On April 8th, Aonic, the multiplatform gaming group comprised of several studios globally, recruited Arthur Mostovoy to fill its newly created Head of Games role.
Mostovoy’s most recent project at Larian Studios was Baldur’s Gate 3, winner of multiple Game of the Year awards and considered one of the greatest video games of all time. He oversaw the Larian UK studio’s growth to 80+ people over a nearly six-year tenure.
Prior to this, he worked on the $1 billion-grossing mobile title War Robots at Pixonic, as well as helping to establish the team, processes and design at Azur, the world’s top mobile game publisher by downloads.
Aonic also received €152 Million growth investment at the very end of 2024 and invested an initial $10M into Turkish studio Mega Fortuna as part of $70M acquisition strategy.
Following the news, we have contacted Aonic and Arthur for an interview about their new role and goals.
After nearly six years at Larian Studios, culminating in the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, what motivated you to take on this new role at Aonic? What made Aonic the right next step for you?
A couple of key reasons! First, I am the sort of person who is motivated by big new challenges. With the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, a very rewarding but challenging six-year journey, I felt that it was the best time for me to pursue a new goal rather than committing to another cycle of single-minded focus.
With Aonic, we have such a diversified group of studios and projects. That appealed to me in terms of being able to work on a variety of projects; to be able to work on multiple games across different genres, to think in different directions and dimensions.
Aonic has created the Head of Games position specifically for you. How do you define this role, and what do you hope to accomplish that perhaps wasn’t possible in your previous positions?
As a new role, I fully expect it to develop and evolve based on the needs of Aonic as we continue to grow.
But broadly, it revolves around everything that has to do with games and making them successful. My job is to help answer questions like: how do we make this game better? What checks and balances do we need in place for successful development?
This goes for all the games currently in Aonic’s pipeline, but also those that will be developed in the future as we seek to constantly improve our processes and create an optimal environment for success.
The difference with Aonic compared to my previous roles is that I have historically been doing this for one big game, or one big studio – but in this case, it’s such a multi-dimensional realm with so many different teams, views, geographies, cultures, genres, and audiences. It’s the culmination of all the experiences I’ve gathered over the last 15 years in different places, and that is really exciting.
What are your top priorities for Aonic’s game division in the coming years? Can you share your vision for how the portfolio will evolve under your leadership?
Because I’m such an avid gamer, I pride myself on being able to look at games – even those from outside my genres of choice – and to at least partly understand why people would or wouldn’t be playing them. In that sense, my priority is to ensure that all our games – no matter what genre or team size – will strongly serve an audience that will enjoy them a lot.
It sounds simple, but that clarity of vision is extremely important!
Mobile has played a significant role in your career, especially with the success of War Robots. What’s your perspective on the current state of mobile gaming, and how does it fit into Aonic’s overall strategy?
Despite having been fully focused on PC and console more recently, it’s true that some of the mobile games I have worked on have been very successful. Mobile still generates most of the profit in the games industry and has been one of the main drivers of it over the past 10 years.
As an extreme example, it is not unfeasible to have one mobile product that generates enough revenue to finance a decade of multiplatform game development. This shows the benefits of a diversified portfolio and why being multiplatform is a key part of Aonic’s strategy.
Having led Larian’s UK team through the development of a Game of the Year-winning RPG, how will that experience shape your leadership at Aonic? Are there lessons or practices from Larian you plan to carry over?
It’s important to foster a culture that is based on enthusiasm and a genuine, honest love of games. Also, to have some candor when you are giving feedback or discussing ideas.
I want us to acknowledge any mistakes, recognize where we are falling behind, and candidly discuss how we can pull through. That was always a big part of Larian’s success: listening to players’ feedback, developing with the community, and being self-critical.
You’ve said we’re entering a “golden age of indies and small teams.” What makes this moment especially promising, and how does that belief influence Aonic’s strategy going forward?
To me, Aonic’s primary reason for existing is to help those smaller teams with big ideas
make their dreams a reality. I said it’s a golden age of indies because, from a data perspective, you can see how indie titles and revenues are increasing year on year – particularly in the last year.
Of course, it’s impossible to talk about this without the context of the downfall and multiple failures over many years of corporations who lost touch with reality. There are so many talented people with great experience who worked at these companies, and they still want to make games.
A lot of them, being disillusioned, will just go and form small teams to try and make the games they always dreamed of. That’s exactly my premise of what can be termed “a golden age of indies”.
Aonic’s publishing arm, Megabit Publishing, recently launched Grit and Valor – 1949. How will publishing factor into your broader growth strategy? Do you envision a balance between third-party publishing and first-party support?
Most of my focus will be on the games themselves, but of course we will need to work closely with our publishing team to ensure that our titles are brought to market in the best way.
Megabit was formed initially because the PC/console developers within Aonic identified the need for a first-class in-house publisher that would allow them to focus on game development. But Megabit also works to provide the same offering to partnering third-party developers, and their titles are handled with exactly the same care, from how I assess and consult on their development throughout to Megabit’s expert management of the entire publishing and marketing process.
Looking ahead, where would you like to see Aonic in five years? What would success look like for you in terms of the games you ship, the growth of your studios, or your overall impact on the industry?
Thinking longer term, one of the ultimate goals is to try and disrupt the market by releasing games that shape the next decade. Games that raise the bar in their respective genres and, in turn, enable their teams to make even bigger and bolder games.
If you look at super cool and successful companies today – think Larian, CD Projekt Red – they started from much humbler roots many years ago and have been on a journey.
Success for me would be supporting teams that are currently small on that journey. They may not make a hit game in their first attempt, but with the right support and guidance, they can get there by increasing their expertise, defining their vision clearly and understanding what drives the engagement and retention of players.
It’s almost unheard of to have an overnight success as a game developer. By the point that a developer starts to get noticed by most players with their first hit game, the likelihood is that they released quite a few games before that, during which time they were growing their team, their expertise, and their understanding of the market and players. and most importantly, their fanbase.
In five years? It’s hard to say exactly what that will look like, but the aim is always to be doing better than we are today. Progress is important. If the teams that are part of Aonic are happy with the support that we are providing, and they are releasing games that the players are happy with, and they have big dreams… anything is possible!
