Why do so many games companies have offices in Poland? Is there some kind of government incentive for gamedev there? No offense to Poland, but for such an economically small country, I feel like I hear a disproportionate amount of games come from there.
CD Project (owners of GOG and creators of The Witcher) are some the most well-known devs from Poland, but this article goes into the main reasons why they are among a dozen or so more game devs where such games as Dying Light and Frostpunk have been made: www.n-ix.com/polish-software-developers/
Poland is the land of good, cheap programmers. We are usually ranked 3rd or 4th on the “best programmers” indexes, behind countries like China, Russia. Foreign companies will pay you like $80k or less for a senior position and get a really skilled worker out of it.
That’s really interesting. Do you have any insight on why Poland seemingly punches above its weight on software development? Is programming a heavy focus in public schools?
Good universities that are free to attend and pass if you make it through the entry exams. The unis are setup to weed out people who can’t keep up. Historically we have a great foundation for maths and physics. We also have tech centers in the major cities and some domestic, large companies. There is plenty of jokes about them, and they have a reputation of being “the job you get right after uni”, but in the end you have a place that hires a lot of people at the same time, each year, that lets you get experience. Basically if you are a person that’ll do well programming, then you are setup for success.
Yet it’s still not worth for polish programmers to move literally anywhere - cost of living ratio to the earning is so great that devs don’t even move from Poland
Nah, that’s bullshit. Cost of living in Poland isn’t as low as people abroad think it is. Plenty of people emigrated to GB or Ireland before brexit. Lots of programmers are in Germany and Austria, since they pay so much more. Like, if you go abroad and you get 2x or 3x your salary, no amount of “cost of life” will outweigh that.
Germany tax is up to 42% scalling linearly from 10k to 58 k Eur.
Polish B2B has tax of 12%.
Comparing capitals, Berlin is 28.3% more expensive than Warsaw (including rent).
Average salaries are estimated like this: 65125 EUR Germany (38358 after all taxes) 25200 EUR Poland (17207 after all taxes)
You earn 122% more in Germany.
Minus cost of living it’s 95% So it’s 2x more
One more thing to consider is buying apartment prices, which are 41% cheaper in Warsaw (outside of city center) and 33.5% cheaper in city center.
So Is it worth moving for some poeple? Definetely, you were right. But person from Poland probably usually will get below average earnings there. Aside from that, person earning top 20% it earnings in Poland would be still taxed 12% when in German all of this goes to 42%. So for top of a line IT specialists this difference is smaller.
Is it as bad as you paint it? No, it’s barely 2x, not close to 3x.
Is it worth moving for me? Hell no, because I work remotely from small city in Poland which is 49% cheaper than Berlin and property prices are dirt cheap.
Numbers are taken from numbeo for costs of living and property prices. Salaries average are taken from online sources, and calculation of taxes was made by online calculators taking into consideration Healthcare etc.
I took normal employment contract values for Germany, because I heard from German coworkers this is the most common and preferred by employers there.
Besides all of that, when you are already earning top 85-90% salaries in the country, it depends a lot on the person if they even need more money. Programmers in Poland can afford anything they want that is not multi-milioneere stuff like yachts or very expensive cars. So why would you leave everyone and everything and move? It makes way more sense to move for people that do not earn a lot of money to Poland.
Source for the numbers - pulled straight out of one’s ass. Who cares about average salaries? We aren’t talking averages. We are talking programmers. You also cherrypick Berlin and a paragraph later talk about you living in Bumfuk Alabama. Just because you stayed, you don’t get to dictate what other people do with their lives. The “why would you leave if as a programmer you can buy a lot of things” is so out of touch it rolls over to just being funny.
I’ve written sources although not links, which takes 5 brain cells to look up. Obviously I took IT earning averages per year. I compared Berlin to Warsaw which is clearly written in my response which you would know if you actually read it.
If you don’t want to put in any effort your comments are worthless, ending this conversation, bye
Cost of living in Poland isn’t as low as people abroad think it is.
So much of “its cheap to live here” comes down to food and rent. When you’re living somewhere that charges $2000/mo for a 600ft loft and you can’t eat out for less than $20/meal, every place else feels practically free by comparison.
Labor is relatively cheap despite how much IT is raking in at the moment. Most developers in Poland are registered as sole proprietors which contributes to one of highest rates of self-employment in Europe (source). Tax system favors those over regular work contracts leading to regressive burden (source) and to the point we could be classified as tax haven. Also means those developers are not covered under normal labor protection.
