Innovate & Play: How Creativity Drives the World of Asian Esports

Tom Leonard 

I'm Tom Leonard. I'm the host of the Gamers Change Lives podcast, where we talk about how esports can create jobs all around the world. In season one, we talked about the jobs. In season two, we talked about “Follow the Money”. We talked about investment. We talked about sponsorship. Now in season three, we're talking about esports one-on-one, more the business basics. And our tagline is always play games, create jobs, change lives. Now today, I'm really, really happy that someone that our guest today fit us into his schedule because he has a really interesting background to be talking about. It's Robert Gax. He's the creative lead of APAC in India at Ampverse. Welcome Robert.

Rob Gax 

Hey, glad to be here.

Tom Leonard 

Hey, where are you talking, where are you speaking to us from?

Rob Gax

I'm in Singapore. It's Saturday morning, about 8 a.m.

Tom Leonard 

Great. Now, again, appreciate your time here. First thing I want to ask you about is what's the gaming and esports scene industry in Singapore and in Southeast Asia these days from a broad picture?

Rob Gax 

All I can say is it's growing. I think the conversations we have with each other at the shop and even outside with clients or potential sponsors, it's all about the market just growing. You can see that from the downloads. You can see it visually, just even on the trains in the morning, like everyone's playing something. And that's what I think is interesting is when I travel around between Singapore and Thailand or Jakarta, you just see everyone playing and it doesn't matter who you are. It could be a grandma playing Candy Crush, it can be a kid playing Candy Crush and League of Legends or whatever. It just depends on how good your eyesight is, I guess, and your speed and your interest. But it's just everywhere. It's all around you. I can't go to a single restaurant without seeing someone playing a game somewhere. And that says a lot. And it's quite impressive. So we're really optimistic right now. I know people aren't really, really keen on the market right now. These last six months have been pretty hard with eSports and sponsorships and the kind of new things that we're hoping to materialize where a lot of things are put on hold. Think people are being a little cautious with the economy. Yet, we're looking at projects that might come to maturity next year. So that, everyone's like, is the word cautiously optimistic? But what we're seeing everywhere though, is there's growth and people are getting more educated on eSports and gaming and just trying to see how that works into their marketing plan and budget.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. I want to ask you first, how you got into esports and gaming? Because one of the things I saw, a quote I saw somewhere, you said that when you found esports and gaming, that's exactly where I wanted to be. And I thought that was a great quote there. So why, how did you get into gaming? And if you do not bring Chuck E. Cheese into the conversation, I am going to.

Rob Gax 

Okay. Well, yeah, I was around during the late 70s when it just boomed on us and I was a kid and asteroids and Pac-Man and Frogger, Donkey Kong, like you knew when a new cabinet would show up at the pizza place, everyone knew, the whole neighborhood was talking about it. And you'd go watch kids play. And if you had some money, you'd play too. But everyone just hanging on the edges of the cabinets. And, uh, I remember people used to line up quarters to, to like, you know, hold your place in line. And it's just such a throwback kind of thing. But ever since then, my mom saw us so into it and she literally got a job at Chuck E Cheese. Um, yeah. Some people find.

Tom Leonard 

Could you describe what Chuck E. Cheese is to people around the world that may not know it? Because it's such a cultural phenomenon.

Rob Gax 

Yeah, I don't even know if it exists outside California. But Atari's founder had set it up and it was back then, I think it was called Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater. So it was like this half pizza place, half mechanical theater. You had this animatronic kind of, you know, characters that would play songs and stuff in each room. So it was like this really crazy kind of mechanical vaudeville thing going on. And Chuck E. Cheese is this big rat and he's like the main character. But the best part about it is you had the biggest arcade you've ever seen in your life. And it had all the new stuff. Everything in there was brand new. And they had Chuck E. Cheese coins. So you had tokens that you could use. And my mom got the job there. So my brother and I can go play after school. So, you know, school gets out at like three o'clock or something and she got the job. We'd go have a pizza, you know, share a pizza. And there were always extra tokens around that 16 year old managers would just shower on us. So we can play all we want. I should have been way better at it. Honestly, the amount of practice I had, but no, I was in dreamland. Throughout my life, gaming was just always around. And then esports kind of started to go and just, there was just that running interest. But I got into advertising and I got into design and had a really, really great career doing that kind of work. And once in a while I'd come across maybe a game publisher and it, you know, could be PlayStation or it could be a launch of a game. And once in a, like, it would come in and out of the agencies. Because I was a creative director. I worked at Silverstein and partners in San Francisco. I worked at Ogilvy, FCB, and some really strong creative agencies. But the whole time I was kind of watching the East ports, um, thing that was going on. I was always interested in designing games. So I started taking some extra courses at night in secret on how to code games, and particularly VR stuff I was interested in. So this was kind of an ongoing hobby thing. So when I got out of advertising, I was working at a digital studio for the publishers of Vogue and Esquire, and I just happened to get a call from a headhunter, and these things rarely pan out. So they said to get into like esports and gaming there's a company out here called Ampverse and they got five pro teams. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds so cool. Like, I don't think I'm qualified. Like, I wasn't a pro gamer because it's quite a niche little group. And I just didn't think like I had enough experience, like really on hand experience to get in there. And I couldn't name every tournament in the world. I'm like, I'm not that level at all. I know the games that I know, and I played some of them and not all of them. But I was just so interested. And it was the first time I think someone brought up something I could do. And like I smiled like when I heard about it, and I was like, hey, that's actually, that sounds cool. It's like, hey, you wanna be a pilot? You know? It's like, you know, like I'll just not qualify for that either. But with gaming, it's like, yeah, well, look, I'm a creative director. I've been working with brands, been launching whole brands for years and years. Yeah, I can bring some of that to our pro teams. And that's really was my initial feelings on this, is what I could, maybe what could I bring over from the fashion shoots and also the branding point of view.

