Geography of the video game industry

The relevance of the research topic. The video playing industry is the fastest growing of modern sectors of the economy and over the past two decades has achieved huge successes. The industry is also a pioneer in digital developments as an example: interactive 3D technologies, virtual reality systems, software development (Sony, Microsoft) and so on. In addition, the growth of the popularity of video games provokes an increase in the number of IT specialists, artists, graphic designers, composers and even e-sportsmen.

However, the growth of popularity not only provokes people to develop in, but also attracts the attention of states, in connection with which censorship is introduced on some video games or, in some cases, video games are developed together with the state. Do not forget that there are a lot of children in video games, and it becomes only more interesting from this whether it is possible to use video games in geography training. The experience of European countries shows that it is possible to use some video games in the school education system, for example, Minecraft is used to study the basics of programming or architecture.

Object research is the video game industry of the world.

The subject of the study -Economic and geographical features of the video game industry.

The objectives of the study: Study of the development of video game industry in Russia and analysis of the Russian video game community.

In connection with these goals, the following tasks were set:

1. To study the history of the video game industry;

2. Identify patterns in the distribution of the largest development studios;

3. Identify problems in the development of the Russian video game industry in Russia;

4. Develop recommendations on integrating video games into geography training at different stages.

Theoretical basis qualification work was the articles of users of DTF, PlayGround and StopGame sites, journalist Jason Schrayer Jise Schrayer, Higher School of Economics, News Articles of Newzoo and Gamespot, Kutlalieva T.X. “Genre typology of computer games: the problem of systematizing artistic means” (2014).

Research methods. The following research methods were used in the work: comparative descriptive, cartographic, quantitative and qualitative assessments, the method of survey.

Information base of research served: sites with accounting reports, such as Yahoo! Finance and Audit -it, Investing Investment Site, File with the financial statements of the CD Project Red and Sony Interactive, the results of a survey of the Russian video game community conducted by the author.

The scientific novelty of this work lies in the systematization, description of the specifics of the production of video games and compilation of a number of potashams;identifying features of the development of the video game industry in Russia;conducting the analysis of the Russian video game community and developing recommendations for the integration of video games in geography training.

Practical significance qualification work. The results of the study can be used to familiarize yourself with the history of video games, their significance in the modern information environment. As well as recommendations for integrating video games and video game technologies into education, instead of distance from them.

Volume and structure qualification work. WKR consists of 3 chapters, conclusion, list of used literature and applications. The volume of work is 57 pages, including 25 drawings and 11 tables, as well as applications. The list of sources has 53 positions.

Chapter 1. General characteristics of the video game industry

§ 1. The history of the video game industry

The video playing industry is considered one of the youngest in the world, relative to the automotive industry, cinema, and other things, in view of the fact that at the moment it is only 50 years old, along with arcade machines, the development of video games on personal computers began only in the 90s and at the moment she was only 30 years old. The beginning of the era of the video game is considered to be 1971, when the first Arcadic video game Computer Space was released, but it did not have financial success in view of the difficulty and not proper marketing, so the brainchilds of Nolan Bushnella are forgotten by many. 1972 was marked by the release of two high -profile projects:

· Pong from ATARI – a game for arcade slot machines sold by “circulation” of 19 thousand copies (rice. 2).

· Odyssey from Magnavox – the first game prefix in history that laid the foundation for the first generation of consoles (rice. 1).

However, Magnavox could not hold the lead in the sales of home consoles for a long time, in view of the fact that the company did not modify the prefix with the so necessary sound. Thus, for 3 years, Atari has been able to intercept the leadership of game consoles with a reduced version of Pong.

The popularity and simplicity of Pong led to a large number of “Clon Games”, which provoked the industry crisis in 1976-1977, putting the industry on the edge of death. However, in 1978, the new Arcade Space Invaders was released on the market, which faced the task of returning the interest of players again. Together with this, ATARI releases the second -generation console “Atari 2600” to which Space Invaders is further Ported by becoming a system of systemseller.

In 1980, the legendary PAC-Man, developed by Namco (Japan), enters the market of arcade machines. The publishers were Namco themselves in Japan and Midway in North America (rice. 3). In the first year of sales, more than 100 thousand machines in Japan and more than 400 thousand around the world were sold in Japan. This project was able to attract an audience of all ages due to not intricate gameplay and light visual style, which increased the sale of the game. The game was also published on Atari 2600, where it dispersed 8 million. copies. The general commercial success of the brainchild of Torah Ivatani exceeded the profitability of the films “Star Wars”.

