SPEAKER_1: Asgard's Fall, the Survivor-like, will be released 2024.
SPEAKER_1: Pixar graphics, gore, vikings, so everything you want to have in a video game.
SPEAKER_1: Check it out on Steam, and hopefully you will wishlist it.
SPEAKER_1: And also, go.
SPEAKER_1: Have fun to the Steam World Podcast.
SPEAKER_1: It's the Scene World Podcast, What's Happening?
SPEAKER_1: I'm AJ, that's Jörg.
SPEAKER_1: Today, we'll be talking to Amir Kabirmanesh.
SPEAKER_1: He is from GamerTag.app.
SPEAKER_1: It's a new social media thing for gaming.
SPEAKER_1: You'll hear more about that in a little bit.
SPEAKER_1: Before that though, we got things.
SPEAKER_3: Exactly, some news.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Well, do you want to start?
SPEAKER_1: Sure.
SPEAKER_1: Good old Frodo, the old C64 emulator has been updated.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I think that a lot of it has been superseded by Vice.
SPEAKER_1: Vice is kind of the go-to.
SPEAKER_1: But back in my PowerPC Mac days, Frodo was my preferred emulator of choice.
SPEAKER_1: It was easier for me to code on that and do certain things like find certain keys because you could just pull up a keyboard and find where the Commodore key in the restore and all that junk was, that you normally can't do in Vice.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_3: Well, to a little side note on the nerd section, the early issues were actually done using CCS64 because Vice had horrible NTSC emulation back in the day.
SPEAKER_3: We are talking about 24 years ago in the year 2000.
SPEAKER_3: So actually, our go-to was CCS64.
SPEAKER_3: I don't know how good Frodo was with NTSC.
SPEAKER_1: Frodo was fine with NTSC.
SPEAKER_1: It has some things that were not perfect.
SPEAKER_1: It was made more, so it was, I think the idea with Frodo was that it was an early emulator and machines were still not that quick at the time to just kind of do the straight like brute force emulation like they can do now.
SPEAKER_1: So I think it was made to kind of give you a more, a better experience sort of rather than be perfectly perfect.
SPEAKER_1: So yeah, so there's two versions of Frodo, which is regular Frodo, which is cycle exact, and then it's Frodo Lite, which is less compatible, runs better on slower machines.
SPEAKER_1: And I didn't know.
SPEAKER_3: I remember on the PC side, we had emulators as a C64 CS and the PC 64 since 1994.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I mean, they had, and they were running.
SPEAKER_1: They used to be Amiga back in the day.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, it's the same.
SPEAKER_3: And they ran 100% clock speed.
SPEAKER_3: So, saying they weren't fast enough, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_1: I remember using it on a Mac years ago, and how much the computer struggled to do like the cycle exact stuff.
SPEAKER_1: But I mean, again, I don't know where that the power of modern machines kind of, because again, there were Amelior's C64 on Amiga back in the day, and it was slow, and a lot of times it ran slower than the actual C64, because the Amiga didn't have that kind of oomph to it.
SPEAKER_1: So, maybe-
SPEAKER_3: I mean, they have Scambi-M on Amiga, so as we just found out the other day.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: But again, the requirements for that is our PowerPC Amiga, which is not this thing.
SPEAKER_3: But there are threats about people porting it to native Amigas as well.
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_1: Which is a question that-
SPEAKER_3: And there are demo and there are demos on YouTube.
SPEAKER_1: That's a question that we had, what the requirements for it are, because I saw something saying that it'll run on a, people getting it running on a 50 megahertz, 68K processor, which is, this thing's got that.
SPEAKER_1: Whether it can handle it or not, I have no idea.
SPEAKER_3: Did you try to compile it yourself?
SPEAKER_4: No.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, theoretically, you can.
SPEAKER_3: It's open source.
SPEAKER_3: You can compile it on your Amiga and see how it runs.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not that good with the Amiga to muck about with stuff like that.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not the kind of guy that can get it and see if I can make it work, because I don't still know a lot of the underlying Amiga stuff.
SPEAKER_3: But there is a compiled version for Amiga as well.
SPEAKER_3: You could try the compiled version first and see how that goes.
SPEAKER_3: If that doesn't go, you can still go the source code way.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, is it so complicated to use source codes and compile it yourself?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: I haven't tried it.
SPEAKER_3: But you as an assembler coder, you should know somehow.
SPEAKER_3: Well, it's done in C++.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, yeah, assembly language programming gives you some, it gives you some insight into how the machine that you code for, the C64 in my case, works.
SPEAKER_1: But translating it over to something else is not necessarily like an automatic thing.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't really.
SPEAKER_3: But C++ is also seen as a high-level language.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Which I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: I know a little bit of C++, but not enough to do anything useful.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, you've got time.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Our interview with the project leader is in a bit.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Well, maybe we can say it here already because the appointment is already done.
SPEAKER_3: We will be talking to the project leader of ScummVM.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_1: So you can get the new version of Frodo for Linux, and there's a version for lots of things.
SPEAKER_1: This is a Mac OS version that's supported by Richard Banister, who does a lot of retro emulators and stuff, or he did.
SPEAKER_3: A Windows version?
SPEAKER_1: No, it's a Mac version.
SPEAKER_3: Is there a Windows version?
SPEAKER_1: There's a Windows 95 version.
SPEAKER_3: Windows 95?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I'm seeing Fedora, I'm seeing BOS for PowerPC, edX86, Amiga OS, RISC OS, Windows 95 NT.
SPEAKER_3: Well, then there you have it.
SPEAKER_3: Windows NT is Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10.
SPEAKER_1: Palm OS, Orf OS, Sony PSP, Java, Wii, Nintendo DS, WebOS, Android, there's a lot of versions.
SPEAKER_3: I actually never tried it on Windows, because I remember 24 years ago, it was at some point only a Mac thing, right?
SPEAKER_1: No, no, it was never.
SPEAKER_1: Richard Bannister, as a Mac programmer, was a Mac programmer.
SPEAKER_1: He ported it to the Mac, but it was originally, I believe, a Linux thing.
SPEAKER_3: But it's also there for Amiga OS.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Like I said, it's there for lots of things.
SPEAKER_1: Again, I think the Amiga OS version and the Windows version, they're all done by different people.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it must be open-source.
SPEAKER_1: But yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Other news here, I've got, there's a GitHub page for how to, so Core I64 is making a new CMD FD drive.
SPEAKER_1: The FD4000, the FD, I guess, 2000 and whatnot.
SPEAKER_1: And they have put up a new thing, the GFD4000, which is a CMD FD4000 with a GoTek drive.
SPEAKER_1: So, if you want to ruin your new FD drive by putting a GoTek in it, here's how.
SPEAKER_1: I don't have hate for the GoTek, it's a fine thing.
SPEAKER_1: For the 64, I feel like it's a little, like I can see for the Amiga because you can throw, I can throw a GoTek in this external drive and then have that and kind of cycle through my disk.
SPEAKER_1: With the 64, I mean, you've got the SD to IEC drives, you've got lots of things, like I can use a USB stick in my U1541.
SPEAKER_1: There's lots of things that let you do that already.
SPEAKER_1: So I don't really know what the advantage to having a GoTek drive would be, but I mean, if that's what you're into, you can do that.
SPEAKER_3: Interestingly, looking at the change log in Frodo 2.4, I see new changes from 2.3.
SPEAKER_3: Basic and kernel ROMs are now included in the archive.
SPEAKER_3: So they got permission now?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if they got permission.
SPEAKER_1: They must have.
SPEAKER_1: It always just worked for me.
SPEAKER_1: I never had to put a ROM in there.
SPEAKER_1: It was just going back in the day, back in the 2000s.
SPEAKER_3: But you know that since Cluento has the rights now with their Forever 64, even the Ultimate 64 had to remove the ROMs with the firmware update.
SPEAKER_3: So you would firmware update your Ultimate 64 and it would stop working because you get a message like, please provide your ROMs yourself.
SPEAKER_3: So I guess the same happened with Frodo.
SPEAKER_3: If they are now back included, they had to be gunned for.
SPEAKER_1: Well, but also with the Ultimate 64, Jens Schoenfeld is making money off of that stuff.
SPEAKER_1: Last night, Jens Schoenfeld, what the fuck am I talking about?
SPEAKER_3: No, that's Gideon Schweitzer from the Netherlands.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, Gideon Schweitzer is selling those.
SPEAKER_1: It's a commercial product.
SPEAKER_3: Gideon Schweitzer from the Netherlands.
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: He's selling those things as a commercial product, whereas Frodo is not.
SPEAKER_1: Frodo is a free emulator, so maybe it's got to do with they can use it as long as they're not making money off.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, but if they are back now, that means they lost their rights in between.
SPEAKER_3: Otherwise, they wouldn't say it in the changelog that they are back now.
SPEAKER_1: Or maybe it's, are you looking at the changelog for what?
SPEAKER_1: For Windows version?
SPEAKER_3: From the last version, from 2.3.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, 2.3?
SPEAKER_3: The change is from 2.3 to 2.4.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, we're on 4.4.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, then I looked at the wrong changelog then.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: I see.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, we're on version 4.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe I don't have to look at the wrong version.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I see.
SPEAKER_3: The changelog for the fourth version is right on the top.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I went too far ahead.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: I went too far down.
SPEAKER_1: 2.4 is still the current version for Amiga, I think.
SPEAKER_1: There's a 4.1 binary for Amiga.
SPEAKER_1: There's also a web interface.
SPEAKER_1: I see a lot of it for, you know, it's Windows is 4.1.
SPEAKER_3: So it's 4.4 is just, okay.
SPEAKER_3: So it's source.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, Fudor and source code and the Mac version.
SPEAKER_1: If you go to Richard Banisters, that's 4.4.
SPEAKER_3: Interesting.
SPEAKER_1: He's already updated his.
SPEAKER_3: So now the question is, did somebody make an NT, Windows NT binary?
SPEAKER_1: I only see a 4.1 Windows NT binary.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, Christian Bauer, he did.
SPEAKER_3: Well, he has his own homepage, right?
SPEAKER_3: Let's see.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, here it says own homepage.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, let's see.
SPEAKER_3: Oh no, it actually goes back to the...
SPEAKER_3: Well, there is a GitHub repository.
SPEAKER_3: Let's look in that.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, okay, yes.
SPEAKER_3: So if you want macOS and Linux, it actually says in the GitHub, you have to make it yourself from the sources, and it gives you instructions.
SPEAKER_1: Well, but not from macOS, no, because you can just go to the Richard Banister port of it.
