Central and Eastern Europe is one of the most important locations for global games developers and studios, and artists in the region are increasingly working for both film and games. FNE looks at how these two sectors of the entertainment industry are converging and why this trend is important for the future development of both.
FNE: When was Rembrosoft founded and what have been your main missions and strategic projects so far?
Ľubomír Timko: Rembrosoft is a game development company founded by the Timko Brothers in 2014. The name Rembrosoft originates from the artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Like him, we care about details. Our strategic project is an RTS game named Colonise.
FNE: What is the current situation in the Slovak gaming industry and what distinguishes it from the industry of other countries?
Ľubomír Timko: Even though we are a small country, we have a relatively large and long-term experience with outsourcing graphics. The difference compared to other countries can be mainly in the substantial support of the game industry, but compared to other countries, we still cannot properly rely on the financing of projects from private sources.
FNE: Which games would you highlight from your company's portfolio?
Ľubomír Timko: For several years, we worked, or rather tried to break into the mobile market, but we did not continue because somehow it did not satisfy us. So we moved to the PC market and here you can play a free demo on the STEAM platform - Colonise Prologue.
FNE: What can you tell us about the direction of your company Game Art Creation?
Ľubomír Timko: We are not very used to creating graphics for others, it is not our business plan anymore. Rather, sometimes we still do VFX work for our partners, or if someone has an interesting project, we'll be happy to do it.
But if we could define our graphic style, we would simply define it as realistic, we certainly do not deal with stylistic, 2D graphics or any experimental style.
FNE: Are games going to IPO on Slovak stock market and do the companies going to IPO include a film person or film projects?
Ľubomír Timko: If I hadn't received this question, I wouldn't have even thought about whether there is a Slovak stock exchange. But obviously, there must be. I don't know if anyone is preparing or planning something like that.
Overall, in Slovakia, we still have big gaps in how to do business properly. This is something we really have to catch up with other countries around us, like it is being done in Poland. We need to learn as much as we can from them.
FNE: Are there any Slovak films that are being turned into games or Slovak games that are being turned into films or TV series?
Ľubomír Timko: I am not sure, I think there is just a children's TV series, Mimi and Liza, turned into a game. We had an idea of making games from the books of Slovak author Juraj Cevenak.
FNE: We know that you studied at the University of Performing Arts in Bratislava and worked on several short films. What can you tell us about your experience and how it helped your game company?
Ľubomír Timko: The first thing you learn at the university is that it's not about knowledge and sometimes not even about the experience, but about the people you meet there, whether they are your professors or classmates. After finishing school, everyone gets into the professional environment and the relationships you create can really take you far.
That certainly helped me the most, always having good partners for your game or company is the most important thing. You won't do anything worthwhile by yourself today.
FNE: How much is the turnover and how much the percentage of expected growth in the Slovak Games industry? What can you tell us specifically about your company numbers?
Ľubomír Timko: I have to be honest about that, we still haven't earned a single euro from creating games. It is mainly because we finance our game from other resources, state funds, our publisher Creative Forge Games helped us a lot, and we also invested a large part of our earnings from other jobs into the game.
We will finally start making money from the Colonise gae in 2023, so we will see how much we have left after subtracting costs.
FNE: How do you see the development of the relationship between the film and gaming industries?
Ľubomír Timko: It's coming together in the world, you see big companies like Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Amazon, and, more recently Netflix, as they push into the game business. It is mainly because of the huge and long-term profits from playing games.
In our country, the game industry is not considered as an art. We are still unable to make profit from films and even from games. Simply focusing on business and creating quality games for profit is considered a heresy.
