- Francis
Welcome everybody. Welcome to the first PID talk. I am Francis Ingrand. I am founder and CEO of Plugin Digital. I am here with Stan, Senior Biz Dev. at Plugin Digital. We are working together for five years, something like that now. So, starting to be a long time. And so PID, we are doing many things, but what is the most important is we are doing digital distribution, PC, console and mobile. We are working for many publishers and indie developers all over the world. We are helping them to distribute their games and to optimize their revenue and as well we are doing publishing with our Dear Villagers brand. We do premium publishing on PC, console and mobile. I am glad to introduce you to Juan from Pixel Ratio.
- Juan
So it's Juan at Pixel Ratio, a studio from Plugin Digital and And we have experience on developing video game, co-development. supporting and helping studios to bring their games to, I mean, all platforms like console or mobile.
- Francis
So Juan, can you give us some insight about your story, about Pixel Ratio, what you are doing, etc?
- Juan
Yeah, sure. I think that all of us, it was some kind of dream when you are a child to to become part of the video game industry. I grew up between comics, you know, cartoon, video games and this is something that I yeah for sure that since a very child I wanted to be part of it and well I have to say that we had a lot of luck because I left my previous job before creating pixel ratio in 2011 with a friend of mine with the former creator or founder of pixel ratio quando it was a very good friend of mine and uh we were making video games in our nights he was in the university i was working he was a programmer i was an artist so let's say that we had a good friendship for sure and also we shared the love of video games so we decided on 2011 that We had an opportunity to make a video game. We didn't finish a video game before. But in my master's degree in video game production, one of the teachers told us, look, I have this project, I think that you could manage it, or at least try to do it. Well, for us it was a good opportunity. We wanted to be in the video game industry and we said, okay. let's go for it and this is the beginning of pixel ratio this is how we did pixel ratio we recreate the company um we needed let's say a company to yeah to to make it more official let's say work and things like that so uh my friend left the university for for a time and I left my old my previous job and we started started to make this video game it was good because it was it gave us the possibility to demonstrate that we can we could start video game and finish it on time and To do it well, so and also it was a proof for us that we could do something that we have been dreaming a long time and everything was pretty good and When we finished this This first game we decided to make what we wanted to do our own video game. So we started to think how we can do it and by this time mobile was a good platform to start. So we decided to make a video game, we started the production and we finished what we thought our video game would be. we wanted and we had plans to release the game uh on by our own um and let and we said okay uh we always have time to do it this way but why Why don't we ask for a publisher? Because, I mean, for us, the industry, the video game industry, it was working in a good way with a publisher, with someone that could help you on the release of the game. It was our first game and I think that it was a good decision to maximize the opportunities of our face.
- Francis
And why did you choose mobile? rather than PC or other...
- Juan
Yeah, by this time, our first project was on mobile.
- Francis
Okay.
- Juan
So it was good, and for a team of two, we thought that mobile game, it was an endless runner, an arcade game, and we thought that it was the best platform. to us to see if we can get the trust from publisher and from people playing the game. Something I experienced that we are creating and it was good. I mean it was the platform that for us could reach more players at least to say hey we make games we are here and that's why we decided to do it.
- Stanislas
Okay would you say that Because nowadays what you do with us is mostly code-ev and porting, optimization, stuff like that. Would you say that making your first game on a system that has a plurality of platforms, of hardware, shaped you into having always optimization in mind and figuring out that this needs to run on absolutely everything, that kind of set your trajectory?
- Juan
Yeah, sure, totally. We were mad at optimization for a long time and it is because of mobile. I mean you need to give support to many devices with different specs. Especially Android. Yes, especially Android. So it was a mess. But yeah, it's true. Let's say that it configured our way to see video games. To start thinking about optimization, maybe it's not the natural way. You are going to make a video game, you want to make an experience, let's wait for the optimization. But in our DNA, I came from a simulator. I mean, in my former job, I was working, creating simulators, and the optimization was something very square in the production. You need to do it since the very beginning. It also helped me to have a production standard. Let's say to have everything measured, the size of the texture, the pixel ratio, the polygonic budget. A lot of these kind of things that we put also into the mobile video game development and that is in our DNA. also I have to say that Juan Lu, the developer, he always had in mind some kind of, I have to say, and I'm really happy to say that, because he had in mind some kind of high standard in terms of performance for video games. And it was like, no, if we can push a little bit more, we are going to do it. Let's try to see where the trade-off is in order to keep... the quality as much as possible, but also to reach... I'm speaking about 2011, 2012, and we were thinking about putting our game 60 frames per second in the mid-range Android, iOS devices, and we needed to achieve it. And yeah, we were mad at optimization. And I think that this is Something that helped us on the porting side and to understand that video game development when you are thinking about different platforms you need to take into account that there are some restrictions, some limitations, you need to think about it and you need to see how you can offer the player the best experience and performance is part of the of a good experience. So that's why we... try to do our best on this side.
