Results of 2021: Igor Hasty and Ivan Titov from GTP Media about the main thing for the year

We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Igor Hasty and Ivan Titov, the founders of the GTP Media PR agency and the organizers of the Indie Cup competition.

Igor and IvanHow did 2021 go for the company?

Igor: I’m sure I won’t be alone: I’m still in 2020. These two years are both very similar and very different at the same time. But this is mainly due to the fact that both years we worked hard on several strategic tasks and received the first fruits by the end of 2021.

I share the pleasure in the work of the agency. We are very glad that we were able to help such cool local games as The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante and Until We Die to gather an even larger audience. For example, Until We Die practically did not enter the public field before she participated in the Indie Cup and won in three nominations. This victory, as well as the attention of the press with streamers, became the first step and gave a big boost to the vishlist. Then, at the release, we helped the team Until We Die with PR for free as part of accompanying the winner of the Rising Star nomination.

As for the cup specifically, we have grown again by more than 30% in all indicators for the year. Games from 22 countries (CIS + Eastern Europe) have started to take part. The cherry on the cake was the five days of our annual event on the Steam homepage.

Ivan: We continued to collaborate with Headup Games after their merger with Thunderful Games. Recently, they held a really powerful presentation of their line of games with a dozen announcements. Among them was the long-awaited announcement of the new part of SteamWorld, and Mark Hamill himself led this presentation. This event was covered by many industrial media, and it seems that Russian was the second most popular language of broadcasts on Twitch.

Also this year we worked on releases for Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PlayStation. Potata games: fairy flower and our long-time customer PUSS! we have collected a good number of reviews.

The B2B direction was also developed. We helped the VERSUS.legal law firm with entering the public field of the gaming industry. A lot of articles, a webinar, participation in conferences, the launch of a whole sub—site on DTF, which helps game developers to understand the legal subtleties of the gaming industry – together we have done a lot of work aimed at building the company’s image and finding new customers.

Overall, it was a successful year for us with a lot of interesting projects and tasks. He brought us more than 100% growth. We expect 2022 to maintain this pace.

What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?

Igor: There is even more online. In 2021, everyone realized that it would not be like before and they needed to learn to live in a new way. Now more and more companies are holding their own presentations — console manufacturers, publishers, etc. Events that used to be held exclusively live are increasingly taking place online (although little by little they have begun to return offline). But still, despite the steep growth in the number and quality of online, everyone really missed each other. I think next year we will see a crazy trend for offline events. Even for small, field or corporate events.

The number of funds with private capital that are interested in traditional and blockchain games is growing at a tremendous pace. This means that more and more small teams have begun to turn into full-fledged studios and increase expertise in all areas inside: from optimization of development pipelines to marketing and IP operations. Even the opportunity to assemble your team with an idea that has been on the table for a long time has become a hundred times more real than before — thanks to the money available on the market.

As a result, wages continue to rise and there is a constant shortage of qualified personnel. From this position, the crisis in education is becoming more and more visible. After talking with colleagues, we came to the conclusion that apart from DigiPen and FullSail, there are no more comprehensive training programs for our field. Yes, there are many universities in Europe that have started teaching game design or applied art professions, but this is not quite a systematic approach. Of course, we must make allowances for the fact that the gaming industry is quite young, but still I see too few educational initiatives, not counting the attempts of Epic Games. And we are not talking about opening courses or schools focused on quick results, but about something more ambitious. I hope the situation will change, otherwise artificial salary growth will continue with a vengeance.

Ivan: I never cease to rejoice when I see how big mobile companies like MYTONA and Kefir launch acceleration programs and begin to be interested in publishing “big” console and PC games. It’s nice that the money earned in mobile is invested in those games that employees of these companies play themselves. Such diversification greatly helps the development of the local industry as a whole.

Therefore, it seems that in addition to the upcoming metaverse, avatars and other NFT, soon we will have a lot of cool and hardcore PC and console games. Including from domestic companies. The successful release of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and a whole stream of strong indie releases like Loop Hero, Black Book, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante or Until We Die (separately, it’s nice that they all participated in the Indie Cup) are good examples of this.

What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?

Igor: First of all, we will expand the Indie Cup team. In 2022, we plan to hold not only traditional winter and summer contests for Eastern Europe. Several new events are in line at once, the first announcement is planned in early spring.

We plan to grow the Indie Cup not only in quantity, but also in quality. We continue to develop the cup platform to make it as convenient as possible for developers and partners. And already at the upcoming winter cup, we will launch a small stream of lectures for the participants for the first time — we want to increase this direction into a full-fledged stream of reports by the summer.

Ivan: As for our PR agency, in the second quarter we plan to strengthen the B2B and HR/PR areas. The work with employer brand is probably one of the most popular on the market for actively growing companies right now.

In addition, in 2022 we have planned the launch of three new areas of work at once, which, however, complement the current ones. It’s too early to talk about the details, but one of them will become almost a social initiative for our local developers.