In 1983, shortly after the release of the new generation of consoles (Atari 5200), a second crisis occurred, which questioned the existence of a video game industry. The reasons for the crisis were as follows:

1. Low -quality gaming overprices;

2. The appearance of home computers;

3. Loss of control of publishers behind the market;

Completed a series of unfavorable factors, a project, based on the film by Stephen Spielberg E.T. – “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial “(Fig. 4). This project went down in history as “The worst game of all time and generations”. All copies were buried in the desert of the state of New Mexico. The crisis continued until 1984 and led to the collapse of the video game in the United States, as Atari. This was the result of their investment in the aforementioned “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial “.

However, against the backdrop of a crisis in the United States in Japan in 1983, Nintendo released the third -generation Famicom (Nintendo Family Computer), more known as Nes (Nintendo Entertainment System). In the future, Nintendo did not lose weight in the industry and to this day are members of the “Big Three” (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).

Also in the 80s new genres appeared, such as RPG, and more complicated projects. This was facilitated by an increase in the number of personal computers. But the main industry of the industry still remained arcade machines. Also in the 80s the first printed publications related to video games, manuals, magazines, etc.

In the 90s, with the development of digital technologies, 3D modeling and implementation of CD-ROM, the relevance of arcade slot machines took place. Personal computers began to replace them and, accordingly, computer games. In this decade, new genres begin to appear, for example, shooters whose ancestor was Wolfenstein 3D (1992) from the studio “ID Software”, which in the next decade will forever enter its name and the names of John Karmak and John Romero into a video playing history, releasing “doom” (rice (rice. 5, 6).

Also in the 90s, television programs about video games were very widespread. And in connection with the advent of games oriented to a large number of players, the first computer clubs began to appear, which can be considered the basis of e -sports.

In 1994, the world’s first university appeared in Vancouver, preparing video games – Digipen Institute of Technology [30].

The period of the last 20 years for the video game industry has become a time of very rapid growth and development. Mobile platforms began to appear on which you can develop games, for example, iOS and Android, the development of the Internet and its appearance in the houses of players, provoked the closure of computer clubs, and the appearance of games such as World of Warcraft and other MMO RPGs. But at the moment, in Russia, computer clubs began to appear again, this is due to the fact that outgoing video cards and processors are quite expensive for Russian players.

The development of technology also provoked the development of video games in terms of picture, complexity of the mechanic and increased the cost of production. However, the increase in cost also caused demand for qualified specialists in IT, audio designers, 3D designers and others like them. Thus, specialized universities and/or faculties began to appear, for example: in 2003, in Texas, the Guildhal al Smu educational institution specialized in the training in the field of Gamdev, in particular, the game design [39] appeared.

Accordingly, this provoked a permanent technological race between three leading companies: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, in view of the fact that these video game publishers bought and \ or absorbed the developer studios. Thanks to this race over the past 20 years, three console generations have already changed. The 9th generation of consoles is currently underway.

§ 2. The economic component of the video game industry

The cost of developing video games of games can currently reach several hundred million dollars, for example, the most expensive game of modernity: Star Citizen on the development of which 380 million has already been spent. Doll. List of the most expensive games in history in an increase in order:

10. Shadow of the Tomb Raider – from 75 to 100 million. Doll.

9. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 80 million. Doll.

8. Battlefield 4 – 100 million. Doll.

7. Max Payne 3 – 105 million. Doll.

6. Grand Theft Auto V – 137 million. Doll.

5. Marvel’s Avengers – from 170 to 190 million. Doll. taking into account marketing;

4. Red Dead Redemption 2 – from 170 to 240 million. Doll.

3. Cyberpunk 2077 – 174 million. Doll.

2. Star Wars: The Old Republic – 200 million. Doll.

1. Star Citizen – 380 million. Doll.

Sponsors are usually video game publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard and others. Games of these studios are called AAA (Triplei) projects.

But it happens that money for the development of the game is collected, as they say, with the world along the thread. This is called crowdfunding, thus the money was raised to develop such games as Star Citizen, Pillars of Eternity, Shenmue 3 and others.

