Alisa Chumachenko biography. Who is who: Alisa Chumachenko. February is a master class by Alisa Chumachenko, CEO of Game Insight
Yesterday I went skiing on the slopes of the Russian Ski School in Novoperedelkino. The weather was great, frost, clear air, bright winter sun, crumbly snow. And it was very cool to go downhill after downhill, honing the ride in short arcs, but I remembered in time that a master class was scheduled for the evening Alisa Chumachenko, founder of Game Insight . Therefore, quickly getting ready and changing clothes, I went home, took a shower and arrived at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University just in time for the start of the performance.
The impression that Alice made on me
As it turned out, my friends from the program "You are an entrepreneur" and I were a little late and arrived just a few seconds before the start of Alice's speech. Everyone already sat down in their seats, and the organizer girl began a welcoming speech. Two people were standing in the corridor near the audience, a guy in trendy sneakers and a pretty girl in a red sweatshirt. If I met them on the street, I would never have thought that in front of me are two directors of a company that showed a turnover of $ 90 million in 2012.On the other hand, this is how directors should be in interesting companies. Not old grunts surrounded by silent people in dark glasses, but normal cheerful people who are ready to communicate on an equal footing with people who, for the most part, are still students (the master class was held at Moscow State University).
History of Game Insight
Alice immediately began her speech in a warm and friendly manner. There was no tension, no embarrassment. Sitting on the edge of the table, she told her story about how, having borrowed several thousand dollars, she managed to show an income of a million dollars a month already in the first months after the launch of the first game. And she also easily talked about how mail.ru disconnected her application from their service and overnight she turned from a millionaire back into an ordinary person with a cash gap in her business.Then there was a search for new platforms, an attempt to work with all known social networks, a lot of analytical work and, as a result, entering the global market for mobile applications for iOS and Android. Of all the variety of social networks, we settled on the largest player on the world stage - Facebook. Alena believes, and in my opinion quite rightly, that it makes little sense to spend resources on porting applications for dying social networks. No traffic - come on, goodbye! The exception is only a few countries, including Russia, where local social networks show a positive trend in user growth despite the entry of Facebook into the market.
After formally founding Game Insight in 2010, Alisa has already achieved impressive results in two years. Now 5 games are consistently generating micropayment monetizations of more than a million dollars each, and another game hit millionaire is on the way. It would seem that what else is needed - if you cash out everything and sell the company, then you can live comfortably on the islands in the Caribbean. But it is obvious that a boring life is not an option for Alice. Therefore, the development of the company continues according to the marketing plans and personal preferences of Game Insight directors.
Where did the company get the initial investment from? Managed to borrow money from "friends and family"; they were enough for the start, the first shot and the first failure. Then there is a small gap in the story, mentions of cash gaps and a certain Russian investment fund that provides investments for the development of new projects. And, of course, the first profit was certainly put into circulation and development.
The company has grown into a serious holding in a few years. In addition to the head offices in Moscow and San Francisco (Game Insight is "registered not in Russia, but where - it's a secret") there are 15 almost independent studios that develop the game content itself. Another 6 studios did not cope with their tasks and were "sent to the labor market". Of course, the independence of the studios is limited from above by the parent company, but as Alice said, she chooses not the current team, but the leads. Those. if the head of the studio inspires confidence and respect, they will work with him. And then he is free to independently dispose of personnel, work and technological process, while keeping in mind the company-wide development quality standards and checklists for the requirements for its product.
Game Insight plans for 2013 are worthy of respect. If last year closed at $90 million, this year the ambition is already at $180 million. Entering the global market, launching new products, continuous support for released content, market knowledge and strategic planning will allow them to get 30% in the worst case profit growth. And if there is a hit, there will be much more.
Conclusions from Alisa Chumachenko's speech
After telling the story of her company, Alice generously set aside time to interact with the audience. The questions were different, as well as the people present. Someone asked about the technical aspects of the issue, someone was interested in released products and announcements, and someone wanted cooperation.I made the following conclusions for myself.
If you are a student and new to the mobile games and applications business, then you can certainly find your own niche by gathering with friends in a rented apartment and making your first release in a couple of months.
If your ambitions are to oust Game Insight, which is going to increase its market share from 15% to 30% in 2013, then you will need really serious investments, which can amount to tens of millions of dollars. Because it costs $5 million to develop and maintain Paradise Island from launch to date. And the same amount was directed to marketing and promotion of the game.
If you've outgrown your rented apartment and have a game that should make a splash, Alice will be happy to help you get it published. 140,000,000 people of the audience - that's what is offered for 60% of the profit share. Of course, if your game shows the required monetization figures during the test run.
And if the game didn’t go well, but everyone in the company is eager to try again, then you can become one of the Game Insight studios. Of course, losers are not expected there, but if people show their capabilities and determination, at least a productive dialogue is possible. Alice is ready to run after especially tough guys herself, which is confirmed by her three-month "run" for a team from Novgorod.
