10. Methodology Queens

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Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

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issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

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development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

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internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

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female talent and business executives operating in the

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gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

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boss poss the metal woman podcast starts now.

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:24

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast part

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:27

of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host Lindsay

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:31

the boss pass from struggle to success recovering it all to

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:34

returning listeners. You've heard it before. But thank you

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:36

so much for supporting the show. Please be sure to leave five

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star ratings and reviews recommended to a friend you know

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the deal for new listeners welcome, and I hope you enjoy

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:45

the show. We have a great guest this week, she's been so

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:48

involved with the business of esports and holodeck media, it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:51

been so great having her to just be on the team and nerd out

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:55

about data stuff. One of my favorite things to do. I'm so

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:58

happy to introduce Nicole Pike, who is the global sector head of

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:02

esports and gaming at YouGov. Nicole, welcome to the show. To

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:06

start, if you could just introduce yourself, give us a

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:08

couple sentences, your background, tell us about YouGov

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:11

all that good stuff.

Nicole Pike: 00:01:12

Definitely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm

Nicole Pike: 00:01:15

excited to join the conversation. So I have been in

Nicole Pike: 00:01:20

all things data and gaming for gosh, about 15 years now. My

Nicole Pike: 00:01:25

background is in consumer research and understanding the

Nicole Pike: 00:01:29

voice of the consumer. And I've been able to kind of take that

Nicole Pike: 00:01:31

from the the broader gaming side of things through to the growth

Nicole Pike: 00:01:36

of esports. And trying to help companies understand who esports

Nicole Pike: 00:01:40

fans are, what they want, how to make their experience better.

Nicole Pike: 00:01:43

And now I'm in a pretty cool position here at UGA, of

Nicole Pike: 00:01:47

building out all of our data in the gaming and esports space and

Nicole Pike: 00:01:51

really just trying to make it a lot more robust for everyone.

Nicole Pike: 00:01:56

Knowing how important understanding the gaming

Nicole Pike: 00:01:59

universe is for people in the industry, but also all of the

Nicole Pike: 00:02:02

other clients that that we work with, and all the other

Nicole Pike: 00:02:04

companies around the world who are starting to get more

Nicole Pike: 00:02:07

involved in integrated with all things gaming.

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:10

Yeah, for those of you who are into data or data

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:13

science people, Nicole was previously at Nielsen two, which

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:16

is another huge, huge data organization. So you've been

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:21

working with working with us for a bit now?

Nicole Pike: 00:02:24

Yeah, for sure. For better or worse mean, data are

Nicole Pike: 00:02:28

stuck together. It's fun, I love it. That's

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:33

okay. There's always something new, which is

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:34

fun. To start. I know speaking of new things, you all you guys

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:39

just released a big three part report a couple months ago on

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:43

influencers in gaming. I know they do a ton of work in the

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:46

gaming industry in general. This one was this big report all for

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:50

free. So we'll definitely link to it in the show notes. I want

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:53

to highlight some of the key points just to help us frame our

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:56

discussion. Particularly where diversity equity inclusion are

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:00

concerned. Like I said, this is a three part report. So I have a

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:03

couple points from each of them. But some of the key ones are 12%

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:08

of men and 5% of women follow gaming influencers globally,

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:13

which isn't a huge gap. When you think about it. If you think

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:15

about the whole world, and 12% of men and 5% of women, those

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:19

are both massive numbers. And granted, the male audience is

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:22

bigger, but the female audience is is quite large to

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:26

advertisers, to content producers, to game companies to

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:30

all of that that's a huge, it's a big deal. When it comes to

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:34

influencers in general, it's about split and who follows

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:38

influencers. The gender breakdown of people who follow

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:42

gaming influencers is 53% of men and 47% of women for any type or

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:47

I'm sorry, I have that backwards. This is for anyone

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:50

who follows an influencer in general. Okay, so bear with me.

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:54

the minutiae of this is confusing, but you got it all in

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:57

nice graphs. So of all of the people who follow influencers,

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:00

the gender breakdown is 53% of women and 47% of men. So I flip

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:06

those around. But the point there is that of people who

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:09

follow influencers, there's a slight, slight hedge towards

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:12

women who are more likely to follow an influencer. But it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:17

again, very close to a 5050 breakdown and who is actually

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:20

following influencers. So I think there's also a perception,

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:23

you know, women follow celebrities and all of this

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:25

stuff. But when you think about 47% of men are also of people

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:30

who follow influencers. 47% are men, that's also a big deal.

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:34

When it comes specifically to gaming influencers, people who

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:38

follow gaming influencers are 69% men and 31% women, so of

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:45

people who follow gaming influencers. That one is

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:48

actually more skewed, much more skewed towards men, which about

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:51

a 2/3 1/3 breakdown. And then when it comes to streamers of

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:56

the top 100 streamers five were women And they accounted for

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:01

3.3% of hours watched, which, that when I read that statistic,

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:05

I was just so sad that we have kind of an even even playing

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:10

field when it comes to kind of following influencers, although

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:13

men are more likely to follow gaming influencers, but then you

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:16

get to actually the people who are producing gaming content,

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:19

there's such a drastic drop off. So indicates such a pipeline

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:23

problem to me. Um, I don't know if you have any thoughts or more

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:27

insights about that, but I'd love to hear what you think.

Nicole Pike: 00:05:30

Yeah, totally problem opportunity. You know,

Nicole Pike: 00:05:34

depending on the way you look at it is pretty amazing. It's,

Nicole Pike: 00:05:40

it's, there's clearly a demand and interest for gaming

Nicole Pike: 00:05:45

influencers and gaming content among women. Right now, and

Nicole Pike: 00:05:50

certainly, you know, both genders, men who watch gaming

Nicole Pike: 00:05:54

influencers, follow women influencers, and vice versa. But

Nicole Pike: 00:05:59

the just the split of content from a gender perspective is

Nicole Pike: 00:06:03

massively skewed toward men. And, you know, probably not not

Nicole Pike: 00:06:09

dissimilar from a lot of other folks in the industry. And in

Nicole Pike: 00:06:14

general, I mean, I know you talk on this podcast a lot about all

Nicole Pike: 00:06:16

things gaming, whether it's, you know, who makes the game, some

Nicole Pike: 00:06:19

markets, the games, who, you know, distribute the content.