The biggest cost Uber has is recruitment. And as the cost of vehicles has risen, the efforts they have to go through to get and keep productive drivers has climbed with it.
This is less about Uber market share than the real cost of operating an automobile between 2008 and 2024.
It would be very funny to go back to a 2000s era California college campus and explain to a bunch of up-and-coming game developers that the future of the industry would be located in Poland.
The only reason why other game studios are opening offices in Poland is because CDPR had created and cultivated the human talent of many game Devs in the country, plus Polish workers should be a lot cheaper compared to West Europe and the US.
Every year I tune into this and every I stop watching because the host segments are so bad. Just show us the games and not the cringey wrap around segments they seem to think we want.
As stupid as it is, it doesn’t stop a creator from simply demonstrating issues, without commentary. Just show people the issues and don’t remark on them.
That being said, nobody should sign this. Trying to forbid people from making satirical remarks? What the crap?
They literally can’t do that. Satire is a protected right under the first amendment. Anyone can make public satirical remarks regardless of signing that contract.
You are aware that first amendment protects speech from government actions/bodies only. It’s not something you can use against a private business (there are other laws for discrimination.)
The point of the contract is that if one is in breach the company can sue for damages and potentially remove the offending media.
The suing process would be through a legal body such as a court system, in this case federal court since the media is on the Internet, therefore the contract doesn’t hold any legal binding. No federal court would uphold a contract that violates the first amendment.
Contracts adhere to laws and rules just like any other legal document. You can’t just put whatever you want into a contract and have it be binding.
Sure, but that term does not violate the first amendment since the government didn’t stop you from saying it, so would hold up. You might be able to get it thrown out due to something else, you would need a lawyer for that.
That contract will have penalties for violations, and those are what you would be subject to if in violation.
That’s not how that works. The contract is in and of itself a violation of the first amendment. Therefore it has no legal binding. They wouldn’t be able to remove the offending media from any platform or sue for damages if someone breached the contract.
If there are internal ramifications due to a breach of contract that’s something that could be handled internally, such as the content creator not being offered any review materials in the future. But a contract wouldn’t be necessary for that either way.
Moreover, specifically for satire, there are whole acts in the law advocating for it. There is absolutely nothing, no clause or agreement that would ever prohibit someone from publicly satiring any given entity. Regardless of any contract.
This is being blown out of proportion. These sorts of terms are pretty standard for a closed playtest, as it doesn’t represent the final product and the developers don’t want reviews to be published criticising things that will likely be fixed for the release version.
Well, they get the snuff out competition and get to hold on to IPs. The thing is though: People are saying that there are good indie games, but I won’t ever hear shit about said games unless I specifically go looking for them, which will almost never happen nowadays.
Even when I allow ads, game ads are pretty rare. AAA games were almost impossible to miss because there’s always enough buzz, positive or negative, for the big ones.
Well, as you can imagine, they don’t have quite the same marketing budget. Many of them market themselves on social media.
Personally, I keep up with gaming news anyways, so that’s how I’ll usually find out about them.
If you don’t do that, there’s occasionally indie showcases where it’s basically trailer after trailer for (already more established) indie titles.
Here’s a recent one, which had some good stuff, albeit lots announcements for the future: iii-initiative.com
I’m sure, you can also find a million articles and videos for “best indies of 2023” or similar.
In the context of a game, let’s say a clearly outdated graphics engine that everyone can agree on looks very dated. Or game-stopping bugs. Constant crashes. Etc.
My understanding is that Digital Foundry type of performance review is fine, but comments on how the control feels laggy or the game is a lower-tier copycat of Overwatch are not okay.
Not being able to make satirical comments about any game-related material would mean nobody could say something like, “Controlling Iron Man feels like fighting Jarvis for control of the suit”, or “Storm is as effective as a light breeze”
Not bootlicking, just reading the letter of the law. I read this more as “don’t be a total dick about it” so I’d love to hear a contract attorney’s take on this.
There’s nothing in this wording that implies anything more than “don’t negatively review us”
It’s says subjective negative reviews. it seems if you say “It kept crashing” or “this feature wasn’t working” or “this feature was super bugged” those aren’t subjective.
