How Poland turned into a video game powerhouse

Poland’s new ambassador is a scar-faced hit man armed with two swords and potions against monsters and dragons. His name is Geralt, hero of a Polish role-playing video game bewitching the world.

The Witcher is the brainchild of CD Project Red, one of a growing number of cutting-edge Polish IT firms out to dominate global gaming. It sold four million copies of the game worldwide within two weeks of its May 2015 release. Two earlier instalments in the Witcher series have sold some eight million copies since hitting the market in 2007 and 2011.

 “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the best games ever made,” said website Gamespot of the game, which is the top seller in most of the 109 countries where it was released.

 “They created the largest open world in the history of video games and filled it with realistic dialogue and characters that are full of life,” said leading Polish game developer Pawel Miechowski of the game’s creators.  “Plus the graphics are staggering.” 

CD Project Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski attributes the success of Polish video games to eastern European sensibility. “We bring something new to the table, a breath of fresh air, creativity.”

Poland’s video-game industry is one of the biggest in Europe, according to Daniel Sadowski, co-founder of the Nitreal Games studio and an instructor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology. “There are around 500 independent video game studios in Poland, compared to maybe around a dozen in Germany. Every year around 100 Polish games hit the global market,” he said.