David Fernandez Remesal took the job of CEO of Sandsoft in 2020 and moved to Saudi Arabia, the place his cellular sport firm relies. He arrange a studio in Riyadh and in addition employed cellular sport builders in locations like his native Spain, Finland and China. Fernandez Remesal targeted on esports at first, however pivoted to cellular video games as a extra viable enterprise strategy.
The summers are so much hotter for certain, however Fernandez has sweated out the exhausting work of creating a brand new studio in a spot the place sport improvement abilities are solely simply being fostered now for the brand new generations of sport builders. Whereas Brazil is a much bigger and extra established market, Fernandez Remesal, who labored on video games like Sweet Crush Saga and Bubble Witch Saga earlier than main Sandsoft.
We talked about cellular sport traits at our hearth chat at Gamescom Latam in a chat entitled, “The Cellular Frontier: Large Tendencies and Smarter Strikes for 2025.”
We lined plenty of floor in our hearth chat at Gamescom Latam in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We hit matters like Apple’s transfer to emphasise person privateness over focused adverts because it deprecated the Identifier for Advertises (IDFA). We additionally lined the antitrust ruling that might bust the floodgates open in relation to builders with the ability to promote their very own net retailers (the place they will cost decrease costs and don’t must pay a 30% fee to Apple and Google) inside their cellular video games on the Apple and Google app shops. We explored the implications if sport builders are additionally ready to make use of their very own cost methods — which take round 3% commissions quite than 30% — in cellular sport transactions.
Sandsoft is targeted on profiting from these traits by specializing in midcore avid gamers, which is turning into a much bigger a part of the general cellular video games market. And Sandsoft can also be busy engaged on AI instruments that may assist builders work extra effectively.
And we checked out different alternatives for cellular to develop because the mobile-first technology grows up and turns into a much bigger a part of the inhabitants of avid gamers. We additionally assessed when it’s the correct time for native expertise to tackle native tales and unfold them to the worldwide stage with genuine triple-A improvement.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our on-stage interview.
GamesBeat: I’m right here with David Fernandez Remesal, the CEO of Sandsoft. I’ll have him introduce himself, his profession in video games, and the origins of Sandsoft.
David Fernandez Remesal: I’m happy to be in Brazil. It’s my first time. I’d wish to thank everybody right here. You’re doing an unimaginable present. I’m type of what I might name cellular native in relation to sport improvement. I began my profession engaged on cellular video games nearly 20 years in the past. These of you that had been round, meaning earlier than smartphone video games. I labored at an organization known as THQ that you could be bear in mind. They had been one of many pioneers, as a triple-A video games firm, in doing cellular video games as properly. I began my profession at THQ Juarez, their cellular sport division.
After that I had the privilege of working with two business titans at an organization known as Digital Chocolate. That was Journey Hawkins, the founding father of Digital Arts, and Ilkka Paananen, who occurs to be the CEO and founding father of Supercell as properly. I spent a part of my profession engaged on an app retailer with Nokia. I additionally labored on the N-Gage handheld system. In that individual case I made the flawed selection. I went for the loser within the smartphone period. However ultimately I discovered fairly a bit about the way you want merchandise, video games, and apps on an e-commerce platform.
After doing one thing within the cellular promoting house, I additionally had the honour of becoming a member of King, the place I labored for nearly 5 years on a few franchises. One was Bubble Witch Saga, after which Sweet Crush Saga. I used to be on the King London studio once I left to run Sandsoft 5 years in the past.
GamesBeat: Sandsoft is fascinating to this market partially since you’re additionally in an rising market, albeit a really totally different a part of the world. The corporate is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Are you able to speak about how that occurred to return about?
Fernandez Remesal: We’re barely earlier by way of the sport business in Saudi in comparison with what we see right here in Brazil, significantly towards sport improvement capabilities. However now we have a pleasant client market. It’s not as large as Brazil. However let me get began with how Sandsoft was created. For these of you who should not acquainted with Saudi Arabia, they’ve a plan known as Saudi Imaginative and prescient 2030. The principle proposal is to diversify the economic system away from oil and gasoline. As a part of that program, they’re attempting to construct what we name a information economic system. Gaming is a pivotal a part of that transition.