In any case, judging by the words of Alisa Chumachenko, the release of games for mobile platforms is not a creative process, it is a serious work. Therefore, the first thing you need is to have the determination to move forward and think globally.
PS: And behind the door of the auditorium, we talked with the PR director of Game Insight
- "icon of the gaming industry", founder and president of Game Insight. Alice has two success stories of large companies, a theater background, a passion for games, and a Twitter handle - Neudachnica.
Data
Alisa Chumachenko has been working in the field of art since the age of 14, she graduated as a director at GITIS.
I got acquainted with the party playing “Fight Club”. She was so fond of the game that she rocked her son with one hand, and played with the other.
In 2004, Alice joined a small IT Territory team led by Ruki Vverkh soloist Sergey Zhukov, who decided to create the Territory game. I started as a secretary, but soon literally asked for it in the PR department. A small start-up has grown into a large Astrum Online Entertainment company, and in 2009 Alisa already held the position of vice president of marketing and advertising there.
Alisa Chumachenko formed a professional marketing team, which resulted in a steady growth in the financial performance of the Astrum Online holding and dozens of launches of free-to-play MMOG projects.
In 2009, AOE began to merge with Mail.ru, and Alice found no place in the new company.
In 2010, she launched the Game Insight project, conceived as an incubator for gaming startups. Initially, a small team, from which many left, not believing in success, decided to do business outside of Russia, discovering the Facebook platform. In 2011, they released a game with micropayments on a mobile platform and earned their first million dollars.
GI is now a key player in the development and publishing of social and mobile games. This is a team of 800 people (600 developers and 200 managers), 15 people work in San Francisco. In one year, the number of users Game Insight has passed the 20 million mark and continues to grow.
Alice is “constantly stuck” in games. While testing one of the games from Game Insight, I spent $3,000, although the average player bill is $3-5 per month.
Quotes
The venture market, especially in its Russian interpretation, often gives birth to metal astronauts from among the founders. For some reason, they begin to mistakenly believe that an investor is such a dude who will happily burn his money, looking at how a company (and this is always a founder - a specific person) "invests in market development", "builds a space story", compares himself to twitter or Elon Musk, driving the project into an even bigger ass. From which there is less and less chance to get out. At the same time, such astronauts mistakenly think that an investor, he should be happy, as it were, because they gave him the most valuable thing - a share. The error in the calculations of the astronauts is that this is a fraction of zero.
Alisa Chumachenko, a serial entrepreneur and game industry specialist, says that an international company can be launched from anywhere in the world. She herself prefers to do this from Lithuania, where in the early 2010s she moved the head office of Game Insight, a game development company she created, and where she has already launched several projects. Not all of them were successful: for example, the children's engineering workshop Green Garage failed to turn a profit and had to be closed in 2017. Chumachenko's new business is Gosu.ai, an artificial intelligence-based training platform for gamers that allows gamers to improve their skills. The project has already attracted $2.5 million in investments from venture funds Systema_VC and Gagarin Capital, in June the number of its users exceeded 100 thousand people. Chumachenko told Inc. why it is better to launch an AI startup in Moscow and open an office in Eastern Europe, what game will make a breakthrough in eSports, and why a swearing chatbot is needed for a service for gamers.
Launch in Moscow, operate from Lithuania
Global business is not always convenient to manage from Russia - you have to choose another place. You have to take into account a huge number of nuances: what employees are needed, whether they can be brought there, what conditions they need, what their families should do, what laws are there and how they fit into relations with shareholders, where the proceeds come from, etc.
Eastern Europe today is the optimal place for the office of a technology company. Megacities of Western Europe are expensive for a small startup. In the USA, business lives and is structured differently, where you need to know the market and be sure that you want to create an American company. Eastern Europe is attractive in terms of costs, quality of life, proximity to Russia (we all have families and connections here anyway), and transport accessibility. Plus, the former Soviet republics have an absolutely amazing bonus - they speak and understand Russian there, and there are many Russian schools in Lithuania (this is important for families with children, for example). And there is no mental break.
Lithuania was chosen, among other things, because its government has done quite a lot to attract foreign IT companies - it has simplified the procedure for obtaining a residence permit for IT specialists, for example. Well, my father is also Lithuanian, I have many relatives there, this is my second homeland. But that was at the end of the list of bonuses.
You can launch a global company from anywhere - but you need to understand where you will take specialists when you start growing. There are practically no big data specialists in small European countries - they are usually concentrated in centers, in megacities. They will either have to be lured (which is not always possible) or taken with you. For example, we launched Gosu.ai in Moscow, because there are simply no big data specialists of the level we need in Lithuania. Having launched in Moscow, we were able to quickly make a prototype and test it, and then we calmly decided where exactly to settle down operationally and how to develop further.
Computer games and eSports in numbers
Source: New Zoo
2,2
Billion people around the world playing computer games.
