PGC Digital: Belka Games' Pavel Sudakov on How to Make R&D Rock

Establish a multi-stage R&D funnel that uses early-stage metrics like Day 1 retention and cost-per-install to validate market fit before committing full engineering resources.

Separate experimental R&D units from live-operations production teams to ensure long-term innovation is not stifled by the immediate demands of existing titles.

Implement a rigorous kill-switch process for prototypes that fail to meet specific retention or monetization benchmarks to optimize resource allocation across the studio portfolio.

Institutionalize a culture where failure is treated as a necessary component of the discovery process to maintain high-speed iteration cycles.

Utilize a lean organizational structure that promotes cross-departmental collaboration to improve agility and responsiveness to shifts in the competitive mobile landscape.

Transition R&D from a speculative expense to a predictable growth engine by standardizing the process of moving concepts from ideation to technical feasibility assessment.