Alawar

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Alawar Entertainment

logo
legal form
founding 1999
Seat Novosibirsk
management Alexander Lyskovsky
Number of employees 150
sales 100 million USD
Branch Video games
Website https://company.alawar.com/
Last updated 2012

Alawar is a Russian software company for the development and distribution of video games for PC, smartphones and game consoles. The company's main areas of activity are mid-core games for experienced gamers, as well as downloadable casual games and F2P games for PC , Mac , iOS , Android , PlayStation , Xbox , social networks and other platforms. The company's games have been sold more than 1 billion times in over 100 countries and in 10 languages. The company's headquarters are in Novosibirsk , where about 150 employees are employed.

Alawar's market share is estimated to be 9–10% of the Russian casual game market (as of 2012).

history

The company was founded in 1999 by Alexander Lyskovsky and Sergey Zanin, students of Novosibirsk State University . Game development was the first division of the company to open, followed by game publishing soon after. Alawar released two games: Puzzle Rally and Bubble Bobble Nostalgia. Alawar started developing its own sales platform in 2003. The company started working on shareware games as casual games.

In 2009, the company started developing and porting games to mobile devices, game consoles and social networks. The games were advertised on the App Store , Google Play , PlayStation Network and other major services. In August 2009, Alawar and Oleg Kuvaev signed a cooperation agreement that gave Alawar the exclusive right to use the Masyanya game brand until 2014. In 2011, Alawar expanded production and began to focus on publishing multiplatform games for PC, Mac, iOS, Android and PSP minis. In the same year the company started a series of projects around the Technopark in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok , which aimed to inform interested parties about game development and to offer advice with experienced game developers.

In 2012, Alawar began developing a range of free-to-play games. In 2012 "The Treasures of Montezuma Blitz" was released on the PS Vita. This made Alawar the first third party publisher to release a free downloadable microtransaction game on Sony consoles. In 2015, Alawar began developing mid-core games for release on Steam.

In 2016, one of the company's in-house development teams began working on novel projects using VR and their own software solutions. Sammy, a VR horror game, was released and became one of the top 3 most downloaded games in the world and was named to the list of the best new VR games.

Alawar publishes 2-3 mid-core projects each year. After being released on Steam, the games are largely ported and distributed through other channels and platforms.

Areas of activity

development

Alawar has been involved in game development since 1999.

  • Mid-core games . These games are more demanding, more complex and more intelligent than classic casual games, but not as big as AAA projects. Mid-core games are generally more geared towards experienced gamers. Alawar publishes 2-3 mid-core projects per year. The most important projects include Beholder and Distrust .
  • Casual games for PC and MacBook . This is the longest running area of ​​development in Alawar. The company has published over 500 projects in genres such as Time Management, Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA), and Match-3. Alawar's casual games are available for Windows and Mac OS (over 70 games are available in the Mac App Store). Biggest projects include The Treasures of Montezuma, Farm Frenzy, The House of the 1000 Doors, and more. Alawar works with BigFishGames, GameHouse, WildTangent, iWin and other casual game portals on these projects.
  • Mobile games . Alawar has been porting its games to popular mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and others since 2009. The company also publishes originals (ShakeSpears !, Montezuma Blitz, Farm Frenzy: New Adventures, etc.) and licensed (Heroes War, etc.) free-to-play games for mobile devices.
  • Console games . Alawar has been porting mid-core and casual projects to all common consoles and operating systems (PS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, iOS, Android, etc.) since 2010.
  • Experimental games (VR) . Alawar's in-house development team is involved in projects for Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream and Google Cardboard. The first VR game, Sammy, was released in May 2017 and became one of the top 3 most downloaded games in the world and was included in the list of the best New Gear VR games. As of 2020, the company's activities in the area of ​​VR have been put on hold.

Games Editor

Alawar has been a games publisher since 1999.

This department works with game studios and companies to produce games for various platforms and to share their experience in developing and launching new projects.

Alawar works with over 30 development companies, most of which are based in Russia and Eastern Europe. Over 500 game projects have been published, including bestsellers like Do Not Feed The Monkeys , Space Robinson, and I am Not a Monster .

distribution

Alawar has a casual game distribution network in Russia and the CIS countries through its website Alawar.ru and its affiliate program, which includes over 5,000 partners such as Mail.ru, Rambler.ru and others.

Since 2004, over 1 billion casual games have been sold on Alawar and its partners' websites, which have more than 16 million monthly active users.

Alawar is an active participant in industry conferences such as GDC (Game Developers Conference), CasualConnect, GameConnection, Gamescom, White Nights, DevGAMM and others.

Awards and Achievements

  • 2008: Farm Frenzy was named the best casual game at the Game Developers Conference 2008
  • 2008: Farm Frenzy was named Best Family Software of 2008 by Disney Family and received the iParenting Media Award.
  • 2008: Alawar won the 2008 Runet Prize, the national prize of the Russian Federation for contributions to the development of the Russian Internet segment.
  • 2009: Alawar.ru was voted one of the top 3 websites in the “Website of the Year” category at the 2009 Russian Entertainment Awards.
  • 2010: The Treasures of Montezuma on iOS reached the top 2 iPad games and the top 20 iPhone games in the United States.
  • 2012: Alawar was listed at number 24 on the Forbes 30 Russian Internet Companies list.
  • 2012: Alawar was named Best Editor at the Game Developers Conference.
  • 2012: Alawar was named to Forbes Russia's list of 30 Most Successful Russian Internet Companies.
  • 2012: The Treasures of Montezuma was named the best casual game at the Game Developers Conference in Moscow.
  • 2013: Alawar reached number 62 on the HeadHunter list of the top 100 Russian employers.
  • 2016: Beholder won the categories “Excellence in Game Design” and “Best Indie Game” at the DevGamm Independent Games Conference.
  • 2016: Alawar was named winner at the Game Developers Conference Pitch in San Francisco.
  • 2017: Beholder was named Most Creative and Original Game and Best Indie Game at the Game Connection America Conference.
  • 2017: Beholder was named one of the 8 winners in the “Best-in-Play” category at the Game Developers Conference.
  • 2017: Alawar became the official sponsor of the Siberian Game Dev Weekend Conference.
  • 2017: Do Not Feed The Monkeys received several awards: “Best Narrative” (DevGamm Conference, Minsk), “Most Innovative” (3DWire, Segovia), “Best Indie Game” (FEFFS, Strasbourg ), “DevGamm Choice” (Get It! Conference, Odessa), “Media Choice” (Indiecade Europe, Paris).
  • 2019: Do Not Feed The Monkeys was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) in several categories: “Innovative Game”, “Best Design” and “Grand Prix”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ «Рунет превратился в перспективный и быстрорастущий рынок» - новости школы RMA. Retrieved July 27, 2020 (Russian).
  2. ↑ a b Siberia made the world play - Russia Beyond. Retrieved July 27, 2020 (English).