---
categories:
  - "[[Meetings]]"
type: []
date: 2026-07-23
org:
loc:
people:
  - "[[Darsh Shah]]"
topics: []
granola_id: c7d44343-39b7-4911-ac7d-cf9180fda3ea
source: granola
---

# Budget realignment — accelerator, IP program, and Evo with John
## Notes

## Summary

### Context and Org Structure

- Kunj’s last day; Darsh and Kunj go back to undergrad together

  - Kunj moving to Charlotte; partner joining McKinsey, Kunj joining Airbnb
- Group has gone through 3-4 reorgs in under a year; Eric continues to receive new assignments from leadership
- Goal for this series: rebuild budget visibility that Kunj and the other person had previously


### Program Buckets and How They Relate

- Accelerator: third-party island development, ~100% recoup at 50/50 from dollar one, budgets typically sub-$500K
- Genre Growth: similar structure to accelerator, different strategy

  - Accelerator targets steam developers bringing their audience to Fortnite
  - Genre Growth fills engagement gaps (e.g. tycoon, horror) by commissioning games
  - Open to nesting Genre Growth under Accelerator given structural similarity
- IP Dev (also called IPP/pub IP): Star Wars, Simpsons, D&D (Hasbro), Squid Game, TMNT

  - Includes exemplar island development + tools and content (Kit Bash, Roommate, Loops In)
  - D&D paused indefinitely; budget to be reallocated to other IP Dev work or Evo
- Evo: brand universe partnerships (Mattel, Sega, Warner Brothers)

  - Warner Brothers signed; Mattel and Sega at term sheet stage
  - Each universe has flagship games (brand-led, Epic supporting) and an IP program layer (Epic-led, brand supporting)
  - Effectively “IP program inside Evo” depending on relationship maturity
  - Angry Birds example: launches in megaverse, migrates to Sega verse when Sega universe launches
- Xdev: subsidizes partner development costs and builds Fortnite tooling for developers

  - Shared across all buckets; Andy Barton’s production team and Jocelyn La Francois’s team may be consolidated by Eric
- All accelerator and genre growth work eventually surfaces in the megaverse


### Budget Status and Recent Changes

- Total budget: $17.2M across accelerators, IP program, external vendors, Starburst/Island spend
- Power Wash Simulator (accelerator): terminated at $450K of $500K; studio failed to act on feedback; termination notice going out today
- Sony “Lofi” project (IP program, second party): $250K invoiced now after no invoicing since March; hitting this month or within 45 days
- Combined near-term spend from these two: ~$700K
- Crunchyroll/Simpsons: $500K budgeted, $0 spent (people investment only, no cash)
- D&D line: $1.5M budgeted, $1.3M showing as committed

  - Likely misattributed; actual D&D spend probably near zero
  - Resurgence Gaming (Ghost Gaming) and Future Trash creature-based game both reallocated to Genre Growth / Ecosystem Programs
  - Keywords (senior arts) moved to Xdev pending Andy’s allocation guidance
  - Terminated creature-based game: stopped at $170K vs. $330K budget, treated as savings
- External vendors (Cooper POs): $14.7M tagged to IP Publishing/Dev or megaverse cost centers; $7M mapped to external vendor line after removing outliers


### Next Steps

- **Reallocate POs with updated context from today's discussion** (Darsh)

  Prior allocations were arbitrary; re-map each PO to the correct bucket before the next session.
- **Send 30-minute invite for tomorrow to continue PO attribution** (Darsh)

  Pick up where the D&D and Simpsons lines left off; do a final pass on remaining buckets.
- **Schedule early session with Andy Barton to validate IP Dev allocations**

  Andy is UK-based; need his input on how Kit Bash and Roommate costs are spread across D&D and other projects.
- **Aim for clean budget view before next weekly (Wednesday)** (Darsh)

  Target a 30-min pass with Andy early next week (Monday or Tuesday) so the Wednesday weekly has a solid baseline.

Chat with meeting transcript: [https://notes.granola.ai/t/65965f22-f820-4e9c-9819-1d1015b4c526](https://notes.granola.ai/t/65965f22-f820-4e9c-9819-1d1015b4c526)

## Transcript

**system**: Hey Darsh.

**microphone**: Hey, hijorn.

**microphone**: How's it going?

**system**: Good man, how was your break?

**microphone**: It was nice. It was nice. I traveled to Scotland for the break.

**system**: That?

**microphone**: So, yeah.

**system**: Had you been there before?

**microphone**: That was. So, yeah, I have. I have been there before. My brother actually lives in Glasgow.

**system**: Okay.

**microphone**: Like, my elder sibling.

**microphone**: So I. I try to visit as much as I can because, like, yeah, I just want to see my nephew while he's, like, still a baby.

**system**: That's nice.

**system**: I went there one time about 20 years ago when I really enjoyed it.

**system**: We toured all around Scotland on that trip and it's just a lovely country. People are great.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: It is. Yeah, it is really beautiful. But how about you? How was your break?

