Polish game development has contracted for the first time on record, shedding roughly 800 jobs and 120 studios in a single year, according to The Game Industry of Poland — Report 2025 published by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP).

Total employment in the sector fell from 15,300 to 14,500 people. The active studio count dropped from approximately 944 to 824. Annual revenue from Polish-made games declined from 6 billion to 5.5 billion zloty — roughly $1.51 billion to $1.46 billion at average annual exchange rates. Exports account for 97% of that revenue.

Where does Poland now rank in Europe?

PARP's analysis confirms Poland holds a top-three position among European development markets by headcount, though the lead has narrowed sharply. France employs around 15,000 specialists across 637 companies, just ahead of Poland's 14,500. The UK leads outright, with nearly 25,500 people at approximately 1,760 studios. Poland now sits within striking distance of overtaking France on workforce, but trails the UK by a wide margin in both headcount and studio density. The comparison matters because Polish studios have historically pitched into UK-headquartered publishing deals and France-based engine licensing arrangements.

What changed operationally for studios?

Four pressures defined 2024-2025 for Polish teams, according to the report:

• Capital squeeze. Investors and publishers turned cautious after the post-pandemic boom, restricting access to funding for new pitches, sequels, and studio acquisitions.
• Scope discipline. Teams abandoned ambitious early-stage concepts in favor of completing projects already in production, a defensive strategy the report links to shortened development horizons.
• Subsidy cliff. Most national industry support grants ended in late December 2023, removing a funding channel Polish studios had used heavily through 2022 for prototype and pre-production work.
• Stock-market drag. 24 Polish gaming companies trade on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) main market, with 71 more on the NewConnect growth platform — 95 listed firms collectively incurring ongoing compliance costs with negligible investor return, a structure specific to Polish publishers.

Why did Steam visibility collapse so sharply?

The pipeline erosion is steep and quantifiable. In 2021, 38 Polish games appeared in the top 200 most-wishlisted Steam releases — more than any other country, including the US, Canada, and the UK. By 2023, that count had averaged 30. By 2025, just 12 Polish titles made the list, dropping Poland from first to eighth place globally. With 97% of sector revenue tied to exports, the visibility gap forecasts directly into publisher scouting decisions and forward revenue performance.

What signals should teams and investors watch next?

The PARP report offers no recovery timeline and projects no headcount rebound. Studios continue to prioritize completion over greenlights, and no successor to the 2023-era national subsidy program has been announced. The next concrete indicator will arrive with 2026 GPW and NewConnect listing data. NewConnect is the small-cap platform historically compared to a Polish NASDAQ, and 71 Polish studios still trade there alongside 24 main-market listings. Watch whether 2026 sees consolidation or delistings among those 71 NewConnect names, since the platform's compliance burden has been repeatedly cited as a drag on smaller studios seeking growth capital. Any meaningful recovery will require either restored public funding, a return of private capital to the Polish small-cap end, or both — and none of those conditions is visible in the current dataset.