Kefir is a game developer. Andrey Pryakhin (“Kefir!”): “We are completely moving into mobile games

"If we're not number one, it doesn't count for us!" - this is how the founder of the Kefir studio Andrey Pryakhin formulated the main slogan of the company. He is serious: in 2017, Kefir's revenue amounted to $100 million

Art director and producer Petr Kostylev and

“No matter what rumors there are about us, they will soon say that we have bought the whole city,” laughs Yana, an employee of Kefir, who meets a correspondent and photographer for RBC magazine in a service Maybach. On it, for two days, the magazine's employees travel for interviews and filming. “A couple of years ago Maybach was alone in the city, today there are several,” says driver Alexander.

Pryakhin, 34, founded Kefir with a few friends in 2009. Now 145 people work in the Volgograd office of the company, and about 25 more in St. Petersburg, mostly developers. The studio's first big hit, the social game Tyuryaga, was released in 2010 and is still in the top 25 most popular games on VKontakte. But most of the money - 60-65% of Kefir's total revenue - comes from the online strategy Last Day on Earth: Survival, released in 2017.

Pryakhin did not want to meet at the Kefir office in the center of Volgograd: “Terrible ... ashamed to show it.” The company recently bought for 260 million rubles. new building with an area of ​​4.2 thousand square meters. m, also in the center, and is about to move. The interview takes place in a loft on the 22nd floor in one of the new buildings. “We bought this place just for the sake of the veranda,” says Pryakhin. On it, Kefir employees gather in the summer to work with a view of the city or have a party. In the open area there are several tables and chairs, next to the jacuzzi. Sometimes company guests stay in a loft instead of a hotel: the room has a bed, a small kitchen, a fireplace.

To "Kefir"

Pryakhin's father served in the FSB, retired as a lieutenant colonel, his mother worked as a fashion designer, then became a housewife. After the service, Pryakhin Sr. went into business and realized that the future was in technology, Andrey says: “Probably, thanks to him, everything turned out this way.” Parents did not try to fight their son's love for computer games, although his friends used to hide the cords from computers so that they would not spend all the time with them. “Mine, on the contrary, were always supported: my father took them to computer conferences,” recalls Pryakhin.

The most prestigious educational institution in Volgograd was the Academy of Civil Service, so Pryakhin entered the Faculty of Law there: “I still don’t like construction and lawyers - these are dull classes for me.” The young man was not even going to work by profession. Back in his school years, in the late 1990s, Andrei became interested in business: his father taught him to write business plans and build relationships with people - "the foundation of every businessman."

Pryakhin's first business was specific. “I don’t even know if we can talk about it. They sold liquid for kindling fireplaces, but drunks took it and drank it, ”he recalls. In the early 2000s, Andrey worked on ringtones and music for mobile phones, then he sold the first versions of the iPhone, produced and installed street payment terminals. “Unlike today’s business, when you can’t touch the product, there was a real thrill in that business: you have a lot of KamAZ trucks loaded with these terminals, and they leave the factory,” he recalls. But all this was only for the sake of money and did not bring any pleasure, Pryakhin admits.

Andrey Pryakhin, founder of the Kefir studio (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo for RBC)

One of his father's businesses was Internet cafes, popular at the time, where, as a teenager, Pryakhin met many friends who were also passionate about computer games. Pryakhin came up with the first game, called Saakashvili's Mission, in 2009, made it with the help of outsourced programmers, and then launched it with a friend on VKontakte. Shortly thereafter, the Kefir studio was created.

Among those who started making Kefir together with him are programmer Mikhail Talalaev and designer Ilya Elgin, the author of the studio's logo. The fourth employee of Kefir, who stood at the origins, is Viktor Kirillov: he was an architect and later left the team. When the game became popular (about 1.5 million people downloaded it), friends decided to add monetization: it turned out that the players were willing to pay.

Young people rented an apartment and turned it into an office: they made tables with their own hands from the doors that they bought at OBI, which had just opened in Volgograd. In this room, the company created "Tyuryaga".

