Slava Zhuk, Turbo Games: “We all try to be morally strong and support our product”
Slava Zhuk, advisor at Turbo Games, granted an exclusive interview to Focus Gaming News to talk about what is happening in Ukraine and how the iGaming community could help people in this tough situation.
Exclusive interview.- The whole world was shocked by the news about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The igaming industry is concerned about this situation and Slava Zhuk, advisor at Turbo Games, spoke with Focus Gaming News about how the company is operating in the midst of the crisis and what is the strategy they adopted to go on.
What do you think the iGaming industry can do at this moment?
Turbo Games on behalf of all Ukrainians appeals to the entire global iGaming community with the request to stop providing various entertainment services for the Russian aggressors of our world.
Turbo Games appeals to the entire iGaming community, especially operators, to block their services for the Russian Federation, and Belarus, as well as help Ukraine financially.
Please, freeze all deposits from the accounts of Russian and Belarussian players and send them to help Ukraine. This is the best way to help us. At a time when people are dying – the aggressor should not have fun. Stop entertainment in Russia and Belarus.
How is Turbo Games operating in the midst of the crisis unleashed by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?
First of all, we deal with the coordination of people. My team does its best to understand who is where and, if possible, brings people to a safe place. A lot of employees remained in Kyiv and cannot work or even fully exist in principle, as they are in bomb shelters.
Those who are in a safe place and stay in contact continue to work and support all business processes. The guys change shifts, support each other and are now working seven days a week and without any clear schedules.
If someone hears sirens and needs to run to a bomb shelter and does not have the Internet, he/she reports to the corporate messenger channel and the one who is in touch picks up his/her work.
Some people are in the territorial defence of Ukraine and we have kept their salaries and jobs because we understand that these people protect us, and our job is to continue earning money to have something to exist and fight for.
“Turbo Games appeals to the entire iGaming community, especially operators, to block their services for the Russian Federation, and Belarus, as well as help Ukraine financially.”
Slava Zhuk, advisor at Turbo Games.
What strategy did you adopt to readjust your operations?
Our strategy is simple enough – we take into account the wishes of each person. If someone wants to stay in Kyiv – he/she stays. Those who left the most critical areas – we try to resettle and help them. If some people want to go abroad – we also do our best to make it happen. But all the company’s management is still in Ukraine and coordinates all processes.
That is true, we do not have a real strategy at the moment, because we do not know what will happen tomorrow and all that we have now is tactics.
What other facilities do you have besides the HQ located in Cyprus and what action did you take regarding them?
Yes, we have HQ there. However, 90 per cent of the staff are still in Ukraine. And in particular, I did not have time to leave for Cyprus and did not take my family out, because I decided to stay in Ukraine and defend my homeland.
Now our headquarters is located deep in the Carpathian Mountains, where it is quiet, calm and there is a connection to the Internet. In fact, this is the only area of Ukraine, where we hope Russian troops will not reach.
What strategy did you adopt in terms of HR and management?
In terms of HR management, our entire HR staff is currently in charge of coordinating people and providing specialists with psychological assistance or physical assistance. We are trying to take people from critical areas where hostilities and bombing take place to safer places. And, as I said before, it is impossible to develop some kind of strategy on what to do next. The most important strategy is to continue to work and continue to lead all business processes, and we will try to do this until the very end.
Do you consider that the conflict impacted or will impact the business, at the level of product development, launches, or sales, for example?
Of course, such crises greatly affect the development of the product. However, our employees are trying to promote the product and strengthen the development. But psychologically, it is very hard for people to work when sirens are roaring outside the window and you are updating the page of the news site thousands of times to find out if there is any good news.
Unfortunately, the news is bad. But we all try to be morally strong and support our product. Regarding the war, we appeal to all our clients with a request to block the activities of our games on the territory of the Russian Federation, and their ally Belarus.
And we were very pleased that all our clients responded to our request, including companies even from Belarus and the Russian Federation. It shows that some people there understand what is happening and do not want war.
And you know, the war did not affect sales because there are no sales at the moment. The point is employees get in touch a couple of hours a day and try to write to someone, try to promote some processes, but everything is very difficult.
“We urge the entire iGaming community not to allow this case to be repeated in other European countries”.
Slava Zhuk, advisor at Turbo Games.
It is better to help Ukraine now and secure the whole of Europe from such a crisis. We, as a European country, do not understand why such grief is happening to us. We have not deserved it.
