What inspired you to collaborate with Wargaming?
John Gower, CEO: Dialect, Inc. specializes in crafting beautiful, interactive magazine apps for gamers and we are proud to partner with Wargaming on this epic new launch of the Let’s Battle magazine. The aggressive content updates and constant refinement of both technology and gameplay that emerge from Wargaming’s ambitious culture and stellar growth makes it the ideal partner for Dialect. Games like World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and now World of Warships, which are constantly expanding and evolving but also based on a rich historical foundation, require a new kind of a magazine that can capture that dynamism and explore the rich storylines that spring from developers, players, and the interplay between simulation and historical facts in a way that gives fans a new perspective on the gameplay. And that’s at the core of what Dialect does—we use exclusively digital publishing technology to give people not just content or stories, but rich experiences.
Creating a digital magazine on gaming is an innovatory initiative. What difficulties have your met along the way?
JG: Let’s Battle is a massive project involving global teams in different countries speaking multiple languages working together to develop a magazine about games that are legendary for their detail down to the smallest decal and tire tread—so that alone is of course a challenge! But once the right processes were put into place, the real challenge turned out to be narrowing down the content. The turbulent and exhaustively documented era in history upon which Wargaming’s repertoire of games is based, as well as the technological and strategic creativity of their players, initially overwhelmed us with story angles to pursue. On the other hand, it’s comforting to know we’ll never lack for good stories to tell!
But we want this to be a quarterly magazine, one that evolves with the feedback we get from readers just like the games do, so it’s great to be working on a digital product that allows us to integrate that feedback right away. And expanding the magazine to more languages is a big priority for us now. It’s a beautifully crafted magazine that we want to get into as many hands as possible to experience—which is why it’s also absolutely free.
Why mix videogames coverage and militaria? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on gaming alone?
Logan Decker, Editorial Director: Words like “videogames” and “players” and “interactive” feel so inadequate to me when it comes to games like World of Tanks and World of Warplanes because they don’t quite evoke the incredible creativity of players when they’re given the right tools. Wargaming does just that, so fans routinely go beyond the fundamental gameplay to exploit unique characteristics in terrain and physics to devastate their opponents, create their own weapons, sounds and indicators, or even make the game look like another game! On the other hand, you’ve also got a huge contingent of fans, hardcore history buffs, who recreate historical battles or use the game to test classic combat strategies and maneuvers. Wargaming games provide an experience that’s unlike any other multiplayer environment: whether you’re into imaginative play, historical simulation, or just the occasional fast and chaotic skirmish during lunch, it’s equally as rewarding.
Will you continue to work with Wargaming? What’s next for Let’s Battle?
LD: Like the Wargaming games themselves, Let’s Battle is a magazine designed to evolve with the feedback we get from readers. We want people to see the magazine as a companion guide to the game—one that gives them exclusive insights and expert strategies, keeps them informed about updates to the game and how to best take advantage of them, takes them behind the scenes of the development of the games and future updates, and finally, puts the historical nature of the games into context in a way that’s fun and easy to understand.
JG: No one’s ever produced a digital magazine at this scale before. For instance, the iPad version of Let’s Battle looks and works differently from the iPhone version, which looks and works differently from the Android version. Each version is tuned to specific platforms and devices, and of course they’re all released simultaneously in English and Russian.
We’ll continue to work closely with Wargaming to further refine each release on every device, and expand the number of languages for each release. There are tens of millions of fans of World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, and many more will be added with World of Warships. We want to reach them all.
Bios
John GowerJohn Gower, CEO
With 15 years of media experience, John has launched over 50 magazines and digital products in virtually every vertical. From Fashion to Food, Games and Technology, John has partnered with some of the world’s best brands to create content that drives brand loyalty and revenues. In 2004, he launched Future Plus, the award-winning international content marketing division of Future, in both the UK and US, and has developed some of the world’s most loved games and tech partnership publications.
Logan DeckerLogan Decker, Editorial Director
After 14 years as a technology and videogame journalist, most recently as the Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer Magazine where he managed the transition of the world’s best-selling PC gaming magazine from a print product to a majority digital brand, Logan Decker brings his diverse media experience and inexhaustible enthusiasm to Dialect, Inc. as Editorial Director.