David Fernandez Remesal took the job of CEO of Sandsoft in 2020 and moved to Saudi Arabia, the place his cellular recreation firm is predicated. He arrange a studio in Riyadh and likewise employed cellular recreation builders in locations like his native Spain, Finland and China. Fernandez Remesal targeted on esports at first, however pivoted to cellular video games as a extra viable enterprise method.
The summers are quite a bit hotter for positive, however Fernandez has sweated out the arduous work of creating a brand new studio in a spot the place recreation improvement expertise are solely simply being fostered now for the brand new generations of recreation builders. Whereas Brazil is an even bigger and extra established market, Fernandez Remesal, who labored on video games like Sweet Crush Saga and Bubble Witch Saga earlier than main Sandsoft.
We talked about cellular recreation tendencies at our hearth chat at Gamescom Latam in a chat entitled, “The Cellular Frontier: Large Tendencies and Smarter Strikes for 2025.”
We lined loads of floor in our hearth chat at Gamescom Latam in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We hit subjects like Apple’s transfer to emphasise consumer privateness over focused adverts because it deprecated the Identifier for Advertises (IDFA). We additionally lined the antitrust ruling that would bust the floodgates open in terms of builders with the ability to promote their very own internet outlets (the place they’ll cost decrease costs and don’t should pay a 30% fee to Apple and Google) inside their cellular video games on the Apple and Google app shops. We explored the results if recreation builders are additionally in a position to make use of their very own cost techniques — which take round 3% commissions slightly than 30% — in cellular recreation transactions.
Sandsoft is concentrated on making the most of these tendencies by specializing in midcore avid gamers, which is changing into an even bigger a part of the general cellular video games market. And Sandsoft can be busy engaged on AI instruments that may assist builders work extra effectively.
And we checked out different alternatives for cellular to develop because the mobile-first era grows up and turns into an even bigger a part of the inhabitants of avid gamers. We additionally assessed when it’s the appropriate time for native expertise to tackle native tales and unfold them to the worldwide stage with genuine triple-A improvement.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our on-stage interview.
Sandsoft CEO David Fernandez Remesal
GamesBeat: I’m right here with David Fernandez Remesal, the CEO of Sandsoft. I’ll have him introduce himself, his profession in video games, and the origins of Sandsoft.
David Fernandez Remesal: I’m happy to be in Brazil. It’s my first time. I’d wish to thank everybody right here. You’re doing an unbelievable present. I’m sort of what I may name cellular native in terms of recreation improvement. I began my profession engaged on cellular video games nearly 20 years in the past. These of you that had been round, meaning earlier than smartphone video games. I labored at an organization referred to as THQ that you could be keep in mind. They had been one of many pioneers, as a triple-A video games firm, in doing cellular video games as properly. I began my profession at THQ Juarez, their cellular recreation division.
After that I had the privilege of working with two business titans at an organization referred to as Digital Chocolate. That was Journey Hawkins, the founding father of Digital Arts, and Ilkka Paananen, who occurs to be the CEO and founding father of Supercell as properly. I spent a part of my profession engaged on an app retailer with Nokia. I additionally labored on the N-Gage handheld machine. In that specific case I made the improper alternative. I went for the loser within the smartphone period. However ultimately I realized fairly a bit about the way you want merchandise, video games, and apps on an e-commerce platform.
After doing one thing within the cellular promoting area, I additionally had the consideration of becoming a member of King, the place I labored for nearly 5 years on a few franchises. One was Bubble Witch Saga, after which Sweet Crush Saga. I used to be on the King London studio once I left to run Sandsoft 5 years in the past.
GamesBeat: Sandsoft is attention-grabbing to this market partly since you’re additionally in an rising market, albeit a really completely different a part of the world. The corporate is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Are you able to discuss how that occurred to come back about?
Fernandez Remesal: We’re barely earlier when it comes to the sport business in Saudi in comparison with what we see right here in Brazil, notably towards recreation improvement capabilities. However we have now a pleasant shopper market. It’s not as large as Brazil. However let me get began with how Sandsoft was created. For these of you who usually are not aware of Saudi Arabia, they’ve a plan referred to as Saudi Imaginative and prescient 2030. The principle proposal is to diversify the economic system away from oil and gasoline. As a part of that program, they’re attempting to construct what we name a information economic system. Gaming is a pivotal a part of that transition.
