Skill Gaming, Player Motivations, and Why TV Builds Legitimacy

Tap to unmute

In this episode, Amit sits down with Uri Pearl, VP of Marketing at Papaya Gaming. Uri got into games the long way around: a bachelor's in International Relations alongside Sociology and Anthropology, a master's in Economy, then a job as an analyst at the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Economy's Foreign Trade Department and the INSS, writing reports for the Prime Minister's Office on whether the Obama-era trade agreements would happen and what China's Belt and Road meant for everyone else.

A former lecturer of his pulled him out of that into user acquisition, at a company he had never heard of, for a job he could not define. Four and a half years at Ilyon later he joined Papaya Gaming as the fifth employee, in August 2019, when skill gaming had exactly one company in it. He has been there almost seven years, one in UA, five as Head of Marketing, the last as VP, and now runs 30 to 35 people across performance, creative, brand, social and community.

What makes the conversation worth the time is that Uri talks about a real-money product using the vocabulary of product marketing rather than media buying. Three audiences inside one download. A message everyone would write first that turned out to be the one that fails. Television as legitimacy rather than reach. And a market entry measured in years of quiet testing before anybody sees a campaign.

From Trade Agreements to User Acquisition
Uri's first career was analysis, and the subject matter was the global economy. Two enormous trade agreements were on the table under Obama, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and China was answering with the Belt and Road.

"Everyone competing for economy, and I was kind of analyzing all of these agreements, writing reports for the prime minister office about the likelihood of this agreement to happen, how it's gonna affect the economy and stuff like that."

He was good at anthropology too, and says plainly why he did not stay with it.

"It was something I wanted to do but, to be honest, there is no much of, you can say economic free future for you to be there, although this is very interesting."

The move into games came from a phone call rather than a plan. Adi Hadad had taught him at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, remembered him as a strong student, and by then was heading into a senior role at Google Play. She told him gaming was the next big thing and that a young company wanted him for a user acquisition job.

"I didn't really know what user acquisition is at the time, but I was counting on her. She's a very brilliant person, and you can say that I kind of owe her my career in a way."

The decision itself was less romantic. His ministry position was a student slot waiting on a permanent vacancy that depended on the Knesset, the CEO and a lot of conversations behind the scenes.

"And Adi was like, 'You can start tomorrow.'" The salary, great relative to a student position, closed it. "And I was like, 'I'll take the salary,' you know?"

Building a Marketing Department Because Video Got Expensive
He arrived at Ilyon as employee number 12 or 15, he does not remember exactly, and built the marketing function with Adi from nothing. User acquisition, ASO, and at the beginning ad monetization too.

The reason they brought creative in-house was arithmetic. Google's universal campaigns and Facebook had just made video the primary asset, and the market rate was brutal for a small studio.

"It was like, whatever, $5,000 for a video, something like that. And, like, you small company, like, I need a lot of videos. What should we do? And then we're like, 'Okay, we need in-house. We need to bring an animation team.'"

That is where the playbook habit started, and it was broad: launching new games, moving from event optimization to ROAS optimization, then a move into product marketing over a portfolio of more than a hundred bubble games on Android, with cross-promotion between titles and ad monetization carrying a large part of the company's success.

The Fifth Employee, and the 30% Math
Uri joined Papaya in August 2019. The category barely existed.

"Skill gaming basically wasn't exist." Amit: "You had just Skillz, no?" Uri: "It was only one company. It was a very blue ocean."

He is precise, and slightly funny, about his own employee number.

"To be honest, I'm the sixth. But the one who was before me, she was like in customer support, and she left after a year. And Uriel, the CEO, is always saying that I'm the fifth, so I'm the fifth."

What actually caught his attention was a marketer's calculation about where the money goes. Skill gaming monetizes in real money, not virtual currency, so the store's cut never enters the equation.

"People depositing money in the game itself, using this money as entry fees. They're withdrawing the winnings, et cetera, so there is no 30%. It's like it will give some edge in the marketing, if I can have 30% more ROI for every dollar, so it's a lot."

Three Audiences Hiding Inside One Download
This is the part of the episode that has no equivalent in casual UA. A skill game does not have a user, it has three, and each one needs a different sentence.

Before any of them, there is a category to explain at all.

"You need to tell, explain people that you are not gambling even though you can compete on real money. It's not the regular casual kind of progression, Saga maps."

Then the segments split. The money-led players arrive already looking.

"There is people who wants to play for real money. They are seeking, they are searching in the store. They playing other, whatever, if it's fantasy sports or something else, they searching for this experience."

For them the gameplay is the thing that must not get in the way. "You wanna make sure you can say that the gameplay is not an interruption for them."

The challenge-led players want the tournament, and the money is a consequence rather than a reason.

"People who love the experience of being challenged, of playing in a tournament, who are testing theirself against others. And the money is a reward, not as the main thing that incentive to come."

And then the largest group by far, the casual players who have to be converted. Amit's read on it is that casual UA usually has one or two user types and this has three, all genuinely different, all live at once.

Uri also punctures the assumption sitting underneath the whole conversation. A casual game is not the free one, it is the one you cannot get anything back out of.

"But it's a real money also when you buying a pack of coins, and when you're watching ads. In casual gaming, you don't really have the opportunities also to recoup some of that."

The Product Has to Fit All Three
The messaging problem is only solvable because the product was built to hold both experiences at once, which Uri credits to the founders rather than to marketing.

"The founders really understood how to create a product that have both the foundation of tournament and real money experience on one hand, but also integrating all of the meta features of the casual."

That gives a casual player a way in that costs them nothing.

"If I'm more of a casual player, so I can start by playing for virtual currency, just to have the social, the challenge element. I have my collectibles, so I can build towns. And when I feel comfortable enough, maybe I can also do the tournaments for real money."

The patience involved is longer than most funnels are built to survive.

"We have stories of players that they even played a year or even two years before they converted. They really liked just the game. They took them time to build their confidence."

Diversification Is the Channel Strategy
Three audiences means the channel mix cannot be a mirror of a casual plan. Video platforms sort part of it out on their own, because the algorithm learns who clicks a winnings ad and who clicks a plain Solitaire ad. The rest is deliberate spread.

Skill gaming opens a channel casual never touches, and it is where the money-led audience already lives.

"There is a lot of content out there like websites on how I can save money, how I can make money. A lot of these money-led people also being there when they are online. Not everyone on Facebook, not everyone playing games. Like searching kind of money opportunities, and you wanna be there."

Alongside that sit the classic performance channels, search with its own intent-matched landing pages and custom product pages, and now CTV. And the coordination cost is a point he makes without being asked.

"Marketing cannot be by themselves alone. You have the collaboration of the product, the monetization, the teams, to make it most efficient. It's by diversification."

Television Is Permission
Asked what CTV is actually for, Uri does not answer with reach or frequency. He answers with shame.

"People seeing you on a TV commercial, it create legitimacy. If you're on television, you're legitimate."

The research behind that reads as anthropology, which is not an accident given his degree. Papaya dug into the concept of play and found that people are quietly embarrassed by it. He tells it through his wife's uncle at a family dinner.

"I caught him kind of between removing the dishes, doing a short gameplay in Bubble. And I was like, 'Ah, you playing?' They don't really wanna brag about them playing. They don't really tell about their friends that they are playing games."

