November 26, 2012 at 10:56Mail.Ru Group gaming division at Update October 30: interactive entertainment market in the Russian Federation
Hi, Habrausers! On October 30, the Mail.Ru Group: Update event was held, which was attended by representatives of the company's gaming division - Vladimir Nikolsky, its head, and Alexander Kuzmenko, the head of the Games.Mail.Ru project. We talked about what the game market in Russia is today, and also shared our plans for the near future. Today's publication is dedicated to market indicators.
The total number of players around the world has already exceeded the 1 billion mark. In Russia, there is not such a large population, but we still have our 40 million gamers. Everything is included here: those who literally live in virtual worlds, those who grow crops in Odnoklassniki and those who only occasionally run “casuals” on the way to work.
Details of all growth points are shown in the table. The most impressive dynamics for games for social networks, which from 2010 to 2011 grew by 181%. At the end of 2011, the MMO games segment outperformed financially PC and console games. 
Actually, the trend is obvious: the classic single-player game for the PC is a thing of the past. Even in console games, developers pay a lot of attention to the multiplayer component. Nevertheless, a strong single will remain the basis for console games for quite some time. This is a gigantic ($ 10 billion) market with a huge installed base and an army of loyal fans around the world.
The number of playing audiences in the Russian Federation will grow. According to experts, by 2016 the number of gamers in Russia will exceed 60 million people.
Although Russia does not have a billion players, our country has another billion - dollars. The volume of the domestic interactive entertainment market in 2011 exceeded $ 1.1 billion. And most importantly, it continues to grow, confidently overtaking other forms of entertainment. The Russian gaming industry has already left behind the music industry and is breathing in the back of the head for film distribution. Nevertheless, we note that the most important of the arts industries in our country is concert activity with Stas Mikhailov and his comrades as headliners.
In the context of the Internet industry, games rank second with a significant margin from web development and SEO. The leader here is online advertising, but it is so closely connected with games that it’s hard to say whether segments will exchange places, since the development of games just “pushes” the advertising that companies are willing to place on hit projects.
Games in Russia are increasingly attracting the attention not only of a traditional audience, but also of people who previously existed with games in parallel realities. Stars, politicians, brands and TV channels went to the games. Games ceased to be the prerogative of a narrow circle of geeks who existed within the framework of their own universe. More and more people who need publicity understand how games are an effective communication channel. The Russian gaming industry follows the same path that the western one and a half to two decades ago went - but does it faster. The opinion of gamers in the minds of the masses is also changing. Pay attention to the situation in South Korea: the winners of national e-sports events in this country are almost the stars of show business. They are carried in limousines, they have crowds of fans who take autographs in batches. Sooner or later, the Russian gaming community is waiting for this. Mail.Ru Group keeps up with the times, therefore, our gaming division develops all gaming areas. We are engaged in complex MMO-projects and casual mobile games; the structure is quite ramified and diversified (and this deserves a separate post). We conclude on a positive note. We, together with the entire domestic industry, are developing both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, our Allods Online have been translated into all European languages, are actively distributed on 5 continents, and have recently been launched in such a complex market as China. Towards Asia moving and mobile development. In the near future, Juggernaut: Revenge of Sowering and other mobile titles will be launched in South Korea and Japan. Going to the market-legislator in the fantasy-MMORPG genre with your own development is a non-trivial task, but difficulties do not scare us. It’s too early to talk about the results, but other international launches (for example, in Europe) have been very successful. We will be happy to answer all questions in the comments, and we will also be glad to hear your wishes about the topics of future publications about our gaming division.
The post was prepared by the Mail.ru Games team
How much do they play?
The total number of players around the world has already exceeded the 1 billion mark. In Russia, there is not such a large population, but we still have our 40 million gamers. Everything is included here: those who literally live in virtual worlds, those who grow crops in Odnoklassniki and those who only occasionally run “casuals” on the way to work.
Actually, the trend is obvious: the classic single-player game for the PC is a thing of the past. Even in console games, developers pay a lot of attention to the multiplayer component. Nevertheless, a strong single will remain the basis for console games for quite some time. This is a gigantic ($ 10 billion) market with a huge installed base and an army of loyal fans around the world.
The number of playing audiences in the Russian Federation will grow. According to experts, by 2016 the number of gamers in Russia will exceed 60 million people.
Market volumes: how much do games earn in the Russian Federation?
Although Russia does not have a billion players, our country has another billion - dollars. The volume of the domestic interactive entertainment market in 2011 exceeded $ 1.1 billion. And most importantly, it continues to grow, confidently overtaking other forms of entertainment. The Russian gaming industry has already left behind the music industry and is breathing in the back of the head for film distribution. Nevertheless, we note that the most important of the arts industries in our country is concert activity with Stas Mikhailov and his comrades as headliners.
In the context of the Internet industry, games rank second with a significant margin from web development and SEO. The leader here is online advertising, but it is so closely connected with games that it’s hard to say whether segments will exchange places, since the development of games just “pushes” the advertising that companies are willing to place on hit projects.
Games in Russia are increasingly attracting the attention not only of a traditional audience, but also of people who previously existed with games in parallel realities. Stars, politicians, brands and TV channels went to the games. Games ceased to be the prerogative of a narrow circle of geeks who existed within the framework of their own universe. More and more people who need publicity understand how games are an effective communication channel. The Russian gaming industry follows the same path that the western one and a half to two decades ago went - but does it faster. The opinion of gamers in the minds of the masses is also changing. Pay attention to the situation in South Korea: the winners of national e-sports events in this country are almost the stars of show business. They are carried in limousines, they have crowds of fans who take autographs in batches. Sooner or later, the Russian gaming community is waiting for this. Mail.Ru Group keeps up with the times, therefore, our gaming division develops all gaming areas. We are engaged in complex MMO-projects and casual mobile games; the structure is quite ramified and diversified (and this deserves a separate post). We conclude on a positive note. We, together with the entire domestic industry, are developing both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, our Allods Online have been translated into all European languages, are actively distributed on 5 continents, and have recently been launched in such a complex market as China. Towards Asia moving and mobile development. In the near future, Juggernaut: Revenge of Sowering and other mobile titles will be launched in South Korea and Japan. Going to the market-legislator in the fantasy-MMORPG genre with your own development is a non-trivial task, but difficulties do not scare us. It’s too early to talk about the results, but other international launches (for example, in Europe) have been very successful. We will be happy to answer all questions in the comments, and we will also be glad to hear your wishes about the topics of future publications about our gaming division.
The post was prepared by the Mail.ru Games team