"Tyuryaga"

“You could then turn on the TV and see what the Russian audience prefers,” recalls Pryakhin in 2010. On TV there were mainly crime series: "Streets of Broken Lanterns", "Capercaillie", "Secrets of the Investigation". Created in less than six months, "Tyuryaga" organically fit into the picture. “We saw that the niche was free, and decided to make people a game about what they watch, read and hear on the street,” recalls Pryakhin.

The action of "Jail" takes place in a prison: the player must break out of an ordinary prisoner into authority by completing tasks: getting tattoos, swinging, arranging a showdown, earning in-game currency - cigarettes. “There have been many complaints that we are promoting the life of a thief in the game. But the maximum that can be heard there is yard slang, there is not a damn thing, nothing like that, ”Pryakhin throws up his hands.

For about two years, "Tyuryaga" was in the top of the games on VKontakte and brought the creators more than $1 million per month. “When the first million dollars arrived in our accounts, we bought a small office building in Volgograd and began to actively recruit people,” recalls Pryakhin. He compares game development to sports competitions, where there can be only one goal - the first place. “The second and third are already for the weak. Then the most popular game was Happy Farmer, and we set ourselves the task of creating a game that would destroy it, ”recalls Andrey.

The audience of "Farmer" in June 2010 exceeded 8 million people, but the very next year "Kefir" took the lead: in 2011, 13 million people played "Tyuryaga". But back in 2010, when the Kefir team moved to a new building, Pryakhin set himself the task of making a game that would surpass Tyuryaga.

The script and plan for the military simulator In the Trench, which was released in 2013, was written by Pryakhin himself, but was not happy with it. “However, the guys screwed it up so that at some point the game outperformed Tyuryaga. Although it was not quite as we expected: by that time, Tyuryaga had already begun to deflate a little, ”recalls the founder of Kefir. As a representative of VKontakte told RBC magazine, from 2013 to the present, Tyuryaga has been in the top 25 most popular games of the social network. But how much the game earns now, Pryakhin does not want to say: “I don’t watch anymore, I’m not interested. Social networks have already passed the stage.

The peak of the popularity of social games came in 2012-2014, then the number of their fans began to decline, Vasily Maguryan, head of the gaming direction of Mail.Ru Group, told RBC magazine. If in 2014 the market volume was 14 billion rubles, then in 2017 it was already 9.8 billion rubles. Users began to give preference to mobile platforms, which, in comparison with the PC, turned out to be more accessible in every sense. The social games themselves adapted rather poorly to the mobile platform and could not fully transfer their functionality there, the expert notes.

Since Kefir was doing well on social media, the studio was “the most backward in terms of transition to the mobile market,” Pryakhin admits. In 2015-2016, the company made several game prototypes and moved towards the mobile market.

"Horse money"

The debut of "Kefir" in mobile games was the fantasy action-RPG Forge of Glory. It was developed for a year and a half, in the spring of 2016 it was launched in Australia and Canada, a year later - in the rest of the world.

But the big success came only with the second mobile game - Last Day on Earth, which was released in May 2017, for a year and a half it brought Kefir more than $150 million, including advertising revenue. In June 2018, the company released another game in the same genre - Grim Soul: Survival, but it failed to beat Last Day (see infographic).

“A game that makes horse money thanks to Peter and his team,” Pryakhin describes Last Day on Earth. Petr is the producer of Last Day on Earth Petr Kostylev, who joined Kefir in 2012. He and 17 other people completed the project in three months, a record for the company. According to the story, the player finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world where he needs to fight for resources, food and weapons, fighting zombies and other players.

Kostylev combines the position of art director and is responsible for the visual part of the product with control over the quality and direction of the development of the game. While the development team was small, he had to deal with animation and modeling of assets (resources) in the game. “I probably spent two weeks just animating blood and flying limbs,” Peter smiles.

In the Russian gaming market, revenues from the sale of PC games have always been the highest, but in 2018 the mobile games market in Russia will reach $635 million, which is almost equal to the revenue from PC games, Cleo Sardelis, a representative of the research company Newzoo, told RBC magazine. Until 2021, mobile games revenue will grow by 7.5% annually, which will allow this segment to become the largest, she noted.

