Championing Indie og AA - Convergence Games Showcase Interview med Daniel Maher og Fireshine Games Tina Moore

Audio transcriptions

"Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another Gamereactor interview.
Today, I have a bit of a special one for you, actually, because I'm here with not just one person.
Technically, there's three people here right now."

"Whether we'll hear from Sarah is a different story right now.
You know, it's a wild world we live in, and there's all kinds of things going around, so Sarah's hiding in the bushes, shall we say.
But Tina's here to cover for Sarah, part of the Fireshine team, and Dan's here as well to talk all things convergence."

"Now, we're talking about these things is because on Thursday, on September 26th, there will be this Convergence Games Showcase.
Now, this is a wonderful time to show off a bunch of titles from Indian AA developers, of which, you know, that's why Tina's here from Fireshine to talk about what they have coming in the future, and Dan, you're here to tell us all about how convergence came about."

"So that's where we'll start, Dan.
We'll start with you.
So tell me, you know, how important is it to have a showcase like convergence?
That spotlights games and studios that might otherwise not receive the same attention at the large-scale events, you know, Gamescom, Summer Game Fest, the Game Awards, that kind of stuff."

"I think you sum it up in the question.
There are so many great games out there.
We're in this sort of golden era where there are so many good, not just so many games out, there are so many great games out that are competing for our attention."

"And so, for example, I saw just last week, there was the 6.1 Indie Showcase.
That had dozens of games in it.
There are two in that showcase that are in our show, and we have 43 games.
I think that really just highlights the overall importance of just being able to get these games to the right audiences."

"And that's kind of why convergence has that creator backing as well, because the most important thing to us is making sure that it gets seen by a lot of people, and what better way is there to make sure that it gets seen by giving it to people who have these huge audiences already installed across Twitch and YouTube?
And that's really what inspired the genesis of convergence."

"And what goes into creating a showcase like convergence?
I imagine that you've been very busy the past couple of days trying to get everything ready for Thursday.
How long have you got?
It's a very strange thing to build a showcase from scratch."

"It just requires so many moving parts.
From my side, I was very much involved in the curation of it.
So while we had a partnerships team who were actively chatting to publishers about getting their games into the showcase, I was then just trawling through Twitter threads and hashtags just to find all these smaller titles that were looking for exposure and coverage, and then just creating forms for those people to be able to apply to us to be featured, and then having to just trawl through dozens and dozens of applications and finding the games that we thought were the best fit for it."

"Alongside that, you have to create an entire brand, an entire visual identity for it.
You have to pull these titles together in a way editorially that makes sense.
You have to find hosts. You have to find guests.
You have to get it distributed across all of these channels."

"As I said to you before we started, you're having to do things like populate Twitter before the showcase goes live with a tweet for every single game.
And every time you add a game, that's another tweet. That's another YouTube upload.
It spirals very rapidly."

"I have never been involved in a project that has so many spreadsheets going on simultaneously.
It's an incredible team effort. That's what I'll say.
It's just a huge, huge, huge team effort.
And everyone across our company and obviously externally with amazing partners like Fireshine have really just pulled out all the stops to achieve this in a very, very short timeline."

"That brings me on to you, Tina, for a minute then.
So we'll talk specifically about what you're going to be showing at the Convergence Showcase in a minute.
But talking about the show as a whole, what led you to want to associate and be part of the Convergence Games Showcase?
I think what's really important for indie games at the moment is to be out there as much as possible, but be in front of the audience that you know will love these games."

"Obviously, we don't have huge budgets, so we can't spend a load of money pushing the games as we used to when you were doing a lot of broadcasts and everything else.
These games need to be discovered.
And the best way to go about that is through the eyes of the creators."

"We work closely with the guys who've built Convergence, and we thought this was an amazing opportunity to really get our games out there.
Of course, Dan, back to you for a moment again, because I'm sure we'll talk a whole lot about what Tina's bringing in a moment."

"But you mentioned earlier about the process that you had to go through curating the games that you're going to be showing at Convergence.
What parameters did you set out?
What led you to go, this game is something we want to make sure we're featuring at Convergence, whereas this one perhaps we'll show that one at maybe a future event or something like that?
It's a number of factors."

"Obviously, quality is one factor, and you have to review these games and think, is this something that I believe from my background?
I've been in the games industry for just over two decades now, and is this something that immediately gives me that, okay, this is going to be good vibe, that's part of it, it's a good thing."

