During the digital gamescom 2020, we at MeinMMO were able to conduct an interview with Victor Kislyi, the CEO of Wargaming. Read here what the head of the tank game developer World of Tanks says about his game and its audience, as well as what he experiences when he plays himself.
In our Gamescom interview with Victor Kislyi, MeinMMO author Jürgen Horn talked about the history of the company Wargaming, who plays World of Tanks, and what Victor does in his private life. And how he deals with players who insult him for what they perceive as failed updates in the game.
The interview started with questions about the company and the typical players of World of Tanks.
Wargaming and World of Tanks
How large is Wargaming actually? Wargaming started as a small studio in Minsk and has since become an international company based in Cyprus. Currently, according to Victor, over 5,000 employees work for Wargaming, distributed across 17 locations worldwide.
The moments when things didn’t go well: Next, I wanted to know if Wargaming ever had problems before it became a successful global company. And indeed, before World of Tanks became a hit, things didn’t look promising:
Before World of Tanks, it was never certain whether we would survive in the long run. We created a game, released it, received some money from the publisher and from sales. And then it went back to zero. We developed games for 13 years before World of Tanks. And every day I wondered: ‘Are we earning enough money to pay our salaries at the end of the month?’ We often didn’t know what would happen tomorrow.
World of Tanks was developed in 18 months: The big breakthrough came with World of Tanks, and Victor is grateful that his employees stayed loyal to him for so long:
We were like old comrades from the trench. They stayed with us, even though there were better jobs in Minsk at that time. That showed me that they really loved what they did, that they wanted to make this kind of games that we developed at Wargaming. When we then had the idea for World of Tanks, the whole team was well motivated and organized. And we created the entire game in 18 months!
Who plays World of Tanks?
Next, I wanted to know what kind of players actually play WoT and how the preferences of the communities differ globally. To the latter question, Victor had the following answer:
All regions are somehow different. You can see that in the movies and music that people like. And also in games. We first published the game in the former Soviet Union. No publisher wanted to distribute the game, so we did it ourselves in the regions where Russian was spoken. And it worked very well. And that was partly due to tanks.
Men in general like tanks. And Russians particularly love tanks. This also applies to Eastern Europe like Poland and Germany. Many World of Tanks players are found there. In America, however, it’s not the same. This might be because Americans weren’t involved in such large tank battles in WWII [as Russia and Germany]. So yes, there are differences in preferences worldwide, but they all play and enjoy the same game.
Who is actually the typical WoT player? Victor had a humorous answer to this, as he immediately pointed at me and confidently said: ‘He looks like you!’
He then explained:
[The typical player] is a man who has children and is about 40 to 45 years old. He is married or in a relationship, he has a job. He could be a teacher, firefighter, or police officer, typical male professions. He is engaged in both work and family life, he might have a house or an apartment, a dog…
Committed people who have achieved something in life, both in family and work. And then he needs to have the opportunity to free up a few hours each week to play World of Tanks. To escape from everyday life for a while and perhaps play with his buddies. And then drive around and blow things up.”
Well, except for the fact that I’m still just under 40 and don’t have a dog, he accurately hit the target as a typical audience for World of Tanks.
World of Tanks and women?
Why only men as the target audience? According to Victor, men seem to be the typical target audience. So I asked him whether this was intentional or if they also wanted to attract women to the game:
So far, we haven’t introduced anything in the game to specifically attract women. Well, the game isn’t glorifying violence; we only show destroyed vehicles and no corpses. But for some reason, girls don’t find World of Tanks interesting as a game. And there’s nothing we can do about it.
However, since there are indeed individual female players in WoT, I wanted to know if there are any statistics:
It’s probably around 95 to 98 percent [male players]. There are really only very few ladies in the game. It’s a male hobby. It’s like fishing. I don’t know why so few women do it. But they don’t! They simply don’t find it interesting or worthwhile. I don’t know. And they are allowed to see it that way! But World of Tanks is predominantly a hobby for men.
Victor Kislyi only makes “suggestions”
This is how Victor is involved in game design: It’s obvious that Victor loves his game World of Tanks. But to what extent is he still involved in development as the head of a global company?
I programmed a long time ago, but at a basic level. I haven’t done that in a long time. But I consider myself a game designer. I was actively involved in earlier titles from Wargaming. However, I was no longer the lead designer for World of Tanks. But I have played it consistently and have made suggestions and comments here and there. And I still do that. I make suggestions and participate in brainstorming sessions. But I don’t actively lead any projects.
I’ve learned to formulate my excellent ideas in the form of advice. So I go to the tank guys or the ship guys and say, ‘Hey, I have this and that idea, what if you do this.’ Then we have a discussion. And if possible, they say they will do it. Or they logically explain to me why it can’t be done. Because not every one of my ideas is actually good in the end.
This is the game Victor would like to develop: As a child, Victor had fun with a text-based strategy game called “Kingdom,” which ran on an ancient computer in his father’s lab. However, his favorite game, which he extensively played in his youth, is Civilization. After Wargaming had already released a similar game with Masters of Orion, my next question was whether Victor would take over Civilization if it were ever for sale?
Something tells me that Firaxis [the company behind Civilization] is doing very well right now and Civilization is currently their strongest brand. And I really don’t know whether I could make Civilization better, to be honest. At most in terms of AI. You can simply see that it sometimes makes stupid moves. And then it secretly cheats behind the Fog of War.
If you play for 20 rounds and then reload and play more aggressively or less aggressively, you will notice that the AI has adapted and is about on par. That I find somewhat frustrating because I feel punished for playing effectively. But I can also overlook that and enjoy the game.
When an update goes poorly, the boss gets the hate
The boss plays himself: In an earlier interview, Victor once stated that he still enjoys playing World of Tanks himself, but on the Russian live server and under his real name, so that everyone knows it’s him. I then asked him if he still does this:
Of course, I always play under my real name, “VictorKis.” I have been doing this for years and have dozens upon dozens of tanks. I must have fought around 15,000 battles. But I’m probably not the best player on the server. And yes, the Russian players see my name, and of course, they can contact me.
If the last update was good, they say things like, ‘Thank you, keep it up, I like your work, WoT forever!’
If the last update didn’t go over well, then they say… okay, I cannot repeat those words here. Let’s just say, ‘they express their disappointment in rude ways.’
Often they also say what specifically bothers them. So I always have a good sense of the mood in the World of Tanks community on the Russian server.
These are the consequences of fan criticism: I could easily imagine what “rude words” the poor Victor must have heard from upset fans. I then wanted to know if he takes that personally and how he deals with the criticism:
“If I had taken that personally over the years, I would have been in a madhouse a long time ago! But somehow it does get to me personally. Because then I go to my developers and ask them why we made an update that disappointed and angered people?”
So if an update results in fans berating Victor in the game, that will probably reach the design team. However, Victor also explained to me that he is not the only “thermometer” measuring the mood in the community. There are various people, such as community managers, who keep an eye on player sentiment.
But if something is unanimously perceived as problematic, Wargaming is also determined not to do it again:
“We shouldn’t do anything ‘not good’ again. We should only make outstanding things.”
More interviews with Victor: In another interview, Victor explained which two things in World of Tanks were ‘not so good’ and why. These mainly dealt with the notorious updates Rubicon and a bug that made the game unplayable on weak computers. You can find all about these disasters in our article on MeinMMO.