Tom Leonard 

Oh, okay. Yeah, I want to talk about your agency experience in just a minute, because I think that's an interesting background to have for esports. So can you talk a little bit about Ampverse. What does the company do and what do you do there?

Rob Gax 

Yes, Ampverse started out as a company that acquired some teams, and now it's putting together its own teams. The first teams were in Thailand, and we just launched a team in Manila called Manana, a very exciting team. And there's another team called Seven Sea that's in India. So it's quite diverse. It's quite a diverse portfolio of teams, you know, Vietnam as well. And I think the power of Empress is just being able to give each team its autonomy to kind of be itself because each team is so different. And this is something I think a lot of clients don't get right off the bat is like each team has its own personality. The founders were smart enough to kind of let each team kind of grow organically. We have two tie teams. They're radically different. They're both tied. They're both in the same office but radically different in spirit

Tom Leonard

Could you expand on that a little bit? Because I think that's really interesting to see the difference. What you mean by they're different in spirit.

Rob Gax 

For instance, our main, I'll say our main probably, probably because I work with them the closest is bacon time. Yeah, and the origin of that is the original players used to call when they would get together and play, they call that bacon time. They like to eat bacon. 

Tom Leonard 

Great name, great name.

Rob Gax 

I guess the kind of code name for gaming was Bacon Time. It's stuff you enjoy and it is synonymous. And that team's really, it's a real fun, happy, good, lucky team. So, unlike having a dragon or something really like a sword as the mascot, it's a pig. It's a cartoon pig. And it's kind of more like a high school mascot style. And if I wanted to describe that brand, it would be like, okay, they're kind of mighty ducks meets K-pop, Korean K-pop, because the guys are good looking, we style them really well. And they're sweet boys, they don't look like they're tough. And we make sure when we photograph them that we don't make them look like they're gonna beat you up. You know, and so that team has a really happy eat together fun, loving spirit about them. The boys are great. And then myth now myth was the original made in Thailand team. And these guys are rougher, you know, uh, the style's rougher. The look is rougher. Um, they're more Muay Thai style. So it's like that, that Thai fighting boxing, uh, type, you know, it's very famous, uh, from just being one of the toughest, uh, boxing or fighting sports and myth has some of that in them because you know we did one shoot in a Muay Thai Arena Inside the ring and shot the guy said he fit right in they were fine because they're scrappy. They're brawlers and made myths. The name myth is derived from something made in Thailand So everything we do with them is very Thai. It's a very Thai based team where bacon time is kind of a mix. They'll speak more English where myth is like a diehard tie. And I love that, because both of them have their own characters and personalities and they should. I think each team needs to develop its own thing. And it evolves of course over time.

Tom Leonard 

One of the things that maybe I cut you off earlier on, but could you describe what a creative person does at an esports agency in particular?

Rob Gax 

Yeah. We make presentations a lot right now because a lot of the work I'm doing now is trying to create new avenues for clients to advertise, to get hold of this enormous market we have. So we're coming up with, let's say, in-game items. So we're pitching right now an in-game item for PUBG that hopefully we'll see the light of day in next year. Because the runways for this are a lot longer. If you want to do something in-game, it's going to take a while. It's not like a TV commercial that can happen in three months. We're looking at something from like six to nine months maybe. But we work on some projects like that. Oh, sometimes we'll work on a tournament concept. And this could be for like Gillette, it could be for KFC or Razor. Like it depends what market we're in. And it could either be a physical tournament or it could be an online tournament. And, and one of the, one of the big things we learned early on is like, wow, the power of our influencers is really strong. So, we use a lot of our, uh, influencers as almost like working team members of each team because they're exclusive to each team. For instance, I mentioned bacon, time and myth. They have different sets of influencers that can, you know, amplify their brands in different ways. So a lot of the stuff I'm doing now is new, I've got kind of new territory stuff, business development stuff. So I'm using every trick I can to think of new concepts. I can bring clients and it's great. It's hard, I think, because you're always trying to look in for a brave client in a space that they might not understand completely. Because I've seen their eyes glaze over, like we'll be in meetings and someone will start talking about League or ROV. And they start using the short, our guys will start using the short names of these games. And these clients, I see them, they're like, they don't know what you're talking about. And you get a little worried. And that's where I think we need to pull back and kind of go, okay, this is new to a lot of people. And we need to really simplify it and spell it out. Kind of what's what. Because even just the terms mobile versus PC, a lot of people can't get their heads around that. And they think everything's on PC, or sometimes they think everything's on console, or they don't understand how mobile could be a whole tournament around mobile. But in Asia, mobile is enormous. And I've heard different people say things like, you know, mobile is not as, you don't need the same skill as you would on a PC. But, you know, it's a different skill. It's just, it's different. It's just a different way that the interface is different. But just as much, you know, reaction times and stuff, I'm sure. It's just a different way.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Rob Gax 

So that's what I'm doing now is a lot of new stuff. But when I joined, it was more about getting our brand Bible set up and making sure our teams were lined up from a brand point of view. So I used to work with brands like Intel and Samsung and Qatar Airlines, a lot of big brands, like American Express. And we had really strict rules on our guidelines. 

