Wargaming's Thaine Lyman on keeping live games alive: "Kill your sacred cows"

Thaine Lyman, General Manager of the mobile studio at Wargaming Minsk, is one of the key people behind the publisher’s flagship mobile title World of Tanks Blitz. On Thaine’s watch, Tanks Blitz entered its sixth year on the market and did so with flying colors: the game reached an unprecedented DAU of 1.5 million players globally.

Prior to joining Wargaming, Thaine spent 17 years at Activision in various executive roles. Most recently there, he was responsible for Destiny, and before that, the Call of Duty franchise.

In the second installment of our Game Industry Talks series, Thaine shares his insights into the following:

• crazy E3 parties;
• how Wargaming in 2015 was similar to Activision in 2003;
• Victor Kisly’s happy player mantra;
• directness of the corporate culture in the CIS;
• rebranding of the mobile studio to MS-1;
• the future of Tanks Blitz and new games in development;
• what it takes for a team to keep outpeforming themselves even after five years.

Recorded amidst a White Nights event in Moscow. Hence, the busy hum of the conference and occasional audio artifacts.