- Francis
And how did you move from self-publishing your own games to port optimization etc? Did you meet some companies? Did you see some opportunities?
- Juan
Yeah, we were making after the release of our game, of our first game Abbey Escape, we did it with another French company, with a French publisher, Bulkypix. And we started to work with them and it helped a lot on our side.
- Francis
You pitched them? You pitched... Yeah,
- Juan
well it was totally crazy because we didn't have the idea to go out with the publisher. We sent some mails. It was 12 in the afternoon when I sent all the mails. At the 5 of the same day, I already had a pre-contract with... Wow.
- Stanislas
He used to be faster.
- Juan
Because they called me like, OK, I have some ideas for your game. We were searching for some kind of production like that. I want to offer you a co-production because we think that we can offer a good idea to make a better game or a better product.
- Francis
Just to be clear, it's not happening anymore.
- Juan
Yeah.
- Francis
That's for sure.
- Stanislas
Now in 2025, for sure. That is long gone. Maybe for the people who listen or are watching this and who are unaware of the very specific state of mobile, both from a business perspective but also from a technical perspective, it's a very competitive market with a lot of free-to-play, but from the technical perspective, and I think this is also important for you, right? it's that It has the worst side of the console and the worst side of the PC. So console, you have to have a lesser hardware in mind, but there's just one. And PC, you have a more powerful hardware, but there's so many of them that you don't know how they interact. So that's literally how you started. You pitched that, you got your publishing deal, went all right. When did you thought in your mind, we can translate that to something else than mobile? We can... We can translate, like take that experience and apply it to porting on console. What was the trajectory for that?
- Juan
Well, it came very late, I have to say, in the story of Pixel Ratio. We started to make video games for big brand companies. And it was most of them for mobile. Okay, so yeah, our style of making games was good for this kind of cartoon brands. And we started to make projects with them. It was in... 2017, sorry, it was in 2017 when we started to work on PC and in virtual reality. Again, more optimization because...
- Stanislas
Virtual reality shows the hard work.
- Juan
Yeah, so again, and we started to create our own technology, we worked hard on that. Yeah, I think that we did a lot of things that in the market was not ready. So we decided to get to put it on standby and at this moment we started to open a new way of making games trying to translate board games to pc video games and then is when we started to talk to our plugin digital or through playing digital and we we started to to to work on on pc uh this was our first first experience i mean We had the experience of the online with the virtual reality. We have the experience on making games from the start to the end. And now we have a new platform with the opportunity to make something a little bit bigger, I have to say. And yeah, and this was the first step, I guess, because we started to make this kind of strategy game or board game translated into video game. experience and we started to be more in communication with Plugin Digital until 2020 or I think it was 2021. 2021. We made our first port on Nintendo Switch. It was Machinika Museum. This was our first port with Plugin Digital. Yeah and it was great. I mean, we had the opportunity to work on console that we tried in the past, but the opportunity was not, I mean, we couldn't do it. But We had Machinica Museum, which is a very great project to explore different ways to play. And this is how we took the port inside. Okay, we can make a game for Nintendo Switch, but we are not, I mean, for Nintendo Switch, we are not making games. We are going to make the Machinica Museum experience on Nintendo Switch.
- Francis
And it was interesting to work on Switch because optimization is a key point on switch like on mobile so it was a perfect platform to to move on console stuff i think it was also right around the turning point because i remember that was right around the turning point where switch
- Stanislas
started to be less powerful than the iphones that were released and roughly the same screen size so it was a funny thing to do again for people watching machine museum go check it out this is a 3d puzzle game So while the challenge was there, there wasn't anything too crazy about needing 100 FPS. I think it was a pretty great project to start. The game is pretty chill. There's no action. It's just like moving around, figuring out how to solve a puzzle, making alien technology work again. So I think that when we talked about it for a long time, the first time we met you, it was during lockdown. Yeah. The first time you came to Mobile League, we... because we figured out you wanted to transition to that and we struggled a lot with what to give you as a test run and both switch and machinica were the perfect project also because yeah now it was all of a sudden more technical working on switch than he was working on iphone
- Juan
usually at that specific time yeah it was really good i mean we ended up with a good experience uh we took a lot of information about our porting development and also regarding the Nintendo Switch device, the opportunities that we can have in order to translate the experience of the video game. So I think it was everything perfect to us.
