Some of the most well-known games in the world came from Croatia.
There is no end to problems faced by entrepreneurs in Croatia. Many have been warning for years that Croatia is an extremely difficult place to do business, with a few honourable exceptions. Croatia has not solved problems, not to mention the ideological ones, which are present since the time of former Yugoslavia. It is therefore extremely difficult to deal with the problems of the 21st century, reports liderpress.hr on April 16, 2016.
One such “problem” is the industry of computer games. The industry is not a problem in itself, but all that which prevents the industry’s business activities and greater competitiveness, not only in the region but around the world.
“This industry should not be underestimated. At the global level, it is bigger than the music and film industry. We all know the Pac-Man game, and many have grown up with it. Do you know that this game has earned 3.5 billion dollars by the early 1990s? We need to move away from investing solely in machinery and hectares, because the industry of computer games includes some of the best Croatia’s know-how”, Mladen Fogec, president of the Association of Foreign Investors in Croatia and a member of the Presidential Council for Economic Affairs, said at the conference “Computer Games – an Engine for Economic Growth”.
The conference discussed the lack of IT staff – an issue faced by the industry of computer games – as well as the potential of the IT industry and what specifically needs to change so that the industry of computer games and IT industry become the engines of the economic growth in Croatia. Among other things, the analysis of the tax burden for the IT industry was presented, with the focus on computer games.
Croatian manufacturers of computer games have been selling more than 99 percent of its products on the global market and their sales do not depend on the domestic demand. In the past twenty years, nearly 30 major computer games were released in Croatia, of which about a dozen recorded remarkable success on the global market (the Serious Sam series, The Talos Principle, Starpoint Gemini, Captain Brawe, Gas Guzzlers, Unity of Command, The Red Solstice).
In Croatia, this industry employed 57 people in 2013, 74 people in 2014, and as many as 250 in 2015. The gamers made 50 million kuna of revenue in 2015 and they recorded a growth of amazing 50 percent on the annual level. The total revenues of the gaming industry in the world were over 85 billion dollars in 2015 and, according to projections, this year it will earn more than the film industry.
