Wargaming's Blueprint for Success: Operational Excellence, Community Engagement, and Continuous Innovation

Ahead of the Live Service Gaming Summit, we spoke to Sergei Vasiuk, Director of LiveOps at Wargaming. Vasiuk delve into the strategies behind Wargaming's success, exploring how operational excellence and continuous game functionality enhancements have driven their game portfolio's triumph.

Can you share how operational excellence and continuous enhancement of game functionality throughout a product's lifecycle has contributed to the success of Wargaming’s game portfolio?

The ultimate goal for LiveOps is to increase the value of the game, and this goal is achieved by offering fascinating events, emotional propositions and personalized experience. Players spend their time with a game if it’s delivered quickly, with a suitable variety of content and appropriate quality. LiveOps team ensures that the business processes involved in designing, producing, and delivering content or services are optimized to meet these player expectations

Can you share any interesting examples on how monitoring game data has enabled your team to identify features, which when rolled out how directly impacted the success and longevity of your products?

Our research revealed that players remember the most used element of gameplay. We divided out churned players into 5 groups by their favorite vehicle types (light, medium, heavy, destroyer and artillery) which helped us increase win-back rate from 5.5% to 6.1% compare to average campaign. In this particular case we utilized FB channel that is why for segmentation we took lapsed, medium likelihood to return players in order to optimize costs.

• Our value proposition was to play your favorite tanks again
• For product we chose experience booster to progress faster
• As a promotion we created video showcasing one’s beloved experience on each tank class

At the Live Service Gaming Summit, in your talk, you will be ‘Unpacking the Secrets of Player Engagement’. As a sneek peek and in your experience, how do critical elements of game design, such as narrative and mechanics, integrate with engagement strategies to enhance player retention in live service games?

Dedicated players can become advocates for the game actively promoting it because of their connection and enthusiasm towards the games. Such support from players, which isn't driven by commercial motives often carries credibility than direct marketing messages from the game studio can't. Game studios can effectively promote their games by investing in community building and engagement efforts, such as organizing fan events or creating interactive platforms.

A great example of this strategy is Wargaming Fest; Tanker Day, which's a celebration organized by the creators of "World of Tanks" to honor the national Tanker Day. This event truly showcases their dedication to engaging with the community as it attracted 250,000 attendees from 28 countries and had 2.6 million viewers worldwide. During this festival passionate players were given opportunities for self expression, participation in gaming activities and complete immersion in their games universe. Events like Tanker Day demonstrate how gaming companies not only nurture their players but also create inclusive experiences that celebrate and engage their entire player base.

What strategies do you implement to ensure long-term player engagement and prevent player burnout?

BALANCED TEMPO. The salience of modulating event intensity helps to avoid player burnout or simply put - timing is everything. Planning out your releases isn’t just a boon for efficiency; it’s actually the only way to get things done at all. So establish the right rhythm, keep it flowing, and make it something your team and your player base can depend on. With LiveOps events, you need to find middle ground. It’s not enough to just release new events that are more of the same. You’ve got to provide enough exciting, unexpected value so that your players but keep them rested.

What discussions are you most looking forward to at the Live Service Gaming Summit?

The internet has historically thrived on content produced by “people”. Today, titles like Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite epitomize this trend, thriving on user-generated content that keeps players engaged and returning. This evolution naturally extends beyond merely adapting to player preferences — it mandates a comprehensive rethinking of how studios operate. More than ever, studios must engage not just with influencers and streamers but also fundamentally embrace revenue sharing models and substantial structural changes. This shift focuses on external content creation, ensuring that the game environment evolves in concert with its community's creativity and input. Ultimately, it's clear that players are not just consumers but co-creators, wielding substantial influence over the ongoing evolution of live service games.