CD Projekt: Polish market is "on the up"

The videogames market in Poland is growing, with more people buying consoles and talking about games than ever before - but the country's industry still needs greater investment if it is to flourish.

That's the opinion of Tomasaz Gop, senior producer at CD Projekt, one of the country's leading lights in terms of development and responsible for action RPG The Witcher.

"I think the gaming market in Poland is definitely on the up," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "From what I've seen there has been a rise in the number of outlets that spread information about games over the last two years, and also there are more people buying consoles.

"With regard to developers though I think that we have between five and ten big developers in Poland but it's still not enough as far as I'm concerned. I believe that it is a place where a lot of people can make great games, but there just aren't enough investors at the moment."

And Lukasz Kukawski, PR & marketing specialist for the company's distribution arm, GOG.com, added that the social view of games is changing, while the presence of some key companies has had a positive effect.

"In the last few years we've had several big publishers opening offices here in Poland so now there's a Ubisoft Poland office, a Sony Computer Entertainment Poland and also Microsoft has an office here," explained. "So it's getting bigger, and more people are talking about games but also the way they talk about games is different. They're not talking about them just as kid's toys any more, like they were ten years ago.

"The mainstream media is also talking about games and game developers and, for example, The Witcher was the biggest thing that had happened on the Polish games market. Then last year Techland released the second of the Call of Juarez series which I think was a big success for them so it's getting better and better.

"There are lots of really programmers and designers here that have quite specific and original ideas for games and so I think it won't be too long before we'll see Polish developers gaining consistent renown on the gaming scene at a worldwide level."

Gop also revealed that the developer - currently working on The Witcher 2 - is hoping that while the original game's gambit onto the console platforms in the for of Rise of the White Wolf failed, the new game could become multi-platform.

"We'll definitely be launching this title on PC and we're hoping to also release it on one of the consoles, though we're still in talks on that," he revealed.

The first part of the interview with Gop and Kukawski is available now.