"We are especially proud of having finally come together as a team," said Sergey Konstantinov from D.Dream Games about the results of 2025

We continue to wrap up 2025 with game teams. Next up is an interview with Sergey Konstantinov, CEO of the studio D.Dream games.

What kind of year was 2025 for your team? What did you manage to achieve, what makes you proud, and what did not go as planned?

Sergey Konstantinov, D.Dream games: 2025 was a year of scaling for us. We launched Hoosegow: Prison Boss – a new project that expands the universe of our hit with over 15 million downloads. We claimed first place in the Web Shop Arena by XSOLLA competition, which was a pleasant surprise.

We are especially proud of having solidified as a team. We enhanced our business processes, improved our internal event editor, and became participants in the Mobile Games Factory by RuStore.

On the other hand, we faced chaotic blockings that required urgent revamping of our server side. This took a lot of time and resources, but now our games remain accessible to players worldwide, no matter what happens.

What conclusions did your development studio draw from the year 2025?

Sergey: The main takeaway is that adaptation speed is everything. The world is changing rapidly: new technologies, new restrictions, the rules of the game are being rewritten on the fly.

The second important lesson is that you can’t survive without experimenting. We don’t have large budgets for traditional advertising, so we’re taking a different route: experimenting with content, trying new promotion formats via shorts, and betting on virality.

Have the practices of interacting with publishers/investors changed? Has it become easier or more difficult to work with them?

Sergey: We originally chose a self-publishing model and continue to promote all of our projects independently. This gives us full control over the product, the ability to experiment, and direct interaction with our audience.

Of course, sometimes we think it might be easier with a publisher, especially in marketing matters. But we have our own path...

What kind of year has it been for the niche/genre you work in?

Sergey: Overall, it has been positive. Projects like BitLife continue to show excellent results, proving the steady demand for interactive games with choice elements.

Our niche, Choice-Based Survival, is more specific. We combine narrative with roguelike elements and survival mechanics, adding dark humor and replayability. It's a hybrid we actually created ourselves. When many games are made in a cookie-cutter fashion, players increasingly appreciate uniqueness and an auteur style.

What strengthening or new trends do you expect in your niche/genre in 2026?

Sergey: Genre hybrids will definitely be on the rise. Pure choice-based games or pure survival ones are no longer enough. The audience is looking for combinations: narrative + roguelike + metaprogression + collection. This is the direction we are heading in.

What are the plans for the team in 2026?

Sergey: We plan to release a PC version of Hoosegow: Prison Survival with revamped gameplay. It will be an entirely new product, adapted to the specifics of a PC audience.

We continue to develop Hoosegow: Prison Boss and plan to launch several major content updates. As part of our participation in the Mobile Games Factory by RuStore, we aim to make our project a flagship in its category.

And finally, we want to scale the franchise. Our editor allows for creating Choice-Based Survival games in various settings, and we have several exciting ideas that could become our next projects.