The popularity of the mobile platform is growing from year to year, confirms Maguryan from Mail.Ru Group. In 2017, the volume of the mobile games market in Russia grew by 24% to RUB 20.3 billion. Unlike a computer, a mobile phone is always at hand, so users who have never been interested in them have come to the games. Those who play on a mobile phone are less demanding on the project's graphics, prefer simpler game mechanics, and make in-game purchase decisions more easily, says Maguryan.

Recently, Last Day on Earth brings the company $4-5 million a month, and its audience is 83 million people, says Pryakhin. At the same time, he is again not completely satisfied with what has been achieved: “Last Day does not satisfy our ambitions. It's just a good project. We will consider a hit the game that will be the top 1 in the US box office throughout the year, but for now we are aiming, ”says Andrey.

Today, Kefir employees are mainly working on Last Day on Earth updates, but some of them have focused on new projects. “We will now have a bomb in general,” says Pryakhin, refusing to give details. After conquering the mobile market, he dreams of making a PC game. Andrey is not going to sell his company in the foreseeable future: "It's like building a city with love, and then burning it down."

"Director"

Pryakhin is a patriot of Volgograd, but his attitude towards his native city is complex: Andrei himself says that it is like “attitude towards a mother who drinks”. “We love it, but there are some difficulties,” he explains, “the infrastructure is not so developed, plus the weather is not for everyone. But if we leave, we will deprive the city of taxes.” However, Pryakhin is above all a rational businessman and says bluntly: "If it becomes necessary to leave to save the business, we will do it."

Andrey estimates the success of the gaming business primarily in terms of income. When a user likes or writes a kind comment, it means nothing, he says, but when he gives away his money, this is a true recognition of work.

Kefir has a fairly rigid linear management style. “If you ever talk to director Andrei Pryakhin, you will understand that you should not argue with him,” says one of the former employees of the studio. “He is a talented person, but you need to adapt to his character.” Behind Pryakhin's eyes, the company often calls him not by name, but simply "director".

Pryakhin says that he delegates absolutely all tasks and prefers independent managers. But he takes on the most unpleasant duties, such as firing employees, “so as not to injure the leaders,” he takes on: “We are like a balloon - we inflate ourselves, take a lot of people, and then we look at who among them does not stretch the profession enough, and we narrow down, firing these people.”

Salaries in "Kefir" reach the Moscow level, says the director of the company. One of the former employees disagrees with him: “If you compare work at Kefir and remote work at Playrix, then Kefir pays less,” he says. - The top salaries are high there, the rank-and-file employees do not. But they are higher than in Volgograd: the average salary in the city is 20 thousand rubles, and in Kefir it will be one and a half to two times higher.

The company does not experience personnel shortage: candidates for various vacancies move to Volgograd from different cities, including St. Petersburg and Moscow. At the same time, Kefir cooperates with studios in Russia and abroad in the process of developing games. “I can write on Facebook: guys, we need a studio that can do projects on Unity. Then we build partnerships with some of them,” says Pryakhin.

Kefir brings Pryakhin the highest income, but games are not his only business. By his own admission, the entrepreneur rents out commercial and residential real estate in Europe and Russia (247 thousand square meters in total) and buys securities, including government bonds of Russia and six other countries.

These businesses are not structured and are not related to gaming, says Pryakhin. He admits that he invests part of his income from games in real estate, "but in general these are parallel businesses." Bonds and real estate is a passive business that allows you to create an airbag. “We are still creating it to this day, and it is already weighty enough to make bold products, in case there is a series of failures, as it can be in any business, especially when you make bold games,” says the entrepreneur. According to him, real estate brings in less money than the gaming business: “In Russia, it is even more or less, and in Europe, in general, 3-3.5% in terms of profit.”

But Pryakhin also has hobbies that require money. For example, a collection of expensive cars - 17 cars, including Lamborgini, Aston Martin and others. Tesla Andrey does not want to buy: he says that from a distance it looks like Mazda. And recently, he had another hobby from the category of those that wealthy people have - he decided to start organizing tourist flights to the stratosphere.