SPEAKER_3: Richard Banister.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it's right there.
SPEAKER_3: It's a different page?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, he does the Mac port of it.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, it's actually a newer version, it's 444.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, interesting.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, now the question is, if you heard the source, why he's not providing all the packages for the systems himself?
SPEAKER_3: Why he's only providing it for Fedora?
SPEAKER_1: I have no idea.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, I never tried compiling it on a PC, but I guess it should work.
SPEAKER_3: Now, if I Google and ask for...
SPEAKER_1: I mean, there is.
SPEAKER_1: If you write on the main Frodo page, you can download a binary for Windows 95 NT.
SPEAKER_3: But it's for 4.1.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I'm sure that there will be an update of it.
SPEAKER_1: I think this kit just came out, so the newer versions will probably roll out over a little bit of time, I would guess.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, otherwise, it wouldn't make sense, right?
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_3: Because 4.1, you know how old 4.1 is?
SPEAKER_3: Just saw it.
SPEAKER_3: It's from 99 to 7.
SPEAKER_1: That's why I was saying, that's why it was a piece of news to me, because this hasn't been updated in a minute.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: That's like, I don't know, over 30 years?
SPEAKER_1: Well, again, like I said, a lot of it was preempted by other emulators like Vice and whatnot, and it really wasn't that much supported.
SPEAKER_1: The one I always used was 4.1, which was on my old PowerPC systems and or Mac OS 9 even.
SPEAKER_1: And that's what I used for a long time until I went to Vice and then, well, actually, the last demo I did, I coded, which is in 2014, I think.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe 2016.
SPEAKER_1: No, it was 2014.
SPEAKER_1: I did that in emulators, I did that on the Mac.
SPEAKER_1: And I had a hell of a time doing it because Vice gave me guff.
SPEAKER_1: So I set up my old PowerPC G4, old Power Mac G4 and ran Power 64, ran, I'm sorry, Frodo on that.
SPEAKER_1: Frodo and Power 64, which is another emulator for the Mac OS.
SPEAKER_1: You ran it on that.
SPEAKER_1: So I could do the things that I couldn't do with Vice on my main machine.
SPEAKER_1: So it was kind of a, yeah, yeah, it was a process.
SPEAKER_1: I didn't have a C64 hooked up at the time, so I couldn't just code my stuff on that.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, so it's 27 years since the last update.
SPEAKER_1: Yep.
SPEAKER_3: Oh my God, I thought Frodo was basically dead.
SPEAKER_1: Well, yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_1: That's why this is news because they updated it for the first time in the first time this century.
SPEAKER_3: Whoa.
SPEAKER_3: Awesome.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, well, let's stay in the rems of emulators or, well, SCUMMVM is not an emulator.
SPEAKER_3: It's actually...
SPEAKER_1: It kind of is.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, yeah, but the team behind says it's more like a SCUMM environment replacement because it's not executing the code per se, but the script language behind it.
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: And similar games using similar script language.
SPEAKER_1: Well, that's what SCUMM was.
SPEAKER_1: SCUMM was the engine ran the game, but it was a scripting language.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Anyway, thing is, I basically found out recently that the leader of the project SCUMM BM actually has a development blog, and his last post is from 2022.
SPEAKER_3: However, most of his posts are from 2009.
SPEAKER_3: But still, I found it interesting to mention it.
SPEAKER_3: Because it mentions some stories.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So, the last post is from December 2021.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, but still interesting stories on that small blog there.
SPEAKER_3: Interestingly, most posts are from 2008.
SPEAKER_3: But yeah, we will think the blog is, well, disregarded, but considering the last post is from December 2021, I guess whenever he has something to add, he does it.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Very rarely.
SPEAKER_3: Anyway, I think it was interesting to mention.
SPEAKER_3: Also, interesting to mention from our side is that our newsletter is back up.
SPEAKER_3: So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So, I mean, you probably already got your issue for this month because you're also among the subscribers I saw.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So if you want to sign up, it's www.scene.world.com/newsletter, and there you will be redirected to the subscription form to subscribe.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Well, staying in the rims of production, Samsung will shut down Samsung Podcasts in December.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, well.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So that means after Facebook, another provider is saying no more podcasts.
SPEAKER_1: You know, I have a Samsung phone, and I don't use Samsung Podcasts, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_1: Huh.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I use Pocket Casts.
SPEAKER_1: It's a very good podcast aggregation.
SPEAKER_3: Nice.
SPEAKER_3: Nice, nice.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Well, just thought I would mention it, though.
SPEAKER_1: Nice.
SPEAKER_3: And the last news I have is Rockstar is working, obviously, on a new patch for Bully Shorla Skip Edition on the PC.
SPEAKER_3: Bully Shorla Skip Edition.
SPEAKER_3: Bully Skoda Skip Edition was a game where you are a bully in the school, obviously, and try to riot.
SPEAKER_1: What?
SPEAKER_1: Hang on, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_1: I'm looking at it here.
SPEAKER_3: And the PC version is actually based on the PlayStation 2 release, and it's actually not working well for Windows 10 and 11, because it has a problem with the memory management system that Windows 10 and 11 uses.
SPEAKER_3: So what you read, what you need at the moment is a community-driven patch called the Silent Patch that fixes the memory management of the game to not crash every two to three minutes on Windows 10 or 11.
SPEAKER_3: And obviously, somebody discovered a new testing branch on Steam by Rockstar.
SPEAKER_3: That means obviously, they continued developing updates for the game.
SPEAKER_1: This is by Rockstar Games.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, it's by Rockstar Games.
SPEAKER_1: Is this like a like a wander around like a like a GTA kind of thing?
SPEAKER_3: In the school.
SPEAKER_3: You are a bully and you are in the school.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so it's okay.
SPEAKER_1: So it is an oppo.
SPEAKER_1: See, I'm looking at the screenshots from it.
SPEAKER_1: It looks like one of those games where you kind of like, just sort of like watch a novel.
SPEAKER_1: It's kind of almost like a choose your own adventure.
SPEAKER_1: You just kind of watch things happen and you decide.
SPEAKER_3: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_1: It's got that same shitty graphic style, but no, if it's a walk around and do things like a GTA game, I can see that as well.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, but it's a PS2 based.
SPEAKER_3: So yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, it looks like it's from 2008, so pretty old.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it looks like it's from 2008.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Yikes.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, well, yeah, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_1: Weird ass games, man.
SPEAKER_3: What?
SPEAKER_1: Some weird ass games out there.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Rockstar is known for making weird ass games sometimes.
SPEAKER_1: Well, it's funny too, because you look at their releases, and it's the Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire, Max Payne, and Man Hunt, Bully.
SPEAKER_3: Like what?
SPEAKER_3: What game?
SPEAKER_3: Bully.
SPEAKER_1: And it's one of the, because I mean, Max Payne 2 is $9.99, GTA 2 is, I think that's free, Man Hunt $9.99, Max Payne $9.99, Bully, $15 bucks.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: That's, yeah, OK.
SPEAKER_4: Sure.
SPEAKER_1: I'll pass on that one.
SPEAKER_3: It's not a bad game.
SPEAKER_1: Not a good game either.
SPEAKER_3: I like it.
SPEAKER_1: That's for people who enjoy the pointless violence of the GTA series, but want to do that in school.
SPEAKER_1: Nah.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I guess it's better they do it here on a silly game, than in real school, you know, like, yeah, OK.
SPEAKER_1: Right.
SPEAKER_1: You want to set somebody on fire or whatever, do it here, but.
SPEAKER_1: Yikes.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_3: By the way, Richard just sent an email.
SPEAKER_1: I saw that, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: You're supposed to reply to it.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I'm replying.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not doing it right now because I don't want typing to be in the intro, but yes.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So any news?
SPEAKER_3: Other news from your side?
SPEAKER_1: Nope.
SPEAKER_1: That's all I got.
SPEAKER_3: OK.
SPEAKER_3: Nice.
SPEAKER_3: So don't forget to send me a link to your news.
SPEAKER_3: Was that just that one bit of news?
SPEAKER_1: No, I had Frodo and the Gotek 4000.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: So you need to send me the Gotek one too?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Will you e-mail that or will you put it in the chat?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I'll throw it in an e-mail.
SPEAKER_3: All right.
SPEAKER_3: Somebody wants to, it seems.
SPEAKER_1: So if we're done with the news, awesome, let's jump over and talk about GamerTag.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_4: Booty.
SPEAKER_4: Whomp, whomp.
SPEAKER_3: Nice.
SPEAKER_1: What is my phone doing?
SPEAKER_1: What is this noise?
SPEAKER_3: So today, we have another guest, and today it's Amir Kabirmanesh from GamerTag, and you are the co-founder and CEO of that application, actually.
SPEAKER_3: And from what I understood, I mean, I installed it on my iPhone to test it out.
SPEAKER_3: It's actually a community to find fellow gamers, basically.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: All right.
SPEAKER_3: Well, so nice to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_2: Thank you.
SPEAKER_2: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_4: Awesome.
SPEAKER_1: Of course.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks for sitting with us.
SPEAKER_2: Thank you.
SPEAKER_4: Awesome.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, well, so let's start with our typical question that we ask all our guests.
SPEAKER_3: What was your starting point in getting a touch with computers, and what was the starting point to say, we want to make something like GamerTag, perhaps a brief history of your time?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_2: I just wanted to provide you some concept about it, how it started.
SPEAKER_2: I would call myself a serial entrepreneur, and whenever I wanted to introduce myself even to the investor, I have a big line that I'm saying that I had six startups in the past that neither of them work.
SPEAKER_2: So I know six ways that do not work.
SPEAKER_2: I have a golden way to work, but I have failed a lot, and I'm always promoting it.
SPEAKER_2: I have been invited to different universities in Austria, Georgia, different places just to talk about my failure because I'm really proud of them.
SPEAKER_2: From each failure, I learned a lesson, and that was the initiative that I wanted to gather a team to do something with.
SPEAKER_2: Through these times, always my relaxing point was playing games and connected with my flow games all the time.
SPEAKER_2: If I was on the top of my career or down part of the career, I was always playing games.
SPEAKER_2: It was a calm side of the life, just playing games, talk to the people, and just get relief for the whole craziness ongoing in the real world.
SPEAKER_2: We were playing games a lot, and we had a couple of problems actually, playing games.
SPEAKER_2: The main idea was started from a friend of mine, which is who is my co-founder, Arian.