We’re half of a giant Saudi company that was based to help that plan. They determined to diversify their group. Gaming was one of many issues they needed to do. Sandsoft was born in 2019, initially as an esports firm. The very first thing we did as an organization was the PUBG Cellular occasion in Saudi Arabia. However [we] realized esports was not a enterprise. It was perhaps extra of a present, quite than correct industrial ongoing actions you may run in a sustainable approach. They determined to enterprise into cellular sport improvement and publishing, which is what we do right now. We’re growing video games in our personal studios, and we’re a world video games writer. We’re supporting sport improvement studios within the cellular house to commercialize their video games.
GamesBeat: What are you engaged on? What’s your focus? How large is the crew, and the place are they?
Fernandez Remesal: We now have roughly 100 folks. We’re cut up into 4 totally different markets. We have now folks in Saudi Arabia, the place we’re headquartered. We additionally host a sport improvement studio there. We have now satellite tv for pc workplaces in Spain, the place we even have a improvement studio. Then now we have a few publishing operations in China and Finland. We even have a small studio in France. That’s the place now we have our operations.
By way of focus, as I discussed to you, we’re targeted on cellular platforms. We have now just a few video games with aspirations to turn into cross-platform, however we’re cellular first.
GamesBeat: You moved to Saudi Arabia. Are you able to speak about what that was like for you?
Fernandez Remesal: Sure, I did. I’ve been there for 4 years now. The climate apart – the summer time is basically sizzling – it was an enormous cultural change for a European to return over to a rustic that was perhaps extra conservative, that was extra closed than different international locations I’ve lived in. However I felt that if you’re respectful, in the event you attempt to perceive the issues which might be altering, and in the event you adapt to the tempo of change, it’s fairly livable.
The individuals are very obsessed with video games particularly. There’s a younger, savvy inhabitants. They think about themselves avid gamers. Once you inform them you’re employed in video games, they respect you. It’s totally different from different international locations, the place folks assume you play video games all day. They don’t understand that that is an artwork type, that that is one thing that goes past simply play.
GamesBeat: A reminder that it’s a world business. Gaming will not be what it was once. It was once from Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Now it’s a really totally different world.
Fernandez Remesal: Right. It’s turning into very international. Like we see right here. It’s not nearly all of the folks attending to play video games, but additionally all the sport corporations showcasing their video games, which is basically thrilling.
GamesBeat: How far alongside are your video games?
Fernandez Remesal: By way of our sport improvement studios, we’re simply beginning our first prototypes. Each studios began in 2023, however it took us a while to get the preliminary core groups that we might belief to develop their sport concepts into commercially viable video games. We have now been in a type of boot camp at each the studios for a yr. Now they’re beginning to prototype what we will see as extra industrial video games.
As a writer now we have just a few video games already available in the market. Possibly the primary we launched was in partnership with Jam Metropolis, DC Heroes and Villains. We’re additionally elevating just a few different video games that–cellular free-to-play video games, you don’t have a pink button the place you hit it and the sport is stay. It’s extra about ongoing progress. You’re holding them in improvement and bettering the video games. Then you definately attempt to discover methods to scale. On this case by means of person acquisition. In that sense we’ve had video games out there available in the market for greater than three years. We have now six video games in our portfolio. Two of them are extra mature. We anticipate to scale them within the first half of the yr.
GamesBeat: Let’s get into among the traits within the cellular business. What do you see? What issues to you? What’s necessary to concentrate to in cellular?
Fernandez Remesal: Let me begin with one thing that’s in lots of circumstances not regarded into sufficient. We’re seeing a change within the viewers itself. We have to acknowledge that Era Z is coming in. They bring about a very new approach of consuming content material. They’re much less interested in deep, participating experiences. If I might name them, in a approach, the digital technology, they’re targeted on short-term or short-form leisure, the place they will get their dopamine and adrenaline after which have interaction additional. They’re a technology that doesn’t pay plenty of consideration till they get actually hooked on the issues they’re doing.
