You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.
Daniel Vávra has been active in the game industry since the nineties and is behind legendary games such as Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven from 2002 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance from 2018. According to his game studio Warhorse, the latter game has sold over 6 million copies. Vávra is currently working on the second episode of the action RPG, which will be released in February next year. In testing, the developer plays Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for up to twelve hours a day. His team of 250 people is still discovering new obstacles.
“For example, we have horses in the game. During testing, we always put the animal on the map and ride it. At first glance, it worked as it should. A few days ago I found out that the worst horse in the game has the same parameters as the best. Therefore, you suddenly start analyzing the characteristics of horses, saddles and their parameters. This resulted in a three-page list summarizing the issue of game horses and we began to address it, while you will find that some problems cannot be fixed at this stage of development. Such things emerge every day,” the developer describes in the program Agenda for SZ Byznys. According to him, it is not within the capabilities of test players to find and fix all problems, but they must try.
Daniel Vávra *1975
Daniel Vávra is one of the founders of the domestic game studio Warhorse Studios. At the beginning of his career, he worked on the game Hidden & Dangerous, he became known thanks to the popular Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, created under 2K Czech (then Illusion Softworks).
In 2021, he became one of the founders of the Society for the Defense of Freedom of Speech.
Warhorse is not the only successful domestic game studio. Thanks to the success of the titles Arma and DayZ, Bohemia Interactive has placed itself in the list of the most valuable Czech companies Czech Elitey. The history of the Czechoslovak legionnaires is described in Last Train Home by the Czech development studio Ashborne Games.
Players have high hopes for the second part of the historical action RPG. According to the Warhorse studio, the first part of the game series sold over 6 million copies as of this February. According to Vávra, part of the success can be attributed to the game itself, although the sales strategy chosen by the game studio during the launch of the game cannot be underestimated.
“If we didn’t make a halo around Kingdom Come, we have great reviews and feedback from players, but maybe one and a half million people will buy the copy itself, not six. Despite all the hype, I still run into colleagues in the gaming industry who don’t know about Kingdome Come. This shocks me, because from my point of view, on the contrary, it seems that there are already too many of us in public space,” explains Vávra.
According to the developer, the success or failure of the expected title can be reflected in the overall turnover of the domestic game sector. This is because it depends on several studios, the heads of which are from Vávra’s generation.
“One of the Czech studios will not succeed in one title, and the entire industry will have a turnover of a billion less. Young game studios mainly focus on small, often mobile games. You can sell a few thousand copies of these at ten dollars each and make a comfortable living. But nothing ground-breaking will be created that way,” describes a veteran of the disease of the domestic industry.
According to him, young Czech developers lack vision and willingness to take risks. Even state subsidies, which the industry will gain access to next year thanks to the Act on Audiovisual Works and Support for Cinematography, will not help to solve this. The studios will thus be able to draw subsidies from the State Cinematography Fund, which will be transformed into the State Audiovisual Fund.
“The state hasn’t really supported game developers so far, and I think that’s a good thing. There is now a discussion about the money that will be provided to game studios in the form of subsidies. I don’t want states handing out subsidies to developers. A better solution would be incentives and loans, the company can pay back the money to the state and pay even more money in taxes. That’s a win-win,” says Vávra.
Agenda
A quarter of an hour about business first hand. Interviews with top Czech business leaders, company founders, experts.
From Monday to Thursday on SZ Byznys and in all podcast applications.