A tourist in the stratosphere

On October 14, 2012, people around the world tuned in to YouTube to watch Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner make a 39 km high jump from the stratosphere. The live broadcast of this jump became the most watched in the history of YouTube, with 8 million people watching it. Two years later, Baumgartner's record was broken by Google CEO Alan Eustace, who made a jump from a height of 41 km.

LLC Stratonavtika, which Pryakhin creates together with Denis Efremov, the founder of the Near Space laboratory, wants to launch people to a height of up to 25 km. “We will do this on the territory of Volgograd, because we have nature here ... Let’s just say, on the one hand, it’s sad that there are a lot of fields and wind, but on the other hand, in terms of launching, it’s very cool,” he explains.

Efremov first came to Volgograd about two years ago. The guys from Kefir came up with an unusual corporate party: “Develop and launch several stratospheric balloons ourselves.” All inquiries on the Internet led to Efremov's company. "Near Space" has already carried out about 100 launches of various objects. Its services are also used by private companies that want to organize such a flight for promotional purposes.

“What we just didn’t fly - both a nasal spray and a barrel for Gazprom, for Yandex organized a flight,” Efremov lists. The company's services are used by schoolchildren and students, as well as scientists who need to test their inventions in conditions close to space. One launch costs about 200-300 thousand rubles.

Two years ago, Pryakhin and his collaborators launched five probes of 2 kg each. A year later, Yefremov suggested that they launch a spacesuit into the stratosphere "as the first stage of testing a manned flight." Before that, Peter had never launched such heavy objects: the mass of the spacesuit with all the equipment reached 30 kg. A camera with a 360-degree view was installed inside the spacesuit, the broadcast from which could be viewed on Earth in a virtual reality helmet. “You turn your head, and at this time the camera rotates at the top, you feel almost inside the spacesuit,” Yefremov recalls.

They prepared for six months, conducted tests, the flight was successful, its cost amounted to several million rubles, Yefremov recalls: “Both I and the guys from Kefir expected the worst. But no more than 10% of what we planned went wrong.”

Pryakhin and Efremov do not disclose the cost of the project to launch tourists into the stratosphere. “We moved in more with equipment: recently a quadrocopter came to us, which costs about 4 million rubles with cameras,” says Andrey. Those wishing to see the Earth from a height of 25 km will cost several million rubles. The first manned flight will take place in one and a half to two years, Yefremov hopes. He does not exclude that he will fly first.

Andrey Pryakhin, founder of the Kefir studio (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo for RBC)

The launch structure is a huge ball or several balls. Below them is a parachute with a seat equipped with sensors, a radio communication and telemetry system, life support, ventilation, soft landing, oxygen supply, etc. “A man in a spacesuit sits in an armchair and admires the Earth and space,” Yefremov describes.

The founders of "Stratonavtika" will have to create a system for providing air and heat in flight, which will need to be placed in a spacesuit. The whole structure will weigh about 200 kg. “At the price of a ticket, we hope to meet $80,000, but the flights of Baumgartner and Eustace cost several million dollars each,” says Yefremov.

"We are the perfect company"

Pryakhin does not seek to see the Earth from the stratosphere. “I’m afraid to fly even in conventional planes,” he admits. The day after the interview, Kefir employees were leaving on "their" train of six sleeping cars for Sochi to celebrate the company's ninth anniversary. “There are three very important people in the company who don't like to fly at all. Tomorrow, because of us, the whole company is traveling by train,” says Andrei. The train will go along the Volgograd-Adler route, its preparation cost the company 6 million rubles, says Kefir employee Maria Pestrikova.

A year ago, employees - all except Pryakhin and Kostylev - flew on a rented plane to a corporate party in the Maldives. Everyone could take one more person with them. “Renting an airplane cost a little more than trains. The plane could have been branded, but we didn’t, because we flew to where Muslims mostly live, ”says Pestrikova.