$122
billion - volume of the global gaming market in 2017.
~50%
volume the gaming market is made up of mobile games.
$180
billion will be the size of the global gaming market by 2021.
$1,4
billion will be the size of the eSports market by 2020.
Seek data, count the economy
Getting big data is easier than you think. Many IT giants, banks, payment systems, city administrations share them - the same Sberbank conducts a huge number of hackathons with open data. You have to be very lazy not to see how much data is in the public domain. For one case, they will definitely be enough, and scaling is the next question.
Companies benefit from sharing big data. Companies that do not disclose data are forced to develop on their own - and many choose this path. Companies that are ready to give developers API access have a chance to turn into a platform (as they did in their google time, Apple and Facebook) and even earn extra money.
At some point, an AI startup must decide whether to focus on one technology (and refine its application in different areas) or one area (and develop different technologies in it). An example for the first case is computer vision, which can recognize images of people, process images of products on shelves, and so on. We at Gosu.ai chose the second way: we use different technologies: we experiment with various predictions, voice, image processing, etc., but we use them only in the gaming sector.
Every market needs its own strategy. In a settled market with big players and established business models, the quality of the product and the correct alignment of the business are much more important. Here we need specialists with relevant experience and experiments are not always possible. In a new, unformed market, where there are many risks, but also many opportunities, you have to run very fast to find your niche. Of course, the product must be good, but there are few of them, the competition is lower, and time is more important. Get ready to learn on the go.
In any project, even in the newest market, it is necessary to calculate the economy very well. I ran into this problem when I was doing a project for the Green Garage engineering workshop for children. I wanted kids with engineering skills to change the world, experiment and spend money - but I just couldn't bring the project to profit. I didn’t take into account that the cost of depreciation should be added to the cost of equipment (higher than in a fitness center - most of it was not even useful), security costs and the inability to raise prices if your clients are children and teenagers. Technically, the project paid for itself, but the money for quality development had to be “extracted” from the non-profit sector, to interact, including with government agencies, and I realized that I would not want to do this. As a result, I had to close the Green Garage because I was financially unable to pull it on my own.
Hard economics: why DIY workshops failed
In 2015-16 around the world, workshop projects for "makers" - those who love to do things with their own hands, were gaining popularity. Then in the USA, the TechShop network was on the rise - workshops that provided round-the-clock access to professional equipment (CNC machines, 3D printers, welding machines, etc.) for a small fee. The workshops were popular with start-ups and small businesses, who were able to build a prototype without the help of large factories.
This wave also reached Europe: at the beginning of 2015, the former founder of Svyaznoy Maxim Nogotkov tried to create such a workshop in Russia (he abandoned the idea, believing that the project could be economically profitable only with the support of the state), and in Vilnius Alisa Chumachenko launched a space for makers Green Garage.
The workshops earned by selling subscriptions to users and by conducting training sessions. This business model actually proved unprofitable: the workshops were equipped with about $ 1 million worth of equipment, not including depreciation costs, and the income from visitors did not recoup these costs. In November 2017, the TechShop chain went bankrupt and all 10 shops in the US were closed. Alisa Chumachenko's Green Garage closed the same year.
Not toys but hardcore
Gamers are a huge audience that is ready to pay for new services. Over the past 20 years, there has not been a single year that the gaming market has not grown in terms of money or users. There is a feeling that the drivers of its growth in the next few years will be competitive games and eSports, and on different platforms - desktops, consoles, mobile devices.
Competitive games are a very hardcore audience. Players want to win and move on - to participate in serious tournaments. This is the path to eSports - at the top of this pyramid is professional gaming - but to get to the top, you need to improve your skills all the time. And people are willing to pay for training services. About 600 million people play competitive games in the West, and another 1.2 billion in Asia.
We are not interested in eSports (this is a very narrow niche), but non-professional players - ordinary guys who play competitive games. We give them detailed analytics on how they play, what they are doing right, and what needs to be improved. For example, here you, instead of using hot keys, dragged the mouse around the screen and lost 59 seconds, here you didn’t use various items as efficiently as possible, etc. We pull all this out of big data and visualize it beautifully.
We do not have the task of "teaching" how to play - when people play, they just want to have a good time, and not necessarily with benefit. Our task is to suggest how to make the game even more fun. We build infrastructure around the game so that the player constantly turns to us for advice, information for reflection and additional services.
When developing a service, you have to listen to what the community says. It’s different in games: you hear the wishes of users, but you still do it your own way, so that it would be more interesting for them to play. But when working on the service, for the first time in my life, I came across the concept of community-based development: we have about 4 thousand people in the chat who write whole lists of what they need, we consult with them, and this synergy works great.
