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Create free account[Music] okay so guys thank you very much for coming my name is Irina and I will tell you about Russian market for your games today please raise your hand how many of you have your game published for other countries besides your old one if you have your game not only in your country raise your hand okay like 30 percent of you here is what I want to tell you when I think about global company entering any new market I always love to compare it to my first trip to China I had to go to China to a conference and for some reason all of my friends they liked to scare me about this country and they all said to me Irina you will not find any good food there or Irina is impossible
to get a sexy or the funniest was that Irina the best in the hotels are so small so you will have to clip on the floor and I was ever super confident about about this and when I finally came to China my friend Vincent who is Chinese and he works for Alibaba Group he met me at the airport then she helped me to get a taxi to the hotel then she introduced me to everyone to all the people at the conference and at the end this trip to China was the most productive conference ever and that's all thanks to a local friend from the biggest company in China so I'm saying you all of these because the same is about Russia so to have success in Russia you need to have a local friend preferably from the biggest company and then you are fine then
you'll be fine in that country so I was so excited that I forgot to take this can you explain how how it works please oh okay of course yeah so when I was saying that you should have a friend from the biggest company in the country in case of Russia it's my little group and I'm happy to work for this company it's the biggest one because it owns three largest social networks in Russia including vk.com and okay dot are you and it also owns its own emailing service so basically it's like the Russian version of Facebook and Gmail altogether besides that we besides internet projects we are literally the biggest company in Russia because it's 27th floor skyscraper with its own football fields which we actually convert into a
skating rink in winter and we have a movie set movie theather of course I think it's very important to consider this information when you decide if you want to be our partner or not so besides having a local friends in Russia from the biggest company you need to consider these things and I will tell you about them so the first one you will learn today the reason to bring your game to Russia the second one you will understand how the Russian gamer look like and are they really different from other gamers in other countries and the last one I will share some secrets to succeed with you so your game will be successful in Russia let's go so there are three main things that you need to know about the Russian market the first one is that this market is number 5 market by app installs and it's over 62
million mobile users that will be happy to try your game the second one that actually the competition in Russia is much much less than in countries like United States or Europe and average CPM is five times less here there in Russia and the last one is that this market is surprisingly very easy to test because the localization to Russia goes C times cheaper than localization from English to any other language and that's cheap and another thing is that to do marketing in Russia you just need to know all the partner and by coincidence it's our company and this partner will help you to do all the marketing and introduce you to all the partners in the country the next thing so Omega T doesn't work like this so
picking about gamers this is a really good market for games because this is gaming is number one category by downloads and it's number two category by retention so bring your game to Russia number one category where retention are social networks so it's very hard to compete with just social networks as you can understand another thing is about how Russian gamer look like are they really different from other gamers so basically there is not not much difference because these gamers expect some really good things in the game so they expect to have the game to have good graphics they expect the game not to wait too much and not to kill the battery and probably the biggest difference from other gamers in other countries is that Russian people want the game to be translated into Russian and I will get back to that later it's
very important point of my presentation and here is my favorite part actually we have our own gaming departments in mail.ru and we also have our analytics department that's why we made the research and we asked our gamers what do they actually want in the game and what they appreciate the most and we found that there are four main groups there so the first main group were people who were looking for immersion and for them the main thing in the game was to few parts of the game to feel like they are inside the game and inside the game they were looking for interesting character and the interesting flaws and they really lost when the game was based in some novel or some famous story and among these group most of people prefer to play RPG game and strategy games so you need to consider it when you decide
which runner you bring to Russia RPG and strategy is definitely a good idea the next big group were people who actually were looking for control in the game so they like to feel that they can control everything and that they can plan all the activities that they are doing and mostly we found out that these people were some high-level executive executives with some good education and most of them were men another big group where people who just enjoyed the process most of them were women and they really didn't care what game to play they just liked playing at all and many of the gamers prefer to play some casual games some match 3 or some puzzle games this is another big genre that would be famous in Russia and the last one actually were people who
were looking for achievement in the game this is my favorite slide because of our nose so basically these gamers they wanted to achieve something and they didn't just like to pass mission by mission but they wanted to upgrade the character a lot and they wanted to get something in the game and the favorite genre for them were some floats and some racing games and some shooters also so here is another big group of genres which would be popular so once you know which runners and what games do Russian gamers prefer to play probably you would need to know some successive in Russia and here is the first one so of course you need to understand the market share and that's very important because global companies such as Facebook and Twitter and Google have very small share in
Russia and that's one of the most common mistakes of companies that come to the Russian market is then they expect that Facebook and Google would be also beat there and when you come to Russia you need to work with local companies and especially with local social networks the second big thing is about the localization only 7% of Russian people speak English so if you want to get more than 7% then please localize your game in the same time we made these graphs which will explain a lot to you so localization is not that important for every genre of the game for example if your game is casual or any kind of match 3 game then it doesn't really make sense to localize it it's ok to leave it like that because people will still get it but if your game is an RPG or a strategy