Photo: Vladislav Shatilo for RBC

“Kafir means “infidel” in Arabic, and players from Arab countries have long been writing angry comments in the app store and messages to technical support. “We explained to them that there is such a drink - kefir,” says Pryakhin. When asked why, in fact, “Kefir”, he gives an unexpected answer: “We were and remain fans of the Kino group. Tsoi, in one of his interviews, said that he called the group that way because this name is not related to music. We decided that we would be called "Kefir". The name, which is not related to the activities of the company, is a desire to stand out among others,” Andrey explains.

According to the studio, only 5% of users of Kefir games live in Russia, and most of the players live in the USA, Asia and Europe. “We are generally an ideal company in this regard. We are here, we earn in the USA and we spend here. Amazing,” says Pryakhin. Not everyone is now ready to become partners of a Russian company, but he does not want to open a legal entity abroad, and he does not regret losing partners: “Well, they went to hell ...”

“We are ready to fight with everything and treat our city and Russia as a whole with great respect and awe. Now there should be an anthem here, ”Pryakhin laughs.

Many move to the capital to work in a large studio, but there are also those who leave Moscow for the same reason. How it happens, where they go and whether there is a development outside the Moscow Ring Road, will tell Alexander, an employee of the Kefir studio, who moved from Moscow to Volgograd two years ago.

Kefir is a Russian game development studio that you may know from Last Day on Earth, Grim Soul, Tyuryage, Metro 2033, In the Trench and other popular projects. The total audience coverage is approximately 170 million users.

Was it difficult to decide to move?

Not easy, of course. It's not even that I'm leaving the capital, it's always difficult to just move from a habitable place. But my wife supported me, in addition, the studio pays for the apartment all the time, and not the first couple of months - this is a serious plus.

Could you please tell us how the relocation took place?

A few days after the interview, we phoned HR. I accepted an invitation to the studio, we chose plane tickets, and I started packing. At the airport I was met with a sign "Kefir" and taken to a new house.

I visited many guys who also moved here, so I can say that a good apartment is not luck, but the norm. It's nice.

And how were you received?

I was a little worried that they would take me to the office like a bride and everyone would pay too much attention to me. Fortunately, this was not the case. They just personally introduced me to the neighbors and the curator, and then during the day I got to know the others myself.

There is a trial period, but there is no psychological barrier in the new team - they treat you as if you have been working for a long time, but left for a long time. They quickly bring you up to date, and you are immersed in full-fledged work. It is only very important at this moment to understand the pace and mood of the team - you need to pour in instantly, otherwise you will miss a lot.

How do you like Volgograd after Moscow?

Well, now you have to fly back to big concerts and festivals, but otherwise nothing has changed. Many people are afraid that there will be nothing to do after Moscow, but I have traveled half of Russia, including all 15 million people, and I say with all responsibility: every city is cool in its own way and you can find something to do everywhere.

At the same time, any city becomes boring if you live in it all your life. It immediately becomes good wherever we are not. Travel solves this problem for me personally. When you have a decent salary, you can easily afford to see the whole world. And since we're talking about money - Volgograd is much more financially livable.

What to do in the city, do you have favorite activities?

If apart from work, then my friends and I gather in cafes and bars - I can’t boast of an event talent, but the studio regularly arranges for us some kind of cultural and entertainment shake-up. They make exhibitions, bring speakers from Russia and Europe, it happens that we all leave somewhere together. So we don’t really care about organizing leisure ourselves, in the company the party plan is scheduled for six months in advance.

Let's get back to work processes. Why Kefir?

In general, I came here for the sake of interest - I watched the video, heard enough reviews from my friends and decided to try it. The spirit of midcore and hardcore projects is close to me, and I am completely indifferent to casual games, for example. A good approach is not to chase the trend, but to create something that, firstly, is not on the market, and secondly, what you want to play yourself. Guys with a great sense of humor and a great love for cheerful toys work here. Last Day, for example, came about thanks to the many in-studio Rust tournaments.

It went something like this:

Is there one on mobile?

Many people think that working in your industry means constantly playing games, you can even during working hours, you can even do nothing else. What percentage of time is actually devoted to gaming?

