Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has specific place among my friends. It has huge background from the year of 2006where a bunch of people known to me started IRC channel #e3-pl (IRCNet) to comment live what was happening overseas. Many of these guys you know as current and past journalists of community blog called Polygamia.pl, which is now one of the mainstream online media about gaming culture in Poland. In 2006it was just a bunch of underground-geeks who joined forces for creative synthesis written by some on currently well known pages.
It was the year where Microsoft showed quite impressive Xbox 360 coverage and Sony embarrassed themselves with “if we don’t say that’s Next Generation, it’s not Next Gen yet”. With huge announcements and living sense of community that tradition lasts to the very day and believe me it was really interesting to sit on the channel yesterday evening and chat with the angry mob of hardcore players who complained how boring message Microsoft has brought to them.
And that’s it, my first comment, I’m surprised that many people are surprised by current course both from Microsoft and Sony.
I’m waiting for today’s conference of Japanese giant but I’m not expecting much more than crazy MOVEs with their new controller.
This year the most exciting news as for games for its core audience I’m expecting from 3rd party. This thesis I’ve been spreading around my friends for a while. Why? Well casual, social gaming is a huge slice of the cake that corporate giants want to address immediately. Biggest, current winner in most common gaming media – game console – is obviously Nintendo. So both MS and Nintendo are looking for new opportunities through own innovation but a door opened by the competition.
Hardcore gamers might be disappointed but for most of all what’s left in this actually current generation is new games crossing boundaries. As for new hardware and hardware changes it’s obvious that message is directly pointed at new customers (the Wii-type) or to extend gaming family at household to other members under the same roof.
I’m curious how it will end up after a year or two, as for Microsoft itself I see big chance for it in countries like Poland, where Nintendo has no subsidiary and there is no real distribution of Nintendo related goods. With good business plan next years can reveal Kinect as synonym of casual gaming in such countries. The trick is that not every plan is good.
I’m excited to see the near future, especially that Xbox Live has been indirectly announced to come to Poland. Probably at the end of the year. I hope that with it Xbox Live Indie Games chapter will have also become available to Polish Indie developers. We have many talented guys who will use that chance to test their skills against commercial rules.
Last but not least, Xbox 360 Slim. It looks cool but most of all it will matter only to attract new customers. I presume not so many will replace old ones beside those frustrated by the noise or crash of the system (by whatever reason).
As for Game-Dev heat map I can easily find three strong regions: US (and Canada), Europe (mainly represented by UK, France, Germany and Scandinavia) and Japan. Some talented studios and people also live and work in Australia but as for number of titles and teams, it has not that impact as those three I have already mentioned.
Trend in the industry is to cut costs and many managers look for countries that are lets say more cost effective to outsource there more and more work. Common to other industries, but as well for game development we have China where I see Ubisoft like good example of huge investment. India is also worth a notice. Many local companies there offer their creative services to western studios. I also perceive my region worth some comment.
CEE which stands for Central and Eastern Europe hides many AAA ready studios. Some countries like POLAND, Czech Republic, Hungary are now in European Union which makes us predictable and reasonable business partners that are still much better considering cost effectiveness than the core, old Union. Also countries from former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Russia) are more and more visible abroad. Just to mention title I’m expecting to play soon – Metro 2033 – is developed in Russia. Great, atmospheric first person perspective shooter called Stalker was made in Ukraine.
Summarizing game development in Russia and Ukraine I see that my eastern neighbors have found their specialty in shooters and strategy games. It’s little bit different in Poland. As for the biggest studios I wanted to highlight in this post, I see that we do of course great job in FPS space, but we also dare to challenge one of the most difficult genres – role playing games (like The Witcher and Two Worlds).
Current strength in Polish Game Development comes from PC development and current state of these studios is to break in or sustain and grow in console markets. This is fantastic achievement considering the past where I had a feeling that we all the time chase global trends being still late for at least 5 years with skill and experience. Now observing current growth I’m amazed in genre, scale, platform and project’s type diversity Polish companies address.
Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw are top three places to live if you consider game development career
We do have great example of promoting own, new IPs (Two Worlds, Call of Juarez, Painkiller). We are good at customizing existing IPs to the gaming medium like in Witcher, which originally was a fantasy novel with a super hero story created by a local writer – Andrzej Sapkowski. We’ve got some recent experience with AAA title conversion and porting (Gears of War PC port for Epic Games). Leaders have already realized potential in on-line communities, Web 2.0 and digital distribution learning fast how to market it globally as well as locally.
New players are establishing their position on the scene but in this article I wanted, indeed, focus on fantastic four of biggest veterans in Polish Game Development that have already presented themselves as high quality developers attractive for a global player.
Company started in 1991 in small Polish town. It’d started as a publisher and software localization company. At the end of 90-ties they broke into gaming industry as well as developer opening a studio in Wroclaw. Crime Cities was first title I considered worth checking at the time. It was something like Quarantine meets Fifth Element as I remember. Not a bad start. Then they made Chrome – FPS with quite a decent engine which has become a base for their further developments. Techland still refers Chrome Engine as technology used in their games.
Most important achievement in their history is named Call of Juarez. Game obviously designed to focus on American gamers. At the end of last year they have released sequel called Bonds in Blood. With this title I’m pretty sure that they received proven track in console space and growth warranty. I’m not surprised then looking at their job openings that they have Dev teams not only in Wroclaw (original location) but also in Warsaw (capitol city). Looks like they have opened a second development studio. Good Job!
CD Projekt is also a veteran in Polish publishing and distribution market. They have started in early 90-ties pioneering CD-ROM based games in the world dominated by floppy discs. In 2002 they opened a branch office called Red Studio with one purpose – to investigate game development opportunities for the company. Brave and important investment in huge team that has learned effectively how to make complex role playing game based on IP that is very well known in Poland – The Witcher. Because of novels’ popularity, expectations in Poland were very high. CD Projekt’s aspiration, though, were even higher. They licensed Bioware’s engine – Aurora – used in Neverwinter Nights and planned to sell that popular Polish IP to the world.
Development was long and many started disbelieving in CD Projekt’s skill to produce complete product. Finally two years ago Witcher hit the stores and got critical acclaim in Poland and worldwide. At the end, Team proved that they were worth consumers’ trust and waiting.
Witcher - Major landmark in Polish Role-Playing
Unfortunately, then some troubles started. Company outsourced console port of the original Witcher focusing its core forces on new initiatives. It failed big time in this effort (porting), I presume from lack of experience in such a process. This is a part of bigger issue which I’ve noticed. CD Projekt looks like they’ve overestimated its new investment capacities (my subjective opinion, I hope to be wrong).
They first presented themselves as big investor and gaming innovator. They acquired another old game development studio – Metropolis, they started on-line store (gram.pl) and digital distribution service (Good Old Games). On Xbox360 launch they started distributing Xbox games (deal with MS), and many more. Then they started closing some of its businesses. They shut Metropolis, stopped Witcher’s Xbox 360 development with French developer (as I already mentioned). Finally they have merged with former Polish stock market giant – company named Optimus, on unclear conditions looking for new funds, I presume.
Regardless of these issues (mainly generated by some troubled time we used to call the crisis) this company has great potential and foresight ability. They quite recently announced that they work on The Witcher second installment, no details up to date on platform and game-play specifics.
With this studio I have personal memories. Somewhere between 1999 and 2001 I wanted to join their ranks. At that time I lacked experience they wanted, but the conversation was very interesting and I still recall it with big grin smile on my face. On their pages you can find that they started operations in 2001. Might be true, but the team existed even before and was known in Poland from strategy games like Polanie and Earth ****. These RTS games have continuations already branded by Reality Pump.
Two Worlds - Oblivion's little sister
These games were offered worldwide but I’m not sure if they (and how) were recognized. For me, first title they have made and that should have not been ignored is role-playing game Two Worlds. Reality Pump took different approach than CDP-Red in their RPG efforts. They have created their own IP with open world trying to compete with such RPG giants like Elder Scrolls or Gothic series. They released the game on PC as well as on Xbox 360 which makes them another studio where developers can learn how to make games for current generation video games consoles. Now they also work on a sequel.