List of the most expensive games on Kickstarter [46]:

1. Shenmu 3 – ~ 6.3 million. Doll. (with the support of Sony, the exact budget is not known)

2. BloodStained: Ritual of the Night – 5.5 million. Doll.

3. Torment: Tides of www.mega-riches.uk Numenera – 5 million. Doll.

4. Pillars of Eternity – 3.9 million. Doll.

5. Mighty no. 9 – 3.8 million. Doll.

6. Star Citizen – 2.1 million. Doll. (The main part of the funds was raised on the developers’ website).

As for the mobile sector of the video game industry, it is impossible to definitely talk about the cost of developing. As a rule, mobile games in development are quite cheap and, accordingly, pay off much more successful. Most of them are distributed according to the free model (Free to Play/F2P), and most of their income is associated with intra -game transactions, such as buying intra -game currency, premium accounts or unique characters, images or weapons. In this regard, it is customary to respond to the community about mobile games in the most flattering way, just due to a great stop on microtransaction. One of the most famous developers of mobile games is Rovio (Angry Bird) located in Finland. The company’s income in 2021 amounted to: 30.911 thousand. Doll.

What the game budget consists of explained by Vasily Skobelev, Level-designer.

Tell me what the game budget is made of in percentage?

The game budget consists of a huge number of terms. They include such things as: the cost of the workplace (iron, software, area, etc. p.), employees’ salary, building/office rental, marketing, PR, merch, insurance, organization of internal and external and external, procurement of traffic (if we talk about mobile phones), payment for audience research and consultations with external specialists and much more. It strongly depends on the specific project. If you make an indie game in the apartment, all costs can be reduced as a regular purchase of provisions and payment of plugins for the engine. While AAA-projects are fabulous amounts and big risks.

Vasily Skobelev

What are the costs of an advertising campaign from a common budget as a percentage?

On the advertising campaign, large Buy2play projects in the premium segment (PC/console) can spend as much as for development, if not more. At one time, Ubisoft made an info from the fact that the cost of the Watch_Dogs advertising was caught with developing. Now there is a rather painful rollback to the AAA, when the audience has stopped taking projects that are advertised more than they are in development. At the same time, in mobile games, you can do without an advertising campaign in the usual sense of the word: you take an early build, pick it up the appropriate region of the world and just pay for traffic to catch up with usersky installes and see the analyst.

Vasily Skobelev

But not only Western countries succeeded in developing both “large” and “small” games. In 2012, in China, the Mihoyo Co developer studio was founded., Limited (Hoyoverse) (Fig.7). In 2020, the studio was released by the Superpiped Mlplatform Formation* Genshin Impact game. The success of the game is justified by a free distribution model and accessibility on different platforms, such as iOS and Android mobile phones, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S and PC console. In addition, the external style of the project in the form of Japanese animation also provoked an increase in the popularity of the game. The basis of the project was Gacha*-Mechanics. Genshin Impact is unique in that it combines mechanics Action Adventure, Action RPG and Gacha, unlike other studio projects, such as Honkai Impact 3RD. According to Sensor Tower, most of the Genshin Impact players are in China. More than a quarter of the total profit of the game for the first year ($ 577 million) was in the Chinese mobile devices market for iOS. Japan ranks second with 23.7% of the share of the market, and the USA – the third with 21%.

In the context of payback, it is worth noting the division into genres. Genres, in turn, are divided into backdrops.

Table 1. Video game genres and sucks on t. Kutlaliev, 2014 [33]

The sucks are formed at the moment when the game comes out by the original enough to begin to imitate it, as an example of the game of the Metroid and Dark Souls series. The former, in turn, launched the Substrovanitaniye, the second suck-like.

But what genre games are best paid off. It is difficult to say specifically, but most often it is the action, due to the fact that they have a fascinating gameplay and history. Some game series, such as Call of Duty, are called conveyor, in view of the fact that the games of the series come out annually, respectively, the production of “conveyor” games is sufficiently cheaply cheap. With this approach, the costs of an advertising campaign are also reduced, because such games come out regularly every fall.

