale and grow our franchises. So, fingers crossed. I'm, I'm staying positive. Awesome. And Nicole, um, you have a multi year agreement with Hewlett Packard enterprises to support evil geniuses, evil. Yeah, evil geniuses with industry leading A I services. How are you using A I to improve your talent pipeline and also generate these like winning strategies. Explain to us how that works, of course. So if you're completely unfamiliar sports is competitive video games and like pro athletes, all the information and data needed to not just recruit and manage but perform at the highest level, you have to be cutting edge. So we actually have partnered with HPE. It's a multi year partnership using their Green Lake Solution, their A I and M L platform to help create first in class insights around not just optimizing bioinformatics of our players, like muscle memory, fast twitch movement, eye tracking, but also natural language processing. How do they communicate in the game all the way to what are the markers of a good sports athlete to continue to create this entertainment platform for years to come? So interesting, we were talking earlier. What, what are some of the markers for a successful sports athlete range is by title. So as you can imagine a basketball player, what makes a great basketball player is not the same as a football player. And that finesse and nuance is also just as differentiated between a counter strike player and a league of legends player. So we look at seeing some variation by game but some similarities of the soft skills of what makes a great team athlete communication movement. But also those that carry themselves more with the physicality and mentality, hydration, sleep communication tend to be better pro players as well. So it's not just kids in basements who've never seen sunlight, those who show up and really care and do well on top of all of the more technical and mechanical skills very indicative of performance. And I found this fascinating Lydia. So I moderated a panel earlier on A I and it's been reported that Blizzard Entertainment wants to integrate AI into the art pipelines for games, which you know, that would allow companies to create art assets at a faster pace. But then there's also game developers that are worried about, you know, job security and what's going to happen there. Is that a real concern? And how do you see this A I powered future? Yeah, I mean, look, it's a, it's a huge topic. I think it's a topic that's been dominating some of the conversations today and some of your, some of your panels um I'm not an A I expert, I'm not the best person to really speak to that. Um But, you know, personally, I, I'm really excited about the opportunities it's gonna bring. Um, you know, I've made a career for 20 plus years in um managing and producing creative endeavors. And for me, it's just super exciting to think of like how much creativity it might unlock. Right? So what things that people do now that aren't always part of the creative process or that are redundant or things where we can um you know, uh speed up some of the the efforts might that be interesting? You know, it just seems like it's a really interesting opportunity clearly, we're at the infancy of it. Um I'm excited to see where it goes. We need it to happen carefully, we need it to be ethical, we need it to be lawful. A lot of those areas haven't really caught up, you know, the legal system hasn't really caught up with the technology yet. So, yeah, I'm just really excited to see where it goes next. Yeah. And I'm really fascinated and just digging into your background and work at Activision. Like, how do you encourage creativity and risk taking among the animators, the visual artists, these like game developers? Oh um How do we encourage risk taking? Well, creative people generally by nature don't have to be encouraged to think outside of the box. Um My experience has been usually you're kind of working in the office that there's a lot of big ideas and you're trying to pull them in and figure out what you can execute. Um Because, you know, we're always working against timelines and schedules and budgets at times as well. Um So, yeah, I, I think just really looking at ways to support artists and give them tools to do things faster, to make, you know, redundant processes, you know, more automated, allows a lot more free thinking. And in general, I think your question was about risk taking. I think creative ideas are all born out of some kind of, you know, what if we tried this or what if we approached it a little different. And as a company, you are very encouraging of that risk taking. Yeah. Well, for the team that I manage, I manage a trans team, so I don't manage game developers, I manage a team that makes cinematics and trailers and books and comics and statues. And again in that, in that circle, it's really exciting to see people try to do something a little bit different. Um We've had a campaign recently for a big game. We have coming out called Diablo Four. Um And we've done some really interesting new things. We had a new cinematic called by Three. They come, which was one of our most watched and best received and, you know, pretty groundbreaking visual experience. Um Our marketing team tried something new in um Europe, they did a collaboration with um during Milan Fashion Week with some fashion designers, we took over a cathedral and did a diablo version of, you know, cathedral going to hell kind of thing. I'm sure they love that. Yeah. Um but you know, just again, really different, interesting takes on things and so yeah, try trying to push that envelope. Um I'm gonna come to you guys for a question. So again, please raise your hand. Uh And we'll get a mic to you. Uh Nicole, you focus very heavily on data. Uh And you told me some really interesting lessons that you've learned. Um But can you share that with the audience and like what you've learned in building this out for the first time? So data is incredibly important, not just from competitive integrity and excellence, but also there's a huge tension in the gaming space where at least in the US, over 45% of women under the age of 35 are gamers. They play games on different platforms, but in my universe at pro play, less than 10% of pro players are female and that delta in between is confusing and also poses a business problem of we're not reaching the true breast of the competitors or the fans we should be. And so using data to be a accelerator to equity and an equalizer has led to some really interesting moments for us. I'll give one example, we led a blind combine through data scouting similar to what you saw and the symphonies back in the day and surprise, surprise with a blind combine, we were the first ever team to front a mixed gender roster in a non inherently gendered space because people knew some of the perceived cultural barriers would go away if it was about merit and skill and continuing to do things like that where we can show that results can come. And we cast Wide Nets has led to big wins for us. Most female head coaches in any e sports organization, over 60% of our staff on the gaming side are actually female coming from backgrounds, not just in gaming, but from the medical profession to Teslas and Googles and Data sciences. And without that data equity opportunity, I don't know if we would have had the the fast paced outcome that we've seen that's really helped us continue to lift trophies and my 14 year old daughters. Thank you for that. Who are gamers? They, you're, you're clearing the way for them. Thank you. It's really cool. Any questions