What does it take to bring indie games to the world? Brian Kwek, founder of Ysbryd Games, turned his passion for gaming into a career, publishing hits like 'Valhalla' and 'World of Horror.' He shares how Ysbryd Games balances creative vision with the business aspects of gaming, carving out a niche in the indie scene.
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00:00Lots of people would say, oh, this has nothing much to do with actually making a game.
00:05This also, 50% of the battle is making your game, 50% of the battle is selling your game.
00:21My name is Brian Quek. I'm the founder of Yesprite Games,
00:24which is a boutique publisher of independent games.
00:27A publisher is different from a developer.
00:30Developers, literally, they make the game.
00:32They draw art, they write code, and they design levels.
00:37Whereas publishers tend to focus more on the business side of selling the game,
00:41like marketing and PR, online and physical distribution of the game, quality assurance,
00:46and more.
00:47Where publishers are concerned, you may be more familiar with the
00:50supermassive publishers like Activision or Electronic Arts,
00:54but there's lots of smaller outfits similar to Yesprite.
00:58At the scales that we operate, we tend to use labels like
01:01indie games, boutique games.
01:04If this were an F&B business, you'd probably hear the label artisanal right about now.
01:10There's a chance you've heard of our best-selling titles,
01:13like the cyberpunk bartending game known as Valhalla.
01:17You're put in the shoes of a bartender in that world,
01:19and your job is to talk to clients, understand their needs,
01:23and serve them a drink that could very well alter the course of their lives.
01:28Another game that's done well for us is World of Horror.
01:31This game puts you in the shoes of someone living in a Japanese seaside town known as Shiokawa.
01:36You find yourself surrounded by deformed humans and grotesque creatures.
01:41What makes a good game is seriously dependent on what sort of audience you intend to serve.
01:46For example, a visual novel is often wasted on
01:50people who don't value storytelling with words or people who simply hate reading.
01:55In the Yesprite portfolio, a good game is any game that elicits a solid emotional reaction
02:01and leaves a mark on you after you finish the game.
02:03Maybe for better, maybe for worse.
02:06If the game didn't compel you to finish it, or you felt nothing after the credits rolled,
02:10then I think it's kind of tragic that we didn't produce a game worthy of your time.
02:15My interest in games started when I was very young, like four or five years old.
02:20The first system my family owned was a Sega Mega Drive,
02:24or, you know, Genesis as they call it in North America.
02:27So that was a lot of my childhood spent with Sonic the Hedgehog.
02:30But that system was the first to open my eyes to games with compelling,
02:34thoughtful content like Shining Force and Phantasy Star.
02:38After PSLE, my mom bought a PlayStation.
02:41And I think that playing games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid,
02:46it sounds like a hyperbole to say this now in 2024,
02:50but those games really revolutionized how powerful and emotional storytelling in games could be.
02:56I went to Boston University after finishing my national service,
03:00but at that time, it wasn't in my head to work in games, you know.
03:03So I did what your typical 20-something-year-old kid from Singapore going to university does,
03:08and I studied business management.
03:10A business management program, it helped me prepare myself as a generalist for entrepreneurial tasks,
03:17able to handle bookkeeping and legal contracts,
03:20while thinking about revenue sustainability, product management, marketing and PR goals,
03:26you know, keeping all of this constantly, juggling all this stuff in mind.
03:30So over here, we have a selection of merchandise from the best-selling games from Ysprit's portfolio.
03:36So mostly, you'll see stuff from Valhalla, the Cyberpunk Bartender game,
03:40as well as the horror game, World of Horror.
03:43Over here, we have Jill Stingray from Valhalla.
03:46It's kind of our best-selling character.
03:48What I'm holding is a figurine called a Nendoroid.
03:52We also made our own plushes for Jill and for her boss, Dana.
03:57What I would describe as our core skill set,
03:59but we learned a lot of these things along the way,
04:01but we learned a lot of these things along the way,
04:03and helping our developers realize,
04:06translate their creations into physical merchandise,
04:09it's a very interesting journey.
04:12So this thing that I'm holding is a deluxe edition of the game Valhalla
04:17that we also released on Switch and PlayStation.
04:20And we also have add-ons for that, such as the art book that you see here.
04:25This one is for the Japanese version of the game.
04:27We did a separate Japanese release.
04:29For the other game, World of Horror,
04:31we've worked closely with a company called Fangamer,
04:34and they have helped us put together a lot of apparel items for World of Horror.
04:39So this is a small selection of the merchandise we've worked on to date.
04:43And fans are really always happy to see high-quality merch come out
04:49that helps them really represent their love for the game.
04:52And likewise, developers always feel really heartened
04:56when they see fans enjoying that merchandise.
04:58So we do everything we can to provide that for the fans.
05:02Lots of people would say,
05:03oh, this has nothing much to do with actually making a game.
05:07And in terms of actually developing the game,
05:10I agree to some extent.
05:12But there's also the 50% of the battle is making your game,
05:1650% of the battle is selling your game.
05:18So the bottom line for me is that studying business management
05:22helped create a nice systemic foundation
05:24for development partners to rely on me to do my job.