Nicole Pike: 00:06:23

And I think, you know, that's, that's something that the gaming

Nicole Pike: 00:06:27

industry as a whole has historically a bet with. But I

Nicole Pike: 00:06:31

think, you know, as we look at a lot of the big gaming influencer

Nicole Pike: 00:06:35

orgs, you you see a similar skew. So I think, just generally

Nicole Pike: 00:06:41

the way things have evolved so far, and the good news is, I

Nicole Pike: 00:06:44

feel like in the grand scheme of the gaming influencer economy,

Nicole Pike: 00:06:47

we're still pretty early, because I see only growing

Nicole Pike: 00:06:50

further, but I do think that it's, it's been a bit of a self

Nicole Pike: 00:06:55

perpetuating, you know, dominated by males early, and

Nicole Pike: 00:06:59

then that's kind of just continued to be how it grows,

Nicole Pike: 00:07:01

how gaming houses and content houses have been forming, and

Nicole Pike: 00:07:06

kind of evolving. So I think, you know, when if done, right,

Nicole Pike: 00:07:10

whether that's, you know, female specific content, houses, or

Nicole Pike: 00:07:14

just creating more equity within those, I think, you know,

Nicole Pike: 00:07:17

that's, that's an excellent start. And there's clearly the

Nicole Pike: 00:07:20

female demand for especially as more gaming influencers go into

Nicole Pike: 00:07:25

non gaming content, right, a lot. What we see in a lot of our

Nicole Pike: 00:07:30

data is people are following giving influencers sure because

Nicole Pike: 00:07:33

they play games they like, but also just because they're

Nicole Pike: 00:07:35

entertaining and funny, and so it doesn't necessarily have to

Nicole Pike: 00:07:39

all be about gaming. So whether a female is a super hardcore

Nicole Pike: 00:07:43

gamer, or just into gaming a little bit, but like other

Nicole Pike: 00:07:46

things, like I think just kind of everyone recognizing that

Nicole Pike: 00:07:49

there's the demand there, will will help to kind of break that

Nicole Pike: 00:07:54

supply gap above.

Lindsay Poss: 00:07:56

This is kind of an aside as well. But I recently

Lindsay Poss: 00:07:58

saw a Twitch streamer who was a makeup artist too. So there's

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:02

obviously a lot of potential within streaming to not just

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:05

stream games or to just stream things that are sort of gaming.

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:09

Jason still within the realm of the gaming industry, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:12

definitely think makeup and cosplay is a huge part of

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:14

gaming. So there's no reason to not have that as part of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:18

content creation process. But what do you think it's going to

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:22

mean? You mentioned a little bit about its shifting focuses and

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:26

sort of rebuilding an industry where men have dominated from

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:30

early on. But what do you think, will encourage more female

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:35

streamers? I definitely think there's obvious answers there.

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:38

But just wondering if there's anything that you've seen from

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:42

all your time spending spent looking at this data that you

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:44

can say, oh, improving toxicity will really make a difference or

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:48

paying people or I don't know exactly what it is, but I would

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:51

love to hear what you think are some of the things that could

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:53

change and encourage more women to get out there and produce

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:56

content?

Nicole Pike: 00:08:57

Yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's, again,

Nicole Pike: 00:09:00

you can see it as problem or opportunity. But I think there's

Nicole Pike: 00:09:02

a lot of different things that could contribute to turning that

Nicole Pike: 00:09:06

around. I mean, I think at the most basic level, we've we've

Nicole Pike: 00:09:09

done research last year about this time actually put out a

Nicole Pike: 00:09:12

report by evil geniuses who is obviously very diversity driven

Nicole Pike: 00:09:18

and focused and really is, I think, one of the few orgs that

Nicole Pike: 00:09:21

kind of lives that in their blood and it really comes

Nicole Pike: 00:09:24

through in everything they do. And the degree to which female

Nicole Pike: 00:09:31

gamers have experienced toxicity the percent of them who have it,

Nicole Pike: 00:09:36

it's pretty overwhelming. So I think at a very core kind of,

Nicole Pike: 00:09:40

you know, if people are following gaming influencers for

Nicole Pike: 00:09:43

gaming related content, and if just you know, playing games

Nicole Pike: 00:09:47

themselves, females face toxicity, especially for you

Nicole Pike: 00:09:51

know, more games that are competitive and you know, kind

Nicole Pike: 00:09:55

of more esports appropriate games like that's going to to

Nicole Pike: 00:10:00

impact things all the way down the funnel to who they're

Nicole Pike: 00:10:02

following, and who they interact with, and all that. So I think

Nicole Pike: 00:10:07

there's still very much a core kind of industry problem that

Nicole Pike: 00:10:13

needs to be addressed and solved. But I think beyond that,

Nicole Pike: 00:10:17

I mean, one of the interesting things we've seen with with

Nicole Pike: 00:10:20

gaming influencers as of late is we're seeing more and more

Nicole Pike: 00:10:24

brands and sponsors really getting behind and engage with

Nicole Pike: 00:10:27

them. And as much as I'd like to say, Oh, it's just about kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:10:30

the industry from within figuring things out. Also Money

Nicole Pike: 00:10:34

talks. And so one of the things that I'm really passionate about

Nicole Pike: 00:10:37

is also helping advertisers and brands who are interested in

Nicole Pike: 00:10:42

reaching consumers through gaming, understand that it's not

Nicole Pike: 00:10:45

just a bunch of dudes sitting around a computer screen who are

Nicole Pike: 00:10:49

watching gaming content, but it really, you know, I think the

Nicole Pike: 00:10:52

headline is always all if you want to reach 18 to 34 year old

Nicole Pike: 00:10:55

males go to twitch. And that's totally true. But there are also

Nicole Pike: 00:10:58

a lot of non males on Twitch and YouTube Gaming, and just

Nicole Pike: 00:11:00

watching that type of content. So I think just just also kind

Nicole Pike: 00:11:05

of socializing and helping brands to understand that there

Nicole Pike: 00:11:08

are really great opportunities to support females in the

Nicole Pike: 00:11:14

content creation space will allow them a platform and give

Nicole Pike: 00:11:18

them the ability to take the risk to do that more, more in a

Nicole Pike: 00:11:23

more dedicated way. So I'm hoping that we see a lot more of

Nicole Pike: 00:11:27

that online. So like the Tampax gaming festival, you know, some

Nicole Pike: 00:11:29

of the cool activations that we've seen over the last couple

Nicole Pike: 00:11:32

of years, being more female creator focused,

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:35

that's been a big point of emphasis for me,

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:37

because this isn't, this isn't a ploy to get companies to spend

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:42

less money on whatever they're spending advertising to 18 to 34

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:45

year old men, it's more to say, hey, you can also make money

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:48

advertising to other people, there is an economic reason to

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:53

try to reach other audiences here. It's been a dream paper of

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:58

mine for a while to write about the size and the purchasing

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:01

power of women in gaming. Because this isn't to say that

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:05

you have to pick one or the other that you have to give up

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:07

one for the other. This is to say, hey, you could do even more

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:11

and make even more even clearer.

Nicole Pike: 00:12:15

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's almost, you know, I've,

Nicole Pike: 00:12:17

I've worked like, like you mentioned, Nelson for a while,

Nicole Pike: 00:12:21

and we did a lot on our sports side of the business on female

Nicole Pike: 00:12:24

and women in sport. And it's almost kind of that same wave or

Nicole Pike: 00:12:28

movement, but possibly a bit behind that, right? Or is all of

Nicole Pike: 00:12:32

a sudden, like, oh, my gosh, the women's national soccer team,

Nicole Pike: 00:12:35

like girls and females, like they are amazing role models.