Then the line that makes the whole argument land.

"You're not sitting over a coffee with your friend and you can say, 'I've heard yesterday a podcast,' but you never say like, 'I won yesterday a tournament in a game.' It's not the conversation that you are doing."

A television commercial changes the social status of the activity, not the CPI.

"When gaming comes to television, it creates a legitimacy for people kind of not to be shy and to be proud if I'm playing. It's okay. It's there. It's on the big screen. It's not something that someone targeted you on Facebook and only you know about that. It's everyone doing that. It's okay."

The second reason is format. A long-form spot on a big screen can carry a story, where an in-app placement carries an instruction.

"When you see an ad in a different game, like AppLovin or Facebook, it's like, really, download now, click here. If you're doing a Christmas campaign and you can speak about the concept of playing, you can put them a song that they love. So they create emotional connection to your brand. Eventually the brand sticks in your brain. So when you come to the app store, you see different type of games, you remember the one that you saw on the TV, and it's most likely that you will click on that first."

Swing, and the Christmas Brief
Asked for his favourite campaign, he goes to Swing, the first time Papaya said something about itself instead of about a game.

"It was the first time that we wanted to say something kind of about us, not about the games themselves. It was the most exciting, it was the hardest, the most expensive, the most everything."

He remembers watching the offline cut, before post, with the wires still holding the people on the swing visible in frame.

"We were so emotioned about it, in the room, kind of almost crying. And we were like, 'Well, it's so good we can upload it like that. We don't need to do anything else.'"

The other one he singles out is the last Christmas campaign, Play For Real, and what he admires is the brief being solved rather than negotiated. It had to be emotional, it had to say something about the AI moment, and it had to sell the games, in one video.

"Our creative director, Kobi, managed to crack a very hard brief. You need to do everything in one video, and you managed to do that with this Play For Real concept. Which was very exceptional."

How You Land a New Country
Uri's answer to market entry is the least glamorous and probably the most useful thing in the episode, because it starts years before the campaign anyone remembers.

"I don't think that you can really just pop one day in a country with splashing big campaign. I mean, you can do that, but it's a very high risk. You wanna start feeling the market. You need to do some initial marketing. You need to see some kind of reaction."

The research is about culture, not translation, and he draws the line with an example nobody can argue with.

"You can't do whatever 4th of July promotion in Germany. So you need to connect to the culture, not only from a language perspective, but from a culture perspective."

The UK, the campaign everybody points to, was the end of a long runway, not the start of one. Local research partners, a local media partner, and years of operating quietly first.

"It's not that we can just came one day with Swing. We were like operating there for even two or three years. We saw really good indicators of the players, we refined the messaging, refined the funnels, refined the product. So when we felt comfortable to make this move, this was the right timing for it. It wasn't like out of nowhere, just, 'Hi, good morning. We came.'"

And it was measured like a brand campaign rather than a burst, with a pre-campaign awareness survey, a post-campaign read on the lift, and CTV used to link the exposure to everything downstream.

"In offline television it's all about incrementality. But CTV also lets you understand if he or she actually saw an ad on CTV, and then they also saw the ads on other channels. And you can see the different behavior of people who watch the CTV, didn't watch the CTV, after they download the game. Sometimes it's able to identify if it's affecting your CPIs or not, or the IPMs."

If Papaya ever runs a Swing-scale campaign in Germany, he says they would bring in a German culture person to do the same work again.

AI Scales You, Strategy Grows You
Amit asks how much of a marketing leader's time should go to research versus building. Uri will not give a percentage, and gives something more useful: a ceiling on what generation alone can do.

"AI obviously give us the scale. Now you can generate hundreds and thousands of creatives every day. But if the messaging isn't sitting, it doesn't really gonna help you grow. It will help you, best case scenario, maybe to maintain your position, because you're generating new creatives and you're being able to compete with everyone and get the IPMs. But actually to grow, to get to new audiences, it's very important why someone has downloaded your app."

The reason it matters is not brand sentiment, it is retention. Why someone downloaded shows up in the down-funnel numbers weeks later.

"If the user has emotion connection to your brand, he will stay longer. He will be less prone to churn if he had bad experience. Maybe they had a glitch, but I love them, they are okay. Versus someone really tricked me to download their game because I saw a mini game that didn't exist after that, and I was so annoyed and I left after seven days because I don't have anything with you."

So he puts AI exactly where it earns its keep and no further.

"AI help you to scale. It help you to create the iterations. It help you to win on the last click. But you need also a lot of complimentary brand awareness messaging to create the legitimacy, and eventually to be on the why anyone care to download your game. Like you need to work on that reason."

Launching a Skill Game: Why Match 3 Doesn't Convert
There is no recipe, and Uri says so before saying anything else.

"I don't think that there is a 100% guarantee recipe for skill gaming, because what you have is like what people love to play."

Then he walks through the most instructive failure in the category, which is the genre that should obviously work and does not. Everybody plays Match 3, so Match 3 looks like a perfect fit until you look at why people play it.

"In skill gaming you are in tournament, it's time limited, you have some kind of stressed moment that you wanna get the highest score. And when you're playing Match 3, what we've learned, people really like that to relax and pass the time and like to ease out. People who are playing Match 3 don't really connect to this competition feeling for Match 3."

The clearest evidence he has is a single user interview, and it is the best image in the episode. She described what a casual session looks like, in front of the television, half-attending.

"When I'm in front of Netflix, I'm just playing the Monopoly Go, just clicking and rolling the dice."

And then what a competitive session looks like, for the same person, in the same house.

"But when I'm playing Solitaire Cash, I have a set, like I have the chair, a specific chair in the house, and I need to dim the lights. And I have a glass of water next to me and like fully focused because I want to win this. So I coming, I doing my competition sessions, trying to win as much as I can."

Two different products, two different rituals, one player.

The other half of the launch problem is familiarity, because a tournament asks for confidence and confidence needs a game you already recognise.

"When you're saying to someone Solitaire, okay, I know Solitaire. Everyone had Windows 95 and played Solitaire. When I'm telling you Solitaire, you can instantly picture yourself playing Solitaire because it's a familiar genre."

A new genre cannot do that work, no matter how well it performs elsewhere.

"But from these new games, the Triple Match for example, it's a new genre. People doesn't really know what Triple Match is. When you're saying to someone, 'Play Triple Match for cash,' he doesn't really know how to picture himself doing that."

He also puts the difficulty in context: CPIs have risen and the field has filled, so it is hard to launch any game now, not just a skill game.

Nobody Believes They Have Skills
The single best insight in the episode is the message that never worked, and it is the one every marketer in the category would have written first.

"Messaging about skills in general wasn't working for us. Because people don't have confidence that they are good. It's a human truth."

The distinction he draws is narrow and worth holding onto. Telling a Solitaire player who has played for years that they are good at Solitaire works, because they already believe it. Telling anyone that they have skills does not.

Saying "it's a skill-based game, use your skills" asks for a confidence nobody has. Nobody believes their own skills are exceptional enough to win.

Papaya has proof at the far end of the funnel. In February they ran the first ever World Solitaire Championship, face to face, in Miami. The qualifiers had been playing Solitaire Cash for years and still could not accept what they had done.

