“What is happening is there are listed companies that are valued quite highly, and there are unlisted companies that have games published. The investors in listed companies are applying high value to the game’s revenue, even if it’s mediocre.” – Daniel
Daniel is an active investor in the games industry focusing on tech. His last venture was Quixel, the company that is behind the Megascans library that has flourished and have been recently acquired by Epic Games. He has since invested in Polygonflow & Elias Software both of which have been featured on the podcast before.
The world of investing is a huge mystery to a standard game developer but as one can imagine, you can’t be a game developer without a financed project. It becomes even more true as you progress in your career far enough to make it into a pitch room, and am finding yourself bartering your game ideas for substantial money. That’s why its equally important, and some may argue even more important, to learn about the world of investing and making games.
Topics discussed in this episode:
0:00 About Daniel
4:49 Huge influx of cash in 2020
9:24 Risk with the game content business and what it means to newcomers
12:11 Making sense of nonsensical acquisitions
14:34 Getting starting with investing into Quixel
17:19 Silen Media Ad
18:46 AAA long dev cycles is hurting the game business
20:30 Learning journey as a investor
26:26 Evaluating how new tools are adopted
30:00 Daily challenges as an investor or being a fund manager
33:32 Building the Megascans asset library
36:10 Game content is a risky business, but what is working?
38:31 Some parts of the industry has a formula
41:50 Mobile approach to AAA will kill certain types of games
43:13 Advice for startups for pitching
45:50 Enterprise industry are blossoming game tools
48:17 Next big thing in game tools
54:00 Shoutout
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- https://www.thegaminginvestor.com/
- https://twitter.com/GamingInvestor
- Quixel
- Polygonflow
- Elias Software
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