To find an approach to gamers, I had to write a swearing chatbot. The Dota 2 game has a brutal community - it is very toxic, it does not accept newcomers, it is very easy to run into rudeness in it. But we decided that if this community accepts us, it will be easier with the rest. A special chatbot analyzes the logs of players' conversations and writes messages like a typical Dota 2 player - immediately sends you to your mother. He is hellish, hooligan, terribly toxic, but very funny. We made it for fun - but it went viral on social networks, thanks to which several thousand new users came to us.
Gosu.ai is a training platform for gamers. Artificial intelligence analyzes play style data and provides players with personalized tips to improve their skills. The platform works for Dota 2, CS:GO and PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) multiplayer online games, with Hearthstone and World of Tanks coming in 2019.
Alisa Chumachenko launched the project in 2016 in Moscow, investing "several hundred thousand dollars" in it. In May 2017, venture funds Sistema_VC and Gagarin Capital invested in the project, and a year later - Runa Capital and Ventech. In total, the company raised over $2.5 million, and in June 2018, it celebrated reaching 100,000 users. Now the company is moving to Vilnius, where Chumachenko has already launched a number of projects (there is an office of the Game Insight company she created).
Most Gosu.ai content is free, but certain services and analytics will be available on a subscription basis. In addition, the company has already begun to earn on sponsorship contracts with game manufacturers.
Distinguish breakouts from viruses
Thinking that all gamers are teenagers is a big misconception. The largest segment of the competitive gaming audience is men aged 25-35, and they pay well. But the teen segment is also growing, so brands are happy to consider this market.
It is important for game service providers to integrate with game producers - this is an opportunity to earn extra money. Many startups believe that the game developer did something badly or did not finish it, but they will do it cool now. We make our product with the approval of developers - or if we are sure that they will approve new features. At the same time, the service (unless it generates cheat codes) encourages players to spend more time in the game, increasing the return. These business models are just taking shape, but it is very likely that in the near future game developers will pay services for retention - and services will pay developers a commission for monetizing players. For myself, I consider this as an exit strategy.
The task of game developers is to make players pay more, play longer, and get involved in the game more easily. In a hardcore game (competitive games in which the user spends from 4 hours a day, such as Dota 2), the user is hard to lure - most likely he will fall off somewhere along the way and go to play something simpler. In casual games (mechanically simple games without violence that can be played in short sessions of several minutes, such as solitaire), it is easy to lure a client, but such games usually have a low return rate and a very low conversion in paying. Therefore, it makes sense for a game developer to move from two directions: to make the game hardcore, but to simplify the involvement as much as possible.
Investors who want to invest in esports need to navigate the entire gaming industry: The esports market audience is a tiny segment of the entire gaming audience. And this is not IT, where the basic indicators are more or less clear - it is extremely difficult even for specialists in this market to predict which game will take off, and which will not even be fully developed.
Mobile games are still a promising segment for investment and for opening new businesses. But it's expensive to enter. When we started making Game Insight in 2009, the entry price was several hundred thousand dollars, and now, without several million dollars for development, it’s not even worth looking into.
It is necessary to distinguish breakthroughs in the gaming market from viruses that pass and are forgotten. Everyone thought that Pokemon Go was a breakthrough. But, despite the fact that Pokemon Go itself has earned a lot, it has not spawned new successful AR projects.
But PUBG and Fortnite have made a breakthrough in the genre of competitive survival games: their “clones” come out one after another; the survival segment is growing and developing.
For successful AR and VR games to emerge, a distribution market must emerge. You can make great VR content, but how will it sell? The VR market now is not only games, but also devices. There is growth on it, but it is not comparable to the growth in the number of smartphones over the past 10 years. If you are making a game for VR devices, your audience is several million people. And if you make a game for a smartphone - billions.
Paradise Island has become a real treasure island for Alisa Chumachenko. Over the past year, a Russian startup has managed to push the American giants of the gaming industry on their own territory.
Text: Nikolai Grishin
"I get stuck all the time," says Alisa Chumachenko, owner of Game Insight. Even while taking photos, she can't stop looking at her favorite iPad toy. In her "cosmetic bag" is always five or six mobile devices.
Alice recently tested a game by one of the 15 studios controlled by Game Insight, and got stuck so much that she spent more than $3,000 in a month, although the average bill for a "mobile" player is $3-5 per month. You could just call the developers, and they would "pump" the character of Alice for free, but during the day there is not enough time for games. Chumachenko plays at night when the developers are sleeping. “So I have to pay, I can’t stop,” she makes a plaintive face.
Passion and love for games allowed Chumachenko to organize a company whose turnover over the past year increased by an order of magnitude - from $5 million to $50 million. And create, for example, the game Mystery Manor (Russian version - "Mystery House"), which in January 2012 the most downloaded iPad game in the world.
Of the 27 games released by Game Insight over two years, nine have been in the top 10 most popular apps on App Store and six on the Android Market. Game Insight manages to compete with the products of such giants as Zynga and Nexon Co. Alisa Chumachenko had to conquer the world after her former employer, Mail.ru Group, closed her access to Russian social networks.