- Francis
And what was the most important difficulties you found on Switch port compared to mobile port? For you it's easier, more difficult, same kind of issue?
- Juan
Well, we are still working on both. Yeah,
- Francis
but from your point of view, what is the most difficult?
- Juan
But now I would say that we need to... There are two points I have to say. Firstly, when you are doing something in console, you need to meet the guidelines and everything like that. So yeah, you need to be very careful.
- Stanislas
And for people who don't know about... this there's a list of requirement that each platform has that can range from how you call the buttons to how the save works so there's whenever it's not as easy to push a game on console as it is to to push it on on pc so that's a huge part of your job is not just making it run it's making it run according to the way they want it to run exactly trc trc
- Juan
So we deal with that. This is one of the plans. Secondly, it's about performance. That's for sure, no matter the game.
- Stanislas
Do you still think that for consoles that aren't... Because we can tell you're not only working on Switch anymore, you work on PlayStation and Xbox and you're doing the full... And you do all the development for us. Would you also say that it's still a performance problem on PS5? an Xbox Series or is it just a different approach to it?
- Juan
Well yeah, we used to separate both of them. I mean we have on one side PlayStation 5 and Xbox and another side we have Nintendo Switch and depending on the project Xbox Series
- Stanislas
S. 70%
- Juan
of the problems. So we tried to approach these two groups differently. And when we work with the studios and we enter in the project, even the plan, when we create the plan, we try always to put special focus on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S because of the optimization. It's true that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X They have their own
- Stanislas
problems let's say i mean they are powerful that's for sure and that's actually the pc yeah i mean you didn't use i mean i don't know if you worked on like playstation 3 and playstation 4. no i did i remember that it was it was the art the architecture was crazy it was it wasn't built like computer so you needed to rethink the way you you programmed everything but ps5 xbox now it's literally a pc yeah it's very close it's very close that's true i mean the
- Juan
good part of it is you have a standard and yeah, I mean, it's not as wild as mobile or PC. Easier to test. Yeah, easier to test, that's for sure. But yeah, I mean, each group we treat it differently, that's for sure.
- Stanislas
And maybe a lot of people either didn't know about porting or maybe it's like this black... magical books or they think you have like a conversion button on Unity or whatnot. What is it? What do you do? I suppose now you have a pipeline, you've done enough so that you're okay this is what we're going to do. How does that work? Do you... How do you take a PC game and put it... make it work on something else?
- Francis
Well I guess it depends on the engine as well.
- Stanislas
On the engine, absolutely.
- Juan
Yeah for sure because during this time we have been doing ports from unity Unreal,
- Stanislas
GameMaker,
- Juan
and I don't know, but I think that soon we will see our first Go.projects. I don't know, but the trend is there.
- Stanislas
I mean, what would be like the first thing you do? I know the answer, but for the people who... Yeah, yeah,
- Juan
yeah, for the people too.
- Stanislas
What's the first thing you do? You get a project, you send it to you, you check the code?
- Juan
Yeah.
- Stanislas
Then what?
- Juan
Yeah, I mean, when we check the code, The first thing that we used to do is to check our background and past projects to see something that we can identify as a potential risk. I mean when we evaluate the project, each project is, I have to say, in the core very different to each other and that's fine. But at the end sometimes we think that of course PC ratio is a big company but also more and more a knowledge company. meaning like when we review a project we can forecast or see previous problems, risks, struggles and this is the first that we identify. Also we start the evaluation on many ways. On the code side, seeing how far we are from meeting the TRC, the guidelines that we are talking, I mean what what Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo expect to have on their system. And also we can review how the performance is in our first internal build. This is what we do. I mean, we never, we try to never close an evaluation of the project without a build running on the system. And this is something that we need to do. I mean, this is a must on pixel ratio because it's going to tell you how far you are. I mean, no matter if the first version is not going to work properly, it needs to work because it's going to give you all the profile details that you need in order to set up a document that we do.
- Francis
You don't need a gold version, but you need something very well advanced to be sure to cover everything.
