Results of 2015: Alexander Enin from My.com (Mail.Ru Games) about "Star Wars", mobile MMORPG and Heroes of Charge
Head of the mobile direction My.com Alexander Enin shared with App2Top.ru their thoughts, including why mobile developers now need to take up the creation of MMORPGs.
Art to “Evolution:The Battle for Utopia”Alexander Enin
Event of the year in the world
In my opinion, this is the release of the seventh episode of “Star Wars”. I am not a fan of this franchise and I will not go to the movies for them, but I see how this event affects the surrounding reality, how it invades people’s lives. No movie has ever been so eagerly awaited before. If it meets the initially inflated expectations, then it will be a real bomb. The effect of it will definitely affect the audience of games. Perhaps this will manifest itself in a decline in the popularity of the classic fantasy setting, perhaps people will rethink their requirements for the plot and detail of game universes, and perhaps they will just cool down even more to games made not according to franchises.
Trend of the year
There are a lot of trends and they are all important in their own way, so I will highlight the one that I like very much myself. In 2015, the formation of a sufficient mass of the audience capable of seriously playing MMORPG from smartphones took place. This happened due to two factors:
- The phones themselves and their screens have greatly increased in size – the “working area” so critical for MMORPGs. Today, when playing with two fingers on modern iOS devices, you will see something other than your own limbs. For example, with the iPhone 4, this could not be allowed.
- The previous years have formed a very strong portfolio of high-quality midcore games. Through them, millions of players have been formatted towards increased sociality: today, holding smartphones in their hands, they expect more from the game – more competition, recognition, immersion, adrenaline.
The conclusion is as follows: if you are a developer, you have a budget for a serious game, and you have sufficient experience – make an MMORPG, you will have an audience.
Mobile MMORPG Taichi Panda from Snail Games showed good box office results in Russia this yearAchievement of the Year
I will not praise foreign companies, they are already being talked about a lot. I’d rather praise ours, namely Pixonic and their MMO game Walking War Robots. This is one of the few domestic companies that in 2015 proved to be a talented, persistent and successful developer. I hope the guys will be able to use their experience correctly and convert it into a global hit. Considering that next year will be very loyal for MMORPGs, I think they have every chance for this.
Disappointment of the Year
I expected more from King. For example, that she will show some completely new case within the framework of retaining the audience inside her portfolio or will do something impossible with the match3 genre. But a year has passed, and in fact the company has not shown anything breakthrough.
Game of the Year
For me, it’s definitely Heroes Charge. Although formally this is a 2014 development, but it was in 2015 that this game left the most circles on the water, that is, games-followers on the mobile market.
Heroes ChargeA year for me and the company
For me, this year was very difficult, probably even the most difficult in my entire career. For the first six months I was engaged in the usual development for myself, but in the second half of the year I also began to perform the functions of the head of the mobile direction. Learning to combine these two roles was a very difficult task for me, but thanks to the full support of my colleagues, I succeeded. Both of my products have reached the soft launch on time and are now preparing for release, and the mobile direction Mail.Ru The group has a strategy and an understanding of how to achieve success at the system level in the development of mobile games.