"They were so surprised they've been managed to qualify for the World Solitaire Championship. It's like, 'I'm a world championship? I'm like, I'm that good?' They couldn't believe on themselves."

Which reframes the job entirely. Confidence is not a claim you make in the ad, it is an outcome the product has to produce.

"You need to build their confidence kind of while they're playing. And they need to see that themselves, that they are good."

Uri, who worked on the championship for years, could not make it to Miami.

Is Skill Gaming a Red Ocean Now?
Asked directly, he declines the easy yes and gives a more precise answer: skill gaming is a red ocean in the same way all of gaming is.

"You see everyone is trying. You mentioned before the hybrid or the hyper-casual industry, which also trying to kind of reinvent herself. Finding a new exciting gameplay, a lot of mini-game tests, playables, just to see what's working."

Room to grow still exists, and the studios finding it are doing the same thing.

"It still have room to grow or room to over-perform your competitors. And you see that the one that being able to grow while everyone is fighting is the one that doing a lot of brand collaboration, IP collaborations, like actually collaboration inside of the game. It's not like whatever, two months of a campaign."

Familiarity again, borrowed instead of built.

"When you're taking a familiar brand, a familiar IP, and you connect it to a game, it creates you not a entirely new blue ocean, but it's somewhere in between. You are in the green."

Wrap Up
The thread through the whole conversation is that Uri researches before he spends, and the research keeps landing on something about people rather than something about channels. The uncle hiding his phone at the dinner table is why television matters. The woman who dims the lights for Solitaire Cash is why Match 3 will not convert. The championship qualifiers who could not believe they qualified are why "use your skills" fails and confidence has to be built inside the product.

His own path explains the habit. He spent his first career deciding whether a trade agreement between continents was likely to happen, which is a job that punishes you for wanting an answer before you have one.

Amit's closing read is that as production gets commoditized, the differentiator moves to strategy, and the core of strategy is researching enough not to be biased.

For a marketer whose category had to invent its own vocabulary, that is not a philosophy. It is how the work got done.

---

The Full Transcript:

Amit: Uri, my friend, great to have you here.

Uri: Great to be, to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Amit: Of course. eh, so first of all we have Uri. Uri currently is VP marketing at Papaya Gaming. eh, in the past he was analyst in various different positions that he will speak with us about it. Then you worked at Ilyon and now you started-- actually, I saw from, I don't want to call it the bottom at Papaya, but you grew like from, eh, I assume hands on role to now to lead all of the marketing. For I assume everyone here knows that Papaya is one of the most successful gaming companies in the world, and especially in the skill gaming space. So thank you for being here and please tell us about your, eh, your story.

Uri: Thank you for inviting me. So, um, first of all, um, um, nice to meet you everyone. I'm Uri. Um, I'm married to, eh, Sapir, father to Jonathan, Itamar and Ayala. eh...

Amit: Ayala?

Uri: Ayala.

Amit: Beautiful name.

Uri: Thank you.

Amit: It's like Eyla?

Uri: It's like Eyla.

Amit: Eyla, or-

Uri: Yeah, but English is like Ayala. Giving the American twist. Um, uh, yeah, I mean, I guess my background, uh, I studied, eh, a bachelor degree in International Relations also in, eh, eh, Sociology and Anthropology.

Amit: Oh, wow.

Uri: And then, eh, eh, moved on to a master degree in Economy. And then I started to work in the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Economy as well, in the, um, in the Foreign Trade, eh, Department and also for the INSS, the Interna-- National, uh, Security Institution. Um, and I indeed was, eh, an analyst. Mostly focusing on international relations and international economy. So back, uh, back then, the, um, you know, there were, in Obama's presidency, there were two major, um, economy trade agreements that were, uh, discussed between the US and Europe, and US and the Pacific. It was a transatlantic, I'm trying to remember- ... a couple of years ago, uh, trade association, Trans-Pacific, uh, uh, Partnership. And at the same time, China started to build its new, uh, Silk Road initiative, the One Road, One Belt. So it was kind of, you know, um, uh, everyone competing for economy, and I was kind of analyzing all of these agreements, um, writing reports for the, uh, prime min- prime minister office about, you know, the likelihood of this agreement to happen-

Amit: Oh

Uri: ... how it's gonna affect the economy and stuff like that. So this is what I did. Um-

Amit: What is more inter- interesting, this or your current job?

Uri: Um, I think that, uh, my current job. I think that my current job. Uh, I must say that, I must say that, you know, uh, I was also very good in anthropology.

Amit: Really? Wow.

Uri: I think, uh-

Amit: This is so cool

Uri: ... it was something I wanted to do but, uh, you know, to be honest, there is no much of, uh, you know- ... you can say economic free future for you- ... uh, to be there, although this is very interesting. Um, and I guess the, that story that, uh, how I came to gaming is, um, you know, I was kind of a young analyst in the, um, the Ministry of, uh, of Economy and, uh, I've been reached out, um, by a former teacher. Um, I was studying her class, uh, in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her name is, uh, Adi Hadad. Uh, she now, um, running, uh, I think she's heading EMEA or something like that in Google Play. She's like-

Amit: Oh, wow

Uri: ... very, like, high ranked over there, and she reached out to me. Uh, she was remember me as a very good student, uh, and with good, uh, uh, I don't know, uh, kind of grades. Um, and she, she told me, she was like, um, you know, we come, both of us, from same background, uh, studying international relations. We both even did, uh, uh, been in the intelligence units in, in the IDF. Um, and she started to kind of introduce me to gaming. She was, "Listen, like, gaming is the next big thing. Like, you want to be in gaming, and just move there in a company, uh, called Ilyon. Um, it's a young company. Um, and I think that you're gonna be very successful because you have kind of both the analytic skills, also some creativity. Um, and I want you to come and, uh, for a user acquisition, uh, uh, uh job." And I didn't really know what user acquisition is at the time, but I was counting on her. She's a very brilliant, uh, uh, person, and, uh, you can say that I kind of owe her my, uh- ... my career in, in a way. Um, uh, so thank you, Adi. Uh, and, and this is, uh, and I guess the position I was at the, back at the time, it was, like, uh, waiting for a, a permanent, uh, you can say, uh, vacancy, uh, because I was kind of in, like, a student position. And, you know, in the public, all of this ministry in the public, uh, uh, arena, I mean, to get, like, a permanent vacancy or, like, a position, it's like, um, you need to wait. It's a lot of, um, um, kind of, you know, d- discussion that you need to do behind the scenes.

Amit: Mm.

Uri: You need to wait. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't, won't happen. You need to wait to the CEO. Maybe the Knesset needs to decide whatever. Like, there is a lot of... and Adi was like-

Amit: Politics.

Uri: Yeah, politics. Exactly. And Adi was like, "You can start tomorrow." And, like, and earn great m- like, you know, very relative to a student position, uh, uh, great salary. And I was like, "I'll take the salary," you know? Um, uh, so I came to Ilyon. I think I was, uh, like employee number 12-

Amit: Wow

Uri: ... 15, something like that.

Amit: Back then, Ilyon was one of the best companies in Israel and in general.

