Videogame industry
development organization
// VIDO

Narrative design lead on Atomic Heart (2020–2024), author of the Grimshade and DroneBoy projects, expert of VIDO and the Video Game Factory.

Areas of expertise:
- narrative game design, working with the emotions and the expectations of players
- creating characters, building the story, the quest structure and the narrative mechanics
- working with sound studios and localization studios

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- consulting and expert assessment
- lectures and educational formats
- project roles and positions
- sitting on juries and expert councils

Company: Triluna Games, lead level designer

Areas of expertise:
- level design: the full cycle of building a working location
- game design: writing vision documents for R&D projects
- development in Unity and Unreal Engine

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- one-to-one consultations and mentoring for developers
- help with setting up and standardizing project documentation
- judging and expert assessment at industry events
- podcasts and other media formats

Available for consultation on:
- building locations in Unity and Unreal
- GDD documentation
- designing space for particular genres
- choosing a technology stack for level design

Lawyer, company: DataCase.

Areas of expertise: 

- legal opinions and advice on intellectual property and information protection;

- support with alternative dispute resolution; 

- writing articles and chapters of monographs on the subject.

Preferred formats of cooperation:

- consulting on IP/IT and game development;

- taking part in events;

- talking to the media about the legal regulation of the video game market;

- taking part in industry research.

Available for consultation on:

- protecting copyright in game content,

- drafting EULAs and contracts with developers and publishers;

- dispute resolution mechanisms;

- personal data and cybersecurity;

- local regulation in foreign jurisdictions.

B&D Institute of Business and Design, Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University

Areas of expertise:
The philosophy of play, academic game studies, the history of games, the history of video games, game design methodologies, the theory and practice of gamification, education in game development

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- consulting on gamification and game thinking (design, documentation, rollout)
- lectures and master classes on the historical, theoretical and applied sides of video games
- expert review of game projects from a conceptual standpoint.

Business development director at Overmobile

Preferred formats of cooperation:

- advisory support for developers (marketing, development and so on)
- taking part in industry events as an expert on running mobile browser games
- commenting in the media on the current state of the market, on research and on the history of the industry.

Available for consultation on:

- the game industry, Russia in particular
- HTML5 mobile games with in-app monetization
- promotion and marketing in game development
- payment solutions for games

An industry expert with experience of running studios, a publishing house and game platforms. Executive MBA, Stockholm School of Economics.

Areas of expertise:
- development and publishing of games (iOS, Android, PC, PlayStation, Xbox)
- producing and running game startups
- scaling teams and products

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- mentoring and advising founders
- strategy sessions for game teams

Available for consultation on:
- launching and growing a game startup
- producing games and bringing them to market
- the usual mistakes, and shortcuts, for teams starting out

Game designer, author of the Telegram channel Game Design Practice

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- running workshops in the Invent a Game / Pitch Your Game / Game Concept series
- lectures on Introduction to Game Design, How to Write a Game Concept Document, Running a Community of Game Developers
- running competitions in writing GDDs (game design documentation)
- running game jams
- running marathons for building a game prototype
- running game development quizzes and other competitive and educational events for game developers.

Also available as an ambassador for brands and activities of interest within the Game Design Practice community.

An expert in digital content and video games, founder of the game studio Mehsoft.

Areas of expertise:
- media strategy and holding an audience's attention
- viral content and viral marketing
- managing player expectations and loyalty through pre-production and launch
- publishing and running independent game projects
- building a distinctive authorial voice and narrative
- creative producing and writing game scripts

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- consulting and expert assessment of the commercial potential of large projects
- lectures and master classes (remote)
- sitting on the juries of professional competitions and on expert councils (remote)
- media partnership and promotion of large industry initiatives

Companies: Plarium, Room8 Studio, Playrix, Long Tale Games

Areas of expertise:
An expert on the mobile game market and mobile development, and on blockchain games.

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- taking part in industry events as an expert (jury, panels, project assessment)
- podcasts about the game industry
- preparing analytical material within his areas of expertise

Companies: Oyster Egg, New Jerty Team

Areas of expertise:
Worked on Ultimate Bowmasters and the podcast The Psychology of Video Games; brings the point of view of independent development.

