AlternativaPlatform, the creators of on-line game Tanki Online, which currently serves over 5 million users monthly, have announced the opening of their office in Lithuania. The office will soon employ 5 people who will be responsible for Tanki Online communication, public relations and client service in the European market. There are plans to enlarge the team in the future.
Tanki Online is the first flash– based online 3D game and was created in 2008. So far it is the best-known work of AlternativaPlatform, and in 2013, it was selected as the most popular browser game in Russia.
Currently Tanki Online is available in Russian, English, German, Chinese and Portuguese and has more than 70 million registered accounts in 50 countries, being most popular in China, Russia, Brazil, Ukraine and United States. Tanki Online also has 106,000 players in the Baltic countries, 60,000 of which are in Lithuania. The game is gaining more popularity in the Baltic countries, as 26,000 new users from Lithuania were registered on February 2015 alone.
However, AlternativaPlatform has set itself the goal of reaching 1 billion unique users per month by the year 2020. To accomplish this, the company plans to develop an ecosystem of 15 games in 25 languages.
[quote text=”We see Lithuania as a bridge between East and West. On the one hand, the European way of thinking and working culture prevail here; on the other hand, Lithuanians have a perfect understanding of Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian culture and so can work efficiently with game developers from these countries. This combination is very important to us.” name_surname=”Aleksandr Karpovich” description=”co-founder and CEO of AlternativaPlatform”]
The office in Vilnius will be the company’s fourth office. Apart from its main development unit in Perm, AlternativaPlatform also has an administration unit in Malta and a publishing office in China.
‘We see Lithuania as a bridge between East and West. On the one hand, the European way of thinking and working culture prevail here; on the other hand, Lithuanians have a perfect understanding of Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian culture and so can work efficiently with game developers from these countries. This combination is very important to us, as our main team of developers work in Perm, Russia, while our players are all around the world, 4.5million of them – in Europe’, Aleksandr Karpovich, co-founder and CEO of AlternativaPlatform says of their decision to establish a division in Lithuania.
According to Mr Karpovich, the main task of the Vilnius office will be to expand the circle of players of Tanki Online in the EU; therefore, it will have to focus on marketing and communication. ‘We hope to develop the activities of the Vilnius office by adding business development functions to it. However, our strategy is sustainable development, thus, our priority now for the Vilnius office is to assemble a small team of professionals, who have international experience and enjoy games, to help game users no matter what country they are from. Lithuania has plenty of high-quality specialists in different fields, therefore, I have no doubts we will manage to assemble a team meeting the values of AlternativaPlatform. Feel free to contact us if you would like to join our team!’.
Mr Karpovich adds that AlternativaPlatform will announce new games no earlier than 2016 but will have a major upgrade with Unity 5. Unity, the developer of the platform for creating 2D and 3D games also has an office in Vilnius. In addition, Tanki Online versions for mobile platforms are to be introduced.
According to Mantas Katinas, managing director of Invest Lithuania, the foreign investment development agency, Lithuania is now regarded as the most favourable country in which to develop and test IT products and has taken a firm position in the region: ‘In 2014, we saw a wave of game developers from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, but Lithuania is also increasingly often chosen by rapidly growing companies from western countries, for example, IT companies from the USA. According to the attraction of companies of this kind we exceed the regional average considerably. This shows that Lithuania is one of the most attractive countries for the success of dynamic, creative and fast growing IT businesses. Undoubtedly, AlternativaPlatform will also see these advantages’.
Having just stepped into the Lithuanian market, AlternativaPlatform seeks to join the vibrant community of the country’s IT professionals. The next event the company will contribute to is the Games Industry Law Summit, which is to take place on 24 April and which will introduce the specialties of the business and legal environment throughout Europe to game developers. According to Mr Karpovich, AlternativaPlatform is open to various types of cooperation and educational projects both with business and education institutions.
