In this article, I have collected several well-known tales to see how such stories appear, why people believe in them, and how developers play along with fan fantasies.

Cartoon at the end of “Well, wait!”

In the 1980s, portable electronic games appeared in the USSR, made in the image and likeness of the Japanese Nintendo Game & Watch.

Nintendo developer Gumpei Yokoi, who previously created the Ultra Hand toy, once saw a bored businessman on a train with a calculator in his hands and decided to create a miniature device that works both as a watch and as a toy. That’s how gadgets appeared that contain only one game or two games that differ only in speed.

There was also a game about a wolf who catches eggs — it was released in 1981. And in 1984, the USSR released Electronics IM-02, the famous “Well, wait!”. The rooster from the original was replaced on the screen with a hare, and instead of a hat, the wolf in our version holds a basket in his hands.

In both the 1980s and 1990s, there was a myth that the prize for 1,000 points was a cartoon on the screen. Either the wolf was dancing, or a hare appeared with flowers.

Of course, animation on those LCD screens was impossible. But how can you check it before you personally score maximum points? Therefore, the children were divided into two camps: some said that they had gone through the whole game and there was no cartoon, while others said that they had seen it with their own eyes. In fact, the score was reset after 999 points, and the game continued with increasing speed.

There were similar myths around other Electronics games — in Secrets of the Ocean, a treasure chest appeared at the bottom, and in Funny Chef, the cook winks if you catch food in a certain way.

Lavender City Syndrome

Do you remember how you ran home from school and turned on Pokemon? And someone in the 1990s was so lucky that they could play Pokemon Red and Blue on the Nintendo GameBoy.

The game was released in Japan in 1996. In one of the episodes, the main character ends up in the city of Lavender, where the Pokemon Tower cemetery is located. The game reminds us that pets are not eternal. The atmosphere was made even more creepy by the music of composer Junichi Masuda.

And Masuda did it so well that, according to legend, music caused hallucinations, depression, and for hundreds of children it all ended in death. Fortunately, all this is an absolute lie, a fiction that appeared and began to spread in 2010.

Why did they believe that? Because in 1997, one of the episodes of the Pokemon series sent 700 children to the hospital. The symptoms resembled epilepsy. The children felt sick, dizzy, and had headaches. By the way, this story with Japanese cartoons was played on The Simpsons.

Is Tetris a KGB project?

At some point, Tetris, developed by Alexey Pajitnov in the 1980s, began a triumphant march around the world and turned into a classic of video games, into a legend around which its myths were bound to appear.

Alexey Pajitnov was inspired by the children’s board game “Pentamino”, in which it was necessary to stack figures consisting of 5 squares. He simplified the concept to 4 squares and created Tetris while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center at the USSR Academy of Sciences on the Electronics-60 computer. Colleagues adapted the game for the IBM PC, adding colors and musical accompaniment, after which she went to the Institute of Computer Research in Budapest. There, Tetris was ported to Apple and Commodore.

Since there were difficulties in acquiring the rights to sell the games, foreign companies began distributing the Hungarian version — in fact, like pirates. Tetris was positioned as the first video game from behind the Iron Curtain.

So Tetris infected a huge number of computers. There is a widespread myth in Europe and the United States that this is a KGB development designed to distract specialists from their work and reduce their effectiveness.

By the way, in 2023, this legendary game was one of the first to enter the Hall of Fame of the Russian video game industry. Together with our colleagues from the VIDO, we are working to ensure that Tetris is immortalized not only “in numbers”, but also “in stone”.

Ermak from Mortal Kombat

In 1992, the standard fighting game, Mortal Kombat, appeared in the halls of slot machines (the music from the movie should play in your head here), later it appeared on game consoles and personal computers.

In the game, you could see information about the victories of different characters. The name Ermacs could be seen in one of the lines. This sparked rumors that the game has a secret character, a certain ninja in red.

Actually, ERMACS is a “macro bug”. But the myth spread so actively and the developers liked it so much that in 1995, in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, such a character actually appeared. Ermacs was then featured in other games and TV series, meaning the myth became part of the franchise.

Vangers are maddening

Imagine a video game that you forgot about the convenience of the player when developing it. In which you don’t get hints from NPCs — instead, you get confused by their testimony. At any moment, you may be deprived of your honestly earned car upgrades, and the controls will force you to break a couple of keyboards in the early hours.

At first glance, in “Vangers” you start as a courier driver in a car capable of galloping through alien gullies. And then you realize that you are just a larva born of some kind of creature. And the attitude towards you is appropriate — like a maggot, on which you can at least wipe your feet.

Eye-popping colors, unintelligible controls, incomprehensible words, the meaning of which each of the characters explains in his own way, and the alien (in every sense) atmosphere makes “Vangers” a legend of the Russian industry — the title, like “Tetris”, entered the Hall of Fame of the Russian video game industry.

There is a myth around the game: She’s maddening. If you try to play it today, you may confirm that this is not a myth at all.

Sheng Long in Street Fighter II

Another reference fighting game franchise also had a secret non–existent character, Shen Long, or Shen Lung. The myth about him arose from a mistranslation of the phrase Ryu: “You have to defeat the Ascending Dragon Fist to get a chance.” The name of the strike sounds like Sheng Lung, or the Rising Dragon. The journalists from Electronic Gaming Monthly decided to make a joke and in the April Fools’ Day issue they said that this was the name of the secret boss.

To fight him, all you had to do was get to M. Bison without taking damage from any character, and then in a fight with Bison, do not hit him and do not expose yourself for ten rounds in a row. Then Shen Lung would appear, throw Bison off the stage, the timer would stop, and the fight to the death would begin.

The April Fool’s Day joke has become widespread thanks to journalists who do not check the facts. But even here, the developers listened, albeit with great delay, and introduced the character in the Street Fighter 6 game in 2023.

The Self-destructing Killswitch Game

In 1989, Karvina Studio released a mystical horror about a girl named Porto, who finds herself in a mine and tries to get out of it. In the process, it was necessary to fight with demons and revived workers. Porto lost her memory and restored it from the audio recordings she found in the mine.

Another character in the game was the invisible ghost Gast, and the only way to figure out where he was in the process of passing was his fiery breath. As soon as the mana ran out, it became more difficult to play.

The video game is made in shades of gray with a rare addition of red. The genre is point-and-click. Porto could increase or decrease in size in different locations, the player could not control this ability.

It was impossible to transfer the game to another person or go through it twice, since the copy was self-destructing. A total of 5,000 copies were produced.

It takes a long time to list the features of the game revealed by the son of the deceased developer of the mystery, to talk about the gameplay.… But this game is fiction, it never existed. She was invented by writer Catherine M. Valente and confessed this in 2013 in her book The Melancholy of Mechagirl. She borrowed the name of the game from one of the X-Files episodes. That’s why one of the writers of the series, William Gibson, wrote “Agrippa” and distributed it on a floppy disk: after the first reading, the program encrypted the text, and it became impossible to enjoy the work again.

By the way, according to legend, Karvina is a Soviet studio.

Pale Moon

There was a scary video game that transported the best player from the computer world to the real one. The plot of the Pale Luna text quest was to search for treasures in the swamps. It all started with a dark room where your character was: “The moon is shining through the window. There’s gold in the corner of the room next to a shovel and rope.”

Pale Luna was distributed on floppy disks. It was difficult to complete the quest the first time, because if the answer was wrong, it would freeze and everything would have to start from the beginning.

One of those who managed to reach the end saw numbers that looked like coordinates. The gamer assumed that there was a real treasure there. However, instead of the treasure, he found the girl’s head. The police said that this girl had been missing for a year and a half.

As in the previous case, there was no such game at all.

Hirobrin’s Ghost in Minecraft

Classic — in Minecraft, you can find a version of Steve with completely white, empty eyes. This character’s name is Hirobrin. It’s impossible to get close to him. He appears out of the fog and hides, disappearing when the player appears. At the same time, he interacts with the world — he digs holes and destroys trees, destroys structures built by the player.

In 2010, a 4chan user wrote that he had seen such a character and gave him a name. According to him, Hirobrin is the deceased brother of the game’s creator, Markus Persson. Streamers and YouTubers liked this legend, and they started spreading it.

The hero even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the best video game villains, even though he didn’t even exist.

Conclusion

Of course, this is by no means a complete list of creepies and myths about video games. You can also recall the bigfoot from GTA: San Andreas, which was embodied in GTA V; the 1981 Polybius slot machine installed in Portland, which caused headaches, nausea and amnesia and statistics from which people in black suits downloaded; about Fallout 3, which predicts the future.

Myths are born where several factors intersect: technical limitations, lack of information, and a strong desire for players to see something more — something that goes beyond gameplay. And the result is new characters and Easter eggs.

By the way, can you name who is depicted in the center of the preview of the article?

Tell us about this character in the comments and share which myths about video games you remember and which ones you still don’t want to check.

But all this is in some kind of ideal world. In reality, on the contrary, we get problems with faces in Mass Effect 2, missing textures in Assassin’s Creed Unity, and a black screen in Batman: Arkham Knight. Sometimes, in principle, it becomes impossible to complete the game due to an error in some quest.

But even with bugs, a game can become legendary if it was created with the soul and skills of people who love their work. So today I suggest you look at the games that have become classics in the presence of a large number of technical errors.

The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall

Let’s start with the large–scale Bethesda Softworks project, the second part of The Elder Scrolls. Released in 1996, the game boasts the largest open world in the series.: Its area is 160,000 square kilometers, which is comparable to the Perm Region, Altai Territory, or the entire countries of Tunisia and Suriname. And it will take about sixty hours to complete the map from edge to edge. There are 15 thousand cities, villages and caves in the game.

The next part of the game, Morrowind, takes 0.01% of Daggerfall. And in Skyrim, the area is only about 30 square kilometers. The number of NPCs in the game is about 750,000, while in Oblivion it is only a thousand.

What could possibly go wrong? It is quite obvious that almost everything. There were bugs related to the creation of characters, with the passage of quests, with mechanics and physics, with controls and saves. Players fell through textures and walked through walls. And at any moment, it was possible to make a mistake, which made it impossible to continue playing the game. As a result, the video game received the affectionate nickname Buggerfall from fans.

In future projects, the developers solved many problems of Daggerfall, but it was this part that laid the recognizable features of the entire series.

“Corsairs: The Curse of the Distant Seas”

Fast forward to a less fantasy past — to the 17th century on a fictional archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. The main character, the captain of a merchant ship, finds himself a slave on a plantation after a naval battle, but escapes with 40 other prisoners and hijacks the ship. After that, you can choose a civil service or a pirate career.

