We continue the cycle of articles ( part 1 ) about the history of the gaming market and publish the second part. Today we will talk about the history of the development of the market for gaming consoles and multiplayer games.

Console wars

The formation of the market of consoles began at the very beginning of the 1990s. Prior to this, television set-top boxes (as they were called because of the signal receiver used) were quite rare on the territory of the USSR.

The first truly mass products that appeared on the domestic market of consoles were the prefixes Dendy and Dendy Junior, completely copied from the Japanese Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). For the global market, these consoles were already outdated, since back in 1990, Nintendo introduced SNES.
')


However, for the domestic market, even the appearance of consoles of not the latest generation was already better than nothing. Due to the simplicity of the electronic filling and production, the domestic market almost instantly flooded copies of Dendy from Asia: Panasonix, Sany, Akaiwa ...

Until the mid-nineties, the market was divided into three price segments: the budget Dendy and clones, the medium price Sega (Genesis or Megadrive) and the expensive Super Nintendo. The players' units had 32-bit consoles, which can be attributed to the conventional luxury segment. The most famous representative of this category was the Panasonic 3DO, which uses a CD as its carrier.





The balance of power changed dramatically in 1994, when the Japanese Sony entered the world market, presenting its vision of console entertainment. In Russia, a new console, called the Sony PlayStation, began to gain popularity in 1997–1998, when the popular “craftsmen” launched a massive release of pirated versions of games, and the gradually stabilizing economic situation allowed gamers to actively acquire the console itself.



Competitors have taken several relatively successful steps in an attempt to change Sony’s actual monopoly position in the console market. However, the stormy start of some competing consoles (above all, the Sega Dreamcast) was followed by stagnation and withdrawal from the market. Most often this was due to a small library of games (compared to the huge collection of Sony) and a high price in retail.

The turning point of the situation occurred in 2001 when the software giant Microsoft entered the console entertainment market and introduced the Xbox console. Enlisting the support of many leading game developers, as well as releasing exclusive hit projects (HALO, Gears of War), Microsoft was able to make Sony worthy competition in the global market. Nevertheless, in Russia, the primacy of the Japanese console remained undeniable. In 2000, the Sony PlayStation 2 came out: in Russia, the launch was supported by substantial advertising budgets and release of games in Russian. However, it is necessary to take into account the fact that until the mid-2000s almost all games for Sony consoles in Russia were pirated products. The much higher price for licensed games and a wide range of counterfeit goods played a significant role in capturing the dominant market share by the Japanese manufacturer of gaming consoles.





The next stage of the struggle for the consumer is from 2005 to 2007, when the main participants of the console market released new generations of their devices. In the spring of 2007, Nintendo re-entered the Russian market, presenting its unusual Wii solution, the Sony PlayStation 3 was launched in March, and in December 2007, the official Russian sales of the Xbox 360 were launched.







In 2012, the Wii U prefix appeared on the Russian market, and a year later, the Sony Playstation 4 and its main competitor, the Xbox One.







Now almost the entire Russian market is occupied by the PlayStation 3 and only a small part belongs to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Apart from the console entertainment market, there are mobile (portable) gaming devices that have experienced a boom since the mid-2000s. Leaders in this market, as well as in the market of "big" consoles, were Japanese products manufactured by Nintendo and Sony - Nintendo DS (later DSi and 3DS) and PlayStation Portable. At the same time, the PSP significantly surpasses the competing device Nintendo in popularity in Russia.

The development of multiplayer games

Computer games, where participants were offered to fight not only against artificial intelligence, but also with a living opponent, have existed for a long time - almost from the moment the first game programs appeared in the middle of the 20th century. However, as a rule, the number of participants was limited and rarely exceeded the number of computers in the local network (this type of multiplayer games is called “networked”). In such networks (first of all, university ones) MUD (multi-user dungeon) were born - in fact, one of the first multiplayer games.



Most often, such games were created on the basis of Dungeons & Dragons, and had a clear fantasy orientation (in Russia, representatives of MUD were Adamant games, Mir Merlin and others).

In addition, it is worth mentioning the games based on the principle of play by email (PBEM), which were classic games "by correspondence", but using e-mail (projects Galaxy Plus, Atlantis, VGA Planets, etc.). The growth and decline in the popularity of such methods of collective game correlated with the penetration of the Internet in Russia. A kind of alternative to the Internet in the 1990s was the free FidoNet network (only a PC and a modem were required - there was no subscription fee). The highest point of FidoNet popularity was 1996–1997.



