Managers Mail.Ru Group left the company to run hyper-casual games

A new publisher of hyper-casual games will appear on the Russian market. Managers of the gaming division Mail.Ru Group Ivan Fedyanin and Alisher Yakubov announced their retirement from the Internet giant. They will launch their own company, which will just deal with hypercausals.

The new company will be called Ducky. As Fedyanin wrote in his Facebook post:

We will create such a publisher of hyper-casual games that will combine clear and understandable processes from big business and the speed that an independent company can give. Times “made and given to Voodoo/Lion / someone else — you'll see everything will take off” — they are hopelessly leaving, and projects will need to be done with preliminary analytics, checks at every step, and it will work only on equal and fair terms between the developer and the publisher. And we can provide such conditions.

Ivan Fedyanin

Co-founder of Ducky Publishing House

According to Fedyanin, the new company will not be associated with Mail.Ru Group. We are talking about a full-fledged departure from the structure. That is, it does not imply a scenario illogical to Owlcat Games. Recall that in October, she declared her own independence from Mail.Ru Group. At the same time, the latter became its strategic partner.

Dismissal and launch of a new publishing house outside Mail.Ru Group Ivan, as far as can be understood from his appeal, explains that he has lost interest in working within the existing paradigm. He, like Alisher, thanks Mail.Ru Thanks for the experience, for the opportunities, but now it’s more interesting for both of them to start their own business.

Ivan has been the head of the Fast Forward, an internal studio founded by him, for the last five years Mail.Ru Group. She was noted for three mobile projects — American Dad! Apocalypse Soon, Bombastic Brothers and Planet of Heroes. Prior to that, he worked at Nival, where he was responsible for mobile Etherlords, Prime World: Defenders and King’s Bounty: Legions.

Alisher Yakubov has been an executive producer in the investment division of MY.GAMES for the last two years. Previously, he was responsible for tracking investment projects in the FRII, and even earlier for producing mobile games in G5 Entertainment (including being a producer of The Secret Society).

Also on the topic:

• Features of mobile MOBA development on the example of Planet of Heroes: interview with Ivan FedyaninThe authors of Pathfinder: Kingmaker have become an independent studio
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