SPEAKER_2: He had this idea that in the very beginning, that because we were traveling a lot, I was in Iran initially, then I moved to Georgia, then I went to Turkey, then I came to Europe.
SPEAKER_2: I was moving along, and I wanted that whenever I wanted to enter a city, I wanted to know who are the players in a specific game in that city.
SPEAKER_2: I wanted to connect the real world to the FIFA player, or the player on Call of Duty Motor Warfare series, or something on Black Ops series, different variations.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to see that, okay, maybe it's a good idea that we can have a platform that introduced us to the nearby people who is playing what inside that particular region.
SPEAKER_2: Then we escalated the idea.
SPEAKER_2: We had three of us, me and my other two co-founder Reza and Ariane.
SPEAKER_2: We decided that we need a platform that gives us this chance initially.
SPEAKER_2: But of course, we wanted to be connected to the flow gamers.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to be connected to the shared interests on the content creation.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to be connected to know exactly who is in our interests.
SPEAKER_2: But with the power of AI, not necessarily I want to look for everyone, not necessarily I want to look for the other gamer, etc.
SPEAKER_2: We decided that we wanted to look for it.
SPEAKER_2: So what are the available platforms?
SPEAKER_2: Then we take more to the market.
SPEAKER_2: It was a couple of platform available, including Game Tree.
SPEAKER_2: But the thing is that it wasn't in the way that we wanted and our flow wanted.
SPEAKER_2: Because I was a business person, I did more research with the help of Ariane and Reza and we develop a concept that, okay, we want a platform that is AI power, that can connect people and that can help game players to be connected to the familiar people, to be connected to the game that they want.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe they are playing some game today, but would be their favorite game in six months.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, there should be a platform we introduce, we can introduce you to the favorite game in your game lives basically.
SPEAKER_2: That was the initiation.
SPEAKER_2: Then we were in the gaming world, and the second thing was that we are also a game developer ourselves, and we had this problem that the market in the gaming world, I don't want it to use monopolistic, but it's dominated by major players.
SPEAKER_2: Now, if you are an indie developer, you would have a hard time to stand out in the crowded market.
SPEAKER_2: You're either part of one of the big players, or you can just not really show your game that you develop to the final audiences.
SPEAKER_2: And then we wanted to help those game developer to get the exposure that they deserve, because we believe that there should be a platform that really encourage innovation.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, we need innovation, not in this crowded market, but necessarily from any individual.
SPEAKER_2: The idea that I'm always pitching it is that, I wanted to help the game developer in his bedroom in Tokyo of Japan to promote his game tomorrow in New York without anything between.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, that's the idea.
SPEAKER_2: If you have some cool thing, you should have one centralized platform that can help you.
SPEAKER_2: But at the heart of GamerTag was something much more important.
SPEAKER_2: It was children.
SPEAKER_2: The gaming world is the place that you relieve yourself basically.
SPEAKER_2: So the idea is that nobody know anyone.
SPEAKER_2: So it has to be pseudonymized, but also it has to be a platform that you can really be safe for children.
SPEAKER_2: Not in the boring way like filterizing or something, but in the way that parents, who are necessarily not gamers, be relieved that the children have a safe experience.
SPEAKER_2: So that's something that we wanted to have also in GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: So these things brings the three pillar of our portfolio.
SPEAKER_2: The first is GamerTag social media, whichever things that you are now experiencing.
SPEAKER_2: The second thing is GamerTag developer booths, which we wanted to help indie game developer to get the exposure that they deserve in a centralized platform.
SPEAKER_2: The third is GamerTag child safety, because we wanted to take at least the first step, to make gaming fun and safe for the whole children globally.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea behind GamerTag.
SPEAKER_1: You mentioned being able to stand out in the crowd as an indie developer from other people.
SPEAKER_1: One of the things that threw me when I was researching this was, the name of the platform being GamerTag.
SPEAKER_1: There is a Microsoft thing called a GamerTag that you get through Xbox.
SPEAKER_1: It seems to me like it would be confusing to some people, because when I searched for GamerTag, I find all this Microsoft stuff.
SPEAKER_1: You got to really look through it to find you guys.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing is that it was a project from Microsoft, the GamerTag was a project from Microsoft that basically failed a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_2: We had a couple of names for the beginning, but we wanted to use GamerTag because we wanted to be the tag for you in the gaming world.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the idea of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: The name is legally owned by us in Europe, so that's not the issue for us.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, on the technical side of legal things.
SPEAKER_2: But the name itself is owned by us in Europe, and we wanted to use it because we wanted to make it that this would be your GamerTag in the real world.
SPEAKER_2: For example, one of the features that we have inside GamerTag is Gamer Passport, which means that who are you in the gaming world?
SPEAKER_2: If I ask you that, are you a gamer?
SPEAKER_2: You say that, yeah, I'm a gamer.
SPEAKER_2: There are a couple of question coming along.
SPEAKER_2: How good you are?
SPEAKER_2: How dedicated you are?
SPEAKER_2: What are your achievement in the game?
SPEAKER_2: What are your favorite game?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, a couple of questions.
SPEAKER_2: So the idea is that we would have a Gamer Passport, which is your GamerTag, then you can show it, it's a profile of GamerTag, you can show it and everything's on your achievement, on your gaming journey would be listed there.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the reason that we use the GamerTag world.
SPEAKER_2: We have a problem with Microsoft now to be listed on Google, but come on, entrepreneurs always have problems.
SPEAKER_2: I don't care.
SPEAKER_2: We want it to be a standout in this way also.
SPEAKER_3: Two questions there.
SPEAKER_3: You mentioned, in your first sentence to Ajay's answer, it was originally a Microsoft project?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: It was part of, I think, XBox really early.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: So not only as Ajay mentioned, the name GamerTag, but also the concept was something Microsoft, right?
SPEAKER_3: No, just the name.
SPEAKER_3: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_2: Just the name was used initially from Microsoft, and that's the reason that people heard about it at least.
SPEAKER_3: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Now the counter question is, what is the current name?
SPEAKER_3: Microsoft ID or Xbox?
SPEAKER_3: I guess Xbox ID is the current name.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah.
SPEAKER_4: I think it's like that.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: But Microsoft also has its own social media.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, a community, an app like PlayStation 2, those would be our competitors, of course.
SPEAKER_2: But they have their own and both platforms are quite exclusive, so GamerTag is more general.
SPEAKER_1: Is there integration with other platforms?
SPEAKER_1: Can you tie it to a Steam account and whatever so that all integrates?
SPEAKER_2: It will be soon.
SPEAKER_2: It will be soon because we have just been in the market for around two months, so it's quite young now.
SPEAKER_2: But the exposure that we gain has been quite a lot.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, we have surpassed 16,000 monthly active users without any marketing.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, just a couple of Google Ads or something just for testing, but we didn't really launch our marketing yet.
SPEAKER_2: We have surpassed 10,000 downloaders I think within one month.
SPEAKER_2: It was just really going really fast.
SPEAKER_2: I made the platform available in 60 countries, but it surpassed 100 countries joining GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: So I have to be a little careful in that regard too.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, but the platform is growing relatively fast because the idea is simple, as you can see, but the business plan is 210 pages.
SPEAKER_2: So it's really detailed and with lots of research that what we should do, because we would not do a feature unless we would make sure that the gamer community really needs it.
SPEAKER_2: So we have more than thousands of surveys conducted to make sure that this is the thing that we want to develop.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the whole team is gamers, of course.
SPEAKER_2: The main people also gamers, community-focused gamers.
SPEAKER_2: But still, the idea is that we wanted to make the ultimate social media for gamers.
SPEAKER_2: So the idea is that for gamers, for gamers like that.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to make sure that every features that we develop is really with care and design exclusively for gaming community.
SPEAKER_2: We call it gamer-centric.
SPEAKER_3: You mentioned before that with the GamerTag, you have all like an elaborating profile of what games you play, what platforms you are on.
SPEAKER_3: So it reminds me a bit of back in the day in the late 90s, early 2000s, with an ICQ number.
SPEAKER_3: When you wanted to instant message somebody, you only gave them your ICQ number and they were exactly knowing what you were talking about.
SPEAKER_3: Is that kind of what you try to be for the gaming world?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Exactly.
SPEAKER_3: You get it right.
SPEAKER_2: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to make it that we would evolve the upcoming question and we just get to the gaming.
SPEAKER_2: If I say that, are you a gamer?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I'm a Call of Duty gamer.
SPEAKER_2: That's it.
SPEAKER_2: I got it.
SPEAKER_2: I got your password.
SPEAKER_2: Let's go and play.
SPEAKER_2: So we have GamerTag Party inside GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: Me and you can schedule it at time.
SPEAKER_2: You will receive an according notification for it.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, it's the first version of GamerTag that we have launched.
SPEAKER_2: It's just two months.
SPEAKER_2: It's in the market.
SPEAKER_2: But it's quite robust enough.
SPEAKER_2: We have nearby players.
SPEAKER_2: You can look for the nearby people around you and for specific games also.
SPEAKER_2: You have your gamer passport.
SPEAKER_2: The platform is AI-powered, but really uniquely for the gaming community.
SPEAKER_2: I can elaborate on that, how it's much more different from the other platform, but-
SPEAKER_3: I mean, you mentioned Gantree.
SPEAKER_3: We had them here in the podcast as Gatsby before.
SPEAKER_3: Of course, I wonder how you want to outplay the current market leaders in that field.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, there must be a concept.
SPEAKER_3: So please explain it to us.
SPEAKER_2: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing that I can really highlight from the beginning is the AI power feature that we have.
SPEAKER_2: I can give you a concept because we are all gamers, we understand what I'm going to tell you.
SPEAKER_2: So imagine that you are a game developer.
SPEAKER_2: You make a game which is more like Call of Duty, but Modern Warfare series, not Black Ops series.
SPEAKER_2: You know the differences there.
SPEAKER_2: The Modern Warfare series is totally different from Black Ops.
SPEAKER_2: So it's more like Modern Warfare series.
SPEAKER_2: You have developed a game which is more like Modern Warfare series and you want it to promote it.
SPEAKER_2: As an indie developer, necessarily, you do not have a crazy amount of budget, and if you would not have a right connection, it would really make it hard for you to stand out.
SPEAKER_2: What you do that if you have a 10,000 or 20,000 budget, you will go to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all these big leader that have the gamers on them, and you can go and you can promote your content.
SPEAKER_2: Best case scenario, you can select that I wanted to show it to gamers and shooting gamers.
SPEAKER_2: So this would be the level of customization that you can have because those are designed for general purposes, not for gamer-centric focus.