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Rob Gax 

Because work would go out worldwide. It would go out to seven markets. And to keep an eye on that, it took a lot of work. So likewise, with our teams, we just try to make sure that our brands are really tight, making sure each team has a production protocol when we make content. We do pre-productions. We prepare before shoots. I was less concerned about being at the shoot. I'm more concerned about being at the pre-production set because that's when everything can go right if you solve the problems before you show up on set. Because we spend money, we're shooting every single week with each team. So we did have to establish some protocols that they might not have had in place before. So we got a lot more polished. And I think I brought a lot of the production protocols that I learned in advertising and production over to a smaller scale.

Tom Leonard 

Well, that was one of the things I did want to ask you about, because of your strong, big agency, real ad agency background. And I know people here in the industry, and they think differently, they work differently. The whole concept, the relationship between the client, like you're describing clients like American Express or Toyota or Lexus or whoever it is and the agency, I mean, to manage those relationships, that takes a skill that very few people have to make it work. But there's so much money that crosses hands, that crosses through the business there that it needs to be done properly. So, yeah, could you describe maybe a little bit more detail? What kinds of things did you bring from ad agencies that maybe someone that's never set foot in an ad agency but even thought about?

Rob Gax 

I think the first one would probably be this to the review process. So there are checkpoints where you just want to do a roundup and take a look at the work and have your input then. But you know what? Now that I say that, I'd say even before that, the first thing is the creative brief. You want to know what you're going to do. And we go so fast, because a lot of the work we do is on social media. So we go fast. And if your brief is wrong, if what you want to do is wrong and not lining up, everything's going to be wrong after that. So I think the alignment sometimes between the agency and the esport production line is different in terms of just speed, but the same protocols can apply. So you can definitely have agreement on a creative brief. And it could just be a discussion in all honesty. But it's better if you write it down. It's always better if you write it down and communicate because we do have offices where English isn't their first language. And you have to be mindful of that and go, okay, like we got to make sure that there's nothing lost in translation.

And that happens when you have two markets both speaking English, that there's stuff lost in translation. So it's good to write them down.

Tom Leonard 

The East Coast and West Coast here in the US used to be amazing. I was doing print stuff for a retailer. And it's just like the things that we would talk about with our print run versus what they were actually doing with the credit card company back in New Jersey. Completely different. And we had no concept.

Rob Gax 

Yeah, yeah. And that's, I think that's why it's good to get, when you have a team that kind of gets the flow and knows what it looks like, you can hit a really good groove. And you can look at photography and just look in one glance and go, yeah, that's not, that's not bacon time. That doesn't, that doesn't add up to bacon time. Where other times you're like looking at it, like, yeah, that's right on. Like everything I've seen this year is dead on. And I'm really proud of that because the guys got into a really good groove and, you know, they have over a million followers in Thailand and it's really a strong, strong following of fans. And I think a lot of that has to do, you know, of course with the team winning, but also that the team has a concept that communicates really easily to them. They can relate to these guys and they like them. But a lot of that has to do, I think, with managing the look, the brand, the feelings you get when you see it. I worked on the Rugby World Cup for Heineken years back, and each team has a certain feel. The New Zealand All Blacks versus England's team, they bring a whole feeling with them. It's not just the colors, you know, it's not just the colors of the jersey. It's, it's, it's just a whole attitude and character with each team and what they stand for. And that's, I love that stuff. So I try to make sure when I'm working like, like if I feel, if I'm starting to feel the team, like I know, I know we're in a good space.

Tom Leonard 

Yes. So the ideas that you talk about, the different creative concepts and things like that, are you the one that comes up with those or is there someone else? Or do you work with other people or how does it usually work?

Rob Gax 

Lately with the work I've been doing, where it's a lot of new product development, it's usually a client opportunity. Let's say it's a OTT type client and, um, they're going to launch a TV show. And how, how they do that is it is any number of ways, but, but we could, we could turn that into a tournament. That could be a special tournament around the theme of that show, or it could be a one-off, one-verse-one, or it could be a contest, a special contest in the real world. There's a number of ways. So in that regard, we'd see what we have to work with, what markets they want to be in, and then we'll start putting together ideas. And we'll show maybe five ideas. And that's between me and my brand partner here in Singapore. And of course our sales, our main sales guy, and he manages the relationships and gets the feedback. And this is kind of how we develop it. It's never one person. It's even in the ad agencies, it's always a team of people. And of course it's always best to get along and try to achieve the same thing. And I think we are, I think we're always looking to be more inventive.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Rob Gax 

And to create it we want to do stuff new all the time and it's hard to do stuff new great but that's the job. You have to bring something new every time. I always want to diversify my portfolio even as a creative person. I don't want to do the same thing ten times

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. Now I'm gonna ask a really unfair question. It's like, where do you get your ideas? What makes you creative? And one of the reasons that I bring this up is because certainly you've had more experience in more situations where being creative has been part of what you do. But we talked last year, the last person that we had in this season was Jeremy Utley from the Stanford Design School. And he wrote a book called Idea Flow. And his whole theory, and one of the reasons that I had him on the podcast was that you need divergent voices in your in your, in your life to come up with ideas. Because his theory was that something along the lines of, there's no such thing as a new idea. If you're just, you're just coming up with things, things are coming together in your mind and the more divergent, the more, more input you have from different places. And there's no such thing as a bad idea. So that's why I was just kind of curious, from your viewpoint, what makes you creative?