**system**: It was good. We spent half of it. We had done longer further trips on past breaks and so we decided to stay close. We went to Virginia and West Virginia and did some hiking on the Appalachian trail and did some whitewater rafting and stayed at some nice hotels and so it was relaxing and we enjoyed the car trip, the road trip was good.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Nice. Pretty cool. Did you, like, also go to, like, Shenandoah?

**system**: We were in the Shenandoah. We went to Stanton, Virginia, which they write as Staunton but it's pronounced. We went to New River Gorge, West Virginia and we ended up in hot springs, Virginia. So we were kind of all over the Alleghenies and the Shenandoah.

**microphone**: Or.

**microphone**: Nice?

**system**: It's very pretty.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Pretty cool. Pretty cool. I want to do the skyline drive once. I haven't done that yet.

**system**: Oh yeah, like the Blue Ridge Parkway in Skyline.

**system**: Gorgeous. And it's so close. Like you can be there in like two and a half hours.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: So yeah.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: I might just do it. One of the weekends.

**system**: You should. You should. We've done a day trip before where we kind of.

**system**: Like drove pretty much straight north of Raleigh, picked up the Blue Ridge Parkway and like took it west for a while until we got tired of it.

**system**: And then drove home. It's totally doable.

**microphone**: All right. Yeah. Okay.

**microphone**: Thanks. Sweet.

**system**: All right cool. So thank you for starting this series. I wanted to do this.

**system**: Kunj and I had a little bit of a rhythm going.

**system**: Before the switch and it's good to reestablish it with you.

**microphone**: Yes. Yes. Do you know actually just. It's his last day today, so he's always out of.

**system**: What?

**system**: Oh no I didn't know that.

**microphone**: Yeah, it's kind of.

**microphone**: Like sad news to be sharing with you. But, like.

**microphone**: Yeah, it's his last link today.

**system**: I'm sending him a quick note hoping to catch him.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: You should like. I actually go way back. We went to undergrad together.

**microphone**: So he's a good friend.

**system**: Yeah, he's a great guy. Is he staying local?

**microphone**: So he's moved to Charlotte because his partner got a job there. Like, she's going to McKinsey and Charlotte.

**microphone**: And, yeah, he's joining Airbnb. Like, he's. He's shared it with everyone, so he's gonna go to Airbnb, which is where, like, I think Adam list went a few worked with Adam.

**system**: Yeah okay well I'm sad that we're going to lose kun. He's one of the good ones.

**system**: Okay well is there any other news before we get into it?

**microphone**: Nothing. Nothing new besides that. Like.

**microphone**: Yeah, everything else is pretty much.

**microphone**: The standard.

**system**: So you know our group has gone through a lot of change.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: And I have not had the time to really.

**system**: Get the understanding of it that I had working with kunj before all these changes came and I know you put together a dashboard that addressed some of this kind of like line of sight.

**system**: That we need.

**system**: And candidly I have not looked at it since I've been back from break.

**microphone**: All right.

**system**: Where would you like to start?

**microphone**: Yeah. So I think.

**microphone**: Here's how I think about it, right? I can just share that.

**microphone**: And, like, put it on our screen.

**microphone**: And then let's just free flow it to begin with. And, like, we'll find a direction as we kind of speak.

**microphone**: Because I also don't have, like, plan as to how do we kind of go about this just because of, like, all of the changes that have kind of happened. But I was there on the previous call where Eric and you shared some context around everything we are doing. So I'm also just absorbing a lot of that context.

**microphone**: And I want to work in the way that you view things, right? Like, I want the budget to look like.

**microphone**: You know, I want it to trace the mental map that you have.

**microphone**: About everything you're, you know, working on. So I'm super flexible in that. I don't need to, like, stick to, like, a tabular format of the budget or anything like that.

**microphone**: You know, I can adapt this to.

**microphone**: Like.

**microphone**: You know, one moment. I think I said the wrong one.

**microphone**: Yeah. So I can pretty much, like, adapt this to look.

**microphone**: The way.

**microphone**: You look at things.

**microphone**: And the only thing that I have, which I would hold, is the original budget and the revised budget. Right. Because this is how we originally viewed things, when we kind of drew up this budget. Right. And we have, like, a 17.2 million budget, which comprises all of these lines, you know, with these amounts. So we had, like, 2.875 million for, like, accelerators, and then we had, like, three points, and million external vendors spend, and then we had, like, four million for the starburst island.

**microphone**: Spent all of that. And I know that things move and, like, there may be overlaps between things and, like, you know, what is in, I don't know, like, star wars may overlap with, like, some of that may overlap with accelerators. We are using the same vendors and stuff like that.

**microphone**: So let's just talk about how you are now viewing things in terms of, hey.

**microphone**: Here's.

**microphone**: The.

**microphone**: Here's everything that we are doing with accelerators. Here's everything that we've done with Simpsons and we are doing with Simpsons because everything, star wars, all of that. Here's everything that's, like, you know, meant to go towards, like, exemplars. Like, I don't know how you're viewing things.

