Modern heroes do not come from Hollywood – How did Serbian companies conquer the world with their video games?

Parents who ban their kids from playing games can thus make huge mistake since it might be their kids’ potential occupation which can bring them planetary success. We are witnesses that video games as programmers’ hobby became a serious entertainment industry which is more popular even than the powerful Hollywood.

Hundreds of million people worldwide spend hours playing Candy Crush Saga and its creator, King Digital Entertainment, will soon become a new hit at the stock exchange market. Thus the biggest IPO in IT industry after Facebook, will come from the entertainment industry because King announced that the step onto the stock market will total USD 7, 6 billion.

Nordeus which launched Facebook game Top Eleven Manager is the best example that Serbian companies can achieve global success. According to Milan Djukic, PR Manager at Nordeus, the company was set in 2010 as an idea to offer millions of players something unseen so far – a video game for Facebook and mobile phones which have complexity featured only in advanced PCs and playing consoles. A small team of less than 10 people grew into Nordeus today is a leading company in the sphere of entertainment software development in this part of Europe with over 150 staff. Last year the company opened offices in San Francisco, Skoplje and Dublin.

- When developing Top Eleven, we used many innovations and unseen things so far such as true inter-platform support and an option to play the game on any platform - Facebook, computer, mobile phone or tablet and to continue the game on any platform which you started on some other platform. This as well as numerous other technological innovations, contributed to more intensive cooperation with Facebook which at the same time contributed to the fact that Nordeus becomes one of the main Facebook partners at the word level – Djukic says and adds that a few weeks ago, they started with the closed beta testing of the second title, Sportster for which all the interested players can apply for.

As our collocutor says, Nordeus takes care about its employees and their satisfaction which is the main reason they won the best employer award in the region for 2012.

- First of all, we pay special attention to compliance of all ergonomic standards when it comes to working environment, chairs and tables. All the staff chooses their own work equipment – computers, monitors, keyboard, mouse…. Special rest and entertainment rooms with the latest consoles, pool and similar are also provided with everyday breakfast and lunh and unlimited quantities of drinks and candies. We would like to point out private health insurance, car wash and laundry service as well along with competitive monthly income. The entire company goes on team building twice a year and the working hours are flexible.

(Photo: Nordeus arhiva)

This way Nordeus showed that employee satisfaction is the crucial success indicator. Djukic thinks that every company which launched its video game is a successful start-up in the gaming field because all of us contribute to video games scenes development in Serbia and once more demonstrate big talent which exists in this region.

Success arrives after the first unsuccessful project

Founders of Novi Sad-based Eipix Entertaiment proved that they also have their joker. In 2005, a couple of enthusiasts set up the company and, as Mirko Topalski says, without any funds, they started producing their first game - Pyroblazer.

- It took us three years of constant work to finish and launch it to the market. After that, we did outsourcing for two years because we were not satisfied with our game’s success and did not want to work on something which did not seem be unprofitable. During the outsourcing time, we worked for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubi Soft and many other smaller publishers and developers. In 2011, we stopped operating the outsourcing field when we encountered the American publisher, Big Fish Games with which we entered into great cooperation in the casual games field – Topalski whose company has 140 employees today, says.

Currently the most successful Eipix’s project is Hidden Expedition Smithsonian Hope Diamond, done in cooperation with Smithsonian Institution which is one of the national symbols of America and the biggest museum in the world.

- Cooperation emerged through a traditional way, i.e. we were looking for partners and visited fairs abroad and when Big Fish Games saw our work on our first game for them (Final Cut) they decided to give us more trust which resulted in the fact that we are the second company in size which produces HOPA games (Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure) –Topalski says.

Eipix is currently producing one to two games per month which is probably one of the most aggressive tempos in the gaming anywhere. A collocutor of our portal says that now they are facing the biggest change and challenge because this year they want to launch the first free to play game (free to play - F2P)and to slowly expand on that market as well.

(Photo: Eipix.com)

Heroes from Belgrade on their way to conquer the world

When last July a small group of video games fans from Belgrade stepped into an ambitious project called Awakening of Heroes (AoH), no one thought that it will become a true hit in the region months before its official promotion.

Awakening of Heroes is the first domestic MOBA game (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and is currently in the prototype stage and Alpha testing should start in late March. A small team from of great video games fans from Belgrade, gathered in the Cofa Games, should be credited for its set up. The game will be free to play and it can be played anywhere where there is Internet connection at any time. One of the basic ideas of Cofa Games teams is to connect exciting MOBA world with the fans of simple browser games.

- As the demand for online games which are more complex, dynamic and exciting than typical Facebook genres and which on the other hand will not be too demanding to play, grows, we decided to offer mid solution to fans through advance technologies usage – Nikola Mitic, Cofa Games team leader.

Although during the last couple of years, IT sector in Serbia is developing which caused expert staff deficit, Nikola Mitic succeeded in motivating young, super-talented programmers to join him offering them a unique opportunity in this field – participation in MOBA game development.

- You have an innovative idea, enthusiasm essential for the implementation and you are willing to spend all of your free time on it. Ok, this is an easier part on the way to success. You need more than a year to find the right people among the deficit IT staff in Serbia, motivate them to indulge into an interesting but also risky and stressful multi-year game production process. You make a team which will not tear apart after the first creative crisis. You are ready to knock on all the doors necessary so that your project is not considered to be an anonymous. At the end, you should not forget the luck factor. If you did not deserve it, take it on loan – this is a formula which Cofa Games team uses trying to make an innovative video game, Awakening of Heroes, competitive at the world market.

(Awakening of Heroes)

Genre which stepped into huge expansions attracted over 80 million players worldwide which is why large companies observe it and there is an increasing number of tournaments with big award funds. It is necessary to offer a lot more than simple copy of some of the most popular MOBA games in order to launch a competitive product which will be unique among a bunch of similar games, Cofa Games representatives think and believes that they mostly succeeded in it. A large interest of players at social networks as well as the fact that it was ranked among 12 most innovative projects in Serbia for 2014 proves the fact that its potential has already been recognized in an early developmental stage on social networks.

After encounter with video games fans in Serbia and region, Belgrade heroes expect penetration at the world scene where the breakthrough to the American and Asian virtual space will definitely be the biggest challenge and the best quality indicator.

Creativity and enthusiasm with non-stop work are the secret of success of domestic gaming start-ups which, together with partners, succeeded in penetrating the world market, our collocutors agree.

Irina Milosevic