Four prominent business development specialists in the Russian-speaking segment announced the creation of a new gaming consulting agency. Along with the natural interest, the announcement also caused criticism from part of the audience. As a result, this is now the most discussed event of the domestic game dev in the last couple of months. We are sorting out what happened.
How did it all start?
On May 19, information appeared about the creation of a new “consulting unit” 1nc Inc. According to its organizers, it will help gaming companies grow. It was stated that the work will be carried out in four directions:
- attracting financing (packaging of a product for presentation to investors, assistance in pitch preparation, organization of a meeting with investors);
- investment (selection of a development team, analysis of the product potential and transaction support);
- creation of a marketing strategy (review of an existing strategy, design of a PR strategy);
- business development (assistance in finding business partners, organization of features, assistance in launching games in alternative stores).
It would seem nothing unusual. Similar companies regularly arise. However, everyone was attracted primarily by the composition of the new unit. Almost all of these people have been constantly heard in the bizdev environment of Russia and the CIS in recent years.
Who is involved in a new startup?
The new unit is an association of four people under a single brand: Maxim Babichev, Zhanna Goranskaya, Tim Fadeev and Anastasia Zaitseva.
In order to go further, let’s focus on each of them.
Maxim Babichev
Maxim Babichev, as far as we know, now holds the post of Director of Business Development at Playrix. Before that, Maxim had worked at VKontakte for more than 10 years. In recent years, he has been in the position of the head of its gaming platform on the social network.
Zhanna Goranskaya
Zhanna Goranskaya has been developing Saber Interactive‘s business under a part-time contract since May 12. Prior to that, Zhanna was responsible for the development of The Abyss gaming platform, the “Rambler/Games” segment, as well as for marketing in 101XP, Mail.Ru Group and “New Disk“.
Tim Fadeev
Tim Fadeev is now fully focused on 1nc Inc. Prior to that, he headed the business development department at Awem Games for two years, and even earlier he worked for a long time at the Chinese IGG, where he also engaged in business development and brand building.
Anastasia Zaitseva
Anastasia Zaitseva is currently responsible for business development and marketing of the GameTV esports platform in the CIS. Prior to that, Anastasia took part in the work on four non-gaming startups. In game development, she was noted as a PR specialist of Wargaming.
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The unit was organized spontaneously. The idea was born within the framework of a Facebook conversation under one of Zhanna Goranskaya’s posts on May 10. The initiator of the idea was Anastasia Zaitseva:
The participants talk about the launch of 1nc Inc like this:
The guys and I got together in early May, and it turned out that we have a very similar situation: we receive a lot of requests for various kinds of consultations: from developing an HR brand strategy to market analysis or assistance in creating a presentation for potential investors. It is impossible to fulfill all orders alone, and personal competence is not enough for everything. So the idea arose to combine efforts and our expertise to help each other.
How should the unit work?
It is assumed that each participant of 1nc Inc works as an independent sole proprietor. When an order is received, several scenarios are possible for any of them.
If one of us has an order that he is not ready to fulfill on his own, or he needs advice or help, then he can attract others to fulfill this order. Of course, if the customer does not mind attracting such collective assistance.
We packaged this whole initiative under the name 1nc Inc, made a Facebook page so that there was a single entry point, and made a common project in Asana so that it would be easier to track orders that we are working on together.
It is clear that each of us has our own individual projects that we carry out independently. But the opportunity to supplement our expertise at any time or discuss a controversial issue with colleagues helps us a lot.
What happened after the announcement?
Many industry participants, who noted in the comments from the organizers, positively perceived the initiative. However, there were also critics.
For example, the question of a “conflict of interest” arose almost immediately. One of the first to raise it was Mikhail Verbilo, a Creative Producer in the Wargaming Global Team.
I shared his concerns Alexey Savchenko, Epic Games Licensing Manager. However, he immediately indicated that 1nc Inc and Epic Games may have an intersection of interests:
Among the disputed places of 1nc Inc, he first of all noted a possible conflict of interests between the participants of the unit and their current employers.
