The word "slot" in World of Tanks refers to a free space in the hangar for placing a new tank. If you buy a premium tank, a free “slot” is already included with the tank.

Level 10 light tanks have been removed. 5 level 10 LT units in World of Tanks have undergone changes at once.

The minimum level for premium class tanks is level 2. We will talk about this technology below. In total, World of Tanks features 9 tanks of this category. In terms of nations, second-tier premium tanks are represented by five countries, including the USSR, Germany, USA, Great Britain and Japan. The remaining four nations do not yet have level 2 premiums in WOT. The main characteristics are presented in the table (below).

World of Tanks is a multiplayer online computer game. From the name of the game itself, one can correctly conclude that this project is dedicated to tanks.

The point is that when playing on art in World of Tanks and having already been destroyed in battle, the damage inflicted on allies is incorrectly taken into account.

In the WoT 9.20 update, the “General Battle” mode will become available, which will complement the variety of types of battles in the “Random Battle” mode.

As you know, light tanks of level 10 have appeared in the world of tanks. What exactly will the new “fireflies” be like? What characteristics will LT 10 have? Which tank will be the most powerful and which will be the fastest? Which combat vehicle is the most armored and which is the strongest? We will try to answer all these questions right now. We present to your attention the final tactical and technical characteristics of all tier 10 tanks presented in World of Tanks.

We have collected statistical data from World of Tanks for all combat vehicles presented in the game.

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The implementation of two branches of Swedish tanks in WOT 9.18 is very difficult for developers. This is all due to the division of control into high-level tank destroyers. When using the shooting mode on the Strv 103-0 level 9 vehicle, the Swedes have repeatedly (!) noticed the combat vehicle model slipping through the textures. Perhaps this is connected with this combat unit. Now the “texturizers” are rejoicing. As you know, the problem with tanks getting into textures in World of Tanks is not isolated. There were even cases of the tank sagging and getting stuck in the terrain, in rocks, buildings, and even just in the ground. When the tank is in textures, any hits to it do not cause any damage.

Exclusive, detailed list of changes in World of Tanks update version 9.15. List of modified equipment, technical changes.

The world-famous game “World of Tanks” is classified as a client-based online multiplayer network game that takes place in real time. It is a simulator of tank battles, made in accordance with specific historical events: World War II. The concept of the game is based on team tank battles, using vehicles of the corresponding period in PVP mode.

Due to the fact that the game has gained enormous popularity, it is a sin for regular users not to know about who created the game world of tanks

Let's take a little history. It all started with a small company engaged in the development and implementation of websites, stores and other Internet resources, opened in 1998. The entrepreneur of this company, Victor Kisly, was an ardent fan of games, which influenced the change in the further emphasis on the work of the company. Despite the fact that the very first developments did not yield fruitful success, the company continued to develop developments in this area.

Discussion of the situation led to the decision to create a kind of analogue of the Korean game, in which naval battles, gradual upgrades of ships and much more were fought. Only in the company’s new game, it was decided to replace those same ships with everyone’s favorite tanks.

A huge number of new personnel were brought in for development. Simultaneously with the creation of the game itself, the development of servers, a website, forums and other resources was carried out.

Belarus is considered the birthplace of the game - it was in this country that the company called “Wargaming.net” was located.

Development began in 2008 and was officially announced in April of the following year.

It is impossible to say for sure who created the game world of tanks. A huge number of specialists worked on the project and listing all the names would take a lot of time.

All participants made a huge contribution to the creation. The alpha test took place already in 2009. In 2010, a beta test took place and it lasted exactly four months, during which the developers already quite adequately filled the game with a wide variety of equipment and several different locations.

On August 12 of the same year, the official online release had already taken place, but due to technical problems, users were able to fully immerse themselves in the game only the next day. But despite this, the developers can undoubtedly be praised, because the main thing is that they are not going to stop there to this day.

Most often it is replenished with products created by developers from the United States of America, large European countries or Japan. But it is worth noting that even not very large states are capable of creating games that reach the whole world. In our article we will answer the question in which country the World of Tanks game was created. Many people ask this question, so today this game is known and popular. The article will also provide information about the interesting features of this online game.