Nicole Pike: 00:12:39

And then people are, you know, that fan group is so passionate

Nicole Pike: 00:12:42

about and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, that audience is ripe

Nicole Pike: 00:12:46

for you know, reaching them through that. Whereas usually,

Nicole Pike: 00:12:48

when people think of sports and sponsorship, you think of, you

Nicole Pike: 00:12:52

know, kind of, on average advertising to males. So I think

Nicole Pike: 00:12:56

it's almost a similar thing, where it's like, just because it

Nicole Pike: 00:12:59

may not be the biggest cohort still doesn't mean that it's not

Nicole Pike: 00:13:02

a super engaged group of people who are really loyal and

Nicole Pike: 00:13:07

committed to and trust the influencers they follow, because

Nicole Pike: 00:13:10

I absolutely think that's the case with female gamers.

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:13

Oh, yeah. And there's, there's different

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:15

spending habits in both of those populations, too. And you can

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:18

certainly, you can certainly make more off of a smaller

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:21

cohort that's more willing to spend as well. And when things

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:25

when things are done, well, I mean, that can happen. So it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:29

just, it's such a point of frustration to me, because it,

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:32

there's this sense of taking away from other things to

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:36

advertise to women as if you have to spend less dollars on

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:40

other things to advertise to women. It's like, no, no, no,

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:43

there's a direct return on investment with that as well.

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:45

There's right. You won't be able to make that up.

Nicole Pike: 00:13:49

Exactly. And it doesn't just need to be makeup

Nicole Pike: 00:13:52

and tampons and things too. Right. Yeah, that those are I

Nicole Pike: 00:13:55

mean, obviously, there's been really successful activations in

Nicole Pike: 00:13:58

our space with that, but females are buying a lot of other

Nicole Pike: 00:14:00

products too. So if you can talk to them in a way that's true to

Nicole Pike: 00:14:05

the platform, wherever that platform may be, that can still

Nicole Pike: 00:14:09

be a win.

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:09

Yeah, absolutely. One One thing about this whole

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:13

discussion that bugs me when, when I know I've had this, this

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:16

sort of experience previously working in tech, and just seeing

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:20

some of the circular logic that's applied here. And it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:23

very similar across tech. We're using streaming as an example

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:25

here. But this kind of logic where there's not enough women

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:28

streamers, because not enough women watch streaming. But if

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:31

there are more women streamers, probably more women would watch

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:33

streaming, but nobody wants to put in the money to actually get

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:36

into the more part. So you just constantly wind up with well,

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:39

we're not investing because there's no women streamers to

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:41

invest in. But there's no women streamers to invest in because

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:44

nobody's investing. It's like everything just compounds and

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:48

there's always kind of an excuse not to do it. So how do we

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:52

address that gap and got not only women more comfortable with

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:55

things like content production and streaming but companies more

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:58

comfortable with actually investing in that seeing the

Lindsay Poss: 00:15:00

value in it, what kinds of data points are you looking to

Lindsay Poss: 00:15:03

provide to show? Hey, this is a good idea?

Nicole Pike: 00:15:07

Yeah, so I think I mean, one of the biggest kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:15:11

things that when we're working with gaming and esports orgs,

Nicole Pike: 00:15:14

whether it's teams or rights holders or you know, influencer,

Nicole Pike: 00:15:20

agencies, like being able to prove that gaming is the right

Nicole Pike: 00:15:26

spot to reach people in terms of like, really connecting with

Nicole Pike: 00:15:31

them and influencing their opinion in a meaningful way, I

Nicole Pike: 00:15:37

think is kind of the biggest talking point that we are asked

Nicole Pike: 00:15:42

to prove with the data. So you know, if you think about, it's

Nicole Pike: 00:15:45

like, yeah, there, people are consuming more content and media

Nicole Pike: 00:15:49

than ever before today. So why gaming, and why for females, and

Nicole Pike: 00:15:54

I think, you know, the point again, to think about is, female

Nicole Pike: 00:15:59

female gamers, you know, we just talked about, they may be a

Nicole Pike: 00:16:02

minority, but in a way that actually makes them more

Nicole Pike: 00:16:05

committed to gaming closer to the community they have, because

Nicole Pike: 00:16:09

they've had to kind of find a way to personally connect to and

Nicole Pike: 00:16:14

a squat, if you will, to be part of within the gaming industry,

Nicole Pike: 00:16:18

and within just their interactions with it. So they

Nicole Pike: 00:16:22

kind of have those that are really engaged in have gone to

Nicole Pike: 00:16:27

the point of streaming content, or watching string content, like

Nicole Pike: 00:16:30

they, they are really passionate about it. And they have these

Nicole Pike: 00:16:33

deep relationships and connections. And that is the

Nicole Pike: 00:16:37

lifeblood of a great sponsorship right is being able to work with

Nicole Pike: 00:16:41

someone who has a really strong connection with their audience.

Nicole Pike: 00:16:46

And we see it with gaming in general. But I really do believe

Nicole Pike: 00:16:49

even more so with female gamers that there there really is that

Nicole Pike: 00:16:54

connection to each other and to the games they play and that

Nicole Pike: 00:16:58

passion and trust. And that's what should ultimately be

Nicole Pike: 00:17:02

driving decisions to invest just as much as the size of audience,

Nicole Pike: 00:17:07

if not more, in some cases.

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:09

On the word of the day. The gaming industry is

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:12

authenticity, for sure. So it certainly sounds like especially

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:16

if you are a woman. And this was actually a debate we had on the

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:19

business of esports live stream, which is every Wednesday night,

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:22

we recently had this debate about amaranth came out and said

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:25

she makes it something like $1.5 million a month. And there was

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:29

this whole article about how she basically said, you know, it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:35

hard, it's hard, and I'm tired. And I have to run all these

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:37

things. And it's not the easiest. And all my co hosts

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:41

kind of jumped on her for that and said, Oh, we feel so bad for

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:44

you making all this money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:47

was the one who's like, Okay, everybody relaxed. But I think

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:50

one of the things that happens there too is when you have a

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:54

woman or someone who's representing another underserved

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:58

population become that powerful and that successful. There's

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:01

also a sense of, Well, all she does is put on makeup and

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:04

stream, it's easy, she could be replaced, She doesn't deserve

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:07

it. And that's definitely I think something that's persisted

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:11

throughout the industry. And this is more this is less data

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:13

driven. This is more anecdotal, this is more of an emotional

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:16

reaction to what I see in the industry. But I will say that

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:21

the people who actually start with an audience and build and

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:24

build and build and become the successful are incredibly

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:27

talented and smart people. It's not overnight that the success

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:30

happens. And it often starts with a small group of very

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:33

dedicated watchers who appreciate the authenticity that

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:38

that person is bringing and the community that they're serving.