From that perspective, we see a shift in client conduct. We see totally different session lengths, other ways of participating with video games. The business is rising by double digits in areas like South America and the Center East and southeast Asia, whereas the extra western markets aren’t rising as a lot. That’s linked to the common age in these areas. They’ve a lot youthful populations in these rising markets, the place they eat video games as a local leisure type. There’s a brand new client coming in from Era Z, bringing new consumption patterns of their session habits and charges of play. On the similar time, there’s a chance to suggest totally different sorts of content material.
GamesBeat: One of many fascinating traits that’s emerged in cellular is the significance of the connection between builders and platforms. We noticed Apple’s determination just a few years in the past to prioritize person privateness over focused promoting. It made focused promoting a lot more durable. Recreation corporations misplaced the flexibility to very exactly goal individuals who favored sure sorts of video games. They’d to return to extra of a guessing sport round easy methods to zero in on which customers they needed to focus on.
This had an influence over years. Do you assume we’ve discovered easy methods to take care of this transformation available in the market and nonetheless be capable of discover the customers that you simply want?
Fernandez Remesal: IDFA will not be going to go away. Privateness goes to be with us. It’s going to be one thing that everybody has to concentrate to. That’s been important within the cellular house, due to the merchandising issues we see within the app shops. We see plenty of issues in content material discoverability. Which means many of the development we’ve seen in these video games has been by means of efficiency advertising person acquisition.
One factor that we’re seeing an increasing number of is sport builders attempting to construct communities all over the place. Attempting to show their video games. Attempting to create communities by means of influencers, by means of Discord and content material creation. However ultimately IDFA is right here to remain.
GamesBeat: Talking of the developer-platform relationship, we’ve had an antitrust case happening for a very long time, 4 and a half years now, between Epic Video games and Apple. Yesterday we acquired a ruling from the choose that held Apple in contempt of courtroom. This has plenty of significance for whether or not or not cellular sport corporations can go outdoors of Apple’s retailer and promote decrease costs on their net retailers or different websites. They’ll promote the identical issues at decrease costs than the app retailer as a result of Apple takes a 30% reduce.
Apple appealed this and had been in a position to dodge the results of it, even in Europe, the place they’d a 27% core know-how payment they launched. Now the choose has mentioned, “No extra of that. You’ll be able to’t evade this ruling anymore. It’s important to permit sport corporations to inform their customers that there are decrease costs elsewhere.” This can be a basic antitrust safety for customers. The ruling ought to have an effect on the entire business. What’s your view?
Fernandez Remesal: We had been speaking final week, early this week. Ultimately, we’ll see some type of platform disruption, particularly if you have a look at cellular platforms. Cellular has been principally ruled by two platform corporations, Google and Apple. There have been different app shops within the Android ecosystem, however ultimately there are few alternatives so that you can get content material, and significantly video games, in your cellular system. That’s a scenario set for disruption.
Ultimately, significantly in international locations which might be extra protecting towards customers–they’re upset about these oligopolies. They’d like to supply customers extra alternatives to find content material and achieve this in a approach that’s truthful for each customers and sport builders. The Digital Markets Act, in the UK, was one of many first adjustments we noticed attempting to open the cellular gaming ecosystem a bit extra, attempting to make sure that builders have some selection and customers have some selection. However as you talked about, that was a segue approach for Apple to introduce a brand new tax, a brand new payment for sport builders in the event that they needed to go that route.
What we noticed just a few hours in the past–it seems to be actually current. However sport builders now have the chance to have a direct relationship with customers. They’ll construct that relationship in a approach the place they will supply customers extra alternate options and selections. To start with, value factors. You’ll be able to supply totally different value factors in comparison with what’s out there within the app shops. For these of you who’re sport builders, within the app shops you can not choose any value level you need. They’re fastened. They’ve ranges you may choose from, however you may’t simply choose any value level in any respect.