We’re half of a big Saudi company that was based to assist that plan. They determined to diversify their group. Gaming was one of many issues they needed to do. Sandsoft was born in 2019, initially as an esports firm. The very first thing we did as an organization was the PUBG Cellular occasion in Saudi Arabia. However (we) realized esports was not a enterprise. It was possibly extra of a present, slightly than correct business ongoing actions you’ll be able to run in a sustainable method. They determined to enterprise into cellular recreation improvement and publishing, which is what we do as we speak. We’re creating video games in our personal studios, and we’re a worldwide video games writer. We’re supporting recreation improvement studios within the cellular area to commercialize their video games.
Iza’s Grocery store
GamesBeat: What are you engaged on? What’s your focus? How large is the crew, and the place are they?
Fernandez Remesal: We now have roughly 100 folks. We’re cut up into 4 completely different markets. We now have folks in Saudi Arabia, the place we’re headquartered. We additionally host a recreation improvement studio there. We now have satellite tv for pc workplaces in Spain, the place we even have a improvement studio. Then we have now a few publishing operations in China and Finland. We even have a small studio in France. That’s the place we have now our operations.
By way of focus, as I discussed to you, we’re targeted on cellular platforms. We now have just a few video games with aspirations to grow to be cross-platform, however we’re cellular first.
GamesBeat: You moved to Saudi Arabia. Are you able to discuss what that was like for you?
Fernandez Remesal: Sure, I did. I’ve been there for 4 years now. The climate apart – the summer time is admittedly scorching – it was a giant cultural change for a European to come back over to a rustic that was possibly extra conservative, that was extra closed than different international locations I’ve lived in. However I felt that in case you are respectful, in the event you attempt to perceive the issues which might be altering, and in the event you adapt to the tempo of change, it’s fairly livable.
The persons are very captivated with video games particularly. There’s a younger, savvy inhabitants. They take into account themselves avid gamers. While you inform them you’re employed in video games, they respect you. It’s completely different from different international locations, the place folks suppose you play video games all day. They don’t notice that that is an artwork type, that that is one thing that goes past simply play.
GamesBeat: A reminder that it’s a worldwide business. Gaming shouldn’t be what it was. It was from Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Now it’s a really completely different world.
Fernandez Remesal: Right. It’s changing into very world. Like we see right here. It’s not nearly all of the folks attending to play video games, but in addition all the sport firms showcasing their video games, which is admittedly thrilling.
GamesBeat: How far alongside are your video games?
Fernandez Remesal: By way of our recreation improvement studios, we’re simply beginning our first prototypes. Each studios began in 2023, nevertheless it took us a while to get the preliminary core groups that we may belief to develop their recreation concepts into commercially viable video games. We now have been in a sort of boot camp at each the studios for a 12 months. Now they’re beginning to prototype what we are able to see as extra business video games.
As a writer we have now just a few video games already out there. Perhaps the primary we launched was in partnership with Jam Metropolis, DC Heroes and Villains. We’re additionally elevating just a few different video games that–cellular free-to-play video games, you don’t have a pink button the place you hit it and the sport is reside. It’s extra about ongoing progress. You’re conserving them in improvement and enhancing the video games. Then you definately attempt to discover methods to scale. On this case via consumer acquisition. In that sense we’ve had video games out there out there for greater than three years. We now have six video games in our portfolio. Two of them are extra mature. We count on to scale them within the first half of the 12 months.
GamesBeat: Let’s get into a few of the tendencies within the cellular business. What do you see? What issues to you? What’s essential to concentrate to in cellular?
Fernandez Remesal: Let me begin with one thing that’s in lots of circumstances not regarded into sufficient. We’re seeing a change within the viewers itself. We have to acknowledge that Technology Z is coming in. They convey a totally new method of consuming content material. They’re much less drawn to deep, participating experiences. If I may name them, in a method, the digital era, they’re targeted on short-term or short-form leisure, the place they’ll get their dopamine and adrenaline after which have interaction additional. They’re a era that doesn’t pay loads of consideration till they get actually hooked on the issues they’re doing.
