Noise and game – Newspaper Kommersant No. 235 (7436) of 12/19/2022
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Kommersant has learned that the government is discussing systemic measures to support the Russian video game industry until 2030. In particular, we are talking about the creation of a state-controlled developer and publisher, the development of which, under the most ambitious scenario, will require up to $50 billion, the launch of a domestic rating agency, and an increase in the number of studios by 14 times. By 2030, it is planned to release 25 video games with a budget of 6.5 billion rubles. each and 40 less expensive ones, so that they can compete with popular global projects and become a “soft power tool” abroad. But taking into account the fact that most of the specialized specialists have left the country, it will be impossible to achieve the goals, experts say.
“Kommersant” got acquainted with the materials for the meeting on measures to support the Russian video game industry, which was held on December 15 in the office of Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maxim Parshin.
It follows from the documents that the meeting was attended by the head of the ANO “Digital Economy” (CE) Sergey Plugotarenko, the CEO of the ANO “Institute for the Development of the Internet” (IRI) Alexei Goreslavsky, assistant to the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko Anton Taraev, employees of the ANO “Agency for the Development of Computer Sports and other sports” (ARKIVS), representatives of a number of companies, including VK and Innova. The materials say that the government has begun discussing a new federal project “Gaming Industry of the Future”, in which Maxim Parshin will be the responsible leader, and Dmitry Chernyshenko will be the curator.
The authorities want to create an industry coordination center represented by ANO CE (it will develop regulations and industry strategies), a competence center represented by Innopolis University (it will prepare programs for training specialists and conduct research), as well as a center for strategic development of the industry. The role of the latter, as conceived by the authors of the project, will be assumed by the new Rosgeim structure, which will be established by several market participants. It is needed to “restore and stabilize the industry, develop and publish games” and provide support for the most promising projects.
Several development options are being considered for Rosgeim. As part of the “stabilization scenario”, it is assumed that the industry will recover and the Russian Federation will enter the top 20 game developing countries, which will require $ 7 billion by 2030. The “ambitious scenario” (provides for an “industry breakthrough”, the essence of which is not disclosed) needs $ 20 billion.
The most ambitious “leadership scenario” (requires $50 billion) assumes that by 2030 Russian game studios will compete with world leaders. At the same time, the state will be able to use domestic video games abroad as a “soft power tool”.
Dmitry Chernyshenko’s office told Kommersant that the Ministry of Digital Transformation was instructed to “work through these issues until February 20.” The ministry confirmed that “it is possible both to separate support for the gaming industry into a separate federal project, and to include the direction in existing projects and other formats.” They clarified that the formats, options and sources of funding are being worked out, extra-budgetary mechanisms are most likely to be proposed: “The gaming industry has great investment potential.”
The objectives of the implementation of these measures are set out in a separate document prepared by ARCIWS. It follows from it that by 2030 Russian studios will release 25 AAA games (high-quality projects with a budget of 6.5 billion rubles each) and 40 AA games (projects with a budget of up to 1.6 billion rubles) for computers and consoles. At the same time, domestic enterprises will release two new game consoles by 2030 (now the most popular on the market are the Xbox from the American Microsoft and the PlayStation from the Japanese Sony).
The number of employees employed in the industry will be 40 thousand people. The same document says that in seven years five “gamedev cities” should appear in Russia. Neither the Ministry of Digital Development, nor Mr. Chernyshenko’s office, nor ARKIVS “Kommersant” could explain what is meant by this term (for more details about the project’s targets, see the table). Director General of ARKIVS Anton Kara did not answer “Kommersant”, so did VK and Innopolis University. ANO CE and ANO IRI declined to comment.
The plan is to “establish Russian Electronic Arts (one of the world’s largest video game publishers, has published FIFA, NFS, Mass Effect, etc.— “b”), which will help streamline the release of high-quality Russian games, ”says a Kommersant source familiar with the details of the meeting. At the same time, he clarifies, there is still no understanding of where to get funds for projects.
Alexei Koptsev, CEO and founder of the Cyberia Nova studio (developing the game Troubles), told Kommersant that now there are no more than ten game studios in Russia capable of releasing AAA projects: “The market, one might say, has reset to zero. Most of the studios have moved abroad to continue their work, and new ones are yet to be founded. The Russian video game industry in its current state will not be able to fulfill its goals, the founder of the rawg.io portal Gadzhi Makhtiev agrees: “Given the fact that a number of large studios, and with them specialists left the Russian Federation, we need to concentrate then the term, but on the preservation and motivation of those who remained. In his opinion, it will take two to three years to create new teams, and only in 2024-2025 will they be ready to demonstrate high-quality products. The development cycle of ambitious projects, the expert emphasizes, is rarely less than three years.
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