Saturday, July 3, 2010

KRI Game Conference 2008 Review: From Russia with Love

I was able to participate in KRI Conference 2008, Russian Game Developer's Conference taking place in Moscow in 18-20 of April.

Me and my partner had a goal to learn more about gaming industry and see how it's doing in Russia. We had an alpha version ready of our virtual world for kids, Chobots and also wanted to receive some feedback from potential publishers.

The first impression was "Wow", how big it is. Nowadays, russian game development is a mature industry with strong companies and support from authority.
I saw many talented people, a couple of really good projects and I had many useful and interesting meetings with professionals from Russia and Germany. I was happy to see the stand of Ukrainian game development company GCS-game with their add-on to Stalker.

The second impression was about mentality.
Starting from the hotel called "Kosmos" (Space) which was really big and made in old "luxury" soviet style of 80's. Since I was in space, it was impossible to order some water after 10 PM in my room, because their bar was closed. As a compensation I was offered to visit a strip bar on my way downstairs. It was a hotel with the most expensive Wi-Fi ever. It was not free even for conference members and even some companies having a booth on exhibition told us that they can't show their project completely, because there is no internet!
But even more interesting things I've heard from speakers. People from US and Europe were called by the most of speakers as "the bourgeois" as if Russian people are still "soviets". Russian 1C game publisher reported about acquisition of Polish game publisher and somehow connected the date of acquisition with the date from World War 2. How patriotic :)
So it seems they are still fighting in their minds. And this "Empire strikes back" vision was installed even among Russian IT professionals.
How this influences the business traditions? Publishers want 51% of startups. There is no spot for new publishers, there is monopoly on the market of online gaming...

But what is the next step for russian game development?
My opinion is that Russian game industry leaders such as Nival and 1C know where to go, but their plan has some gaps. Their plans are ambitious and they definitely will come up with a number of great products. The good thing is that Russian gamers start buying games and Russian market becoming really attractive for game publishing.
But will we see Russian AAA-titles developed and published by Russian publishers soon with such approach? Will they try not only following modern trends, but creating them?
This is what we will see soon.

As for us, we are going to LA, to participate in Virtual Worlds Conference this autumn.

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