Traditionally, as January approaches, we sum up the results of the outgoing year together with representatives of gaming and related companies. Up next is an interview with Sergey Zanin, co-founder and CEO of Alawar.
How did 2025 turn out for your business? What achievements stand out? What conclusions did you draw for yourself?
Sergey Zanin, Alawar: We are pleased with the success of our franchises: the spin-off Beholder: Conductor was released in April, and the sequel Wall World in November.
Beholder: Conductor
It is worth noting the December release of the mobile version of Wall World in China. We are particularly proud of the speed at which the game was assigned an ISBN – it took only six months. Here are the links to the game in Chinese app stores:
This year was the most successful in terms of revenue on Steam since 2020. Working with the back catalog played a significant role in this: daily deals, publisher sales, bundles, and festival participation.
Our internal development team has grown by 20%, and we are working on more projects simultaneously.
Once again, we recognized the crucial importance of adhering to the declared values and philosophy of the company. In our case, this means:
- An information field open to all colleagues;
- Collegial decision-making;
- A comfortable and developmental team ecosystem.
Thanks to this, we managed to avoid mistakes that could have worsened the year's results.
From your point of view, how has the situation on the game publishing market changed?
Sergey: We returned to a situation where Russian-speaking game development requires special attention regarding interaction with the global market.
I have a clear sense of déjà vu from the decade between 1995 and 2005, although, of course, the configuration of challenges is different now.
The presence of global publishers here has significantly decreased in recent years, and we see the emergence of local mediators who are trying to position themselves as such an international bridge — a void rarely remains empty for long.
We will certainly correct the current situation as much as possible and work even more actively with national teams.
Have the practices working with developers changed? Has it become easier or more challenging to work with them? Perhaps they have changed somehow as a group?
Sergey: I answered this question in detail in previous interviews — we see more teams with mobile experience, and we see an increase in overall awareness among teams, which certainly makes the work easier.
What kind of year was it for the niche where you typically release games?
Sergey: Steam continues to grow — 41.6 million concurrent players in October 2025.
For comparison, last year's peak was around 39 million, and in 2023, it was 33.6 million.
So, there is still growth, but not as significant as in previous periods.
The number of releases will also surpass the previous year — they are already on par now.
However, even here, the growth demonstrates a very moderate trend.
Looking at the dynamics of 2022–2024 with 12, 14, and 18 thousand releases each year respectively, the approximate 20 thousand releases in 2025 will be the smallest increase since 2022.
Meanwhile, the number of releases that remained without reviews has grown — 2.2 thousand compared to 1.7 thousand in 2024, and there is still almost a month left in the year.
All of this indirectly confirms my point about the continued overheating of the market — both the user base and supply have stopped growing at the same rate as before.
What conclusions and lessons from 2025 would you highlight for developers who are only preparing for release?
Sergey: Creating an excellent product is not enough. Brilliant marketing is not enough. It must be competitive in terms of cost — under conditions of a "glass ceiling" on checks and the market's price conservatism.
It is precisely because of cost uncompetitiveness that even decent sales by historical standards fail to recoup modern development costs.
The result has been visible over the past few years — record highs in layoffs in the market.
To be fair, it's worth noting that, according to gaminglayoffs.com, the number of layoffs sharply dropped to a forecasted 3.5 thousand in 2025 from nearly 15 thousand in 2024.
And it's hardly a coincidence that this aligns with the advancement of neural networks and their increasing application in game development.
One might cautiously assume that developers fully understand these points and actively use AI to optimize time and financial resources, which positively impacts the industry's employment landscape.
What strengthening or emergence of trends in your niche are you expecting in 2026?
Sergey: In terms of game mechanics close to us, we see a continuing trend towards casual, friend-slop games.
Speaking of metrics, the number of wishlists as a key indicator of future success continues to cause us skepticism. Within the team, we even use the term "wish inflation."
Of course, each year we look forward to new tools that allow for more accurate and timely understanding of the potential of a particular idea.
It is evident that the market will try to test projects at increasingly early stages by any other legal means — we are actively engaged in this as well.
What are the company's plans for next year?
Sergey: As noted above, we plan to increase the number of our own releases and to publish projects from teams from all Eastern European countries without exception.
Despite the increasingly complex market, its feature is the variability of development opportunities — new platforms, stores, development tools, analytics, and marketing. This allows us to look forward to 2026 and beyond with optimism!
I wish all industry participants to stay positive, pursue what they love, and, of course, stick with App2Top!