Following the recent announcement of the PlayStation 4 release of World of Tanks, the game, which launched in late October 2010, has now reached nearly six years old. Furthermore, it is now available on major mobile platforms, including iOS and Android. Meanwhile, World of Warships and World of Warplanes continue to make positive progress on PC. Max Chuvalov, Global Product Marketing Manager for World of Tanks, stated that Wargaming will continue to develop in the direction of mobile gaming and supporting the gaming industry.
According to Max Chuvalov, Global Product Marketing Manager for World of Tanks, Wargaming's development of the PC trilogy of World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes is largely complete. With the World of Tanks series now available on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices, Wargaming's future development direction will continue to diversify.
Let itself serve as a "platform" to expand the scale of the game economy
One direction is to seize opportunities in the mobile market, anticipating the release of more mobile platform titles, expanding beyond the WWII genre. Another direction is to collaborate with the recently established Wargaming Labs, helping to recreate the classic "Master of the Galaxy" model, targeting small independent game developers in need of resources, and even collaborating with third-party game developers to expand the gaming economy and bring more truly interesting and worthwhile games to market.
According to Max Chuvalov, Wargaming will be using its own game development capabilities and resources as a platform to support a larger gaming economy. Wargaming is also willing to act as a publisher when necessary, or to assist independent developers and game manufacturers in continuously releasing games to the market.
Moving closer to the mobile market, the PC platform remains the largest source of profit
Regarding mobile market development, Max Chuvalov emphasized that he doesn't believe the PC gaming market is declining. In fact, the PC gaming market has seen continued growth in recent years. Therefore, Wargaming will not change its strategy of prioritizing the PC platform for development, but will also not miss out on mobile market opportunities. Going forward, the company will pursue a more flexible, faster, and free-to-play development model to operate in this market.
Due to the varying demands of players in different regions and the distribution of actual mobile platforms used, the mobile market layout will be adjusted based on each region. Small-scale teams will be used to develop at lightning speed to cater to the rapidly changing gaming appetite. At the same time, the expected promotion of game works will also consider focusing on smaller content that is more likely to attract players, but the decision will still be based on actual gaming demand.
However, even though Wargaming will focus on the mobile market in the future, Max Chuvalov stated that the PC platform market is still Wargaming's biggest source of profit.
Will not invest in hardware development
Finally, regarding the considerable player data Wargaming has accumulated, including play time and play patterns, Max Chuvalov explained that this data is still limited to internal use for game optimization analysis to enhance the gaming experience, and that Wargaming is not currently considering integrating this data with business development such as advertising analysis through methods such as big data analysis.
Although its games have indeed accumulated a large number of loyal players around the world, the company will not consider investing in the development of hardware products. It mainly believes that it will maintain the development of its existing core software business. After all, entering the hardware development requires more considerations than imagined. Therefore, it believes that at this stage it is sufficient to maintain cooperation with hardware equipment manufacturers such as Razer and SteelSeries.
Max Chuvalov further cited THQ and Valve Steam as examples, arguing that both have a significant user base, but investing in the hardware market may not necessarily yield good results. Therefore, he believes the best model is for both companies to invest in their respective areas of expertise and develop separately.