You can even do nothing, yeah. I don't know who still thinks so. Grandmothers at the entrance?

I don't understand why people are surprised to learn that playing a lot of games is part of our profession. We make games. We must know everything about them. Just like directors have to watch movies, and musicians have to listen to music. However, in any game studio, a person who plays from morning to evening and is not busy with anything else will fly out instantly. It's obvious, I think.

Another thing is that we have many of the games implemented in real life. Well, or games just became part of it. We regularly hold in-studio tournaments, go to raids together and create Kefir guilds. We must do this in order to see through and understand all projects, analyze their weak points and take note of the strong ones. Normal, by the way, excuse for the wife at 4 am at the game: "Honey, I'm working." And you won't lie.

The internal reward system is funny, dkp is “dragon kill points”, which we took from Warcraft. You kill dragons - that is, you don’t be late, you don’t mess up, you work cool - you get points for it. And then at the auction you take away a gaming computer, an iPhone, a trip - whatever you want. I'm aiming for a MacBook Pro this year.

The main purpose of dkp is not punctuality training, of course. The biggest points are given for learning games. This year we played EVE: Online, PUBG, RUST, Warcraft and a dozen lesser-known, recently released games for several months. Masterpieces must be known by sight.

Once every two weeks, Internet entrepreneurs and heads of Internet companies come to visit Maxim Spiridonov, co-founder and CEO of the Netology Group educational company, for an hour-long conversation. This is how the Runetology podcast is created. The Secret publishes the most interesting excerpts from these interviews.

Andrey Pryakhin, 31, was born in Volgograd. In 2005 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Volgograd Academy of Public Administration. From 2005 to 2008 he was engaged in various types of business. In 2009, he founded the Kefir! game development studio.

A recording of an interview with Andrei Pryakhin and other guests of Spiridonov can be found on the Runetology website.

You and "Kefir!" known primarily for the game "Tyuryaga" with its 13 million players, which exploits the craving of our fellow citizens for thieves' romance. Is it right, from your point of view, to stir up interest in such an odious topic?

For a Russian person, it seems to me that the prison theme, like the Second World War, is part of the culture. We were rather surprised why no one had made such a game before us: the niche was free. We did only what our user wanted. "Tyuryaga" is already six years old, but it is still in the top and brings good money.

I will say more, this is not a story about a prison. A man from the underworld would have laughed if someone had argued the opposite: there is not even a damn thing in the game. Slang is yard, and realities are street.

After all, why not ask the creators of Grand Theft Auto if it's right to teach people to hit a woman of easy virtue on the head. I also have more questions about GTA than I do about Prison.

- What prompted you to take up social media gaming?

We, as players, had an old dream - to make games. We were looking for such an opportunity. They wrote concept documents even before going out on the social network. We thought about browser games, about other segments. But their budgets were high. We started with comic crafts, but, having connected monetization to them, we saw that you can earn money in social networks. We sat in the apartment for a year and a half - there were seven of us - and created a game for an audience of girls. Never again in my life will I do anything for girls and for children in general: this is sheer torture. But the project paid off handsomely. A year and a half later, we released "Tyuryaga", and things went uphill.

Yes. For a while, city builders were also in vogue, whose popularity then declined. But the most significant for the industry, probably, was the emergence of "travians", which are perfectly entrenched in it. The genre is named after the first game in it - Travian: you send an army, it goes, kills, carries prey. They are now at the top on mobile devices. On social media too.

- Due to what, besides the theme, did "Tyuryaga" succeed?

It involved successful mechanics that we had previously tested. We also included in "Tyuryaga" schemes from a large game development (from the English game development - "game development industry." - Approx. "Secret"). We were the first to bring raid mechanics to social networks, when a group of players goes to kill a boss. It cannot be said that Tyuryaga owes its achievements only to the setting. Later, we made a similar game in a World War II setting - In the Trench. She became even more popular.

- Are all your "shot" projects based on VKontakte?

Not only. Of course, in terms of income at the peak, VKontakte brought Tyuryaga more than Odnoklassniki, although in general they are comparable.

