"Sales of Diplomacy is Not an Option have started to grow," Oleg Sakharov and Andrey Belousov from DOOR 407 on the main thing for 2023

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the game teams. Next up is an interview with Oleg Sakharov and Andrey Belousov, the founders of the DOOR 407 studio.

What was the year like for the studio? What have you done that I would like to highlight in terms of achievements?

Oleg: We learned how to support our main game — Diplomacy is Not an Option — so that its sales began to grow. This allowed us to end the year on a positive note.

We are trying to expand, we have several teams working on other games in parallel. We even managed to release one of them, the URBO meditation puzzle, in September.

URBO

Andrey: Unlike the previous year, this year turned out to be a little more calm and predictable for the studio and the founders in terms of the "rules of the game" of doing international business. Foreign banks have learned to distinguish ordinary business, such as ours, from risky sanctioned business. We have found many partners and similar founders who find themselves in a difficult situation due to current geopolitical events. And we are all ready to share our experience, connections, help and suggest how to solve one or another regular compliance "obstacle" in a particular jurisdiction. Of course, no one requested fewer documents for all operations, BUT — in any case – it is now clear what to provide in which case and why. We have all become a bit of lawyers of international law, as well as financiers with knowledge of the principles of the global financial and banking system.

As an achievement, I would note the following: this year, although not very much, we were able to grow and launch several inhouse projects. I am also glad to note that, in principle, over the past two years we have managed not to lose anyone from the team. In times of instability, I consider this a very important factor for progress. All our employees have already received all the bonuses and bonuses promised in January 2022 from the projects.

How has the situation changed for the studio in the market? What new challenges did she face?

Oleg: We didn't feel any changes, although they were significant for many market participants. Therefore, there are no external challenges, but there are more than enough internal problems.

Andrey: The studio has become more stable, stable, and predictable this year. Consider: we have really strengthened and worked out a course of development... the basics of a strategy for moving forward, so to speak. The main challenge for the next year is to cope with the upcoming upgrades and reforms of the company's internal processes, to move from the state of "one game (product) = one company" to a more stable position of "one company – several games (products)", thereby increasing the financial stability of our company. We also want to complement the games being developed with the experience already accumulated and accumulated by parallel teams.

It is also worth noting that our goal is to strengthen our marketing department. To do this, in the near future we plan to search for professionals in the market of promotion of computer and console games. Perhaps someone will be interested in cooperating fruitfully with us – WELCOME.

What was the year like for the indie scene in general?

Oleg: Players are still looking for interesting new games, they are willing to buy their favorite titles. Projects that attract a large audience are regularly released. I would even say that against the background of not very bright AAA projects, indie games stand out for the better this year. Indie developers know what the audience wants.

Andrey: Lean on Oleg's words: yes, this year is very significant. Some indie games can really get viral and show excellent results in terms of profitability of the project.

What are the studio's plans for next year?

Oleg: There are a lot of plans, they are all already in the works, I don't even know how we will be able to implement all this. It's going to be hard. All Door 407 products are primarily strategies. We want to continue to develop in this genre, finding different niches and focusing on projects that are interesting from the point of view of game design and technology. The kind that we can be proud of after a while.

We will soon launch a citybuilder with a huge variety of active objects that affect the gameplay. In this project, we want to implement all the experience gained in ECS.

We are finishing work on our first game and releasing Diplomacy is Not an Option in the release.

Diplomacy is Not an Option

We are developing parallel teams and building a more organized structure. I hope that if our plans are implemented, then at the end of 2024 the company will become a really strong player in the market.

Andrey: GROW, GROW and GROW again. Both from the point of view of the quality and quantity of games produced, and from the point of view of the development of our company as an organization that can declare itself "seriously and for a long time", whose brand will be well recognized and will have clear associations for both players and people associated with our industry.

I think it would be extremely great if we could ensure that the players, when they saw the news about the released game from our company, instantly thought: "ALL DOOR 407 games are worth my time until the last second! Let me buy some and I'll break in properly at the first opportunity! It's time to take an extraordinary vacation for a week."