STUDIOS // WARGAMING | BETA
Take World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition, the first free-to-play title of its kind to appear on Xbox Live. This was the premier title from Wargaming West (formerly Day 1 Studios), which the company acquired in January 2013. Menou says the biggest challenge here was learning how a “fully online company” could make its F2P offering attractive to console gamers that are used to premium titles. Another example, World of Tanks: Blitz, is taking the game to iOS and Android. Currently undergoing beta testing, the game shrinks the action down to seven-on-seven battles that can be tackled in shorter bursts. Fully 3D with an intuitive UI, it’s already looking like it will become a hit with the commuter who’s partial to armoured warfare. For most studios, tackling such a broad array of projects would be daunting and certainly not something many would launch into without prior experience. So while the company has a dedicated mobile team and has hired talent specifically for mobile development, Menou says that Wargaming’s nature is to learn by doing: “I think it’s in the DNA of company. Because that’s what we did for World of Tanks.
“If we were to look at the books for World of
Tanks, I don’t think there are a lot of chapters that would have helped us. So we had to learn by ourselves. Make some mistakes, learn and correct them.”
Of course, as Menou acknowledges, Wargaming isn’t shy of hiring or buying the talent it needs in order to achieve its goals. In the last two years, it has acquired middleware provider BigWorld, Gas Powered Games and the aforementioned Day 1. When asked whether the company could have got where it is today if it hadn’t brought more people into the Wargaming fold, Menou told Develop: “I don’t think so. With
the line-up and the schedules we have, I don’t think we could have achieved them without bringing a lot of people on board. “The vision from Victor [Kislyi, Wargaming CEO] was to go somewhere that was very clearly defined for us, and that was World of Tanks on every platform, and developing the trilogy of World of titles as fast a possible.”
COMPETING AGAINST ITSELF Thanks to pursuing growth areas, such as mobile, and the surprise bounty of its eSports league, Wargaming has a lot to smile about. Menou says its new European office is a sign that the company is “maturing”. What’s more, he feels the strange reactions that he and his staff have been getting from their suit-wearing neighbours are actually “really cool, because I think that’s kind of what happened when we entered in the industry”. Following the success of World of Tanks, rival titles such as War Thunder have been launched in an attempt to hijack players’ appetite for military MMOs. Menou, however, is not scared by the competition. Not when the continent’s biggest sporting event is mere weeks away and he’s got a studio to run. “I think we’re our own competitor,” he says. “And most of the time it’s just how good are we going to be in improving our project. Because releasing a product is just one part of the contest. It’s then about how you support your player and how you update your game. How fast can you answer those questions? “This is our real challenge. We’ve had competition from a lot of different publishers in free-to-play for a while. This is healthy. It forces us to challenge ourselves.
“But, to be honest, I’m more worried about the World Cup this summer than any of our other competitors.”
www.wargaming.net
JUNE 2014 | 31
DEVELOPING A WAR GAME IN A WARZONE
THE UNSTABLE SITUATION in Ukraine is an issue that Wargaming is paying more attention to than most, as it has a Kiev studio. The development office is home to around 200 staff, who are currently working on updates to World of Warplanes. Kiev (below) lies in Western Ukraine, outside of the hot zones, where clashes between the nation’s independent supporters and pro-Russian separatists have been occurring. But with news reports about a lack of food in some cities and the fighting spreading beyond the east of the country, we were curious if Wargaming has had to adopt any special measures. “Wargaming is a very international company,” says Menou when we ask him about the situation. “We don’t have political position as Wargaming. I don’t want to suggest that we don’t care about what’s happening in the world, but it really hasn’t impacted the functioning we have there.
“It’s not that we don’t care, we’re following it very closely. In case something should happen, we’re already ready to move our staff and take good care of them.”
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