"Transformation Amid Ongoing Market Correction" — Pavel Ryaykkonen from WN Media Group on the Results of 2025

As we move into the new year, we continue to reflect on the outcomes of 2025 with gaming (or gaming industry-related) teams and experts. Up next is a column on the year's outcomes from Pavel Ryaykkonen, CEO and founder of WN Media Group.

For the gaming industry, the year 2025 marked a period of prolonged and often challenging transformation. While at the end of 2024 it seemed that the market had already hit its lowest point of correction, the past year showed that the processes weren't complete. Furthermore, this pressure only intensified in the second half of the year.

Key Market Trends

Correction as the New Normal

Market turbulence has ceased being a short-term factor and is increasingly viewed as a baseline condition. Companies are re-evaluating their strategies, avoiding excessive risks, cutting ineffective areas, and seeking more sustainable development models.

Automation and AI as a Response to Market Contraction

The active integration of AI and automation of processes in 2025 transformed from an experiment or a trendy move into a pragmatic response to budgetary, timeline, and competitive pressures. Success comes to those who utilize technology not for hype, but for enhancing efficiency and decision-making speed.

The Growing Role of Micro Teams and Solo Developers

We observe a steady shift toward small teams and individual developers. Modern tools enable the creation of high-quality products without cumbersome structures. The focus is not on scale, but on an idea, vision, and the ability to quickly bring a product to fruition.

Our Outcomes and Focus in 2025

Emphasizing Resilience in Development Logic

Throughout the year, we deliberately strengthened the business foundation: optimized operational processes, improved project economics transparency, and focused on areas demonstrating resilience and growth potential. For us, resilience is not about stopping but about the ability to move forward effectively.

WN Talents — A Leader in Complex Recruitment for the Gaming Industry

In the turbulent staffing sector, WN Talents has shown outstanding results. Today, we confidently hold leadership positions in filling vacancies within the gaming industry, especially in complex and atypical roles. Our experience, expertise, and established processes allow us to find the right specialists where standard approaches fail.

On one hand, there's an abundance of specialists; on the other, a growing shortage of truly strong and versatile professionals. Companies are increasingly seeking not just performers, but those with comprehensive experience and mature thinking. In these conditions, quality recruitment becomes a distinct growth point.

Companies increasingly delegate the hiring of middle-level and higher specialists to us: they do not have HR/recruiters on staff, as they aim to remain compact with no excess roles.

We have actively worked on staffing with companies from the iGaming segment, where the staffing issue is always quite acute. Interestingly, some top-notch specialists are migrating from game development to iGaming in search of new experiences and opportunities. We act as a bridge between these diverse segments of the gaming industry.

Over 2025, our recruiters reviewed more than 6,000 candidates. In 80% of cases, companies approached us with challenging searches: non-standard requirements for tech stacks and experience, limited budgets with high expectations, specific locations, or situations where the company had already tried but failed to find suitable candidates independently.

We work both with large studios for executive-level positions and with indie teams where finding the perfect senior developer within a startup budget is crucial. The key is not the company size but the complexity of the task.

WN Media — Media Format Development and Audience Engagement

In 2025, we launched the App2Top Premium subscription in response to audience demand for deeper, analytical, and professional content. This format seamlessly complemented our existing ecosystem and proved its viability.

An important step was launching the almanac "The Gaming Industry." The first edition showed that the market is ready for more meaningful, structured, and long-lasting media products. We plan to further develop this format across various regions and markets.

WN Events — Securing What's Effective and Exploring New Growth Opportunities

We hosted over 20 events worldwide — in Europe, the Middle East, Turkey, China, and the CIS.

Such results have become standard for us, with a focus on event content. We experimented with new formats.

We concentrated on increasing participation effectiveness. This is a comprehensive approach. Our online platform (based on wnhub.io) allows scheduling significant meetings before the event. New participation and discussion formats involve many more participants than traditional stage presentations. We help major partners target the right meetings or find useful target audiences for their businesses. It's impossible to list everything we're involved with in a summary. The main thing is active work on delivering value to participants.

We have several locations where our events are already perceived as ‘local’. We will continue to maintain and develop our presence. And, as always, we will also try something new.

We also organized partner events worldwide. These events occur when a partner joins us, and we jointly host an event for a specific target audience in a given location. Often, the partner's main business is far from organizing events or gathering participants. That's where we step in. It works out well.

WN Academy

This year, we experimented with different formats. While the educational direction has not yet shown significant growth or substantial financial results, it is crucial for supporting the development trajectory of individual specialists and companies as a whole. We will continue to seek out growth points and offer products in demand by businesses.

The Most Difficult Aspects of the Year

Personally, despite having veteran experience in the industry for over 20 years, making several challenging management decisions was not easy. These involved canceling exciting development areas and focusing on the most crucial aspects, as well as employee optimization. However, these actions have made the company more resilient and have crucially fortified the team over the long term.

A Look Ahead

We are entering the next year with a foundation that has already proven effective while allowing room for flexibility. Our plans will actively adjust based on emerging opportunities and market changes. In today's reality, flexibility, speed, and the ability to assess the situation objectively are more important than rigidly fixed scenarios.

The year 2025 was not easy. However, such periods lay the groundwork for the next stage of growth — more stable and mature.