The coronavirus pandemic, although an economic disaster for most businesses, became a source of success for many Polish gaming companies. But how did they do it?
The big shot in the popularity of video games in recent years has seen the Polish gaming scene start to triumph not only domestically, but also internationally. Companies such as CD Projekt recorded increases, while other, smaller projects went public at the same time. So what has been the key to their success?
Pandemic and PC Survival
Although gaming companies were doing so well in Poland that a new WIG- Games index was created on the Stock Exchange in 2019, bringing together key Polish companies, it was the Coronavirus pandemic that was the golden period for many game developers.
Popularity was influenced by lock-down and interest in gaming among users who, confined to their homes, began to crave emotional and spiritual entertainment more than ever. The development of interest in games was seen, among other things, in the huge increases in the aforementioned WIG- Games index during the pandemic.
At the time, games with a post-apocalyptic theme were particularly in demand. The obvious winner of the pandemic was CD Projekt, whose stock price skyrocketed and broke its record in August 2020 with a price of PLN 446 per share.
However, the pandemic also saw large, unexpected profits from seemingly completely inconspicuous companies, such as the Creepy Jar studio. After the box office success of the game “Green Hall”, the company moved from New Connect to the WSE, where it recorded huge increases within 4 months.
On the back of the growing interest in survival games, other companies connected with this subject have begun to celebrate their triumphs – DRAGO entertainment, a company, which deals with games bordering on horror and post-apocalypse, has moved from New Connect to WSE in 2023, and Spirit Game Studio is planning its debut on New Connect in the nearest future.
According to Konrad Pisula, producer at Spectral Games, the interest in multiplayer games also increased during the pandemic. “There was definitely a lack of some kind of social, community experience at that time. A lot of games then started to adapt to that.” And concerts that could be participated in via games were also popular.
“It was big stars like Travis etc. who were very keen to go on such collaborations because they couldn’t give concerts at the time.”
Creepy Jar – survival stimulation for post-apo fans
Creepy Jar is a studio that produces indie survival simulation games that, especially during the pandemic, have gained considerable popularity. In 2020, their flagship title, Green Hell, generated more than 30 million euros in sales revenue, which translated into a net profit of 22 million euros. Later that year, the game was made available for the Nintendo Switch console, followed by PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June.
The games offered by Creepy Jar are usually simulators that aim to stimulate participants’ instinct for self-preservation – a key element of survival in difficult situations. In the case of Green Hell, the challenge is to survive in the harsh conditions of a tropical jungle. This unique approach sets the studio’s games apart in the market, and interest in the genre has already been confirmed by more than 7 million players worldwide.
The studio’s other flagship game is ‘StarRupture’, a game that was originally going to be called ‘Chimera’. It depicts a world where players have to face extreme temperatures on an alien planet. The protagonists are exiles from Earth who have to acquire resources in order to build a base, facing various unexpected situations.
In the studio’s games, we see a post-apocalyptic world, close to the films we remember from our childhood. Perhaps it is this sentiment that has made the video games offered by the company so popular, especially among the millennial generation, who, after all, associate the console extremely well.
CD Projekt Red- The Witcher and Cyberpunk
“We want to reach out to the sensibilities of people all over the world by providing them with excellent, moving entertainment,” the developers of the Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 games state on their website. It is probably the most famous Polish video game developer, which began its dizzying career with productions based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s cult book series “The Witcher”.
On the creation of the first game, CD Projekt Red studio worked for 5 years. In 2007, the premiere took place and the results from the sales of the product were so good that immediately after the debut, the studio started working on its continuation. The problem that arose in the meantime was the console version of the first ‘The Witcher’, on which work was halted for financial reasons. Eventually, the company cancelled the project, which ricocheted off its results.
In order to get out of the difficult situation, the company focused fully on the production of the second part of The Witcher, which was released in 2011. Since its release, it has been bought by more than 1.7 million users.
Now the company has announced that it will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of the game ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Gon’ with a tour, which will take place in Warsaw in May 2025.
The company is also known for the game ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, set in the dystopian world of ‘Night City’, where the world is run by corporations and every action can have serious consequences.
The future of video games in Poland
Although the strong boom in video games has passed somewhat, as can be clearly seen, for example, from the graph of the WIG-Games index, Polish audiences are still strongly interested in the products of companies that have already managed to establish themselves on the market. Except that, analysts say, the trend has changed recently, at least when it comes to visuals and what really interests the video game viewer. As experts point out, the interest in realistic graphics is now the domain of 40-50 year olds, while young audiences are now mainly interested in games that support social interaction. Graphics should be simple, like in the American game Fortnite, published by Epic Games, or the Chinese production Genshin Impact.
As Konrad Pisula says, this trend, which started in Pandemic, is growing stronger.
“Most of the joy of these games is not its graphics, but the fact that you can play them together, that there are social bonds. I myself have very fond memories of playing such games together with my mates, literally for hours,” he says.
“They definitely train multiplayer games, but for more hours. It’s a bit like TV series. When someone starts a series that has 50 episodes, you say, I don’t have time, I’ll watch the one that has eight. It was a bit like with video games, in the sense that suddenly, when more time appeared, people started playing games that engage for longer, and they wouldn’t have played them before, because there simply wasn’t time.”
As for the future of Polish video games, stock market analysts assume a quiet, stable time for most companies involved in video games. It is worth mentioning that the success of the aforementioned ‘The Witcher’ was also influenced by the series, which was declared the biggest box office success of the Netflix platform in 2020.** The books alone by Andrzej Sapkowski, creator of the Witcher saga, have been translated into more than 20 languages.
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