What Music Can Learn From Mobile Gaming
- Evan Nickels
- 6 hours ago
- 25 min read
Is gaming really the next frontier for music, or is that just wishful thinking?
In this episode, Dmitri sits down with Jenn Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Metamoki, the mobile gaming studio behind Mob Wars and Wiz Khalifa’s Weed Farm. With nearly two decades of experience in mobile gaming, social gaming, and community building, Jenn brings a fresh outside perspective on where the music industry is leaving opportunity on the table.
They dig into what early social gaming taught Jenn about monetization and emotional connection, why artist involvement is the single biggest factor in whether a music game succeeds or fails, and what music startups can borrow from gaming’s rapid prototyping and product cycles.
If you work in music tech, music marketing, or the creator economy, this conversation will challenge how you think about fan engagement, music monetization, and building products that actually last.
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Episode Transcript
Machine transcribed
[00:00:00] Dmitri: Jennn Garcia is a veteran, technologist and cultural strategist with 19 years at the intersection of mobile innovation, culture and public impact raised in South Central Los Angeles by immigrant parents. She brings grit, empathy, and precision to her work as co-founder and CEO of Metamoki, the pioneering mobile gaming studio behind hits like Mob Wars and Wiz Khalifa's Weed Farm, which remains a standout example of indie resilience.
17 years on. Beyond gaming. Jennn is a dedicated mentor to founders of color and an outspoken advocate for equity, storytelling, and cultural preservation. Always focused on building systems that entertain, empower, and endure. As we reach the plateau for music streaming, we're hearing more and more about how the music industry could learn from the gaming industry, both in terms of user interaction and business model.
I'm excited to talk to Jennn to learn what the music business can learn from her experience in the mobile gaming world. Welcome to Music Tectonics, Jennn.
[00:00:54] Jennifer: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you.
[00:00:57] Dmitri: Yeah, I love like jumping in with people who are from a different space, but also have connections.
Obviously you've done some things with music as well, so I'm excited to, have this conversation with you. So I'm gonna dive in. Jennn, what did early social gaming teach you about monetization?
[00:01:12] Jennifer: Yeah, that was an interesting time. We were like very, very early. We were one of the first to build a product within the space.
We started on Facebook and then moved over to mobile once mobile became very viable and there wasn't really a playbook on how to interact. or monetize, right? We sort of had to rely on, just tracking behavior, which, because you could release something and in real time see how people were interacting with it.
That was like really cool. But I think what became really obvious was how important emotional connection is. The psychology of whether it is competition or just. Connection. there's different behavior patterns based on the different types of people. I think some people are collectionist and some people are
completionist.
[00:02:01] Dmitri: Oh, wow.
[00:02:02] Jennifer: So, yeah, some people really care about like leaderboards. and I think the, so the emotional connection was the way that I think we leaned into monetizing. As the industry and the platforms became more sophisticated or you know, more developed, I think we were able to do that more in earnest.
And there's always this like responsibility. 'cause you could, I mean, in gaming you could like try to extract every penny. but we're always conscious of the experience, like, you know, how were. If we're gonna add a slot machine, how do we make it not feel so gross? You know, how do we, sort of feed into the emotion that the person is trying to sit in?
You know,
[00:02:46] Dmitri: you know, Jenn, as you're talking, it makes me think like in gaming, when you're a game studio like you are. you're creating the media, the entertainment, the content, at the same time that you're creating the monetization model, the business model.
[00:02:59] Jennifer: Totally.
[00:02:59] Dmitri: So the gamification of that interaction plays into monetization, whereas in music.
The people who are creating the music, they're not actually changing the business model normally. And so that's like right outta the gate. I'm like, oh, we have stuff to learn about that alone. Like it's the streaming services or the, the iTunes or the social media, you know, video with music type platforms that are actually.
Controlling the monetization model.
[00:03:22] Jennifer: Totally. Yeah. We're, and we have to think about that. We have, I think we start, we do start similar to music in the sense that we care about the core feature first. And is that fun? So I think it, like in music, you're like, is that loop, does that sound good? Is that gonna be good?
[00:03:38] Dmitri: Mm. Yeah.
[00:03:38] Jennifer: So we do that first, but I think right after you and I think that cycle is pretty fast. So like once you figure that out, then you're thinking about. How is it going to monetize and will people come back? Are people going to come back and play this? And I think with a song, it's a little different.
