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 Timur Galyamov, head of game production at the publishing house Super.com .
How did 2021 go for the company?
The year 2021 was very productive, although we had to face difficulties.
Throughout the year, we periodically suffered from covid restrictions. The restrictions themselves are not news anymore, but this year some of the development teams with whom we collaborated suffered and seriously lagged behind the scheduled deadlines. This affected both small indie studios and some giants with industry veterans. In most cases, problems arose due to the incorrect organization of the transition to remote work. I remember how at the end of last year, many people happily wrote that they were able to perfectly switch to remote and how well they were doing. However, time proves the opposite.
Remote work has become a problem primarily due to the fact that many are used to discussing ideas and tasks in person. If earlier developers could talk to each other in the office, now they are faced with a more closed format of communications. Unaccustomed, the newly formed remoters began to “eat” more than half of the day for working discussions. This could not but affect productivity. Therefore, the time restrictions on working calls helped us a lot.
Also, due to the covid limitations, this year we managed to understand that some studios that claim to adhere to the agile approach are only playing at flexibility. Often such teams do not follow their own rules. Some for personal reasons, and others just don’t understand what product they are working on. For example, it happened that artists from the same team made assets in different styles and sizes. Therefore, the role of management in modern realities has become even more strategically important, and all year we have been in Super.com we helped our partners to build processes.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?
This year was full of events, loud transfers, confrontations, metaverses, remasters of hits of the past, new TV series and films on games. You don’t know what to grab onto and what to follow next.
The success of Axie Infinity certainly had a strong impact on many investors and large companies that massively began to report on the development of blockchain-based games. But it seems to me that after Steam banned games with NFT, this trend has been shaken. On the one hand, there may be a future for NFT, so the topic should not be overlooked. On the other hand, many of us have friends and acquaintances who managed to earn a lot and burn out on cryptocurrency at the same time.
It is impossible not to mention the ongoing confrontation between Epic Games and Apple. All sides can be understood, but every decision made may force us to start reviewing business priorities. I am convinced that in the new year we will have to study new policies of cooperation with platforms several times more deeply.
Another important topic is Tencent‘s walks through regional markets. The Chinese company has recently been investing very actively in game studios. Our partners have also not been left without attention, and we know for sure that next year we will have a lot of interesting announcements.
According to my observations over the past year, the transition to a remote work format has seriously affected the cost of specialists. For example, earlier in the Russian-speaking segment, salaries were formed mainly by our local mammoths of the industry. Regional companies often seasoned salaries with gym, VMI and other office work buns. Now, large global companies have begun to influence salaries more, since developers now do not have to move to another country to work in a foreign studio. As a result, salaries began to rise, but not all indie studios were able to pull them. As a result, the regional market began to pay more attention to juniors and pull them up to the level of specialists. I think that in the future this promises the growth of specialists in game development, and as a result — their depreciation.
The ongoing development of the film industry for games is undoubtedly inspiring and pleasing. Back in 2004, I was pleasantly struck by the anime Ragnarok: the Animation by MMO Ragnarok Online, in which I then grinded. Any film adaptation of well-known and beloved games continues to be something important and interesting for me. In addition, now the quality of films on games is kept at a high level, and the involvement of professional actors in the process of creating games is already a common phenomenon (my respect to Twelve Minutes).
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?
Next year we are determined to develop the availability of games. Now, together with our development partners, we are working on a technology for people with disabilities. This is not an easy task, but it only makes it more interesting. I am also confident that we will be able to enlist support from consoles — the latest innovations for nextgen consoles have shown that companies are ready to develop the availability of games for everyone.
We have at least five releases planned for 2022. We also want to explore a number of new directions in the promotion of games on PC and consoles. I also note that we, together with one of the development teams, are planning to make a game on Unreal Engine 5, but I can’t reveal all the details yet.
In addition, next year we will start publicly publishing tips with best practices on how to build management processes within gaming companies. We will tell you with live examples how it works now, and we hope that it will be useful for some studios.