Uri: Yeah, a very successful company. Back at the time, they were like, uh, al- also in their early stages in a way. So I was like, uh, as I said, employee number 12, 15, don't really remember the, the exact number. And together with Adi, she was the head of marketing. We kind of built together all of the marketing department at Ilyon. If it's the user acquisition, the, uh, ASO, even ad monetization at the beginning was under our responsibilities. Um, building an in-house, uh, creative team, animation team, it was, like, a very big move because, you know, at, at the time, you know, the, the user acquisition or video became so important. Up until then, it was mostly kind of PPC-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... type of things. And then, you know, Google Ads came with the universal campaign, and Facebook, and then, like, video came to the world as a very prominent asset to, um, for user acquisition and the prices was, like, crazy. It was like, you know, I don't really know. It was like, whatever, $5,000 for a video, something like that, like per-

Amit: Wow

Uri: ... giving you prices and, like, you s- small company, like, I need a lot of videos. What, what, what we should do? And then we're like, "Okay, we need in-house. We need, uh, like, to bring an animation team. We need to start doing this, uh, creative scale, uh, as much as you can back at the time, um, and in efficient way." Um, so we've built all of this, um, department, uh, together, um, building the playbook of launching new games, of optimizing, um-... switching for, uh, event optimization to ROAS optimization. All of that was when I, um, sta- was in Ilyon. So I was around, uh, for the user acquisition, around three, three and a half years, and then I moved to, uh, a position of, uh, product marketing. I manage a portfolio of more than, whatever, 100 or more, uh, bubble games.

Amit: Wow.

Uri: Because Ilyon has lots-

Amit: Yeah

Uri: ... of bubble games.

Amit: A lot of bubble games.

Uri: In Android, and they are very sophisticated on their cross-promo strategy between the games-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... and organic, uh, growth. So, uh, and the ad monetization, it was really big part of the, of the company, uh, success, and I was kind of was in charge on that. Under the, it was under the monetization department, uh, Rohit Sayag.

Amit: Ah.

Uri: Uh, also, I owe him a lot and I learned a lot from him. Um-

Amit: One of my favorite guy in the industry, you know?

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Great, swell to that. Really.

Uri: He's, he's a brilliant, he's, he's a great guy. Um, so after four and a half years, um, at Ilyon, then I moved to Papaya. Um, you know, been introduced, um, to this concept of, you know, skill gaming, uh, for young company, which give you, I guess, the opportunity to come, you know, uh, in very early position. I'm the fifth employee, so.

Amit: In Papaya?

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Fifth?

Uri: Fifth.

Amit: Oh my God.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Wow. I didn't know that.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Fifth? Wow.

Uri: Fifth, yeah. Like, to be honest, I'm the sixth. But, uh- ... the one who was before me, she was, like, in customer support, whatever- ... and she left after a year. And Uriel, the CEO, is always saying that I'm the fifth- ... so I'm the fifth. Um, um, so, uh, uh, so I came to Papaya, obviously identified the opportunity there because, uh, you know, back at the time, it was, uh, 2019, August 19. You know, skill gaming, um, basically wasn't exist.

Amit: Yeah, you had just Skillz, no? And this stuff, uh-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... you did a lot of companies

Uri: It was only one company. It was a very blue ocean. And, you know, as a marketeer, I guess the one thing that, um, that kind of drove my attention is, you know, the fact that, you know, skill gaming, um, because, um, um, the monetization is for real money so you doing, uh, um, you don't do, you're not doing in-app purchase. You're not doing this 30% fee-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... to the App Store because they're not selling any virtual currency. People depositing money in the game itself, using this money as entry fees. They're withdrawing, um, the winnings, et cetera, so there is no 30%. You know, it's like it will give some edge in the marketing, you know, if I can have, uh, 30% more ROI-

Amit: Yeah, it's a lot

Uri: ... for every dollar, so it's a lot. So from a marketing perspective, uh, I understand that there is, um, huge opportunity. Skill gaming, as I mentioned, was a really blue ocean at the time, only one company, uh, i- in the market. And to be, have the opportunity kind of to, to build something kind of from scratch on my own, um, indeed, I started as user acquisition, as a marketing manager, um, doing el, uh, everything, you know, uh, hands-on, um, 360. Um, and I grew with the company. As the scale grow, I needed to recruit people, so, uh, then became the kind of head of marketing, which was, um, I think, uh, around five years, um, almost seven years at, at Papaya. So around one year as a user acquisition, five years the head of marketing. Um, you know, and now I, uh, in the last year as a VP of marketing, uh, at Papaya. So, um, there is also was a personal growth, um, you can say journey for myself as a manager, as, um, um, as a marketing, as a marketeer, um, to manage people, to manage different domain, um, both the performance, the creative, the brand. After all, social, community, um, for a couple of years. So, um, it was a really, really massive journey, uh, for myself, and I'm very grateful, obviously, for, uh, the founders at Papaya to believe in me, um, to have, uh, um, you know, kind of, uh, the patience also to, to s- see me grow, uh, in a way. Um, 'cause it's the easiest thing to recruit someone from outside.

Amit: Yeah, it's classic.

Uri: Let's bring a VP from here, a CMO from there. Uh, it's very easy in a way. Um, but, um, also happy that, you know, I managed to kind of hit the goals, hit the targets that I needed and prove them, to prove everyone, uh, at Papaya that I'm capable of doing that.

Amit: Yeah, amazing. You know, usually it's very rare that someone that, you know, starting as a hands-on and then can grow. It's like, it's not like you grew to be a team lead, right? You're now managing tens of tens of people. I don't know how many people you manage, but a lot-

Uri: 30, 35.

Amit: Yeah, so a lot of people, and it's very rare that people are doing this growth. It's insane, so.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: It's ama- I wish, uh, everyone had this, uh opportunity to work with someone like you.

Uri: Thank you very much.

Amit: So now that you're, you did also UA for casual, for, uh, IAP, for IAA, for everything.

Uri: Mm-hmm.

Amit: Now, in the last seven years, you are, you know, focused on, uh, skill gaming. How is user acquisition in skill gaming different from the casual markets that most of the people work in?

Uri: So I guess you can divide it to different layers of differences. Um, one thing is, um, as a skill gaming, um, obviously when we started, you know, people didn't know what skill gaming is. It's a new category. You need to tell, explain people that you are not gambling even though you can compete, uh, on real money. It's not the regular casual kind of progression, Saga maps and the Saga maps, uh, um-... experience, um, and you kind of to con- convince them why this is a better experience, um, to, to play in a tournament rather by yourself. Um, so it's a lot about, at the beginning, about the messaging and kind of explaining, um, you know, the difference of the product and what it's the unique value proposition of this product. Um, um, and obviously I think that, uh, a lot of users kind of learn very fast, like, like I played casual whatever all my life. I played solitaire. I'm the best in solitaire. Why not to compete? Why not to compete myself against others regardless of the opportunity also, you know, win some real money, recoup my investment, you know.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: Um, people sometimes, uh, think that other casual games are kind of free, but if, you know, or that their in-app purchase are-

Amit: Yeah, yeah

Uri: ... multiple money but no, they actually-

Amit: It's more money.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: It's more money. It's a lot of money.

