Lithuanian Games Industry Report 2019

Lithuania's game development sector expanded rapidly between 2013 and 2018, with industry turnover rising from €7.63 million to €115 million and the sector's share of GDP climbing from 0.02% to 0.24%. Mobile games drove much of this growth, led by Game Insight and the local office of Unity, while revenue per employee rose from €35.7 thousand in 2014 to €163.5 thousand in 2018. Growth has been driven by consolidation and internationally oriented products rather than by a rapid increase in the number of companies, which grew only modestly from 43 to 47 between 2014 and 2019. Employment peaked at 774 in 2018 before stalling in 2019 amid a shortage of skilled IT professionals.

The industry is dominated by very small studios: 79% employ fewer than ten people and 90% earn under €2 million annually, although the largest firms generate most of the revenue. Lithuania offers lower development costs than Western Europe and the United States, and roughly three-quarters of the 60 studios analyzed are concentrated in Vilnius, largely because of access to talent. Despite these advantages, the country's density of game developers, at 2.5 per 10,000 people, trails Finland (5.0) and Sweden (4.3). The report identifies the absence of university-level game development programs and of game-specific incubators or accelerators as key weaknesses relative to its Nordic peers.

The sector's visibility is supported by GameOn, which drew more than 16,000 visitors in 2018 and stands as the Baltics' leading games event. A closing directory profiles roughly forty Lithuanian studios by specialty, which spans mobile, PC and console, VR/AR, animation, CGI/VFX, localization, and marketing services, along with notable titles and current hiring or partnership needs. Standout examples include Nordcurrent, whose Cooking Fever has exceeded 250 million downloads, and No Brakes Games, developer of Human Fall Flat, which has sold five million copies. The report was produced by the Lithuanian Innovation Centre and the Lithuanian Game Developers Association with support from the European Regional Development Fund.