The second issue, as you talked about, is reductions. Attempting to make sure that in the event you’re proposing this direct to client providing, you may modify your margins and supply extra worth to customers. Ultimately that ensures that you simply as a sport developer can get a broader a part of the worth share you’re creating with the buyer, however on the similar time give some again as properly to the buyer in a approach the place they will pay much less once they’re utilizing an online store.
The factor that we’ll hopefully begin to see quickly is that it’s not nearly you informing customers that they will produce other methods to eat your content material and purchase content material outdoors of your app, going to the net to purchase it. Ultimately it’s going to open up the precise app to extra actual cost strategies in video games, as you see in different apps within the app shops.
GamesBeat: We’re not fairly certain what the road shall be. Will Apple permit folks to make use of their very own cost methods as an alternative choice to Apple Pay?
Fernandez Remesal: Proper. However from that perspective, video games have been punished in comparison with different apps. Why are we not in a position to construct that type of relationship with customers? Why can’t we suggest a particular cost or subscription mechanic that different leisure choices can do within the app shops?
GamesBeat: Assuming that funds should not going to vary, the subsequent smartest thing is net retailers. Arrange your personal retailer on the internet. Previously corporations couldn’t promote that net store’s existence contained in the app, however now they will. They’ll say that you may get one thing for cheaper costs elsewhere. Xsolla has been opening plenty of these net retailers and working them for corporations. They’ve greater than 500 of them now. However no one knew about them. They do say that buyers are utilizing them. They’re going again at a 30-40% price and making a 10-16% raise in revenues for builders, or in some circumstances greater. These sound like pretty promising outcomes comparatively early for different net retailers.
Fernandez Remesal: That’s appropriate. Notably, in the event you’re a client that pays in cellular free-to-play video games, you’re attempting to get the very best worth for cash. Ultimately this type of core, engaged viewers that makes up the payers in your sport, they already know they will go to the store to get a greater providing. For the better mass of customers that don’t pay, they’re probably not conscious they will go to the net store to purchase content material and get higher offers than going by means of the app shops, the in-app retailers.
There are two points right here. One is about customers getting extra worth for cash right here. The second is about builders getting extra worth from the worth chain and delivering extra of it again to customers as properly.
GamesBeat: The web result’s that it’s extra money going to the underside line for builders to reinvest of their enterprise. That’s been sorely wanted, particularly within the final two and a half years. We’ve seen an actual painful downturn within the international sport business. Each penny counts nowadays.
Fernandez Remesal: It’s a greater distribution of worth on this case, contemplating what everybody places on the desk. Possibly within the early days of the app shops there have been extra merchandising choices for builders, methods to get worth from the app shops. There was much less content material. Your content material might attain extra customers. There was worth within the promotional exercise the app retailer would run for you. Now that’s closely pushed by UA. In that context, the app shops actually simply turn into a cost methodology. From that perspective, builders capturing extra worth and giving extra worth again to customers is sweet, as a result of that’s reinvested within the sport business. Recreation builders seize extra worth and that helps them create higher content material and have interaction higher with customers.
GamesBeat: We’ve talked about a few of these traits. How are you most carefully aligning your organization to a few of these traits, to make the most of them?
Fernandez Remesal: There are a few traits we didn’t talk about a lot. One is about how cellular video games specifically have gotten extra complicated. Three years in the past we had been speaking about hypercasual video games, video games principally monetized by means of in-game promoting. Due to the challenges round privateness, video games have gotten extra deep now. They’ve microtransactions. Even informal video games have gotten extra complicated. They’ve metagames on high. They’ve deeper economies. Informal video games have gotten extra mid-core.
Mid-core video games are going this manner as properly, to extra core sport mechanics. You see loads of video games with battle passes, with extra core engagement loops that you simply didn’t see earlier than. After which if you go to actually core video games, they’re turning into extra like informal video games. They’re attempting to simplify on the core, attempting to make themselves extra accessible. There are some shifts on the way in which. Recreation builders are making video games which might be in a far more complicated, however they’re attempting to simplify the core sport mechanics to be extra accessible.