Start with employment. Despite the rapid growth and development of the industry, on a huge number of people who have connected their lives with the world of video games and those who want to create these games, getting into the industry is not difficult. It is more difficult in it to gain a foothold for a fairly long time. In his book “Click Reset”, Jason Schreyer writes that the frames of personnel in the industry are so high that some employees do not linger in their place longer than one or two stages of development. Less than those who reach the end of the project. Even fewer those who remain on the future projects of the studio, as a rule, are the chapters of the development departments, but they are not insured against abbreviations. It is also worth noting that work in Gamdev is associated with frequent crossings, this is justified by the fact that large studios, such as Electronic Art, have units in different cities. Thus, getting up to work in Los Angeles, an employee can be transferred to an office in another city, for example, in Seattle.

Work in this industry is very much connected with stress, in this regard, emotional burnouts and nervous breakdowns are not rare among workers on the basis of permanent pennies (processing), and many employees specially rent rooms in hotels near the office or even spend the night at work. As an example, employees of the Naughty Dog studio. In this regard, a full -time psychologist is available for employees of video game companies.

Table 2. Professions and levels of wages in rubles [3]

In addition to the listed IT professional in the industry, marketing, advertising and public relations specialists are also involved in the industry, as in other companies.

Regarding labor remuneration according to Vasily: “I can only assure that salaries are the most volatile part of the budget and you must always be prepared to be flexible and quickly adapt to the mood of the labor market.»Gamders are responsible for the amount of wages.

3. Share in the economy and the role of the state in the production of video games

The video playing industry is part of the entertainment industry and, therefore, part of the tertiary sector of the economy characteristic of economically developed countries, such as the USA, Canada, the Countries of the European Economic Union, China and Japan. Also, many video game studios, such as 4A Games have their own offices in Cyprus, in view of the fact that there are some tax benefits for IT companies that facilitate the development, for the same reason there are many departments of large publishers and developers, such as Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft and others, in the Canadian city of Montreal.

The distribution of video games occurs according to two models: digital distribution and physical media. The advantages of one distribution model over another are quite obvious. Digital distribution is more profitable for players, firstly, because it is convenient. Secondly, against the background of pandemia, this was the only way to purchase a video game. Thirdly, the acquisition of digital copies saves the space in the room.

While acquiring games on physical media, it has no special advantages, except for aesthetic pleasure from buying. In this regard, there are such chains of stores as Gamestop in a large decline. However, for such stores, they continue to exclusively supply figures or collection publications.

There is no economic difference in purchase in one way or another, because prices are equal. In the world, they amount to $ 60, in terms of rubles – 4000. However, these prices are characteristic of the console market, where regional prices do not work. For the Russian PC-IGR market, regional prices were introduced in the late 1990s-early 2000s in order to suppress non-licensing distribution of products. This is due to the fact that the domestic market was unprofitable for publishers. At the time of 2021, regional prices were preserved only for indie projects, large publishers as Electronic Art, Activision Blizzard, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and others abolished the regional price system, which caused a wave of discontent in the community.

As for the revenue, many factors are affected by it, in recent years, the pandemia of the Coronavirus Covid-19 has affected the video playing industry, so that at the end of 2020 it grew by 20% and amounted to 179.7 billion. Doll. While the cinema industry has grown by only 100 billion. Doll. Of course, this happened as a result of the distribution of digital distribution stores, which allowed players from around the world to acquire games without leaving home. However, the development itself during this period fell very much, as the employees of the studios were transferred to the remote format of work. In this regard, 2020 and 2021. are considered poor enough for AAA-class releases. In addition to the premium segment (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and T. D.) The mobile segment also showed significant growth: in percentage, even higher than the premium, the revenue of mobile games, without accounting for advertising, increased by 24%, compared to 2019, and amounted to 87.7 billion. Doll.

The state development process does not often interfere, and there are usually no orders for projects, in any case, obvious. However, there is influence at the stage of the publishing house and distribution, for example, censorship. As an example: in games having a setting* Second World War in Germany, swastika is replaced by a more neutral image. In China and Japan, developers replace the color of blood and animation of murders with something more neutral (the exception is the games of the FROM Software studio). In Russia, censorship applies entirely to projects, for example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019 was not released in the Russian PlayStation segment, in view of the obvious anti -Russian agenda in the game. However, it also happens that the game itself enters the Russian market, but some content is cut out of it, for example: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, from which the mission of “not a word of Russian” was cut out in the Russian rental due to the demonstration of a terrorist act in one of the fictional Moscow, from more fresh news, the ban on additions to Russia for additions to RussiaThe Sims 4: Wedding stories, under the pretext of propaganda LGBT+.* But most of all the censorship is subject to non -normative vocabulary, which is prohibited in Russian media, mostly deservedly, but sometimes this approach is harmful to the artistic filling of the game.