In 2000, Akella released the first part of the Corsairs series on its own game engine, the Storm Engine. 1C was the publisher in Russia, Ubi Soft in Europe, and the aforementioned Bethesda Softworks in the USA.

The enemy here, besides pirates, forts and ships of other powers, was the weather. You could get caught in a storm, in the rain, and the view was obscured by fog. The fighting took place on land and at sea. Enemy ships could be destroyed or boarded to sink or refloat. There are twenty islands in the game — English, French, Spanish, pirate and uninhabited. On the islands, you can take quests, hire a team, trade and upgrade your ship. From conversations or when receiving quests, you can learn about a new island — and then it appears on the map, you can also explore the sea yourself and look for them.

Of course, there were bugs. Players complained about problems with texts and fonts in the menu, which made it difficult, for example, to select a ship from a list at the shipyard; about the textures of the sails, which blurred the entire screen while moving at sea; about crashes from the game at a random moment. Sometimes the quests didn’t work properly: sometimes the enemies became unkillable, sometimes they did not appear in the right place. But the worst part was when it was impossible to complete the game due to bugs, you had to start with past saves and try to replay the moment.

But the scale of the project, its novelty, freedom of choice, interesting gameplay and the atmosphere, which was played by music (the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra), made this game an industry classic.

By the way, a couple more interesting facts about the series: the second part of the Corsairs series was branded by Disney to promote the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Black Pearl, and the third part in 2005 received the nomination “The most buggy Game” on the AG website.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

And once again we find ourselves in the dark Middle Ages. In 2003, EA Redwood Shores studio developed a game based on the second and third parts of Peter Jackson’s trilogy with the utmost attention to the original source. The game has movie stills, voice acting from actors. In addition, you can play together, so even now the game may be relevant for those who want to fight with a friend or a significant other, if the graphics suit you.

Slasher has become an industry classic due to the fact that it is an important component of the world of the Lord of the Rings. You will have to fight orcs with a staff for Gandalf, ghosts for Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Sam, and defeat Gollum by playing as Frodo Sumkin. You can also upgrade your characters, although there is no way to buy or upgrade weapons.

Once again, technical problems slightly spoiled the impression of the masterpiece. Sometimes after the battle with Shelob you see only a dark screen, then the game crashes completely immediately after the first mission, then there are problems with localization. A lot was solved by reinstalling DirectX, installing patches, or by sending saves to each other by players.

Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines

In 1998, Tim Kane, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson, who were at the origins of Fallout, opened Troika Games. Together they developed three RPGs, the last of which was the Vampire game.: The Masquerade — Bloodlines. It’s almost a swan song — in 2005, the studio completed its history.

Bloodlines was released in 2004 at the same time as Half-Life 2 and using the same Source engine from Valve Software. Sales were low, there was not enough advertising — the competition with the expected “halva” was greatly hampered. As is sometimes the case with movies and a little less often with games, the failed project received cult status later. Now this game is considered one of the best in the history of the RPG genre.

Among other things, the game was raw, and there were many technical problems. The character got stuck in textures or stopped responding to controls, NPCs froze in inactivity, and enemies levitated. Due to the rush — the publisher Activision at some point demanded that everything be finalized and released in a few months — some of the content was cut, thereby breaking the plot.

It is worth mentioning the engine separately. Bloodlines was one of the first games on Source: it lacked documentation, even though Valve tried to support the developers.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

In 2008, Konami released an exclusive for PlayStation 3 — Metal Gear Solid 4. The game was developed by Kojima Productions studio under the leadership of the brilliant genius Hideo Kojima (this is not a typo). A fan of bringing everything to perfection, sacrificing unlimited time and money, he created the stealth action genre itself and a number of projects that incorporate the best of films, books, music and, in fact, games (the degree of pathos is specially supported).

What exactly came out of Metal Gear Solid 4, besides a lot of tiktok videos? Interesting innovations like the Metal Gear Mk. II scout robot, which came from Kojima’s old game Snatcher, and the stress indicator. Beautiful, though not revolutionary, graphics. Completion of the many story arcs of the previous parts.

And a lot of bugs. Crashes, problems with textures, broken quick saves, menu control failures, errors during the installation process that require re-installation.

Kojima used an interesting technique in MGS4 to refer to the first part of Metal Gear Solid: he built an emulator of the first PlayStation into the fourth act. And at this point, the players complained about the departures.

All these problems, however, do not make the game any less legendary.

Result

Of course, the list can be expanded. For example, games like Gothic 3 with beautiful graphics and lots of bugs, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with characters stuck in textures and a huge contribution to popular culture and memology, Battlefield 4 as a classic of first-person shooters, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt deserve to be included in it.

Write in the comments what games and bugs would you personally add!

Why? Yes, because at some point, video game scriptwriters began to produce cooler plots than Hollywood, and the viewer’s immersion in the titles themselves reached its peak. The filmmakers decided that we all suffer from sclerosis and cannot follow the course of events while we scroll through the tape on our phone.

To understand exactly when the door to the cinema slammed shut and the streaming door opened wide, let’s plunge into history.

Interactive films of the 20th century

Once upon a time, more than half a century ago, they tried to make films more engaging, and sometimes even interactive.

The detective story “Lady in the Lake”, released in 1946, was shot entirely in the first person. It was the first painting of this type, meaning the idea was used long before Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore. The viewer felt like the hero of the story, a detective investigating a murder. It was as if you were looking for evidence yourself and talking to colleagues and witnesses.

At about the same time, another noir detective story, The Black Stripe, was released. Part of the film is conducted in the first person. And later, the main character’s face heals after plastic surgery. He removes the bandages, and we see Humphrey Bogart. The technique was used again, which we know very well from the games today.

But those were engaging films that didn’t give you the right to choose the direction of the plot. This functionality appeared in the movie Kinoautomat. It was first presented in the Czechoslovak pavilion at Expo 67 in Canada. At nine points in the film, the action stops and a moderator appears on stage, asking the audience to choose one of two scenes; after the audience votes, the selected scene is played.

The genre of the film is a black comedy. In the first scene, we see the future — a burning house. Then the audience makes a series of decisions, but… the house will burn down anyway. This is how the filmmakers show a satire on democracy.

Almost 100 years ago, such films showed that interactive experiences were well received, and also made significant prerequisites for modern games — the viewer wanted to participate in the action.

FMV — Full Motion Movie

Fast forward to video game halls — in the 1970s, arcade machines decided to combine movies with games and began using footage shot on film. Such games include the Wild Gunman shooter from Nintendo, a light pistol game released in 1974, and 10 years later it was released for the Famicom, but without a movie, of course.

Another example is the 1979 Kasco Driver race, which I mentioned in an article with a brief history of this genre. The player had to have time to turn the steering wheel and pedal so that it corresponded to what was happening on the screen — that is, the traffic situation.

A little later, Full Motion Video technology was released, which gave us FMV games. These are projects in which most of the process (or the entire gameplay) is tied to video.

The 1983 classic is Dragon’s Lair, a game created by a former Disney animator. The slot machine used LaserDisc to store information. The fact that you were watching, in fact, a cartoon helped to circumvent the existing limitations of computer graphics at that time. Critics noted that there was little actual play here — after all, it was just necessary to have time to press the right button at a certain moment. Is it familiar? It’s the good old QTE.

Just 4 months later, almost the same team released the game Space Age. Moreover, using another LaserDisc, it was possible to retrofit devices with Dragon’s Lair for a new project.

And in 1985, Taito’s Time Gal was released. There was also LaserDisc and similar animation, but instead of QTE, there were answers to questions.

Over time, the games began to improve both their plots and graphics, which further increased their appeal in the eyes of the audience. I think many will agree that in terms of character development, story and entertainment, they surpass many films that were celebrated at this year’s Oscar ceremony.

The first letsplays

In the last few years, many viewers have had the feeling that film producers are taking them for fools. Netflix also makes a huge amount of content, and at the same time strives to simplify it. That’s what Matt Damon talked about in an interview with Joe Rogan.:

“The standard way to create an action movie is three large–scale scenes: in the first, second and third acts. Most of the budget is spent on finals. And now Netflix is saying, “Can you do something big in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it’s okay if we repeat the plot three or four times in the dialogue, because people are watching the movie on their phones.”

At the same time, we see a lot of games that can easily be compared to movies — both the screenwriting and the visual in them are at the highest level. That’s also why letsplays are gaining a lot of views.

The very definition of “Let’s play” as a genre of videos appeared, perhaps, in 2007 on the Something Awful website. It is believed that Michael Souyer, under the nickname slowbeef, used this phrase when he posted his walkthrough of the game Oregon Trail. He himself is not sure that he was the first. And in general, even that thread cannot be found.

Among the early reviewers is Spoony One, the same blogger who was inspired by BadComedian. In the second half of the 2000s, he released a number of videos on the topic of Final Fantasy VIII, where he explained why this game is bad.

If we talk about our topic, then the games that we must recognize as the first projects that are interesting not only to gamers should combine several things: cinematography — an interesting plot and visual, as well as popularity among a wide audience and the actual views that this popularity translates into.

Here it is worth noting another aspect of the popularity of letsplays — the personalities who make them. During the game, the channel authors share their opinions with the viewer, reason and experience vivid emotions from what is happening on the screen. Does it remind you of anything? Watching a letsplay can be perceived as going to the cinema with an eccentric friend.

Top games of recent years

Finally, let’s take a look at the coverage of the videos on YouTube. Then we’ll find out that according to the Let’s Play Index, the top five most viewed letsplays are Minecraft, Roblox, Garena Free Fire and Fortnite. Cinematic, I think, can be called only the fifth of them — GTA 5.

Let us now recall the recent masterpiece, the Elden Ring. In 2022, the videos with this game gained 3.4 billion views in two months, and GTA V in 2013 — only 1.9 billion over the same period.

Released in 2012, Far Cry 3 has garnered a total of 1.6 billion views on YouTube on 235,000 videos released on 35,000 channels.

In 2018, the interactive film Detroit: Become Human was released. There are 392,000 videos dedicated to the game on YouTube, with a total of 2.7 billion views.

Domestic titles can also boast of such successes — for example, Atomic Heart scored a total of 1.2 billion, and Escape from Tarkov even 4.4 billion (by the way, both games are included in the Hall of Fame of the video Game industry).

In 2023, according to a study by Bonusninja, videos from The Last of Us, released in 2013, generated revenue of $56,247 per hour. On average, the most popular walkthroughs scored 6.1 million views. The impetus for these walkthroughs was given by the series on the game. In total, 670,000 videos were shot, and they scored 3.8 billion views.

