The other day on DTF.ru a tender was announced for the development of a military-economic strategy. The applicant was Dmitry Arkhipov, who previously held the post of vice president for development of Akella, one of the leading Russian publishers of zero games.
Art: Travian
According to the publication, a tender was announced for the creation of a project in the genre of MMO / Military-economic strategy for the PC, iOS and Android platforms.
The essence of the tender is, as far as can be understood from the publication, in finding an experienced team that previously produced MMO projects. It was proposed to write to the postal address Arkhipov@akella.com .
To the question App2Top.ru does the announced tender mean the return of Akella to development and publication, – Dmitry Arkhipov, in an interview with us, replied with an unequivocal refusal. According to him, the tender is conducted not by Akella, but by PlayHard, of which he is a co-founder. However, he immediately noted that most of the employees of PlayHard are people who previously worked at Akella.
At the moment, Arkhipov is looking for an experienced team in Moscow “or at least its backbone”, which will be able to create a multi-platform strategic project in the spirit of Travian on Unity in a year and a half.
Arkhipov did not name the exact amount that PlayHard is ready to invest in development, but noted that it is sufficient to bring the game to the launch and payback of the project.
The heyday of Akella came in the noughties, when it competed in the market with 1C, Buka and Novy Disk for dominance in the Russian market in the field of localization, publishing and development of PC games. But after the crisis of 2008 and the beginning of the transition of retail to digital, the company began to have financial difficulties. The last time the company was in the media was in 2012, when it paid off its loan debt and walked away from the threat of bankruptcy.