How are you doing on Facebook?

From a business standpoint, it's great. And from the point of view of our ambitions, everything is sad. So far, we are making decent money there, paying off the work of the team and getting some profit. But we are not satisfied with the state of affairs. We want to be at the top. I think it's a product specific issue. Still, the prison theme is closer to the inhabitants of Russia. Yes, and the Second World War, especially the view of it from the Soviet Union, is not so interesting for the Western player.

- Do you make money on Facebook in the Russian market or in foreign ones?

On foreign. In the general catalog our games - all the same - are available in three or four languages.

- How is the work of the studio organized?

From the very beginning, we tried to create independent teams. So, "Tyuryaga" I, consider, do not touch for two years. The guys update and support it on their own. The composition is the same as everywhere else: programmers, game designers, artists. In total, the company has more than 150 people. The main part is in Volgograd. And incredibly talented guys in St. Petersburg, with whom we have been with for about a year.

- And how are the teams of games managed?

At the discretion of the person who is at the helm. Some teams have a very strict discipline and use management methods closer to the classical ones, while others are more flexible. We set standards for managers, and if the guys achieve results, then we absolutely don't care how they do business.

How many people make one game?

Depending on the project. Usually 20 to 30.

Office of the company "Kefir!"

- Along with social games, you had an experiment with desktop - One Life. Did he fail?

No. The point is the principle of our work, which, as time has shown, justifies itself: we develop several products, look at their performance based on the results of soft launch ("soft launch" - testing the product on a limited audience. - Approx. "Secret") and, most importantly on user reaction. And we pay maximum attention to what will show the highest performance. Previously, we tried to create several new projects in parallel, but without proper concentration, we do not succeed.

A year and a half ago we had three products: One Life, Forge of Glory and Totem Rush. We picked Forge of Glory out of the top three because its stats are a cut above the other two. Now we deal with it closely, focusing on it. This does not mean that we are closing other projects or freezing them for a long time. The same thing happened with "Tyuryaga". At that time, we were simultaneously doing something like a Tamagotchi, something else. We saw the indicators of "Tyuryaga" - and that's it: we concentrated on it.

- What are the main forces thrown at now?

On Forge of Glory - mobile game. At this stage, 50-70 people are engaged in it. During the soft launch, she showed good numbers. And our task is to make them even higher.

- For the last year or two, interest in games in social networks has been gradually fading away. How does this affect you?

It fades, no doubt. But we don't see it in our business. In the worst case, we have to talk about a decline from strength by 5-7%. This is because we have an audience, we work with it. But we do not want to make new games only for social networks. First, there is nothing to do. There is no development platform. Unity is not suitable for social networks now, we tried - and not only us. And Flash will be disabled by default by Google at the end of 2016. No, a person from our established audience will go to the browser settings, click the checkboxes and play. But new users, of course, will not get anywhere for the most part. Secondly, social networks remain, but their use goes beyond the computer, and mobile games rule there, not social ones. I add a lot of players as friends, and when I open the friend list, I see that 80–90 percent of them are using mobile devices.

Is it possible that in a year, at least in two or three, there will be almost no games left either on VKontakte or Odnoklassniki?

Even after two or three - will be. There is an audience. They will exist for a long time, especially the current hits. But in five years, if nothing happens and the market moves where it moves, everything will most likely be very sad.

Essentially the same as before. Completely diverse audience. See what product. If match3 (mechanics, according to which the player must collect three or more objects in a row so that they disappear from the playing field and bring him points. - Approx. "Secret"), then the vast majority are women. Our theme is both teenagers and adults.

Has their willingness to pay changed recently?

In no way. How they paid, so they pay. The audience is extremely loyal. Facebook pays very well. He is very promising in terms of volumes. It really earns millions of dollars if the product is worthy. And the organics are fine.

Apparently, you are in a solid plus?

