Featured Image Credit: Electronic Arts, Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons
In order to bail out a floundering games industry, Russian government officials have discussed the possibility of creating something like a "Russian Electronic Arts to help streamline the release of high-quality Russian games." Yes, that is really the wording that they chose.
As a result of the invasion in Ukraine, large numbers of Western companies have availed themselves of Russia, shutting down offices, stopping sales of their products, supporting Ukrainian soldiers with donations and releasing statements of discontent with the country's actions. Ergo, Russia itself is struggling to supply its own technology companies, specifically speaking, and it is still reacting to the sanctions' impact and isolations into 2023.
One of its initiatives to prevent any more damage from being done was to develop a "national game engine" with assistance from bigwigs in the technology sector as an alternative to Unity and Unreal Engine. However, this was soon discovered to be a total waste of time because "billions of rubles" would be required to get it off the ground. Peculiarly, an anonymous private investor appeared to support the Russian state with the domestic game engine, but it apparently wasn't enough to accelerate the production of the project.
No matter, though, as Russian Ministry of Digital Development discussed in December a new federal initiative to save the games industry (thanks to PCGamer's translation of Kommersant's report). "The Gaming Industry of the Future" is a three-pronged action that would see something called "Rosgame" become the vanguard of game development. This is a centre for the "strategic development" of the domestic industry and prioritises "regeneration and the development of the industry" in tandem with the "development and publishing of games."
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Here are the three options. There's the "stabilisation scenario," which would necessitate a $7 billion investment to breathe life into its games industry and ensure that the country becomes one of the "top 20 game development countries" by 2030.
Or, the "ambitious scenario" which asks for $20 billion in investment to bring about an "industry breakthrough." If that was wild enough for you, then be sure to be sitting down for this third one. The "leadership scenario" would need $50 billion to turn Rosgame into a "soft power tool" that would rival the biggest companies in the world by 2030.
That's only seven years away and these are not the only goals that the Russian officials are aiming for in such a short window of time. They also imagine that there will be a billion foreign consumers of Russian games, four new Russian game engines and developed two new games consoles.
I personally wouldn't put any money down on that bet but each to their own. Even Russia's deputy prime minister for Tourism, Sport, Culture and Communications Dmitry Chernyshenko admitted that no one's too sure where all that funding is being found and "extra-budgetary mechanisms" might be required.