Since we’re talking about film adaptations, I’ll say a few words about them. After the crisis caused by the pandemic, the filmmakers thought about how to bring people back to the cinemas — that’s when they decided to pay attention to the video game market.

Film adaptations have become one of the main strategies — unfortunately, they usually don’t work out very well (hello, “Return to Silent Hill”), but there are good examples too. For example, the Minecraft Movie grossed $955 million worldwide. At the same time, a third of this amount dropped in just 3 days after the premiere — the film set a record for the largest launch of a video game adaptation.

Conclusion

As for me, the point of no return has already been reached — now video games immerse the viewer in the plot much more than 90% of modern films. They are interesting to play both independently (the hand does not even reach for the phone), and just watch what is happening on the screen from the side.

Why did the games win? In fact, there are many reasons, and each of them has a place to be.

First of all, video games gave users what cinema was only trying to do — interactivity. When a person is directly involved in the story on the screen, immersion reaches its maximum.

Or maybe it’s the approach. Unlike filmmakers who rivet banal plots like a conveyor belt (I don’t dispute that there is also such a thing in game development, but less often), developers feel more serious competition and try to fully devote themselves to creating interesting stories and settings — this is especially typical for small indie teams that need to stand out in order to be noticed.

And finally, the development and accessibility of technology have made gaming a massive phenomenon. Even 30–40 years ago, not everyone could afford to get acquainted with games, but now not a single generation of people has grown up on them, for whom playing has become a familiar occupation.

But this is all my subjective opinion. What do you think? Write in the comments!

And for many, this particular genre was one of their favorites ten or twenty years ago. As Schumacher, we raced on race tracks, and as Dominic Toretto, we eluded the police on the streets at night.

In the article, we will repeat this path through arcades, consoles, PCs and legendary series like Need for Speed, as well as look at Russian franchises.

Other articles:

A brief history of the genre. Flight simulators

A brief history of the genre. Shooters

A brief history of the genre. Strategies

Arcade machines

In the 1970s, slot machines with a television screen appeared in gaming halls, and before that, for about twenty years, the devices were electromechanical. And even then there were racing machines.

Some of the older readers may recall the famous Soviet game “Behind the Wheel”, a prototype similar to it was in the USA — only not with a circle, but with a ribbon. Magnified versions of this game several times could be used in clubs. The Kasco Mini Drive game released in 1959 is considered a legend.

In this video, you can see how the display of an electromechanical slot machine dedicated to F-1 racing is arranged.

In 1974, the first computer racing game appeared. It was a Speed Race machine from Taito. You could see a similar gameplay, in which the car moved up and the road, respectively, went down, in racing on the portable Brick Game, which Chinese manufacturers flooded Russia with after 1994. During the game, you earned points by overtaking other cars and avoiding collisions.

This slot machine was followed by other versions of the game, including versions with a chair and for two players.

In 1976, Sega released one of the first racing arcade machines with tactile response. The handlebars of a motorcycle in the Fonz game vibrated when it collided with another vehicle, and the game was accompanied by sounds like the growing roar of an engine.

Another important achievement of Sega is the color computer graphics in the Monaco GP races.

The Driver game from the already mentioned Kasco can be called particularly interesting: instead of substrates and computer graphics, there is a 16 mm film at all.

In the USSR, the video game industry was spurred on by the Attraction 1971 exhibition, when 50 manufacturing companies from 11 countries presented 200 samples of attractions, including 100 slot machines. I wrote more about the games that were created in Russia and the USSR here. Our developers took over the experience, and soon began to create new samples, sometimes partially adapted, sometimes original.

The most famous are the “Highway” and “Rally-M.”

Arcade slot machines laid the foundations for future video games, including the familiar rear- and overhead-view gameplay.

Home video game consoles

We have already mentioned board electromechanical games, now let’s move on to video games for the home.

The first home video game console appeared in 1972. It was a Magnavox Odyssey. It was very, very far from full-fledged color graphics: all this console could do was display white squares and a vertical stripe on the screen. However, human ingenuity knows no bounds (“the goal of fiction is cunning”), and the developers were able to make a number of games with the help of … overlays on the screen.

And so, in addition to the usual table tennis, turn–based football, hockey, strategy and the first racing games came to the houses — Ski simulator and track passing for time in Wipeout.

Many of the games for this console were, in fact, board games — they used cards, game paper bills, and dice.

In the late 1970s, Nintendo moved from producing playing cards (and the Hanafuda deck is where the company’s history began in 1889) to working in the fast-growing video game market. The reason for the reorientation was the resounding success of Taito’s Space Invaders arcade game and the oil crisis, which increased the cost of producing “physical” toys.

In 1978, Color TV-Game Racing 112 entered the market. A racing game similar to Speed Race was built into the console with a steering wheel and a gearshift: the car goes up, the road goes down.

The speed of the opponents’ movement could be changed, and the width of the screen could also be changed. These and other combinations of settings led to 112 versions of the game.

They were able to make an interesting design half a century ago — this is what Telstar Arcade looked like.

Computers

Video games have come home not only because of consoles, but also because of the increasing availability of computers.

At the end of 1981, the BBC Micro computer entered the UK market — and the BBC here is exactly the name of the broadcasting network, the British Broadcasting Corporation. And a REVS racing game with a view from the cockpit was developed for this computer.

Users noted the realistic racing simulation. First, you choose a track — tracks in several countries are available, then you qualify and get a position at the start according to the time you receive, and after that the race itself begins.

And it’s better not to crash into your rivals, otherwise the car will stop due to an accident and the race will end in disqualification for you. By the way, the game can be played directly in the browser using this link.

In 1997, the legendary Carmageddon was released on PC, later the game was ported to consoles and sequels Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now and Carmageddon: Reincarnation were released.

How did the developers come up with the concept of this game? It’s just too boring to move around the track like that, and crashing into others is already more interesting. What happens if the purpose of the passage is destruction and crushed pedestrians?

The game turned out to be somewhat more violent than expected in some countries. That’s why pedestrians were replaced with robots in Germany, and zombies in the UK.

By the way, the game is available for Android and iOS — in case you didn’t know, so you can experience a sharp attack of nostalgia.

Legends

Among all the racing games in history, there are several absolute legendary series. Launched in 1993, Need for Speed has become the most successful racing game series, with over 155 million copies sold as of 2023. NFS ranks 14th in the list of the best-selling video game franchises.

The first game, Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed was developed for the 3DO console, which was produced by Panasonic, Sanyo, Creative and Goldstar. It is worth paying attention to Road & Track in the title — it is an automobile magazine. The developers from Electronic Arts, together with the experts of the publication, set a goal to transfer the behavior of cars on the highway. Licensed Lamborghini, Ferrari, Dodge, Chevrolet, and Porsche cars were used in the game. But sometimes high realism is bad, so there was no damage to cars in collisions.

The soundtrack, right down to the sound of the gearbox lever, added realism. The game had additional data, verbal comments about cars, magazine-style photos, and short videos.

Need for Speed was ported to other platforms, and then the series grew to more than 20 parts.

The legendary series has its own internal records. Most Wanted, for example, sold 16 million copies. In second place is the first Underground, then Underground 2. Be sure to write in the comments if “Eron–don-don” started playing in your head.

Most Wanted was released in 2005. The gameplay was extremely intense due to the open world, police officers calling for reinforcements, including a helicopter, and destruction, including police cars using billboards and water towers. And very good music.

Although from the point of view of the soundtrack, perhaps it was the Underground of 2003 that was the best.: There’s Static X, Rob Zombie, The Crystal Method, Junkie XL. The game has become popular, among other things, because of the fashion for street racing in the style of the recently released films “Fast and Furious” and “Fast and Furious 2”.

Since the series was launched in 1994, and the last game in it was released in 2022, Need for Speed has undergone many changes. If it all started as a car simulator with licensed supercars, then by 1997 it was the arcade that was obtained — it became easier to control cars, chases with police officers appeared. In the 2000s, street racing became popular, with tuning, drifting, and time dilation during jumps. And in 2022, Unbound added comic book–style graphics altogether — something similar to Spider-Man: Across the Universes.

In 1997, Gran Turismo– the main competitor of Need for Speed, was released. The games in this series have sold over 100 million.

In the first part, the player can choose an arcade or realistic mode. In the first case, you choose licensed Nissan, Honda, Acura and other brands, and then tune them and ride on fictional tracks. In the following parts, real routes appeared. In the second case, you start by buying a used car.

By the way, The Cardigans named their fourth album after this game, because the musicians were relaxing in the studio while they were playing. And then the single from this album became the main track for Gran Turismo 2. The soundtrack was also not bad — Garbage can be singled out.

The game designer and racing driver Kazunori Yamauchi was behind the project. He started with the release of the cartoon Motor Toon Grand Prix, in which cars moved as realistically as possible, and not according to obscure laws of physics programmed for entertainment and ease of control. The designer’s dream was to create a game with excellent graphics, and he managed to promote his idea to the management. Not much resources were allocated, so 7 to 15 people worked on the masterpiece of their time for 5 long years.

All Gran Turismo games were released only for Sony PlayStation. They were also used to demonstrate the graphics capabilities of new consoles. GT ranks 21st in the list of the best-selling franchises.

The Forza series, which started in 2005, has sold about 30 million games by 2026. In the first part of the game, you could choose cars from 231 licensed models — these are both existing cars at that time, and prototypes like the Audi R8 LMS.

Unlike Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport has implemented a damage model — here the results of accidents are not only displayed on the body, but also affect performance. You need to drive on real existing tracks, “digitized” for the game. The game scores exceed 90 points out of 100.

The leader in the list of games in the series by sales was Forza Horizon 4, released in 2018. You don’t have to look at the number — the game is actually already the eleventh in the series. It’s a multiplayer game. There were 450 cars with the possibility of tuning in the multiplayer game. The change of seasons affects the handling of cars — as in reality. The game’s score on GameRankings and Metacritic sites exceeds 90 out of 100 points.

An amazing fact: in 2024, the developers expired license agreements with the copyright holders of cars and music tracks, and this part of the game was removed from all digital stores.

The Russian CarX series from CarX Technologies studio can already be added to the list of legendary ones. CarX is one of the most popular racing games on Steam.

The history of the game’s creation dates back to 2010. Then Anatoly Shcherbak and Roman Gipsle joined forces and released in 2013 a free demo version of CarX Drift Racing on iOS in the App Store with one car and one track, a year later the application was updated, several cars, tracks and modes were added. And then the CarX Drift Racing Lite game was released on Android.