Rob Gax 

I think it's a combination of kind of experience of what I've seen and what, what I think I know, um, that plus combining different, um, concepts. Um, and it could be, it could be ideas of different places, but if you notice, if you put just two odd things together, you get something new and just combining things and trying to get to a new thought or message, like to me that's creativity. Cause you're trying to combine kind of usually familiar concepts and make something new out of that. Hopefully, it's going to equate to a really clear message that you want to convey. I'm very commercial here. So it always has to be relevant to a client. It also needs to be on brand with the client. There's some clients that are really fine with, let's say a game like PUBG, a first person, Valorant type game. And other clients are just like, yeah, no way, we're not getting near that. But give us Axie Infinity, give us ROV or something, Arena Valor. And it's because it fits their brand. And this is an opportunity, I think, for a lot of clients if you do want to look for spaces that you really fit. So as I'm creating things, as a creative director all these years, that's always on the back of your mind because it's not just being creative for creative sake. Like we need more artists. So artists can do that and do that on their own without a committee of agency and clients getting their hands on it because it changes. But most of the time I work with some really good professional people and we mostly come from the same kind of school of thought about being very specific and being very methodical on how we get to, let's say, a commercial solution. Because it is advertising and we also need to measure it. So even now, I think with creative people, the challenge is, okay

Rob Gax 

That's really great, but where does it go? What's your platform and how are we going to measure this? Like, what's our criteria for success? And I'm seeing a lot of that being asked right now because it's, sponsorship's one thing. Like that's cool. You can do a lot of things in there. And I think a lot of teams have mastered that. But beyond that, it's like, okay, what new can we bring? How do we measure it? What can we give to the fans that's going to align with our brand? And to me, that's a creative challenge. And I'm always thinking in terms like that. So for me, creativity is really, I think just combining kind of elements and thoughts and kind of seeing what we can do new, you know, because like you said, like, has it all been done? It's like, yeah, I think so. I think everyone's already solved most everything. As a creative director for over 15 years I've had junior teams come to me and I feel so terrible. I feel like, oh man, I'm one of those jaded guys now. And it's like, oh yeah, I saw that idea maybe, you know, 13 times in the last two years, exact same idea, exact same reference video. And, you know, it's hard, it's hard that way. It's hard to keep them fresh and keep the teams motivated because yeah, a lot of stuff is already out there. One downside, I would say, of having so much information available with Google search for images and stuff is a lot of people come in with the exact same stock references. I teach as well. I teach a class here and once in a while, I'll give out a creative brief, like Tabasco or something, right? And the kids, like, you know, we put up the work on the wall, like, we share everything we do. And that's how we learn to view the work we do. But it's like so many times I'll give out one brief and there'll be about four different students working separately, coming back with the exact same imagery from Google search. And I'd even ask them, where'd you get that image? How did you search your keywords? And they all did the same thing. You know, with AI it's a little more creative because they're prompting and the stuff's look right now, at least it's looking really fresh and brand new. And that's fun because we kind of went from searching for stock images or photography to make our imagery. Now we're AI in it. And it's like, how good is your vocabulary? How skillful are your prompts to get something great out of AI? And I think that's going to advance us too, because it gives us just so much more time to combine different things and elements. And I love it. I've been using Mid-Journey and it's just so exciting. Like I think I was stuck on that for probably three weeks straight. I couldn't get off it.

Tom Leonard 

Which platform is that on?

Rob Gax 

Mid Journey, it's one of the image AI generators. And I was using it for, I was working on a game for Roblox that I was using to develop visuals and using prompts in like claymation landscapes, pastel color palettes. And it was giving me the coolest stuff. And sometimes it's a disaster, but I got better at it. And to me, it cracks me up because it felt new again. It just felt really fresh.

Tom Leonard 

It's really good to hear you sound excited about AI and what it can do and what it can't do but it still comes back to the creative input to make it happen. So many people when you talk about AI, they're coming for our jobs. We're all going to be moved aside for AI but I don't hear that with you.

Rob Gax 

It has saved me hours of putting images together. My presentations, like it's not perfect and you don't never expect it to be, but it has helped me visualize work. It's helped me think about new solutions because sometimes it would give you something that you didn't quite think of as a solution. And then in that like error, discover something else and you see it like a machine on its own wouldn't spot it and And it created it kind of you know on its own and that was the output and you look at it And you're like actually that's even a better idea inside of there like I like I you know, that's the exciting part

Tom Leonard 

Yes, that was one of the things I really liked in reading Jeremy's book, which I'm not selling here. I'll show it to you after the episode here, after the recording. But that's one of the things he says, there's no such thing as a bad idea. Because he said, if you're sitting around talking and people come up with a bad idea, he said, so often that bad idea is going to trigger something in someone else that's going to be the home run sort of thing. Just like you're saying with AI.

Rob Gax 

I'm gonna look this up.

Tom Leonard 

Hey, I want to keep moving here because otherwise I'm going to run out of time because I think it's really interesting. I want to talk about what you're doing with College League in India because that's one of the things if you could just kind of describe what you're doing there and then I'm going to ask you why you're doing it there.

Rob Gax 

Okay, that's exciting. So we were just getting into a new concept league that we're calling College Rivals. And this is being backed by DMI Finance, and it's a co-venture with Amperse and DMI Finance. And the idea is to tour colleges and have colleges compete. So it's a college league. And the real concept of it is all driven off of the idea of rivalries and competition makes people better. And that's why rivalries are so great. And maybe it's just a human thing, but the rivalries between schools is one thing, right? You know how hot that can get.

Tom Leonard 

Hey, I went to Stanford and we can never say a good thing about Berkeley. I mean, you just, it's just not in our blood.

Rob Gax 

Welcome.