- Juan
Yeah,
- Stanislas
at least better. for the people who are watching the way it works is we we have what we call test kits of deck dev kits which are stripped down versions of the hardware of the consoles that we can run basically whatever we want on it now i suppose in the engine you can choose the platforms you want to build for us you will build for that you'll test it and that will tell you right away if you're having proper fps if it boots that or or or if it doesn't so the one of the first thing you'll do is just like build it, check if it works, see how it runs, and then there's all the technical part of fixing the code, toning down the assets, I suppose, if everything is like 4K and... Yeah,
- Juan
yeah, yeah. We create, we make a profile. Profiling a video game is like some kind of technical check about how it's going, how it's performing in every different console or device, I mean, on mobile or something. So This is our first step and then we create the plan and go ahead. I have to say that This is the first thing, but one of the most important is about communication and communication with the developers. And this is a key part. And I have to say that I strongly believe that this is a key value from Plugin Digital and from what we're doing. Because when we start a port, even in the evaluation sometimes, we have some questions. I mean, the developers know the game by heart. We don't at this point. So what we want is to have a good communication, just to tell them, look, we are going to face some struggles, some difficulties. We want you to focus on keep creating this awesome video game that you are doing if it's under development. If it's finished, it's something different, because we know that at least we can exchange. with them what we think the port will be, where is going to be this trade between quality and performance, if there is something technical that we don't know and they can share with us. So I think that in the second step, communication is the key.
- Francis
And as well, we have to be sure it's manageable because sometimes, Unfortunately, not on PS5 and Xbox for sure, but... Sometimes it's not possible to move on switch port or mobile port because of performance or maybe because of codes or stuff like that. So before to invest money in part, we have to be sure it's manageable and the final game will be good enough.
- Juan
Yeah, it's part of our evaluation. Yeah. I mean to get a proper and realistic scope.
- Francis
Yeah,
- Juan
exactly. I think this is the key. I mean...
- Francis
you know you have and we have to evaluate the cost because if it's too costly maybe it doesn't make sense to move on of course in terms of our job as a publisher to to to to make this kind of decision and and you know there's there's so many things that that
- Stanislas
that ought to be taken into consideration as well you know it's always okay but do you want to go for example physical then the size of the the build which does not matter, is there multiplayer, is there... continued updates, in which case you have to be on the retainer. Porting to console is huge. Now, funny thing though, we can tell it now, we've acquired your company, we're in the same boat now, officially. And we did that specifically at a time where we felt, and Frans is here more than anyone else because he's the boss, but we collectively felt that the indie market was shifting towards console. with Switch, but the other consoles kind of followed through, right? So nowadays, it's getting harder and harder to think about releasing an indie game without going on console. Now, as someone whose bread and butter is to make console games, how have you seen the market evolve? Like from, no, if you want to make an indie game, go PC, maybe mobile, to console is not an option, it's not optional anymore, we have to make it.
- Juan
the dgc thing slowly shifts yeah yeah yeah and i think um that this is great i mean um when when we think about release a video game on on console i think it's going to be a huge workload on on the shoulders of a indie developer studio uh or solo dev that could happen so i think I'm very happy to see that because at the end to put an indie game in a console it's something for us great because it's like, okay, I want to raise my voice and say, hey, I have another vision of video games and yeah, I know that I need to play with the big dogs. It's true. okay but i want to be there i want the people enjoy this video game in all platforms and we
- Francis
We are really proud to be part of it. So I'm really happy that this shift from indie developers to the console is growing. It's now becoming the standard and this is something that we are really happy to be part of it. It's, as I said, some kind of... I don't know the word in English, but... Yeah, I mean, it's a statement. It's like... Yeah,
- Juan
it's a big statement. I think it's very important for developers to have a game on console, especially on physical version. And as well for financial reasons, market is very difficult, very crowded. So, the more platforms you address, the more luck you have to make money. So, that's a way to aim more customers and to make more money. So, it totally makes sense, I think now. to move on several platforms.
- Stanislas
And first parties, when we say first parties, we're talking about like in Microsoft and Nintendo and so on. They've also understood the value of indie games. They didn't used to, now they get it. So you get more player. I think a lot of console players, especially the most powerful ones, you know, people you see, you don't buy a PlayStation 5 to play it. an indie 2D pixel art game, I think that has changed. Those players are more curious as a result of all those first parties wanting to push indie games further. So you also, because Steam is so crowded and so everything is algorithmic, you cannot talk to someone to save your life, you usually also end up getting more support from the first parties, either financially, but also marketing. And so it's pretty cool. That is something I want to ask you because I started my personal career on AAA and on console. But you didn't. We're roughly the same age. So you must have played like Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, PlayStation growing up. Does it get old to see one of your gamer game you participated? be released on PlayStation, like firing up the PlayStation, the same basic system that you played 25 or 30 years ago, and be like, damn, I did that. Does it get hold or is it still like magical?