SPEAKER_2: So you would do that and your game would be shown to all the shooting games and all the gamers, the gamers on the street, the shooters everywhere.
SPEAKER_2: So your conversion rate is around 90 percent out because that's the way that the platform is designed.
SPEAKER_2: It's not designed to let you be exposure to the ultimate audience.
SPEAKER_2: But the difference is in GamerTag is that if you have developed a game, more like Modern Warfare series, I can make sure, GamerTag can make sure that you would reach the final audiences on Modern Warfare series, not even Black Ops.
SPEAKER_2: The level of conversion is much more higher on the promotion feature that we have.
SPEAKER_2: Every penny that you are spending worth something because it's quite different.
SPEAKER_2: You need the gamers, we have them on our platform and we can categorize them in a different section and exactly target the next user that you want.
SPEAKER_2: The cool thing that GamerTag has as a startup is an achievement for us, is that we are adhering to both GDPR and DSA regulatory compelling, in the really good level because we have a law firm in collaboration that is with us, and it's a law firm of Meta and Nintendo Switch in Austria.
SPEAKER_2: So on the law firm section, we are quite robust and that helps us a lot in the past and now to be in company and with these frameworks.
SPEAKER_2: So everything is secure, so the nanomized and anonymized, but still with that framework, which is probably the hardest in the global level, we can provide more customization on the AI, for example, recommendation that we have, or on the AI moderation that we have.
SPEAKER_2: Because if you are 13, not a 13, a 15 years old child, you are going to Instagram, anything, you are looking Call of Duty, and it's okay with you and your family that you're playing Call of Duty.
SPEAKER_2: It's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_2: But if you go to Instagram, all the algorithm, it's in the way that it would filterize everything for you because it's shooting and violence, but still it's a game and you're okay with it.
SPEAKER_2: So in GamerTag, these things would not happen.
SPEAKER_2: Gaming won't have to remain fun and safe in parallel to you.
SPEAKER_2: So that's something that on the moderation system that we have uniquely to us, that's about the recommendation system, moderation system, and AR customization and personalization that we have.
SPEAKER_2: So that makes us stand out with the big giants.
SPEAKER_2: With the smaller one, it's different, also.
SPEAKER_3: But there you have the difference that different games have different age ratings in different countries and different law backgrounds, what you are allowed to show or advertise in certain countries.
SPEAKER_3: So that's making really very much everything complicated.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, you probably heard that here in Germany, on the 15th of November is the last day, Steam will display all the games that don't have an age rating in Germany.
SPEAKER_3: So you are potentially losing access to 23,000 games in two weeks.
SPEAKER_3: So, I mean, wow.
SPEAKER_3: So if you say you are doing an AI algorithm based on age rating of games and the age of the user, this is a lot of complicated stuff there because it could backfire if you're making wrong decisions.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: That's quite a complex of doing businesses, I think, in Europe, because we wanted to adhere the regulation, of course, respect them.
SPEAKER_2: But that is the complexity that exists for our competitors and for ourselves, too.
SPEAKER_2: On GamerTag, we have almost 250,000 game community listed, okay?
SPEAKER_2: How we have done that, it's a quarter of a million.
SPEAKER_2: Our competitors has a couple of thousand and we have a quarter of a million.
SPEAKER_2: The reason is that because we are in a collaboration with Twitch also.
SPEAKER_2: Wow.
SPEAKER_2: I told you, I made my mistakes in the past, the six start-up.
SPEAKER_4: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: It's a collaboration with Twitch, so we have a quarter of a million and it's going to be updated every while.
SPEAKER_2: But still, I wanted that our platform will respect the rules in the way that it has to be.
SPEAKER_2: We do not want it to change the whole equation.
SPEAKER_2: But with the children, we are a little more cautious.
SPEAKER_2: That's the uniqueness about the GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: Because if you look at the other competitors, which I would not, of course, name them, this is not part of their focus.
SPEAKER_2: They have a cool platform in their own opinion, but still children's experience are not necessarily getting take care of.
SPEAKER_3: That is why most platforms in America say 13 years and older.
SPEAKER_3: So they don't have to focus on the child issues and protection laws.
SPEAKER_2: We had lots of problems from the beginning.
SPEAKER_2: Also, we are adhering to those regulations, because, for example, I think if I'm not mistaken, in South Korea, for example, you cannot have basically a social media for under 14 years, or not at all.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, even TikTok is not available.
SPEAKER_2: Or you have to have a child version out of it, which people have in a couple of years, but it's not part of our focus now.
SPEAKER_2: Now GamerTag is only available for the people above 14 now.
SPEAKER_2: So under 14, unfortunately, we cannot now accept anyone, but that idea of children is under 18 for us.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, so twins and teens, I would call them.
SPEAKER_2: But the idea is that we would be robust enough, so in the future we can even cover more ages if we got the acceptance from the regulatory perspective that we can cover that.
SPEAKER_2: It's different from one country to another country, of course.
SPEAKER_2: But 14 years old, it's quite a safe environment.
SPEAKER_2: In some countries are 13, in some countries are 14.
SPEAKER_2: So we made the decision that do not overcomplicate everything for us, which is two months in the market.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the boundary that we put for the registration.
SPEAKER_3: Interesting.
SPEAKER_3: So can you walk us through, what's the core experience when I'm a new gamer user, and I'm having my Android or my iPhone, and I'm starting the app and registering?
SPEAKER_3: What's the experience?
SPEAKER_3: How I'm going to use the app to my advantage?
SPEAKER_2: Awesome.
SPEAKER_2: Great question.
SPEAKER_2: First thing is that you should put your age, because the platform will be adopted to your preferences.
SPEAKER_2: So the age is the same thing, the first thing that we need to have because we have to adopt the platform.
SPEAKER_2: Second, cool part about us, it's a game library.
SPEAKER_2: You can choose between 250,000 game community.
SPEAKER_2: From A to Z, basically, you can find them.
SPEAKER_2: It's really robust because of Twitch, and you can choose that.
SPEAKER_2: You can even choose the topics that you necessarily would like or something.
SPEAKER_2: Then as soon as this process is done, you would see a fit inside the GamerTag, which means that this fit has been developed.
SPEAKER_2: It's the first time that you're in the platform based on the choices that you have made until that point, so it would be customized from the very first step to you, and you have your own games listed above the whole fit, so you can be part of each community.
SPEAKER_2: The idea behind it, I had a meeting with the game developer in Dubai, who surprisingly, their game was listed on GamerTag, and in the beginning, he was like that, why you have our game listed in your platform?
SPEAKER_2: Then I talked to him and said that, yeah, that's cool because you have the whole world community in one place, you can be part of this, and we would make collaboration together, and at the end, he loved the idea.
SPEAKER_2: He told us how we can marketing this, because this is something that we really worried about, because as a marketing team, we have to go to hashtag on Instagram, go to YouTube, find some content on TikTok, to understand what people think about our game, but now everything is centralized inside one platform.
SPEAKER_2: The idea is that you would have a personalized feed for you.
SPEAKER_2: You can be connected from this month onward, you can be also connected to the people more have the same taste like you, like the people sharing the same type of attitude, comments, games.
SPEAKER_2: They are reaction most on the FIFA or 2K, so probably you would also be connected to them because you like more balling games, something like that.
SPEAKER_2: The platform would be more customized to you.
SPEAKER_2: You can connect with them, you can follow them like X or Instagram, I would call it.
SPEAKER_2: You can follow them, you can message with them, you can even schedule a meeting for playing game with them.
SPEAKER_2: You can see that where they are, and that's just the beginning from GamerTag perspective.
SPEAKER_2: So many features also upcoming in the next couple of months and weeks.
SPEAKER_2: But the beginning is that the level of connection that you can have and really understand who are the people in your mindset, not necessarily like one of our competitors like M3 on the psychology perspective.
SPEAKER_2: I like MIM, I cannot say in any other words that I like MIM.
SPEAKER_2: The way that I like it is that I like it, I comment on it, I wanted to interact with MIM.
SPEAKER_2: There should be a smart platform who understand me, not me trying to explain anything to a platform.
SPEAKER_2: The way that I wanted to interact, it should be personalized to me.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the idea of AI power that we have.
SPEAKER_2: And you have each game community, you can go to them, you can interact with the people.
SPEAKER_2: You can be just focused on one game or 10 games, whatever you want, but you have all the community inside the one centralized platform.
SPEAKER_2: That's the current experience of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: And it's going to be much more higher in the next couple of weeks and months.
SPEAKER_3: Now, you mentioned a couple of times that you are also offering a second experience for developers.
SPEAKER_3: So is that how you generally generate your income?
SPEAKER_3: Because the problem with platforms that start out new and after a while, they restrict access to features and make users want to get a subscription for the, for example, you can find like three gamers per day.
SPEAKER_3: And if you want more, you need a subscription and stuff.
SPEAKER_2: Tell me about it.
SPEAKER_2: I hate it.
SPEAKER_2: And I will make it formally in this podcast that as long as I'm the CEO of GamerTag, this would not be the case at all.
SPEAKER_2: GamerTag must remain free for the whole users globally.
SPEAKER_2: We always would have a free version because we wanted to, I mean, I do not want to say the word of democratize it, but I wanted the people to be connected in the way that they want.
SPEAKER_2: It sucks if you have to pay for it for these type of features.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: You have to be smart enough on the business model to make it more interesting.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: So you still have to pay your bills.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_2: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: The way that we will make money.
SPEAKER_2: It's now in three different variation.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: The first is a third party advertisement, which still sucks.
SPEAKER_2: I hate them.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: But that's going to help us clearly with the fixed cost of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: The second and the main revenue stream of GamerTag is the promotion feature.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: Like the Instagram.
SPEAKER_2: You would come to GamerTag, you would pay us to promote the content for you to reach your ultimate audience.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: Simple as that.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: It's the same model that Instagram use, TikTok use, every of these big social media.
SPEAKER_2: The problem of GamerTag was that from scratch, we were thinking big.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: We were not thinking that, okay, this month we wanted to make 1,000, next month we wanted to make 5,000.
SPEAKER_2: We were thinking that, okay, we create a platform.
SPEAKER_2: Our platform now is scalable to more than 100 million users by the infrastructure that we made.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to create a platform that is scalable from very beginning, and people can use it freely.
