Business of Esports TV: JJ in the Gaming Space

(Livestream #132)

In this segment, we discuss JJ Abrams’ gaming studio Bad Robot Games earning $40M in a fundraising round.

The Business Of Esports brings you news, debates, and all the information you need to know about the gaming sector, the world’s fastest-growing market. With Paul “The Profit” Dawalibi leading the charge, and a variety of special guests, BoE TV is the only place to find insider information on the esports industry!

Check out the full livestream here:

Paul Dawalibi 39:37
Let’s move on guys. Let’s talk about Bad Robot here. And Bad Robot. You guys may know the name. It’s JJ Abrams. Like Yeah, and and the headline here is Bad Robot games clenches 40 million Series B, fundraising round. And so Bad Robot games is the video game division of his production company. The financing round was led by galaxy interactive, big entertainment venture fund, horizons ventures, iconic capital and Tencent, interestingly enough. And, and, and so, you know, a pretty good, you know, slate of investors, they’re very strong investors there. And the whole idea is what they’re saying is with this funding, they’re going to build out the studio and co development sides of our operation create games that cross platforms, cross mediums, and are based on IP, originating from both games and linear content. And they’re very much looking forward to announcing their first titles. So what do you guys think of this 14 millions a big round for a game studio at that stage? Right, they haven’t put out a game. And, and this just to be clear, the company originally started in 2018. And the original financing was from Tencent and Warner Brothers. So they already had very big entertainment and gaming names in there. Is this, you know? Is this gonna end up being the example of movies and entertainment, not understanding the gaming world, right, five years from now, but they still don’t have a game or they have something that that got cancelled or flopped? Or are we going to see this as the perfect marriage between movies and gaming? And, and sort of the holy grail where IP can cross into both sides and work? Well, on both sides? I’m curious where you guys see this playing out.

Lindsay Poss 41:43
My entire stance on this was competing views I like had the most like, what about, like, when I was reading, I could not help myself, like, three years is a long time without producing a game. But CD Projekt RED spent, you know, forever development cyberpunk and then it failed. So it’s better to take some time that you need, but three years is a long time. They should get more funding if they’re gonna make an Oscar level where the game but then again, people really like Oscar over where the gifts not even a good idea. But it’s JJ Abrams. Like I mean, I like in my own mind, like it just kept going and going, like, their initial funding was a lot but 40 million, is it like it? Just I mean, there’s, I have no idea how

Paul Dawalibi 42:25
not to a back and forth.

Lindsay Poss 42:29
I guess. The one thing I suppose that gives me some faith in this is that I don’t think they would have raised Series B funding from such prominent companies if they hadn’t put together some type of presentation that was compelling.

Paul Dawalibi 42:43
in mind, you walk into a room and you’re like, I’m JJ Abrams, give me 40 bucks is your is probably like, where the pitch. It’s a good pitch.

Lindsay Poss 42:57
But so well, I’m and that’s what still gives me like some hope in it. But you know, that hope is, is the question

Jeff Cohen 43:06
is that they got the money or do we know it’s gonna turn into anything? Like, how could we possibly know we’re having this information about the game? The only thing we know is it’s JJ Abrams. So maybe it’s 10. Maybe it’s gonna be good. I think that it would be I like to be optimistic. I mean, we talk all about this crossover world this. The Met, it’s not really metaverse, the metaverse II type where we, you know, IP goes from linear to interactive. And it’s sort of like that’s, that is the future, I think, can kind of be JJ Abrams that creates that future? I don’t know. Maybe he’s really he’s good at making movies and TV.

Paul Dawalibi 43:46
That’s kind of the crux. He has been good at making movies. And I would argue JJ Abrams is not good at making movies. Because I pay for a Star Trek adventure game Ella JJ Abrams test. I love you. You know, I love you. But JJ Abrams, single handedly ruined Star Trek, okay.

Jeff Cohen 44:11
It’s all gonna depend on who they bring in right to build the actual game. JJ Abrams, I assume is just like the executive producer like kind of putting all his face on this. Maybe he’s involved in the story writing? I don’t even know if he writes his own scripts or what he I don’t. I admitted that. I don’t know much that much about JJ Abrams, as much as you clearly

Paul Dawalibi 44:31
there’s a bigger question, Jeff, which is like, should movie should people in the movie business be making games? Or should they stick to making movies, right? And people in the game business? Should they be trying to cross over into movies or should they stick to making games like, because well, this could have been like, Bad Robot, right? Didn’t need to start a studio called Bad Robot games. What they could have done is they could have said, you know, we have some original IP we’re developing into movies, right? And then go talk to EA and say Can you make a game around this?

Jeff Cohen 45:02
Of course, vertical, you know, the specialization is a lot of times the best the best strategy. But if we all agree that at some point, the future should look like integrated, interactive and linear content, and that’s like the the Nirvana where we’re supposed to head, then why why not let them try? Like, will it fail? Yeah, probably. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy goal. And I think that, you know, your question is interesting, and I’m not sure the answer of okay. It seemed that you posed it two different ways. But then the question that’s more interesting is, is, is it better for games person to try to make content like movies and TV or TV movies person try to make games? I don’t know. That’s one

Paul Dawalibi 45:49
way of phrasing.

Jeff Cohen 45:49
I don’t know the answer to that question.

Paul Dawalibi 45:52
is probably the answer in this case is and test is one of my superstars. And this is this is the reason why this is, you know, this is how you know, someone works for me. He also ruined Star Wars. I haven’t forgiven him he the greatest comment ever. I couldn’t agree more.

Jeff Cohen 46:13
I mean, he did. He’s here. He killed Star Trek people and you know, in Star Wars because normal people can can be happy now.

Paul Dawalibi 46:26
He did. He’s single handedly destroyed everything I love. I mean, that’s that’s just the unfortunate

Lindsay Poss 46:32
very dramatic

Jeff Cohen 46:34
Lord of the Rings as well or World of Warcraft?

Paul Dawalibi 46:38
No, no, but he might with Bad Robot game. Bad Robot.

Jeff Cohen 46:41
In vicious crossover with Activision Blizzard.