**system**: Yes.

**microphone**: But, like, I would love to trace that mental map.

**microphone**: I can add rows here.

**microphone**: And I really don't mind if, like, we add new rows with zero in the budget, but.

**microphone**: Like.

**microphone**: Us having, like, a number on, like, the third column.

**microphone**: And, you know, like, if we are saving money elsewhere and if we are introducing a new line item and, like, we are still working within the 17.2 million, we are good, right? That way you can look at things the way they look as of today. In the third column, and then we can track all of the spends in the, in this section, right against that.

**microphone**: So that's how I'm viewing things. But I'll, I'll turn it over to you and, like, let you say I've been speaking for a while, but, like, curious.

**system**: Okay.

**system**: Now first of all thank you very much for being.

**system**: Open to working together on how we organize this.

**system**: I think the inverse is true also like I want us to provide inputs to finance and the budgeting process that are easy for you all to digest.

**system**: And that translate well across the wider discussion of bills organization and epic overall.

**system**: It would make me happy to make sure that we have the right information in air table for instance so that you have the telemetry that you need to understand external development spending across groups. Like it's important to me that we're a good citizen in the finance discussion. So that's my goal is to have us be fluent and participating at the right level with all the budget conversations. So we'll meet each other in the middle.

**system**: Right okay.

**system**: So yeah we have been subject to a lot of change over the last year.

**system**: And it hasn't even been a year that I've been working with this team and I've already had like three or four reorganizations. And so it's it's been a lot but that's okay.

**system**: And Eric is I think trusted by the leadership team and so they continue to give him more assignments for this group that are making our jobs more complex. So looking at those in terms of just buckets before we start applying that to any spreadsheet or dashboard there is the accelerator program which is very similar to the.

**system**: And by the way I have a notes document that I think I've added you to no you're not let me put you on here.

**microphone**: Oh, okay.

**system**: All right so Kuns used to be in there.

**system**: Too.

**system**: Please don't feel any burden to keep your notes here if you don't want to but this is where I keep the notes for meetings like this.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: It just says budget nodes megaverse and ipdev.

**system**: And so.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: The accelerator is.

**system**: Very similar to the genre program.

**system**: And I'll just take notes in real time here.

**system**: We pay for third party island development.

**system**: And it's you know generally.

**system**: 100% recoup.

**system**: At 5050 from dollar one.

**system**: And budgets usually sub $500 for each island.

**system**: Right the genre growth is similar so if we ever wanted to take genre growth and nest it within accelerator I would be open to that they are very similar they just have different strategies one pursues audience growth the accelerators by going to a steam developer and saying make your game in fortnite and bring your audience with you.

**system**: And the other with genre growth is about deepening engagement where we look at.

**system**: How people play fortnite and which games they're playing and we try to fill the gaps so if there's not enough tycoon games we make tycoon games with genre growth if there's not enough horror games we do that.

**system**: So they have different strategic objectives but they are very similar in terms of the agreements and the budgets and that kind of thing.

**system**: So that would be one opportunity to group.

**system**: The next is.

**system**: Ipdev which just reorganized into our team I think in may june.

**system**: This has been known by a few different names you know sometimes it's referred to ipdev sometimes pub IP sometimes you know ipp or ipp it's always the IP program.

**system**: Yeah, so this contains things like star wars and the Simpsons DD is in here in the past we've done teenage mutant ninja turtles and we've done squid game and like this is a pretty reliable bucket for our IP program.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: D and D is dungeons and dragons.

**system**: That's right and that's Hasbro owns that company and we'll come back to that because we actually made the decision to pause that effort indefinitely which means that that budget should be reallocated to other IP dev work or this other bucket.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: So then we have evo and evo.

**system**: Is the the brand universes that comprise you know Mattel Sega Warner Brothers this one is signed this one is the term sheet stage and this one is at the term sheet stage but also we just started the loan form.

**system**: In concert.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: I have to go back and look I think this is you know one or two.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: You can just put a placeholder.

**system**: And and we're likely to add to this this will be a reliable bucket I think.

**system**: And then there's you know.

**system**: Xdev is primarily against.

**system**: Some others.

**microphone**: This is more from a lens of, like, subsidizing our partners.

**microphone**: Development cost in a way. Would red be.

**microphone**: Okay to say, or like, also just developing the tooling that we need in fortnite.

**microphone**: For developers to be able to build experiences around these.

**system**: That's right so there's there's island development.

**system**: And also.

**system**: Tools so actually if I could.

**system**: Steal the screen for just a second this might help you.

**system**: I just showed this to Sega last night we were meeting with Japan so this is really fresh but I think it helps to explain so.

**system**: We told.

**system**: Sorry.

**system**: Let me size that correctly.

**system**: Windows.

**system**: Is windows is being funny with me for a second.

**system**: There we go okay can you see that all right?

**microphone**: Yeah, I do see area.

**microphone**: S.

**system**: So we said hey what's next for epic it's evo what's evo it's something you launch from your console it will put you into this menu that has a bunch of these different universes as we call them we imagine that some of them would be things people know and some of them would be new and one of the new ones is Sega and Sega would comprise games that they make which celebrate their top IP and we call those flagship games.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: In this case we might contribute to the budgets that they use for the flagship games.