Uri: But it's a real money also when you buying, buying a, a pack of coins. Um, and when you're watching ads, um, but you know, in, in casual gaming, you don't really have the opportunities also to recoup some of that, and here you have also with the experience of, uh, competition, which we can, uh, also, uh, speak why we think it's very important, I guess, for human growth. So, so one thing is to explain what is this new category, this new product is. Um, you get into different segments. You have what we calling, you know, the money-led people. There is people who wants to play for real money. They are seeking, they are searching in the store. They playing, uh, other, whatever, if it's fantasy sports or something else, um, they searching for this experience. So for them, you want to tailored, you know, specific, uh, messaging, and you wanna make sure you can say that, um, you know, the gameplay is not an interruption for them because maybe they'll have to play for real money, but maybe I don't like bingo, you know, or don't like solitaire, but so you wanna make sure that to fit kind of the different gameplay to this segment. You have what we calling, you can say the, let's call them the challenge-led people, people who love the experience of being challenged, of playing in a tournament, who are testing theirself against others, um, which for them you need to tell the different message of, uh, uh, why this game is about, you know, tournaments and using your skills, uh, um, to compete in tournaments. Um, and you know, the money is a reward, not as the main-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... thing that incentive to come. Um, and you have also, obviously the big, big, biggest audience is the casual players that you want to convert. So for them, and you also think this is one of the reason of Papaya's success is that, you know, the founders really understood how to create a product that have both the found- foundation of, uh, you can say tournament and real money, uh, experience on one hand, but also integrating all of the meta features, all of-

Amit: Of the casual

Uri: ... of the casual. And then you're creating an experience for that fits all. If I'm more of a casual player, so I can start by playing for virtual currency-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... um, just to have, you know, the social, the challenge element. I have my collectibles, so I can build towns. I can do all the stuff that, uh, um, that, um, you know, I'm doing in a different casual game, and when I feel comfortable enough, maybe I can also do the tournaments for real money or the competitions. Um, we have stories of players that, you know, they even played a, a year or even two years, uh, before they converted because-

Amit: Really? Wow.

Uri: Yeah. Because they really liked, you know, just the game and I don't know. They took them time to build their confidence, most of them doing that- ... a lot before, but you have these segments. So it's a lot about the messaging, and-

Amit: It's a lot about, uh... Actually, I didn't think about to speak about it with you, but it's super interesting because you're speaking only messaging like product, more classic product marketing, very different, I think, approach from the classic, you know, user acquisition, thinking a lot about the user itself and how... Man, usually in casual you have, you know, one or two user types, let's say. Here you have three. Each one is pretty different. They have those similarities, but how do you manage to message all of these three at the same time?

Uri: Yeah. So, um, obviously there is different platforms, but kind of obviously video-wise, um, I mean, you need obviously the algorithm know to do the magic. He know that there is people who will be more prone, um, to click, you know, on an ad that you see a lot of winnings, opportunity that you can withdraw your cash to PayPal, et cetera. And he know that there is people who more too prone, uh, to click on a just a s-regular solitaire ad, you know. Cards obviously have some kind of money indicator maybe, but it's not like the main message. So algorithms from the video-wise, um, knows to do the job pretty, pretty well. And but you need to diversify, um, your portfolio. Um, for skill gaming obviously, um, you have a lot of opportunities with affiliation, um, with iGaming type of, uh, um, websites, um, um, or content providers. You know, there is a lot of, uh, uh, content out there like, um, uh, websites on, you know, how I can save money, how I can make money. Like a lot of, a lot of like these money-led people also, um, being there like, um-When they are online. Not everyone on Facebook, not everyone playing games.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: Like searching kind of money opportunities-

Amit: Oh, yeah

Uri: ... and you, and you wanna be there. So this is one type of, one kind of segment of channel that you can bring people in. If it's from the iGaming classic or kind of content on the website on how to make money, uh, stuff. So this is one thing. You have the classic, you know, whatever, you know, the, the social and the app lovins and the DSPs, which then you need really to diversify the, um, the videos and to create different CPPs. You have the search. Search is also create a lot of intent. If I'm playing, I'm searching for a free cards game, so you want to create a specific, uh, landing page for them, or I'm searching for money games. Different people, uh, different, uh, even down funnel, uh, um, uh, first time user ex- experience you need to do to these guys, or different offers. I mean, it's a lot of collaboration. Marketing cannot be by themselves alone. You have the collaboration of the product, the monetization, the teams, um, to make it, uh, most efficient. So it's about diversifying. When you have a lot of type of, like for our three kind of big segments of players, of, uh, user personas, it's diversifying. Uh, now you have the CTV as well, but it's by diversification.

Amit: Yeah. Amazing. Let's speak a bit about CTV. You have, like we see a lot of ads of Papaya, and I think your TV commercials are amazing. We, we speak about the England campaign, which, uh, the UK campaign, which was incredible, but what are your thoughts now after you have a lot of, you know, your own experience in Papaya, in CTV and in TV commercial in general? What is your thoughts on this channel?

Uri: So, um, I will say first of all, um, even before I guess my thought, it's, I guess the reason to do CTV, um, and the reason, uh, to create, you can say high-end type of productions for CTV, um, I guess the main reason when, when you... People seeing you on a TV commercial, it create, uh, legitimacy. If you're on television, you're legitimate. Um, and I think that a lot of people know Papaya, um, we doing a lot of research. We have a lot of, you know, on brand strategy. We kind of really dig in about, you know, about this concept of play. And, you know, we find out that, um, people don't really, uh, uh, are really shy about playing. Like, uh, even remember like sitting in a, a family dinner and I seeing, uh, whatever my wife's, uh, uncle, uh, I caught him kind of, I don't know, between, uh, um, bringing, I don't know, uh, removing the dishes in order of table, kind of doing a short, uh, gameplay in Bubble and it's like-

Amit: Really?

Uri: Yeah. And I was like, "Ah, you playing?" He was like... They don't really wanna brag about them playing. They don't really tell about their friends, uh, you know, that they are playing games. It's kind of, uh, people maybe think about it, I don't know, maybe a waste of time, or why are you doing that? It's not like, uh, like, uh, you're not sitting in a conversation and, uh, you know, over a coffee with your friend and you like, you can say, "I, I've heard yesterday a podcast," but you never say like, "I won yesterday a tournament in a, in a game." It's, it's not the conversation that you are doing.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: So, um, so I think that, uh, kind of when they see that on, you know, on a television, when gaming comes to television, it creates a legi- legitimacy for people kind of not to be shy and to be proud if I'm playing. It's okay. It's there. It's on the big screen. It's not something that, you know, someone targeted you on Facebook and only you know about that. It's everyone doing that. It's okay. So yes, this is one, one reason why to do that. Um, and the second is that, you know, the big screen and the long form content, uh, gives you the option, um, um, to create a different type of creative that create, um, kind of, uh, meaningful connection or, uh, um, emotional connection to the brand. Because when you see an ad, whatever, in a, in a different game, like, uh, AppLovin or Facebook, it's like, really like, um, download now, click here. This is, you know, don't really to tell you a lot of story about that.

Amit: Yeah.