As an organization we’re attempting to observe these traits. We’re engaged on just a few informal video games that we’re releasing with our exterior companions. We’re attempting to watch how we will suggest these deeper economies in video games that really feel very accessible, which might be straightforward to play, which might be straightforward to understand and clarify by means of a easy advert, however that may ultimately retain and have interaction folks for a very long time.
The second development we didn’t talk about a lot was generative AI. That’s remodeling not simply sport improvement, however many industries. It’s a brand new device for everybody to make use of and leverage. Any sport firm, or any firm in any respect, in the long run must have a correct AI technique. In our case we’re leveraging AI principally for content material creation, principally for adverts at this second. We’re enriching our NPCs by means of AI. However I presume that we’ll be including efficiencies in many of the issues we do, like sport programming. We’re doing code evaluations with AI now. We’re doing a little small stage designs with AI. That’s one of many instruments that’s going to supply superpowers to sport builders.
Groups that, just a few years in the past, had been contemplating constructing an engine of their very own, they don’t try this any extra. They use Unity or Godot or Unreal. Now there are pipelines for sport improvement that shall be remodeled by means of AI. Issues that want 10 folks to do them these days, one developer may be capable of do them extra effectively a yr from now.
GamesBeat: Would you think about bringing cellular adverts into the corporate due to AI advances? Cellular advert optimization now might be accomplished fairly properly by AI. Fewer folks can get rather more work accomplished by way of creating variations on adverts to check them available in the market and see which explicit advert does properly. That optimization course of was typically dealt with by outsiders. Might that change?
Fernandez Remesal: On the go-to-market you’re exactly proper. For cellular video games, what we name artistic optimization is a part of the way in which that you may optimize your development technique. Nevertheless it’s broader than that. When you concentrate on how, significantly on this case, artists work, they work on content material manufacturing. You create some illustrations of characters and environments, and that is remodeled by AI. With one artist you will get 100 totally different ideas with simply a few prompts. Earlier than, within the guide world, you’d must spend most likely half a day to simply create one. That is about being extra open for creativity, to get extra choices for exploring characters, environments, and artwork kinds. It’s not simply on the promoting facet, too. It’s on sport creation, too, to discover new ideas in a broader approach.
GamesBeat: In Saudi Arabia you may have some parallels to Brazil in some methods, by way of what you do with the crew that you’ve. The crew is comparatively new to video games. You’re rising an area employees. We noticed some very fascinating traits prior to now yr round Black Delusion: Wukong. It was a Chinese language-made sport made for Chinese language customers, the Chinese language market. It did spectacularly properly on the worldwide stage as properly, 25 million copies offered proper off the bat. It validated the notion {that a} nation’s native content material may very well be interesting on a world scale. Much more video games are being greenlit in China now with hopes that they’ll attain a world market.
For you, in Saudi Arabia, do you may have a option to make round whether or not to make native content material or international content material?
Fernandez Remesal: As a sport developer, we’re creating content material for international markets. We’re not doing content material to be consumed regionally. However that doesn’t imply–as in any a part of the world, you may have native tales, native myths, native themes that you may expose and ultimately create connections with customers and gamers all over the place on this planet.
Once I take into consideration our expertise pool, I gained’t deny that we’re fairly a world firm. We have now 100 folks on the crew who come from 30 totally different nationalities. We’re nonetheless a nascent state by way of native Saudi expertise. We don’t have sufficient functionality to create these native tales in a approach the place they really feel genuine, the place they’re advised by the correct folks. However that can come ultimately. I feel there’s analogy when you concentrate on motion pictures and tv. There are many tales from this a part of the world which have been advised. We talked about Aladdin, about Prince of Egypt. There are many tales that resonate with international audiences. However we have to have the true folks, the native expertise that may inform these tales in a approach that ultimately attracts a world viewers and may turn into a mass market alternative, quite than a distinct segment factor for the native market.