**system**: Or our contribution may be just limited to building the tools and content and examples needed for the UGC games so like today you can go and download star wars content you can make your own game with it and we share the revenue from your engagement and direct monetization from the Aurora in island transactions.

**system**: And so like just examples like we've done a bunch of IP programs.

**system**: And the IP programs come with content that we generally have developed with the brand's approval.

**system**: We write brand rules so developers know what they're allowed to do.

**microphone**: Yep.

**system**: We make example games that we call exemplars like droid tycoon that help people see like we try to inspire them to make good games.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: And then the brand makes their own games.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: And then we work together to make all of these things happen so anyway taking it back to the money there is a bit of IP development inside of Evo.

**system**: For the IP program it includes those exemplar island development.

**system**: And also tools and content.

**system**: So that's when you think of kit bash 3D or roommate or loops in they're contributing to exemplars and IP content.

**microphone**: Got it. So just to a quick pause here to kind of just understand how I can differentiate the vendors, are they, is there always going to be an overlap between, like, the vendors we are engaging for exemplar development versus, like, tools and content?

**system**: Please.

**microphone**: Like, is it typical? It is, is it typically, like, overlapping? For example, kit bash, I imagine, does a lot of, like, the 3D assets probably falls in the tooling and content end of the spectrum, but are they typically also helping us on, like, the violent development or something?

**microphone**: Or is it, like, different? Like exemplar Island development is done by Studios, maybe and tools and content is done by, like, you know, looks in and, like, get bash kind of vendors.

**system**: Youe're asking the right question.

**system**: It goes both ways.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: Kit bash historically has built the IP content that we provide to all developers including the vendors or studios that we hire to build the exemplars.

**system**: Sometimes the studios will make content that we think is useful and relevant to the IP program and we'll have them give us that content and we'll put it back in the collection that kit bash would have made you know all of except that becomes a supplement kit bash does not do any UEFN programming they just make 3D content and so you'll see their content used across different projects.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: And we may want to allocate costs from $1,000,000 from kit bash to various projects.

**system**: But they don't contribute in the same way as like a future trash fode would would do where they're making an island like droid tycoon does that make sense?

**microphone**: That makes sense. And is there, like, a list of, like, maybe.

**system**: Okay.

**microphone**: Like, is there, like, a population or maybe like 50 Studios or so that will always show up within, like, the Exemplar Island development related.

**system**: That's right.

**system**: Yeah so so Hannah's team create our relations.

**system**: They support all of the community but there is a shorter list of managed creators that they work with more closely these are ones that are prolific and successful in our ecosystem and often those are the ones that we look to to bid on island development projects.

**microphone**: Got it. And we like RFV. Our FP those, or is it just like.

**system**: Yes.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: Sometimes we'll do a no bid like fode is so dependable and so good that if we need something quickly or like beyond creative if that's happening right now actually like fortnite needs an island for the sprites the little characters that ride on your back and so they just are hiring beyond to do it but most of the time for the accelerator for genre growth for IP and we will for evo as well we're going to RFP those.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Perfect.

**microphone**: Yeah. Just, just curious. I don't take it affects, like, anything that I, like, will be doing, but, like, yeah, it's just good to know how this works.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: This is great.

**microphone**: And.

**microphone**: IP program is basically.

**microphone**: Exemplar development and the tooling plus content related to that.

**microphone**: That makes sense.

**microphone**: Would some of the IP program work also be repurposed for Evo?

**system**: Possibly it depends on.

**system**: It depends on.

**system**: Like in the case of the Disney Evo universe that will contain star wars islands that we make star wars islands the community makes star wars islands at Disney makes.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: And versions of the same for Simpsons and eventually marvel and other Disney IP to come in the Lego universe they already have all of those things and so we're not actively contributing or spending money investing on Lego islands but they're going to be doing that same thing.

**system**: The reason I paused when you asked that is because we don't have any Mattel IP program yet we'll do that as part of our universe partnership same would be said for Sega.

**system**: And the same would be said for Warner Brothers.

**system**: They'll you know re they'll bring in the islands they've already built like for Uno.

**system**: And tells case and we would fill it up with exemplars for Barbie and Hot Wheels and we'll do an IP program probably around.

**system**: You know Barbie so that people can make their own dream house tycoon or something like that but yeah at the end of the day it's mostly island development and content and it's mixed up in different ways for different reasons.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yes. I, I hear you. I get it. And I guess, like, this is the only piece I'm maybe struggling with is, like, kind of drawing a line between these three in the.

**microphone**: Post.

**microphone**: Web slash March 27 timeline, right? Which is when we have Evo, which is out there.

**microphone**: And we have this unified interface today. A lot of the accelerator work and the genre growth work is sitting inside of fortnite as, like, experiences, a lot of the IP program is basically the same thing as accelerator and genre growth, but it is, like, revolving around nip.

