In six months, the number of employees in the Ukrainian gamedev decreased by 1,020, or by 11.75%. For a year – by 1411 (almost 15%).
At the same time, only one new office was opened – in Kyiv.
This is stated in the rating published by DOU.
A wave of layoffs
There are fewer and fewer employees in the top 25 Ukrainian game developers. If we talk specifically about technical specialists, then this is a minus of 590 specialists in six months and 944 specialists in a year.
But their share has increased over the past six months. In the winter of 2023, they were 81.4% of all employees, in August last year – almost 81%, and as of February 2024 – 84%.
There are many reasons for the overall decline — investor caution, company splits, IT services market slowdown, etc. For example, reducing the number of specialistsRoom 8 Groupin Ukraine, the company connects with the legalization of relocated specialists abroad and the release of a certain number of people who were on the bench.
There were also natural changes, as some specialists decided to continue their careers outside the company. However, new colleagues from Ukraine joined our team. Now we have open vacancies both for Ukrainian specialists and for specialists from other countries where we work,” Room 8 Group explained to us.
In an outsourcing companyKevuru Gamesseveral reasons are also called:
- legalization of people abroad;
- global slowdown of the IT services market, in particular game development;
- clients (new and existing) invest more slowly and cautiously in new projects in Ukraine.
Top 5 lost 550 people
The growth was far from everyone, but it was still there – eleven teams increased in size over the last six months. In total, we are talking about almost 170 specialists. That’s seven product teams, three outsourced, and a studioRetroStyle Games(Engages in both areas).
The best indicators inGSC Game World– Plus forty employees. Over the past year, the creators of STALKER have increased their staff by 70 people. It is interesting that the percentage of technical specialists in the studio has not changed and is 80%. Among the ten largest companies, only two grew — the product Wargaming (+14) and the game development division N-iX (+5).
The most noticeable fellPlayrix. The group of six studios decreased by a total of 318 specialists. And if in August of last year there were 66% of technical specialists, now it is 75%. Playrix did not respond to our inquiries about the reasons for the cuts.
An outsourcing studio is interesting due to the change in the number of technical specialistsStepico Games. In February 2023, they were 86%, in August 2023 – 71%, and in February 2024 – 88%.
On the other hand, he made it to the top 3 for the first time in two yearsUbisoft. We will remind that in the spring of 2022, 1,175 people worked in the Kyiv and Odesa offices of the French company. In February 2023, thanks to its international presence, the company transported 348 people to Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, etc. on 20
New offices
In the current situation, it is difficult to expect these companies to open new offices and representative offices, but over the past six months, three of our top companies have expanded their geography.
- So, Kevuru Games opened its office in Warsaw (Poland), RetroStyle Games — in Kyiv,
- N-iX Game & VR Studio – in Bucharest (Romania).
We will remind that two companies – Plarium in Lviv and Frag Lab in Poland – announced the opening of new offices last time.
Almost half of the companies plan to grow
Despite the difficult situation on the game development market, companies are not giving up on their growth plans. Ten of them want to increase their staff in the next six months, and one of them – by 50-100 employees.
It is noteworthy thatno studio plans to reduce or relocate staff from Ukraine.
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