A few words about the game

World of Tanks is an online game. Its genre is defined as having a historical setting. It was announced on August 12, 2010. The entire gameplay takes place in a simulated time period of 1941-1945.

The business model of this product is free-to-play. This means that anyone can register, download the client and play the game itself without any forced costs. This has caused some unfair situations between those who buy additional weapons or equipment and those who play without donating.

However, in 2013, those who created the game World of Tanks announced a change in the system. From now on, the model will stick to the free-to-win type. This means there is absolutely no difference in benefits between those who buy something and those who play without spending real currency. This change has led to the fact that the number of victories and defeats depends only on the skill level of the player himself.

Gameplay

• immediately after launch, the player is “thrown” into a general battle, without training in single-player mode;
• the beginner has at his disposal one copy of the tank from each gaming nation (USA, USSR, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and some other countries);
• By taking part in battle, the player earns in-game currency, crews train, and experience points are accumulated, allowing access to new equipment.

Creators

So who came up with the game World of Tanks? This product is owned by a private company called Wargaming.net. It is listed as a publisher and game developer, developing near-game services on various platforms. Where was the game World of Tanks created?

This development company was organized in Belarus (Minsk). The headquarters is located in the Republic of Cyprus.

History of the creation of World of Tanks

The Wargaming.net studio was founded back in 1998. At that time she was not well known, but very promising. Then she was involved in improvements to third-party clients, game releases and other similar work.

However, luck came from where we didn’t expect it. The engine of the people who created the game World of Tanks, called AdRevolver, designed for displaying banner advertisements, turned out to be interesting to BlueLithium. She did online advertising.

It started on December 12, 2008. The developers faced a serious question: they had a large amount of money, the desire to create a worthwhile gaming product, and most importantly, the developments of an online game in the fantasy genre. As a result, after several hours of discussion, the developers made a decision: to abandon the fantasy idea and move on to working on a product, the working title of which was “Tankodrome”.

It is worth noting that those who created the World of Tanks game spent quite a long time trying to attract any serious investors to work on the game. It’s interesting that if the company had worked on the original “science fiction”, the search would have been easier. This is explained by the fact that many knew and trusted the elves.

And yet Wargaming.net continued to work on their idea. The results became noticeable within a few months. In April 2009, the official announcement of the product took place. September was the month when alpha testing was launched. At that time, players were offered to try 5 different tank models on an unfinished map.

A further update followed in 2010. The first closed test of the game was released in winter. In the spring of the same year, the game added the ability to upgrade vehicles using experience points. And in the summer of the same year, open beta testing was announced.

And finally, on August 12, 2010, the release took place. It is worth noting that if at the very beginning of the development of those who created the World of Tanks game, they were subjected to ridicule from not only players, but also investors, but now they are one of the most famous companies in the gaming world. It is worth noting that the launch of the project was not as easy as it could have been. The unusual setting attracted more and more interested players each time. This, in turn, led to the fact that the servers with the game crashed quite often, unable to withstand the influx of players.

Game updates

In the first month of 2011, it "passed" the 1 million player mark overall, as well as the 75,000 online user mark, which was a huge number at the time. The game began to gain popularity in China, the USA and Great Britain, winning a sufficient number of awards that same year, including the prestigious “Runet Award”.

This dedication has paid off. In December 2014, the bar of 1 million concurrent online users was surpassed. And at the moment, more than 80 million users have registered in the game.

Global update

On March 20, 2018, the developers presented the first large-scale update numbered 1.0. Generally speaking, it brought a new sound system and graphics to the game. Talking in more detail, it is worth noting the following elements: graphics engine, performance, music, system requirements.

Changing the graphics engine

In this update, the creators switched from the old BigWorld engine, which limits the introduction of new technologies into the code, to the improved Core. Its development was tailored specifically for World of Tanks. The engine has the ability to introduce new technological settings.

It also makes it possible to use modern effects and technologies that improve the game's graphics, making it more realistic. Many different environmental details have been added to the maps to enhance the level of immersion in the game.

Elements such as weather conditions changing depending on the time of year have been changed when the player moves from a summer or autumn map to a winter map. Improved quality and intensity of sunlight. The visualization of destruction has also undergone changes.