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:41

So I think that what you're what you're saying, and that these

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:45

people who maybe begin with attracting a specific type of

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:50

audience can really focus on community building within their

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:54

own content that they create. I think that that's a really

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:56

powerful tool for becoming successful. And not everyone who

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:59

does it is going to be so the ones that are really good at it

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:02

become really successful, and they deserve it. I'm wondering

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:05

if you do see this kind of thing, though, with if you can

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:08

extrapolate maybe to other underserved populations. And if

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:11

you could talk about some of the things that you're able to see

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:15

some of the data you're able to provide with people when you're

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:17

looking at not only just women streamers, but LGBTQ plus

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:21

streamers or minority streamers who are representing a specific

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:26

population for them, or are you kind of seeing this across the

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:29

industry? Because authenticity really has been the word of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:31

minute or the word of the day here. But are you seeing that

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:34

and being able to provide that data to say look at these people

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:37

who have a specific audience in mind a specific niche, and how

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:40

they're able to draw them in and kind of does a good opportunity

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:44

for sponsorship or for advertisement because of that,

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:46

are you seeing that not just with women but with other

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:49

underserved populations?

Nicole Pike: 00:19:51

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, that can

Nicole Pike: 00:19:53

be a demographic population. It can be a game title that may not

Nicole Pike: 00:19:58

be the biggest on twitch or or YouTube by kind of has its

Nicole Pike: 00:20:02

little community that follows it and is slowly growing. So, yes,

Nicole Pike: 00:20:08

and I think the biggest thing there is really kind of from a

Nicole Pike: 00:20:12

brand or sponsors perspective is making sure that they aren't

Nicole Pike: 00:20:17

just taking advantage of that, because it seems like someone

Nicole Pike: 00:20:22

who is growing or on the app or you know, has a good percentage

Nicole Pike: 00:20:26

or something like that, but that it really, you know, especially

Nicole Pike: 00:20:28

with kind of underserved communities or minority is, you

Nicole Pike: 00:20:32

have to make sure that the the product message and just kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:20:37

ethos actually aligns with that community as well. And I think

Nicole Pike: 00:20:41

generally speaking, you know, gamers are very, especially

Nicole Pike: 00:20:45

people who are watching gaming content, really frequently are

Nicole Pike: 00:20:49

very sensitive to and can sniff out when someone is trying to

Nicole Pike: 00:20:54

jump on the gaming bandwagon versus when they, you know, when

Nicole Pike: 00:20:58

there's, there's actually a message that is worth delivering

Nicole Pike: 00:21:01

to them and connecting to them. So yes, I think we see it

Nicole Pike: 00:21:06

happen. And I think gaming is a great place for that. But I do

Nicole Pike: 00:21:11

think, you know, especially when when you get to those more niche

Nicole Pike: 00:21:15

audiences, that there has to be a really clear kind of selling

Nicole Pike: 00:21:18

and message proposition. And you have to have the buy in from the

Nicole Pike: 00:21:21

influencer as well, to really kind of, you know, take, take

Nicole Pike: 00:21:25

that on and understand that their their game is find it and

Nicole Pike: 00:21:30

to only take things that are, you know, that are believable to

Nicole Pike: 00:21:32

their audience, and in terms of support, and that sort of thing.

Nicole Pike: 00:21:35

And that's why I you know, really like the more deals we

Nicole Pike: 00:21:38

see that are going direct with influencers or agents and

Nicole Pike: 00:21:41

things, as opposed. I think that just gives more control to the

Nicole Pike: 00:21:46

creator in terms of making selections for themselves, and

Nicole Pike: 00:21:50

just just kind of making that a better experience for their

Nicole Pike: 00:21:53

audience. I think that's, you know, I'm not a content creator.

Nicole Pike: 00:21:58

I'm, you know, speaking podcast is basically the extent of

Nicole Pike: 00:22:02

anything I do there. But I can imagine what a struggle that is,

Nicole Pike: 00:22:05

right? Where you're trying to grow and get a high profile and

Nicole Pike: 00:22:08

be able to support yourself and make that your full time job.

Nicole Pike: 00:22:11

And so getting that income is important, but at the same time,

Nicole Pike: 00:22:14

you don't want to be seen as a sellout for it. It's a really

Nicole Pike: 00:22:18

dead air delicate balancing act that they have to navigate. So

Nicole Pike: 00:22:25

the at the end of the day, you want the audiences to win and

Nicole Pike: 00:22:29

and making sure on both the brand and influencer side of

Nicole Pike: 00:22:32

that happens is really important.

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:34

Sounds like there's kind of a dual

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:35

matchmaking process as then the company has to choose the

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:38

influencer and the influencers choose the company back.

Nicole Pike: 00:22:41

Yeah, exactly. And they have to evolve with it over

Nicole Pike: 00:22:45

time, too, right? If it's a long term relationship, it's not just

Nicole Pike: 00:22:48

about like, oh, there's this new product coming out. And it's

Nicole Pike: 00:22:51

sitting on my desk while I'm streaming this week, and then it

Nicole Pike: 00:22:54

goes away. Right? I mean, there are kind of times and

Nicole Pike: 00:22:56

opportunities for that. And you've seen more and more

Nicole Pike: 00:22:59

activations, where it may be kind of like a bunch of

Nicole Pike: 00:23:01

different influencers are doing something, but I think the the

Nicole Pike: 00:23:04

ones that kind of resonate best with audiences is when there's a

Nicole Pike: 00:23:08

consistent conversation, and when the kind of angle and the

Nicole Pike: 00:23:12

tone of things evolves, as the influencer evolves, because we

Nicole Pike: 00:23:15

know they have to keep things fresh and new themselves, right.

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:20

Yeah, I definitely think that's true, I want to

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:22

race on that I kind of want to shift focus and ask you, if

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:25

you've seen any overall changing trends, because you've been

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:29

looking at this kind of data for a bit now. And the overall

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:32

changing trends from the past, I don't know, maybe five or 10

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:35

years, as it relates to gender or other minority populations.

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:42

And when I say general trends, I mean, either from the company

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:45

side isn't maybe companies being either more or less interested

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:48

in targeting specific populations? From the watching

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:51

side of who is joining these audiences are who is leaving

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:55

these audiences? From the content creation side? Are you

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:58

seeing more variety and creators or less or like can you I this

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:05

is a very broad but any general trends that have stuck out to

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:08

you that you've seen kind of change over the past five or 10

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:11

years?