"But there's also other aspects in terms of what can that person bring to you for a showcase?
People are expecting exclusive content, so can they give you something that hasn't been seen anywhere else?
What's the quality of that announcement?
Is it a release date reveal? Is it a world exclusive?
It's factors like that."

"And then a big thing for us was also the diversity of the content in terms of the number of genres that we covered.
One thing that I was keen to do was avoid what I call tonal whiplash.
So when you see a lot of showcases, it's a string of games that have no connective tissue."

"You roll from one trailer to another.
It could be a cute and cozy farming simulator.
The next thing, it's a gruesome horror.
So I thought, well, let's avoid that."

"Let's at least help the audience to anticipate the sorts of games they're about to see.
And so we wanted to create kind of an even split across, I think what we have now is eight categories.
With those 40 games, we are averaging about five or six games per category."

"And so the thought was that even if there's something that doesn't necessarily appeal to you in that block of games, there'll be something coming along that probably will suit you as well.
So that was it."

"We wanted to make sure that we weren't having too much sort of tonal repetition as well or thematic repetition.
So, yeah, all of those factors converged, ha-ha, and became the show that it is today."

"But, again, that was a lot of moving blocks around.
It was almost like playing a puzzle game, being presented with this list of dozens of games, thinking, well, how do we arrange these?
How do we organize this into something that feels, you know, coherent and curated?
And I think we've succeeded."

"So, Tina, what can you tell us about the game you're going to be showing off?
Where does it fit?
What category are we going to sort of be expecting to find what Fireshine is bringing to the table in?
Well, I mean, we could be here for a while, Ben, because we have four games in Convergence."

"Yeah, four games.
And they're all completely different.
So Dan summed it up really well.
That's the great thing about Fireshine."

"We have such a huge variety of games, and they're also very different.
So there are four titles included.
The first one I'm going to mention is Shadows of Doubt, which is obviously the immersive sandbox detective game that everyone knows and loves."

"That is going into 1.0, and it is launching into Convergence.
So the 1.0 of Shadows of Doubt on all formats will launch as the showcase goes live.
So that's one amazing opportunity that, you know, we're really excited about."

"A second title that we've got coming in, and this is Ayla, which I'm sure you all heard of at Gamescom.
So it was in the pre-show for opening night live.
It's a sci-tech horror from Pulsatrix Studios, which is one game that we're super excited about."

"And we've got there, we did a piece with some influencers, and it's all about their reaction to the trailer that was at opening night live.
So we're really excited to bring more of Ayla to the show."

"And then we also have Tales of Seikyuu, which is a wonderful kind of farming sim, kind of love interest game.
So you've got waifus and husbandos and, you know, a wonderful kind of cozy, happy, lovely experience there."

"And that is going to be announcing. Yes, exactly. Full of yokai.
And you can kind of get your, engage your yokai powers.
So it's a beautiful game and that is already doing hugely well in terms of awareness and people interested in it."

"And we will be announcing at the showcase that we are opening our first alpha for people to come and play Tales of Seikyuu.
So we're really excited about putting that in the wider audience's hands.
It will be a closed play test, but we're still letting a fair few people in just to get their hands on."

"So that's exciting. And then we've also got Ita, which is our kind of mining tower defence game, which we're also really excited about, which has got a wonderful personality.
So, yeah, we're really excited to bring all of these games and all of this wonderful news to, you know, the Convergence audience."

"Yeah. Just to add to that, I mean, we're really grateful to Fireshine.
They were one of the earliest adopters of the show.
And the two games mentioned there, Shadows of Doubt and Isla, really illustrate one of the things we try to do differently with the show in the way that when we say, oh, it's a creator showcase, that we're not just paying lip service to that."

"The videos that we have for both of those games are, you know, they're fundamentally creator focused.
They're not just straightforward trailers.
We've cut together bespoke content from a variety of streams."

"And with Shadows of Doubt, we also have an incredible intro to that from a creator called General Sam, who's done an amazing job on that.
So that's the kind of stuff that we're hoping that people will respond well to, as opposed to just, you know, being confronted with trailer after trailer."

"We've got things in there that we hope are really mixing up the feel of what you'd expect from a typical showcase.
And I suppose, Tina, we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier when I asked Dan about, you know, the curation process of bringing a game to Convergence."