Three of the four startup organizers work in gaming companies. At the same time, according to Savchenko, the agent of the consulting company has no right to work in parallel in the industrial business. Working for a gaming company implies that its employee has access to the contact database. Using this access for personal interests or in the interests of a third-party business is generally not welcome. Therefore, here Savchenko sees a contradiction between the plans of the new unit and generally accepted legal practices.
Zhanna Goranskaya does not agree with him. She explains that within the framework of 1nc Inc, no one shares databases and does not receive information under the NDA. We are talking exclusively about mutual support in solving certain tasks at the level of expertise.
However, Savchenko says that even if the agent claims that he is not going to use these contacts, it is difficult to formalize legally. Therefore, he considers the statement “1nc Inc will use exclusively the knowledge and skills of employees, but not their companies” naive.
You can at least consult for free, but at the first example of commercialization, the question of the source of the asset immediately becomes. Relatively speaking, if you are given access to some kind of information or intro or contacts, when you are, say, an employee of Saber, and then for some reason you use it in the agency, then you have problems.
Epic Games Licensing Manager
The fact that the company may in the future have legal difficulties related to the previous and current places of work of its founders, in the comments for App2Top.ru Roman Lukyanov, Managing Partner of Semenov & Pevzner law firm, also noted. To our question: “Is there a conflict of interest here?” — he answered as follows:
Managing Partner of Semenov&Pevzner
In other words, the legal concerns of a part of the audience regarding the operational future of 1nc Inc have a right to exist. And at the moment this is the main question for the organizers of the unit. And, in principle, they indirectly respond to it:
That is, at the moment there is a “run-in” of ideas and a search for pitfalls. During direct operation, they may be taken into account.
And because of this, the whole HYPE?
To date, this is one of the most discussed news of the Russian-speaking game dev. On Facebook, posts about 1nc Inc are gaining several hundred comments.
Are they all devoted to legal subtleties? Of course not.
So why such attention to the news?
The reason is not at all in the announcement, but in the reaction to it from part of the community.
It so happened that over the past ten years, the Russian-speaking gaming community at the business level has demonstrated rare friendliness. Internal conflicts almost never come out to the public, and even direct criticism is very rare. This is due to the relatively small size of the community, and the fact that migration is constantly taking place inside it. Simply put, any direct conflict can have a bad effect on the reputation, and therefore on the career of any of its parties. It is customary to support announcements, especially if notable people on the stage are involved in them.
But with 1nc Inc, everything went differently. Several people who have weight in the Russian-speaking gaming industry came out with vivid criticism at once. One person in a private tape allegorically criticized the approach, and then in a closed game dev group inGameDev expressed doubt about the professional level of the organizers with regard to attracting investments. Another noted that in general it is better not to resort to intermediaries, but to go directly to investors / publishers (and he spoke exactly as an investor and publisher). The third participant, although noticeable in the party, but not directly related to the game rendezvous, frankly stated that the guys do not see cases and do not know who they are at all.
On the general lack of information and fatigue from self-isolation, such an attitude to a startup aroused keen interest, clicks, comments, even delight among industry participants (they say, someone does not agree with someone, how interesting it is). At the same time, the substantive part is exhausted by the legal history.
For this reason, it is not surprising that the organizers of the initiative are shocked by such close attention and discussion. For comparison: close 1nc Inc on Achievers Hub and ARPU tasks.GURU (formally, this company has been gone for a year) such a wave of public interest on the part of the game dev participants did not cause, although they have been functioning on the market for a long time.
Conclusion
This story is more about the industry than about the event itself. Its relative closeness, a small number of bright niche news related to the small size of the market and its participants, a generally bright atmosphere (possibly emasculated by friendliness), lead to an unhealthy situation against the background of self-isolation. The minimal conflict, which in fact does not exist, turns out to be the most important informational occasion for a couple of days.
But in fact, this event should not be such. The market does not change radically because of it. There are no major personnel changes. There are not many new opportunities opening up. Just another company has appeared, which, on the one hand, is ready to offer its expertise to inexperienced teams, and on the other, may not have provided everything from a legal point of view.
As for her criticism, this is one of the healthiest reactions. The more, the better. The main thing is that it should be reasoned.
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