This is the second part of my series of interviews with various figures involved in the Russian game development scene. In the first part I talked to The LxR of Ice-Pick Lodge. This part is my conversation with Anatoly Subbotin of 1C Company.

Chris – There are some great new titles coming out of Russian development studios at the moment, do you think that they are pushing the boundaries of game design more than larger Western developers?

Anatoly - For many years in a row Russia was considered to be the place for outsourcing. But the situation is changing drastically and fast. Some of the Western publishers are now even developing their games in Russia. We’re not talking about outsourcing, but full-scale game development done by a Russian studio. Of course the thing that the situation is changing and more companies are doing full-scale development doesn’t mean that there aren’t any companies providing quality outsourcing services. The level of experience and professionalism of Russian teams allows them to produce more than just outsourcing.

1C:Ino-Co has recently finished Majesty 2 for Paradox Interactive, Nival Interactive has done Heroes of Might and Magic V, Gaijin Entertainment has developed IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey recently co-published by 505 Games and 1C.

4-5 years ago game development in Russia was more a hobby than business. But things are changing fast and our industry is moving towards international standards. There are still some peculiarities though. Many Russian developers still put a lot of effort in the creative side of their project, many teams still want to deliver something original. This is the reason why a big number of innovative products come from Russia.

Russian games are starting to attract attention of the gamers and the press because the quality is getting higher and higher. King’s Bounty: The Legend and Men of War are one of the most highly-ranked games that come from our country.

Chris – If this is so, why do you think Russian studios are able to do this?

Anatoly - Russian game industry is growing, becoming more mature and much more professional. It is getting really similar to the one in Western Europe or USA. More and more Russian developers start working directly with Western publishers and create games for them. This brings foreign experience and methods.

Game development in Russia is becoming more professional and more expensive. In terms of costs it is becoming comparable to Western standards.

Russian game industry is younger that the one in the UK, Europe or USA. Unfortunately we also do not have any special colleges or universities that teach game art, design or anything related to games. Almost all of the people involved in the so-called first wave of our game specialists came from other IT spheres, or not even IT. The first Russian GDC (called KRI) was only in 2003.

A huge drawback for the local game market was the Russian financial crisis in 1998. The industry had actually to make another start after this one.

All of these factors have influenced our game industry, but now after more than 10 years we have quite a number of strong publishing houses, talented development studios and games that can try and compete with the ones coming from the West.

Now the older generation has enough experience not only to produce high-quality but to train newcomers as well.

Chris – How important do you find the PC gaming market in Russia?

Anatoly - PC games still occupy the biggest part of the market, but the situation has changed a lot recently. The share of console titles is getting bigger each year. Quite a number of Russian teams, including 1C’s internal studio (SeaWolf), has started developing console games. I think that this tendency will keep on evolving in the upcoming years. Although PC games will still remain a huge power on the local market.

Chris – Are there any challenges you face when releasing PC games in Russia and also in Western countries?

Anatoly - The biggest challenge and difficulty all publishers are facing now is the global financial and economic crisis which influences all spheres of life including game industry.

The world financial crisis has a huge impact on the Russian economy and on many fields of life inside the country. First of all the purchase power is decreasing. The sales go down as a result. And this refers almost to all types of products including games.

To make things worse that happens not only with entertainment products – the whole Russian economy is on wane, inflation is high, consumers are not actively buying anything. Another issue is ruble weakening in comparison to US dollar and Euro.

Apart from that we are pretty confident about our position on the local market. On February 24th 1C has announced the deal with Soft Club, one of the leading companies on the Russian game market. We plan to join our efforts in different business trends – sales, acquisition, distribution, localization, merchandising and transport logistics. Both companies expand each other very well. 1C is the leading PC publisher in Russia and Soft Club is strong in console games sales. Together we plan to withstand the economic crisis more efficiently and moreover develop our business in the future more rapidly.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 4:47 pm and is filed under General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.