Gaming industry and marketing strategies: meeting with Ilya Pschenichny from Playkot

25th of March there was a meeting of students of “Sociology and social informatics” Programme and minor “Data analysis and processing” with Ilya Pschenichny – the head of business development in Playkot. 

In the beginning, Ilya shortly told the world history of computer games which started not so long ago and goes on developing rapidly. It helped to understand better the particularity of the company where he works and the sphere where it is developing. Listeners raised the question of “learning games” and after discussing it, Ilya turned to the business side of gaming sphere. He highlighted the terms of “blue and red oceans”, money turnover inside games, designated the necessary numbers of people for development and internal classification. 

The main topic of the meeting was timeline and money spendings on development. Ilya told about the main steps of work on a game and accompanying them costs. He marked that these details are the most important but many developers either do not know or forget about them. These aspects took audience’s attention fast, though it was involved in the discussion from the beginning. Students’ questions were one of the most important elements of the meeting and the most active ones were invited to the office of Playkot in Saint Petersburg. Moreover, we did not manage to cover all the planned topics, and Ilya promised to give one more lecture in the University. 

Ksenia Konstantinova, the member of the Group, student of “Sociology and social informatics” programme and minor “Data analysis and processing”, focused her research right on the gaming industry: 

“I, as a person interested in game design and trying to take part in developing games exactly from the point of plot and concept, found this meeting informative and useful. Ilya Pschenichny told pretty much of interesting about games themselves and their platforms (PC, consoles) and about process of their development which in some way helped to understand the industry better and to know what to take attention to while creating own product”