Strategy Informer  

Wargaming.net is ballooning as a company thanks to free-to-play MMO World of Tanks. They've gone from 120 employees in Minsk, to over 800 worldwide. The game has over 20m users.

Of that player base "around 25-30 percent" pay for content which is one of the highest ratios in the industry. Why do they pay? "Because people love the game." Millions rolling in.

They're not scoring close to triple digit millions but they're certainly comfortable from all that revenue. The studio points out that, "ironically", they aren't squeezing fans.

"If you count the last year and a half, we might be the fastest growing company ever, headcount wise and revenue wise," declared Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi in an interview with GamesIndusty.biz. "When you see the numbers of Twitter, Facebook or even Google for a year and half we probably outperformed them."

World of Tanks has over 20 million registered users with just over 25 percent buying content. "We probably have one of the highest payment ratios in the industry, it's around 25-30 per cent," he revealed. "Because people love the game."

Exact figures weren't disclosed by Kislyi, but they're sitting pretty. They don't have a high entry barrier and don't resort to pestering tactics to get fans spending cash which is significant on its own. "Those would be millions of dollars per month," he said of. "Many millions. I'm not going to give you the exact number, but double digits. Not high double digits."

"Ironically the game is not squeezing monetisation, it's not rough. There's no velvet rope over the gates and you have to buy a key to open it. Some MMOs are like this but we are not. It's smooth and non-intrusive," he added.

"For casual gameplay which most players do most of the time, people don't usually use gold or expendables. Of course if you want to win a tournament, if you're competitive, if you play clan wars, if you want to be at the top, we think it's appropriate to expect a little bit of money from you because you already spent hundreds of hours in our game and that's much more than the value of any $50 box."

"But it's still a micro transaction game, you would have to be very creative to spend $1000." Despite launching in Russia, China, the US and Europe - Belarus remains World of Tanks biggest national supporter in terms of fans. "It's the biggest game ever, bigger than all the other games including social, combined", boasted Victor Kislyi .

Check out the full interview between Victor Kislyi and GamesIndustry.biz.

Related games: World of Tanks (PC)