Rocket Jump Studio Director Konstantin Mitrofanov shared with App2Top.ru the way this year has passed for him and his company.
Konstantin MitrofanovHow was 2017 for you?
Personally, this year has become special for me. In a nutshell, I managed much more than I thought I could manage. Once again I was convinced that competent work with my schedule and priorities can work wonders. You are always afraid of losing concentration on the company’s affairs, but in 2017 there was time for traveling, for performing at DevGAMM, and for family events without compromising the work of the studio.
A good year is one that teaches something useful. 2017 turned out to be very good for me.
How was the year for the company?
For Rocket Jump, the year was full of hard work. We had big plans, and if in 2016 we were very much engaged in organizational structure, then in 2017 we focused on projects. Of the most notable achievements, I will note the formation of the Unity development team. Back in January, we didn’t have a single specialist, and now we have a powerful team of professionals, consisting not only of new people, but also of Rocket Jump veterans who quickly mastered this technology and are now giving heat. At the moment, we have managed to assemble several working prototypes and next year we are preparing to launch our first major Unity project in production.
I also consider our success to be the rapid retraining of the technical team during the transition from the development of browser games to mobile ones. The effort and time we spent on this paid off 100%. After all, what is the most important thing for a developer studio? Cool specialists who are able to perform any task. And our team has once again proved that it is ready to evolve.
ImperialWhat event of 2017 do you consider the most important for the industry?
The main event of the year is the rapid rise of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. The game has formed a fresh promising genre at the junction of modern game design trends in the shortest possible time. There is also emergent gameplay (instead of a specific plot, there are unique micro—stories generated by the players themselves, providing the project with word of mouth), and a huge potential for streaming, and the ability to support the product for many years.
It has been a long time since there have been such success stories in the industry when giant publishers and their space budgets are not behind the resounding success of the project. PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS is a game that made itself. This inspires creators and businesses alike — just look at what has become of Fortnite and the machine-gun queue of PUBG clones on the mobile market. At the same time, the battle royale genre has just been born, and I am sure that other notable projects on different platforms will soon grow out of it.
What trends of the outgoing year would you note?
A vivid performance of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS and the battle royale genre in general, as discussed earlier.
I will also note the scandal around loot boxes in general and around Battlefront 2 in particular. As for BF2, it is a useful example for the industry, showing that a “vocal minority” of players can influence even such a giant as EA, if the situation is given sufficient publicity. The company has lost more than $3 billion on this story and will clearly draw conclusions about what problems the rough introduction of “mobile” monetization mechanics into a classic AAA console product can cause. Hence the general problem of loot boxes — the industry is looking for new ways to make a profit, and this is normal, given the development of technology and the rising cost of developing blockbusters. The question is how quickly large companies will learn new ways of monetization without causing aggression from the core audience.
Name the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most.
For Honor. This project brought me a lot of positive emotions and at the same time a lot of grief. Perhaps, of all the major announcements of 2016, I was looking forward to it.
For Honor
As a result, we got a great concept with an emphasis on esports, cool combat mechanics, and all this in the wrapper of the harsh pseudo-Middle Ages (and I love such settings).
For the sake of this game, I pulled out a gamepad that had been gathering dust there for 2 years! However, the joy was short-lived. The problem with the servers at the start quickly killed the enthusiasm of the players. I spat, but continued to “eat cactus”, although technical problems remained a month or two after the launch. The game suffered from crashes and freezes, lags, balance problems and, as a result, a sharp drop in online and matchmaking problems.
Now PC For Honor is dead, and a miraculous rebirth is unlikely to happen. This is the saddest thing. But this proves that a good concept and even a good implementation of individual components of the project does not guarantee success.
Nevertheless, the game is wonderful. I remember her — and I would advise those who did not have time to get acquainted with her to do so despite the mixed reviews of the players.