Earlier this week, it was reported that the official online gaming market in Russia lost 80% of its volume in 2022. Growth in this segment is expected to recover within three years. About this writes the publication ComNews with reference to the words of the analyst of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC) Maria Saykina.
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“What we have is positive, in my opinion, is the interest of the state in the topic of online games. They are now closely engaged in this, and if they continue to “pump” it, investing through grants, then the market growth within 2-3 years will again return to the previous values, ”said Maria Saykina at the E+Games conference last week. .
According to RAEC, the volume of the Russian online games market in 2021 amounted to 99 billion rubles. Although this was a fairly modest amount compared to global indicators (no more than 1% of the global market), the segment has grown steadily – by about 10% per year. This was facilitated by the growth of online consumption, the development of mobile games, the growth of in-game payments, as well as the increasing interest of the state and business in e-sports.
Preliminary assessment data from RAEC indicate that in 2022 the turnover of the online games market in Russia fell by 80%. Only the legal market is taken into account, since “gray” payment schemes for online content allow some Russian players to retain access to foreign platforms. Experts believe that such a sharp drop in the current conditions was inevitable. This is due to the fact that up to 90% of content providers were foreign. In addition, the Russian market is highly dependent on foreign specialized software, and there are simply no domestic gaming platforms.
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According to Sergey Plugotarenko, Director General of ANO Tsifrovaya ekonomika, one of the main roles in saving the domestic online games market should be assigned to the state. He believes that the state may be interested in this not only from an economic point of view (tax returns, etc.), but also from an ideological point of view (a new segment for advancing the agenda).
“In Russia, the complex development of the gaming industry is necessary, as this is a large segment, great influence, soft power and the possibility of international expansion. Games are replacing TV, movies and TV shows. This needs to be worked on and supported by the coordinated efforts of business and the state,” Plugotarenko is sure. He also recalled a number of internal problems that need to be solved for the development of the gaming industry. One of them is the unclear status of gaming and the ambiguous attitude of society: there is no single consensus on whether this has a positive or negative impact on young people.
One of the major players in the Russian video game market is now VK Group, which develops the VK Play gaming service and the RuStore mobile app store. In addition, the company announced an investment of 1 billion rubles in the development of a domestic game engine, which should become an alternative to foreign Unity and Unreal. “In January of this year, VK Play opened the investment direction VK Play Investments, 300 million rubles have been allocated to support developers this year alone. VK Play Investments will support experienced development teams in Russia and invest in studios that create projects for personal computers, consoles and mobile devices,” the VK Group press service said.
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