Nicole Pike: 00:24:13

Yeah, and I'll I'll kind of bring up a few in the

Nicole Pike: 00:24:15

fun sounds particularly interesting. Feel free to chime

Nicole Pike: 00:24:19

in yourself. I mean, I think look, starting with the content

Nicole Pike: 00:24:21

creators, you know, the the stat you mentioned is of the top 100

Nicole Pike: 00:24:26

content creators from last year are only five were female, I

Nicole Pike: 00:24:29

will say that I think the the supply a kind of more than micro

Nicole Pike: 00:24:33

influencer side of things is starting to grow on the female

Nicole Pike: 00:24:39

side, which I think is super encouraging. And I think you

Nicole Pike: 00:24:43

know, it's still not nearly where not even are not even kind

Nicole Pike: 00:24:47

of that split of what we see people actually watch the

Nicole Pike: 00:24:51

content are but but I do think we're starting to see that

Nicole Pike: 00:24:54

becoming kind of more of an acceptable thing for males and

Nicole Pike: 00:24:57

females alike. So I'm hopeful that with the pipe line, kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:25:01

increasing, we may, you know, see that funnel up over time.

Nicole Pike: 00:25:05

But I think the industry has to be really mindful of that.

Nicole Pike: 00:25:08

Because, you know, you see that in the job market as well. But

Nicole Pike: 00:25:10

that doesn't mean that females are all of a sudden

Nicole Pike: 00:25:12

representative that, you know, the top spots in any particular

Nicole Pike: 00:25:16

industry, especially gaming, so it's, you know, likely to face

Nicole Pike: 00:25:20

the same kind of challenges over over time that we've seen

Nicole Pike: 00:25:23

elsewhere. I think from an audience perspective, probably

Nicole Pike: 00:25:28

the biggest thing we've seen from a gender kind of evolution

Nicole Pike: 00:25:32

is certainly with younger audiences, you're starting to

Nicole Pike: 00:25:35

see kind of more, more engagement with gaming beyond

Nicole Pike: 00:25:39

just mobile. So I think, you know, 1010 years ago, we saw the

Nicole Pike: 00:25:46

percent appeal to anyone who played video games, the percent

Nicole Pike: 00:25:49

of males and females kind of starting to get near parity. And

Nicole Pike: 00:25:55

that was almost entirely due to mobile gaming, mobile slash kind

Nicole Pike: 00:25:59

of casual, you know, Facebook, anything, which is mostly on

Nicole Pike: 00:26:03

mobile now, but at the time was more desktop driven. Right. So

Nicole Pike: 00:26:07

we, we started to see that kind of equalizing the the male

Nicole Pike: 00:26:11

female contribution to the gaming industry. But if you

Nicole Pike: 00:26:14

looked at mobile versus non mobile, or the percent who were

Nicole Pike: 00:26:17

playing a lot versus a little like, you still saw some really

Nicole Pike: 00:26:21

clear skews. I think what we're starting to see now is with

Nicole Pike: 00:26:24

things like Minecraft, and Roblox and kind of that, you

Nicole Pike: 00:26:28

know, the the more of the emphasis on STEM in elementary

Nicole Pike: 00:26:33

schools and gaming, becoming more of a social outlet

Nicole Pike: 00:26:37

crossover with music and gaming, there's so many kind of micro

Nicole Pike: 00:26:40

trends that I think are starting to bring females more into

Nicole Pike: 00:26:44

different types of games. And in fact, if you take a look, we

Nicole Pike: 00:26:47

actually, at younger ages, I don't see as much of a

Nicole Pike: 00:26:51

distinction between, you know, in mobile gaming of like it

Nicole Pike: 00:26:55

being a female driven thing versus a male driven thing. But

Nicole Pike: 00:26:59

you do see kind of more females getting engaged in playing games

Nicole Pike: 00:27:02

on switch or PC games and things like that, which is definitely a

Nicole Pike: 00:27:08

newer trend and exciting to think about. And to see kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:27:12

how that evolves, we do still see that the amount of time they

Nicole Pike: 00:27:15

spend is less females tend to spend more time on social media

Nicole Pike: 00:27:18

and less time, like actually in games, but just the percent

Nicole Pike: 00:27:22

overall that are engaging with gaming and subway is definitely

Nicole Pike: 00:27:25

higher. Would you think, then when you kind of extrapolate

Nicole Pike: 00:27:29

that to the metaverse, which I know is something that you are,

Nicole Pike: 00:27:32

you know, starting to explore more and more on the podcast.

Nicole Pike: 00:27:34

Like, that becomes really interesting because it's, you

Nicole Pike: 00:27:37

know, it's a matter of just kind of getting them in the door and

Nicole Pike: 00:27:41

then them engaging with all different types of content in

Nicole Pike: 00:27:45

kind of this virtual atmosphere. Like that's what females already

Nicole Pike: 00:27:48

doing in games to a large extent. So um, so yeah, that's,

Nicole Pike: 00:27:52

that's kind of a trend that I think that's going to continue

Nicole Pike: 00:27:54

into some really cool things as the metaverse economy grows.

Lindsay Poss: 00:27:58

That's so cool. That's I mean, anecdotally I

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:02

feel like that's what we've been seeing but it's good to actually

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:04

have that backed up. As someone who is a hypercasual and mobile

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:09

gamer even I have gotten more interested in Gaelic the

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:13

pandemic has also helped that a little bit definitely changed

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:17

but I totally think for younger generations that that barriers

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:21

even more removed I think Roblox has, has really done a lot for

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:24

that I am Minecraft. I used to work in a children's summer camp

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:29

and all of the kids talk about Minecraft, like there was no

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:33

gender there was nothing because every kid was playing freaking

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:36

Minecraft. The time I didn't have a great grasp on what it

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:41

was like I have to learn what the heck is going on with

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:44

Minecraft. So I definitely, like I said, anecdotally, that feels

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:49

true, but it's good to know the data backs that up. So speaking

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:52

of the metaverse, you were just quoted recently during the Webby

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:56

Awards as saying too many gamers playing virtual world games may

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:00

not actually feel or seem like gaming. It's just an

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:03

entertaining extension of how their social lives have evolved.

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:06

And I like this approach because like we're talking about with

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:08

younger generations and kids. It nods to the fact that gaming has

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:12

already kind of seen a series of Metaverse experiences stretching

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:16

all the way back to Second Life, which nearly every person over

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:20

50 has told me is the metaverse and now with this with these

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:24

platform types of games like Roblox and fortnight, so I would

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:29

first like to ask you to expand on this point. And then I would

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:33

love to hear you talk about how you see entertainment,

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:36

entertainment and gaming, how you see those two kind of

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:39

changing in their definitions or changing in the way we interact

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:42

with them as it relates to the metaverse.

Nicole Pike: 00:29:46

Yeah. So I mean, I think on the first point, you

Nicole Pike: 00:29:49

think about you know, when when I was a teenager when we wanted

Nicole Pike: 00:29:52

to hang out, we would go to the mall and walk around and you

Nicole Pike: 00:29:58

know, just kind of chat with each other and pop in stores.

