Further Insight into the Process Behind the Wargaming–Lesta Split

source: WoT InfoCord & Mir Tankov TIME

Intriguingly, a response from a recent Q&A session with the current head of Lesta Games, Malik Khatazhaev, has given some further insight into the process behind the Wargaming–Lesta split, going so far as to confirm community speculation that the split was not fully finalized until August–September 2023:

Q: On what terms did you split? Are you really not paying Wargaming [to develop your game today]?

A: No, we do not pay, and it’s practically impossible to do so (since there is a lot of external control [regulations] over the operations).

It was possible to prevent the complete closure of products due to mutual need. Historically, it so happened that World of Warships was developed in St. Petersburg; it is considered secondary, but in fact, it brought the company much more than a billion dollars. It has its own peculiarity; it is not as popular in Russia, but in other places: i.e. Japan and the USA.

Under Wargaming, the Minsk office had 2,600 people (the largest); we were left with 285 people [shortly after the initial split in 2022], and these were mainly employees not related to games: administrative staff (not needed abroad), accounting, drivers, cleaners. And from the developers, [only] 70-plus-change people remained [after the split] out of almost 1,000, so it seemed almost impossible to restore the production of tanks. As for Warships, the main team remained; mostly young people left.

And so, on the basis of mutual interests… while [Lesta worked to] stand on our own feet, we needed tanks, while [WG] needed ships very much.

The period lasted about a year, when we developed Warships and gave our developments in this area to Wargaming, while [WG] gave us their developments on Tanks. After a year, this finally stopped (completely, everything was under the control of lawyers). Since August 2023, Lesta has developed Mir Tankov completely independently.

Thanks to MT TIME for the original transcription of the Q&A from which the above was taken, including the original (untranslated) text.

Wargaming Have Not Been Entirely Silent on the Topic of the Split, Either

For example, Eekeeboo stated the following during an Onslaught-related stream earlier this year, explaining (in case it was not clear already) why some vehicles may appear in WoT / Mir Tankov before/after one another:

Lesta and Wargaming are now very different companies and different… everything. We develop the game very different; what you see on Lesta does not necessarily mean we will have it here.
You do see a lot of overlapping purely because, for a long period of time, Lesta and Wargaming [had] the same backlog; all the same data…

I can’t tell you just how many premium vehicles, vehicle models, or tech trees that we have, that are developed, that just sit in a corner in a folder somewhere… buried, deep underground, just begging to be used… That folder was, when we [WG and Lesta] split, shared.

Key Takeaways from Both Statements (Assuming Both Are Fully Accurate):

• Wargaming and Lesta have been fully separate since August 2023.

• Wargaming does not appear to still develop content for Lesta (nor does Lesta develop content for Wargaming); they now operate independently (at least, according to Khatazhaev’s statement*).

• In terms of tanks, development was seemingly only shared in one direction – i.e., Lesta did/does not create content for WG’s WoT (The same can likely be said for WoWS in the other direction.)

• For a period after the splitting process was announced/initiated in 2022, it appears Wargaming shared some amount of internal developments from World of Tanks with Lesta (and/or made some amount of Mir Tankov exclusive content, possibly including their first two flamethrower SPGs, for example), while Lesta shared some amount of content for World of Warships.

• This period of sharing ended in August 2023, after which both companies/games became independent operations.

This last point explains (in case it was not clear already) why we have seen some tanks, which have first released on Lesta’s Mir Tankov, appear on WoT (or Console/Blitz) at a later point in time.

*DISCLAIMER: As mentioned above, this assumes both Khatazhaev’s and Eekeeboo’s statements have been made in earnest/are fully accurate. We have nothing to suggest Eekeeboo is not correct, but in regards to Lesta’s content in particular, rumors suggest some amount of content could have been received by WG [for a bit beyond this “August 2023” date (possibly going as late as December); however, we do not have the information necessary to confirm this.

source: WoT InfoCord & Mir Tankov TIME