In 2017, the multiplayer online game CarX Drift Racing Online was released on Steam. In 2019–2021, it was ported to Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Switch. The Xbox website notes that more than 200 million fans worldwide have already installed the CarX series of games. The developers themselves write on the site that 120 million people have installed the games, and 1 million users launch them daily. There are 114 cars in the game, including the Flanker F hypercar, created specifically for drifting in St. Petersburg by a team of 10 people.

For the game, the developers have created their own engine, the essence of which is a realistic simulation of car physics and the ability to customize characteristics.

Special equipment helps to make the process even more realistic — once in the F-1 pilot’s seat, it’s easier to imagine yourself as a real racer. The cockpit for car simulators is made, for example, by the Russian company GameSTUL. And she also created the GoRace motorsport simulator, in which the existing tracks are transferred to digital. The simulator runs on the Russian Unigine 2.20 engine.

In 2023, interactive racing was recognized by the Russian Ministry of Sports (Order №437 of June 20, 2023) as one of the disciplines of motorsport.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to calculate how much time many of us have spent playing Need for Speed or Carmageddon. You can only remember with a smile these happy moments from childhood. And someone is still playing now.

Of course, it is impossible to cover all the masterpieces of the genre in an article, so, friends, your time has come! Please write in the comments about your favorite games, and about those games that, in your opinion, have made the greatest contribution to the genre!

The audience has grown: if in 2020 33% of the population of our country played video games, and in 2022 the figure increased to 60%, now we are talking about 75% of Russians aged 14 and older. In total, including children from 7 years old, 106–110 million people play. Although stereotypes remained in society, many more people began to talk about the benefits of video games.

We started this year with the study “Gaming in Russia 2026”. The situation around video games in Russia still looks contradictory: on the one hand, it is a large industry with serious economic, technological and human resources potential, and on the other, outdated stereotypes persist in the public field. To have a reasoned discussion, we need up–to-date data — and now we have it.

For industry, business, and government, it is a reliable factual basis for decision-making and strategic planning. At the same time, we decided to open an array of data for free for scientific purposes. Research can become a working tool for undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, sociologists, and marketers.

Use our data, analyze it, look for new connections, argue with our conclusions and supplement them. Let term papers and theses, articles and dissertations, as well as new research appear on this basis. The more people who study video games as a serious social and economic phenomenon, the faster the industry will move away from stereotypes and develop on a mature and professional basis.

Games are not just for kids!

The intensity of video game launches has increased. Now every third adult Russian plays — that is, 34%, although just three years ago this figure was 23%. Who plays more often? Of course, men — 82% versus 69%. However, in 2018, the proportion of women ranged from 45 to 52% — and there is an obvious increase. Young people continue to play actively — 93% of people aged 14 to 17 and 90% aged 18 to 24 are involved in video games.

The Russian gamer is not a schoolboy, but a working person. He integrates games into his daily routine along with other hobbies. The core of the audience is growing at the expense of well-off Russians, and the passion for gaming is shifting into adulthood.

By the way, it is important for marketers and businesses: there are more people with relatively high incomes among gamers — those who can easily buy large household appliances, but could not buy a car (34%) than among non-gamers (29%).

What is our life? The game!

Why are we playing? More than a third of users said they were bored, one in five said they wanted to try out a new game, and a little less said they wanted to develop skills like reaction and logic. But in the first place is the desire to relax after work.

By the way, write in the comments why you are playing!

Why aren’t we playing? First of all, due to lack of time and fatigue from the gameplay. At the same time, men are more likely to stop the game if they fail or the video game lags. And women are more sensitive to the lack of time due to other things and to frequent commercial breaks.

Gamers have other digital hobbies besides gaming. For example, every fourth person takes photos and videos or undergoes online training. Less than 10% have their own blogs and podcasts, design, programming, or 3D modeling.

Leisure, culture and sports

What do Russians think about video games? The respondents were divided into two camps.

On the one hand, more than half of the respondents agree that video games promote the development of useful skills, help relieve stress, develop purposefulness, and act as a way of communication and entertainment. Also, in the responses, people noted that video games can be a profession and a sports discipline that requires training.

But on the other side of the scale are children’s academic performance, addiction, social isolation and harm to health. Every second Russian spoke about such negative effects. Of course, gamers are more likely to be convinced of a positive influence than those who do not like to play.

40% of the respondents consider video games to be full–fledged forms of cultural leisure — they compare them with reading books or watching movies. 47% of gamers and 22% of non-gamers highly appreciate the cultural value of video games.

82% of Russians believe that video games contribute to the development of skills. This is 88% of gamers and 67% of non-gamers. First of all, we are talking about logical thinking, then about the training of coordination of movements and reactions, the development of strategic planning and decision–making skills.

Of course, we talked about esports and gamedev:

9 out of 10 Russians know what esports is and give it the right definition: “It’s a video game competition in which players or teams compete for victory and prize money.”;

84% of Russians know about at least one specialty from the gaming industry; the most famous profession is game developer, and about half know about the professions of tester, streamer and esports player.

If the general opinion about games is positive, then why doesn’t everyone want to play? Games as a form of leisure are being abandoned due to the preference for alternative forms of entertainment, non-gamers said. They choose:

• getting information from the Internet — social networks and online entertainment platforms;
• Watching TV and movies;
• listening to music, audiobooks, and podcasts;
• reading books;
• Cinema, theater and museum visits;
• journeys;
• handiwork;
• sports, etc.

Every third respondent who is not fond of games calls them a waste of time or claims that he does not have time for this type of leisure.

The work of our developers does not go unnoticed. Two out of three gamers (64%) will immediately tell you at least one major computer game made with the serious participation of Russian studios. In the mobile segment, recognition is slightly lower, but it is also impressive — every second (52%) remembers a successful domestic smartphone project.

More importantly, awareness often turns into interest. Half of those who are aware of our games have played them.

What are we playing at?

Shooters and puzzles have become the most popular genres on the PC, while console players prefer RPGs, adventures, racing and simulations. Smartphones are most often used to play puzzles.

People who do not have children are more likely to play shooters — on mobile devices this is 21% versus 8–15% of gamers with children of different ages, and on PCs — 45% versus 25% with children over 18 years old.

Where’s the money, Lebowski?

In 2025, Russians spent 175 billion rubles on video games. At the same time, about 56 billion of them were spent on in-game purchases.

If you look at the breakdown by region, the residents of Moscow brought the most to the market — about 23.8 billion rubles. On average, one Muscovite spends 6,455 rubles a year on games.

Interestingly, the capital is far from the first place in this indicator. Krasnoyarsk gamers spend the most — an average of 7,244 rubles per year, and Voronezh residents spend the least. Their figure reaches 4,835 rubles. Across Russia, the average cost per player was 5,117 rubles per year.

Every fifth gamer makes in–game purchases — this is the most popular expense item. 10% spend on subscriptions, 9% on digital copies. Only 7% of purchases are made on physical copies.

The more a person earns, the more they spend on video games. 42% of residents of cities with a population of one million make purchases, and in localities with fewer residents — 33–37%.

And the more a person plays, the more they spend. Among those who play for more than an hour in a row, there are more people who make purchases from 5,001 to 8,000 rubles.

6% of respondents spent more than 10,000 rubles on in-game purchases over the year. The audience aged 35–44 spends from 3,001 to 5,000 rubles. Women are more economical: 47% of the female audience spends less than 1,000 rubles, while the figure for men is 40%.

There are also more economical users: over the past year, 50% of gamers have received new games. Young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely to purchase keys on third–party sites — 23% versus 4–14% in other age groups. The 18–34 year old category gives money to online stores, and illegal methods such as torrents are more often used in the same category.

By the way, every second user who has resorted to piracy would rather buy a licensed version of the game, provided there is a convenient and affordable payment system. Currently, every fourth PC player uses foreign accounts to access and pay for video games. The results clearly show that the problem is not unwillingness to pay — many people want to do it, but there are no opportunities in terms of tools.

This is, to put it mildly, a bad signal, especially considering that the culture of content consumption in our country has just begun to take shape. When there are no convenient and understandable ways to pay, gamers simply have no alternatives — and piracy naturally goes up.

The leader among online stores with PC games is Steam. VK Play is in second place in Russia, with a percentage gap of almost two times (41% versus 23%). Interestingly, RuStore took the first place among mobile device stores, overtaking the Play Market — 27% versus 25%, and the AppStore took the logical third place. If you look at the rating without breaking it down by platform, then RuStore ranks second after Steam — and this is a very good result.

Men are more likely to use Steam and Epic Games, while women use RuStore and AppStore, which is related to their preferred gaming devices.

Raising a partner

A lot has changed in three years. During this time, the children have grown up, and in some families a whole team has been recruited to play PUBG — mom, dad, son and daughter.

One of the important questions that we raised during the research was the attitude of parents of children from 7 to 14 years old to games. And almost 70% of them said that their children are involved in video games. The total audience of video game fans at this age ranges from 14 to 18 million people.

More than half of the respondents are rather positive about this fact, and a third are negative. 63% of men and 41% of women are positive.

53% are interested in the achievements of their offspring. And another 37% of parents sometimes play with their children. 46% of men are more willing to play with children.

Among those parents who play themselves, 57% are positive about their children’s hobbies in video games. Among non-gamblers, this figure is 30%.

7 out of 10 parents were even able to name specific games that their children are passionate about. Casual and mobile games are in the lead — three in a row and puzzles are played by every sixth. Among the most popular games are Counter–Strike, Minecraft and World of Tanks, as well as Roblox.

Videogames in cities

Which cities do you think people play most often? Hint: Moscow is not even in the top 5! The top five cities in terms of the share of gamers in general are Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Perm and Novosibirsk.

Each city has its own peculiarities. For example, Krasnodar became the most “pirated” city in Russia: 36% downloaded games from torrents. In Samara, every second gamer spends 3–4 hours a day playing the game, and socializing with friends is one of the main motivators for playing video games. Muscovites spend more money on video games than residents of other cities — 23.8 billion per year. 22% of Nizhny Novgorod residents play on consoles. And Omsk led the anti-rating of the most “gambling” cities with millions in Russia.

Interest in video games and engagement are noticeably higher in the regions. Even in cities with millions of residents, the choice of available offline entertainment is often inferior to Moscow and St. Petersburg, so video games are increasingly becoming one of the key leisure activities for Russians. This is especially noticeable among children and teenagers. This dynamic shows that the regional market has high potential — it is important to systematically develop local initiatives and industry infrastructure.

These are the results. Tell us in the comments, which data seemed to you the most unexpected, and which ones just confirmed your guesses? It will be interesting to read!

How the study was conducted

The study was conducted by the Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry (RVRI) with the support of the IFSI video game holding. The field stage was conducted by the NAFI Analytical Center. The survey method is a quantitative survey, an online survey based on a ready-made panel of respondents. The target audience is Russian citizens aged 14 and over, including a subgroup of parents of children aged 7 to 14.

