Alawar

Type	Privately held company
Industry	Video games
Founded	1999 (1999) in Novosibirsk, Russia
Founders	Sergey Zanin Alexander Lyskovsky
Headquarters	Lewes, Delaware , U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Sergey Zanin (CEO)
Number of employees	50+ (2021)
Website	company.alawar.com

Alawar Entertainment is a Russian-founded international developer and publisher of video games for PC, mobile platforms, games consoles and other devices based in Lewes, Delaware, United States. Its main areas of activity are mid-core games for experienced players, as well as casual downloadable and F2P games for PC, MacOS, IOS, Android, PlayStation (console), Xbox, social networks, and other platforms.^[1][2]

The company's games have sold more than 200 million copies in over 100 countries.^[3]

History

The company was founded in 1999 by Novosibirsk State University students Alexander Lyskovsky and Sergey Zanin. Game development was the first department of the company. Alawar released two games: Puzzle Rally^[4] and Bubble Bobble Nostalgie.^[5]

2001 saw the release of Magic Ball, the first 3D arkanoid-style game developed by Dream Dale studio in Irkutsk. The game proved popular, and Alawar began developing rapidly. Magic Ball was localized into several languages and ported to PlayStation consoles and iOS. Alawar went on to release several sequels to the game.

Alawar started developing its own distribution platform in 2003. The company started work on shareware games under its casual banner.

• In 2006, Alawar became one of the first companies to support SMS payments in Russia^[6] for its products.
• In 2007, Magic Ball and Stand O’ Food made it on the RealArcade's Top 10 list for 42 weeks.^[7]
• In 2008, the first games in the Farm Frenzy and The Treasures of Montezuma franchises were released. By the end of 2008, Alawar included four studios – Dream Dale, Stargaze, Five-BN and Friday's Games – and had established partnerships with Mail.ru, Rambler, and Euroset.ru.
• In 2009, the company started developing and porting games for mobile devices, games consoles and social networks. The games were promoted via the App Store, Google Play, the PlayStation Network and other major services. In August 2009, Alawar and Oleg Kuvaev signed a cooperation agreement, which gave Alawar exclusive rights to use the Masyanya brand^[8] in games until 2014.
• In 2010, Alawar released around 15 projects for the iPhone and iPad. The Treasures of Montezuma on iOS went on to become a top 2 iPad game and a top 20 iPhone game in the United States.
• In 2011, Alawar expanded production and started to focus on publishing multi-platform games for release on PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and PSP Minis. The same year marked the beginning of a series of projects based around the Technopark in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok aimed at educating interested parties on game studio creation and providing consultations with experienced game developers.
• In 2012, Alawar began development on a number of free-to-play projects. 2012 saw the release of The Treasures of Montezuma Blitz on PS Vita. In doing so, Alawar became the first third-party publisher to release a game with free distribution and micro transactions on Sony consoles.
• In 2015, Alawar began developing mid-core games to release on Steam.
• In 2016, the company published Beholder, a game aimed at simulating life in a totalitarian state. Later that year, Beholder won the Excellence in Game Design and Best Indie Game categories at the DevGAMM independent games conference in Minsk. Also in 2016, one of the company's internal development teams began work on new kinds of projects using VR and its own software solutions. Sammy, a VR horror game, was released and went on to become one of the top 3 most downloaded games worldwide, and was included in the list of Best New Gear VR Games.
• In 2017, the company released Distrust, an adventure strategy and survival simulator set in an Arctic station where mysterious events unfold. The Blissful Sleep downloadable content for Beholder was also released and served as a prequel to the main game. The DLC included many characters from the original campaign.
• In 2018, Alawar and the Spanish Fictiorama Studios (Dead Synchronicity) released a major publishing project, Do Not Feed The Monkeys. The game, dubbed a "digital voyeur simulator", imitates the style of 1990s video games with pixel graphics, crude fonts, and minimal refinements. The same year marked the release of I am not a Monster, a retro sci-fi-styled turn-based tactical strategy. The game quickly gained popularity and positive reviews on Steam. Beholder 2 was released in December 2018. While it shares the same universe as the original game, it is not a direct continuation of its story.
• In 2019, Alawar developed and published the free-to-play battle royale shooter Watchers (servers shut down in August 2021),^[9] as well as Space Robinson, a hardcore action game with roguelike elements.
• In 2021, Alawar published a 2D narrative detective Song of Farca. Later this year the company released a 2D action platformer They Always Run by its own production.
• In 2022, Alawar released the third chapter of the Beholder saga. In April, the company announced the development of Necrosmith, an roguelike Necromancer simulator, which was released on 13 July 2022 and has sold over 200,000 copies on Steam.
• On 6 March 2023, Alawar announced the development of Necrosmith 2.
• On 5 April 2023, Wall World - a roguelike mining and tower defense game developed and published by Alawar - was released on Steam and sold 200,000 copies in 2 months. The first Story DLC for Wall World - Deep Threat was announced on June 28, 2023, and is set to be released in 2023.

Areas of activity

Awards and achievements

• 2008 — Farm Frenzy was named the best casual game at the Game Developers Conference 2008^[10]
• 2008 — Alawar won the Runet Prize 2008,^[11] the National Prize of the Russian Federation for contributions to the development of the Russian internet segment
• 2012 — Alawar was listed 24th in the Forbes 30 Russian Internet Companies list^[12]
• 2012 — Alawar was named best publisher at the Game Developers Conference^[13]
• 2012 — The Treasures of Montezuma was named the best casual project at the Game Developers Conference in Moscow
• 2013 — Alawar was listed 62nd in the Top 100 Russian Employers (62nd place) list by HeadHunter
• 2016 — Beholder won the Excellence in Game Design and Best Indie Game categories at the DevGamm Independent Games Conference^[14]
• 2016 — Alawar was named winner at the Game Developers Conference Pitch in San Francisco
• 2017 — Beholder was named Most Creative and Original and Best Indie Game at the Game Connection America Conference
• 2017 — Beholder was named one of the 8 winners in the Best in Play category at the Game Developers Conference
• 2017 — Alawar became the official sponsor of the Siberia Game Dev Weekend Conference
• 2017 — Do Not Feed The Monkeys received several awards: Best Narrative (DevGamm Conference, Minsk^[15]), Most Innovative (3DWire, Segovia), Best Indie Game (FEFFS, Strasbourg), DevGamm Choice (Get It! Conference, Odessa), Media Choice (Indiecade Europe, Paris)
• 2019 — Do Not Feed The Monkeys was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) in several categories: Innovative Game, Best Design and Grand Prix
• 2023 — Beholder 3 won the Best Serious Game category at the German Computer Games Awards 2023.^[16]

Games developed

Games published

References

External links

• Official website