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- speaking as an expert in game design, sitting on juries and assessing projects at various stages
- comment for the media on subjects within his field; less likely to take part in events
- help with setting up development processes and taking games from idea to release
- reading player behavior and building addictive mechanics

Company: Elverils

Areas of expertise:
Programming, computer graphics, engines, consoles (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and older ones), iOS and macOS, porting, Steam/GOG/EGS integration, management and planning. Has spoken at various events as a speaker and an expert or judge, talked to the media and written articles.

Preferred formats of cooperation:
Advice and help with the technical side of projects, in particular:
- porting and development for the popular platforms (consoles and PC)
- optimizing projects (Unity, Unreal Engine and custom engines)
- rendering and graphics APIs
- technical QA for consoles and certification
- integrating the Steam/GOG/EGS/WeGame/PSN/Microsoft services.

An expert in game marketing with an emphasis on the creative side.

PC and consoles:
- research into the market, the competition and the target audience of a project, allowing for its specifics
- marketing and communication strategy for promoting PC and console projects
- storytelling
- creative material for promoting PC and console projects (art, trailers, landing pages, store page design, branding and more)

Mobile projects:
- strategy for developing creatives for mobile projects
- building and running creative teams producing marketing creatives for mobile user acquisition

B&D Institute of Business and Design
Areas of expertise:

- working with game publishers and investors
- presenting games, submitting demos, pitch decks and roadmaps
- working with bloggers and streamers (YouTube, Twitch and so on)
- working with press releases

Available to comment in the media on how Russian companies work with foreign partners and foreign companies. Expert assessment and comment on PR and press releases.

Producer on the Tong project (MVP in preparation), co-producer of Walking Cities (prototyping), adviser to the AntLaws startup

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- advisory support for newcomers to the industry across a range of tasks (marketing, development and so on)
- help with finding staff or approaching investors and publishers (including help with the pitch, the budget plan and contacts).

Areas of expertise: developing games and products in Unity, entering software into the Russian register of domestic software, projects in geodesy and cartography

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- taking part in industry events as an expert on game project development
- publishing information about projects of interest in the media

Available for consultation on:
- developing games and projects in Unity
- obtaining patents and registering software and games in the Russian software register
- getting games onto Steam and the specifics of working with it.

Areas of expertise:
- backend development in Java/Kotlin of high-load distributed services and multiplayer
- web frontend development of games

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- one-to-one consultations for developers, CTOs and systems analysts
- help with hiring Java developers and leads
- help with judging at events

Available for consultation on:
- building multiplayer in Java/Kotlin
- optimizing Java applications
- microservice architecture
- choosing a technology stack

Company: Game Forest

Areas of expertise:
- publishing mobile casual games on the global market
- metrics and analytics of mobile games
- building development teams and the process of making and releasing games
- game engine development

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- help with publishing mobile games on the global market
- help with setting up analytics and with reading and interpreting metrics
- consulting on how to organize the development of game projects
- taking part in events as an expert (jury, panels, project assessment)
- speaking at events

Company: Earworm, producer and CEO. More than 20 years in game development and game business planning

Areas of expertise:
- mobile games in the survival, RPG and action-slasher genres
- PC games in the card battler and simulator genres
- product analytics and managing the game economy
- teaching game disciplines (SkillFactory, Innopolis University)
- crisis management of game teams at early and late stages of production

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- crisis management of products and teams
- writing a detailed business plan for a game
- mobile game development (midcore)
- outsourced animation

Company: CREEX TEAM, founder and head

Areas of expertise:
- setting up and running project development of game and IT products
- backend development in C# of high-load distributed services
- designing and growing project architecture

Preferred formats of cooperation:
- speaking at events
- comment for the media on the current state of the market
- advisory support for developers (marketing, development and so on)
- one-to-one consultations for developers, CTOs and systems analysts

Available for consultation on:
- consulting on team management and the organization of development
- consulting on gamification
- building and designing procedural generation algorithms in games
- microservice architecture and the optimization of C#/Unity projects