From that perspective, we see a shift in shopper conduct. We see completely different session lengths, other ways of participating with video games. The business is rising by double digits in areas like South America and the Center East and southeast Asia, whereas the extra western markets aren’t rising as a lot. That’s linked to the common age in these areas. They’ve a lot youthful populations in these rising markets, the place they eat video games as a local leisure type. There’s a brand new shopper coming in from Technology Z, bringing new consumption patterns of their session habits and charges of play. On the identical time, there’s a possibility to suggest completely different sorts of content material.
Epic Video games continues to be tangling with Google and Apple on antitrust.
GamesBeat: One of many attention-grabbing tendencies that’s emerged in cellular is the significance of the connection between builders and platforms. We noticed Apple’s resolution just a few years in the past to prioritize consumer privateness over focused promoting. It made focused promoting a lot tougher. Sport firms misplaced the power to very exactly goal individuals who favored sure sorts of video games. That they had to return to extra of a guessing recreation round how you can zero in on which customers they needed to focus on.
This had an influence over years. Do you suppose we’ve realized how you can cope with this variation out there and nonetheless have the ability to discover the customers that you simply want?
Fernandez Remesal: IDFA shouldn’t be going to go away. Privateness goes to be with us. It’s going to be one thing that everybody has to concentrate to. That’s been crucial within the cellular area, due to the merchandising issues we see within the app shops. We see loads of issues in content material discoverability. Meaning many of the development we’ve seen in these video games has been via efficiency advertising and marketing consumer acquisition.
One factor that we’re seeing increasingly is recreation builders attempting to construct communities in every single place. Attempting to reveal their video games. Attempting to create communities via influencers, via Discord and content material creation. However ultimately IDFA is right here to remain.
GamesBeat: Talking of the developer-platform relationship, we’ve had an antitrust case occurring for a very long time, 4 and a half years now, between Epic Video games and Apple. Yesterday we obtained a ruling from the choose that held Apple in contempt of courtroom. This has loads of significance for whether or not or not cellular recreation firms can go outdoors of Apple’s retailer and promote decrease costs on their internet outlets or different websites. They will promote the identical issues at decrease costs than the app retailer as a result of Apple takes a 30% lower.
Apple appealed this and had been capable of dodge the results of it, even in Europe, the place that they had a 27% core know-how price they launched. Now the choose has mentioned, “No extra of that. You possibly can’t evade this ruling anymore. You need to permit recreation firms to inform their customers that there are decrease costs elsewhere.” This can be a basic antitrust safety for customers. The ruling ought to have an effect on the entire business. What’s your view?
Fernandez Remesal: We had been speaking final week, early this week. Finally, we’ll see some type of platform disruption, particularly while you take a look at cellular platforms. Cellular has been principally ruled by two platform firms, Google and Apple. There have been different app shops within the Android ecosystem, however ultimately there are few alternatives so that you can get content material, and notably video games, in your cellular machine. That’s a scenario set for disruption.
Finally, notably in international locations which might be extra protecting towards customers–they’re upset about these oligopolies. They’d like to supply customers extra alternatives to find content material and achieve this in a method that’s honest for each customers and recreation builders. The Digital Markets Act, in the UK, was one of many first adjustments we noticed attempting to open the cellular gaming ecosystem a bit extra, attempting to make sure that builders have some alternative and customers have some alternative. However as you talked about, that was a segue method for Apple to introduce a brand new tax, a brand new price for recreation builders in the event that they needed to go that route.
What we noticed just a few hours in the past–it appears to be like actually latest. However recreation builders now have the chance to have a direct relationship with customers. They will construct that relationship in a method the place they’ll provide customers extra alternate options and selections. To begin with, value factors. You possibly can provide completely different value factors in comparison with what’s out there within the app shops. For these of you who’re recreation builders, within the app shops you can’t choose any value level you need. They’re fastened. They’ve ranges you’ll be able to decide from, however you’ll be able to’t simply choose any value level in any respect.