SPEAKER_2: We haven't been crushed in the last two months, which is great for a startup in our size.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: But that was the initial idea of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: So the promotion feature is our main revenue generating.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: If we make any better revenue, maybe the third-party advertisement will gone.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: It depends because this revenue generating from the promotion is for game developer, content creator, influencer, branding, anything related to game.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: If you're a comics person or something, if anything related to game, you can brand yourself in an environment full of gamers.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: If you are ES4 team, anything that is in the gaming world, you can branding within the community that is full of gamers.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the main revenue stream for us.
SPEAKER_2: Next year, we also going to do GamerTag Plus, which is a premium version of GamerTag, which would turn our business model to a freemium, but not in the way that you would not have an access to the free version.
SPEAKER_2: Always, there is a free version of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: That freemium is for the people with the really unique experiences.
SPEAKER_2: They want something really unique for them, or they have other purposes, so it needs more customization in their opinion.
SPEAKER_2: Still, I have to find out what are the ultimate thing that users might want.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the three main revenue stream of the GamerTag business plan.
SPEAKER_2: There are some other revenue, but it's not projected for the next two years.
SPEAKER_2: These were three things.
SPEAKER_1: Interesting.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing that I, because now we are talking about business, it might be relevant because for me, from the beginning was that we will create something special for gamers.
SPEAKER_2: That's the reason that we have a gamer-centric team.
SPEAKER_2: All the people are gamers in GamerTag, and they are from eight different countries globally.
SPEAKER_2: There are 25 people from eight different parties.
SPEAKER_2: We have employee from America, Italy, Germany, here, Austria, Malta, Georgia, Australia.
SPEAKER_2: Globally, I mean, our time-wise is crazy, and the meetings are the problem most of the time.
SPEAKER_2: But the one thing uniquely about GamerTag is that until this point, I didn't accept any investment inside the GamerTag, because I wanted to keep the company in the way that the gamers want, not an investor wants.
SPEAKER_2: It's not about how you make money.
SPEAKER_2: If I been diluted, it would impact a lot.
SPEAKER_2: 100 percent of the companies own internally by the co-founders.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea that from this point, we keep it in this way.
SPEAKER_2: We spend a lot on developing it, of course, but it's forced to be in this way because I wanted to make sure that it would be given to the right hands from the investment perspective.
SPEAKER_2: So that's something that basically I do not care, because we wanted to make it the right type of collaboration, and I wanted to reach GamerTag in this level that, okay, we won the award, we won the user base, we have been recognized.
SPEAKER_2: Now, it's enough for the people to believe in our vision, our mission, and our uniqueness.
SPEAKER_3: Now, of course, the question is, you said you approached Twitch and they agreed to be your business partner.
SPEAKER_3: Now, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_3: Amazon, they must think there is an advantage in helping you for some reason.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, they are not the good business people that just do it because they are so nice and wholesome.
SPEAKER_1: Not altruistic.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: The partnership that they have to be, Twitch is with one of their subsidiary called IGDB.
SPEAKER_2: I do not know that you've heard about it.
SPEAKER_2: It's owned by Twitch.
SPEAKER_2: The IGDB has this immersive amount of game documentary.
SPEAKER_2: It's their main focus.
SPEAKER_2: You know, the business model of GamerTag, it's not like any other competitors.
SPEAKER_2: The business model of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: The social media for gamers, you can call a lot.
SPEAKER_2: Discord is a great messaging app.
SPEAKER_2: Twitch is the perfect streaming.
SPEAKER_2: The business model of us is quite different, even with Game 3 or the other competitors in their smaller size.
SPEAKER_2: Whenever I pitch GamerTag idea to an investor, it happens all the time.
SPEAKER_2: They would tell me that, yeah, but I think it's simple.
SPEAKER_2: Why such a thing doesn't exist?
SPEAKER_2: Then they go and after two weeks, they will return like I said, it's crazy, such a thing doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_2: You're unique, that's the way that you are doing.
SPEAKER_2: If you're a gamer, you immediately understand, this is not existing in the market.
SPEAKER_2: But yeah, I cannot predict about the collaboration that we have in the future.
SPEAKER_2: But the idea I think that from the Giants is that, they're always looking for a good collaboration.
SPEAKER_2: They're always looking for from the beginning that what could have the perspective.
SPEAKER_2: They would not make a deal that if this cannot be really big, they would not make that type of deal with them.
SPEAKER_2: So I hope that this continue but in the good way.
SPEAKER_2: That's the reason that I didn't accept any investor side because I wanted to make sure that we would keep it in the way that gamers want until we need help, and then we would raise the money for it.
SPEAKER_1: Now, you're mentioned that he was looking at the iOS version.
SPEAKER_1: I've noticed that that's not available in the US at the moment.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: That's one of the thing on the regulation because we also, I think we have to adhere to the HIPAA, if I'm not mistaken, the name.
SPEAKER_2: We are adhering to the GDPR and DSA, but for the HIPAA, the servers need to be in the USA.
SPEAKER_2: So on the technical side, I have to make sure that we are adhering to the regulation too.
SPEAKER_2: I am trying to fix this, but as a smaller startup, it's hard.
SPEAKER_2: I love to be in US because the app is in English.
SPEAKER_2: Come on.
SPEAKER_2: It's also available in Deutsch but not really good Deutsch.
SPEAKER_2: But yeah, that's something that I need a little cooperation for it because it's not that me or my co-founder decide, it means that how much collaboration that we have.
SPEAKER_2: But of course, US is one of the biggest market for us.
SPEAKER_3: I'm actually surprised to hear that the EU is first compared to US on something, because normally the EU is always behind the Americans.
SPEAKER_3: Think about threats that took a year to actually launch in European countries, and now you say you don't have the app in America, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_2: It happened from the beginning.
SPEAKER_2: I would say it wasn't planned, but it happened from the beginning, because I was in Austria, I became a COO of four different companies here, and then I just wanted to quit and create this app.
SPEAKER_2: I was here and we saw that GDPR and DSA are the hardest one.
SPEAKER_2: If we wanted to really promote it, we have to doing it in probably the hardest place.
SPEAKER_2: But the most important factor in the beginning for us was that, US, great, every social medias are there basically.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the TikTok is maybe from Asia, but everything else is in the US and perfectly, it has been designed.
SPEAKER_2: But in Europe, we don't have a crazy social media design from the Europe.
SPEAKER_2: The idea of child safety, I would call it that it's a family value base, and I wanted to be in the place who really cares about the family values.
SPEAKER_2: US care, Europe care, everywhere in the world.
SPEAKER_2: What is more important than children?
SPEAKER_2: I don't think anything globally is more important than the next generation.
SPEAKER_2: But I thought that in the Europe, we can have much more support for starting it here.
SPEAKER_2: And the feedback has been quite good because we are in company with the frameworks of the regulations, but also on the child safety, I wanted to start it from here, from the Europe.
SPEAKER_3: Which is interesting.
SPEAKER_3: Why do you make yourself things complicated?
SPEAKER_3: You could also say we do the child feature later, and then you could start in the US simultaneously.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I think that in GamerTag, so much thing happens so much fast.
SPEAKER_2: Because on the HIPAA, I'm mentioning that basically, it's not technically a complex situation, because we can easily just do the server side and go to America.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, GDPR is much more complex than HIPAA, so we can really adhere to that.
SPEAKER_2: It's a matter of I have the right type of collaboration, to deal with this.
SPEAKER_4: Sorry.
SPEAKER_3: No problem.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, it was just one rendering, right?
SPEAKER_3: Now, well, so what, how do you think you could overcome cultural differences in gaming?
SPEAKER_3: I mean, for example, there are some countries where games and game companies don't really have a good reputation.
SPEAKER_3: I just think about China, where there is speculation now that children cannot play game after a certain hour of the day or...
SPEAKER_1: Is that a thing?
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, that's actually a thing.
SPEAKER_1: Really?
SPEAKER_3: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_4: Why?
SPEAKER_3: I don't know.
SPEAKER_3: It's super weird, but it's actually...
SPEAKER_1: How is that enforced?
SPEAKER_3: Well, since many people in China actually use internet cafes for gaming, online and so on, they shut them down after a certain hour and so on.
SPEAKER_3: And yeah, so this is how it's basically enforced.
SPEAKER_3: And also, I remember a few years back, we had an interview with somebody from Venezuela, which also isn't very much fond of the video game industry there.
SPEAKER_3: So companies that produce video games actually had to close down and relocate to other Latin American countries because the Venezuelan government would crack down on them.
SPEAKER_3: So that is making things a lot more complicated.
SPEAKER_3: Are you excluding those special cases?
SPEAKER_3: Or are you trying to embrace China and Venezuela and other countries anyway, in any shape or form?
SPEAKER_3: I wonder.
SPEAKER_2: That's a really good question.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the idea is that it has to be democratized for everyone.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, but still we have to respect the rule of each region and country.
SPEAKER_4: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: This is not something that is in my control, but making it available in some specific countries is in my control.
SPEAKER_2: And the idea is that I wanted to respect each country's regulation.
SPEAKER_2: And first of all, we would make sure that we are adhering to some extent to the regulation, and then we can move in in those countries.
SPEAKER_2: So the good thing about the GDPR and the USA was that we would okay with the whole European Union basically on the data subject.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, still there are some differences on so many levels, but it was good enough for a startup in our size.
SPEAKER_2: Definitely, we would have more consideration in the future, even in the countries that we are now available, we have to adhere to certain type of regulation.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the promotion feature that we are doing, which makes us some money, it's different from one geography to another geography.
SPEAKER_2: Because, for example, I will not just give an example.
SPEAKER_2: In Europe, maybe it's okay to promote an alcohol, but in the Middle East, it's totally prohibited.
SPEAKER_2: So you have to respect based on the region and the different type of regulation based on the content that has been shared.
SPEAKER_2: That's something that I wanted to respect, of course, from the regulatory perspective.
SPEAKER_2: But the idea is that we do not want to restrict anything.
SPEAKER_2: We want to democratize that people can really show their gaming journey.
SPEAKER_2: The idea is gaming journey.
SPEAKER_2: It's nothing political or nothing something like this.
SPEAKER_2: Because it's not a general social media, so we would not have those type of problems maybe.
SPEAKER_2: It's a gamer centering.
SPEAKER_2: So as long as it is in the game-focused environment, in parallel with respecting to the each country's regulation, we would try to make GamerTag available in those countries.
SPEAKER_2: But as much as we got more users from each country, we have to be more sure that everything is okay with that.
SPEAKER_2: May I ask a question?
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Have you downloaded the app?
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, I did.
SPEAKER_3: Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: How did you feel about it?
SPEAKER_2: Because the one thing that I always do every day, I try to talk to a user.
