Gaming

Playrix fully withdraws from Russia and Belarus, keeps operating in Ukraine

October 30, 2022

Playrix today announced it is fully withdrawing from Russia and Belarus, “due to the continued aggression against Ukraine and in order to maintain its operations.” The Russian-founded global mobile gaming giant will “close all the company’s offices” and “shut down all operations of its studios” in Russia and Belarus. The remaining staff will be “relocated from Russia and Belarus …

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VK sells its international gaming division in fear of sanctions

October 6, 2022

Last week VK Company, one of Russia’s top Internet companies, announced the sale of its international gaming division My.Games to Alexander Chachava, Managing Partner of Russian venture firm LETA Capital.  The deal includes 100% of the shares and assets of My.Games, including its studios and game products.  The deal valued My.Games at $642 million — some …

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How Russian game developers have been hit by the shockwave of war

July 7, 2022

Russia’s war on Ukraine and the subsequent western sanctions seem to have put the once-thriving Russian and Belarusian gaming industries in serious trouble. It took just weeks to Wargaming, the Belarusian-born, Cyprus-headquartered developer of World of Tanks and World of Warships, to react to the events. In early April, the company announced its decision to “leave Belarus and …

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Russian-founded gaming giant Playrix continues investment spree

February 22, 2022

Playrix, a global Russian-founded mobile gaming giant, acquired a minority stake in AppQuantum, a Cyprus-based, Russian founded mobile gaming developer and publisher. The deal took place in late 2021 but was announced only in early February.  Launched in 2017 by Evgeny Maurus, AppQuantum is behind such titles as Dragon Champions, Evil Clicker and Gold & Goblins. While claiming “dominant positions” in clicker and …

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16-year-old sentenced to five years in prison over plot to blow up virtual FSB building in video game

February 12, 2022

This Thursday, a Russian military court handed down sentences for terrorism to three teenagers from the Siberian town of Kansk. The boys were arrested in the summer of 2020 for posting leaflets with political slogans on the local FSB building. After searching their phones and uncovering a “plot” to blow up a virtual rendering of …

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Nexters acquires gaming studios, Rostelecom eyes cloud gaming company

February 7, 2022

Last week Nexters — a Russian-founded gaming company which went public on the Nasdaq last summer by merging with a SPAC — announced a series of acquisition and investment deals. With a total upfront investment of around $100 million, Nexters will take control of three game studios:  RJ Games (Russia), a puzzle RPG major and the publisher of Puzzle Breakers; Royal Ark (Russia), …

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Just-born games studio raises $3 million to address “the most exciting and fastest-growing entertainment niche”

November 10, 2021

Kek Entertainment, a Moscow and Cyprus-based “gaming video creator,” has attracted $3 million in pre-seed funding to develop mobile action games. This is “the largest pre-seed round ever in a gaming startup from in Russia or neighboring countries,” the participants in the deal claimed. The company started in September and is hiring. It was founded by two former …

Just-born games studio raises $3 million to address “the most exciting and fastest-growing entertainment niche” Read More

Russian team with mysterious backers wins world’s biggest eSports prize

October 28, 2021

On October 17, Russia’s Team Spirit triumphantly lifted the Aegis of Champions. The team of five youngsters – the oldest of them only 23 years of age – looked somewhat out of place, dwarfed by Romania’s biggest stadium. The International 10 is no ordinary sporting event: it is the world championship for multiplayer online battle …

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Russian-founded startup raises $4.5 million to reinvent the Rubik’s Cube

October 21, 2021

WowCube, a startup founded by IT entrepreneur Ilya Osipov from Nizhny Novgorod, is reinventing the Rubik’s cube. Launched in 2017, the company touts itself as “the first-in-class innovative gaming platform where virtual gameplay is controlled by physically tilting, twisting, and shaking the device.” According to CrunchBase data, the company — now registered in Florida — …

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Mail.ru Group pursues gaming acquisitions across Russia and Belarus

October 14, 2021

Mail.ru Group’s appetite for acquisitions in the gaming space was confirmed again today as My.Games Venture Capital (MGVC), the investment arm of its subsidiary My.Games, announced minority investments in three game studios. These are Tworogue Games and VOX, based in Moscow, and Wideview Games from Minsk, Belarus.  MGVC put on the table $3 million in total for these deals, which include options to …

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A SPAC with Russian flavors: Nexters and Kismet complete merger

September 24, 2021

Nexters, one of the most successful Russian-founded game development companies, is going public today through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Kismet. The company is traded on the NASDAQ under the new ticker symbols “GDEV” (ordinary shares) and “GDEVW” (warrants). The Kismet SPAC which just merged with Nexters closed its $250 million NASDAQ IPO in …

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