The Slovak gaming industry recorded a record turnaround last year -apkrig
Following the annual report of the Association of Czech Game Developers, the updated data for 2020 also come from Slovakia. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the local video game industry has seen growth in all important respects, and SGDA boasts not only record sales of more than € 72 million – around € 1.8 billion – but also an increase in active staff to 870, nearly 100 new jobs and more than 250 game projects that either came out last year or were actively worked on. The press release is also supplemented by informative information, which literally encourages a comparison with the situation in the Czech Republic.
“The Slovak gaming industry was not stopped even by a pandemic, in 2020 it grew significantly again. According to statistics from the Slovak Game Developers Association, the turnover of this segment of the domestic economy exceeded 2019 by 29 percent, “says Maroš Brojo, SGDA’s general manager. This is almost double the rapid growth compared to the Czech Republic, where turnover increased by 17 percent compared to 2019 to 5.3 billion crowns. However, the coronavirus pandemic played an important role, although the press release seems at first sight that this was not a major problem. Although half of the companies report that the measures had no financial impact on them and 20 percent of those who even profited in difficult times, 28 percent of the developers contacted experienced problems, which is further reflected in development costs and efficiency. work.
Source: SGDAFifty percent of developers in Slovakia saw a decrease in productivity, while 34 percent did not fluctuate and the remaining entities were more efficient after moving to the home or otherwise remote environment. In terms of costs, 61 percent of companies did not have to reach the budget at all, seven percent improved and 31 percent worsened. However, as the data from the introduction state, Slovakia is overall better than in the previous year, which is a conclusion that has also been reached in the Czech Republic. In addition, further growth is expected for this year, both in terms of an estimated 1,000 employees and in terms of total turnover, which could exceed 84 million euros this year. It is no big surprise that the top 10 percent of companies take care of the total turnover for the most part – last year it was 86 percent of the total – however, it is interesting that the Nine Rocks Games studio is also in the seventh place of the ranking. turnover helped only through existing investments.
Source: SGDAA total of 63 gaming companies operate in Slovakia, and only one of them – Pixel Federation – employs more than 200 developers. The most represented are groups of 5-9, resp. 2-4 employees, which relate equally to 19 studies or subjects. As in the Czech Republic, Slovakia has the greatest demand for programmers, but there is also a lack of designers, graphic artists and animators. As for foreign employees, there are only 80 of them in the Slovak gaming industry, which is only 9 percent of the total volume; in the Czech Republic, foreign employees are 33 percent represented. However, all of them, including 16% of the developers, are involved in the development of a really large number of projects, which the SGDA counted an unexpected 256 in 2020. However, this is the total of titles that have either been released or are yet to be released, so if we wanted to include only games that were fully launched in Slovakia last year will reach number 26. As in the case of the Czech Republic, these are great results that underline the current trend and indicate huge potential for years in which studios will not be plagued by a pandemic.
