New cellular video games developer KEK Leisure has simply closed its seed spherical, with $8 million in funding now going in the direction of rising its crew and bolstering growth.
Primarily based in Cyrpus, the studio was fashioned by ex-Pixonic administration Georgy Egorov and Oleg Poroshin, who performed key roles within the large success of 2014’s Conflict Robots – a cellular recreation that’s generated over $750 million in its lifetime.
Egorov and Poroshin’s first focus for KEK Leisure is to create a platform-agnostic car shooter IP with a presence throughout PC, console and cellular. We spoke with Egorov to search out out extra…
PocketGamer.biz: Why are you specializing in crossplay on your first title? What’s the alternative you see there?
Georgy Egorov: Crossplay opens entry to a wider viewers. Extra platforms imply extra touchpoints with gamers and extra virality. We’re making a teamplay recreation and noticed loads of occasions when a cellular participant needs to ask a buddy to play collectively, however the buddy does not like cellular controls.
One other essential side is advertising and marketing. Because of crossplay, we are able to flexibly select one of the best ways to achieve our viewers. Positioning the sport as a cellular recreation for cellular gamers and as PC recreation for desktop gamers and utilizing all of the advertising and marketing toolset obtainable will make advertising and marketing cheaper ultimately.
The principle problem in crossplay growth is making a recreation equally snug for gamers on all platforms
Georgy Egorov
Our long-term plan is to create a big IP that unites numerous initiatives. Due to this fact, we goal to focus closely on constructing and dealing with communities. We love our gamers and wish them to work together throughout all doable social platforms. PC gamers are normally extra social, and crossplay will permit cellular gamers to have interaction extra.
General, I imagine that crossplay is the brand new actuality. It was once tougher to implement, primarily as a result of {hardware} limitations. Now, outstanding instances like Fortnite and Genshin Impression present that it is doable. Huge gamers are clearly shifting in that route too. As an example, Apple is popping the MacBook into a brand new gaming platform – an ideal match for us.
Cell is a difficult market proper now. What’s the precise system to deal with this house and win?
Our advertising and marketing technique is the truth is a mix of cellular and PC advertising and marketing approaches. To achieve success on each platforms we are able to’t go solely with UA. Meaning we have to construct a model. And to do it we have to work with PC and console influencers, media, and go large with communications.
However on the identical time, UA continues to be an amazing device. The important thing to success lies within the manufacturing of creatives. That is why we pay loads of consideration to creating the visible fashion of our challenge. As an example, in our recreation, there shall be three playable factions with utterly completely different visuals: from traditional fight equipment to sci-fi, semi-organic battle tech. This may permit us to draw various kinds of gamers and create extremely impactful creatives.
How has the market modified in comparison with when Conflict Robots was launched?
Even monetisation has modified. Right this moment we must be inventive and player-oriented
Georgy Egorov
There was nearly no competitors again in 2014. Now even in our comparatively “blue ocean” area of interest there are loads of sturdy gamers. And high quality necessities are fairly excessive now – you can’t soft-launch your recreation in an unpolished state anymore.
Even monetisation has modified. Right this moment we must be inventive and player-oriented – it’s not a good suggestion simply to promote the overpowered content material. The market has additionally dramatically modified. It was 99.9% UA-driven, with the position of neighborhood and relations with gamers very underestimated. Now it’s important.
Again in these days, video games have been designed particularly for the platforms and the extra your recreation suits the platform, the extra advantages you get. Now everybody fights for a participant’s price so it’s higher to have a platform-agnostic recreation to get the most important attain.
I might proceed ceaselessly; it was simply one other world. After all there are loads of challenges immediately, however I imagine that the quantity of recent alternatives is way greater than the quantity of issues.
Have there been any surprising challenges in creating a recreation that can play comparably on a number of platforms – controls, graphics and so on?
The principle problem in crossplay growth is making a recreation equally snug for gamers on all platforms. Take interfaces, for instance. Our activity is to make them intuitive for cellular gamers with out inflicting frustration for PC avid gamers as a result of empty areas and “too cellular UI”. Moreover, we have to guarantee they adapt effectively to all display screen sizes.
One other attention-grabbing case is battlefield orientation. Beneath load, cellular gadgets dim their brightness to avoid wasting power, whereas PC brightness stays secure. This creates a scenario the place battlefield readability is considerably higher on PC.
Since we won’t management system brightness, we should remedy this subject throughout the recreation. So we determined to include a separate data block within the battle HUD.
Related instances come up frequently. Nonetheless, in our style, crossplay works effectively as a result of positioning and techniques matter greater than reflexes and accuracy. A tank’s turret cannot reply to mouse actions like a gun would possibly in a recreation like CS 2. This helps neutralise the benefit of 1 platform over one other. Personally, I choose enjoying on a cellular system and infrequently rank under second within the recreation.