Last but not least – People Can Fly. Behind this company’s scenes you can easily reveal true Polish game-dev legend – Adrian Chmielarz. This guy has very much a similar story to say as Peter Molyneux. he’s just not used to be the same charismatic in old English way as Peter has during his speeches. Adrian started developing games as programmer and was pioneering high quality games development from the very beginning. At the beginning of 90-ties where Amiga, PC established their position as home computers and Nintendo fought its eternal war with Sega in consoles space, first Polish game dev companies were discovering true masterpiece ideas but for 8bit Atari and Commodore and starting to make some old-looking and rubbish titles for PC and Amiga. We were definitely behind the time (thanks to the bloody communism) but not Adrian Chmielarz himself.
With his first company Metropolis Software House (mentioned earlier in CD Projekt’s story) in 1992/1993 he developed adventure game – “Secret of the Statue” – that was not worse than so called “Western” counter-parts. Adrian was experimenting with many genres and sub-genres. Secret of the Status was a first person perspective adventure game with digitized pictures (like Myth). His further adventure game, Prince and Coward, had traditional point and click interface.
In late 90-ties he started moving toward shooters. First was Catharsis, a scroller shooter with 3d pre-rendered environment (below movie):
Then he resigned from Metropolis and in 2002 started new company, People Can Fly. This company quickly marked its existence in the gaming world with Painkiller, true masterpiece horror-like FPS for PC and first Xbox.
With such a proven track People Can Fly was later acquired by Epic Games as its internal development studio. Their first project under Epic’s patronage was to port Gears of War to PC. They succeeded and now they work on new yet to be announced big title. Can’t wait for news!
SUMMARY
Polish game development studios as I already wrote have diverse experience and interests. These companies are leaders in my subjective opinion but not the ony ones in the country. New and not so new companies climb the ladder. Some other examples worth mentioning: company called Farm51 and their game – Necrovision. Tate - scene’s long-timer and I think first Polish company that broke into console development with Kao the Kangaroo, ages ago. Another long-time runner is company named City-Interactive. This studio for long was focused on smaller titles for PC and handheld now according to their strategic shift want to make less titles but with higher budget. I’ve got some pictures from their first Xbox 360 production they’re developing
Yet to be announced City Interactive X360 development. Looking good aye? You can find more pictures.
Poland is definitively growing in game development space and it is more visible worldwide. Being born here I’m personally proud of that.
Will "Reverse" achieve as spectacular success in America as it has recently done Poland?
Older I am, more confused I am with my approach to movies. I remember when I was first time in America couple of years ago and had very interesting conversation about movies with some local guys. I was asked a simple question: what kind of movies do I like.
At that time, for me, movies in theaters were just a cheap and easy alternative for live spectacles, for which I could not (yes, my fault) find time to organize myself and go. So I was choosing usually more ambitious movie projects with more flexible schedule at big cinematic complexes and I was watching them quite often. I looked for some artistic taste in each and every movie I had watched. Coming back to the question, I answered, “I like ambitious movies and prefer directors with crazy ideas”, like Lars von Trier, Coens brothers, David Lynch to give some examples. In response I heard: “that’s funny, I go watching movies to relax and stop thinking for a moment, not to torment myself with hard to understand content”. And I had understood that approach too. I appreciated simple action and brainless comedies too, but not as a majority of my choices.
There are different tastes and I believe many people can say totally different story, if somebody asked them the same simple question. I think that many more go and watch movies just to experience some primal sense fun with easy story and great special effects. That’s where the power of Hollywood have established itself for a while. For me balance is important. I’m happy to perceive that a good mixture of fun, f/x pimping up the atmosphere and rich, surprising story seems to be more common in recent movies. It just makes it harder to judge simply, which movies are 100% good and which are 100% crappy with no single line of defense. Fair enough.