**system**: That's right.

**system**: And it also includes those tools and the content that the accelerator and genre growth don't have.

**microphone**: Exactly like accelerator and genre growth are working with, like, just the stock tooling that we offer within uef.

**microphone**: N.

**system**: Mostly yeah.

**microphone**: Right mostly. And, yeah, the IP program basically.

**microphone**: Adds a level of support because it's a specific IP. So you need, like, specific assets and, like, specific kind of tooling.

**microphone**: But, like, all of those things are today for, like, fortnite experiences, they show up as styles within fortnite, like we have battle Royal, we have, like, all of these, right? Try tycoon is a classic example of, like, you know, something that.

**microphone**: Is.

**microphone**: You know, coming through the IP program from star voice. But then at the same time, we also are doing a bunch of, like, genre growth around, like the tycoon genre.

**microphone**: For instance.

**microphone**: Right.

**microphone**: So maybe interchangeable or little fungible, but, like, this is.

**microphone**: This is how things stand as of today.

**microphone**: Right now, once Evo comes out, of course, like, we have these Partnerships with Warner Brothers, which is signed and, like, we're speaking with metal and Sega, and they have their existing games.

**microphone**: Which they may repurpose for Evo. And that's basically what we are calling Island development.

**microphone**: Right?

**system**: Is that a is that a question?

**microphone**: Yeah, that's more a question. Like, I'm just trying to understand, like, say Warner Brothers has Harry Potter, like, hogwarts Legacy if they bring it to evil, would you call that Island development internally?

**microphone**: Or would you call that.

**system**: Going back to this slide here.

**system**: This is I think.

**system**: Oops a fairly good depiction of how we look at the Evo universes right now there are games that Sega will make.

**system**: And we will support them in finding developers picking concepts conducting RFPs but ultimately SEGA will contract.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: And spend money to make games that will be published by Sega.

**system**: And then on the right side of the slide we're going to make an IP program around an IP that we suggest and Sega approves it could be one of the same IPs from the flagship catalog are game but it will be for developers to make versions of.

**system**: And then we'll do the content and we'll do an example game which we call an exemplar.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: So both companies are doing island development.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: And in the case of the flagship the brand is leading and epic is supporting and in the case of the exemplar epic is leading in the brand is supporting.

**microphone**: It's. It's kind of like an IP program with an Evo.

**system**: Yes exactly that's exactly what it is in the pink text on the right that's right.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Makes sense. Okay. Okay.

**system**: And the and the reason we do that is because we want developers to be motivated to make games by the IP that they care about and the high quality content and we want a universe to be full of games so that players have choice and that the brand you know feels like they want to do more IP programs with more development and more games earning you know it would eventually approach a long tail of different choices with a lot of games having.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: Some engagement some monetization.

**microphone**: Makes sense.

**microphone**: Just curious why we did not merge IP program and ego into, like, just one bucket because I'm guessing when Evo comes out, all of it stand, like, sits on the same surface.

**system**: That's a good question.

**microphone**: And the way I understand it. Yeah. The way I understand it, it's just the surface that's different today.

**microphone**: In that Warner Brothers is being developed for the evo surface versus droid tycoon is being developed for the fortnite surface. But when Evo does come out, it comes out of the fortnite surface.

**microphone**: And sits on the evo surface.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: Okay so part of this is we have one foot in the present and one foot in the future and part of this is because not every single IP deserves or rises to the level of being an evil universe for instance we've been working on Dungeons and Dragons which is now being paused but Dungeons and Dragons would launch into the third party megaverse which is kind of.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: We don't want it to be the everything drawer but it's kind of becoming that catch all but if we eventually had a Hasbro universe because they own.

**system**: You know IP like DD and transformers in my little pony then we would seek to collect or aggregate all that content into a brand universe.

**system**: So the reason we have IP program inside and outside of Evo depends on the relationship.

**system**: Personally I think this is going to be awkward for players because people don't necessarily say hey I'm in the mood to play a Mattel game.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: People don't navigate the world by those logos but this is the strategy that we're executing and we'll need IP programs both inside and outside depending on the maturity or size of the relationship.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Get it. Get it completely. And that makes sense. It makes sense. So, like, I am seeing how the Evo.

**microphone**: Arm is really anchored on, like, a universe.

**microphone**: Right.

**microphone**: And the IP program is basically anchored on an IP which may or may not have the potential to be an entire.

**microphone**: Universe.

**microphone**: In itself.

**system**: Right.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: So we have we have common building blocks that can go into all buckets right we have island development for Shah growth accelerator.

**system**: IP program.

**system**: Actually maybe they're not common to all buckets we have IP content which is.

**system**: That's in the IP program.

**system**: But also EVO and we have xdev.

**system**: All the above and so it's kind of like I think about it when I go to a restaurant like if I go to a Mexican restaurant I'm going to get the same ingredients served different ways like I'm going to get a burrito or a quesadilla I'm going to get a taco we're kind of doing that because people like to consume these content or epic likes to merchandise this content in different ways for different reasons.