"What's that like for you guys at Fireshine?
You know, this is a project we're really excited about, but it's so different to something that we've done recently.
What's the sort of process that goes into, you know, you deciding that we want to support this game in particular?
Support this game? Sorry, Ben, in what sense?
Can you expand on that a little bit?
As in, you have such a broad array of different games that are coming and being shown at Convergence, sorry."

"Yeah.
How do you decide, like, oh, yeah, we're doing a mining game here.
We're doing this sort of waifu thing over here.
They're all so different."

"So how do you decide, like, you know, this game is the one thing we're going to support this time, whereas next time we're going to do this one.
You know, what's the sort of process behind that?
Do you know, we try and obviously support all of our games, but we try and do it in the right way."

"We have an amazing scouting team that go out and look to acquire games, and it's a number of different reasons as to why, one, we sign a game, but also we're very mindful of, you know, kind of how we can support those different games."

"So they are, some of them are very, very indie in their roots.
So it's really just about, you know, making sure that it gets in the right people's hands and making sure the right content creators get hold of the game, because we know, as everyone else, you know, kind of who's into gaming now does, if they are saying the right things and they are enjoying the game, then that will bring the audience to it."

"And then it's very much about making sure that we build a community to keep that momentum going.
These are very small studios in some instances.
Shadows of Doubt is cold."

"It's, you know, Cold Power Games, one guy, he's had a little bit of support going into console launch, but primarily it was one guy for the vast majority of that game, you know, and some of the studios are teeny tiny."

"So it's really just about making the games do the talking and the content creators nowadays enable us to get that word out there.
So that's why it's so important.
You know, it's not, we do work with media partners."

"Of course we do, because we're crazy not to, but in reality, the content creators now are organically showing the passion for those games and getting it out to the right audience."

"So we try, you know, at best to make sure that content creators are on board and that we are building relationships with those guys to make sure that our games, hopefully, are first and foremost in their minds."

"And I suppose talking about the curation process, Dan, I guess that kind of applies to the content creators as well that you look to use to showcase these games, right?
You know, obviously there's some big names that are going to be part of the conversion showcase, but there are probably some smaller names that people are less familiar with as well, right?
Yeah, absolutely."

"Part of the process and one of the reasons we put this together is because the core agency, Fourth Floor, they're a creator and influencer agency.
So it just made sense to combine the fact that my, you know, the company that I'm part of, Explosive Island, which is owned by Fourth Floor, who has a background video production and editorial, between ourselves and Fourth Floor, we have an amazing roster of clients and we have a list of, you know, hundreds of content creators on call."

"So it just makes sense that our wonderful delivery team just sort of saw what we were envisioning and then they would, through their list generation, find the right people to match the games that we're covering and just found an incredible selection of talent."

"And you're right, it is a mix of, you know, finding people who have those big built-in audiences to make sure that the showcase gets exposure.
But it's also pairing the games with just the right people, the people that will do that game justice and are genuinely enthusiastic about the games."

"We didn't just want to have, you know, someone speaking about it, hashtag ad, you know, and then they move on to the next thing.
You don't want that."

"And you'll see, you know, when you see, for example, the Isla video, you've got these creators who are associated with horror games who are responding very, very genuinely and very candidly to this terrifying demo."

"And that's exactly what we wanted.
So as well as the sort of, I think it's 20 creators we have in total, we have two creators who are the sort of the lead hosts."

"Then we have a third creator called WonderBot who is our sort of indie voice.
So he already has a great presence on Twitch promoting indie games."

"So we have a section throughout called Want to Watch where he picks up on the smaller games.
And then all of the other ones pop up to talk about games that they're, you know, in genres that they're associated with or they make appearances in these creator montages."

"So on top of those 20 creators, we will also have a number of people co-streaming it.
We already have a community forming on Discord, a lobby full of people who are eagerly anticipating the show and will be simultaneously co-streaming it just to help these games, you know, get the multiple wishlists they deserve."

"Now, I'm guessing here that the Convergence Games Showcase is just the first step forward in what would be a sort of a grander Convergence enterprise, should we say, where you're going to have more shows in the future, something like that."

"But Tina, you know, Fireshine has a very big presence at this Convergence Showcase.
Do you see this as like a start of a sort of a big sort of flourishing partnership between Convergence and Fireshine?
I mean, absolutely."

"That's what we'd like it to be.
I'm fully confident that Convergence will deliver.
And absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's important that we get our games in front of the right audiences and the creators can enable us to do that."