I’m giving this long introduction to my yesterday’s activity, which was a trip to local cinema and watching new Polish movie entitled “Reverse”. I’m talking about it because this movie is our, Polish, candidate for American Academy’s Awards, best known as Oscars. Having all above indicators in mind, I’m wondering if that movie will be anyhow noticed by American critics. I think “Reverse”, although it’s not easy movie to understand for a foreigner, has all these elements I have already mentioned. It has good balance of general fun. It has great story established in a period about which we (at least young) Poles would like to forget and go on. It has also some very interesting techniques used in the movie. Movie is prefabricated to look like old black&white production from the past. It has some shifts between past and presents. The only weakest point is camera. I see so many talented Polish guys behind the camera in American blockbusters. Seems so sad that those, who still make movies in Poland are “old school” so badly. Still a great movie, see below musical theme with well known trumpet player, Gary Guthman performing for it:
Movie’s theme is set in Poland, in middle 50′ties of the past century. A few years after a War War II, in still demolished Warsaw, a post war Polish society and community is rebuilding itself. Poland is influenced badly by early (and hardest) stage of communism with Stalin being still alive. In these “interesting” times we see a simple family of three women: grandmother, mother and adult daughter, struggling in very new for them, hostile world of distrust, invigilation and law made for officials, not for the people. These women have their daily problems bound to the times they lived in. I don’t want to spoil the story, so I’ll add that all these struggles are told in a mix of Woody’s Allen and Coens brothers style. Black humour, parallel personal stories and dramas being correlated in strange way. Movie simple binds you to your seat until it ends. Gay ends, because at the end, it even pays the attention to the modern definition of diversity.
Film has become very popular in Poland, but still I wonder, how will it be perceived in far Los Angeles. We have a history of Oscars given to dear Polish fellows for artistic, niche productions, like Wajda’s movies. Competition doesn’t look as a short list, though. Will see, I wish them good luck. Impressive movie.
I’m a blogger for a while, millions of people can say the same. It’s good to see that not so well known Internet contributors try to find their space in the Web. It’s even better to see that people who shape various disciplines of our life joined the team.
In Poland we have about 16 milion out of 38 milion people with stable internet connection. From this number, many of course do blog also. We have success stories of people who actually started living out of online journalism. On that wave, many Polish politicians joined blogosphere too several years ago. Lech Wałesa, one of most famous Polish citizens in the World is among them. You can also reach him over local Instant Messenger called Gadu-Gadu (GG#1980).
That’s a proof that we as a nation are growing fast in maturity of Web 2.0 adoption. I haven’t seen though many businessmen contributing to Web 2.0 ideas this way.
I’m proud to tell you that Jacek Murawski, General Manager at Microsoft Poland is presumably first senior corporate executive at subsidiary level, in Poland, who started blogging a month ago. His posts mainly touch Microsoft’s daily business. Jacek is also big enthusiast and curious observer of macro economic changes we experience all the time. That’s second topic of his choice as I observe. He also writes about some trivial aspects of being global citizen (like European Union integration). He writes in Polish language, so without good translator or Polish language proficience you might not understand much. Still – Jacek is the first senior corporate blogger in Poland and I wish him all best to find his own space in this very brutal world of flame wars, devoted commentators and competition tracking your every move.
courtesy of David Longo. Click the image to see more of his amazing works.
I read an interesting article about future platforms in gaming. Square-Enix Executive Yoichi Wada says nothing new, but reminds that “Cloud Computing” will impact heavily also Game Industry.
Social and browser based games will grow dramatically Mr Wada says and Polish Gaming Magazine “Polygamia” fears that if it becomes true, real hardcore gamer related genres will unfortunately die unpopular to all these 10-minutes long game-play browser,facebook, mobile alike alternatives.
I fear not such a thing. Today proves that RIA (Both in Microsoft’s Silverlight and Adobe’s Flash applications) can handle sophisticated 3D engines. What they mostly lack is hardware acceleration and good tool-set back-end for game industry. But still I can play Quake in a browser. Browser, mobile and other you’d think small games grow in size and maturity. I can’t imagine how far it can go in the future but for sure I’m not expecting another Mafia or Farmville clones from Facebook as dominant examples in Cloud Gaming AD 2020.
