Sonic, Netflix and Balenciaga: Inside SEGA's Transmedia Strategy

Yeah, I guess, you know, you talked around things coming back to a center point.

And I guess, you know, for some people that center might still be the game.

But then the other point is, some people might never go to the game.

So how do you think about that? It is just around delivering great experiences and products within those, you know, different touch points without necessarily having to drive them back to the center point? Or is the objective always to drive them back to the center point?

Well, I think the games are sort of the deepest experience that we offer for our IP because just by virtue of the average play time being anywhere from 50 to 100 hours, depending on the game, right? And so once you are a core fan or you are highly engaged, the most satisfying experience probably out there for a particular IP would probably be our console games.

Or you can play on PC, right? But...

But I think the point being that the stories are the richest and the deepest because of the format.

But we also are not... being overly prescriptive on how people celebrate their fandom.

And my boss, the president of Sega, has been pretty, in recent interviews, has actually made this statement and I think probably surprised some people in the gaming industry who are like, but wait, you're Sega.

Of course, we're Sega and we're very proud of the fact that games are our quarter identity, but we also understand that we're competing for people's time.

Yeah.

And the fact that they became a fan of one of our franchises is an honor that we, we need to both respect and treat with care.

Right.

So obviously we try to, introduce different and additional ways that they can enjoy the IP, but without being overly commercial about it.

Yeah.

It's a fine line, but we try to walk it.

Yeah.

I guess there's always a core audience, like we were just talking around.

You know, you could have... heavily male audience that kind of actively plays the game versus perhaps for Merge, it's a heavily female audience.

So how do you strike that balance between, you obviously want to keep the core audience strong and not take the IP to a place where you can't be authoritative, let's say, or you shouldn't, you're stretching too far, let's say.

Right.

So how are you finding that balance of understanding? And I guess it comes back to like, what's the brand DNA? What's the audience?

Yes.

I think some IP have greater audience flexibility.

So for something like, like a dragon, we're never going to position as a kid's product.