You hope people love it and it's catchy enough, right? With us it's like. What are the hooks, you know? And if you are too extractionary, then it doesn't feel good. And I think you always want the player to have a positive experience, whether it's the hunger for competition or, I really enjoyed that. That was fun.
I wanna beat that. You know? So we're thinking about that along the way and we're crafting it. And we could be hyper capitalists and like lean in and try to like get every penny, but that. I've found it never works. And I think as game creators we don't think it, um, it leads to longevity, you know?
It doesn't lead to people wanting to come back.
[00:04:38] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:04:38] Jennifer: No one who has a bad experience somewhere is like, I'm gonna go back there. You know? So we're conscious of that.
[00:04:45] Dmitri: Right. Well, that's really interesting. You know, I'm curious to find out from you, what did you learn about the music industry when you worked on Wiz Khalifa's Weed Farm, for example?
[00:04:54] Jennifer: Oh my gosh. A lot of things. It was really interesting because I had this long theory that music and gaming were very similar, and I had always wanted to build something within that space, and I think that you know it, and it was fruitful all around. But what I would say is, huh. the music industry has a lot of bosses.
There's a lot of people who like kind of wanna cut and I think the most important person is the artist and they have to like deeply be engaged. I always give people the compar 'cause at, I think at the time that we did this game, there were other people who came to us after who wanted to build something and.
I always tell them about the Kim, they wanted Kim Kardashian numbers, you know, and it's like, well, Kim was very engaged, you know, she was, she also had, you know, a global syndicated show where she was talking about it. I think that I. That was the most important thing that I would say is like if you work within that, if you come into gaming, um, with your artists, it's important for them to be very engaged in the process.
And it really changes things when they are not just from a growth perspective, but also from the perspective of how the product turns out.
[00:06:16] Dmitri: Got you. So it's not just like somebody on the team, at the label, at the management company at the agency.
[00:06:21] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:06:21] Dmitri: Had a great idea. But the artist actually like fans and game players have to get the sense that the artist is actually a part of it.
[00:06:29] Jennifer: Totally. And they should want to, I think that that's, if they're involved in earnest and it's not just like some kind of biz dev deal that happened, you just can tell. It's really obvious.
[00:06:39] Dmitri: That's such good feedback. Yeah. What can artists do in games that they can't do elsewhere? I mean, help, help, maybe there's some folks listening who are like working with artists and they're like, what should we be doing?
What, what's cool that you can do there?
[00:06:51] Jennifer: Yeah, I feel like they should just view it as like a new, a different medium of storytelling, a different way to engage with an emotion. it's, I feel like songs are story, it's a form of storytelling. So I think games are a different font of sort of the same type of medium.
And it's tricky because some might say just because someone listens to your music doesn't mean that they wanna invest in playing your game. And I can see that, but I think it really just comes down to finding. A theme or a type of game that your fan base would wanna interact with and lean into that?
yeah. I, I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it. I think that there's opportunity there and it should be embraced.
[00:07:38] Dmitri: What about you? If you could do more with music, what would you want to do?
[00:07:41] Jennifer: Oh my God. So I have something that I'm working on. We'll release it at the end of the year, hopefully, and it satisfies this longstanding theory I've had, or this desire I've had to connect the digital world with the organic world, and music will be a really big part of it.
So I, I can't wait to share. Maybe I'll come back and tell you about it.
[00:08:03] Dmitri: Yeah, definitely. We'll have you back to talk about it. Dropping hints. You heard it here. Music tectonics first, right? I mean, there's a lot of conversation in the music industry that gaming is the next frontier for music. I think partially that's because there's so much in.
Gaming now that is like replacing social experiences. You know, the Roblox is in the Fortnite of the world. Give you a place to be, a place to interact, a place to play with friends, a place to meet people. and I'm curious what your sense is, do you think gaming is the next frontier for music, as some pundits seem to think,
[00:08:37] Jennifer: I don't know if gaming is the next frontier for music, but it's definitely worth, embracing.
I think there's a level of respect that's needed the same way that you would. Approach a collaboration with another artist. Gaming is an art. It's a craft. I would just come into it without ego. is it the next frontier? You know, I don't know. I I hear that all the time too, and I, I find it interesting because I, I always wanna know like.
