Last week it became known that Pinkapp will finance “one of the finalists” of GameJam Kanobu. We talked to the CEO of the studio about why Pinkapp went to this.
Hi! First of all, please tell us a little about Pinkapp. What do you do, what did you do before and why did you turn your attention to games?
Alexey Mikhailov, CEO of PinkappHi !
Before the launch in 2012, we worked for a long time in the Russian office of Panasonic Corporation in the field of product and Internet marketing.
Then the Madrobots store was launched. For 2 years of work, he entered the Top 10 Russian online gadget stores in terms of turnover and attendance. Then the positioning of Madrobots as a store of devices from the world of “Internet of things”, “smart watches” and, of course, our policy of openness helped us in this.
At the end of 2014, we actively discussed business prospects, taking into account the crisis phenomena in the economy: the weakening of the ruble, the decline in consumer demand and high interest rates on loans.
In a situation of uncertainty, many people around shut down business, stopped financing projects.
Then we remembered the Chinese meaning of the word “crisis”, which includes, in addition to the meaning of “danger”, also “opportunity”. So we decided to look at the business from a different angle.
Madrobots
A global product, a growing market, ruble costs and foreign exchange earnings – these are the main criteria by which games came into the field of our interests.
It turned out that among our social circle there were many specialists from game dev who contributed to the creation of the Pinkapp project, arming us with their knowledge and experience.
The entry threshold for new players and competition among mobile game developers are growing every year, but the active process of market consolidation has not yet begun, so we decided to jump into the last car of the departing train.
The Pinkapp project is quite resource-intensive and at the moment we are negotiating with a number of investors (including foreign ones) to attract additional financing.
Previously, when playing mobile games, we didn’t even think that in addition to fun, it could also be a business.
Your first entry into the gaming market turned out to be loud: did you announce that you are ready to finance and publish one of the finalists of GameJam Kanobu? Why would you do that?
We must pay tribute to the acquaintance with Sergey Babaev, he infected us with the idea of cooperation with indie developers and their creativity. Of course, there are many different projects on GameJam, there are serious titles from studios, but most are done by teams of 1 to 3 people, as a hobby, in their free time from their main work. So we thought: what if we choose a project that is interesting to us for publishing, and the guys will be able to develop on an ongoing basis, in fact as a studio. In any case, upon completion of the project, both sides will receive experience and expertise, and this is a Win-Win story.
“One of the finalists” is, to be honest, a little vague wording. How exactly will you choose a project? Perhaps you have already created your own checklist, which the project will have to correspond to? Share it?
Yes, it is one of the finalists, since some finalists may be financially self-sufficient or have grants from other investors and our support will be out of place for them. We do not pretend to be objective, but we will prioritize projects with non-standard art, interesting gameplay, a clear development timeline, and of course, the “like-dislike” principle will play an important role in the choice.
Now the jam involves projects that are completely different in terms of the level of investment required. There are big serious titles, like Starfall Tactics and Project Genom, whose budget can easily require $ 1 million, and there are slightly simpler projects, like the delicious Warbands: Bushido, which is already in alpha state and will obviously require more than a hundred thousand dollars for revision. Based on this, the question is: how much are you willing to spend on full financing?
First of all, we are talking about supporting independent teams developing on their own, and we do not have a goal to find a studio with a grandiose project, since this is really a different format and amount of investment. For this reason, titles such as Starfall Tactics and Project Genom do not fall into the circle of our interests. I associate project budgets from indie developers with amounts up to 100 thousand dollars. I would not like to announce our preliminary shortlist of finalists now in order to keep the intrigue of the competition until the end.
If we are not talking about jam, then what games are you currently working on yourself?
Now we are actively working on a 3D strategy – wargame with elements of direct control over the management of troops, the change of seasons, the possibility of choosing a race (Humans and Orcs), clan interaction, night battles and other interesting features.
WargameX
The working name is WargameX.
Already now the project causes the most positive emotions for testing, thanks to real, not pseudo 3D graphics.
When should I expect her?
Wargame is currently testing the beta version, the soft launch is planned for the summer and we hope to release it in the fall. We will keep you up to date with the news.
Thanks for the interview!