The second issue, as you talked about, is reductions. Attempting to make sure that in the event you’re proposing this direct to shopper providing, you’ll be able to regulate your margins and supply extra worth to customers. Finally that ensures that you simply as a recreation developer can get a broader a part of the worth share you’re creating with the patron, however on the identical time give some again as properly to the patron in a method the place they’ll pay much less after they’re utilizing an internet store.
The factor that we’ll hopefully begin to see quickly is that it’s not nearly you informing customers that they’ll produce other methods to eat your content material and purchase content material outdoors of your app, going to the online to purchase it. Finally it would open up the precise app to extra actual cost strategies in video games, as you see in different apps within the app shops.
GamesBeat: We’re not fairly positive what the road shall be. Will Apple permit folks to make use of their very own cost techniques as an alternative choice to Apple Pay?
Fernandez Remesal: Proper. However from that perspective, video games have been punished in comparison with different apps. Why are we not capable of construct that sort of relationship with customers? Why can’t we suggest a selected cost or subscription mechanic that different leisure choices can do within the app shops?
Sandsoft’s Potions & Spells.
GamesBeat: Assuming that funds usually are not going to vary, the following neatest thing is internet outlets. Arrange your personal retailer on the internet. Previously firms couldn’t promote that internet store’s existence contained in the app, however now they’ll. They will say which you could get one thing for cheaper costs elsewhere. Xsolla has been opening loads of these internet outlets and working them for firms. They’ve greater than 500 of them now. However no person knew about them. They do say that customers are utilizing them. They’re going again at a 30-40% charge and making a 10-16% elevate in revenues for builders, or in some circumstances larger. These sound like pretty promising outcomes comparatively early for different internet outlets.
Fernandez Remesal: That’s right. Significantly, in the event you’re a shopper that pays in cellular free-to-play video games, you’re attempting to get the very best worth for cash. Finally this type of core, engaged viewers that makes up the payers in your recreation, they already know they’ll go to the store to get a greater providing. For the higher mass of customers that don’t pay, they’re probably not conscious they’ll go to the online store to purchase content material and get higher offers than going via the app shops, the in-app outlets.
There are two points right here. One is about customers getting extra worth for cash right here. The second is about builders getting extra worth from the worth chain and delivering extra of it again to customers as properly.
GamesBeat: The web result’s that it’s more cash going to the underside line for builders to reinvest of their enterprise. That’s been sorely wanted, particularly within the final two and a half years. We’ve seen an actual painful downturn within the world recreation business. Each penny counts today.
Fernandez Remesal: It’s a greater distribution of worth on this case, contemplating what everybody places on the desk. Perhaps within the early days of the app shops there have been extra merchandising choices for builders, methods to get worth from the app shops. There was much less content material. Your content material may attain extra customers. There was worth within the promotional exercise the app retailer would run for you. Now that’s closely pushed by UA. In that context, the app shops actually simply grow to be a cost methodology. From that perspective, builders capturing extra worth and giving extra worth again to customers is nice, as a result of that’s reinvested within the recreation business. Sport builders seize extra worth and that helps them create higher content material and have interaction higher with customers.
GamesBeat: We’ve talked about a few of these tendencies. How are you most intently aligning your organization to a few of these tendencies, to reap the benefits of them?
Iza’s Grocery store is a recreation from Sandsoft.
Fernandez Remesal: There are a few tendencies we didn’t focus on a lot. One is about how cellular video games specifically have gotten extra complicated. Three years in the past we had been speaking about hypercasual video games, video games principally monetized via in-game promoting. Due to the challenges round privateness, video games have gotten extra deep now. They’ve microtransactions. Even informal video games have gotten extra complicated. They’ve metagames on high. They’ve deeper economies. Informal video games have gotten extra mid-core.
Mid-core video games are going this manner as properly, to extra core recreation mechanics. You see loads of video games with battle passes, with extra core engagement loops that you simply didn’t see earlier than. After which while you go to actually core video games, they’re changing into extra like informal video games. They’re attempting to simplify on the core, attempting to make themselves extra accessible. There are some shifts on the way in which. Sport builders are making video games which might be in a far more complicated, however they’re attempting to simplify the core recreation mechanics to be extra accessible.
