Between May 2022 and February 2023, the number of specialists in the largest computer game development companies in Ukraine decreased by 1321. GameDev DOU has published a new top 25 game development companies operating in Ukraine.
The rating is based on the total staff of the company and the share of technical specialists in it. Experts counted game dev specialists located in Ukraine, as well as those who moved abroad but continue to pay taxes to Ukraine.
For the most part, large companies explain this decline by relocating specialists abroad and re-registering them as local legal entities.
Dynamics
13 companies out of the top 25 have negative growth dynamics. 11 of them are product companies. It is interesting that only 5 companies out of the top 25 have grown by more than 10 specialists. And all of them are outsourcing companies.
The rating includes both purely Ukrainian and international companies that have representative offices in our country and pay taxes here. The rating itself serves only as a reference and helps to see how the Ukrainian game development market is changing.
The list includes game development companies that develop their own products – mobile games, AA and AAA projects, as well as outsourcing studios and game development startups of IT companies.
In total, the 25 largest game development companies employ 9,074 specialists. Half of the companies reduced the number of specialists.
Leading developers
The top five of the top 25 have not changed:
- Playrix.
- Room 8 Group.
- Plarium.
- Ubisoft.
- Gameloft.
In almost a year, Ubisoft dropped from the second place to the fourth, and Room 8 Group rose from the fourth to the second.
The offices of the 25 largest game development companies are represented in 11 Ukrainian cities. The main city is Kyiv with 17 companies. It is followed by Lviv and Kharkiv. In the second half of 2022, at least 9 companies opened new offices. Mostly abroad. In Ukraine, only 2 offices of game development companies were opened during this period – in Kyiv and Vinnytsia.
Relocation and the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Experts also asked what share of the Ukrainian team is currently abroad. In most companies, it is up to 25%.
Besides, more than half of the companies have up to 10 specialists in the army. 11 companies keep the salaries of game dev specialists in the Armed Forces in full, and two do not keep them at all.
As for the companies’ plans to expand in the first half of 2023, five companies plan to hire up to 50 new specialists.
