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Russian tech giant VK has announced the sale of its gaming division MY.GAMES. With this deal, which is in place as of this writing, VK will transition to only support his VK Play service in the country.
It is easy to forget that the world’s geopolitical and economic conditions are not easy to predict or withstand. The gaming market surged a whopping 26% during the pandemic, but is now expected to contract due to volatile market conditions around the world.
In Russia, sanctions and the exodus of many foreign companies have led to the emergence of domestic alternatives, and incumbent domestic firms struggle to survive on local business alone.
economic impact
The forecast is prescient as the conflict in Ukraine continues and Russia faces sanctions from abroad, and the domestic economic situation faces a number of dire predictions. Economists like Vladislav Inozemtsev call it “Dead by Winter” to explain the bleak outlook for the economy in the near future.
In July, guest author Piers Harding-Rolls discussed market predictions for the gaming industry. he wrote: Ampere predicts that the Russian market will drop to 14th place in the world rankings in 2022, losing him $1.2 billion year-over-year. ”
Big news focuses on sectors such as energy (particularly oil), but the crisis is also being felt in areas such as technology. In the mobile games sector, Azur Games recently sold stakes in Russian and Belarusian developers. This is both a token of solidarity and a possible way to avoid the consequences of these sanctions.
VK is one of Russia’s largest tech companies, with reports showing that 90% of the population uses its services every day, from social media to e-commerce. Despite the terminology used in most reports, VK hasn’t completely abandoned gaming, but VK Play appears to be a purely domestic company supporting both traditional and streaming games.
Last week, VK also clashed with Apple when the social media app of the same name was removed from his iOS store. Now, VK is looking more and more inward to support itself, and it seems that they continue to dominate the tech scene in the Russian Federation.