"We will not influence in-game content in any way": Mail.Ru Group about PUBG publishing in Russia

On October 16, it became known that Mail.Ru The Group will be the publisher of PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS in Russia and the CIS. Whether this will affect the game and what the deal will bring to its participants – we talked with Daria Kot, the producer of the project from the Russian side.

Alexander Semenov, Editor-in-Chief App2Top.ru : What is meant by the publication of the game in Russia?

Daria the CatDaria Kot, producer of PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS from Mail.Ru Group:

We will sell the game on our sites – on pubg.mail.ru and in the Game Center.

We will provide Russian players with Russian servers located in our data centers so that they [can] play with as comfortable a ping as possible, while we will not restrict access to our servers to those users who did not buy the game from us.

We will hold tournaments and develop PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS as an esports discipline.

We are actively working with developers on the concept of new tournaments that we will hold for our users.

In particular, we plan to hold the first tournament for our players this year and are discussing the possibility of holding a large-scale tournament in the compendium format next year.

Special items will also be available for our players. For example, a player who has already bought a game in the Game Center Mail.Ru , will receive a vest, one of the 40 thousand available only during this month.

We will also introduce Russian-language support, we will lead groups in social networks, support all kinds of content creators, streamers in Russia.

Is your game build different from what is on Steam?

Daria: Everyone will have the same version.

Immediately warning questions: we will not influence in-game content in any way. We will provide our players with a comfortable game, we will arrange all sorts of near-game activities, we will introduce Russian-language support, we will work with the community.

But what about the vest? Isn’t that an impact on the content?

Daria: This is not the first time that developers have introduced event content: when launching PUBG in Japan, Bluehole added a unique T–shirt for users who purchased the game from the publisher DMM, and a unique set of branded items for Twitch Prime users.

All such items do not bring any gaming advantage and are cosmetic. And, of course, the decision on which items to add is made solely and exclusively by the game developer: there are certain criteria (for example, such a cosmetic item cannot be camouflage, so that there is no unfair advantage, etc.).

The current price of 750 rubles – is it temporary or permanent?

Daria: The price is temporary. In a month or a few months we will raise it.

The main question is: why is Mail.En and why is this Bluehole, which is already doing well?

Daria: Over the years, we have generated a fairly large audience of fans of various types of shooters and action games, so we are interested in constantly increasing our portfolio, in new games.

But I want to emphasize that such a step is important, first of all, for Russian PUBG players who, thanks to the deal, received non-lagging servers, support in Russian, the opportunity to participate in official esports competitions and direct communication with developers.

As for Bluehole, today it needs partners who would help them cope with the influx of players, because the company is quite small, and there are a lot of players now. Including in the Russian market, which is developing very rapidly. It’s hard for the guys to do everything themselves: maintain servers, do community management, and so on. We will help them with this.

Can you at least slightly open the curtain, what profit will go Mail.Ru ? From the sale of each copy or from support?

Daria: Unfortunately, we cannot disclose the information.

Then the last question. You have just rolled out the site. You are now likely to push the project through all possible channels. How much do you estimate the audience that you think you can give the game?

Daria: I would say this here: if you look at the statistics and in general at the dynamics of how the project is developing now, you can see that it attracts a very wide audience around the world.

In Russia, if you look at the data for 2016, there is a huge audience of gamers. The data vary, but you can count up to 60-70 million players (Newzoo believes that there are 72 million gamers in Russia, – ed.). Taking into account the fact that we are the leading publishing house in Europe, we accumulate a large part of the audience of games of completely different genres, and we believe that this audience will perceive PUBG as a product very favorably.

We probably won’t give an accurate forecast on the figures now. But, for our part, we believe that given the fact that we have Warface, there is Cross Fire, and there are a bunch of titles that are designed for a very similar audience and similar gameplay, the game will resonate in the hearts of many of our users.

I see. Thanks for the interview! Good luck with the release!