Results of 2019: Sergey Korolev from Dreamside Interactive about the main thing for the year

We continue to summarize the results of 2019 together with the managers of gaming companies and market experts. Next up is an interview with Sergey Korolev, founder of the Dreamside Interactive studio (formerly Magisterion).

How was 2019 for the company?

The year turned out to be very productive. We have finally found a publisher for Frozen Flame. The game was shown at the Tokyo Game Show, Casual Connect in China and many local gaming conferences. We even managed to collect several cups. All this gave the necessary fuse to bring the project to release. His announcement is just around the corner.

Frozen Flame
The company has grown to 30 people.

The team now has reliable leads responsible for key areas. Thanks to them, it was possible to systematize the development and significantly improve the quality of the product. I myself am now more focused on producing. Stanislav Shin acts as the general director of the company. The most talented Anastasia Zelenova is responsible for PR. As for the bizdev direction, we have, consider, a secret agent, without whom much would be impossible.

Stanislav Shin and Anastasia Zelenova
We have reopened our office in Moscow, launched two new projects in pre-production, one of which we plan to show at one of the upcoming White Nights.

We are also slowly reducing outsourcing and mobile direction in favor of developing games for PC and consoles.

Prototype of a new project
Due to the fact that the company has changed significantly in recent years, we decided to change its name.

Now it is not called Magisterion, but Dreamside Interactive. The foundation date is considered to be the start of the development of the main project — Frozen Flame, this is the end of 2015.

In the coming year, we will continue to gain momentum. Perhaps we will soon launch a division in St. Petersburg. However, our main priority now is to find developers with independent experience, as well as small teams who are ready to join us to do what they love.

What events in the regional and global gaming industry do you consider central in the past year?

Movies and games have become closer to each other. The cases of Death Stranding, Cyberpunk 2077 and the film adaptation of The Witcher are very inspiring to move forward. Excellent examples of close interaction between the two media, once again forcing us to talk about games as art. I also want to reach a similar level someday. By the way, I don’t remember that so many high-quality products affecting both formats have ever appeared before. It must be a golden time.

From the important: Blizzard was still able to wash its hands after last year and restore the trust of the players, and Riot was well lit by announcing five new games at once.

As for the new generation of consoles, the Google Stadia platform and Half-Life: Alyx, which is being created for virtuality glasses, they all raise concerns and questions.

To local events. The state suddenly turned its attention to game developers. The creation of a game developer support fund has been announced. It is worth treating such support with great caution if you look back at the experience of the same Skolkovo. There are also many intelligent schools, various initiatives and students in the field of game development. Thanks to this, the personnel hunger has decreased. For this, I am personally grateful to the guys who spare no effort and time to create a new generation of developers.

What are the main trends in the market today?

• The middle segment in game development finally began to pay attention. Before that, spotlights, as a rule, were directed either to indie or to very large projects. Over the past year, the mood has changed a lot, and finding a publisher for relatively large, but still not AAA-projects has become much more realistic. Epic Games plays a significant role here, which regularly comes up with all sorts of initiatives, which also has a program to support independent developers.
• More and more major studios are switching to Unreal Engine 4. In the future, this will reduce the number of failures (a la Fallout 76) when older companies are trying to implement ambitious projects based on their outdated technologies.
• In the domestic mobile segment, they are increasingly talking about deals. Established companies want to grow, including through the absorption of small and talented studios. For them, this is a great opportunity for a qualitative leap.
• The audience of mobile games continues to grow and change. Along with hyper-casual projects, more and more midcore (Archero) and hardcore (Fortnite, Call of Duty, Dota Auto Chess) games began to appear on the market.
• The PC games market is becoming more mature. I was very pleased with how they met the announcement of the brutal Hellblade 2, the old-school Diablo 4 and the release of the insane GTFO.
• Loot boxes and rigid monetization schemes are gradually losing ground. More and more developers and publishers are experimenting (Apple Arcade inspires hope) and are looking for new models to make money. We are also not lagging behind and plan to apply something new next year.
• Stylized 3D graphics have finally become mainstream. Now you rarely see materials on 80.lv on creating photorealistic graphics. Today, most people understand that the atmosphere and the idea are more important. Accordingly, there are also more developers who can work well with stylized graphics.

Which third-party game releases turned out to be the most important this year? Which games did you spend the most time on in 2019 as a gamer?

Only the lazy one didn’t say anything about Death Stranding. Now it remains to hope that Kojima will still be given the rights to the Silent Hills I adore. I would like to believe that next time he will be able to treat the players’ time more respectfully.

There were a lot of good games this year. I especially remember Metro: Exodus.

I would also like to mention The Outer Worlds, Control and Plague Tale as examples of how to do it, and Days Gone, Anthem, Generation Zero and The Sinking City — how not to do it, please.

Dead Cells became my personal mobile game of the year thanks to the Nintendo Switch. Minecraft: Earth came out interesting. Sekiro gave a lot of “pleasant” moments and took a lot of time, as well as the remake of Resident Evil 2, after which I’m really looking forward to the updated 3rd part. If Capcom decides after that on a multiplayer reincarnation of the legendary 4th part (which inspired the same Dead Space), it will be just a fairy tale.