Rob Gax 

That's what I mean. And you know, you wouldn't be got dead with a Berkeley pen in your house. Like it would not happen. Um, so the power of that alone is scary. Then you get to the next level and it's inside, like in the schools, the universities, you have team versus team, the teams you put together. Then you have person versus person, but ultimately it's you against you. And that I think is really rich. 

Tom Leonard 

No, no, no.

Rob Gax 

Right now, I don't say it's starting small, but we're working on the websites now. And that's the other thing I do is I'll work on website design and things like that. Again, all of it lined up to this brand Bible we had, the brand look we put together. And we're trying to discover as we go, how do we combine this? What does our truck look like? Cause to promote it, we're going to have this kind of roving truck that's going to go around and do road shows and you can play in there. And the concept is to get some coaching for, for the games in there and the players, because we really, the ultimate goal would be to see some pro players come out of this, we want, we want to lift the, the Indian players up to pro to professional level.

Tom Leonard 

Wow.

Rob Gax 

And you can only do that by being highly competitive with reviews and with coaching. Because you can't, you know, you can't just let people play on their own, whatever it is. It's, it's, it's just not, it needs to be more, more of a program. And with this concept, I'm certain we're going to, we're going to see some stars come out of this and they can come from anywhere. And it's just so great. It's like, it could be anybody. 

Tom Leonard 

Yeah. So why India? Why not the Philippines? Why not Vietnam? Why not Malaysia? Why not another place? What made you make the decision to go to India for at least to start out?

Rob Gax 

Well, I think it was clear that the Indian numbers are off the charts as far as the growth goes. As far as Asia goes, India is going faster than anyone else, even Indonesia, I believe. So it's a growth market. And it is not, from what we're seeing, every indicator we see, it is not slowing down. So it's a very, very exciting growing market. The demographics too suggest that it could only grow. We got a younger average age there, of course. So we're lined up. So DMI Finance, of course, saw the opportunity in their own country to enable this to happen. To them, it's a great way to come into the market and make a connection with this group of athletes. And this is of course not their expertise. So this is where the ramp first comes in. We know how to run games. We know how to run teams and we're really good at branding. So we started putting together this whole package and our founder Charlie is really involved out there and you know, you got to be on the ground. So it's one of those, it's just one of those things. It's a real Asian thing. You got to be in person. So it's a lot of plane rides and a lot of shaking hands and you gotta eat together, man. It's Asia.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. So what would have been some of the biggest surprises to you from so far that you were so far in the adventure?

Rob Gax 

Um, right. I think it's the first people that sign up. And so once the schools are able to sign up, that's the point I'm waiting for right now, we're just preparing like the field and there's nothing surprising yet. Except maybe, uh, the debates about which games to play and which, you know, and, and right now our list is like a CS go Valorant for PC. We have FIFA, Tekken, BGMI, which is the Indian version of PUBG. That was, it was banned last year and then it's back online this year with BGMI and Clash Royale, you know, those last, they're mobile of course. But those games are a big deal, I think. And, you know, the Olympic esports series was just here in Singapore and got a lot of flack for not, featuring some of the mainline esport titles. But you know, it's different, that's their thing. They definitely took a position. They did it really well too. And even with college rivals in India, like you know, you have to think through the games. What's popular and what do we wanna develop? And you can't just be one type of game. You gotta spread, it's gotta be spread out. So it's more evenly, you know, taught so people can learn and we can all develop from there. We're gonna learn a lot. We're agonizing even over setting up the website just to make sure we capture everything we need to capture from what areas, like if we see more interest in one part of India than the other, because the data is gonna help us develop the next year's effort. So we gotta be really active and really listen. We just did the launch video that just came out. And we're just trying to imagine something that hasn't happened yet. And for a rivalry, like I kept saying, like, we really got to pay attention during the contest because we got to spot rivals. We either have to spot them or make them. And a lot has to do with the hype and the press.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Rob Gax 

We can control a lot of that. Just by putting two heads together, we can mix up different schools, we can mix up different teams, and we can create our own legacy rivalries that are gonna go on for years. So for us, we see this tournament as starting in India, and then later, college rivals can definitely go to the Philippines. We could definitely do it in Jakarta, but we just wanna get it all right in India, and India, we know, is just gonna grow. It's just, that'll be a success story. So I'm just very excited about that whole concept. That whole concept is great.

Tom Leonard 

That's great. No, I can tell that you're excited about it just the way you're talking about, which is great. That's the way it should be. Can you talk just a little bit about the time frame? Because one of the things, and I'll keep repeating it because it needs to be repeated, is how important it is to plan ahead. Because so many people in esports, they're like, oh, you know, I just qualified for EVO. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to go to EVO. It's like, you know, there's certain things that people with the best of intentions, and some people that are just incredibly smart at what they're doing, that in life in general, it's sometimes hard, it's always hard to plan in the long term. What do you think is your team's strength on planning long term?

