Playrix leaves Russia and Belarus after Putin’s mobilization announcement

Playrix, a game development company of Russian origin, is ​​leaving the Russian and Belarus markets, AIN.Capital found out. The company does not name the reasons, but without a doubt it is a response to the Putin’s mobilization announcement. After all, the previous eight months of war were not a good reason for Playrix to leave.

• In particular, the company is planning to close all offices in these locations and stop commercial activities “to preserve the stability of the Playrix group.”
• The company opened offices in other locations to relocate Russian and Belarus employees.
• Currently, there are no dates on closing of offices and legal entities in the document.
• The company still cannot say who started the war.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, our company has gone through many changes. We stopped commercial activities in Russia and Belarus. We opened offices in other countries and started relocating our employees. Now we’re witnessing another escalation. To preserve the stability of operations in Playrix we decided to:

— close all Playrix offices in these countries,
— stop operations of our studios in Russia and Belarus,
— relocate our employees from Russia and Belarus to other countries.

The studio executives will provide more detailed information through their means of communication. We ask of you to address your questions to them, not in the comments under this post.

A difficult hour is ahead of us, but we are sure that our team will make it through. On our part, we’re doing everything possible, too. Keep safe.

Igor and Dima.

About Playrix

• Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the company has not shown a clear position on this issue. It introduced censorship in work chats, did not call this war as “war”, and refused to leave Russia and Belarus. “I thought that all of this would end in a few days,” Igor Bukhman commented.
• It is interesting that Playrix’s founders, Igor and Dmitriy Bukhmans from Vologda, asked Forbes not to call them Russians at the same time as their company refused to leave Russia.
• In Ukraine, Playrix has about 1,500 employees in Kyiv, Rivne, Odesa, and Kharkiv. These people work both in the company and in studios, mostly purchased by Playrix in 2020-2021. Currently, eight studios are known to be part of Playrix: Zagrava, Boolat, 4Friends, Home games, Daily Magic, Perfect Play, Vizor Games, and VoKi. Playrix has about 1,500 employees in Russia, as well.
• The Bukhmans’ total wealth is estimated at approximentely $16 billion. Playrix alone, with an annual revenue of $2.7 billion, is called the fourth game publisher in the world after China’s Tencent, NetEase, and Activision.
• According to the data analyst platform AppAnnie, the Russian market for Playrix was the second after the American (15% of all downloads). And the profit from the Russian Federation, according to various estimates, ranged from 7% to 40%. Meaning a minimum of $190 million, from which the company paid taxes in Russia.

Read why Russian founders of global companies cannot come to terms with reality, as illustrated by Playrix, DataArt, and Luxoft, here.