London, UK and San Francisco, Ca. (21th April, 2011) \u2014 Wargaming.net, the award-winning videogame developer and publisher behind world-famous franchises (Massive Assault series, Order of War, and World of Tanks) along with Lesta, one of the leading Russian videogame development and video production studios with Elements of War, Pacific Storm, and Aggression: Reign over Europe under their belt, announce today their exclusive strategic partnership and signing of a long-term co-development agreement.<\/p>\n
This new alliance offers an excellent opportunity for both companies to cooperate in mutually beneficial ways. Wargaming.net will expand their portfolio shoring up their position on the MMO market and will enlarge their distribution channel as a worldwide game publisher. While Lesta will benefit from using 12-year game development experience gained by Wargaming.net and will become a stronger player in collaboration with one of the industry\u2019s best development companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to partner with Lesta is explained by the studio\u2019s rich experience in developing war titles, established reputation, and impressive portfolio\u201d, said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net. \u201cThe start of our cooperation will be an important milestone in the development of our company, and we feel very optimistic about the future prospects after seeing how dedicated and competent Lesta\u2019s team is.\u201d<\/p>\n
CEO of Lesta, Malik Khatajaev, said: \u201cWe are excited to be on the spearhead of the quickly evolving market of free-to-play online games working with Wargaming.net and will invest all the expertise and skills our company has into our future titles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The overall portfolio of Wargaming.net will now feature more than 20 titles highly acclaimed by media and players.<\/p>\n
About Wargaming.net\u00ae<\/p>\n
Wargaming.net\u00ae is an award-winning strategy game specialist, incorporated in the UK. Its 250-strong development team is located in Minsk, Belarus. Since 1998, the company has shipped 13 titles, including acclaimed Massive Assault series, three add-ons for Blitzkrieg II, Order of War RTS published by Square Enix and World of Tanks MMO game. Wargaming.net’s\u00ae Operation Bagration RTS was awarded the Best Strategy Game of 2008 at Russian Game Developers Conference (KRI). At KRI 2009 and 2010 Wargaming.net\u00ae was named The Best Developer Company from ex-USSR. At KRI 2010 World of Tanks\u00ae won \u201cBest MMO\u201d prize.<\/p>\n
Official website: www.wargaming.net<\/p>\n
About Lesta<\/p>\n
Lesta Studio is one of the leading companies in Russian game development and video production, with the most sophisticated and cutting edge technologies implemented in the company\u2019s projects. Founded in 1991 in St. Petersburg, Lesta is widely recognized as one of the chief strategic war games developers in the CIS. Such projects as The Entente WWI Battlefields, Pacific Storm, Aggression: Reign over Europe, and recently released MMORTS Elements of War were warmly welcomed by players and critics. Elements of War was awarded the Press Prize at Russian Game Developers Conference (KRI) in 2010. The newest project Monolith got the award as the Best Game without Publisher and the prize from Intel Corporation.<\/p>\n