According to an estimation by NewZoo, Ukrainian players spent some $118 million on games in 2014, while the total revenue of local game developers reported by SuperData reached just $68 million.
Game industry employs more than 10,000 people. Ukraine is far from being the leader in terms of video games market size.
That of Eastern Europe is dominated by Russia ($1.12 billion), Turkey ($434
million) and Poland ($311 million).
These numbers,
however, don’t mean much, said Sergiy Galyonkin, game industry expert and
former editor in chief of the Gameplay magazine, who currently works for
Wargaming.net, an online platform for those willing to play.
A big part of the
industry in Ukraine is represented by branches of foreign companies like
Gameloft, Crytek or Ubisoft, which obviously only transfer to the country the
money needed to pay salaries.
“(Even) many
companies owned by Ukrainians also keep their profits elsewhere. It’s not
particular to Ukraine, many companies do the same,” he added.
In Ukraine, some of the most popular video games
are an entertainment mostly for the male audience. Males account for 95 percent
of those 4 million users who play the World of Tanks, according to
Wargaming.net. A significant number of players are between 20 and 40 of age.
There are students, blue-collars and white-collars.
There are quite a
few sizable companies making mobile and social games, like Nravo, Plarium,
Playtika, Orneon or Win Interactive. There is also Kyiv-based Persha Studia,
which was contracted by Belarusian Wargaming to create the popular game World
of Warplanes.
Companies’
significance can be judged by their valuation: for example, Vinnytsya-based
Orneon was purchased by Bwin.Party for $15 million in 2012.
“There are
also many small-scale studios employing some 20 to 50 people, which also have
successful projects,” Galyonkin said. “Some companies work as
outsourcing game developers, some have two or three own games, one of which is
successful and pays the company’s bills.”
The war and
turmoil in Ukraine in the past year certainly had a negative impact on the game
development industry and the IT industry as a whole, but it can’t be said that
all is lost.
“Game
developing is an industry of young people,” Galyonkin said. “It needs
talent but it doesn’t matter where the developers are located. Because of
instability in the country, many companies started to consider leaving Ukraine.
But at the end only one of them actually made a move: 4A Games relocated about
half of its staff to Malta in order to meet a requirement made by their
publisher.”
“As any other
healthy industry, we need to have a bit of everything. In any country, except
maybe the U.S., there are a few big players, service companies, many
middle-size companies and even more small independent developers, or
indies.”
In addition to
that, many game development companies were located in Donetsk and Lugansk
regions, as well as in Crimea. They all had to leave and are working now in
other parts of Ukraine, Galyonkin said.
Among them was
Best Way, a studio formerly based in Lugansk Oblast’s Severodonetsk and known
by its titles Soldiers: Heroes of World War II and Men of War. In a recent interview to ITC.ua, the
studio’s head Dmytro Morozov said that in June 2014 Best Way moved to Cherkasy,
600 km to the west from Severodonetsk, and is now working on its next title
called Project 5.
What the industry
needs now is stable, predictable growth — and maybe a couple of loud success
stories to help improve its international image and attract more funding for
promising projects. Surprisingly, today’s market doesn’t expect much support
from the government — far from that, it seems to be better off without it.
Kyiv Post contributor Andrii Degeler can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
