Yesterday, the bank “Sber” held its first technical conference for SmartDev developers. During it, the CEO of the gaming direction, Alice Chumachenko, together with the operating director, Alexander Mikheev, told why the bank needs “Sberbank Games” and how they will work.
We share the main thing from the speech:
- according to Alice Chumachenko, the updated ecosystem of “Beac” is in dire need of the attention of users. This can be achieved with the help of games, which have now become one of the most affordable entertainment;
- games are also a profitable business. Chumachenko recalled that the video game industry is steadily growing even in a crisis, and in 2020 revenue on the global market amounted to $ 159.3 billion;
- Sber Games is going to make games both for the international market and for the Russian one. The company wants to achieve global recognition, but the domestic market will become a priority for it;
- All Sber Games projects will be developed taking into account the Sber ecosystem. They will support all the company’s devices: “Sber Box”, “Sber Portal”, etc. Moreover, as Chumachenko emphasized, exclusively titles published by “Sber Games” will be launched on these devices;
- all developers of “Sber Games” will have access to the publishing platform and to the entire ecosystem of the company. Including “Smart Market”, “Sber ID”, “Sber Thank You” and others;
- one of the key features of the games from Sber is the content personalization platform. As Chumachenko explained, thanks to her, games will be able to adapt to each individual gamer. The platform will collect data on the nature of the user’s behavior, his favorite genres, preferences in equipment and much more. Based on this, she will be able to help with the passage of games. At this scale, the platform is likely to work in 5-10 years. Until then, she will help developers improve game metrics.;
- Alexander Mikheev added that the platform will allow developers of “Sber Games” to configure smart push notifications, personalized loot boxes, the balance between advertising and rewards, recommendations in the in-game store and the dynamic complexity of levels;
- Mikheev told us a little about how push notifications work in “Sberbank Games”. According to him, they pop up at the most appropriate moments for the user, based on his behavior. Sber uses a multi-factor model that takes into account, for example, the battery level, how long the phone has been active or not, whether a person is currently on the bus or sitting at home on the couch. Sber Games has already tested the function in one of the projects and was able to increase the retention of the first day from 14% to 21%;
- another feature of “Sber Games” is a voice assistant. In part, this is a replacement for word of mouth, making it easier for users to onboarding. Based on the analysis of user behavior, the assistant can recommend gamers to launch a particular game. It also tells you how to play, knowing the game preferences of a particular user. Another assistant can just chat, joke or calm a person down after a hard gaming session. As a result, as stated in “Sber Games”, it enriches the gaming experience and increases retention;
- now “Sber Games” are ready to publish casual and midcore projects for PC, Android and iOS. The genres of the company are not important, but social casinos and other “Sber Games” slots are not considered;
- Sber Games can offer four options for cooperation: publishing, internal development, third-party development and strategic partnership;
- the basic conditions of the publishing house: during the first year, the project’s profit will be divided in the proportion of 70/30 in favor of the developer. Then – 50/50. “Sber” agrees, if necessary, to finance the game, to help with its marketing, operation, localization and other;
- basic conditions for third-party development: Sber Games will act as the customer and publisher of the project, finance the development in full and give a percentage of the profit;
- while the main center of internal development of “Sber Games” will be located in Moscow. But the company also has the opportunity to open studios in Europe, specifically in Lithuania. By the end of the year, she also plans to start launching studios in the regions.