As an organization we’re attempting to comply with these tendencies. We’re engaged on just a few informal video games that we’re releasing with our exterior companions. We’re attempting to look at how we are able to suggest these deeper economies in video games that really feel very accessible, which might be simple to play, which might be simple to understand and clarify via a easy advert, however that may ultimately retain and have interaction folks for a very long time.
The second development we didn’t focus on a lot was generative AI. That’s reworking not simply recreation improvement, however many industries. It’s a brand new instrument for everybody to make use of and leverage. Any recreation firm, or any firm in any respect, in the long run must have a correct AI technique. In our case we’re leveraging AI principally for content material creation, principally for adverts at this second. We’re enriching our NPCs via AI. However I presume that we’ll be including efficiencies in many of the issues we do, like recreation programming. We’re doing code critiques with AI now. We’re doing a little small stage designs with AI. That’s one of many instruments that’s going to offer superpowers to recreation builders.
David Fernandez Remesal moved to Saudi Arabia to run Sandsoft.
Groups that, just a few years in the past, had been contemplating constructing an engine of their very own, they don’t do this any extra. They use Unity or Godot or Unreal. Now there are pipelines for recreation improvement that shall be remodeled by means of AI. Issues that want 10 folks to do them these days, one developer may have the ability to do them extra effectively a 12 months from now.
GamesBeat: Would you take into account bringing cellular adverts into the corporate due to AI advances? Cellular advert optimization now may be finished fairly properly by AI. Fewer folks can get way more work finished when it comes to creating variations on adverts to check them out there and see which explicit advert does properly. That optimization course of was typically dealt with by outsiders. Might that change?
Fernandez Remesal: On the go-to-market you’re exactly proper. For cellular video games, what we name artistic optimization is a part of the way in which which you could optimize your development technique. However it’s broader than that. When you consider how, notably on this case, artists work, they work on content material manufacturing. You create some illustrations of characters and environments, and that is remodeled by AI. With one artist you may get 100 completely different ideas with simply a few prompts. Earlier than, within the handbook world, you’d must spend in all probability half a day to only create one. That is about being extra open for creativity, to get extra choices for exploring characters, environments, and artwork kinds. It’s not simply on the promoting aspect, too. It’s on recreation creation, too, to discover new ideas in a broader method.
GamesBeat: In Saudi Arabia you will have some parallels to Brazil in some methods, when it comes to what you do with the crew that you’ve. The crew is comparatively new to video games. You’re rising a neighborhood workers. We noticed some very attention-grabbing tendencies previously 12 months round Black Delusion: Wukong. It was a Chinese language-made recreation made for Chinese language customers, the Chinese language market. It did spectacularly properly on the worldwide stage as properly, 25 million copies bought proper off the bat. It validated the notion {that a} nation’s native content material could possibly be interesting on a worldwide scale. Much more video games are being greenlit in China now with hopes that they’ll attain a worldwide market.
Sandosoft’s PocketNecro
For you, in Saudi Arabia, do you will have a option to make round whether or not to make native content material or world content material?
Fernandez Remesal: As a recreation developer, we’re creating content material for world markets. We’re not doing content material to be consumed regionally. However that doesn’t imply–as in any a part of the world, you will have native tales, native myths, native themes which you could expose and ultimately create connections with customers and gamers in every single place on the earth.
Once I take into consideration our expertise pool, I received’t deny that we’re fairly a world firm. We now have 100 folks on the crew who come from 30 completely different nationalities. We’re nonetheless a nascent state when it comes to native Saudi expertise. We don’t have sufficient functionality to create these native tales in a method the place they really feel genuine, the place they’re informed by the appropriate folks. However that may come ultimately. I feel there’s analogy when you consider motion pictures and tv. There are many tales from this a part of the world which have been informed. We talked about Aladdin, about Prince of Egypt. There are many tales that resonate with world audiences. However we have to have the true folks, the native expertise that may inform these tales in a method that ultimately attracts a worldwide viewers and may grow to be a mass market alternative, slightly than a distinct segment factor for the native market.