**microphone**: Yeah, that makes sense.

**microphone**: That makes sense.

**microphone**: Got it. And do you expect a lot of what we are doing with the accelerator and genre growth to end up in the mega verse eventually?

**system**: All of it will go in the megaverse yes.

**microphone**: All right, it makes sense. Unless we are doing something like an angry birds and Romeo ends up building its own universe and we have, like, an ego deal with them.

**system**: That's a great example Sega owns rovio and so the angry birds island will launch in the megaverse and it will move to the Sega verse when the Sega universe is launched.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Perfect.

**microphone**: I am completely aligned now. I just. I had to spend some time to and froing on this.

**system**: Thank you.

**system**: Oh no this is great I'm so glad that you want to have this understanding kunj and I weren't able to get to this level of of intimacy with the work because he was very busy and we didn't have too rushed to get things done so yes I think that's great.

**system**: Okay so if we are aligned on how conceptually we look at this work.

**system**: Then it might make sense to start.

**system**: You know when we talk about accelerator and genre growth we can just say accelerator and you know that the IP program now some of its work goes in the megaverse we can call that the IP program.

**system**: And eventually a lot of that will go into evo but not all of it depending on the the brand.

**system**: And xdev.

**system**: Is mostly IP right now but will be spread across everything as we do as that team merges in I mean.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: This we have a lot of designers and we have designers inside the IP team and we have them outside the IP team Eric is probably going to have to clean that up.

**system**: And we have producers right Andy Barton leads a large production team but also we have Jocelyn La Francois and he has a production team and Eric may choose to kind of push those together so that's another layer organizationally is is just the crafts and how they're assigned to these three different groups of work.

**system**: And because the exev hangs off of them right like.

**system**: Right now the accelerator and genre growth don't have an art team.

**system**: Shawn frisbee runs all of that art including our big art vendors including kit bash and roommate and loops in and on and on and the production team some of them are from globant and some of them are from keywords and something.

**system**: Like that's a level of of understanding that I want us to to get to or at least just to articulate it.

**system**: Because it will have to track that as it moves.

**microphone**: May be worth putting that structure also on a piece of paper. Maybe not right now, but just so that we are, like, speaking the same language when those things come up in conversations.

**system**: Yeah, so I think I shared this with you yeah so this document that I made quickly before break I will make it better.

**microphone**: Okay. Okay.

**system**: But this this gets some of those oh, this doesn't have org on it kind of does.

**microphone**: Oh, yeah.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Yeah, this. Yeah.

**microphone**: Maybe. Yeah.

**system**: But like for instance partner universes is evo ecosys accelerator IP dev yeah I owe you a better.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: Org chart.

**microphone**: Yeah, I can.

**system**: So in future meetings you know or we can do it async in between maybe we could go bucket by bucket.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: For instance I think ipdev is really interesting right now because star wars is over so how much money is left.

**system**: And Simpsons is just getting started.

**system**: You know have we spent anything yet probably not much DD is effectively canceled it may come back in 2028 but how much money was spent on that so like I think taking an actuals lens to look at some of these projects very closely will help us understand if we have any money left that we can use for the rest of the year or if it's all committed for instance bill wants to move forward with Sega and Mattel even before we have a signed contract and that may result in some ex dev work before we start signing up island development deals.

**system**: What do you think where do you think we should start?

**microphone**: I think makes sense.

**microphone**: Yeah, we can start with the IP.

**microphone**: Program stuff.

**microphone**: I think.

**microphone**: I.

**microphone**: I also have maybe an alternate.

**microphone**: Path I could propose here.

**system**: Please yeah.

**microphone**: Maybe what we could do is.

**microphone**: Just.

**microphone**: Get. Let's look at the numbers we had, the 17.2 million and how we had divided that.

**microphone**: Between accelerators.

**microphone**: IP program, and there was nothing for ego in there.

**microphone**: How has that shifted internally in terms of our plan?

**microphone**: Right. And then we compare.

**microphone**: Cooper data.

**microphone**: Against that.

**microphone**: So we look at all the peers that have come through and we map them against our current plan.

**microphone**: To give us a sense of. Okay, do we need to, like, change of plan or do we need to kind of, you know,

**microphone**: Just keep it the way it is? Like, maybe you are budgeting 5 million. Like, just hypothetically, like throwing a number here.

**microphone**: 5 million for accelerators.

**microphone**: And.

**microphone**: Like.

**microphone**: Now in this new scheme of things, maybe we are gonna spend like 6 million on it.

**microphone**: We want to compare.

**microphone**: The cooper peos that we have received for work around the accelerators against that 6 million.

**microphone**: And.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: I think.

**system**: You and I both want to get to the same place and suggesting two very similar starting points but we want to do the same thing which is we want to understand how much we've spent how much is committed and how much we have remaining.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: Yeah so that's good now would be a good time for me to tell you that the team has decided with eric's approval to cancel or terminate the power wash simulator project this was a $500,000 project started last year and it was one of the it was a pilot program is one of the first island development accelerator deals that we did the reason they want to terminate at Darsh is that they gave feedback to the team the external studio future.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: Over and over again and they did not make the changes that they needed to to make the game fun.

