RPG Vault Focus: Russia #1

RPG Vault’s latest focus feature spotlights Russia, the largest PC market, and their strong role-playing game sales. Apparently Russia is Europe’s biggest PC market now, which I suppose is true (being the most popular country) though the highest number of PC sales of the world used to be Germany (they might be slipping).

Jonric: What do you consider the notable market trends in the RPG and massively multiplayer categories that comprise RPG Vault’s core focus?

RPGs have always been quite popular in Russia due to the strong hardcore PC communities here. Subscription- and activation-based games are not so well-liked, so browser-based MMOGs still have the larger total domestic market share because they are all free to play. But we believe the client-based segment will grow rapidly. Just looking at the rest of 2008 plus 2009, there will be up to 10 new free to play MMORPG titles by end of this year, and many more than that next year.

Jonric: Within these genres, what Russian- made titles have been most successful and important in the domestic market? How much success have they achieved internationally?

Our Allods series was quite popular ever since the first game was released in 1998. And we have high expectations from our Allods Online internationally as well. In 2006, the most popular game was our Heroes of Might and Magic V, which has some RPG elements. In 2007, it was STALKER, with some RPG gameplay as well, and HoMM5 was still number 2.

This year, the biggest hit is Kings Bounty: The Legend, which is kind of a HoMM-type game as well. Next year, we expect Allods Online to be number 1 title in the market, and the top Russian-made one internationally. As you can see, there is domestic release on top of the sales chart every year.