Wargaming
Cyprus-based studio making World of Tanks and other free-to-play military games.
On the record
Checkpoint: Six month retention check on World of Tanks: HEAT and Warships: Legends PC concurrency trend
The call
Wargaming still owns a huge sunk-cost tank playerbase, but War Thunder is pulling ahead on engagement while Wargaming cuts staff and shelves new bets like Steel Hunters.
Wargaming makes free-to-play games where you collect tanks and warships, spending years unlocking new vehicles. War Thunder offers the same thing and now attracts way more players (250,000 concurrent versus Wargaming's 6,000 to 8,000), making it harder for Wargaming to keep or gain new players even though Wargaming's older players have put real money and time into their accounts. The company laid off staff three times in 18 months and issued a warning in July 2026 that more cuts may come, which suggests the money is drying up. Two new launches planned for May 2026 (HEAT tanks mode and Legends on PC) will show whether Wargaming can stop the bleeding or whether they will fizzle like Steel Hunters did after just three months.
Why
01
AI pressure: None apparent. AI trims QA and art costs (2025 layoffs fit this), but doesn't replace the sunk-progression business itself. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.
02
Bigger players: Gaijin Entertainment (War Thunder). War Thunder now pulls 250,000+ concurrent peaks to Wargaming's 6,000 to 8,000 on Steam and is winning new players in the same niche. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. Years of sunk player progress, garages, and premium tank collections that players don't want to abandon.
What would change this call
World of Tanks: HEAT's Steam average concurrents six months after its May 2026 launch. Shows whether new titles can offset Wargaming's multi-year player decline.
Additional Wargaming layoff rounds announced after the July 2026 Chicago WARN notice. Would confirm continued revenue or margin pressure and managed decline.
War Thunder concurrent-player peaks or account growth reported via SteamDB through 2027. Shows whether Gaijin keeps widening its lead in the shared niche.
Additional Wargaming layoff rounds announced after the July 2026 Chicago WARN notice. Would confirm continued revenue or margin pressure and managed decline.
War Thunder concurrent-player peaks or account growth reported via SteamDB through 2027. Shows whether Gaijin keeps widening its lead in the shared niche.
Key numbers
- WoT Steam concurrents fell to ~6,000-8,000 from ~9,000-10,000
- War Thunder peaks past 250,000 concurrent players
- Headcount down to ~4,038 after three layoff rounds since 2025
Named risks
- Core franchise Steam concurrent players declining multi-year across WoT and Blitz.
- New title diversification failing fast (Steel Hunters canceled after 3 months, 2025).
- Repeated layoff rounds (Jan 2025, Jul 2026 WARN) signal ongoing cost-cutting pressure.
- Geopolitical/legal exposure via Moscow court ruling against founder and former subsidiary Lesta.
- No public financial transparency makes revenue and health hard to verify externally.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Gaijin Entertainment (War Thunder) | losing to | War Thunder 250k+ concurrent peaks (Feb 2024) vs WoT 6-8k Steam concurrents mid-2026 |
| Epic Games (Fortnite) | contesting | Both face live-service engagement erosion; Epic cut 23% of staff in March 2026 |
| Lesta Games | contesting | Operates rival Mir Tankov/Mir Korablej in Russia since 2022 split, now facing state nationalization June 2025 |
Questions people ask
- Is Wargaming profitable in 2026?
- Wargaming is private and discloses no audited financials. Third-party revenue estimates range wildly from $72.5 million (ZoomInfo) to $1.2 billion (Growjo, 2022 data). A July 2026 WARN notice cutting 29 US workers and prior 2025 layoff rounds point to ongoing cost pressure rather than robust profitability.
- Who is Wargaming's biggest competitor?
- Gaijin Entertainment's War Thunder occupies the same free-to-play military vehicle niche and now outpaces Wargaming on engagement, posting concurrent peaks over 250,000 (Feb 2024) versus World of Tanks' roughly 6,000-8,000 Steam concurrents by mid-2026.
- Could AI replace Wargaming's business?
- No. Generative AI is compressing costs in QA and asset production, consistent with the QA-heavy January 2025 layoffs, but it does not touch Wargaming's core moat: sunk player progression (tech trees, garages) and a 25-year licensed vehicle database across 350+ million lifetime World of Tanks accounts.
- Who owns Wargaming?
- Wargaming is privately held. As of June 13, 2026, founder Victor Kislyi owns approximately 64% of Wargaming Group Limited, with his father Vladimir Kislyi holding about 25.5%; no external institutional investors are publicly disclosed.
- Is World of Tanks losing players?
- Yes on Steam: average concurrent players fell from roughly 9,000-10,000 in late 2025 to about 6,000-8,000 by mid-2026 (steamcharts.com, June 29, 2026), and World of Tanks Blitz concurrents dropped from over 20,000 in early 2024 to 5,000-9,000 by 2026.
- What happened to Wargaming's Steel Hunters game?
- Steel Hunters, a mech-based PvPvE title, entered Early Access on April 2, 2025 after three years of development, then was canceled and shut down around July 9, 2025, roughly three months later, marking a failed attempt to diversify beyond Wargaming's core vehicle-combat franchises.
Timeline
- 2026-07-03Wargaming USA WARN notice lays off 29 workers
- 2026-05-26World of Tanks: HEAT, tech-tree-free spinoff, launches
- 2026-05-04World of Warships: Legends launches fully on PC via Steam and Xbox
- 2025-07-09Steel Hunters canceled about three months after Early Access launch
- 2025-06-03Moscow court declares Kislyi extremist, orders Lesta Games asset seizure
- 2025-04-02Steel Hunters enters Steam Early Access after three years development
- 2025-01-15Layoff round hits Wargaming QA and marketing staff hardest
- 2024-01-30World of Tanks franchise lifetime revenue reported at $7 billion
- 2022-04Wargaming exits Russia and Belarus, divests to independent Lesta Studio
- 2011Wargaming relocates headquarters to Nicosia, Cyprus
Revision history
24 July 2026
First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- How Wargaming survived 25 years, and dealt with the Ukraine War (2025-06-18)
- Wargaming (company) (2026-06-13)
- World Of Tanks Franchise Has Generated $7 Billion In Revenue As Of 2024 (2024-01-30)
- World of Tanks Statistics 2026 (2026-06-19)
- World of Tanks Blitz Marks a Decade (2024-06-20)
- World of Tanks (2026-06-29)
- World of Tanks Blitz (2026-06-15)
- Legends Is Now Live! (2026-05-04)
- War Thunder (2026-07-22)
- Wargaming Group Number of Employees 2026 (2026-06-29)
- World of Tanks Developer Wargaming Hit With Layoffs (2025-01-15)
- Wargaming (USA), Inc. Lays Off 29 Workers (2026-07-02)