- Francis
No, no, no, no. It's still magical at all. I mean, this is when it changed everything in Pixel Ratio when we figured out that we are making people happy to enjoy a video game in its favorite console. And also for us, it's like, well, as you say, well, I mean, this is something very important to us. It's like, OK, it's also a good, a big responsibility on our side because we are translating this great game, even if it's from a small studio, this great game to a wider audience that is going to play in their favorite device or console or whatever. And yeah, this is really when you, like you said, when you start your PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and you see the game you have been working on and say, OK, I've been working here. I've been working on that and I'm really, really happy that all the people could enjoy this great experience. And yeah, I mean, it's still magic to us. And I don't want to lose it. I think that this is cool.
- Juan
Makes sense. I think console manufacturers are keen to continue to push. Indeed, they all have in this program to push original content on platforms, most of them at least. And now, you know, 20 years ago, console was for one guy in the family, young adult, a man most of the time. Now, a console is for the family.
- Francis
Yeah.
- Juan
Okay. So it means the father wants to play two different games than the daughter or the son, etc. So it makes sense to have different games for different kinds of audiences. 20 years ago, it was quite a unique audience. AAA audience, big games, etc. So it changed everything.
- Stanislas
Absolutely. One thing I wanted to touch on, because we've talked a lot about consoles, how it is important, please release your game on consoles. how it's important to have console and so on. I don't want to narrow down what you do with us, just consoles. You also do codev, you help us optimize games, you help us basically for a little while you kind of like punched above your weight, you kept on challenging yourselves, you've done some tools for us. I'm thinking about releasing all these artworks on Switch and so on. Now that you're part of a group and we throw all these things at you and all this new possible work, how do you see the trajectory? Is it like, okay, we've done mobile games, now we did ports, now we're doing co-development. Is the trajectory for you be like, okay, next we're going to do our own game or we want to do more co-dev or what pushes you forward at this writing moment yeah well right now
- Francis
Every time that we enter in a port, we try to treat it as our own game, always. Meaning like, we need to treat it with a lot of respect, because of the people that is working, the original developer, I mean, is their baby, and we need to take care of it also. But in any case, we try to treat every project as it is a pixel ratio. project. And I think that this is something very important. And also right now we feel very well, I mean working with other studios in Portinside is giving us another way to understand video game development, how to tell stories through video game. And yeah, this is the part that we for sure want to keep going. It also helps us to grow, to learn and yeah, try to improve ways. For sure we want to make our own games at some point. This is something that we would like to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's for sure. We are, if everything goes well, we are going to... pitch something internally very soon so bring it we'll see hopefully but yeah i mean we are we are very uh comfortable with the we with all the things that we are doing first of all we wanted to since the very beginning as you know we wanted to be part of a be a useful part of for plugin digital okay and we wanted to help in all this kind of project of porting internal development and so on. And we are good. I mean, we want to go ahead. But also, yeah, for sure as a video game studio, we would like to, at some moment, we would like to try and make our own game. Maybe in the future, we will see.
- Stanislas
And your company grew now. I mean, you're way bigger than you were five years ago. We are 10.
- Francis
And you want to see. Yeah,
- Stanislas
we are 10. Something to be seen. Yeah,
- Francis
I remember that in 2021 when we had the meeting, we were two. Yeah. So we have been growing thanks to playing digital. So we have been growing.
- Juan
We will talk about acquisition right after. But just before, we talked a lot about console port. But we have to say as well, you do still a lot of mobile port as well. And sometimes both.
- Francis
Yeah.
- Juan
Mobile and console port for some games. Because... We have to say PID strategy is to be on all kind of platform, mostly on premium business model, but it's very important for us. It's part of our DNA to be on mobile, all kind of mobile, PC, cloud gaming and all kind of consoles. So it's part of things we found very sexy with you. It was you came from mobile, but you are able to make console, PC, of course. if needed so that's very interesting and it's not so common because a lot of studios are more or less specialized on console, but it's not always easy to find studio able to and happy to work both on mobile, PC, console. So yeah, maybe you can just give us a few words about mobile ports because it's important too.
- Francis
Yeah, we have a wide experience on mobile, this is cool. I mean the fact that we can make mobile In console port or PC, in pixel ratio, what we used to do is to share the information as much as possible between all of us and help each other when we are creating the port on mobile or on console. But especially mobile, all the people that have been working on mobile is going to share all the different risks, all the different struggles that we are facing, the challenges and things like that and try to standardize, let's say. all of these kind of things. It's true that in the optimization side is something a little bit critical, depending on the project. And on the other side is about the game experience. On mobile, yes, you need to think more about the game experience because the first exchange between the game and the player, which is the input, is totally different. And it changes. the experience completely. So that's why internally we have people that have been facing these kind of challenges before and we try to tell everyone what we did, if we made a mistake try to not to do it and try to work on having a good mobile experience for each game. So we need a little bit of time at the beginning to think about it and the PlayGN Digital Mobile team always help us on that.
