Results of 2018: Vladimir Funtikov from Creative Mobile about the main thing for the year

Vladimir FuntikovHow was 2018 for you personally?

A year of challenges and exits from the comfort zone. I managed to try a lot of new things. For example, flying an airplane, spending the night in the desert and the St. Petersburg shawarma.

How was the year for your company?

In search of an answer, I opened my slides from an internal conference a year ago and saw an ironic “upgrade of everything” in the plans for 2018. Our industry has become more mature and stable, so we are investing in our development for many years to come. This motivates comprehensive changes aimed at quality. This year we have launched new formats of training and exchange of experience, held several conferences and seminars, attracted very cool people to our team, and some of the “veterans” have opened up in a new way and are firing with triple force.

It feels like there is more movement and efficiency, plus our family has been replenished with a whole new office in St. Petersburg.

It is very difficult to combine quantitative and qualitative growth, so I am sincerely proud of what the teams responsible for HR and development are doing. There are still enough local problems and “birth injuries”, but we will cope with everything with such a foundation.

If we talk about products, then we end the year with the same operating games as we started, but their revenue has grown by about one and a half times due to successful development and support. Separately, I would like to highlight Nitro Nation. Despite the four-year age and strong competition, the guys made the best day, the best month and the best year in sales in 2018, and in general they were handsome.

Nitro Nation
Inevitably, there were painful events, something — for the first time for us.

Life is full of chaos and injustice, nothing can be done about it, it remains only to remember and appreciate the bright moments more.

Which event of 2018 do you consider the most important for the industry?

The audacious release of Fortnite for Android and the whole story from the Epic Games Store. This is not the first attempt to change the status quo of distribution. But this “attempt” has an important difference from the previous ones. We are talking about revshar and royalties, as well as about the trump cards of Epic (technology, audience, brand). In a favorable scenario, the platform will pose interesting economic dilemmas to medium and large publishers, since the difference between 70% and 88% in reality is gigantic. For the sake of this, you can take big risks.

What trends of the outgoing year would you note?

• The heyday of the hyper-casual genre, its increasing influence on the market.
• Attempts to rock the blockchain gaming market and, along the way, understand what it is in general.
• Passion for loot boxes and fatigue from “operational” monetization models in part of the market.
• The success of games that were considered too difficult for mobile (however, so far this is a trend of any year).
• Revenue growth of the industry as a whole. A trend that should not be taken for granted.

What are the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most?

• PUBG Mobile. I would venture to say that as a game it is better than the original. It’s not just about the notorious bots, but also about quality-of-life changes, like inventory management for mere mortals, sane strapping and game modes exclusive to the mobile version.
• Jurassic World Alive. The combination of a location-based game based on a prestigious franchise with the mechanics of a card buttler and a bunch of technical problems sounds like a recipe for failure for any of a variety of reasons. But JWA is well monetized and continues to earn decent money a few months after the release of the film and the end of the warm days.
• Brawl Stars — the fact that it came out!
• Gorogoa. The unrealistically cool and original puzzle was formally released in mid-December 2017, but it was possible to admire it all year.