For anyone tracking where the money in games is going: Benjamin Kratsch of Levelz Gaming Group in Riyadh on Saudi Arabia's games and esports strategy.

Ben has spent four years inside Saudi Arabia's push to build the world's biggest games and esports publisher. He has worked with PIF on the national games and esports strategy, on M&A and pipeline, and on bringing publishers to the table for Gamers8 and the Esports World Cup. He explains what the kingdom wants from its $55bn buyout of EA, why distribution is king, and where the capital goes next.

In this conversation:

- Why Qiddiya is being built as a theme park destination for gaming

- The maths pulling publishers back to single-player: a $200m game returning $750m at launch, against a live service chasing a $3bn case

- 007 First Light's roughly 4 million sales on a $200m budget, why Ben thinks it deserved 10 to 20 million more, and what Amazon's next Bond could do for the franchise

- Phil Spencer's Netflix-of-gaming bet, and how Asha Sharma's data-driven Xbox differs

- The licensing logic behind the EA deal, and why EA F1 has more room to grow than EA Sports FC

- Why PIF won't buy Xbox

- How a Game Pass playtime KPI shaped Doom: The Dark Ages

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

0:52 Four years inside Saudi's national games strategy

2:41 From "why Saudi?" to "how can we partner?"

7:29 Qiddiya and the case for gaming theme parks

10:28 The maths pulling publishers back to single-player

15:06 007 First Light and the distribution gap

18:42 Phil Spencer, Asha Sharma and the Netflix-of-gaming problem

25:52 Battlefield x Top Gun and EA's Hollywood pipeline

31:00 Why PIF wanted EA: football clubs and F1 teams

33:48 Serve the core fans first: Battlefield Labs and Dragon Age

36:26 EA's back catalogue, Titanfall 3 and the next wave of M&A

49:14 Why PIF won't buy Xbox

52:38 When playtime became the KPI

54:24 What Netflix should do with games

1:05:01 Giving developers real upside

ABOUT BENJAMIN

Benjamin Kratsch is Chief Business Development Officer at Levelz Gaming Group, building the games and esports ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on venture capital. He has spent 15 years in media and marketing, building content products for IDG and Red Bull Media House, consulting on games and esports TV for NBC Universal and NBC Sports, and running campaigns for brands including Samsung, Aston Martin and Aramco. In Saudi Arabia he worked with PIF on the national games and esports strategy and served as Creative Director on Gamers8, which drew 3 million visitors over two months.

LINKS

Benjamin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminkratsch/

Levelz Gaming Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/levelz-gg/

Esports World Cup: https://esportsworldcup.com/en

Related episode: Shawn Layden on platforms and publishers (Ep 97): https://youtu.be/afg_CbpKvw8

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ABOUT PURPOSE MADE

The Purpose Made Podcast is hosted by Peter Bell, founder of Purpose Made, a franchise architecture and IP strategy consultancy. Long-form conversations with the people who build games, films and the IP around them.

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Former PlayStation leader Shawn Layden spent 32 years inside Sony, from writing founder Akio Morita's speeches at 29 to running Worldwide Studios. He explains why Xbox must choose between being a platform and being the biggest publisher in the world, and why data-driven greenlighting is producing games nobody remembers when we should be focused on building phenomenal characters, stories, and worlds.

Shawn joined Sony in Tokyo in 1987 and spent 25 years with PlayStation, from the original console through the end of PS4. He served five years on Morita's personal staff, ran the London studio era that produced The Getaway, and was there for the acquisitions that brought Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog and others into Worldwide Studios. Today he advises startups and works with the nonprofit Girls Make Games.

The conversation opens with the tension pulling Xbox apart: you can make the pie bigger for everyone, or you can take the biggest slice, and the two imperatives point in opposite directions. From there it moves into why triple-digit-million budgets have crushed risk tolerance, why finance's demand for comparables makes a rhythm action game with unicorns unfundable, and what Shawn learned watching Morita launch products no market research would ever have predicted.

He tells the story of getting laughed out of every major Hollywood studio with The Getaway ("What do you want to make? Pong the movie?"), then walking back into the same rooms 16 years later to found PlayStation Productions. He breaks down why Pokémon out-earns Mickey Mouse and Marvel, how the Insomniac acquisition came out of a dinner with Ted Price, and the question his first development mentor asked that ripped producers' hearts out: where's the fun part?

He closes with three predictions: a return to tight narrative games people actually finish, a standardised game format that finally breaks the 250 million console ceiling, and the end of the 6-to-8-year development cycle.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — Introduction

1:39 — Xbox's Choice: Platform or the Biggest Publisher in the World

7:55 — Triple-Digit Budgets and the Death of Risk Tolerance

14:35 — Writing Speeches for Akio Morita at 29

19:35 — Three Concentric Circles: Games, Film and TV, Music

25:02 — GTA 6's Blast Radius and Gaming's Inverse Social Impact

28:28 — "Every 60 Years the Forest Has to Burn Down"

36:12 — Laughed Out of Hollywood with The Getaway

43:28 — Disney's Flywheel and Why Pokémon Out-Earns Mickey Mouse

49:34 — Scarcity, Storefronts, and the Carousel Choke Point

52:37 — The Insomniac Acquisition: "Let's Just Put a Ring on It"

55:25 — Prince of Persia, Kutaragi, and the Birth of PlayStation

1:00:05 — "Where's the Fun Part?"

1:02:26 — Three Predictions for Where Gaming Goes Next

1:06:31 — Wrap-Up

Follow Shawn Layden:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-layden/

Girls Make Games: https://www.girlsmakegames.com/

Purpose Made is hosted by Pete Bell — gaming industry consultant and interviewer of the people who shaped the games, films, and culture you love.

Website: https://purposemade.uk

Follow Pete Bell:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peter-george-bell

Instagram: @thepeterbell

This podcast was produced by Purpose Made.

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