A Changing of the Guard (Ep. 11)

Mitch and Blake expand on last season's discussion of platform-based publishers by introducing a new kind of company: the game-enabling software platform. The five companies they discuss (Epic, Unity, AppLovin, Discord, and Roblox) are all pursuing customer aggregation strategies similar to the platform-based publishers, but -- with the exception of Epic, which has attributes of both a publisher and software platform -- they are doing so with enabling technologies (game engines, advertising tech, and communications software) rather than by producing content.

Your hosts talk about the evolution of what had previously been considered "tools" businesses into bona fide platforms. They discuss the differences in strategy of these five companies, why they have become so valuable (a combined $80 billion in market value), and how Wall Street has responded to the three that have gone public. They discuss how these companies have established themselves as key players in the marketing and distribution of games, and what that means for the industry.