Kirill Petrov, co-founder of i-Free and Managing Director of Zillion Whales, said App2Top.ru , how the year has passed for his gaming business and named the most important trends of recent months.
Kirill PetrovHow was 2017 for you?
In general, it is very active, interesting and mainly in the works.
We have seriously developed the AI direction within the i-Free group – the Just AI company; launched the first children’s robot Emelya, who understands natural speech; signed a number of important contracts.
There was a lot of activity in our gaming companies. They began to look closely at Cyprus, where more and more friendly companies are leaving. We have found several major strategic partners for a number of our businesses.
If outside of work, then there was very little time, there was not even a vacation really. But my daughter, Alice, went to the first grade and began to study the basics of programming at the Codabra courses, which we provide a platform for in our office.
How was the year for the gaming business?
Zillion Whales has dedicated this year to its flagship product Mushroom Wars 2 and bringing it to mind. As a result: throughout the year, the company has been developing and increasing its income.
We have signed an exclusive contract with China Mobile for China on good terms for us.
We have successfully released Mushroom Wars 2 on Steam and have almost finished porting it to the Nintendo Switch and PS4. Releases will be in early 2018.
If you believe Nintendo, Mushroom Wars 2 will be the first game from the CIS released on Switch.
Mushroom Wars 2
Aigrind has increased its revenue from Warspear OnLine by launching the game on Steam.
But with the new product – the big MMO game Skylore – there are still delays. We are still waiting for the launch in softlonch, but there is a chance that we will not have time this year. But in 2018 we will definitely start.
Herocraft had a difficult year, but everything turned out well in the final. In addition to the success of the flagship product Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf, which launched on Steam (and, in general, success in the publishing direction on Steam), the company has prepared an excellent portfolio of interesting products for launch in 2018, and also finally found a title that quickly repels purchase traffic. We look forward to rapid growth in 2018.
What event of 2017 do you consider the most important for the industry?
Successful launch of the Nintendo Switch console. Nintendo has practically formed a new niche. Now it is obvious that this is a strong player that affects the entire market, especially considering Nintendo’s unprecedented openness to independent developers. Perhaps there will be a response from Sony.
What trends of the outgoing year would you note?
The trend with mobile hardcore AAA is well traced in the Chinese market. Vivid examples: successful games in the genre of MOBA and battle royal. This means that we should prepare for a change in the global market, where this trend will reach next year.
Well, in general, the dominance of battle royale after the release of PUBG, everyone rushed to make them on mobile phones and not only.
Esports is attracting more and more attention: even investment funds, which usually remain neutral to games, are actively interested in such products.
Another trend was the growth of the bitcoin exchange rate and the ultra-high interest in ICO. This could not but affect the gaming market – there were many ICO gaming companies and companies that are trying to create gaming platforms on the blockchain. The most striking project was CryptoKitties, which appeared in November and unexpectedly successfully launched.
I expect this trend to intensify next year and, quite possibly, we will see the formation of a whole new gaming market. What will be more in it – new game mechanics, HYPE, speculation or new forms of gambling – time will tell.
Name the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most.
Zelda is a game that went against the flow and showed everyone that the main thing in the game is the gameplay.
Last Day on Earth. “Kefir!” – well done, they were able to make a successful product in a matter of “days”, there is much to learn.
Personally, I stuck to XCOM 2, although there was little time to play and I missed many other interesting projects.
XCOM 2
Well, as the father of a first-grader, I was looking for games that I could usefully play with my child (I believe that properly selected games and joint play help a lot in the educational and educational processes).
To Never Alone, Minecraft, The Child of Light this year was added a cute quest The Little Acre in an unusual universe in the style of Miyazaki, in which a little girl saves her dad.