2015 results: Sergey Bruy from Vizor Interactive that "you can come to Facebook and earn"
Sergey Bruy , co-founder and Managing Partner of Vizor Interactive , told App2Top.ru about the state of the social games market and the company’s plans.
Event of the year in the world
The year, frankly speaking, does not gush with extraordinary events; everything went on as usual: the games came out, the markets rose and fell according to schedule. I was interested and intrigued by the deal between King and Activision Blizzard. I will be waiting for this duet (or triplet?) some kind of synergy unprecedented in the gaming industry. It’s a pity if this is a takeover for the sake of absorption, the transfer of assets from one state to another, but even this event is noticeable.
Trend of the year
We still look at the gaming industry through a thin stripe in the visor: social networks are blown into the distance in close-up, there is a queue in mobile and somewhere on the edge – a browser.
With soc. everything is clear with networks: the market is slowly falling (the Western market, to be precise, Russian networks are diving for obvious reasons). This is not good, but it is not completely bad for our developers.
Right now you can come to Facebook, do everything they ask, and earn. They help a lot and intelligently. There used to be an investment HYIP, now it is in mobile, but there is demand and it is unlikely to disappear suddenly.
In mobile, there is a feeling that small developers have slightly overgrown with meat and a timid movement towards larger projects begins, where everything is “grown-up”. Dota, RPG and, I’m not even afraid of this almost forgotten abbreviation, RTS are mobile – I’m waiting for all this in abundance in 2016.
“Klondike” by VizorAchievement of the Year
In our market, I am pleased with the success of our colleagues in economic simulators and any casual – the company Playrix. Their projects are clear and close to us, their progress in a good way spurs us to raise the quality bar.
I personally remember and was somewhat iconic of the short-term, but noticeable success of Fallout Shelter. The game itself (in this case) is secondary, the fact of the correct use of IP is important.
The competition in the struggle for the user in 2015 went beyond the reasonable. Investment pumping and the success of aggressive marketing of large players pushes many companies into this rat race. The trend is unlikely to change, prices for users will grow, and it will become even more difficult to buy a sufficient number of players (but someone also needs to pay for them). And in this light, the use of IP can suddenly become interesting to someone again.
Disappointment of the Year
The stagnation in the Russian social media market is frankly frustrating. There are not enough fresh ideas, not only related to games, but also on platforms.
I also expected a fresh mobile breakthrough from our developers, new names and titles that will conquer the world, as in due time Om-Nom or “Megapolis”. According to the level of performers, many have definitely matured. This is from the local. Globally, I expected to see something in VR already, but it seems that we still have to wait.
“Megapolis” by Social QuantunGame of the Year
Corny – the Witcher.
Year for the company
A good year. We finally realized that we don’t know how to keep up with the trend. Success on social platforms has become our base, Klondike has almost jumped into the Top 10 games on Facebook, and no one from Eastern Europe has been there yet, although maybe I’m lying. But it’s nice to think about it that way.
Knights&Brides, which has been leading to FB for a long time, successfully jumped into the top 50 in 4 months and received the Best Facebook Games 2015 award. There are no mobile successes, but there will be. This will be our growth point in 2016. We made a difficult decision – not to build our games from the desktop version anymore. This decision was supported by a technological base (our games on third-party technologies look like lame cows). In general, we expect good results and are full of optimism.
