We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Alexey Savchenko, the founder of Magnifier One.
How did 2021 go for you and the company?
For me, of course, 2021 in some sense turned out to be even too significant in terms of both changes and achievements.
In August 2021 – after two years on the contract and five years on the staff — I still left the penates of my native Epic Games corporation and, in a sense, left the comfort zone immediately into the roaring expanses of investment activity in the computer and video games market.
At the moment I hold the position of managing director in the new company Magnifier One. It specializes in providing investment capital and assistance in growth and scaling to developers (mainly in the premium segment). We got off to a good start with the announcement of the first seven partnerships, which seems to be quite cheerful. We plan to announce a couple more deals before the end of the year.
Emotionally, though on a superficial level, it is very interesting to return to the process of communicating with developer companies and promote the development of cool games. It’s great to work with a small, super-professional and fast team that sets itself cool tasks.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?
A large amount of inflow of “fresh” capital into the gaming industry sector completely changes the status quo and the order of things over the years. It seems to me that this is for the best. Developers receive a large number of alternatives in terms of access to resources, competition for strong teams and developers increases, and the range of opportunities in terms of the use of intellectual property objects expands. Today, the demand for quality is also higher and there is less patience for bullshit (both from players and from professional developers).
If in 2021 and beyond you don’t build your strategy, tactics and attitude around respect and a desire to help creative talents achieve their goals (that is, to make a cool game and build a cool studio), you are nowhere in this market. Developers’ exploit attempts will end more and more sadly, the importance of key talents in teams will grow, the importance of dialogue and understanding between developers and players will also increase.
As we can see, the misunderstanding of their audience is already going sideways to a large number of companies, the dominant factor in the management of which is naked business logic, divorced from core audience games. Those with whom such stories happen should draw conclusions and adapt. Otherwise, they will continue to lose money and will be forced to give way to companies and games that are better able to listen to players.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?
It’s probably simple here. We intend to enter into partnership with even more cool studios, with interesting games and founders who know how to preserve their own authenticity, remember what industry they are in, and are able to find a healthy common language with their players.
In 2022, we also intend to expand our presence both geographically and into neighboring entertainment business verticals, assisting partner companies in scaling their IP in movies, music, comics, books, and, if everything goes well, then in plush toys. In general, follow the site and the news, we will periodically appear there.