Clan of the discontented
The totalitarianism of the Scavenger has bothered many. Scavenger - in the world Alexey Shchedrin is the founder of the popular multiplayer online game "Fight Club" in the mid-2000s. In 2004, a conflict arose between its participants. A fan of the "Fight Club" soloist of the group "Hands up" Sergei Zhukov invited the players of his clan to meet offline and discuss the difficult situation. At that meeting, Zhukov met Alisa Chumachenko, a graduate of the directing department of GITIS.
The Hands Up group was then at the peak of popularity, Sergey had money and a desire to create his own online game. This is how the IT Territory company appeared, which soon launched the Territory game. Igor Matsanyuk, a Murmansk car dealer, became Sergei's partner, and they invited Nikita Sherman, who had left a similar position at Begun, to take the place of development director. Chumachenko was offered to become a secretary. "Alice was very enterprising, she always found time for everything," recalls Nikita Sherman.
Always in touchAlisa Chumachenko does not have her own office in the Game Insight office - she works together with marketers and game producers
For some time, Chumachenko answered calls, coordinated Sergei's tour plans and brought coffee to programmers, but this did not last long. A year later, she was already in charge of marketing and advertising in a company with 20 employees. "She's great at finding the right people and winning them over," says Sergei Zhukov.
A couple of years later, more than 1 million users played Territory, although the publishers of games on CD treated IT Territory with condescension. One of the company's employees, the founder of the Road 404 studio, which is part of Game Insight, Maxim Donskikh recalls that among the programmers themselves there was a confrontation between those who wanted to create a big and beautiful game dreams, and those who viewed games as a business: "Alice was on the side of the dough."
In December 2007, a milestone event took place on the Russian online gaming market. Four players - Astrum Nival, IT Territory, Time Zero and Nikita Online - have merged into the Astrum Online Entertainment holding. The structure, which employed 600 people, controlled about 60% of the Russian online games market. Its revenue in 2008, according to expert estimates, exceeded $50 million. People from IT Territory in the new holding were in the first roles: Igor Matsanyuk became president, Alisa Chumachenko became vice president for marketing and advertising, Maxim Donskikh headed the direction social games. Singer Sergei Zhukov decided to focus on show business, which he sometimes regrets now: "The gambling business for me has always been primarily entertainment, and a good investment." However, Sergei did not finally give up on Internet projects. In 2010, he launched the bulletin board "Here they will find." Sergey sometimes sings karaoke with Alisa Chumachenko and Igor Matsanyuk.
Mail in the back
The alliance of independent game developers did not last long - at the end of 2009, Astrum became part of Mail.ru. The company was valued at more than $450 million. The deal looked logical: Mail.ru had a huge audience, Astrum had entertainment. But the game development team began to disintegrate before our eyes. “Somehow it immediately became clear that Mail.ru needed to be run away,” says Maxim Donskikh. good games, in Mail.ru - to bring this colossus to IPO". Alisa Chumachenko did not even wait for the completion of the transaction and left first: "I did not see myself in a large corporation. I wanted something of my own."
It took Chumachenko "several million dollars" to create "something of his own." The money was lent to her by "familiar investors", and she is still repaying the debt. Sources SF they say that Igor Matsanyuk became the main investor of Game Insight. By the way, in November 2010, during an IPO on the London Stock Exchange, he sold his 0.6% stake in Mail.ru Group for $85 million, and is now developing the Farminers "startup academy".
Game Insight appeared in early 2010 and was conceived as a business incubator for game developers who do not have the money and experience to promote their product. Game Insight relieves developers of all "non-core" worries, provides programmers with salaries - $15-30 thousand per month for the team and promotion costs. In return, Chumachenko receives controlling stakes in the studios and most of the income. "You could just hire developers, but this approach does not motivate much creativity. There is still something of art in games," says Chumachenko.
Many people in Russia are engaged in this "art" - 15 large game producers and about 2 thousand small teams. The most famous studios are Mail.ru Games, Social Quantum, Progrestar, Play Flock and Drimmi. The latter was created in early 2010 by Alice's former colleague Nikita Sherman. To date, his company has released seven games, earning about $3 million in 2011.
By the summer of 2010, Game Insight developers had released ten games, four of which were in the top 10 most popular social networks owned by Mail.ru - Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir. People are already tired of the numerous clones of the "Happy Farmer". Game Insight released games in the city builder genre (instead of farms, users are encouraged to build cities), as well as in the new hidden object genre for social networks (hidden object). At the same time, unlike many small publishers, Game Insight supported the games after the launch - paid for the work of community managers who communicate with the players, and developed new content for avid gamers.
Within six months, Game Insight reached a monthly turnover of $1 million. But in July 2010, Mail.ru dealt a serious blow. He stopped accepting payments made by users of Game Insight applications and refused to let new projects of the company into his networks. The official reason is that Game Insight allegedly used program code copied from Mail.ru products in its applications. As proof, the holding's managers even posted lines of code on the Internet. “I can swear that there is not a single game that we would have copied,” Alice is still indignant.