SPEAKER_2: I wanted to ask your opinion about it.
SPEAKER_3: Well, I mean, for me, the experience was quite good.
SPEAKER_3: I was happy to notice that I wasn't asked to subscribe or pay something because that is what happens a lot, or that suddenly at some point, I would get a banner interrupting me or something.
SPEAKER_3: Something is on my glasses.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, well, so I was very glad that there wasn't something in your face, you know, which is actually what happened with other social media platforms, especially in the gamer field, that at some point when the app was a year old or two years old, they started limiting features and you suddenly had, like, as I said, like, banners in between, or I would be asked on my iPhone, like, do you want to make a subscription?
SPEAKER_3: You know, and I would try to make the window close, but not accidentally clicking on yes.
SPEAKER_3: So I was very happy to see that despite you are a startup, that you don't try any wild tactics to get money in.
SPEAKER_3: But as I said at the beginning of the interview, you will at some point start displaying ads, but hopefully in a decent way that doesn't disturb the user too much.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: No, the idea is that now we have even the third-party advertisement, which would not disturb you.
SPEAKER_2: I like it because if it hasn't disturbed you until this point, we would keep it in this way.
SPEAKER_2: Still, we have the third-party advertisement inside the app.
SPEAKER_2: But for example, the one thing that we hate is these big ads that force you to watch an ad for 30 seconds and until you are finished, you have to wait.
SPEAKER_2: I don't like them.
SPEAKER_2: That's the reason that I have to twist the business model to make the money-making from another way, not from necessarily the ads.
SPEAKER_2: The ads would just help us to maintain the fixed cost.
SPEAKER_2: We would optimize them and the idea is that we will always try to minimize the level of disturbance that those ads can bring to the user.
SPEAKER_2: It would not really interfere with you, but still it would help us keep the platform free of charge.
SPEAKER_2: On the business side, it's a chess we are playing because with that being said, means that we need thousands of users really fast.
SPEAKER_2: We need to promote it, more users bring more value to the GamerTag, more promotion going to happen.
SPEAKER_2: But I wanted to keep it free, so more users, it's actually beneficial for us, and I do not want to disturb more users by making more money.
SPEAKER_2: This is not the idea of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: The idea of GamerTag that we create the ultimate social media for gamers, and not making millions and millions of dollar at all.
SPEAKER_2: It's the idea is that it's from our heart to make it for the game community and the promotion would help it.
SPEAKER_2: But that needs a lot of user, honestly, because it needs a couple of hundreds of thousand monthly active users, which is quite tricky for the next two to three years to gain.
SPEAKER_2: But after that, if we have enough users, and you know the gaming community, they are serious, if they love it, like now, they can just boost it, and that's the support that I wanted to get from the community to just keep it free.
SPEAKER_2: I even hate the Google Ads.
SPEAKER_2: I just wanted to even remove them in the next couple of years, because if we are making money from the promotion like Instagram, we can keep the whole total platform for free, and that's the goal that we wanted to reach.
SPEAKER_2: But yeah, now we have it, but I think the minimum, it has been minimized in the disturbance, which I like it that you found in this way.
SPEAKER_1: It's what I like to hear too, because a lot of social media platforms, they always say like if you're not paying for something, then you're the product.
SPEAKER_1: And that's the thing that Facebook does, where they sell your information, that's how they make most of their money.
SPEAKER_1: And you're not doing that at all.
SPEAKER_1: You're trying to keep this, especially when kids are involved, you're really, you know.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you mentioned a really good point.
SPEAKER_2: The one most, one of the most important factor for us is the security of data of the user, okay?
SPEAKER_2: We would not play with it at all, okay?
SPEAKER_2: It's crazy that even as an owner, we cannot be connected to it, okay?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, onto some level GDPR allowed because you have to keep the platform safe, that's clear.
SPEAKER_2: But we have now the blocking system, the content moderation, the reporting system, and everything as a social media should have is now inside the GamerTag and our team are every day, 24 hours, analyze everything that if everything should go okay with the content that has been shared.
SPEAKER_2: But the security on GamerTag is in the really top level and that's coming from our great dev team, the development team and AI department and our software department because that's a level of high security that we wanted to have.
SPEAKER_2: Our business model is not on the data, like two or three of our competitors.
SPEAKER_2: Our business model is not just on the huge amount of advertisement.
SPEAKER_2: Even the promotion, you would not understand it's a promotion.
SPEAKER_2: It would be integrated inside your feed and it would be customized based on your personalization.
SPEAKER_2: It's also AI powered.
SPEAKER_2: So if you don't like, let's say 2K at all, you don't like basketball at all and you're not following it and you're not a football player at all, you would not receive a promotion regarding 2K.
SPEAKER_2: That's the level of personalization that we wanted to have.
SPEAKER_2: But we need lots of users to keep it in this way.
SPEAKER_2: But some things are redlined, like the safety of the data is a red line.
SPEAKER_2: And that's from the scratch.
SPEAKER_2: It's like this.
SPEAKER_2: It's nothing that we can now even do about it because it has to be like this because there is no data to share.
SPEAKER_2: You know, enough is enough.
SPEAKER_2: You know, how much we wanted to give our data to the big platforms to just get access to it and personalize everything and try to sell something for us to make us the product itself.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to keep it in this way that everything is so anonymized and anonymized, but the seal would be personalized to each user preferences.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea behind the game.
SPEAKER_1: How would you deal with something like, because another big thing in the world of gaming, and this is a thing that's seen on Twitch a lot and other things, is just like this.
SPEAKER_1: There is a toxic element within some gaming cultures.
SPEAKER_1: How are you planning to deal with that amongst the people using it?
SPEAKER_2: Really good question.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing that I think that we can all agree on it is that the gaming community basically comes with a level of toxicity.
SPEAKER_2: You cannot deny it.
SPEAKER_2: Because it's a place that people come to reveal themselves from the real world.
SPEAKER_2: We need to really not just on the business side or idea side, but more on the academic side, we have to investigate this issue to have some solutions for it.
SPEAKER_2: For that, I even hired a person who has a child safety certificate from UNESCO, and he has been graduate from gaming studies in his master's degree, just to deep research on that, how we can address that without making it boring.
SPEAKER_2: Because if you come and said, I wanted to filterize everything, then you are making the most boring platform globally.
SPEAKER_2: But still, you wanted to keep it in the way that gamers want.
SPEAKER_2: For example, one thing that gamers want, it's that they want to be anonymized.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea behind the gaming profile.
SPEAKER_2: You will not go to something like Reddit and understand who is Amir is in the real life.
SPEAKER_2: That's not the idea.
SPEAKER_2: I want to be anonymized.
SPEAKER_2: That's something that we have to also respect in that.
SPEAKER_2: We even don't consider that what is your username or real name, you have to confirm that to us.
SPEAKER_2: Nothing like this exists in the GamerTag because we wanted to respect your privacy.
SPEAKER_2: But there are some level that we have so much research about it, and we are now making a paper out of it to be registered as an IP, that how uniquely we can do that.
SPEAKER_2: Like the level of toxicity or the level of abusation or the level of cyberbullying that can happen.
SPEAKER_2: It's different from one person to another person.
SPEAKER_2: It's different from one culture to another culture.
SPEAKER_2: It's even different from one family to another family.
SPEAKER_2: It's the valuation of each of these is different, and we have done a deep research and develop our business model out of it.
SPEAKER_2: So it would be, I would not say perfect, but it would be near to the perfect that for the whole audiences.
SPEAKER_2: For example, to give you an example, that on the child safety.
SPEAKER_2: Imagine that we have two family.
SPEAKER_2: My family and your family, total different culture, total different background that we have.
SPEAKER_2: For example, in my family, violence is not a big issue.
SPEAKER_2: My father is okay, me playing Call of Duty, for example.
SPEAKER_2: But maybe sexuality or nudity is a problem because I'm from Middle East, or I'm from a different region, or maybe alcoholism is a problem for any reason.
SPEAKER_2: So we have to customize it.
SPEAKER_2: In that regard, in GamerTag, we are creating an ecosystem of child safety.
SPEAKER_2: With that being said, is that later on next year, you can be even connected to your father or mother.
SPEAKER_2: It has to be decided from both parties, children and parents.
SPEAKER_2: But there are two main things in this ecosystem.
SPEAKER_2: The first, we have to respect the privacy of children.
SPEAKER_2: This is one of the main pillar.
SPEAKER_2: We will not just give it away what happened here.
SPEAKER_2: For example, as a parent, you cannot see the content of the chat that your children is doing, because this is his privacy or her privacy.
SPEAKER_2: But if someone older than 18 is just messaging, or wanted to be connected to your child, you should know about it.
SPEAKER_2: It doesn't mean that that person is a bad guy or a good guy, but still it has to be communicated in a respectful way.
SPEAKER_2: Even on the moderation that we are providing, we are doing it in the way that you can even adjust how much moderation that you as a child or you as a parent wanted to have.
SPEAKER_2: It has been decided mutually.
SPEAKER_2: It's not my father tell me and that has to be this way.
SPEAKER_2: No, it has to be mutually.
SPEAKER_2: I'm against violence, so it has to be maybe three-star on filterizing violence, but I'm okay with the sexuality, or I'm okay with my child playing GTA.
SPEAKER_2: It's okay for me.
SPEAKER_2: It's okay for you.
SPEAKER_2: It has to be in that way.
SPEAKER_2: GamerTag adapts its feature to the level that you want.
SPEAKER_2: That took us a lot of time to develop all these planning and really get into the game.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, I think I have an example there.
SPEAKER_3: For example, when I went back in 1996, when I went at Toys R Us here in Germany, and I remember the first physical PC game I bought from my own money, pocket money was actually Command and Conquer.
SPEAKER_3: And in Germany, that's actually for 16 and up.
SPEAKER_3: And I was 15 at that time.
SPEAKER_3: And at the cash register, my mom was like, okay, the one year difference doesn't matter to me.
SPEAKER_3: You can buy it, you know.
SPEAKER_3: And I guess that is basically what you are referring to.
SPEAKER_3: So by law, I would not be allowed to play a game because I was one year too young.
SPEAKER_3: But as my mom said, it's fine.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, the idea is that we would just give this flexibility.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, this has to be features available on the GamerTag platform.
SPEAKER_2: You can use it as a child or you cannot use it.
SPEAKER_2: You can use it as a parent or you cannot use it.
SPEAKER_2: It's totally your decision, okay?