**system**: Now the game's still going to launch in our ecosystem but we.

**system**: Don't want to continue spending against it although I wish the team.

**system**: Would have stopped it sooner so we are sending them a termination notice they're already aware we're going to terminate but we're going to send it to them probably today and they will need to invoice for about $450,000 of the $500,000 budget.

**system**: And we are not going to be able to recover that and Bill is on board with this.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: So anyway this touchpoint will be good for me to tell you these things as they as they come up.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: Similarly for the IP program.

**system**: We did a project for Sony back in March around the artist it's written loufi but it's pronounced leve anyways 250,000 and they had not invoiced at all until now and so I just approved those invoices because we did the work and like sign deal and all those things and so that'll be 250 hitting us this month or in 45 days.

**system**: So yeah between those two what is that?

**system**: About 700 grand.

**microphone**: Yeah. And that's all, like, accelerator stuff.

**system**: Well one is accelerator and the other one fits into the IP program we have this concept of of second party so first party stuff we do third party stuff the develop the community does second part is like epic has to be involved because it uses a feature that the community doesn't have access to and so the Sony deal was second party those have been historically handled by the IP team so I'll put that in here.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Okay.

**system**: Second party.

**system**: Simpson crunchy roll was another one of those which we eventually we had money budgeted for crunchy at 500 but we didn't spend any of it because we.

**system**: Decided not to invest a dollar we just invested our people.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Okay. Interesting.

**system**: So yeah we can go through.

**system**: However you want to do it I'm fine to do it that way.

**system**: And just go look at the buckets and POs and stuff.

**microphone**: I think.

**microphone**: Yeah, I think it would be a good point then to, like, just pivot into, like, the p we have received.

**microphone**: So, like, just most of the spend, right, that we have in 2026 is showing up here.

**microphone**: You can feel confident about that in terms of what ever peers have come in here.

**microphone**: I'll just zoom in a bit.

**system**: Yeah thanks.

**microphone**: So. So there's 14.7 million worth of spend that have come through on cooper.

**microphone**: That have been tagged to the IP publishing and dev cost center.

**microphone**: Or the megaverse cost center.

**microphone**: Right.

**microphone**: I have tagged those f against the budget lines wherever possible.

**microphone**: And if you look at external vendors, right, for instance, I have 8 million right here.

**microphone**: Now.

**microphone**: We could argue that one of the others doesn't sit here.

**microphone**: So let me take that out and park it.

**microphone**: In not budgeted for the time being because we did not really have any over budget.

**microphone**: So that brings us to 7 million.

**microphone**: And then all of these are vendors that I have tagged against external vendors for now.

**microphone**: Right.

**microphone**: Could you maybe just help? Maybe. Can we. Can we go through this list together and figure out which are the POs that are not.

**microphone**: External vendor related?

**microphone**: Right?

**microphone**: And we can, like, reallocate them to the appropriate line. And if it is related to evo, we just pluck it in the not budgeted line for now.

**system**: Yes okay so when you say not related to external vendors do you mean like external vendors.

**system**: Like kit bash and loops and roommates.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Which is where I think our conversation right now helps. So maybe the way we can look at external vendors is anything that's related to tools and content.

**microphone**: Right. And Exemplar Island development of, you know, genre growth or accelerator can sit in any of these lines. Right. Because we did have those lines in our budget.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: So I just want to say at the top I think we will need Andy barton's help for some of these because he's been very focused on the ipdev program and I'll call the you can see his name next to them but for instance when I look at the.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: Dungeons and Dragons line in the the main spreadsheet and I.

**system**: I see that we have 1.5 million budgeted for that I'm surprised to see that we've already got 1.3 million committed for that.

**system**: Because island development hasn't started on the exemplars you know maybe some content development has started but it looks like Andy maybe is using some of for instance kit bash.

**system**: Or roommates to do DD work.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: And I don't know how he's spreading that around so we'll need to get his input and he's in the UK so this would not be a good time for him.

**system**: So if we need to do like a one-off meeting or every other meeting we go early to get him we should.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: But yeah I'm happy to talk through each one of these do you want to start that now?

**system**: Or.

**microphone**: Yeah. Just. I know we are at time, so we can, like, definitely pick it up and, like, continue from here.

**system**: I can go a little longer if you want to.

**microphone**: Okay, maybe we can just do a quick dry run on the dungeons and dragon's line because we are here right now.

**microphone**: So the 1.3 million is.

**system**: Interesting okay so resurgence gaming is also known as ghost gaming this is for a genre growth project this is not part of DD.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Yep.

