BGS' Roy Meredith

Q: It's been a bit quiet from BGS recently, with the announcement earlier in the year that the PC edition of Championship Manager was being held back - but now you've unveiled a link-up with Shanda to release a game in China. How significant is that?

Roy Meredith: Well, China's a big place, and they like football - I guess really it's that straightforward. It's a big, new market as well. You know how big Shanda is, and how big other companies over there are, and we've been talking to them for 18 months or so now - long discussions about what we could do.

It's really exciting for us, but it's really early days as well. It was a natural move - we've been so totally focused in the past on the PC boxed version of the game, and that wasn't right for us by itself, so we needed to branch out. As we were thinking about what we needed to do that, it became obvious to look at other territories and formats.

Roy Meredith has been the general manager at BGS since 2007.

Q: Was Shanda the only company you spoke to? How did the deal come about?

Roy Meredith: We've got an office over in Shanghai, a small studio that does outsourcing. We went over to talk to them - quite a while ago - about whether we should outsource some work to China. In the course of those discussions, what kept coming across to us was just how popular ChampMan was as a brand there... so it came about out of that.

The only company we've spoken to was Shanda - and right from the word go they've been very enthusiastic. What I particularly like about the guys there is their knowledge of football, which is brilliant.

Q: And what's the potential in that market?

Roy Meredith: I can't really speak in numbers, but we know how big China is as a country - just huge potential. There's a great quote about football, something like that of all the people that have ever lived (before South Africa) about five per cent of them watched the last World Cup final.

That gives you an idea of how big football is around the world.

Q: And China's a relatively untapped market on the football management side of things.

Roy Meredith: It's all exciting stuff, and the numbers are a bit mind-boggling when you let your imagination run wild - but it's going to be interesting. It's very early days.

Q: When will you be able to look back and properly evaluate success or failure? Is it 12 months, two years, five years?

Roy Meredith: Oh yes, it's longer term as a deal - and I'd like to think it's something that evolves.

Q: Is the business model a bit experimental for BGS as a company, as opposed to the selling of traditional boxed products? How different will it be?

Roy Meredith: I think very different for us, in as much as with the PC boxed game, traditionally in a sports environment, we're a bit fixated on those annual iterations. We did take a break from that, and put the PC game on hold, but in general terms you're talking annual iterations.

With something like this, with regard to business models, it has to be something very different. Everything about it is a learning curve, because although we're not announcing what it is, everybody knows what Shana's strengths are and where their business lies.

So this is a state of permanence out there in front of consumers, and therefore all the business model is different for us. That's something we're very reliant on Shanda for - not only in reaching out to that audience, but their expertise in doing it with that business model.

Our expertise is in football, and football management games. It's exciting, but it's quite daunting as well in that respect, and there's a lot of learning - every time we go over there. They're a great partner, and super-nice people.

Q: How much do you think these new business models are influencing the way that the market works in the West? With the iPhone, Facebook and free-to-play, there's a lot more variety out there, so do you look at the potential there?

Roy Meredith: Yes, definitely. I think it's probably fair to say that we'd look at every single platform that comes up, and evaluate it for what fits. When I first joined here about three years ago, we were aware that they don't really work on console.

But that's not been an issue on the handheld platforms at all. Personally I think these are really exciting times we're going through - it's not a blip at all, it's a trend. From my own perspective I guess it's interesting because it's now that games have become part of life, rather than a bedroom or playroom culture.

You look around you on the Tube, people are playing on iPhone, or iPod Touch, or Nintendo DS; or you go around to people's houses, and everybody's got consoles now. On a professional level, for Championship Manager, it's fantastic that there are now other opportunities - five or six years ago it was as black and white as 'can't go on consoles, can go on PC'. Now we have a whole host of choices.

Q: Some of these new platforms are certainly offering new opportunities - but how do you keep things interesting in a genre that, essentially, doesn't change dramatically from one year to the next?

Roy Meredith: It's a good question. I think there's a danger for these games that they become too dry in one respect - that they're going through the motions of certain things, or you add a feature that's dry within them. Or alternatively, they can become too deep for the platform that they're on.

The PC is fine, or online, where you'd expect to find a deep game - but you won't get that on iPhone. So what we need to assess when we're doing that is what the reasons are that somebody plays a game on that format - what does it bring to that person's life? And then build a game around it.

I think that every game should be made for the format it's on, rather than just ported over blindly, because I don't think you get the rewards; and neither does the consumer. So when we look at the iPhone, it's about what we want ChampMan as a game to be - we want to make that game more like large snacks, rather than the full banquet, so if you're playing it four or five times a day you're still progressing, still getting satisfaction.