SPEAKER_2: The platform will provide these type of features to keep gaming fun and safe.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea, okay, behind it, okay?
SPEAKER_2: We do not want to restrict anything and we want saying that we are protecting children in an online world.
SPEAKER_2: This is a really big sentence to say and we are not claiming it at all.
SPEAKER_2: I'm always telling to the potential investors that we wanted to be the first platform taking the initial steps towards a better world, okay?
SPEAKER_2: It's not that we wanted to solve the whole equation.
SPEAKER_2: It's not like that.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted that.
SPEAKER_2: We have done a lot of research, a really deep research.
SPEAKER_2: I said thousands of surveys we conducted globally to understand that what is the ultimate social media that gamers want.
SPEAKER_2: One crazy fact that I have now is that in our search, based on the things that we have developed, 95 percent of our audience is told that we want such a social media.
SPEAKER_2: That's the reason that the GamerTag is going with the world of math.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not putting anything in marketing and surpass more than $10,000 within one month.
SPEAKER_2: I actually scared because I thought that within the first quarter, we would reach 5,000 monthly active users and then it reached 16,000.
SPEAKER_2: I was thinking that, okay guys, let me help to handle everything because I think it's going further than I thought.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the idea because it has been designed by gamers for gamers.
SPEAKER_2: So we will try always to keep it in this way, that it would remain the ultimate social media for the gaming community.
SPEAKER_3: Can we talk a bit more about what you are planning to give as a feature or feature set to developers?
SPEAKER_3: Because you mentioned it a couple of times, but so far we only focused on the end user gamer experience.
SPEAKER_3: You also mentioned right at the beginning of the interview that it is very hard for, as I said, indie developers to get a following and to be known.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, there are some exceptions.
SPEAKER_3: Just to imagine Didelic, which became actually famous because of the horrible Golem game.
SPEAKER_3: I don't know if that is something you would want as a company and for their bad work ethics.
SPEAKER_3: And oh my god, it's actually a German company, so wow.
SPEAKER_3: And so, but I guess, as you also mentioned the big brands like Call of Duty and so on, I guess the hard part will be to get the triple A publishers, the big ones like EA, whatsoever to support you as a platform.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: That's, I tried to explain it in the way that we think about it, okay?
SPEAKER_2: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: The idea is that if you are an indie game developer, you would have a hard time to get the exposure that you deserve, okay?
SPEAKER_2: And what does it mean that you deserve?
SPEAKER_2: You deserve means that the game that you develop is popular, at least in your region, okay?
SPEAKER_2: People are talking about it, people are downloading it, using it, they are making a promotion out of it, okay?
SPEAKER_2: And for you, it's hard from the time that you finish your development process to marketing it, you know, because you have to put basically how much money you are putting to get more users to playing it, okay?
SPEAKER_2: And if it's that's a cool game, and if you don't have unlimited amount of money, you would be restricted in some points, okay?
SPEAKER_2: So the idea is that when you have developed a really cool game and you get a good exposure in the market that you're active in, Okay, so the first thing we can understand, we can help you to pursue your globalization process, region after region, country after country, continent after continent, and go global.
SPEAKER_2: You don't need any publisher in between to help you.
SPEAKER_2: You don't need to convince anyone.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing that the one people that you should convince is the gamer themselves.
SPEAKER_2: Who cares about the whole process and what's going on?
SPEAKER_2: The people like it and it has to go globalize.
SPEAKER_2: It's the idea of viral video.
SPEAKER_2: The video production now, it's that people love it and something go viral.
SPEAKER_2: It has to be a platform that do these things for games too.
SPEAKER_2: We don't have a decentralized platform, and we need a platform who has the gamers on them.
SPEAKER_2: GamerTag just has gamers.
SPEAKER_2: It doesn't have, for example, a general audience.
SPEAKER_2: If it's something working GamerTag, it can work globally.
SPEAKER_2: GamerTag could be, first of all, your marketing place, basically, because you can exactly target what is more appropriate for you.
SPEAKER_2: Then it could also be your community base.
SPEAKER_2: You can even list your game inside the GamerTag and centralize your whole platform inside the one centralized thing.
SPEAKER_2: Of course, you need your website and everything, but you didn't need to pay for blog articles.
SPEAKER_2: Go to Reddit and write about it.
SPEAKER_2: Talk on TikTok with the influencers and go to Instagram and streaming it on YouTube or something.
SPEAKER_2: You can do those things, of course.
SPEAKER_2: But if you have a centralized platform that all the people following your game is in one platform, you can do it much more easier.
SPEAKER_2: You can give your updates immediately like a posting Instagram photo but inside the GamerTag now, because you are connected to your ultimate audience.
SPEAKER_2: The other thing that we have planned to do is through the development process.
SPEAKER_2: For example, how we can provide you with a robust authentication so you don't need to invest in the authentication of your GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: GamerTag could be your authentication process, but these are not really clarified for us how we can help them.
SPEAKER_2: This is something that we put the focus later on.
SPEAKER_2: But for example, the promotion feature that I described to you up to this point is exactly for game developer to use it to gain the exposure that they deserve.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea that they wanted to help game developer.
SPEAKER_3: Right now, I feel that a lot of promotion for developers happens on Steam.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: It's happening on the Steams, but it also have its own limitation.
SPEAKER_2: For example, if you are a mobile game developer, just to give you some example, the game industry is projected to grow to more than 400 billion valuation by 2029.
SPEAKER_2: Just the gaming industry.
SPEAKER_2: Already, more than 60 percent, or exact number if I'm not mistaken, is 60.3 percent of mobile game developer have reported that the market is overcrowded.
SPEAKER_2: They cannot gain the exposure.
SPEAKER_2: There should be a platform helping them.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, we have a Steam, we have even Twitch also, but their idea is different from what we are doing.
SPEAKER_2: We are more like I would call X in the gaming world, Twitter in the gaming world.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_2: But it's not X, it's not Instagram, it's not Twitch, it's not Discord, it's not even Steam.
SPEAKER_2: It's totally different world.
SPEAKER_2: I think that it's clear now for you what is the difference between GamerTag and GameTree.
SPEAKER_2: It's totally different idea that we have.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, GamerTag mostly focuses on the gamer and not so much on developers or being a promotion platform for new products, not like that.
SPEAKER_3: Exactly.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: If I am on GamerTag as a user, can I say I want to search friends who have a certain demographic?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Sure.
SPEAKER_2: It's the level of adaptation that we are doing now.
SPEAKER_2: For example, I think from next month, if I'm not mistaken, by the end of November, you will even receive the people in your region on the recommendation system that we have.
SPEAKER_2: But the recommendation system is different.
SPEAKER_2: For example, now we are in contact with both Sony and Microsoft for this.
SPEAKER_2: I hope that everything goes well with them.
SPEAKER_2: But the idea is that we can integrate the API in the most lawful way, so we can integrate the achievement from each game too.
SPEAKER_2: Imagine that you are playing Call of Duty Warzone and your level is 64.
SPEAKER_2: If it's integrated to the GamerTag, that's the level of personalization that we are heading.
SPEAKER_2: If it's integrated to the GamerTag and I'm playing Warzone, you are in Germany and I'm even in, I don't know, Turkey or South Korea or anything.
SPEAKER_2: Still, the system will recommend us together.
SPEAKER_2: Why?
SPEAKER_2: Because we are more like mindset together.
SPEAKER_2: We are more like the game together and we are more like the level together.
SPEAKER_2: If we are in the same level, we can find each other.
SPEAKER_2: This is super cool.
SPEAKER_2: Because if it's just restricted to the region, the benefit is that you can speak Deutsch in it, which is cool.
SPEAKER_2: But still, it could be a person on America that has the same interest as you and in no other platform you can be connected to.
SPEAKER_2: Because other platform is more focusing on the region, but we are focusing on the region and also on the game and also on the content that you like and also on the way your personality has been evolved inside the GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: So your profile is different from mine, but we can be connected globally, not just region, not just psychology test, not just these type of features.
SPEAKER_2: It's our gaming journey.
SPEAKER_2: The idea is that we have the gaming journey of each gamer and then connect them together.
SPEAKER_3: Another question.
SPEAKER_3: You don't have to tell me in detail, obviously, because apparently it's a business secret.
SPEAKER_3: But what do you do when somebody signs up and lies about age, about where he is coming from, all about that?
SPEAKER_3: Because all the concepts you explained only work if everybody who signs up is honest.
SPEAKER_3: The details he's putting.
SPEAKER_1: I think that happens quite a bit because I know in the US, anyway, a lot of the social media platforms, you have to be 18 or older to get on.
SPEAKER_1: But there's lots of people that are below that, that are on there.
SPEAKER_1: They just put in the wrong agent.
SPEAKER_2: Exactly.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: This is even a big problem that even bigger companies like Instagram is now dealing with.
SPEAKER_2: They have announced occasionally that they are developing some AI model that even predict that the person who has put the age is really that age or not.
SPEAKER_2: It depends on the level of complexity and the level of manpower and technique that the platform has.
SPEAKER_2: But still, honestly now it's on the trust base, especially on the age, it's on the trust base.
SPEAKER_2: But we would use those type of models in the future to understand that is it anything okay or it's not.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea also.
SPEAKER_2: It's a complex concept, I would say, because there are arguments that people, even they lie, if they don't pose any issues, are you allowed to change anything?
SPEAKER_2: These are some complex on the psychology side behind it, so we have to take care of them really in depth.
SPEAKER_3: Interesting.
SPEAKER_3: Can you tell us a bit about your roadmap?
SPEAKER_3: In that regard, when can I as a user expect to, or perhaps tell us different views also, as a developer, where do you think you will be at the timeframe point to be feature complete, to actually be useful?
SPEAKER_3: I mean, you mentioned briefly like you hope that in two or three years, you will have a certain amount of community size, but I mean, honestly, I don't want to wait two or three years until I can use the app.
SPEAKER_1: I see on the Google Play Store, there's already over 10,000 downloads there.
SPEAKER_1: That's not even counting iOS.
SPEAKER_1: I can't see that one.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: Well, I only see Germany.
SPEAKER_3: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: There's quite a few downloads already.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: It just went really big from the scratch.
SPEAKER_2: But honestly, the thing is now that we are doing is, we will simultaneously add in the features on the GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: So nothing is stopped.
SPEAKER_2: Basically, we have launched it.
SPEAKER_2: We had the beta version, we had the alpha version in the beginning, and then the beta version, and now it's the final version available to the users.
SPEAKER_2: But more features are adding to the GamerTag on the monthly basis.
