Business Development Manager of Microsoft partners Viktor Kiselyov said App2Top.ru about how this year has passed for the company, and at the same time noted the factors of the successful launch of PUBG.
Victor KiselyovHow was 2017 for you?
Now I work at Microsoft and am responsible for developing relationships with partners, including gaming companies. But on weekends I continue to develop and I sincerely believe that this is one of the coolest things to do. It inspires me when you can make a working mechanism with your own hands in a week from an idea invented in the subway.
By the way, about a couple of weeks ago I launched a prototype imonstream.com , which analyzes video streams of players on twitch.tv and indexes in-game events using computer vision. Any player can find himself by nickname and find out if he lit up in any broadcast with a famous streamer. And if so, the site will give you a link to the video and the specific time when it happened.
How was the year for the company?
In 2017, an active phase of transformation and restructuring at Microsoft began. Many departments and employees have changed their tasks and goals. To a greater extent, these changes have affected working with large and medium–sized clients, but for clients these changes are only for the better. Of course, it is not easy to change the working processes in the company, because they have hardly changed in the last 15-20 years.
The strategic changes are very correct, in practice – we will see how it will be further.
If we talk about working with the gaming industry, then by 2017 we can see the direction of Microsoft’s development for the next few years. We released Xbox ONE X (aka Scorpion), Windows Mixed Reality helmets based on Windows 10 from Asus, Samsung, Dell, HP and Lenovo went on retail sale. We also added support for SteamVR content, which automatically added about 2000 games [to our library].
What trends of the outgoing year would you note?
1) AR
Apple, Google, Microsoft have made their own ARKits and devices that support them. I think it’s too early to make full-fledged cool games for these pieces. However, AR as an additional mechanism of interaction in games and applications already looks very cool.
2) VR
It looks like VR has found game genres where it fits perfectly. First of all, it is very well suited for racing simulators, tanks and airplanes. VR also works great in horror, quests and exploration.
3) Twitch.tv as a working marketing channel for near-game topics
I believe that the success of PUBG was just the result of excellent work with video filters, which helped make the coolest game launch in history.
4) China
What everyone predicted for a long time seems to have happened – most of the players, at least on PC on Steam, are now from China.
Based on SteamSpy data
There are more Chinese in PUBG than all other players from all over the world combined.
Based on SteamSpy dataName the projects of this year that you liked the most.
Most of all, I was impressed by the stunning release of the PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS game to the market.
From a technical point of view, it seems that the game is not made of super quality, although it’s too early to talk about it, because it’s still in Early Access. Despite this, the cool game mechanics and, most importantly, the marketing and PR of the game done by Ayzenberg made the game a hit of the year.
Analyzing their actions, I would focus on several factors that greatly distinguished the output of this game from other launches.
- Phenomenal work with game streamers. I think this is the most important factor that gave the game such a [powerful] initial boost.
- Working with the community. The developers in their blog tell all the details: why this or that feature worked or did not work, what they plan to fix in the near future. They also really read reviews and this is very noticeable on Reddit, where a post that has collected several thousand votes about some problem immediately causes a reaction from developers and a month later they are already rolling out a fix.