What that means when people are saying it. Like what?
[00:09:05] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:09:06] Jennifer: Or what they're expecting, you know, from gaming. I think it's another medium and I think, you know, the music industry should embrace it and, and should collaborate with it.
[00:09:16] Dmitri: I think the issue is people look at the total addressable market of music and then they look at the total addressable market of gaming, and they're like, clearly this is a signal that people in the world are willing to spend more money and more time in gaming versus on music.
We should understand that interaction.
[00:09:33] Jennifer: Right. And I think if you funnel it that way, if you're like. You know, if we're not making money from, you know, selling music and this is how we're making money through touring, like I feel like it feels very like capitalistic. Like, all right, well now let's like try to make money in gaming, but you're not engaging with it as like a real craft, then it won't work.
But I do think there's opportunity to make. Money in gaming as a musician or as a label or whatever. But, the approach really matters. Like, that's the only thing that I think would make it the real frontier or next frontier, is if, you're engaging with it in earnest, and not just because you're hoping to make a lot of money as like your primary pursuit.
[00:10:16] Dmitri: It's funny, the way you describe it reminds me of like major consumer brands that do gaming or app experiences
[00:10:22] Jennifer: Oh god.
[00:10:22] Dmitri: Where they're like, oh, we're gonna do this thing and it's, we're gonna be on Roblox. And, and they're like, they put a bunch of marketing into it and they give away a bunch of free product and they break the internet and then it's like, yeah.
But nobody's ever gonna come back after the free burritos are gone.
[00:10:36] Jennifer: Totally, totally. I fully agree with that. Yeah. I could talk to you about that for sure.
[00:10:42] Dmitri: And it seems like, um. What you're really saying is maybe gaming isn't the right thing for all artists. A, the artist needs to be involved for the fans to actually care.
And B, you need to embrace it from a native gamer perspective. Not a just, I'm gonna do another thing. It's like, oh, I'm gonna post a soulless post on Instagram and now I'm gonna make a soulless game on mobile.
[00:11:05] Jennifer: Exactly. And your, the fans will know, you know, the players will know. They'll feel it.
[00:11:10] Dmitri: What's the question that you would ask somebody over and over again if there was, they were an artist team that was working on a game, what would help you break through to them to, to make that message clear?
[00:11:21] Jennifer: Uh, what question would I ask? Honestly, it's so hard to work with non-gaming. people sometimes. So one of the things that I try to get at when I work with them is what is their definition of success? What is the tangible, um, definition of success? And I'm sure anyone who's listening who's an agency will resonate with that because that's a typical agency, question to your client, like you have to speak the same language.
but I think something that happens often and it comes down to, I think. People using consulting firms to build things. You don't understand how technology is built. So there's often like these requests for what should be built or this idea, and you think you know more than the person building it.
So one of the things I always just try to do is like, make sure we share the same language, make sure we share the same vision. Things like that.
[00:12:16] Dmitri: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. All right, we have to take a quick break and when we come back I wanna get more into the technical side, a little bit about how you build products that actually last.
We'll be right back.
Okay, we're back. Jenn, this has been really fun to talk to you. I love the spirit with which you're approaching the conversation. I feel like we're learning a ton about, how artists and, and labels and managers can think about gaming in terms of like a real practical application. And I, I love the fact that you're not just all gung-ho, like everybody do it all the time.
The gaming. Gaming is the future. This is gonna solve all your problems. But really it's much more like from a gaming perspective of like, well, it kind of depends.
[00:12:55] Jennifer: It totally,
[00:12:57] Dmitri: so, so there've been a lot of different attempts to do something new and different in music. When you think about how people are experiencing music, listening to music, curating music, even creating music.
But you have this technical side as, as somebody who builds games. I'm curious to ask you, how do you build products that actually last.
[00:13:15] Jennifer: All right, so we're a technologist, so we start by building just very good software and very good tools to sustain the product across cycles. And we're thinking about that ahead of time.
And it's funny 'cause, just to go back to something you were saying earlier, just to like build on top of that, I noticed that in the music industry outside of like, you know, streaming networks or I think the licensing, um. tech companies that have, that have come out, the music industry has engaged with software only for the purpose of like marketing.
So a lot of stuff that's been built feels like very gimmicky. It feels like single use plastic almost.
[00:13:54] Dmitri: Hmm.