One of the market participants draws an analogy with journalists who write an article on the same topic: "They use the same facts and talk to the same people, but each tells his own story. Is it possible to say that one borrows" lines "from another? I don't think so." However, Game Insight's revenue dropped to almost zero, and many key employees left Alice. But the development studios supported it. Game Insight began to cooperate with "Vkontakte" and release toys on English language— for Facebook. But most importantly, thanks to problems with social networks, Game Insight has become a pioneer in a completely new market.
14 versions Paradise Island games in various languages have been released by Game Insight. The company adapts games for different operating systems and for different countries
Brave new world
The casual games market is as dynamic as a good game play. In the mid-2000s, browser-based multiplayer games took off and Astrum took off. Then fast money appeared in social media games. For example, in 2009 the Yekaterinburg company i-Jet made a record collection ($20 million) at the Happy Farmer game. In 2011, there was a boom in free mobile applications.
"Free" does not mean "unprofitable". Previously, developers sold applications to users, such as the Finnish company Rovio, which raised more than $ 50 million in three years on the famous Angry Birds. Last year, first the App Store and then the Android Market allowed microtransactions in their apps. A market for freemium games (from the words free - "free" and premium - "premium") for mobile applications has appeared. The game can be downloaded for free, but you will have to pay for additional options.
“The entire casual games industry, including our company, was focused on distributing games on a paid model. And Alice quickly transferred her experience in creating freemium games to the niche of mobile applications and skimmed the cream,” says the CEO of the largest in Russian publisher and distributor of casual Alawar games Entertainment Alexander Lyskovsky.
The key word is "fast". On April 18, 2011, Google announced the possibility of microtransactions, and on April 20, Paradise Island by Game Insight appeared on the Android Market. It was the world's first freemium Android game. Actually, it takes several months, not three days, to adapt a game from social networks for a mobile application, but Alice understood that Google would introduce microtransactions, and prepared in advance. As a result, the game was downloaded by 2 million people in a month, for several months it topped the list of the most popular applications for Android.
A third of Game Insight's revenue in 2011 came from games for the Android Market, a third from the App Store, and the rest from social networks, which Alice initially counted on. 90% of Game Insight's revenue comes from users from the US and only about 3% from Russia. By the way, the consulting company Newzoo estimated the volume domestic market mobile games last year at $135 million. This is only about 2% of the global market.
The profitability of the gaming business is unpredictable. For example, out of 27 Game Insight games, two became hits. With a total cost of $788,000, Paradise Island earned $13.3 million. 12 games bring in more modest profits, the rest barely paid off. The owners of the four studios that make up Game Insight have become dollar millionaires. The same number of partners had to be abandoned: they either missed deadlines or made a poor-quality product. Somewhere marketing failed. Chumachenko pinned her hopes, for example, on the game Crime Story, whose goal is to build a mafia clan. It turned out that the target audience of the project - men - peck at the word free, but are not ready to pay for premium. The game was downloaded several million times, but it did not bring profit.
stars and holes
Now Alisa Chumachenko is trying to turn a successful startup into a professional international team. “We broke into a new segment with a sledgehammer and a hammer,” Chumachenko describes the situation. “But in this business, the most important thing is to feel the trends, the pulse of the market, communicate with colleagues in Silicon Valley. And in Russia, you sit and read Techcrunch.com.”
In January 2012, Chumachenko opened an office in San Francisco, whose employees, mostly Americans, will be engaged in marketing - negotiations with mobile app stores and subsequent promotion of games. Alice herself plans to spend half of her working time there.
It is all the more important to feel the pulse, since mobile applications on the freemium model are now being released by all the world's giants, people from the social gaming industry. The scale of their business far exceeds Game Insight. For example, the revenue of the world's leader in the online games market, Zynga, in 2010 amounted to $839 million. At the IPO in December 2011, the company was valued at $7 billion.
True, Chumachenko also has an advantage - low costs for programmers. Western corporations rarely outsource game development: it is believed that such work requires high qualifications and creativity. Russians are on average one and a half times cheaper than similar American specialists. "I can afford more content, more animation, so that people fall in love with the game and give money away with pleasure," says Chumachenko. In 2012, she expects to triple her company's revenue to $150 million. The trick is still the same: to beat the giants in new niches. For example, now Game Insight is preparing to release the world's first multi-platform game. It will be possible to start playing it, for example, on Facebook, and continue on the iPhone, on the way home from work.
Looks like Alisa Chumachenko won the first round. But holding positions is much more difficult. For example, i-Jet, which managed to open offices in the US, China and Luxembourg, last year laid off two-thirds of its employees, sold controlling stakes in two of its studios and stopped paying bills to partners. The main reasons are uncontrollable costs and increased competition. In a dynamic toy market, a bright star can easily turn into a black hole where investors' funds disappear.
