Results of 2016: Ilya Eremeev from Game Insight about hype stories and the best mobile games of the year

Game Insight creative producer Ilya Eremeev told App2Top what projects the company has released this year, and also noted the best mobile games of 2016.

A year for you and the company

For me, 2016 was the busiest year of all time. At the beginning of the year, I returned to Moscow and joined Game Insight as a creative producer. Moving to a new place is always a challenge and a test, but also a point of professional growth, and working in a company with such an extensive diverse portfolio and accumulated experience accelerates growth many times.

During this year, I have learned to understand games better not only from the design side, but also from the business side. Not the least role in this was played by new acquaintances and information that industry colleagues are ready to share.

For Game Insight, 2016 is a new round of the company’s development.

This year we have significantly strengthened the GI team, attracted new specialists and brought back former colleagues, expanded HR activities, and now we are preparing to move to a new chic office.

2016 also became one of the richest years for Game Insight for new releases and initiatives.

We have launched our Guns of Boom mobile shooter in softlonch. This is a bold step into new territory for us. As far as we can see from the first results, there are excellent prospects for the game. By the way, we recently broke the million downloads mark! Finally, it becomes really convenient to play shooters on mobile devices. The players appreciated it.

This year we became one of the first companies to launch our own project on Facebook’s new Instant Games platform. It’s about Tribez Rush. Now we are preparing to release several more messenger games.

In collaboration with Disney, we launched Moana Island life, a simulator of a paradise island based on an amazing cartoon. For us, this is again a new, pleasant and fruitful experience of cooperation with such a large partner.

In addition, we have brought 4 more games to the softlonch and are preparing to launch several more. We will tell you about their successes in 2017.

With so many new releases, we do not forget about our classic games: The Tribez, Mirrors of Albion and Airport City continue to develop, receive major updates and appear in features on platforms.

Event of the year in the world

For me, the event of the year is not the release of a specific game, but a general trend towards the appearance of massive, but very short hype stories. Miitomo, Pokémon Go, Super Mario Run – Nintendo is related to all of them, a good entry to the platform!

One of the positive trends is a qualitative leap in games being developed in the CIS. Now we can say with confidence that there are world leaders among our developers. Their products in the box office tops speak for themselves.

One of the negative ones is the lack of new hits from the mastodons of the mobile industry. If this year turned out to be rich in new hits and successful revivals on the PC and console market (here Doom, Titanfall, Overwatch, Uncharted 4, Tyranny, and Stellaris), then in the mobile world there were no new launches and sequels of achievements, not counting Clash Royale. This may indicate that the old production and marketing schemes are no longer working. The giants will again have to adapt to a new world where content is the king.

VR games have also made a big leap. The experience of playing HTC VIVE is simply amazing, incomparable: it’s really a new dimension and a new level of immersion. Unfortunately, most of the products are still at a primitive stage in terms of gameplay, but the prospects here are huge.

I also cannot but mention the development of esports. I was very impressed by visiting the League of Legends championship. When the stadium explodes in the climactic moments of the match, the heart freezes and the realization comes that something has changed in this world.

Game of the Year

This year there have been many local bursts of interest and sticking for several weeks, or even months. These are Wizard of Oz, League of War: Mercenaries, Rune Story, and dozens of other diamonds.

The warmest feelings I had were caused by a completely unexpected game for me – Crashlands. This is a survival game with crafting, a very interesting world and a fighting game. Something in between Diablo and Don’t Starve and at the same time paid! I would never have thought that I would get carried away with something like this, but this game is a masterpiece with a soul.

But the biggest impact on the industry was still Clash Royale. I think he should be given the title of game of the year, and not Pokémon Go or Super Mario Run, from the success of which nothing practical can be learned.