game with a huge cultural background and with lots of text there then you just have to localize your game please do this because people will not understand how to pay their and you want for them to pay right inside the application and the third thing I want you to know is about operation systems don't ignore Android audience Android is almost three times bigger than iOS in Russia so if you want to have a lot of audience and when global companies come to the Russian market they want scale they want to reach lots of people please don't ignore Android another thing is about the relevant CPI please guys raise your hands how many of you work with Facebook ad system for promotion of your games one two three four five six ok so
basically we have something very similar to Facebook as interface we have our own self-service interface for promotion and of course it's in English and that allows you to get all the audience of all our social networks this interface is called my target and thanks to that we have all the information about the CPI and about the prices and about the users so I can tell you that the average CPI in Russia would be around $1 and that super cheap compared in to United States and to China where CPI is around $16 right and again it ver eyes for example for casual games it may be even less than $1 and for RPG games or some shooters it may be around 1.5 or two so remember don't overpay when you come to the Russian market because you can get very cheap users there and the first one well that's the case study
okay I love it I love it it's my favorite case study so here is the game which was called which is called guilt of Heroes it's an RPG game and you can see that the CPI that they got in Russia was around $1 and it's even cheaper than the average one so it's really cool for the RPG game and these guys they did a lot of stuff they experimented with lots of audience groups they tried lots of creatives and now you have a chance to play my favorite game I call it the CTR bottle so you have a chance to guess which one of the creative was more successful among the Russian gamers so which of the creative people clicked smore raise your hands please if you think it's the second one which was more popular okay and raise your hand if you think it's the second one so it's great
you can raise your hand if you think it's the first one okay and raise your hand if you think it's the second one okay it's like 70 vs 30 that's surprising so the right answer is the second one and it's very easy to explain I can tell you why because this game was promoted in Russia like one month ago and that time we had very depressive weather in Moscow it was rainy it was called the summer never came and that's why people they didn't like to click on anything that had great colors because gray was everywhere and they prefer to click on runners with yellow with red with green and that's why this banner was successful so it's all about the weather and the colors and the good thing is that this insight is actually relevant and applicable for you
nine months out of 12 in Russia it's almost always bad weather there another thing why this banner was more successful is because there are some traditional yellow flowers there so people immediately recognize them and if you like they're clicking on something that they know so basically the summary I want you to remember these main five reasons to enter the Russian market with your game so the first one would be about the amount of people you can attract the market is really huge and if you can if you want to show your game to over 62 million mobile users then Russia is really a good market for you the second thing is about less competition so basically it's much easier to enter the Russian market just because the average CPM there is like five times cheaper than in United States
another thing is again easy to enter because localization to Russia is three times cheaper than localization from English to any other language and you need to know just one partner to approach all the people you need and to know all the companies you need and the SAS again and another thing is that thanks to our my targets too you can target users super specifically you can target gamers you can target paying users you can target people who are similar to the users who already play your game and the last thing is about monetization so basically most of the companies do init purchases in Russia and that works a lot but also we have our own monetization tool and you can use it and you can also show as inside your games and that's also a very good revenue for you and that's it well I have much more information about the market for very
specific game runners and I will be happy to share it with you but I don't have time so please approach me after my speech and I will be happy to share all the secrets with you and exchange my contacts and let's talk up to talk us to that okay thank you may be fantastic you've got your very to your item package then we have a see a question about a Russian market like sorrowful beer no they're just led waiting for Wi-Fi some others one so I can see it yeah thank you very much for the insightful information but letting your kids are mobile I wonder if you have any information that we are well VR is developing in Russia mostly now it's about the mobile games and mobile apps but I think VR is the next step so it's definitely a good point to enter the market if you want to be one of the first ones you
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The Russian mobile gaming market presents a significant growth opportunity for global publishers, characterized by a large user base, lower competition, and cost-effective entry barriers. With over 62 million mobile users, Russia ranks as the fifth-largest market by app installs. The industry is driven by gaming as the primary category for downloads and the second-highest for retention, trailing only social networking platforms.
Success in this region requires a strategic approach to localization and platform selection. Because only 7% of the population speaks English, translating content is essential for complex genres like RPGs and strategy games, which resonate strongly with local players. Conversely, casual titles may not require full localization. Furthermore, Android is the dominant operating system, with an audience nearly three times the size of the iOS market, making it a critical focus for publishers seeking scale.
Market entry is facilitated by local partnerships, particularly with major entities like Mail.ru Group, which operates dominant social networks such as VK.com and OK.ru. These platforms provide essential marketing infrastructure, such as the MyTarget self-service interface, which allows for precise audience targeting. Compared to Western markets, the Russian landscape offers lower costs, with average Cost Per Install (CPI) rates around $1, significantly lower than the $16 average seen in markets like the United States.
Data-driven insights into player behavior reveal that Russian gamers prioritize high-quality graphics and performance, while specific genres appeal to distinct psychological motivations, such as immersion, control, or achievement. Effective marketing often hinges on cultural nuances, including the use of localized creative assets that account for environmental factors like weather, which can influence user engagement with advertising. By leveraging local expertise and platforms, global publishers can effectively navigate the market and achieve sustainable monetization through in-app purchases and advertising.
PocketGamer.biz · 2014