Nicole Pike: 00:30:01

And now you see whether it's just I mean, even just kids

Nicole Pike: 00:30:06

sitting on their couches, texting with each other imagine

Nicole Pike: 00:30:09

just putting, you know, translating that into a full

Nicole Pike: 00:30:13

digital world where they're sitting next to each other,

Nicole Pike: 00:30:15

quote, unquote, within the metaverse and doing that, but

Nicole Pike: 00:30:21

you know, when you think about games like Minecraft, or even

Nicole Pike: 00:30:24

fortnight a lot of kids are, you know, are using that as just a

Nicole Pike: 00:30:30

place to hang out and talk you, you know, you, you look at a lot

Nicole Pike: 00:30:34

of kids who may not actually be actively playing when they're in

Nicole Pike: 00:30:38

the game, but more in there just to see what their friends are

Nicole Pike: 00:30:40

talking about. And during the pandemic, that was, you know,

Nicole Pike: 00:30:45

something that that definitely was a trend that accelerated was

Nicole Pike: 00:30:47

just you know, being in a Minecraft or fortnight or

Nicole Pike: 00:30:51

whatnot, just as a way to connect with people. So I think

Nicole Pike: 00:30:54

that has become very natural for younger generations of just, you

Nicole Pike: 00:30:59

know, we don't have to be physically together to be able

Nicole Pike: 00:31:01

to interact with each other. So thinking about extending that

Nicole Pike: 00:31:05

to, okay, let's, you know, go to this virtual store together,

Nicole Pike: 00:31:08

let's watch a virtual concert together. And that all feels

Nicole Pike: 00:31:12

very natural. And then as you think about, you know, creating

Nicole Pike: 00:31:16

an avatar or someone who is virtually different than your

Nicole Pike: 00:31:19

person, we've got all the Insta accounts. I mean, all of this is

Nicole Pike: 00:31:22

very, like, you know, kind of things that they've dabbled in.

Nicole Pike: 00:31:26

So to think that it's a stretch to kind of transfer transfer

Nicole Pike: 00:31:29

that over to just being in a fully virtual world is, you

Nicole Pike: 00:31:34

know, it's not that hard to imagine. So I think that that

Nicole Pike: 00:31:38

part is really, really interesting, though. There are

Nicole Pike: 00:31:41

still obviously lots of barriers and things to figure out like

Nicole Pike: 00:31:44

giving a bunch of teenagers crypto wallets and things like

Nicole Pike: 00:31:47

so. We've got a long way to go there. But the the just kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:31:52

notion of trying to imagine what the metaverse might be like, and

Nicole Pike: 00:31:57

getting them engaged, like feels very easy to transition them to.

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:02

I love that you brought up fence does as a point

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:05

of support for that. Um, when it comes to data and things that

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:11

you're looking at when it pertains to the metaverse, what

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:14

are you kind of already tracking or thinking about what questions

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:16

are you thinking about asking?

Nicole Pike: 00:32:18

Yeah, so here you go. We've We've asked a handful

Nicole Pike: 00:32:22

of kind of general Metaverse questions. And you'd be

Nicole Pike: 00:32:26

surprised, you know, in our industry, and I'm, you know, on

Nicole Pike: 00:32:30

LinkedIn all the time and in these virtual conferences and

Nicole Pike: 00:32:33

things. And so NF T's and crypto and Metaverse is like all

Nicole Pike: 00:32:37

anyone's talking about right now. But when you actually take

Nicole Pike: 00:32:39

a step back and look at the general population, there is

Nicole Pike: 00:32:43

still on, you know, the majority of people are not aware of the

Nicole Pike: 00:32:48

metaverse and don't even those who are aware don't even really

Nicole Pike: 00:32:51

understand what it is, like you said, it's like, oh, is it

Nicole Pike: 00:32:53

Second Life? Oh, is that Roblox? You know, like, it's hard for

Nicole Pike: 00:32:57

people to try to take kind of this big, this big idea. And

Nicole Pike: 00:33:03

they're kind of trying to retrofit it into what they

Nicole Pike: 00:33:06

already know. And it's not quite, you know, it's not quite

Nicole Pike: 00:33:09

the same. Um, so I think there's still a lot of kind of, you

Nicole Pike: 00:33:14

know, just a gap of understanding. And I think right

Nicole Pike: 00:33:16

now, it's hard because there's not even necessarily a lot of

Nicole Pike: 00:33:19

like, quote, unquote, education you can do in terms of, oh,

Nicole Pike: 00:33:22

there's this thing, and you just have to jump in it and get like,

Nicole Pike: 00:33:24

it's still as much kind of an idea, as, as you know, it is

Nicole Pike: 00:33:29

something that that that will materialize. So I think that,

Nicole Pike: 00:33:35

you know, at a high level, that's a struggle, but at the

Nicole Pike: 00:33:37

same time, we can, I think, start to look at and talk to

Nicole Pike: 00:33:42

people about the types of virtual experiences that they're

Nicole Pike: 00:33:45

willing to make within Metaverse, so you know, we're

Nicole Pike: 00:33:51

looking at things like a sports event versus a musical, you

Nicole Pike: 00:33:56

know, a music concert versus a festival, things like that, like

Nicole Pike: 00:33:59

what's going to be intriguing to people. I think a lot of the

Nicole Pike: 00:34:03

kind of, you know, virtual shopping environment and trying

Nicole Pike: 00:34:06

to understand what the best fit there is, is really interesting.

Nicole Pike: 00:34:12

I think we're looking at a lot of questions around barriers.

Nicole Pike: 00:34:17

Just just because, you know, certainly there will be and I

Nicole Pike: 00:34:19

think two that I'm keeping an eye on are one kind of the idea

Nicole Pike: 00:34:23

of crypto Wallet. So when you start to dig into things about

Nicole Pike: 00:34:27

the metaverse and kind of how people accept the economy of the

Nicole Pike: 00:34:30

metaverse to her the, you know, crypto wallet is kind of a big

Nicole Pike: 00:34:34

part of that. So now you have to things people have to understand

Nicole Pike: 00:34:37

and adopt and feel comfortable with, to really fully interact.

Nicole Pike: 00:34:42

And so I think that's one and I think kind of the the idea of

Nicole Pike: 00:34:45

lawlessness and this goes back to the beginning of our

Nicole Pike: 00:34:48

conversation around toxicity and things like that. You know,

Nicole Pike: 00:34:52

people just feel uncomfortable in it. And you know, the idea

Nicole Pike: 00:34:56

that their avatars that could hurt Could not represent who

Nicole Pike: 00:35:01

someone actually is and people feeling like, you know, that's a

Nicole Pike: 00:35:04

place they want to interact, I think that can can be a really

Nicole Pike: 00:35:07

big barrier as well. So kind of looking at all that. But we're

Nicole Pike: 00:35:12

actually right now working on a report that'll come out in a

Nicole Pike: 00:35:15

couple months on on the topic and exploring things like that.

Nicole Pike: 00:35:21

So we're excited about it. And right now, I think the key is

Nicole Pike: 00:35:24

trying to understand two things, one, for people who understand

Nicole Pike: 00:35:27

it what they want to do, but two is not moving too fast and

Nicole Pike: 00:35:30

trying to just understand like, how, how do we get people

Nicole Pike: 00:35:34

comfortable with the idea? And how do we explain it to people

Nicole Pike: 00:35:38

in a way that that will help them to understand it and get

Nicole Pike: 00:35:41

them in the virtual door so to speak?

