Interview Action Vault talks to Buka

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Paradise Cracked

<a href="http://actionvault.ign.com/">Action Vault</a> has posted up some <a href="http://actionvault.ign.com/features/interviews/buka.shtml">questions <i>and</i> answers</a> with <A href="http://www.buka.com/">Buka</a>, the Russian based software company. You may know them as the company publishing <A href="http://www.buka.com/game/Game_15.htm">Paradise Cracked</a> and <A href="http://www.buka.com/game/Game_17.htm">Spells of Gold</a>. Here's a taste:
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<blockquote><b>Action Vault: What is the computer game market like in Russia? How big is it, and what kinds of titles are most popular?
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Maxim Mikhalev:</b> It is a booming market. It is still a market of low prices, but not a market of low sales. We sell up to 150,000 to 200,000 copies in Russia alone, and those numbers are still growing. Due to piracy, it is a very competitive market also, as a Russian gamer can get as many games for three dollars at retail as he wishes. So, products need to be very well made to be really successful here. As for the titles, the preferences are quite international by nature. <u>RPG and strategy are two of the most popular types.</u> Also very popular are action titles. As for other categories, sport titles have no market here, while cartoon adventures are extremely popular. We ourselves develop such adventure titles for Russia only, and make money on them.</blockquote>
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Kind of interesting. I wonder how well those adventure games would sell in other markets.
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Spotted this over at <A href="Http://www.ve3d.com">VoodooExtreme</a>.

 

[Mike]

Buka

Great to see the Russians developing a game industry. They have a lot of very very well trained engineers, so the technical side shouldn't be a problem. I also think it is a good thing to see games coming out of eastern europe, since it infuses the north american market with styles of games that north americans wouldn't create due to the cultural differences.

having said that, it might be conceivable that the eastern european industries will eventually displace the north american ones due to the cheap labour costs. I can imagine EA or Sierra taking a look and saying 'you know, it would cost 2 million to develop this title in california, but only 200,000 in russia or pakistan...'.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The nice thing about the Russian is that they're willing to take more risks than the U.S. and French publishers. I strongly doubt something like Goldenland would get authorization and funding here in the United States or Europe.