We continue to summarize the results of 2019 together with the managers of gaming companies and market experts. Next up is an interview with Alexey Morozov, Marketing Director of HeroCraft.
How was 2019 for the company?
It’s been a busy year. We started developing three mobile projects at once, two of which managed to make an MVP, and one of them has already been flooded with test traffic.
PC-direction is preparing for the announcement of a number of projects next year. We recently signed publishing contracts with four teams. In addition, we are preparing to announce an internal product, the name of which is too early to disclose.
Even as part of the console direction, we released Hyperforma on the Nintendo Switch and are preparing the release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf there at the beginning of next year.
There was a lot of activity on mobile around the Mafioso project, which we launched earlier this year and are now actively attracting a new audience to the game.
Major changes have taken place inside our flagship Space Arena. For him, we released large-scale updates, conducted a large number of experiments in the purchase of traffic. The project also received several features from the platforms and celebrated its third anniversary.
Space ArenaWhat events in the regional and global gaming industry do you consider central in the past year?
- Of course, this is the announcement of the Google Stadia platform. Cloud gaming is an important and understandable direction where the industry is moving today.
- Secondly, the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx. I am sure that this game will give a tangible boost to the entire VR market.
- Thirdly, I continue to watch with interest the competition between Epic Games Store and Steam.
- In mobile, it is very important to note the development of the direction of hyper-casual games.
- I was also interested in the news about Facebook‘s work on its own OS. Facebook is very important for the gaming market today, especially mobile.
- And the last: the appearance of Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass. In the future, a new niche can create a good alternative to free-play games.
What are the main trends in the market today?
In my opinion, the active introduction of 5G will have a very strong impact on the gaming industry, especially in mobile.
It is also interesting what the story about bendable screens will lead to. If the technology becomes widespread, then it will affect the games more than significantly.
I would like to say separately about the trends in the development of the industry in Russia. In my opinion, the local gaming market is now actively growing and becoming more and more significant, both from the players and from the developers. From the latter side, it is clear how the overall quality of knowledge is improving, more and more sources of information, training courses, podcasts are appearing: the community is actively growing.
Which third-party game releases turned out to be the most important this year? Plus, which games did you spend the most time on in 2019 as a gamer?
It is difficult to overestimate the significance of the release of Death Stranding. Such events happen infrequently and leave an indelible mark on the history of the gaming industry.
On mobile, many were hooked by Archero. I’ve had virtually no meetings with other developers that didn’t mention this game.
As a gamer, I spend more time on all sorts of typhoons, I liked the recently released Little Big Workshop, and in recent months I have been meditating in Railway Empire. Not so long ago I began to take my soul to Doom, I’m really looking forward to the new part of the franchise.