Alisa Chumachenko is one of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs in Russia. She is also a happy wife and mother, who at one time entered the top ten sexiest female executives in the world. Everything she touches turns to gold. Marie Claire figured out how she does it.
On Alisa Chumachenko: top, Chanel; pantsuit, The Kooples; loafers, Christian LouboutinHow do people become rich and successful?
There are a million factors! I'm just thinking about writing a book about it. These are the chances seen in time, and like-minded people, and self-confidence, and the opportunities that have opened up in the market, and nights without sleep, multiplied by chance and luck. Of course, the measure of a successful businessman is the amount of money earned. But everything is relative. You may have a small cafe that makes a tiny profit. But the business model of this cafe may turn out to be so successful that the creators will eventually build a global business and, perhaps, change the world. When I founded my company (Game Insight. - approx. MC), then, of course, I wanted to make money. But it wasn't a priority. First of all, I wanted to create something of my own. I'm not interested in chasing only millions.
Where was your first job?
Circus artist on ice.
Are you seriously?
Yes, I am from a circus theatrical family, at the age of 14 I went to work in a circus and stayed there for 10 years. Then I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to change my life. And by chance I got into a team of people who were doing what I was terribly fond of then - computer games.
Why are you so drawn to games?
I have always loved online games, especially Fight Club. Liked the big ones virtual worlds. Such games are usually played by people with a well-developed imagination - this is an opportunity to live a different life. At that moment, I was sitting at home with a baby and could afford to go online and play. About what addiction is computer games I also know.
Do you still have it?
Not anymore. When you understand what is happening to you, it is easier to control yourself. Yes, and no time.
And how did you end up making a career?
At the age of 24, I got a job as a secretary at the IT-Territory startup (we invented and promoted online games). Then I did not really understand what my goals were and what I wanted. There was a child in her arms, money was urgently needed. At first I just carried coffee, helped. When the PR woman quit, I began to beg to be taken in her place.
Did you know anything about PR then?
Of course I didn't know! But in our country the whole country knows nothing about PR - and that's fine. I was the same PR girl, of which there are thousands. But then this business was just in its infancy - there was no market, no industry, no professionals. The whole team was just like me, enthusiastic, enthusiastic players.
Lack of experience stops someone...
And sometimes, on the contrary, it stops the presence of experience. For me, it worked to my advantage. Perhaps if I were now aware of the consequences, I would not have dared to change my life so drastically.
What was the most difficult moment?
Yes all! If you look back at the last ten years, everything was very, very hard. Every day, every decision, every meeting... But I try not to be dramatic. I also have an excellent student syndrome: already in the morning my conscience undermines that I didn’t finish it, I don’t have time, I miss it. It helps to mobilize.
What did you spend the first big money on?
I bought my parents a good apartment. When the first joys of life appeared, such as a good car, I began to transfer a lot to charity.
Do you prefer saving or spending?
I'm not Scrooge, I can't procrastinate. This is how I am in business - I prefer to reinvest everything. Money is energy, it must be put into circulation. Then they will bring new money.
Do you know what it is to be penniless?
My parents and I lived very modestly, if not worse. In Khrushchev on the outskirts. In the courtyard of the hungry 90s. You have a salary of 200 dollars, and in order to arrange a child in Kindergarten, you need 400.
Aren't you afraid to be in that life again?
No need to renounce, but I think that my experience and skills are enough to make decent money. Now my priority is to give a good education to my son.
Can you afford an airplane? House on the ocean?
I can't fly a plane, but a house in California can. My category of understanding money is not numbers, but rather life stages. The first is when you stop knowing how much milk costs in the store. The second - you stop looking at the check in the supermarket - this is 1500 rubles or 10 thousand. Then you start thinking: will there be enough money for education and plus for one more house? And then - what can I do with this money useful? And this is already a big responsibility.
What feminine qualities help in business?
We are different from men, but not as much as people think. When I became vice president and the company was already huge (Astrum Online Entertainment is one of the largest resources for the production of online games in Eastern Europe, where Chumachenko left five years ago and opened her own business. - approx. MC), I went into the room for meetings with coffee and I was mistaken for a secretary. But I don't have a problem with that. I feel comfortable with hard-working, active people who always come up with something. What gender they are is secondary.
Are there many emotions in your decisions?
More than we would like. Although ten years ago there were much more. But I never had pink glasses. I, on the other hand, am paranoid. Any business is associated with huge risks. Everything can be lost at any moment. Your task is to mitigate these risks. Paranoid does not mean a coward and does not mean lazy. In general, though, I'm an optimist. I know that tomorrow will be a new day. And I constantly ask myself: what can I do today to make my life better in ten years?
How much should you trust your intuition in business?
