Founded 20 years ago by university dropout Sergiy Grygorovych, GSC Game World is a source of inspiration for many Ukrainian techies in switching from software to game development.
Grygorovych’s strategy game Cossacks and role-playing game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. became global bestsellers, with each selling more than five million copies. Their success forced local game companies to work harder.
In 2011, GSC announced it was suspending development of a second S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and laid off its staff to the shock of many in the industry. In May, the company made a comeback with the announcement it will release its Cossacks 3 game by the end of 2015.
Since the game company’s foundation and early successes, the Ukrainian game market grew considerably.
Total revenue on the market was $68 million in 2014, according to SuperData calculations. It is a small share of Eastern Europe’s $2.2 billion total revenue in the digital game market, and is behind market leaders, namely Russia ($1.1 billion) and Poland ($311 million).
There are more than 10,000 game development specialists employed in Ukraine. Most of them are gamers and hobbyists.
Average salaries for game developers reach up to $3,000 per month, approximately the same as software engineers. A cheap yet talented work force is the main reason why the local market is dominated by foreign giants like Germany’s Crytek, France’s Ubisoft and Gameloft, Lithuania’s Game Insight and Belarus’s Wargaming.net.
The exact number of locally-founded game companies is not known. Many register abroad and do not reveal their Ukrainian roots to clients. Many don’t even register as legal entities in Ukraine.
GSC, however, has always been open about its Ukrainian origin.
Company spokesman Valentine Yeltyshev says the decision to shut down in 2011 was made due to its lack of willingness to continue working on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and further invest in its development. It continued to sell old games that were already on the market and other souvenir products connected with the brand.
While GSC Game World was on vacation, market space freed up, which allowed local players to fill the void like Action Forms, Nravo, iLogos who develop games for personal computers, mobile devices and other digital platforms.
Vostok Games and 4A Games, founded by former employees of GSC, are now considered to have the best prospects. Their games, Survarium and Metro, respectively, have attracted millions of players around the world.
The economic and political turmoil of 2014 disrupted the game industry. Not only did investment decrease, many developers had to relocate to safer parts of Ukraine.
Some left the country. The most well-known replacement was that of 4A Games, which moved almost half of its employees to Malta as per its publisher’s request.
Game industry players crave stability in order to grow bigger and faster.
“First of all, we need peace in Ukraine. People are tired of war and uncertainty about the future,” says Andriy Tabachyn, chief executive officer at Nravo game studio in Lviv. “Many international companies are afraid to open offices here because of total corruption. We do not need help from the government. No interference from its side would be enough.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