- Juan
Like UI, UX, it's a key point on mobile. Yeah, yeah. Console is easier.
- Francis
Yeah, this point is easier. But on mobile, you need to think about what kind of experience you want to offer to the player. And mobile team from PluginDigital always help us on that.
- Juan
For sure. I think mobile port can't be just a technical port.
- Francis
No, no,
- Stanislas
you have to kind of like...
- Juan
You have to think about game experience. user experience, etc. And we have to say sometimes we decide not to go on mobile because of that. It's not good enough and game experience won't be good on mobile.
- Stanislas
And it also forces you to sometimes change the business model. You were talking about Maschineka Museo, and we're going to talk roughly about it. It's a premium game on PC, it was a premium game on Switch, and we decided to do a freemium on... on mobile so that's like a whole different approach to it it's like you can play the first level for free and then you need to pay so it's porting on mobile is porting to it's not just posting on a different hardware you're porting to a different ecosystem exactly with players could be different business model is different price point is different the player habits are different usually you know they play they play when they commute it's shorter sessions so you have to adapt to that it's it's a There's a lot of game design, I think, and design in general, implied when you're thinking about taking your game to mobile.
- Francis
Yeah, we need, when we make the evaluation, we need a little bit of time thinking about it. If this information, well, we share this information with Playing Digital, with the mobile department, and they used to offer always very good ideas about how to translate the video game to the mobile version. But yeah, definitely we need to work on the experience. Yeah, lately, an example, we were talking in console regarding the console with the TRC, the guidelines, something that you need to meet the standard. Okay, mobile, maybe it seems wild, but it's not. I mean, the people expect some kind of input control, some kind of behavior in the menus, some even in different... kind of game, they expect some kind of a standard for this kind of game, for the racing game, for endless game, for action game. So and as a whole, I mean, is how you interact with the game. What is the experience that I'm getting? What's the business model that the game has? And everything is impacting at the end in the game design or the game design is impacting in all the different, let's say, topics or subjects. So... Yeah, I agree that if we face a mobile port, we mostly all the time we think first about the game design.
- Stanislas
Although there are some very few occasions, we almost had one, like we've done in the past without them, we almost had one, it didn't go through, we can't say the name of it, there are very few occasions when we have to go. We're going from mobile to PC and console. And I remember this one game that we tried to get together and that was entirely based on touch. And we needed to find ways to make it playable with a controller. You remember that? Yeah. And to find ways to make it playable with keyboard and mouse. And that was a different type of heart attack. That's very rare, but it does happen that we go from mobile to PC and console. We did it once. But it's very rare, but that was a different type of challenge.
- Francis
It's a challenge, and we're ready to accept it.
- Stanislas
It's also like the game was thought to be played vertically, and it was like, how do we do that? Okay, you can do it on Switch, but how...
- Juan
Do you know how many games you port in Pixel Ratio history, roughly?
- Francis
I think that we are nearly between... I think that...
- Juan
we can say 15 15 15 if if if not between 15 to 20 years okay in average to two three platforms so it means 60 to 80 port yeah well something like that yeah okay yeah yeah now we keep it we keep a new world busy yeah we
- Stanislas
are so yeah when i remember that i mean now we're going to talk about the fact that you're now incorporated within the group because we're plugging this all became a group not too long ago. You know, no one that that that's not very interesting by itself. I think what's interesting is picking a little bit behind the curtain of what happened. So just when we started thinking about how it was important to be on console at release, because back in the days, it used to be PC release, maybe six months later, we might do console with, we were struggling with a lot of different porting companies, different production pipelines you know the drill so we started figuring out that we should probably have like that one company so i remember uh you yeah we're giving we're giving away a little stuff right you came to montpellier from spain because you're you're based in spain we haven't sold that uh you're based in spain and you came to montpellier during lockdown yeah yeah so i remember intern communication was a little bit scrumbley i wasn't quarantined at home and they said you need to come to the office meet this spanish game i was like what and so we talked about that you were two at the time as you said you're ten now so I remember expressing quite vocally my doubts how two people are going to take care of all our console production that was not the plan obviously but you went from two to ten the journey man, how did it go from the first talk to Plugin Digital to when you meet us we worked together very closely for a couple of years after that so yeah go on tell us your experience
- Juan
First, we have to say we met before because when you work for BulkyPix and we distribute BulkyPix, so we met at Paris a few years before lockdown.
