"We will release various books on the Atomic Heart game," Vladimir Obruchev from Bombor about the results of 2023

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams. Next up is an interview with Vladimir Obruchev, head of the gaming department at Bombora Publishing house.

What was the year like for the publishing house? What have you done, implemented, and what would you like to highlight in terms of achievements?

The year turned out to be quite successful. Unlike 2022, which is quite difficult for obvious reasons, in 2023 everything was quite calm and planned.

There have been (and still are) changes in the team responsible for the release of books in the game direction, but then everything will be even better and cooler than in 2023.

We have released a very large number of new books, both about the games themselves and about the development. In 2023, we released twice as many game-related novelties as in the past.

From books about games, it is impossible not to boast of the autobiography of John Romero, which has just been released, "Icon of DOOM. Life in the first person."

In 2023, we released books about a lot of famous games:

• «Fallout. Chronicles of the creation of the legendary saga";
• "The Witcher. The history of the franchise. From fantasy to cult gaming saga";
• «Half-Life. How Valve created the Iconic first-person shooter";
• a two-volume book about Dark Souls;
• «Skyrim. The history of the creation of the great game";
• books about Peter Molyneux and Richard Garriott.

This, of course, is far from a complete list.

For our audio versions, we began to actively involve dubbing actors in dubbing (for example, Alexander Gavrilin voiced several books, and you can listen to the book about Uncharted in the voice acting of Ivan Chaban, the Russian voice of Nathan Drake from the film adaptation), as well as those who voiced characters in video games (the book about Half-Life was voiced by Oleg Fedorov, the voice of G-Man).

For development books, this year was dedicated to the closure of long-term construction. We have finally released Celia Hodent's book "The Player's Brain. How Neuroscience and UX Affect Video Game Design" and Scott Rogers "Level Up! A guide to creating cool video games."

In addition, Dax Gazaway's book "Introduction to Game System Design. A step-by-step guide to creating balanced games." It is impossible not to mention the excellent book by Natalia Andrianova and Svetlana Yakovleva "How to create stories. The basics of game screenwriting and narrative design in 12 steps."

And we also released the first two books on graphics and animation in games — about Blender and Spine 2D. And, again, I have not listed all our books related to the creation of games in one way or another.

Since it is also necessary to talk about the beautiful (and not only about the useful) — wonderful artbooks "Bloodborne" were released on New Year's Eve. An anthology. Echoes of blood" and "The world of the Pathologic 2 game. Chronicles of the second epidemic".

How has the situation changed for the publishing house in the market? What new challenges did he face?

It should be noted here that this year everything has become better than last year. Some Western book publishers (including those specializing in literature for developers) have returned to selling the rights to Russia. Now it will be easier to buy the rights to good books.

In general, the situation is quite stable, and book publishers are reasonably optimistic about the future.

But there are frankly not enough English-language books about games (unlike development books), so we have to look at other markets. That's why we produce so many translations from French.

What was the overall year for books about games?

The year turned out to be very successful — everyone notes the growth of this segment (even Litres reported an increase in sales of such books). As I wrote above, we generally have a twofold increase in new products.

If earlier the entire segment of such books (if you do not take fiction on games and various artbooks) consisted, in general, only of our books, then this year other publishers came here and began to publish very good books. This benefits everyone: readers get more good books, and publishers keep each other on their toes and don't let them relax.

What are the company's plans for next year?

Traditionally, we have a huge number of plans.

For example, Cliff Bleszinski's autobiography "Control Freak. My epic story in Game Dev has moved to 2024. We will definitely release her.

Next year we also plan to release books about Persona, Death Stranding, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Yakuza, Castlevania, and not only about them.

In early 2024, the book "Devolver. Punks in the gaming business", dedicated, of course, to the company Devolver Digital. The work includes a book on the history of Sierra On-Line, which played a major role in the history of video games.

An excellent colorful book "Virtual cities. New Vegas, Raccoon City and other famous cities from video games", and in the fall we plan to release a beautiful two-volume artbook on Dark Souls. In the West, it was released by the same publishing house that created the Russian-language artbook "Bloodborne. An anthology. Echoes of blood."

If Jason Schreier writes his new book about Blizzard, then we will definitely release it, since the rights to its publication in Russian have already been purchased.

Of the books about development, I would like to mention the book by Justin Gary "Think like a game designer. A step-by-step guide to creating Brilliant Games" and Natalia Andrianova's new book "How Interactive Stories are Created. Using the example of visual novels in games."

In 2024, we will release the "Game Design Workshop" by Tracy Fullerton.

Naturally, it is impossible not to write about the first book on the Russian game engine Nau Engine, which we plan to release in the fall of 2024.

Naturally, in addition to the above books, we plan to release other books. Our printing press plans to work without pauses.

Now about what App2Top readers will be the first to know about:

• famous journalist Semyon Kostin is writing a book for us about the history of Harry Potter games (and perhaps not only about this series);
• We have signed a contract with Mundfish, and we will be releasing various books on the Atomic Heart game.

Of course, our plans do not end there — we are conducting many different negotiations with authors and studios, so we definitely plan to please our readers with new interesting releases in 2024.