Our CCO shares her commercial insight on how the Genba Digital concept has evolved and the welcome challenges of an increasingly sophisticated games market…
Tell us a bit about your background before you helped establish Genba Digital.
I was the Business Development and Digital Sales Director for Take-Two Interactive in Europe. I started there as part of the 2K family, securing the licensing content for their Top Spin tennis franchise, Don King Boxing and all Nickelodeon licensed titles. This led on to me heading up the Digital Sales team in Europe. I was with Take-Two Interactive for nearly ten years and really loved it. My experience there helped to build the foundations for setting up my consultancy business supporting start-up companies; one of which, was Genba Digital in its very early stages.
What was the original concept for Genba Digital and how has it evolved over the past few years?
The original concept was to set the industry standard and security standards for digital distribution in the PC videogames market. The original technology was built under the Sony DADC team and was then spun out into a separate company which is where I came in to drive forward the commercial side of Genba Digital.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a magnitude of PC titles – from AAA blockbusters such as Monster Hunter: World to successful Indie titles such as Human: Fall Flat – be distributed through our secure GENBA™ platform. This has naturally seen us evolve from providing secure distribution to also delivering value through commercial support, such as driving new releases and promotional sales. It’s been really exciting to see some of the lesser known indies becoming big success stories through our etailer network.
The increasing demand for data from our partners has also seen us adapt our services. Our great team of data analysts can generate reports and insights from the big pool of global data we gather every day through the GENBA™ platform.
Human: Fall Flat © Curve Digital. Image from GENBA™ platform.
What would you say have been key changes during your time working in the industry?
I would say the huge growth in the digital market and the transition from physical products to digital has been the most obvious change. We are continually in discussions with key industry figures, sharing insight with them and looking at how we can support them; for example, expanding our data services and our major involvement in Direct Entitlement to help eliminate piracy within the digital games market. The market has also become far more sophisticated in how publishers monetise their content and the breadth of opportunities there are out there to do this.
What’s your view on the changing competitive landscape for PC platforms with new entrants coming to the market?
I think 2019 will be a very interesting year and it’s great to see new entrants into the market such as Epic and Discord. Competition and change are healthy. That’s why I love this industry – there’s never a dull moment, you are constantly kept on your toes with new service providers and technological developments. We thrive on the challenge to keep ahead with GENBA™.
Lastly, with a number of global players making strategic moves, what’s your view on the smaller independent publishers and etailers?
I think the PC market is very buoyant and will continue to grow. GENBA™ can support developers and publishers alike to achieve long-term revenues through sophisticated marketing with our etailer network and data driven sales and promotional planning. We love collaborating with our partners to maximize the long tail and offer a bespoke personalized service and aid discoverability in a crowded marketplace.
