Results of 2017: Alexey Savchenko from Epic Games about the main thing for the year

Alexey Savchenko

How was 2017 for you?

Hi!

For me, the year was crazy in a good way, about a third of the time [fell] on shows, exhibitions and meetings.

On a personal level, we can say that we settled in England after moving, a number of new projects and initiatives in the company did not let us get bored.

For some reason, it was in 2017 that a lot of old friends who temporarily dropped out returned to the industry, plus [there were] new cool and talented specialists who are well done in all respects. In general, the cool thing is that the industry and generations in it are finding new bridges and ways to consolidate and build great plans together. I think that next year there will be many joint announcements and initiatives that will be aimed at supporting and developing the industry.

Of the important things: personally, this year I have finally sorted out the past, present and plans for the future and, on the whole, I am satisfied with the result.

From a cool current and not that working: I finished the book and am publishing it in 2018.

Alexey wrote the novel together with game producer Bert Jennings

I also came up with it and in my spare time I’m working on a big new setting. Next year, I’m finally planning to go to rock festivals again (it hasn’t been up to that for the last ten years or so) and include several new big projects as part of my work at Epic to support developers in the CIS and Eastern Europe.

In general, everything is cool and there is really nothing to complain about.

How was the year for the company?

I would say very well.

From the point of view of engine development: six major updates, consistent development of the toolset, support for most new platforms. GDC, Siggraph and Gamescom were also great for us. Everything was perfectly worked out in terms of game announcements and new features.

We have probably almost learned how to speak correctly at local events and have introduced a number of initiatives in support of developers (free stands for showcases, acquaintances with publishers and investment companies, assistance in preparing content, and so on), but in this aspect there is obviously room for further development. We plan to expand the range of these tools.

There was a lot of work on strategic deals with venture funds and initiatives. There is clearly not finished the process of “trial and error”. Game development/publishing and venture capital money are still two such different worlds, it’s hard to bring them together to be friends. However, there are already first successes. In a global sense, this “project” will be on the system rails in the first or second quarter of 2018, which will create a relatively new and fairly wide channel of investment in gaming projects on UE4 within a good win-win scenario for all participants in the process.

Regarding the market as a whole: the share of development on UE4 shows stable international (approximately 80-100 significant and large projects are announced annually at major events, more than 4 million UE4 users as of November 2017) and explosive growth in some regions, including the CIS and Eastern Europe (19 studios a year ago, 126 at the time of November 2017).

One of the latest projects from Eastern Europe on UE4 is Seven: The Days Long Gone

This, on the one hand, is cool and cannot but please us, on the other hand, there is a need to develop infrastructure, communication channels and system solutions. This is one of the regional priorities for next year. We also have a rough understanding of strategic partners in most countries and regions, we are planning a large series of joint meetings with developers, to assist in the development of educational stories and to help in solving personnel issues.

From the point of view of licensing: here we have kept and are trying to keep our finger on the pulse. In addition to the standard 5% gross revenue model, we are constantly developing alternative solutions for different studios and development formats (now we probably have about a dozen similar licensed products). We are always ready to discuss them with our partners after signing the NDA, we are ready to work out together the most convenient solution for both sides. And it pays off: 2017 was extremely successful for the company in terms of custom licensing.

In a short line: in view of the overall positive assessment of the work in 2017, we are also planning a couple of large projects to support developers next year. We also want to continue to contribute to solving the global challenges of the industry in the CIS, we will bring several new formats of programs and events from Europe, and, of course, we will continue to develop technology (follow the key announcements at GDC).

From the point of view of game development: the year was extremely successful for the company, primarily due to the release of Fortnite, which is now breaking all records for CCU and generally rushing at full steam like an armored train. A separate respect on this occasion to the guys from the development and operation: all very great fellows!

Fortnite

What event of 2017 do you consider the most important for the industry?

I will not be original here: PBUG shot a full-fledged phenomenon and proved once again that the gameplay solves.

The basic fundamentals of the industry remain the same: the former mod-developer makes a not very technically optimized and graphically outstanding MVP. And creates a new genre that collects all the cream from the market.

Boom. A success story. Minimum budget. Who would have thought. Dreams come true. Everyone can try again.

By the way, there are a lot of relatively funny consequences and reactions to this whole story (in addition to the obvious army of clones), like the fact that every big company is trying to revise the institute of scouting and identify similar stories before the rest. That is, the global impact on the market and its landscape is deeper than it may turn out to be.

Switch has also been released. He’s cool. It will probably be even cooler than the Wii. This is a platform that is a logical bridge between the premium, mobile segment and consoles. This is important both for studios and publishers (in terms of expanding the market for their products) and for us. Everyone knows which engine is best suited for such cross-platform development.

From March to October, Nintendo sold 7.63 million boxes with the new console

What trends of the outgoing year would you note?

Let me say three main ones from my point of view.

Last year I wrote that there is a lot of money in the industry: “there has never been such a thing.” It looks like this year, “and here it is again.”

Stock investments, diversification of funds from the private sector, publishers have expanded the volume of quotas for basic investment packages (and new publishers have appeared, there are about a dozen of them this year).

There is interest in all niches, because there are good commercial stories everywhere: PLUG in a new sector; Hellblade once again showed that a niche of a good singleplayer for a relatively small budget just like that took and sold half a million copies on a priority platform and will sell even more; tools and opportunities for indie developers to make a prototype and find their $50-300 thousand for development is more than ever before.

Hellblade 

There is a global development in the sectors of business development, as well as infrastructure and strategic projects.

On the one hand, a number of specialists available on the market have grown, who have found replacements for themselves, trained and jumped a step higher, on the other hand, young people who have been sown, sown and dispersed over the past three years in a row of still a little sharp, but cool specialists who are not afraid of much (this is important) and already think on an international scale. This party, which combines experience and the necessary energy potential, is now building, albeit quietly, global systems and stories on three continents and twenty actors, for which there are a lot of hopes in a relatively short term.

In general, the industry, from the point of view of key people and relationships, evolves in a positive sense into such things as normal, human altruism (where it is appropriate), normal risk calculation and planning of business aspects (where necessary) and into the development of a strategic perspective and understanding of the importance of cross-cultural aspects. It is very good.

Developing this idea a little: today, the local market is becoming more civilized, primarily due to the constant process of integration with the European and American sectors in all respects (opening studios, moving people, hiring Western legionnaires and expertise in local history, and so on). This is a positive trend, since all the practices from the nineties and “everything works differently here” – they not only greatly interfered in general, but also created an informal limit on any financial restrictions on the volume of contracts in the region. This is still the case, but the situation is changing and changing in a positive way. Also, this trend will undoubtedly affect the change in attitudes towards consumer and parasitic services and models on the part of developers (who, let’s not forget, are actually the main people in this market, without them we would all be doing something else). This is also good news.

Observer is another bright project of this year on UE4 from Eastern Europe

Name the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most.

PBUG as a phenomenon, and Fortnite as the best console entertainment. Also Zelda, since it’s some kind of game from the future that superhumans did, it doesn’t happen that way. Destiny 2 is also out of personal preferences (my friends and I have been running there for a month already), and Blizzard traditionally steals the best years of my life from Heroes of The Storm and Hearthstone.

In general, the year was generally incredibly good for releases, I just haven’t had time to finish everything that needs to be finished yet, but I plan to cope with this on the upcoming New Year holidays, on which I will congratulate everyone!