In an interview App2Top.ru the company “Buka” told about its activities today, as well as about the success of mobile “Siberia” in the Russian market.
The questions were answered by Yuri Nikolsky, the PR manager of the BUKA company.
Good afternoon! First of all, congratulations on the very successful launch of Siberia in Russia. The project has been in the paid Top-3 iPad App Store for a month now (at the time of the conversation it was, now the indicators are slightly lower, see the graph). In this regard, I can’t help but ask the question: did the company promote the game in any way throughout the entire sales period?
Yuri NikolskyGood afternoon!
Thank you very much for the congratulations! BUKA company has been publishing video games for more than twenty years. During this time, we have learned how to work with games of any class, starting with AAA class giant projects, ending with small casual toys. We approached the promotion of “Siberia” thoroughly and using all the experience we have accumulated. We considered this game not only from the position that it is a mobile application, but also a classic quest, which already has its own fan base. In many ways, “Siberia” was promoted exactly as an ordinary video game. The press willingly wrote that the game was out, and this helped us a lot, because the most important thing in promoting a project with a cult status is to inform people that the game is out. Of course, the big name “Siberia” helped us a lot.
The position of “Siberia” in the Russian top paid games (iPad App Store)The position of “Siberia” in the Russian box office gaming top (iPad App Store)
The fate of the mobile port of Siberia is complicated, because a couple of years ago Big Fish had the rights to it, which planned to publish the game in episodes.
Could you tell us what happened next, and how, in the end, the project fell into the hands of Buki?
BUKA is now working very closely and fruitfully with Anuman Interactive. The fruit of this collaboration was the Russian version of “Siberia”. In the future, you will see Anuman projects in the App Store and Google Play more than once, which BUKA localizes and releases on the territory of the Russian Federation. For example, now iOS and Android users can play the classic quest “Dracula: Resurrection”.
Moving a little to the side: what is “Buka” in general today? In the noughties, this brand was assigned to one of the largest localizers and distributors in Russia, which successfully competed for the CIS market with 1C, Akella and Novy Disk. After the crisis, 1C acquired the company, which at that time, it seems, had already merged its gaming division with Softclub. What is Buka today, what role does it play as an asset in the 1C portfolio, to what extent is it independent of the parent company?
Now BUKA is one of the largest multimedia conglomerates in Eastern Europe – 1C. When the company started its work, it was engaged in the distribution of consoles and games for them, for example, Sega MegaDrive. Later, she began to develop her own PC games, as well as publish and localize foreign ones. Now BUKA has many directions — distribution and localization of computer and console games, publishing games on Steam, digital trading, publishing, localization and development of mobile games and applications. In addition, we are the largest distributor of Xbox products in the Russian Federation.
Returning to “Siberia”. As far as I understand from acquaintance with the iOS version, you left 1C localization in the game. That is, in fact, you have combined the new mobile version of Anuman with a ready-made localization. Were there any difficulties at this stage that had to be solved urgently?
The localization of “Siberia”, which at one time was in the PC versions of the game, is official and belongs to the company Anuman. We just took the original localization and carried out a number of works to make it look good on the screens of tablets and smartphones. That is, they removed the “non-fits” of the text, corrected some sound flaws. Simply put, the mobile version was polished to the proper level. To be honest, it took longer than we expected.
And, of course, we are interested in financial issues: on what terms was the project received from the French publisher and, if it’s not a secret, how much has the Russian mobile version earned so far?
During the month of the game’s stay in the App Store, over 20 thousand digital copies of the game were sold (considering that Siberia costs $1.99 in the Russian App Store, it can be estimated that the game in Russia earned about $40 thousand, approx.editorial offices). Now every day this figure is growing rapidly.
The last question: when to wait for Siberia 2 on mobile devices?
To begin with, you should wait for the official announcement of the release date from Anuman. Only after that we will be able to call the date of the Russian release of “Siberia 2” at least approximately.
Thanks for the interview!
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