All reviews are subjective by definition. Your examples are observations, not reviews. A review is my opinion of the product based on my experience. Like honestly, if you ever wrote a review about anything on Steam, or IMDB, or GoodReads or whatever, go find it and remove everything that’s subjective and see what you’ll end up with. Not like you’d be able to post it, because they require you give a score, which is inherently subjective.
There’s nothing in the definition of review that requires it to be subjective. It’s shocking that you didn’t even stop to look it up to first figure out if this is accurate.
I did and it does. For example the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary defines review as:
a critical evaluation
Whereas evaluation is defined as:
determination of the value, nature, character, or quality of something or someone
It’s subtle, but it’s in there. The examples you gave don’t fall under this definition, as they don’t determine anything, they’re just statements of facts. However the statement “this game is shit” is a determination of quality and thus a review. If you just stop for a moment and think about it, you’ll realise that it is impossible to determine the quality of a video game in a purely objective way.
you’ll realise that it is impossible to determine the quality of a video game in a purely objective way.
The only subtle thing here is the subtle change in your wording from simple “review” to “determine the quality.” I agree with you there, as whether you think something is good or bad is subjective.
But it appears you realize Im right, which is why you’re trying to reframe it. Why is it hard for you to admit you were wrong? It’s okay, no one is perfect.
I literally gave you a definition that says a review means to determine quality, I just assumed you would make the connection between that definition and the sentence you quoted, but apparently you’re too dense for that. The only error I made in this conversation is assuming that your reading comprehension is above that of a 3rd grader
I literally gave you a definition that says a review means to determine quality
“Or” do you really not know what that word means? Do you really not realize that when you cherry pick one part of a definition that it doesn’t mean none of the others apply?
Are.you really such an idiot that you don’t know this? Or is it just that you’re willing to be completely dishonest in defense of your ego?
And of course you don’t address the fact that I called out your reframing. Stupid and dishonest. Lol
You’re only strengthening my theory that you have absolutely no reading comprehension. Or you’re just trolling. Literally none of the things you just said make any logical sense whatsoever and I refuse to believe that anyone that passed elementary school can be so absolutely illiterate.
Please do tell me how if I wrote the whole definition there of “determination of the value, nature, character, or quality of something or someone” instead of shortening it to just “determine quality” it would make my entire point completely invalid.
And literally how can you look at my comment and, with straight face, say that I didn’t address your claim of “reframing”. It was all literally addressing it. But ok, you’re a moron so you might have not understood my point so let me put it in simpler terms:
Me show you the definition of word Me give an example Me refer to definiton to show example can be described with word You: that’s reframing
Please do tell me how if I wrote the whole definition there of “determination of the value, nature, character, or quality of something or someone” instead of shortening it to just “determine quality” it would make my entire point completely invalid.
You see that “or” in the definition? The word I already pointed out to you in the previous post? It does not mean “the one thing from this list that I get to pick because it makes me not wrong” it means “any of these things.” I can’t believe someone insulting me as “not having the reading comprehension of a third grader” needs this explained. It’s honestly hilarious. Although, can we appreciate for a second that you first said it was “subtle” but now are trying to argue that “it so obvious even a third grader would figure it out.” lmao. This is classic. Please keep it up.
Do you see how absurdly idiotic you’re being?
If I’m being absurdly idiotic, god help us because no way in hell we’re going to be able to come up with a term describe your stupidity. You’re not giving us nearly enough space to reach the depths of your stupidity if the fact that I understand what “or” means makes me “absurdly idiotic.” lol
I sort of saw it that way, but the last bit about “subjective negative reviews” seems unusual even for contracts.
There’s enough lazy rage bait “Turns out X is DOGSHIT?!?” videos out there that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put some terms in expecting some professional effort. But disallowing even polite criticisms definitely seems too far.
The opinion of what is and isnt “subjective” is up for a lot of debate even if you dont personally have a major stake in a videogame’s marketing campaign (such as the authors and enforcers of these contracts).
The content creator agrees not to make public comments that are detrimental to the reputation of the game
Sounds pretty clear-cut, if you say anything bad about the game regardless of if it’s true or not then you’re in violation of this contract. That’s ridiculous.
They’re are actually saying you can’t criticize the game. Now, you tell me who is the arbiter of what is and isn’t “criticism”, because it never says constructive criticism isn’t criticism so presumably is also not allowed.
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