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:44

Yeah, well, in speaking of getting people into

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:46

the virtual door, I want to talk about how we can include women

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:51

in how we build the metaverse. There's been plenty of stories

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:54

from other tech industries in the Silicon Valley environment

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:57

where women weren't necessarily included at the beginning, you

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:00

can basically draw a straight line to some of the issues that

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:04

we have today as a result of women not being there for

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:07

building from the ground up. And that goes that the same point is

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:11

true for other minorities. I mean, look at all the issues

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:14

people with dark skin tones are having with AI. It's just

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:17

unbelievable. So as someone who looks at Entertainment trends,

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:22

and you can see some of the differences in how genders are

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:26

included in various industries, how can we make sure that we

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:30

don't have the same issues in building the metaverse, and I

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:33

think we're already even a little late on this. But how can

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:36

we make sure that we don't have maybe hopefully the depth of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:39

same issues we have in the metaverse, you know, 510 20

Lindsay Poss: 00:36:42

years down the line? Yeah, it's

Nicole Pike: 00:36:44

I think such a good and important question,

Nicole Pike: 00:36:48

especially when you think about, you know, people could argue,

Nicole Pike: 00:36:51

and I think we would probably both agree wrongly, so that oh,

Nicole Pike: 00:36:55

you know, the gaming industry is dominated by males. But that's

Nicole Pike: 00:36:58

okay. Because it's mostly males that play game. It's like play

Nicole Pike: 00:37:00

games. It's like, okay, is that chicken or the egg? But when

Nicole Pike: 00:37:04

Yeah, yeah. But when you think about the metaverse, and if the

Nicole Pike: 00:37:07

idea is to replicate everything that someone does in the real

Nicole Pike: 00:37:11

world, and the virtual world, like that is a true 5050 split

Nicole Pike: 00:37:17

from a gender perspective, when you think about, you know, who's

Nicole Pike: 00:37:21

making purchases for our household, it's mostly females,

Nicole Pike: 00:37:25

you know, anyone that does research and CPG is interviewing

Nicole Pike: 00:37:27

80% Female 20% males. So if you think about it from just a pure

Nicole Pike: 00:37:32

purchase power, and who's making decisions and who could

Nicole Pike: 00:37:36

potentially, you know, be purchasing things in a digital

Nicole Pike: 00:37:40

environment, it would, it would underserve everyone, including

Nicole Pike: 00:37:45

the people who are set to make money on the metaverse to not if

Nicole Pike: 00:37:48

the if females weren't included, as part of it. But to your

Nicole Pike: 00:37:52

point, I mean, if the everything from Metaverse is rooted in

Nicole Pike: 00:37:57

starting in Silicon Valley, then it's kind of going back to the

Nicole Pike: 00:38:00

same, you know, the same issues and in terms of you know, how to

Nicole Pike: 00:38:04

even engage people in the first place. But I do think that there

Nicole Pike: 00:38:10

are going to be some cool opportunities with the metaverse

Nicole Pike: 00:38:13

of almost kind of like small business types of like, I think

Nicole Pike: 00:38:16

it that the idea that we're taking, we're creating a new

Nicole Pike: 00:38:20

economy in a virtual space means we all have a chance to kind of

Nicole Pike: 00:38:25

redo how people are contributing to the economy, and who gets

Nicole Pike: 00:38:30

priority and help and support and things like that. And so I'm

Nicole Pike: 00:38:34

hopeful that, you know, that all the trends we've seen about, you

Nicole Pike: 00:38:39

know, small businesses, black women owned businesses, you

Nicole Pike: 00:38:43

know, just things like that, that are starting to get more

Nicole Pike: 00:38:45

voice and more attention that, that we can start to incorporate

Nicole Pike: 00:38:50

that even if we're all pretty late in the regular world, the

Nicole Pike: 00:38:53

physical world, we can start to incorporate that a bit more in

Nicole Pike: 00:38:57

the virtual world.

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:59

Yeah, well, that. I mean, I'm hopeful that that's

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:02

true, too. I feel like I've been like beating the wall with you

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:04

should include women, because of the purchasing power thing.

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:07

There's a huge missed opportunity. It's like God, and

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:10

that's the exact discussion we had at the beginning of this

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:13

episode. So I don't want to rehash it too much. But it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:15

just like, Hello advertisers, people trying to sell things.

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:20

Who's making the purchases?

Nicole Pike: 00:39:22

Right? Exactly. When especially if you think

Nicole Pike: 00:39:24

about you know, if teens and you know, kind of younger consumers

Nicole Pike: 00:39:28

are going to be part of the virtual world and the metaverse

Nicole Pike: 00:39:33

economy, it's the parents that need to be you know, that need

Nicole Pike: 00:39:37

to feel good about it and engaged and that sort of thing.

Nicole Pike: 00:39:40

So you're now influencing moms to even be able to let this

Nicole Pike: 00:39:43

entire generation in. So it's, yeah, I think just the dollars

Nicole Pike: 00:39:48

and cents of it should help but there's more more cultural

Nicole Pike: 00:39:54

factors at play than that. I think

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:56

there always is. And on that note, I'm gonna do

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:59

just to Quick summary before we wrap up with our last segment.

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:03

So some of the things we talked about, with younger generations,

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:07

women and girls aren't just playing mobile and casual games,

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:10

they're getting more into different types of games. So the

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:13

whole women are only playing Candy Crush thing is going by

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:17

the wayside a little bit, which also means that we definitely

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:20

need more content for women. Women represent a large portion

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:23

of the population, women follow influencers, they're only

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:27

spending more time on gaming and entertainment content. And

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:30

they're only getting more into games. So more content would be

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:33

great. When it comes to content partnerships, it's kind of a

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:37

dual matchmaking process where the company chooses the

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:40

influencer, the influencer chooses the company that's to

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:43

both provide the company with the appropriate audience to sell

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:45

its product. And to make sure that the influencer doesn't like

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:48

sell it, like look like a sellout. That relationship does

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:52

also evolve over time. So you have to make sure it's kind of a

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:54

harmonious partnership. So you can kind of keep placing ads and

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:59

keep having that symbiotic relationship going. The supply

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:03

of Twitch streamers isn't looking great as of right now,

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:08

but you did indicate that the supply of micro influencers is

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:11

starting to grow, which is cool. So it's hopefully encouraging.

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:14

If women can have smart growth in the industry, then this micro

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:19

influencer pipeline can lead to more women Twitch streamers, we

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:22

can hopefully see that five out of 100 number start to shoot up

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:26

much further. When it comes to kids. They're basically already

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:30

in the metaverse, they have the Roblox platforms, they have

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:32

their fence does they have their ways of communicating that is

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:35

much different than the ways that you and I grew up

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:37

communicating, which is a good thing. So the things that

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:41

they're going to come up with with the metaverse is going to

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:42

be probably a lot different than what we could imagine. And when

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:46

it comes to women and parents and people who have purchasing

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:51

power, women have a lot of it. So they should be included.