Changing performance settings

The following improvements have appeared:

• the interface has been optimized;
• change in track calculations;
• improvement of the vegetation model system;
• increased level of detail;
• particle system optimization.

Music

The compositions have been completely reworked. Among those who came up with the game World of Tanks were composers. They wrote and added more than 60 new tracks. Each map is assigned its own unique soundtrack. Loading screen tones have been updated to match the map region. Each action also had its own sounds and tracks written.

Minimum System Requirements

Initially, the game was not too demanding due to the rather outdated engine. But at the moment, after the release of a new update and an increase in the quality of not only the picture, but also the mechanics themselves, it has become more demanding. In order to run the program, you will need:

• have an operating system Microsoft Windows XP SP3/Vista/7/8/10;
• processor with 2 or more cores with SSE2 technology;
• for stable operation of the game you must have 1.5 GB of RAM when running on Windows XP SP3; for other versions you must have 2 GB of RAM;
• the video adapter must be at least HD X2400 XT 256 MB RAM;
• to install the game, you need to have 36 GB of free space;
• The connection speed to the server should not be lower than 256 Kbps.

To run the game under these conditions, you must have:

• the processor must be at least Intel Core i5;
• for stable operation of the game you must have 4 or more GB of RAM;
• the video adapter must be at least GeForce GTX660 (2 GB)/Radeon HD 7850 (2 GB);
• the system must have DirectX 9.0 or an older version;
• To perform a trouble-free installation, you need 36 GB of free space;

Requirements for ultra settings

If you have a fairly powerful computer or gaming laptop, check out the following startup requirements:

• OS Microsoft Windows 7/8/10 64-bit;
• the processor must be at least Intel Core i5 - 7400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500 X;
• you must have 8 or more GB of RAM;
• the video adapter must be at least GeForce GTX1050ti (4 GB)/Radeon RX 570 (24 GB);
• 55 GB of free space is required to install the product;
• The connection speed to the server should not be lower than 1024 Kbps or higher to ensure stable operation of the voice chat.

World of Tanks is five years old. Just five. During this time, hundreds of millions of people from Russia, China, the USA, Australia and other countries registered in it. This is twice the population of Italy and ten times the population of Belarus. We can say that the multiplayer online game – a bit of a shooter, a bit of a strategy – was formed from three main components: a child’s hobby for modeling, an online simulator about World War II Navy Field and huge letters “The feat of the people is immortal” on Victory Square in Minsk. Wargaming, the company that created World of Tanks, already earns hundreds of millions of dollars from tanks and invests tens of millions in e-sports. GQ tells who and how made “Tanks” and why they were loved all over the world.

Tankers vs Orcs

Four men in a small room discussed weapons for five hours. It was getting stuffy, the old processor was heating up and buzzing louder. Three of them were not averse to a smoke break, but the fourth - he spoke most of all - had difficulty getting onto the stairs: the wheelchair could hardly squeeze through the doorway. Pyotr Bityukov, an economist by training and a historian by vocation, was sitting in a chair; in his hands he was twirling models of Soviet tanks. He changed the turrets, installed more powerful guns, showed where to weld the armor.

Bityukov was just over thirty in 2008. Since birth, he has suffered from a bone development disorder: at the institute he studied by correspondence, and spent his free time at the computer. His room in an apartment on the outskirts of Moscow is filled with history books about the great wars and models of military equipment. Bityukov’s guests are three gamer programmers, the most important one is Viktor Kisly, a strong blond, blood and milk. His Minsk studio was going to release a multiplayer online game in the style of World of Warcraft. Figures of orcs and elves were already ready, campaign plots were being developed. But Bityukov insisted: think about historical accuracy, a short battle, a unique setting, huge prospects. Sour nodded and went home. On the way, I remembered how I met Bityukov. He accidentally wandered onto a site with a test of the first turn-based strategy written by Kisly. I played several games and started giving advice on how to improve the mechanics and how to fix the plot. All comments turned out to be useful.

Viktor Kisly grew up in such scenery: on one important square of Minsk there was a combat T-34 that broke through the front line of German defense in 1944, on another there was a stele with a ruby ​​star. And on the roofs of houses around there is the motto “The feat of the people is immortal.” Not some seasonal slogan for a spring holiday, but solid red letters that have stood since the 1980s. Nothing has been forgotten here, people have never stopped mourning here.