The sample included 4,600 respondents, including 791 parents of children aged 7 to 14. It represents the general population by gender, age, federal districts of residence, and cities with a population of one million (according to Rosstat data). The maximum size of the statistical error in the data is 1.4%.

Detailed results can be found on the research website. There you can also fill out an application form for obtaining an array of data for analysis, training, and use in scientific and educational projects.

The industry is growing, and one could talk about mountains of gold for developers — but with a seeming democracy, the distribution of funds is not at all equal. Only a handful of hits take the lion’s share of all the money.

Let’s discuss both digital and analog marketplaces, starting with the simple sale of games that gave rise to this new reality — both open and ruthless. We are embarking on a journey that begins with mailing lists.…

Mail and online access

In 1991, Sierra, the future publisher of Half-Life, launched The Sierra Network. It was the first service focused on online games. In a couple of years, he gathered more than 40,000 users, after which he was acquired by AT&T.

In 1998, Sierra continued to help users search for servers for the game — the company opened the World Opponent Network. Using this platform, they played with each other in Homeworld, Half-Life, Star Trek: Armada, Soldier of Fortune, Dark Reign 2, Silencer and other titles. A copy of the network, called WON2, attracted up to 10,000 gamers in 2005–2010, making it the largest unofficial multiplayer platform in the world. And even now the network is alive — although it is used by a little more than 100 people.

The history of Sierra Entertainment is also interesting. IBM programmer Ken Williams played the text adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure on a teletype in 1979. His wife, Roberta Williams, loved games. According to legend, it was she who saw that the Apple II’s graphical interface could improve the gameplay of text-based games. The couple created a Mystery House based on “Ten Little Negroes” and the Cluedo board game — presumably, this is the first graphic adventure game. The game has been distributed by mail since 1980, and the project has generated a good income.

Mail-order purchases and rentals were among the ways to play something. One of the prominent services of the second was once Blockbuster, which is why Nintendo sued him back in 1989, by the way, the Japanese giant lost this court. In the USA, similar services continued to work. In 2010, Blockbuster mailed about 3,000 video games, and in 2014 it sank into oblivion, losing the battle with Netflix.

In Japan, by the way, rental is prohibited by law as part of the fight against piracy. Nintendo played a significant role in this.

But back to Sierra. The company acted as the publisher of the first part of Half-Life, after which it was possible to play both this game and its mods in the WON service — Garry’s Mod, Counter-Strike and many other projects. And on September 12, 2003, Steam opened, after Valve bought the World Opponent Network. For another couple of years, the new owner continued to use the network and then transferred the players to Steam. The opportunities expanded as Gabe Newell saw the potential in terms of game sales and company growth.

The revolution of Steam, Mobile Stores, and Portable Consoles

Steam originated as a service for distributing patches, combating piracy, and cheats for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and other Valve games. The “Trojan horse” that entered users’ homes and forced them to install the program en masse was Half-Life 2. In 2004, this game did not run without a launcher, even if it was purchased not online, but on physical media. In 2018, there was a leak from Steam, during which it became known that almost 8.9 million people had played Half-Life 2 at least once.

It’s hard to say what would have happened if it had been a different project — perhaps the store simply would not have “taken off.” It began to evolve, offering more and more third-party games. Over time, various functions for cloud storage and communication have appeared there, that is, it is almost a social network where there are reviews, a forum, achievements and the opportunity to correspond with other people.

One of the factors that makes Steam special is the behavior of the audience. Write in the comments how many games have you bought and how many of them are you running? There are users who have collected collections of thousands of games on sales, and now their eyes are just happy when they launch the application. The developer, most importantly, received the money — and this is an opportunity to earn money not only for large studios.

By the way, Russian is the 3rd most popular language on Steam with a share of 9.88%. So Russian developers are actively working on this platform, and users are playing.

But Steam didn’t start the indie revolution. In parallel with the PC games market, the market for titles for mobile devices was developing. Of course, the iPhone and HTC G1 on Android weren’t the first smartphones to play on. But the important thing was the appearance of these operating systems and app stores for them.

In 2008, Google held the Android Development Challenge to fill the OS store with as many new apps as possible. On April 14, 2008, the company received 170 applications every hour. The jury was made up of users who had access to the Android Market — those who are older probably even remember the moment when this store was renamed Play.

And in 2012, Valve announced the Steam Greenlight initiative. Indie developers now have the opportunity to publish descriptions, illustrations, and screenshots of their future games. Before this initiative, a special working group checked whether the game was worthy of publication, but now the users themselves gave the green light. The number of indie games started to grow. In 2012, 126 projects were released, in 2015 — almost 2000, and in 2018 — more than 6000.

Nintendo has given up on using it on a lot of Wii player games anyway, in order to play with themselves and play where they’re thinking. In addition, the difference between American teenagers with busy schedules and Asian teenagers, for whom joint games are important, was taken into account. Thus, the Nintendo Switch hybrid console became popular with joysticks and a base connected to a TV. You’d better combine the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS to share everything.

And they did. This includes indie developers. In order to use the game to switch, you probably don’t even need a lot of software, but rather as an offline developer. The company offers a devkit, develops a game and releases it on the Nintendo eShop platform.

Only a few famous films-”Valley of the Star Dew”, “The Tramp”, “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, “Binding Isaac”, or “Hollow Knight: Silk Song” — can be called “Substitution”.

What do we have now? PC games can be downloaded:
- from Steam, which remains a virtual monopoly;
- Epic Games Store;
- GOG — for retro games;
- VK Play;
- itch io — here you can publish your project for free.

The Nintendo Switch stands alone with its own store. And for smartphones, the main platforms are:
- Google Play;
- Apple Store;
- Windows Mobile was once on this list.

Triple-I vs AAA

When we talk about AAA projects, we mean the work of large studios. Triple-I is an ambitious project by independent developers. Until 2020, big-budget indie Triple-I games were almost unheard of. Now they are becoming more successful and provide more than half of the total revenue of independent studios.

Platforms play an important role in this. But is it enough to get on the Steam platform to pay off the development, find money for a new project and earn money for a house and a car? Analysts from Gamalytic checked 13,000 releases and found out that 8% of indie projects can be called commercially successful, as they earned more than $ 100,000.

65.9% of the games earned less than $1,000. And 40% of indie games couldn’t even earn $100, which they spent on publishing on Steam.

However, the commercial potential of the industry is growing — by 2030, the indie market may reach almost $ 10 billion.

In 2024, for the first time in history, the total revenue of indie games approached the revenue of class AA/AAA games on Steam. The only question is the distribution of money. Revenue from 272 video games exceeded $1 million, which is only 2% of all projects analyzed by Gamalytic. Less than 0.5% of the total sample provide 80% of the income in the market.

As an example, let’s look at a couple of projects from among the most commercially successful indie games. The Swedish R.E.P.O. project, according to Gamalytics calculations, was bought 16.8 million times — sales ranged from 10 million to 23 million dollars. Now this horror occupies the 23rd position in the weekly sales ranking, but at some point it became one of the best-selling games on Steam and held the second place after the shareware CS2.

The revenue of the Russian game MiSide for January 2025, that is, within a couple of months after its release, amounted to $ 28 million. Now the figure has exceeded 40 million.

It is worth noting that only two people worked on MiSide. Without detracting from their work, we can safely say that such an incredible success is very similar to winning the lottery.

Results

The indie revolution that marketplaces started turned out to be paradoxical. She gave independent developers a dream — and immediately showed her the wrong side.

On the one hand, we live in an era of unprecedented opportunities — the path from an idea to a global release now takes not dozens of hours of negotiations with publishers, but clicks in the interface of the chosen platform. The story of Ken and Roberta Williams mailing floppy disks seems archaic today. Thanks to Steam and other platforms, two people can create a project that will earn $40 million in a couple of months. The indie games market is breaking records.

But, on the other hand, this same revolution has created a trap of abundance. Access democracy has turned into total competition. The promise “everyone can release a game” is not equal to the promise “every game will be successful.” Brutal statistics best describe the new reality — 0.5% of indie projects take 80% of all money. The revolution won, but its fruits were bittersweet. And the main challenge for an indie developer today is not to create a game, but to make the world notice it amid the general noise. That’s why marketing is important, and communication with the community, with bloggers and streamers, is important. To succeed, you need to choose all available options and combine them.

There are five unique worlds in this article. The living galaxy of the “Space Rangers” and the surreal landscape of the “Vangers”, an alternative USSR in Atomic Heart and Slavic folklore by Morteshka studio, as well as an apocalyptic Russian town in No, I’m not a Human.

There is one factor that unites these games: the universes in them are a full–fledged part of the gameplay, and not just a background.

Space Rangers

is a cult game that is included in the Hall of Fame of the Russian video game industry. Its gameplay is a unique fusion of multiple genres: RPG, quest, arcade, space simulator and turn–based strategy.

The action takes place in the XXXI century. Five intelligent races with a common time and currency unite to resist the invasion of the aggressive Klisan race — they do not make contact, constantly opening fire. To combat the common threat, the Space Rangers organization was created. They will have to learn how to defeat the Klisans or, with the help of scientists, get in touch with them and make peace. In 2004, “Space Rangers 2: Dominators” was released — in the sequel, a new threat appears in the galaxy in the face of the cybernetic race of dominators.

Before starting the game, you need to choose a race:

Malok,
Peleng,
humans,
Feyans,
Gaals.
…and the background:
a warrior,
a merchant,
a pirate.

And after that, trade and stay in prison, transport goods and rob caravans, upgrade the ship and sell minerals from asteroids.

A distinctive feature of the game series is a universe that lives its own life. AI-controlled characters trade and fight. Space pirates attack peaceful ships, and this happens mostly in hyperspace. Instead of a clear prescribed plot, the game features quests for the player, which are randomly generated. The economy is very interesting: the prices of minerals, for example, depend on the race, type of planet and the political system on it.

By the way, the game was ported to the web in 2025.

Atomic Heart

Released in 2023, Atomic Heart was immediately called a breakthrough in the domestic video game industry, and was also dubbed a tool of soft power. The original plot, effective marketing, many references to popular culture, and the genre itself, which can be described as Sovietpunk, made the game interesting for gamers — it gathered 10 million players, as the studio announced in May 2025.

The developers from Mundfish decided to pick up the trend towards the popularity of the USSR and created an alternative reality in 1955. The development of cybernetics has led to a technological leap, including the active use of robots: they work in mines and fields, serve guests in restaurants, and make cars fly.

