How and why the founder of Green Grey invested $4 million in the MERCS mobile shooter: interview with Dima Morozov
The Green Grey company has become more active. After two PR campaigns — involving Zurab Tsereteli in the creation of the Mountain Goat Cup for developers and launching a program about games on Muz-TV — the company announced the first deal. She invests $4 million in a joint mobile shooter of the designer of the Corsairs series and a serial IT entrepreneur. Details about the deal and the publisher itself are in our material.
Dima Morozov
The founder of Green Grey is Dima Morozov.
Exactly Dima. “The PR service insisted,” a smiling guy laughs in a conversation with us, who does not look at all like a classic businessman.
Rather, he can be mistaken for the evangelist Gloria Jeans, to which he is directly related. A flannel shirt is thrown over a simple white T-shirt, the sleeves are rolled up, and a black backpack is slung over his shoulders.
Morozov came to games from the advertising industry, where he worked for more than fifteen years. He started in BBDO Russia, then moved to Dentsu Russia, then returned to BBDO, but already to the position of a top manager.
Today Dima is a member of the board of directors of Gloria Jeans, invests in technology startups, is engaged in games and develops a mobile ecosystem. He explains his interest in IT and games by changing the focus in life: “When the lockdown started, and at the same time the calls stopped for a while, it became clear that I wanted to do something completely different.”
Games have become this other. “For me, the gaming industry is like a new religion,” Morozov laughs again. And then he notes a little more seriously: “Neophytes are usually very well motivated. They are faster, more aggressive and ready to solve complex tasks.”
Dima sees Green Grey Publishing house in the future as a large mobile ecosystem that will create new IP, develop and publish games, release applications, advertising, as well as develop its own technologies. At the end of the way — an exit to NASDAQ.
It is not created from scratch. Behind him is the creation and launch of a number of other major projects and experience in managing teams and businesses.
Green Grey’s first public application for mobile expansion is an investment of $ 4 million in the MERCS shooter, which is being created by the Russian studio Developers Unknown. One of its co—founders, Renat Yudinov, is widely known in the industry.
Yudinov is a representative of the “old school” of Russian game dev. His playing career began in the late 90s. Most often his name is associated with the series “Corsairs“, in the development of which he took part.
Unlike many colleagues, after the crisis of the Russian gaming industry in 2008-2009, Renat did not leave development. Tenth, he formed the “Interactive Cartoon“, the gaming division of VGTRK, which dealt mainly with children’s applications.
Now he and his partner, serial IT entrepreneur and business angel Nikolai Piskunov, are making an ambitious mobile PVP shooter.
The developers used Overwatch as a reference. The task was set ambitious: to implement core gameplay, which, as in the Blizzard game, will be as diverse as possible due to the fact that teams on the battlefield are formed from various heroes with different abilities.
“Today MERCS is a third—person shooter with auto—shooting, heroes, two special abilities per character and a minimum of characteristics,” Morozov reveals.
Dima emphasizes that he invests money not in the development of the Developers Unknown studio, but in their specific product, in MERCS. Of course, within the framework of cooperation, it is planned to work closely together on the product.
“As part of the deal, Developers Unknown is the developer, and Green Grey is the publisher. We both invest in the product. But the responsibilities for each of the parties are assigned different. On the developer’s side, as usual, the creation of a cool product. Everything else is up to us: publishing, marketing, and so on. Plus, we also take an active part in the development as an adviser, we try to do everything to make the product come out strong,” the speaker explains.
The company currently has about 4-5 contracts in operation. Developers Unknown was the first with whom an investment and publishing contract was signed. The release of the game is scheduled for spring 2022.
“Now we have approved the core gameplay and the main proof of concept. Further development is the addition of new heroes, new arenas, new game modes, polishing the meta—game, and adding social components to the game – fights with friends, and social meta. At the stage of the soft launch, which is scheduled for next year, we will optimize the retention and monetization of the project. Already now we have planned goals for almost two years of the project development, and we will not stop there,” writes Nameddinov.
Taking into account the contribution of Green Grey, the budget of the game is $ 6 million. Two of them are Developers Unknown’s own resources for game development and server technologies. Green Grey funds will be used for the technical refinement and marketing described above.
Morozov does not rule out that the project will require additional investments: “If it becomes clear that something else needs to be done, no one will stop financing.”
Dima understands that by today’s standards, $4 million for development and start—up marketing is far from a record amount: “It seems to me that it is above average, but it cannot be said that it is very much. The quality of products is growing, and the production value is growing, and with it the price.”
Therefore, Green Grey is ready to show flexibility in the financial issue. Especially against the background of the fact that she is interested not so much in a single hit, as in permanent partners, together with whom she will be able to develop successful products that have already been released and launch new ones.
“We want to create a pool of trusted partners around Green Grey, each of whom will be good in their segment/genre. This way we will get a diversified portfolio of cool studios that can make cool casual and midcore products,” Morozov reveals.