Six months after the gatherings with Bityukov, Kisly came to Moscow again for a conference of computer game developers. The presentation screen lit up, elves and orcs jumped out onto it, chatted, waved axes - the audience was ready to listen about another fantasy quest - suddenly a Soviet tank ran over both of them. Kisly wasted almost a year of studio work and abandoned mythical creatures in favor of real technology.

It was not difficult to persuade the team. Firstly, there were no multiplayer games about tanks on the market; a shooting game with similar mechanics was in Korea, but in it ships fought with each other. Secondly, Kisly’s studio had already made the historical strategy “Operation Bagration”; it did not become widespread, but was popular in its segment. Thirdly, patriotic feelings and the desire to take on an educational mission played a role.

The exhibition audience received the project coldly. They told Kisly: “Players love to associate themselves with a character, who would want to play as a tank?” Bityukov recalls that many doubted. But the first focus testing in late summer 2009 was a triumph, nine months after the idea was born. During this time, Bityukov combed through all the historical books in the house, researched archives in libraries and museums and compiled two trees of tanks - Soviet and German.

The first focus testing in late summer 2009 was a triumph, just nine months after the idea was born.

The developers have outlined a time frame: cars produced from 1930 to 1950 should appear in the game. At the first level, the player receives the simplest light tank in the USSR tree - the MS-1. The better a gamer fights and gains more experience, the more cars he gets access to and can buy with in-game currency. There is no plot in World of Tanks, the user simply selects a map, a country for which he will play, and finds himself in a field among other vehicles - “friends” and “enemies”, usually 15 by 15. “Tanks” is not a banal shooting game, in the game There is a place for tactics and strategy, it is important to create a cohesive team and act together.

To comply with historical facts and make the game according to the laws of physics and ballistics, Kisly brought in experts. Some were hired, others helped on a voluntary basis. The developers wrote about how the collection of material and the process of creating the game were progressing on the company’s website, and also posted photo reports from museums and from the fields of real battles, where they were looking for inspiration and information.

Beta tests began in the spring of 2010, with 200,000 people participating by the end of the summer. The Belarusian company had to increase server capacity several times in order to launch in August. In the first months, several million users registered in World of Tanks. In January 2011, the game was included in the Guinness Book of Records: 100,000 people fought simultaneously on “Tanks.”

Right in the heart

Viktor Kisly spends most of the year in Cyprus. The Wargaming office is located in a two-story manor with openwork balconies near the city park in Nicosia. It’s cramped for hundreds of employees, so in 2013 the company bought a skyscraper under construction nearby for €20,000,000. The design of the 75-meter building is similar to the surface of a giant submarine.

Kisly says: “Minsk was and remains the heart of Wargaming.” They still draw tanks and write code in Belarus, but the financial and legal departments were transferred to Cyprus in 2011 - in an offshore zone it is easier to collect money from players from different countries. Russia and the former Soviet republics bring the company only 50% of revenue, the rest is generated by Europe, Asia and the United States. In general, the company has fourteen offices and branches - there are representative offices in Japan, Australia, the USA and other countries, so the employees hung a canvas in the dining room with the motto: “The sun never sets on Wargaming.”

The company does not disclose financial indicators, but the reputable analytical agency SuperData estimated revenue at $500,000,000 in 2014. In 2013, according to the same agency, it was almost two times lower - $234,000,000. Having earned half a billion, Wargaming became the third Internet company in the CIS, ahead only of Yandex and Mail.ru. The largest gaming company Blizzard Entertainment received revenue of $1,720,000,000 in 2014. Blizzard is more than twenty years old, it has been releasing world-famous franchises - Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and others - and earns only three and a half times more than the Belarusian "Tanks". How did it happen?

The company does not disclose financial indicators, but the reputable analytical agency SuperData estimated revenue at $500,000,000 in 2014.