What depends on the possibility of prohibition of playing in the Russian Federation? The root cause can be excessive cruelty, as in the game Manhunt, or a clear anti -Russian statement as in some games of the Call of Duty series.

However, censorship can be not only at the state level. For example, in view of the latest world events, many video game companies leave Russia. Limiting access to its titles in the Russian Federation, for example, the Polish studio CD Project Red limited access to the games of the series The Witcher and Cyberpunk. Of course, this decision is politically motivated. In addition to simple restrictions on the distribution of studio games, some publishers, Sony, went even further and limited the Russians access to the PlayStation Store store, while other distributors did not do this. However, the disconnection of the Russian Federation from the non -cash payment system also does not allow to purchase games on the sites of Steam and Microsoft Store.

Summarizing the foregoing, I would like to note that the video game industry is conditionally divided into two stages:

1. The era of slot machines

2. Era of video games on home computers

And dividing the story that way, then we can say that the current industry has only 30 years, which makes it one of the youngest and rapidly developing industries. With great influence in the field of media, but also strongly susceptible to modern social trends, such as SJW and LGBT+, which causes polar reactions in the community, due to the fact that publishers and developers do not focus on the target audience, indulging in modern trends.

As for the influence of the industry and its coverage, this is the number of video game exhibitions, presentations, press conferences that collect annually either on direct broadcasts or in the audience of tens of thousands of people.

However, despite the influence, the video playing industry is still quite isolated from the state, in Russia this is due to the fact that it is not taken seriously, but in the West, namely in the USA, the state directly cooperates with the studios, helping in development and pushing its own ideas. This is regarding development, but they are engaged in censoring games in Russia to sufficiently strictly.

Getting to the industry is quite simple, because qualified personnel are always needed. As for Russia, the development of video games can provide good income to ordinary employees when a simple C ++ Developer can earn more than 100 thousand rubles a month. However, this work is associated with very great stress and eventually loses any creative component if you are not a game director.

Chapter 2. Geography of the video game industry

§ 1 North American megaregion

The placement of studios of publishers and developers can be conditionally divided into 3 mega region (rice.8):

Each of them is unique in its own way and has its own values, and, of course, its own orientations on sales markets. Thus, the products of the video game from the United States are mainly aimed at the international market, while Asian games are oriented for the most part to the domestic market, and are often not even translated into Russian.

North American megaregion is the most developed video game region. The headquarters of many large publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, Bethesda, Valve, Take-Two Interactive, Epic Games, Atari, Sony Interactive, are located on the territory of the United States.Entertainment, LLC and others. Studios are scattered from New York to Los Angeles to this country. Most often, the location of the head offices is located in the same city where they were founded, but in view of economic and technological reasons, it can be transferred to cities with more favorable taxation.

Start with Activision Blizzard. This is a public company, one of the largest video game studios specializing in the development and publication of video games. It was formed in 2007 by the merger of two studios: Activision and Vivendi Games which included Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. At the moment, Activision Blizzard consists of five divisions: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, Major League Gaming, Activision Blizzard Studios and King Digital Entertainment. Headquarters is located in Santa Monica, California.

The General Director, since the merger of companies and is still, is Bobby Kotik. Among gamers and presses a very controversial person who has repeatedly criticized because of his policy. The public accused the cat of the fact that in pursuit of profit in the long run he sacrifices the quality of products.

However, such a policy has bear fruit for the company. By 2019, the company’s capitalization amounted to $ 36 billion., Net profit: $ 1.5 billion., and turnover: $ 6.5 billion.

In 2022, Activision Blizzard was purchased by Microsoft. The amount of the transaction amounted to $ 68.7 billion.

The second largest studies after the Activision Blizzard is Electronic Arts,

in terms of revenue and capitalization, but is ahead of Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft. Founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins – Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple Computer. Since the foundation, it is one of the first video game companies, while managing to popularize the professions of designers and programmers. At the moment, the studio is known at least forty -three titles, including:

· American McGee`s Alice;

· Medal of Honor and other games of games.

