“This is what we do, this is how we do it, this is what we need”

Machina's stand at the Reboot InfoGamer show in Zagreb is an interesting one. It's big, larger than any but the showcases for the big publishers and platform holders, but it's mostly off limits. At the front is a huge banner wall and someone to talk to about the company's modular games education programme, but behind the hoarding is a no-go area for attendees. Instead, CEO Lovro Nola has set it up as a place for staff who are working the show to sit down, grab a coffee, have a meeting or, as I find out at 10:30am one morning, slurp pear schnapps from a foil pouch.

Nola's a canny operator, and not just because he can spot someone willing to drink spirits from a bag before they've had breakfast. Setting up the stand this way makes sure it's the central point for most of the casual business activity over the course of the event, which means he gets to meet everyone and get in their good books by offering decent coffee and terrible alcohol. Pretty soon, however, I get the impression that he knows everybody already anyway, and that's down to more than just good coffee - as one of the few ways for people to get a game-specific education in the region, Machina and Nola have excellent ties to the local scene.

"We are a private, for profit academy for game development," he explains when we sit down. "We have to cover all the skill gaps that exist in the market, which the universities don't touch on. The problem is, in Croatia, we don't have a game dev university at all. And it's not coming anytime soon either, because there's no government support for changing the qualification frameworks to allow universities to teach more game dev specific skills.

"There are two reasons for that. Firstly, there's no real demand for it, because people don't understand that this is a career, a real job. We're working on changing that. The second is that there's no drive from the developer's side, so the government doesn't feel it can change it for them."

"There's no government support for changing the qualification frameworks to allow universities to teach more game dev specific skills"

So Machina is looking to plug a big gap in a rapidly expanding local dev industry, hungry for the skilled and talented. To do so, he takes existing developers and puts them in the classroom, giving their experience directly to his students, operating on a "no bullshit, no fluff" policy which has so far resulted in a 50% employment rate a year after graduation. All courses are modular and specific, and have to operate completely outside the state education system. It also means he has to pay his teachers the sort of wages they're used to as programmers.

"I'm starting to realise that this is actually the only way in which we can teach game dev," Nola sighs. "I've seen countless times, doing consultancy work for various universities, that they do actually kind of want to include this stuff. They understand that it's growing. Then I have to explain to them that they're going to need to change their curricula and have fewer lectures and more practical teaching. They're not keen on that. They say it won't work, because of the EU regulations and frameworks and whatever.

"That's something I never want to be bound by, because if I figure out that VR is going to be the next best thing then I want to be able to go and find a couple of game dev lecturer from studios who are, thank God, willing to teach outside of their working hours, and they can talk about the reality. No bullshit, no fluff. 'This is what we do, this is how we do it, this is what we need.' So far, that's worked. It's been amazing."

Machina splits courses down to specific modules for two reasons. Firstly, it allows students to concentrate on a specific focus, but more importantly it makes the course financially viable. Because access to further education in Croatia is excellent and nearly free, it takes a lot to convince people to spend money on an alternative.

"Although I'd love to offer a full year or two year course, I know that's not financially feasible for most of our students"

"We know that this country's purchasing power parity is much lower than a lot of other countries, more developed countries," says Nola. "So although I'd love to offer a full year or two year course, I know that's not financially feasible for most of our students, so we've separated everything out into bite-sized chunks, which makes it more affordable.

"That's important for us because in order to get game dev talent to come and teach with us, we need to pretty much pay them developer salaries. That's one of the highest salaries in Croatia. So to get them in, we need to pay them a lot of money, which means we need to charge quite a lot of money to be able to finance everything. That's why we separate everything.

"But every module is designed to stand alone in a specific field. So, 3D modelling for example will teach you all the basics of modelling, also texturing, photo editing for texturing, preparation for rigging and for animation. At the end you'll have a portfolio that'll have one or two characters, a couple of everyday objects, a vehicle or two, that sort of thing. We want to showcase a broad portfolio and give them a broad knowledge base. That's the idea behind every course."

So where are the graduates going? Nola reckons there to be about 30 local studios, some of up to 700 employees, but it's not necessarily the major players who he sees driving the region's growth. When I ask him if he thinks a major publisher presence in the region would be beneficial, he says he'd rather see the cash going to smaller teams.

"It would most certainly be a boon to the growth of the game dev industry in the region. I have had the opportunity to facilitate several investment deals for some of our companies and the security provided by major investments has seen employee figures skyrocket and production cycles accelerate. In every single case this has also led to net returns on these investments and secured the investment partnership as a long term prospect.

"However, if I'm being fair, all of the companies that received investments have been financially stable, hence the investment was not crucial to their survival but was instead fuel for their growth. The real market opportunity in the region comes from the stunning number of indies that have risen in the past couple of years - these are the guys who need finances badly and where a 'mere' 35 thousand euros could mean the difference between a modest and a stellar success."

"Croatian employees are paid and communicate in net salaries and the employer pays the difference between net and gross without the employee ever being aware of the total cost of their salary"

There's another obvious hurdle for the region to overcome in terms of the flow of skills: the dreaded brain drain. If the local industry is small, and a lot of expansion is happening with smaller teams, are recent graduates flowing abroad instead? Nola says it's a key issue, but one which shows some signs of abating.

"The root of it is in the current Croatian (and similar regional) tax systems," he tells me. "Firstly, Croatian employees are paid and communicate in net salaries and the employer pays the difference between net and gross without the employee ever being aware of the total cost of their salary. Secondly, Croatia has one of the highest net - gross differences in the EU (average tax burden in the EU on a net salary is 39.9%, in Croatia it's 46.7%). When you combine these problems, you get relatively low senior salaries due to the tax burden and a workforce that is painfully aware of much larger salaries out in the EU and the rest of the world.

"Luckily, it's not all that negative - Lion Game Lion, for example, has been hiring people from the EU to work in Croatia as they require very specific skill-sets and can most certainly afford to do so. Which takes us back to your previous question - the financial security that a major publisher can provide to growing studios is of paramount importance in retaining and sourcing talent for major projects."