At the very beginning of the game, when we are flying in a car thanks to a huge robot, we are shown several statues. They have real prototypes. For example, “Motherland” holds not only a sword, but also a symbolic image of an atom. A much larger “atom” is being held by the game “Worker and Collective farmer”. Then we are shown the main building of the city of Chelomey, which is made in the Stalinist Empire style and inspired by the “Stalin Sisters”. And on top of the skyscraper we see ballerinas — it is the Russian ballet that is the standard for the whole world. We can watch “Well, wait a minute!” on TV.

But we don’t see one of the main components of the game’s success, but we hear it. As one of my friends said, he is ready to forgive the game any bugs, mistakes, flaws just because the song of the Kino group was played twice in a row. Music in Atomic Heart is a calling card. Here we hear “Grass at Home”, “You don’t believe the tears” by Shura, “Komarovo” and “There are girls”, as well as many other remixes of Soviet and Russian compositions.

Let me remind you that we are being shown 1955. Where did the songs from a later time come from? Soviet scientists here have invented an algorithm that allows us to guess what kind of music people will listen to in ten, twenty, thirty years or later.

And in this world, an error occurs in the neural network “Collective”, which unites robots. The player will have to take up arms and find the cause of the problem. It’s a pleasure to do it with such a soundtrack.

Morteshka

The name of the Morteshka studio consists of several words: the French “mort”, which means “death”, the Permian Komi “mort”, meaning “man”, as well as the Russian “matryoshka”. And this name perfectly conveys the atmosphere that the team creates.

Its founder Vladimir Beletsky worked on the first project (for the studio, but not in his career) for two years, although he planned to complete it as a runner-up for the May holidays in 2015. But in the end, it wasn’t until 2017 that the game “The Man” was released on Steam, then it appeared on the AppStore and Google Play, as well as on consoles. It was based on Komi myths, so they decided to voice it in Komi, the Permian language, and invited a native speaker of this language. During the development process, the founder of the studio consulted with representatives of the archaeological department of the Perm Museum of Local Lore, learned details about artifacts and myths.

The second game was called “Black Book”, it was released in 2021 on Steam and consoles, later on the AppStore. This is an adventure game combined with a card RPG: during the battle, the character receives several “words” from the witchcraft deck and then collects a spell from them. The main character is Vasilisa, a peasant woman, a young witch who saves her lover. The book is an ancient artifact that can fulfill the wish of the one who opens the 7 seals. The game immerses you in the world of Russian fairy tales — the plot is based on the folklore of the Perm Region of the 19th century.

The studio’s next project is “Famously One–eyed”. The game’s plot is based on the East Slavic folk tale of the same name. The action takes place again in Russia of the 19th century. “The main character finds himself in dark locations where reality is intertwined with myth. Trying to escape his evil fate, he explores the forgotten lands. As the player progresses, he learns more and more about the nature of the Disaster and the reasons for what is happening,” the developers describe their project.

This small indie studio from Perm can be attributed to a unique phenomenon in the Russian gaming industry. The team is essentially creating digital encyclopedias on Slavic and Finno-Ugric mythology. The developers put ancient beliefs, fairy tales, and mythology into game forms, and each of the projects in their universe reveals a new cultural layer.

No, I’m not a Human

This year, the game No, I’m not a Human from the Russian studio Trioskaz spread like a zombie virus. The project was released on Steam on September 15, 2025 and has already received more than 7,000 “very positive” reviews.

Of particular interest is the gameplay, which, depending on the periodic actions of the player, switches from ordinary 3D to something from visual novels. In addition, the developers of the new game decided to use the old static graphics in the spirit of the first PlayStation.

You manage a homeowner in a world where the Sun has become deadly for people — you can only go outside and seek shelter at night. However, after dark, not only ordinary citizens can knock on the door, but also hostile creatures — “guests” hiding under the guise of a human.

At night, your character decides whether to let someone who knocks on the door into the house. And during the day, he tries to determine if everyone in the house is exactly ordinary living people. To do this, you need to examine different signs, and then make a choice: kill a potential monster or believe it. A mistake will lead to the death of a real person who trusted you and stayed in the dwelling.

The idea immediately arises of not letting anyone in, but this is also not an option, since a special “guest” periodically looms in front of the doors and attacks lonely people. It is vital for your character to rescue strangers.

Developing No, I’m not a Human for Trioskaz Studio was a hobby until the information about the prototype was posted on social networks. The team drew the attention of the publisher Critical Reflex, known for Buckshot Roulette. As a result, we managed to attract financing to implement the project.

The Vangers

Vangers is a cult and absolutely unique game from 1998. It was created under the leadership of Andrey “Krank” Kuzmin, a legend of the Russian video game industry. In 2023, an extraordinarily talented developer was one of the first to enter the Video Game Industry Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, posthumously.

What genre can this project be attributed to:
an arcade action car,
a quest,
an economic simulator,
a psychedelic adventure?

The game’s universe is alive, just like in the case of Space Rangers. But if the characters and planets live in the Rangers, then in the Vangers, the earth appears or disappears right under the wheels of your vehicle, and the landscape changes before your eyes. Physics is unpredictable at first glance. Therefore, the game will either piss you off, or you will become a fan of it — which is similar to Stockholm Syndrome. Indeed, it is unlikely to find analogues to this video game.

The action takes place in a fictional universe called The Lost Chain. Humanity has learned to build corridors between worlds, which is why it faced the Crispoid race. War and genetic experiments have led to the emergence of new forms of life. As a result, there are three main planets with races in this world.:
Fostrala — elipods live on it;
Biburats live on Glorx;
Nekross is the house of Cycles.

The player explores a surreal world, trades and fights, and searches for artifacts. At the same time, the plot is non-linear, there are several endings.

The landscape reacts to the players’ actions thanks to the Surmap A-R-T voxel engine, developed by the studio specifically for the “Vangers”. The game has wheel tracks, craters from explosions, bubbles from a car under water, as well as wandering hills and pits that will either turn the process into a stunningly interesting adventure, or together with acidic colors will drive you crazy.

Result

These projects have become iconic, as they offer not just entertainment, but a different kind of experience. Some teach you how to survive in harsh conditions, others teach you how to negotiate and choose a path between trade and piracy, and others surprise you with unexpected turns (especially when you figure out how to steer, that is, you roughly understand how to drive straight, and then suddenly something throws you into the air). And the point here is not commercial success, but the fact that any of these games leaves its mark on the industry and in the minds of gamers.

Some of these titles and the personalities who created them were honored in the Russian Video Game Industry Hall of Fame — tens of thousands of people chose who would be there during the annual popular vote.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of Russian projects whose worlds can be classified as unique. What would you add to it? Write in the comments!

And these are not just exhibits in a digital museum, but a living mechanism influenced by the community of gamers, game developers, esports players, and industry experts. Everyone has a unique chance to directly influence its formation: to do this, you need to propose candidates from whom experts will form a shortlist, and then, in the fall, participate in the popular vote.

What role do video games play for Russia? Why popularize Russian projects? How does the Video Game Industry Hall of Fame work? We will discuss it in this article. And write in the comments who has made the greatest contribution to the industry!

Video games for Russia

Historically, from the point of view of developments in the USSR and Russia, there were many extremely interesting projects, but due to a number of factors, that is, due to the lack of a large sales market, they did not have much commercial success. The industry itself did not develop from the point of view of commerce, but at the same time there were indie projects, as well as interesting examples of scientific developments. It is also important to note the development of computers in general: at the dawn of the digital era, back in 1968, Soviet scientists created the world’s first computer animation video, “Kitty.”

And video games are no exception. It is an integral part of modern Russian culture. After the Attraction 1971 exhibition, where 50 companies from all over the world presented slot machines to Soviet citizens, the country began to produce its own attractions. These were mechanical, electromechanical and electronic devices.

Since 1978, they began to produce television set–top boxes, analogs of the foreign Magnavox Odyssey and Atari Pong. For example, “Palaestra-02”, for which there were games like tennis, mini-football, volleyball and squash. Or the prefix “Tournament”, which was used to solve scientific problems: in experiments to study the capabilities of the human brain and the switchability of attention.

“… the Tournament set-top box, which was mass-produced by the radio industry and set to the Handicap Hockey Game mode, was used as an experimental setup. In this mode, a playing field is displayed on the TV screen, on which two teams are placed, one consisting of three and the other of two players depicted as segments of vertical lines. The players of the first team are positioned in the center of the field before the start of the game and remain motionless thereafter, while the players of the second team can move vertically using the control stick. This is the subject’s command.

…We will show that in these conditions, the success of gaming activity is determined by such a quality of the subject as attention switching.”

Consoles were followed by the era of personal computers. For example, “Agate” was widespread. Independent projects were made for him, and games were ported from foreign architectures. And later there were such legends as Perestroika, Color Lines, the shooter “Kremlin Dungeons” and quests about Stirlitz and Chapaev, as well as “Space Rangers” and “Allods”.

The Color Lines game became a worldwide hit and was officially sold in Japan. Although it was not possible to achieve the same success as Tetris, it was a powerful achievement. And the second part of the Corsairs game was branded by Disney to advertise the Pirates of the Kabir Sea.

The era of piracy in the 1990s and 2000s with unpredictable translations and voice acting deserves special consideration. 1000-in-1 cartridges for Dendy have become a window into the universe of games unknown all over the world for Russian boys and girls.

There are also their own iconic projects from Russian developers for mobile platforms. For example, Cut the Rope, Shadow Fight and Gardenscapes.

According to a study by the Video Game Industry Development Organization (RVI) and the NAFI Analytical Center for 2022, 60% of the population in our country plays in them. The indicator has doubled compared to 2020. Russian is one of the three most popular languages in the world on Steam, and more users speak only English and Chinese.

Soviet developers both independently created games and ported foreign projects to PCs available in the country. It was in the USSR that one of the familiar cultural phenomena of the gaming industry was created — Tetris, which proved that Russian developers are able to conquer the whole world. The history of our video game industry is very interesting, and I’ll try to tell you about it next time. But even now we have something to be proud of — for example, Atomic Heart, which broke records in Steam After its release in 2023.

Popularization of Russian projects

There are both large studios and small teams in Russia. The indie scene is not only a forge of personnel, from which large studios grow, but also a space for the most daring and innovative ideas. Unfortunately, awareness of these projects is still insufficient. Meanwhile, Russian developers continue to create games that are gaining worldwide recognition. I’ve been talking about interesting projects here and what a single developer can be capable of.

