Distributed Product Developmentin Wargaming

WHO AM I ?

Alexander DerkachDevelopment Director, Wargaming

•14 years in SW Development,

•3 years in Game Development

2

IT EXCELLENCE

1st prize in European IT Excellence Awards3

WHY WARGAMING?

4

DISTRIBUTED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Many perspectives and prerequisites.5

WHAT IS WARGAMING?

• Global distributed company: Game Development and Publishing;

• 4000+ employees in 15+ offices;

• Game and Product development.

6

SOLID TEAMEasier to manage and control. Less flexible, less scalable, more risks.

8

DISTRIBUTED TEAM

Distribution perspectives:

•Knowledge;

•Development;

•Customers;

•Operations.

9

DISTRIBUTED TEAM

9

MAIN QUESTION: ”WHY?"

Solid and precise business idea as a foundation.

10

WHAT IS COMPETITIVE GAMING?

Players engagement via socialization and competition.

7

EXPERT OPINION vs BI

Data doesn’t rule the world.

Culture of expert opinion supported with data.

Experts can be wrong.

11

DISTRIBUTED DEVELOPMENT

Solid core + Feature Teams with own responsibility and own achievements.

12

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

• Stop building "space ships": meaningful features with limited scope, supported by BI;

• Close interaction with audience and continuous production improvement;

• Collaboration with development and continuous solution enrichment.

13

DEVELOPMENT

• Infrastructure and security;

• Project documentation culture;

• Distributed projects planning;

• Precise code and development guidelines;

• Product oriented mindset and centralized communication.

14

PROCESSES vs COMMON SENSE

• Common sense is a must;

• Processes should support team efficiency;

• Continuous revising and improvements.

15

DISTRIBUTED CUSTOMERS

B2B and B2C in one package.

16

DISTRIBUTED CUSTOMERS

• Deep understanding of Game vision, goals and needs;

• Regular vision coordination;

• Centralized planning;

• Peer to Peer communication on executors level.

16

UNIQUENESS vs PLATFORM

• Unique solutions – too expensive;

• Platform solutions lack uniqueness;

• Adjustable service oriented architecture.

17

DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS

18

Life after release and continuous improvements.

DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS

• Reliability and live operations;

• Collaboration with regional operations teams;

• Iterative gameplay and continuous service improvements.

18

THINK BIG

19

Thank you.

Alexander DerkachDevelopment Director, Wargaminga_derkach@wargaming.netskype: lenvoy