In the community, the products of the EA studio have repeatedly been criticized, like the company’s policy. Over the past few years, Electronic Arts has released a lot of controversial projects as an example of Battlefront 2, which, although sold by a large circulation, was not devoid of technical disabilities and an internal store imposing the PAY-2-WIN system. Another example of the EA Sports division, such as FIFA and Madden, which come out every year with minimal changes, but the FIFA series is one of the most profitable franchises by EA.

The company has more than 20 divisions located in different cities and countries. As an example Moscow, Montreal, Vancouver, Baton Ruzh, etc. D. The headquarters is located in Redwood City, California. The most beloved studio among the community is Valve. A private company engaged in the development, publication and digital distribution of video games. Founded in 1996 by Gabe Newel and Mike Harrington, former Microsoft employees. The very first studio project-Half-Life brought Gabe Newel World fame and first money.

Valve’s studio differs from other large companies by the absence of a vertical hierarchy, which allows us to give the studio to creative freedom and the right to independently choose a project that they want to work on. Over the past years, the company has been actively developing its e-sports directions in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, Steam Digital Distribution School, Steam Deck Portable Game Console and Studio Support-Source 2. The headquarters of the studio is located in the city of Breveva, Washington.

Epic Games is a private company specializing in the development and publication of video games. It was founded in 1991 by the programmer Tim Swinnie and was called Potomac Computer System, in the same year released its first game, and the studio was renamed Epic Megagames and only a year after the UNREAL 3D-player was renamed Epic Games.

The studio also developed a series of video game engines Unreal Engine, the current iterations of which are considered the easiest to master the engines. In addition to creating a video game, Unreal Engine 4 can be used in the creation of films or series, such as a mandalore. However, the most successful project of the studio was Fortnite, released in early access in 2017. For 2019, income from the game amounted to $ 1.8 billion.

Epic Games is also engaged in the development of its digital store Epic Games Store (EGS), however, in 2020, the store’s revenue did not show growth. The headquarters of the company is located in Carey, North Carolina. And the studio itself has 8 divisions in different countries:

Epic Games Berlin

Epic Games Japan

Epic Games Korea

Epic Games Seattle

Epic Games Stockholm

Epic Games Publishing

Epic Games Tools LLC

Take-Two Interactive is a public developer, distributor and publisher of the AAA-Class video game, founded in 1992 by Ryan Brentom. It is currently located in New York, and the International Headquarters in Windsor, Great Britain. He fully owns such developers-developers as Rockstar Games, 2K, Private Division, Ghost Story Games and SociaPoint. Among the community, the studio products are very popular, many games have been holding sales tops for several years, for example GTA V.

In 2021, the company’s turnover amounted to $ 3.37 billion., net profit amounted to $ 589 million., And capitalization at the beginning of 2022 amounted to $ 17.8 billion.

§ 2 Asian megaregion

The second developed video game sector (rice.10). Its distinctive feature is a focus on the domestic market. Not many projects go to world rental, even smaller ones are translated into Russian. It is better to talk about this region in the context of countries.

The third largest video game market, yielding to the United States and China – is Japan [48]. A distinctive feature of Japanese video games is their emphasis on the domestic market, due to their external style and the type of gameplay. From other products of the industry, they are distinguished by visual performance, gameplay and interface. It is also worth noting a large number of niche games made on the basis of anime. However, large international releases are also available. Several studios are responsible for them: Bandai Namco, from Software, Nintendo, Capcom and Konami.

Japan is also mistakenly considered the birthplace of video games. This is not entirely correct in view of the fact that thanks to Japan, the industry continued to live. The industry itself originated in the USA.

Next is China. It is the largest market for the turnover of products, for this it is nicknamed the “capital of the world industry of video games”. However, it is difficult to call it to the capital in view of the fact that the products of the Chinese region rarely go beyond the Golden Shield and the most famous games at the international level are the Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3RD. However, the most popular in China are video games of the MMORPG genre or online player game “Shooter”, such as Cross Fire. A huge number of similar titles come out and they are all similar to each other. However, Tencent’s games are very popular among the Chinese.

Tencent. The peculiarity of this company is that it itself does not create video games, as it is an investment holding company. She owns, completely or partially, several American developer studios, such as Riot (100%), EPIC Games (48%) and a number of European studios: Supercell (84%), Funcom (100%), Glumobil (21%), Grinding Gear Games (80%) [34) [34] [34] [34.

