The Russian Association of electronic communications (RAEC) announces the creation of the Gaming industry and esports cluster.

The new cluster’s purpose is to solve practical problems in the communication field of communication with the media, opinion leaders and the general public.

Priority tasks will be:

• Work with public opinion, convey a common industry position on the role of video games in society and their impact on it through a pool of experts, release and aggregation of information materials;

• Identification, coordination and verification of unified data on the gaming and esports markets based on independent research and market participants ‘ own information;

• Development of educational projects and activities.

The cluster is designed to bring together leading organizations and experts from the gaming industry and provide them with the necessary platform for communication with target groups, to become an intermediary between representatives of the gaming world and society.

The initial group of cluster experts includes:

• Karina Konkova, Communications Director at MY.GAMES (cluster co-chairman in the “Gaming industry” direction);

• Yaroslav Meshalkin, Chief Strategic Communications Officer at ESforce Holding (cluster co-chairman in the “Esports” direction);

• Ilya Salamatov, CEO of META Publishing;

• Artem Vinokurov, Vice-President of the Russian Esports Federation;

• Elena Grigoryan, Marketing and Advertising Director at MY.GAMES;

• Vladislav Arkhipov, PhD in law, head of the Theory and history of state and law department at Saint Petersburg state University, adviser to the practice of intellectual property, information technology and telecommunications of the international law at Dentons, author of the course “Legal esports issues”;

• Sergey Glamazda, Virtus.pro General Manager;

• Stepan Shulga, Head of esports at Parimatch, esports evangelist;

• Nikolay Petrosyan, Head of Media direction at ESforce Holding, Head of Cybersport.ru;

• Olga Morozova, author of the “Igrology”, researcher at the Institute of Psychology in the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialist of the Moscow center for video game research;

• Anton Oleynik, General Producer of RuHub Studio;

• Leonid Koen, senior consultant (sports industry and esports) at Odgers Berndtson Russia.

The cluster is open for new participants, and the conditions for joining the expert group are described on the official website of RAEC: https://raec.ru/en/ All applications will be reviewed jointly by RAEC and cluster experts.

Sergey Plugotarenko, Director of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC):

“RAEC has long been interested in gaming and esports — not only as a hobby for employees, although many of us like to play, but also as drivers of the media and entertainment industry. For several years in a row, we held panels about video games within Russian Internet forum and Russian Internet Week. As a result, we realized the need for a strong communication platform, within which industry representatives can form a consolidated position and build a dialogue with society. This platform should be our new cluster. To create it, we turned to the largest market players and recognized experts, and as a result, we found a strong mutual interest.”

Karina Konkova, Communications Director at MY.GAMES, co-chairman of the RAEC Gaming industry and esports cluster:

“Games are one of the fastest growing segments of the global entertainment industry, with a global audience of more than 2 billion people. The role and prospects of this market in the digital economy are well understood by its participants, but not always obvious to audiences far from game development. We believe that open dialogue, systematic research and educational initiatives will allow games and esports to better identify their real economic potential and enable talented Russian specialists and developers to achieve success both locally and internationally.”

Yaroslav Meshalkin, Chief Strategic Communications Officer at ESforce Holding, expert on the esports mass culture on the Council of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs, co-chairman of the RAEC Gaming industry and esports cluster:

“Video games and esports like to be periodically blamed for all the deadly sins, masking real social problems behind it. Thanks to RAEC, we are able to work systematically with the perception of games and computer sports at all levels that interest us. The second and no less important task that our cluster is designed to solve is the formation of a unified approach to market assessment, since now the figures of different research companies are very different from each other and need to be verified by the industry Association.”

The Gaming industry and esports cluster started working. You can find out about the results of its activities on the cluster’s page: https://raec.ru/clusters/gaming-esports/.