Uri: If you're doing a Christmas campaign and you can speak about, um, you know, concept of playing, you can put them a song that, that they love. So they create emotional connection, emotional connection to your brand and, you know, you hoping or, you know, research show that, uh, eventually, um, the brand sticks in your, in your brain eventually. So when you come to the app store, you see different type of games, you remember the one that you saw on the TV, and it's most likely that you will click on that first, uh, and, and try and try this app. Uh, so I think this is what, uh, CTV really helps, uh, for gaming. Um, I mean, it's, it's been proven for other retails. I mean, um-

Amit: Yeah, but maybe for spec- like you're saying, it's maybe for specific genres of game because like I don't know if you're a casual or hybrid casual, if it's relevant to do an ad or if you need someone to be connected to your brand. This is the main question.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: But this is a channel to connect someone to your brand to have this emotional connection and et cetera.

Uri: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amit: Which is more like, you know, classic, uh, McDonald ad or stuff like that. This-

Uri: Mm-hmm

Amit: ... like real marketing.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: You know what I mean?

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Uh, what was your favorite ad that you made? The favorite campaign ever?

Uri: Wow.

Amit: I know mine, that you made. It's the, the famous one.

Uri: Yeah. No, I mean, obviously, I mean, it's different. I mean-The one that was most exciting, obviously, was, uh, was Swing. Um, it was for Papaya. It was the first time that we wanted to say something kind of about us, not about the games themselves. Um, it was the most exciting, it was the most, the hardest, whatever. The most, uh, expensive, the most everything. Uh, but it was such... I mean, I remember that when we came to see the offline version, like the first cut, you know, offline, you know, without, uh, post-productions, without, uh, removing, uh, you know, the strings that hold the people-

Amit: Yeah

Uri: ... on the swing and such like. And, you know, it was so, um, we were so emotioned about it, you know, in the room, kind of almost crying. Um, and we were like, "Well, it's so good we can upload it like that. We don't need to do anything else." Um, but I think that, um, for the games, I think that, um, um, our last Christmas, the, uh, the Play For Real, uh, campaign for Christmas that we did was very also exceptional. Um, we managed, our creative director, Kobi, managed, uh, to crack a very hard brief because, you know, Christmas campaign, you want to be also emotional. It's, you, you need to do something about Christmas. You wanted to say something about this new AI trend, and you also want to some, say something about your games, because eventually it's, uh, some-

Amit: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uri: ... people need to understand about, about the ad itself, and you want to a- ... they want to do an action after that. So there is a lot of, uh, like you need to crack that and that, and you need to do everything in one-

Amit: In one vid. Yeah, exactly

Uri: ... in one video, and you managed to do that with this Play For Real concept. Uh, which was very exceptional.

Amit: Wow. Amazing.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: And one thing that I believe that Papaya is doing very well, we don't have a lot of examples of that in the industry, is how you land in new countries. Uh, we spoke about it a bit before the podcast, but you know, I've, I remember personally the UK campaign and everything-

Uri: Mm-hmm

Amit: ... that you've done there. Can you maybe share us your perspective of, uh, how to land, like what are the foundational thoughts of how to attack and land in a new country-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... when you want to expand there?

Uri: So I think that, um, kind of as everything you do, you need to start with some kind of, you know, research. Um, and specifically for skill gaming, um, obviously there is a specific, uh, countries that we can operate. Um, it's not like a casual that you have more broader playground you can say to test. Um, I don't think that you can really just pop one day in a country, um, with splashing big campaign without, uh... I mean, you can do that, I mean, but it's a very high risk. You wanna start feeling the market. You need to do some initial marketing. You need to see some kind of reaction. You need to do some research about the people over there, what they are playing, why they are playing, why it is different from my main market that I'm operating very well. Um, how I'm localizing, you know, um, the messaging. Not only we can obviously need to speak about localizing the game, the language. I mean, uh, uh, it's one thing, I mean, you can't do whatever 4th of July promotion in Germany.

Amit: Yeah.

Uri: It's not, it's not relevant. So you need to connect to the culture. You need to connect to the country that you're gonna operate, not from a l- or not only from a language perspective, but from a culture perspective. Um, so-

Amit: Do you have people, like let's, uh, UK is a bit different.

Uri: Mm.

Amit: But let's say that, uh, you're doing a big campaign or trying to land in Germany, you will bring a German culture, I don't know, person-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... to learn more?

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: Wow. Amazing.

Uri: If we will kind of ever do something similar to what we did in UK, in Germany as well, we will do that.

Amit: Yeah.

Uri: 'Cause with UK, I mean, um, we work with local partners, research partners, a media partner. Like people from the UK, they know, I guess, better than us, um, what's working there and what's not. And what, and we did a lot of tests, you know, as I said, also in the UK, it's not that we can just came one day with Swing. We were like operating there for even two or three years. We saw really good indicators, um, um, of the players, um, we refined the messaging, refined the funnels, refined the product. Um, so when we felt comfortable to make this move to kind of expand, um, um, so this is, was kind of the right timing for it. It wasn't like out of nowhere, just, "Hi, good morning. We came." Um, so, uh, there's a lot of work, research, you know, all of even, you know, the challenge led, the money led, all of that. It's like, uh, it's, uh, it's um, uh, categories out of for research that we did, uh, for the UK campaign. Like we really understand how we're gonna measure it. Uh, we wanna do a pre, uh, uh, pre-campaign, um, survey and awareness test.

Amit: Oh, wow.

Uri: You know, you wanna do a post-campaign, you want to see the lift. You wanna see if people saw whatever the Swing ad, and they also saw the Solitaire ad that you're trying. I mean, one thing also, you know, we spoke about CTV is it's, it's little bit helping you to, um, to do is, um, is kind of, um, from the attribution side, connect, uh, the dots because, uh, um, you know, in offline television it's all kind of all about incrementality.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: Um, but um, CTV also lets you to understand like if he, he or she actually saw an ad on CTV. And then they also saw the ads on whatever other channels, Facebook, whatever, uh, DSPs, SDK. And, and you can see the different behavior of people who watch the CTV, didn't watch the CTV, uh, after they download the game. Sometimes it's able to identify if it's affecting your CPIs or not, or the IPMs. Um, not always, um, because it's a blend of people who saw, didn't saw, but sometimes it really depends. Um, so this is something that helps you to kind of connect the dots. Um, but, you know, going to a market penetration, you, you need to learn because then in the next market you're gonna do better. Um, so you need to learn what worked, what didn't work. You need your lesson learned, uh, sessions. Um, and it's, it's very interesting.

Amit: Yeah. Look, for-- I have a question for you. For a marketing leader, you are-- Look, you're doing a lot of research in general, and I think your background as an analyst in the research department, you have this mindset of, "I must investigate before I do something in order for me to have any kind of thesis," even if the thesis is good, not good-

Uri: Mm-hmm

Amit: ... but you learn from that. How do you, today especially, when, you know, competition, not only in skill game, but in general, is rising, AI and et cetera, how much do you think a marketing leader should invest in researching and learning, uh, aligned with building, like in percentage?

