The head of IRI, Alexey Goreslavsky, stated that his words about import substitution of games in Russia were misunderstood.
Alarmed gamers who only read the headline started writing to me asking "why do you want to ban everything." Clickbait, as is often the case, won over meaning, so some points need to be clarified.
I didn't say that we need to "replace all foreign games with Russian ones." This is not necessary. What to play is always decided by the player. And they will only play a high-quality, competitive product. It was about something else: we need our own strong industry that can stably compete on a global level. As is already happening, for example, with TV series.
Mr. Goreslavsky also stated what real problems the Russian gaming industry is facing.
In 2022, the market in the Russian Federation almost ceased to exist, in four years it was rebuilt, but there are many problems and money is not the main one. The main shortage is personnel.
We realistically set a horizon of 5–7 years for a sufficient number of teams to form that are capable of making competitive projects. Currently, mid-budget games with a development cycle of up to 3 years are performing best. Things are more complicated with large projects: often there are ideas, but there is no competence and experience in managing large productions. Therefore, the forecast is conservative: we will increase funding, but only if we are dealing with teams capable of making a good product.
In summary: the industry is alive, recovering after 2022 and is already showing results. This means that big projects are just around the corner.