- Francis
Exactly. We met in this dinner that we had. So it was really cool. I mean, during this year, since the lockdown, when I was here for the first time, a lot of things have happened. And I have to say that It was not, let's say, an easy way, but Plugin Digital made it easy for us. I mean, and this is something that I'm very grateful. We had the opportunity to work together in new games, to reach new projects that for pixel ratio were far away, meaning like console ports. yeah at least to touch the console side mainly and I think that it was well it has been a very good adventure and we are very happy to be part of Plugin Digital. During this year we started to make video games for PC at the beginning then we started Nintendo Switch and we needed to demonstrate that We could build up a team good enough to go ahead with all the projects that you have, that you shared with us and try to prove that we can be a trusted partner, that we can work together and that we can have, let's say, a vision in common and share this way to bring video games to the player. And this is the most important thing. That's why I said that Pluie Digital gave me all the support and I'm very grateful for that because If I look back, I can say again in 2021 we were only two. We needed to make a team, double our team in the first year, then double the team in the year after.
- Juan
And it's not over.
- Francis
I know it's not over. And we need to learn about this experience also. And because it's not, you know, well, you know better than me, it's not easy. to grow, there are new challenges when you grow and all the, let's say all the team needs to share more or less the same vision, the same way to do things this is the most important to us and yeah, I always had someone from PID or from the villagers always back helping us, giving our support, so I have to say that it was a good experience and
- Juan
yeah happy to be here i think uh culture is important as you say so to work with a spanish company it's easier for french people to work with i don't know asian or south american company because are you talking to the half asian guy who lives in south america that's why i think that um no but for the culture it's not a problem and as far as we already work with uh with the picture in the past. We trust in the company and in you. And what was very interesting for us as well was your mobile culture. Because as I said, for us it's very important to be able on all kind of platforms. And it's easier to find a company with console experience than a company with mobile experience because it's more difficult to find on the... on the market. And I think it's easier to move from mobile to console than to console to mobile in terms of experience. So that's why when we started to discuss together, I thought Pixel Ratio was a good candidate because you have this culture. And now it works quite well.
- Stanislas
And to retrace it properly, because although it's been a bumpy road, we grew too.
- Juan
Yeah.
- Stanislas
But we were like 25 and we're 60 now. Yeah,
- Juan
you said you were two, we were 25. Yeah. Now we are 70 and...
- Stanislas
And also, I mean, that could be good, but you're our first acquisition. So there was a lot to learn on both sides. You know, it was okay, how do we integrate a new company within our workflow? What is our workflow? and that we needed to rethink also the way we thought about porting. So that taught us to rethink how to do marketing and how to do scouting and how to do production. So the learning curve was mutual, I think. So it's kind of like, it's a funny thing to go from like, yeah, okay, let's throw you one thing and take you by the hand and carry you a little bit. And nowadays, to be super honest, I think you carry us most of the time. when we're deep into production. So it's funny to see how things went from one meeting during lockdown to where it is now, which is pretty fun.
- Juan
Yeah. So now we can talk about console room.
- Stanislas
Yeah, I think that the one thing that people might not know, so I think everyone might fathom, that it is a very technical and complicated task to port a game on console most of the time. What people might not know is how time consuming it is to actually release it. So we talked a little bit about TRC, all those rules, you know, it could be stuff as stupid as, you know, you display a controller in your tutorial. Well, if it's not the PlayStation controller, you're not, that's not going through right to, you can't have a, a, a website address in the credit of your game with Nintendo and you know, all this little thing. and it takes a month to pass certification. two weeks still at prices, or you cannot submit whenever you want on PlayStation. So how in your own, I mean, we know because we've been doing that for years and decades even, in your experience, how near impossible it might be for a solo dev to go through all those hoops by themselves.
- Francis
Well, yeah, I think it's for sure is a big task. And I think that is part of the reason that we are here. I mean, it's not easy because there are so many challenges to put a video game in a console. In console, if you have it in PC, put it on mobile, things like that. I mean, to make a port at the end. And I think that one of the important things here and one of the reasons why we are here is to Let the developer to focus on what he is doing well, which is a video game. Try to translate this experience for all the players, for its audience. And we are going to help them with all of these struggles, with all of these risks, with managing a lot of tasks. that you are a lot of, let's say, rules that you need to meet with your game in order to send it. Also to give them a clear idea about what will be a plan when we need to have some kind of version of the game that could be approved by Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft. What are the main topics that we need to cover? And I think that this is why it's good that, in my opinion, that the indie developer could count on us because there is a lot of things. They have all the passion to make the video game, but sometimes they don't have all the time to do a lot of things that you need to cover in a port.
