Ninety three – Playhubs game developer Meetup

I couldn’t believe it; there were free beers but I couldn’t drink any of them; I was on my scooter. I had parked just off Lincoln’s Inn Field, close to the London School of Economics and walked the short distance to Somerset House. I had ridden past Somerset House many times on my commute but knew next to nothing about it, other than it occasionally hosted music events and had an ice rink during the winter months.

The Meetup instructions were to visit the ‘New Wing’. Following signs, I discovered an expensive looking restaurant and a maze of corridors which eventually led to me to a small reception area. I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontation with a security guard.

‘I can’t see your name on the list’ said the guard grimly.

He was in his early thirties, wore a white shirt, a black blazer and a name tag. He clearly meant business. After a bit of discussion, he pushed a button and let me in; I was no longer worried by ‘security’: if you looked reasonably smart and said you were in the right place, it seemed to be the rule that they let you through.

I was going to a talk that had the title ‘Playhub: how other industries could inform F2P design’, and I had no idea what F2P was. I had never heard of a Playhub either. Was it a software development platform? Was it a video game that people used on their phones or tablets? Was it a business or a video game publisher?

I pushed a set of double doors and found a large room that was filled with computers that were sitting on tidy desks. Geeks were liberally scattered throughout the space, deep in concentration, staring into their video screens.

I recognised our host, Tim, from his Meetup photograph and went over to say hello. Tim guided me towards the back of the room where I saw a digital projector, stools, comfy chairs and, of course, a bucket of ice cold beers.

‘Hi! I’m Mandy’. Mandy offered me a hand and a friendly smile.

Mandy was the community manager and had been working at Playhub for just two days. Playhub turned out to be part co-working space and part ‘game accelerator’. If you were an indi-game developer, you could use the space to both work and network. I was curious: I wanted to know how it was funded, and how it was connected to other Tech groups I had been to. A quick internet search later offered some tentative answers: it was set up by an experienced private investor who had lots of experience of working in the videogames industry.

I chatted to some of the people who had appeared at the back of the room. There was Stuart, who had been working on a video game engine, Carl, who was some kind of games developer, and Jason, who was going to be our speaker.

‘Has anyone heard of a card game called Hearthstone?’ asked Jason, beginning his talk.

I tentatively put up my hand. Hearthstone was the online card game that I had started to play at the GeekPub event with Grace. Jason was working on new online card game that was a bit like Hearthstone but had different monsters; warriors, warlords, minions and elves. These were depicted by ornate and well-drawn cartoon graphics that would clearly appeal to teenagers.

Jason used to work for a games publisher in Japan. ‘Gamers in Japan come to a game with some idea about how much they want to pay’ he explained. ‘Rather than paying by credit card, gamers can pay through their internet provider. When you’ve reached your limit, you can’t pay any more’.

F2P, it turned out, was an abbreviation for ‘free to play’. Jason’s business model was to ‘sell’ players ‘virtual cards’, allowing them to create ‘stronger hands’ against competitors. This, it seemed, took inspiration from physical card games where creating the deck was as important as playing the game itself. I remembered the Netrunner Meetup, where I was introduced into a world of card game cults and confusion.

Jason talked us through various screens: a virtual shop where players could buy various cards, and a brief demonstration of a game with a ‘bot’. As he talked, he mentioned other weird sounding games, such as the Rage of Bahamut and the Legend of the Cryptids. One innovation of the game was the ability to create user generated tournaments, where users could club together to create a monetary prize.

As Jason talked, I thought about my own relationship with video games and the idea of there being different ‘game cultures’. I used to play games when I was in my twenties; I was enchanted by the advances in computer graphics, sound and gameplay, but it was a phase that I quickly grew out of. When I spend my days staring at a computer screen, the last thing I want to do in the evening is play a video game with a stranger over the internet.

It was time for questions. Someone asked about the money side of things: ‘if this is a free to play game, what percentage of people do you expect to actually pay?’ The answer: low; only a small percentage, anything between one and five percent of players. To break the silence that had descended in the room, I asked a question: ‘can you tell us something about the demographic that you’re aiming for? Have you a particular user in mind?’

‘Men. Between the age of twenty and forty, those who know about games like Hearthstone and Magic’ replied Jason. I pushed him a little more about the characteristics of the user, before asking my final question.

‘So, how does it work?’ My inner geek had taken over. I wanted to know about the tech magic that made these games possible. ‘You’ve got people playing card games with each other over the internet, do you use some software platform to make it all work?’

‘That’s a great question. There’s a number of platforms out there that developers can use. There’s platforms like Photon and Playfab. We use Playfab. I think there’s another one called Gamespark, which we looked at’.

‘I’m the CEO of Gamespark’, came a man’s voice from the back of the room. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘I’ll be really interested in hearing about how you chose your platform’.

After the question and answer I chatted to Mandy and a chap called Alex whilst Jason chatted to the CEO. Alex was hanging around because he was keen to ask questions about the ethical dimensions of the game. I looked around. There were around five or six people remaining. I guessed I had made it to ‘the bitter end’ of the Meetup.

It was time to go home, but not before I had nabbed a beer and had secreted it into my bag, moments after Mandy had approved its liberation with a nod. Ten minutes later, I was on my way home, scooting over Waterloo Bridge, passing Somerset House, catching a glimpse of the rooms I had just visited.