What sores need to be treated so that Russian tanks multiply and multiply?

German Klimenko, adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on Internet issues, asked on his Facebook page what needs to be done so that there are more major successful games in Russia. We have selected the best comments, in our opinion, left by market experts under Klimenko’s post.

Vyacheslav Makarov, general Producer of Wargaming, said that taxes, as well as problems with managing rights and receiving money from abroad, are significant problems.

The founder of Nival, Sergey Orlovsky, noted that it is necessary to stop “turning the nuts.” According to him, the reverse situation has been happening for the last year: “then they are trying to introduce VAT, then they are trying to make social tax benefits through the register, then they are trying to restrict personal data, then they are trying to pupate the Internet.”

Sergey Titov, the former technical director of Riot Games and the head of Arktos Entertainment, disagrees with him. The absence of nuts, according to him, will not solve structural problems, will not increase the size of the home market. Therefore, in order for the gaming industry to improve, Titov believes, changes are needed in the country in general.

The comment of game designer Salavat Valiullin partly confirms Titov’s thesis, however, he approaches the issue from a slightly different angle. According to Valiullin, it is necessary that “the state forgets about the existence of this sector of the economy, so for 2-3-5 years (…) Moreover, it completely forgot – it stopped collecting taxes, stopped taking money into funds, stopped counting taxes on profits.”

This is necessary so that small developers can safely cross the border between a “soha” and a small, but legally working team. In conditions when moving from an apartment to an office (and, in general, the legalization of business) entails a number of additional problems and costs, it is too difficult. And not only for gaming companies.

Sergey Kopov, the head of the publishing division of Herocraft, believes that it is enough not to raise taxes, but to reduce taxes for the emergence of good projects: “the industry will do everything else by itself.”

For Dmitry Martynenko, the development director of the marketing company Mint Publishing, the main problem is “the withdrawal of money from Apple and Google. The passport of the transaction, accounting for them, communication with banks – that’s all.”

Independent developer Andrey Kovalishin, author of the Snail Bob series, agrees with him: “we need to simplify receiving money from foreign companies. Now there are transaction passports, a bunch of pieces of paper need to be filled out for each receipt of money, draconian fines if you did not provide a piece of paper in time or filled out the wrong way …”.

The founder and CEO of Destiny Development Anton Agranovsky, like Orlovsky, insists that it is not worth turning the nuts, since the development of each game is already an expensive and high-risk undertaking (the development of a good game costs Agranovsky 60-70 million): “How to take new risks if they constantly turn the nuts”?

To see the real growth of the gaming sector of the economy in three years (that’s how much it takes to develop a high-quality project), according to Agranovsky, it is enough to have no VAT, 6% turnover tax, as well as saving 14% on wages (not to increase).

Pavel Ryakkonen, Executive Director and co-founder of Nevosoft, also approached Klimenko’s question constructively. According to him, for the appearance of a large number of good projects, it is necessary:

• 0% tax on profits earned outside the Russian Federation (payroll taxes are generally normal, it is important to get IT company accreditation. Then 14% in funds and 13% in personal income tax);
• VAT 0% for IT companies (not only for license agreements);
• tax deduction in the amount of investments in product development (you can put a limit on the maximum amount of deduction per year, say, $ 100 thousand);
• infrastructural support of professional events (premises, information support);
• simplify document flow and financial transactions with foreign counterparties (transaction passports, currency control, translation into Russian of contracts, all this complicates the process);
• simplify the procedure for hiring foreign employees, especially from the republics of the former USSR;
• fix all these benefits for 3-5 years, then according to the results.

And what, in your opinion, should the state change so that there are more good, successful projects in Russia?

You can learn about the latest trends in the gaming industry first-hand, personally meet and discuss working issues with leading companies in the game development and publishing market at White Nights St. Petersburg 2016, which will be held on June 28-29.