The video game industry of South Korea is poorly developed, and, like the Russian industry, is aimed mainly at the development of MMORPG. The most famous South Korean developers are: NCSoft, known as the developer and publisher of Linage and Linage2, and Krafton, known for the following titles: Subnautica and Pubg. For 2021 financial annual income of the studio amounted to: 280 559 100 dollars. Or 352 382 230 458 Korean won. And the income of the Krafton studio for 2021 amounted to 519,877,658,000 South Korean won, that is, 419 614 052 dollars.

§ 3 European megaregion

The most motley video game region, from studios developers of games for mobile devices to media giants, such as Ubisoft. Also, some studios located in Europe, especially in the eastern, prefer to publish games displaying the historical or cultural flavor of the region, for example, the game of series S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro or The Whitcher. Accordingly, such games are sold perfectly, not only in the CIS and Eastern Europe, but also in other countries (table. 5).

In table. 6 presents the income of European developers. A distinctive feature of the entire European megaregion can be called a very closed finin policy. That is, there is no way to get information from resource openings such as Yahoo!”Or” Investign “. The reason for this is the private nature of the studios, or their dependent state on the larger ones, for example, 4A Games is a subsidiary of the Saber Enteractive studio, but this studio is also a private.

On the maps it can be noted that the presence of large developers is characteristic of the countries of Western, Northern and Eastern Europe. This also suggests that these cards have a well-developed tertiary sector of the economy, and a well-developed IT sector. However, some studios for one reason or another prefer to transfer the headquarters to Cyprus, this is due to tax benefits for IT companies, as in Canada. But one way or another, the number of developers in Eastern Europe suggests that talented programmers, designers, artists and others like them are not just a lot, but a lot.

Summarizing the foregoing, it can be noted that the developers gravitate to place their headquarters focusing on economic centers, since there is no direct link to natural resources, but there is a strong dependence on highly qualified personnel. However, not everything is so unambiguous, because there are companies, such as Valve, leave their headquarters in cities where they were founded.

As for the success of the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is safe to say that the revenue of companies during this period has only grown despite the fact that not so much products were produced as the community wished for.

Also, many development studios, especially from European countries, publish their financial reports to closed sources, or for them publishes a studio that it belongs, which in turn does not share income between studios, reporting only about sales volumes, and then not always.

Chapter 3. Video game industry in Russia.

§ 1. The current state of the Russian video game industry.

Russian video game industry, this is the topic that has been arguing on the last 20 years. Some say that she is “dead”, others say that she is quite “alive”, but in her own way. This opinion was based on the fact that large and high -profile single -user projects did not come out. In the period from 2000 to 2010, some projects were published, which were directed mainly to the domestic market, where they had successful.

Among these projects were:

2. IL-2 stormtrooper (2001)

3. Space rangers (2002)

4. Ex Machina (2005)

5. Mor: Utopia (2005)

6. Dunatars of dungeons (2006)

Therefore, many agree on the fact that the domestic gamdev is “dead”. However, not everything is so unambiguous. Domestic developers have concentrated on the development of mobile games, where they had a huge success, not only in Russia, but also in the world. So, in 2020, the market for smartphones amounted to 933 million. Doll. with a growth of 25% compared to 2019. In 2021, the Russian Federation took fourth place in the world in terms of the number of downloads of mobile games – 1.5 billion. For example, studios such as:

And, of course, in connection with the lull in the premium segment of the industry, indie developers enter the arena. It is impossible to evaluate the development of indie segments according to statistical data, since there are many independent developers, a lot, and new projects enter into general access on the Steam or Microsoft trading platform every month. Of course, of different quality.

The most famous Russian indie games:

3. Please, Don’t Touch Anything

This list is by no means complete, only the most famous in the community are listed.

Why is it not correct to talk about the death of the domestic Gamdev. If there were no single -sex games in the international market from Russian developers, then there are very large figures, for example, Battlestate Games, which developed and independently released the Escape from Tarkov game in the session multipleors. At the moment, the average number of players in the game reaches 500 thousand. Thus, you can approximately calculate the minimum possible revenue from sales of the game, which is at least 800 million. rub. or 12.6 million. Doll.

However, even Battlestate Games cannot compete with Gaijin Enterteinment. The studio was founded in 2002, in Moscow. At the moment, it is known for the following projects:

1. War Thunder – Military Arcade Simulator of hostilities.

2. Enlisted – multiplayer shooter in the setting of World War II

3. Crossout – Arcade Session Multiplayer Schuer in the setting of the post -apocalypse.

According to 2020 data, the net profit of the studio amounted to 2.465 million rubles, while revenue amounted to 131.316 million rubles [26].