And interesting projects have been released this year. In the summer of 2025, Morteshka Studio presented the long-awaited “Famously One-eyed”. Morteshka experiments with gameplay and creates plots based on folk legends. The studio’s first project was called “The Human”, it was based on Komi myths — the game was even voiced in Permian Komi. The second project was a mix of an adventure game with a card RPG: The Black Book.

In September 2025, a mix of a visual novel with a horror called No, I’m not a Human was released. In a world where sunlight has become dangerous for people, you need to save yourself and other survivors from monsters. To do this, you need to choose who to let into your home, and who to leave outside the door, and double–check the “guests”.

Below is not a photo from the cockpit of a fighter jet, but a screenshot from a new game from 1C Game Studios. The developers are once again shocking everyone with the quality of graphics in the Korea project. IL-2 series”.

For the development of the industry, it is critically important to draw attention to our developments, whether they are indie hits, products from major studios, or projects by teams with Russian roots. It is important to show their achievements, support and form a community around them. As in many countries around the world, supporting the gaming industry is becoming a matter of cultural sovereignty and economic development.

In many countries, the government supports game studios if they comply with certain requirements. For example, in the UK, scores are calculated based on factors such as the location of the game, the history of the country in the setting, the work of teams in the country, and so on.

The Video Game Industry Hall of Fame has become one of the tools for highlighting the history and results of the industry.

Video Game Industry Hall of Fame

In 2015, the World Video Game Hall of Fame was opened in New York State. It includes games that have the status of “icons”, that is, wide recognition, long–lasting — remaining popular for a long time, wide coverage in terms of geography, as well as having an impact on the design and development of other games, the entertainment industry, popular culture and society as a whole. Every year, 4–5 games from 15 potential candidates replenish this hall.

By analogy with the World Video Game Hall of Fame, which honors games that have had the greatest impact on the industry and culture, in 2023 we created the Russian Video Game Industry Hall of Fame — this is the flagship project of the RVR. Our goal is not just to preserve history, but also to create a point of attraction for the community, celebrate the achievements of the people and projects that shaped the national game world, and inspire a new generation of developers. It is necessary to support the creative potential of the current creators and popularizers of games and help develop it in the future.

Among the first video games to be inducted into the Hall of Fame were:

• Tetris,
• Space Rangers,
• Atomic Heart.

In 2024, as a result of voting, the list was supplemented by:

• Allods Online,
• Heroes of Might and Magic V,
• “Truckers 2”.

The personalities who first entered the Hall of Fame were Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, CEO and creator of Dandy and Akado Viktor Savyuk, TV presenter Sergey Suponev and other people who influenced the formation of the industry — currently it has 12 legends.

In 2024, a new nomination appeared — cybersportsmen. Yaroslav NS Kuznetsov, Alexey Solo Berezin, Yaroslav Miposhka Naydenov received the most votes.

New projects and people appear in the Hall of Fame after completing several stages.:

Long list. Anyone can propose candidates through the form on the website.

Expert assessment. More than 300 industry experts (developers, journalists, bloggers — those who are part of the RVI) vote and form a shortlist.

Popular vote: the final selection is up to you, the community of gamers.

However, a couple of decades ago everything was different — then studios, companies and developers could afford absolutely anything that came to their mind. And neither laws, nor censorship, nor even common sense could prevent this. Some advertising campaigns were so full of creativity that it was sometimes unclear which product they were trying to promote.

In this article, I propose to consider the most interesting game advertising materials from the 80s, 90s and noughties. It definitely won’t be boring!

Games are for kids

In the 80s, the industry was just being formed for the mass consumer — then there were much fewer people playing than now. Publishers, and even more so developers, did not yet know how to properly promote their products, and most importantly, they did not understand what kind of audience they needed to count on. We decided to place the main bet on children.

At the same time, the commercials looked quite simple and natural for that time. For example, this is how people were told about Mario Bros. for Atari 2600 and 5200.

The video features cheerful music, and an actor dressed as a well-known plumber runs away from giant turtles and crabs, shouting at the same time: “Mario, where are you?” Then they show us a bit of the gameplay of the title itself. Harmless enough, isn’t it?

There were many such things. However, there were sometimes real nuggets among such videos. Like the “You Can’t Beat Us” advertisement from Nintendo.

At the time, many people found her really creepy. The heroes of the current titles challenged the audience, saying that they would not be able to defeat them. It would seem that there is nothing like that here, but they talked in creepy robotic voices, which was long remembered by many who watched this masterpiece.

It is noteworthy that in this 44-second video, Nintendo managed to demonstrate not only the console itself and some of the heroes of its titles, but also additional controllers, such as the NES Zapper pistol and R.O.B. By the way, the latter replaced the problem of finding a second player by sitting next to you in front of the screen, reading optical signals from it and pressing on the buttons. You can imagine how much many people wanted such a stray.

Despite the fact that the main focus remained on children, adults were also not forgotten. That’s how the Game Boy was advertised in 1989.

In the center of the plot is a man who enthusiastically plays a portable at the airport. He is informed that the flight is delayed, but he is only happy about it and continues to press the buttons on his Game Boy. So, the company wanted to show that adults can also enjoy games. I can’t help but recall the story of Fayez Chopdat, who in 2002 received a 4-month prison sentence for refusing to turn off his phone during a flight so as not to interrupt a Tetris game.

The time of coolness

Then the 90s began, and the companies decided to make “cool” ads for teenagers. And what exactly is “cool” for the stereotypical children of those years? That’s right — explosions, extreme and utter disorder. All this was gathered by the 1992 Sega CD advertisement.

First, we are shown a video sequence with sharks, snowboarders, airplanes, burning cars and people being bitten by bees. Then several Sega consoles and a teenager with a gamepad appear on the screen — the entire video sequence is accompanied by chaotic inarticulate screams and the sounds of tires during a skid. Cool? Of course it’s cool.

Or here’s another example of the Sega Mega Drive video — a pretentious character comes to a scientist who, under the incendiary techno, begins to modernize his body with all sorts of cybernetic implants. After that, he attacks the enemies on the TV screen with a sight built right into the eye, and skillfully presses the buttons. At the end, a banner with a console appears.

Or here’s a video in which a guy is literally “blown away” by a Panasonic 3DO.

In 1993, Sega released the video “Bully” for its Genesis. Here we are shown a guy who is being harassed by classmates: in the evening he comes home and shows all his skills in Mortal Kombat and X-Men. The next day, the bullies helpfully serve him cookies with milk, and his classmates are sitting around.

And to advertise the title Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, the company used a clip from the king of pop himself.

The Russian experience

Sega was also making progress in our homeland, although the domestic division had a slightly smaller budget. This video was shot in 1994.

An ambulance is rushing through the streets of the city, and all the people are looking back at it in fright. Then they show us the famous red-haired boy who starred in “Yeralash”: he is lying on a bed with a soft cloth on his head. Paramedics run into the apartment, and they have “Sonic” on their lab coats — the doctors give the child a console, and he heals instantly. The slogan –Magical World” appeared on the screen.

The advertising of the “gaming television computer” by BITMAN was distinguished by an even smaller budget. I think many people have a strong sense of nostalgia now. In the video, we are shown an average Russian family going about their business in the kitchen. Then a child in a cap appears in the doorway and brazenly says the phrase: “And I said BITMAN.” Despite the reduced budget, the replica was able to gain a foothold in the minds of those schoolchildren for a long time.

And here is an advertisement for Dendy, the legendary console of those years. In it, a father brings his son a console, and they sit down to play. The console is so addictive that the head of the family even forgets to take off his coat.

By the way, its creator Viktor Savyuk has entered the Video Game Industry Hall of Fame — there will be a vote for new participants in November, don’t miss it!

The second half of the 90s

I think all these examples made it clear that the main focus remained on the younger generation. But closer to the mid-90s, more and more adults became interested in games — the stereotype that only children play them finally disappeared, and companies began to switch to an older audience.

Adults began to appear among the main characters of the videos. Like, for example, in the Sega Dreamcast commercial, where hairdressers compete with each other.

And then “adult” jokes began to appear in them. For example, here is a video in which an actor plays a Game Boy Advance right during a colonoscopy.

This happened especially often in analog formats. They weren’t shy about anything. For example, one of the most controversial ads for the Game Boy Pocket depicted a girl lying tied up on a bed.

The audience didn’t really appreciate this idea and thought that the heroine in the photo was scared. Therefore, the material was quickly withdrawn. However, the company did not stop there and continued to do this.

Video games

At that time, consoles were mostly advertised on TV — games could slip into these commercials, but still the main focus was on devices. The titles themselves were more often flashed in analog formats, mostly in magazines. And there the companies chose a very unusual way to promote — posters on the page spread. I think many people will remember this.

Studios rarely resorted to ambiguous advertising, but they made very interesting posters. It wasn’t a shame to hang them on the wall — on the contrary! Here are some examples.

Wild Noughties

Finally, we got to zero. Then everyone decided to finally get creative, and game advertising moved towards virality. The approach has completely changed — the videos have become bolder and more absurd.

For example, in a series of Nintendo GameCube commercials, in which the company wanted to show a transitional stage from reality to gameplay. The video was completely absurd — sometimes people in suits are eating at a table with a cube with a twisted man in the center, or a basketball is flying at breakneck speed inside the cube. All this was accompanied by very energetic music and fast-paced shots.

Or what is the provocative advertisement for their Nintendo DS touchscreen laptop — the campaign was called Touch It.

There is a video from the same opera where the experimental mouse “liked” the new Game Boy Micro too much. How willing were parents to buy consoles for their children after such videos?

Microsoft did not share Nintendo’s love of adult subtext, but released equally provocative videos for Xbox.

We are shown a forest with singing mosquitoes and dancing animals. In the middle of the video, the insects begin to speak in human language and tell the audience that humans have the gift of playing games, while insects can only suck blood. This is how the company advertised its console.

Well, this is one of the most famous Xbox videos, which was even banned in the UK after widespread complaints. First, we are shown a woman who gives birth to a child — he literally “flies out” of her and lives his whole life, rushing through the air. In the end, the old man lands right in the grave, and the slogan “Life is short. Play more.”

And in another video, she decided to remind everyone about death and showed people shooting with their fingers.

But Sony was the real king of arthouse — they have plenty of such videos. Many people will probably remember the viral advertisement about “mental well-being.”

To create it, Sony enlisted the provocative video artist Chris Cunningham. In a cold technical room, under the light of fluorescent lamps, a creepy, lopsided girl sat and monotonously talked about the importance of mental well–being — only the final slogan “do not underestimate the power of PlayStation” reminded that it was actually an advertisement for the console. Interestingly, in everyday life, the actress looked absolutely normal — the magic of editing.

And once the company collaborated with the director of the TV series “Twin Peaks” David Lynch. The collaboration resulted in a series of surreal videos called The Third Place.

