The effort was to be headed up by Vladimir Nikolskiy, who as Mail.ru’s long-serving COO and VP of games had co-founded MY.GAMES in 2019. Six months on, the divestment process has seen


MY.GAMES open up across Europe. In addition to its main offices in Amsterdam and Cyprus, outposts have sprung up in Georgia, Serbia and Armenia. In addition, studios have been acquired in Portugal and Switzerland. Warface, the company’s flagship game in Russia, was recently forked and is set for a relaunch and a new name to reflect a broader global audience. MY.GAMES has always seen itself as a European


global publisher. What events in Ukraine have done is force the company to stand on its own two feet, perhaps earlier than was initially intended. How it has achieved this and to what extent was what we were eager to find out.


MCV: How has the Russian development community been affected by events in Ukraine? Vladimir Nikolsky: It has certainly had a significant impact on the community, causing many professionals to uproot their lives and their families to relocate to a safer location. Literally all the game publishers with exposure to the region have been supportive in helping their staff adapt. MY.GAMES exited the Russian market and ceased all its operations there, and we have done a lot to minimise the stress of the relocation process for our employees, with our existing distributed workplace setup making that transition as smooth as possible.


A number of Russian games publishers have been leaning on their Cyprus links to avoid obvious associations with Russia, whereas MY.GAMES seems able to recognise its roots but wants to make a clean break - is that an accurate characterisation of the situation? Yes, that’s fair. MY.GAMES has been adopting a more globally-focused strategy for many years now, with our main HQ in the Netherlands, and with our Cyprus office having opened several years ago. While we’re able to acknowledge where we came from initially, our position, focus, and presence have long been elsewhere. International development has been our focus for the last seven years. With the announcement of MY.GAMES’ restructuring efforts to cease operations, revenue, and ties in Russia in December 2022, a lot of work has gone into the transition over the following


months. Behind the scenes, our goal has been to preserve the wellbeing of users, partners, and others involved.


At what point did the realisation dawn that it was necessary to exit the Russian market, given the huge challenges it would entail? What were the other options? The decision to cease MY.GAMES’ operations in Russia was a complex but necessary undertaking to continue our global growth. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of work went on behind the scenes to make this happen. A few years ago, we were considering different options for the development of our international expansion, but our priority has always been to offer top-quality titles to gamers worldwide, and support promising and talented game developers around the globe.


“The decision to cease operations in Russia was a complex but necessary undertaking to continue our global growth”


Prior to announcing the divestment, MY.GAMES quietly ceased publishing Farm 51’s FPS World War 3. Can you explain what happened there? We collaborated closely with The Farm 51 studio to bring World War 3 to the CBT stage. As the game entered a new phase, Farm 51 started working with a new partner who appreciates the potential of the product and we wish the team continued success.


June 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 37


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