Cyber club atmosphere
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The pace of opening new computer clubs in Russia in 2022 slowed down, and the mobilization and mass exodus of men abroad created additional risks for the segment, its participants say. According to Langame’s forecast, the number of outlets will grow by 15% by the end of the year, although since 2019 it has increased by 25-30% per year. However, the attendance of the sites is growing, despite the hostilities and the problems associated with them: citizens use the clubs, among other things, for socialization, experts say.
Langame, which owns the aggregator of cyberclubs of the same name, the F5 Center Cybersport network and specialized software, told Kommersant that by the end of 2022 the number of such points in the Russian Federation will increase by 15%. From 2019 to 2021, the dynamics was 25–30% per year. The company expects a return to the previous pace in 2023-2024. In the network of cyberclubs, True Gamers is also seeing a slowdown in the opening of new clubs. The network itself opened 20% fewer sites from January to September than in the same period in 2021. At United Gamers, however, “there is no significant decline in the number of people interested in opening cyberclubs.”
Pavel Golubev, head of Langame, named the risks of mobilizing visitors or leaving the country as one of the reasons for the slowdown in market development: “Many people still think that schoolchildren go to e-clubs, but today they make up about a third of the guests. The rest are students, young professionals and adult men.”
Meanwhile, a number of players are talking about an increase in club attendance “in certain regions.” Thus, United Gamers clarified to Kommersant that from September 1 to September 21, until the announcement of mobilization in Russia, the number of visitors to clubs in the Central region increased by 8%, in the south – by 34%, and in Siberia – by 1%. During the period from September 22 to October 10, attendance at United Gamers outlets in the Central region decreased by 4%, while in the southern and Siberian regions it increased by 20% and 0.87%, respectively.
True Gamers did not provide breakdowns by period before and after the start of the mobilization, but noted that attendance in September increased by 12% year-on-year. Both networks did not take into account locations opened less than a year ago when calculating.
True Gamers added that problems for the clubs were created by the departure of equipment manufacturers from the Russian market, the company had to build new transport chains through the CIS countries: “Due to the change in the dollar rate, hardware has become cheaper, but logistics costs have increased.” But almost the same reasons can push the audience of clubs to grow.
The fact is that the hostilities in Ukraine led to a halt in the direct supply of gaming PCs and consoles, components and physical copies of games – both due to official sanctions and at the request of suppliers. The distribution of digital copies was also disrupted: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo shut down regional stores on consoles, some game publishers (CD Project RED, Creative Assembly) refused to sell them in Russia, and the withdrawal of Visa and Mastercard from the country made it difficult to purchase content on international platforms. The Russians, reducing the cost of video games, have become more interested in their broadcast on streaming services (see Kommersant of September 21).
Arranging a play space at home “can easily cost 200 thousand rubles. and more, and in cramped living conditions it is even more difficult to organize it,” explains the developer of the PvP.Tools platform, Vasily Ovchinnikov. Going to clubs, he adds, should be seen as emotional entertainment: “People just go there instead of a bar or like a sports ground to spend time with people with similar hobbies.”
Clubs were also helped by the difficulties of other entertainment segments: in a number of cases, points this year were opened in former cinema halls that had lost Western blockbusters, and with them the audience. Vladimir Petelin, director general of the Premier Hall cinema network (who manages cinemas in the regions), told Kommersant that the network is preparing to open two computer clubs on the site of cinema halls that are not used. The network creates clubs with partners who provide equipment. Cinemas provide space organization and marketing. The Premier Hall also opened a virtual reality arena on the territory of the entire cinema in the Park House shopping center in Yekaterinburg.
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