In order to understand the situation deeper, Vasily Skobelev, Level-Designer, Mentor and Scientific Editor, could answer my questions. To the question “in what condition is the Russian video -game industry now” he answered [27, 41]:

Russian industry in a rather positive soft start of premium games. Moreover, from the developers, everything looks quite ironic. AAA games require many years of development, even before the announcement. Now in the development there are a lot of ambitious projects of various genres in the Russian Federation. Yes, among them there are FRIMIUMENTS, but these are still AAA Games. But the news on them should not wait earlier than 2022, especially given the current political situation. And people on these projects have been working for several years, and the audience still believes that there are no games on the local market. Just wait, the process has been going on for a long time and the exhaust will be extremely noticeable. By the way, by the famous IP too.

Vasily Skobelev

§ 2. Geography of development centers in Russia

Most studios-developers of both mobile and computer games are located in Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, small indie developers are scattered throughout Russia, in cities such as Ivanovo, Togliatti, Krasnoyarsk, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd, Vologda, etc. D.

Also, Vasily was able to reveal the screen and this aspect. To the question “How much is very common in the Russian Federation the development of video games, as indie projects. and “large” developments?”He answered the following:” Colossally. If you smoke deeper, you will find that in fact in Moscow and St. Petersburg it is easier to find a job to a game developer than in Edmonton or Madrid. The only difference is that in Madrid you can go directly to EA, and more often it will be either a startup or an outsource studio working in a contract for the same EA. In recent years, we have accumulated a huge number of cool specialists and, since, they began to “leak” from outsource studios to projects, which have the main development here. In this way, they will be able to show their skills in primary IP or at least one of the main teams of developing existing franchises ”.

The following listed the largest video game distributors and developers in Russia.

The most famous company in Russia is 1C-the largest IT company in the Russian Federation, founded in 1991. Specializes in the development of software and software for companies. The most famous 1C: Enterprise, 1C: Tutor, 1C: School, under the auspices of 1C: Education. As for the video game, in the period since 2010, 1C act mostly the publisher and localizer. Since 2008, since 2008, it was bought for 80–90 million. dollars, video game developer, publisher and localizer – beech. In 2009, a merger was realized with the SoftKlab studio. In 2010, between 1C and Snowball Studios, an association agreement was signed. However, the results of the localization of these studios are disappointed by the Russian video game community, due to the poorly developed dubbing industry.

1C Video-game studio, the merits of which includes the development of such games as IL-2: attack aircraft, Men of War, Through The Woods and Royal Quest.

SoftKlab is the largest video game publisher and distributor in Russia. The company was founded in 1994 as an independent enterprise focused on the development and localization of video games. Thus, the first project, localized studio, was the game Medievil 2, in 2000. In 2009, the studio announced a merger with a 1C media giant and became their subsidiary. In 2010, SoftKlab became the official exclusive distributor of Sony Computer Entertainment in Russia.

Buka – leading publisher, localizer and distributor of the video game in Russia. Buka works in the world market and has its own international distribution network. Currently works in more than 50 countries of the world and cooperates with well -known companies in the field of electronic entertainment industry: Valve, Deep Silver, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Alawar and others. Since 2014, Buka began to publish games and applications for mobile devices.

Mail.ru Group stands apart from the rest, mainly because it develops its own projects, the most popular of which is said below. Currently bought by VK. The most famous project is Warface – a multi -user shooter that is popular, mainly among gamers of the CIS countries and spreads through a free model. In this regard, the age of the audience of the game is 19-30 years, people of this age category in the game ⁓50%, the remaining 50% are faces younger than 18 or older.

“In the second quarter of 2021, the Warface franchise reached 117.4 million players around the world on all platforms and is still in the three leaders in income among the projects of the Russian company MY.Games.”[39] Revenue My.Games for the third quarter of 2020 amounted to 10,672 million. rub., which is 33% higher than the indicators of 2019 [39]. Of the 117 million players, approximately 24 million. It is on the PS4/5 console, Xbox One/Series, and Nintendo Switch according to the second quarter of 2021 [39].

In table. 8 presents data on the income of some companies for 2021 with dynamics against the background of 2020.