POPPY PLAYTIME INTERVIEW: CEO TALKS MOB ENTERTAINMENT’S JOURNEY

The Poppy Playtime franchise has grown considerably since Chapter 1 launched in 2021. While at times there has been a lot of controversy surrounding Poppy Playtime, the company has evolved and developed more chapters to huge success for the most part, alongside launching various merchandise. The company even collaborated with Roblox for a spin-off dubbed Poppy Playtime Forever, which released earlier this year. Mob Entertainment also isn't stopping there, with Chapter 4 of Poppy Playtime on the horizon and more projects to come thanks to the company's multimedia approach and desire to challenge the status quo.

Game Rant recently spoke with Mob Entertainment's CEO and C-Founder Zach Belanger, who formed the company under the name of EnchantedMob with his brother and Chief Creative Officer Seth Belanger in 2015. The former spoke about the company's journey and evolution since its inception and the creation of Poppy Playtime, plus what's next. Belanger also shared his thoughts on setting up an indie games studio in today's often turbulent working landscape. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Mob Entertainment's Beginnings And Joining The Video Games Industry

Q: Could you tell us a bit about how and why you and your brother Seth got into the games industry?

Belanger: We began creating content for our YouTube channel, EnchantedMob. From the very beginning, we loved animation and storytelling. As we built the channel and grew an audience, we knew we wanted to branch out into all forms of media. It was part of our plan all along and developing games was our next logical step.

Q: I understand Mob Entertainment began as EnchantedMob back in 2015. What was your journey towards founding the company like?

Belanger: It was a lot of trial and error, late nights, and late-night drives talking about our gaming and entertainment dreams. Seth taught himself how to animate and I became laser-focused on growing our tiny operation. YouTube is a beast to compete with millions of hours of content uploaded onto the platform all the time. We had to learn the business of being content creators, but not in the traditional sense. We aren’t exactly YouTube personalities or influencers so we always tried approaching YouTube the way a media company would, rather than how an influencer would. Next, we targeted getting into the gaming space, which was in some ways a tangential pivot from animation. Today, in addition to working on YouTube and in gaming, we are excited to grow the transmedia side of our business more.

The Evolution Of Mob Entertainment

Q: Could you talk a bit about how the company evolved over the years?

Belanger: As our community on YouTube grew, so did our company. We now consider ourselves a transmedia company. We have content on YouTube and games on a variety of platforms including Steam, console, mobile and now ROBLOX. We’ve also created a Direct to Consumer and Licensing department. You can find all sorts of Poppy Playtime merchandise on our website and in your favorite store. As we keep growing into new forms of media, the company and our audience will grow with it. As new media avenues and opportunities continue to emerge, our company will grow and evolve with it.

Q: Has anything throughout the company’s journey been especially memorable, whether through challenges, success, or otherwise?

Belanger: The most memorable thing about Mob Entertainment and Poppy Playtime is the community. It’s amazing how much User Generated Content is out there. We see all sorts of fan fiction, side stories, conspiracy theories, walkthroughs, and music videos. It’s absolutely amazing how much time our fans put into this. And for us, that’s an inspiration and a challenge. We understand how vested our fans are in Poppy Playtime which drives us to uphold the highest standards of art and storytelling.

Zach Belanger's LGBT Experience And Story

Q: How has your experience been as a member of the LGBTQ+ community in the games industry?

Belanger: In years past, gamers were thought of as a guy playing the newest Call of Duty title and thinking it's funny to use the word gay as an insult or as a punch line in an objectively poorly written joke in a chat. Today, I and most others have a different view of how LGBTQ+ people and issues are treated in the games industry, which is that the games industry tends to be a very accepting space. That is not to say that there isn’t still room for change. While I have undoubtedly encountered hurdles, generally speaking, my experience as an LGBTQ+ person in the games industry has been a positive one.

Q: How do you hope to inspire members of the LGBTQ+ community through your story?

Belanger: I would like to inspire other members of the LGBTQ+ community to think about being LGBTQ+ as a blessing rather than a curse. There are pros and cons to everything, but for me, being part of the LGBTQ+ community has allowed me to be part of a minority group which broadened my understanding and empathy for all people. Being LGBTQ+ means that one’s life experiences will be different than they otherwise would have been. The people one connects with on a deeper level, the circle of friends, the romantic interests, the fear of not being accepted, the fear of never being happy, one’s gender identity, or how one wants to present in public, affects so many important aspects of a person’s life. Embrace your authentic self and shoot for the stars.