[00:13:54] Jennifer: so we don't build anything that doesn't have longevity in mind and we're not thinking about, you know, well, how is that sustained later and what, at what life cycle? Do we need a different team or, can it operate with a smaller team or, you know, all of those things.
And we typically, as we're building games, we think about. Is this something that if someone pitched it to us, would we invest in it? And is it worth our time? You know, is the time investment there? So I think we try to do a lot of that thinking upfront versus getting caught up in the immediate idea.
And, you know, might take the fun out of the immediacy and I think, Sometimes people don't like that, but I think it allows you to have something of real value for a really long time and that can pivot.
[00:14:44] Dmitri: Yeah. So it's like, yeah, and this sounds fun. This sounds cool, is not quite enough.
That doesn't hit the bar. It's really like, is there a business here? Is there a
[00:14:52] Jennifer: totally,
[00:14:52] Dmitri: is there a way to sustain this? Will people stay engaged with this over time? Those are the questions that you're asking.
[00:14:58] Jennifer: Yeah, definitely. But also just like is the software sound. Can it, can you build on top of this?
Can you, add new features to it that makes sense in the future?
[00:15:09] Dmitri: That's striking me very resonantly right now because I'm hearing about so many people who are vibe coding.
[00:15:14] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:15:14] Dmitri: And they're building stuff. They're like, whoa, I can do a thing. and I could put it out there and they may even get traction and people are interested.
And then when it comes to like building the next version or adding something on top of it, they're like, I literally don't know how to tell. The AI to add another layer. We didn't think of that at the beginning or it's, you know, there's some little loop in there that we can't track down.
[00:15:37] Jennifer: Yeah. And that's actually, that's like a really interesting thing to me right now because I am transitioning our team to adopt.
AI in our how we're creating stuff. And one of the things that I think is really important is, yes, you're gonna be able to prototype really fast because of ai. Anyone who has a really cool idea will be able to, you know, build it. However, I think that, Experience still matters and it will matter because you know how to architecture things, you know how to like organize things.
And that's across the board, not just for people building technology. It's like any industry where you're already a senior, you know how things should work, you know? So when you're building it and you're vibe coding it, you're thinking about it from that perspective. I think those people who are doing that, who already have experience will use this tool.
We've been given AI to build something hopefully successful, but it won't be something that fully democratizes building. that's my opinion. It's probably not a very, popular one, but I'm just seeing it even within my team.
[00:16:46] Dmitri: Yeah, I think every wave of technology, it brings a new generation in, but it doesn't always mean that everybody now can do everything as well, so,
[00:16:54] Jennifer: exactly.
Exactly. Yeah. Even with music, I'm sure people who make music feel the same way.
[00:17:00] Dmitri: Absolutely. It's true. And, and, and it's interesting to think about like the AI music generation stuff right now. it will create people, there will be a new generation of artists that create a certain type of music and that music may very well get an audience when it gets good enough and build a, a market.
And, and there may be a way to build a career around being a text to music AI artist. Yeah. They're not gonna be the only types of artists. It's not gonna take over traditional studio recording artists, commercial artists, live touring artists, social media artists even. You know, there's gonna be all these different categories that have come up.
YouTube artists, you know, like remember when YouTube artists were a thing and, and people started signing deals because of somebody blew up on YouTube or,
[00:17:40] Jennifer: or tikTok. Remember the TikTok deals?
Yeah.
You know, and I think like you have to think about it from that perspective as well. Like, can they build a body of work or is it just a song, you know, and can they tour, can they, you know, bring in the fan base?
And I think there's so much more. Have you seen the Abba, experience in London?
[00:18:01] Dmitri: I haven't seen it, but I'm well aware of it. Yeah.
Did you go?
[00:18:04] Jennifer: Yeah, I saw it and I, I thought it was really interesting because to me it just felt like this is another medium to engage with music. That's all it is and it's, kind of cool.
You could still be Taylor Swift and tour, or you can have a Taylor Swift experience not tour and still sell tickets and have your fans engage with your music in this new capacity. does that mean we're gonna like get rid of the Taylor Swift of the world? I don't think so. I just think here's this other avenue.
[00:18:34] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Jennifer: I sort of think of games that way too, if you're engaging with them in earnest.