At about the same time, relatively inexpensive dial-up access began to spread widely, which had a positive effect on the growth dynamics of Internet penetration.

The turning point for the entire market, including the Russian segment, was the emergence of the Ultima Online (UO) gaming universe, which was created by Origin Systems based on a large number of single-player Ultima games. Thus, 1997 can be taken as a point of reference, when Ultima Online game servers (“shards”) became available to players all over the world. Interest is maintained periodically appearing additions that expand the game world. So, in 2010, add-on Adventures on the High Seas was released. However, it is important to note that UO has never officially entered the domestic market. The vast majority of players used free pirated servers, and the share of users of the licensed version of the game with a monthly subscription fee was at the level of statistical error.



Other landmark projects that gained wide popularity in Russia were Korean Ragnarok Online, Lineage II (in Russia it is most often called the “Line”, and its popularity scenario in our country repeated the story of Ultima Online), Eve Online and World of Warcraft (WoW) . The latter is one of the most popular multiplayer games (about 10 million subscribers, according to Activision Blizzard).









In Russia, the explosive growth in popularity of multiplayer games began with the advent of the new millennium. The first significant project in the country was the "Fight Club", officially launched in spring 2002. According to the creators themselves, in fact, the project was the first browser game of this type in the world and, last but not least, the first game that demonstrated the way of making serious money. The very idea of ​​monetization, which is remarkable, did not come from the owners of the game, but from the users. The project administrators were approached by players who offered to create special gaming accessories for a certain amount, as well as to “pump” (improve the characteristics) of the characters. Later this initiative was continued in the form of an auction. The Fight Club project has become an important milestone in the formation of the market also because many of those who are actively engaged in the development and publishing of MMO games have “grown up” in it.



The first domestic client MMO game was "Sphere", released by NIKITA ONLINE in 2003 together with 1C. In 2004, this game was recognized as the best multiplayer game at the Gameland Awards, and in 2005, the same title was given to the continuation of "Sphere: The World of the Chosen."



In 2006, IT Territory studio launched the game Legend: Legacy of Dragons. The game quickly gained popularity: from 2007 to 2011, Legend was one of the top ten leaders of the popular vote of the Runet Prize, and in 2010 and 2011 led the hit parade (in 2011 with World of Tanks, which will be discussed later ). In addition, the project was successful not only in Russia - in 2008 the release of the game took place in the UK and Germany, and in 2009 Legend entered the PRC market. At the moment, the game is also launched in Poland, Turkey, Spain, Italy, France, and the number of users registered in the game exceeds 8 million people worldwide.



The studio itself IT Territory at the end of 2007 merged with Astrum Nival (formerly Nival Online) and Time Zero, forming the holding Astrum Online Entertainment. In 2008, the composition of the holding company entered the DJ Games. In 2009, a merger of the holding and Mail.Ru Group took place (after the Mail.Ru Group acquired 100% of the shares), as a result of which the gaming unit of Mail.Ru Group was formed. In the same year, an open beta testing of the first game project developed by Mail.Ru Group - Allods Online began. In October 2010, the official launch of the project. At the moment, there are about 9 million registered users in the world. The very same universe "Allods" was first introduced to the gaming community in the late 90s. Successful Allods: Seal of Mystery and Allods 2: Lord of Souls were also released with a minimum interval. In addition, games have become popular not only in Russia, but also abroad.



Another outstanding game project in the domestic market is Perfect World (more than 7 million registrations), developed in China (publisher and operator in Russia - Mail.Ru Group). This RPG is more socialized: for example, in PW, you can enter into game marriages between participants.



No less significant for the MMO games industry was the release of the game World of Tanks (among the users - “Tanchiki”). The project is developed and developed by Wargaming Studio. The game quickly gained popularity and has become one of the fastest growing projects on the market. One of the achievements (the maximum number of players online on one server - 190541) fell into the Guinness Book of Records.



It is worth noting that the emergence of this game made it possible to attract many users to online games, who were previously frightened off by the seemingly difficult fantasy settings and the need to play for a long time. World of Tanks offered a session type of game that made the gameplay more casual and, therefore, sought after by the average user.



In 2012, Warface was launched online. It was developed by the Ukrainian studio of the German company Crytek and published by Mail.Ru Group in the spring of 2012. The game is positioned as an online AAA class shooter, and in two months the game recorded more than 2 million registrations.