SPEAKER_2: The one thing that I think most entrepreneurs, or at least CEOs from my side, I would say, claiming that is that we wanted to fight the product market fit.
SPEAKER_2: The product market fit is that the concept or the accumulation of the feature that works.
SPEAKER_2: This is, I think, the hardest part in the world for an entrepreneurship journey.
SPEAKER_2: Because when you have something international, something works in Europe, which not works in Asia and which not works in America.
SPEAKER_2: So you have to adopt your platform even geographically, and finding the right product market fit, it's really hard.
SPEAKER_2: That's the reason that every day I try to have a call or a meeting with the users personally to understand that what they think about GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: Do you like them?
SPEAKER_2: Do you hate them?
SPEAKER_2: What we can improve?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, this is the most, I think that as a CEO, that's my main job to be connected to the user, not funding or something.
SPEAKER_2: It's just about talking to the end user.
SPEAKER_2: So that's something that we already take care of.
SPEAKER_2: But I think it's a part of an illusion if you say that in a couple of years, we will reach the product market feed.
SPEAKER_2: This is the best-case scenario that can happen, but you can see even big, big companies takes them 10 years or 15 years to find the right product market feed.
SPEAKER_2: But in GamerTag on the different level, we have our program management.
SPEAKER_2: I talk about our portfolio, but on program management, we have different categories.
SPEAKER_2: The one is GamerTag, for example, Nexus or the one is GamerTag Vanguard.
SPEAKER_2: The Vanguard is something that doesn't exist at all in the gaming world.
SPEAKER_2: Or in GamerTag Nexus, is that something it's available, but we wanted to adopt it to the gaming world.
SPEAKER_2: So for example, like Nearby Players, it exists on the platform.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, in Europe not anymore, but it exists on Telegram, for example.
SPEAKER_2: So we adapted to the gaming world, and now you can choose a game to see that who is playing near you.
SPEAKER_2: So this is not really unique, but we are adopting it.
SPEAKER_2: So we have the customer journey for a year, for example, and then we would adopt the features, so GamerTag would remain fresh, even for the user who join us in the January, or who would join us in December, it would remain fresh and new features will be added on it.
SPEAKER_2: That's the idea of being in a startup, because we are not robust on the product market.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that I think can happen in the next two to three years, is that we have a couple of features that we know they work in different regions, and then we can accumulate all those data and have almost a good version of GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: The good thing about our current user base is that the platform cannot get boring, because now it's every week, we are updating it.
SPEAKER_2: It's not that we are updating even with feature, because we have so many features in the beta testing now, and we are testing it, and as soon as we got understand that, okay, this is cool, it can be gone, it's got the green light from the C level of GamerTag, then it would be published, and then after that.
SPEAKER_2: It would not be boring at all, because some new features, we would not be some of those platform that now, if you open them, some features is not working.
SPEAKER_2: We would keep it fresh, but hopefully, the ultimate version would be achievable in the next two to three years.
SPEAKER_2: And the ultimate version is, believe me, totally different from the current version that we have.
SPEAKER_2: Even three months ago, when we launched it, it was totally different from the user experience that we have now.
SPEAKER_2: That's the level of differentiation that we have, because we are investigating a lot.
SPEAKER_2: We have a really robust R&D department, and because we are an agile team, we are immediately adapt the platform in the way that the users prefer.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the idea.
SPEAKER_3: Awesome.
SPEAKER_3: So where can people find out about it and download it and use it?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the one thing that we are in competition is the GamerTag name, as you mentioned.
SPEAKER_2: That's one thing that we are in competition.
SPEAKER_2: But yeah, the people can use it on both App Store and Google Play.
SPEAKER_2: They can download it.
SPEAKER_2: The platform is available in 60 countries, but I don't know how people from the other 100 countries are downloading it.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe they are using some VPN or something to be connected to different region.
SPEAKER_2: But the platform is available in the 60 countries, whole Europe almost and MENA region too, a couple of countries in Asia also, which do not have some big restriction on the data regulation.
SPEAKER_2: It's not unfortunately available in America and in East side of Asia, like Japan or South Korea, because again, I have to adhere to those regulations.
SPEAKER_2: They can always go to our website, gamertag.app, and it's always the last version.
SPEAKER_2: They're also to go directly to App Store or Google Play to download it, or just search us on the Google Play and App Store, and then they can find us.
SPEAKER_1: Awesome.
SPEAKER_1: I'll put links to everything in the podcast description down below.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_2: Thank you.
SPEAKER_2: That's all.
SPEAKER_3: May I ask you, do you have a time plan when you want to release it in Japan and USA?
SPEAKER_2: I wish that under Japan, no, honestly, under Japan, no, because I have to be sure that we are adhering to the regulations.
SPEAKER_2: And in some countries, the level of restriction, it's not easy to adhere to them.
SPEAKER_2: So we have to be sure that at least on the government level of that countries, you are okay to go to that countries, because we wanted to respect each region's regulation, basically, as we did in Europe.
SPEAKER_3: Which is interesting.
SPEAKER_3: I always thought Japan is quite open to gamers and stuff.
SPEAKER_2: Of course, yeah, of course, of course it is.
SPEAKER_2: Of course it is.
SPEAKER_2: The thing is that, you know, honestly, I'm a really bad planner.
SPEAKER_2: No, I'm a really bad planner.
SPEAKER_4: It's not good to stay as a CEO.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, I predicted wrong type of NAUs in the beginning.
SPEAKER_2: In the beginning that we wanted to launch it, we supposed to finish the platform in two years.
SPEAKER_2: Because as you can see, it's a big platform.
SPEAKER_2: We did it in one year.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: So when we started, we finished it in one year.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: So, I mean, I saved a lot of money to developing it, but it still, it has to be a lots of sacrifices on the manpower to doing it.
SPEAKER_2: And we did it, it gets successful.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, we won the award and now we wanted to even expand it to another region.
SPEAKER_2: My idea is that from the beginning, we wanted to do the UPSALA model in the business.
SPEAKER_2: UPSALA model means that you're covering in one region, you're a good market presence, and then you move to another region, and then to another region.
SPEAKER_2: But it didn't work in my plan, because now we have some users, for example, in the five rank countries, that even the GamerTag is not available in those countries, but it's a five rank people downloading site.
SPEAKER_2: So those countries are much more interesting for us to be as much as agile to be available.
SPEAKER_2: In America, I really wanted to be available sooner than the other region, because the platform has the capacity to really grow also in America.
SPEAKER_2: But it depends on the type of a strategy collaboration that we wanted to have.
SPEAKER_2: I opened now the first fundraising of GamerTag, just to find a strategy collaboration.
SPEAKER_2: It's not about the money that we wanted to raise.
SPEAKER_2: It's about how can I fund a good strategy partner in America, and a good strategy partner in Japan, and a good strategy partner in Manor region, so then I can really go to those region and really understand the whole concept.
SPEAKER_2: It's quite hard if you wanted to do it from Austria and stay there.
SPEAKER_2: Two weeks ago, I was in Manor region, met a couple of great, great awesome people.
SPEAKER_2: Those regions are investing a lot in the gaming, like Saudi Arabia or UAE.
SPEAKER_2: I was amazed at how much interest it is regarding GamerTag, even at the governmental level.
SPEAKER_2: I really, really appreciated the chance that we had.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, this week I'm coming to Berlin.
SPEAKER_2: Again, in the next couple of weeks, I again will back to Dubai.
SPEAKER_2: In February, we have been invited by the Saudi Arabia to participate in the LEAP event, which is one of the, I think, most selective startup gathering globally.
SPEAKER_2: It's just 680 startups can participate in those events.
SPEAKER_2: This is the thing that I'm really looking forward to.
SPEAKER_2: Some interests, then I can make sure that I can meet the right contacts there and then expand it relatively fast to those regions.
SPEAKER_2: My idea is America and then Japan, probably global soon.
SPEAKER_3: Now the interesting thing is, let us mention that briefly.
SPEAKER_3: Just today, earlier today, I read an article about how a Turkish user got a discord being banned in Turkey because he spoke to a woman in Saudi Arabia and that caused a shitstorm on a governmental level.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Now you are exactly mentioning those countries.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I wonder, what is your plan to avoid such a thing happening to you?
SPEAKER_1: Not create an international incident.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, this court is big, you know?
SPEAKER_3: This court is big and just being shut down, banned in a country just because somebody from Saudi Arabia had a conversation with somebody from Turkey.
SPEAKER_3: That's, it's like for us, Europeans and even for Ajay in America, this would be a non-issue.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: We could care less, right?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, this is exactly the region by region regulations that we have to be focused on.
SPEAKER_2: It's not easy at all, okay?
SPEAKER_2: There have been so many startup who failed even after the phases that we are now because they didn't take care of them.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, the one benefit is that they have some lesson learned from the past, but it's still, it's a unique story.
SPEAKER_2: And those things can happen.
SPEAKER_2: I remember in the beginning, we had a meeting with one of the first initiator of Facebook when we wanted to start GamerTag.
SPEAKER_2: And he had three startups in social media, not in gaming, but general in social media in Silicon Valley.
SPEAKER_2: He told us a really good thing.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, at the time, it wasn't the GamerTag that we are now talking about.
SPEAKER_2: It was a presentation basically out of the GamerTag, a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_2: And he told us that, I think your idea is going to work because it's really, really unique and nothing like it exists.
SPEAKER_2: But remember, it's going to ruin your life.
SPEAKER_2: Because the idea, it's just too big.
SPEAKER_2: It's just too big and you have to take care of a lot of factors.
SPEAKER_2: It's not easy, but we are ready to deal with that.
SPEAKER_2: And if something comes along, there is always a problem and a solution to that problem.
SPEAKER_2: I hope that we can find some solution.
SPEAKER_2: But if something really restricted happens, of course we need collaboration.
SPEAKER_2: And that's the idea for any company that wanted to grow globally.
SPEAKER_2: I think this can happen to any social media.
SPEAKER_2: We wanted to make sure that we do not have the falls and backs, like the security and safety and all these things, like the privacy.
SPEAKER_2: We try to learn the lessons from the previous mistakes that has been happening.
SPEAKER_2: But exactly as you mentioned, in something like Discord, this thing can happen.
SPEAKER_2: So at least we know now what Discord did, you know?
SPEAKER_4: It's a good lesson to learn.
SPEAKER_3: Right, right.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, well, thanks for spending the time with us.
SPEAKER_4: Have a good time.
SPEAKER_4: Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_1: Bye-bye.