Rob Gax 

Um, it's long-term of course is always easier. The more runway you have, the higher chance you have of getting a sponsor into what you're doing. And it also gives your sponsor a chance to start shaping, um, your, your tournament, let's say to fit their brand better. And if they're coming in, let's last minute, not that it comes at the last minute, but if they were, they have less options because a lot of this stuff has already been settled. And you can imagine a scenario where you've been planning a tournament, you build it, you have the concept, and then a big sponsor all of a sudden is interested and he wants a different name, you know, or they want to come at it and have a different game or something, but the same concept. So you got to, you got to be a little flexible. And if you have more runway, that's easier to come by, you know, and, and. Six months, like most sponsorships. If you talk to any of the sales guys, they're like anything under six months is a big ask for us to get somebody who's heavy. And we want, in esports, I think in general, we want the big sponsors. We want to be validated by these big brands. We want to be part of their heritage, their strength. And likewise, they want our fans, our players. You know and That's better. I know we can throw to get we can throw together because of experience We can put together a tournament in Dubai in like three weeks flat if we had to And then that's because of experience. We know the steps. We use this software to keep track of kinds of projects and stuff and we did our tournament in the Philippines last year and Jen, who was the winner, does our partnerships and also this event. I saw all the steps to make the tournament and it was just the longest list I've ever seen. And so methodical from top, like what do you have to secure, down to insurance and down to every player, every KOL, but really like transport, food and beverage, internet service, all of it is just, you have to think of everything. And that sheet was just a masterclass on how to put a tournament together in my mind. I went through every line. First time I just took the time to go through it, because that's really not my job scope at all. But I went through her work. I'm like, oh my God, she really did so much work here. But that's what it takes. And if you have that experience, you could really do something quick. That might not be beautiful but you can do it quickly.

Tom Leonard 

That's one of the things I always remember working over here at Warner Brothers. And for something like Harry Potter, oh my God, the planning, the planning documents that went into that were stupendous. I mean, but they were very successful, but it's like the amount of, but the spreadsheets, there's always a joke, how small you could make the font on, on Excel to see how much you could fit because there were so many details out there, but they just, that was just the way that it was done. So a lot of it I think is also discipline on just saying, hey, we're thinking this is a long run. The thing that just occurred to me, the way that you're describing it there is, with college rivals, you're creating something that has a longer life to it than a single tournament. And so it's more sellable, just like you described, I'm kind of repeating what you were saying, but I thought that was a really interesting concept that is like, if you were gonna go out and say, okay, we wanna attract really big sponsors, and they don't wanna go for one-offs. So how do we fit that? How do we create something? I mean, this is the kind of thing that you'd create.

Rob Gax 

Exactly. And I think that's where the creativity comes in, where you think like, hey, maybe we have a different theme every year. So it could be college rivals, the return or the last battle. We can title it just like game releases, like give a theme to it that fits the sponsor. So down the line, maybe it's a perfect match for like thumbs up, a cola, which is a Coca-Cola brand in India. Like we can line that up if we just had more forked up and work with them early and it'll grow. Like we know the tournament would just grow and they can get on the back of that. And then the following year, maybe it's another sponsor.

Tom Leonard

Yeah, it's a car company and it's all auto related. It's Rocket League. It's like, yeah, which is one thing you can pitch to almost anyone is everyone can do that unlike Mortal Kombat out there.

Rob Gax 

Yeah. I love Rocket League. That's just it. I mean, you're watching like legal legends and you're like, it happens all so fast. And then Rocket League, that was up at an exhibition match at eSports, the Olympic series. And it's like, wow, man, everyone gets that. You get that in two seconds.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes, it's so easy to. One of the things I also want to touch on here is culture, because you talked about it a little bit. But your particular position, I mean, we're talking a little bit about understanding things just from a language standpoint. But just the culture from all of these different countries that you're dealing with, there's some similarities, but there's going to be tremendous differences. From a creative standpoint, how do you culture, being your friend.

Rob Gax

Yeah, well, I've been in Asia a long time, over 20 years. So for me, it's something I had to learn as I went. We made mistakes in some markets with brands in the past where we didn't really understand what was happening on the ground well enough. And this is a strength now is, I think, let's say we have a team in Vietnam we get feedback. So we have weekly meetings and you just learn as you go when you hear about how the fans react. When the team loses in Vietnam, fans tear their own jerseys off and throw them on the ground. Like they hate the loss. And that's pretty unique to Vietnam from everything I've heard. And they even have like these outdoor matches too, where they kind of have you know, a projection or watch party kind of thing. And these are great. And in Thailand, you see parents dropping the kids off at these and they wait, they're waiting outside the hotel, whatever. We're hosting, let's say, a watch party. Watch like it. So you're watching the game and you just get more feedback from our people on the ground. You have to have locals in each market that understand the nuances of being local. There's some really, really slight differences between each. You can't say Vietnam's the same as Thailand versus Manila, they're radically different. In music taste, in food, in just how they behave during matches. Culturally like every place you got to have a lot of respect for because it's really a different zone, and they have different rules. They did so, you know socially they got different rules and that's what's so cool. I think that's really rich and it's quite a big area in some ways, but really small in others.

Tom Leonard 

No, one of the things that yeah, because one of the things I think people can smell a mile away is when it's not culturally appropriate or it doesn't match up with your culture. It's like, oh, no, this is some American thing or something. I mean, which won't have the same resonance.

Rob Gax

Yeah, and it's funny because I've heard so many times from clients, even here in Singapore, when they're like, well, our customers won't understand that. That's too Western. That's too American. And then it's like, well, I don't know. The movies and Netflix and everything people are watching here are all the American top shows. So you can tell me they won't understand that joke or they won't understand that, you know, humor because they can. They can. It's just really up to the creators and, you know, taking a risk. But I've seen a lot of good ideas get smashed just because they thought it was too Western. And they wanted it to be even style-wise more slapstick because that's what they've seen before in their terrestrial TV, their local TV. They think that's what everyone likes, this dumbed down slapstick type comedy when it could be a lot smarter with a lot more dialogue. I think we've missed the boat on many occasions because of this.