[00:18:38] Dmitri: Yeah. the folks that did the ABBA experience that you're describing, pophouse recently acquired not only the music catalog, but the name, image and likeness of kiss, the Band Kiss. And our last episode of Music Tectonics was with the attorney, Spencer Klein from Morrison Foerster who negotiated that deal.
[00:18:55] Jennifer: Oh, I need to listen. Its, listen to it. Really?
[00:18:56] Dmitri: Yeah. It's really interesting to check out. not only, can artists extend their touring through these avatars? They actually can interact with the artists live in the concert venue as well.
[00:19:06] Jennifer: That is cool.
[00:19:07] Dmitri: The avatars can actually respond to what you're saying, how you react, et cetera.
And theoretically, not only can they do, concerts that go through the entire history of the band kiss, like you can see different. Band members on stage in one performance, because you could do the seventies, the eighties, the nineties. You can also, in theory, they could write new music by KISS because they have all, not only do they have the biometrics, but they have the rights to the style of music and, and the face paint.
[00:19:34] Jennifer: That's really crazy.
[00:19:35] Dmitri: Yeah,
[00:19:35] Jennifer: it's really crazy. But it's, it's cool. I, I would highly recommend the ABBA experience. it was really interesting to see, and more importantly, to see how fans were engaging with it.
It was amazing.
[00:19:47] Dmitri: Yeah. That's, that's super fun. You know, I wanna I wanna extract a little more, um, value and knowledge while we have you here.
You talked about some of the things that artists and the music industry should be thinking about. If they're thinking about doing something with games, the artists should be involved. This shouldn't purely be a marketing or a capitalist play. You actually have to know something about gaming. You have to be engaged with the art of gaming.
What else should music, startups, and even the music industry borrow from gaming?
[00:20:14] Jennifer: Yeah, so the two answers here, I feel like for music startups, they would benefit from adopting some of our, product cycles. So with gaming, we are often able to build features and prototypes really fast. So we're often in the pursuit of that, in the pursuit of how to do it faster and cheaper and without.
Becoming emotionally invested so that, you know, you can pivot fast if it doesn't work. And I think sometimes that's hard to do when you're building technology or you're a startup that's seeking funding or you know, has funding. Uh, sometimes you feel like, well, we've already built the roof. We gotta keep going.
You know, and I think what we do, we're very disconnected. We're almost egoless in creating, games. Our goal is always to have like a short cycle. Does it work? If it doesn't, let's keep moving. Let's extract it and keep going.
[00:21:11] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:11] Jennifer: I think it, there's great benefit to it. And also I think keeping track of data for the music industry.
This is something that I think about a lot, which is in gaming, especially in social gaming. You gotta know who your whales are In mobile gaming, we know who our whales are, we know who the community is, who spends money. They're loyalists, you know, they're an emotional connection.
That's like worth nurturing, I would say. I think the usage of discord is really interesting. I'd like to see the music industry bring back fan clubs. You know, gaming knows who community is, uh, who spends money and all of that. And I think that Discord allows you to cultivate a lot of that data very easily without needing to build proprietary technology.
I think it's a, it's an interesting thing that I think the music industry could learn from gaming and maybe adopt.
[00:22:07] Dmitri: Really interesting. Yeah, no, I like that. You're really just talking about if people aren't in gaming, they may not realize there's so much community involved, but also in the way that you've built products, the games themselves, you actually have a strong sense of who you're most active, your most valuable, financially valuable.
gamers and users are, and being able to build for them and interact with them and create more community, create more ways for them to interact and stay in touch with 'em.
[00:22:32] Jennifer: Yeah, and I'd love to see the engagement feel more less extractionary, like
[00:22:37] Dmitri: mm-hmm.
[00:22:38] Jennifer: I think you have to cultivate a real community.
I remember when we were working with Atlantic on the Wiz game, they had a really cool, they're Warner now, but they were investing in tech, they were doing something with Ryan Leslie, I think megaphone, which was like community and, you know, they kept throwing community around, but all it was, it was like a text blast.
It allowed you to like do a text blast and it's like, well that's not really like community, you know? And I think gamers are big. People end up getting married because they met in a gaming forum. You know, and when you think about, I, I'm really interested in Discord and I've not seen an artist use it, but I think they should because it reminds me a little of, do you remember?
Okay, player.
[00:23:26] Dmitri: Oh yeah.
