A team of developers from Kazakhstan, iDos Games, has created a project that aims to compete with world gaming goliaths like Epic Games and Tencent. The Kazakh company are working on a third-person shooter called ShootGun which has a unique feature that neither Fortnite nor PUBG currently offer.
QazMonitor talked with the CEO of the company Alexey Shegay about the game development industry in Kazakhstan and what makes the products of iDos Games stand out.
What does iDos Games do?
We have created an ecosystem of mobile games and position ourselves as a game studio with a cryptocurrency element as the cherry on top. We love games ourselves – absolutely everyone in our team is a gamer.
How is ShootGun different from other games in the genre?
We released it last July, and, at the time, it was the world's first free-to-play multiplayer shooter with a play-to-earn capability on the mobile market.
As you know, there are a lot of shooter games. But to start playing them you have to make an in-game purchase first. You have to buy an avatar, skin, land and so on. In that regard, our game doesn’t require you to buy anything to play. You don't have to understand crypto. Unless you withdraw cryptocurrency from the game, it's just a conventional game. If you want to withdraw money, it takes just a couple of clicks and that's it. Also, the players who own our very own “IGT” cryptocurrency will be able to vote in polls and make suggestions about our current and future projects.
Is the game for hardcore players only?
Hardcore players always have an opportunity to show off their skills – but we want to reach out to a wider audience. Our game has an intuitive auto-shoot mechanism, which allows even the most casual players to enjoy the game.
The mobile shooter game market is really saturated at the moment. Aren’t you afraid of ‘giants’ like PUBG or Fortnite?
Last year, when we went public, we saw that many people were playing our games and had a demand for them. That was the moment we realized we were competing with the whole world.
We're not afraid – we're not a company that's going to sell out. We're playing 'the long game'. Yes, it takes time, but we're getting there. We're definitely competing with those guys. And think about it: isn't it cool that a couple of guys from Kazakhstan have created a game that can compete with behemoths like Tencent and Epic Games?
How are players reacting to your games?
Our players really like our games; the community is active. I mean, many developers can create a game but designing a game that people will actually play – that’s really hard.
We learned that from our previous project – 2048 Cube Crypto IGT. It’s a super casual game, and we have analyzed at least 50 similar-looking ones on the market. The reason other games failed is due to poor in-game mechanisms and design: cubes acting like jelly, unappealing textures, sound design, and so on. Our project did well – there are already some ‘whales’ [people who spend a lot of money on microtransactions in games] playing it. There is one gamer from the US, who has spent around $1,500 on the game.
We hear a lot about play-to-earn model recently. What is it really about?
Play-to-earn is not the ‘end destination’, but the beginning of web 3.0. It’s where everyone can own what they've actually acquired online.
Let’s compare it to the old model. For example, take a person who plays PUBG or Fortnite. He pours a lot of money into the game to buy items. If his account suddenly got blocked, everything he bought would be kept by the developer.
What we offer is different. A player can install our game for free, play, win and earn in-game crypto tokens, which is our own digital currency. If he wants to buy a skin or an in-game item, he can buy and own it as an NFT. This purchased skin is stored in the person’s crypto-wallet. If the player gets bored with the game and the skin, he can resell it anytime. What is also great about NFTs is that when we release a new game, the NFTs you own from ShootGun can be there, too.
Who is going to create those in-game items?
We are testing an NFT marketplace where digital artists will be able to sell their work. To encourage creators, we are going to set a solid monetization model. The creator gets 97.5% of the money from the initial sale, and 5% from any resale of their item.
Your company is participating in the Google for Startups accelerator program at Astana Hub. Is it to attract investors or something different?
Google for Startups is hands down the most useful training program I’ve taken part in so far. They teach you how to manage a company boom: say, how to handle growth from 10 to 100 employees.
As for investors, even though it would be great to attract them, we have enough funds for project development. Investors are welcome, but we have no need for urgent fundraising. If we get external funds, those will be dedicated to marketing and building the audience for our games.
Don’t you want to become a ‘unicorn’ from Kazakhstan?
A unicorn is a startup company with a value of over $1 billion. We are not looking for growth in terms of mere market capitalization. It is important for us to be a profitable company in terms of our operations. You can be a millionaire in terms of capitalization, but generate 10,000 tenge every month. That’s not what we want.
Since we are on this topic, we recently negotiated with the venture capital firm, Shima Capital, from Silicon Valley; we were valued at $20 million, as of today. We did not sign a deal though since Silicon Valley is still a bit apprehensive about startups from Central Asia.
In conclusion, how would you evaluate the current state of the game development industry in Kazakhstan?
We have some great studios, but very few people know that they are from Kazakhstan. Most of those studios are quite successful – consider the GTA-like game MadOut by MadOut Games or Steampunk Tower by DreamGate. The latter is doing great on Steam, but hardly anyone knows it’s a project by a married couple from our country. I think in 2-3 years we will have built a strong community that the world will have to reckon with.
There is already some interest in us at present. Mike Fischer, the ex-publishing head at Epic Games (the studio behind Fortnite), contacted us after the Worldwide Unicorn Battle we took part in. He is our advisor, and he actually helped us contact Shima Capital.
