Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Oleg Yavorsky, PR and Marketing Director of Vostok Games, developer of SURVARIUM, surely one of the most expected fps-games of the 2013.Hi Oleg, first of all, thanks for the time we spend.


I would start with a few questions about yourself

How did you come to Vostok Games, and what is the necessary background to work in a company in the gaming industry;
Like the rest of my colleagues, I joined the studio after the closure of GSC Game World at the end of last year. My gaming industry path started in year 2000 when I joined GSC as an English-Russian translator (which is my profession by diploma). Our team used to work on the S.T.A.LK.E.R. series, which proved to be the most successful project in my career so far. If you want to work in the gaming industry, be prepared: creativity, energy and ability to work long hours at crunch times, excellent knowledge and skills in your field are all required. As a return reward, you get the most interesting and fun job in the world!

Can you describe how it was being the center of the world "gaming" after the development of STALKER?

It definitely was a success, but part of it, I guess, was achieved owing to simplicity and openness with which we treated the players. There was no megalomania with us here. There is nothing more inspiring than knowing that people like your game – that’s the only thing the developers really care about deep in heart.

Now I ask you to tell what activities do you do in a typical day;

I am not directly involved in the development process, but rather focus on communication with the community and press, so as business talks. Therefore, my daily activities include regular emailing, social networking, answering press requests, preparing media assets, web-site news and updates. We receive a huge number of emails and feedback from the players, so there is a lot of correspondence to deal with daily. God thanks, there is a team of community managers helping me with part of those tasks. On top of that, I’m involved in the strategic planning for Survarium, including negotiations with potential publishers, advertising agencies, localization companies and other partners.

Now you would spend a few questions about company

How many people work on the SURVARIUM project, especially with such tasks;

Right now we are about 30 people in the studio working on the game prototype. Closer to the end of this year we plan to expand the number of staff considerably to increase our content production volume.

We all know how competitive it is the world of non-pay fps and 2012 saw the birth of some really great games (primarily Blacklight: Retribution, but also: Tribes Ascend, Hedone, and we are all waiting for Metro Conflict and Arctic Combat ), what do you think will convince a player to choose SURVARIUM, how do you promote it, what percentage of the market you plan to conquer;

We hope Survarium will attract players by its unique atmosphere, so as those innovative game design ideas that we have in mind. We plan to openly talk about the game with players as it develops by means of video diaries. The first two chapters are already available on our YouTube channel, so you can check those out: https://www.youtube.com/user/vostokgames We are keen to follow the community’s feedback and will try to develop the game in line with their expectations and likes. For that reason we extensively use social networks communication.
It’s hard to make any predictions about the market share, but what I know for sure is that we’ll do our best to deliver a quality and immersive gameplay experience. Our S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development background should help us create and original-looking and non-standard game. Then it will be for the players to decide.

Let me now ask you a few more technical question on the development of SURVARIUM

I know that for the development of SURVARIUM been using a proprietary technology. can you talk about
Yes, we are writing our new Vostok Engine technology as we speak. The main challenge for the moment is the server part. We are happy with the progress achieved so far. Generally speaking, the engine is going to enable high level of detailing and up-to-date graphics (including support of DirectX 11). We plan to talk in more detail about the engine in one of our next dev-diaries.

Do you already have an idea about the dates of the first beta;
We target end of 2013 for the open beta stage.

Do you think that SURVARIUM can be a good game for competitive gaming? If you already have in mind if you agree with ESL or MLG (or us?)
We hope so. In fact, we already are in discussion with an e-sports team to help us fine-tune and balance the game in a way suitable for tournaments. We’ll see what we can achieve here.

Among the first targets of OWLF there is to support companies that manufacture and distribute gaming for the localization of some content and for managing the relationship with the Italian players. Do you think it can create some specific marketing operation for the Italian market?
I think it’s great to have people like you helping developers and publishers establish better connection and relationship with the local players. We’ll be very open to see how we can make the game meet the tastes of the Italian gamers together.

The torture is over. I would also like to thank Alexia for the courtesy shown to us and to wish you and all WOM all the success it deserves.
Rather, it’s been a very pleasant talk. Thank you for the interesting questions. We’ll surely keep in touch!

Best wishes from Kiev!