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:54

Because not only are they purchasing for themselves, but

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:56

they're purchasing for the household where said kids who

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:58

are already in the metaverse live. So having intelligent

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:02

advertising to and for women is one way of more quickly getting

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:08

to the metaverse and hopefully with some amount of equity in

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:11

there as well. So the last thing that I like to do is a moment of

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:15

reflection, this is just a chance for you to give some

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:18

advice to maybe people who are looking to get into similar

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:21

fields or who are thinking about getting into data or younger

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:25

listeners, older listeners, whoever it is looking to rethink

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:28

about their career a little bit. So what is one thing you would

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:32

like to tell your younger self about getting into the gaming

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:35

industry and being successful? Yeah, so

Nicole Pike: 00:42:39

I think the biggest thing that I've kind of had dead

Nicole Pike: 00:42:42

mentally overcome and I think if I had had the advice early on it

Nicole Pike: 00:42:46

would have helped is recognizing that I did not have to be an

Nicole Pike: 00:42:51

expert in every single thing related to gaming in order to

Nicole Pike: 00:42:57

successfully contribute to the industry. So you know, for

Nicole Pike: 00:43:01

example, I am the first to admit that I am not a hardcore PC

Nicole Pike: 00:43:06

Gamer which she when people ask me you know, you know, esports

Nicole Pike: 00:43:10

you you know, you help companies understand what to do and how to

Nicole Pike: 00:43:13

play in the space you must be you know, like a super hardcore

Nicole Pike: 00:43:18

fan and I mean, obviously I follow the industry as closely

Nicole Pike: 00:43:23

as anyone and I'm super engaged but it's okay then I'm not

Nicole Pike: 00:43:27

playing League of Legends 40 hours a week. So I would I think

Nicole Pike: 00:43:32

you know, what was really important for me to learn and

Nicole Pike: 00:43:34

become comfortable with over time as I have my expertise

Nicole Pike: 00:43:37

which is taking data building data to fit the industry based

Nicole Pike: 00:43:42

on how I understand it and what the needs are and then educating

Nicole Pike: 00:43:45

people with that, that means that I don't need to know every

Nicole Pike: 00:43:48

little nuance of every little game that means that I don't

Nicole Pike: 00:43:50

have to know the best kill rate ratio of every team of every

Nicole Pike: 00:43:55

title you know, there's there's so much the gaming industry is

Nicole Pike: 00:43:58

so big and only getting bigger that I think and maybe it was

Nicole Pike: 00:44:03

partially because I was kind of female and a minority in the

Nicole Pike: 00:44:06

industry that you know, I kind of had this hang up that out if

Nicole Pike: 00:44:10

I don't know everything about everything in the industry. I

Nicole Pike: 00:44:14

you know, I can't serve and I think realizing that it's okay

Nicole Pike: 00:44:18

for me to have blind spots because my job is to help other

Nicole Pike: 00:44:21

people in the industry with their blind spots that I can

Nicole Pike: 00:44:24

support like that that was a really important realization for

Nicole Pike: 00:44:28

me to just kind of become comfortable and know that I know

Nicole Pike: 00:44:30

my stuff when and stay in my lane with it. So I think that's

Nicole Pike: 00:44:35

that's really important. It's good to be a specialist it's

Nicole Pike: 00:44:37

okay to be a specialist and you have to educate yourself and you

Nicole Pike: 00:44:40

know, know about the space and become comfortable with it all

Nicole Pike: 00:44:43

but finding your niche and kind of doubling down on that is a

Nicole Pike: 00:44:48

really successful way to get involved in the industry. So

Nicole Pike: 00:44:51

don't let the breadth of it scare you.

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:56

Well, from one non core heart gamer to another

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:59

licensee really appreciate that advice, because one of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:02

reasons and one of the motivations for starting this

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:05

podcast was definitely the the imposter syndrome feeling of

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:09

needing to know everything that's going on and feeling

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:11

lesser because you don't play League of Legends for 40 hours a

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:15

week. So that is awesome advice, totally in line with some of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:20

things that I went through and getting into the industry. And I

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:23

certainly hope that more women, more people who might not think

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:26

that they have a place can learn that you don't have to be really

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:30

hardcore to be involved in that, in fact, having that diversity

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:34

of opinions and views and having people who aren't super

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:36

hardcore, can be extremely valuable to a team. Because not

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:42

all the population is hardcore gamers either. So it can be

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:46

really, really, really worth its weight when you have a sort of

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:50

different perspective than someone who is really into PC

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:53

gaming. So that is awesome advice. Nicole, thank you so

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:58

much for coming on. Where can people find you? Where can

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:00

people find you gifts work? What should they be looking out for?

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:04

Give them all the info?

Nicole Pike: 00:46:05

Yeah, great. So you guvs website is today that you

Nicole Pike: 00:46:09

got calm. And all sorts of insights and info whether you

Nicole Pike: 00:46:14

just want to figure out what we've run research on and look

Nicole Pike: 00:46:17

at what consumers like you were saying, or, you know, dig into

Nicole Pike: 00:46:20

everything we do in gaming and esports. That's all there. I

Nicole Pike: 00:46:23

personally am most active on LinkedIn. So I think it's you

Nicole Pike: 00:46:27

know, linkedin.com, Nicole dash pike dot esports or desk

Nicole Pike: 00:46:30

esports. But you can find me on there. That's where I like to

Nicole Pike: 00:46:35

kind of, you know, put a voice out there with data on all the

Nicole Pike: 00:46:38

cool things that we're doing at ugab and some data driven

Nicole Pike: 00:46:43

opinions on some of the biggest news which there has been no

Nicole Pike: 00:46:46

shortage of these days in the gaming space.

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:49

Nick Nicole does have some very, very good and

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:51

insightful reading or posts on LinkedIn. I will say I was

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:56

explaining your page last night in preparation for this. Wow.

Lindsay Poss: 00:46:58

She puts up a lot of stuff. For those of you who are looking at

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:01

things like the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger. She

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:04

you put up an insight almost immediately when I went through

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:07

and I found it to be very useful, so definitely a good

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:10

person to find in follow on there. For all of our listeners,

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:14

please leave those five star ratings and reviews you know

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:17

that you know the deal by now. Be sure to check out other

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:20

holodeck media podcasts, including meta business for all

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:23

the metaverse finance stories you could ever want, and

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:25

business of esports for interviews with industry

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:28

leaders. You can catch me Wednesday nights on the business

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:31

of esports life after show and you can catch this podcast in

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:34

your feed every Tuesday. We will see you next week.

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Thanks for joining us here on meta woman. Make sure to

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