What I expect is usage of local hardware (GPU, CPU) in some Internet aware device where 100% of the content will be streamlined from the Web. Natural, further evolution of what we have now, don’t you agree? I’m expecting that not hardware capacities but social networking power can be major trigger for new customer acquisition and that’s what have already started, big time!
Today’s hardware and technologies allow us to make it all what Square-Enix’s executive says even now. RIA games grow in size and maturity in amazing speed. Blocker is market readiness to accept dramatical shift in mindset (own versus use) so fast. Industry leaders need to evangelize consumers on that and in fact that are Mr. Wada’s motives in my opinion.
I’m personally not that afraid of shift itself. I’m afraid of equal offer available globally. I do not live in US and I perceive that many services are US and at general a particular country centric. Well educated consumer in Web 2.0 era thinks globally and gets benefits from that.
If a local store cannot offer good price and Dollar is cheap, I make a decision to import something even from Australia. It sounds absurd to my parents but to friends in my age that’s natural decision making.
If service is not available and it is definitely attractive people start cheating. That’s the case of Xbox Live in Poland. That’s the business of all commercial VPNs who allow people to freely utilize treasures of Netflix and have Sky TV over Internet.
As a vendor you can’t possibly block motivated user from evaluating you. They’ll bitch at you (as Polish Xbox users do every time they have good ground to speak), but still they will use it. In Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing era there is no such thing like “not available to you” for whatever reason.
Another “Hello world” in the blogosphere. I feel like I had already done that before. I’ve been blogging since 2004 or 2005 if I remember correctly. Many initiatives with different scope and content maturity. Once in Polish (my native), once testing international reader. Language proficiency in this history has taken also a very crucial part.
I remember very well that first post on MSDN Blogs in English. I tried to make my first professional blog on that platform, sharing my thoughts on Microsoft technologies with local and international readers.
For the moment, idea was not bad, but I quickly realized that with every post written, I’d been more and more interested in local only reader. Reasons were many. In Poland, I was presenting at conferences, trainings and other events for local developers. Language itself was not the problem, but if two Poles do talk, why use English in the background when I referred to something online.
So my English Posts category is long dead there. Quite recently I stopped marking Polish posts with [PL] prefix in the title. I realized that I’m not going to post any more English posts on that site. Not since that blog is cross posted on http://www.msdn.pl pages. [PL] prefix was nice, because I noticed that many other Polish bloggers used that prefix style to highlight their rare English postings (with [EN] for a change). Really interesting observation in social context and unspoken netiquette growth.
With growing popularity of that blog (as for my own acceptable scale), I realized that those pages are more official, regardless of my own statement.
Redesigning my private pages is the reaction. More and more I needed something rather private, something not so strongly branded with “MS only” label. Some place where I could start discussing and examining different topics. Some place where I could tell my international friends and colleagues that this is the place where they can follow my progress.
So I started with this entry. There will be more soon, that’s the blogging idea, right?
To give you short introduction what you can find here in the future, I’m going to explain basic content categories:
Home – this page obviously gets everything
Game Industry- My thoughts in this area from tools to design, from trends in business models to simple demands on the market. Definitely an industry worth watching.
Labs – I’m a creative soul. So I want to share with you some news with my current developments and investigations.
Microsoft – I work there, so I presume I’ll sneak in some MS-related information too.
Polish Software Industry – I’m paid to know well what’s going on in my local software market. I’m proud Polish by the way, so why not to promote my country and software from it? Regardless if MS or not, Polish brilliant minds are worth international awareness.
Programming – Yeah I know.. I’m addicted. From time to time I presume I’ll paste here some source code too.
Various Rants – Isn’t it what are you reading just right now?
Cheers,
Daniel Biesiada
PS. As it’s fresh, greetings to all of you guys, whom I met in Los Angeles, CA at PDC 09 this month. It was great time, and Carl Franklin was my best surprise.