It’s hard to say what exactly happened on them.: sometimes a car crashes into a deer, but it remains unharmed, or a sleeping dog is in the frame all the time. Only the slogan and the company’s logo at the end of the video said that it was a PlayStation advertisement.

Sony reached its climax in a 2006 video — throughout the entire video sequence, the focus was on a doll that made creepy noises, laughed, sobbed, and moved its mouth chaotically. All this time she was looking at the PlayStation 3.

Their banners were no less interesting and strange. Here are some examples.

Conclusion

We don’t see any more such creatives from these companies — now the advertising has become 100 times less shocking and more verified. A lot of factors influenced this, starting with the legislation of all countries and ending with censorship by the people themselves. Even Nintendo has become a “family” brand.

In this regard, I want to ask you a question. Do you think it’s gotten better or “the grass used to be greener”? Share your opinion in the comments!

My heart is pounding, and my palms are sweating. Your fear is real — and it is born not of a picture, but of a sound.

Sound design allows you to create an atmosphere. Experts have to remember every sound — from the faintest rustle to the deafening roar of a monster, and from the haunting melody to the oppressive silence.

Each game consists of many components, and without any of them it is impossible to make a high–quality project — it’s about mechanics, animation, graphics, plot… But even the most elaborate world and thoughtful gameplay won’t work without one important element. Of course, we are talking about sound design.

The main backbone of the works included in the sound design can be divided into several components — these are sound effects, voice acting, ambient and music.

Synchronous noises and sound effects

Synchronous noises are necessary for voicing all the actions taking place in the game. These may include footsteps, jumps, door opening sounds, blows, sword swings, gunshots, and window smashing.… It can take a very long time to list. They signal the results of the player’s actions and in–game events — thanks to this, gamers can understand the game world and interact with it.

However, it is not necessary to perform an action in the game in order to record any sound. Often, synchronous noises have to be invented in the same way as it happens when shooting movies. Do you remember the moment from the second Terminator when Robert Patrick’s character walks through the bars and his gun gets stuck between the bars? Powerful digital equipment was used to create the visual effects in this film. And for the sound, it was enough to turn over a bowl of dog food.

Like the breaking bones in Mortal Combat X and XI, they’re just bell peppers, nuts, or grapefruits.

This method of creating noise was invented by Jack Foley, a pioneer of sound recording, who was the first to apply sound to the finished video. The reason for developing the approach was simple — the old video cameras were too noisy and drowned out the surrounding sounds. Actually, the method was named after him — when working with video games, it is used everywhere.

Recording sounds using this method does not require global costs, so it is not uncommon to find good sound design even in indie projects. The simple principle here is to give your best wherever your budget allows. Remember Stardew Valley — the sound of picking up objects is voiced by a popping sound made by the mouth.

Finding and/or creating different sounds in video games is a painstaking job for specialists. They need to choose whether to immerse the gamer in realism — for example, embed the real sound of Kalashnikov reloading and machine gun shots, or into a fantasy or fantasy world — then they will have to invent how giant robotic dinosaurs, warp engines, and the results of magic spells should sound.

By the way, the latter are called SFX — this is how they characterize all sound effects that do not exist in reality. This also includes the sounds of the game’s interface. It’s often impossible to record all of this on their own, so sound designers resort to using existing stock audio, just as graphic designers use photo banks. Among such resources are:
http://99sounds.org/
https://freesound.org/
http://incompetech.com/
http://opengameart.org/
http://playonloop.com/

Sound propagation

But it’s one thing to just find the sound, another thing is to make it sound right. Sound designers think through everything to the smallest detail and recreate the most plausible sound environment for the player, and sound tracing helps them in this.

The method allows us to recreate acoustic effects in accordance with how sound waves are repelled or pass through various objects — thanks to this, we understand and navigate the environment in everyday life. In short, it’s all physics.

Let’s look at a few basic sound propagation effects using the example of Microsoft Project Triton.:

Obstruction

In a situation where the sound source is located behind an obstacle, the player hears the sum of two signals — a muffled sound that passed directly through the obstacle, and a sound that came along the reflected path.

Portaling

Here, the direct sound from two sources is blocked by an obstacle and does not reach the listener in full — at the same time, he hears it from the doorway.

Occlusion

Occlusion implies a decrease in volume due to the geometry of the room in which the source is located: in such conditions, diffracted waves reach the listener, and the sound itself loses high frequencies, becoming quiet and muffled.

Reverb

With the help of reverberation, sound designers set the sound space — the waves will bounce off the walls and ceiling, creating a kind of echo effect. For example, in an underground parking lot. It is very important to take into account the “fullness” of the room with objects — the fewer they are, the greater the effect.

Decay time

The attenuation time directly depends on the size of the room — the larger the room, the longer it will be.

Voiceover

In games, voice acting is used much more comprehensively than in movies — it is divided into several components.

First of all, this is the usual voiceover of the dialogues of the main and secondary characters. Here, it is very important for studios to select suitable actors who will suit the character timbally, will be able to fully reflect his character and convey his emotions to the players. I think each of you will remember many examples of excellent voice acting — the same Roger Clark, who gave voice to both healthy and sick Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2.

If the character is not human, his voice is processed with additional effects to emphasize the characteristics of the race. For robots, these can be metallic sounds and distortions that add credibility to the already synthetic timbre. Monsters often have low frequencies, echo overlays, or hissing tones added to make the voice sound more massive and menacing. Etc.

Well, where without voiceover of the hero’s actions — boredom when taking damage of different levels, rapid breathing when running, shortness of breath, jumping voiceover … All this allows players to better understand the character’s condition and strengthens their connection with him.

Ambient

Ambient is a soundtrack that plays against the background and sets the atmosphere. It can be either background synthesized music or just sound effects.

The most important thing in creating an ambient sound is to use sample loops in which the audio file begins and ends imperceptibly. The player should not notice the moments when he is interrupted — sudden transitions can ruin the immersion and disrupt the atmosphere.

While working on the game Inside, sound designer and composer Martin Stig Andersen decided to use a real human skull to give the ambient sound the right shade. The idea was to make the soundtrack sound the way we hear it inside our head. That’s what he did — Andersen put a microphone through his skull and the music acquired an unusual texture and timbre.

The general “natural” ambient always sounds — it can be both birdsong and raging wind, as well as the industrial noises of factory machines. When adding them, it is very important to take into account the positioning on the location. Attenuation is applied here. Each object has a sound zone, which is divided into two: the first is responsible for the rise, and the second for the constant volume.

At the same time, ambient can specifically play with the nerves of the players, without foreshadowing anything. For example, in horror movies.

What is the soundtrack of Midwich Elementary School worth in the first part of Silent Hill? In the regular version of the school, wild, disturbing music is playing — you constantly expect that someone is about to attack you. At the same time, there are no enemies nearby and nothing happens. At the same time, there is absolutely no sound in the parallel hellish version of the location.

Or going down the stairs at the Silent Hill Historical Society. It seems endless — the lower you go, the more the looping siren grows. Towards the end, she’s already completely crying and overlapping herself — Jace reaches the door, opens it and finds… that there’s nothing to worry about. That’s how sound design works.

Music

And finally we got to the music. She sets the mood and conveys the atmosphere of the scene that is happening at the moment, highlights some events and evokes emotions. If something dramatic is happening in the game, then the music should be appropriate. Or take the same music during a fight — it is full of determination and causes a certain anxiety. There can be many options.

At the same time, music can immediately remind you of the game, as well as the movie. Think of the TV series Breaking Bad — you’ll probably instantly guess this tune. And in the same way, you will immediately understand if you hear the first notes from Doom or Super Mario. And metal versions of Soviet songs will remind you of Atomic Heart — nostalgia and the fashion for Soviet aesthetics played a role here (which, again, was influenced by the game itself). Let’s talk about some examples in more detail.

Atomic Heart

Released in 2023, the action movie from Mundfish has become popular not only because of its interesting mechanics (hello, Bioshock!) and Soviet aesthetics, but also because of his music. The top streaming services included such works from the game as:

“Komarovo”,

“The January Blizzard is ringing”,

“The Beautiful is far away”.

In the game, you could hear the compositions of the Kino group, Pesnyarov, Maria Pakhomenko and Shura (“Don’t believe the tears, everything will come back after long nights…”).

Remixes of iconic songs and the work of Mick Gordon gave the game a unique retrofuturistic style.

By the way, the title was honorably inducted into the Video Game Industry Hall of Fame.

Doom

One of the founders of shooters, which appeared for the first time in 1992, laid the foundations for this genre, although it was not the very first shooting game in history. Mick Gordon was seven years old at the time. And in 2016, it was with his legendary guitar notes that the next part of the franchise was released.

Before Doom, Mick Gordon managed to work with several parts of Need for Speed and Wolfenstein, with The Last Airbender, F.E.A.R. 3. And after that, he became the main composer of Atomic Heart.

In 2017, Gordon shared the story of music development for Doom. He said that the task was something like this:

We want you to write music that no one has ever heard before.;

It should fit perfectly into the game.;

Millions of fans should definitely like it.

And he did it. Moreover, a nine-string guitar and the sound of a chainsaw from the first Doom were used.

But it wasn’t just Doom 2016 that made music legendary. The cool musical accompaniment in this shooter was played back in the 90s. At that time, Bobby Prince, who also worked with Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem II, was responsible for the music.

The composer was inspired by modern metal. Just turn on the song At Doom’s Gate and immediately remember the riffs of Metallica, Pantera, Slayer or Black Sabbath.

Silent Hill

In 1999, Silent Hill, the first survival horror game in the franchise, was released on Sony PlayStation. In 26 years, almost 10 parts of the game and a remake of the second part, a couple of films, comics and books have been released.

Akira Yamaoka, who is called a genius no less often than Kojima, was responsible for the music in almost the entire series. Interestingly, the “master” himself does not know musical notation and all his attempts to get a musical education ended in nothing — however, this did not prevent him from joining Konami, and then achieving the project that made him famous.

The soundtrack, written by Yamaoka, can be recognized from the first notes — it has become a full-fledged hallmark of the series, along with the fog. The compositions are disturbing, thoughtful, melancholic — there is a sense of anguish in them, and in some there is hope.

Conclusion

I would like to note that sound design is a very multifaceted field, in which there are many nuances that are taken into account by specialists. To understand it, one article is not enough, you need to read the literature here :) For those who want to immerse themselves in the field more seriously, it is recommended to pay attention to Anton Denikin’s book “Sound design in video games. Game audio technology for non-programmers”.

Which games do you think are the best in terms of sounds and music, and why? Write in the comments!