"We have held a record number of events for us," Pavel Ryakkonen from WN Media Group said about the results of 2023

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams. Next up is an interview with Pavel Ryakkonen, CEO and founder of WN Media Group.

What was the year like for the company? What have you done, implemented, and what would you like to highlight in terms of achievements?

As for the entire industry, the year was difficult, but it seems that against the background of previous years, this has ceased to be unusual. So, to some extent, this can be called the new normal. We are adapting.

In the media direction. App2Top.ru — give or take exactly, given the coverage on social networks and telegram channels. But GameWorldObserver.com it showed a multiple increase — its indicators increased more than three times. Its annual audience reached 1.36 million users. This is a good figure for a b2b publication.

By events. In 2023, we held perhaps a record number of events for us. They took place in various parts of the world, on almost all continents. Next year we will try to get rid of this "almost".

We tried different formats — from large WN Conference to small and targeted WN Connect. The result is quite banal: it all depends on the initial characteristics of the location and the tasks set. Somewhere a big conference is needed, and somewhere it is better to hold a small but targeted WN Connect.

Now we have a variety of formats in our inventory and an understanding of what works best and where, what features exist in different regions of the world.

What I want to highlight:

• The European location is experiencing significant difficulties;
• the Asian direction looks promising;
• The North American destination is classically good, but difficult to enter;
• LATHAM also looks like an interesting direction, but not as capacious as Asian;
• India and Pakistan — it's interesting, we'll try;
• Africa is a growth point for the late 20s and 30s.

In general, I am sure that now we are the only company in the context of the gaming industry that has such a b2b coverage, which provides a physical presence with events in various regions of the world.

It's nice when the WN brand is known and loved in the most remote corners of the planet (here, of course, it depends on the point of observation).

From the new:

• we have supplemented the ecosystem with the educational direction of the WN Academy;
• launched a catalog of games under development and looking for partners — WN Game Finder;
• We have made significant technical improvements on the WNHub platform, which are not always visible externally, but play an important role;
• we are making steps in related industries — we have already held AI conferences in Istanbul and San Francisco (aiconf.biz ).

What are the company's plans for next year?

Targeting our target areas, we will continue to move next year. We will continue to do various events in different locations, and we will develop other areas of the ecosystem — events, media, education, recruiting, consulting. Plus, we will act on the situation, promptly responding to changes in the external environment.

In order not to get the wrong impression that everything is easy, I will note separately: there are a million difficulties and even where, it seems, they should not be. But, what to do, we solve them somehow.