Russia's Mail.Ru Group seeks agency help for international games drive

Mail.Ru Group is seeking a consumer agency to work on various game launches in the US and Europe.

The news comes after Mail.Ru Group chief executive Dmitry Grishin said the company would be using gaming services as a way of entering foreign markets.

The company controls the Russian freemail service Mail.Ru, and runs two of the largest Russian language social network and instant messenger services.

It has been reported that Mail.Ru plans to launch new gaming services to international markets on a platform called my.com.

The firm’s games division, Mail.Ru Games, has more than 70 online games, including a series of games developed for foreign markets such as Perfect World, Lord of the Rings Online and Warface.

Oleg Khazhinskiy, brand director, games division, said: ‘We are currently studying best practices on international PR and promotion for blockbuster games.

‘We are also considering a competitive tender among the best PR agencies worldwide.’

The company, which is part-owned by metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov, has recently embarked on a sell-off of shares it owns in other companies, including reducing its stake in Facebook to 0.75 per cent, down from 1.34 per cent it held earlier this year.

It also sold most of its stake in game maker Zynga this month, now owning 0.16 per cent of the company.

However, the Mail.Ru Group is reportedly looking to increase its stake in VKontakte, Russia’s most popular social network.

This article was first published on prweek.com