Thursday, May 11th
Today we started the day by visiting the Wargaming headquarters in Nicosia. The building is one of the most well known landmarks in the downtown area because for a long time it was the tallest building in the city. Although it is no longer the tallest, the building still has many interesting aspects and is very modern. We began our tour in the basement which had a spa and gym that were always available to the Wargaming staff. They said they believe in the concept of work-life harmony because work is a part of life and they need to be integrated in a positive way. This is a bit of a different concept from the work-life culture that is common in the US and it made it seem like their retention and office productivity were better than in other working environments. Next we were shown one of the office areas and balconies before going to the presentation. Compared to the other buildings in Nicosia (and all of Cyprus for that matter) the Wargaming building towered over the city and provided an amazing view despite only being 13 stories tall. It is interesting to me that skyscrapers only started being built five years ago whereas in the US they are incredibly common in cities and urban areas.
Wargaming is the publisher and developer of games including the trilogy: World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes. They are very well known for creating detailed, historically accurate, games that involve player interaction and critical decision making. They have hundreds of millions of players worldwide on all platforms from console to mobile with their main user population being males ages 30+. Wargaming is not part of supply chains in the common association of the term because they are a fully digital company. Especially with the recent pandemic, their demand has gone up and the consumer base for digital games has increased greatly. For the company there are many benefits to being fully digital which include: no need to hold physical inventory, increased content and visibility, ability to update content, and the potential for data collection from users. The issue with being in this industry is that they constantly need to worry about copycat games and competitors being released to the market, so they have to take extra precautions as well as make their game stand out in content and visibility. To achieve this, Wargaming often uses celebrities that appeal to their user population and uses different celebrities in different countries to draw the attention of their intended audience. This is a very similar technique to what is used in the U.S. and all around the world, where celebrities are used as marketing to endorse a product or company.
Later in the evening we spent time in downtown Nicosia where Demetria showed us the ancient walled city. In this area, you can very easily see the different types of architecture from when the area was controlled by the Ottomans compared to when the area was under British rule. It was also very fun to see where the archbishop lives, and he even drove past us. As we walked further into the city, we came across the green line which is the dividing line between the European occupied area and the Turkish occupied area. This line exists at a seemingly random point in the city and has armed guards to ensure no one crosses the line in an unauthorized area. This line was created by walls of barrels and plywood blocking streets that were once part of the city’s infrastructure. In addition to the architecture and history of the area, Nicosia had the greatest number of cats that I had seen during the entirety of our stay. Everywhere you turned there were stray cats wandering the streets or taking a nap.
