"The player always decides what to play": the head of the Institute for Internet Development explained his words about the import substitution of games
He was simply misunderstood.
“Zemsky Sobor”
Last week, the CEO of the Institute for Internet Development (IRI), Alexey Goreslavsky, made a bold statement—he announced his hope for the complete import substitution of games in Russia within 3-5 years. Many negatively perceived his words, seeing in them a potential ban on foreign games, but Goreslavsky himself claims that he meant no such thing.
In a publication on his MAX channel, the head of the IRI clarified that by import substitution, he meant not bans, but the development of domestic game development. In this case, gamers themselves would begin to pay more attention to games from Russian developers.
“I did not say that we need to ‘replace all foreign games with Russian ones.’ That is not necessary. What to play is always decided by the player themselves. And they will only play a quality, competitive product. It was about something else: we need our own strong industry that could consistently compete on a global level. As is already happening, for example, with TV series,” Goreslavsky wrote.
Goreslavsky also reminded that over the past four years, the IRI has allocated 4.8 billion rubles for game development. He admitted that although in industry terms this is not much, more money is something the Russian game development industry cannot yet “digest.” The issue is that there is currently a shortage of strong teams in the country, and their development takes time. However, Goreslavsky believes that the situation will gradually improve.
In conclusion, Goreslavsky emphasized that the IRI does not issue developers “ideological guidelines” or dictate what their games should be like. For the organization, the most important thing is that funded projects have a “strong idea and a quality concept,” and in other matters, they are free to do as they wish.