There are studies confirming that intuition is the same accumulated experience. The brain simply processes this information in a different way. In this regard, I am one hundred percent intuitive. Although without statistics and pragmatic analysis it is difficult for me.
“IF MY PARTNERS AND EMPLOYEES ARE QUESTIONED ON THE LIE DETECTOR, THEY WILL PROBABLY SAY THAT I AM A BITCH”
Are you a bitch?
Good question. If my partners and employees are interviewed on a lie detector, they will probably say yes. That Alice knows how to inspire, but she can also catch up with fear. Perhaps I will be able to be softer, calmer in the next round of life.
You recently left the very successful Game Insight company you created yourself. Why?
Own company - it is like a child, over time it grows and its interests may no longer coincide with the interests of shareholders and founders. She can interfere with your development, and you - to her.
How long have you been married?
Ten years. But I don't like discussing my personal life.
Has your success in business affected your family?
I succeeded, among other things, because my husband always supported me. Yes, in Russia, many men are still domostroev, but we had no problems, because he is much more successful than me. He is always a few giant steps ahead. And 99% of the advice on how to build a business, I received from him. He never gave me any advice, though. I just watched him make decisions, talk on the phone. But, of course, I strain it from time to time. And, probably, it could be softer, more flexible.
Is it your merit that he is successful?
May be. We have come a long way together. Somewhere he supported me, somewhere I supported him. The most important thing in a relationship is the same way of thinking. Very rare, but you can master it. If you carefully listen to a person, hear him, tune in to his wave, you can learn to understand his way of thinking. Then you will effectively help each other.
Do you consider yourself a strong woman?
It happens that such women scare away men ...
It is hard to say. What does strong mean anyway? domineering? For example, I'm generally a baby doll. I cook well, I love to fry meatballs, do housework. I have two dogs and three cats. In theory, I should not scare. Strength is elsewhere. In flexibility, for example. The ability to control yourself. The ability to get out of bed in any condition, come to work and smile.
Does the need to make decisions and work hard deprives femininity?
I believe that working hard is good for everyone. Something all the time to create, produce. But it is important to be able to switch, relax, then you will be much more productive. I don't believe in super busy people. It's all a matter of priorities. For me, if I manage to devote at least an hour a day to cooking and then have dinner with my family, this is tantamount to a full-fledged day off.
“MONEY IS ENERGY. THEY SHOULD BE SPENDED, PUSHED INTO THE CYCLE. THEN THEY WILL BRING NEW MONEY.”
There is an opinion that every five years it is necessary to change jobs. Do you agree?
Everything is individual. Each has its own life cycles. If we talk about managers, yes, most of them start to burn out after five years on one project. In this case, it is not necessary to change jobs, sometimes it is enough to change the direction of activity. Although life is now speeding up so much that the cycles are getting shorter - two or three years.
Do you allow your son to play on the computer?
He doesn't have a computer. More precisely, there is, but it is locked in a closet. And how does he have time to sit at the computer? Lessons, extra classes, sports. By the way, he doesn't watch TV either. I'm trying to teach him to read books - conventional, not electronic. In my house in Vilnius, I have walls with shelves of books, most of which are old. I love going to bookstores.
Why do you live in Vilnius?
The environment for business and for life in general is very good there. Plus, my father is Lithuanian. At one time, we moved the head office of the company to Vilnius, especially since no more than 10% of the revenue came from Russia at that moment. We moved there six months ago. I like everything there - people, nature, location. Our house is in a pine forest, ten minutes drive from the city. Twenty meters from the windows of my bedroom there is a lake, hefty hare-hares run around my site, I constantly meet foxes, roe deer. The air, of course, cannot be compared with Moscow.
Do you feel isolated?
I am a Muscovite, and I don't have the feeling of a province, perhaps only in New York. This is snobbery, but I think any Muscovite will understand me. But at 24, it doesn’t matter to you what you breathe and what your children breathe, which you may not have yet. It is important for you to build your personal life and career. And now you are already thinking about the future, about the strategy of your future life. I am a very domestic person. And in the so-called province I catch a buzz. I no longer understand how you can live in a city and in an apartment. In general, I am not strongly attached to places, much more to people. And I'm never bored anywhere.
Would you still like children?
If it works, of course. A career is a career, it's very, very important, but children are the most magical thing that can happen to a woman. And most importantly - in this regard, she has a choice that men do not have. And I dream that when I am 70, I will be surrounded by many children and, perhaps, even grandchildren.
And this is all about her:
Alisa Chumachenko, 35, founder of Game Insight (online game production, one of the ten largest Internet companies in Russia).
- She started working at the age of 14.
- Net Worth - $90 million (number 21 in the list of 30 richest women in Russia according to Forbes).
- Children - son, 11 years old.
- Favorite brand is Chanel.
- Cosmetics - Valmont.
- Favorite cities: Paris, Vilnius, Moscow.
- Favorite accessory - designer bags.
- Hobbies: horseback riding, sailing, shopping.