It was no coincidence that Bityukov came up with the idea of ​​transferring a tank battle to a monitor. About a year before that very meeting with Kisly, he became interested in the Korean Navy Field, an online simulator of battles on warships. The Asian game was designed for generous users; it worked on a pay to win system - the more game currency you invest in upgrading your fleet, the greater your chances of defeating your opponent. Game currency, of course, appeared in exchange for real money. “They’ll play this kind of game for six months and that’s it, but we wanted the player to be hooked for a long time,” Bityukov and Kislyi decided to use a different scheme.

“It was clear to us that the game was for the audience of the CIS countries; not many people here could pay for serious advantages and, in general, they perceived the investment negatively,” Bityukov says that rapid enrichment was not part of Wargaming’s plans, the developers wanted to captivate users with the game, but the opportunity make the upgrade available. About the success of World of Tanks, Viktor Kisly always says: “It took twelve years and a million mistakes to make a hit for a mass audience.”

Who invented

Victor Kisly

The main owner of the Wargaming company (38.5 % belongs to him, 25.5 % belongs to his father Vladimir Kisly, the remaining shares belong to the company’s managers). He graduated from the physics department of BSU, founded the Game Stream studio in 1998, and registered the Wargaming company in the same year. Before creating World of Tanks, Kisly and his team released several online games: DBA Online, Massive Assault, Operation Bagration.

Petr Bityukov

Consultant for Wargaming, author of the idea for World of Tanks. He graduated in absentia with honors from the Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics, then from full-time graduate school there, defended his dissertation on the topic “Modeling pricing problems for electronic training courses in the field of distance learning.” Since childhood, I have been interested in modeling military equipment and history. He took part in the creation of scripts for many games from Game Stream and Wargaming, and was the first historical consultant for World of Tanks.

Cult of authenticity

Kislyi's studio, which turned into Wargaming after the release of World of Tanks, made money for more than ten years mainly by producing websites and software for third-party customers. Bityukov says that by 2008 the company had become one of the leading developers of computer games in the former USSR. The product was cool, but too hardcore, not for a mass audience. At best, it was possible to recoup the costs of its creation. “Tanks” became a real popular hit for three reasons: firstly, the developers made the battle fast and dynamic, secondly, armored vehicles attracted a wide audience - from young people to men over forty, thirdly, players appreciated historical accuracy - the main principle of Wargaming .

The company employs more than twenty historians - most in Minsk, several in Moscow. In 2011, 2012, 2013, a lot of equipment was introduced into the game - 100 tanks per year. The fourth, after the Soviet, German and American, was created by the French tree. They were going to release an American or English one, but historical consultant Yuri Pasholok, a big fan of both armored vehicles and computer games, intervened. He showed French tanks, maneuverable and fast, unlike the vehicles that already existed in the game.

The company employs more than twenty historians - most in Minsk, several in Moscow. In 2011, 2012, 2013, a lot of equipment was introduced into the game - 100-150 tanks per year.

War tanks, the production of which was put on stream, cover only the lower levels of the tree. For high levels, where the armor is stronger and the fighting qualities are better, it was necessary to look for drawings, prototypes, verbal descriptions of experimental models preserved in the minutes of meetings of governments and ministries. Working with museums, libraries and archives of military institutions is not easy; not many are willing to carry out electronic correspondence and send documents by mail; not all exhibits are preserved in their historical form after restoration. To obtain the necessary documents, one had to resort to tricks: exchanging information about their exhibits with museums, asking for support at the state level. To create the American tree, the archive of a deceased armored vehicle researcher from the United States had to be purchased at auction.

The ability to play as China and Japan arose when the game's timeline was expanded to the mid-1960s.

The primacy of authenticity is a cult, maintained by developers and protected by players, because a real-life tank is usually well balanced. It has strengths, such as maneuverability, but also weaknesses, such as light and vulnerable armor. It is not possible to find a tank that is suitable for the level in all cases, and sometimes Wargaming takes liberties - it comes up with the design of the gun or changes the shape of the turret. Passionate fans of the game are not always ready to forgive this. For the "Waffle E-100", a German self-propelled gun of the tenth level, Wargaming is being bullied at every opportunity.

Drawings and other information on rare tanks had to be purchased at auctions and traded with libraries and collectors.

