Special Agent T.H.U.N.D.E.R. travels the world, conquering baddies. He sprints, sneaks up on people, fights like a true action hero, and has every gadget he could ever need. He can even fly through the air for short periods. But 009 is no fully-trained, Martini-drinking sex icon a la James Bond: This fearless secret agent is a dog.
This part action, part stealth game wherein players assume the role of a yapping hound is something well worth experiencing. “Barkour” is a game made by Varsav Game Studios, in Poland, which is set to be released this year.
In an interview with DW at the Gamescom international games fair in Cologne, Varsav Game Studios founder and CEO Lukas Rosinski explained what he thinks is Polish developers’ greatest strength: “We are creative, and this is the biggest thing happening in Poland. Games from Poland are unique and came from many different perspectives.”
‘Special survival gene’ leads to creative solutions
Lukas Rosinski believes that this creativity has to do with his country’s centuries-long history of being dominated by foreign powers, and of being at times closer to the West, and at others closer to the East. Until the Berlin Wall fell and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated, Poland was a Soviet satellite state, with the first free elections only coming after. Since 2004, Poland has been a member of the EU.
“There was always this problem of fighting against someone and surviving. So when you fight and survive, you have a special gene that means you have to do things differently to survive. You have to hide. You have to think of different ways of doing things. And this specific gene, it stayed with us. I believe that,” says Rosinski, who points out that even younger people in his country are still seeking out different ways of doing things, cheaper ways, for example. “The labor cost in Poland is not that much lower, but it’s still lower. And the amount of creative people is still higher than average in Europe.”
Rise of the Polish games industry
According to a report by the European Games Developer Federation, Poland had around 500 studios in 2022. The center of Poland’s games industry is in Warsaw, and is home to CD Projekt Red, which earned critical acclaim for “Cyberpunk 2077” and “The Witcher” series.
Game studios have also been set up in Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk and other cities in recent years, employing a total of 15,000 people in the Polish gaming industry in 2022. This put Poland in the top two spots in Europe, with a selection of Polish games selling more than a million copies worldwide between 2014 and 2021.
Founded only in the 1990s, Poland’s games industry is relatively young. Back then, having a PC was regarded as a status symbol and the take up was rapid, Kuba Palyka, creative director of Zenmaster Studios in Warsaw, told DW. The first games were developed on home computers in an era which strongly influenced Palyka.
Zenmaster’s latest game, “Blood of the Tyrant,” is a throwback to the mostly free flash games that dominated browsers in the 1990s.
In the beginning though, before Poland’s gaming industry was to slowly start becoming more professional, Palyka says it had more of a wild west atmosphere to it. “It wasn’t so regulated; sometimes it was difficult to get your money and be paid.” But as Polish games grew in success on the world stage, the investors started to show up.
One Polish specialty is simulation games in which gamers play as particular characters, from “Car Mechanic Simulator” and “Drug Dealer Simulator” to “House Flipper,” where users assume the role of a renovation specialist.
Other genres served well by Polish studios include horror games, role playing games, construction games and retro shooting games. These are all helped by government support programs which, despite criticism from indie developers as being financially insufficient, give young people opportunities to hone their skills. Numerous educational institutions, such as private schools and universities, also provide opportunities.
Crisis in the gaming industry also affects Poland
The current crisis in the gaming industry is impacting Poland — even though one might be tempted to ask, “what crisis?” upon seeing the crowds of visitors attending Gamescom. Organizers are announcing trade fair records this year, with 1,500 exhibitors from 72 countries participating at the event. But, initial impressions can deceive, as behind the scenes, the industry really is struggling.
The slump came after the COVID pandemic, where many people discovered video games, gaming companies expanded, and investors poured huge sums into the industry.
But the expansion was short-lived. Since 2022, an estimated 37,000 people in the industry have lost their jobs worldwide, with larger companies laying off employees and smaller studios having had to close completely.
Following its excessive growth during worldwide lockdowns, the market became oversaturated, and as global economies faced high inflation and rising interest rates, the cost of new gaming developments increased, while competition for countless new games did not wane.
Meanwhile, developers put their money into other sectors, not least in the arms industry following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. Investors also started withdrawing from Poland, says Lukas Rosinski. As a result, some indie studios rely now on donations, and generate income through crowdfunding.
Hopes rest on government support
Some manage to finance their first game largely on their own, such as Dominik Sojka, who founded the Dark Jay studio and who developed “Arms of God” entirely on his own. He understands the challenges facing the industry.
He told DW that while it might have been tricky to find graphic artists or designers for a project a few years ago, clients actually now receive numerous applications within the first few days. Sojka says this is because AI has also displaced designers, translators and voice actors in recent years.
Poland’s indie developers are therefore hoping to see increased financial support in the form of government funding, especially when it comes to a studio’s first game. Right now, support does not amount to that much, says Sojka. Polish indie developers are divided though on whether the crisis is still ongoing, or has passed.
But first though, they are presenting their games together at the Gamescom at the booth of Polish publisher Galaktus, where they hope to stand out from the crowd of games competing for international attention.
This article was originally written in German.
