14 August 2015

With over 100 million registered players worldwide, World of Tanks celebrates its fifth anniversary. The game was officially released in August 2010; it has changed the idea of a multiplayer online game and become the most recognizable Belarusian brand.

Below is the story of Belarusian developers having conquered the world for five years.

2010. Although Wargaming developers thought of the concept of World of Tanks and the game was officially announced in 2009, open beta testing started in June 2010, and in August, the Russian version of the game was officially released. By that time, the number of peak concurrent users amounted to 16,000 on Russian servers. The earliest versions of the tank shooter differed from the game we see now. There were only a dozen vehicles and a single map available. However, the overwhelming success of the project was predetermined.

Awards: World of Tanks was recognized as the Best client-based MMO at the Russian Game Developer’s Conference in Moscow. The game was announced the Most Anticipated MMO by MMOSite readers’ choice.

2011. In January, in less than a year since the launch of the beta test, the number of World of Tanks users reached 1 million. On January 23, the Most Players Online Simultaneously on One MMO Server world record was officially registered by theGuinness World Records and constituted 91,311 players. The game was released in Europe and North America on April 12, with the number of users exceeding 2 million immediately and coming to 15 million by the end of the year.

Awards: World of Tanks won the Best Game and the Audience Awards at the Russian Game Developer’s Conference. It was also named the Best Project in.ru directory (RU-net Award).

2012. The number of World of Tanks users was growing at lightning speed and exceeded 45 million by the end of the year. The game was improved, new vehicles and features added. In 2012, the game debuted as an eSports game at the World Cyber Games.

Awards: World of Tanks won the most significant and oldest prize in the gaming industry – theGolden Joystick Award as the Best MMO.

2013. New features and tanks were introduced. World of Tanks set a new world recordfor Most Players Online Simultaneously on One MOG Server, thus securing its position in the Guinness World Records: 190,541 players participated in the tank online battles simultaneously at one of five Russian servers on January 21, 2013.

Awards: World of Tanks won the Golden Joystick Award as the Best Online Game.

2014. In January, over a million people played simultaneously on all Russian clusters. In May 2013, Wargaming announced World of Tanks Blitz, a mobile version of World of Tanks for tablets and smartphones using Android (released on November 5) and iOS (released on June 26).

Awards: World of Tanks was named the Online Game of the Year at the 2014 D.I.C.E. Awards, and in just a few months after its official release, World of Tanks Blitz became second best at the Golden Joystick Awards 2014.

2015. Today, the number of World of Tanks fans exceeds one hundred million and is still growing. Many interesting changes are expected…

Victor Novochadov, Director of Game Stream, an HTP resident-company:

"…World of Tanksis a story of the Belarusian astonishing success that is a measure of the existing potential of the country and an objective proof of the ability of the Belarusian IT industry not only to win the leading positions in the world but also to keep them for a long time..."

For reference:

The developer of World of Tanks Game Stream (Minsk development center of Wargaming) operates within the Hi-Tech Park since 2008. Major technical capacities of the company are located there.

In addition, Game Stream is one of the leading developers of web intelligent systems and data vizualisation software in Belarus. The company is a four-time winner of the national contest The Best Exporter of the Year in the IT Development category. The company received the Gold Medal in the Export Brand category of the professional contest Brand of the Year, thus reconfirming the status of its MMO project as the most recognizable Belarusian brand. Game Stream has a number of other prestigious awards which proves the company's contribution to the development of the Belarusian economy.

Game Stream also provides financial and other support in organizing both national and international events.