Press release -
Google and MY.GAMES Venture Capital Launch EMEA Accelerator Programme for Video Game Developers
18 November 2020: Google and international gaming brand MY.GAMES (part of Mail.ru Group) today announced a joint accelerator programme, titled Game Drive, for promising mobile game studios and projects.
Developers have until Friday 8 January 2021 to submit proposals for consideration. From those submissions, the most promising projects will be selected by a panel of Google and MY.GAMES experts, who will provide consultation on developing the projects further and scaling them globally. Successful applicants will be invited to an online Demo Day with key stakeholders from MY.GAMES and Google on 28 January 2021, where developers will receive detailed feedback on their projects, in English.
Support will include but not limited to:
- Expert assessment of a project and analysis of its business potential
- Consulting and recommendations for product improvement
- Networking and access to the MY.GAMES ecosystem and the company’s internal training projects
- Google experts’ evaluation of the project, focused on launching in international markets
- Opportunity to be considered for investments by MY.GAMES
Initially, the accelerator programme is open to studios across Western Europe, Russia and the CIS region, Turkey, Israel, the Middle East, and Africa. To submit a project and to read the terms and conditions, developers should head to http://mgvc.com/gamedrive.
The Game Drive marks the first collaboration project between Google and MY.GAMES. Throughout 2021, both parties will work towards expanding the scope of Game Drive to more territories, and develop further initiatives aimed at different types of game developers.
“Mobile game development is an extremely competitive market and an idea alone is often not enough to acquire users,” commented Ilya Karpinsky, MGVC Managing Director, MY.GAMES CSO. “By launching this accelerator and building a partnership with Google, we hope to provide an unprecedented programme for mobile game developers across Europe by providing support and expertise from two of the largest players in the market. This is the first stage of our partnership and we hope to announce more initiatives in the future.”
Meir Brand, VP EMEA Emerging Markets, Google: “There's huge creativity in the fast-growing gaming industry. We hope that this accelerator programme with MY.GAMES Venture Capital will support talented and promising app developers in Western Europe and other countries, helping them to grow and go global, while continuing working from their home countries."
Notes to editors
The expert evaluation of the MGVC project and Google includes:
MGVC:
Comprehensive project evaluation covers all aspects of game development, including product analysis (audience and business metrics), game design, monetization, interface design, launch and promotion strategy. Experts will tell you what elements developers should pay attention to. Also, during the evaluation process, the MGVC team will analyze the most important product and marketing indicators of products (Retention Rate, % PU, ARPPU, LTV, CPI) and share market benchmarks that will allow you to objectively assess the current state of the project.
Google:
Top selected gaming titles (“soft launch” stage passed) and their studios will be eligible to receive one of a kind, tailored 360 degree title review conducted by Google experts. This includes evaluation of game content and mechanics, business metrics as well as users' audience and developer team capabilities in order to enable global launch success. The program does not cover any type of commercial promotion or preferential ranking on Google platforms.
Categories
About MGVC:
MGVC, the investment division of MY.GAMES, was launched in 2017. The goal of the investment division is to search for international promising developments in the gaming industry and promote the expansion of products to the global market. Over the past three years, the MGVC team has processed more than 1,000 applications and offers for cooperation, closing more than 30 deals. BIT.GAMES, SWAG MASHA, Panzerdog, BeIngame, and Deus Craft studios are examples of successful consolidation in previous years. Since the third quarter of 2019, SWAG MASHA Studio has increased its quarterly revenue by 1.7 times thanks to its game Love Sick: Interactive Stories, which was included in the top 5 of all MY.GAMES games in the second quarter of 2020. The game Zero City from BeIngame Studio was included in the top 5 mobile games of the brand for the second quarter. Tacticool (Panzerdog) and Guild of Heroes (BIT.GAMES) also occupy leading positions in the MY.GAMES portfolio, being in seventh and eighth places, respectively, in terms of revenue among the brand's mobile games for the second quarter of 2020.
About MY.GAMES:
MY.GAMES is an international gaming brand (part of Mail.ru Group) and a leading online entertainment company. MY.GAMES comprises 11 regional offices in Russia, Europe and the US, over 1,800 staff, and 13 development studios. MY.GAMES creates titles for the PC, consoles, and mobile devices. The company operates over 80 projects, with more than 150 titles in its portfolio including War Robots, Hustle Castle, Left to Survive, Skyforge, and Allods Online. MY.GAMES portfolio includes renowned titles like Warface, ArcheAge, Perfect World, Revelation Online, Conqueror's Blade, Lost Ark, and more.
About Google:
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998. Since then, the company has grown to employ more than 50,000 people worldwide. It offers users access to a variety of popular platforms and services, such as Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Chrome, and YouTube, as well as extensive advertising opportunities. In October 2015, Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet. To learn more about the Alphabet mission, follow thislink.