Yes, we are fine. Whenever possible, we, of course, invest in development, in new teams. But we also invest in real estate. And thanks to the rental business - let it be passive, "stupid" - we are able to do bold things like the same One Life. If suddenly we make a big mistake - they close "Tyuryaga", something else happens - then due to such support we will be able to do what we love for many years without financial injections from outside. Even with a series of failures. I planned this program several years ago, and it is practically implemented.

- In what plane do your new "daring things" lie?

Over the past year, we have changed the direction of development. "Kefir!" goes completely into mobile games. There lies the money that interests us. Perhaps we will deal with client games. But mobile has priority.

- Isn't it too late to do it?

Not at all. With "Tyuryaga" we entered the Russian market of games in social networks, when, it would seem, it was already crowded.

- At what point did you intend to go mobile?

The decision was made very late, because we made good money in social networks - and we continue to earn money so far. We finally matured when we realized that Unity can no longer fully make games on social networks.

- With Forge of Glory, are you targeting the international market or some local one?

To international. It is more expedient both in terms of volumes and in other respects.

- Why did this game become the flagship?

We have a large number of concept documents. From them we choose the best. Based on them, we create prototypes. And by prototypes we understand whether this or that project is worthy of further attention. Or we see the prospects of the game after the prototype stage. In many cases, we can close the game altogether. Forge of Glory has gone through all the stages and is now in soft launch.

We analyze the reaction of the audience, buy a little and upload traffic, earn. We correlate how many players were attracted and how much money they received. We estimate: here a little bit to push, there to twist. We study the return of users, then we evaluate our colleagues in the shop. Do they have retention like this, do we have this? It's okay, we'll live. They have a life-time value like this, and we have such a one? Great, tweaked again. We bought an audience, ran A / B tests. After all, you can sell some “cheesecake” in the game for three rubles, or you can sell it for five. Who knows ahead of time what is best? No one. We bought 2000 users, ran the test - we saw: cheesecakes are better bought for five rubles. Okay, ticked the box: now we sell for five rubles. A very tedious process. A soft launch can take a year or more.

Yes, in Asia there are a lot of users similar to our audience. We are localizing the game, since it perfectly suits the local residents in terms of mechanics. After all, this is a light battler (a genre of games, the main content of which is military operations that do not require complex strategic calculations. - Approx. "Secret") - what they love.

- Does the studio have other mobile games planned?

Yes. By the way, this is a very big psychological problem for me and for the guys. Right now we are all focused on Forge of Glory. But there are already prototypes that my hands are itching to make. I now have one of them on my phone, I look at it and cry: I want to bring it to mind and launch it. There's fire, just a breakthrough, I'm sure. We still sometimes break down and get distracted. But this is wrong.

- Will you look at other platforms and formats? PC, consoles, browser games?

Not currently. Along with mobile games, we are strongly attracted by client games, we will also try to work with them. But mobile is closer to us: development is faster, the budget is more modest, and the specifics are familiar to us.

- Are you building a studio by yourself?

Together with my best friend Mikhail Talalaev.

- Only two shareholders?

- Have you been offered investments?

Yes, and often. But we were based in an apartment, there were five or seven of us. They had enough of their own.

- Earning on microtransactions, as far as I know, you receive monthly revenues of $ 700,000

- What is your average payout in games?

In Russia - about 50 rubles.

- And how much does a user on average spend on a game?

The order is thousands of rubles.

- And for how long? Year?

If it's a semi-kit, then yes. And the "whales" - those who pay a lot - used to have more than a million rubles. Even, in my opinion, several million.

What industry trends are you most interested in?

Virtual reality. It is hard to believe that it will be mastered in the near future, but I dream about it. Every day we spend three or four hours in our studio playing computer games. And we have tested all the VR gadgets that are available on the market (both Oculus Rift and others). Only, being a player, I do not understand at all how to practically use them now. As long as it's an attraction. In the shopping center, I walked along the board, fell, laughed, drank beer, walked again with my eyes closed - the girls patted you, you're done. But how to use it at home is a big question. I tried different fun with short gameplay - not that. Uncomfortable. In my opinion, for a truly comfortable addictive VR game at home, a completely different gadget should be created.

Cover photo: Kefir!