**microphone**: Okay.

**microphone**: Got it. So should I put it against ecosystem programs?

**microphone**: Then?

**system**: Yes.

**microphone**: As a, as the original budget line?

**system**: That's correct that's where that belongs.

**microphone**: I just dragged it out there.

**microphone**: So that's out of here. We are at 853 now.

**system**: Okay so future trash.

**microphone**: It's also joiner.

**microphone**: Push.

**system**: Yeah that also is genre where it says creature based game yep.

**microphone**: Yep.

**microphone**: So that goes in there as well.

**system**: And then keywords who is that for that is senior arts okay so this is an extev line that I would like to move to xdev now until we can get Andy's thoughts about how we wants to allocate this across.

**microphone**: So that.

**system**: Different projects and then this one is a creature based game.

**system**: That we actually terminated so instead of the total budget of 330 we stopped it early at 170.

**system**: So that is part of genre growth not D and D.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: I don't know how you want to recognize.

**system**: I mean is it is savings or is it just you know unspent budget.

**microphone**: I think.

**microphone**: Yeah, it'll show up as savings here.

**microphone**: Right. Because you budgeted 3 million.

**microphone**: Originally.

**microphone**: And we have spent around 1.1 million till date.

**microphone**: So there's 1.9 million that is as of today saved on this line.

**system**: This gets D and D closer to where I thought it was which was closer to zero I think we spent some money with them but maybe we need Andy's help to go find where those costs are because they're probably hiding in some of the vendor costs.

**microphone**: Yes.

**microphone**: Yeah, it's probably hiding in, like, one of these lines.

**system**: Do you want to do any more of these before we finish?

**microphone**: Maybe.

**microphone**: Yeah. Like maybe just a small one, like the Simpsons.

**microphone**: Thing.

**system**: Yeah so.

**microphone**: Right?

**system**: This one probably belongs spread across multiple projects but Andy would know that I don't know the answer to that today so the reword is too new.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**microphone**: Bird.

**microphone**: Perfect. Makes sense. I can split this across these lines as well.

**microphone**: So whenever we have Andy on, we can, like, discuss as to how the 1.9 million can be divided across maybe, say, star wars and Simpsons and, like, dnd.

**microphone**: If, if at all.

**system**: I have a question about the the dashboard it says.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: Three more lines merged on that second line down are you.

**microphone**: Yes.

**system**: Are you able to to show those lines that were merged.

**microphone**: I can show them here for the time being, we can look at it over here.

**microphone**: So I'll just.

**microphone**: So the total number is 1.9 million or like close to 2 million here.

**system**: Right.

**microphone**: And it is basically four lines, right? So there's IP program art.

**microphone**: Which is.

**microphone**: The.

**microphone**: Like the line that it's capturing.

**system**: Yeah.

**microphone**: And then there's IP program design.

**microphone**: IP program production.

**microphone**: And IP program engineer.

**microphone**: Ing.

**system**: This is a roll up of many different capabilities okay yeah I mean.

**microphone**: Yeah.

**system**: If this is useful to you as a next step for our discussion I I'm happy to do this we can have part two tomorrow if you want and keep going I think this is really important that we get this these attributed to the right buckets so that we have a better picture of where we're at.

**microphone**: And, like, the way my, like, my vision for this, John, is that once we have, like, the right peers against the right lines.

**microphone**: You'll be in a much better position to, like, land for this year, right? As to.

**system**: 100 yeah yeah absolutely.

**microphone**: Like, okay, like, I have spent 1.1 million on ecosystem programs. I probably don't want to spend more than that. Like, I would like to reallocate all of the resources towards Evo. So the 1.9 million over here can go towards.

**microphone**: E like stuff like that.

**system**: Yeah no that makes sense this is the level of visibility and transparency that we need to close out the year strong and ask for the right amount of money next year and and I mean Evo does not replace accelerator this is an expansion not an evolution of what we're doing necessarily for this team so anyway I know we went over this is super useful discussion thank you for setting it up.

**microphone**: Exactly.

**microphone**: Now perfect. Awesome. I am. I'm glad we had this. It was super helpful for me as well. I have a lot more context now, so I'm gonna still take, like, you know, another run at these, like, POS because I had allocated them on an arbitrary basis.

**microphone**: I will go through them once again with the context again today.

**microphone**: And, you know, just reallocate them and then maybe, like, set up a 30 minute with you. We can just do, like, one final pass next week, like maybe Monday or Tuesday, early next week. We can try to get some time with Andy on so that we can get, like, it even more accurate. And once we have that before our next weekly, like, I think it's scheduled for Wednesday for now, but we can, like, move it around before our next weekly, we can have, like, a good view and then we can, like, nail down the.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: That's good.

**microphone**: Plan against.

**system**: Yeah this I can't overstate how important this is to me that we get where get back to where we need to be with this discussion so please budget as much time with me as often as you need to I'm here for it.

**microphone**: Like.

**microphone**: Okay, awesome. No, perfect. So I'm gonna go back, spend some time on this. I'll send 30 minutes out to you for tomorrow, and then we can figure out the time is handy and let's take it from there.

**system**: Awesome Darsh thanks so much man have a good night see.

**microphone**: Thank you so much.

**microphone**: Yeah. See you. Bye bye.