"And that's the key thing.
It's about making sure that the games get in the right people's hands.
And I think an opportunity like this is kind of key to that."

"I'm pretty sure that the showcase will deliver, you know, what we need it to.
So absolutely.
We're all for shows like this.
Just opportunities to show the games to the right audience."

"And Dan, tell me then a little bit about the future for Convergence.
And obviously we've got the showcase that's going to be taking place on September 26th."

"When this interview goes out, it might already have been taking place.
I'm not too sure.
But either way, it's coming up.
So tell me, what does the future hold then for Convergence post this?
Do you have other big plans of the shows down the line?
Dan, my head is like down here right now."

"What's over there?
I don't even want to look over there.
I don't even want to know what's over there.
Now, obviously, you know, you want this to be something that takes off."

"You want this to be something that is really well received.
And you want it to be the start, you know, of a new regular showcase that people are going to be anticipating every year."

"So it really does rest on how people respond to it.
If we have our way, yes, we'll be creating more of these showcases.
We may be diversifying further, trying to invite more, you know, more developers and publishers of larger titles."

"I can't tell you what we're showing, but there are some AA games in this showcase as well.
The focus is on indie, but we wanted to bring in AAs as well."

"And we do hope that, you know, there's skepticism when a new showcase comes out.
Can you deliver?
You know, what's it going to look like?
All of these are unknowns when it's your first time."

"So I'm very confident from what I've seen that what we've made is something new, something different, something that does feel curated and editorialized."

"And if people respond to that in the right way, then I think we'll have a much easier job of then reaching out to more people and saying, you know, join the next Convergence, be a part of it."

"And yeah, I'll be having sleepless nights and working weekends well into 2025 as well.
So, Tina, then there's a final question for you.
You mentioned there that the four games that Fireshine are bringing to the Convergence game showcase."

"If you had to pick one to highlight and say, make sure you check out this announcement, which one would it be?
Okay, I am going with Aela."

"Absolutely.
It's not an announcement, but it is an amazing game.
And I think because it's a horror game, there's only so much we can do with it."

"We can't keep putting content out there because the big reveal will break it for people.
But it is an amazing game.
And, you know, we hope and we're pretty confident that it will get picked up by lots of interested parties along the way."

"But that's one that we're super, super excited about.
Tales of Seikyuu as well, actually.
Sorry.
I can't, yeah.
And Shadows just does its own job."

"So there you go.
You're making Tina choose her favourite.
I know, you can't.
The hard questions are the best ones."

"Dan, I'm going to throw that right to you as well, actually.
Obviously, you know about the entirety of the Convergence game showcase.
So maybe you're not limited to just specifically what Fireshine has, but what's something that we should definitely be keeping an eye out for in the Convergence game showcase?
I mean, there's so much."

"I mean, I would say that the very last game we're showing is a world exclusive.
It's something I wasn't expecting in terms of the pairing of the developer and the publisher."

"And I won't say any more than that.
It's just, it's really interesting.
And the developers of the game also put together such a lovely introduction to it."

"They really went above and beyond just delivering that part of it as well.
So it's a really joyful way to end the showcase.
And I'm really happy that's the game that we chose to sort of premiere right at the end of it."

"But honestly, there's such an insane diversity of stuff among there.
Again, I can't really tell you what my favourite is, also without spoiling what's in the show as well."

"But while we have Fireshine here, Shadows of Doubt looks mind-blowing in the best possible way.
To know that Cole put that game together himself and for it to be so freeform, so open-ended and have so much going on, I can't wait to get stuck into that myself when I've actually got time to play games again."

"Wouldn't that be nice?
So yeah, this has been both Dan and Tina from Convergence and Fireshine, respectively.
Again, you're going to have to check this show out, watch it live."

"Hopefully it's the start of many showcases with the Convergence tag behind it.
We'll have to stay tuned for that.
I know Dan is probably both looking forward to more Convergence stuff, but also kind of at the same time hoping that maybe there's a little bit of a break."

"But yeah, definitely check out that.
It's September 26th, so it's coming up very soon.
And yeah, well, Tina's given you a very good example and taste of what Fireshine will be bringing at the very least."

"So check it out.
And yeah, for the next game, if you may be in the future talking about Convergence and Fireshine at some point down the line, stay tuned to your local Game Writer region."

"Thank you for watching, guys."