"Russian users had to look for alternatives," Vasily Maguryan from VK Play about the main thing for 2022

Already in the new year, 2023, we continue to sum up the results of 2022 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry. Next up is an interview with Vasily Maguryan, CEO of VK Play

What was the year like for the company? What have you done, implemented, and what in general would I like to highlight in terms of achievements?

This year has been very important and eventful for us. We have been planning for a long time to create a platform that would combine everything that gamers love, so in April we launched VK Play.

Although the development of the project began long before the release, it was in 2022 that, in our opinion, it turned out to be the most important for the industry as a response to the challenges faced by the Russian gaming market in the outgoing year. Our goal was to make a safe and reliable platform for creators and consumers of games, which will equally support both players and developers, will avoid various problems, for example, with monetization, and will also appeal to both hardcore gamers and casual gamers.

The first step here was the launch of its own store, where there are now more than 13 thousand titles. We provided developers with favorable conditions for placing games on VK Play and designated a commission of only 5%. This means that the remaining 95% of the profit is received by the developer himself.

Russian streamers in 2022 also faced difficulties in monetizing their content, so we launched the VK Play Live streaming platform for them and offered the best working conditions. We have received more than 10 thousand applications from streamers, more than 11 thousand streams have already been conducted on the platform, and now we have already been joined by millionaire bloggers from other platforms.

We have also launched a service for cloud gaming VK Play Cloud, which allows you to play any games at maximum settings, even if you have outdated or weak hardware. There are now more than 400 titles in the cloud catalog. Also on VK Play Cloud, you can run games that are purchased in various digital stores.

In addition, we held two e-sports tournaments of the VK Play Cup series with a prize fund of $ 500 thousand for the Warface game. And more than a thousand tournaments in other disciplines.

How has the situation changed for the company in the gaming market? What new challenges from the point of view of platforms, marketing and competition did it face?

When launching VK Play, we wanted to create services that would compete well with global industry players. We wanted Russian users, developers and creators of game content to have the same opportunities that representatives of the global gaming community have now.

As an example, I can cite the sphere of streaming. VK Play Live provides more favorable conditions and support programs for developing streamers, within which content authors can claim to receive awards from the service. All this, coupled with an excellent technical base, has already attracted thousands of streamers and their viewers to VK Play Live.

Is it possible to talk about a change in user behavior? Or about the new features of their interests that you have noticed?

As I said earlier, users had to look for alternatives to services that left the Russian market. Otherwise, we didn’t notice any significant changes in their patterns of behavior and content consumption. At the same time, I can say for sure that Russian developers and opinion leaders have become more active in looking at promotion in the domestic market.

What are the company’s plans for next year?

For many years, the Russian gaming market has shown consistently high growth in audience indicators, as well as the number of gaming industry professionals. The volume of the Russian gaming market in 2021 amounted to 177 billion rubles, and the audience of gamers in Russia totals more than 80 million people.

In other words, it is a large industry with almost endless opportunities and an active involved community, and we will certainly continue to support and develop it.

We have ambitious plans for each direction of VK Play. We plan to improve the service, because many projects have literally just come out of beta, we collect a lot of feedback. We will be waiting for loud announcements of titles that will also appear on our site in the new year. In addition to the updates of the site itself, we will devote more time to the introduction of educational programs and the growth of personnel for the gaming industry as a whole. We will tell our audience about all the innovations, so stay tuned!

What was the year for you personally, were there any things that you finally managed to realize and are proud of?

Last year, solving business problems and launching new projects took a lot of time. One of the things I’m proud of is definitely the launch of the VK Play playground, which combines a catalog of games, streaming, esports and gaming media. In fact, there have not been such solutions on the Russian gaming market yet, no one has created a single access point to all game and near-game content. And all this, of course, would not have happened without our team, which spent the whole year creating a product that millions of gamers across the country loved.