- Stanislas
It's not creative.
- Francis
I mean,
- Stanislas
we're going through all... it's a little a little backstory we we don't so the way we do distribution for consoles we don't charge the studios who come to us right we do we take we take a part of the revenue and that that is the core of our added value because well we can argue that they could be technically able to do the port by themselves actually being able to submit pass all the craziness and go through it and then now that's something else that that is the value that we had, you know, for the fact that, yeah, you need your store page to be translated in like 15 languages to just release on PlayStation 5, keep up with the crazy rules that change overnight, how do you manage the life cycle and, you know, the international pricing. It's not as easy as Steam, basically. There's no self-publishing tool on that. Everything goes through someone and the rules change. They're all different. So this is, I think, collectively you now being part of
- Juan
what we do and who we are that's that is what we bring to the cindy studio that just this is the most boring part of it and one thing to say is to port on console you need a material it's not the case on mobile or pc you need dev kit development key to mostly so it's not always easy to to get one especially on switch to at the moment for instance um so for sure plug-in has a publisher we have an easy access let's say to dev kit but for an indie dev or solo dev or small studio it's not always easy to get one it's costly because it could be quite costly so at the end it yeah it's not so easy for everyone to move on could you tell us like just funny story like the
- Stanislas
the most ridiculous reason why a submission has failed for you i know i have my own like what why just why story but what would be yours just like what an anecdote well i didn't have it to prepare my mind because we we have we have some uh some
- Francis
failures in uh in this kind of approval but yeah i mean some uh very something very stupid like in example take care about a good expression in a tutorial in example what we're talking about you need to meet exactly the you cannot be too much creative when you want to show a controller in example so you are thinking like okay this is going to be good because we are meeting all the different rules the this graphic looks cool and is integrated in the game and then. Someone is going to tell you, well, look, wait a little bit. No, I need something more clear. But yeah, I mean, we have something like that. Not very funny, I have to say, when you face it.
- Stanislas
I think my personal horror story for failing a submission is, you know, you have to name the build.
- Francis
a certain way and i think like it was something stupid like either one capital letter was not capital or one one was a two in the name of the build and we felt submission for that this is why we just needed to rename the binary but they would fail you must be very square yeah everything yeah yeah it is and also so and one thing i want to tackle is is so we We build relationships with the first parties. We meet with them all the time, maybe three, four times a year. And so this is also our job to be on top of the changes because those rules change all the time and without any warning. And sometimes even some games released make them realize something and then they start implementing new rules. I think it was the Metal Gear Solid. four that implemented the rules because it was just so long the loading screen when snake was smoking that because of this game they implemented the rule that you need to have a now loading for anything over five seconds or so so it changes all the time it's it's never fixed so it's also our job to talk to them have the dog have the new the new info and make sure that you like you don't you don't go crazy with it because like that that will drive you mad probably we have a I'd like to meet three people within that.
- Juan
Yeah, we have our... internal tester that is in charge of quality but also on our guidelines and she used to review things is crazy because is what you say sometimes you know from one day to another different amount of guidance now are become one now what you thought it was needed just today now is deprecated and you need to meet another new rule. So yeah, it Try to be updated with this is a work. I mean, and that's why, well, if we go back to the subject, that's why we think we can help the developers to focus on the creative side and let us help you on these other parts that are important.
- Stanislas
You can be good on everything. It's impossible. So it's impossible.
- Francis
Especially because sometimes they will make up the rule as they go. Also, it happens that technically you meet the criteria, but they will just refuse something because they don't feel like it. They can and they do do that. So yeah, it's not a matter of talent. It is a matter of knowledge, but it's also a matter of like, is it really your job, you in the studio to go through that? I don't think so. That's what we do, right? This is why we take the cut that we take.
- Stanislas
Just we are at the end of this podcast. So we talk about pixel ratio five years ago, two people. How do you see pixel ratio in five years? How can you imagine pixel ratio?
- Juan
Yeah, well, I think that the trend is that we are going to keep growing. But for sure, what we want to have is new games, new challenge to work on with you. and Yeah, why not? Maybe do something together internally? I don't know, a video game? But yeah, for sure. This industry always has a surprise and we want to accept any challenge that could happen in the future. We are ready for that and we want to keep doing video games. This is our dream. doing it, we are going to fight for it. That's for sure.
- Stanislas
Thanks a lot. Thanks,
- Juan
Juan. Thank you very much.
- Stanislas
Thanks for listening to this podcast. Of course, if you have some ideas, if you want to join for a PID podcast in the future, don't hesitate to reach us and we will be happy to receive you there.
