In 2022, 66 game companies in Slovakia generated a turnover of €77 million EUR and employed over 1,080 developers. Impressive numbers but slightly down on the €80m they rang in for 2021.
That’s according to figures just released by the Slovak Game Developers Association. The share of the top-performing companies’ turnover relative to other game makers only shrank by 2%. The number of creators and companies - 1080 creators in 66 companies - was also comparable to the previous year's numbers.
All of which is positive news in a post-Covid “slump” as companies adjust to normal growth after massive gains during the pandemic.
Mobile stood as the second-most popular platform for game development, with 31.8% of games developed with that as their primary target platform, with PC at the top at over 72%. Pixel Federation, the notable Slovakian game developer was also seen as the largest developer in the country by headcount.
The Slovakian top 10
The top ten games companies by turnover looks like this:
- Pixel Federation
- SuperScale
- Inlogic Software
- PowerPlay Studio
- Nine Rocks Games
- QORPO
- Blue Brain Games
- Gentlemen's
- 60fps
- Games Farm
It's a strong performance for Slovakia with the likes of Pixel Federation, who took a 7% drop in sales in their latest financials, still performing well, while rivals take cut backs or cease new development entirely.
The Slovak industry remains a tightly run, mainly domestic enterprise and - through Covid hardships - has come out all the better for it. That said foreign talent could become more relevant in the market as over 45% of respondents to a survey by the SGDA said they “employ them and plan to employ more in the future”.
It’s interesting to note that while PC is the main focus, with mobile coming slightly after, mobile is on the rise. Although PC games have historically been popular for Eastern European developers - as the fond nickname for many PC games from the region, “Slavjank”, suggests - mobile is becoming an increasingly popular choice for development and release.