Uri: In percentage? I mean, I'm not sure about percentage. I mean, it's essential. I think that, you know, AI obviously give us, you know, um, the scale. Now you can generate whatever, hundreds and thousands of creatives every day, um, and it helping you kind of in your competition. But if the messaging isn't sitting, um, if, um, um... So it doesn't really gonna help you grow. I mean, it will just, um... it will help you, best case scenario, maybe to maintain your position because you're generating new creatives and, um, you're being able to compete with everyone, um, and get the IPMs. But like, actually like to, to grow, to get to new audiences or even the audiences that you manage to convert, it's very important why someone has downloaded your app, even if it's a game or not. It's very important, like why, why you saw, because it's affect the down funnel metrics and also the long-term retention. If, if, if the user has, uh, eventually emotion connection to your brand, if, if game or not, um, he will stay longer. So he will be, um, you know, um, less, uh, prone, um, to churn if he had bad experience. 'Cause okay, maybe they had a glitch-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... or whatever, but I love them, they are okay. Versus like someone really tricked me to download their game because I saw a mini game that didn't exist after that, and I was so annoyed and I left after seven days because I don't have any- anything with you. Like, you just kind of tricked me to, to start, to, to test something that is not even your, whatever your main, your main feature or your main gameplay. But, um, once you have some kind of an holistic, um, strategy of messaging, it's, it's important. So AI help you to, to scale. It help you to create, you know, the iterations. Um, it help you to win on the last click. Um, but you need also a lot of complimentary, you can say, uh, this brand awareness, uh, uh, messaging to create the legitimacy and eventually to sp- to be on the, you know, on the why is, why anyone care, like why anyone care to download your game. Like you need to work on that reason. Uh-

Amit: It's amazing. Now, i- we spoke about it with the previous people that were here as well in the, I think mostly in Spain. Uh, it's more kind of a-- It's not the classic Israeli approach, like, but you are very different. You think like a product marketing person that spoke in Scopely and Zynga and et cetera. Eh, I don't know what will be in the future, but like my main assumption is that the UA part of like buying the media itself, you know, the campaigns will be totally commoditized. Like somehow it won't have a lot of impact and the, all of the impact will be on the research strategy. Why do I do what I do? Theses, uh, that you want to test and et cetera.

Uri: Mm-hmm.

Amit: But yeah, it's super interesting that you see it, uh, aligned even now and even in the past, right? It's amazing. I want to speak with you about launching new games. You have a lot of experience also in Ilyon of launching casual games, but now in Papaya you have, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but you have the top three games, which, you know, the Bubble Solitaire and Bingo that are very, very successful, and you have a lot of new games as well. Uh, in skill gaming specifically, how do you launch a new game? I think no one ever spoke about it.

Uri: Yeah. So, um, to be honest, I don't think that there is a, um, like a 100% guarantee recipe for, for skill gaming because what you have is like what people love to play. Like you see the trends. So a lot of people playing Match 3. So, okay, so Match 3 is a perfect fit- ... for skill gaming. But kind of then you understand that, you know, most of the people who playing Match 3, they don't really like to... I mean, the competition about that is not, uh, the experience is not, is not really fit or what they used to when they're playing Match 3. I mean, because in skill gaming, eventually, uh, you are in tournament, it's time limited, you know, you have some kind of, um, stressed moment that you wanna get the highest score, and when you're playing Match 3, what we've, for example, learned, you know, people really like that to relax, um, and pass the time and like to ease out. Um, so, um, and it's, doesn't mean that there is no people who find skill gaming as a, a gaming that they can ease and relax. But Match 3, like people who are playing Match 3 don't do it, don't really connect to this competition feeling for Match 3.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: Um, but maybe if they like also to play Bingo or Pablo Solitaire, they will be happy to compete. Like, uh, we have, um, a user who we interviewed, and she said that, you know, "When I'm just, you know, sitting in front of Netflix" and, you know, a lot of people are, are kind of double screening, you know. You see something in Netflix and obviously-

Amit: Yeah

Uri: ... doing something on, on your a- on your phone. "So when I'm in front of Netflix, I'm just playing, you know, the Monopoly Go," 'cause, you know, just whatever, clicking and rolling the dice. "But when I'm playing Solitaire Cash," she like telling us, you know, "I have a set, like I have the chair, a specific chair-"

Amit: Wow.

Uri: "... in the house, and you know, I need to dim the lights." "And I have a glass of water next to me and like fully focused because I want to win this. So I coming, I doing my competition sessions-"

Amit: Oh, yeah.

Uri: "... trying to win-"

Amit: Yeah.

Uri: "... as much as I can," but it's like a different scenario. So, so, um, back to your question, I mean, so it's not really whatever working for the casual work for skill gaming. Um, people, I mean, um, the gameplay you need to see that is not a, a barrier for, for playing. So, um, Solitaire people love to play, Match 3 doesn't. Like we're testing a lot. Um, obviously it's also not the same, you know, time period industry. I mean, when you are all alone, kind of one, two, three, uh, companies and you're launching a new game, it's different versus now that you have lots. So, and you know, CPIs has increased, uh, since whatever, 2002 and 2001 and, um, it's very hard to launch any game today, not just the skill gaming. So you have this macroeconomic whatever, um, um, um, things that's holding from, uh, or making it harder to launch any new game. And specific for the skill gaming, you need to tailor it, I guess, or to understand which game play people will enjoy to play in a tournament. It's not any game play. Um, so you need to think a lot of, a lot of about that and trying to crack that. Um, so and it's not an easy task.

Amit: Yeah. I assume it's one of the biggest because-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... do you think that, okay, for example, Match 3, yeah, you said you have some similarities between users that are playing Match 3, but also like the competition. Yeah, it's very hard. I don't know. Yeah. It's very hard to understand which mechanic you can also like convert to a skill gaming, uh... But it's a lot of question about also the target audience. Ah, it's really complex actually.

Uri: It's complex.

Amit: It's really complex.

Uri: I think also one thing that helping for skill gaming is when you land on a familiar, uh, genre. 'Cause when you're saying to someone Solitaire, okay, I know Solitaire. Like everyone knows Solitaire.

Amit: Yeah, everyone.

Uri: Everyone had Windows 95 and played Solitaire.

Amit: The best. Even I-

Uri: Yeah. Yeah

Amit: ... on 98.

Uri: Um, people know what's Bingo. When you, I mean, when, when you present even an ad, you know, to someone, he like, you know, when I'm telling you Solitaire, you immediately picture yourself, you know, you can instantly picture yourself playing Solitaire because it's a familiar genre.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: But if it's like, um, you know, sort game, whatever, um, um, I'm not sure. I mean, or something, you know, that a game that, like from these new games, uh, the Triple Match-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... for example, it's a new genre. People doesn't really know what Triple Match... When you're saying to someone, "Play Triple Match for cash," and he doesn't really know how to picture himself doing that, 'cause he doesn't know what's Triple Match. So it's, it's, um, it's, uh, taking, you know, a kind of a familiar genre, classic games, very helpful for skill gaming I think because people have the confidence that, um, a little bit that they can compete. Um, because most of the people don't have confidence. I know that, you know, for example, for us, um, messaging about skills in general, like, uh, wasn't working for us.

Amit: Really? Wow.

Uri: Yeah. Because people don't have confidence that they are good. It's a human truth.

Amit: Like a messaging that y- you know-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... you are good in Solitaire, why not make money out of it?

