Olga Sendziuk, Managing Director of Ubisoft Ukraine, in interview Forbes talked about the work of the company’s Kyiv and Odesa offices, challenges during the war, and localization of games into Ukrainian. We have selected the main points.
The full-scale invasion had a significant impact on the company’s operations. Some employees moved abroad — about 10% joined Ubisoft’s virtual office in Poland, while others took jobs in the company’s studios in other countries. This resulted in a 30-40% drop in revenue in euros, although the drop in hryvnia equivalent was less noticeable — from UAH 1.1 billion in 2022 to UAH 959 million in 2023.
Despite the difficulties, the company maintains its presence in Ukraine. In December 2023, the company reopened its physical office in Odesa, which now employs more than 100 specialists. In total, there are now just over 700 employees in Ukrainian offices.
Ubisoft studios work in a co-development format, where there is a leading studio and its partners. Approximately 40% of employees are engaged in development, 55% in testing, and 5% in support functions.
Although Ubisoft’s Kyiv studio has a longer history and a larger staff — it is ten years older than the Odesa studio — both teams worked side by side on the company’s key projects in 2023-2024. Among them are The Settlers: New Allies, The Crew Motorfest, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Skull and Bones, and the shooter XDefiant. The only major project where the Odesa team did not participate was Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Ukrainian studios are also involved in the development of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
The issue of localization of games into Ukrainian is particularly noteworthy. XDefiant was the company’s first game, which has received Ukrainian localization. However, the results were mixed — the number of players who chose Ukrainian was insignificant.
«We put a lot of effort into high-quality localization. It required the support of many Ubisoft teams, as well as significant involvement of Ukrainian studios», — says Sendziuk. According to her, the low demand for the Ukrainian version is partly explained by a general trend — more and more players are fluent in English and choose it to communicate with a wider community of players.
The localization situation reflects global trends in the industry.
«No game is localized into all languages of the world», — explains the director. «And if a country does not have a wide market for games and a massive demand for the local language in the game, it is quite difficult to get into the localization policy».
Currently, the company has no plans to localize other games into Ukrainian, and the Ukrainian version of XDefiant is seen more as a «manifestation of solidarity and support than a» commercial solution.
One of the biggest challenges for the industry in Ukraine is piracy.
«The Ukrainian market is small in terms of official sales. The actual data is very difficult to estimate due to the large number of pirated games», — notes Sendziuk.
According to her, this issue should become a priority for the industry and Ukraine in the coming years.
Interestingly, about 20% of Ukrainians play on computers, while consoles are used by about 30% of players. Mobile devices remain the most popular platform for gaming.
«Over the past ten years, game development has become an important part of the Ukrainian IT market,» recalls Olga Sendziuk, talking about the evolution of the industry. According to her, there are already more than 200 game development studios in Ukraine, and the market is showing steady growth of both product and service companies.
«The key factor in this development was the increase in the number of qualified specialists and the strengthening of the technical base,» explains the director of Ubisoft Ukraine. However, she notes that the market is still modest — approximately $300 million in revenue in 2023, which is only 0.5% of the entire IT sector.
«In all countries where game development occupies a significant share of the economy — Canada, the UK, Germany – the state subsidizes publishers. Ukrainian companies do not have such support,» says Sendziuk, adding that the situation is complicated by the war.