The Waffenträger E-100 appeared in the game in 2013, it became the biggest invention and biggest failure of the game, in which more than 400 vehicles from eight countries are now fighting. Bityukov recalls that an update was about to be released, in which a branch of German anti-tank self-propelled guns appeared. Historical cars were found up to the ninth level, but the tenth stood empty. It was assumed that the coolest self-propelled gun in the branch would have two barrels - multi-barrel vehicles actually existed, but technically it was not possible to implement the idea. Then the developers mounted an anti-aircraft gun with a cassette of several shells onto the tank. In reality, this weapon traveled on a heavy railway platform and would not have fit on a tank. But everything is possible in the game.
The Waffenträger E-100 turned out to be a monster that shot at the cars of other level ten players in a minute (the average duration of a battle in WoT is seven minutes), and could kill an entire platoon in a quarter of an hour.

“In the end, the problem was solved when we established work with the German state archive Bundesarchiv, there we found drawings of a self-propelled gun, which, although it was not built, was suitable for us for the tenth level,” says Bityukov. This case well illustrates the popular saying in Wargaming: “There are never enough tanks, there are never enough archives.”
“My business education is the game “Civilization”, it should be given to everyone who wants to achieve something in life. You are building your empire, essentially your business. You play for two or three weeks, a couple of hours a day, and you start to understand something about economics, politics, armies, research, religion and manufacturing,” says Victor Kisly in Morgan Ramsey’s book “Online Gaming Pioneers at Work” (published in 2015).

Tanks in the morning, money in the evening

Kisly immediately pulled back from the development and design of tanks, entrusting everything to professionals - Muscovites, Bityukov’s friends who were present at the very first meeting - Marat Karpenko and Sergei Burkatovsky. When it became obvious that the game was a success, the head of Wargaming plunged into business processes and set the following task: to create conditions so that the player could spend only a small amount on upgrading equipment. This, firstly, will not provoke subsequent regret about the money spent and abandonment of the game, and secondly, it will force units to develop solely due to the battles won and the experience gained.

Wargaming does not disclose the average amount of payments per player per month; Kisly in an interview with Vedomosti said that it “maybe $25.” But the SuperData agency calculated the revenue per user of World of Tanks ($4.51) and reported that in 2014 this was the best figure among online games. Belarusians beat League of Legends ($1.53) and DOTA2 ($1.32). The closest game to WoT is Valve's Team Fortress2, with $4.36. The strategy of “create a big community so everyone pays a little” worked. Sour calls it free to win.

In 2013, he surprised the entire gaming world by announcing that bonuses that give advantages in battle would become free. He explained the decision this way: now newcomers will not leave the game immediately. Typically, online games that you don’t have to pay to install (free to play) use the following scheme: the more real money you spend in the game, the more benefits you get. After some time, “whales” appear in this model - players who have seriously invested in their account. They seize power, and it is almost impossible for new users to defeat them: as soon as they enter the game, they leave disappointed.

To maintain business growth, Tanks need new players, platforms, and products. In World of Tanks on the desktop, the ceiling is already close. New trees are unlikely to appear - there are no more countries with strong tank forces left, and besides, there is already enough equipment in the game, users greet new vehicles with less enthusiasm than a couple of years ago. Ardent fans of the game recall the developers’ long-standing promise to make a Swedish and Italian tree, but Wargaming remains silent on this matter. Bityukov says the company was toying with the idea of ​​adding amphibious tanks, but then the maps would have to be enlarged so that they would not be visible in their entirety and amphibious vehicles could carry out hidden raids - this is difficult.

Ardent fans of the game recall the developers’ long-standing promise to make a Swedish and Italian tree, but Wargaming remains silent on this matter.

For Americans and Japanese who love consoles more than desktop games, Wargaming released the game on consoles, including Xbox One. Kisly is waiting for this segment to grow, but so far it represents only a percentage of the total number of players.

Finally, Wargaming released two more games - World of Warplanes and World of Warships. The first one did not work out, both developers and players admit this; the planes became unsuccessful clones of tanks. The players appreciated the second one. The mechanics turned out to be new - warships are less maneuverable, you can’t hide in an ambush on them, the battle turned out to be longer, but also with more nuances: whether a ship sinks or survives depends not so much on the fact of the hit, but on what part it was hit enemy. Wargaming says: “Tanks” is also played by those who are already fifty, and they have done something slower for them.