Rob Gax

There's no real answer, but it's up to each client to ultimately decide what they think it should be. Agencies will recommend death with examples, but it's always different. When they pull the culture card, it's a tough one to push back on, especially as a foreigner when I got here especially. I'm not from here.

Rob Gax 

I don't have a lot to say, but that's when you kind of look over at your local colleagues and your local colleagues can usually fill the gap nicely and make good examples. But again, you need to have people here that know their stuff.

Tom Leonard

Yes.

Tom Leonard

Do you ever have a situation where it's not Western enough?

Rob Gax 

Yeah, not to name names, but it seems a lot of the work for Sony, they really wanted to work with their casting to look more Western, in my experience. So we would cast more Caucasian people in a lot of the material. And that changed over time. That was early on. And then it started changing more to be more localized work and that changed. But years ago, they wanted it to look more Western because they wanted it in their minds to look more premium. They wanted it to feel like an import. And years back in countries like Singapore, there were ads that were just kind of adapted wholesale and they wouldn't remake them. So you would see dubbed work from Europe or you'd see an ad from England or the US wholesale. And then there was quite an industry here where we would reshoot clone ads, we called them. So they'd make a Campbell's soap ad in Chicago, and then they'd wanna reshoot it out here with local talent. And then they'd wanna reshoot it again in like Jakarta, and then they wanna make sure they have Muslim people in the ad. So it obviously resonates with the root. Like that makes sense to me. But it's the exact same script. I did this, I did a script for Expedia not too long ago and the same exact script and we use local talent in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam and Thailand. And it's the exact same script, every different director, different local director, different local talent, all done in their main language. And that's fun. To me, that's fun. Cause it's, it's so, it was just so like you look, you lined them up and played them one after another and they're just so radically different and they're very localized and, of course the Thai ones always are hilarious. Thais do, do TV and they're so good. They're so funny. They just, they do their own thing. But I know there's like Singapore, I think we make the mistake of trying to be too Western, we try to emulate and parody a more Western style where it's not like that in Thailand. The Thais are all Thai, like it is Thai, Thai. And they're proud of it. And that's cool. Hong Kong is a little like that too.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, I spent a summer in Bangkok and one of my favorite commercials was at the time. It's been a while now, but at the time in the rural areas, they would show movies, like major motion pictures, but there was no dubbing. So there was someone who was talented enough, he would do the entire script out loud. So he would mimic all of the voices.

Rob Gax 

I'm out.

Tom Leonard 

And which you just think, and of course, you know, after he's seen the movie 400 times, you know, he gets pretty good. But there was a Coke commercial showing someone doing this. It was so much fun. It was, it was just like, I wanted to go see one of these just, not that I understand time, but just the concept of it was just, just fascinating. Hey, as we close out here, I was going to ask you a couple of family questions. Is that okay? You said you're starting a family there. You have a small child in the household. Can you describe what, have you put some thought into what their gaming future will look like? When's appropriate and what's appropriate for kids? Do parents think of these days?

Rob Gax 

Yes.

Rob Gax 

Um, I had a friend, who is struggling with his teenage boy. He can't get him to stop playing Valorant. He's really concerned about this, but my point of view is like, you know, there's jobs, doing 3d design, there's jobs in gaming. If you want to call it a metaverse, sure. It's only growing and, and what could I teach a kid some C sharp to learn some Unity engine stuff, like, you know, basic game building. Like, yeah, like if, and I have a daughter, she's only 15 months, of course it's too early to introduce logic or, you know, game design. But I just want her to have fun right now. Like for me, it's just all about all kinds of games like physically playing a hide and seek game is this beginning. Hide and seek, is that like a future counter strike push? I don't know. But for me, I'm very open to technology. So I just want to be able to identify what my daughter likes. And if she is into engineering, I want to make sure we put that kind of material in front of her so she can learn more about it. If it's music, it's likewise. So yeah, I'm quite positive. I had such a great, great life gaming and I wouldn't say it destroyed my school. I had healthy friendships outside of me, it was all positive. I know we have some problems in some areas and it needs to be addressed by parents. And that'll always happen, I think, with anything. So it's where people are so passionate. But yeah, with my young family, yeah. But yeah, I tell you, she'll pick up an Xbox controller. That's like one of her favorite things because there's buttons and switches. It's better than the TV remote.

Tom Leonard 

Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. One of the most fun stories that we heard recently here on the podcast, there was a daddy solo from Nigeria and she and her son created an Instagram video to explain to her what esports were and why it was important that he was able to play them. And I just thought that was so good. It's like a whole series of kids explaining esports to their parents.

Rob Gax 

See, that's a huge idea. Just that and how they communicate and using how he sees people communicating to talk to his parents in a very comfortable way. I've heard of kids here showing their parents reasons they should get a dog on PowerPoint. And it's just so cute that they're talking in their minds, like the most formal way to get something approved and putting it on there to pitch it. I just, I love the idea.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah, yeah. So, and we were talking to some other people, they were just talking about what an interesting power dynamic that was of the child taking the role of the teacher sort of thing. Just all kinds of things. So if we see this showing up in one of your campaigns, we'll know where it came from.

Rob Gax 

Yeah you're gonna see that we're gonna be using that for college rivals this year.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah, yeah, feel free. The other question I had was about your wife and her social media presence. What have you learned from her success on social media that has translated into your, you've been able to use in your job?

Rob Gax 

Yeah, I think it's, the more real she is, the better it is. Like we see more engagement off of her, like her Instagram stories than anything else. Like people just go nuts. They write to her, they're completely engaged because it's live, it's real. And it happened that day and she'll put problems out because yeah, being a mother is not easy. There's, it's not perfect.