Uri: This is a little bit different because-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... you know, you're good at Solitaire, and if you're targeting a Solitaire player that is playing years, say, "Okay, I played just Solitaires-"

Amit: Yeah

Uri: "... I'm the best." But you know, saying, you know, uh, "It's a skill-based game. Use your skills," and like-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... no one doesn't think that they have exceptional skills that they think, you know, um, they're gonna win. Um, and, um, you know, even you saw that, you know, we did February, uh, the first ever World Solitaire Championship, like face-to-face.

Amit: It was insane.

Uri: In, in Miami. And people was like, uh-

Amit: You went there?

Uri: I specifically needed to, to... I couldn't. Um, it was very hard to see that- ... from, you know, a project that you're working years on. Um, but it was super exciting. Um, but you know, the players who qualified, they were like... And they're playing Solitaire Cash for years, and-They're winning games, they're losing games, whatever. Um, they were, like, so surprised they've been managed to qualify for the World Solitaire Championship. It's like, "I'm a world solitaire-- I'm a, I'm a world championship? I'm like, I'm that good?" They couldn't believe on, on themselves. So coming from beginning, like, to give that as a message, like, use your skills. People don't really think that they have skills. You need to build their confidence kind of while they're playing. Um, and they need to see that themselves, that they are good. Um, so, um-

Amit: Yeah, I agree

Uri: ... yeah.

Amit: Do you think today skill gaming is a red ocean industry?

Uri: It's, it's not, uh... I mean, it's a red ocean as, as the gaming industry. I think, you know, um, you see everyone is trying. This is, you know, you mentioned before the hybrid or, uh, the hyper-casual and, um, industry, um, which also trying to kind of reinvent herself, uh, in a way. Finding a new exciting gameplay, a lot of mini-game tests-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... uh, whatever, not actual gameplay stuff-

Amit: Mm

Uri: ... playables, you know, just to see what's working. Um, so I think that, um, in general, um, there is a red ocean in the gaming in general in a way, not only for the skill gaming.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: Um, but it still have room to grow or room to kind of over-perform your competitors. And you see that, you know, you know, you see the one that kind of, you know, most successful or being able to grow while everyone is, like, fighting is the one that doing a lot of brand collaboration, IP collaborations, like actually collaboration inside of the game name, inside the game. It's not like, uh, whatever, two months of, uh, of a campaign.

Amit: Mm-hmm.

Uri: So whatever, you see that, you know, with this solitaire, for example, doing a great job. So, uh, Monopoly Go, like when you- you're taking a familiar, and we spoke about it, about familiarity, but you're taking familiar brand, a familiar IP, and you connect it to a game, it creates you whatever. Uh, not a entirely new blue ocean, but it, uh, it's somewhere in between. You are in the green. I don't know.

Amit: Oh, interesting. So as a last, uh, game, we have here cards.

Uri: Mm.

Amit: Each card has a question. I don't know what the question are. Sometime it's getting, uh, personal in a deep, uh, dark way, so be prepared. So you can-

Uri: You need to be prepared.

Amit: I need to be prepared.

Uri: You need to be prepared to the, my dark, uh-

Amit: So, uh-

Uri: Yeah

Amit: ... you can pick one and answer, and, uh, then we will, uh-

Uri: Okay

Amit: ... wrap it up.

Uri: Ah. Wow. When was-- It's a great question. When was the last time you were a complete beginner at something?

Amit: Oh, it's actually a good one.

Uri: Um, you know, we, we... It's, it's funny, we spoke about it like, uh-

Amit: Downstairs?

Uri: ... the, the, the, the, in the coffee, uh, outside. Um, um, I recently, um, um, like my kid, uh, um, um, um, my biggest, he's in a, a democratic school and, uh, it's being managed kind of by the parents in a way. There is a committee. Um, so, uh, um, oh, and it's in volunteering, so I kind of, I volunteer to, to be in this management, uh, committee, uh, to help, you know, managing the school. Um, and, you know, uh, um, and also kind of, uh, you can say elected to be, I don't even know how to say it in-

Amit: In English? Yeah

Uri: ... in English, uh, gives-

Amit: Charge of the finance

Uri: ... charge of the finance in a way.

Amit: The, the CFO.

Uri: The CFO.

Amit: The CFO of the school.

Uri: The CFO of the school. And you know, now you need to understand about, um, uh, you know, uh, salaries and, you know, all of the expenses and all of the regulation of, uh, of, uh, the Ministry of Education and stuff like that. And ev- yesterday I had like, uh, the, one of the calls with the, the one that is like the CFO that is now leaving, um, kind of to brief me in. It's like so much new stuff- ... that you need to learn and you need now to start remembering the year, the Hebrew years because you know, taf shin pe vav, whatever, you know. And like, uh, who are you... So, so it's, uh, I'm now beginning something new- ... and I feel a totally beginner.

Amit: I love it. Oh, this is good.

Uri: Another one?

Amit: Let's do another one.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: It was a good answer-

Uri: Okay

Amit: ... so we must do another one.

Uri: Okay. Okay. Okay. Is there an ambition you have quietly let go of? Was that freedom, grief, or both? Ambition. Um.

Amit: Anthropologist maybe.

Uri: Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about that. Uh, yeah. Uh, uh, it wasn't so quietly. But, uh, I, I let it go. As I said, I, I love to do it. Um, uh, anthropology, I mean there is also a lot of sub-genres you can say down there. Um, um, I think, um, uh, I mean the one thing that I really was interesting, like kind of doing, because when I did my, uh, seminar about anthropology, I, I did it about, uh, um, independence, uh, chart, uh, um, Megilat HaAtzmaut-

Amit: Mm-hmm

Uri: ... of Israel. Um-The research and it was, was, uh, so, uh, interesting and I took it from a, a genealogical kind of, uh, uh, perspective, um, kind of, you know, the trees, family tree type of, uh, uh, uh, method, um, to investigate it. And I know that, and then, you know, the, the lecture was, like, so interesting. You can take it, you know, as a thesis to go to make a PhD, uh, uh, out of it, you know, and start, you know, using that to research, you know, other countries kind of independence story, um, and what it says about the culture and stuff like that. So it's a very interesting, uh, research that, um, I might doing one day.

Amit: Right.

Uri: But at the moment, I quietly let it go.

Amit: Let it go. Well, I have so much stuff I want to do, you know, so much.

Uri: Yeah.

Amit: So many. It's so fun. Uri, my friend, it was really one of the most interesting episodes we had, I think because skill gaming is... People don't speak about it a lot. It's one of the biggest, uh, genres of all, and you see a lot of actually newcomers in this industry as well, and you have, you know, the main players like Papaya and more. Uh, for me, it was insane, like super interesting, detailed, and the way you think about the why, the brand, the connection to the product and the emotional connection mostly, I think first of all, you will-- you are very successful, but you will be even more. But it's, I think, in the, this world of AI and commoditization of production, not only in ads, but in general on creation, let's say, it's still not commoditized, but let's say it will be more and more and more commoditized. The most impo-important thing is strategy, and the most important thing in strategy is to research a lot of s- uh, things in order not to get biased. So thank you for sharing this perspective and everything, and, uh-

Uri: Thank you very much for-

Amit: My friend

Uri: ... for having me.

Amit: Love you, brother.

Uri: It was a great time. Love you, man. Thank you.