World of Tanks has been a runaway success for Wargaming. Since launching in 2011, World of Tanks has gathered 77 million registered users worldwide and will soon come to Xbox 360.
In an interview at Gamescom, Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi discussed that success, plus provided his thoughts on free-to-play, mobile, and the future of the gaming industry.
“World of Tanks, as you might have heard, took the world by storm on the PC,” Kislyi told IGN, proudly pointing to a map of the company’s worldwide offices. “Today we have more than 2000 employees. We have more than 16 offices. We span from Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, a bunch of these European development centers, Paris for European operations, Berlin for German-speaking countries, and then San Francisco covering North America for customer support, PR, marketing, that sort of thing. We’ve recently acquired a Seattle studio, Gas Powered Games, with Chris Taylor. They’re doing something for the future. And in Chicago there’s Day One Studios doing the 360 version. In Austin there’s our technological center working on our unified platform.”
With all of those employees, Kislyi said it was only a matter of time before the studio reached out to the console crowd, and especially gamers in the West.
Google is free. CNN is free. YouTube is free. People love free. In the past, the misconception was that free is cheap and low-quality.
“It’s just a cultural difference,” he said. “In North America and England you play on consoles. You play shooters on consoles and stuff. This is a reality of the market. It would be stupid of us to not accept that fact. World of Tanks, and any game we make afterwards like World of Warplanes or World of Warships, is highly suitable for the console crowd, for the style of network games on console. The matches are short – five, seven, maybe 10 minutes of fast PvP action and shooting mechanics. We have achievements, progression, competition, championships, clan wars, social features. What’s not to like? World of Tanks has demonstrated that if you have a PC and you’re a guy anywhere from 30 to 45 years old, you’re probably going to like World of Tanks. So yeah, let’s bring it where the players are.”
Wargaming has made millions from the free-to-play model, but Kislyi still believes that traditional $60 games will persist in the market.
“There will always, no matter what, be quality non-PvP, non-online games, like Civilization,” he said. “I can’t imagine Civilization free-to-play. The whole beauty of this franchise is playing it on your own time, on your own computer, just between yourself and those computer-run empires. But I think the majority of the revenue will eventually go over to free-to-play. In China and Korea, it’s half of the online market today. There are no boxes at all. They don’t know what a box is. As I say, Google is free. CNN is free. YouTube is free. People love free. In the past, the misconception was that free is cheap and low-quality. That was the major part of our challenge, to break that misconception. People couldn’t understand it. ‘You’re doing a triple-A title and giving it away for free? What if they don’t pay? This isn’t a good idea.’ But if you come over the fence, you’ll realize that there are millions of players you can attract with a quality triple-A free-to-play game. Anybody can download it and start playing for free, forever. They enjoy the game to the same extent as a paying user.”
“Free-to-play will be evolving,” he continued. “Five years from now, yes, free-to-play will dominate. It’ll be a modified version. It will evolve. It’ll go through certain evolutions to be more accessible and more enjoyable. At the end of the day, it’s all about consumer choice. The curse and the beauty of free-to-play is that you don’t have this $60 price tag. You can have millions of players pay you a little bit, and you make more money than selling a million copies. However, there’s no $60 attachment for the player. When you buy that box, you feel obliged to spend at least a few hours to see what it is you paid for. With free-to-play, there are no strings attached. If the game is super cool, super enjoyable, and still free, a player stays and plays more and more. And many people pay money – we know this, because they write about it on forums – they give us $10 a month or whatever as a thank you, because they enjoy the game so much. So this is the future of free-to-play. Enjoyment, pleasure, for free. And then monetization will come along, statistically and naturally and deliberately.”
Free-to-play will be evolving. Five years from now, yes, free-to-play will dominate.
Beyond free-to-play, Kislyi sees mobile as a major part of the game industry’s future. Earlier this year, Wargaming announced World of Tanks Blitz for iOS and Android, and Kislyi believes most other brands will eventually follow suit.
“Everybody understands now that mobile is going to dominate the world sooner or later,” he said. “The amount of devices, especially in the eastern part of the world, is humongous. A lot of the future lies there. I don’t believe PC or console will die off, as far as deep, hardcore experiences. It’s just that mobile will be very big, as far as numbers. I’d be lying if I said that Wargaming was a specialist in mobile. We’re not. However, recently we allocated sufficient resources – money, people, initiative, managerial resources – to get into that. Our take is, we should start doing stuff. We should start getting experience. It’s the same as free-to-play or any other concept. Mobile gaming will be evolving. People’s tastes will be changing quite fast. New phones will come out with better capabilities. We have to be there. Blitz is not your typical mobile game. It’s not Angry Birds or Clash of Clans. It’s more like the original World of Tanks experiences. So we’ll see how it goes. Of course we have high hopes.”
Kislyi acknowledges that mobile devices are becoming more powerful, but doesn’t believe they’ll replace PC or console gaming any time soon.
“It’s not about the device,” he explained. “The device is nice. It fits in your pocket and it’s very powerful for e-mail, spreadsheets, internet browsing, Angry Birds, and some kind of gaming. However, it’s about the experience where you are – on the train, on the plane, in the airport, waiting in a queue. Or you’re in the comfort of your living room, or you’re at a desk working on your thesis, but also playing some cool games in between. It’s about the experience. We need to learn, not only the hardware component, but also the environment where a typical user is having their gameplay sessions. The point is, they’re not different people playing these different versions. I have a phone, and I play Angry Birds with it. I also play World of Tanks on my computer. The same person can have different experiences and still enjoy both of them. They don’t necessarily have to all converge.”
Everybody understands now that mobile is going to dominate the world sooner or later.
For Wargaming, the future is about maintaining its current course. Beyond World of Tanks, the company will continue to cultivate World of Warships and World of Warplanes, plus its recent acquisition of Gas Powered Games will lead to a new announcement soon.
“In Seattle, Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games are doing…something,” Kislyi teased. “The handshake happened not very long ago, so they’re still brainstorming, prototyping, sketching. For a big, legendary title, you have to go through the phases of throwing ideas on the table and polishing them. That’s what they’re doing right now. As soon as there’s something concrete, we’ll do an announcement, of course. So big game number four is in Seattle. I mean, a big game.”
“We’re going to be doing big, huge triple-A titles, and we’ll also be venturing into these mobile, browser, maybe social spaces with certain experimental efforts,” he added. “If something clicks, then we’ll elaborate and make it deeper and wider.”
So big game number four is in Seattle. I mean, a big game.
Finally, Kislyi admitted that Wargaming has plenty of plans for its recently-purchased Atari franchises Master of Orion and Total Annihilation, but any announcements are still far off.
“The nature of an auction is that you can’t make very many plans before you get it,” he said. “Anything can happen. You might get it or you might not get it. A month ago we got it and we were very excited, because we all played these two particular games and they shaped our computer gaming personalities in some sense. We are, again, thinking about what to do with them. Those are great franchises. The last thing we want to do is to spoil them or anger their fan bases. So we’re brainstorming and thinking about this now. There’s nothing we can say to anyone on the outside right now.”
Wargaming will bring World of Tanks to Xbox 360 soon, and beta servers went live in North America, Canada and Europe earlier this week. Fans interested in the beta can sign up on Wargaming’s official site.
For more from our chat with Kislyi, be sure to read his comments on why World of Tanks may eventually come to Xbox One.
Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.
Wargaming: Free-to-Play Will Dominate in 5 Years
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