"Accounting and financial modeling have been added to the legal expertise," Alexandra Kurdyumova and Alina Davletshina from Futura Digital on the main thing for 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 Alexandra Kurdyumova, co—founder of Futura Digital, and Alina Davletshina, head of the practice.

What was the year like for the company? What have you done that you would like to highlight in terms of achievements?

Alexandra: It was a very eventful year for our company! In addition to the well-known Versus company, we have launched an independent international brand Futura Digital with a focus on advising digital businesses in all countries of the world. At the same time, our Versus team.gamedev continues to work, but with an emphasis on tasks related to the CIS market.

At Futura Digital, we are not limited only to game development projects; in addition to them, we have increased the volume of other technological projects that we help (edtech, proptech, fintech, crypto and others).

In addition, we are currently in the process of expanding our product line — we have already added accounting and financial modeling to legal expertise, expanded the service of a corporate provider in different countries; in the near future, I hope to share more new practices that I am sure will be useful to our clients.

Since we are currently going through a stage of active growth and expansion, we are open to new ideas and expertise, so if someone is looking for partnerships / collaborations now, write to me, I will be very happy to discuss them!

We have relocated part of the team to an office in the UAE, are very active in the local market and are aiming to expand into the MENA region.

We continue to work a lot with legal issues of digital companies in many regions: from the EU and the USA to the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Hong Kong. We see our team's mission as becoming a single window for technology businesses, covering legal/financial tasks around the world, focusing on the specifics of the industry and applying this experience to the local rules of specific countries, connecting the right partners there.

We have also expanded the network of our international partners and plan to continue doing so next year.

Alina: In addition to legal work, we really worked a lot on educational projects. We are of the opinion that it is possible and necessary to talk about complex topics (law and taxes) in simple words, increasing legal literacy in game development.

This year Futura Digital became a resident of the twofour54 creative zone in Abu Dhabi. We held a series of Futura.talks events in collaboration with the AD Gaming gaming zone (part of the twofour54 zone). They talked about the specifics of UAE law to local game development companies.

In addition to launching Futura.talks, we recorded a podcast with Games and Names about the protection of intellectual property of gaming companies and launched a digest of key legal news in the Digital sphere – two issues have already been released, and new ones are on the way!

As part of the Cyprus WN conference, we held the Futura Advice Pitstop, in which, together with colleagues from Brightika, we advised more than 20 participating companies from different countries.

I look back at the beginning of this year and I'm surprised myself – how much has been done!

How has gaming legal practice changed this year?

Alexandra: I won't list all the news now — read our digest.

But I will note a couple of events.

Obviously, one of the biggest events in the industry was Microsoft's deal to buy Activision Blizzard, which lasted 20 months. As lawyers, it was interesting for us to observe the approval of the Microsoft deal in the EU, the USA and the UK.

I also remember the choreographer's case against Epic games for alleged theft of dance copyrights. Now this case has been sent for a new review – in 2024 there will be a final decision.

Alina: And I consider the dispute of the year to be the struggle between FNTASTIC, the creator of The Day Before, and the Korean developer of the mobile calendar application TheDayBefore, the copyright holder of the same trademark for the name. But it seems that the project now has more important questions than a legal title for the name.

What were the most popular appeals from gaming companies?

Alina: All happy companies are equally happy, but each company that applies for legal assistance has its own unique case. It is difficult to identify any trend for standard queries. During the year, there were various things: tax structuring, support for complex investments, representation of interests in negotiations with investors, and IP disputes.

Alexandra: Among the trends, it is possible to identify a more "meaningful" foreign incorporation: not an emergency one, as in 2022, but a deliberate and elaborate structure — taking into account taxes, financial flows and business plans of companies.

Alina: If not from the trends of legal work, but simply from the industry, according to our clients we see a decrease in the popularity of play–2-earn mechanic and NFT, a significant increase in interest in AI and personalized applications.

What are the company's plans for next year?

Alexandra: to grow and increase expertise.

We are interested in watching the growth of Saudi Arabia and the MENA region as a whole. And also behind the Asian market — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea. In 2024, we aim to establish representative offices of our company in some of these countries.

As I said at the beginning, we are now in the process of further expanding the team and product line of both our brands: Futura and Versus. We want not only to be closer to our customers and partners, but also to cover all business needs anywhere in the world.

Alina: And I also see that my favorite question is not "what did you play this year"? My game of the year (even though it was released in 2021) is Road 96. It's about how to cross the border in an escape from an authoritarian country. The emotions are simply indescribable!

I also asked the team the same question. Here's how Futura lawyers spent the year: Deathloop, Trepang2, Atomic Heart (everyone on the team seemed to play this game), CoD Cold War, Baldur's Gate 3, Hi-fi Rush and Ghost of Tsushima.