05:27And so far, it's worked out well.
05:29Two friends from school came along to talk to me
05:32about seriously making a video game.
05:35Even though we knew nothing about the industry
05:37except we had this passion for playing games,
05:40that was a bit of a challenging journey,
05:42but it was the start of what would become
05:44the local game developer, Witching Hour Studios.
05:50We're here at the BattleBrew Productions office.
05:52I'm hanging out with Sean and Dawn over here.
05:56You guys want to introduce yourselves?
05:57I'm Sean, I run BattleBrew Productions.
06:00I've been a game designer my entire career.
06:03The game I think we are most well-known for right now though is
06:05Quisineer, which is an action RPG with a restaurant
06:10that launched late last year.
06:11And hi, my name is Dawn
06:13and I'm actually one of the co-founders of True World Studios.
06:16We are actually a studio just at level eight upstairs.
06:18We are about three years old already
06:20and we actually used to do a lot of projects for businesses
06:25using the game engine to do virtual reality, augmented reality.
06:30And now we're actually developing our own game called Anyuda
06:33and it's a first-person shooter
06:35and we're looking forward to a full launch later part of the year.
06:39So Dawn and I actually go back really far back.
06:42You want to talk about that?
06:44Yeah, I mean, it's like I know Brian since secondary school.
06:49That's like a really long time ago.
06:51Two decades.
06:51Yeah, so I mean, we were in like Boy Scouts together.
06:56We're in the same scout troop
06:57and then I think along the way our education started diverging.
07:01I mean, we went to different schools, different universities
07:05but along the way in our careers, I went into a AAA big studio
07:10and then Brian started his own studio, right?
07:14And then I subsequently went into government
07:16and somehow our paths crossed again
07:18where we told ourselves, you know, hey, you know
07:20let's work out something to kind of bring the games community together.
07:25I would say less of a professional thing.
07:28It's more like we enjoy the same kind of games.
07:30The taste of games have evolved
07:32and I think for us in, I mean, we are kind of like the millennial generation.
07:37Now we already have the Gen Zs in the workforce.
07:40Their preference for games are also quite different.
07:41So I think it's where we sometimes have this kind of conversation
07:44to kind of like appreciate that diversity we have in the industry.
07:51Well, I think generally so.
07:53I mean, obviously there's people who won't get along, right?
07:56I think the way I'd phrase it
07:58but I think even social niceties aside
08:04instead of competition, sometimes it's easier to collaborate instead, right?
08:08If you're in the same genre, in fact, it's a great thing
08:10like if your games can cross-promote
08:11so we've definitely cross-promoted with other studios, with other games
08:16and I think that's just a better way to do business even.
08:20I think what I'm thankful about though is that
08:22a lot of this isn't just professional.
08:25A lot of it really does, I think, come from the heart
08:27and, you know, if you can help each other, why not, right?
08:31So I think that's the general attitude
08:33mostly because, in fact, I think the industry is sometimes unforgiving.
08:36It's tough, right?
08:37So we've seen at this point
08:40quite a few friends' companies not quite make it.
08:42It's always tough.
08:43So I think if you can help, who knows, maybe they make it big
08:46and they can help you out in the future, right?
08:48So I think that's a better way to do it.
08:51So Witching Hour's magnum opus was a tactical RPG
08:55which some of you may have heard of.
08:57It's called Masquerada Songs and Shadows.
09:00Masquerada was a fully voice-acted adventure
09:02and in many ways, we were extremely proud of what we put together
09:06in terms of the narrative, the emotional power
09:09and artistic value of the game
09:12but unfortunately, Masquerada simply didn't hit the mark
09:16with its audience for various market-related reasons
09:19and we had to shut the studio down
09:22about a year after Masquerada arrived on consoles
09:25like PlayStation and Xbox.
09:27This was in 2017.
09:28So that was a very low point of my life
09:31both professionally and personally.
09:34The Singapore games industry has been active for at least two decades
09:38and we have a history of renowned international game developers
09:41and publishers setting up offices here
09:44like Ubisoft from France, Bandai Namco and Tecmo Koei from Japan.
09:49And Electronic Arts 2K from the USA.
09:53Many Singaporeans have cut their teeth at these places
09:56learning how to develop games and sell games
09:59and quite a few have set out to do their own indie adventure
10:03and make their own game.
10:04Singaporeans absolutely have the skills and talent
10:07needed to release amazing and successful games like these.
10:11Currently, the riskiest part of development for Singaporeans
10:14is finding money to make a game prototype
10:17which can be difficult to secure
10:19because people, financiers are reluctant to take a punt
10:22on someone who has never shipped a game before.
10:25This life as a games publisher can be pretty varied and interesting
10:29even if at first blush you say
10:32oh you sell games, you're all doing all the business stuff
10:36doesn't sound terribly exciting compared to creative work
10:39like making a game, you know.
10:41But I feel that there's a lot of different things for a publisher to do
10:46even if it's not literally working on the game itself
10:49and in my experience, I actually find myself
10:52providing a lot of input to the game developers
10:56helping them shape the game in a way that makes sense
10:58for the audience they want to chase.