Book of Job

“Oh, we thought you were boring, but you rock,” a mannered guy in a tight white T-shirt shouts into the microphone, hugged from behind by a short-haired blonde in a silver bomber jacket. This Quest Pistols show entertains employees of the Moscow office of Wargaming, gaming video bloggers and popular World of Tanks players at a closed party in a pretentious club on Krymskaya Embankment. Guys with glasses and large backpacks hover rather timidly in front of the stage, several very tall and cheerful girls admit that they came by invitation, but know nothing about the game. Older men with bulging bellies and unbuttoned collars formed a circle in the foyer, discussing Job's new video.

Jov, aka Konstantin Ladanin, is the most authoritative streamer in the “tanker” community. His YouTube channel has two million subscribers. He got into the game in 2011, when he worked in an Internet cafe as an administrator and whiled away his nights playing shooting games. Thanks to videos like “A real cheat for World of Tanks. Why is it worth downloading the T-54? he became a real star in the community: “Now everything about me is interesting. What I eat, where I relax, what my girlfriend looks like,” Ladanin is confident that a large audience can bring him many dividends, and is going to expand his area of ​​interest - to record videos not only about “Tanks”, but also about other games. Ladanin’s channel is one of the top 15 YouTube video blogs in the CIS.

Gamers are a huge community that has long ceased to be marginal. Twitch, a popular online video game streaming service, attracts ten million viewers per day and generates terabytes of content. In 2014, it was bought by the American retail giant Amazon online store for $970,000,000. If there are spectators, there must be spectacles; the gaming industry is actively developing e-sports, and Kisly’s empire is no exception.

Tank League

“Professional sports - and e-sports is no exception - must obey the principles of fair play” - this is another explanation that Kisly gave to the American gaming industry publication Pandodaily when he was asked why Tanks needed a free to win model. Computer game championships attract an audience of millions; this year, sixteen teams from all over the world competed in Dota2; the competition took place in a packed seventeen thousand-seat arena in Seattle. Another five million people watched the live broadcast online. The prize fund - $20,000,000 - is almost eight times less than at the Tour de France cycling race. Such tournaments are the best marketing for game manufacturers; every teenager with a joystick and mouse dreams of being in the place of the winners.

Wargaming also has its own gaming league; it has already held two championships - in 2014 and 2015. Both times the finals were hosted by the Polish town of Poznan, the first time the prize money – $400,000 – went to the Chinese, in October 2015 the Russians won. To develop the e-sports direction, the company hired a Frenchman, Nicolas Passmar. He pays great attention to entertainment and says that first of all, a tournament should have a beautiful stage. So far, for Wargaming, tournaments are only a way to promote and attract new players, primarily from the USA and Asia. In 2015, this is especially important, because due to the difference in exchange rates, revenue in dollar terms dropped. Kisly thinks that e-sports is a new media reality and show business. Star players, he believes, will bring sponsors, content - broadcasts of matches - will provide advertising.

So far, for Wargaming, tournaments are only a way to promote and attract new players, primarily from the USA and Asia.

World of Tanks already has competitors - the tank game Armored Warfare was released by Mail.ru Group, it features modern vehicles (that's why Uralvagonzavod drew attention to the shooter, calling it a training ground for young tankers). The multiplayer game “Tanks Online” by the Perm company “Alternative Platforms” attracts 5,000,000 people. Several tank simulators have been launched in China. Wargaming is not worried about these phenomena; the company already feels like a member of the major league of the gaming industry. “We understand that our numbers are not as impressive as the Dota2 numbers, but we are not inferior in quality,” Passmar says before the start of the tournament. In 2015, the show was visited by twice as many people as in 2014, which means the calculation is correct – the marketing is working.

Last September, Bityukov went on vacation to Cyprus - got a tan, looked at the new Wargaming office, discussed the company's affairs with Kisly and returned home to a new building on the outskirts of Moscow. In his wheelchair, he rolls up to a cabinet with models of three dozen different tanks, looks at them affectionately and talks about each one, carefully pointing to those that his father glued together. From this great childhood love grew Wargaming, a company on which the sun never sets.

