Results 2020: Vlad Suglobov from G5 Games about the main thing for the year
He spoke about his company's strategy for the next yearVlad Suglobov, CEO and co-founder of G5 Games.
Vlad Suglobov
How was 2020 for the company?
Like everyone else, we are faced with the need to work remotely. Someone has adapted so that they don't want to go back to the office at all (this is me and, according to surveys, a significant part of our employees), but there are also those who want to go back. I hope the time will come soon when we will be able to offer everyone the option of the job that suits them best.
At the same time, we were very pleasantly surprised by how quickly we managed to make the transition to remote work, and how effectively we work remotely today.
From the point of view of business development, we have achieved our goals. Our new generation of internally developed games shows excellent growth parameters: +425% year-on-year based on the results of the first three quarters. We have done a lot of work to improve our marketing and this has significantly increased the profitability of the company. The company's market capitalization has increased several times since the beginning of the year.
Our employees have done a great job — to achieve such excellent results in a difficult year for everyone. I am very proud of them!
What new trends in your niche do you consider worth paying attention to?
Remote work is the main trend. And she opened up new opportunities for us. As soon as we realized that we were able to work effectively in a completely remote mode, we began to hire employees in cities and countries where we do not have offices.
I am glad to say that the integration of new employees into the team is working perfectly. We really hope to see everyone "live" one day, but at the same time we see that remote work and readiness for it — not only on the part of the company, but also on the part of employees — has greatly expanded our capabilities.
I am sure that this is not a temporary trend: we will observe it for several more years.
What new market trends would you note in general?
The whole industry has received a great boost as a result of this year's events. In difficult times, the gaming industry came to the aid of humanity. The time that people spent playing games, they didn't spend on alcohol and drugs.
I think this has changed the attitude of many towards the gaming industry. Even the World Health Organization (WHO), which introduced "game addiction" to the list of diseases one and a half or two years ago, six months ago actively participated in the Play Apart Together campaign together with gaming companies (including G5). This is the next stage in the adoption of the gaming industry as a mainstream entertainment industry, which brings great benefits to people.
There are a lot of people over 50 among our players. It was especially difficult for them this year as a result of isolation. Thanks to our games, they could distract themselves, solve puzzles, learn something new, for example, about life in Ancient Rome from the game Jewels of Rome, chat and play with friends through the social functions of our games.
Today we see a lot of gratitude in the reviews for the fact that our games allow this audience to "keep the brain in shape" and maintain cognitive functions. I think that this aspect of the gaming industry needs to continue to be highlighted, to draw attention to it.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2021?
We will continue to implement our strategy:
- creating a line (portfolio) of games for our target audience on our own;
- publishing some third-party games;
- perhaps the acquisition of other studios.
We will build processes for all of this.
As for our audience, we have about 70% of the audience — women. If you look at the age, then 70% of our audience is over 35. This is such a classic target audience of casual games. We know and understand her well. We will continue to make and release games for them, also looking around at other promising niches. The main markets for us will remain the same: the USA (accounting for 58% of our sales) and the European Union (25%). Japan is the main Asian market for us.
Which third-party game releases are you interested in this year? Which ones did you pay attention to as a gamer?
Unfortunately, I haven't found much time for games this year. In my case, the pandemic has opened up huge opportunities for traveling and playing my favorite sports on the job, which I did from early spring to late autumn. I will try to catch up in winter!