[00:23:26] Jennifer: Okay. So, okay. Player, you know, Talib Quali was in there and the, you know, answering questions. I think you could be anonymous in Discord and be an artist and talk to your fans directly. And these are your people, and cultivate an experience for them. It's much easier than I, or it's more fruitful than just sending a blast.
[00:23:46] Dmitri: Right?
[00:23:47] Jennifer: I would show up every day in Discord if like my favorite artist was in there for five minutes telling me anything. You know what I mean? Yeah. and it just feels like such a miss.
[00:23:59] Dmitri: That's really interesting about, how the community building component works in gaming and, and just keeping that top of mind for the music industry is great.
Now, let's widen out a little bit. What other fields from your world should we be checking out and are there any companies or games that you wanna shout out in the music industry that the music industry should check out?
[00:24:16] Jennifer: Yeah, so an area that I'm looking at a lot, I'm always looking at it just 'cause I find it so fascinating is.
The way that Chinese and Japanese. Companies are digitizing, um, novels. hmm. And now they exist within WeChat as well. So just
[00:24:34] Dmitri: wait novels, like books, right?
[00:24:36] Jennifer: No, like graphic novels, like
[00:24:38] Dmitri: Yeah,
yeah,
[00:24:38] Jennifer: yeah, yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:39] Dmitri: Cool.
[00:24:39] Jennifer: So it's really cool to just see how they're, how they're digitizing them and how that experience is now becoming a, it almost feels like a iPad game almost.
[00:24:51] Dmitri: Hmm.
[00:24:51] Jennifer: So it's really cool just to see how that experience is being translated. I think a company that I'm looking at, because again, I'm a fan of community, is seen infrastructure company. They're building a platform that allows creators to sell access. To fans directly. It's like a Shopify for experience economy.
[00:25:12] Dmitri: What's the company called?
[00:25:13] Jennifer: They're called Seen Infrastructure Company.
[00:25:15] Dmitri: Oh, interesting.
[00:25:16] Jennifer: Yeah. So they're, they're taking a stab at it and it feels, it feels really interesting how they're going about it, because it doesn't, it doesn't feel like community for community's sake, you know?
[00:25:28] Dmitri: Mm-hmm. It,
[00:25:29] Jennifer: it feels like they're trying to create something tangible for, for fans.
[00:25:33] Dmitri: Awesome. I'll have to check that one out. I wanna go back to the, the manga novels in WeChat. It's kind of funny because your company, you started in the social gaming era, people were building stuff on top of Facebook, which actually led to some challenges because Facebook cut off a lot of apps and then you have to like build, native apps.
[00:25:51] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:25:51] Dmitri: but the good thing was at that moment. apple launched the app store and there was so much possibility of, creating apps and I think it just took time for companies that built on top of platforms to build something. But now you're saying like people are putting these kind of experiential things back inside of something like WeChat inside of an app and a platform.
[00:26:09] Jennifer: Yeah, and that's really, that's the part that I'm like most. Fascinated by, but not only are they're putting it within the platform, they're also utilizing the parts of the platform that people commonly engage with. There was a while where people were telling me about iMessage games and people playing like within their chat.
[00:26:27] Dmitri: Oh yeah,
[00:26:27] Jennifer: yeah. And I was like, ah, I just don't see it. Seeing this in WeChat is really interesting because you're engaging with the world, you're engaging. It almost feels like a game, a literary game almost. Mm-hmm. so it's just really cool to see, and it's interesting that they're choosing to come into the platform to do it.
I don't, some of them are like being developed directly for WeChat and some of them, you know, are existing and are being retrofitted. But yeah, I agree. I have trauma from the Facebook page. We used to, we used to, like on a Friday night, they would take down our apps and, you know, for. 48 hours, you'd not have anyone buying it.
It's like if you couldn't open your store, you know it was bad and you couldn't email anyone.
[00:27:16] Dmitri: Oh yeah.
[00:27:17] Jennifer: So you can talk to anyone,
[00:27:18] Dmitri: right? Yeah. So you can fix it. Yeah. I feel like this like pendulum between. Platform partnerships and independence is like molten lava, you know?
[00:27:28] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:27:28] Dmitri: Like even the Apple Game store or the Apple, app store, I guess game store.
