Cyprus LIVE #6 Behind White Nights Conferences with Julia Lebedeva

Uh I'm joined by our tallest guests yet. Uh do you mind introducing yourself?
Sure. My name is Julia. I am a partner and CEO at the WN media group. We are most famous for the conferences organized white knights. That's why we're known for W conferences and uh well I've been in the industry for 16 years this year actually. Uh being on the developer side, publisher side and uh mostly networking and connecting people together. I think you were telling me there was a conference recently that you were a part of as well.
Yes. Yes. Just yesterday actually we hosted women in games first time in Cyprus. It was not purely our project. We hosted together with two partners Exol and Axelbolt, two companies. And the idea was to gather women that are in the game industry and give them the opportunity to, you know, be in the safe place and share the challenges that we all face. Like here today, as usual,

there are fewer women than men. And I've heard that I'm the first woman being uh in the podcast with you today.
Well, we we'll see how we edit the ordering together. Hope hopefully hopefully not. Hopefully not. Um, how long have you lived here in Cypress? Actually, it's almost two years now. Okay. I think I can call it home now. I really love it here.
Uh the truth is that I was born in Siberia. Can imagine in Russia, but now my friends tell me that I have broken jeans. Nobody believes that because people that don't live here find it hot. But for me, 22° in the evening, it's already quite chilly.
No, that that sounds good to me. As as someone who's been in Sweden for eight years, I'll take that any day of the week. [laughter] I'm curious even in your two years here have you seen any changes uh in game development?
Well, first of all in Cyprus it's an amazing community for the gaming industry. It's to be honest I live in Limol and it's very difficult to go anywhere and not meet someone you know.

I don't think if there is any other place in the world like that because I mean Cypress is quite small
you know the community is very concentrated let's say and uh I love it so much and I have a lot of industry friends of course for years.
So you said you've worked on all sides of the game development process. When you look at Cypress and we think about all the different parts of the game development cycle, do you think all of those pieces are here or have only some of them started to land?
As you probably know already, a lot of studios or companies here relocated to Cyprus in the past uh three or four years. Of course, there were some companies before, but a lot of them relocated uh several years ago. and um a lot of companies moved their C levels and marketing people, BDEV people, CEOs and stuff. So I would say that there were a lot of highlevel people in gaming. But also there are a few studios that even started here in Cyprus. That's

why there were all kinds of people. But um in general, I would say that a lot of people here have more seniority compared to you know other places. When you think about growing your own business over these last two years, have you found any roadblocks or advantageous aspects about being here in particular?
Here just the opposite I think just because the community and uh most of the projects we do they connect people and I mean in this sense is good. On the other hand, we work in the gaming industry and um I think last year a lot of people thought that we finally reached the bottom and next year going to be everyone going to be you know going up and apparently with 2025 coming to an end, it's not exactly the truth. I would say it's quite challenging right now to gather people that are experiencing challenges. But at the same time, I think that's why we should do it because when you put people together in one room

and you allow them to discuss their challenges and uh the pitfalls and the mistakes whatever it allows them to find ways how to you know to continue and find ways how to become better.
So you were talking about the conference that you had I think it was this week.
Yes. What were some of the challenges and pitfalls you found that were revealed during that conference that you think people should be aware of?
Well, this particular event was devoted to women and uh well, you know, it was actually very funny at the opening of the event, one of my partners asked the audience, please raise your hands. Those who was dreaming to have a career in the video games industry, can you guess how many hands we had? I I wish I wish everyone's hands jolted up but that yeah unfortunate. Yes, that's the point that uh at least in the past we girls are not encouraged you know to

make career in video games though my mom did tell me to consider maybe choosing a programming career maybe because it seemed that to be better at that time at least but I still said no sorry mom I I like I like the languages I like English I like literature here I am [laughter] and uh many fellow girls you know they als also didn't expect to find themselves there. So I think it's important to encourage everyone and girls in particular from the very early age to show them the opportunities that are here and it's actually not just you know men only world that video games are open for everyone especially now with all these trends you know for diversity and stuff. So, I can only speak antidotally, but one of the things I've tended to find is that genre plays a big role in gender and how they select in. So, I've tended to find less women in first person shooters and I've tended to find more women in like puzzle. I sometimes find that the developers

mirror the audience that they try to make games for themselves.
You know what? When I just started my career back in 2009, I was at the casual games industry puzzles, right? Of course, the majority of developers were men and the majority of the players were women. And the title of my presentation back then was, "How come that developers are from Mars and players are from Venus? How come you men that do not understand us in real life very often? Let's be honest. How you manage to make games that are played by women? How do we do that?" And I took a camera and I went to the streets and I one of the popular genres was hidden object when you are supposed to find this or that. And I was showing a wrench to women in the street and I asked them do you know what it is.
Almost no one could answer the question. They had crazy ideas about what and I highlighted it to the men like uh come on guys if you are making games for women. Maybe maybe you could have more

women in your team to you know help you pick correct objects to find or you know to do something for them to enjoy it more. And uh I think it has shifted a lot since then and uh there are a lot of women that were work at game design or art. I mean if you go to GDC to San Francisco there, you know, there are still lines to men's toilets, not women's and it says a lot and I hope it will change.
No, that that's particularly uh curious. Actually at our conferences back in the days we started in Russia and uh with the Soviet education and everything we were brought up like nobody told me that women are somehow worse than men. People just forgot to tell me that and uh I never experienced that even in my career. So, one of the early conferences back in 2014, I think we got uh a tweet actually was someone from Finland

tweeted that it's the best balance conference in terms of gender. So, we historically had a lot of female attendees and higher roles. But, uh and since in Cyprus, which is, you know, Cyprus, Cyprus and Russians, it was meant to be.
It's a good port monto.
Yes. Yes. And I told you before that a lot of sea levels and management people moved here. We also have a lot of women here. Yes. But in general I would say there are less high level jobs uh that women can take.
So one of the curious things I find about puzzle which tends to be older and female is that when we contrast it to Roblox which we were hearing from our GDCY organizers, you know, it's it's a platform that has a pretty healthy gender split. Do you think Roblox is going to be something that will help encourage women to enter the games industry if we start them young?
At that interviews that I was making uh at the streets, I also asked, can you

describe a typical game developer as you would think of them and uh women would give answers like yeah someone with a big beard with crumbles in their beard and you know playing all night long and stuff like that. And uh that's the image that we had before. And uh if we promote some healthy image that is you know even uh you know share the statistics about how many women actually play puzzles games I think that can make it more natural for them to think of Roblox. To be honest I'm not an expert on that Roblox have never tried it possibly. Yes.
That's at least my hope. You know I've spent some time looking at like adopt me. It seems like there's a healthier gender split there and I I have hope.
Maybe the hope will dissipate. I think younger generation is also very different and uh with the technology like I have a 5-year-old daughter
she can talk to a AI managed speaker let's say and give commands and ask and or she can uh deal with a tablet and she

can play games and she knows how to deal with YouTube kids and stuff like that and uh I'd like to buy a PlayStation for her and I mean if you are exposed to that from the very early age this is a part of your personality kind of like and uh yeah and actually this summer she attended a summer camp where she was studying programming at 5 years old
again start them young start them young
exactly exactly so yeah I think
did she like it
yeah kind of I mean it's some visual programming not for sure but I mean uh she was trying to do that and I think if you learn it from the very early age that can make a difference
thank you thank you for coming [laughter]
that was very discreet and I think we should keep it in the video. [laughter]
I'll track it.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.