Companies operating in Lithuania for nineteen years and creating games of global success “Nordcurrent”Manager Viktorija Trofimova agreed to share their insights on the market in an interview cycle “Coffee with a guide“.
– What impact has the pandemic and quarantine had on your sector? Have people locked up at home spent more time playing games on their smart devices?
– Yes, people played more. When things closed, we felt the impact of the pandemic. Now everything is back to normal life, that’s less of that impact. In fact, the gaming market has been growing for a long time, but the pandemic has accelerated growth even more. We have seen growth of up to 50%. It should not be forgotten that the gaming market has long been larger than the cinema market.
– And what changes did you have with your team as a company manager?
– There have been the most changes here, because before the pandemic we only worked from the office, and our work is a team, it is important to be together. Therefore, moving to work from home was a big challenge, but we can be glad that everything went smoothly.
We are now working on a hybrid model, and I think we will continue to do so in the future, because the move to working remotely has succeeded. Of course, there were a lot of fears at first, we thought it would be hard. After all, creativity is constantly going on in our work. We are not an IT company, but developing games. Our sector is more comparable to the film industry. Cooperation and co-creation are very important at work.
Viktorija Trofimova
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– How did the employees react to the changed situation? Didn’t the shock that came with the pandemic block the creative energy in the collective?
– Of course, everyone was shocked by the situation. Ordinary life has changed. I myself was used to traveling regularly for work. But on the creative side, everything was fine. We released a new game in January this year and another in May. The fact that we successfully completed two games during the pandemic, and did so while working from home, is a great victory.
– You mentioned that you are currently working on a hybrid model. What is he like? Is it completely free? Do you work shifts?
– So far, we allow you to work completely freely – whoever wants to. We do not promise to change the order at the moment, but we will see how it will be in the future.
– As a manager, did you feel that this year had an impact on corporate culture?
– Yes, it is also a big challenge. We held regular corporate events before the pandemic. On the last Friday of each month, we have a company holiday where we commemorate employee birthdays, family growth, and do our own and industry market reviews. I had to think about what to do when we all work from home. Now we organize the celebration remotely, watch the prepared material, communicate. So far, this is how we try to create a collective mood.
– Many businesses in Lithuania complain about the lack of employees. How are you?
– If we look at the game market in Lithuania, it is quite small, but mature. We all work together, not fight for workers.
Viktorija Trofimova
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I would say there is always a shortage of good staff. What we are also trying to do is hire workers from abroad as well. We have Italians and Spaniards who come here to work and they like it in Lithuania.
– But the specifics of your work probably allow you to have employees who do not work from Lithuania? Do you take this opportunity?
– Here already according to the wishes of the employees: there are those who came to Lithuania to live and work, but there are also those who work remotely.
– Do you think that Lithuania could become a strong country in the game-creating industry? What would it take?
– I think we can really become such a country. Clearly, this cannot happen in one or more years. How to do it? We need to create as many global games as possible. We do that. Our most successful game, Cooking Fever, has over 400 million. downloads. Our largest market is the US, followed by Japan and the UK. The more games we create at this level in Lithuania, the better for the country.
We have well-educated professionals and good universities in Lithuania. Of course, we are also a small country, but we must not forget that Sweden had the world-famous ABBA group, although in part it is a small country.
– How do you assess the conditions for business in our country?
– We have been established in Vilnius since the beginning of 2002, so we don’t have much to compare. It has always been our headquarters here. It seems to me that everything is fine here: good professionals, understandable and good work ethic. Therefore, I could not name anything specific.
– You create products for the global market. Would you probably be the same from which country to work? Haven’t you considered looking for a more favorable business environment in another foreign country?
– If frankly – it’s not, because at home is always better and easier. Of course, there is always room for improvement. I would say we still have tax problems. Lithuania does not have enough agreements with other countries on withholding tax. This is a big drawback, which is why Lithuanian companies set up branches in any of the Netherlands or Great Britain. The US is an important and large market for us, so when it comes down to our competitiveness as we buy a product from a developer in the US, we need to pay extra, which is not the case, for example, when buying a product in the UK.
– Is the Lithuanian market important to you?
– Lithuania is not a large market in terms of population. We see it as part of the single European market. However, we have translated the main game “Cooking Fever” into Lithuanian as well.
– And what potential do you see in Eastern markets like India, China, Southeast Asia?
– The largest are the Western, Japanese and Chinese markets. They are very different and different games are becoming the most popular in them. We, as developers of Western players, find it very difficult to create a game that would be popular in China or Japan, but we hire local companies for that. With our most successful game, we did not only localization but also cultivation.
Viktorija Trofimova
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In Cooking Fever, we also have a Japanese restaurant, so when we drew it, we found out that everything was wrong there: not that color, not those hieroglyphs, not that font, for example, the main character was dressed in a kimono for a funeral. After localization and cultivation, I would say the game came out great for those markets as well.
When it comes to new markets, we see two growing markets here: Brazil and India. We are now doing more for these markets than we used to. We have Portuguese Brazilians in the team.
We are also looking at India, which is a very large market, but there the revenue is not yet at the European level, but we are looking for players, we are advertising.
– Is it possible to predict that the newly created game will be successful? Is it more of a lottery?
– Here again it can be compared to movies. Those games that will be successful will be very big and famous in the world, and we will not hear anything about failures.
– You have a team of 120 employees. How fast are games created? How long does it take to create them?
– We create more than one game at a time, we have different teams. It can take 3-5 years to create one big game.
– It is said that in order to stay in business, it is necessary to constantly monitor and implement innovations. What are you doing about this?
– Of course, the sector is constantly undergoing transformation and innovation. This is our biggest risk. In five years, everything in our industry is changing – platforms, monetization, consumer needs. What we created seven years ago, now no one even remembers. We have to constantly monitor where the industry is moving, what changes are taking place in the sector.
Nineteen years ago, we developed games for consoles, later we thought we would create games for Nokia phones, now everything has changed a lot.
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