It's everything. Now. you know, there's certain companies and platforms that have had challenges, you know, the percentage of revenue that Apple's taking and you know, what impact that can have on an entire business. but then the flip side is you get the reach of their audience, right?
they've already got their credit card. Just a couple of clicks away. There's, you know, the, you know, if forget
[00:27:50] Jennifer: it's
frictionless. It's a frictionless experience. Kind of friction, you know, and you're already there.
[00:27:54] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:27:54] Jennifer: I mean, I'm sure many of us, I wish I had a, an example of it top of mind, but sometimes I'm like, we have so many apps.
I wish it we're just like in one thing.
[00:28:04] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:28:04] Jennifer: Where I did everything and I'm always,
[00:28:07] Dmitri: that's what WeChat's doing.
[00:28:08] Jennifer: Yeah. Like WeChat, WeChat is doing.
[00:28:10] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:28:10] Jennifer: I think iMessage tried to do that too, and maybe in the future they will. I've seen interesting, you know, apple Music integrations that I hadn't seen before.
Yeah. and those are, are fun to see. It almost feels like we're getting closer to some of that. for Frictionlessness, it all comes down to everyone wanting a cut really.
[00:28:29] Dmitri: That's exactly what it is. And what's interesting to hear you talk about it from a gaming perspective. 'cause on the music side, we talked a little bit about this earlier in our conversation about sort of where the music is made versus where the financial decisions are made, where the commerce happens.
There's just a lot of fragmentation in music. And now with the emergence of. AI and how AI platforms, especially like music generation platforms, are using the content of ai. Ai. What do those licensing deals look like? What do the royalties look like?
[00:28:58] Jennifer: Yes,
[00:28:59] Dmitri: and then if you're an artist that has a deal with a manager that has a deal with a record label, that has a deal with a rights admin company that has a deal with the platform, it's like, how does the artist even know?
Whether they're getting paid or how they're getting paid or things.
[00:29:13] Jennifer: A hundred
percent. I mean, that was something we learned with, like even the Wiz game, there were, we had so many ideas to incorporate music into that game and release music and you know, you would think it's as simple as like an artist wanting it in the game and 'cause it makes total sense.
But no, we had to talk to licensing, we had to talk to, I think we had something like. 10 calls or seven calls, and at the end of the day, there was just so much friction it didn't make sense and there was no way to like really account for those plays. And, you know, it ended up not working out.
[00:29:48] Dmitri: Yeah.
[00:29:48] Jennifer: But I think sometimes people approach me in the music space or the marketing space, and they're like, why didn't you do X, y, Z in the game?
They think they're sharing this idea that we'd never thought of, but it's like I would've loved to. Yeah, of course. But you know, when you. You're involved with the label. You're involved with. There's so many people.
[00:30:10] Dmitri: Yeah,
[00:30:10] Jennifer: it's so many people.
[00:30:11] Dmitri: So I go back, I go back to your thought of like to make the game authentic, to have the artist involved and then the music's not there.
You know, it's like,
[00:30:19] Jennifer: yeah. It's so hard. And actually what I'm building now that hopefully I get to share later is. I've had this idea for like 10 years and part of it was, it wasn't possible because of some of these things, some of these infrastructure issues
[00:30:36] Dmitri: mm-hmm.
[00:30:36] Jennifer: That weren't possible or people's proprietary information or data or software wasn't shareable.
and it just took forever. And there was also a hardware component where like the hardware didn't make sense, so it almost feels like now is the best time for it. But we were dealing with, with a lot of these things, in building this idea.
[00:30:57] Dmitri: Yeah,
[00:30:57] Jennifer: it's hard.
[00:30:57] Dmitri: Yeah. Jenn, this has been such a blast. I really appreciate you kind of like opening up to sharing a lot of insights from both your music related gaming experience and your general like game studio perspective and just what we can learn from that.
I think it's been super valuable. I'm sure our listeners are gonna love it. I'm sure you're gonna start hearing from folks who want to build some music related game apps and things like that. But I really just want to thank you so much for sharing all your insights. This has been great.
[00:31:23] Jennifer: Thank you so much for letting me Yap.
It's been fun.
[00:31:27] Dmitri: Awesome.
[00:31:28] Jennifer: Thank you.
[00:31:29] Dmitri: Thank you.
Let us know what you think! Find us on LinkedIn, and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn.
The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.