But when you think about it, you're not doing as much as you would have in the PC game because you had to sit there for hours. That's what we have to look at when we go for a format.

Q: How do you judge the price point for iPhone? It's a market that's seen quite a bit of price volatility.

Roy Meredith: It's really difficult to do - there are some games where it doesn't matter what format they're on. I'm not knocking any product at all, but if you take a Match-3 game for example, it's not going to change per format. Whether you find it online, on your iPhone or on your iPad, it's not going to change because it is inherently what it is.

Therefore the price elasticity in that model is quite simple - you go for a low price. But how do we test out what we've got? What's fascinating about the iPhone as a format at the moment is that a lot of people still treat it as very experimental, both in terms of features and price. It's almost suck-it-and-see for people coming into it.

Q: There's an element of the gold rush about it still - but while the ChampMan brand will stand you in good stead, for a lot of people it really hasn't settled down yet.

Roy Meredith: No, I don't think it has - it's very new, and it's caught a lot of people by surprise. But the Apple market has transformed a lot, and I do think the days of three people making a million-seller in a bedroom have gone already. The serious players are in.

Q: It seems to be the way of things in the videogames business that every platform turns into an arms race; consoles, mobile, and even free-to-play - is there an inevitability about that?

Roy Meredith: Oh yes, I absolutely think so. From a personal perspective I think it'll be very interesting to see where Facebook goes over the next few years. There will be something that breaks the mould at some point. It's an industry that will always be predicated on being on the cutting edge of technology and entertainment, so there will always be that arms race. We're always looking for the next big thing, aren't we?

Q: You took the decision to take a break from the annual PC title, as you said - are you concerned that could impact the strength of the brand overall, to not have a presence in the market? Will the other platforms make up for that?

Roy Meredith: I think we always have to bear in mind the value of the brand in everything that we do. I don't think we'll see the brand values of ChampMan diminish - I guess when you make a decision like that, there may always be people who will be dissatisfied with it. That's just the evolution with any brand - as it evolves, it changes, and there will always be shifting people that move out and move in, and what you've got to do is accommodate that with your thinking.

There will be people that, if we only took six months off from the PC game, wouldn't like that decision. We have to consider those people, but at the same time we can't be everything to everybody. We have to move on - I think there was more danger for us in staying the way we were, that would have been more damaging for the brand.

Q: So what does the future hold? Where does the brand go from here, and what are the most important elements of the brand that you have to retain?

Roy Meredith: One of the things we need to make sure is that there's a quality threshold, if we're going to take it anywhere.

Q: But what are the elements that make up that quality threshold? Is it the database, the match engine, and so on?

Roy Meredith: Authenticity within football has to be in there. It has to feel authentic, and there has to be realism with that. The database and the accuracy of the information needs to be absolute, and we strive for perfection. Now, there's no such thing as an entirely accurate database, but we have to strive for that - and we now have a lot more checks going in against that as well, which was part-and-parcel of these changes we've made.

Q: It's tough - football fans are so used to watching the real thing that, particularly for any kind of live match engine, it's painfully obvious if something's not quite right... That must be one of the hardest challenges?

Roy Meredith: Oh it is - but we've also got to realise that football is fundamentally an emotional experience; it's not always objective. It's one of the things that FIFA understands when they talk about video technology - it's cracked open on the goal-line technology, but they've said they don't want to do it for anything else.

I think that's a belief within FIFA that for something as black-and-white as the ball over the line, they can do it. But when there are laws that are subject to interpretation - like fouls - that's a judgement call, and that's subjective for somebody who's trained in subjectivity.

But they also recognise that it's those things that make football popular, because it's the discussion and debate around matters of opinion - those are the water-cooler moments, and what makes it the world's most popular sport.

So while we need to understand the rules of football, we also need to understand the drama, the tension, the emotion of football - and get that within the game. It's vitally important for a game like ours, because while you're right about the match engine, it's the drama of being 2-1 down with five minutes to go... if you tell your forwards to go all-out attack, you want to see that happen, and feel that urgency.

Q: So what do you think the biggest challenges and opportunities for the ChampMan brand are, looking ahead to the next 12-18 months?

Roy Meredith: I think they're both the same answer - I think it's the diversification that we need to undertake. We're talking about doing something with Shanda, we're talking about a PC game although it's on hold at the moment, we're talking about an iPhone game - we have to get it right across those platforms.

Taking the brand out in different ways is a huge challenge for us, because we have to get it right - but also the opportunity is there. We have to be agile and flexible, and you need to be that in this industry now. Two years ago nobody would have predicted Apple and Facebook, and now they're there. We could be chasing completely different pots of gold, and different rainbows.