GamesBeat: Quite a lot of that is perhaps a stepping-stone course of. It’s important to stage up your crew. It’s important to be sure that they will develop to be veterans of the business. Then at that time the alternatives change. You should use them to be the central creators of the content material.
Fernandez Remesal: Right. Once you’re creating video games, if you’re creating many sorts of content material, it comes from your personal ardour. There’s some sense of the market concerned, understanding whether or not there’s a industrial alternative, however it comes from folks’s ardour. The eagerness is there, however the abilities and capabilities should not there but to consider a world sport alternative. We’ve seen that in different video games. Murderer’s Creed is an efficient instance of that, the place they’ve taken worlds and themes that resonate within the area, however to not the extent that it appears like a correct story from that a part of the world. However you’re exactly proper. We have to wait just a few years to have this functionality in place so now we have a reputable story to inform in a industrial approach and may meet the standard expectations that international audiences have.
GamesBeat: From what you’ve seen, what’s your evaluation of the place expertise is? Whether or not in your area or different areas of the world as properly. The place is the very best cellular gaming expertise now?
Fernandez Remesal: The reply for me is kind of straightforward. You simply want to have a look at the video games that make the highest of the charts. China has undoubtedly turn into the world chief in sport improvement expertise for cellular video games. It’s not nearly Tencent or Netease or MiHoYo. Loads of sport builders are creating video games which might be consumed globally. That’s the bigger expertise pool for cellular video games.
It’s true as properly that the pool is increasing fairly broadly. Creating cellular video games is extra accessible than going for triple-A console video games. There are many pockets of excellence in Europe, within the U.S., in Latin America. I’m actually impressed by folks right here in Brazil, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in Chile. That’s turning into extra accessible. Expertise is growing in lots of components of the world.
In my area, in Saudi Arabia, it’s very new. I feel that’s resonating with folks right here in Brazil. Possibly we’re Brazil 5 years in the past. There have been some pockets of expertise that had been attempting to get their first corporations into the market. We’re on the route the place we’re importing expertise to help sport improvement, but additionally constructing native expertise, so we will develop the entire business.
One other matter that’s not a lot a development as a actuality now, it’s about going cross-platform. There are many cellular first video games which might be eager about transferring to totally different platforms. When you concentrate on how one can go to market, how one can prototype, cellular is often the cheaper platform to do this. We see an increasing number of groups getting their IP into PC and console coming from cellular. We’re observing that an increasing number of.
One other development we see is transmedia. Possibly that was a buzzword at one level, folks eager about migrating IP from video games into different artwork kinds, however we undoubtedly see it fairly a bit now, significantly the collection we’ve seen from Netflix and Amazon and so forth. Rovio is doing motion pictures. Transmedia is turning into a development for corporations with deep pockets and deep budgets.
GamesBeat: The largest factor to observe proper now, I’d agree, is AI and the place it’s going to vary issues. I imagine that cellular gaming is without doubt one of the areas the place it’s going to have the most important influence. AI can’t create triple-A video games but, however there are plenty of issues associated to the enterprise of cellular video games that may be automated. We’ll see the place that takes maintain and will get traction.
Fernandez Remesal: One thing that we’re seeing fairly a bit right here in Brazil is the renaissance of net gaming. WebGL has actually improved currently. We see wonderful experiences on the cellular net. Cellular net shall be a chance for sport builders. It hyperlinks to what we talked about earlier than with net retailers and how one can monetize.
GamesBeat: We have now the Nintendo Change 2 launching very shortly. The fascinating factor about now versus years in the past is that Nintendo is now not the primary system that children get their palms on as a gamer. It’s smartphones and tablets now, cellular video games. That’s how they study to play video games, which represents a sea change for corporations like Nintendo. They must observe this development. The youngest avid gamers are solely going to know the manufacturers that they see on cellular.
Fernandez Remesal: That’s exactly proper. Cellular is the primary gaming system for a lot of, many individuals, significantly youngsters. That’s the place they uncover content material. It’s not simply video games. It’s how they discover all types of leisure – streaming media, music, and video games as properly.
Disclosure: Gamescom Latam paid my option to Brazil.
