Wargaming

Aktivs

Wargaming is a Belarusian developer of computer games with divisions for 2016 in Minsk (Game Stream), St. Petersburg (Lesta Studio) and Kyiv (Persha Studio).

Wargaming Saint Petersburg (formerly Lesta Studio) is the Russian development center for Wargaming, which creates a mass multiplayer online game World of Warships. The studio was founded in 1991 and initially specialized in video production. Over the course of ten years, the company has released more than 15 game projects of various genres.

Wargaming employs more than four thousand people, the company's offices are located in, Belarus,, Russia To Ukraine Cyprus,,,, Australia, USA France South Korea Singapore, Japan as well as Taiwan.

Performance indicators

The fortune of the 39-year-old founder of Wargaming, Viktor Kisloy, exceeded $1 billion. This was reported in February 2016 by Bloomberg with reference to its own calculations.

In a conversation with Bloomberg, Sour did not comment on the calculations, saying that he leads a "very modest" lifestyle. He also added that Wargaming is going to bring in as many players as possible.

"We have to create a pipeline to produce quality games. Our company intends to develop all large markets. If there are a billion microwaves with joysticks on which you can play games, we will create programs for them, "said Sour

The entire Wargaming, according to the agency, costs about $1.5 billion. The company's revenue for 2015 amounted to $590 million, Bloomberg calculated.

History

2022: Business sale in Russia and Belarus

In early July 2022, it became known about the closure of the sale of the Wargaming business in Russia and Belarus. The Cypriot company Wargaming no longer owns shares in the Russian company Lesta (based in St. Petersburg) and the Belarusian company Game Stream. The new owner of Lest (100%) and Game Stream (91.84%) was Malik Khatazhaev, the former general director of Lest.

According to the Belarusian edition of the dev.by, Malik Khatazhaev, who headed the Russian studio Wargaming for 12 years, lost the post of general director to Yuri Sukharev in mid-June 2022. At the end of June 2022, Khatazhaev became the owner of the Russian Lesta . Svetlana Petrova from Ukraine and Larisa Kotikova from Belarus remained minority owners of the Belarusian Game Stream. 

Malik Khatazhaev

On July 1, 2022, a ban on owners from unfriendly countries from alienating shares in the authorized funds of 190 companies without the approval of the Ministry of Finance of Belarus came into force in Belarus. Cyprus Wargaming was also included in this list. But the company managed to sell the business before the ban took effect.

In early April 2022, Wargaming, the developer of World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and World of Warships, announced "its departure from Russia and Belarus" amid the crisis in Ukraine (conducting a Russian military special operation in the country).

Then it was noted that the company transferred its gaming business in Russia and Belarus under the management of Lesta Studio, which is no longer associated with Wargaming. During the transition period of the game, the studios will remain available in Russia and Belarus and will be managed by the new owner, the company said then.

In the spring of 2022, the game developer also began to close its largest office in Minsk, which in 2020 employed about 2,000 people.^[1]

2020: Wargaming is Cyprus' biggest IT company

On December 17, 2020, it became known that the developer of World of Tanks became the largest IT company in Cyprus in terms of the number of employees and investments. This was stated by one of the founders of this company - Wargaming - Ivan Mikhnevich.

 Wargaming made the statement after the head of the Cypriot Accounts Chamber, Odysseus Michaelides, reported violations: the audit showed that the government granted citizenship to persons who issued empty land plots, unfinished houses and offices and underground parking lots for investments. It was also about Wargaming.

The developer of World of Tanks has become the largest IT company in Cyprus in terms of number of employees and investments

The naturalization of some company leaders was carried out in accordance with the rules of naturalization through the investment programs of the Republic of Cyprus, Wargaming said in a press release.

The company noted that Cyprus never waived any taxes, fees and other income related to Wargaming's participation in the Cyprus Investment Program (CIP; by December 2020, it ceased to operate).

The company began moving to Cyprus in 2011, and it moved its headquarters from Minsk to Nicosia the following year, according to a statement from Wargaming. This step was due not to participation in any investment program for obtaining citizenship, but purely business considerations, the company added.

Ivan Mikhnevich, left the company in 2014, confirmed to Forbes that at first the Cypriot passports were received by Wargaming shareholders - Viktor Kisly, his father, brother, Mikhnevich himself. Later, such passports could be obtained by family members of Cypriot citizens.

 According to Mikhnevich, 70 passports in question "received important Wargaming employees." He also noted that after 2013, when Nikos Anastasiadis became president of the country, "a tariff was announced - how much money you need to spend to get one passport."^[2]

2016

For 2016, the main product of the company is the game World of Tanks, it is available for computers, game consoles and mobile devices. The company also releases the games World of Warships (about battles on ships) and World of Warplanes (about air battles). In 2016, the restart of the space strategy Master of Orion was preparing for release.

2014

Internet company No. 3 by revenue in the CIS

In terms of revenue, Wargaming became the third largest Internet company in the CIS after Yandex and Mail.ru Group. Multiplayer online game World of Tanks in 2014 brought its creators a little more than $500 million (31.1 billion rubles at the current exchange rate). This was reported by RBC with reference to the representative of the analytical company SuperData Research Sam Barbury. A year earlier, the company earned $457 million, according to estimates by the same SuperData Research. Thus, the developer's revenue grew by about 5.26% year-on-year.

100 million World of Tanks users

In 2014, the company has more than 15 projects in the gaming industry. The most famous game developed by Wargaming remains World of Tanks. In 2014, the number of World of Tanks players around the world, according to Wargaming itself, exceeded 100 million users.

2013: Purchase of a stake in Cypriot bank Hellenic

During the 2013 Cyprus financial crisis, Wargaming became a shareholder in the local bank Hellenic. Wargaming and the American investment fund Third Point received 30% of the shares, paying €40 million each for them. Cyprus Investment Fund Demetra Investment bought another 15% for €20 million. At the end of 2014, Kisloy Corporation and Third Point paid another €45 million for a 20% stake in each^[3].

2011: Headquarters transfer to Cyprus

In 2011, Wargaming legally moved its headquarters to the island of Cyprus. Since then, the founder of the company Viktor Kisly has been living there with his family.

There are earthquakes on the island, so the entire building of Cyprus is low-rise, says one of the investors who has business interests on the island. Exceptions are only the business centre under construction in Limassol and the Wargaming headquarters in Nicosia.

By the beginning of the Cyprus economic and banking crisis in 2012, Wargaming already had real estate in the capital of the island. But during the crisis, there was a threat to lose a lot of money, so, without particularly choosing, the company quickly decided to buy a skyscraper, said one of the corporation's employees.

So Wargaming had an office in Nicosia (the main IT community is in Limassol, by the sea). Among the advantages is the proximity to the government of Cyprus.

In Cyprus, you need to have connections - the island is small, the people are few and the service, especially in government agencies, leaves much to be desired, explained the interlocutor of the Wargaming vc.ru, who wished not to disclose his name^[3]. Therefore, the company "on salary" consists of people with experience in state institutions of the republic.

For example, a person who has worked in the migration department for twenty years and has maintained good relations with current employees.

"With him, every update of the residence permit for me and my family is a holiday, everyone is just smiling and joking," says an employee of a gaming company.

Wargaming employees also communicate with the insurance company through a special agent who suggests how best to issue a particular service from a dentist or surgeon in order to pay for it in full, and not in part. "It's nice when you are voiced the amount of 1,500 euros for the operation, and you are not paying at all," the Wargaming employee sums up.

2010: World of Tanks Issue

Wargaming released World of Tanks in 2010 and within a couple of years it had become one of the most popular games in the world.