Tom Leonard 

Mm-mm.

Rob Gax 

Things go wrong and things you heard weren't always true or not true to you. And a lot of people, you know, they relate to that. So for me, I think the struggle is good to share too. And you know, she's ex MTV, she was an MTV VJ and then later she was a host on Discovery Channel. And you know, her fan base has really changed. So it kind of went from people like, you know, watching her for music and MTV, then Discovery type was a bit older people. And then it kind of changed over to mom. So all of a sudden, the demographics changed and she has more moms watching than guys, you know. And so you see that you see all the dashboard and it's like, wow, it's really it's really changed. She posts less now but the stuff she does post is when she feels like it. So it's not so machined. And I think we fall into a trap of, because we're professionals, so we're trying to market stuff. So we really follow a content plan. And I think by her kind of stepping back a bit and not feeling so forced to post things all the time, this stuff got better.

Tom Leonard 

Forced, yeah.

Rob Gax 

The work got better. She's happier with it. And it was truer to what was going on. So I think while I've learned a lot from millennials telling me, oh, you gotta be authentic, I think they're right. I just think it's a human thing. I just think you just connect easier with stuff you feel is really real, rather than the photos that are kind of over-retouched and you don't believe them. And it's fantasy land. Because it really gets in your head. But I learned about that a lot.

Tom Leonard 

It would think where you came from. You came from certainly an agency background. Everything is fake. I mean, everything is in the way that it's not a thing. Everything. Well, what I really mean here is everything is thought through. There's nothing on there by accident, just the opposite. All the mistakes have been taken away. It's like this is the, you know, the perfect presentation that we want people to see. And where someone is on Instagram stories or something like that. It's like, oops, you know, the dog's barking. It's like, it's that human connection that just wasn't there before. Couldn't have been there before.

Rob Gax 

You nailed it. I used to look at our agency photography for our clients and especially our people stuff that's supposed to be lifestyle. And it's so stiff and you're like, why do they look plastic? And then you remember the set and you're like, you remember the comments to the photographer and the model. It's like, yeah, can you tilt that cuppa cappuccino a little more to the left? Okay, one inch higher. Okay, hold still, hold, okay, no, smile, lift one eyebrow. Like, of course it looks plastic because you're treating them like this kind of like, this avatar where you're just trying to manipulate into something. And yet when I worked at the fashion magazines, the lifestyle shoots were so relaxed. It's like, what's our scene? It's like, oh, we gotta have, we gotta show the model styled like this. He's having a cup of coffee. And that's, that's the brief. Where if it's an ad agency, it's like the foam, the, you know, that the cup has to look like that. And it just gets really, you know, artificial fast. And then the Instagrammers nail it because in most cases, they paint something true to life, I think that we can relate to. And they'll show themselves walking into a restaurant. And that's a better commercial than any restaurant could put out with a 200K budget, like, yeah, their influencer just nailed it walking in there with a camera. So yeah, that authentic concept goes a long way with me. And I see people respond. People really, really respond to it. And agencies, like, they do their thing, and that's cool. Like, I think we'll still need that for a while. But I just think.

Tom Leonard

Yes.

Rob Gax 

We've learned a lot from our influencers. We used to really like to look down on them, I think, at the start. We used to not want to do that work in the agencies. And then he started taking our business. And now we're all paying attention. It's like, like you can learn from the kids because they do it really well. And they do it really well for their audiences. They got enormous and this giant fan base because, um, they know what they're doing and they know what their fans like. You know, it's, it's impressive. Like some of our influencers in Thailand, one guy is bigger than the entire Singapore TV broadcasting system. Like, one guy has a bigger audience. And he does it by himself. And stuff like that just blows my mind.

Tom Leonard 

And think of the connection he has with his audience. I mean, the influence that he has over them. I mean, he can sell things, he can present things completely at a much deeper level than other people spending tons of money.

Rob Gax 

Yeah, yeah.

Rob Gax 

Yeah, you trust them. They're real people, you know? You see someone maybe like Brad Pitt and you think you know him because you see him in movies, but it's different when there's an influencer who shows you what he had for lunch down with the street food. It's totally different. And this is just, again, being authentic and identifying with these people. And I'm a fan of some of the influencers too. I watch what they post. They crack me up. So I don't know, I just, the power of it's incredible. And it's something I've just grown to appreciate more and more.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. Hey, we're gonna keep going. I can just keep asking you questions. This is really interesting to me. And I think it will be to our audience. But where can people find out more about you, what you're doing?

Rob Gax 

I think I've been sharing more stuff on LinkedIn lately. So if you look at Rob Gax on LinkedIn, I'm there, it's amazing to find. And I'm trying to share more kind of gaming stuff, just stuff we're doing, but just also in general, I think I'll be posting up more reviews of games and type of games, all in hopes of trying to educate future clients, future brands who might think of different ways to advertise with gaming. I'm just going to share everything I know. I might even share some projects that I pitched and didn't go anywhere. Just you know, just share the knowledge like I'm not going to keep it in my folders and hide it. Like I think we can learn and keep moving forward if we just know we are more open, especially at this moment I think in esports.

Tom Leonard 

Oh yeah, yeah. Hey, again, I really appreciate your time here on your Saturday morning. So, yeah, so thanks to our listeners for listening to the Gamers Change Lives podcast. Change Lives, play games, change. I'll say this right over the first time. Play games, create jobs, change lives. Thanks again, Robert.

Rob Gax 

Oh, I loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you.