GamesBeat: A whole lot of that is possibly a stepping-stone course of. You need to stage up your crew. You need to be sure that they’ll develop to be veterans of the business. Then at that time the alternatives change. You should utilize them to be the central creators of the content material.
Fernandez Remesal: Right. While you’re creating video games, while you’re creating many sorts of content material, it comes from your personal ardour. There’s some sense of the market concerned, understanding whether or not there’s a business alternative, nevertheless it comes from folks’s ardour. The eagerness is there, however the expertise and capabilities usually are not there but to consider a worldwide recreation alternative. We’ve seen that in different video games. Murderer’s Creed is an efficient instance of that, the place they’ve taken worlds and themes that resonate within the area, however to not the extent that it appears like a correct story from that a part of the world. However you’re exactly proper. We have to wait just a few years to have this functionality in place so we have now a reputable story to inform in a business method and may meet the standard expectations that world audiences have.
GamesBeat: From what you’ve seen, what’s your evaluation of the place expertise is? Whether or not in your area or different areas of the world as properly. The place is the very best cellular gaming expertise now?
Sandsoft’s Wizario
Fernandez Remesal: The reply for me is sort of simple. You simply want to have a look at the video games that make the highest of the charts. China has positively grow to be the world chief in recreation improvement expertise for cellular video games. It’s not nearly Tencent or Netease or MiHoYo. Loads of recreation builders are creating video games which might be consumed globally. That’s the bigger expertise pool for cellular video games.
It’s true as properly that the pool is increasing fairly broadly. Creating cellular video games is extra accessible than going for triple-A console video games. There are many pockets of excellence in Europe, within the U.S., in Latin America. I’m actually impressed by folks right here in Brazil, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in Chile. That’s changing into extra accessible. Expertise is creating in lots of elements of the world.
In my area, in Saudi Arabia, it’s very new. I feel that’s resonating with folks right here in Brazil. Perhaps we’re Brazil 5 years in the past. There have been some pockets of expertise that had been attempting to get their first firms into the market. We’re on the route the place we’re importing expertise to assist recreation improvement, but in addition constructing native expertise, so we are able to develop the entire business.
One other subject that’s not a lot a development as a actuality now, it’s about going cross-platform. There are many cellular first video games which might be eager about shifting to completely different platforms. When you consider how one can go to market, how one can prototype, cellular is normally the cheaper platform to try this. We see increasingly groups getting their IP into PC and console coming from cellular. We’re observing that increasingly.
One other development we see is transmedia. Perhaps that was a buzzword at one level, folks eager about migrating IP from video games into different artwork varieties, however we positively see it fairly a bit now, notably the collection we’ve seen from Netflix and Amazon and so forth. Rovio is doing motion pictures. Transmedia is changing into a development for firms with deep pockets and deep budgets.
GamesBeat: The largest factor to look at proper now, I’d agree, is AI and the place it’s going to vary issues. I imagine that cellular gaming is likely one of the areas the place it’s going to have the most important influence. AI can’t create triple-A video games but, however there are loads of issues associated to the enterprise of cellular video games that may be automated. We’ll see the place that takes maintain and will get traction.
Fernandez Remesal: One thing that we’re seeing fairly a bit right here in Brazil is the renaissance of internet gaming. WebGL has actually improved currently. We see wonderful experiences on the cellular internet. Cellular internet shall be a possibility for recreation builders. It hyperlinks to what we talked about earlier than with internet outlets and how one can monetize.
GamesBeat: We now have the Nintendo Swap 2 launching very shortly. The attention-grabbing factor about now versus years in the past is that Nintendo is not the primary machine that children get their palms on as a gamer. It’s smartphones and tablets now, cellular video games. That’s how they be taught to play video games, which represents a sea change for firms like Nintendo. They should comply with this development. The youngest avid gamers are solely going to know the manufacturers that they see on cellular.
Fernandez Remesal: That’s exactly proper. Cellular is the primary gaming machine for a lot of, many individuals, notably children. That’s the place they uncover content material. It’s not simply video games. It’s how they discover all types of leisure – streaming media, music, and video games as properly.
Disclosure: Gamescom Latam paid my approach to Brazil.
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