Results of 2017: Sergey Galenkin from Epic Games about the main thing for the year
Director of Publishing Strategy Epic Games and the author of the SteamSpy service Sergey Galenkin said App2Top.ru , which events and projects he considers the main ones in 2017.
Sergey GalenkinHow was 2017 for you?
Mostly at work. Due to the very heavy workload and moving to the USA, I refused to speak publicly and practically did not write any articles, for which I apologize. I am glad that the podcast “How games are made” did not suffer: Misha Kuzmin – well done, took over most of the load on it so that we could go out on the same schedule.
How was the year for the company?
Intense. At Epic Games, we launched Fortnite: Save the World and, following it, Fortnite: Battle Royale (FNBR), reached 35 million players and in the last couple of weeks turned on monetization, which was surprisingly warmly received by players.
This is the most successful year for us in the history of the company and the next one promises to be even better.
What event of 2017 do you consider the most important for the industry?
The birth of a new genre of “battle royale”. 25 million PUBG players and 35 million FNBR players are almost 60 million players in the genre, which penetrated the gaming masses only at the beginning of 2017 (although, of course, it has been known since the time of mods for Minecraft).
Fortnite: Battle Royale
Such things happen in our industry every few years and every time I never cease to be surprised by the ability of the industry to reinvent itself.
What trends of the outgoing year would you note?
The war with the lutkreits, caused by SW: Battlefront 2, but outlined even before that. The client is always right. Do not underestimate the ability of users to self-organize and public speaking. I wonder how the gaming industry will react to this.
Amazing performance of the Nintendo Switch. 10 million consoles is a great result, which, let’s be honest, few people believed in.
The growing dissatisfaction of developers and players with the Steam platform. Over the past few months, I have been regularly hearing complaints from game creators about Valve. Perhaps because of SteamSpy, they think that I can somehow influence this.
Name the third-party projects of this year that you liked the most.
Arena of Valor is a mobile MOBA from Tencent, the most profitable game in the world. I’m a big fan of the genre, and with my travel schedule, Arena of Valor was the best travel entertainment.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It seems like a semi-addon, but it is perceived as a full-fledged game. There are really no gameplay innovations in it, but the basis of Uncharted 4 turned out to be interesting enough to make another project.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.
Portable XCOM with Mario and bunnies, which makes it even better than usual. It is perfectly played both on the big screen and on trips, especially when you consider that the game does not require online (unlike Arena of Valor).
