Results of 2015: Leonid Sirotin on the "caput" of games in social networks
The former general producer of Game Insight Leonid Sirotin said App2Top.ru about what interested and disappointed him in the outgoing year.
Event of the Year
A lot of things have happened in the world and, of course, I want to fold my hands on my belly and mumble something from the series, how important it is for the industry that Activision Blizzard bought King (it doesn’t matter, in fact, at all. Well, for you and me, it doesn’t really matter. Two heaps of very big money, according to the law of global financial gravity, merged into one pile… Oh, that’s me, you can’t say that to experts).
For readers from Russia, I would note as an event of the year the fact that Google honestly fulfilled its promises and disabled support for the Unity plugin in the Chrome browser. It actually killed the development of complex games for social networks – this time. Restricted the freedom of cross-platform development – two. And three – Google won’t stop there.
A little help – the IT giant turned off Unity not because it hates developers of games more complex than “three-in-a-row”. Google consistently refuses to support plugins using NPAPI (Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface). This API was developed at the time when your grandmother, dear reader, was a district Quake champion. NPAPI is also used in Java and Flash Player. So this is very bad news (which is so-so news) for developers of social and browser games. Your farms, hiden-projects and match-3 are under threat.
For those who still want news from the big world, the French giant Vivendi, which owned a controlling stake in Activision Blizzard’s modest gaming leviathan until 2013, seriously set out to devour and digest the elders of the European gaming business – Ubisoft. Following the movements of the participants in this market ritual is as fascinating as from the point of view of Jabba the Hutt watching the attempts of an unsuccessful twi’lek dancer thrown into a pit to escape from a rancor. Everyone knows how it ended.
And let’s not forget that water was found on Mars in 2015 – that’s what I understand the Event of the Year.
Signs of the presence of salt water have been found in the craters of Mars. In particular, inside this meteorite crater. The dark-colored stripes are just water [Photo: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIV. OF ARIZONA].Trend of the year
I would highlight three trends that interested me this year:
- The emerging kaput of all games, except gambling on social networks. First of all [it concerns] Facebook. The reason is the policy of social networks, the outflow of users to mobile phones, Google’s policy regarding plugins (see above).
- On the one hand, it becomes more difficult to live on mobile devices, due to rising traffic prices, vague platform policies and huge competition. On the other hand, the advertising model of user monetization has gained serious momentum: for the first time since the birth of free-2-play, an interesting alternative to shareware games has emerged.
- And, distracting from business in favor of game design, a clear trend in development for desktops and consoles is MOBA shooters announced in a noticeable number: Overwatch, Paragon, Paladins and so on. It is unknown whether all projects will be successful enough to consolidate the trend, as it was fixed for CS, COD, Crossfire, WOT shooters, and for MOBA – LoL and Dota, but at least there will be a movement.
OverwatchAchievement of the Year
I was surprised and pleased with Kefir with the One Life project, which clearly proves that any life costs 400 rubles (at the exchange rate of the Central Bank on the day of the publication of the article). And there you can also subject a defeated enemy to forced urine therapy, ride an armored and armed truck through the wastelands of the post-apocalypse and make a zombie kebab.
I was pleased with the fresh concept, and surprised by the very lively reaction of people to the announcement – it felt like the creator of the game Andrey Pryakhin personally broke into their home and tried to break a piggy bank with the last money. Although there were enough positive reviews, I must admit.
The Russian company BITBOX, the developers of Life is Feudal, very clearly proved that there is life on Steam and wow what! They also confirmed that the trend of survival games has not disappeared and has not faded away.
World of Warships with its success, in my opinion, not so much strengthened the financial position of Wargaming (what else is there to strengthen), as it proved to the public that WG is not a one-game company. Separately, I want to note the very high quality of the game, what is called gloss and polishing of details.
From personal achievements – at the DevGAMM conference I received from the site VC.ru and the jury of independent experts award “Person of the Year 2015 in the category “Publicity””. It was pleasant, tickled in the chest, and butterflies were flying in the stomach.
Life is FeudalDisappointment of the Year
In an interview with a friendly publication VC.ru I wrote that there were no disappointments, but from that moment I managed to change my mind twice.
First, the Best of the App Store 2015 is Vainglory. It’s a very noisy story, investments flow like a river, and in the end we have about a million dollars of rhubarb on Apple with frenzied marketing and PR costs, mediocre gameplay, and in general everything looks sour so far. Running on Android may play a role, but so far it seems to me that the traditional MOBA and mobiles are not friends. And they are certainly not friends with esports.
The second disappointment – very personal – is Heroes of the Storm. This was probably the first MOBA where I was really comfortable at the level of interfaces and depth of gameplay. And then there was a sharp lurch in the game towards purely PVE-activities on the combat map: the team that merges on the kil can drag, purely collecting seeds or kernels – well, what kind of dota is this, guys? In general, as they say, I erase the game, Blizards are not a cake and all that.
Heroes of the StormGame of the Year
“The Witcher 3”. Although in the wording of the question “meaning for the industry” it was necessary to look for another answer. “The Witcher” does not change anything on the general landscape and, rather, he is a greeting from the glorious past than some kind of fad from the future. For the developer in The Witcher, in my opinion, it should be noted not the script-the plot, which was originally a very strong side of the series, but how radically the creators improved the gameplay itself, moved to the open world, simplified navigation, polished the action.
And here I want to note why for me the game of the year is not Fallout 4. Fallout is an absolute hit. The claims against him are mostly ridiculous. But for me personally, in recent years, there has somehow become a lot of rust and radioactive dirt in games. “The Witcher” is more comfortable in this sense, despite all its assumed rigidity and cruelty. And the hero – Geralt – in the third “Witcher” just reached the heights of severity: my mumble loaded with bolts and caps in power armor looks very pale next to him.
The Witcher 3A year for me
I’ll be brief here – it was a great year. Everything I had a hand in was pleasing and, I hope, will continue to do so in 2016. What I wish to everyone!