7 FACTS ABOUT

1

In 2015, more than 40 thousand teams took part in WoT tournaments. This is six times more than there are football teams in all English leagues.

2

WoT fans have released the book “Gods of War” - 16 science fiction short stories. Circulation – 3700 copies.

3

WoT players fought 1.5 billion battles on the most popular tank, the KV-1S.

4

There are about 1000 provinces on WoT maps.

5

670 birds fly over WoT battlefields. Most of all - over the city of Himmelsdorf - 26; least of all - above the Pass - two eagles.

6

500 thousand women play World of Tanks, which is approximately 2% of the Russian audience.

7

$100 average account price. In 2013, an account was sold on unofficial WoT forums for $7,000. Whether it was purchased is unknown, but there are always deals going on on the WoT black market.

Photo: Gettyimages.ru; Diomedia; press service archives

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Computer game developer. Shareholders: Viktor Kisly (38.5%), Vladimir Kisly (25.5%), Nikolay Katselapov (17%) and Ivan Mikhnevich (17%). Financial indicators (IFRS, 2012): revenue – 217.9 million euros, net profit – 6.194 million euros.

The revenue of Cyprus Wargaming in 2012 amounted to 217.9 million euros, net profit - 6.1 million euros, the company reported in its annual report on the website of the Cyprus Stock Exchange. She made almost all her money from her smash hit, the 3D multiplayer game World of Tanks, in which users battle each other in tanks. The Cypriot company was registered in 2011, it owns the rights to distribute games Wargaming.net, founded in 1998 by physicist and graduate of the Belarusian State University Viktor Kisly. In 2010, Wargaming.net released World of Tanks, which within a couple of years became one of the most popular games in the world with 45 million registered users (as of December 2012). According to the Guinness Book of Records website, on January 21, over 190,000 players connected to the Moscow RU2 server of the World of Tanks game - this is a world record for connections to one server of a multiplayer online game.

At the end of 2012, Wargaming.net is the largest company developing computer games in the territory of the former USSR, admits Internet entrepreneur Igor Matsanyuk, who earned more than $80 million from developing games. The division of multiplayer games Mail.ru Group earned 4.7 in 2012 billion rubles (about $160 million); however, another 6.7 billion rubles. (about $220 million) Mail.ru was brought in by the social networks Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir, but exactly what part of this amount came from games is unclear (a source at Mail.ru says more than half). The revenue of Russia's largest developer of games for mobile devices, Game Insight, amounted to $90 million in 2012.

World of Tanks is a free game that you can play in teams of 15 players each or take part in an ongoing war on a world map.

For victories, players receive “experience” and virtual money, which can be spent on improving tanks. For real $10 per month, players receive 1.5 times more experience and virtual money in battles. You can also use real money to buy more powerful tanks, etc.

When World of Tanks launched at Wargaming.net, everyone believed that the game would become a world-famous blockbuster, recalls company vice president Mike Belton. He clarifies: success for the game was then considered to be 100,000 players simultaneously around the world (now in Russia alone, sometimes more than 815,000 people play the game at the same time). In a Wargaming report published in October 2011, Kisly predicted revenues of €42 million in 2012 and €88 million in 2014.

“No one expected that the masses would love a slow shooter (shooting game - Vedomosti),” admits Matsanyuk. According to him, the slow tank is easy to control even for a beginner, and the game is no less exciting than other popular shooters. Matsanyuk estimates that World of Tanks now earns $20 million a month in China alone, and Wargaming’s total monthly revenue exceeds $50–60 million. He believes that Wargaming has room to grow: it is now entering the markets of Asia and America, and is also preparing version for tablets and smartphones. At the end of 2012, the company's revenue in the CIS countries amounted to 130.9 million euros, in Europe - 54.2 million euros, in America - 30.7 million euros, in Asia - only 1.8 million euros.

Zeptolab CEO Mikhail Lyalin is not surprised by the success of World of Tanks: “Didn’t you dream of riding a tank as a child?” “Tanks have become mainstream, they earn good money abroad,” says Internet entrepreneur Nikita Sherman. He recalls that in 2012, Wargaming acquired the Australian company BigWorld, whose engine is used in World of Tanks, for $45 million, in order to release combat games with World of Warplanes aircraft and World of Warships ships on it.