Alexander Harutyunyan, General Director of Innova, told App2Top.ru about how the year has passed for him, as well as about the most important trends in the industry.
Alexander HarutyunyanHow was 2018 for you personally?
The year flew by very quickly and was as eventful as possible: the company reviewed and analyzed a large number of directions. I was once again convinced that the team, the people you work with, is the main thing. I’m getting high from the fact that I’m so lucky with the team.
This year, the dynamics of events has greatly increased, even more connections and partnerships have appeared. According to approximate calculations, I have flown more than a hundred thousand miles, meeting and communicating with both new and long-time partners. I visited Brazil for the first time this year. Impressions are mixed, of course. On the one hand, I was convinced that everything is not as dangerous as they say, even though I did not get to the favelas. People are open, welcoming, ready to help with advice. On the other hand, the standard of living is not the highest.
This was my second year as CEO, and if I could talk to myself now two years ago, I would advise you to pay attention once again to how important a solid team of like-minded people is. On how huge our gaming market is, that you need to be flexible, proactive to meet all the new changes that occur in the industry every day.
I was convinced that there are a lot of professionals in Russia, that we have a fairly strong technical education, which gives high-quality personnel at the output. And this is valuable, it can be supplied to other markets. For example, in Brazil there is a clear shortage of qualified specialists.
How was the year for your company?
In the summer, the updated launcher of the Fogame gaming platform went into beta testing. Soon all our players will have the opportunity to launch their favorite projects in a couple of clicks, find out the news and contact the support service.
Not without new projects. We have announced to the press and users the Crowfall project from the Texas developers of ArtCraft. Together with them, our team is preparing for alpha testing this unusual game, where you have to fight for the resources of constantly emerging and dying worlds.
We also signed an agreement with Pearl Abyss, and an entry point to the MMORPG Black Desert Online appeared on the Fogame platform.
ZeniMax has also appeared among the new partners — we have received the rights to distribute the keys of Bethesda Game Studios. This means that even more popular games of this studio will appear in the digital goods store “Fogame”.
This year we were preparing for the 10th anniversary of the legendary Lineage 2 game. In honor of this, a large-scale Medieval fest was held in the Bauman Garden in September. According to our data, more than 10 thousand people took part in the celebration of the birthday of the “Ruler” — current and former players who came with their families, remembered the fervent spirit of PvP, plunged back into medieval and fantasy style. Many of them specially came from other cities.
One of the important achievements is that Innova has finally become an international company: we have strengthened our position in Europe and have come to Brazil.
Separately, I would like to note the launch of the Brazilian direction. Now it is presented by the RF Online project, but in the near future we plan to announce two more games.
We chose RF Online for several reasons at once. Firstly, for us it is the most familiar product, which is easier to operate on an unfamiliar market. Once we started in Russia with this game. In addition, we have excellent relations with developers. Secondly, our analysis of the launch of the game in Europe showed that 30% of the audience played from Brazil. There is a certain interest in RF Online there.
Brazil and the following countries are the way to become a single platform for many territories in the future. This is a new experience for us, but we already see interest from the players and hope that they, as users of Europe and the CIS, will appreciate the convenience, reliability and quality of the gameplay on the Fogame platform.
Which event of 2018 do you consider the most important for the industry?
Of course, the new “Fogame” — the players have been asking us about it for a long time.
But seriously, such an event can be considered the announcement of the Epic Games Store. Many developers, as well as large and medium-sized publishers, are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with platforms like Steam, their policies and final remuneration. At the same time, a huge number of really good projects risk being unnoticed by players. Indie developers are trying their best to find publishers who will somehow promote them – otherwise they simply will not survive. We also see this problem and are ready to work with Russian and international studios at different levels of project readiness — for example, we have opened a special direction for independent developers, including those who are engaged in the mobile direction.
What trends of the outgoing year would you note?
As I assumed in last year’s interview, now there is a massive return of old hits in the form of remasters and remakes — titles such as Spyro, Desperados, Settlers, Darksiders. Of course, there were enough of them before, but this year there were really a lot of such releases.
We have not lagged behind the trend: in the summer, long-time fans of Ragnarök Online were able to enjoy long-standing adventures again. In the near future, the project is waiting for additional updates that will make it as close as possible to that good old game that oldfags liked.
Another trend that should be noted is the sharp collapse of the VR market. It was possible to assume that this would happen: complex technology, many limitations. Now sales of conventional helmets have decreased by almost 60%, and manufacturers are trying to somehow attract the audience with cheaper products – autonomous helmets. Apparently, the option is not the most successful and I am not sure that something will change for the better in the future.
But for augmented reality, next year, I think, will be interesting. As soon as Google opened the source code of its AR, there was a clear interest in developing games based on it. Perhaps someone else will want to repeat the success of the guys from Nianti, who, after geolocation Ingress and Pokémon Go, are already planning a game in the Harry Potter universe. I wonder what will come of it.
Name the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most.
Despite the fact that I prefer shooters, I was struck by the God of War action — first of all, by the courage of the developers. The guys were not afraid to change the image of the hero, to make him truly human. As a result, the players received a completely non-standard story for the entire series.
Among the projects of independent developers, I would like to mention the Celeste platformer. It feels like the developers wanted not just to create a game, but also to show their perception of the world, touch on the issue of self-awareness. Very impressed.
Also, although this is not a third-party project, but I was very happy to play the Ironsight shooter announced by us. Decent graphics, various modes, an interesting confrontation, and at the same time a collaboration of people and machines. And it’s easy to master. I recommend it.
Of course, we can also mention Red Dead Redemption 2. The game is bright, expressive, but I, as they say, did not go in. Passed only 20 percent. Still, I prefer more dynamic games, and sitting and waiting for the opponent is not for me.