How I learned what I now know

I’ve always been moving back and forth between games and other kinds of stories. Games are fantastic worlds - but I’ve often felt something was missing…

I first fell in love with telling stories through games as a teenager, Dungeon Mastering my friends through an ever-expanding fantasy universe – and filling it with characters we all personally felt we knew.  

Back then, computer games were mostly just toys – and I wanted something bigger. So I studied Film & Media at university,  directing short films and TV - but there was something missing here, too! Emotionally, Film and TV were way ahead of games - but they were the media of the past: games were the future. 

So, I started a company that championed story in games. We bootstrapped everything, and I produced and directed 35 projects for commercial clients. We discovered a whole new way of telling stories, bringing together Hollywood stars and Indie game makers, got an overwhelming response and won a number of awards. Despite all the positive feedback, I still felt there was a piece of the puzzle I hadn’t found.

Then, one day, it clicked. 

At the time I was Head of IP development at Nordisk Games in Copenhagen. What I realized was that the power of stories and characters could transform games – changing them from being one-off pieces of entertainment and toys into lasting icons, beloved characters and real emotion. They could have both the expansive worlds of games and the powerful emotions of stories. 

This is what some people call IPs – lasting Intellectual Properties; beloved, clearly defined and lasting (potentially) for decades. Think of Hitman, Super Mario, or Don’t Starve; it doesn’t take a second before you can feel what they represent and what they promise. This is what I had been missing, all along. 

What does a Head of IP development do? 

Today, I help games become lasting Intellectual Properties and developers to become lasting companies. 

It’s challenging being a games developer: you struggle from quarter to quarter, often not knowing if the game you spent three years on will just disappear into the ocean of new games. Unfortunately, life as a game developer is exactly like a smart man once said: “your passion will not suspend the laws of business”. 

It doesn’t matter how much energy and love you pour into the game; when it hits the market, it’s still a bunch of strangers who have no relationship with it who will decide whether it is a success or not.

That’s when you start to realize that you need what the AAA studios have: a loyal fan base and the ability to plan years into the future. 

And that is where having an IP comes in. 

Should you be building an IP?

I often tell the story of IO Interactive; they’re a Copenhagen-based game studio, about 10 kilometers away from where I'm sitting right now. 

IO Interactive spent 20 years building a studio. They made multiple series of games, they had 150 employees, and they had their own game engine… but when they sold the company, the rights to the Hitman character, Agent 47, were more than 60% of their entire value. 

Think about that for a moment. More than 60% of the value of the entire company... 

That is what a lasting IP does; your technology will grow old, the gameplay is impossible to own, and your employees will move on. But your IP and the brand around it can continue to build value – if you design them to last.

Because when the players have spent all these hours playing the game, looking at the ads and thinking about their experiences, what they remember is the time they spent with this character. 

And in the end, the character and the brand around it are the only thing you can really own.