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 Alice Chumachenko, CEO of SberGames.
How did 2021 go for the company?
Starting a new one is always delightfully exciting! In 2021, the history of the company SberGames began: we joined the large ecosystem of “Sber” and became part of the entertainment industry, “SberIntertainment“, as an international game publisher. In less than a year, we were able to assemble a team of more than 170 game development market experts who previously worked in companies such as Game Insight, Playrix. Wargaming, MY.GAMES and many others. The best of the best work in our team — and this is confirmed by the award “HR brand of the Year”, which we managed to receive at the end of the year from App2Top.ru .
Less than six months have passed, and SberGames already has three internal studios that develop games in the genres of MMORPG, MMO Action RPG and Geo battle. The latter was already launched in softlonch in November 2021. The production center reviews projects for the publishing house every day – the first contracts have already been signed, but we will tell you about this loudly in the new year.
In mid-December, “Useful Games” started: in the first release, we released 4 educational games for children based on the cartoons of the Soyuzmulfilm film studio: “Prostokvashino“, “Orange cow” and “Zebra in a cage“. These are absolutely free games, which were created by specialists in child development – and we are sure that with their help a child will be able to acquire important skills for his age. Such a product is definitely in demand: in a couple of weeks, the number of downloads in the App Store and Google Play has exceeded the 300 thousand mark, and all four games have been included in thematic collections of stores.
In addition to game development, we pay a lot of attention to the development of educational initiatives. In 2021, we entered into cooperation with FEFU on the preparation of projects and personnel for the gaming industry, took part in the Congress of Young Scientists, and also became the developer and main partner of the profile “Development of computer games” of the National Technological Olympiad. In the outgoing year, almost 6.5 thousand schoolchildren took part in it – this is twice as much as in 2020.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?
Firstly, they began to invest a lot more in the gaming industry: in nine months, the amount of transactions amounted to $57.7 billion – 2.5 times more than in the whole of 2020 (according to InvestGame analysts). This, of course, changes the industry. There will be a lot of new studios, there will be a lot of failures, there will be a correction in the market in a couple of years, but this “foam” will eventually make the industry even bigger and stronger, and I hope we will see new stars. It has become more difficult to work and therefore even more interesting, there is more competition, everyone has a lot of ambitions.
Secondly, one cannot ignore the course on creating metaverses, which many tech giants have announced: Azur Games, Microsoft, Nvidia offer their users to live a “real” life in numbers – and, of course, Facebook, which was even renamed Meta. The step towards metaverse seems logical and obvious: we can’t imagine ourselves without the Internet, digital services and entertainment, such a mixed reality will open up a lot of opportunities – and new professions. The gaming industry has a special responsibility here: we already know a lot and historically “know how” in this niche.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?
The first million users and the first million dollars of revenue are our benchmark for the coming year, and it is quite achievable. SberGames is currently working on several projects, the success of which we are counting on – we will be ready to tell you about them very soon.
“Useful games” as a separate direction will exist and develop – there will be games that are useful not only for children, but also for all ages. And here we are open to new ideas and people who are ready to do something cool and inspiring with us.
We are also seriously engaged in launching internships for young professionals: programmers, game designers, producers, anyone interested in building a career in game development and working on real projects. And we are also ready to open and finance new studios. If you had a dream to make your own studio — come to us, together we can make it happen.
And we are waiting for the most talented, ideological and ambitious in the SberGames team!
It’s a little crazy, but super interesting and cool!