ICT. Moscow

Experts call cybersport (as well as VR) a breakthrough in the entertainment sector. According to Newzoo report, in 2019 the revenue of the world games market will be estimated at $152.1 billion, 9.6% more than a year before.
In 2019 the Russian cybersport market might reach the $55 million, and in 2023 it will be over $100 million, as MTS previously forecast.
It should be noted that, according to the data presented by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 58% of Russian citizens have a negative perception of computer games, nevertheless, last year Russian internet users paid gamers about 11.6 billion rubles, Yandex and Data Insight stated in spring. The research also revealed that 3 million people are engaged in streaming and selling gaming products.
ICT.Moscow refers to some services and platforms for cybersport from Moscow developers.

Cyberhero

Platform for gamers
Cyberhero comprises services for cybersport. Users can stream the games, watch other players stream and participate in competitions. In the competition platform the users can monetize their gaming skills.
Cyberhero is also a streaming platform. Here gamers create their own channels, so they can stream games and upload video. The videos from “Video” section are sorted by views and games.

WASD.TV

Cybersport platform
The users can take part in cybersport competitions, stream their games and earn virtual currency for they activities. Users can spend currency on promoting streams and reward other streamers. The platform uses the resources of the CloudMTS cloud provider. A subscriber of any operator can become a user of the platform.

DonationAlerts

Service for collection donations while streaming
DonationsAlerts makes it possible to collect donations while streaming in Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, YouTube, Twitch and Hitbox. To receive money the creators of the content place a link of DonationAlerts website below the video (for VK and Odnoklassniki it is a button). The author has to be authorized in the service and choose a minimum donation for the viewers and the type of notifications.
To send a donation a viewer has to be click the link and choose the donation amount and leave a message for the donations which will be displayed in the streaming. The viewer can pay by bank card, VK Pay, WebMoney, Qiwi, Yandex.Money, PayPal, Bitcoin or via mobile account.

Loudplay

Interactive streaming platform
Loudplay allows to run games in the cloud and play on low-capacity computers that have an access to the internet. The platform uses servers with Nvidia graphic cards — the data is processed in the cloud and the video is streamed on the gamer’s players.
In September 2019 MTS launched Loudly on Wasd.TV media platform. After they get access to the platform, users can download games from Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Epic Games and others. The platform is available on computers running on Windows 7 or newer. In the future macOS support is going to be added. Virtual computer is available only for one user.

Kaspersky Anti-Cheat

Cybersport anti-cheat system
Kaspersky Anti-Cheat makes it possible to combat cheating for cybersport competitions organizers and online games producers. Cloud technology-based development allows to detect cheating and fraud in real time during the game and sends automated reports about all the cases of cheating to the judges.
Kaspersky Anti-Cheat can be integrated with cybersport platform via API. Before the competition starts the solution is installed onto each gamer’s computer. When the game starts, Kaspersky Anti-Cheat starts to collect information about all the processes going and transmits the information for analyzing. The judge of the competition receives reports about the cheating cases detected via a web interface in real time.

Igrovoy market (Gaming marketplace)

Computer games marketplace
It is a marketplace where over 2 thousand offers from 48 publishers, including “Buka”, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Activision, Deep Silver, Codemasters, Alawar and others are available for gamers. “Igrovoy market” provides discounts for the customers and holds sales. The project is realized in partnership with “Buka” company.

It is highly unlikely that Yandex.Taxi will purchase the assets of “Vezyot” GC , as planned before. In response to the taxi aggregator Gett’s complaint, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service might not allow to conclude a deal in some regions of Russia, where it can have a negative impact on competition. In this case the the Service will order shareholders not to sell assets or sell them to another competitor. Alfa-Bank analysts consider that Mail.ru Group’s “Citymobil” is the most probable competitor to buy the assets of “Vezyot” in the regions.

In July Yandex claimed it planned to buy the software and call-centers of “Vezyot” GC and therefore submitted an application to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. Mail.ru Group claimed that the parties had to obtain a written permit for asset purchasing from Mail.ru Group, which gave a convertible loan to “Vezyot” in 2018. In return “Vezyot” replied they had not broken lending laws.

Yandex.Taxi IPO launch was planned for 2019 or 2020. According to a recent evaluation, the service costs $7.7–8.5 billion, while the whole Yandex’s capitalization costs $12.4 billion.

In Moscow Yandex.Taxi’s (together with Uber) taxi aggregator market share is over 68%, and “Vezyot” only has 2% of shares. At the same time across Russia Yandex.Taxi has about 47% of shares, while “Vezyot” has 24%. in Moscow Gett got 5.7% market shares and in the whole Russian market it got 9.7%.

According to Discovery Research Group, the Russian taxi aggregator market’s monetary value was estimated at 290.5 billion rubles in 2018 (146.8 billion in the previous year). Analysts note that aggregators put conventional taxi companies under the control of IT companies.

Telecom news
• Beeline launched a 5G pilot testbed in “Luzhniki” and broadcasted it via social networks. The operator claimed during testing they recorded 3.3 Gbps speed per one Huawei device.

• MTS in turn tested Solutions for smart transport in the pilot area in VDNH and presented 3 5G use case scenarios to increase on road safety — “Smart overtaking”, “Smart crossroad” and “Safe pedestrian”.

• First official news about the anticipated reorganizing of the Moscow broadband internet service provide leader, MGTS, came out. From September 16, its Director General Pavel Kuznetsov also holds the position of the MTS Moscow region Director, previously held by Igor Egorov. Previously the news about MGTS reorganization was reported by “Kommersant”. The information about new appointments in top management is stated in the operator’s documents, though MTS had not commented on it yet.

• Moreover, this week MTS launched a ticket selling platform “MTS Afisha” and plans to open “MTS Live Arena” concert venue for up to 11.5 thousand people. It Will be located near “Skolkovo” innovation center.

• Vitaliy Klishin was appointed Director of the Moscow branch of “ER-Telecom”. He previously held the position of Vice President of “AMT-Group” and worked for “Volga Telecom” and “AKADO”. He will start modernizing the network and increasing revenues, including B2B segment, which the company has been working in since last autumn.

• Tele2 obtained the permission to continue eSIM testing from the Ministry of Communications. The Ministry stated that the operator fixed all eSIM security issues and the test algorithm full supports subscriber identification. Up to 15 thousand subscribers will participate in the testing.

Retail for online
Experts note that one of the trends in telecom retail is the openness of the infrastructure for partners within the concept of digital services department store. Last week two pieces of news were dedicated to the examples of such cooperation.

MTS in its phone stores will offer clients to install a set of apps with Yandex services (Yandex.Browser, Yandex.Taxi, Yandex.Drive and Auto.ru)on their smartphones. The internet company’s apps will be available in other retail stores.

Megafon in its phone stores allowed users to verify their identity in Yandex.Money. This option is also available in “Svyaznoy”, “Euroset” stores and “Unistream” offices.