so much? Alright, we'll come back. Um So going off of what you just said, uh Lydia there, there's, you know, still this perception that gaming is largely male dominated. Um But you said that whenever you talk to young female high school students, you remind them that if their passion is games, there are many other options beyond just being an engineer or a developer or something like that? What are some of the areas that you think present a massive opportunity for female or for women to get into the gaming industry that aren't as obvious? Yeah. Well, the, so the, the comment was really about wasn't really supposed to be gender specific. It was really about the notion that um working in games. It's a business, there's a broad array of ways to, to engage in that. I'm not a developer, I'm not an artist, but I was able to find a career in an area that I'm really passionate about. And so for me, I think it's just important that people realize we're so stem focused right now. Everything about math and science, math and science. Again, I have young daughters, they're not engineers, they're not interested in coding. And so they feel like they're locked out of so many opportunities by that. Um I just like to remind people, we have finance people, we have hr we have writers on my team, we have, we have writers, we have visual development artists. I have people who draw comics. Um I have a sculptor on my team. So really the point is, you know, there are a ton of opportunities in the gaming space and it doesn't just mean you have to be somebody coding and, and Nicole uh you are involved with some uh interesting organizations. How do you make sure you amplify these voices? Um So at the end. And I'll echo what Lydia just said. The like in game to board room representation of anyone, especially not just from the traditional gaming background is important because we need, we operate more like a traditional sports team. If you view or a collegiate athletics department where we need sales people, we need marketers and the innovation and thought that we bring to these areas to continue to grow is important. And that often oftentimes means you need disruptive mindset from different spaces. So we look to collaborate, not just with partners like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, but all the way from toy to LG to even we did a collaboration with the current Little Mermaid Hallie and Chloe to teach them how to play Rocket League actually. And so the more we can create exposure to the space, understanding, break down some of the stereotypes or connotations that exist, the better we're able to all move forward as a business. But also capitalize the facts that if even if you've never heard of sports, I evil geniuses, we reach over 300 million kids, boys and girls a month across social. We have active eyes and hearts and wallets and that's an impactful movement like fashion, like music. So how we embrace and shape emerging pop culture through gaming. Very valuable to pay attention to and what are, what are the age ranges of your target demographics? Well, uh who do you want or who do you have, I mean, uh Blizzard has quite a few legacy IP S games like World of Warcraft has been around for 20 years, the Warcraft franchise, almost 30 years. So you can imagine. And thankfully, I can say we have players that have been with us that entire time. Um We have a newer game in Overwatch, which is almost seven years old now, um which is almost aged out in the world of video games. Um But we've had new expansions on a great new content that that game is, you know, ex as exciting as ever. But it's at the um the other end of the spectrum for us, you know, you want the demographic that's gonna engage with your game, attach and stay with you. Again. My team is involved in bringing people into the ecosystem, not through gaming. So I don't work on the actual product of the game nor the sports, but kind of any other place that you touch the game. So comics or cinematics or episodes, we have novels and is the point of those other elements to attract a new audience in a different, yeah, we're trying to bring people into the franchise a lot we've seen in the gaming space. Finally, we're starting to get some really great content in linear media. We're seeing TV, shows like the last of us that it's phenomenal. Some, there have been some big movies recently as well that have done pretty good in the in the box office. Um And so, yeah, the idea is that we sort of meet our players where they are. And even if you don't play the game, the intent of my team is to find a way to connect with that audience. We want people who are going to come in and stay with us. So I don't know that there's always a target demographic coming from the film industry. You want the 18 to 25 year olds, but in gaming, you want them if they're going to stay with you too. And how valuable is it that it to retain that? I huge. I mean, it's what brought me to Blizzard. I had 20 plus years in the film industry working on a lot of really big franchises and titles. And when somebody reached out to me and talked to me about an opportunity to manage and oversee a small animation studio at a game company called Blizzard Entertainment. It was just, it was over the moon with excitement because the depth of the world and the universes and the amount of potential on those ips. I mean, I just literally saw it as an IP gold mine again in the film making business. That's what you live for. So, so I want to ask you both this question to kind of close up. But other than a I, what other emerging technologies do you see as having the biggest impact on the gaming industry in the next 5 to 10 years. What I love thinking about technology. So evil genius has been around since the late nineties. And if you think about what video games even looked like and how they were accessible from then now and the rate of technology and even medium development from PC to console to mobile, to handheld, the more we create accessibility, different price points and better bridge globally. Unlike Lydia and her team, we don't own the IP of the games. So we live in this in between space where our fans are very, very valuable because also unlike a sports team, you know, my parents went to BC. So by I was a Red Sox fan growing up. But like why are you a fan of an E sports organization that's digital and global? So how we create that brand identity and reach those fans is really our secret sauce and who we also have to keep sticky and loyal over years. And the more we create accessible gaming and accessible technology, we subsidiary receive the benefits of that. And so as things get faster, lighter cheaper, we get excited. It was just all thrown one additional thing. I know A I is the big topic and it's kind of the sexy subject. Interactive. I, even though I work at a game company, the work that I do and the history I come from 20 plus years of CGI and visual effects and computer graphics, the world of interactive game engines and the ability to render things in real time and the ability to do things today. At the touch of a of a mouse clicker keyboard button. That 20 years ago when I started my career in this industry, we couldn't even imagine how to solve those problems. Much less, make it instant the way it is today. So interactive technologies, game engines are so powerful, the tech stacks that are developed to run some of the big games like World of Warcraft, they're so powerful and finding the different ways to apply them for me is super exciting. Amazing. What a great note to end on. Thank you. Thank you so much.