Starting An Indie Game Studio

Q: The video games industry has sadly experienced a lot of layoffs over the past year. What advice would you give to anyone hoping to start their own indie studio or make their own video games?

Belanger: As a Gen Z person who was rapidly approaching graduation and entering the workforce, layoffs always really scared me. Unfortunately, they are not going anywhere and are a part of our reality. And the worst part is, with the rise of AI, some would speculate that layoffs are only going to get more intense and more frequent. I wanted to start my own business not necessarily out of fear of layoffs (which were there as well) but because I wanted my hard work to determine how successful I would be.

I would love to say something super encouraging like “everyone should start their own business” but my advice is a bit more pragmatic. Running a company is really hard. Founding a company is really hard. We’ve all heard the statistics that up to 90% of startups fail. Across most industries, the average failure rate for year one is 10%, but even more stark is that in years two through five, 70% of new businesses fail. These are staggering numbers, and therefore I am cautious when it comes to encouraging everyone to start their own businesses.

The reality is, starting an indie game studio requires so much more beyond just making a great game, but at the same time, the most important thing for Seth Belanger - our co-founder and my little brother - and myself is spending as many working hours as possible focused on making great art.

Work ethic is a crucial skill to possess. Starting a business is not for those whose priority is having a traditional work-life balance, at least during the early years. Seth and I used to spend days, sometimes weeks during our YouTube content creation days, staying up all night long working and becoming utterly exhausted by 6:00 am. Sometimes we would work all night long, buy donuts at a local bakery in Southern Illinois where we were from, and then immediately crash, and it was years of this sort of schedule.

All of that being said, I would encourage anyone serious about starting any business to start it as a side hustle and then allow it to become their main hustle at the right time. EnchantedMob, now Mob Entertainment, was technically a side hustle for years while I studied Architecture and only became my primary focus after graduation.

How Poppy Playtime Began

Q: Did you always set out to create horror video games specifically, and what led you to create Poppy Playtime?

Belanger: Yes. Seth and I love the horror genre, and we long thought a horror game would be our first, but it will not be the only extent of what we make at Mob. Mob is positioning itself to be a lot more than just the Poppy Playtime company, and we want to launch several more IPs, several of which are also in the horror genre. We knew we wanted to do something that had viral potential, and we were extremely intentional about the choices that were made for Poppy Playtime Chapter 1.

In those days, I was the closest thing the studio had to a real producer, while I also shared the responsibilities of various department leads with a variety of others. No one thing happened to cause us to create Poppy Playtime. I would frame it as a brainchild that evolved during pre-production and production while we were simultaneously trying to figure out how to actually make a video game for the first time.

Poppy Playtime Chapter 4 And Mob Entertainment's Mission

Q: What are your thoughts on the future of Mob Entertainment and its mission to challenge the norms of media and inspire others?

Belanger: I’m extremely optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of Mob! Seth and I are not afraid to do things differently and unorthodox (to some degree). One of those things is creating content that in some cases may be edgy to a particular demographic audience (which we are not targeting in the first place yet loves Poppy Playtime due to its 2000s Pixar-like multi-generational appeal). Many media companies are far more concerned with playing it safe than they are about making their actual product great.

Q: Are you able to tell us more about your plans to venture into new mediums?

Belanger: From a gaming perspective, over the past year, we've been concentrating on getting the games onto more platforms. We successfully launched on consoles, expanding our mobile plans, and earlier this year we launched Poppy Playtime Forever on ROBLOX. And we’re really happy with that success.

Q: Could you share anything about what players can expect from Poppy Playtime Chapter 4?

Belanger: The new villain for Chapter 4 is the one Seth and I have been most excited about for quite some time. It will be a fan favorite and the design takes every unique advantage of being a Poppy Playtime toy monster from the material choice to the animation. Beyond that, fans can expect the highest quality, most stable, most optimized, and the best user experience of any of our games yet. We have done a lot of work to bring in top talent into Mob, and the results of bringing in that talent are only just starting to take shape.

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2024-04-19T23:16:47Z dg43tfdfdgfd