We continue to summarize the results of 2023 together with game teams. Next up is an interview with Ilya Boytsov, co-founder and CEO of the outsourcing studio MidHard Games.
How was the year for the company? What did you accomplish, implement, what would you highlight in terms of achievements?
The year was challenging due to the shrinking game development market (especially for a Russian team located in the Russian Federation). At the same time, the year turned out to be successful. The secret to success lies in the team, its incredible amount of energy, optimism, and passion for games. We definitely moved mountains:
- This year we made the game FatalZone. We created it together with publisher 101XP. The game is already available in Early Access on Steam.
- We strengthened the Unreal department and made good progress in developing our game Adrenaline Rampage. The demo is available on Steam.
- We also completed the transition to a project-based development approach. For each specific game, we assemble a specialized team. This approach significantly increases efficiency in game development.
FatalZone
How has the game outsourcing market changed over the year?
Someone “turned off the lights.” This situation has been relevant for the second year in a row. If in 2021 there was a queue of clients who were “throwing money at the monitor,” then in 2022 and 2023 we see the opposite situation. Game developers don’t have much choice.
This is partly related to the crypto winter that began last year. The crypto industry invested heavily in the game outsourcing market in its time.
Requests for marketing orders seem to have remained, but we stopped creating games for marketing companies.
Adrenaline Rampage
Has the practice of working with clients, their requirements, approaches, expectations changed?
Short answer — no. Each client is always a unique story, rich in cases and emotions.
Several new clients VERY STRONGLY surprised us this year (it’s a pity that NDA prevents us from publicly awarding achievements like “most surprising client of the year” or “level 80 client, legendary”), and we have something to compare with. We know all kinds of clients, we’ve been doing various business in Russia for more than 20 years, we’ve seen a lot.
What are the company’s plans for the coming year?
We will continue to invest in the team and level up. We’ve already created and experienced so much together — we’ll keep pushing forward!
We will create a couple of our own games in the Action RPG genre — this is the studio’s strategic goal for 2024. We are looking for partners with publishing expertise.
We will continue to develop our competencies in game development on Unity and Unreal (if we have enough resources, we’ll start developing one of the projects on Godot).
Overall, changes in the market are felt. Clients are changing, contractors are changing, platforms are changing — and that’s great, as movement is one of the signs of life.
Source: App2Top.ru