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December 18, 2012 — Wargaming is excited to share its key achievements for the calendar year 2012, capping off one of the most productive year in the company’s history. Wargaming has strengthened its position as an independent developer and publisher of top-notch free-to-play titles and has a clear lead in fostering the evolution of the MMO as a competitive and resilient genre in the video game industry.

“Wargaming has demonstrated sustainable growth and solid performance during 2012, mainly due to the success of our headliner — World of Tanks,” said Andrei Yarantsau, VP of Global Operations. “The tremendous success of World of Tanks has showcased that the company has developed a strong and reliable technological platform with an incredible amount of remaining potential. The result is that we’ll keep being able to provide top-notch online services and regular high quality content and updates.”

This year Wargaming took further advantage of its expertise and knowledge of the free-to-play MMO space to substantially expand its gamer community. With more players committing a larger share of their off-hours to the company’s flagship MMO action game, World of Tanks, Wargaming succeeded in mobilizing more than 45 million virtual tankmen worldwide. The title also set a new simultaneous players record with over 600,000 gamers dueling each other on one Russian game server.

The continued success of World of Tanks has been boosted by eight extensive updates, introducing a number of highly anticipated featurs and new content. The roster of playable in-game nations has been expanded with French and British armored forces; more than 100 new steel machines rolled out to face off their opponents in metal-crunching clashes in 10 new battle arenas. The massive Update 8.0 completely changed the face of combat by adding into the game realistic tank pysics and a more realistic in-game rendering engine.

“We’ve made a huge step forward this year, as far as development workflow is concerned,” commented Michael Vatsovsky, EVP of Development. “We’ve introduced multiple updates for World of Tanks, and hands down, the 8.0 has been the most crucial of them all. It’s a huge milestone that’s made the game look and feel completely different. Player feedback has been absolutely positive, and this is what encourages us to move on and on.”

Wargaming also harnessed the energy of its fans and players to push World of Tanks into the global realm of competitive gaming. The game’s victorious debut as the official eSports discipline at the WCG 2012 Grand Finals in Kunshan, China, marked the beginning of World of Tanks’ global eSports career and highlighted the title’s potential to become the MMO standard for competitive gaming around the globe.

Throughout 2012 the company has continued work on its two more WWII-based action MMOs – World of Warplanes and World of Warships. Currently in closed beta, World of Warplanes continues to see a large influx of players eager to test Wargaming’s next big video game title, providing the team with invaluable feedback. 2012 also saw the first official screenshot release of World of Warships, providing fans a brief glimpse into the massive, powerful warships destined to fight for control over the seas.

To provide players with the unique possibility to explore and experience the depths of its free-to-play universe, Wargaming launched the Wargaming.net Service, which combined all three titles under one globally integrated platform. The new service will eventually tie all three Wargaming worlds into a common economic system with one-stop access to all games, as well as will invite players to experience closer community interaction within single MMO battle realm.

Wargaming is also seeking new opportunities to bring its brands to other platforms. In 2012 the company announced the details of its first free-to-play browser title, World of Tanks Generals, featuring WWII-focused gameplay and combining elements of a real-time strategy and collectible card gaming.

The company has made considerable strides to promote and advertise its MMO titles worldwide, taking by storm the largest global games industry expos and trade fairs, such as E3 (USA), gamescom (Germany), G-Star (South Korea) and Licence2Play (Singapore). During these events over 600,000 visitors in total stepped inside Wargaming’s palatial booths, enjoying the company’s free-to-play MMO action games World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, as well as took part in various booth activities and events.

Wargaming’s achievements and the strides made by its MMO titles in 2012 have been acknowledged by the global games industry, as well. For the second year in a row the company won the industry’s prestigious Golden Joystick Award 2012 in the Best MMO category, emphasizing the popularity and recognition Wargaming earned with gamers around the world.

“Our key objectives for the year 2013 are many — deliver two new online free-to-play worlds, continued the expansion of World of Tanks with creative and passionate new content, and further reinforce our ties with our community,” said Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi. “We will also continue to explore new possibilities offered by the free-to-play MMO space to provide players with unique gaming experiences and unite as many people as possible in our free-to-play universe.”

During 2012 Wargaming became one of the fastest growing companies in the industry, with a staff of more than 1300 highly skilled professionals across 11 global offices in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. The geography of Wargaming’s international reach in 2012 was focused predominantly on Asia. To ensure further expansion and sustainable development of the company’s titles and services in regional markets, Wargaming opened new offices in South Korea and Singapore, as well as signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Chinese KongZhong Corporation, a leading regional provider of wireless value-added services in that country.

The company also took important steps to strengthen and secure its production capacity. The acquisition of BigWorld Pty Ltd., the Australian based middleware developer, provided the opportunity for Wargaming to secure and enhance its technologies, launch and more efficiently run its multi-million-user online gaming worlds, as well explore new platforms possibilities for the future

About Wargaming

Wargaming is an award-winning online game developer and publisher and one of the leaders in the free-to-play MMO market. Founded as a privately held company in 1998, Wargaming has shipped more than 15 titles and employs 1300 people across such key regions as North America, Europe, Russia, Asia, and Australia.

Currently, Wargaming is focused on its team-based MMO war series dedicated to mid-20th century warfare that will include the company's flagship armored MMO World of Tanks, launched in April 2011 and currently boasting 45 million players worldwide, the flight combat World of Warplanes, named one of the most anticipated MMOs, and the naval World of Warships, scheduled for release in 2013.

In June 2012, Wargaming announced the Wargaming.net Service, the epicenter of the online battle gaming universe that will gather the series under a single portal — www.wargaming.net.

Official website:

·         www.wargaming.com

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